Sweet Thang

by Allison Whittenberg

  “I thought you were going to step up your house-keeping.”

  “This is more steady,” she said. “I just have to answer phones. I get off at four-thirty. You be sure to look after Tracy John till I get home.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You mean I have to watch Tracy John?”

  “I don't have a minute, Charmaine.” She refolded a bus schedule and put it in her purse.

  “Why do I have to watch him?”

  “Because I told you to.”

  “But—but—but—”

  She left me to my buts. My confusion. And, boy, was I ever confused. Everything was moving so fast all of a sudden. I couldn't picture Ma at work in a world of beige carpets and light fixtures. I couldn't see her in a building twenty-five stories high.

  My head was spinning.

  Horace was in the army now.

  Uncle E was on the lam.

  Daddy was out a grand.

  And I had to watch Tracy John.

  • • •

  Nosy and chatty, Cissy and Millicent went home with me that day to help with my task. Watching him color, pinching him, goo-gooing at him, they sat at the kitchen table with Tracy John. Unlike most kids, Tracy John didn't seem amused by lots of attention.

  “Did you have a good day at school, Tracy John?” Millicent asked

  “I guess,” he said.

  “Did you learn anything fun, Tracy John?” Cissy asked.

  “No,”hesaid.

  “What's your favorite subject, Tracy John?” Cissy asked.

  “Gym.”

  “Oh, you like to play,” Millicent said, and pinched him. “What do you want to be when you grow up ?”

  “A football player.”

  “Really? What team?” Cissy asked.

  “Dallas.”

  “You're gonna be a Dallas Cowboy!” Millicent exclaimed.

  “You would make a cute Cowboy, Tracy John,” Cissy said.

  “Oh, you would be adorable,” Millicent said.

  They continued pinching him and otherwise smothering him with affection as if they'd never seen a child before.

  After they left, Tracy John eyed me warily, like a fox.

  “Do you have something to say?” I asked him.

  His penny brown eyes studied me a minute longer; then he said, “Your friends are boring.”

  “What?” I asked. “They aren't even good out the door.”

  “They are.”

  “What? They have always been very nice to you.”

  “They're still boring as hell.”

  “What did Ma tell you about cussing?”

  “Boring as hell!” he sang, pronouncing hell as hail

  “Stop cussing.”

  “Hell. Hell. Hell,” Tracy John said, drawing up proudly.

  “You are so fresh. You are going to get your little butt cut.” I paused to let this warning set in.

  But he only got bolder. “Give me a glass of milk,” he demanded. Then he had the gall to snap his fingers.

  Shocked, I stuttered, “Y-y-you must be crazy. I'm not getting you anything.”

  Tracy John smirked, folded his arms, and said, “Boring as hell.”

  “That's it.” I threw down the apron I had on. I had been trying to look like Ma. “I'm sending you to your room.”

  “You can't do that. You ain't Auntie.”

  “Well, I'm doing it.” I got my neck to going and my finger to pointing at the staircase. “Go up to your room.”

  “You go up to your room.” Tracy John got his neck going just as sassy. He rolled his eyes and popped his hips.

  “Go to your room,” I said.

  “Go to your room,” he said.

  “Go,” we said at the same time.

  I took a step back; we clashed again. “Go,” we said at the same time.

  Then I figured I'd flip up on him and change my words. “Right now,”we said at the same time.

  Dag, he was good. In the interest of time, I decided to call things a draw, but as I walked away I told him, “Just stay out of my way for the rest of the afternoon.”

  “Get me my milk, then.”

  I took a deep breath to contain myself.

  “Get it,” he told me.

  I sighed again, and before I knew it I was pouring milk into a plastic cup and handing it to him. He took it without a thanks, without anything.

  The silence stretched out as he walked away, and my eyeballs shot daggers at the back of his head.

  • • •

  Ma had made a concoction with onion, garlic, and mustard greens. She had also made stuffed bell peppers and black-eyed peas in molasses. All I had to do was warm it up. Since it was almost five and I had the table set, I figured I could get everything toasty for when Ma Daddy, and Leo got home.

  After I had everything on the stove, I spoke to Millicent on the phone.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Someone's at the door? Who could that be?” I asked Millicent, and excused myself.

  I opened it to find a figure about three-feet-something tall and fifty-something pounds. High yellow. With big copper-colored eyes.

  “Tracy John, what the … ?”

  He laughed and skittered by me like a mouse. The next thing I knew, he was in the living room, playing the stereo loudly, dancing about and clapping his hands and shaking his butt. He had it tuned to the rock station and was dancing to Led Zeppelin.

  I followed him, shaking my fist. “You don't leave this house without asking me first.”

  He jumped on the furniture.

  “Get off that couch!” I told him.

  He was twisting and turning, acting a natural fool.

  I went to grab him, but he moved, so I ended up holding on to air. I made another attempt, but he was too fast.

  “Will you stop? Stop it!” I yelled at him.

  All of a sudden, he did. “What smells?” he asked.

  I inhaled deeply. Something did smell. Something smelled a lot like burning greens.

  I ran into the kitchen only to find it full of smoke.

  I removed the pans from the burners and turned off the gas. As I forked through the charred remains, I mourned what Ma had spent the morning preparing. I was close to tears.

  Tracy John shook his head. “All you had to do was warm it up.”

  “Why don't you shut up? This is your fault.”

  “Oh, no it ain't. I wasn't talking on the phone.”

  “If I wasn't chasing after you every five seconds, maybe I could keep my mind on what it is I'm supposed to be doing.”

  “What are we having for supper?” he asked. Just when I thought if he said one more word I'd strangle him, he continued with “I don't want to starve. What are we going to have?”

  My hands trembled with rage as they approached his turtlenecked throat.

  The back door unlatched.

  I pulled my hands away and put them behind me.

  Ma came in, waving her arms and coughing from the smoke. “What in the world has gone on here?” she asked.

  “I was just playing the radio,” Tracy John said, running to Ma's side and squeezing her thighs.

  “The radio?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I was just listening to the radio. I don't know what was going on in here,” Tracy John said.

  “Why don't you shut up?” I said.

  “Tracy John has a right to talk,” Ma said.

  “That's right, I can talk,” Tracy John said.

  I lunged at him. To stop me, Ma cast a stern eye.

  Just then, Leo the tap-dance kid came in doing the shuffle off to Buffalo.

  “It's kind of smoky in here, ain't it?” Leo was Captain Obvious. “How did everything go today?”

  “Maine tried to lock me in my room,” Tracy John said.

  “I did not!” I screamed.

  “She can't lock me in my room, can she, Auntie?” Tracy John asked.

  “Don't believe a word he says,” I said.

  “I'm afraid
of the dark,” Tracy John said.

  “You have lost your cotton-picking mind,” I told him.

  “And she didn't even help with my homework,” Tracy John persisted.

  I was furious. “You didn't tell me you had any!”

  “It's not that far off that he'd have homework after coming home from school,” Leo said.

  “You're a manipulative little brat,” I said to Tracy John, putting my hands on my hips. I turned to my mother. “He doesn't want to share; he wants to take over.”

  “Charmaine, get your hands off your imagination. I have never heard such foolishness in all my life,” Ma said. “I asked you to do simple things, Charmaine. Heat up supper and watch Tracy John.”

  “Simple? Simple? I have never worked this hard in my life!”

  Ma put on her apron, tying it around her waist and covering her business attire. “I don't want to come home after work and find this disarray.”

  “He is the devil's child. I sleep with one eye open,” I whispered to Leo as I left the room.

  “Don't prevent you from snoring none,” Leo called after me.

  • • •

  That night, l heard Leo down the hall washing his face and hands. I figured I'd take another shot at getting himotimy side.

  “You know what Tracy John said to me? He said Cissy and Millicent were as boring as hell.”

  “Your friends do get a little boring. Especially Cissy. She never says anything interesting.”

  I frowned. Like Leo's friends were so spectacular. He hung out with these kids from his dance class, and that was all they talked about: dance. But I didn't want to get on that. I would not be distracted. “Tracy John said the H word.”

  “So?”

  I followed Leo into our room. “He said it a couple of times.”

  “And?”

  “Pretty soon, he's gonna say D and maybe even S. Then M.”

  “M?” Leo asked.

  “Yeah, M.F.”

  Leo put his shoes on the floor and his robe back on the hanger. “Maine, you're acting like an A-hole.”

  “Daddy created a brat,” I said. “Daddy used to sit him on his lap and teach him all those words and tell him to Ma.”

  “Turn the record over.”

  “He's spoiled.”

  “He's the youngest.”

  “He gets everything.”

  “Maine, get over it. You know Uncle E stiffed us. It's not Tracy John's fault. For Pete's sake, well all have.to make sacrifices.”

  “He's bad. I don't mean bad meaning good; I mean he's bad-bad,” I explained, but Leo had already rolled over and put a pillow over his head to block out the light and my words. “You're not even listening, Leo. I need your help. Do you really have to go to dance class? Can't you watch him Mondays and Wednesdays?”

  He sat up. “I'm already set to watch him Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.”

  “You said yourself everyone has to make sacrifices, Leo.”

  “I can't take off now. We're just about to learn an important step. We're just about to learn the shimmy sham.”

  “That's what I'm talking about, Leo. I'm getting the shimmy sham.”

  With that, Leo stood up, walked to the wall light, and flicked it off. It took me forty minutes of tossing and turning to get to sleep.

  • • •

  Ma wasn't a bra-burning woman who wanted to explore herself. No. My ma worked to make ends meet. I tried to articulate this to Cissy and Millicent.

  “I don't know how much longer I can take this.”

  “I don't see why you're making such a big deal about this. My mom works,” Cissy said.

  “Yeah, but you're different. You don't have anyone to watch.”

  “Tracy John's not a problem, Maine. He's adorable,” Millicent said. For lunch, Millicent always brought what everyone considered weird food: lox on a bagel.

  “He's so lovable looking.” Cissy was eating two sandwiches from home along with french fries she had pur-chased. She twirled one around in ketchup on her plate.

  I thought of Tracy John's chubby lips, his tiny flared nostrils, his large doelike eyes, and of course, that buttery skin.

  Objectively, he was a cute kid.

  Subjectively, he was a pain in the butt.

  “I wish I had a little brother,” Millicent said.

  “He's not my brother,” I said, and got up from the table just as the bell rang for Mr. Gowdy's class.

  Life was awful. Simply awful.

  Wednesday was a mere twenty-four hours away. I'd have to do it all over again. Tracy John would put me through all that grief: insulting my friends, cussing, ringing the doorbell, dancing on the sofa, making me burn the greens.

  • • •

  That afternoon, I quickly learned that Leo was just as bad as Tracy John. I walked in, and they were both yukking it up on the telephone. They were crank-calling Ma and parroting her greeting.

  Leo said, “Integrity Insurance Agency. Auto. Home. Life. Health. Business. Low down payments. Low monthly payments. May I help you?”

  Then he hung up and the boys fell all over themselves laughing.

  Tracy John pulled on Leo, saying, “Call her again. Call her again.”

  Leo began dialing.

  “And talk like you're from the South,” Tracy John said.

  They laughed harder at that.

  Ignore it; Maine, ignore it. …

  “How's this,” Leo said to Tracy John. “Inteeeeeegriddie.”

  “You sound like that guy on Bugs Bunny.”

  “Foghorn Leghorn.”

  “Yeah.”

  They laughed some more.

  “Why don't you two jugheads quit bothering Ma at work?” I said, and took the phone from Leo's hands. I was convinced that Tracy John was corrupting Leo, because I was sure he wouldn't act that silly on his own.

  “Boys, now, you know better than to play on the phone,” Ma said, not knowing that I had picked up.

  “They won't bother you again, Ma,” I said.

  They both looked at me like I had three heads; then they ran away.

  What next? What else would they get into?

  The next day, my life got worse, or as the old folks say, worser.

  I saw it, and my heart stood still.

  In the cafeteria, my Prince Charming, my Demetrius McGee, with all his chocolate allure, was cozying up to Dinah Coverdale at the long-haired girls' table.

  She was leaning into him, and he was feeding her his dessert. She was eating his Ring Ding.

  How could this happen? He, my Demetrius, was lost in an image. That doggone Dorothy Dandridge look, that barely black look that was so celebrated. And there I was, still with midnight skin that Pd. earned after only a few hours of summer outdoor activity. This color clung through hazy mid-September heat. It was still with me now in October. I hated it. I hated Dandridge. I mean, why was she an idol? Just because she was beautiful. The woman was dead at forty-two, either of a drug overdose or a broken foot. Something about a bone fragment swim-ming through her system, creating an aneurysm. She and Lena Home could both go to hell.

  By this white, approximated, quasi-European standard, I knew I was not the best-looking person. Frankly, I didn't even want to be pretty. I just wanted to be loved. I wanted the perks of prettiness.

  I was sick and tired of these Lena Home look-alikes getting everything while I stood around empty-handed.

  Life is so physical. So based on how we look outside. And being a black girl who looked like a black girl, I felt, at times like these, well, shortchanged.

  • • •

  “Tracy John, do you have homework to go over?” I asked, letting the words go over hang.

  And they hung. Tracy John didn't pick them up.

  He said nothing.

  Oh, I see you're doing that too-cute-to-answer-me bit again.”

  He looked at me like I was crazy.

  “Well, do you?” I asked.

  Nothing.

  “You are impossible. Y
ou know that?” I told him.

  “I don't want to do my homework with you,” he said.

  I ignored him and pulled his Schoolbook out of his backpack.

  “Gimme my book,” he said.

  “Tell me what your homework is.”

  He begradgingly showed me the page of the story his class was studying. I brightened to see that it was a mill tary story; it made me think of Horace. I got him started on it, and soon we were sailing along pretty well. I was listening as he read. His chubby fingers eased across the page. His voice was remarkably fluid, given his age. Everything was everything for a good five minutes until that word canie along. The word was said.

  I corrected his pronunciation. “It's not sade. It's sed.”

  “I don't see no e,” Tracy John snapped at me;

  “You don't have to see an e. I'm telling you that is how that word is pronounced.”

  “I don't see no e.” He got louder.

  “You don't have to see no e.”

  “I don't want you to help me with my homework,” he said, taking his book away from me. “You're mean.”

  “I'm mean?” I asked.

  “Did I stutter?” he asked.

  “Give me back that book.”

  “No.”

  “No? Now, see here. You don't say no to me. I'm supposed to be in charge of you. I'm supposed to be helping you with your homework. Now, give me back that book.”

  “No.”

  With that, I lost it. I stuck him with my pen. It wasn't as dramatic as it sounds. I had the cap still on it, and I poked him in his middle where he had some padding. Still, his eyes connected with mine with a scream that I was sure could have alerted the town's volunteer firemen.

  Ma entered from the back door. She always managed to catch things at their worst. “Charmaine!” she exclaimed.

  • • •

  All that evening I had to listen to Ma's doting on Tracy John, her telling him “I don't see a mark there, dear,” and her endless kisses to make it better. I was surprised she didn't take him to the emergency room to get him fitted for a cast.

  As I got into bed, he said, “You shouldn't have stuck him with a pen, Maine.”

  “The cap was still on!” I snapped at him, then wondered aloud, “Why can't Uncle E take Tracy John in?”

  Leo looked at tne sharply. “Uncle E? You've got to be kidding. He's a freakin'fugitive. Who knows where he is?”

  “What about Uncle O, then?”