Three Times a Loser

                    Three Times a Loser

                                                                      by

                                                            Austin Mitchell

         Miss Cora lugged her bag after her. She didn’t look back at the small two room house she and Hubert had built. But now he had thrown her out because as he claimed the property was bought in his name. She decided  to stop with her sister, Vera, that night.

            “You made Hubert trick you and take away your place? Why you can’t learn? It’s the same thing Benny did to you.”

            Vera was a forty year old woman. She was married and the mother of two boys and two girls. Both women were makers of bags, hats and mats. Vera’s husband is away in the United States on the Farm Work Program. Cora is unmarried and has no children. She is in her mid-thirties.

            Vera gave her some food which she ate.

            “So what are you going to do? You can’t let Hubert take away your hard earned labor like that.”

            “When we went down to the Justice of the Peace house he said is only Hubert alone name on the title.”

              Vera put her hand over her mouth. She forgot that Cora could not read or write very well

              “That old robber, I bet he never put up any money to buy the land or build the house. Why is the law so unfair?”

            In addition to putting up the money to buy the land, Vera knew that it was Cora’s money which had built the house. She doubted if she could find any of those receipts for things she had purchased for the house. In any case Hubert would claim that he was the one who had given her the money.

            Vera told her that she could stay with her until her husband returned.

            Before Cora went to bed that night she thought about her life. Why had she been tricked twice by two men? She had gone to live with her first boyfriend, Benny, on his parent’s land. A year after they started living together, he said that his parents were complaining that it didn’t look right for them to be living together under their roof. He said his father said he would cut off a piece of the land for them to build a house on.

            He asked her to help him and in six months they had built a one bedroom bungalow with space for additional rooms. The house was hardly finished when they started quarrelling. She soon found out that Benny was being unfaithful to her. Instead it was Benny who was accusing her of being unfaithful to him. One evening she came home to find the gate locked and her things thrown out. Benny didn’t reach home that night and she had to stop with a neighbor.

            Benny’s mother told her the next day that he had found another woman. She had protested and told her that she wanted back the money she had spent on the house.

            She moved and went to live with friends. When at last she saw Benny, he denied that she had spent any money on the house. The Justice of the Peace told her that she should have stored the bills for what she had spent on the house. She started crying and didn’t go to bed until after midnight.

            She spent four months with Vera before she went to live with another sister, Gladys. A year later she bought a piece of land and then the following year she put up a one bedroom on it and moved to live there. By this time she was seeing a man named Jacob Brown.

            Jacob made bags and mats. She decided that she didn’t want to go into any partnership as far as land and house were concerned. She made her savings through a weekly partner and this was what had allowed her to build the house and buy the land, Hubert stole from her.

            Jacob gave her an allowance each week that could hardly do.  By this time she was in her late thirties and Jacob had just reached forty. He had never been married but had two teenaged children living with their mothers. She encouraged him to continue supporting them.

            A year after they started living together she came home to find a new set of locks on her front door and her things outside. She searched her bag and found the land title. Vera and others believed that she couldn’t read but she had been learning to read old newspapers. She put back the title. She knew where a locksmith lived. She told him that she had locked herself out of the house.

            She made him take off the ones, Jacob had put on and put on the one she had on.

                        “What are you doing here? You don’t live here again.”

                        Jacob had a woman with him about ten year younger than him.

                        She took out the title and flashed it before him.

                        “That doesn’t mean anything.”

                        “It means that I own this place. You better find somewhere to put     your girlfriend for tonight.”

                        She went and locked the door and then came back to face Jacob and             his woman.

                        “So all this time, this was what you were planning to do to me?”

                        “Jacob, how you told me that it was your house?” the woman asked.

                        “I own half of this house, don’t make she tell you no lies.”

                        “It’s only one room I see, I’m going to my house. The two of you can settle your differences.  I don’t think you need me,” the young lady said and was gone.

                        “You not going after her, Jacob?” she asked and laughed.

                        Jacob walked away, his head bowed.

                        He came by her a few days later. He told her that it was all a mistake but Cora was not willing to give him a second chance. She has decided to devote her life to serving God. If he believes that there is a good man out there waiting for her then he will make her find him. The End.