Leaving Atlanta

by Tayari Jones

  “But even knowing what was ahead of us in town, she was in a good mood. But I was feeling sick that morning. I was talking to her as normal as I could, then I ran to the rest room and threw up. When I came back into the bedroom, she had took off her hat and shoes.

  “ ‘You ain’t going to Chicago,’ she said to me, just like that.”

  “Because you was sick? You was too sick to go?” Poor Mama.

  “Yeah, I was sick alright.” She shook her head from side to side.

  “So how come you didn’t go when you got better?”

  “I had you,” she said, like they don’t let people have babies in Chicago.

  “I coulda went,” I said.

  “Well, Auntie and Uncle never asked me again.” She patted my behind. “Go look in the mirror and see how you like it,” she said, picking up the pins off the floor.

  When I got back from the bathroom, she had hung up the other dresses, pins and all. Mama never went to the trouble of sewing them in place until I had someplace to go to wear the dresses. Now that the box was empty, she started loading in the dresses from Nikky Day two years back. She folded them, and wrapped each dress in tissue paper. We were going to send them to my cousin Kay-Kay, in Macon.

  Mama was in my closet taking the pins out of the dresses from last year. I could fit them now without her taking them in. All of a sudden I started laughing. It was like when somebody tell you a joke and you don’t get it till half a day later. Kay-Kay probably think that I get to wear these dresses all the time. What if she call it “Sweet Pea Day”? Chicago is the windy city, but what is Atlanta? I asked Miss Grier one time and she say, “Atlanta is the city too busy to hate.” Mama say it’s the “Chocolate City.” Kay-Kay probably think everybody up here smile all the time and eat Hershey Kisses wearing velvet dresses.

  The phone rang just after Mama left for work. I hate it when that happens. I never know what to do. If the person on the phone is somebody that want to rob us, or something, it’s good for me to pick up so they will know that somebody is here. That way, they will go and rob somebody else. But if the person on the phone is a murderer, then it would be better for him to think that nobody is home for him to kill. I went ahead and answered it because only one of the kids that got killed got killed at home. There was one little girl who got carried out her window. My room is too high up for all of that.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Sweet Pea.”

  “Uncle Kenny?” I said loud at first. Then I lowered my voice even though I was home by myself. “Kenny?”

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he said. “My sister there?”

  I didn’t know what to do, again. Mama say that I’m not supposed to tell nobody that I’m home by myself. Except family. And except Ray. But when she threw Uncle Kenny out, she wasn’t acting like he was family.

  “Yvonne there?” he said again.

  He didn’t sound mad at me. And I was grateful about that since I’m the one that got him put out in the first place. But I didn’t want to get on Mama’s bad side either.

  “She at work, but she’ll be right back.” That was a half lie.

  “I thought she was working eleven to seven,” he said.

  If he knew that, why was he calling right now? “I don’t know,” I said.

  “How you doing Sweet Pea?” he said.

  “I’m alright.”

  “You being safe with all that going on down there?”

  “Yeah,” I said. His voice wasn’t as nice as it was a few minutes ago. I should have told him Mama was here.

  “I miss Atlanta,” he said. “Miss seeing you. My friends. Ain’t nothing going on here in Macon. Nothing at all. No jobs, no clubs, no nothing.”

  I didn’t speak. It was my fault that he wasn’t still here. But it was a accident. And in a way it was more Mama’s fault than mine. She the one told me the lie in the first place. She the one gathered up all his stuff in black garbage bags and put them by the door. I was just trying to help.

  “You there?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t say nothing. I heard a soda can open.

  “Where you at, Kenny?” I asked.

  “At Mama house. Where you think?”

  “We better get off the phone then. You know Granny get mad when people run her bill up.”

  “So you don’t want to talk to me either?” he said. His voice was getting a little meaner.

  “Granny there?”

  “I’m not going to hurt you over the phone, Octavia.” He said my given name slow. Like he thought it was a stupid name.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble that time.”

  “Sorry ain’t nothing but a word,” he said.

  “But I’m still sorry.”

  “I gotta go. You know I can’t be running up Mama phone bill. Bye.”

  “Bye,” I said. He didn’t believe me, but what I said was the truth. He should know already that I didn’t mean to give away his secret. When Mama put him out, I was the one that suffered the most. When he was around, everything was fun like a day at Six Flags. He had came to stay with us three years ago, right when he got through graduating from high school. Mama and me went to Macon to see him in his blue cap and gown and he came right back home with us on the Greyhound.

  We didn’t have an extra room for him to have, so he slept in the living room on the divan. When I was in my bed, I could hear him breathing in like a horn and blowing out with a whistle. When he was awake, Uncle Kenny was more fun than television. He used to say, “Who knows what the nose knows?” And then in a squeaky voice he’d say, “Speak Beak,” holding his hand out to me like it was a microphone. Sometimes, when I was at school and people mess with me, I could say in my head, “Speak Beak” and almost start laughing.

  But now when I think about him, I feel like crying. I hate the way things can just be not fair and there ain’t nothing you can really do about it. It wasn’t my fault that my mama like to tell lies. She told me that dope needles was the same as doctor needles. But I guess it was my fault for believing her.

  The thing that’s so wrong about it is that I called myself helping him. See, Mama had told me never to touch a needle laying on the ground because a doctor would come back looking for it. A lie ain’t nothing for her to tell.

  “How come we don’t just pick it up and carry it to the doctor?” I asked.

  She made a face like she was thinking it over, but then she shook her head. “Doctors don’t like people messing with they stuff.”

  “What he’ll do if he catch somebody?” Doctors were scary enough even when they smiled and gave out lollipops.

  “He won’t help you when you sick and just let you die.”

  So I was just trying to be helpful when I said, “Mama, the doctor is going to get Uncle Kenny because he got them needles off in his bag.”

  “Where?” Mama said quick, looking up from the corn-bread she was stirring in a plastic bowl. “Show me.” Worry beaded up on her face like she was scared what would happen when the doctor came back looking for his needles.

  I showed her Kenny’s black bag with the zip. I thought that she was going to ask me what I was looking in there for in the first place, but she didn’t.

  “Get back,” she said, like it was going to explode. She looked in the bag and saw the needles. She took out a spoon, burned and bent up, and held it up to the light. Then, she cussed. I don’t mean those little cusses like “hell” and “damn” that are in the Bible. But a true cuss word.

  “That motherfucker.” She said it slow and quiet like she was amazed.

  “It wasn’t one of the good spoons.” She acted like she didn’t hear me.

  “Sweet Pea,” she said. “You missing anything?”

  I shook my head.

  She went in her room and yanked at her top dresser drawer. It was stuck. Mama pulled at it softer, whispering sweet talk as she eased the wood back and forth. Finally, it opened far enough for her to slide
her hand up under her stack of nightgowns and get out a fuzzy little box. Inside was her ring with all the little diamonds in the shape of a heart. She say she’s going to give that to me when I finish college. She pressed it to her chest.

  “Where’s your bank?” she asked, reaching for cigarettes.

  We went into my room and got the smiley-face bank down from the shelf. It was empty.

  “Did you have some money in here?” She tried the lighter twice before she got a tired little flame.

  I shook my head no so I wouldn’t have to tell a lie with my mouth. There had been almost three dollars in that bank that I was saving for the book fair at school. I earned it doing little things for old people for maybe a quarter. Sometimes just a dime. I couldn’t tell this to Mama because she didn’t like for me to go into people’s homes or to take money.

  “What about the five dollars Granny sent you for your school supplies?”

  That money had been a long time gone, but I nodded my head. “I had three dollars left.”

  Mama sat on my bed and put her hand to her forehead like she was trying to keep her face from falling off. She put her cigarette to her lips and let it go with a sound like a small kiss. The Hamiltons next door had their TV up too loud and I heard fake laughing. I leaned my face on Mama’s cool arm.

  “I’ll give you the three dollars back on Friday.”

  “But what about Uncle Kenny? Is the doctor going to let him die?”

  Mama breathed out hard. “That fool boy going to let himself die.”

  Kenny stayed gone till after the late news. Mama turned off the TV, but she didn’t go to bed. In the mirror over my dresser, I watched the picture shrink to a white dot. Mama sat in the dark for a few minutes flicking her lighter on and off. I couldn’t see the little blue sparks but I heard the scratchy sound. Then I heard Uncle Kenny’s key in the door.

  “Yvonne,” he said. “What you doing up?”

  “Where you been?”

  “What?”

  “Where you been, Kenny?”

  “Why you talking to me like that?” he said. “I left my mother in Macon.”

  “I believe you left your common sense there too.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” He switched on the TV. The room went purple, then blue.

  “Kenny.” Mama had to talk loud over Johnny Carson. “You said you wanted to come to Atlanta to try and get yourself a better job than you could get at home.”

  “I’m looking! You see me with the paper every day.” Kenny’s voice rose high like a girl.

  “You come into my house. Take advantage of my child.”

  “What? I didn’t touch Sweet Pea.”

  My stomach clenched up. The beans and rice that I had for dinner pushed up like I was going to vomit, but it just stayed in my chest and burned.

  “You stole from her. What kind of grown-ass man would take three fucking dollars out of a child piggy bank?”

  “I didn’t even know she had a bank.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Mama snapped. “You the one said you left your mama in Macon. You in my house now. I don’t think you’re handsome. I’m not the one who thinks you can do no wrong. Now I’m wondering what you can do right.”

  “Yvonne, what’s wrong with you?”

  The TV colored the dark room like nighttime lightning.

  “Kenny, what’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m getting tired of these mind games.” He wanted to sound tough but his voice was wobbly. “You need to tell me what’s on your mind or get out of my face.”

  “Oh!” Mama said with a little laugh that sounded like a bark. “I’m the one playing games. You the one acting like you want to make something out yourself while being a undercover junkie.”

  “You went in my bag?” Uncle Kenny shouted. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  Every time he said something, she threw it back on him. I felt bad for him. He sounded like he was going to cry.

  “You brought dope needles into my house where Sweet Pea could get them.”

  “Sweet Pea saw?”

  “She was a mess.” Her voice went high like she was mocking me. “So in love with her Uncle Kenny.” Now her voice went nasty. “But now she know you ain’t nothing.”

  “What you tell her?”

  “She was crying like the world was over.”

  “What else she say?”

  I curled myself into a little knot because I didn’t want to hear Mama lying on me and I couldn’t take it if Uncle Kenny told her the truth.

  The next morning Mama didn’t go to work. She was at the table having Kools and coffee for breakfast. She told me that Kenny went back to Macon because he missed Granny.

  Mama said that he is a junkie. She said that to Granny and they didn’t talk again for two weeks. It’s a stupid word. Junkie. Sounds like he didn’t put his things back in their proper place. Delvis say he hate junkies too. When we see a needle on the sidewalk, he kick it in the street, then wipe his shoe off like he just got through stepping in some dog doo-doo. I don’t kick the needles when I see them because the junkie might come back looking for it and junkies don’t like people messing with they stuff.

  Then I got my period. It wasn’t a big deal. I had a box of supplies at home and a little pink book explaining what was what, so I was ready. But I wasn’t ready today. Talk about the wrong thing happening at the wrong time. Not only was I wearing a nice dress, but my supplies was at home. I made do with some toilet tissue folded up until I could go see Mrs. Grier after school.

  After the bell, I baby-stepped all the way to the second-grade class; all the kids was gone except for one little boy. Mrs. Grier was giving him a small plastic bag with his tooth in it. “Now, Turner,” she told him, “when you get home, rinse your mouth with salty water.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  She looked hard at him from the corner of her eyes and he corrected himself. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That’s better.” She smiled. “Put the tooth under your pillow. If the tooth fairy doesn’t leave you anything, tell me in the morning. Sometimes the treats are delivered to my door instead.”

  Turner nodded his head and left.

  Crazy as it sounds, I was kind of mad at Mrs. Grier. She had told me the same thing when I was in her class. The only difference was that she gave me some Girl Scout cookies because my tooth didn’t just fall out. It got knocked out when Lucius Petty put his leg out to trip me. But still, I didn’t like to think of her being so nice to everybody like it was her job or something.

  She looked up and saw me in the doorway. “Hello, Octavia,” she said, still smiling the smile she had left over from Turner.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Remember when you lost your tooth?” she said like to let me know she didn’t care that I heard what she said to little snot-nosed Turner.

  “But mine didn’t fall out. It got knocked out.” Why was I acting like such a baby? Sometimes I know I’m being stupid but I can’t help myself.

  “If I recall, that tooth was already a little loose.” She was still smiling like she couldn’t tell I was seriously upset.

  I started to walk away, but my homemade Kotex moved a little bit to the left. I decided to get what I came for.

  “Mrs. Grier, I need something.”

  “What’s wrong?” Her eyebrows went up and her face was interested and worried at the same time. She forgot about that Turnip Green and his tooth.

  I came up close to her desk and whispered. “I got my period today.”

  “Already? Are you sure?”

  “Yes’m,” I said. “It’s just like the book you gave me.”

  “Do you have supplies?”

  “No’m. I just used toilet tissue.”

  “That was very resourceful,” she said, patting me on my head.

  Mrs. Grier went into her cabinet and put some things into a paper bag. Then she took me by the hand and took me into the teacher’s lounge.
It smelled like cigarettes and coffee.

  Mrs. Grier opened her sack and took out a cardboard box about the size of my palm but thick as my math book. Inside was a Kotex folded in half.

  “Do you know how to put it on?”

  “Yes ma’am. From the book.”

  She pointed to a small door that looked like a closet. “Go take care of yourself. I’ll be out here if you need me.”

  When I came out of the little rest room, she said, “Any questions?”

  “Am I ever going to get some titties?”

  “Bosom,” she corrected.

  “Am I ever going to get some bosoms?”

  She looked at me like I was crazy, so I started over. “The book said you get bosoms first. But now I got my period.”

  “You’ve reached your maturity,” she said. I guessed period must not be a nice word either. But I wished she would let me finish what I had to say and stop butting in.

  “Well I reached my maturity without no bosoms; does that mean this is all I’m going to get?”

  She looked at my chest and my little titties like the little humps on the top of an orange.

  “Every woman is different,” she said. “I can’t say for sure, but you’ll probably get at least a little more.”

  That didn’t sound like good news to me.

  When I came out of the building, Delvis was leaning against a big white pole in front of the door. The paint had chipped off and sat on the top of his hair like snowflakes.

  “Hey!” I said. “You waiting for me?” I was trying not to act no different than normal. But soon as I said it I wanted to take the words back. I should have said, “What you waiting out here for?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Where you been?”

  “You got paint in your hair. On your clothes too.”

  “Man,” he said, cleaning himself off with little slaps.

  “Where the twins?”