Bud blinked. Either he could hardly blive it or he was bout to cry.
Well, needless to say, Bud began passin up them requests, “Hey, Bud!” hollared across a street or “Budddddy! from a door or window. Even the door of the Curlee Ree Beauty Shop. Passin like a freight train passin by a hobo! He was tendin to his business!!! Going to the bank instead of a bar or the liquor store. I mean, he changed and it didn’t make him unhappy none!
Now … I know what you want to know. It went like this. For a long, long time Kissy would not let him make love to her. I mean a loooong time. She thought the minute he did that, he would be gone because he would not fit and she loved that man so hard by then. She did NOT want to lose him. They kissed and hugged. They petted and rubbed. He respected her, but he wanted to be WITH her. He wanted to marry her. She didn’t want a marriage that would turn out bad for him. She had resigned herself to never no real lovin, but she loved him enough to just be with him and never be satisfied in THAT way. She loved his kissin and huggin and rubbin stuff.
Finally, of course you know, she let him sleep over her house sometimes after a good dinner. She wore pajamas and him not wanting her to know the size of his problem, he wore big, loose pajamas. He had decided he loved her enough to never try to REALLY make love to her either. He could do without that all his life with her, if she would just marry him and stay his. I’m tellin you! Lady Luck may never have smiled on her, but she had something better than luck. She had a blessing!!
We all know how, in time, that kissin and rubbin just naturally goes further and further. One night they got carried away and they was already in bed. He moved over on top of her, just rubbin, that’s all. She was crying a little, her body was so hungry for his love, his touch. She opened her mouth to say, “Bud, I got somethin to tell you.” He opened his mouth at the same time (course, he didn’t move his lips from her lips). “Baby, baby, I got somethin to tell you.” Then she said in a slow, raspy, needin you whisper, “Go on, do it, do it.” He said, “I want to, but I can’t hurt you, I just can’t.” They still kissin, too. She almost screamed, but her mouth was full of his, but she did say, “Go on, do it,” even though her heart was breakin cause she knew she was gettin ready to lose him. He said, “Just a little, just a little.” Kissy was cryin, her last thought, as he got started, was “Well, I done lost my good man now.” But he was started now. It was really the first time for both of them.
She opened her eyes and looked up into his as they began. He opened his eyes and looked down into hers and he moved in closer. They were lost in each other’s eyes and WONDER as everything fell into place. They fit!!!
Chile, them stars came unhinged again, zoomed right out of the sky and filled up that bed and that room and the hearts and minds of the two people whose love was closing in on them. I’m talkin bout love, chile, love and happiness.
They got married, soon, you know that.
Oh, the women laughed and whispered behind her back. They knew her business! they smirked. “Big business!” they said. “Lord! If she could take that!” Well, she did. And she stayed smilin and happy! Bud did too.
Then soon, Bud decided to go to school to learn plumbing cause he didn’t like bein away from his little heaven so much. After the first year, he started workin at it as an apprentice. He bought his wife and his expected baby a home. Then he bought her her own car! And Bud? Kissy had him lookin good and dressin real nice, even sharp sometimes and he kept her bright and fluffy, lookin pleased and happy all the time. Her dresser was full of bottles of the best perfumes and creams. Her closet was full, in spite of the fact she tried to slow Bud down to save money because she wanted some income property so it could bring in some money and he could stay home even more.
Them people still whispered and talked about Bud and Kissy! Well, how you gonna shut people up? Even Jesus couldn’t do it! But they were lower whispers and less laughter. Curlee Ree talked the hardest. Her jealousy was evident. All them jealousies were! Ain’t life funny? Nobody wanted him, they said, and the women didn’t want to like her, just mean and ugly and now jealousy was added just about two people being happy.
Well, I can tell you, Bud ain’t never gonna leave Kissy and Kissy don’t look like she ever gonna leave Bud. They both have found and made a home. A home that fits them to a “T.” Like a glove, chile. They were not the mistakes other people thought they were. One man’s poison is another man’s dessert! There is somebody for everybody! I know that for myself!
A Will and a Way
Aberdeen, Abby, was born in the middle of a metropolitan city, straight from a hardworking, hard-living, worn-out mother, Callie. Callie, born in the South, had worked hard from the time she could walk good til the time her own mother moved to the North chasing her husband and then chasin love or companionship to the tune of seven children. The last three bein by different fathers. She had got tired of chasin the wind, then got caught up in them breezes.
Callie didn’t know if that was her nickname or her real name. It’s all she was ever called and all she and her family knew since her mother had died and she hadn’t thought to ask her before her death. But she did know she was worn out and tired. Tired of her life, her children, her search for love through the rubble of her life and tired of tryin. Tired of her domestic jobs that took all they could squeeze out of a woman who could not read or write and, still, she could not stretch her pay to cover decent food for her children still at home and they was mostly all still at home. Even those who left came back regularly to eat. So she went on welfare. It paid more than her jobs.
Callie loved her children. Wanted them all to be full and have things. So she would sneak and do odd jobs of work, leaving the smallest children at home, alone with their brothers and sisters who were supposed to watch them. They would watch them for an hour or two, then they would leave the smaller ones alone to care for themselves. The small ones probably did as good a job as the older ones would have.
Abby was raised about any which way. She knew her mother loved her because mothers were supposed to love their children. But there were so many children, so many needs. Another baby came when Abby was one year old. That didn’t matter none, nor change much, since bein a baby meant having a raw behind because you couldn’t change your own diaper or train yourself to use the toilet.
Food was there on the first and you went in and got out what you could, while you could. That’s why Abby learned to walk early, cause in her house you better get up and see bout yourself.
They lived in the ghetto, naturally, cause there wasn’t any choice about it. Only money could get you a better place to live and who had money? It wasn’t the healthiest place to live either, and without health, there is not much joy in life, if any. Everybody bein poor means there were, had to be, thieves. So even though you live in the poorest place, somebody was still waiting to steal what you did have from you. Sometimes right in your own family. Poverty is a bitch.
Abby fought her way through her family. There was a pat or a hug, now and again. But after that you were on your own again.
I don’t have to tell you there was colored, Black, African-American in this place, cause you don’t ever need to tell nobody that. Just tell the story. Though there are some white and Hispanic and Chinese ones out there squalling in the squaler of life too.
Anyway, Abby fought her way through school. And since she wasn’t much different from other children tryin to survive and have a little fun out of life sometime, Abby did all the usual things some, mostly poor, children do. She went to school sometimes, got in trouble sometimes.
But she knew when she went home there would be somewhere to sleep with a locked door between her and the world. In time, seemed like the rest of the world was in her home too, cause her sisters and brothers were now products of that world out there. They stole from you too and they might fight you about something they thought you did to them. One sister had even fought the mother, Callie.
So Abby grew up. Open to love. Needin it. And everyone talking about b
oyfriends and girlfriends, and young men wanting to be like the father they never had and looking at TV and movies where it seemed the point was to screw somebody or kill em. When Abby was thirteen she got a boyfriend, too, and he gave her a baby cause he didn’t know how not to and really didn’t care.
Callie could only look at Abby with tired, tired eyes. Everybody else in the family screamed at Abby for bein dumb. Callie had cried with the first two daughters when they got pregnant. Once, she had tried to beat a son into marrying a girl he got pregnant, but she knew that wouldn’t be doing the girl nor the child any favor. In the end, she just helped her girls get birth control pills. The government would give them to you free.
She had thought Aberdeen was too young. Thirteen. She had loved Aberdeen’s father and tried hard for him. She grieved when he left because her life was too big for him once he got out of her bed. This was one of her babies. Abby, whom she loved, as all her children. Who, try as she might, she never had enough time for. She was almost always dead tired from scuffling with life, then too, she had to find some love for herself, some lovemakin. She wanted to do and say nice things to her children, but mostly screams came out of her mouth. And the hope she tried to hold in her hands was always gone when she opened them for her children.
Abortion, abortion was the next thing that came from everyone’s lips. Even the preacher’s. But, through it all, Abby held on to her little swollen stomach and shook her head no. She didn’t love its father. She didn’t know nothing about love anyway. It seemed she had just needed him at the time. But, now, she would have her baby for herself. Her child. Her own human being to love. So she kept her baby. She dropped out of school in the seventh grade. Wasn’t hardly there anyway.
Callie helped Abby get welfare help so she would have prenatal care. What else did she have to give her daughter, but welfare? Callie helped Abby sign up for and get a small apartment after a long, long wait, cause it had to be in the ghetto. Wasn’t enough money to get out the ghetto.
When the little dark brown baby was born it was a girl and Abby wanted to give her doll baby the best, most beautiful name in the world. She choose Uniqua, from the word “unique” she had heard a man use on the television.
Abby was a good mother. If she never did anything else, that baby, Uniqua was clean, fed and healthy. It was Abby’s first and only child. She wasn’t tired yet. If anything looked wrong on Uniqua, Abby went straight to the hospital and if she had to stay two, three days, she did. She packed Uniqua’s clothes, food and a small ice pack to keep the milk fresh. She stayed in a doctor’s face or office till Uniqua was well.
Abby hadn’t done well in school, but she could sign her name, count money and things like that. All she had to do was sign her check and watch her money and her child. She baby-sat, sometimes, for other mothers for two reasons. It gave Uniqua someone to play with and she could use the extra money. Welfare wouldn’t let you work and the mothers didn’t want welfare to know they even needed a babysitter (to get away sometimes), so no one told on Abby. After a while, Abby cut it down to one or two children because, sometimes, the mothers lied and didn’t pay like they were supposed to.
Uniqua grew up. Abby worshiped the child. Uniqua’s view of the world was different from many other children in the ghetto. There was always something to eat or snack on and clothes in her closet. She had her own small room with shelves for the picture books she loved. Uniqua said she was going to write a book someday.
Then Uniqua started preschool. Well, let me tell you. Uniqua had grown up watching Abby take care of, and speak up for, herself. Abby was tough. Abby would fight a man if he tried to run over her and she sure would whip a woman. I know even preschool can be tough on some children, but Uniqua was tough too. She held her own.
Now, Abby was a short, plump brown-skin woman with a really attractive face, long eyelashes, pretty eyes and short hair.
Uniqua was a thin, wiry, dark brown child. Thin, but healthy. Little bump-like muscles made up the calves of her thin legs, bump-like bones made up her knees and two tight bump-like muscles made up her little butt. Her hair was … I can’t say kinky cause there were no kinks in her well-combed hair. I can’t say nappy cause she had no naps there either. It was not straight, but it was soft and fine. Abby combed her bangs and had a braid on each side of her little round face with the big, pretty eyes and straight teeth with only one slightly crooked tooth in front. She had a big beautiful smile that came from her lips, her eyes and her heart. That child, Uniqua, was sweet … and tough. She thought she could do whatever Abby did and she wasn’t going to let anyone run over her either!
One day when tiny little Uniqua came home from school, she had been crying. She explained to her mother that some boys had grabbed her behind and they had kept doing it no matter what she told them and she couldn’t always catch them to hit them for it. The child was really mad. Abby went to see the principal to have him stop that kind of goings on with her daughter. Because she also did not want them “grabs” to finally feel good or be done by someone Uniqua might eventually like, and thereby give Uniqua something she could not handle. But, mostly, she did not want anybody’s hands on Uniqua’s behind at all.
The principal laughed and said, “Now you know, Ms.… ah, you know boys will be boys. That’s just as natural as night and day.” (They don’t always get the best teachers in the ghettos.)
Abby put her hand on her hip and said, “Naw it ain’t. Maybe for your daughter. Not for my daughter!”
The principal looked at Uniqua. “Do you know who they were?” He looked back at Abby. “Honestly, Ms.… ah, there is really nothing we can do. There are too many children here as it is and we can’t possibly control every one of them every minute.”
Abby shook her head, said, “That might be true, but this here one is mine.” She put her hand on Uniqua’s shoulder. She hit herself on her own breast with the other hand. “And if something like that happens to her again, I’m comin over here and whip YOUR ass. Every time. Til she gets out’a this here school. I want her to get a education, not a screwin!”
The principal blanched, startled. Abby went through his office door with her hand back on her hip and looked at the principal’s secretary who was frowning at her with distaste. Abby pointed at the secretary, said, “Yours too! I’ll kick every ass in this here place down to the cook in that shitty cafeteria! The reason these kids is actin out like they ain’t got no sense is cause you all act that way.” Uniqua was behind Abby, smiling and proud of her mother taking up for her.
Now there was a very religious lady lived down the hall from Abby who liked Abby because she was clean and well mannered to her, even though she did have a party now and then. The lady had a child who went to the Catholic school not too far away. “It costs a little,” the lady said, “but I blive it’s worth it.”
Abby went to talk to the school to find out about the money. Then she went down to the welfare office for two days trying to get that money. She had to talk loud again.
The welfare lady said, “We can’t do this. Suppose everybody …”
Abby held her hand up. “I ain’t everybody. How many other mamas done asked you? I want my daughter to be safe. Go to a decent school. Like your child does, if you got one.”
The welfare lady continued, “That is none of your business. Your business is why you are here. And we cannot …”
Abby held her hand up again. “Miss lady what-ever-your-name-is. I mean my daughter to be treated like a decent child. If you ain’t gonna help me do that, then I’m gonna treat you like what you think I am. I am going to kick your ass, starting Monday, for every day my daughter has to go back to that sex fiend school.”
The lady backed up, said, “You can’t talk like that in here.”
“If Uniqua don’t get to go to a better school …”
The lady said, “You will get put off welfare if you …”
Abby put her hand on her hip. “If I get put offa welfare and can’t feed my child and sen
d her to a decent school”— she waved the other arm all around the office and had everyone’s attention—”everyone of you”—she looked back to the first welfare lady—”specially you, gonna meet me outside this door or your own front door and you won’t be comin in to get your check either, til your ass gets well, if I let it get well!”
“You can be put in jail …”
“I may go to jail, but you will be in the hospital! You can send me back to jail, but I’m gonna send you back to the hospital! I mean it! With ALL my heart! This is my chile and you gonna give me that little money for her to go to a better school and give her a chanct to grow up and get her a education without somebody pullin on her behind! Or else!”
When Uniqua started the new school a week later, Abby walked her there every school morning for a year. Then she let Uniqua go alone. Uniqua was so proud of her mother. That’s one way self-esteem builds up. You know you are loved enough for somebody to fight for you. Somebody thinks you are worth it. Makes you learn how to love and fight for yourself. Uniqua did well at the new school.
Abby lived her personal life while Uniqua was at school. Most she did for a social life was play cards, drink a little too much sometimes on the weekend. Every once in a while, somebody would dance. But that was only on the weekends. Abby didn’t think that little bit of livin would hurt Uniqua. Everybody knows that when you get to playin cards, you get to cussin when you get a good hand or a bad one or pull a boston on somebody. All them things was natural.
At the new school parents had to read a little more and write a little more on the report cards. Uniqua had never noticed her mother’s handwritin, but when she was about nine years old, she proudly handed Abby her report card and stood beside her as Abby looked at the card.
Frowning, Abby asked, “Where do I sign?”
Smiling, Uniqua said, “Where it says parent.”
“Where do it say ‘Parent’?”
Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime Page 21