Crave

by Laurie Jean Cannady

  Sweet and Sour

  The first time I saw Mr. Todd, Momma and I were hanging clothes on the line at our home in Academy Park. As she draped sheets over thin wire, I handed her clothespins, occasionally placing one or two on my earlobes. The bottoms of sheets, sleeves of shirts, and legs of pants were forced into the vertical position as wind beat through fabric. Mary and Tom-Tom were chasing each other in the backyard as Momma warned them to stay away from the clean clothes. Once the clothesbasket was emptied and only the dampness of before lined its bottom, Momma and I leaned against the chain-link fence, watching Mary and Tom-Tom playing. The wind whipped Momma’s hair across her face, as she tilted her chin toward its kiss. I leaned into her, tasting the air as it ran across my tongue.

  We lapped up that moment of peace until a large, shadowy figure appeared alongside the road next to our house. Momma and I both looked toward the footsteps, but I’m certain we didn’t see the same thing. His skin was as dark as burning embers, and stains of sweat gathered along the creases of his crotch. He wore no shirt, so his nipples, which looked like black olives atop swollen pecs, glared at me, and he took strides that flexed his short legs and arms, which were littered with muscles that squirmed like hamsters, burrowing underneath his skin. His hair was closely shorn, with specks of white lining his hairline, and he had a mustache that neatly connected with his graying goatee. I immediately feared him, and what those muscles could do if mobilized by anger. As I contemplated the pain this powerhouse of a man could inflict on others, he stopped mid-run, stood in the middle of the street, and gazed at Momma.

  With his back straight and hands swinging close to his hips, he wafted over to our fence and stood firmly on the other side. “Hello.”

  Momma in her natural beauty, free of lipstick, mascara, and blush, curled the sides of her lips, straightened her curvy physique and said, “My name is Lois and this is my eldest daughter, Laurie.”

  He looked down at me, and nodded a halfhearted “Hello,” as I stared at the broken blood vessels swimming in the whites of his eyes.

  “Do you live in this area?” Momma asked.

  “I live down the street,” he said as he pointed toward the end of the rock road.

  “That’s nice,” Momma said, as she rested a little more on the fence, a little closer to this man. Momma then turned toward me and with a mischievous smile said, “Laurie, go on over there and play with your brother and sister.”

  I didn’t want to leave Momma with a stranger, but I also didn’t want another meeting with the leather fly, so I ran over to Mary and Tom-Tom.

  Mary asked, “Who’s that man?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  “I don’t like him,” she added as she stared at Momma and Mr. Todd with a scowl. “Why are his eyes so red?”

  I had no answer, but I didn’t like him either. It wasn’t the graying skin, the pulsing muscles, or the red in his eyes. His presence had awakened a fear in me I thought had exited with Pee Wee.

  Soon, Mr. Todd began taking Momma on dates and visiting her at the AAMCO. I’d see him walking to the gas station soon after Momma went to work. As much as I feared him, I loved the way stress seemed to wash off of Momma as she prepared for an evening with him and his family. She was experiencing a freeness I had never seen before, one she had probably owned before she became pregnant with Champ, with me. It reminded me that she was still young at twenty-five. I couldn’t fault her for keeping a few moments for herself.

  Mr. Todd tried to make us like him by bringing candy, and asking about school, but I couldn’t release my worries about him, all of which were confirmed each time I looked into his red eyes. I overheard Momma say he’d spent six years in prison for killing a man, but that man had been hurting a woman, and that had somehow justified his crime. News of his incarceration made me more anxious, more concerned about the man jogging his way into Momma’s heart.

  Despite my and Mary’s apprehension, their relationship grew quickly. He never slept at our home since that type of living was meant for husbands and wives. After our move to Academy Park, Momma had joined a small church, Healing Temple, and dedicated herself to God, which meant no more premarital sex, and no giving up the best parts of herself for little return. I overheard Momma making this clear to Mr. Todd one night.

  “Todd, I’m not having sex before I get married,” she said with a hesitation I hadn’t often heard.

  “I understand and I’m not asking you to,” he replied. “I just want to love you and the kids.”

  “And, I’m not marrying a man that doesn’t love the Lord. You’re going to have to go to church with me. You’re going to have to praise him with me.”

  “I love the Lord too, so we can praise him together. He saved me from prison and he brought me you. I want to be with you. I want a life with you.” Then there was silence. Not complete silence, but a void in sound that let me know even though words weren’t being spoken, a conversation was occurring.

  I didn’t know then I was witnessing the brokering of a deal, a proposal of life between us, Momma, and Mr. Todd. They were growing into one person, which meant I’d have to love him as I did Momma. I questioned her judgment and wondered if she knew all I’d imagined she did. I cried for her that night, for myself and my siblings, not because I feared her death as I had in the past, but because I was burying a part of her in me.

  One day, Momma called a family meeting. Unlike our usual meetings where she admonished us for not cleaning our room or chastised us for arguing all the time, her countenance wasn’t stern. Mr. Todd sat quietly beside Momma on the loveseat while the rest of us looked on, waiting for the news that had lifted Momma so.

  “Okay y’all, I called this meeting because I have something important to ask you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” we replied in unison.

  “What y’all think about me and Mr. Todd getting married?” I tried to hide my disappointment, as I stared at the floor tracing the wood lines that ran along it.

  Mary raised her hand like she was in a classroom and Momma, her teacher. With her tiny voice, she said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Momma and Mr. Todd looked at each other and laughed.

  I wanted to be as brave as Mary, to stand up and voice my opposition to their union, but I couldn’t articulate how I knew that accepting him, maybe even loving him, would hurt. I wanted to say something, but Momma’s smile, the way her eyes looked as if they’d shed years of loneliness, pled for my silence. Since my past had taught me to sacrifice my happiness for others, I laughed along with Momma and Mr. Todd. I allowed myself to hope Mr. Todd would be what Momma believed he was.

  They married on a Sunday after church. Momma wore a white dress decorated with black leaves and vines that wrapped around her body. She stood tall at the altar while Reverend Savage spoke about the importance of marriage and God’s plans for their union. We five sat in the front pew. The girls wore frilly pastel blue dresses with patent leather shoes that reflected the light from the ceiling, and the boys sported dark three-piece suits.

  Momma and Mr. Todd were facing the front of the church, but I could see they were both crying as I watched their backs rise and fall in rhythm with their sniffles. From the front pew and with his back turned, Mr. Todd didn’t look that bad. He wore a rustic brown suit and his hair was neatly cropped. He held Momma’s hand tightly as Reverend Savage laid hands on them. I felt the weight of Reverend Savage’s hands on Mr. Todd’s head and began to hope, began to believe the Reverend’s healing power would mend whatever darkness I sensed in Mr. Todd, just as it had healed me once before.

  The morning of my healing, my chest was filled with a cacophony of sounds ranging from the squeal of an untuned violin to the sputter of a dilapidated moped. I could not breathe in and I could not breathe out. With each respiration, my muscles contracted along my ribs, along my lungs, refusing to release poisonous air. My lungs itched and I wondered if mosquitoes were inside, filling themselves with my blood. I sat next to Momma, as c
lose as I could, with my mouth open, gulping air. No matter how hard I breathed in or out, my respiratory system remained stagnant. I began to cry, which made it all worse because crying required oxygen and I had none to lend.

  Once Reverend Savage finished his sermon and the choir had sung the last chorus of “I’ve Been Redeemed,” he began the altar call. Any saint or sinner who had a request from God was entreated to go to the altar and ask for forgiveness or healing. As soon as the Reverend said, “Come, come,” Momma pulled me from my seat and began walking me to the front.

  Reverend Savage came from behind the pulpit and walked toward me. The room shook as the choir erupted into “Jesus is on the Mainline,” equipped with tambourines and drums played by Reverend Savage’s twin sons. Momma held me so close I could feel tears vibrating through her body. I closed my eyes and put all of me, all of that moment, all of that noise into breathing.

  It felt as if the entire congregation had descended upon us, screaming and squealing in a language I couldn’t understand. As I tried to drown out the noise, I felt a large hand, riddled with calluses, touch my forehead. Reverend Savage asked Momma, “What’s wrong with this girl, Sister Lois?”

  Momma shakily replied, “She’s having a hard time breathing, real hard, and it won’t go away.” As Momma spoke, there was a belabored humming, almost moaning in the background accompanying her words. I then smelled something greasy, similar to the oil Momma used to fry food. Reverend Savage, with one of his fingers, drew a cross in the middle of my forehead. The spot on which he placed the oil immediately began to cool and I closed my eyes even tighter, afraid of what I might see if I opened them.

  The Reverend then palmed my forehead, held it tightly in his large hand and screamed, “Get out of this child, Devil. This is God’s temple.” He said God’s name as if gulping air. With each word, he held me tighter, so tightly I feared my skull would crush between his fingers. “God,” he squealed and the whole church erupted into a moan. There were screams, cries, as I fell limp in Momma’s arms. Then he lowered his head to mine. I could taste his salty breath beating against my cheek. “Do you believe in God, Laurie?” My eyes were still clenched, with tears falling from them, so I just nodded my head.

  “Do you believe you are healed?”

  I nodded again. Reverend Savage recoiled from me so swiftly my body jolted. My eyes shot open and I saw his body, cocked back, his sweaty face contorted into an expression of pain. With arms outstretched and hands open, he screamed, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, she is healed.”

  I was afraid. I was in pain. But Reverend Savage had me convinced. I had been healed.

  As I sat at Momma’s wedding, I prayed for that same type of healing for Mr. Todd. I prayed God would wash away the sickness I was certain resided inside him. I prayed we’d be good enough kids for him to become a good enough daddy. And I believed. I believed since I had faith and I had asked, those things would be done.

  True, after my Healing Temple cure, I still had to go to the hospital and it was weeks before antibiotics controlled the spasms crippling my lungs, but I knew God had healed me and if he could heal me, he could heal Mr. Todd. Things were already getting better because he was there. We sat on the front pew with our pretty dresses, pressed suits, and shiny shoes because he’d bought them or maybe Momma had bought them. Either way, we were wearing them because of him. We didn’t even have to eat Navy Beans as much as before because he bought pizzas, hotdogs, and steaks from Murry’s Steakhouse. And we were moving to a brick house closer to Momma’s new job. Plus, Momma had changed. She wasn’t as tired, she wasn’t as angry, and the leather fly had all but been retired in the months we had known Mr. Todd. As I sat on that pew, I thought of those things, thought of how life had been different and how different it could be if God healed Mr. Todd into being a real daddy. So, as Momma took her vows, promised her love, loyalty, and self to Mr. Todd, I prayed for us kids, for Momma, and for Mr. Todd. I prayed God would provide a healing for us all.

  New Recipes

  The ride to the new house was quiet. I didn’t want to think too much, so I focused on the unpacking that had to be done before we retreated for the night. Momma pulled in front of a red brick house that looked institutional, with basement-sized windows, so close to the roof they appeared to be in the attic. I wondered what light would populate our new home with such narrow and high openings.

  From the windows down to the grassy yard sat brick, solid and strong, in stark contrast to the white siding of Academy Park. The house sat directly on the corner of Wall Street and Hansen Avenue, roads that were paved and looked as if they led somewhere important, to places where people didn’t have roaches, where Mommas didn’t work all of the time, and kids didn’t clean kitchens and babysit. The yard wrapped around the house and had the deepest, greenest grass I’d ever seen. Through the green expanse ran a narrow concrete sidewalk right up to the front porch.

  While the house looked like a tightly sealed breadbox from the outside, it tripled in size once we walked through the front door. The living room alone was the size of the kitchen and front room in Academy Park, and there was a small sky on the floor in the form of a thick blue carpet. The walls were a sharp white and light streamed through the high windows, cascading off of the walls in glowing brilliance. I wanted to place my head on the carpet and see if it felt as soft as clouds.

  The next room was the den. Without doors, it was merely a walkway through to the bedrooms and kitchen, but Momma said, “Laurie and Mary, this is going to be your room.” I wondered how our bedroom could be in the center of the house, with no doors to close others out, no barriers keeping Mr. Todd away from us. Even as anxiety invaded my thoughts, I grew excited at the prospect of having a room where my brothers’ sweaty feet couldn’t pollute the air and Mary’s and my dolls could sit without fear of Dathan and Tom-Tom coloring their faces with markers. “Laurie and Mary’s bedroom,” that sounded good to me, even if it wasn’t a bedroom at all.

  Momma, alongside Mr. Todd, led us into the next room and said, “Here’s the dining area.” I didn’t even know what a dining area was, but I was mesmerized by the small chandelier-esque fixture hanging from the ceiling. It was just a block of a room, with another narrow window close to the ceiling. It had linoleum floors that were lighter and shinier than our floors in Academy Park.

  Next, Momma showed us the two bedrooms and the bathroom. There wasn’t much to see there, just squares with the same high and narrow windows. She then led us to the kitchen. That is where I became as committed to Momma and Mr. Todd’s marriage as they were to each other. Histories of disappointment diminished and, in spite of my knowing, I believed this time, this man would be different.

  The kitchen was long, wide, and the floor had brown linoleum with patterns of diamonds populating its surface. There was a counter that went from one side of the kitchen to the other and the biggest window in the house sat right over the kitchen sink. And there wasn’t just one kitchen sink, as there had been in Academy Park, which meant we had to wash dishes and dry them as soon as we finished. Our new house had two sinks with stainless steel tubs, where clean dishes could sit inconspicuously and dry themselves. They were the types of sinks I’d seen on dishwashing liquid commercials, the types of sinks that belonged in the white people’s homes Momma sometimes cleaned. I felt a morsel of pride in knowing Momma would be cleaning stainless steel double sinks that now belonged to her, to us.

  While the window, floor, and sinks were awe-inspiring, the refrigerator enchanted me most. It was a Sedona brown and so tall it seemed to be touching the ceiling. Unlike our short white refrigerator in Academy Park, I barely heard the motor, cycling while I stood next to it. What fascinated me most about that brown bulk was the freezer, which sat on the bottom, opening to a space so large I couldn’t imagine having enough food to fill it. Looking in that empty space, I felt a void, a worry about what happens to things that can’t be filled. We had been starved so long, famine felt full. But staring at that bare refrig
erator, I remembered the cramps, the rumblings, the hunger.

  Still, I blocked those doubts. I had that refrigerator. I had those sinks. My new house had high windows, thick blue carpet, and diamonds on the kitchen floor. They were, on that day, mine. Whether I wanted him or not, I had a father too, so maybe this time we’d have enough of everything we needed. Maybe we’d be able to desire things we’d been prudent enough not to want before.

  For a year, we were a family and the hard worries about Mr. Todd became soft in my mind. It was a year that held birthdays where each child actually received gifts and not faux surprises of gloves and umbrellas. A year where Christmas came with our first artificial tree that stood taller than each of us, even Champ, who at twelve was nearing six feet. Our tree looked as if it had given birth to toys we’d only seen in commercials, like bottle-drinking and peeing dolls, Tonka trucks, easy-bake ovens, and ten-speed bikes. That year, all five of us received bikes we could ride up and down Wall Street without fear of cars whizzing off of interstates or rocky gravel disrupting smooth revolutions of bike tires. For one year, the dips, the rocks, the doubts became blurred like the lines of trees on roads whenever I hopped on my ten-speed and let the wind, the road ride me. Committed, I barely steered, barely put effort into my peddling. Until one ride, when I committed too much and found myself chin first, knees second, in tears, kissing the ground. As I nursed my wound, I wondered why I had let go and how long the scars would remain.