Real Men Knit

by Kwana Jackson

  “And what?” Lucas replied.

  Jesse was exasperated. Exasperated and furious. Did they really think so little of him? “Are you all seriously not even going to consider me to run the shop?”

  He watched as his brother did little to shield the disbelief that ran across his expression. Lucas’s tone when he spoke was slow and placating, as if he was talking to a small child, and it did nothing but infuriate Jesse more. It was made all the worse when he placed his hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “Like I said, Jes, it all sounds well and good, but I don’t see how we can make it work.” Jesse didn’t miss the emphasis Lucas used on the word “we.” Why was he using “we” when he was talking about “he”? He shrugged hard, pushing his brother’s hand away.

  “Well, if we can’t make it work, what about me? I’m asking you all to consider me for once. Think of what I can do here.”

  Lucas was shaking his head when Jesse heard Noah shift. He turned then and caught the self-satisfied smirk that was plastered across Damian’s face. “I think we’re done with this subject,” Damian started. “Now let’s get down to business and talk about how we’re going to liquidate the inventory, divide the insurance while paying off any debt and take care of dividing the rest of the estate. There is still plenty to take care of and lots of paperwork to look into. Mama Joy wasn’t the best when it came to record keeping, so the sooner we get on it the better.”

  Jesse looked around the shop as Damian droned on as if his previous speech had never even happened. Of course Damian would take over. Since he was the oldest, the one with the highest degree and the resident financial advisor, it made sense that he’d be in charge, but it didn’t feel right. Nothing about this felt right.

  As Jesse’s gaze roamed, all he saw now were the colorful remnants of Mama Joy’s dreams, and the idea of packing them up and sending them off made a hollow cavern form deep in his chest. He felt rage begin to smolder, the first small embers of a low, burning heat that licked at his toes and worked its way up his legs, quickly taking over his entire body. He banged his hands down hard on the wooden table, causing his brothers to turn in shock.

  “Shit, bro! You’re losing it!” Noah said, coming over to his side and clapping his hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “Calm down, Jesse. I know this is hard. But understand, it’s hard for all of us. You have to see that this decision is for the best.”

  “The best for who?” he asked, pushing Noah’s hand away and hitting them each with a challenging stare. “It’s not for the best, it’s just the easiest. You all are up in here acting like a bunch of goddamn wimps, and Kerry was right when she said earlier that Mama Joy would be ashamed of us. How can you just close down her life’s work at the first hint of adversity? Didn’t she teach us anything? What was all her sacrificing for?” Jesse ran a frustrated hand over his forehead. “Dammit. She gave us so much. What if she shut down when things were hard with us? Without her, where would each of us be?”

  He paused for breath then, and instead of being met with an argument, he was met with silence. Though he didn’t know exactly where they would be without Mama Joy, he sure as hell knew it wasn’t in as good a position as they were in now. Even though, at eight, he was young when Mama Joy took him in, he was already a handful, and he knew after having been in and out of two foster homes pretty quickly that he didn’t have any place else but back to the group home to go when she took him in. He also knew that Noah and Lucas were on the verge of being separated when Mama Joy took them in as a pair. And as for Mr. Know-It-All Smart-Ass, he had been this close to juvenile hall or worse, and he knew it too.

  Finally, Jesse cleared his throat and spoke again. “Not to mention this shop is an institution in this neighborhood. We close and what’s gonna take its place? Some chain coffee shop or another goddammed CVS? This is one of the last family-owned businesses in Harlem. We owe it to her and to the neighborhood to at least try to stay open.”

  “That’s your problem right there, Jesse. You are too sentimental, and sentimentality won’t get you anything but heartache. It sure as hell won’t pay the bills or keep food in your belly,” Damian said.

  Jesse looked at his brother. “You mean like it did for you most of your life?”

  Damian glared at him, or maybe he was glowering. Whatever. He probably thought he was being all scary and shit, going his intimidation route. And on anyone else it just might work. He was sharp, that brother of his, so well put together—every part of him exuded downtown corporate businessman. Yep, his brother had cleaned himself up so well that no one would suspect he was an abandoned kid originally from the Bronx, shuttled from foster home to foster home until finally Lady Luck smiled upon him and he ended up just like them, in the arms of Mama Joy. No, no one would know that Mr. Dapper-Dan Mind-on-His-Money-and-Money-on-His-Mind Strong, as it were, when he first came here, was two grades behind for his age and labeled a discipline problem who would never even make it out of middle school, let alone get a scholarship to one of the best business schools in the country. Jesse knew though, and worse yet, Damian knew that Jesse knew who he was and where he came from. Not that his story was all that unique. At least not in this house. They all had one like it, or close to it. And they all owed what they had now to the love and teachings of Mama Joy and the neighborhood that had taken them in as one of its own.

  Damian looked like he was about to protest again when there was a knock on the shop’s door. The four of them turned in unison toward the interruption with what may have been a bit of relief. But the relief turned to surprise when they saw the intruder was a young kid of about ten. He was medium-brown skinned with short-cropped hair, extra faded on the sides and a little higher on the top. He wore basketball shorts that were slung low, though maybe that was mostly due to his thin frame and not to his trying to make any sort of fashion statement. The boy had paired the shorts with a white tank top, which also looked at least one size too big. He looked at them through the door with wide brown eyes while one hand clutched a brown paper bag.

  Lucas pointed at the sign on the door. “Sorry, we’re closed,” he said through the doorway.

  “I know,” the kid yelled to the door. “Um, yeah. I know you’re closed. I was just hoping I could come in for a moment.”

  Lucas turned around and looked at Jesse. “You know this kid?”

  Jesse took a step forward. He didn’t recognize the kid, but he did recognize the shakiness in his voice. Jesse shook his head. “No, I don’t. But he’s young and looks harmless. Open up to see what he wants. Maybe he’s selling candy bars or something.”

  “As if we want or need some candy bars?” Lucas said.

  “I could use a candy bar,” Noah countered.

  Jesse shook his head. That was his brothers. Ready to go to blows over something serious one minute, and minds on candy the next.

  Lucas sighed. “Fine. Lemme see what he’s got. If he’s got the ones with almonds, we can get some.”

  Damian snorted from over to his left while Lucas opened the door. “What is it we can do for you? Are you selling candy or something? I’ve got two dollars, but I don’t want any if you don’t have the ones with nuts.”

  The boy shook his head and swallowed. “Um. You’re one of the Strong guys, right?”

  Lucas grinned, then flexed. “I’ve been told I’m all right.”

  The boy gave him a “Really, are you serious right now?” look that made Jesse’s morning, then shook his head. “I mean you’re one of Ms. Joy’s sons, right? The Asian fireman one.”

  Ouch, kid. Jesse could only imagine Lucas’s face at that one. He hated being singled out as ‘the Asian one’ out of the four of them, having gotten plenty of it most of his life. It barely let up now that he worked for the FDNY. But it seemed to be the kid’s day because Lucas gave him a pass. “Yeah, I guess I’ve been called that. Though ‘firefighter’ is good enough.”

  “You’ve been called worse,
” Jesse yelled, and got a sharp look from Lucas that had him quickly turning back to the boy. “What can we do for you?”

  “You’re another one,” the boy said.

  “The one without a job,” Damian mumbled.

  Jesse then noticed just how tightly the boy held on to the brown paper bag in his hand. He clutched it at his side, crinkling the top, while he twisted his feet over on the sides of his sneakers nervously. “Yeah. That’s right. I’m Jesse, and these are my brothers.”

  The boy looked up and around at the other three men with what seemed like awe and a bit of fear. Still, he swallowed and continued to talk. “I’m Errol Miller and, well, I just wanted to tell you that I’m very sorry for your loss.” The boy swallowed again, and Jesse could tell he was now fighting back a tear.

  “Thank you. We appreciate that. Did you know Mama Joy well?”

  The boy looked at all of them nervously once again and it seemed as if he was wondering how much was safe to say. “Well, not all that good. I had just started to come here with the summer program. And I, um, I liked it. So, she said I could come back anytime. I did, well, a few times. She was nice. I heard some of the kids talking about what happened to her and it made me sad.” He got a hitch in his voice. Jesse looked at Lucas, catching his brother’s eye over the boy’s head. “Real sad,” the boy continued. “So, when I told my mom about it, she said it would be okay if I came by and gave my condolences. That it was the right thing to do.”

  It was then that Kerry walked by the back kitchen opening, and she paused at the doorway. “Errol! What are you doing here?” she said, stepping into the main lounge.

  The boy brightened at the sight of Kerry, his entire face opening up and his demeanor changing as he smiled at her. But then, as if remembering his mission, he quickly sobered. “Hi, Miss Kerry. I just wanted to come by to say how sorry I am about Ms. Joy.”

  Kerry stepped forward and took the boy into her arms in a hug. “Oh, Errol. Thank you so much. That is so kind of you.”

  Errol pulled back and unclenched his fists from the bag he was holding. He looked up at Kerry with a sad longing in his eyes and Jesse could see he was debating a question. “Will the shop be open again for us kids to come in for a lesson?”

  Kerry looked around at Jesse and his brothers, then back at Errol. “Errol, I’m not sure. The family has to do some figuring out about that.”

  Errol let out a breath and looked at Jesse. The boy nodded soberly as if he fully understood, despite his young age. Once again, he clenched the brown paper bag tightly.

  As if she knew he wanted something more, Kerry questioned him. “What you got there, Errol? Is it anything I can help you with?”

  Once again, Errol looked at all the brothers, and it was then that Jesse could see the embarrassment as it bloomed across his features. He looked at Kerry and put his shoulders back before reaching into his bag and pulling out a small set of circular knitting needles and what appeared to be the beginning of a hat cast on, though Jesse could see he had gotten himself into a tangled mass of dropped stitches. “I think I’ve made some mistakes here and could use some help, so I was hoping there would be another class,” Errol said.

  Kerry’s smile was warm and nonjudgmental as she gently rubbed the top of his head. “Yes, it looks like you do have a little bit of a mess here.”

  She looked across to each of them, a hint of warning in her eyes before they softened. Lucas, then Noah, then Damian and finally stopping on Jesse. “But don’t worry, it’s just a few dropped stitches. In knitting there’s never a problem that can’t be fixed. It’s only yarn. Now, why not come back to the kitchen with me and let’s see if we can’t work this out.”

  Jesse watched as the boy let out a breath and seemed to brighten, as if the weight of the world was lifted from his shoulders. He followed Kerry to the back, and Jesse could hear her as she gave the boy a snack and then began to patiently teach him how to fix his mess.

  Jesse turned to his brothers. “Just give me a few months. Let me try to keep the shop open for a few months—six months to a year at most—and see if I can’t keep it afloat. The shop is our legacy, and one that meant too much to Mama Joy and the community to just let it go. Not without giving it a try at least. Hell, it’s our last name on the awning,” he said, pulling his hole card by bringing up the Strong name they all collectively took on when Mama Joy became their official adoptive mother.

  “Yeah, but how can you do it alone? The fact remains that we all have jobs we still have to do. You said it’s our legacy—it wouldn’t be fair for you to be the only one working here, taking this on all alone,” Lucas said.

  Just then Kerry stepped back into the main room with Errol. She walked the boy to the front door, letting him out with a wave, then flipped the lock. Turning to all of them, she looked at Jesse, then switched her gaze to Lucas, breaking the silence and rocking their world. “He won’t have to do it alone,” she said. “I’ll stay on and work with him, at least until he gets the hang of how the shop runs.”

  Jesse blinked. The woman standing before him was Kerry, but suddenly she bore little resemblance to the quiet, shy Kerry who had always hovered in various corners of the shop, a shadow to Mama Joy. No, this woman was all confidence and intelligence underneath her curly twists and thick-rimmed eyeglass frames. He looked at her deeper. There was something new and different behind her all-knowing chestnut-brown eyes. The corner of her lips quirked up, twitched ever so slightly as if the secrets of the world were hidden behind their full lusciousness just itching to escape.

  Wait. Luscious lips? Secrets? What was he thinking, and what was she talking about, staying on? This was Kerry. Their Kerry Girl. Why was she doing this? And how could he let her? She had just finished school—a few years late, but she’d received her degree and now had her own plans and dreams lined up. This was her chance to get out. To move on. Why wasn’t she taking it?

  It was Damian who voiced Jesse’s concerns out loud. “Why would you do something like that? You’ve just finished school, Kerry, you’ve gotten your degree. Why would you put your plans on hold to help us?”

  Kerry was quiet as she seemed to be thinking while she looked around the shop, her already soft brown eyes growing wistful and slightly sad before she focused back on them. The look she gave Jesse went through him and seemed to reach down deep, past his heart even, all the way to his soul, before she blinked and turned to Damian to answer his question. “Maybe it’s like you said. Maybe I’ve learned a lot more from Mama Joy than you all even know. And I think it’s time for me to share that before I take the next step and move on. I know it’s what she would have wanted.”

  4

  Shit! Dammit, and shit once more!

  Kerry couldn’t believe what she’d committed to.

  What if Damian was right? She found herself still wondering hours later as she made her way to her afternoon job at the community center. Though she didn’t want to admit it, she was putting a portion of her life on hold for their needs. Or were they her needs? Wait, who truly needed who in this convoluted situation?

  The whole thing made little to no sense, and if she had any sense at all she would have just kept her trap shut and stayed out of their business. Mama Joy was gone. And during the woman’s life, though she had given lots of her time and energy to Kerry, Kerry had been just as good to her. It wasn’t as if there was some sort of karmic debt that she had to pay, so why was she still so intent on inserting herself into the Strong family’s life?

  “The daughter I never had,” she’d heard plenty of times. Kerry knew she’d made Mama Joy happy in life. And now that Mama Joy was gone, in a way it did feel like Kerry had lost what was essentially a second mother to her. The woman had helped raise her in ways that her own mother hadn’t and maybe could not. But if she really wanted to make Mama Joy happy, she’d not hold her sons up in their moving on, and she also wouldn’t hold her own li
fe up. She’d take her degree, go harder on LinkedIn, Monster, Indeed and every other redundant-ass app and site out there and up her job search. Kerry let out a huff. Not that she hadn’t already been doing that. But come on, it wasn’t like they were dropping dream positions from the sky into overdue do-gooder graduates’ laps.

  Kerry frowned. When she’d started on her degree work, it did seem like all she thought she wanted, but somewhere along the way things started to get muddled. Yes, she still had a passion for the kids, and sure, there was still a simmer of a dream in her heart of doing more, getting out of the shop and making things better for the community. However, after working at the center and seeing firsthand the setup and system of things, the frustrating bureaucracy, the way it—dammit—felt like every freaking deck was stacked against Black and brown kids, she wondered if she could truly be effective. And honestly, she wondered if she’d ever feel as fulfilled as when she was giving knitting classes to the children side by side with Mama Joy.

  But would this make Mama Joy happy? Kerry knew it sure as hell wouldn’t make her mother happy. Both she and Mama Joy agreed on the fact that her degree would take her out of the shop, and if her mother had it her way, further than their Harlem neighborhood. It was her mother’s dream for her. Not that it was something new. A version of that dream was dreamed by just about every low-income mother from every low-income urban neighborhood. But why was that the ultimate dream?

  Kerry frowned. She knew she couldn’t stay outside in the heat mulling over it all much longer though and made a swift turn at the corner of 145th and Eighth Avenue and started up the hill, breaking into even more of a sweat. The comfortable morning had morphed into an uncomfortably hot afternoon, and perspiration crept down the center of her back. Kerry shifted her tote from one shoulder to the other to prevent the digging from making too deep a mark in her flesh as she let her questions and uncertainties rattle around in her head.