The number stopped her, faded away to nothing between them. Longer than your father. Neither of them had to say it.
“Do you still miss Daddy?” Vanessa asked.
Her mother looked up from her sandwich and fixed her grimly, as if giving Vanessa a chance to take it back.
“You’ve been thinking about him. I thought you’ve been quiet lately. That’s usually what it is.”
“Not usually,” Vanessa said. “Just lately. I don’t know why.”
“I know why. It’s Chris.”
“Not all of it. I was thinking earlier I wanted to tell you I don’t blame you. For him not being around.”
“That’s generous of you,” her mother joked.
“You know what I mean.”
“I do, and thank you. That’s not what all this is about, is it?”
“Yes,” Vanessa said, unsure now.
“Nessie.” She looked at her flatly, that worn-out, sick-of-working-double-shifts look full of her mother’s truth. “I wish he were around too, but you know what? After twenty years, I’m not holding my breath. It’s me and you and Shaanie, and I think we’re doing pretty well for ourselves.” She put down her Arby’s like it disgusted her. “I’m sorry, but I can’t work any harder than I already am.”
“I know,” Vanessa said, “I didn’t mean that,” but it was too late to apologize. Her mother was up, shoving her crumpled foil in the garbage.
“Yes, I miss him. Of course I miss him.” She stopped, her head turned to one side, hands out in front of her as if to calm someone else down. She came over and stood behind Vanessa, her strong fingers squeezing her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head. “I’m glad you miss him too. I don’t mean to get upset. Let me go take a shower and relax for a minute, then I’ll watch Rashaan so you can do your homework.”
Vanessa wanted to say she didn’t have to, but she knew not to argue at this point, to just let her go. In a minute the water came on, the door of the shower rolled shut with a thump. Rashaan gnawed on his fries. She picked at her sandwich, then threw it away too (the Horsey Sauce was too strong, oddly metallic). She stood at the sink looking at the tap, and a strange urge took her—to turn it on so her mother’s water would be freezing. Not just once, but jamming the gearshift of the tap back and forth so the pipes shook with each blast, her mother blinded by her shampoo, swearing and shouting for her to stop, banging the walls of the stall.
She didn’t, but the idea was there, and it worried her. Why was she so angry? It was like Rashaan and his tantrums, blown over in a minute, but when he was swinging his little fists at her, his hate was pure and she was someone alien.
She wasn’t the one being childish, she thought. All she’d done was ask a question.
Her mother was extra nice the rest of the night, getting Rashaan into his jammies and reading him his story. Vanessa could hear her from the living room. “Are you my mother?” It was a favorite of Rashaan’s, a lost baby bird going to all the other animals of the barnyard—the goose, the horse, the pig. “No, I am not your mother,” her mother said, doing the cow in a goofy cartoon voice, and Vanessa thought that, yes, that refusal to answer was her mother exactly. Why had she thought she would change?
It was too late to make up tonight, and they stayed out of each other’s way. Vanessa didn’t get to bed till eleven, the page crowded with names. In the morning, her mother made eggs—a peace offering—and waited while she dropped Rashaan off with Miss Fisk to give her a ride to work.
“How’s she doing today?”
“Seems all right,” Vanessa said.
“Sometimes they get tired toward the end of the day. Just like us.”
Like last night, Vanessa wanted to shift the topic back to her father, but rode along, nodding, watching the park go by, the sunken busway sliding alongside them like an empty river, its concrete walls dark with yesterday’s rain. She knew her mother thought she was thinking of Chris, that every time they crossed the busway, every time she even took a bus she pictured him and Bean that night. How could she tell her she didn’t? Yes, it came to her sometimes—rain and the barrels with their orange flashers set up to make lanes on the busway, the two of them with their backpacks full of spraycans, laughing, the red-faced paramedic cutting Chris’s Steeler jacket off with special scissors—but she could get rid of it, sometimes by just shaking her head or thinking of a song.
Was that how it was with her father? She wondered when she could ask again. Not for a while.
“I’ll be home the regular time tonight,” her mother promised, letting her off. It was another gift, and Vanessa didn’t question it, just thanked her for the ride and went in to face the breakfast rush.
Work didn’t let her remember anything, though she fought to keep the names straight in her head. Haki Madubaruti. No, that wasn’t it. There were too many poets. She wished she’d made a crib sheet she could check between orders, a notecard to stick in her pocket, cup in her palm like the prices when she first started. As she hustled for a missing ketchup, a handful of jam packets, a large milk, another knife, all the reading she’d done vanished, evaporated like water flicked on a hot grill, and by the time she peeled her uniform off and hauled her jeans on, she couldn’t remember why she was taking the class in the first place.
The funny thing was, Chris would know all this stuff. He wouldn’t even have to study, you could just ask him and he’d know. Bean too. They were always quizzing each other, singing half a lyric and waiting for the other one to jump in. They knew the groups, the gossip, when the new record was coming out—all before The Source. She was terrible at remembering names, especially if she’d heard them only once. She wasn’t made for college, she thought, but she knew that was an excuse. She wanted to learn, she just wasn’t very good at it.
She found her bench in the sun beneath the Cathedral of Learning and went over her notes one last time before class, crossing off the people she knew. Almost half. She had a feeling Haki Madhubuti would be on the quiz, just from his name. The rest she went over slowly, looking them up in the book when she didn’t know what they’d done. Curt Flood was a baseball player who stood up for his rights. Coleman Young was the first mayor of a major U.S. city. When her watch said it was time, she wasn’t done with the list.
She took the elevator up with a bunch of classmates.
“Benjamin O. Davis,” one girl said.
“First general in the regular army,” another said. “Gwendolyn Brooks.”
“Please,” the first said, and everyone laughed except Vanessa. She felt dizzy, as if she’d forgotten to eat. Getting off, her legs didn’t move right; she had to consciously think about how she was supposed to walk, and she was relieved to get to her chair. She took out the list but it was useless now, her thoughts zipping all over the place like flies, never settling. She folded it away, giving in to fate. School was always like that, the weeklong dread of the test and then finding out she’d had good reason to worry. There were no sudden miracles or surprising scores. Chris could wait till the night before to crack the books and then ace something, but not her. She knew she wasn’t stupid, but she’d never be a student either. She’d never get the degree her mother wanted—that she wanted now.
Professor Shelby came in wearing his ridiculous green suit and tie and handed out the quizzes without a word, solemn as an undertaker. He circled around the desk to the board and wrote 10 MIN., then sat down and unpacked his briefcase.
The guy in front of Vanessa handed the quizzes back, still damp and inky-smelling from the mimeograph, the words purple like in grade school. The five people were:
Angela Davis
Benjamin O. Davis
Benjamin Hooks
bell hooks
Derrick Bell
She knew the first three, partly because of the girl in the elevator, and also because Benjamin O. Davis was on a stamp. Angela Davis was a Panther. Benjamin Hooks was the head of the NAACP. The other two she had no idea. Another sixty, she thought. Another D.
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bell hooks was an important poet, she wrote, whose poems are about the true inner feelings of African American women.
Derrick Bell was a famous baseball player who spoke up for his rights.
She knew how stupid these would look to Professor Shelby, and she thought of giving up, just erasing them, admitting she was too dumb for his class, but by now she felt beaten and didn’t care.
Around her the others were still scribbling like they were writing essays. There were five minutes left, during which she made plans to tell her mother she was withdrawing from the class and that she would never be anything. She thought of her father, how he never had a chance to be where she was right now, and she honestly wished she could trade places with him, the same way she wished she could trade places with Chris.
“Time,” Professor Shelby said, and with a rustle everyone passed the quizzes up to the front.
In class she barely listened. John Brown, Jim Crow. On the bus home she found out she was almost right about bell hooks. So what? A seventy, with partial credit. She should have known it and she didn’t.
Miss Fisk met her at the door, Rashaan in her arms. He dove for her shoulder, hung around her neck, and she smelled how fresh his skin was, how sweet, even after a long day. He clawed at her earrings, so she swung him around.
“He was very good,” Miss Fisk said proudly, as if he deserved something.
“Good,” Vanessa said. She just wanted to go, to close the door to the apartment and sit down, think of nothing at all.
“He does remind me of your daddy, those big cheeks.” She made lobster claws of her hands, and Rashaan covered his face and giggled, peeked out between his fingers. “Maybe he’ll be famous too.”
She had that crazy, old-lady gleam in her eye, smiling so the gap in her stained lowers showed her tongue, and Vanessa thought she wouldn’t even ask.
“I’ve gotta go,” she said, thinking it was enough of a hint, and started for the edge of the porch. Miss Fisk followed, making faces at him, waving baby good-byes.
“Big famous politician just like your grandaddy.”
Vanessa stopped on the stairs in midstep. “Like my father?”
“Nothing wrong with it,” Miss Fisk said. “Long as he remembers who voted for him. Your daddy tends to forget some of the time. Not to pick nits. Can’t be easy, everyone wanting you to vote for their bill.”
It dawned on Vanessa that Miss Fisk was talking about Martin Robinson, that somehow she’d gotten the two of them mixed up. It was a relief to finally solve the mystery.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Miss Fisk was saying, “I’ll vote for him when I’m in the cemetery, I will, but sometimes I don’t understand what his thinking is.”
“Thank you for watching him,” Vanessa said, patting Rashaan, trying not to be too rude.
“Oh, you’re welcome.” She waved again, Martin Robinson completely forgotten. Just old, that was all. Vanessa couldn’t imagine trying to find day care, paying for it.
Her mother was late again—another car wreck. It was the time of year, between the rain and the leaves and dusk coming earlier. The haddock would have to keep one more day. Vanessa had already started some soup, buttered bread to make grilled cheese. She told her mother about Miss Fisk, laughing and cutting thick, crumbly slices of sharp cheddar. “Can you imagine,” she said, “Martin Robinson?”
Behind her, her mother didn’t laugh, said absolutely nothing. Vanessa had thought it would cheer her up the same way.
“I mean,” Vanessa said, bearing down on the knife, “I’m sure she’s okay, but—it’s so bizarre, Martin Robinson! Where’d she come up with that?”
I don’t know, her mother was supposed to say, and roll her eyes at poor Miss Fisk, or scold her for making fun of someone doing her a favor. But when Vanessa glanced back at her, her mother was just looking at her, tired, stricken, her lips set, as if Vanessa were torturing her, and she wanted to apologize for bringing the whole thing up again.
“I know where,” her mother said softly, then left it, a flat admission.
Vanessa stood there with the knife, thinking it must be a joke, that she’d misunderstood what her mother said. Her mother watched her like a guard, waiting for an answer.
Vanessa didn’t have one.
Her mother bowed her head, looking straight down into the table, unable to face her. Then she said, “Baby,” seriously, and blindly held up one hand, as if reaching out to her—or, Vanessa thought, trying to protect herself. Vanessa set the knife down on the counter gently, like a sleepwalker, like a robot. “Baby,” her mother said, “baby, come here,” and, turning to her, Vanessa realized there were some even harder things she would have to learn.
CANDYMAN
TONY KNEW WHO the boy was. He knew everyone; it wasn’t bragging, just good business. You knew your customers, your customers knew you. Was there some other way?
So he knew the boy, if he didn’t know where he lived. He’d seen him on Moreland and sometimes on Spofford, shooting the bull with his friends, playing ball against the steps while the children rode their bikes up and down the sidewalk. But still a boy. Another year maybe, he would be a man, but not yet. He wasn’t a bad boy, not always. Milk Duds were his favorite, the ones in back, door four, first box on the left, frozen so you could suck on them a long time.
The police weren’t interested in that. They wanted a name, an address.
Ten years ago Tony knew his name, but that was ten years ago. Now he knew him to see him on the street, to remember what he liked.
The police thought it might be a kind of gang initiation, proof that the boy was worthy. They had pictures, books and books of pictures. They had him sit at someone’s messy desk and look through the books. They left him there flipping the tall plastic pages and went out to see if anyone had found the truck yet.
The pictures were just their heads—which made it harder, Tony thought. They were all angry they’d been caught, or sad; you could hear them thinking, see their plans in their eyes. He remembered the boy’s hands better, long thin hands, and his coat—Seattle Seahawks, two-toned, the poncho kind with the pocket in front. Tony had just gotten out and was coming around to see what people wanted when the truck rocked, dipped like someone had jumped on the bumper. He thought it was just the children climbing on the running boards like they did, touching the door that looked like the gate of a picket fence to see if it was really wood. Then the engine started up, a jet of hot exhaust flapped the cuffs of his pants, and he ran for the door. The truck swerved away from the curb; he had to dive or it would have run into him. All he saw was the boy hunched over the wheel, his thin hands, the blue-and-green sleeve of his jacket with the team logo. “Milk Duds. The frozen ones.” He remembered counting change into his small palm, and then he was on the ground, rolling. He could see the dark curb under the cars, feel the stony cold of the street. People were running over to help him up, brushing the grit from his back. A block away, the bells played.
“My truck,” he said.
“You need to sit down,” his Vanessa said, and helped him to some steps. The children stood back, holding their jump ropes, suddenly afraid of him.
“I’m all right.” He waved and tried to smile for them. “Ah, but your poor candy, someone kidnapped it.”
No one laughed at the joke. The children stared, little Nekysha pointing and covering her mouth.
“You’re bleeding,” Vanessa said. “Let’s get you inside.”
Renée had been predicting something like this for years, but with him pistol-whipped, a bullet in his lung, or dead, Renée a middle-aged orphan. Finally her worst fears had come true, all her caution justified. They even had his keys. He’d called her first thing, at work, from Vanessa’s kitchen. He got the hotel operator. Renée had just moved to the William Penn from the Hilton, and the switchboard didn’t know her yet.
“She’s in group sales if that’s any help,” he said.
“Please hold while I connect you.”
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nbsp; “Thank you,” he said, and he must have surprised her, because she said, “You’re welcome,” like a question, startled, like it was a strange thing to say.
When he told Renée, she didn’t interrupt, just said, “Mm-hm, mm-hm.” He could see her nodding, biting her lip, angry that she’d been right. You don’t belong there, she argued—fifteen years she’d been telling him. Now she was quiet.
“Are you all right?” she said.
“I’m fine. But the Little Horse.” It was their name for the truck; Renée used to call it that when she was just a girl.
“The police’ll find it. It’s not like you can hide something like that.”
The fact hadn’t occurred to him, and he thanked God he had a smart daughter.
“She says they’ll find it,” he told Vanessa.
It was probably just some stupid prank, she agreed. She cleaned the gash on his forehead with a washcloth, squeezed on some cream and stuck two butterfly strips across it.
“Thank you,” he’d said, and she said she was glad he wasn’t hurt worse—another Renée.
Now, turning the heavy page of faces, Tony thought she must have known the boy’s name, that everyone on Spofford knew exactly who he was. They’d kept quiet, protected him the same way no one in Little Italy squealed. But would they take care of punishing him? Would there be a Manfredi or a Ciresi who weighed the boy’s fate, whose captains would visit the family and ask the boy to come with them? And what would it be—a knuckle, the pinkie bent back till it cracked? Tony wanted a say in it, to tell them not to be too hard on the boy. But a little something, he deserved that at least. A scare, for a warning.
The policeman returned with a can of soda. “Nothin’. Any luck here?”
Tony started to tell him how it was hard with just the faces, but the policeman wasn’t listening.
“Anyway, we’ll probably find it come daylight. I’m sure he’s not out riding around. You’re welcome to keep looking though.”
“No,” Tony said. “I should get home.”
The policeman arranged for another policeman to drive him. Tony had never been in a police car before, and the computer surprised him, the screen and keyboard sticking out from where the radio should have been. The policeman had a St. Christopher medal hanging from the mirror, and Tony remembered his own in the exact same place in the truck. It had been Rita’s great-grandfather’s; he’d given it to her when she left Trieste, to watch over her during the long voyage. It was shiny from being rubbed. This was the first time it hadn’t worked. When the policeman asked Tony about personal belongings, he’d shaken his head and said, “My truck is my business.”
Everyday People Page 16
