Yolonda's Genius

by Carol Fenner

  “Yeah,” agreed Leaky.

  “Yeah, man,” croaked Chimp.

  “No problem, boys,” said Yolonda. “My behind’s just as big and dangerous as my front side.” She turned in her queenly way and began to move, like a great ship through water, back to where Andrew watched, ashen-faced, from his tree. No one could tell, except Yolonda, that her whole body trembled.

  Stoney Buxton had turned and was staring at her, his face delighted and surprised.

  “You are somethin’, girl,” he said. “You are really somethin’.”

  “Yeah,” said Yolonda. She didn’t want to cut the power of her dramatic exit by stopping to hear more. She didn’t want to slow her victory march. She didn’t want Stoney to notice the trembling.

  But she stopped. Stoney’s eyes were bright with admiration. Different eyes than Tyrone’s eyes — mirth but not mischief. A hero deserves a reward, thought Yolonda. Maybe this is my reward. She noticed that all the activity at Asphalt Hill had paused. Only the music blared out, now useless. Karl was standing, one foot holding the board still. Nobody on the Hill moved. Her trembling began to fade.

  “They been asking for it,” she said, and then dropped her eyes demurely. “I had no choice.” She wondered if the Giorgio was winning out over her sweat. “They messed with my little brother, who is a rare musical genius.”

  “Well,” said Stoney seriously, “you may have just bought yourself a ton of trouble. They got friends.”

  “I got friends,” said Yolonda again, reinforcing her lie, just in case Stoney was a spy. Just a precaution.

  But Stoney was smiling “I sure missed your brother these past few days. He really helps my concentration. Better than heavy metal.” Yolonda saw his eyes flicker over her with something she hoped was fascination.

  So she told him about the Dudes breaking Andrew’s harmonica, “a rare antique inherited from our father.” She wiped sweat daintily from her face with an old, creased tissue she dug out of her pocket.

  Stoney looked over her shoulder. “They’re leaving,” he told her. “If you think you might have trouble with them, let me know. Two is better against three. B’sides, I can’t let you show me up.” And Stoney made a muscle with his lean right arm. It was the long, smooth muscle of an athlete.

  Yolonda felt a smile broaden her face. She gave a delicate wave with her fingers and backed away, then turned at last toward her brother. She wasn’t about to forget Andrew again, no matter how much fun she was having.

  She could hear the activity of the Hill start up anew, the grind of wheels, the scuffing.

  “Come on, Andrew,” she announced when she got to his tree. “We’re going to pay a visit to a man who’s got this brand-new harmonica waiting for you.” Now began the second part of her plan to reunite the loosened pieces of her brother.

  Andrew was standing with the strangest expressions crossing and recrossing his face. Yolonda tried to gentle herself. Pay attention, she told the bold part of herself. Pay quiet attention to your brother. But time was wasting. She had a harder duty to perform.

  This time she’d checked out the schedule of the bus that went down Beckmore Drive. There was one every hour. Time was growing short, and she was about to disobey her momma. The unfamiliar sneaky feeling crept through her. It was intensified by her earlier raid on Andrew’s panda bank. All money means to Andrew is a pretty sound, she had told herself as the coins slid down the letter opener she had poked into the slot.

  “Come on, Andrew. I got this planned just right.” She leaned toward her brother. “Come on, Drew-de-drew, you gotta earn this mouth harp. It’s not free.”

  Andrew wasn’t sure where they were going. Yolonda had said something about a harmonica — not his dead one, the one that had the music in it, the one that sometimes spoke before he knew he had the thought. She wanted him to earn it. He was only a little worried. Yolonda never did anything to hurt him.

  The bus ride was pretty long. Andrew was aware of Yolonda checking her watch and jiggling her leg impatiently. Every time the bus stopped to pick up a passenger, she let out an exasperated hiss. She was still perspiring, sweat running down her face.

  Maybe she’s still mad, thought Andrew. He’d never before seen the Yolonda he had just witnessed at Asphalt Hill — towering over those bad boys like Batman, bigger than Batman. He’d never seen her great power unleashed before, but he hadn’t been surprised. He’d never doubted Yolonda could tackle anything. There wasn’t anything she was afraid of. Some Yolonda sounds came into his head — great, powerful explosions. He’d need another instrument — drums maybe, a horn, both together. What instrument roared?

  The bus stopped. Right in front of his favorite store. He checked the window with pleasure. There was a curled horn on a stand. Could the curled horn roar? He didn’t think so.

  Yolonda pushed open the wide glass doors. “Longhair might not be here, but I got a receipt somewhere.” His sister fumbled in her jeans pocket.

  Andrew stared at the wall lined with guitars, at the glass cases holding different kinds of pipes, bigger than his. There was a gigantic curved horn on a huge stand. Yolonda. Andrew was sure that horn could roar.

  “Is this the genius?” A smiling man with gray hair that brushed his shoulders was leaning toward Andrew. Andrew scowled. There was that name again.

  He could tell the man that his name was Andrew Blue, but his mouth was suddenly wishing for his old harmonica, the one he’d buried in the dark dirt of his mother’s tulips, the dead harmonica. Where was it now?

  Then he saw that the man was holding something out toward him.

  “Where’d you get that?” asked Andrew, shocked and horrified.

  There was his harmonica, only someone had fixed it up, polished it. The smiling man held it out toward him.

  A sick feeling began to invade Andrew’s stomach, and a faint hollow sound threatened his ears. Then it seemed as if all the instruments on the wall, on stands in the corners, inside the glass cases waited for him.

  “All you gotta do to earn this baby is play something, Andrew.” Yolonda eyed him. “Something great, that is. No chords. Play ’Round Midnight. Play Bart Simpson. Play the bacon.”

  Yolonda waited. The smiling man waited, holding out the harmonica. The other instruments waited. The hollow buzzing came into his ears.

  “Andrew,” said Yolonda in her impatient voice. “We got no time for games. The bus will leave. We aren’t gonna wait another hour for the next one. I gotta dust before Momma gets home. You gotta play before we earn this harp. Come on, do your stuff.”

  The buzzing grew intense.

  Yolonda grabbed the harmonica from the clerk, thrust it into Andrew’s hands, and said, “Play!”

  The harp in Andrew’s hands felt stiff, wood and metal, no magic to it at all. No voice.

  Yolonda’s face grew more fierce. “Andrew! No more baby stuff. Come on!”

  Andrew looked at the harmonica. He had no breath anymore, only a tiny little bit that sat in his throat, not enough to even whisper through the wooden holes. The air around him grew tight with everything waiting.

  “I should have killed those guys!” exploded Yolonda. “They really robbed you, Andrew.” She wheeled and headed for the door. “Give it back to the man. Get my eight bucks back. I’ll try and hold the bus at the corner.” She stomped toward the door. “I should have killed!”

  Wait! cried Andrew’s brain. Instinctively he lifted the harmonica to his mouth, felt with his lips and tongue the new wooden holes, felt with his hands the smoothness of metal, felt with his brain for the old voice living inside the wood and metal.

  Wait! screamed the harmonica. Wait! Help! Yolonda froze, then turned slowly toward him.

  Andrew wet the wood with his tongue, wept into the wooden holes; a crying spilled out of the Marine Band harmonica. Then jagged streaks of angry sound bled into the room.

  “Whooooo!” cried the clerk. “Whoooo-eeee! Go for it, kid!”

  Wait! yelled Andrew’s harmonic
a. Wait. Wait. Eee iiii eee iii oooh!

  “It’s all yours, kid,” said the clerk, clapping his hands. “You belong together.” Then to Yolonda, “You owe me six bucks, sister.”

  Yolonda heaved a great sigh. “’Bout time,” she grumbled.

  Andrew looked at the harmonica while Yolonda counted out six dollars plus the sales tax from a great weight of quarters. His head felt like a balloon. It could float away maybe. He kept his eyes fastened to the Marine Band harmonica as if it were an anchor.

  “Better take the case,” said the man to Andrew. He held out a small black box. His smile was serious, and Andrew immediately trusted him. He could feel his head begin to come down to him again.

  “What’s it for?” Andrew asked.

  “It’ll protect your instrument — like a house around it — keep it from getting broken.”

  “Oh,” said Andrew. His instrument. He took the case, opened it, and carefully placed the shiny Marine Band harmonica in its velvet bed. The lid snapped when he closed it. Safe.

  On the bus as they headed home, Yolonda said, “Look, I don’t have this all figured out yet, Andrew.” She sighed.

  Andrew waited.

  “But you’re supposed to have a harmonica. Maybe God decided it. Maybe your genes did the deciding. Maybe the stars. Who knows?” She chewed her knuckles.

  “Maybe just Daddy,” offered Andrew, who could barely recall a large shape hovering over him. He’d been told where the Marine Band harmonica came from.

  “Yeah, maybe just Daddy,” said Yolonda. “Momma doesn’t know you are supposed to have a harmonica. I thought she did, but she doesn’t. She loves you, but she doesn’t see that you’re a genius. That takes a rare mind — to detect genius.”

  The bus rumbled on and Andrew waited for what Yolonda would say next. He knew Yolonda was very smart. Apparently a genius was a good thing to be.

  “I don’t have this figured out yet, Andrew,” repeated Yolonda. “Maybe you shouldn’t play the harmonica at home when Momma’s there. No, that’s not right. Play it whenever you have to.”

  What did she mean? Did genius have something to do with secrets? Would he have to be brave? He held the Marine Band harmonica in its case gently in both hands. His instrument. In his head he heard the sound bravery made, but he was afraid to play it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Aunt Tiny was coming! Oh, the glory of it! Yolonda helped her momma lug Tiny’s special chair up from where it was stored in the basement. They had to push the love seat against the wall to make room. The chair was so huge that it made even Yolonda seem small when she sat in it.

  With all the excitement of Tiny’s coming visit, their momma didn’t notice Andrew’s harmonica at first. He didn’t wear the new one in his back pocket all the time. Sometimes Yolonda heard him playing it in his room — just a bar or two of something. He carried it to the breakfast table in the morning in its case. Once, a week or so after its purchase, Andrew took it out and blew briefly into the warm kitchen a sound like the chair scraping when it was pushed back from the table. Yolonda stopped her spoon of cereal halfway to her mouth. Waited. But their momma was caught up in her morning flurry, and the harmonica didn’t seem to register in her mind as she tore out the door.

  That evening, though, as their momma was frying chicken at the stove, it must have worked into her brain — Andrew and the harmonica. She went straight to Yolonda where she sat doing her homework at the dining-room table.

  “Where did Andrew get the harmonica? Yolonda Mae, answer me!” Yolonda had thought it all out beforehand. “A music-store guy, you know, at Stellar’s — that big store. He heard Andrew play and he gave us a deal on the harmonica.” After all, it was pretty much the truth.

  Her momma’s mouth dropped open with a faint pop. “Say what?”

  “This guy really knows music.” The truth, too. “He really thinks Andrew’s a genius.” Stretching the truth only a little. That’s enough, Yolonda warned herself. Any more information come out, I might have to tell an out-and-out lie. Or the real whole truth. Her momma wasn’t ready to take in the whole truth — about the Dudes and all. Who knows what countrified place she’d want to move to next.

  Yolonda’s momma, hands planted on her hips, looked square at Yolonda. “How’s that again?”

  Yolonda calmed her face into innocence. “I took some money from my savings, Momma. And money from Panda-bank. I took Andrew to Stellar’s. I thought the music store would cheer him up.”

  Her momma frowned.

  “They had this harmonica there — a Marine Band. Just like Daddy’s,” Yolonda added slyly.

  Her momma’s face softened. “Well,” she said, “I have missed Andrew playing his odd little music.” She smiled. “Hope he takes better care of this one.”

  Yolonda took a deep, soundless breath. The crisis of disobeying had been averted, and she felt momentary relief.

  But in the week that followed, her excitement about Aunt Tiny’s visit was darkened by a bad feeling that hung over her like a poison cloud. She was not living up to her role as Andrew’s protector, the brilliant young girl who could recognize genius. True, she had given the Dudes a pounding, and now, she noticed, they seemed to have moved their base to the park across the street. Yolonda knew they didn’t want any more skirmishes calling attention to their activities.

  Kids at school now eyed her with careful respect. Sometimes she could tell they discussed her in small, whispering groups. A couple of guys had elbowed her knowingly in the hallway, admiration half-concealed in their faces. “Way to go, Yolonda.”

  Yolonda had just nodded modestly. Her sixth sense told her not to brag. No good keeping things stirred up. No good pushing the Dudes into retribution. But driving off Romulus Foster and his henchmen hadn’t done a whole lot for Andrew. She had failed her little brother. She had failed herself.

  Although Andrew now had a harmonica, he didn’t use it the way he’d used the old one. He kept it in the case most of the time, sometimes jammed into his pocket. When he did take it out of the case, his playing sounded tentative. Some mornings Yolonda would hear his waking-up song on the pipe, but it was not the same sweet, clear greeting. There was something ragged to the sound.

  He’s ruined, she caught herself thinking. Because of my not tending to business, Andrew has been ruined forever. She pushed the idea from her mind. How could a genius get ruined?

  Aunt Tiny was someone she could tell about Andrew being a genius — about true genius rearranging old material so that it became new. Her aunt might know how to bring her brother back, make his music pure again. But should she tell about how she’d forgotten him for a whole afternoon? Tiny thought Yolonda was near to perfect. Would she be disappointed with her?

  Aunt Tiny was a power. She owned three famous hairdressing salons in different parts of Chicago. They were called Trend and they specialized in elegant, time-consuming styling and classic cuts for African-American hair. Black women and men from all over Chicago and its suburbs flocked to her salons. “Goin’ to get me a Tiny,” they said. Beautiful hair models wearing Tiny’s far-out hairstyles were featured in Ebony and Mirabella and Vogue. “Hair by Trend” said the ads. Even the opulent Oprah was rumored to have visited the main Trend salon on Michigan Avenue.

  Aunt Tiny used to say she was a Black American businesswoman. Now she referred to herself as an “African-American entrepreneur.” She always knew the latest style in clothes, hairdos, and the words to call yourself by. “Tell the truth,” Aunt Tiny was fond of saying with her famous roll of her eyes. “I set a lot of the style. That’s how I know it.” And she would laugh her rich, buttery laugh, a sound good enough to eat.

  “No,” she had told Yolonda on the phone a month or so ago, “I don’t want the piano back. It’s yours to keep. I got a new one — a white one; big, grand. One of these days I’m gonna find time to play.” Then her laughter had bubbled up. “First I gotta find time to learn to play.”

  Aunt Tiny could only play “Chopsticks.�
� And a few jazz chords. But she had always owned a piano, Yolonda knew, even before she began to make lots of money. That’s why Yolonda was given piano lessons. “Got this big machine in my apartment,” Aunt Tiny had said years ago when Yolonda was only seven. “Somebody got to play it.”

  Yolonda had played it. She had taken lessons every other afternoon from an old man Aunt Tiny had hired.

  For a while, back in Chicago, Yolonda had dreamed of becoming a great concert pianist. But her spirit didn’t love the motion. She had become expert enough to play a little Mozart for Aunt Tiny. Mozart was the only classical composer Aunt Tiny knew and liked. She would listen to Mozart in between Stevie Rae Vaughn and Sarah Vaughan and Eubie Blake, complaining sadly, “They’re all dead as Mozart now.”

  Yolonda’s Mozart, these days, didn’t sound like much. So she began to practice the piano frantically. She worked on the Mozart piece with the two horrible trills, trying for the ease she’d felt with Andrew sitting next to her weeks before. She also thought she might play entrance music when Aunt Tiny walked through the door, she wasn’t sure what. Should she go with Momma and Andrew to meet the plane? Or stay home and prepare for the grand welcome?

  One afternoon, Shirley came by, blue eyes jumping expectantly. Yolonda stood at the door, torn between getting back to the piano or maybe going to the playground with Shirley. Then she saw the old knotted clothesline Shirley had looped jauntily across one shoulder. That girl just wouldn’t be discouraged.

  “Where’re you going? Mountain climbing?” Yolonda made her voice thick with sarcasm.

  “Yeah,” said Shirley. “I’m going to climb Mount Double Dutch. Wanta come?”

  Pretty good, thought Yolonda. But she said, “No. I’ve got to practice the piano.”

  “Oh,” said Shirley sadly. “Maybe tomorrow?”

  “That’s no double-Dutch rope anyhow, that raggedy thing. Mess your timing all up. You’ll fall right off Mount Double Dutch, Miss Shirley-girley. Besides, I have to practice a whole lot.”