Spot lies down at Mama Ya-Ya’s feet like he belongs there.
I am exasperated, but not surprised. Mama Ya-Ya knows everything. She has the sight, too.
She gives both me and Spot a bowl of Hoppin’ John.
I look around the warm kitchen as we eat. The gas stove. The dinette set. Mason jars filled with roots and herbs on the counter. Mama Ya-Ya is humming a sweet tune. Some song from her African past, from another life. Spot is snoring slightly at her feet.
When we finish, I do the dishes, watching rainbow bubbles float up from the sink.
“You know, there’s a storm coming,” says Mama Ya-Ya as I slip the last clean dish on the rack, my hands dripping with water. There’s been nothing on the radio or the TV news. Nothing in the papers. But Mama Ya-Ya knows. “By the end of the week.”
I shrug. We’ve had storms before.
“TaShon’s coming, too,” she says.
I’m always still surprised how Mama Ya-Ya can see people coming before they even get here. Sometimes I think she has more powers than any superhero.
There is a rat-a-tat-tat on the screen door. “Lanesha, it’s me. TaShon.”
Spot gets up wagging his whole body. I look up, drying my hands.
“Y’all clean that dog before bed,” says Mama Ya-Ya.
“C’mon,” I say to TaShon, opening the door, then moving down the steps, around the side of the house.
TaShon pats Spot. “I always wanted a dog.”
I say nothing. Just grab the hose and spray Spot and TaShon both. One shouts, the other howls; both are happy.
It is hot and the water is cold. I toss TaShon a bar of soap and he is scrubbing Spot. I think they both are getting cleaner than they’ve ever been. Spot licks TaShon’s face and TaShon grins. Neighbors pass by.
Mrs. Watson cries, “That is one fine dog. Just a pup.”
Mr. Lincoln who has a fake left foot (he says his flesh foot is buried in Vietnam) shouts, “Wash him once. Then, twice. Three times clean. Fleas don’t like soap.”
Mr. D, Mama Ya-Ya’s friend, a retired cop, hoots, “Who’s your new friend, Lanesha?”
I look around to see who he’s talking about. It’s TaShon. TaShon shakes himself, and when he does it, Spot shakes himself, too, spraying water like streamers. TaShon does it again; so does Spot.
“A trick, already?!” exclaims Mr. D. “You’ve got a smart friend, Lanesha.” Mr. D waddles away, his belly wiggling like jelly over his belt. I don’t tell him TaShon is our neighbor from across the street.
“Whoop, whoop, whoop,” I scream, holding the hose high then low. Spot barks. Soon, him and TaShon are jumping up and down trying to escape the water snake. High, then low. Spot tries to bite the water. TaShon, one eye still closed, just laughs and laughs. I spray his sneakers and Spot’s toes.
I wave at Rudy and Rodriguez. They live in the blue shotgun house down the block.
Rudy calls, “Lanesha, spray some here, too.” I do and the two grown men laugh like TaShon, jumping back, yet jumping forward enough to make sure their shirts and hair get wet. “Feels good,” says Rodriguez. “Our neighborhood rain machine.” He tosses a silver dollar to TaShon. “Buy the dog a bone.”
TaShon, his arms spread wide, twirls like an airplane. Spot barks and chases his tail. I lift the hose high; water falls like a soft summer shower.
There is sweetness to this day.
I thought this day was going to be ordinary. But it was full of surprises: Andrew, TaShon and Spot, and Miss Johnson saying I could be an engineer.
I look up and down the street. Most folks are outside. None of the houses have air-conditioning. The houses are painted in pastel colors—pink, yellow, blue, and green. A few are white. Only our house is peach. Pastel colors are supposed to be cool, but all of us are sweating just the same.
I hear Mama Ya-Ya’s TV news floating yackety-yak out the window: “A tropical storm is kicking up high waves in the Bahamas. Satellites show the counterclockwise rotation of a developing hurricane. Winds, thirty-eight miles per hour…”
I hear someone blowing a saxophone. I hear some boys hollering for pickup basketball; others are rapping on the street corner. Pretending they are on TV.
Girls are playing jacks and double Dutch. The older ones are sitting on porches, gossiping, braiding each other’s hair, and looking at old copies of Essence magazine.
Grown-ups are arriving home from work. They seem like kids again, grinning silly. Their wrinkly faces go all smooth once they park their cars or step down from the city bus. Men take off their jackets like they’re slipping off backpacks, and women swing their purses like empty lunch boxes. Retired folks walk through the neighborhood trying to be helpful. They scold kids to walk, not run, across the street.
I spray TaShon’s big feet. Spot barks.
I’m happy. I think this neighborhood is my family. Right here. Now.
Who needs a dumb Uptown family?
Wednesday
I wake, stretch. Sun is shining into my room, making my blue walls glow. Spot stretches, too. He slept with me all night. Warm and soft.
I fall back on the pillow and Spot lays his head on me. He licks my face and I say, “Time for school.”
Dressed, I pass Mama Ya-Ya’s bedroom. It’s empty except for my mother’s ghost. Lying on the bed, as still as an alligator, sunning.
I ignore her. I’ve seen her so many times. But Spot stops. Ears perked, tail and even the hair down his spine up.
“You see her?” I say.
Spot doesn’t move.
“It’s my mother from long ago. She doesn’t mean harm. Most of the time, she sleeps like now. Or just sits and stares.”
Spot turns his head and looks at me like he understands everything I say.
“I guess she misses us. Or else she’s waiting for something. I don’t know what. It’s been twelve years.”
Spot licks my hand.
I swallow. “I can’t touch her. Or talk to her either. Not really. I can talk, but she won’t answer back. I don’t know why.”
Sniffing, Spot lifts his head high into the air. I think: Juliet should’ve had a dog. She might’ve been less sad if she’d had a dog.
Spot turns and prances down the stairs.
“Weatherman says a big storm is coming. Might be a hurricane. What I tell you?” Mama Ya-Ya clicks off the fire beneath a pot. “I knew it. Just knew it. I saw the birds leaving their trees. Saw how the water was slow to boil.
“Don’t stay after school, Lanesha. I need you to pick up supplies. Milk. Bread. Rice. Beans. Bottled water.”
“You think this is going to be another Betsy?” Before I was born, Hurricane Betsy tore up New Orleans. I saw old clips on the news. Mean Betsy. Some of the folks didn’t have clean water. Or any food. Mama Ya-Ya wants us to be prepared.
Spot sits, begging at Mama Ya-Ya’s skirt. He’s already had breakfast. Mama Ya-Ya gives him a piece of toast.
I giggle.
Mama Ya-Ya puts a plate before me. The over-easy egg is bright yellow and white. I puncture the egg and watch the yellow river swirl on my plate. I take hot sauce and sprinkle the runny yolk red.
Instead of cleaning dishes, Mama Ya-Ya sits at the table with me. Her hair isn’t neat. It’s matted to her head like she’s just gotten out of bed. Mama Ya-Ya never comes to the table without her hair combed! She’s also left her teeth in their glass. Her cheeks look hollow.
She sucks air through her gums. It’s a brief whistle. Spot comes and lays his head in her lap. She pats Spot’s fuzzy head, but she doesn’t look at him.
I sit up straight and pay attention.
“I had a dream. Don’t know yet what it means.”
I’m not worried. Mama Ya-Ya often has dreams. Just as she knows about things before they happen, her dreams can tell her things, too. Sometimes she dreams I’m going to have a pop quiz in school. Vocabulary. Math. So, I’ll study extra during breakfast. Orange juice, bacon, and eggs are the perfect study food. If I’m lucky, Mama Y
a-Ya will make grits or hash browns, too.
Most times, Mama Ya-Ya’s dreams are about who’s sick, who’s delivering a baby, who got laid off from a job. She dreamed Mr. Bailey was going to break his leg. She told him he was too old to be spreading tar on his roof. But Mr. Bailey waved his hand, saying, “Seventy plus seven is a lucky number.” He slipped off the ladder just the same. For an entire month, he scowled at me, stomped his crutches, whenever I brought him Mama Ya-Ya’s fresh-baked pralines.
Usually, breakfast is my favorite time of day. Me and Mama Ya-Ya talk about school (“I want to sail all the blue on the globe,” I’ll say), whether I need new shoes (“You’re growing so big,” she’ll say), what I want for dinner (“Pork chops,” I’ll say), and my weekend chores (“Clean the bathroom,” she’ll say). We talk regular, everyday stuff.
But today, Mama Ya-Ya sits across from me, her brows wrinkling like cornrows. I’m surprised ’cause Mama Ya-Ya usually cleans while I eat. She can’t stand dirty pans or a greasy stove.
She is talking to me serious.
“In my dream, Lanesha, storm clouds come; wind comes; rain smacks down; the water clears. Sun comes out. Folks go about their business. Everyone is happy. But then, everything goes black. Like someone pulling a curtain. Or a shroud being pulled over the dead. Or God turning out the lights.” She smacks her hand on the counter. And stares at the ceiling like some truth is up there.
I stare, too, but all I see is our kitchen lamp with dead bugs in its glass basin.
I start to feel a wee bit of fear. Usually, Mama Ya-Ya understands her dreams. I am scared not by her dream itself, but because she doesn’t seem to know what it means.
Mama Ya-Ya gets up, and picks up the pot of scalded milk from the stove’s back burner. “I think the storm might be bad,” she says, certain. “But not as bad as Betsy.”
She pours me café au lait—mixing the milk from the pot with coffee in my cup. Since I was five, I’ve been drinking café au lait. It always makes me feel grown-up. Now that I’m older, I realize Mama Ya-Ya doesn’t use much coffee. Still, I pretend I’m drinking exactly what Mama Ya-Ya drinks, and not just 99 percent hot milk.
“Momma is upstairs,” I say.
“I know. What’s she doing?”
“Just sleeping. Though I don’t know why a ghost needs to sleep. She could be sailing the seas. Or flying to Africa.”
I don’t know why I’m talking about my mother. I used to talk about her a lot when I was little. I wanted to know everything about her, but I discovered there wasn’t too much to know.
Mama Ya-Ya pats my head, just like she patted Spot. Pat-pat. I don’t mind.
Mama Ya-Ya’s eyes are still crinkled with worry. She picks up my plate. The egg and hot sauce has made it glow like yellow, orange, and red finger paint. “Hurry, you’ll be late for school,” she says.
I grab my notebook of assignment sheets. Even though our schoolbooks are tattered and old, we aren’t allowed to bring them home. Spot scurries up. I say, “Stay. Mama Ya-Ya needs company.”
“Not with ghosts in the house. Got all the company I need.”
“Spot isn’t allowed in school. ’Sides, he sees ghosts, too.”
“He does?”
Mama Ya-Ya and her cane move closer to Spot. She is bending, peering down at him. Her Coke-bottle-covered eyes looking into his baby browns. I can tell she’s smiling inside. Spot will give her someone to talk to. Mama Ya-Ya, I think, will be chattering away before I’m down the porch steps.
I open the screen door. The sun is ever so bright. I can smell the trees, flowers, and bacon. Everybody in my neighborhood loves bacon. Probably a dozen families are frying it right now.
I turn back and say, “Do you ever think my mother’s ever going to stop being here?”
“She’ll stop when she finds her purpose. Go on now. You’ll be late.” Then, “You want some bacon?” she says to Spot.
I smile. Mama Ya-Ya and Spot are going to have a good day.
My day is fine. I even like PE. I run track and win. Ginia pronounced like Virginia, without the Vir, comes in a close second. Ginia has the biggest smile, an itty-bitty nose, and beautiful cornrows with crystal, rainbow beads. Ginia is popular and cute. Not like me. Every PE class, she’s been nice to me. Not stuck-up. I wish she were in one of my other classes. Except for PE, I only see her in the halls with the cheerleading girls who like to stroll after school on the Riverwalk, trying to look cute.
Last week, Ginia even asked me to go try on clothes at the mall. No one has money to buy, but that doesn’t change anything. Hours can be spent trying on clothes. Drinking a Big Gulp at the mall.
Still.
I didn’t say yes. I think Ginia feels sorry for me. I don’t need anyone’s sorry. ’Sides, even if she was sincere, her friends wouldn’t be. Sooner or later someone will bring up my weird eyes. Or say, “You see dead people.” Or false-pity me not having parents, calling me an “orphan girl” or worse. More worse, they’d call Mama Ya-Ya a “witch.” Then, I’d have to fight. I like Ginia too much to ruin her good time.
Still. She keeps asking. I think it’s because she didn’t go to my elementary school. She doesn’t know that I’ve always been on my own—except for Mama Ya-Ya and the neighbors who watched me grow for a long time.
“Lanesha, after school want to hear my CDs? I got some new ones.” Ginia is smiling, her hands on her knees, still panting from running.
“I can’t.”
“You always say that.”
I’m tempted. “Mama Ya-Ya wants me to go to the store.”
“I’ll go with you.”
My eyes widen. But I only say, “Okay.”
All through math, I’m distracted. I don’t think Ginia means what she says; still, I hope. Wonder if she’ll wait for me after school?
At lunch, I eat my tuna sandwich and apple juice at my table. I call it “my table,” ’cause no one will sit with me. But, unlike TaShon, I don’t try to be invisible. I sit right in the middle of the cafeteria. I’m not ashamed of me. In class, folks don’t like to sit near me, either. In my old school, teachers used to make them. Then, there’d be hollering, “I don’t wanna. I don’t wanna.” I guess when teachers figured out sitting by myself didn’t bother me, they let it go. It does bother me that kids don’t sit beside me. I just don’t let it show. During lunch, I read; during class, I stare at the teacher and blackboard. I blot out all the kids being rude! I sometimes imagine that they’re just ghosts, too.
But today I am itching with thoughts of Ginia.
Twice, Miss Johnson asks what’s wrong with me. I can’t answer her. Part of me feels embarrassed, and I’m not sure why.
But I watch the clock, anyhow; its hands measure time, superslow. I tell myself I know better than to want something so bad. If my Uptown family has taught me anything, it’s taught me that. If I thought it would add up to anything, I wouldn’t hang out with Ginia after school. Why worry that once she found out about me, she might diss me like my Uptown relatives?
Click. Finally, the clock’s big hand points twelve. Its little hand points three. The school bell rings.
I steel my heart. I won’t get hurt.
I didn’t think buying milk, bread, and water could be so much fun. Mr. Ng owns the corner store and him and Ginia talk about his daughter, Mengying, in Vietnam.
“We’re pen pals,” says Ginia. “When Mr. Ng has enough money, he’ll send for Mengying. When we’re older, she’s going to show me Vietnam. The land of a thousand temples.”
“Put it on Mama Ya-Ya’s account,” I say, pointing at the bread, milk, and water on the counter.
“Sure thing,” says Mr. Ng. He knows neighborhood Social Security, disability, and welfare checks come in first of the month. Mama Ya-Ya always pays. She stretches her Social Security to include me. It is Wednesday, the twenty-fourth. On the first of the month, we’ll feel rich (have fresh shrimp and hot andouille sausage); on the second, we’ll be poor again.
“Is Mama Ya-
Ya planning on a hurricane?” asks Mr. Ng. “Weatherman says big hurricane coming to Florida.”
“She says a storm’s coming. Told me we had to prepare.”
“Mama Ya-Ya’s ghosts say so? Prepare? Storm’s coming to New Orleans? Or hurricane? Her ghosts say which?”
Mr. Ng understands ghosts. He told Mama Ya-Ya that Vietnam was filled with them. From time to time, the two of them talk about ointments and roots. Mr. Ng confides his worries about his ancestors. He hopes his cousins in Vietnam are caring for his parents’ graves. Mama Ya-Ya says, “I understand.” Then, Mama Ya-Ya hugs him. Mr. Ng bows. Their conversation is always the same.
“Not ghosts this time, Mr. Ng,” I answer, shy to be talking about ghosts in front of Ginia. “She dreamed it,” I say, wincing that these words are no better. Ginia will leave me soon enough. Just wait. “Ghosts, dreams,” she’ll say, disgusted, thinking I’m too crazy to bother with.
I grab the bags and go.
Outside, it’s cloudy, shrill with wind blowing through the cypress trees. The sun seems to have disappeared.
“My grandmother sees things, too,” says Ginia. “We just don’t talk about it.”
I smile. Ginia smiles back. She slips her hand over mine and grabs the bag with milk and water.
The humidity is high. It is still New Orleans hot. Mosquitoes are eating my neck.
Up ahead, there’s a crowd on Mr. Palmer’s porch. He’s an amputee. Both his legs are gone because of diabetes. Every day his wife rolls his wheelchair onto the porch with a TV stand and a small color TV. His pug, Beanie, curls up beneath where his feet ought to be. Both spend their days on the porch until Mrs. Palmer comes home from making beds at the Hilton. If it rains, Mrs. Palmer knows neighbors will take Mr. Palmer inside. She leaves him a pitcher of beer and a paper sack filled with sandwiches for lunch. A bone for Beanie. Neighbors drifting by will sometimes leave pecans or an apple. Everybody knows not to leave sweets.
Ninth Ward Page 3