Coffee Will Make You Black

by April Sinclair

  Grandma thought she was slick. She usually was, but I was determined to beat her for a change. I studied the board. Grandma had jumped me and left herself wide open to get jumped twice!

  “How do you like them apples?” I laughed, holding up two of her red pieces.

  Grandma wrinkled her forehead and wiped the sweat off her face with a paper towel. “That’s okay, you ain’t winning this game. ’Cause it’s many a slip between the cup and the lip.”

  Mama dragged into the kitchen waving an old church fan. She was wearing a white sleeveless blouse and a pair of beige shorts. She looked good; she’d lost ten pounds recently. Grandma glanced up at Mama after moving her king.

  “Thought you got lost. Did they have a long line at the post office?”

  “No longer than usual, but you won’t believe what I saw! I mean I thought I had seen and heard everything, but this beat Bob’s tail.”

  “What did you see, Mama?” I looked up from the game. When Mama said something beat Bob’s tail, she was as close as a Christian woman could get to needing a drink.

  “It was spray-painted on the side of a building. It said BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL, in big, bold letters!”

  “Black is beautiful?” me and Grandma repeated.

  “Yes, ‘Black is beautiful.’ Have either one of you ever heard such a thing before?”

  Me and Grandma shook our heads.

  “I didn’t think so,” Mama said, fanning herself.

  “Black is sho-nuff beautiful! Crown me, Grandma!”

  “Jean Eloise, stop acting silly, this is serious. I’ve been asking myself over and over, What would possess a person to write something like that?”

  Grandma crowned me, but she was quiet, probably because she was losing.

  I turned away from the game. “Maybe he just got out of the insane asylum,” I teased.

  Grandma winked at me and smiled.

  “Jean, I hadn’t thought of that, maybe that explains it,” Mama said, walking toward the refrigerator.

  “Oh, Evelyn, Jean was just pullin’ your leg.”

  Mama shook her head as she cracked open a tray of ice.

  “‘Black’ is supposed to be a fighting word. I’ve heard, ‘Black get back,’ ‘I don’t want nothing black but a Cadillac,’ and ‘Coffee will make you black.’”

  “What does ‘Coffee will make you black’ mean, Mama?”

  “The old folks in the South used to tell that to children so they wouldn’t want to drink coffee. The last thing anybody wanted to be was black.”

  “I never told my children any mess like that,” Grandma cut in. “I told y’all, ‘The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.’”

  “Well, anyway, getting back to the wall, I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. I saw plenty of folks peeking out of the corners of their eyes, like they were being drawn by a magnet. Seemed like people were just making excuses to parade past that wall,” Mama said, sucking on an ice cube.

  “Lord have mercy! I never thought I would live to see the day when ‘black’ would be called beautiful! It makes me damn proud!” Grandma shouted.

  “Well, you know I don’t condone your cursing, or folks defacing property, but I have to admit that when I saw BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL on the side of the A&P like that I couldn’t help but feel … well, sort of proud myself.”

  “Mama, Grandma, times are changing, I’ve heard some people say ‘black’ instead of ‘negro’ or ‘colored.’”

  “Jean, you can tell your children stories about what it was like, once upon a time when we were negroes,” Grandma said, her eyes twinkling.

  “I’ll tell them everything,” I promised.

  “You two don’t think this stuff is going to catch on, do you?” Mama asked between sucks on her ice.

  “Hey, everybody,” Kevin yelled from the living room, “there’s somebody black on TV!” Me and Grandma fell out laughing.

  “See Mama, what did I just get through telling you?”

  Mama looked scared and excited at the same time. Maybe like a virgin, I thought.

  PART TWO

  fall 1967

  fall 1968

  chapter 12

  I was actually in high school! I changed classes every time the bell rang. I only had one class with Carla and that was Art. Southside High School took up a whole city block. There was even an enclosed campus just for the seniors.

  I’d looked out of the girls’ bathroom window yesterday and watched them standing around looking cool. The seniors were royalty as far as I was concerned. I’d seen a girl hugged up with a boy in a purple-and-gold school sweater against the big willow tree in the center of the campus. Carla had already told me that was where couples liked to go and kiss.

  There was a big difference between grammar school and high school. At my elementary school you had to bring your lunch from home. But at Southside you could buy a hot lunch for thirty-five cents or cookies, potato chips, and soda pop from the canteen in the back of the lunchroom.

  In the school hallways, some of the monitors were middle-aged women instead of students. They got paid to ask you where you belonged this period. They also worked in the attendance office. You had to go there and get a pass if you were late to your first class. There was even a security guard.

  At Southside, we had a school band, clubs, sock hops, football and basketball teams, cheerleaders, the whole bit.

  This morning, the window had been open during my Spanish class. We could hear the cheerleaders practicing their cheers while we struggled to say, “como está usted” and “bien, gracias.”

  I recalled the cheers better than my Spanish lesson. “Two bits, four bits, six bits a dollar, all for the Bobcats, stand up and holler! Went to the river, yeah man, started to drown, yeah man. Started thinking about the Bobcats, yeah man, and I just couldn’t go down. Went to the railroad, yeah man, had my foot on the track, yeah man, started thinking about the Bobcats, yeah man, and brought my big foot back, yeah man!”

  It was exciting to be one of the three thousand or so students at Southside High. But right now I felt small and lonely, as I searched for my study hall. And even though I looked cool in my turquoise velour top and my straight skirt, hoop earrings, and fishnet stockings, I was afraid to ask anyone for directions for fear that they would send me the wrong way because I was just a freshman.

  “Stevie, hey, Stevie.”

  I turned around, smiling, glad to hear my name called in the packed, noisy hallway.

  It was Roland, wearing a white shirt and tie and a navy sweater. He was overdressed even for the first week of school. But I was glad to see a familiar face.

  “Hi, Roland.”

  “Stevie, where are you headed?”

  “I’m trying to find my study hall.”

  “I’ve got study hall this period too. Is yours in room 256?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure where that is.”

  “Follow me, I know where it is. It’s by the Boys’ Gym.”

  “I’m glad I ran into you.”

  “So, Stevie, what are you going to get involved in?”

  “Carla’s already planning to join the Pep Squad. She says then she’ll have a better chance to become a cheerleader.”

  “Sounds like a good strategy. But what about you, Stevie? I didn’t ask you about Carla.”

  “Okay, if I get up the nerve, I’ll join the Drama Club.”

  “You always said a good Easter piece at church as far back as I can remember.”

  “Thanks. Well, what about you, Roland? What do you want to get into?”

  “I’m seriously thinking about joining the Afro-American Club.”

  “The Afro-American Club?”

  “Yes, it’s new this year.”

  “I know. But if I were you, I’d check into it before jumping on the bandwagon.”

  “Why? What’s there to check into?”

  “Did you see those students who refused to stand for the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ at the assembly this morning?”
r />   “Yeah.”

  “And the ones who stood up but turned their backs and raised their fists.”

  “Yeah, they were cool.”

  “I heard they got suspended.”

  “That’s more reason why I want to stand up to injustice.”

  “You could pay a price. It could keep you out of the Honor Society. It could keep you from getting a college scholarship. You never know. There’s a girl in my Spanish class who wears her hair natural,” I continued. “She’s in the Afro-American Club. This boy named Donald yells ‘nappy head’ every time the teacher calls her name. A lot of students laugh. I feel for her.”

  Roland shook his head. “That’s sad. The white man has really done a job on us. We’ll never be free until we stop hating ourselves.”

  “Amen to that,” I agreed, as we turned the corner.

  I couldn’t believe it. I was hip. I was cool. But I was alone. I wasn’t even walking home with a square or two from my Honors English or Honors Algebra classes, but alone, all alone. I would’ve even settled for having Roland all over me like a cheap suit. Where was he when I needed him? I felt so embarrassed. Girls in twos and threes moseyed along past me as though I were invisible. Boys strutted in groups, jumping up to make imaginary baskets, not giving me the time of day. I couldn’t help envying the couples strolling along with silly grins on their faces.

  How could this have happened to me? Let’s see, Carla was with Tyrone. She walked home with me on the days he was in band rehearsal. My tenth-period Biology class had been packed with sophomores. Most freshmen were enrolled in General Science classes. I hadn’t known hardly anyone. That’s why I was in this situation now.

  I decided to enjoy the crisp fall air and take in the sights and sounds along my new route. A group of street-corner men sitting on crates asked me if they could walk with me. I shook my head and smiled.

  I noticed that the same three Jehovah’s Witnesses I’d seen this morning were standing in front of the Currency Exchange holding copies of The Watchtower.

  A woman outside a phone booth yelled, “How long do it take to tell a nigger to go to hell?” The young woman inside, cradling the receiver and a crying baby, didn’t bother to answer.

  I looked down at the sidewalk when my foot stumbled over a large crack. I suddenly noticed that there was an incredible amount of old gum stuck to the sidewalk.

  “Come on, baby, I’ll let you have one for five dollars.”

  I looked up to see a red-eyed man who smelled like booze, showing me some gold chains glistening in the sunlight. I shook my head and said, “No thanks.”

  “Come on, baby! Two for eight! They charge you twice as much for ’em in Jew Town.”

  “Sorry, but I’m broke,” I said, walking away. Even if I had five dollars, I wouldn’t buy a stolen chain that probably wasn’t even gold, I thought. I went back to checking out the gum on the sidewalk.

  “Say, honey.”

  I turned around to see a petite, brown-skinned man with a face full of powder. As Mama would say, he had some “sugar in his tank.”

  “Yes,” I answered, surprised.

  “Peek in that window over there and tell me if you see a tall, fine-looking man. He’s a redbone, darling. I know he’s in there, ’cause I watched him go in. I want you to tell me if it’s a high-yellow woman in there with him.”

  I hesitated. I couldn’t believe this man. Then again it beat looking at old gum spots. “Okay,” I answered mechanically. I peeped through the slit in the heavy red curtains of the Peek-A-Boo Lounge. I looked for a man with a reddish complexion. The tavern only had about six people in it. I spotted him, sitting at a booth across from a woman who looked to be high yellow from where I stood.

  I turned around and looked at the smooth-faced man. “Does he have on a brown leather jacket?”

  He nodded.

  “Yeah, he’s with a woman,” I reported.

  The man scrunched his face up. “Ted really acted like he cared! He really acted like he cared! I got half a mind to kill both of them!” he fumed.

  “That wouldn’t solve anything.” I tried to sound calm.

  “I hates a liar!” The man stamped his foot. “I hates a liar! He swore up and down that they was through.” The man wiped his eyes, smearing his black eyeliner.

  “My mother says all men are dogs. Some are just more doggish than others.” I said, trying to make him feel better.

  “Your mama is right, honey. I should kill the sucker!”

  I wondered if he had a gun. Because this little man didn’t look like he could even whip Kevin.

  “No, you might end up in jail. And besides you wouldn’t want to have that on your conscience, would you?”

  “It wouldn’t bother me one bit to have that on my conscience.”

  I swallowed.

  “But Ted and that hussy ain’t worth going to jail behind.”

  “That’s true,” I said, feeling relieved.

  The man sniffed and threw his head back. “Besides, mens are like buses. If you miss one, there’s always another one coming,” he said, clapping his hands.

  I smiled. “That’s the spirit.”

  “Thank you so much, honey, you are a beautiful person.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Well, let me go catch this bus,” the man said, switching away in his tight polyester pants.

  High school seemed a million miles away to me.

  chapter 13

  “Don’t you think you’re a little too old to be spying on people? You need to forget about that sissy!”

  I ignored Carla and strained to see through the slit in the red curtains behind the plate-glass window of the Peek-A-Boo Lounge.

  “Stevie, you as pathetic as that sissy you told me about!”

  I was just curious. Every now and then I looked to see if Ted was in there with that hussy. So far, I’d never seen him again.

  “Carla, come look!” I shouted.

  “Girl, I don’t have time to be …”

  “Is that a white lady sitting up at the bar, or do I need glasses?”

  “… peeking through a window at some old sleazy white broad some nigger dragged in the Peek-A-Boo Lounge.”

  I looked at the slightly plump red-haired woman sitting alone, hunched over a drink, supporting her head with one hand. She turned and looked nervously toward the doorway. I was able to see her face. It looked strangely familiar.

  “Stevie, if you don’t bring your tail on … It’s cold out here.” Carla started down the street.

  “Carla, it looks like Miss Humphrey!”

  “Girl, you must need bifocals!” Carla teased. “Miss Humphrey wouldn’t be sitting up in the Peek-A-Boo.”

  “Carla, it is Miss Humphrey, ’cause that’s the same green blouse she had on in Art class under her smock today!”

  “Okay, this I gotta see. Sho is Miss Humphrey, I can’t believe it!”

  “Carla, she’s getting up, she’s walking toward the door!”

  “Let’s go, Stevie.” As we turned away from the window, we bumped into each other, and I dropped my books and papers. I bent down and began picking them up.

  “Would you two like to come inside with me?”

  I looked up, surprised to see Miss Humphrey just smiling back. Carla turned around a few feet away.

  “Come on, you look like you could use a drink.” Miss Humphrey helped me up from the sidewalk and then motioned to Carla. She walked toward us kind of stiff.

  “But … but …” I swallowed. Miss Humphrey just pulled open the glass door and pushed us into the dark room.

  “Hey, C.C., two Shirley Temples for my friends.” The shapely woman with a blond afro behind the bar nodded.

  I turned around on the high bar stool, sipping my drink, which tasted like a 7-Up. There were two men in leather jackets playing pool. One of them had a bald head, and he reminded me of Isaac Hayes. There was an attractive couple at one of the tables, and a sorry-looking man was slumped over the other end of
the bar. James Brown was singing “Cold Sweat” on the jukebox. I started tapping my foot and began to relax a little. Mama never had to find out.

  Miss Humphrey pulled a cigarette out of her pack.

  “Can I have a smoke?” Carla tossed her head.

  Miss Humphrey hesitated, then handed her one.

  Carla doesn’t smoke, I thought.

  Miss Humphrey lit Carla’s cigarette. Carla coughed and tried to pretend like she was clearing her throat.

  “I call myself hooking up with this nigger and it looks like he’s turning out to be jive.” Miss Humphrey muttered like she was starting to get pissed.

  I scrunched my face up. Miss Humphrey didn’t talk this way in Art class. I hated it when white people tried to talk like they were black. And Miss Humphrey sounded so phony. I guess she thought she sounded cool.

  “Maybe he’s on C.P. time.” Carla blew out smoke.

  “Huh?” Miss Humphrey sounded confused.

  “Colored people’s time,” I said, acting cool.

  “Oh, yeah, right, colored people’s time. At first I didn’t hear you.” Miss Humphrey tried to play it off.

  “Miss Humphrey, the button on your blouse popped open,” I said, trying to be polite.

  “Look,” Miss Humphrey smiled, “let me show you something.”

  She pulled at her bra strap, showing us a small tattoo of a rose right above her left breast.

  “That’s really slick,” Carla said.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty,” I added.

  “Do you get it, though?” We shook our heads. “It’s a rose, and my name is Rose. Get it now?” Me and Carla nodded.

  Then the front door opened, and a big, tall, handsome man walked in. Miss Humphrey’s eyes looked like they were gonna melt. She turned, almost falling off the bar stool.

  “’Bout time you brought your black ass on in here.” Miss Humphrey sounded more loving than tough. But I still didn’t like her saying “black,” and a teacher saying “ass.”

  “Thanks for the drink, Rose.” Carla was putting out her cigarette.

  “Yeah, thanks.” I was heading toward the door.