by Sapphire
If an evah git away from a harvest
I don’t wanna see a rose grow
She’s making like she’s playing a banjo, stomping her feet, and stepping side to side. This is it, I guess she done dived all the way off the deep end.
“You know when I come here from Mississippi?”
“Huh?” Why me? Why is this happening to me?
“I said, you know when I come here from Mississippi?”
“Ahh, no.”
“A long time ago.”
Kill her, kill her! Just slap her old ass and stomp her brains out. What kinda life could I have here! St Ailanthus! God, author of all heavenly gifts, you gave St Ailanthus both a wonderful innocence of life and a deep spirit of penance. Now I lay me down to sleep—I think the life here, whatever happens to me here, is worse than if I went to jail. Then I think, chill, it’s all a big mistake or . . . or I don’t know. Brother John is probably working on this right now.
“You through?”
I look at the circles of stiff grease on the plate, shake my head yes. My head is a kaleidoscope. She gets up and with her dragging walk goes to put my plate in the sink. Looking at her gives me a sick feeling, the dream I had of Blondie her jar breaks in on me.
“I got a lot of stuff to do to catch up with my schoolwork and dancing,” I tell her.
“My mama hadda been dere ol’ Nigger Boy wouldn’ta got me. In fact thas how he got me, talkin’ ’bout my mama—”
I mean what is this, is she on automatic, does she jus’ sit up and talk to anybody?
“I was sittin’ on a rock—”
And I’m sittin’ on a chair at a table in a blue room where a piece of peeling paint has just fallen from the ceiling.
“Yeah, honey, I was sittin’ up on a rock away from de picnic tables ’n de music. Lookin’ down de road. Sky blue fluffy clouds, hog on de spit, good smell up yo’ nose. Nigger Boy pluckin’ de banjo. Banjo stop. Somebody start up on guitar. Black shadow cross me, Nigger Boy’s pant legs. Hair on my arm stand up. ‘Youze lookin’ for yo’ mama?’ Nigger Boy weird. Sick. Let’s face it, he ain’ de only man stick his dick in a ten-year-old. I seed a lot, ’n it almos’ ain’ nothin’. But Nigger Boy weird ’cause, let’s face it, back den every colored fella in de South a ‘boy,’ a ‘nigger boy,’ to de white folks. But Nigger Boy dat to hisself! Ask him his name ’n he’d tell you, Nigger Boy. How’s dat fo’ last week’s gravy! Why I care what a man fuck me when I’m ten years old call hisself? I don’! Jus’ when people find out he daddy my baby dey tell me—so, shit, I’m tellin’ you!”
Gee, thanks. I need my jacket, I think. I look at her sitting at the table talking. I just feel cold inside and like I need to vomit, but like my mouth is sealed. There’s a calendar on the wall from? Shit! Twenty years ago! Before I was born, before anybody I know was born except the brothers.
“You ain’t talkin’ to me,” I tell her. “You talkin’ to the air!” You know, like shut up! And stop wasting your breath. It’s not getting in me.
“I know who I’m talkin’ to. I’m talkin’ to you, nigger!”
Nigger? She’s crazy for sure, one thing for kids to be talking about nigger but a old lady like this—
“I ain’ talkin’ to you? You sho nuff is crazy! Who you think I’m talkin’ to? You mine, my great-gran’son. Nigger Boy yo’ great-gran’father!”
My mother died in a car accident, my father died in the war. I get up go get my jacket, but I come back in the kitchen.
“I had jumped up to run after Mama but Auntie slap me, hold me back till I cain’t see nothin’ of Mama goin’ down de road. After dat I go sit on de rock whar I can see de road, weeks I go dere waitin’, thinkin’ like she went down de road, she be back, gonna come up de road. Thas whar I’m sittin’ day of de picnic, on de rock off by mysef when Nigger Boy come up.”
In seventh we were looking at the one-celled amoebae on the projection screen. Isn’t it fascinating, boys! No! The seething blobs make my skin crawl. I want to tear the screen off the wall. I want to slap her. Why I gotta listen to this shit?
“Whatchu doin’ ovah here by yo’sef? Ize waitin’ fo’ Mama. Come on, Nigger Boy say, let’s go find yo’ mama. I jumps up hold out my hand fo’ Nigger Boy to take it. I’m walkin’ wit’ him into de woods ovah de little stream I ain’ spozed to go ovah by mysef. I think, Mama ain’ in no woods. You evah play house wit’ boys? How he know? It a secret what me ’n Jonesy Boy do! Why a big ol’ man like Nigger Boy want to know anyhow? We walk over to whar de weepy willow trees is. I’m scared of snakes. Nigger Boy jus’ push me down off my feet like we kids playin’ in de field or sumptin’. Den he take out his dick. I remember it don’ scare me. I don’ know what’s comin’, how could I? It’s so pretty, really, a man’s thang, his at least, shiny ’n black like a licorice. I sit up to see better, he push me back down, don’ say nothin’, spit in his hands rub on his dick. Is he gonna pee? He reach down pull my draws, such as dey was, off. Press his hand ovah my mouf. He stick hisself in a place I ain’ know I had yet. I’m lookin’ at de sky through de trees, it cracks apart in big blue pieces under de dark branches ’n green leaves. I go out today ’n look up, de sky dat same blue’n I feel it start to crack apart again. Cry, what else you gonna do? Rest here a few minutes ’fore you go home, he say. Don’ go back to de picnic, do dey’ll know what you did ’n you’ll git a whippin’ fo’ doin’ it! Yo’ mama find out what you made me do to you, she’ll nevah, nevah come back. Nevah! When you hear de banjo start up to playin’ again, git up go home, go to bed ’n don’ tell nobody, nevah, you hear me, what you done done. Shit, I don’ know what I done done. But ’cause he say it like dat I think of it like dat, dat I done done sumptin’.”
Synonym for make you sick? Revulsion. Use that word in a sentence. I am revulsioned by this stinky bitch. No revulsed. Repulsion. I feel repulsion I might throw up. Nauseate. Some little insect is jumping around the lightbulb screwed into the ceiling. The lightbulb is its sun. If some shit like that really happened, in broad daylight? A river, a river is with boats and people fishing and . . . and shipping, ports, commerce. Roaches, the opposite—they run from the light, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a roach outside. Can they live outside? I don’t feel like I’m cracking. I feel I have cracked. In two. I’m separate pieces. This kitchen is not dirty like no one has ever cleaned it or people throw shit and don’t pick it up. It’s grimy, grease and dirt stuck to stuff, but everything is in place, the dish towel is so dirty it’s almost black, but it’s folded neat hanging on a rack over the sink. What is she talking about? Who is she talking to? This is a worse mistake than the police station. Way worse. Like open the car door and driver point to that pile of shit, Hey, dude, this is you, your fucking relative. Get used to it? Fuck that!
“I don’ know what to say when people point at my belly.”
If this was a dream, I’d be done woke up already! I’m still standing clutching my jacket, which I left the kitchen to get . . . what ? A minute, second, a half hour ago. I sit back down press the jacket to my chest, sniff it, start to rock slightly. Toosie? What the fuck!
“Daddy? Daddy of what! You git what I’m sayin’ don’chu?”
She looks at me expecting something. I don’t blink. She’s acting mental like a homeless sitting up there talking to herself like she ain’t all there.
“Dey talkin’ ’bout Daddy ’n I ain’ even hip to I’m pregnant. Chile, chile, chile! Who you been playin’ doctor wit’? I shake my head. Doctor? I don’ know dat game. Come on now, we know it someone. Mama Daddy? House? I nevah played house wit’ nobody ’cept Jonesy Boy. Jonesy’s Mama ’n Daddy ask him he de daddy. He say naw! Dey beat him to tell de truth. He still say naw. Beat him some mo’. Tooth come out. He tell de truth. Auntie Sweet who keep kids while folks is in de fields say shame I’m in trouble so young. Trouble? Yeah, trouble, Auntie Sweet say, youze knocked up. She walk me ovah to de hog pen.”
Thirteen going on fourteen, a boy. The side of my face itches lik
e hell, the skin tightening as it heals? I want to scratch it. Scarred face, black, Harlem—all that go together? Yeah, Jaime, I look like Denzel except my face is scarred. Permanent. I ain’t Crazy Horse. I’m a stupid kid, nigger, like they say in public school, with a gash across the side of my face for life, not Crazy Horse. No cheeseburger, I remember the quiche, spinach and cheese, about to be chucked up with all the chocolate cake I’d eaten. I crawl through the window over the ledge falling, falling down to 125th Street. They’ll all be sorry now. But I never got to the window, I just threw up. I wish I had got to the window.
“Auntie Sweet point to Big Pink, who ain’ even pink, point to de little hogs suckin’ at her tits. De tits pink. Look at de little one, Auntie Sweet say, ’Member when dey was inside Big Pink? Yeah, I say, ’n now dey on de outside! Well, she say, dat’s what done happened to you, you got a little one inside of you. Hog! I holler. No fool, a baby, a little boy or gal. How? Well, from you ’n Jonesy doin’ de nasty, I hear it right. You ain’ storyin’, is you? Naw, I ain’ storyin’, I tells her. Storyin’ is a whippin’ fo’ sure!”
I’m sitting at one end of the table near the door, she’s at the other end of the table, her chair facing perpendicular to me so I’m looking at her silhouette rocking and talking crazy. She’s hunched back, look like she don’t have a neck. I just feel like the heebie-jeebies listening to her like when a roach scurry across the floor STAMP IT! I never seen a green refrigerator. Underneath some spots of the peeling blue paint you can see the walls was yellow, the color of old piss. Everything here is old, like from the 1950s or something, maybe the ’70s, I’m not sure. When did people have shit like this? I never seen a hog.
“It was twins is what it was! Of course, I didn’t know dat den. So hog, baby, whatevah it was, I knowed I was gettin’ bigger ’n bigger every day.”
She’s like a movie, rocking, the green refrigerator behind her. Insect, I think, I step on her and throw her out. She’s an insect. She ain’t human. Her being human makes me ashamed.
“I be chewin’ on sumptin’ ’n a toof fall out. Or I wake up chokin’ ’n it on a toof, roll ovah ’n spit it out. Dey was half gone when I got here. All gone now. Keep yo’ teef, boy! Den it’s like my bones wax, not my back like it is now, but my legs start to bend, like wax git warm, bend—I gits bowlegged whar I was nevah like that befo’. Auntie says thas what chile birfin’ early do fo’ you. But nothin’ else change ’cept my body, I keeps followin’ Auntie out to de fields every day. Evah git some chicken, Auntie say, eat de bones. Whar I’m gonna git chicken from, I live wit’ her since Mama gone, she don’t give me none. Eat clay, she say. I like the taste ’n it fill me up. Only time I filled up livin’ down dere. Later Beymour tell me, thas wrong. You pregnant, shoulda drinked milk.”
She looks at me. “Gon’ git you some milk.”
Broke-brain retard, what milk? I get up. The only doors I’ve opened since I been here aside from “my” room and front door is the refrigerator doors, ain’t no milk. Like she could read my mind.
“Wadn’t none befo’, but de home attendant from de ’fare, she shop fo’ me sometimes. I got to give her some of de food stamps, but I don’ care, I don’ hardly eat none no way. Gon’ git some milk, it’s milk ’n bacon in dere, biscuit mix, no tellin’ what else. Clay’s got lead ’n shit in it, ain’ always good, Beymour say. He took me to de dentist when I got here. I’m in de field, I got my hoe raised, not high, you know, but I got it raised, you know, you chop ’n you step, chop ’n you step, like dat. Don’ be wastin’ no whole lots of energy raisin’ de hoe all high, ain’ nobody takin’ yo’ picture, you workin’! I grab de hoe so hard, screams Oh, OH, OH! Auntie put her hoe down, walk fast ovah to me. Ride it, ride it! she hollerin’. I pure dee don’ know what de fuck she talkin ’bout. If you’ll excuse my French. Dis hurt more den Nigger Boy bustin’ me open. Dis breakin’ me. Feel like de bones in my back on fire. Shit! Den oohhh weird like a egg PLOP easy thing fall outta me, Auntie say later, fo’ she could ketch it. She pick it up, Hush now, it’s ovah. But I go to hollerin’ again. Whatever it is she done picked up ’n done pulled out, it ain’t movin’. She bite de cord, her teef strong, she ain’t nevah had no kids. Hush, she say, it’s dead. She soun’ sad. I nevah heard her soun’ like that befo’. Ahhh! I scream. Someone say, Ain’ ovah yet, Auntie, sumptin’ still up dere. Well, I wadn’t jus’ screamin’ to be screamin’, thas yo’ gran’mother up in dere—”
I feel my head is swelling. What’s going in my ears like air being pumped into a balloon.
“Yeah, yo’ gran’ma up dere but don’ nothin’ come down. Sun past high in de sky when dey bring Mavis. Ninety-two years old, white folks call her de same thang dey call Auntie, ’n Auntie Sweet: Auntie. Only Mavis tell ’em, I ain’ none of you people’s auntie! Cain’t call me Mavis, don’ call me! But dey call her Auntie Mavis anyway. Master’s first son, white doctor do him ’n forceps clamper his brain, after dat dey call Mavis. Yeah, she say, dey got to call ol’ nigger Mavis! I don’ call her nothin’ at de time’cause I’m layin’ in de dirt in so much pain I’m jus’ goin’, Oh, oh. I’m sho’ Ize dyin’. Bring me some water, Mavis holler, some water ’n hawg grease. I’m fidden to go up in her. Sumptin’ up dere. I think of Big Pink’n her little worm hogs, oh, no! Den I don’ think no more. If my bones was on fire befo’, they thunder ’n lightnin’ now. I don’ know whether it takes minutes or hours, but it feel like all de bones in me is bein’ pulled apart. Den it’s all ovah. Nevah to happen again. Someone say, Shucks, it got hair enough to braid! Big thang, Girl. I feel sumptin’, not proud, but sumptin’. Dirt all ovah my shoulders, I remember dat! A boy ’n a girl done come outta me. Boy died.”
A roach is crawling over the table. She pops it back with her thumb. Splat. I push back from the table, but the leg of my chair sticks in a hole in the linoleum. She looks at me.
“You de first boy to come out alive.”
My skin is crawling.
“I don’ remember from dere. Somehow I musta got back to de cabin. Maybe somebody carry me, maybe I walks. I’m tired.”
Shut up, I think, would you just shut the fuck up!
“I lay down on my blanket wit’ de baby on top of me. I wanna throw up.” Shut up shut up!
“But ain’ nothin’ to throw up. Auntie look at me stretched on my pallet. It’s in de dirt. What I hate ’bout back den—lyin’ on de dirt, birfin’ in de dirt. Auntie say, my name Mary. I look at her, you know thas nice, but I’m tired. Yo’ mama ain’ nevah comin’ back. Why she tell me dat? Youze in my house, she say, why don’ you name de baby after me? I hadn’t thought ’bout it, but if I’d had a minute I woulda said, Dessa, dat was my mama’s name. Make sense to name her dat. Auntie say again, Why don’ you name de baby after me? Auntie? No, fool, Mary, my name is Mary. So dat’s how Mary got to be Mary.”
I feel like roaches is crawling all over me now. I want to scream shut up, shut up! Slap her. The balloon my head has become, every word, every word—pressure. I hate how her back curls over, the ugly hump, how she talk all country and shit. She’s staring in front of her like it’s TV, only turn around to look at me when she got something extra retarded to say, like hog babies or some shit. I unbutton top button of my Levi’s. I don’t know what she’s talking about. She’s talking roaches walking over me, feel crazy. OK, hog babies and all that shit, we so motherfucking crazy. Let’s go crazy. I unzip my jeans take my shit out and start jacking off while she’s talking. OK, the shit is equal now. Up and down up and down up down up down try to see the pretty colors in my kaleidoscope not hogs and country girl busted up down by some river I never seen. Ohhh, I can change the picture, um huh another one comes up instead of this dumb one, I see little blue lights, it’s dark, the dark is smooth like the preemies, how smooth they skin like babies, how strong I am, how the white girl come to Imena’s class looking at me, can’t take her eyes off me, sitting on my dick now, she’s telling me I love you, Papi, or whatever white bitches say I love you ohh shake shake ka
leidoscope dick shake don’t break me mirror explain this shit Oohh! to me, what I did to end up with this old bitch talking about Nigger Boys, hogs and shit. Jaime’s asshole is like a velvet apple to my tongue, the smell like leaves from a tree. Ohh! I stand up my dick in my hand pumping now, I feel like a tower of light power like light is in me, not blood ohh ohh! I feel like a beautiful white girl is sucking me off! Shit my hand moving faster and faster and faster!
“Crazy!” she screams. “You fuckin’ CRAZY!”
It come out like white light, divine goodness like Brother John said Jesus so loved his brother as he so loved himself, it is good to touch yourself oooohhhhhhh let Brother John see it go SPOUT OUT SPLAT! How you like that, you old WITCH! Running around talking all that weird old shit. I’m normal normal! Old roach bitch! I run my fist clenched down the shaft of my beautiful penis to the tip and then shake WHAP! Cum splatter onto the plastic tablecloth. Ha, ha, ha! She screaming how she gonna tell the social worker I’m crazy and shit. Let her! Who gives a fuck, I’m just spozed to listen to stupid shit? She ain’t my relative. Maybe I find out my father ain’t really dead or this bitch ain’t my real relative, which I already know she ain’t. I zip up my pants button my fly pull the chair out from the table, grab the back of it like it’s a barre, it’s the right height. First position! Tendu à la second, demi and up, demi and up, now demi grande plié and up. I’m in Roman’s class when I really see myself, discover myself, in the mirror. My hand is on the barre. I’m looking at the flabby thighs and big butt of the white girl in front of me. The meat hangs off her arm between her shoulder and elbow like a dead bird’s wing, her wrists break instead of doing like Roman says, Extend in a straight line out from the shoulder to the elbow to the wrist like you is holding a giant beach ball. She’s looking at Roman to see if he’s paying her any attention. I look at him too, then look straight ahead of me at the girl, at all the bodies lined up in front of her jammed in the same position, trying to execute the thing called rond de jambe, hardly anybody able to do it right like Roman had demonstrated. We’re beginners. Everybody’s anxious. I look to the side of me in the mirror. It’s almost a shock, like I’ve never seen before the way the muscles of my thighs stand up and out as if somebody called their name, quadriceps, biceps, soleus, femoris? Quadriceps femoris? I want more books where am I going to get them from harder to steal from the library now that they got that sensor thing. I want to know the names of every muscle, everything in the body, period. Brother John found Christ when he was a little boy. I know here is the Holy Eucharist. Fuck God. The way my black tights are holes and raggedy like Jesus in a way makes my thighs look more perfect. I look in the mirror on the opposite wall, which reflects the mirror on this wall and is endlessly repeating my body! The mirror is magic! Giving yourself back to you over and over again.