In contrast, Mary’s locks were black silk. Momma could sit a comb in Mary’s hair and it would slide through on its own. Mary never cried like I did when Momma did her hair. She’d sit quietly and comb her doll’s hair, leaning lazily on Momma’s leg as if she were getting a scalp massage.
That morning, I was combing Mary’s hair and admiring the way her curls slipped easily through the comb. As I began styling her mane into a ponytail and bang, I wanted so badly to have hair that thin and soft. I gathered her strands into a ball and used a rubber band to hold them taut against her scalp. After I finished, I stood proudly admiring the majestic ponytail that sat on top of her head, not a strand out of place. I wanted to put a little heat on her bang with curlers and end with a nice swirl, but Mary was afraid I’d burn her forehead, so I improvised. I took the comb, ran it to the end of her hair, and began rolling it in the teeth of the comb. I let it sit like that for a minute, believing the bend I was creating would take shape inside of the comb.
After a minute, I attempted to unravel Mary’s hair from the comb. With each turn, her hair tangled even more. I soon realized her bang had become a twisted mass of plastic and hair strands. I panicked. If Momma found Mary’s hair in that condition, I’d soon be having an intimate discussion with the leather fly. Then, I had an idea. If I cut the comb out, maybe Momma wouldn’t notice.
I left Mary staring in the mirror with the comb hanging from her hair and I went into the bathroom to look for scissors. There were none to be found. I ran into the kitchen and went to the knife drawer, searching for the perfect tool. A butter knife wouldn’t be sharp enough, so I grabbed the sharpest knife I saw, a serrated steak knife. I ran back into Momma’s room where Mary stifled tears she’d cried while I left her alone. “I’m sorry, Mary,” I said. “I’ll fix it.”
“Okay,” she sniffled. I commenced to sawing off Mary’s bang in as straight a line as I could. Once the sawing was done, Mary sat with the most beautiful ponytail and in the front was a bang that looked like the stubble of a man’s beard. I almost fainted. Mary exploded into more tears as she looked in the mirror.
“I’m sorry, Mary. I didn’t mean it.”
“I know,” she continued crying.
“It’ll grow back,” I promised.
“I know.”
“You mad at me?”
“No,” she said. I began to get a little hopeful. If she didn’t get mad, then maybe Momma wouldn’t be mad. I prayed under my breath. When Mary walked out of the room with her tear-stained cheeks, Dathan and Champ pointed and sang, “Oh, you gonna get it.” I went into our bedroom and got in bed, dreading the punishment I was going to get. And get it I did. I had a lengthy discussion with the leather fly that night and Momma didn’t stop scowling at me until Mary’s hair grew back. But, what bothered me most about the “hair thing” was Momma thought I had done it on purpose. She kept saying, “I know you wanted to cut Mary’s hair, Laurie.” I was so troubled by this. True, I’d always been a little jealous of Mary’s hair and true, I was somewhat delighted beard stubble took her down a step or two on the cuteness meter, but I hadn’t intended to hurt my sister. I said that over and over again in hopes I would believe it myself.
The Singer
One wonderful thing about life at Academy Park was that the youngest, Tom-Tom, had never known hunger in the way Champ, Dathan, Mary, and I had. He’d had real milk and had never needed to suck on Momma’s dry breasts. When Tom-Tom was born, he had perfect auburn color, with red hair that framed his round face. Even as he grew taller and less round, there was an innocence about him that made me need to protect him. It’s true I loved all of my brothers and sister, but Tom-Tom was the only one I feared hurting. I believed he was the most fragile of dolls and just looking at him in anger would have cracked him beyond repair.
My love for Tom-Tom couldn’t shield him from our daily “jokefests.” We joked on Champ’s round nose, which we proclaimed looked like a ripened prune. We joked about my duck feet and how they looked as if they were running from each other whenever I walked. We joked on Mary’s “bootie-nose” and the fact that she bit her toenails daily. And we joked about Dathan’s thieving ways and the thumb he sucked, which we all avoided. So, we had to have something to joke on Tom-Tom about and that was the size of his head. His body was always smaller than our own and we had no problems with that; but his head was as big as Champ’s, and Champ was six years older than him. So, we joked his head was the size of a beach ball, a car tire, and a full moon.
Whenever we joked on Tom-Tom, the first sign of a tear meant the jokes needed to stop. If his heart was breaking, our hearts were breaking too. We’d turn on each other like strangers if one of us attacked the baby of the family. And this is how we functioned those first years in Academy Park—as fast friends on some days and even quicker enemies on others.
But there were also days we were just kids needing a release, needing to relax, and Tom-Tom provided us with the simplest of pleasures: the gift of music. When Momma was at work and we got bored with joking, we’d set aside time for Tom-Tom to give us a “concert.” Champ would sit in the big armchair and hold Tom-Tom on his lap. Dathan, Mary, and I sat on the floor in a semi-circle and gazed up at him like adoring fans. We leaned in as Tom-Tom, only three, squeaked inaudible sounds directly into Champ’s ear.
“Hunuh, Hunuh, Hunununuhuh. Hunuuuh . . .”
Each song had the same words, but they all had different rhythms. Sometimes the songs were slow ballads. “Hunuh, Hunuh, Hunununuhuh. Hunuuuh . . .” Other times they were fast dance tunes. “Hunuh, Hunuh, Hunununuhuh. Hunuuuh . . .” It didn’t matter how fast or slow the song was; they were all filled with “Hunuh,” and they were all softly sung. While he sang, we didn’t see the hand-me-downs we had to wear. We didn’t have to accept Momma was always at work and we were always missing her. Daddies had never disappeared and there was always enough. Our pasts were not our pasts, as the future rode on the melody of our baby brother’s voice.
Our Song
Academy Park was so many things to me, but one of the things I valued most about that home was it was a place for things to slow down for us all. The year that we moved in, before I started second grade, all was calm. Every day was filled with peace because it was just us. There were no Pee Wees, no Carls, no walking nightmares, just us with Momma. Even though we weren’t always the best of friends to each other, we were family.
Some days, we were mean kids. Many times, we intentionally hurt each other when we were already hurting. Now, I realize the fighting, the name calling, the jealousy was our way of dealing with the unpleasant realities and turning them into something palatable. The pain each of us felt under attack might have stung for the moment, but those moments always passed when someone else was in the hot seat. Our momentary pains blocked the real, unnerving, gut-wrenching pain that surrounded our lives. We were each other’s tormentors because we had to be each other’s saviors. We were united in survival, a band of brothers and sisters that could not be broken.
Every Christmas we lived in Academy Park the five of us would sit in our rooms and rehearse for hours, timing our steps perfectly, practicing our part of “The Song.” After we had our performance as perfect as we could get it, we lined up in front of Momma, from the oldest to the youngest. We don’t know how the tradition started or who first suggested it, but every year we knew we had to do it.
There we stood in front of Momma: Champ, eight; me, seven; Dathan, six; Mary, four; and Tom-Tom, three. Side by side, we created the illusion of steps. We stood still in our places, waiting for Champ’s “One, two, three.” The room erupted with The Temptations’ soulful version of “Silent Night” as we swayed from side to side like we’d seen them do on television. Our rehearsals made our performance and our voices perfect. I sang the first verse high, and Champ sang the second verse low. His voice was filled with bass, as he imitated Melvin Franklin. Dathan, Mary, and Tom-Tom sang the chorus. We snapped our fingers as we swayed, being overly carefu
l not to bump into each other. Then came the finale. We interlocked fingers, raised our hands over our heads, and in our loud, harmonious voices ended with “Merry Christmas from the Carter Kids.” We did this every year without fail, knowing it was the only gift we could give Momma. There was never applause at the end of our performances, only Momma’s thin, tired face, laced with tears.
RESTARTING FROM SCRATCH
Restarting from Scratch
Early in life, I learned peace is short-lived. A phone call, a knock on the door could be the rock shattering the calm. At nine, I studied my body, counted breaths, tasted each one, and told myself, “You must remember this moment, when nothing hurts, when everything feels just right. You must remember for when it doesn’t.”
When I was in the middle of a bronchitis attack and my lungs felt like balloons resisting expansion, I remembered the days oxygen effortlessly entered and exited my body. Or after having a meeting with the leather fly, I traveled to moments when stinging lines on skin never existed. And when years past infected years present, when blinking hard, running hard, crying hard could not suppress heavy breathing, hot sweat, panting in ears, I remembered air only I owned, space that crowded me alone, free of sweat, free of pressure, protecting the part of me that was still me.
Thankfully, I’d mastered this remembering when we moved from Academy Park. I don’t know why we left that house on Dorset. Maybe the rent hadn’t been paid. Maybe the bills became too much for Momma alone to bear. I didn’t ask questions. Momma was going, so we were too.
When we moved to Norfolk with Aunt Della’s family, Mary and I went from sharing a room with our brothers to sleeping with my cousins, Yvonne and Nessa. Dathan, Champ, and Tom-Tom slept with Kentay and Anwar while Momma slept on the couch. Even though I didn’t understand the circumstances of our moving, I was grateful that Aunt Della let us live with her. I knew it wasn’t easy adding six bodies to a home meant for a family of four. But that was the Boone way. If a brother or sister was in need, a brother or sister offered help.
While that creed didn’t apply in situations like the one that found Momma in that room with Pop, it seemed to apply to everything else. Knowing what I knew of Momma’s rape confused me as I worked to fit Momma’s memories around my image of Aunt Della. To me, she was a sun-colored, jovial aunt, with freckles that danced around her face, and cheeks, typical of Boone girls, that hid her eyes when she smiled. I couldn’t imagine the aunt who doled out hugs as if they were pieces of candy, sitting silently in the next room, as her baby sister screamed for help. My heart knew my aunt could never do that, but my mind held the image of my older brother, who was ten to Momma’s almost twenty-six, then I could understand that something wrong had happened. I always knew my aunts would kill anyone trying to hurt a sister, but I also knew they were raised in a world where girls had their “cherries popped” and they had to lose things, like virginities, in order to become women. Didn’t matter if they were only girls. Didn’t matter if they were taken. It was a rite of passage, the way it was done. I often wondered about generations of girls, having been ushered through that process, being told “You are a woman now,” even though they didn’t feel like women; they just felt like girls who had been wronged in a way they could not name.
Despite my confusion, I enjoyed living with Aunt Della and my cousins. While hanging with Nessa, I became a bit of a social caterpillar. Nessa was the butterfly. She had many friends, some of whom weren’t kids. She was thirteen years old with legs that looked as if they grew longer when she walked. I followed her everywhere she went. Nessa was free to interact with adults in a way Momma never allowed me to. After I’d told her about Pee Wee, Momma monitored me closely around men. When a male cousin watched television with me or helped with my homework, it wouldn’t be unusual for Momma’s head to jut from behind the wall with a look of terror on her face. So, when Nessa suggested we go to her neighbor Mr. John’s house and listen to records, I stuttered a bit, kicked at rocks on the street, and turned my eyes downward. Still, I followed.
The house across the street from Aunt Della’s was a duplex with two floors on which tenants lived. The front was lined by rows of shrubs that had just begun to flower, and the porch was a flat gray that ran clear to the welcome mat nestled under the door’s trestle. Nessa skipped to the door and knocked, not softly as I would have done, but with confidence, as if she knew the occupant was waiting for her. A tall, butterscotch man with a ’fro answered the door. With a bushy mustache streaked gray, he looked like an old David Lewis, the lead singer of the R&B group Atlantic Starr.
“Hey, Nessa,” he said. His voice wasn’t as heavy or scruffy as most men I’d encountered, and it almost seemed too airy to be coming out of a man’s mouth.
“Hey, Mr. John,” she said, as she led me into the door. “This is my cousin, Laurie.”
“Hi, Laurie,” he said as he shook my hand.
“Watcha doin’?” Nessa asked with a smile across her face. She had already taken my hand and led me into the foyer.
“Just listening to some music. Y’all want to hear some?” he asked as he motioned toward the living room. I stood planted in the middle of the room as Nessa grabbed my hand again. My arm was traveling with her, but I couldn’t get my feet to follow. Something about it all didn’t seem right. He was a man that could take what he wanted, just as Pee Wee had, and there was no Momma, Aunt Della, or anybody else to remind him of what my boundaries were. Nessa seemed too excited to see my unwillingness.
“Come on, Laurie,” she said with a tug of my hand. I lost my balance and stumbled behind her. Brown colors enveloped the living room with a beige sofa, tan walls, and chocolate carpet. Magazines sat on the coffee table, spread out into the shape of a fan. Sheer, flowered curtains hung from the window, barely sweeping the floor, and there was a small wooden cabinet that held a record player. Next to it was the largest collection of records I’d ever seen.
“Y’all want something to drink?” he asked.
“Yeah, you got some more of that orange soda?” Nessa asked. Minutes later, he walked out balancing two glasses of Fanta in one hand and a bowl of pretzels in the other. He placed the refreshments on the table while Nessa plopped onto the floor and grabbed her soda.
“Sit down, Laurie,” she said as she patted the open space next to her. I stared back and forth between Nessa and Mr. John and only sat once he had seated himself in the chair next to the record player.
“How you like it here, Laurie?”
I nodded and replied, “It’s good.”
“Your momma’s Pretty, right?” I nodded quickly, wondering how he knew who Momma was. “Yeah, we go way back, your momma, Della, and me. We went to school together.” I tried to imagine him sitting in class with Momma, with those same grey streaks running through his mustache. I couldn’t picture it.
Mr. John rose from his chair and quickly moved into the kneeling position. I flinched, my body remembering what my mind could not. I wanted out, away from him and the ambivalent brown of his home. As I began my retreat, he turned his body to the shelves of records next to the player, pulled one out, sat back in the chair, slid the large vinyl out of its cover, and placed it on the player. Music bounced off the walls.
Nessa lay on her back, with her feet pulled close to her butt and her knees pointed to the ceiling. Mr. John rested his head against the wall and began following the notes of music with his finger, drawing them into the air. The singer’s voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t name him until I heard the chorus, “That’s why I’m easy/easy like Sunday morning,” wafting from inside of the speaker sitting in front of me. The music continued for five minutes without a word from Mr. John or Nessa. They both sat with their eyes closed. Mr. John’s extended finger, bouncing with the beat of music, spoke for him and the rhythmic swaying of Nessa’s knees spoke for her. When the song ended, all that was left was a silence that seemed too weighty with the words and music of the song. Mr. John opened his eyes and began moving the arm of the record
player.
“That sounds like Lionel Richie,” I said. “You know the man that sings, ‘Hello, is it me you’re looking for?’ That sounds like him.”
Mr. John slapped his leg and began laughing. Nessa sat up and laughed with him, but I’m not certain she knew why she was laughing.
“That is him,” Mr. John said. “Well, that’s him with his band members. He was part of the Commodores before he went out on his own.” He handed the album jacket to me and there was a picture of Lionel Richie with five other men dressed in white pantsuits.
“I didn’t know he was in a group,” I said, leaning closer to Mr. John and Nessa so we could look at the cover together.
“Yeah,” he said. A lot of people out there now were in groups. “Michael Jackson—he was with the Jackson Five. Patti Labelle—she was with Labelle. Tina Turner—she used to be in a band with her husband, Ike.” His laugh punctuated the end of each sentence. “Girl, ain’t nothing new under the sun. That’s why I listen to these records, ’cause it’s real music. Not all of that stuff y’all listen to now.” He and Nessa laughed again, but this time I laughed with them.
Mr. John moved the needle to another song on the record, one that I again didn’t recognize, but that didn’t matter because I could learn and explore it just as I was learning and exploring Nessa’s friendship with Mr. John. We listened to music until Aunt Della yelled from across the street that it was time for lunch.
Whenever I listened to Mr. John’s music after that day, I allowed the music to creep over my bones and settle like a warm blanket. He played song after song, giving impromptu lessons in between melodies, but I was learning more than histories of the groups and the songs he was playing. I was learning all men didn’t do what Pee Wee had done when they were alone with little girls. All men didn’t drunkenly spit murderous words through teeth or knock pregnant women down stairs. All men weren’t “popping cherries” and finding virginities that had never been lost. Some carved melodies in the air with one finger and gave pretzels, sodas, and life’s lessons without requiring anything in return. Some were just men, in the way I was just a girl.
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