Sweet Thang

by Allison Whittenberg

“He just got divorced.”

  “So? He can take care of a kid. Tracy John can start off his family. He could be a single dad.”

  Leo rolled his eyes.

  “Leo. What are we going to do?” I shook my head.

  “We? What do you mean ‘we’? I like Tracy John. So does everybody else. You are the only one with the problem.”

  “Fine. I'll be alone. I'll be that lone voice in the wilderness, like Gandhi.”

  “Nobody knows who you're talking about.”

  ”Mahatma Gandhi led the fight against the caste system when Indiar was a colony of Great Britain.”

  Leo just rolled his eyes again. “You know, that is so fascinating.”

  I growled. “It's Tracy John or me.”

  “Bye.”

  “Bye?”

  “Yeah, give me a call when you get set up in your new place,” he said in a tone that was no-nonsense, final, and irrevocable. He turned off the light.

  I rolled over and clamped my eyes shut.

  I decided right then: I hated all men. You just couldn't trust them. They stuck together like rice in a pot.

  • • •

  The next morning, I learned that women weren't any better.

  “You have to be very patient with Charmaine,” I overheard Ma saying to Tracy John.

  “I am very patient, Auntie. She poked me with a pen.”

  “Tracy John, you are going to have to try even harder to be not only patient but also understanding. She is going through a change.”

  “What is she going to change into?”

  “A young lady.”

  “What is she now?” Tracy John asked.

  “She's in between a girl and a young lady.”

  “She's a teenager.”

  “That's right. And this is a very, very difficult time for her, so you have to promise me you will be understanding and patient and I won't have any more problems when she's watching you.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” Tracy John said.

  I stood at the door, deep in bewilderment. A vein was throbbing in my temple. I began to pace up and down. I restlessly sighed, wandering back into my bedroom.

  So that's what Ma thinks of me.

  Thursday evening, I was stuck helping Ma with supper. I told her, “You know, Ma, there's a lot of prejudice here in Dardon.”

  “I don't see how that's possible, Oharmaine. Ain't but two white families left here.”

  “I'm talking about black prejudice, Ma. Black on black.”

  “You're talking about what, now?” she asked me.

  “Black on black, You know what this one girl, Dinah, said to me? She said she would have to take about ten trips to Jamaica back to back to look like me.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “You know what that means, Ma.”

  “People say a lot of things that don't make no good sense,” Ma told me, draining a can of salmon.

  “I'm the darkest person in this family,” I told her, chopping the onion.

  “No, you ain't; I am. Since ypu want to get down to shades,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “And don't make those chops so big. How's anyone going to eat that?”

  “I'm talking about the children,” I said.

  “I need another spoon.”

  I went to the drawer and handed my mother a long silver spoon. “Not only am I too dark, I am too skinny.”

  “I need the other spoon.”

  I went to the drawer again and took out the long wooden spoon. Walking back to Ma, I put one hand on my hip. “Here!”

  “You better get your hands off your imagination,” she told me, and she combined the salmon with onions, bread crumbs, mashed potatoes, eggs, and black pepper. “Pat,” she told me.

  I didn't.

  “I said pat!”

  Begrudgingly, I patted, my chin held high, hard, and straight. It was useless trying to communicate with her. She was a stone wall. I divvied the mixture into balls and shaped them into patties; then we coated the patties with cornmeal.

  “You'll fill out. That I guarantee,” Ma said. “Your color's yours to keep.”

  Daddy came in from the bright early-November sun.

  “How's my two favorite girls?” he asked, giving me a quick squeeze, Ma a longer one.

  “Peyton, please tell this young lady she will fill out,” Ma requested.

  Daddy looked me up and down afid gave his hundred watt smile. “Nope, Charmaine'll have those horse legs forever.”

  On an ordinary day, that might have been funny. That was not an ordinary day. Lately, none of my days had been ordinary.

  Uncle O was over without his ex-wife, whom he was dating again. I wondered if they were having problems so soon. At the dinner table;, I was still sulky. Daddy nudged me. “Aw, come on now, Miss Maine; if you can't make fun of a feony girl, who can you make fun of?”

  Leo placed his hand over his mouth and nose to smother his laughter as his head bobbed.

  Daddy saw this and pointed at him with his soupspoon. “Leo's bony; you don't hear him squawking.”

  Leo blurted out, “She's not mad just because she's skinny. She's mad because she's black.”

  The room got very heavy. I mouthed to Leo, “I'm going te get you.”

  “All we have is our melanin,” Uncle O proclaimed, then gestured” Tracy John. “Some of us don't even have that.”

  “Hey, black people come in every color from chalk to charcoal,” Daddy said to his brother, patting Tracy John on the head lovingly.

  I failed to see the collectiveness of this rainbow coalition. It seemed to me that the joys of black were not distributed equally. The near-whites like Tracy John and Dinah hogged them all.

  Leo pointed at me with his fork. “You shouldn't be sorry that you're black; you should look forward to it every day.”

  “Yeah, cuz black is beautiful,” Tracy John joined in, like he knew anything about it.

  During a dessert of ice cream on a slab of cake, Daddy lapsed into a story.

  “I must have been a year or two older than the peanut. I was riding my bike, and I took a curb the wrong way. I fell and I got myself tangled up in the spokes. This grown man walked toward me. T thought he was going to reach out his hand to help me up, but instead, he stepped over me. There I was, twisting and turning, trying to find my way out. Just as I broke free, I turned to watch that man walk away. And you know what I found out?”

  “What?” we all asked.

  “He was blind.” He paused to let that set in.

  “Did he have a stick? Did he have a dog?” Tracy John asked.

  “He couldn't see my need. He didn't feel a need to help. He wasn't connected to me. He was blind. And I was blind to his blindness.” He paused again, then said, “I don't want any of y'all ever, ever to be like that man.”

  Ma, Uncle O, and Leo nodded. Tracy John looked totally perplexed.

  I grinned. A little boy couldn't possibly understand the complexity of that story. But I did. I understood that most people thought of themselves. Most people didn't really care about other people's well-being.

  Dinah had stolen my love interest.

  Uncle E had ripped us off for a grand. Now both Ma and Daddy were working nearly every hour that God created.

  My auntie had loved a man who had killed her after promising us alt that he wouldn't mess up anymore.

  This was a no-good world filled with people who'd rather walk over you than help you.

  • • •

  While buffing the rec room, Horace snutk us a call on the drill sergeant's phone.

  “You're still holding things down, Maine?”

  “Of course.”

  “How's your babysitting coming along?”

  I didn't want to burden him, so I replied, “Just fine.”

  “Good. Little Tracy John's not hard to handle.”

  I opened up. “Are you kidding me? He's driving me up the walL”

  “Maine, you're talking to a guy who spent the day digging wi
th entrenching tools, pitching a tent, and digging crap holes.”

  “Crap holest I asked.

  “Yeah, what do you think, they, have a port-a-potty out in the war field?”

  The intrigue of boot camp had worn off for me already. I was too wrapped up in my own problems to want to hegr about his clothing issue, his growing personal file, his second physical exam, and of course, the haircut. Even though he was soon going from white phase to red phase, Ml6s, M60s, and antipersonnel mines were nothing cornpared to watching Tracy John all afternoon.

  On November 3, 1975, Mr. Mand wore a blue tie to match his blue shirt. He lost control of his class. It was due to Walt Whitman's “I Sing the Body Electric.” It was the “swimmer naked in the swimming-bath” phrase that got people laughing.

  I liked the vers libre way Walt Whitman wrote. He seemed like such a wild spirit. And he had been an abolitionist, which scored him extra points with me.

  Mr. Mand looked over the top of his glasses at us. “Now, class.”

  I was almost expecting him to call off class and drop the final curtain on this chaos.

  Jumping in to provide order, I began reciting the remainder of the poem and pressed on until the rest of the class settled, reading it so that the syllables floated through the air above their nuttiness.

  I gained full steam at the “Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice” line.

  Out of the blue, another reader joined me. “ ‘As I see through a mist, one with inexpressible completeness and beauty,’“ he said.

  I turned to find out who was matching me in voice and articulation. It was only Spiderman (aka Raymond Newell). He had gotten his nickname for his double-jointed ability to wrap his legs under himself and walk on his hands. He hadn't done that trick since sixth grade, but the name stuck. He was as tall as I was, but skinnier (if you can believe that).

  In our reading, we really had something going. Real syncopation, like we had been rehearsing for a month. Spiderman, at the end, was standing, his arms stretched out to me.

  He wasn't one for subtlety. I knew he liked me.

  At the bell, I hurried from my seat.

  “Charmaine,” he called after me;

  I turned reluctantly. “Hi, Spiderman.”

  “You warit to got© the dance?”

  I gave him an up-and-down look as the question registered. He was wearing the kind of clothes that made a skinny person look skinnier. Tight clothing, like a mime's. And those horrid colors, orange and green.

  “You want to go to the dance with me?” he asked again, as if unheard the first time.

  Though I wasn't into him, I never believed in being rude. “No, thank you,” I told him, and walked away.

  • • •

  I wished black was white.

  I wished dark was light

  I wished Demetrius had asked me to the dance instead of Spiderman. But he had asked Dinah.

  The night of the dance, Uncle O came over with plans for miniature golf. Leo came up to the room to invite me and I told him unequivocally no.

  “Why not”

  “I don't have time for that childishness.”

  “Are Millicent and Cissy coming over?” Leo asked.

  “No, there's a dance tonight.”

  Leo examined my outfit: dungarees and a T-shirt. “You're going dressed like that?”

  “I'm not going!” I screamed.

  “What is your problem?” Leo asked, and left the room shaking his head.

  Leo didn't understand anything. If my only choice was an unattractive date, then I'd have no date. I had so many goals and dreams; I couldn't settle. I walked into the hall and heard Leo and Tracy John conversing.

  “Maine ain't coming?” Tracy John asked.

  “No, she's in one of her moods again.”

  “But I like it when she comes. She doesn't let me win like you and Uncle O do.”

  “We won't let you win tonight, Tracy John.”

  “You promise?” Tracy John asked.

  They shook on it.

  “Maine is always moody, ain't she?” Tracy John said.

  I walked to the edge of the room.

  “I can hear everything!” I told them.

  This time, both Tracy John and Leo stuck their thumbs in their ears, wiggled their fingers and stuck their tongues out, then ran away.

  Around eight, Daddy's tired lips bent up at the corners when he saw me.

  “How's my girl?”

  “Great, Daddy,” I said. I was on automatic pilot.

  On Fridays he was always worn out. A few moments later, he was napping on the sofa, arms folded across his chest like he was in his final rest.

  Ma was drawing a bath. They wetit to sleep at nine. For grown-ups, going to bed that early really wasn't going to bed. It was collapsing. That was the third week of her being a receptionist and a ma and a wife. It was taking its toll on her.

  As for me, I just sighed and dreamed of the dance.

  Were they playing Parliament? Could I have circled the edge of the dance floor to find him? Would I perhaps have been able to catch Demetrius's eye?

  The soft sound of my sobs was muffled in my pillow.

  Would I get more play if I wasn't the “smart girl”? Was that why boys ignored me? If I was giggly and flirty, could I attract more than Spiderman? What if Spiderman was the only boy who would ever be attracted to me? I just couldn't end up with someone like him. What would that look like? Two bony people together; we'd look like a pencil jand a pen.

  What's Cissy doing right now? Probably talking. She does talk a lot, lips moving like a young bird's. She's probably dancing too. Cissy was big, but she glided effortlessly in the latest dance steps.

  Inhibited Millicent had all the coordination of a white girl on Soul Train, but she was probably dancing too.

  By that time, if I had been at the dance, my hosiery would have run, and I would have seen about two straight hours of Dinah mashing against Demetrius, I had made the right decision in staying home.

  I felt air as I pulled away my searching lips and cried some more.

  On a scale of one to ten, the experience of watching Traey John ventured into negative numbers, especially when I had to help him with his homework. Arithmetic was agony. Tracy John added five and two, and he put down eight.

  “What's the right answer?” I asked him.

  “Ain't that it?” Tracy John asked.

  “ ‘Ain't’ isn't a word. Say ‘isn't.’ ”

  “I can say'ain't'if I want.”

  “Ain't'isn't a word.”

  He made that face I hated, baring his small, even white teeth as if he had fangs; then he clawed at me with his short fingernails.

  Daddy entered. He saw the math book open and winked at us. Then his keen brown eyes surveyed the room in a rapid sweep. “Ain't Miss Sweet Thang home yet?” he asked.

  Tracy John looked at me as if to say “What are you going to say to him?” I was tempted to wipe that smug look off Tracy John's face by saying to Daddy, “Ain't' isn't in the dictionary” But I restrained myself; as I said before, I was pro-life. I would never think of correcting Daddy.

  Daddy left the room. Tracy John gathered his school-books from the dining room table and followed him in a strut.

  One-upped again.

  • • •

  In U.S. history, we were discussing how the concept of free speech fit into the spirit of the civil rights movement.

  “Congress shall make no law …,” Mr. Gowdy began, and he tossed his chin toward Demetrius to call on him.

  My Demetrius had the newspaper out to the Phantom comics. He looked up.

  Mr. Gowdy crossed his arms. “Demetrius, do you know which amendment I'm referring to?”

  I was across from him with a row in between. There was an awkward gap of time in which Demetrius said nothing.

  I had to help him out. I coughed, “First.”

  “First?” Demetrius asked me.
>
  “That's correct, Demetrius. The First Amendment.”

  I saw out of the comer of my eye that he shot me a thankful look, and I flushed.

  After class, he touched my shoulder. I hugged my chemistry book to my body to hide my flat chest.

  “Thanks for what you did back there.”

  “Anytime, Demetrius.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  He smiled. “Why don't you come over my house this afternoon?”

  The earth stood still. I'm not exaggerating. I was going to have that magical pearly smile all to myself. “Would I like to come over your house? Is that what you're asking?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes,” he said. “So what's your answer?”

  “Yes. Wait, no, I can't. I have to babysit. I have to watch Tracy John.”

  He turned to walk away, saying, “Some other time, then.”

  “Wait.” I gulped air. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Please be free tomorrow. Are you free tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  “Th-then i-i-it's a date,” I said, stuttering, then laughing deliriously. I was that overjoyed.

  • • •

  Demetrius lived on the other side of Dardon, where a smattering of whites still dwelled. Where the dandelions and ditty cars weren't. I couldn't believe I was in his house.

  “Where's Bobbie Sue today?” he asked me.

  “Huh?”

  “The little girl you watch?”

  “You mean Tracy John.” I laughed. “He's home. My brother watches him on Tuesday.”

  “Why don't you get a nanny?”

  Nannies were in movies and on TV shows. I'd never seen one in real life. Nannies were like maids, and the only black person I'd ever seen with one of those was Mr. Jefferson. Like on that show, Demetrius had a Florence, but without the sass. Nondescript but purposeful. Over the course of the afternoon, I saw her actually do windows.

  “Don't you have chores to do?” I asked, incredulous.

  “No. That's what Daisy's for. Do you want a soda or something?”

  “Sure”

  “Daisy,”can you get her a ginger ale?” He hailed her as if she was a taxicab. “You do such a good job, Charmaine. I watch you in class.”

  “You do?” I asked. My mind galloped. Did he see me when I wore my church dress? Did he notice that day when I snuck on lipstick in the girls' room and came to class alluringly red?