Little Miss Strange

by Joanna Rose

  LITTLE MISS STRANGE

  a novel by

  JOANNA ROSE

  ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL  1997

  All I would say to you, Tom Spanbauer, I can only say with my heart. And of teachers and guides, thank you Dangerous Writers, Fiction Asylum, recording angels, and reading whores. Erin Leonard and Candy Mulligan, road babes. Stevan Allred for such care. Suzy Vitello for ironic distance, in the hope that someday I’ll know what that means. Of teachers and guides, Joe Knapp, who was there when I looked back. And thank you Peter Christopher, and thank you Terrence O’Donnell, and thank you Miss Zae Stineman at Hoyt Street Elementary in Saginaw, Michigan. And thank you Geneia, Sherry, Diana, Colleen, and along came Terry. Lewis Nordan for the gift of advice. Diane Jackson for you know what. The people of Powell’s Books. The people of Algonquin Books. Thank you all.

  for Tony Roses, with love

  Little Miss Strange came out of the darkness

  Danced across my head and stood under the light.

  —JIMI HENDRIX

  Contents

  1969

  1972

  1973

  1974

  1975

  1976

  1977

  End of Summer, 1977

  1969

  The front porch was a big square porch, secret behind holly bushes where bluejays lived. There was a table and a chair and boxes, from a washer or a dryer, sometimes a television box, under the boarded-up window. Jimmy Henry and me lived in the upstairs apartment, and he took care of our house for the landlady, who lived somewhere else.

  Our apartment was big white rooms with big clean windows, all open and light and full of air. My bedroom used to be a sunporch, off by itself behind the kitchen, and I could see across Ogden Street to the Safeway store. At night, the red Safeway sign lit up my bedroom pink.

  Downstairs there were two empty locked-up apartments behind black painted doors in the hallway, and the floor of the hallway was cold from cold black air that came under the crack at the bottom of each door. Sometimes the boys from the alley got into the downstairs apartments through a window out back. Jimmy Henry got mad and red when they did that, and once he yelled at the boys that he would shoot them, and they ran all the way to the end of the alley, yelling swear words back at him.

  ONE DAY, one of the black painted doors was open wide, and I could see all the way out to the alley, the back door wide open too, and there was music and drifty blue smoke in the air. A lady, in the middle of the room there, was swishing around a stringy mop, kind of singing, kind of dancing. There was a bucket of suds and a bottle of dish soap. When the music stopped, so did the lady, and she looked right at me.

  “Who are you?” I said. “What are you doing?”

  “I call myself Tina Blue,” she said. “I have fled the dark heart of America, and I am hiding.”

  “Well,” I said. “I’m Sarajean Henry.”

  “Yes,” she said. “So you are.”

  SHE MOVED in, into the one-room apartment at the back of the hallway, and she painted purple and green on the walls and shelves and ceiling.

  I said, “Do you think those colors go together?”

  “My eyes love green,” she said. “But my heart belongs to purple.”

  TINA BLUE set little lamps in the corners, and she covered the little lamp-shades with paisley scarves from her collection.

  “The quality of light,” she said. “Depends on the quality of the dark.”

  ONE MORNING Jimmy Henry had to leave early, when it wasn’t all the way light yet, and he took me down to Tina Blue to wait until it was time for Free School. He knocked one knock on the black painted door, and opened the door into gray dark.

  “Here’s Sarajean,” he said, and he kissed me on top of my head and then he shut the door behind me and his feet went away in the hall, out the front door.

  Tina Blue was still in her bed, getting up from pillows and blankets. Tina Blue’s bed was on the floor in the corner where the closet doors used to go across. The mattress stuck out from the corner next to a tall skinny window that looked out at the house next door, and then straight up to a triangle of sky.

  She stood up and stretched her arms toward the ceiling. She had a big T-shirt of blue and white tie-dye and her hair was curly all in her face.

  She said, “I don’t ordinarily rise until I am called by the sun.”

  “I like your sky shirt,” I said.

  “That is a non sequitur, child of God,” she said. “Choose an album. I’ll make some tea.”

  Tina Blue’s albums were lined up across a shelf, just like Jimmy Henry’s albums. I looked at the albums. I looked around the room. Tina Blue clinked cups in the corner space that was back behind the door, the kitchen corner. The room was not so dark as at first. I bumped my finger back and forth along the albums and watched. Tina Blue brought cups and a flower-painted teapot to the table by her bed, a short table with curvy legs.

  “What have you chosen for tunes?” she said.

  I took out the album my fingers were touching and she put the album on her record player, clicked the record player on and the music started, soft ringing music, and Tina Blue stood with her eyes closed, moving her head around in like a circle.

  “Good choice,” she said.

  She stepped back into the pillows and blankets in the bed. I stood still and straight by the shelves, and my hands stayed by my pockets.

  “Come in,” she said. “Take your shoes off.”

  I said, “In your bed?”

  “That is where we drink tea in the morning, Miss Sarajean,” she said.

  I untied my sneakers and took them off and left them by the door. The floor was cold through my socks. I got onto the mattress by the edge. Tina Blue handed me a cup that was halfway full of tea, and she said,

  “How long until school?”

  “Eight forty-five,” I said.

  She tucked down into the pillows and blankets and sipped at her tea, and I sipped at my tea. It was sweet with honey. Tina Blue hummed along with the album, and sang, a song about a tambourine, her eyes closed. She knew all the words.

  The room was full of stuff, all the shelves, all Tina Blue’s stuff. A white china elephant up high on a shelf glowed like a ghost elephant, and the dark got lighter and lighter. A long leafy plant turned into a snake, then a giraffe, then a shirt hanging from a chair by the table. I sat very still, breathed very still. Tina Blue stopped humming and singing. Her teacup was empty. She had a round dark freckle on her neck, and a shiny silver ring on her hand.

  When she woke me up with a little shake, the tea honey taste was still in my mouth. I got out of pillows and blankets, on the cold floor, sock feet. I put my on sneakers without tying them and opened the door, shut it behind me, out the front door to Ogden Street.

  Saint Therese Carmelite was two straight blocks away, the sidewalk straight, the street lined up straight, so all I had to do was walk, like I always walked the two straight blocks to Saint Therese Carmelite, where I went to Free School in the basement.

  Tina Blue’s room felt all around me like it was one of my boxes on the front porch.

  THERE WERE seven other kids who went to Free School in the basement of Saint Therese Carmelite, and only one was a girl, Lalena Hand. Lalena Hand had crinkly red hair and a vest with long fringes that she let me wear. Lalena Hand said since we were the only girls at Free School we were best friends, and had to tell all our secrets to each other, like the tattoo her daddy’s new girlfriend Kate, or maybe Katie, had on her butt, and me stealing a purple peace symbol keychain from the store.

  There were different teachers at Free School. Sometimes it was Fern, who made plant hangers, or the guy who played songs on a zither, or Lady Jane, who
had long blond braids and mostly sat with us in a circle and we all held hands, being one in spirit. The boys at Free School hated spirit circle. John Fitzgerald Kennedy Karpinski picked his nose so no one would try to hold his hand.

  In spirit circle we all took turns telling something new about our life trip.

  IN SPIRIT CIRCLE I said, “I am Sarajean Green now.”

  “Far out,” Lady Jane said, and smiled all sleepy all around spirit circle.

  Lalena yanked her hand away from my hand and she frowned, frowning like with her whole self.

  Lady Jane said, “Now don’t be a bummer, Lalena. Sarajean, can you tell us a story about Sarajean Green?”

  Lalena crossed her arms across her chest, not looking at me, just frowning. Lady Jane hummed.

  I said, “The quality of light belongs to purple.”

  Lady Jane smiled just at me. Her eyes had tears.

  Lalena said, “It’s Sarajean Bullshit.”

  The boys all started laughing, the way they always laugh when Lalena says swear words, and I had to start laughing, the way I always laugh when everybody else laughs. Lady Jane hummed with her eyes closed and tugged on her braids. Lalena’s cheeks got two pink spots and she wouldn’t look at me.

  I whispered to Lalena.

  I said, “I’m really still Sarajean Henry.”

  She stayed all frowning. She kicked Lady Jane, and Lady Jane stopped humming and opened her eyes and smiled all around spirit circle.

  She said, “I was Ruby Tuesday once upon a time.”

  And she taught us the song.

  THERE WERE eight houses between Saint Therese Carmelite and my house. From the sidewalk in front of Saint Therese Carmelite I could see my holly bushes. I walked home from Saint Therese Carmelite by watching my holly bushes.

  Right next to Saint Therese Carmelite was a dirty yellow house with no yard, just the house walls right up against the sidewalk. Then a white house that did have a yard but no grass, just dirt. There were five different kinds of doorbells on the green door of the white house. There was a big brick house on the corner, with a fence and smooth grass and a sign that said KEEP OUT.

  Then came Tenth Avenue, and the WALK WAIT sign, which was the first sign I ever learned to read. There were hardly ever cars on Tenth Avenue. Tenth Avenue went just a little way down to the church parking lot and DEAD END.

  My block of Ogden Street was green, white, gray, gray, tan, and then my house, dark red. There was no other color on my house, even our front door was dark red.

  Usually when I got home from Free School I stayed out on the porch. There was a certain kind of being quiet in our apartment in the afternoon. It was different than late at night quiet. Jimmy Henry would be sitting in his chair by the upside-down applebox table. He would be smoking Marlboros, and he would look up and say, “Home so soon?”

  Then he would get up out of his chair like his butt was stuck on it. He would go in the kitchen and open the refrigerator door for a while and ask me if I was hungry.

  I never said yes or no or anything, and Jimmy Henry would cut up apples or make cheese and crackers and the quiet would go away. I didn’t like making the quiet go away. I always stayed out on the front porch for a while first.

  Jimmy Henry quiet wasn’t very different from Jimmy Henry when the quiet went away. He was quicker when it was not quiet, flipped his matches into the ash tray on the applebox table. Quiet, his long hair would hang in his face and I couldn’t see his eyes.

  Sometimes I stayed in my bedroom. Sometimes I heard Jimmy Henry talking, not to me, just to the quiet, no words, just talking.

  After Tina Blue moved in downstairs the quiet was different. There was music in the quiet, Tina Blue’s music, coming up through the floor. Tina Blue played her albums a lot, sometimes the same song over and over. The black painted door to her purple and green apartment stayed mostly shut.

  LALENA WANTED to know about Tina Blue.

  “I want to come and see her,” she said. “Is she pretty?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She wears long skirts.”

  Lalena said, “I bet her and Jimmy Henry are balling.”

  Lalena told me all about balling once.

  “A guy has a dick, see,” she told me.

  She showed me secret pictures from a magazine of grown-up naked guys with long red dicks sticking out. Jimmy Henry didn’t have one of those like that, I would have seen it. His blue jeans just had a zipper in front. Whatever Lalena said about balling I didn’t count Jimmy Henry. Besides, Jimmy Henry didn’t have a girlfriend, and girlfriends were the other part of balling, besides a dick.

  “Nope,” I said. “Tina Blue is just the new downstairs neighbor is all.”

  JIMMY HENRY’S alarm clock went off every morning of Free School, ringing in his bedroom. Then barefeet sound coming out to the kitchen floor and stopping to light the fire under the teakettle with a wooden match from the red box.

  Jimmy Henry opened my bedroom door and he said, “Who’s in there sleeping?”

  He said that every morning.

  He came in and sat on my bed and he said, “It’s time to greet the day.”

  That’s what Jimmy Henry said after who’s in there sleeping.

  I sat up in bed and kept my eyes closed, bumped my face into Jimmy Henry, his clean T-shirt smell, his breathing in his chest. His arms went around me and he said, “Braids or barrettes?”

  Then I would have to decide how I wanted my hair. Jimmy Henry pulled his fingers through the tangles, and then the hairbrush, slow sleepy morning hairbrushing, long down my pajama top.

  “Braids or barrettes?” Jimmy Henry would say. Jimmy Henry said it was good to start the day with a decision. He said his decision was to get out of bed.

  BREAKFAST WAS cinnamon toast and peppermint tea at the kitchen table with the bench built into the wall. I was squirting honey out of the honey bear’s hat into my peppermint tea when Jimmy Henry said, “You have to go over Lalena’s after school.”

  “Before I ever come home?” I said.

  I didn’t like to go anywhere after Free School. I had to come home and check on my boxes. I had to be with Jimmy Henry and the quiet.

  “I have to go to Colorado Springs,” he said. “I’ll be back around dinnertime. I’ll come and get you.”

  He took my toast plate and put it in the sink.

  I said, “Why can’t I go with you?”

  “I have something to do,” he said.

  “Doing what?” I said.

  He said, “I’m just helping some guys is all.”

  He took the honey bear out of my hands. My cup was almost running over with all the honey I squirted in there.

  I said, “I can just come home and wait.”

  “No,” he said. “You’d be all by yourself.”

  I said, “Why can’t I wait at Tina Blue’s?”

  “No,” he said.

  I drew lines with my finger through the cinnamon sugar that was spilled on the table.

  “Why not?” I said. “I could wait for you down there.”

  “I already asked Lalena’s mother,” he said, “Please, baby.”

  He said, “I didn’t ask Tina Blue, and it’s too early to wake her up and ask her now.”

  No music coming up through the floor.

  Jimmy Henry said, “Get your coat. I’ll walk to school with you.”

  “I hate my coat,” I said.

  I blew away the cinnamon sugar.

  “Why do you hate your coat?” Jimmy Henry said, picking up my tea mug, crunching in the cinnamon sugar on the floor.

  “I’ve hated that coat all my life,” I said. “It’s orange.”

  “You want to wear my coat?” he said.

  Jimmy Henry’s coat was his big army coat. The army coat had a beautiful horse patch on the sleeve.

  “Okay,” I said.

  He went in his room and got the army coat.

  “Arms out,” he said.

  I stood up and stuck my arms straight
out, and Jimmy Henry put the army coat on me, one arm at a time. He got down on the floor on his knees, his clean T-shirt smell right next to me. He rolled up one army coat sleeve until my hand stuck out the end, and then the other sleeve too, rolled up almost to the horse patch. When he stood up, there was cinnamon sugar on his knees.

  AFTER FREE School Kate-Katie was waiting outside Saint Therese Carmelite.

  “Bitch,” Lalena said to me.

  Lalena said that about her daddy’s old girlfriend too.

  Lalena and Kate-Katie and me walked to Lalena’s green house on Corona Street. Lalena lived in her whole house, upstairs, downstairs, no apartments, and there were other people, different people every time I went there. Her father, Sammy Hand, who she called Daddy, her mother Margo, who she called Margo, and sometimes her big brothers, Robbie and John, who she called jerks. Kate-Katie lived there now too.

  Lalena’s daddy sat in his chair, smoking, just like Jimmy Henry but noisy. He yelled when we came in the door.

  “Well, I’ll be damned, it’s them girlies,” he yelled. “Hey, girlies.”

  Kate-Katie kissed him on his cheek and kept on walking into the kitchen. Lalena went to the stairway, pulling me by my arm.

  “How’s that Sarge doing, Sarajean girl?” Lalena’s daddy yelled. He meant Jimmy Henry. Lalena’s daddy called Jimmy Henry Sarge sometimes.

  “He’s fine, Daddy,” Lalena said, and she kept going, pulling me up the stairs by my arm.

  Lalena’s room was dresses and shoes and hats and other stuff, on the floor, on the mattress, the chair, the doorknobs. The closet door was open and the stuff all on the closet floor and all the hangers were empty.

  “Okay,” Lalena said.

  She dropped her coat on the floor. Then she took off her shirt and pants, and she had on just her underpants and her purple socks. I sat on the mattress on the floor and Lalena messed around in different piles of stuff. She put on a shiny pink pajama top that went almost to her knees.

  I said, “That looks good with those purple socks.”

  She got down on her knees and looked under some blankets, and she pulled out a purple scarf. She tied the purple scarf around her middle. Then she tipped the chair until all the clothes on it dumped off, most of them on me.