Love and Peace,
Lonnie
Dear Lili,
Today I got to see Jenkins. He wheeled himself out of the room and scared me like crazy. I didn’t know he was there and when I turned around, he was just sitting in the doorway in his wheelchair. He was wearing a pair of boxing shorts. There’re bandages on his left leg—I mean, on what’s left of it. Jenkins just stared at me and I tried not to stare at that leg. I told him my name was Lonnie and he said, I know that. You the boy, right? I nodded because I figured he meant I’m the foster boy Miss Edna took in. He told me to get him some water and when I went to fill up a glass, my hand was shaking. When I brought it back to Jenkins, he drank it real fast and asked for another one. But when I got back from the kitchen with the other glass of water, he’d already gone back into his room. I didn’t want to go in there, so I just dumped the water in the sink, rinsed the glass and
put it in the drain. My hands were shaking the whole time.
Love and Peace,
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
Sometimes in the night, Jenkins starts yelling and Miss Edna and Rodney go running in there to try to calm him down. Last night he yelled, They’re out there, Mike. I know they’re out there. I don’t know who Mike is or who is out where. Last night, after Jenkins calmed down, I tried to go back to sleep. I used to scream like that, Lili. Right after the fire, I’d wake up screaming because I saw the flames and everything. But the screaming went away. It took a long time though. I wonder how long it’s gonna take for Jenkins.
I hope you sleep peacefully, Lili.
Love,
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
Tonight I heard a real sad conversation. I wasn’t supposed to be listening. I was supposed to be watching television. I don’t usually get to watch TV on weeknights, but I got a ninety-seven on my world history test and Miss Edna said I could either have an extra dessert or watch TV for an hour. We had ice cream for dessert and one bowl was enough for me, so I said I wanted to watch TV. While I was watching it, Miss Edna was cleaning up the kitchen and I saw Jenkins go wheelchairing past the living room. I turned the TV down a bit. Jenkins hadn’t ate dinner with us. Usually he eats in his room and then brings his plate into the kitchen after me, Miss Edna and Rodney are finished. But Rodney was at a class and so it was just me and Miss Edna tonight. I heard Miss Edna ask Jenkins how he was doing and I heard Jenkins’s voice get all broke sounding, so I knew he was crying. Miss Edna was telling him to let it out. Let all the tears you have in you come on out, she kept saying. It’s good. It’s okay. When I used to cry a lot from remembering the fire, Miss Edna would say the same thing to me. Then Jenkins said, I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry I’m broken down like this and can’t help you out like I’d hoped to. I heard Miss Edna say, The way you helped me out was by coming home alive, honey. You could tell she was trying to get him to believe her, but Jenkins was still crying. Neither one of them said anything for a while and all I could hear was Jenkins breathing real heavy from all the crying he was doing. Then he said, This wasn’t the dream I had, Mama. Miss Edna said, This wasn’t the dream none of us had, but it’s our lives now and we need to be living it, sweetie. We need to be living it.
I turned the television back up and stopped listening after that. Tomorrow is Saturday and I’m going to get to see you. Miss Edna said if we wanted to go to the park, her and your foster mama will take us. I think we should ask them if we could take a walk just me and you around that loop by the lake where no matter how far away from them we get, they can still see us. And while we’re walking, I’m going to ask you lots of questions about your life. I want to make sure you’re living it, Lili. Make sure you’re living it.
Peace,
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
The military sends different people by to see Jenkins. On Tuesdays, it’s the guy that’s gonna help him use his new leg when he finally gets it. Sometimes he’s still here when I get home and he tells Jenkins he needs to be up trying to use his crutches. But Jenkins just tells him his leg still hurts and what’s the use anyway. Sometimes I get home from school just in time to see the guy leaving. Jenkins hasn’t tried to use his crutches, but the guy still comes back every week.
On Wednesdays, it’s a social-worker lady who comes by to talk to Jenkins about the war. Today, she was here when I got home from school. Her voice is real soft, so most times, I can’t hear her words—just the soft sound her voice makes. They were in Jenkins’s room and I heard him tell her he didn’t want to talk about what happened over there. I heard the lady’s voice sounding kind, then
Jenkins said, I just want to forget. I’m home now. I just want to forget.
It’s strange how there’s all this stuff I’m trying to remember now and all that stuff Jenkins is trying to forget.
Peace, Lili.
Lonnie
Dear Lili,
Today Clyde came over and ate two big bowls of spaghetti with meat sauce, two bananas, an orange, three chocolate chip cookies and six crackers. Clyde’s skinnier than anything, so I don’t know where he puts all that food. Miss Edna watched him put away the spaghetti and she just smiled. She said he might be a slip of a thing now, but later on, his muscles are going to remember that food and just sneak up on him. That made me eat another bowl of spaghetti because I wouldn’t mind having some muscles sneak up on me too. Jenkins came wheeling real fast into the kitchen and yelled, Nobody’s sneaking up on us! His eyes were real wild. Clyde jumped up out of his seat and that made Jenkins scream. Miss Edna started singing, “Seize upon that moment long ago. One breath away and there you will be, so young and carefree . . .” Over and over, real soft and slow, until Jenkins calmed down and just dropped his head to his chest.
I felt real bad for him and started to get up and go touch his shoulder even though I was still scared of that missing leg. But Miss Edna saw me and shook her head and put her fingers to her lips. Jenkins whispered, I’m sorry, Mama. I’m so sorry. Clyde’s eyes were wide, watching him.
Lili, I thought about your singing in church and how when I was sitting there listening to it, it felt like someone had put a warm blanket over me. How it made me feel all safe and protected from everything. I looked at Jenkins and real soft started singing a song Mama used to sing to us at night about walking in fields of gold and remembering stuff. Then I felt bad because I was singing a song about walking and Jenkins can’t walk, but he looked up at me then. At first it looked like he was mad—that he thought I was making fun of him. But then, guess what, Lili? Jenkins smiled. Then Miss Edna was smiling and Clyde too. Remember when I told you there was peace in the music, Lili? It’s true.
Love,
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
Today me and Angel and Eric and Clyde were all hanging out in the school yard because Alina gave us a math problem and said, I know you all don’t like to do math on your lunch break, but if just one student gets this problem right, cupcakes for everyone. Angel’s the best at math. Next comes Clyde. Me and Eric aren’t good at all, but Eric likes to try stuff. Before Lamont moved away, Eric used to copy off his math tests and he’d get real good marks. But now he gets forties like me. But guess what? We stood in that school yard with that math problem written on Angel’s notebook and all of us trying to figure it out for like the whole period, and then, right before the bell rang, Eric said, Yo! I got it! I’m not going to try to explain the whole math problem to you, because even when Eric explained it, I didn’t understand the whole thing, but he seemed real
sure. So Angel gave him a funny look but wrote down Eric’s answer anyway, since he was the only one who had an answer. Then the bell rang and we went back inside and Angel gave Alina the paper. When she asked which one of us got the answer right, she looked at me like she was hoping it was me, but I pointed to Eric and her smile got big. Eric looked embarrassed, but he just shrugged, and at the end of the day, Alina gave us all cupcakes and everybody told Eric how glad
they were that he’d got the problem right. Eric looked like he’d just won a million dollars with all the smiling he was doing. The cupcakes were vanilla with chocolate frosting. I ate mine real slowly. I was thinking, It’s cool that Eric doesn’t need Lamont anymore to copy math from. But I still need all the help I can get.
Love, your brother who’s not
good at math,
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
Today is Tuesday. When I got home from school, Jenkins was in the living room watching TV. I tried not to look at what’s left of his leg but my eyes kept sliding over to it. Jenkins was watching a game show where a bunch of people were trying to win a million dollars. When I came in, he jumped in his wheelchair. Then, when he saw it was just me, he went back to watching TV. I took my stuff to my room and then came back and sat on the couch. For a little while, we just watched the show together without saying anything. Miss Edna came in from the kitchen and gave me two chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk. I said thank you and offered Jenkins one of the cookies. He looked at me for a second, then took both of them. Then he smiled and put one back on my plate and said, Gotcha! That made me smile. When Jenkins smiles, I can see the old Jenkins inside of him. The Jenkins that’s in the pictures. But he doesn’t smile that much.
After the millionaire show went off, another
game show came on. Jenkins asked if I’d get him another cookie, so I went in the kitchen. Miss Edna whispered, He doing okay? And I said yeah. She gave me two more cookies. When I came back into the living room, the TV was off and Jenkins was just staring out the living room window. We ate our cookies without saying anything, then Jenkins asked me if I missed my people. At first, I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but then I realized he was asking about you and Mama and Daddy. I shrugged and Jenkins said shrugging doesn’t mean anything because it means too many things, so I whispered yeah. Jenkins kept staring out the window. You’ve had a hard life, huh? he said. It wasn’t really a question, so I didn’t answer it. Jenkins said every time somebody thinks they’ve had a hard life, they come along and meet somebody whose life’s been just a little bit harder. He turned his whole wheelchair around so that he was looking right at me. Mama says you’re a real good kid, he said. I shrugged, but then I didn’t want him to think that was all I did, so I said, That’s cool. Jenkins said, Yeah, cool.
Peace, Lili.
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
This morning when I woke up, the sun was out. And when I opened the kitchen window, the air coming in wasn’t so cold anymore. While I stood at the window breathing in the almost-warm air, Jenkins came into the kitchen. He said what’s up, and I said what’s up, then he wheeled his chair to the kitchen table where Miss Edna had left him a plate of waffles and eggs and started eating.
I sat across from him and started eating my own breakfast. Jenkins dropped his fork and I bent down to get it for him and couldn’t help but stare at his half leg, sitting there under the table with his whole one. I’d read a story where the guy lost his leg but he still felt like it was there and sometimes he’d get up at night thinking he still had two legs and try to walk across the room and fall down. Jenkins must have known I was down there staring because he said, It ain’t coming back. I got up real fast, rinsed his fork off for him and handed it back. But I didn’t say anything. Jenkins poured syrup on his waffles, took a bite and chewed real slowly. After he swallowed, he said, But I’m alive. And that’s supposed to be what matters.
I told him Miss Edna’s real glad to have him home. He said she’s his mama so she’s supposed to be glad. We’re all glad, I said. Jenkins stared at me for a long time. His looking at me that way made me nervous, so I went back to eating. Then he asked how come I was glad when I didn’t even know him. I didn’t know what to say because I wanted to say I do know you but I didn’t.
I just kept eating my breakfast. ’Cause you were over there fighting for us, I said. And your mama said you don’t even like fighting. Jenkins said, Nobody should be over there fighting, you know that, right? I shrugged because I didn’t know what to think about the war anymore. At school, some of the kids talked about how great it was and how we were winning and all. But Clyde said it wasn’t a good war, that we didn’t even need to be in it but we were. And then every day there were news reports about people dying or coming home like Jenkins. The other day, Miss Edna was reading a news article and there were all these letters from guys who had died. Some of them knew they were gonna die and other ones were just talking about how scared they were over there. One guy wrote, Things explode all around me and every time something explodes somebody dies. I wonder when it’s gonna be my turn. And the next week, the article said, he was dead. I said to Jenkins, I don’t know about everybody else but I know I don’t like fighting. He asked me why not, and I said, I just don’t, that’s all.
Yeah, Jenkins said. I just don’t either, Li’l Bro.
Jenkins finished his breakfast, then rolled himself away from the table. He took both his hands and lifted his half leg up. He still had his thigh and maybe his knee, but that part was all covered with bandages, so I wasn’t sure. When he lifted it up, he made a face like it hurt.
I could hear Rodney in the bathroom singing, “On top of Old Smoky . . .”
A building fell on it, Jenkins said like I’d asked him how he lost it or something. He was looking at his leg but he was talking to me. I know you been wondering. I asked him if it hurt a lot. Only now, he said. When it happened, I passed out. By the time I was halfway conscious again, the leg was gone. He put it down again and massaged his bandaged knee. It was like something right out of The Wizard of Oz. Then he looked at me and smiled. It was a nice smile—real peaceful like in those pictures of him from back in the day. I guess I’m not the Wicked Witch though, because then that building would have landed on my whole body, huh? I smiled then. You get a medal when you lose a part of your body, Jenkins said. Not like I can pin that medal to my knee and get up and walk again though. He said after they give you the medal, you get to go home. In my head I was thinking about what Clyde said—about how the people over there get all used up. I didn’t want Jenkins to be all used up. I wanted him to be one hundred percent Jenkins again.
Rodney came into the kitchen, but Jenkins didn’t see him because his back was to the kitchen door. Rodney said what’s up and Jenkins jumped in his wheelchair and Rodney apologized to him, then came over and gave Jenkins a quick what’sup hug. He gave me one too. Rodney was wearing his work clothes and smelled like cologne. One time I took some of it and wore it to school and all the girls said I smelled like a cologne factory and I needed to figure out how to wear that stuff so I didn’t smell up the whole school. Rodney poured himself some coffee and asked Jenkins what his plan for the day was. I’m going for a run, Jenkins said. Then he looked at me and winked. You still think you funny, Jenks, Rodney said. But you could tell he was happy to hear Jenkins cracking a joke.
This kid is cool, Jenkins said, pointing to me.
You think I don’t know that? Rodney said. All the living me and him been doing.
They both looked at me. I looked down at my plate and smiled real big.
Peace, Lili.
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
Some days, Rodney is the student teacher for third-graders at P.S. 377 on the other side of Brooklyn. He said the kids in his school are nice but sometimes they get real crazy. Rodney’s real patient, so I bet the kids like him. And he’s patient when he’s trying to teach you something, so I bet the kids are learning a whole lot. Tonight I was in the living room doing my homework when he got home and he asked me if I needed any help. I told him I didn’t because for the first time in a long time, I understood all my homework! Man, Rodney said, I’m useless around here! He went into the kitchen and Miss Edna asked him how was his day. I heard him say, It is what it is, Mama, then I heard the refrigerator door open and close and Rodney came back in the living room with a ginger ale.
Jenkins wheeled himself into the living room. He was wearing a white T-shirt and some new-looking jeans and had a book on his lap. Rodney saw him and asked him what it was. Then Jenkins told him the name of the book and started telling him what it was about. Rodney sat down on the couch and they talked back and forth about the book and I could tell that when they were teenagers, they probably did this kind of talking all the time. It was a grown-up novel about a boy who grows up with a mean stepfather or something. I wasn’t that interested in the book, so I went back to my homework. But I liked the way their voices sounded, kind of quiet, just going back and forth. Miss Edna was making beef stew and the whole house smelled good. Rodney asked Jenkins how his leg was doing. Jenkins said, I don’t know, it ain’t here anymore. I thought he was mad but then they both started laughing. Miss Edna came out of the kitchen and asked what all the laughing was about and Rodney said, I don’t know, Mama. You the one who said sometimes you gotta laugh to keep from crying. And Jenkins said, And sometimes you just gotta laugh.
Peace, Locomotion Page 6
