by Terra Little
“Did you say something, Helena?”
I look around the circle and see several people scoot to the edge of their chairs, and don’t know why. My response is a long time coming, and when I open my mouth I catch myself off guard. I haven’t prepared a speech, but a speech is what I give anyway. “I was thinking about what you asked us to do. You wanted us to offer Mary constructive criticism on where we think her anger comes from, and I actually came up with a few plausible theories. Then I decided that I don’t really give a shit where her anger stems from. I would be happy if she would just keep it to herself. I’m a little sick of hearing it, to tell you the truth.”
“Well,” Tanya drawls and snaps her fingers. “Take us to church now.”
“Just because you sit your wanna-be-better-than-everybody-else ass over there and don’t say shit, don’t mean I can’t talk. It’s a fucking anger management class, genius. You supposed to talk.”
“Yeah, but you don’t talk. You sling your anger around the room and force all of us to deal with it,” I say. “Not the same thing.”
“Well, since you so smart, how come you sitting here with the rest of us unevolved sistas?”
“Excuse me, but you just told me I wasn’t a sista,” Liz points out comically. “So speak for yourself.”
“Your ignorance is an embarrassment to me.” Oohs and aahs fill the room. I utter fighting words, without meaning to, and start something I will have to finish. Mary is out of her chair and standing over me before I can get to my feet. I lay my head back on my neck and look up into her face. My stare renders her completely still. Her crime is forgery, petty bogus check cashing, and though she’s been thrown in jail a time or two, she has no clue. There is a big difference between serving time in the county jail and serving time in prison. I don’t think she knows this, but if she breathes on me the wrong way, she will. “You’re in my personal space.”
“What did you say, church mouse?”
“I said, your ignorance embarrasses me, and then I said you are in my personal space.”
“Put me out of your personal space then.”
“You don’t want me to do that.”
“I said I did, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but I don’t think you know what you’re asking me to do. You want me to jeopardize my freedom for you. You consider yourself worth the price I’d have to pay, but you’re not, and I think you know it. Which is one of the theories I came up with a few minutes ago—you have no self-worth. That’s why you’ll always be running around in circles, like a hamster, because you don’t have sense enough to jump off the track.”
She takes five steps back and spreads her hands. Looks around like she is in a trance and laughs, even though there is nothing funny. The rest of the group accepts that she is about to put on a performance, but the two of us know the truth. She has given me back my personal space in a way that allows her to maintain a fraction of dignity. In my chair, I step back from the ledge and let my muscles relax. I want to snap her neck and can visualize myself doing it—easily.
“Listen to the preacher, everybody,” Mary announces. She makes a show of pulling an empty chair into the middle of the circle and folding herself into it loosely, props her head in her palm and stares at me condescendingly. “Go ’head, oh righteous reverend. Educate me.”
I look at her long and hard. Take a deep breath and shake my head. “Get off the track, Mary,” I say. “Just suck in a mouthful of air and . . . jump.”
Every day I run the same distance and go the same route. I leave Vicky’s house and take a left, then three more rights, and find myself on a busy main street. Tallahassee Boulevard, it is called, and I huff and pant my way down one block after another, until I am far enough away to consider myself lost. There is a park at my stopping point, and I always pause long enough to watch the joggers on the track there. I always consider crossing the grass and joining them, but I never do. It is a paved track, and I prefer the disorderliness of rough concrete under my feet. Don’t want anything to do with something that will order my steps and force me into compliance.
I pause long enough to watch the building too. It is on the other side of the street, a three-story house that has been divided up into apartments. I like the wraparound porch and the cushion-covered chairs sitting on it, the plants lining the railing. I like the old-fashioned screen door and the fancy-looking numbers painted on a wooden plaque by the door. It looks like home and, for the umpteenth time, I debate crossing the street and knocking on the door. There is a FOR RENT sign in one of the windows, and I wonder how the landlord will feel about taking the sign down for a convicted felon.
I don’t realize that I have been looking for a place of my own until I see the house and catch myself staring at the sign, hoping it is still there day after day, like it is waiting for me to get up the nerve to come and claim it. I think about my job and the fact that it is temporary. I think about Beige and how she will feel about me moving out. I think about Vicky and wonder if she will cosign for me if I need her to. I have been locked up for so long that my credit is nothing, a blank page, which is just as bad as it is good.
I think about someone else beating me to the apartment and cross the street.
I am glowing with sweat and wearing shorts and a tee shirt that are more wet than they are dry, but the woman who answers my knock agrees to show me the apartment anyway. She tells me her name is Marlene and that her family has owned the house since before slavery. She comes from a long line of free blacks, has ancestors who were doctors and teachers long before it was the norm. The house is split up into five apartments. She lives in one and rents out the other four, usually to singles and college students. Her husband has been dead eleven years, and the extra income nicely supplements her social security.
By the time we make it to the third floor, I know more about Marlene than I need to, including the fact that she has diabetes and doesn’t tackle the stairs very often. She is heavy-set and winded, trudges heavily down the hallway that runs from the front of the house to the back, and pulls a ring of keys from her pocket. There are two doors on the top floor, and one of them is the vacant apartment. The other is a storage closet. She pays her grandson to tend to the yard and the interior upkeep, and he keeps his equipment in there.
Already I like the fact that I will have no close neighbors, no one to run into in the hallway and have to converse with. I like the fact that I will be on the top floor instead of the bottom floor, wedged into a corner and hidden like an eccentric relative.
“Ain’t no central air,” Marlene says and pushes the door open. She motions for me to go ahead of her and then goes over to the row of windows along the front of the house and raises one. She points as she talks. “Bathroom’s over there. That’s the kitchen, and you’re standing in the living room slash bedroom. This is the smallest apartment in the house ’cause it’s really the attic. Space enough for one person though.”
“How much?” I love it and I have to have it. The floors are hardwood and have seen their share of traffic. I smell fresh paint on the bare walls and something like bleach coming from the kitchen area, which is small enough to double as a closet. But there is a window on the outside wall, and sunlight will make all the difference. I decide right then and there that I will not hang curtains.
“Three fifty a month, plus the same for the security deposit.”
The bathroom is just big enough for me to turn around in a circle. A compact tub and shower combo, a toilet and a sink, and no window. The stove is electric and the refrigerator is half my height, no freezer. But I am in love and it shows on my face as I meet Marlene in the middle of the living room slash bedroom. “I’m Lena,” I say, extending a hand to her. “Lena Hunter. Is Friday soon enough for me to bring you the deposit?”
Vicky is stunned when I tell her that I am moving out. She opens her mouth and then shuts it, opens it again and reminds me of a fish up to the tank. “You’re sure you’re ready for this?” she says, as if I have n
ever lived on my own before. “I mean, you just got out and . . .”
“Been out for almost three months,” I say. “I’m ready.”
“You know you can stay here as long as you want, don’t you? I hope you don’t feel like you have to hurry and get out, because you don’t.”
“I’m not moving across the world, Vicky. Just down the street and around the corner.”
“What if I don’t want you to leave? You just got here. Damn, I thought we could hang out like we used to and spend some time together.”
“We can still do that.”
“What about Beige?”
“Like I said, I’m just down the street and around the corner. She won’t want to come with me anyway, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“She might think you’re abandoning her again,” Vicky says, damn near whispering.
I look at her like she is crazy. I can’t believe what she has just said. Don’t believe history is so twisted up in her mind that she could fit her mouth around the words, let alone utter them. “Did I willingly abandon her in the first place, Vicky?” She doesn’t answer and I keep pushing. “Did I?”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I don’t know shit.” Suddenly I am breathing hard and mad as hell. “Oh, wait a minute. I do know a little something. I know she told people I was dead and she didn’t have a mother, and you let her. You stood back and let her say that shit. Like what I did was nothing.”
“What you did wasn’t right, Lena.”
“Was it wrong, Vicky?” She looks everywhere but at me. Checks the wall clock for the time, eyes the day’s mail spread out on the counter and sees dishes in the sink that need to be loaded into the dishwasher. “Was it one hundred percent wrong?”
“No,” she finally hisses at me.
I walk out of the kitchen and leave her sitting there, thinking about what I did and why.
Chapter Seven
Sometimes there is the homemade caramel that Vicky loves so much and sometimes there is cake or brownies still warm from the oven. We have come up with a system for knowing what each treat means. We step into my grandmother’s house, sniff the air and know.
“It’s brownies.” Vicky looks at me with dread on her face, just as my grandmother comes out of the kitchen to meet us at the door. Brownies are my favorite, which means that today it is my turn to keep the peace.
My grandmother fills the doorway and leans out to wave at my mother, who is waiting in the car to receive a signal that we are safely inside. I hear her car drive off, the sound of the lock turning, and feel my grandmother’s hand on my shoulder.
“Y’all gone be good girls today?” she asks, looking from me to Vicky. We nod in unison and lean into each other. We will be as good as we can be, but it will not be as easy to do as my grandmother makes it sound.
“Yes, ma’am,” we say at the same time.
Satisfied she is in store for a good day, my grandmother wraps her hands around our heads and nudges us toward the kitchen. “Take your coats off and go on in the kitchen. I got some oatmeal on the stove for you. Brownies is for after lunch.”
I start to follow Vicky down the hallway, but she catches me by the back of my neck and steers me in another direction. “Not you, Leenie. I need you to do something else for me first. And I got some extra brownies for you to take home with you if you don’t cry.”
She always says that, but I never take extra brownies home with me, because I always cry.
Music spills out of my apartment and into the hallway. I approach it slowly, carefully, and frown as I realize it is rap music. The door is standing open, so I walk right in and set the bag I am carrying by the door. Today is move-in day and, as far as I know, I don’t have any roommates. No one is supposed to be here.
“Hello?” I call out.
“Almost done,” a male voice replies.
It catches me off guard and my step falters as I cross the floor toward the bathroom, where the sound comes from. I step into the room and see him kneeling on the floor, inspecting the toilet. “What are you doing in here?”
“Replacing the toilet.”
“No, I mean, what are you doing in here? In my apartment?”
“Replacing the toilet,” he says as if I am slow in comprehending. “You must be the new tenant. I’m Aaron.”
“Miss Marlene’s grandson?”
“Miss Marlene’s grandson isn’t worth shit, but don’t tell her I said that.” He rolls to his feet and brushes off his pants. “I’m one floor down, right under you, and I’m who she calls when she can’t find him, which is all the damn time. Who are you?”
“Lena.” I stare at the hand he offers me until he retracts it and clears his throat uncomfortably. This is how madness starts, borrowing eggs and cups of sugar, knocking on doors at inconvenient times. I don’t want to start something that will drive me crazy in the long run, and I don’t need any new friends, either.
“Okay,” he sings under his breath. He thinks I am strange. I hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes. He is wondering if Miss Marlene has rented an apartment to a mental patient, if he should consider moving. “I guess I’m done here, so I’ll get out of your way.”
“That would be good.”
“Then I will.”
“Good.” I track his progress to the door and close and lock it as soon as he disappears. He makes me think of abnormal gene pools and mutants, he is so tall and solid. He snatches my voice and causes me to forget basic manners. In a dark alley, he is the hulk who scares the shit out of the unsuspecting woman who is stupid enough to be there in the first place. Standing in the middle of my tiny apartment, he takes up all the space and makes me seem like a dwarf. I feel my power diminishing and I don’t like it, won’t accept it.
I look around what is now mine and sigh. I have forgotten what it is like to be in close proximity to a man who is not wearing a guard’s uniform. Forgotten how I’m supposed to interact with them. And I am in no hurry to relearn what I no longer know.
Beige comes after school lets out. She drops her rolling backpack behind the door and informs me that, since it is Friday, she will be spending the night. I take the cell phone she passes me and use it to call off from work. Then she calls Vicky and tells her that we have some shopping we need to do and we need a ride.
I buy new kitchen and bath towels, four sets each, and a new set of sheets for the bed I don’t yet have. Everything else I find in a thrift store, much to Beige’s mortification. The two lamps I buy don’t match. There is no justification for why I pay hard-earned money for mismatched plates, bowls and glasses, and I don’t offer any. I just buy them. I buy an area rug and an iron that I plugged in and burned the tip of my finger on. Someone sets a cast iron skillet down and I pick it up. I find a few more pots and pans and smile when I haven’t quite spent fifty dollars.
We are heading to the car when a pickup rolls to a stop and two men hop out. They are almost to the entrance of the thrift store, prepared to drop off the futon they are carrying, when I call out and catch their attention.
“If you’re giving that away, can I have it?”
“Oh my God,” Beige groans, embarrassed because I have no pride. She slinks into the backseat of the car and hides her face.
I tap on the window and wait for her to lower it. “Pride goeth before a fall,” I tell her.
I stop thinking of myself as a victim when I see Yo-Yo. This is the essence of a victim, I think as I stare at her. She is sitting on the shower room floor, with her back to the wall and her legs stretched out in front of her, looking at nothing through open eyes. There is blood everywhere, and she sits in the middle of it, dead.
I wonder if Children’s Services might have heeded her request not to allow her youngest child to be adopted if they had known the child was the only reason she lived. Then I think, probably not.
I don’t think about all the blood or the razor blade lying on the floor nearby as I drop to my knees beside
her and gently close her eyes. I reach up and shut the water off. She is heavy, but I manage to gather her in my arms and pull her close to my chest. I lose all concept of time as I rock her like a baby. All I know is that the water was warm a while ago and now the puddle I sit in is ice cold. Like my heart.
I am shivering as I look up and see a guard standing there. My teeth are chattering around the one word I say: “Help.” And then I cry. Hard.
Vicky almost knocks me over as I come through the door. She has been standing behind it, peeking through the peephole, looking out for me. She falls into my arms and pushes her face close to mine, fills my nostrils with the smell of anxiety. “Mama’s here,” she hisses in my face.
It can’t be any later than eight in the morning. Her house is the first stop I make before going to my own apartment to crash. Beige doesn’t have school today, and my plan is to drag her out of bed and take her out for breakfast. I don’t know if I’m prepared to deal with my mother without food in my belly and energy in my limbs. I am exhausted, and the thought of facing my mother right this minute makes me want to slide to the floor and drop off to sleep.
“When did she get here?”
“Five or six this morning.” She looks around as if she is trying to think up someplace to hide me. “Can you do this right now?”
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“I guess not,” she says, grabbing my arm as I push past her. She searches my face for long seconds and then she takes a deep breath. “Just . . . be nice, okay?”
My mother is standing at the kitchen counter adding creamer to a mug of coffee. With her back to me I can see that her hair is nearly all gray, soft looking and curly. The last time I saw her it was more pepper than salt and draping her shoulders. Now it is a short cap on her head, exposing the back of her neck and the beauty mark there. I see her hands fluttering around the mug in front of her. The veins crisscross under her skin, and I know the years have been as long and hard for her as they have been for me.
