What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

by Pearl Cleage

  Their grandson was at church yesterday, along with Eartha's brother from hell, Frank, who seems to be his best friend. Joyce said the rumor is that Tyrone's mother left him with his grandparents for the weekend and never came back, but that's just a rumor. She also told me that Frank was there only because it is part of the condition of his long probation. The judge who sentenced him must have seen too many Andy Hardy movies. Send the young man to the country! Get him some fresh air and sunshine! Make sure he goes to Sunday school! He's still young enough to turn his life around! Of course, he's practically illiterate, couldn't get a job if there were any around to be gotten, and has no idea how the world works, but hey! He'll probably get a great tan out of it anyway!

  When the announcement was made about the robbery, Tyrone and Frank looked at each other and snickered like the idea of a terrified old lady sleeping through what could have been something really dangerous was the funniest thing they'd heard in ages. After service, they circled the church yard like lions waiting for a distracted antelope to separate itself from the herd long enough to be vulnerable. A couple of girls giggled in their direction, but nobody made an approach.

  I felt sorry for them. I'd seen boys in my Atlanta neighborhood grow into swaggering young men who were suddenly scary until you looked into their still baby faces and realized who they used to be, but I also knew how dangerous they were. I'd seen Frank hit that girl like he didn't care if he broke every bone in her face. I'd seen Tyrone smoking dope right behind his grandmother's back. It was tempting but foolhardy to focus on their vulnerability instead of your own.

  When we got there, the front door was unlocked and we could hear the sound of some pretty tortured hunt-and-peck typing coming from the church office. Gerry was sitting behind an Underwood upright frowning at the keyboard as if somebody had mysteriously rearranged it. When she looked up and saw us, she smiled and held up her hands in mock surrender to the ancient machine.

  "I told the Good Reverend if he doesn't hurry up and find us a new church secretary, he better*."

  Joyce and I were still standing in the door, and for a minute she just looked at us. The intensity of her smile's wish to be believed always gave her face a brittle appearance, and the complete coldness of her eyes didn't help matters.

  "I'm here for the meeting," Joyce said. "This is my sister, Ava."

  "We met the other day," Gerry said. "Such an unusual name. Does it run in your family?"

  I wanted to say, Only if you believe my mother's tale that

  Ava Gardner was a mulatto second cousin of ours, once removed, who had managed to pass her way into the movies and was therefore worthy of having children named in her honor, but I just shook my head no.

  "Well, come in, come in," Gerry said. "Our little group is going to be just the three of us, I'm afraid."

  She motioned us toward two wobbly straight-back chairs and settled herself behind the pastor's desk as if she belonged there.

  "Isn't Reverend Anderson coming?" Joyce said in a tone that carried just a whiff of warning. Joyce has calmed down a lot lately, but her reputation as a firebrand had probably preceded her. When she was in high school, she chained herself to the church front door to protest the war in Vietnam. Of course, that was long before the Andersons got here, but it was too good a story for somebody not to have shared it in the normal recitation of local who's who. Joyce even got her picture in the Lake County paper. Idlewild Teen Protest Reflects National Mood. I was so proud of her, I took it to school for show and tell.

  Gerry smiled again. "As he and I prayed together earlier in preparation for this very meeting, he received a sign from the Lord, praise himl He rose and went immediately to work on his message for next Sunday morning, understanding, as he must, that divine inspiration is not under any obligation to petty cares and earthly schedules. He'll try to stick his head in later."

  Sure he will. Joyce had been right about the Rev. He was a preaching somethin', but when it came to doing the dirty work, Gerry was definitely the Head Negro in Charge.

  Excuse me. Negress.

  "All right." Joyce decided to be cool. "I'd like to know why the Sewing Circus meeting was canceled."

  "Postponed," Gerry said. "The Good Reverend wanted me to make it clear that the meeting has only been postponed until we reach a meeting of the minds."

  Joyce just looked at her.

  "And I'm sure that such a meeting can be reached, aren't you?"

  "I hope so," Joyce said. "I think we have to do more for our young people, not less."

  "The Good Reverend couldn't agree more." Gerry nodded enthusiastically as if now convinced that they were on the same wavelength. "As you may know, at our last congregation, the Good Reverend created a youth program that became a model for churches all over the Midwest. We had over two hundred young men actively involved in a program of Christian education."

  "Where were the young women?" Joyce said.

  Gerry glanced sharply at Joyce and then modified her expression to convey her disappointment at the lack of understanding reflected in the question. "The Good Reverend saw our young men as a top priority, both as part of his calling and personally." She lowered her eyes briefly and her voice softened a little. "One of the reasons this congregation is such a blessing is that it allows us to remove our Tyrone from the evil influence of the city and bring him to a place where God's majesty is evident all around us."

  Too bad, I thought. They came all this way so Tyrone and Frank could find each other.

  "The Good Reverend is an expert on the kind of outreach work you're trying to do with the young women in this community—"

  "I thought he was an expert on programs for young men," Joyce said sweetly.

  Gerry ignored her. "And what the Good Reverend has found is that what these children need is a straightening of their overall Christian values. They are already overstimulated and confused by all the terrible sex material aimed at them."

  She got that right.

  "The last thing they need is more information about those kinds of things."

  "What kinds of things?

  "The things those brochures were talking about."

  "And what things were those?"

  "I don't think we have to play games here, do we, Sister Mitchell? I think we both know what I'm talking about."

  I felt like I was back in Atlanta listening to people talking in tongues, trying not to say HIV. Joyce took a deep breath and her voice was very calm.

  "They are ignorant, Sister Anderson. They need information about everything, but especially about AIDS. Their generation is dying faster than anybody else because they don't know how to protect themselves."

  "Abstinence." Gerry's voice carried the righteous conviction of people who still think the best way to combat any galloping social ills drug abuse, sexual irresponsibility, teenage pregnancies to simply advise those undisciplined few who are tempted to just say no.

  "It doesn't work," Joyce said. "We've had four new babies born in the last six months to girls who are still not twenty years old."

  Gerry's voice cut in like a hot knife through butter. "Weren't all of them active in the Sewing Circle?" I wanted Joyce to reach across the desk and slap her, but she didn't. Joyce is nonviolent.

  "Yes."

  "So I guess your method isn't so surefire either, is it, Sister Mitchell?"

  They looked at each other across the desk and then Joyce said slowly, "No, I guess it isn't surefire at all, Sister Anderson. It's probably many things, but surefire is definitely not among them."

  Gerry looked pleased. "Well, see there. We agree on a lot of things after all."

  Joyce smiled suddenly and stood up, extending her hand. "I appreciate your time. I'm sorry Reverend Anderson couldn't join us, but I'm looking forward to his message on Sunday, so I can't really be disappointed, can I?"

  "Praise God!" Gerry got to her feet and shook Joyce's hand. "Maybe we can talk again after I've had a chance to think about some of the excellent points you
brought out this morning."

  I thought Joyce was laying it on pretty thick, but Gerry was eating it up.

  "Of course we can, dear," she said, holding out her dry, smooth hand to me. "And it was so good to have you in our little congregation on Sunday, too."

  "You have a wonderful voice," I said, following Joyce's lead with some flattery of my own. I wasn't lying either. The woman could blow.

  "He blessed me with an instrument to glorify his name!" she said as we headed for the door, then Joyce turned around with the phoniest innocent look on her face you could ever imagine.

  "Sister Anderson? When shall I bring you the bulletin announcement for next Wednesday? It's only our regular nursery school scheduling session. Not very exciting, but if it helps free up these young mothers so they can concentrate more fully on the word of God, it's worth it, isn't it?"

  Gerry peered closely at Joyce, but Joyce was totally cool. "Of course, dear," Gerry said. "Just be sure it gets here by Thursday noon. I'm not as good at this typing business as I used to be."

  When we got outside, I started fussing immediately, but Joyce stopped me.

  "Wait until we pull out," she said. "I'm sure she's still watching us."

  "You're not going along with all that, are you?" I said as we climbed into the car.

  "Of course not, but now that she thinks I am, I've got some room to move around for a minute or two. She never comes to our meetings. I'll tell her we're going to be discussing the nursery from now until Christmas if that's what makes her hannv. The woman's out of touch- She's worrying about them storing up points in heaven when what they need is some survival lessons."

  As Joyce pulled the car out of the empty parking lot, I looked in the side mirror and saw Gerry standing in the window, watching.

  2O

  I i had finally convinced Joyce to let me pamper her a little bit with a hard wash, deep conditioner, and rebraiding. When I rubbed some warm oil on her scalp and snuck in a little neck massage, she sighed and closed her eyes like I had finally hit the exact spot that needed it.

  "You were right," she said. "This feels great." "I'm always right."

  "I wouldn't go that far," she smiled. I rubbed a little oil in the kitchen where the hair is always so soft it feels like a baby's first growth. In beauty school, they told us to call the "kitchen" the "nape," but any black beautician worth the name knows you can't use a term that has the word "nap" in it. Joyce sighed again. "That feels wonderful."

  "I'm good at this." I wasn't bragging. I always made good money, but I never really enjoyed it until I got into the psychology of the whole process. I knew sisters spent a lot of time and money and energy on our hair, but I figured it was all about looking good for whatever brother was on the home front or on the horizon. Then I started watching my clients and listening to them more closely. They all talk a mile a minute. I'm not required to talk much. My function is more to ask the right questions, praise whatever course of action they have already followed, show indignation or approval at appropriate intervals, and make sure I don't cut it too short on the sides or leave them under the dryer any longer than absolutely necessary.

  I was good at it the cutting and the listening and some of my clients came twice a week at thirty to fifty dollars a pop. Now, I like to look good, too, but I think it was only half about looking good and the other half about having somebody to actively listen, actively affirm, and actively touch without expecting sex or a home-cooked meal in exchange.

  Most sisters lean into a good shampoo like it's as welcome as good sex. One of my operators used to say that's why black beauticians wash your hair so damn hard. They know they're doing double duty. I won't go that far, but I know Joyce had the most relaxed look on her face I'd seen there in a while. I worked both hands near her temples and was rewarded by another voluptuous sigh.

  "Tell me about Aretha," I said. Her face had stayed in my mind ever since Sunday. There was something about her that made you notice, made you wonder, made you care. Even though she looked like most of the other girls around here cheap clothes, too much makeup, and the worst haircuts I've seen in ages! Her eyes were bright and curious and she seemed aware that there was a bigger world available to her if she wanted it. Watching her at the nursery, I found myself hoping she was going to be one of the ones who survived.

  "She's got a chance," Joyce said. "Her parents were movement people. Came up here hoping they could find a community of like-minded souls."

  "An all-black paradise," I said.

  "Well, maybe not a paradise, but at least someplace where black folks had figured out some things."

  "We figured out some things, all right," I said. "How to get the hell on the bus to the city. Lean over."

  "Why?" Joyce said.

  "Get some blood flowing to that head," I said. "What do you think?"

  "Who knows?" said Joyce, leaning over and shaking her head of thick, newly washed hair into a fluffy black cloud around her face.

  "Were they at church Sunday?" I said, trying to decide whether to make a continuous circle of braids or a pattern of angles. Joyce has really healthy hair, and once I get her to sit still, she doesn't mind letting me be creative.

  "They got killed in a car accident. A big semi crossed the line. Aretha had just turned twelve."

  "Jesus!" Poor people, I thought. What's that thing about if you want to make God laugh, start making plans? That's sure the damn truth.

  "They were going to put her in foster care or send her back to Detroit to her grandmother, but then one of her mother's friends took her."

  "Nice woman?"

  Joyce shrugged. "She's all right. She's usually drunk, but she's very quiet about it, so nobody bothers her. I do what I can, but Aretha's independent and proud. She won't usually admit she needs any help from anybody. She just figures it out and takes care of things. She's pretty much raising herself."

  "She seems to be doing a pretty good job of it," I said. "Is that too tight?" I patted the beginning of the braid lightly.

  Joyce smiled. "It's perfect. Why'd you ask about Aretha?"

  "I don't know. She just looked so alive when we saw her on Sunday."

  "She's about the only sixteen-year-old who comes to the Sewing Circus who doesn't already have a kid."

  "Good for her."

  "She wants to go to Interlochen."

  Interlochen was a boarding school for smart, artistic kids a couple of hours up the road. Tuition was steep and scholarships were scarce, even for white kids.

  "Does she have a chance at it?"

  "She's talented," Joyce said. "And she's determined. She applied for a special institute. A month in residence at the end of the summer. She ought to hear something in a couple of days."

  "You think she'll get it?"

  "I've got my fingers crossed."

  "That's not a very scientific approach," I said, parting

  Joyce's hair gently into small sections. The secret of good-looking braids is absolutely straight parts between them.

  "And I've helped her with the application and drove her down for the interview."

  "Okay," I said, tucking the end of one braid into the beginnings of the next one. "Just wanted to be sure you weren't falling down on the job."

  Talking about Aretha made me see why Joyce is doing what she does. I liked the girl's energy. I guess she reminded me of myself a little bit at her age: alive and well and on my way.

  21

  Eddie scared the shit out of me this morning. I was home by myself since Joyce went into town early to pick up a few last-minute things. She's bringing Imani home tomorrow and she's been spinning around like a top for the last twenty-four hours. I'm worn out just from watching her, so once I put the kettle on for tea (although I still prefer coffee even if it is bad for me!), I got out one of those meditation tapes Joyce had, and it sounded like something I might actually be able to do. In fact, it didn't sound like much more than sitting still for a little while and trying to calm down. The guy on the tap
e said to think of your mind as a monkey, swinging through the trees, chattering away a mile a minute, and the meditation was a way to catch hold of the monkey.

  So there I was, sitting on the porch with my eyes closed, counting my breaths like the guy said to make sure I don't get distracted, and I'm feeling pretty silly about doing this at all, but it feels good just to be sitting out here. I almost never just sit anywhere. I'm always talking or working or reading or watching TV or on the phone or worrying.

  So I'm trying to sit there and tell myself that everything feels silly the first few times you do it and not to give up and go make a pot of coffee when I felt a presence. I didn't hear anything, but you know how you can feel somebody looking at you? At first I figured maybe it was just the meditation kicking in, but it didn't feel like a spiritual presence. It felt like a person presence, so I opened my eyes and Eddie was standing there in the yard, just looking at me. I had expected to see somebody, but I still jumped. I couldn't believe he had gotten that close up on me and I hadn't even heard him break a twig.

  "I didn't mean to startle you," he said.

  "You don't make much noise when you move around, do you?" I said.

  He smiled at me. "I didn't see you until I was already in the yard. You weren't making a whole bunch of noise yourself."

  "I have my moments," I said.

  "Joyce asked me to come over and put the crib together." I could see he had a small toolbox with him.

  "She's gone to the grocery store," I said, "but it's sitting in a box in the middle of the living room floor if you want to get started."

  "Good," he said. "I know she wants it ready for tomorrow."

  "She's pretty excited," I said, glad to have an excuse for putting on that pot of coffee and joining Eddie in the living room where he was reading the instructions for the crib carefully and laying parts out methodically in a row so that once he got started he wouldn't have to be digging around in the bottom of the box like I always do, looking for the crucial four screws that I probably threw away an hour ago.

  "You learn to walk that quiet in the army, too?" I said. "Habit," he said, putting a weird little bracket down next to a set of weird little clamps.