Patsy

by Patsy (retail) (epub)

  “All right, dat’s everyt’ing,” Mama G finally says. She looks around the room, her dark eyes scanning everything except Tru. Tru has the same feeling she gets when she’s on a roller coaster or a Ferris wheel just before it lowers from the top. Why is her grandmother no longer looking at her? “Yuh father will be here soon,” Mama G says, as if to herself. Usually, when Mama G talks to herself, she’s muttering to God. She keeps a picture of Him everywhere, even under her bed next to her chimmey. “In case me mek a mistake an’ draw fi di Devil.” From then on Tru started to believe that the Devil hides under the bed. So, instead of crouching to pull out the chimmey at nights when she wants to pee, she wets the bed, often annoying her mother who she shares the bed with. But who will she sleep with now that her mother is gone?

  “Can I stay with you, Grandma?” Tru asks. “Ah promise ah won’t wet di bed.”

  Mama G appears pained by something Tru cannot see. As if somewhere in the shadow of the room there might be the Devil waiting with a bow and an arrow to pierce her heart. “No.”

  “What did I do wrong?” Fresh tears spring up from Tru’s eyes. Mama G pauses, holding the suitcase at her side. A purple scarf is tied around her head. The housedress she wears hangs off her body, since she’s mostly bones from all the fasting she does. She meets Tru’s gaze for the first time since they returned from the airport. “Nothing, child. You’re not di one in di wrong.”

  “So why did Mama leave me? Why yuh sending me away?”

  Mama G walks over to Tru with the pained look still on her face.

  “Di money dat yuh mother g’wan mek in America will buy you more than grains a salt from those tears, yuh hear?” she says, anger starting to churn in her voice. “Undah-stand from now dat she only doing what’s best for you. Money is di root of all evil, yes. But sometimes it mek t’ings easier. An’ you see how yuh feeling right now? Is di same way Jesus feel every time we forget ’bout Him. So, jus’ continue to be a child of God, yuh hear?”

  When Tru nods, Mama G continues, “Yuh father will take good care of you.”

  “But why ah have to go? Why ah can’t stay wid you?” Tru asks.

  “Di Bible seh to honor thy mother an’ thy father. Is di only way to Heaven. Now come here. Let me wipe dem tears from yuh face.”

  Tru closes her eyes as her grandmother wipes her face with a handkerchief and forces her to blow her nose. Just then they hear the crunching of wheels on gravel outside and then a car horn. Tru begins to climb down from the stool, but Mama G stops her. “You stay put. A real man should get outta him car, open di gate, an’ say him greetings.” Under her breath, Mama G utters, “Dat bwoy don’t have no manners, but him g’wan learn it wid me.”

  Tru sits there under duress, listening quietly to her father (she’s unsure what to call him to his face—dat bwoy? wutless brute? Mr. Policeman?—words her grandmother uses to describe him) blow his car horn, startling the sleeping dogs along the lane. They bark at the noise. Through the curtains with yellow flowers, Tru can see the tall, dark man, whom she has only seen three or four times before, getting out his car and slamming the door. Ras Norbert, who happens to be passing by with his brooms, chanting, “Believe me! Believe me not!” is suddenly still at the sight of the man. Tru observes the curious, tight way Ras Norbert holds his shoulders and neck. His mouth curves into an upside-down U as he stares at the police uniform—a striped blue shirt with three gold V-shaped patterns on the sleeves and a long pair of navy-blue pants with a broad red stripe down the sides of the legs. His face is still a mystery to Tru, hidden under the rim of the black peaked cap he wears. Something about his stiff demeanor strikes fear in Tru. The men outside, whom she knows as Johnson, Errol, Desmond, and Bo, pause their loodie-board game in front of Miss Maxine’s gate, where they wait for her cooked food, to stare at the man with the same glares given to fowl thieves or visitors with cars they lock carefully before getting out. The man doesn’t bother to say hello to the four men or to Miss Maxine, who comes out of her house with a dripping spoon to stare as well, her mouth a fixed O. The man’s manner and police uniform seem to crowd Rose Lane, barging into living rooms where curtains are drawn, eyes perhaps wide behind turned-up windows; and into yards, scattering fowl and overturning buckets of water. Even the sun gives way, pushed behind the thunderclouds. He brings something dark across the faces of Tru’s neighbors as if his presence has insulted them. The only one to say anything out loud is Ras Norbert. He lifts his hand and points a long, crooked finger at the policeman. “Babylon! Fyah bun Babylon!”

  But Ras Norbert’s outburst doesn’t faze the man one bit. He walks like he’s marching—left, right, left, right. Soon Tru hears banging on the veranda grille with what sounds like metal. Could it be his gun? She looks up at her grandmother, who seems unmoved by the noise, her jawbones clenched. When Mama G speaks, her words are measured. “Let’s go. We let him wait long enough.”

  As soon as dat bwoy sees them appear on the veranda he stops knocking. His demeanor changes. Mama G says, “Good afternoon.”

  “Good afternoon, Mama G,” he replies. He seems disarmed by Mama G’s quiet tone. The silent exchange between the grown-ups seems to lay down a pathway for Tru to walk on—one foot before the other until she’s next to the man Mama G calls her father. “She’s all yours,” Mama G says, granting dat bwoy? wutless brute? Mr. Policeman? permission to whisk Tru away. The ease with which this is done hits Tru harder than stones she and Albino Ricky aim at Sore-Foot Marlon from their slingshots. She’s all yours. Until then Tru wasn’t sure what she felt. A liquid wave of disappointment fills her chest. The man clutches her shoulder gently with a scarred hand. From the sides of her eyes she sees her neighbors watching. One by one they lower their shoulders as hers go up—an attempt to guard herself from their stares, their judgments, their pity.

  UPON ARRIVAL AT HER NEW HOME, TRU VOMITS HER BREAKFAST—the two eggs and crackers she ate before her father picked her up in his red Suzuki. His house is just over the gully that divides Pennyfield, in a town called Rochester. So it’s a mystery to her how he’s such a stranger. Not even through the door, she bends and hurls the contents of her stomach, spraying the front steps, the brown welcome mat, the green walls, and her father’s pants and shoes. She hears him mutter something under his breath. Her father makes a face as though tasting a teaspoon of something bitter.

  “Marva!” he shouts, his voice booming in this neat and clean place that smells like furniture polish. Three boys appear, their varying heights making their flat heads look like steps up a flight of stairs, their brown faces closed up like cabbage as they stare down at the vomit.

  “Weh oonuh mother deh?” dat bwoy? wutless brute? Mr. Policeman? barks. “Why oonuh stan’ up looking like buffoons? Guh call oonuh mother! She deaf?”

  “She roun’ di back washing clothes, Papa.”

  “Call har now!”

  They scamper off like mongrel dogs dodging a rock-stone. The television is on somewhere inside the house. Tru hears the voices of cartoon characters, soon drowned out by the slap-slap sound of a woman’s house slippers on the concrete tiles. “Lawd Jesus, Roy,” she says, out of breath. “Why yuh calling out me name suh like God a come?”

  In this house, Tru’s father is “Roy” or “Papa.” The way the woman says his name makes Tru want to hold it on her tongue too. For Papa doesn’t sound right. Marva stops short when she sees the mess. “Oh, dear!”

  “Come help me clean dis mess,” Roy says. “Yuh know how long me ah call yuh? If yuh did hear, why yuh neva answer?”

  “Ah was in di back doing somet’ing, Roy.”

  Roy sucks his teeth. “Look wah she do me good, good pants an’ Clarks.” He holds up one leg to show Marva his shoes.

  “Nuh worry,” Marva says. “Me will clean dat likkle lata.”

  “Yuh see me crosses?” Roy sucks his teeth, a searing cheups that cuts into Tru.

  “Roy, cool it. She’s jus’ a baby,” Marva says. “Yuh pants an’ shoes can wait.�
� She turns behind her and calls out, “Jermaine, grab di mop wid some wata an’ come help clean up di front step! Daval, come get yuh father shoes an’ clean it off. Kenny, bring yuh father some clean trousers. When yuh done, put di welcome mat inna di sun an’ help Jermaine wipe dung di walls.”

  “Yes, Mama!” the boys reply in unison.

  Tru is still looking down at her vomit, tears blurring her eyes and streaming down her hot face. She wants her mother. Ever since her mother left, Tru has been feeling trapped in a space between dreaming and waking. When she came back from the airport, she expected to see her mother, searching the whole house to find her, thinking maybe, just maybe, she didn’t really leave. That she was only dreaming everything. She can still smell the perfume her mother wore to board the plane. She can even feel the stroke of her mother’s thumb on her forehead to wipe off her kiss.

  “Come, sweetie,” says Marva, taking Tru’s hand. “Let me get yuh clean.”

  She leads Tru down a long hallway, and Tru wonders if she’s taking her to a dungeon. She passes the living room, which is sectioned off from the hallway with glass bead curtains. Somebody turns the volume down on the television, but there is a ringing in her ear—a deafening silence. She passes by rooms with made-up beds, embroidered curtains, oversized furniture. She looks back, wondering if it’s too late to run. Her father is slipping out of his shoes and cussing to himself, but Marva seems immune. “Nuh mind yuh father,” she says to Tru. “Him undah a lot of pressure. Him not suh used to children dat way.” Once inside the bathroom, she peels Tru’s clothes off, fills the bathtub, and closes the door behind her.

  “Hope yuh not coming down wid somet’ing,” Marva says as gently as the water trickling down Tru’s back in the bathtub. At home her mother bathes her in a yellow basin since they don’t have a tub, often allowing her to blow bubbles from the suds. She prefers that to the vast white tub in this bathroom, which is the same color as the glowing white walls. Never before has Tru seen a place so full of light. Marva has big, broad hands and even bigger breasts that surge from the low-cut blouse she wears when she bends down to rinse dried-up vomit from around Tru’s mouth. She’s round and brown with a moon face, pointy chin, a small mouth, and large expressive eyes that remind Tru of the dollies the girls play with at school.

  “Yuh not g’wan give us any trouble, right?” Marva asks as she wraps Tru in a towel that smells like flowers and then takes her into a room with a bunk bed. She strokes her hairline. “You is a big girl. Yuh mommy leave us in charge of you now.”

  Tru looks up at Marva. Marva knows her mother? And what does she mean by “leave us in charge”? Does that mean that Marva will become her mother now? She wants to ask this, but she’s too overcome by fear and confusion.

  “You an’ yuh brother Kenny g’wan share dis room,” Marva is saying. “You on di top bunk, an’ him on di bottom.”

  Tru pulls her gaze away from Marva and looks around the room as Marva ruffles through the suitcase her grandmother packed. The room is so small that it only has space for the bunk bed made of bamboo, with steps going to the top that appears to touch the ceiling, much like the tall vanity—the top of which Tru isn’t sure she can reach. There is no door to the room, just bare hinges, as if someone broke off the door and never bothered to fix it. Tru can still hear the litany of voices on the television in the living room, the laughter of her brothers cleaning up her vomit, and her father talking to someone on the telephone.

  On the bottom bunk, her brother’s toy soldiers and cars are scattered, his clothes rumpled. The window is open, and the breeze is blowing the sheer white curtain inward above a wooden chair that has clothes folded on it. She wonders how far her house is from this one. She sees the view of the same hill on which her mother said she would build a house.

  “Dis is such a nice dress.” Marva pulls out a red tunic. “Let’s put dis one on.”

  A wave of terror passes over Tru, and her heart begins to pound hard. She pulls away from Marva, shaking her head. “What’s di mattah?” Marva asks. She reaches for Tru again, and Tru slips from her grasp and runs naked out the door, through the hallway, passing the sounds of the television, her father’s hee-hawing on the telephone, and her giggling brothers—into the big yard washed by the sun. The whole place is spinning like in a dream—the rosebushes, the fence with barbed wire on top, the oversized plants on the walkway, the leaning trees, the two dogs in the yard. She hears her name. “Trudy-Ann!” It’s the sound of Marva’s voice. It’s too near. Too close in register to her mother’s. It frightens Tru. Makes her believe Marva has powers to trick her into believing she’s her mother. “Trudy-Ann, come here! Trudy-Ann, stop!” Marva’s giant footsteps are chasing her.

  In her panic, Tru cries, “Ah want my mama! You’re not Mama!”

  Roy’s booming voice follows. “Trudy-Ann, get back in di house now! Yuh mother not coming back!”

  Tru runs around the house, trampling the hibiscuses, and ditching traps of running Marys and macka bushes. She climbs the nearest tree—a cherry tree that seems high enough that no one can reach her. There are no cherries on the tree. A bird’s nest sits not too far from Tru on another branch. Below her, her father, Marva, and her three ugly brothers are looking up at her in the highest branch. She trembles, the prospect of being caught scarier than falling. Here she is in a strange place with strange smells and strange sounds and strange people she barely knows. If her mother could up and leave her just like that, then what might she expect from her father, a man she hardly knows? And who’s to tell if Marva, with her big hands and round face, is really a witch? “Mama!” Tru cries, swallowed into the cave mouth of fear. She looks up at the wide expanse of the cloudless blue sky that her mother flew into. A little bird swoops down just then into the nest. Two baby birds stick their necks out, their beaks wide open. Tru stops crying and stares at them, sniffling. The mother bird appears to glance in her direction, her side-eye fierce. Tru draws her breath, terrified.

  “Trudy-Ann, don’t move!” her father is saying down below. He’s getting ready to climb the tree, taking off his shirt and throwing it to the ground. But Tru is in awe of the bird. She feels a sudden yearning to pet it. Just as she reaches for it, a good high wind shakes the quivering branches of the cherry tree. Not wanting to harm the baby birds in the nest, Tru reaches for another limb to break her fall like she does on the jungle gym at school. But what she feels is air between her fingers as she plunges. She lands smack in her father’s outstretched arms.

  7

  ACROSS THE OCEAN, PATSY SITS ON THE TWIN-SIZE BED, HER bottom sinking into the mattress. She doesn’t bother to unpack, still unable to believe that she’s really here. In America. She puts her face to the surface to sniff the sheets, taking in a whiff of the perfume scent: Lavender? Roses? She can’t tell. The pillows are fluffed atop the quilted comforter, which feels like it’s padded with sponge. She squeezes it, then runs her fingers along the stitches and over the soft sheets underneath with more thread count than she’s used to, considering Cicely’s thoughtful preparation. All fah me, she thinks, warmed with affection. This is what she has always imagined freedom to feel and smell like. She stretches out on the bed, spread-eagled. She takes it all in, rubbing the surface of the sheets until her hands burn, and sniffing the sweetness until her nose tingles.

  She turns her head and sets her gaze on an antique wooden desk by her bedside. Next to the lamp on the table is a feather quill without a pot of ink. Patsy figures that it’s a part of the decor. She looks around the room, excited at the thought that outside this basement with no windows is a city waiting to be explored. Patsy sits upright at the thought of exploring, suddenly feeling the urge to take a shower, to wash with foreign soap. She rises from the bed and tiptoes across the hardwood floor—barefoot—to the bathroom. Cicely has left her with towels, a washcloth, and a basket full of toiletries. The bathroom is small, with a sliding glass door instead of a shower curtain. The toilet is a tiny chimmey that Patsy hopes can fit her
rear end. And the sink is shaped like a small bowl. She peels off her clothes and steps behind the sliding door. She’s suddenly conscious of her nakedness in a way she hasn’t been before. How strange to feel naked in a room not her own, and not stepping in or out of a lover’s embrace, but here, naked in the lavender-rose-scented basement of her best friend’s house in Brooklyn.

  The shower itself is a conundrum, with a knob that has an arrow between the colors red or blue. In Jamaica, there is only one way to turn on a pipe or a shower faucet. They aren’t as fancy as this one, although Mama G used to come home in her helper’s uniform gushing about how the people uptown have foreign things in their bathrooms like Jacuzzis and marble counters and pipes turning and twisting every which way.

  Patsy stands there, the chilly air against her chest hardening her nipples as she stares at the knob. The branch under her navel itches. Cold and annoyance cramp her belly. She reaches out to turn the knob in the direction of blue. She reasons that she cannot go wrong with the color blue. She turns the knob, then stands back, only to feel ice-cold water pouring from the bottom faucet and not the showerhead. Patsy lets out a yelp. “Have mercy!” She frantically turns the knob in the direction of red until the water becomes lukewarm. But water still pours from the bottom, not the top, faucet. Too tired to figure out how water can come from the showerhead, Patsy squats to the bottom faucet, aware of her body filling the small space, her right knee pressed against the glass door. She performs her cleansing ritual—one she’s accustomed to doing back home over a bucket of water when water pressure is low. If Mama G could have seen her now, squatting this way to wash her privates in America, she would have peered down on her like the glistening shower faucet above Patsy’s head, her face fixed with scorn and some gratification. “What a disgrace! Yuh in a big-big country like America acting like a bush gyal.”