Coffee Will Make You Black

by April Sinclair

  Me and Roland really hadn’t run into each other since we’d talked. Luckily he was in Mrs. Verducci’s eighth-grade class, so I’d been able to avoid him without too much trouble.

  Because it was the fourth time that Yusef was walking me home, I felt like I could start up a conversation.

  “So, Yusef, you gonna go out for the basketball team next year?”

  “Course.” He smiled. “Then I’m getting a basketball scholarship and play at a big-time college. Then I’m gonna play for the NBA. Then I’m gonna be another Lew Alcindor and Wilt the Stilt, all rolled into one.”

  “Wow, you got it all planned out.”

  “Definitely. What about you? Are you gonna try out for junior cheerleaders next year?”

  Actually when Yusef said, “What about you?” I was ready to tell him about how I planned to get on the school newspaper and major in journalism in college and be a newspaper reporter.

  “I’m not sure, I know Carla wants me to, ’cause she plans to be a cheerleader. But I guess I’m not so sure I can make it. I hear it’s a lot who you know, and I’m not so sure I’m the cheerleader type.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. If you have a dream, stick to it. Just practice doing the splits and learn the cheers. And keep hanging with Carla; she’ll clue you in on what you gotta do.”

  “Yusef, did you know they have a girls’ basketball team at Southside?”

  “Naw, I s’pose I ain’t never thought about it.”

  “Well, they do, Willie Jean talked to me about going out for the team. Her sister Johnnie Mae’s the captain.”

  I looked up into Yusef’s face as we turned the corner, trying to get a clue as to what he thought about me playing basketball. I was hoping that at least he wouldn’t bust out laughing. This was the longest conversation we’d had so far.

  “I don’t see why a girl would want to play basketball. I mean what would be the purpose? She can try to go with a basketball player and get to wear his jacket, without having to break her nails. Why sweat if you ain’t got to?”

  I took a deep breath. I wanted to make Yusef understand why a girl might want to play basketball, but I didn’t want him to not like me anymore, to think I was a freak or something.

  “Yusef, I think a girl can like playing basketball ’cause it’s fun, same as a guy.”

  “I can see a girl like Willie Jean wanting to play basketball, ’cause, shoot, she ain’t nothing but a tomboy from the getgo. I mean, excuse me, but some of them act like they got a dick bigger than mine. I’ll put it this way, I wouldn’t want a lady of mine playing on nobody’s basketball team. Understand, kemo sabe?”

  I groaned inside. Maybe Yusef wasn’t all that great after all. But maybe if you wanted to have a boyfriend you had to go along with certain things. Nobody was perfect, and after all, basketball wasn’t that big a deal. It wasn’t like I was a boy and dreamed of playing for the NBA. I decided to just let it slide. Yusef had talked like I was gonna be his lady. I reminded myself of that.

  “So, Yusef, what else are you gonna join next year?”

  “I might join the chess club, if I have any extra time.”

  “The chess club!” I couldn’t hide my surprise. I never would’ve guessed in a million years that Yusef played chess. I was almost surprised that he knew what it was.

  “My uncle taught me how to play. Me and him play every time we get together. What you think, everybody in my family is a thug?”

  Yeah, more or less, I thought. After all, Yusef’s older brother Ricky was a known gangbanger. His name was spray-painted on buildings and everything: RICKY BROWN WAS HERE.

  “For your information, my Uncle Marvin graduated from Morehouse College,” Yusef said proudly.

  “That’s nice.” I pretended not to be surprised. “Yusef, would you teach me how to play chess?”

  Yusef draped his arm around me. I finally knew what it felt like to have a boyfriend.

  “You wouldn’t stick with it.”

  “How do you know? I stuck with swimming last summer. I learned the front crawl.”

  “Chess is a serious game, it takes a tough mind to really stay on top of it. Girls don’t play chess. Y’all ain’t got the concentration. Y’all’d be daydreaming about clothes or what color fingernail polish to buy and the other player would be saying ‘Checkmate.’”

  “Ha, ha, very funny. It just so happens that I wouldn’t be daydreaming about what color nail polish to buy because I use clear.”

  “That’s one of the things I digs about you, Stevie, you funny, you really funny.” Yusef smiled as we turned up my street.

  Actually I was dead serious, I thought.

  We stood in front of my house and Yusef handed me my books. He reached over and pressed his lips on mine. I swallowed. It was the first time a boy had ever kissed me. I liked feeling his mushy lips up against mine.

  “Jean Eloise!” I turned around. Oh, shoot, I said to myself, it had to be her. Mama was standing there holding a bag of groceries. She looked like she was fit to be tied.

  “What were you two doing, entertaining the neighbors?”

  “Mama, this is Yusef Brown, he’s in my class, he plays chess, his uncle graduated from Morehouse College.”

  “Humph.” Mama frowned.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Stevenson, can I carry that bag for you?”

  Mama didn’t crack a smile. “No thank you, Jean Eloise can carry it.” Mama shoved the bag at me.

  Before we could get in the house good, Mama started preaching, chapter and verse.

  “I’m not going to stand for it, Jean, I’m not going to have it. If you’re doing this at thirteen, what will you be doing at sixteen? You’re not even allowed to date yet.”

  I started putting the groceries away. “Mama, it was just a kiss, and besides I didn’t even know he was gonna do it. He kissed me, Mama.”

  “I didn’t see you putting up a struggle.” Mama pointed her finger. “And you better be glad it was me who caught you. If your Daddy had driven up and seen that, he would have lit into you right out there on the sidewalk. So you just better count your blessings. We work too hard to let riffraff come along and drag you down,” she continued, helping me with the groceries.

  “Yusef isn’t riffraff. I told you he plays chess.”

  “Don’t hand me that cat fat. The negro doesn’t even look like he knows a chess from a checker. Humph, he’d like to play with your chest,” Mama said from the refrigerator.

  “Oh, Mama.”

  “Oh, Mama, nothing. Look, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know riffraff when I see it! I smell a rat, mark my words!”

  “Mama, you don’t even know Yusef.” I sneaked a couple of butter cookies as I put the box in the cabinet.

  “Look, I don’t have to know the nigger! I can look at him and tell where his mind is. Got that cigarette behind his ear, he’s not fooling anybody. You need to stay clear of him.”

  “He just walked me home. Dog!” I groaned between bites of cookie.

  “That’s how it starts.”

  “Why don’t you all just send me to a convent now so I won’t have to suffer through four years of high school.” I poured a glass of milk to wash my cookies down.

  “Get smart with me, will you? You’re not too big to be whipped, don’t you forget that! Just because I carried that bag of groceries four long blocks, don’t think I don’t have the strength to wear you out. I’ll do it if it takes my last ounce of energy.”

  I stuck my mouth out as I watched Mama put the eggs on their shelf in the refrigerator.

  “Here I am the vice president of the Block Club Association,” she continued. “I wouldn’t stand out there in broad daylight and kiss your father, and I’m a grown, married woman. And you know how Mrs. Joseph and Miss Pugh stay up in their windows. Don’t think they won’t talk. They’ll know more about what’s going on in my house than I do.”

  “Mama, it was just a kiss.”

  “Don’t talk back to me. Don’t hand me that
‘it was just a kiss’ mess. It starts with a kiss. And I’ll tell you one thing, Miss Smarty, you make your bed hard, you sure will have to lie in it. If you want to avoid a lot of heartache and suffering, you’ll play ball with me. I expect more from you than the boys, plus you’re the oldest. If anybody has to set an example, you do.”

  “It’s not fair for everything to be on me ’cause I’m a girl.”

  “Life isn’t fair, child. I’m telling you how it is. Nobody much cares what a man does. No matter how low a man stoops, he can always get up, brush himself off, put on a clean set of clothes, and he’s still Mr. Johnson. A woman has to consider her reputation. You think those busybodies in the window are gonna run to the phone and talk about what Mrs. Brown’s son did? No indeedy, they’re gonna be talking about Mrs. Stevenson’s daughter, that hoe, that slut! When they get finished you would’ve been practically doing the do out on the grass! I know people. No matter what a man does, he can always get somebody. Baby, they got women who want to marry murderers on death row! It is still a man’s world and don’t you forget it. I’m telling you this because I want you to be somebody. And I won’t stand to let anybody drag my only girl through the mud, not as long as I’ve got some fight left in me!”

  “Mama, I’ve finished putting the groceries away. Can I go watch TV?”

  “Okay, but you remember everything I’ve said.”

  “Yeah, Mama.” I headed to the cabinet and got a handful of butter cookies.

  “Give me a couple of those cookies.” Mama stretched her hand out, forgetting about her diet.

  chapter 10

  I was sitting in my favorite swing at recess, just letting my feet drag through the wood chips. I didn’t have the heart to swing.

  “What’s going on, Sally Sunshine?”

  I looked up and saw Carla standing in front of me.

  “Yusef asked me to go with him,” I mumbled.

  “Well, can’t nobody ’cuse you of dancing in the streets.”

  “There’s a catch.”

  “What’s the catch? You gotta give up Roland?”

  “Very funny. He wants me to pee with him.”

  Carla sat down in the swing next to me.

  “Wow, I knew Yusef Brown was cool, but I ain’t know he was this cool! Wow, Stevie, I knew you was square but I ain’t know you was this square.”

  “Shut up, Carla, seriously. I told him I had to think about it. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t kind of scared. I wanted to get your opinion, okay?”

  “Stevie, sometimes you have to get over being scared. You can’t stay a baby forever. Look at it like this, it’s just a body function, it’s natural. You pee all the time. He pee all the time. The only difference is y’all will be peeing together.” Carla looked at me like she’d just finished describing one of the most romantic things in the world.

  “Would you do it?” I asked her point-blank.

  “Sure, if Tyrone asked me, I’d do it in a minute.” Carla snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”

  “Sure you would, like fun.” I tried to call her bluff. “I never heard of you peeing with Tyrone or anybody else for that matter. You’ve never done it before, have you?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “You would’ve told me, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t tell you all my business.” Carla tried to sound grown-up.

  “Well, I bet you and Tyrone never peed together before.”

  “Who says it would’ve had to have been with Tyrone?”

  “If you’d done it with some other boy, I’d know about it, wouldn’t I?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Oh, stop being so doggone mysterious.”

  “Look if you must know, I have peed with a boy before, okay?”

  “Who? What’s his name?”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “Yeah, me and nobody else. How old were y’all, three and four?”

  “No, I was twelve. It happened summer before last; I was visiting my grandmother in East St. Louis. You think you’re the first girl some boy ever asked to pee with him? Folks been peeing together all over East St. Louis, way before you was born, not to mention the South.”

  I took a deep breath. Maybe I was making too big a deal out of it. I had to admit when I squeezed my legs together and thought about peeing with Yusef I got an excited feeling. Scary, yes, but exciting just the same.

  “Well, how was it?”

  “How was what?” Carla asked.

  “Peeing with that boy in East St. Louis?”

  “It ain’t something you can really put into words, it’s something you gotta experience for yourself.” Carla started swinging.

  “Carla, he wants us to do it after school tomorrow, behind his house.” I started swinging alongside Carla.

  “Stevie, you’ve come too far to turn back now. You this close to being Yusef’s lady.” Carla held her thumb and finger real close together.

  “Okay, I’m gonna do it, Carla. I’m just gonna go head and do it!”

  “Do it, do it, do it till you satisfied!” Carla laughed.

  I started swinging faster. I wanted to see how high I could go.

  I usually hated the fact that I always had to be the one to wash the dishes because I was the only girl. Mama and Daddy wouldn’t hear of my brothers having to so much as rinse out a glass. But tonight I was kind of glad that everyone was out of the kitchen, leaving me to my dishes and the thoughts running through my head. I started cleaning off the table and thinking about peeing with Yusef tomorrow.

  “How many times have I told you not to throw away my glass!” Daddy shouted. I jumped as he grabbed my hand over the sink. I watched the thin brown stain almost disappear.

  “I thought it was empty,” I said softly. There couldn’t have been but a drop, I told myself. My wrist was hurting where Daddy was holding it. I was afraid to move it because I might drop the glass in the sink, and if it broke then he would really get mad.

  Mama stood in the doorway. “You know your father wants the last drop of whiskey. Just leave his glass alone. I don’t care if it looks empty or not, just leave his glass alone.”

  Daddy let go of my wrist and grabbed the glass out of my hand. He walked over to the cabinet and poured himself another drink.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy, I really thought it was empty.” He ignored me, which I took to mean that he accepted my apology. I could get back to thinking about peeing with Yusef, now.

  I squeezed some Joy into the dishpan and filled it with water. There was the exciting, scary part about letting Yusef see what was up under my panties and me seeing his dick. But what was also going through my head was, what if we got caught or what if my parents found out? I tried to picture it in my mind. I could see Mama now; she’d probably have to lie down for a week. She would say over and over how if anyone had told her I would’ve done something like this, she wouldn’t have believed it. If it had been one of the boys maybe, but not her Jean Eloise, named after her favorite grandmother, may her soul rest in peace. Then she would grab a belt. No, it was June, she’d send David out to pick her a switch. As she hit me, she’d shout, “Six summers of vacation Bible school down the drain! I’m gonna beat you till I beat the devil out of you. I’m gonna whip you till I can’t whip you no more. I’m gonna beat you till I drop!” Then we would both collapse and I would be glad, because at least after hitting me she would feel better. Then she’d be able to pray for the Lord to show me the way.

  If Daddy had been there and whipped me instead, I could picture him just going off, beating me to the ground with his belt, leaving welts on me, like he did on Kevin and David last month when they forgot and left their bikes in the yard, and somebody could’ve come by and stolen them. But maybe if Daddy had had a few drinks, he might be in such a good mood that he wouldn’t let anything spoil it, not even me peeing with Yusef. Then Daddy might just go to bed or go back out into the street. Then Mama would cry and ask God what she’d done to deserve a no-good hu
sband and a wicked daughter. Mama would say that if she had to stay on her knees the rest of her life she would. “Lord, just give me the strength to get through this,” she’d pray.

  I looked up. I had practically finished washing the dishes. I squeezed out some more Joy and started on the last pan. I couldn’t believe I was gonna actually pee with Yusef. Mama always said the devil was powerful. Probably God would forgive me quicker than Mama. Didn’t seem like peeing with somebody all by itself would keep a person out of heaven. What with all the worse things people did, like murdering and raping folks. Didn’t we sing in church, “There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul, there is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole”?

  My stomach was in knots and Yusef Brown was forever smiling at me from across the room. I had told him this morning that, yeah, I would pee with him today.

  I hadn’t done doodly squat all day. I was gonna have to do homework over the weekend. I would have to tell Mr. Cox I had been sick and that’s why I hadn’t turned in the assignments. I just hadn’t said anything at the time, I’d say. I had it all figured out in my head.

  Aside from being scared, I was excited about seeing Yusef’s thing. Oh, forgive me, God. Me, an alto in Faith’s Junior Choir, me, with almost perfect Sunday-school attendance. I wondered if there was really hope for a wretch like me. I would have to remember to ask Mr. Berry, the junior choir director, to let us sing “Amazing Grace” as soon as he could fit it in.

  “How come you so quiet?” Yusef asked, as we walked between the bushes and his brick apartment building. I hunched my shoulders as Yusef opened the metal gate leading to the backyard.

  “Just down these steps; see, there’s a drain by the basement door.”

  I glanced at the backyard. It was all dirt, not a blade of grass, and there was a lot of old toys and junk lying around. It smelled like somebody had peed in it already.

  “Don’t worry, ain’t nobody here.” Yusef put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s gonna be fun, you’ll see.”