From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun

by Jacqueline Woodson

  Hey Notebook! No wonder the amphibians are vanishing.

  Chapter Six

  When I got back to the blanket, Mama was chomping on a chicken sandwich. I reached into her bag and got one.

  “There’s some bottled water on the side,” she said. “How’d your walk go?”

  “Good. I wrote some.”

  Mama smiled. “Are you ever going to let me read anything in those notebooks?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe when I die.”

  Mama rolled her eyes.

  “It’s not for you, Mama. It’s for me. The stuff I write down is about my life.”

  “All thirteen years of it, huh?”

  “Almost fourteen,” I said.

  Mama looked thoughtful. “I remember when it used to be our life.” She looked sad when she said this. “It seems like a long time ago.”

  “C’mon, Ma. It’s still our life. Look, we’re here together, right? And you keep stuff from me, don’t you? I mean I don’t know everything about you.” I took a bite of my sandwich and watched this look creep across Mama’s face. Vague and distant. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Just thinking.” She took a long swallow of water and looked out over the beach. “I wish we had a house on the beach,” she said.

  “If you get one of those bad high-paying corporate law jobs . . .” I said.

  Mama shook her head. “I guess there’s no harm in wishing.”

  “Whoever gets rich first,” I said, “has to get the other a beach house.”

  Mama stuck out her hand and we shook on it. Then we lay back, the tops of our heads touching, and Mama hummed me to sleep.

  It was starting to get dark when we finally packed up and left. Mama was silent for a long time on the way home and I thought maybe she was just thinking about work, so I didn’t say much about anything.“It was a nice day, Ma. Thanks for waking me up.” She smiled. We were on the Long Island Expressway heading toward the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Mama concentrated on weaving in front of a guy who had been cutting her off for the past half hour.

  “It was nice, huh?”

  We lapsed into silence for a while.

  “Melanin Sun,” Mama said, after a long time had passed. When she called my name, I couldn’t remember what I was thinking about but I’m sure it was something important. There is a sand crab that’s dying off because of people letting their dogs dump on the beach. I might have been thinking about finding one and digging a hole so that it could burrow deeper, away from the dogs, away from the crowds.

  “Huh?” We passed an accident and I leaned past Mama’s shoulders to see. A truck with “Wise” written on its side was stranded on the island separating east- and westbound traffic.

  Once, on our way to do Thanksgiving with some bup pie friends of Mama’s in East Hampton, our car spun three hundred and sixty degrees. It had snowed through the night and the next morning it was still snowing. Even though Mama had been driving carefully, the car still skidded and spun out, spewing snow up past the windows on all four sides of the car. Mama and I ended up in the middle of the divider. It took a while before we could figure out which direction we had been heading. I was more shaken up than Mama but when I looked at her, it was as if I could read her mind and it was saying I’m so happy you’re okay. Leaning past her now, I grazed her shoulder with my own. It was my way of hugging her, of saying I’m glad you’re alive, too, Mama.

  When I leaned back, Mama glanced over at me. “Your friends ever talk about . . . gay people?”

  “What? Faggots?” I’m not a faggot, I wanted to say.

  “I don’t like that word, Mel.”

  I swallowed. I wanted to explain my faggot theory to her. I wanted to let her know she didn’t have to worry about me, that just ’cause I liked collecting stamps and stuff I wasn’t going to be one of the real faggots. After all, there was Angie, wasn’t there?

  “Sometimes Ralphael gets all bent out of shape about me caring about extinction and stuff. Then he says . . . you know, that maybe I should think about doing stuff that’s not . . . faggot stuff. But I know he’s only kidding. That’s about how close we get to talking about . . . gay people. Why?”

  “Do you know any?”

  “I don’t really think about them much.”

  “Ummmm . . .” Mama nodded. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Her face was all closed in a way she has of doing when she doesn’t want me to try to read her thoughts.

  “How come you’re asking?” The minute I got home, I’d call Angie. Mama didn’t have to worry—I was going to grow up normal—maybe even have a wife and a couple of kids someday.

  “What about in school? What happens there?”

  “We learn. What do you mean what happens there? You went to school.” I laughed but when I looked at Mama, her face was so serious, I stopped laughing as quickly as I started. “Ma, you don’t have to worry about me, okay? I’m not gonna turn gay on you. There’s a trillion boys that still hang with their mothers and—”

  Mama looked stunned a moment. Then she started laughing. It was that pretty laugh, which she doesn’t use a lot. I felt myself smiling.

  She laughed a bit longer, then checked her rearview mirror and changed lanes, still smiling. We didn’t say anything for a while. “I’m not thinking you might be gay, honey. That never even crossed my mind. I mean, if you were, I wouldn’t—”

  “But I’m not, Ma. So you don’t have to worry.”

  “But I’m not wor—Okay. Let me start again. Does the topic of queerness . . . ?”

  “Queerness?”

  “Queerness.”

  “How come you can say . . . queer-ness and I can’t say fag—”

  Mama glanced at me, then stared straight ahead again. “Because when you say the f-word, it sounds like you’re spitting. It sounds like you have so much hate.”

  “I don’t, though, Ma. That’s just the word people use.” I felt my eyes begin to fill up. I didn’t hate anybody. I didn’t even care. I hated when she picked on me.

  Mama reached over and stroked the side of my face.

  “How come it has to matter?” I asked.

  “I want to know if the subject is talked about. And how?” Mama continued. “Is it talked about? Are there gay teachers at school?”

  “Why would I even care about them? Why do you? I mean, no one’s there trying to teach me to be . . . a queer.”

  Mama looked at me. “I care because they’re people, Melanin Sun. Because I’ve raised you to care.”

  There is a bird dying off in the Galápagos that came to my head suddenly. It’s called a perot. A man goes from nest to nest checking on the eggs because rats eat them. They’re trapping the rats now and they think maybe the bird won’t become extinct after all. This was what I cared about, what I wondered about. How God could make something beautiful as a bird, then create rats that kill it off.

  Mama’s voice faded back in and for a second I thought I wasn’t hearing her right. She had pulled the car over to the shoulder, turned the ignition off, and looked at me.

  “I need to tell you I’m in love, Mel,” she said softly. “I’m in love with Kristin.”

  SWIMMING

  This is one of those stories that leaves you floating like this book I read about this white guy named Jack. Only this is real life and I’m not a white boy. But Jack’s dad takes him out on a boat to the middle of a lake. You knew something was going to happen just by the way the dad was paddling so hard. And when they were smack in the middle, the dad stops paddling and they just sit there for a while. Then the dad lays the news on Jack—that he’s queer. And Jack is stuck with this big chunk of info and no way back to shore. Just sitting there, in a boat with his queer father. But there’s no lake in this picture, just me and Mama and miles and miles. . . . Still, it feels like I have to keep swimming. Swimming with no shore in sight. No nothing except me and these notebooks. My stacks and stacks of notebooks. And writing it all down is my way of swimming, of
trying to keep my head above water. If you look way out next time you’re at the beach, maybe you’ll see me, a boy, bobbing and gasping, then going under.

  Chapter Seven

  I felt the air leaving my lungs, breath by tiny breath until there was nothing.

  “No, Mama,” I whispered, letting her pull me close. I couldn’t stand having her touch me but if she wasn’t holding me then who would I be? Where would I be? Alone. Almost fourteen and alone. No mother. No father. No nobody.

  I pulled away from her and wiped my nose with my hand. “Take me home,” I said, not looking at her.

  “Mel . . .”

  “Take me home. Now! Take me home.” I was screaming.

  Mama sniffed, and slowly pulled the car back into traffic. We were silent on the drive home. I stole a look at Mama, feeling something melting away from me. Her face was tight as a fist. I had never seen it like that, so full of pain and something that looked like anger. Swallowing, I thought, If she touched me, her touch would burn.

  If she was a dyke, then what did that make me? I’m not a faggot. I’m not a faggot! I’m not a faggot! I’m not a faggot! I’mnotafaggotnotafaggot!! I wanted to scream this into the tight space of our car. I wanted to run out onto the middle of the B.Q.E. and get hit by the biggest thing coming.

  Mama put her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t touch me!” I said, jerking away. “Don’t ever touch me again.”

  Then Mama drove. Silently. Miserably. Tears streaming but no sound. We could have been two strangers in the middle of the ocean, a faggot father and his son in the deepest part of the lake. And our boat had sprung a leak. And now it was sinking. Sinking.

  When she pulled up to the curb in front of our house, I bounded from the car before it even came to a full stop.

  Upstairs, not knowing what else to do, I started punching the walls, hard as I could until holes opened up. I couldn’t breathe. I was crying so hard I couldn’t breathe. After a few punches, my knuckles started to burn and bleed. It felt good almost. Like I was really alive.

  Behind me, I heard Mama telling me to stop punching the walls, stop putting holes in the walls. But our house was filled with holes now and she’d put the biggest one right through the roof—a big giant hole that let in all of this darkness. Even in the daylight, darkness was coming right through our roof and she had the nerve to say, “Stop punching holes.” Holding on to my arms, trying to hold me back or up because I felt like I was going to fall right over every time I thought about what it meant that she’s a dyke—a big lesbo who kisses on other women.

  “A dyke!” I was screaming this right into her face because she was holding me so close I could feel her breath and she was crying like I’d never seen her cry before. I hated her so so much. I hated that I wanted to hold her. I hated her for being my mother and my friend.

  “Melanin, don’t . . .” Her voice was soft and broken. I wanted to wipe away the tears and punch her full in the face for ruining my life like this.

  “You’re a dyke! A dyke! A dyke! You and that stupid white lady. Nobody wants you. Nobody. That’s why my father disappeared and even the ugly guys didn’t come back. Nobody.” My words were hot and loud right in her face like tiny knives being thrown one right after the other, right into her eyes and instead of blood, there were tears.

  “Melanin, listen. You have to listen. You have to understand.” Tiny fragments of words, sentences I didn’t want to hear but she was holding tight to my wrists so I couldn’t break away.

  “Let me go, Mama! Just let me go!” But at the same time I was falling right onto her chest and blubbering like a baby because I knew everybody was going to know. Everyone. Then I was begging her, crying and begging, “Please, Mama. Please, Mama, be anything. But please don’t be a dyke.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kristin called at eight o’clock that night. I could tell it was her by her voice, all high and breathy and white. When she asked to speak to Mama, I told her to hold on. Then I hung up.

  I dialed Angie’s number. I was so angry, I couldn’t even feel myself being scared. But as soon as a woman answered, I hung up.

  A few minutes later, the phone rang again. I let it ring until Mama came out of her bedroom, where she’d been since we got back from the beach. Her eyes were puffy. I heard her say, “Hi,” her voice melting, then she was taking the phone into her bedroom, closing the door between us.

  I lay back on my bed, put my hands behind my head, and stared up at the ceiling. The dodo couldn’t fly. It was easy to catch that bird. Why couldn’t it fly? How come its bones were so heavy that it couldn’t lift off, away from predators? I wanted to fly, lift off away from everything. Away from dykes.

  When I was real little, if you wanted to make somebody mad you’d say something like, “Your mama wears combat boots.” And maybe that person would want to kick your behind. I never knew why that made a person so mad, just because his mother preferred certain kinds of shoes. I was dumb as a tree trunk when I was little. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

  I wish everybody’s mother was a dyke.

  I heard Mama murmuring softly to that Kristin woman. Then I heard her laugh. Kristin makes her laugh, I guess. I heard her say This is going to be hard and I felt my own self getting hard. Stupid, stupid me. It hurts sometimes when I get hard, like I’m going to explode down there. Angie. I think about her sometimes when I’m, you know. Her chest is pretty big. My thing started pushing against my bathing trunks. I tried to stop thinking about Angie’s breasts. Ralphael flashed across my brain. Stupid, stupid Ralphael. How come I’m thinking about him? Faggot. Angie. Angie. Angie. Mama and Kristin. Angie. If only my tongue hadn’t gotten all thick when that woman answered, maybe I’d be on my way over there now. Never even kissed a girl. I heard Mama cough and I moved my thing so that it no longer made my bathing trunks stick out. Girls can hide it. Sometimes, at lunch or something, I’ll get a hard-on and I can’t hide it. It feels like everybody is looking at it. I try to think about stuff that’ll make it go away. Sometimes I think about birds. Sometimes I think about the homework I didn’t do and the teacher that’s going to scream holy murder because I didn’t do it. That usually makes it go away. In the future, I’ll probably think of this day with Mama and how she tried to ruin the rest of my life.

  I watched the sun go down. First it ducked behind a cloud, then it came back out again. The house was growing dark. Mama was still talking to Kristin. I thought about getting up and making some dinner, then changed my mind. My stomach was filled up with something already. I didn’t know what that something was, but it felt like it was all over me, filling me and crawling on me and making me itch. I heard Mama sniff. Then she coughed and sniffed again. I heard her say I love you, and something inside of me shut down, went stone-cold. Goose bumps broke out over my arms and legs. I shivered, turned to the window, and pressed my head against the windowpane. Maybe Mama hated men. Maybe she hated me.

  People say Ms. Brown, the girls’ gym teacher, is a dyke. She wears running clothes all the time and her hair is pretty short. She kind of looks like a guy, if you ask me, which makes me think Mama is different. She doesn’t look anything like Ms. Brown. Mama’s pretty. She was making a mistake about Kristin. They were just friends, that’s all. And maybe ’cause she hadn’t had a good friend in a long time, she got it all confused.

  The sun moved a little, then dropped, and the sky went all orange before it faded. Then all the shadows that had been dancing on my wall melted into a big gray one. I heard Mama moving around and I knew she was in there getting ready for bed. I climbed under the sheet and closed my eyes. Maybe I’d wake up tomorrow and this would be a dumb dream. Maybe it never really happened like this.

  Mama, I wanted to say. Can you please open your door so we can be a family again?

  SOUND

  It’s raining again. Seems like it’s been raining every day since that day on the beach. That was two weeks ago. Seems like . . . like yesterday.

  EC just left. These days she just says, “
I’ll be back, later.” Then she is gone. And the sound of the door closing—it’s like the sound of somebody getting punched hard in the stomach—and then the house is empty and airless.

  I’m scared the whole world’s going to know. Maybe it already does.

  Yesterday, I was shooting hoops by myself, in the empty park, in the rain, not even counting. Listening to the sound of the wet ball hitting the backboard, bouncing down on the wet pavement. And the squishing of my sneakers. All that mattered yesterday was sound, all the different kinds I could make. Sound. Even silence has a sound. It makes me think of how it must be to be dead, in a closed-in, airless, satin-lined coffin with your hands folded across a Bible and a cross on your chest.

  Everybody but me and Mama died before I was born. That’s what she tells me. Grandfathers and uncles and aunts, all gone. What if she dies a dyke?

  What if a fire happens and all my notebooks burn? Then what will I have? Lots and lots and lots of silence. Nobody knowing that I ever was.

  I feel like my heart is broken.

  Chapter Nine

  On Saturday, Mama left the house early, without so much as saying good-bye. I lay in bed with my hands behind my head, staring up at the ceiling until her footsteps faded down the stairs. It was raining again. In the distance, I could hear thunder rolling low.

  In the bathroom, I left the lights off, stepping into the shower in the darkness. A thin stream of gray light filtered in through the tiny window above the bathtub. After a while, I could begin to see the outline of my arms. They seemed skinnier.

  I dressed quickly and left the house. It was too empty in there these days. All the silence was beginning to make me nauseous.