Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writing Part 36

Camille hated when Pep talked crazy.

"What he needs is a job," she said.

"You gonna give him one? There's kids out here with good records can't find no work."

"Maybe I could pay him a little something to do odd jobs around the house."

The minute the words left her mouth Camille knew she had stumbled upon a truly bad idea. For the eight years since her husband died, she had been saving fifty dollars a month, stuffing it in an envelope taped to the underside of her bedroom bureau. Her job at the rectory paid two hundred dollars a week. Social Security would pay only half of that. She would have to subsidize her retirement with money from the envelope. She didn't have any money to pay Nicholas.

"You know," Pep was saying, "the two of us should put our a.s.sets together. We should start a little business."

"What a.s.sets?" Camille retorted. She had no more interest in going into business with Pep than she had in getting into his truck again.

"You with your beauty and brains. Me with my green thumb." He was smiling.

"You had a little business. What happened to it?" She wasn't in the mood.

"Minority-owned and everything. Just couldn't get those big contracts!" Pep shook his head. He climbed out of the truck and came around and opened her door.

"Where's a criminal when you need him?" he sighed. "Gotta get that grandson of yours to steal me a new vehicle!"

He threw back his head and laughed. Camille stared at him long and hard. He was not particularly handsome. His teeth were yellow; a couple of them were missing. His beard was badly in need of a trim. His eyes were bloodshot, even though he had stopped drinking a couple of years ago. But unlike Nicholas, with his movie star looks, Pep had never been to jail. He was ent.i.tled to his laughter. His only crimes were entrepreneurial.

She wrapped her sweater around her, took his hand, and stepped down into the street. The boy with the copper bicycle was suddenly at her feet.

"Hey, Miz Broussard, 'member me? I used to carry yo' bags."

"Where'd you get that bicycle from?" Pep growled.

"I found it in the L.A. River." The boy looked proud of himself.

"That's the bicycle of one of them boys that drowned after that big rain. You best to take that bicycle back." Pep s.n.a.t.c.hed the bicycle away from him.

The boy protested loudly and held on. "I didn't steal it," he hollered, "I found it. I ain't no thief!"

Camille stared at him hard. "Is that you, Quentin? You getting big. How's your grandma?"

"She awright."

"Ain't seen you round the store lately."

"Ain't workin' there no more."

"You ain't working nowhere," Pep brushed him aside. "You need to be going to school. How old are you? Ten?"

"I'm thirteen! My gramma say I ain't need to go to school no mo'. Gimme twenty dollars, I fix that truck."

"I'll sell it to you for twenty-five." Quentin shook his head. Pep threw down the bicycle. He picked it up and rode off. The copper frame gleamed in the twilight sun.

Camille and Pep set off. Three blocks and they would be home. Before they had gone a good ten yards, children were jumping up and down in the back of Pep's truck chanting rhymes and yelling obscenities. The elders did not look back nor wag their fingers in reprimand, nor add their own voices to the din of posterity. They were tired from a long day spent with the future. Together they walked, his arm supporting her elbow, her hand clutching his wrist, two stalwart spirits teetering on the edge of endurance. If not for their surroundings and not again for their circ.u.mstances and not again for their misfortunes, they might have caused a head or two to bow. As it was, theirs were the only heads straining to stay aloft. Burdened with obligations and the apprehension of old people walking a gauntlet of unemployed youth, they struggled to make it home before night descended.

Press and Curl.

BY TAYARI JONES.

It didn't take them all that long to find Rodney's body. Three weeks after he disappeared, they came across him facedown in an Atlanta creek. And by then I was used to the idea of him being dead. I had watched the children's faces on the news, one by one, since August of last year. Last time I checked, three of the pictures had "missing" up under them and the other ten said, "murdered." None of the "missing" ones ever got found and took off the list. All that ever changed was the word below. Once somebody's picture made it to the news, it was a done deal.

Rodney's family asked if the school chorus could sing at the services. We practiced for three days straight to be ready for Tuesday. Our rehearsals weren't as rowdy as usual, but somebody just pa.s.sing by also wouldn't think we was getting ready to put a boy in the ground. Truth was, most people was a little excited because the funerals always got shown on TV. I didn't like to watch them, but Mama would sit on the couch with one dry Kleenex balled tight in her hand saying "G.o.d spare."

Mrs. Scott, the music teacher, was taking us through "G.o.d Is Amazing" for the fifty-millionth time with Cinque Freeman on solo. He had his eyes closed, singing like he Foster Silvers or somebody. Mrs. Scott banged on the music stand with her conductor wand. "Let us not forget why we are here."

I don't think that anyone forgot Rodney. It was just that they didn't know him good enough to have nothing much to remember. He was my friend, true, but I was the only one who got to talk to him. Rodney was so shy, like in that song by the Pointer Sisters. Talking to him was sometimes like talking to my grandfather after he had his stroke. I could tell by looking at Papa that he could hear me but his mouth couldn't work for him to answer me. So when I spoke to him, I would say my part and his, too. But most people not going to go through all that with a eleven-year-old, so they never got to know Rodney Green. That's too bad, because he was good people. So it's not that the chorus forgot Rodney. It just that they didn't miss him enough to forget that come next Tuesday, we'd all be on television.

Mama must have thought about me being on TV, too, because she made an appointment for me to get my hair fixed the day before the funeral. I had been begging her every Christmas and every Easter since second grade to let me wear curls and every time she said, "What you need to have your hair pressed for? You ain't grown."

What did I need a press and curl for? Sometimes Mama act like she don't have two good eyes to see with. My hair so nappy that it pulls the comb right out Mama hand when she try to fix it for me. By the time she get it into plaits, my head be tender and the comb so full of hair that it look like a little animal. And all that wrestling for what? n.o.body ever said to me, "You hair looks real nice, Octavia." If they do notice it at all, it's to say how short it is. Grown people try to be nice and tell me things I can eat or put in it to make it grow. Kids just poke fun and say, "Octavia hair so short she can use rice for a curler."

But my hair not as short as people think. I can pull my braids down till they reach the bottom of my ear, but when I let it go, then pop back up by my eyes. But see, if I could get it straightened it could hang to its full length. Then I could wear it smooth down in the back with a little row of curls. Forsythia Chambers, this girl in my cla.s.s, wears hers tucked under all the way around so she look like a sweet little mushroom. That's how I want mine. I get tired of stupid boys slapping on my neck because I ain't got no hair to cover it up with.

And as for me being grown, you don't have to be grown to get a press and curl. On Easter I see five-year-olds with they hair twisted into shiny Shirley-Temples. I think they look cute as pie but Mama just talk about them under her breath, "Last thing a little girl need is for people to have a reason to look at her."

Sometimes my Mama act like she don't live in the same world with the rest of us. Listening to her, you would think that you have to be cute for people to look at you.

"I want you to get your hair fixed after school on Monday," Mama said. She was in the kitchen boiling neck bones.

"Monday?" I asked. Real beauty parlors are closed on Monday. "Where at?"

"Over Mrs. Washington, where you think?" Mama chopped celery into big chunks.

"Mama, you know I don't eat celery."

"Don't eat it, then," she said.

I couldn't figure out if she was sending me to Mrs. Washington because she didn't have the money to send me to the Pink Fox Salon or if it was because Mrs. Washington is the only one doing heads on a Monday.

"What we having with the neck bones?"

"Rice and gravy. Green beans."

"To drink?" I asked.

"Kool Aid."

So it was a money thing. When she got cash we have c.o.ke with dinner, or juice. Water or Kool Aid meant money was funny. But it could be worse. In the summer when the electric bill gets really high, Mama do her own hair in the kitchen. It looked okay when she get through but the tops of her ears get burnt where she bring the hot comb in too close.

"Mrs. Washington do people hair pretty," I said to show I wasn't tripping. Mama is good for taking something away if I turn my nose up at it.

"Go over there right after school." She didn't look up from the pot she was stirring. "And get rid of that gum. You look like a cow chewing cud."

"Yes ma'am," I said spitting into a napkin. The gum was still sweet but I wasn't about to complain.

Mama gave the pot one more stir before she went in her pocketbook and dug out some money. She gathered the bills in a stack and tried to smooth them out. "Here eight," she said. "You just give her seven. Use the extra one to get you a snack after school."

"Yes ma'am." I was trying to be cool, but a grin came to my face by itself.

"You sure smiling hard for somebody going to a funeral." Mama's soft sad face sucked the happy out of me like a vacuum cleaner. I didn't reach for the money.

"What? Ain't you the same child been worrying me half to death about a press and curl?"

"But you said I wasn't-" I was about to say grown, but she cut me off.

"Now I'm saying yes." She shook the money at me. I never noticed that dollar bills had a smell before then. They had a odor like people's sweaty hands and rooms that need to be aired out.

I took it from her without saying anything else. The stack of money was fat and kind of messy. Money on TV always lay flat in thin stacks held together with a little piece of paper. On the Rockford Files, Jim could slip a hundred dollars in his coat without it making a b.u.mp. But these eight real-life dollars made a stack so big, I couldn't put it in my back pocket without it looking like one side of my booty was lopsided.

Before I went to school on Monday, I folded two dollars at a time and put them in each one of my jeans pockets. That way, at least, people couldn't look at me and see how much I was carrying. But even for all my carefulness, I felt heavy like each dollar bill was a cartoon anchor that could pull the whole ship over. Mama had never trusted me with so much money at one time. She had never sent me for a press and curl. And I had never been to a funeral before. There were just too many had-nevers gettin' away like a handful of water.

Mrs. Washington stay in the for-real projects down the street. All the buildings are colored soft like ice cream but the paint peeled off like scabs. As soon as I got over there, I walked real fast and kept pulling my eyes off the sidewalk. I wanted to look like I came round here all the time, just that this time I was in a hurry. When you look like you not on your home side of the street is when kids try and jump you.

As soon as I knocked on the door, I could hear Mrs. Washington shuffling up to the front. She peeked through the peephole and waited a second like she was trying to see if she should let me in or not. She needed to hurry up. The wind was whipping around corners and I didn't have nothing on my head.

"Who is it?" It wasn't a friendly-sounding question.

"Octavia Griffith," I said. "I'm supposed to get a press and curl this afternoon."

There was all this clicking while she took loose the fifty million locks on her door. The last thing she let go was the chain; it swung to the side with a little click.

To be someone that fix hair so pretty, Mrs. Washington go around looking a mess. Her hair was long down to her shoulders but it was so thin that I could see her brown head between white strings of hair. It was pressed but she didn't put no curl in it so it was like looking at a bowling ball with spider webs all over it.

"Thought you was supposed to be here at two," she said once I was inside.

"No ma'am," I said. "School don't let out till 2:25. I came straight over." I looked down at the bag of chips in my hand. "I stopped quick at the store but that's all." I added that so she couldn't accuse me of lying.

It was dark in there. The only light that came in the living room was what managed to squeeze around the corners of the shades.

"The light bothers my eyes," she said. "Glaucoma."

"Yessum," I said. How could she do my hair in the dark? If I wanted to get a big burn cross my forehead, I could have stayed home and let my mama press my hair for free.

I had half a mind to ask her if heat bothered her, too, because it was freezing. The was furnace turned up just enough to keep your breath from smoking but that was it.

"Let me take your coat," she said.

Even in the half-dark she must have seen me looking at her like she was crazy.

"It's warmer in the kitchen where we going to be. n.o.body got money to heat rooms where ain't n.o.body at."

I was shamed as I pulled off my coat. Like I was being high and mighty, worrying about being cold, trying to run up this old lady electric bill. But I would have gave her the dollar I spent for my snack if she would turn up the heat just for the time I was in there.

The kitchen was green. Green fridge, green counter, green cabinets, green everything. The high white stool in front of the stove was the only thing that didn't match.

"That's where I'm going to sit?"

"Unless you want to sit on the floor."

I climbed up and waited.

"You ate yet?" she asked. The smell of a chicken potpie rushed out when she opened the over door. I turned to get some of that warm air on my cold cheeks.

"Yessum. I had lunch at school and I got a snack off in my bag."

"Well I'm going to have myself a little bite." She bent over and took the potpie out with a blue oven mitt. She set it on the counter and added, "If that's all right with you."

It wasn't okay with me. Why she didn't eat before I got here? But what could I do but wait while she had her dinner standing over the sink? She ate slow and slurpy, but I guess people who have false teeth have to take their time.

She finished finally, and cut on the stove. It took her a few seconds to strike a match with her shaky hands. When she touched it to the gas it caught with a big whoosh. One of these days, she going to blow herself up. She set the heavy pressing comb on the blue flame.

Pressing combs are like cast-iron skillets. The first time I saw a brand new one, I couldn't hardly tell that it was the same thing as one that had been put to use; it was shiny as a good idea. Mrs. Washington's pressing comb look like it been in a thousand heads, black as Granny's skillets.

"What we doing with this hair?" She talked slow like people from the country.

"Press and curl."

"You got seven dollars?" She scooped a hunk of Ultra Sheen out of a wide-mouth jar. Her fingers were bent up with old age and lumpy from years of burning and healing.

"Yessum."

She nodded and started unloosing my plaits. "You wash your hair last night?"

"Yessum."

She put her nose to it for a second, which I really didn't appreciate. She the one live in the projects and now she sniffing me like I don't know nothing about personal hygiene. Mama had even put the shampoo through my hair twice and on top of that, used a strawberry creme conditioner. I never seen the ladies in the Pink Fox sniffing on n.o.body. But I guess that's why it cost twelve dollars.

Mrs. Washington took the comb off the fire and pressed it down on a wet dishrag. It sizzled like chicken frying but it smelled like hot water. Then she put the comb in a little section of my hair and pulled it through; at first my hair was hard to get through like regular but then the naps just let go and the comb went through smooth and easy like baby-doll hair.

I wanted so bad to have a little hand mirror so I could watch what was happening on my head. How long was my hair stretching to? A lot of times, girls who had just regular hair ended up with long hair once they got it pressed. I forgot about the mushroom style and started seeing myself with pretty little curls around the side of my face stretching past my chin, and the rest hanging straight back past my collar.

"You getting your hair fixed for that little boy funeral?" Mrs. Washington said.

For the second time since I got over here, I felt shamed. It was like how the Sunday school teacher let us sit around half Easter morning excited about new shoes and chocolate rabbits and then she reminded us that Pontius Pilate put nails in Jesus' hands and jooked him in the side with a knife. Twice.

"Yessum," I said. "I'm singing in the chorus."