• • •
Kids in my neighborhood could create a toy or game out of anything. Rocks and a piece of chalk meant hopscotch. A piece of string became a game called Cat’s Cradle. A blank sheet of paper was folded into a Chinese fortune-teller. An old clothesline was a jump rope. A bag full of rubber bands became Chinese jump rope. I was not one to limit myself, so when I tired of playing with girls, I’d join the boys.
Though there was no shortage of raw materials ripe for the taking throughout the neighborhood, we sometimes kept our play simple. Hours were spent playing hide and seek, rock-paper-scissors, freeze tag, patty-cake and exploring. Of course the best places to explore were off-limits: abandoned buildings, rooftops and drainage ditches.
One of my favorite escapes was a place we kids called “the creek,” which was really just a small pond fed by an old metal culvert. At a time when there were still vestiges of nature in the city, the creek was hidden from the street in a depression surrounded by overgrown weeds and scraggly scrub brush. I spent a lot of time there with a ragtag gang of siblings and other stray kids from the neighborhood. We caught tadpoles and sold them for bait to the men in our neighborhood who liked to fish. The tadpoles were a penny each.
The creek was also the setting of one of the most epic dirt-rock battles in our neighborhood’s history. My siblings and I took up positions on the upper slopes of the dirt embankment leading down to the creek. Our less fortunate opponents had the far inferior position of defending the low ground. They were tasked with using scrub brush for shelter and throwing their dirt rocks uphill, despite the fact that they lacked the upper body strength to lob their missiles any farther than halfway up the slope. We, on the other hand, pummeled our opponents with a hailstorm of dirt clods reminiscent of a summer’s-night meteor shower. There was something very satisfying about the way the dirt clods exploded into dust when they made contact with a target. The battle raged on for twenty minutes before our opponents gave up and ran home, with us hot on their trail pelting them with dirt rocks the whole way.
But the real adventure at the creek was the culvert itself, which all the adults in the neighborhood warned us not to go into, which only made us want to go more. The bravest among us would usually only get in about fifteen feet. After that, what little light remained faded to total blackness. Inevitably, one of us would yell “Rat!” and that would send us all screaming back toward the entrance. One day we got serious and vowed to break the fifteen-foot barrier. We made a pact that we would follow the culvert wherever it led, no matter how long it took. We met at the creek with packs full of rope, our favorite toys, soda, Doritos and other essential survival gear.
The six of us—one of my sisters, my little brother and three friends from the neighborhood—arranged ourselves in a conga-line formation. Our cheery mood quickly deteriorated as we passed into complete darkness. Except for our rapid breathing and the occasional gasp at some imagined attack from a creepy-crawly, all was concentrated quiet. It felt like an eternity before we noticed a disk of brightness at the end of the tunnel. Someone yelled “Rat!” and we all surged forward, laughing and yelling triumphantly as we scrambled back into the light.
There were very few things that could tear us kids away from our play. Not beckoning mothers. Not grumbling tummies. Not the threat of a whipping for being out past the time the streetlights came on. The most spirited rock fight, baseball game or jump rope competition, however, stopped on a dime when two vehicles rolled into the neighborhood: the Ice Cream Truck and the Bookmobile.
The tinny, out-of-tune serenade emanating from the ice cream truck sent every kid in the neighborhood scurrying home from the treetops, under bushes, abandoned lots, behind cars and street corners like cockroaches exposed to the light of day. “The ice cream man! The ice cream man!” could be heard up and down the street. Piggy banks were raided, parents were nagged, coins liberated from change purses. The collective blood pressure and stress level of the children in the neighborhood were dangerously elevated until a quarter found its way into a grubby little fist. Then there was a reverse mass migration out of houses as the now coin-bearing children raced to queue up outside of the ice cream truck, garishly decorated with a cornucopia of mouth-watering images of ice cream that included Drum Sticks, orange cream bars, sundae cones, Fudgsicles, Bomb Pops, rainbow snow cones and Neapolitan ice cream sandwiches (my favorite). After buying ice cream, we stood in a group slowly savoring our treats while regarding, with barely concealed contempt, the sad faces of the kids unable to get money for ice cream, who eyed us like hyenas on the fringe of a lion kill.
Another cause for excitement was the bimonthly visit from the bookmobile. Bookmobiles are mobile libraries designed to service communities without access to libraries. My love of reading can be directly attributed to my access to a bookmobile. I scoured the shelves for children’s books about the Greek and Roman gods, animals and dinosaurs. My fiction preferences leaned toward The Berenstain Bears, The Cat in the Hat, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Curious George and any of the Aesop fables. It was in the bookmobile that I discovered Ezra Jack Keats’s The Snowy Day. This book was a revelation because it was the first children’s book I ever read that featured a black child. His name was Peter, a pudgy, dark-skinned kid about my age dressed in a red jumpsuit, out in the hood exploring after the first snowfall of the season. Peter was a dude I could relate to. I checked the book out so often the librarian suggested I leave it for others to read. I’d eventually move on to other books but The Snowy Day would always be the first book that reflected who I was and what I felt as a small child growing up in the city.
• • •
My mother and father divorced eventually. My mother told me my father had been physically abusive and emotionally abusive even before they married, but she was too terrified to divorce him. She saw his imprisonment as the perfect opportunity to get out. After their divorce, my mother would go out partying with her friends a couple of weekends a month. I was never happy to see her getting dressed up in her tight, polyester, bell-bottom slacks and loose-flowing shirts with colors and patterns bold enough to be seen from space. I’d stand by pouting as she retrieved her wig, which was a glossy black helmet of hair indicative of the early Supremes. She’d preen in front of the mirror and spray the wig down with a thick coating of Aqua Net hairspray, which wreaked havoc on our lungs but got the wig as shiny as wet tar. Then she’d apply her makeup: a bit of red lipstick and black Maybelline eyeliner that she’d sharpen with a pocket knife and heat up with a match to the tip before tracing her upper and lower lids. Lastly she’d douse herself in the cloying sweet citrus aroma of Jean Naté perfume. While I enjoyed taking in the spectacle of her out-on-the-town routine, I didn’t like that it meant once Mama left, my eldest sister, Deborah, would be in charge.
Weekend nights normally meant we could stay up late and watch TV and play board games. These plans changed on the few occasions Mama was out and Deborah was in charge. Deborah was my mother’s favorite. She knew it and we knew it. This was made clear by the fact that they often giggled together in secret conversations; and when my mother went on errands, she always took Deborah. Deborah was even privy to the one thing nearly every child was denied access to: Grown Folks’ Business. Whenever my mother and her adult friends began to shift benign conversation about children, clothes and recipes into the realm of Grown Folks’ Business, which usually meant topics like sex, drugs, gossip or violence, we younger kids were banished to the outdoors while Deborah was allowed to stay. Her special privileges also included her word being taken above ours, riding shotgun, not having to do chores and taking charge whenever Mama wasn’t around.
Deborah had a leonine presence, with her golden skin and huge, perfectly spherical afro that seemed as pristine and impenetrable as a primeval forest. Her prison guard approach to babysitting was hated by all. As soon as the door clicked shut and the thock, thock, thock of Mama’s heels faded as she strolled across the concrete yard to her car, Deborah had a belt in
hand, which she used to back us into our room like a lion tamer. With backup from my sister Donna, her rule was absolute over us younger kids. She was quick to squash even the hint of rebellion with threats and violence. She’d demand we go to sleep as soon as our mother left at eight P.M. We balked. “But Night of the Living Dead is on tonight!” “Too bad!” We’d try to shame her into letting us stay up by screaming, “We ain’t your slaves!” to which she’d reply “Tonight you are!” She’d shut us in and threaten us with a beating if we so much as peeked through the keyhole.
But she wasn’t fooling us. We knew as soon as Mama was gone and we were banished to our room, fourteen-year-old Deborah and thirteen-year-old Donna would invite their friends over, which included boys. We’d hear them laughing and playing records all night. They’d always manage to get their friends out and the house back in order before Mama came home. No amount of tattling from us would convince my mother that Deborah was anything short of an angel. The special intimacy she shared with our mother could not be breached.
Deborah could make our mama laugh, real gut-busting laughs that brought tears to my mother’s eyes. They held whispered conversations on the couch with their heads nearly touching like girlfriends. In fact that’s how I viewed Deborah. Not as my mother’s daughter but as her friend. My mother’s relationship with the rest of us was cordial, friendly at times, but nothing that I ever felt was affectionate. There was a sense of duty to keep us clothed and fed but never kisses and hugs and I love you’s. Deborah never got that either, but when they were together I felt their emotional bond and it fed my own need for love just to witness it between them, even though I somehow knew I would never be on the receiving end of it. Despite her many children, I didn’t get the sense that my mother particularly enjoyed children. There was tolerance, and every once in a while surrender to her predicament, but never joy.
Only once did I ever see my mother look on me with pride. A neighbor, distressed by my tomboy appearance, decided to dress me up and press my hair straight. I sat in a metal folding chair in her kitchen and let her swipe a hot comb through my hair saturated in Crisco cooking oil. The stench of burning hair and smoke made my eyes water. She followed up the press with a curling iron. Then she had me put on one of her daughter’s dresses that she’d outgrown, a short white frilly thing that reminded me of something Shirley Temple would wear. When I stepped outside, it seemed the whole block was abuzz with my transformation. So much so that someone was sent to get my mother from her friend’s house up the street. She came with a group of her friends and they surrounded me. “She’s gorgeous, Mary!” “Mmm-hmm! A doll!” My mother never said a word. She just looked at me, her eyes wide and a big smile on her face. A smile that told me she was proud and I was beautiful. A look usually reserved for Deborah.
Despite our rivalry, Deborah was my idol. She was fearless, sassy, beautiful and widely admired at school. At the age of eleven, she was the Panther school’s first graduate and was the mistress of ceremonies at the 1974 graduation. In a white dress, she stepped up to the podium surrounded by the school director, her teachers and my uncle, and gave a speech in which she praised Wednesday field trips, her favorite classes (math and reading) and the instructors. She remarked that she was sad to be leaving the school but happy that her experiences would prepare her to overcome the evils of the racist public school system where she would complete her education. She was especially sad to leave her teachers who “are not just teachers as they are in some schools—they are also our comrades.” Later she brought the house down with a trombone solo of the song “Sunny” by Bobby Hebb. She was quoted in The Black Panther paper: “One of the most important things I have learned at the Institute is what freedom means . . .” When complimented on the confidence displayed by the graduating students, Ericka Huggins, the school director, would comment, “Our children are not afraid.” Between 1974 and 1977, three more of my sisters would graduate but none with the fanfare and promise of the first.
Soon after graduating and entering puberty, however, all traces of my confident, talented and intelligent sister began to fade. It seemed she’d peaked as an eleven-year-old graduate, and from that moment on, slowly wandered away from us. The first clear sign I saw that the fearless, free girl was in decline emerged when she came to pick me up at school three years after she graduated. An older boy from Deborah’s graduating class was picking on me. I had climbed a tree on the playground and when I tried to come down, he would whip my legs with a switch to prevent me.
I was relieved when I saw my sister approaching. “You gonna get it now. My big sister gonna beat yo’ ass!” The boy looked over his shoulder to watch Deborah’s approach. “Who? Her?” he said with a sneer. It had never occurred to me that everyone wasn’t afraid of Deborah. She was such a force in my family and at school, I’d assumed the mere mention of her name would send tsunamis of fear washing over anyone fool enough to mess with her or us.
He threw down the switch and turned his back on me, crouching in the bare branches of the oak, and turned his tormentor’s eye on my sister. “So you gonna beat my ass, hunh?” he said as he stood half a foot above my sister with his chest puffed up. For the first time I saw fear on my sister’s face. When she looked up at me in the tree, I could also make out shame. Shame that this boy was belittling her in front of me. “I asked you a question, bitch!” he shouted in her ear and then shoved her in the face, sending her pinwheeling backward and landing solidly on her backside. She sat there on the concrete as passive as a puppy, with her chin in her chest. “I didn’t think so!” he chuckled as he strutted off with a stiff-armed swagger.
That’s when I jumped from the tree and ran to help my sister up. She swiped me away and stood up. After she brushed her clothes off, she said, “Let’s go,” as if the hero of my life had not just been felled. Seeing my big sister vulnerable and afraid was as devastating as some other kid being told Santa Claus isn’t real. She saw my disappointment, so she tried to play it off by telling me the boy was lucky she didn’t feel well or she would have cracked his head. But her bravado did little to repair what had been shattered. We walked the last few blocks home in silence. I didn’t know it then, but Deborah wouldn’t be the first girl I’d see lose her power after entering young womanhood. I made a promise to myself as I walked home with my big sister that I’d never let anyone make me feel small. The years would teach me it was easier said than done.
CHAPTER 3
THE YEAR 1977 was one of big change. My father was released from prison, though I wouldn’t lay eyes on him for several weeks until one day he showed up unexpectedly at my school. I was playing dodgeball when I noticed the school principal, Ericka Huggins, leading a man across the yard then tapping the man on the shoulder and pointing in my direction. I knew him immediately even though the last time I had seen him, seven years earlier, I was three years old. He was wearing a black leather jacket and tan slacks with creases sharp enough to slice bread. His hair was trimmed short and he was smiling. Smiling at me! My classmates gathered around me to see what I was staring at. “Who’s that?” someone asked. “That’s my daddy!” I said, puffed up with pride. Then I ran to him and he scooped me up in his strong arms. “How’s my baby?” he asked over and over again, with his face in my neck, squeezing me so hard I could hardly breathe but I hoped he’d never stop. I couldn’t believe he was back and he was mine.
He spent the rest of recess watching me play. To have him there so handsome and well respected felt like being the daughter of a rock star. I without a doubt had the coolest daddy in the city and I wanted everyone to know it. After recess he kissed me good-bye and promised to come see me at home the next night.
Mama had us all take a shower and put on clean clothes in preparation for Daddy’s visit. She’d spent the day cleaning the house and rearranging the furniture in the living room. After five different configurations of our humble furniture, she seemed satisfied. She then changed into one of her muumuus, a floor-length floral dress that she
told us was worn by women in Hawaii. Next she hit the kitchen and within a few hours had a big pot of gumbo with sausage, chicken, crab legs and shrimp simmering on the stove next to a large pot of white rice.
When Daddy knocked on the door, we four youngest kids all surged forward wanting desperately to be the first to let Daddy in. I got elbowed and shoved and gave as well as I got. Before a full-on riot erupted, Mama shooed us out of the way and opened the door herself. Daddy kissed Mama briefly on the cheek before turning his light on us. He bent to kiss us all even though he was burdened with two large heavy-looking bags, which he gave to us. It took two of us to carry one bag, which we carted off to the kitchen. The bags contained milk, eggs, flour and sacks of sugar. We squealed like we’d never seen groceries before and thanked our daddy over and over.
He laughed and let us take turns sitting next to him. My two oldest sisters, Deborah and Donna, seemed cautiously happy as they sat to themselves on the other side of the room answering our father’s inquiries about school and life with one-word declarations. Now that he was back, he told Mama, he was gonna take us to spend time with him. He’d gotten an apartment near Lake Merritt so we could even spend the night on weekends. This announcement sent us into near paroxysms of joy. Then Mama asked Daddy to help her move the coffee table against the wall, freeing up the center of the room—which could only mean dancing! Mama put some music on the record player, blasting “Car Wash” by Rose Royce, “Boogie On, Reggae Woman” by Stevie Wonder, and our favorite,”Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas, as we kids formed a Soul Train line and shuffled across the living room in front of Daddy. We got down with the Funky Chicken and the Robot, anything that would garner praise from our father, who’d cheer us on from the sidelines with “Aw, sooky sooky!” “Look out now!” “You outta sight!” “Get down wit da boogie!”
The Lost Daughter: A Memoir Page 3
