“Sir, I’m sorry for the interruption, but I caught these two gentlemen fighting in the hallway outside my classroom,” he said, pointing to Chubby and R.J. “And these two ladies are the only witnesses who hung around.”
“Okay, thank you,” Mr. Lazarus replied, placing the pen on his desk. Mr. Mack seemed eager to leave us and exited the small office space just as quickly as he’d entered.
This was my first trip to the principal’s office, and although I hadn’t done anything wrong, the principal’s mere presence made me fearful. He had been friendly with me when passing through the hallway, but I had heard stories about his meanness and fondness for using his thick, wooden paddle, better known as “The Board of Education,” for even minor infractions. Now, as I stood in front of his desk staring down at his slicked-back head of jet black hair, I dreaded whatever was about to happen next.
“You all can have a seat,” Mr. Lazarus said, motioning with a hand for us to sit down. Reluctantly, we all sat down in a semi-circle around the principal’s desk, trying to look anywhere besides his darkening eyes.
“Okay, who’d like to tell me what happened?” he asked. His authoritative voice echoed throughout the room, commanding each of us to stare in his direction.
Silence permeated the space for seconds as Mr. Lazarus waited for someone to reply. “I see, you all aren’t going to make this easy for me. So let’s begin with the two gentlemen involved in the fight, and then I’ll get to the witnesses.”
R.J. was the first to respond by saying, “I was just minding my business, walking out of Mr. Mack’s classroom when Chubby approached me and started calling me names. Then he started pushing on me, and next thing I know, he’s swinging on me like a crazy person.”
“Is that true?” Mr. Lazarus asked, staring at Chubby as he leaned back in his high-back leather chair.
“Not exactly, Sir,” Chubby began, shifting in his seat. He’d calmed down since their exchange in the hallway and resembled the mild-mannered young man I had known all my life.
“Well, then, why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?”
Glancing my way, Chubby sighed heavily like what he was about to say would hurt my feelings, and replied, “You see, this is how it all started. I heard he was in the locker room this afternoon lying on my cousin here.” Chubby nodded and touched my arm.
“Man, ain’t nobody lied on your cousin about nothing,” R.J. shouted, rubbing his sore mouth.
“You did lie, too. You told all the fellows that you banged Reecy at the party this weekend, but I know that’s a lie. Why you going around lying on people, punk?” Chubby shifted in his seat as his anger began to rise again.
“Stop it right there. I will not tolerate any name calling in my office. Do you understand?” Mr. Lazarus’s eyes shifted between the two teenage boys.
“Yes, sir,” they both mumbled.
Shifting his attention to Joyce and me, the principal asked, “What can either of you ladies tell me about this incident?”
I replied, “We were just walking out of class when we saw our cousins shouting and pushing one another at the end of the hallway. By the time we made it to them, R.J. was on the floor and Mr. Mack was standing between him and Chubby.”
“So you witnessed this young man swinging on this one?” he asked, pointing from Chubby to R.J.
Lowering my head, I tried to think of a way to reply that wouldn’t get my favorite cousin in deeper trouble. Suddenly, my eyes were filled with burning tears. “Ah…” I tried to reply, but more tears came out instead of words.
Joyce reached over and rubbed my back. Staring up at the principal, she cried, “Sir, that’s all we know. Can we please leave before we miss our bus?”
Mr. Lazarus released a breath of air, pushed up his glasses, and replied, “Yes, you and your friend are free to go. I’ll deal with these two guys alone.”
I was filled with relief. Joyce helped me stand up, and we crept toward the door. I glanced backwards, and my eyes landed on the wooden paddle hanging from a nail on the side of the principal’s desk. I wondered if he was planning to use that thing on Chubby and R.J.
“Do you have a question?” Mr. Lazarus asked.
The brassiness in his voice told me that I had better get on my way. “No, Sir,” I replied, rushing out the door behind Joyce. My trembling body wanted to stay with Chubby, but my smart mind told me to go get on the bus. I would have to call Chubby later and apologize for running out on him like a coward.
CHAPTER NINE
It was after nine o’clock at night, and Daddy still hadn’t made it home. I was standing in front of the living room picture window, holding the satin curtain back with one hand and grasping the telephone receiver in the other one. Even with the streetlights on, I couldn’t see the white house across the street through the pouring rain. I was still on the telephone with Chubby talking about his encounter with R.J. “What happened after we left the principal’s office?”
“Ah, not much. He gave me a one-day suspension, so I guess I’ll get to sleep in tomorrow.”
My heart sank deeper than the deepest ocean. “I’m so sorry, Cuz. I didn’t mean to get you involved in my mess. This whole situation got me bugging out.”
“Don’t worry about it. Tomorrow’s Friday, and I can use a day to catch up on my beauty rest anyway.”
I giggled. I could always count on my “happy-go-lucky” cousin for a laugh. We were more than relatives, we were really close friends. Even before we had started kindergarten, Chubby and I played together in one of our backyards almost every day.
“Well, thanks for always having my back. I really appreciate you.”
“Ah, it’s no… did you hear that?” Chubby asked. “Man, the way that lightning snapped right then, I know it had to hit something close. I’m hanging up this phone. Call me tomorrow when you get home from school.”
“Okay, bye,” I replied, dropping the telephone back on the base.
“Who were you talking to with this lightning going on?”
I swung around at the sharp sound of his voice. “Hi, Daddy, I was just saying goodbye to Chubby.”
“Where’s your mama?”
“I think she’s in her bedroom,” I replied in a shaky tone, pointing down the hallway. I noticed his wet, blue uniform and the flaming red eyes right before he turned away from me.
Walking behind Daddy, I watched him stumble down the long hallway. He had to place one hand on the wall to keep from falling face first. And there was no mistaking the smell of alcohol lingering in the air behind him.
Oh, no, Daddy’s been out drinking, and it’s all my fault. He never takes a drink during the week like this.
I slipped into my dark bedroom and eased the door closed. The thunder and lightning greeted me with their special kind of passion. My room was illuminated like it was nine o’clock in the morning instead of nine at night. In between the graphic clasps of thunder, I heard voices screaming at one another in the background. I couldn’t make out the specific words, but there was no mistaking the tone in my parents’ voices.
I didn’t want to admit it, but my parents were throwing down harder in their bedroom than the rain was throwing down outside. Although it wasn’t quite my bedtime, I climbed into my cotton pajamas before climbing into my bed. My dry scalp started itching, so I got up and greased my scalp with some Royal Crown, plaited up my afro, and laid back down. My parents were still arguing. I’ve never heard them fight like this before.
I was lying on my back with my eyes closed, trying hard to ignore my parents’ raised voice, but curiosity got the best of me. I sat up on the side of my bed again and slipped into my fluffy house shoes.
Tipping into the hallway, I strained to hear bits of their loud, verbal exchange. I had barely made it two feet from my bedroom when the door to Grandma’s room swung wide open. My heart jumped into my mouth faster than a frog could hop onto a lily pad. “Grandma, what are you doing up?”
“I was just wondering the same
thing about you, young lady. Why are you standing out here in the dark hallway?” Grandma asked a question but she stared at me like she already knew the answer.
My mind raced to find an answer that didn’t seem to be coming anytime soon. I blurted, “I was just heading to the bathroom.”
“Well, it looks like you going in the wrong direction.” Grandma narrowed her eyes and tilted her head to the side.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, snapping around. I rushed past Grandma and hurried into the bathroom without uttering another word.
Standing in the darkness behind the locked door, I held my breath and waited for Grandma to go back into her room and close the door. When I thought the coast was clear, I exhaled and tipped back into the hallway. I could still hear Mama’s and Daddy’s voices, but they weren’t as loud as they’d been before I dashed into the bathroom.
The rain was beginning to slack up as I entered my bedroom again. It had stopped lightning, and the thundering had almost subsided. This time, I got down on both knees and prayed before getting back into bed. I wasn’t sure how things were going to work out for my family. We had been through hard times in the past, but I had always been able to depend on my parents clinging to one another regardless of the difficult situations. Now they seemed to be drifting apart and arguing worse than two enemies at war instead of the loving couple they had always been. It was at times like these that I missed having my two older brothers around to protect me. With them being away at the University of Arkansas in Pine Bluff, I was lonely and felt like an only child. Surely, they’re past due for a family visit. When are they coming home?
After praying heartily for my family, I climbed back into the bed with one thought on my mind: I hope Grandma was right about prayer changing things. And since Grandma had never been wrong before, I fell asleep with a warm feeling in my heart that things would get better at home.
*
Thank God it’s Friday. That was the only way I knew how to greet the last school day of the week. This was a day that I was beginning to think would never come. Now that it had arrived, I sprung from the bed. Swishing across the cold floor to the closet, I started pulling together a fly outfit for school in minutes. Spreading out a pair of dark-rinsed, bell bottom jeans along with a multi-colored blouse, I undid my long plaits and ran my fingers through my wavy hair. I wasn’t in love with my hair texture, yet I admired it in the mirror as an afro began to form.
If I can get through today, I can spend the entire weekend working on my welcome speech for Monday, I thought, hurrying through my morning routine.
As I opened the front door, the smell of the soaked grass and pine trees filled my nostrils. I was relieved that the rainstorm had passed on over last night leaving only a few broken limbs scattered in our yard. The birds were chirping in the trees like they were happier than I was that the rain was gone.
The second I stepped on the school bus, I felt a strange sensation causing my body to stiffen. Walking down the aisle like a zombie, I eased into the reserved seat next to Joyce. “What’s wrong with you this morning? You’re looking weird,” Joyce said, studying my face.
Sliding onto the green, vinyl-covered seat, I replied, “I’m fine. I was thinking about Chubby. I feel real bad about him getting suspended for the day.”
“Now ain’t that a blimp.”
I snapped my head up and peered into R.J.’s glaring eyes.
“Yeah, it’s me. Don’t freak out,” R.J. quipped, leaning over the back of our seat with his head between the two of us. He had on a hooded gray sweatshirt covering up his braids.
“What do you want?” I asked. I hoped my facial expression showed how perturbed I was by his mere presence.
“I don’t want nothing from you, little girl, but you better tell your fat-behind cousin to stay away from me, because next time it won’t be that easy to sucker punch me. He caught me off guard and popped me in my mouth like a punk.”
“Whatever,” I said, snorting. I didn’t feel up to arguing with R.J. “You better get out of my face before I punch you in the mouth myself.”
R.J. guffawed. “Girl, I dare you to lay a hand on me! You must not know where I’m from! I grew up on the south side of Chicago!”
“Don’t nobody care about where you from. I know you’re living in Arkansas. If you’re so bad, why don’t you take your butt back to Chicago?”
R.J. stood over me, twisting up his mouth like he was about to spit out some curse words when the bus driver yelled, “Hey, you better sit down back there. I don’t want to have to pull this bus over.”
“Mind your business, old dude,” R.J. yelled at the aging bus driver. Suddenly, every booming voice on the bus went silent and all eyes roamed back and forth between the two males. Mr. Otis was shorter than a fifth grader and needed a pillow to see over the dashboard, yet he was known for being meaner than a junkyard dog. He didn’t tolerate disrespect from anyone.
Mr. Otis slammed down on the brakes hard enough to throw R.J. over the seat if he hadn’t held on for dear life. We were only about three miles from the high school when Mr. Otis pulled the bus over to the side of the road with such force that the rocks started flying up like hot popping popcorn. He stared up into the rearview mirror at R.J., and asked, “What did you call me, young blood?”
By the time the bus came to a complete halt, R.J. was firmly planted in his seat. We heard students whispering in the background, “Man, you better not get into it with Mr. Otis unless you want to walk the rest of the way to school.” And someone else said, “I know that’s right, he don’t play.”
Deciding to take their advice, R.J. avoided the penetrating eyes of the gray-haired bus driver. He stared out the side window pretending not to know who Mr. Otis was talking to until the bus was slowly pulled back onto the highway. Mumbling to himself, Mr. Otis kept glancing up into the rearview mirror as if he was daring R.J. or anyone else to try crossing him on this cloudy, overcast morning.
Apparently, R.J. had a little bit of common sense. I had been silently praying that the fool would be stupid enough to talk back to Mr. Otis and get kicked off the school bus for good. If only R.J. had given me that satisfaction, I could have truly enjoyed the rest of the day.
*
“Grandma, I’m home!” I yelled, slamming the front door behind me.
“Hey, what’s all of this racket going in here?”
Gasping at the sound of his voice, I covered my mouth as my oldest brother, Tyrone, appeared in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. It had been months since I’d seen him, but he was just as tall and lanky as he was the day when he first left home to attend college.
“What? A brother can’t get a hug around here?” Tyrone asked, holding out both hands.
I dropped my books on the plaid La-Z-Boy chair by the door and bolted for his thin arms. Closing my eyes, I held on to Tyrone as if he was going to slip through my arms or melt away like chocolate. I inhaled the familiar smell of his cheap Hai Karate aftershave, smiling inwardly and outwardly. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed this joker until now.
When I opened my eyes again, I stared right into Joshua’s grinning face. He was a couple of inches shorter than Tyrone with a stockier build. And as the youngest brother, he and I shared a special relationship. Joshua was the one who sought my advice when it came to winning the heart of a girl. Joshua was the knight who protected me from harm at school last year when Rodney Payne got all up in my face.
“What’s going on, baby?” Joshua asked, giving me a bear hug. He’d turned into Mr. Cool after being away at college for only one semester.
I squeezed his thick neck even tighter than I had squeezed Tyrone’s skinny body. It was great having both of my siblings under the same roof again. Even though I was ecstatic to see both of them, I had to ask, “What are you guys doing home?”
They smiled at one another, making me think that they shared a secret before Tyrone answered. “Well, since we had to miss somebody’s birthday the other weekend
, we thought we’d make it up to you this weekend.”
“That’s right,” Joshua chimed in. Reaching into his back jeans pocket, he pulled out three tickets. “How would you like to see the Jackson Five in concert at the arena tonight in Little Rock?”
My hands covered my opened mouth, but it didn’t cover up the screams of excitement I released. Just the thought of seeing that cute Michael Jackson onstage singing his heart out to me was so amazing that it made my head pound. I thought that staring at his smiling face on an album cover every night was the closest that I would ever get to viewing the mesmerizing teenager also known as a dancing machine.
“You’re kidding me, right? There’s no way we’re going to see the Jackson Five in concert.” My wild eyes stared at Joshua like he was a ghost trying to possess my spirit. With one hand covering my rapidly beating heart, I inhaled and waited for his response.
Tyrone tightened his body, tilted his head, and started doing the robot. Although he was skinny enough to be Michael, he didn’t have the skills that Michael had on the dance floor, but he was skilled enough to make us laugh.
Joshua rocked back and forth with laughter. Pointing at our older brother, he said, “I hope Michael and his brothers dance better than that there.”
“Ah, man, shut up,” Tyrone responded, coming out of the robotic trance. “I can out dance you any day of the week.”
“I’ve got to go call Joyce. She’s not gonna believe I’m going to see the Jackson Five with you guys tonight!” I clapped my hands, jumping up and down.
“You better go get changed, because we need to be ready to get out of here by the time Mom gets home,” Joshua stated, checking his trusted Timex watch. “The concert starts at eight, so we don’t have enough time for you to be chatting with your girlfriend on the telephone.”
“It won’t take but a minute to call Joyce,” I replied, heading into the kitchen. I picked up the telephone receiver and started dialing Joyce’s number. While waiting on her to pick up, I wondered what in the world I was going to wear to go see my music idol.
Bell Bottom High: Book 3: Junior Jewels Page 8