“She’s not on the pill. We were trying this natural Rhythm Method thing she read about.”
What smart girl who’s having sex is not on the pill? I don’t say this to him because this is not the time to speak against Michelle. “Well, whatever, but you could still be jumping the gun.” And since he doesn’t question whether or not the baby is his, I don’t bring it up either. There is no sense adding doubt to his problems.
He looks up at me and, for the first time this morning, I don’t see the dull cast of worry in his eyes. The corners of his mouth are slightly up, and the beginnings of a smile can be seen.
“What?” I ask.
“No, she’s pregnant. I know it for sure. We do it all the time. We can’t sit next to each other without getting excited, and she’s just as bad as me,” he says fully smiling.
That’s funny. His smile and the sun come out at the same time. Either the clouds moved or the bus dove into the sunlight, because suddenly the sun has filled the bus and the sidewalks outside. I like sunny days even if they are cold like this one. It’s hard for people to be gloomy with the sun shining.
“Do you love her?” I can tell he thinks he does.
He doesn’t answer me right away, which I was expecting. He is actually thinking before he answers. This should be good.
“I didn’t think so until last night. After we spent all that time together trying to figure out what to do about her being pregnant. It was like love and concern for her well-being overtook me.”
“Oh, so all you and her did last night was try to figure out what to do about her being pregnant?”
“I’m not saying that is all we did.” He’s not only smiling, but I see a little twinkle in his eyes. He’s feeling better. “But it was a big part of the evening. I don’t want her hurt by all of this. I’ll do anything to make her happy and keep her safe. Yeah, I love her.”
“Damn, yesterday you were going to dump her because you thought she was bald-headed.”
“Yeah, that’s how I was acting, but no way. You know I got to keep up my hard guy image around you, but after I found out Michelle was carrying my baby, all my faking stopped.”
“Hard guy? Why you feel like you got to have a hard guy image around me?”
“Because you hard, May. I have never seen you trip over a guy. You go through dudes. Walter is crazy about you. He’ll do whatever you tell him just to be around you, and you don’t give a damn about him. At least you act like you don’t, you hard girl.”
The bus hits a bump, and both our butts are jarred up from the plastics seats.
“I am not hard. Walter will do anything for any girl who shows him the slightest attention. It’s not me Walter loves. He loves sex. Like most boys.” Carlos included. He is in lust, not love. Michelle is the first girl to give him some regularly, but if he thinks he is in love who am I to try to change his mind? His current situation requires him to think he is in love. If she is pregnant, I hope he stays with her.
“Why did you do it with Walter anyway? I mean I asked you to go out with him just to be nice. I didn’t think you would have sex with him.”
“That’s why I did it with him. If he told anyone they wouldn’t believe him.”
“Don’t you care anything about him?”
“No. I like him as a person and all, but that’s it. He’s not fine enough, and he’s not cool enough.”
“But you gave him your virginity?”
“I had to do it with somebody. I was ready, and Walter was there. I was tired of being a virgin.” And I was. “I wanted to experience the act. You’d done it. Every girl at Calumet I talked to had done it. Holy, saved, and sanctified Edith had even done it. I hear my mama doing it and, believe it or not, Walter had done it a couple of times too. After I got the birth control pills, it was time.”
“Didn’t you think your virginity was something special?” He is looking at me like his shoes are hurting his feet, bad.
“What was special for me was being able to make a clear decision on when I was going to do it. I didn’t want it to be a love-crazed action. I wanted to be rational, and I was. It was time, I was ready to move past being a virgin, and I didn’t want to wait for love, so I went with safe.”
“What about the old guy? Do you care about him?”
“His name is Samuel and, nope, not really. He says he loves me, though, which is how it’s supposed to be. The boy should be head over heels for me.”
“See, that’s why I say you’re hard.”
“Why does a girl who thinks have to be hard? Why do sex and love have to go together for girls? My mama doesn’t love any of the men she dates and nothing horrible has happened to her. She thinks with her head, not her heart. Tell me, is Michelle hard?”
“No, she loves me. She told me that weeks ago.”
“So, because I don’t love Walter and had sex with him that makes me hard?”
“It’s not just Walter, May. No guy has gotten close to you. That’s what makes you hard.”
“So, Michelle gave you her virginity because she loves you?”
“I would like to think that.”
“But you took it without loving her.”
“It’s different for guys. We got to have sex or else we will go crazy.”
“But, you said she likes to do it as much as you. Why does she have to be in love to want to do it? Why does a girl have to be in love to lose her virginity, but it’s okay for a guy to lose his just because he’s horny? Did you love the girl who you lost your virginity to?”
“No, I was just happy to get some.”
“That’s my point exactly! And I was happy to get some too, and so was Michelle. Girls like getting some too!”
“But good girls wait for love, May.”
“Or, they tell good boys they are in love when they just be happy to get some.”
“Michelle loves me.”
“I’m not saying she doesn’t. What I’m saying is I’m not hard because I made my decision with my head instead of my heart. Are guys in love soft?”
“No.”
“Then why am I hard because I am not in love and enjoy sex?”
“Because that’s the rules.”
“Only for small-minded people. I love you. Should I have had sex with you?”
“That’s nasty. Don’t say that.”
I lean all up against him and whisper in his ear, “Come on, let’s go do it because we love each other.”
He pushes me against the window. “You crazy, and you are twisting around what is normal and what good people do.”
The bus is across the street from the bank. “Oh, we are here.”
“No, wait ’til the bus goes around back.”
“No, we got to go to the bank first. I need to open an account. Come on.”
I press the gray rubber strip between the windows to request a stop. The driver stops right in front of the bank. As we exit from the back door, I say, “They got a motel down the street,” and slap him on his butt.
“Stop it!” he yells and runs up the stairs of the bank.
* * *
As we sit at the new accounts desk, Carlos’s mouth drops open when I pull out my bankroll and hand the white lady with blue hair $160. The lady suggests a savings account, and I agree. She takes the money and leaves us at the desk.
“Dude did give you the money. I forgot all about it with everything else that’s going on. May, you better be careful. I’m telling you, men don’t give that kind of money without trying to lay claim. He thinks you his.”
“He can think what he wants.” I decide to really go to the Plaza instead of having Samuel pick us up. I want to spend time alone with Carlos. He needs me.
The blue-haired lady returns with a passbook and forms to fill out for a cash-station card. I say no to the card. My plan is to put money in the bank, not take it out.
* * *
Inside the Plaza shopping mall, we are having a ball. Carlos has relaxed, I can tell, because he’s talking abo
ut badly dressed people, fat people, and ugly people. He’s got me laughing, and he’s laughing with me. He even goes into the women’s undergarment section with me to help me pick out a couple of sets for Mama and myself. He asks me to loan him some money so he can get Michelle a set. I give him the money and tell him to not even think about paying me back.
I buy him a pair of jeans and two cheap sweaters. Things are going good until Ms. Carol calls my cell phone demanding to speak to him. He talks to her, hangs up with her, and says, “It’s time to go home and face the music.”
An idea came to me while we were buying his jeans. Standing outside waiting for the bus I share it with him: “Why doesn’t Michelle go to Ohio State too? She’s planning on going to college, right? I hear about girls with babies getting all types of scholarships and stuff to go to school. She won’t be the first college freshman with a baby. I bet if you two look into it you will find a way.” I truly don’t think Michelle is the right girl for him, but he does, and they are going to have a baby, so they should be together.
Carlos looks at me like I am a genius and he hugs me. “That’s it. Yeah. She was going to go to school in New Jersey. Why not go to Ohio? With the baby, I bet she can get financial aid wherever she goes. We have been thinking the baby would be the end of everything. Why not go to school with a child? And why not go together? You right, people do it all the time. Now I got a plan to offer Mama and Michelle’s parents. A man makes a plan.” He squeezes me tighter. “Girl, what would I do without you?”
I don’t think the idea is all that, but I accept his accolades. When people are involved in a mess, they can’t see clear or past the situation they are in. It takes somebody on the outside of the chaos to see the obvious, and that’s what friends are for.
When the bus gets to Damon Avenue, I tell Carlos, “I’m getting off on Ashland. I’m going down to see Mr. Pickens about the job.” The idea to go see him just popped in my head, but it’s a good idea. I miss the theater.
“Really? Cool. Don’t talk to him about me. Did you notice he didn’t say anything about me working there? He’s pissed at me.”
“Well, you are screwing his daughter and he knows it. So, yeah, I think he might be a little pissed with you.”
“Yeah, but I got a plan now.”
“If she’s pregnant.” And I hope she’s not. “Good luck,” I say getting up for Ashland with my bags in tow. When I look back at him, he is looking out of the window, and the worried expression has returned to his face. I get off the bus.
The Ashland bus is crowded, but I get a seat right behind the driver next to a little boy around five or six. He has on a light blue parka, gloves, a hat, and dark blue boots.
“Hey,” he says to me.
“Hey,” I say back.
“What did you buy? I bet you went to the Plaza.”
“I did go to the Plaza. I bought some T-shirts and stuff.”
“It’s wintertime. Why did you buy T-shirts?”
“To wear under my clothes.”
“Oh, yeah, to keep warm. My granny bought me this coat to keep warm. She sent it to me in the mail. She lives in Minnesota with my auntie. I’m catching to bus to Sixty-ninth Street. My daddy is going to be there waiting for me. I can catch the bus by myself because I am big boy, and my mama knows the bus driver, Mr. Jacobs. Do you know him?”
“No, but he looks nice.”
“He is, but he is mean to drunk people. He threw a drunk man off the bus last Saturday, and it was cold outside. I felt sorry for the man, but he kept cursing, and there were old people on the bus, so Mr. Jacobs threw him off. You ain’t supposed to curse around old people, but I don’t curse anyway. Do you curse?”
“Nope.”
“Good. My mama took me to the Plaza to get these boots because my others ones got too small. She gave them to my sister. They are yellow so she can wear them. These new ones are blue for boys, so she won’t be able to wear these when they get too small. My mama says my feet grow like weeds, but weeds don’t grow in the winter. My daddy got black boots, and they are big. I can put my two feet in one of them. Where are your boots?”
“At home in my closet.”
“Yo’ mama let you wear gym shoes in the winter catching the bus?”
I start laughing. “Well, when you get as old as I am you can pick what you want to wear.”
“I’ma still wear my boots in the winter, like my daddy.”
“Well, that’s because you are a smart big boy.”
He grins.
The bus is crossing Eighty-seventh Street. The next stop is mine. “Good-bye, big boy.”
“Bye-bye.”
When I stand, the bus driver says, “He’s a mess, ain’t he?”
“He is,” I say, getting off the bus, smiling. Kids can be a blessing, is my thought.
* * *
The park field house is filled with kids. They are running through the halls and in and out of locker rooms. The gym is packed with basketball players and spectators. I follow the wall signs to the theater office. There was no theater office when we used to come up here. Everything happened in the gym.
Inside the office are three girls about my age and Mr. Pickens. He is giving directions to two of the girls.
“Nadine, I want you to work with the picketers today. They don’t quite have the concept of protesting for a purpose. They have the shouting down pat, but I want you to explain the passion of protesting. Explain to them that the picketers were there because they wanted change. They were tired of sitting at the back of the bus and being less than. I want these kids to understand why the protesters protested. They have to understand that protesting is more than shouting to be shouting. Create some passion in them. Understand?”
“You want me to get them mad about being Black in the sixties?”
“Yeah, sorta. I want you to tell them what people were mad about in the sixties. Tell them what being treated less than meant. Tell them what sitting at the back of the bus meant. Explain the loss of respect and civil rights. Get them angry.”
“Okay, I get it.”
“And, Tamika, you are working with the police today. I want you to make those kids understand that police were protecting their way of life. They viewed the black protestors as troublemakers. Threats to how they lived. They were used to black people having no civil rights, accustomed to treating them less then human, and they were angry because the Blacks were trying to force them to change. Understand?”
“I understand, but it wasn’t right, and it’s hard to show somebody how to act ignorant.”
Mr. Pickens laughs. “It’s acting, dear, it’s what we do. Now both groups are in meeting room one. They are waiting on y’all, so go teach.”
The two girls leave, leaving the third girl. I look at the remaining girl and grin. It’s Edith. She’s grinning too.
“He told me you would be here today.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mr. Pickens, when he called me this morning and told me about the job.”
Mr. Pickens walks behind his small desk and sits. “Okay, now. I have two good actresses coming back to share their craft. Aren’t I the lucky fellow?” He’s smiling, big.
“We only get the park space on Monday nights and Saturday afternoons. On Tuesday afternoons we are at the theater. The job requires you to be at all three sessions for two to three hours. Closer to three. The pay is two hundred every two weeks, and I will work you extremely hard. Still interested?”
We both say, “Yes.”
“Great! Okay, you are both working one on one as acting coaches with the two stars. You will help them with their lines, delivery technique, and voice pitch. And they are ten-year-olds.”
“Ten-year-olds!” we both say.
“Yes, ten-year-olds. Experienced ten-year-olds. One is playing a freedom leader, and the other is playing the part of a state trooper. Both are watching the Langston Hughes play this afternoon, so you won’t meet them until Monday.”
He
hands us each a folder with our names labeled on them and says, “Your tax forms and the play are inside. Your star’s lines have been highlighted. Study the whole play and know your star’s part by Monday. See ya then.” He picks up the phone and starts dialing without a good-bye. We leave.
Outside, walking home, Edith says, “It might be fun.”
“Yeah, it will be. But for two hundred twice a month, I don’t care if it’s not.”
“You’re right. I could use the money.”
“Me too. How are things at Calumet?”
“The same, May. You are not missing a thing.”
“And church?”
“Whew, we are doing things there. The pastor gives two services on Sundays now, and ushers have to be at both services.”
I drop the folder into one of my bags because I don’t like having both of my hands full. Things happen in our neighborhood, especially to people carrying bags with their hands full.
“How do you like the new school?”
“It’s cool. So, you know my friend, Samuel?”
“Who?”
We stop because a pit bull has broken away from the man walking him. The man whistles and the pit bull turns and runs back to him.
“The guy you told Carlos about. The one who went to prom with two girls.”
“Oh, that dog. I don’t know him, but one of the girls he took to a prom goes to my church. She told me about going to a prom with a guy who had another girl with him. I thought the story was funny, so I told Carlos, and he said he thinks it is the same guy you are dating. The guy in the story, his people owned a bus company too. That’s why Carlos thinks it is the same guy. So what’s up with the guy?”
“I don’t know yet, not really, but I like how things are going. He is so smooth.” And we both start laughing.
“Just be careful,” she says and looks away.
“I will. What’s going on with you and dudes?”
“Nothing, and I mean nothing. I want a God-fearing boyfriend, a man who loves the Lord like I do. But, all I am meeting are boys who love sex. When I tell them I am a church girl, they run, and they run fast.” She laughs, and I listen. “But, honestly, right now in my life, between church and school and now this new job, boys can wait.”
Mama's Girl Page 8
