How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch : The First Novel in the Morrow Girls Series (9780985751616)

by Bryant Simmons, D.

  “What kind of fight?”

  “The kind that’s gone put me on the map, baby. Ain’t you happy for me? Huh? Baby here’s happy for me. Ain’t you happy for daddy? No more living in this shit hole. We gonna have real food and a real roof over our heads. Pecan, why you ain’t saying anything?”

  “You doing all the talking. I thought I’d let the two of you work it out. You hungry?” I knew he was. He was always hungry. So I ain’t need to wait for an answer before heading toward the cabinet that kept all our food.

  “Hold on, hold on.”

  “I’ll make you something.”

  “Hold on. Let me look at you.” Ricky plopped Nikki down on the bed and she scooted around, kicking her feet against the bed covers. He had both hands against my face, kneading my cheeks with his thumbs. “You got such pretty skin. You know that?”

  I did. Or at least I knew it the day before. When I looked like me. A piece of his hair was sticking up over the middle of his head and it kinda waved in the draft from the door. Stole my attention for just a second but then I was back to knowing him better than I wanted. Last thing I wanted was Ricky’s hands on me.

  “It’ll heal,” he said like it was no big deal.

  “I know.”

  “You still pretty. Ain’t nobody pretty like my girl. You hear me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You believe me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Because I got a surprise for you.” Ricky ducked out into the hall and came back with a flat white box stretched across his arms. He held it out level with his chest and refused to give it up until I sat down on the bed. “It’s for the fight,” he said.

  I wanted to ask him which fight. The one between me and him or the one he was so excited about. But I ain’t say none of that and he laid it gently on my lap.

  “Open it.”

  It was a dress. Blue. With a turtleneck and long sleeves. I held it up and could tell right away that it was shorter than he probably thought.

  “Put it on.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, yeah, put it on. Come on, baby.”

  I took my time undressing, folding everything neatly on the bed, hoping he’d lose interest but those pretty eyes never left my body. A train rushed by and the entire apartment, walls and all, shook with it. The shades were still up since I was looking down on the folks below. Ricky marched over to the window and yanked the string until the shade fell to a good length. I started to relax a little after he did that. The dress zipped in the back so I stepped into it and waited for him to do the honors. He took his time.

  “It’s shorter than I thought it was gonna be,” he said.

  “All the girls are wearing their skirts here. It ain’t that bad. It’s fashionable.”

  “Hmmm. Turn around. Let me see the front.” He could see I ain’t want to, but that just made him impatient. “Come on now. What you think I’ma do? If it don’t fit, I’ll just take it back and get another size.”

  It wasn’t that it ain’t fit. I had always been a six, a perfect six. It was that the dress ain’t fit the way I knew he’d want it to.

  “Damn. That...that looks real sexy on you.” Ricky scratched his head then wiggled his finger around inside his ear. “They had another one that...that had this V-shaped dip in the front. You know that kinda came together like...this.”

  “A V neck?”

  “Yeah that makes sense. That what it’s called? Anyway, I thought about that one. Good thing I ain’t get it. That would’ve been too much! I’d be trying to knock this fool out and get all distracted!”

  He laughed and I smiled. The cut on my lip stretched thin so I didn’t hold the expression for too long. Just long enough to think that just maybe...things were starting to look up.

  We had canned spaghetti for supper. Cold and slimy, it settled in my stomach and I swear I could feel it moving around in there. A few times, my fat lip got caught up in my hunger, standing between me and the noodles. I bit it once and that was all it took for me to lose my appetite. Ricky finished his meal no problem and started in on what was left of mine. Our bed was the supper table. He stretched out and half of him hung over the sides while he scraped the bottom of the can.

  “When’s the fight?”

  “Two weeks. I got two weeks to get in shape. They say this dude went up against Ali back when he was Clay.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “I look worried?”

  “No.”

  “Then n’all it ain’t bad. It just is.”

  Sleep wasn’t too far off. I could feel it sneaking up on me. I eased Nikki off so I could slip into my nightgown and caught Ricky giving me that look. It was the second time I’d undressed in only an hour. It was all stuff he’d seen before but still he gave me that look. Like I was selling something he hadn’t had in a long while. I wasn’t. But as soon as the lights went down, he got up...straight up. Ricky never was one for no extras. He was an in-and-out kinda man, not that I knew the difference back then. I just thought that all men climbed on and worked theyselves into a tizzy before becoming sweaty pieces of dead weight. It wasn’t entirely uncomfortable. He ain’t try to kiss me so that was good. And my body responded the way he wanted so he was happy.

  I know because he said, “Pecan, you make me happy. You know that?”

  I did. And two weeks later I found out I was pregnant...again. I wanted to be happy about it. I did. But every time I thought about what was growing inside me I kept thinking that it wasn’t supposed to be there. I was supposed to be free. But I wasn’t. He had me. And he was growing inside me. Tried to make it go away by just thinking that maybe it was all a mistake. The test got it wrong. But that ain’t last too long since Ricky made me go up to the free clinic to get checked out. Said his trainer told him about how women need to be checked out a lot when they with chile.

  He was so happy. That was the first thing he asked about when he came through the door. He wanna know how his baby was doing. He wasn’t worried that we couldn’t barely feed ourselves. Said it was a sign his boxing career was about to jump off. So, he spent longer days at the gym, training day and night for his big fight. My condition seemed to give him twice as much energy but made me stay in bed. By the time he’d get home the pillows would be soaked from my tears. Ricky chalked it up to woman stuff. Said it was because the baby made me delicate and it’d go away just like the morning sickness that never actually came. I just ate, slept, and cried. But he acted like it was the most normal thing in the world. Nikki would look at me all sad like. She wanted to play. She wanted me to talk to her, to do something anything, but all I could do was lie there. I’d lie there, thinking “How’d this happen to me?” I’d close my eyes, squeeze them real tight and try to go back in time. To the day I met Ricky. No, because then I wouldn’t have had Nikki. Back to the day I almost got away. If I had left ten minutes earlier...If I had gone in the other direction...If Ricky had stayed at the gym like he was supposed to...but then other things would come to mind. Money. I had none. Had no place to go, no friends, no family. How was I going to take care of myself let alone a baby...or two? I wasn’t going anywhere. I would’ve ended up right back where I started. Maybe a day, maybe an hour would pass but then I’d come to my senses. That was my life. I could’ve rolled over and died or I could’ve made the best of it. So, I made the best of it.

  Good Neighbors

  RICKY WON HIS FIRST few big fights and made a name for himself. Was like folks were just looking for somebody to make a big fuss over. And just like he promised, we moved outta that awful hole next to the train tracks. We moved clear across town to a halfway decent house. Ricky made sure I saw it was the biggest on the block. It looked much better on the outside than it did on the inside but I ain’t give a plugged nickel! There was a huge wrap-around porch with a swing and tons of windows. The bedrooms were small but there was more of them than we had use for. And the yard. A bit wild, almost overgrown, but it was green and had what they call poten
tial.

  “You like it?”

  I couldn’t stop smiling. I was determined to make the best of it.

  The next day I went on a baking spree before I had even unpacked everything. I fixed oatmeal cookies, a cheesecake, and of course some pecan pie. Ricky was real mad because I packed it all up before he had a chance to get any. Me and Nikki used it to introduce ourselves to our neighbors. It was the right thing to do as my daddy would say. By our third stop we were kinda getting tired. Everybody wanted to know what Ricky did, how long we had been together, and stuff like that. It was tiring so when we ended up at Anise Buckley’s house, I sank into her sofa like a rock and had no plans to get up. She was a young girl, like me. She lived with her grandmama who looked so old she could’ve been a passenger on the Underground Railroad. Turns out she was Anise’s mama’s grandmama. She never left her wheelchair and every so often barked at Anise to change the channel on the TV.

  “Mama, you want some of these here cookies?” Anise asked. She had already ate like five of them. She was moving on to the pieces of pecan pie. “Here try them. They real good.” The old woman kinda grumbled but she bit off a small piece and then a bigger one. “She like it. She not gone say it, but she do.”

  Their living room was so dark I thought it was night the first few minutes I was there. The only light came from two places—a sliver where the curtains met and the TV screen. The curtains were drawn and the furniture was some dark print that might have been flowers years and years ago.

  I recognized a few of the characters on the TV and realized it was my favorite soap opera. “You watch the stories on channel two? Me too.”

  “Mama, you hear her talking to you? I’m sorry. She don’t hear too good. You made all this yourself?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  Anise was making herself a nice pile of cookies and pie pieces in one hand, and sampling the cheesecake with the other. I don’t know why I ain’t pick up on it from the beginning. Anise was hungry. And not in that hungry for dessert way. She was hungry.

  “You can have as much as you want.”

  “Don’t you wanna take some of it to the other folks?” Her hand stopped in midair then snatched back to the pile on her lap, covering it to keep it safe. “I ain’t mean to take so much.”

  “No, it’s fine. You go ahead. I been all over the neighborhood already. I guess folks watching their figures. You see, I ain’t got that problem. I’m already big as a house.”

  She smiled at me and took one more wedge of cheesecake. I felt bad I ain’t bring no real food but figured sweets was better than nothing. I didn’t know why she was so hungry or where their food was. I ain’t ask. I just got up to go and accidentally left the basket of sweets on the floor near the sofa. Ricky wasn’t too happy about that. Said the basket cost him two dollars. But that was it. Wasn’t much he could say. And that’s how I handled it. He wasn’t too interested in the housekeeping and cooking and stuff. He just wanted supper on the table when he got home. Wanted food he liked to eat the way he liked it. So when I could I would fix a little extra and ask Anise to sample it for me. She must have thought I was the most forgetful girl on the block, because after she was done sampling, I always forgot to take the rest of it home. By that time I was so full of baby, folks let me get away with everything. Ricky had to carry me up the stairs every night. They were so steep that it was like climbing a mountain I suspect. It was almost romantic.

  “Look at you, looking like a princess!” He’d cry as soon as we cleared the first step. “I got me a real live princess. What’s your name, sweetness?”

  “Elizabeth Taylor,” I’d say in real dramatic fashion and throw my head back like I’d seen them do in the movies. He loved that.

  “You cool?” he’d ask while turning the fan toward the bed.

  We had a huge bed that reminded me of the little monsters that sit on top of castles on account of the ugly faces carved into the posts. I’d lie there, trying to figure out if they were human or animal, dog or cat.

  A month or two had gone by since we moved in before he said, “I left leave word at that store on Madison so you can go on down there and pick out some furniture. On credit. Don’t go all crazy now.”

  “What kinda furniture?”

  “Whatever.”

  I actually got giddy at the idea. I had free rein to pick what I liked. Ricky never asked me what I liked. But this was even better than him asking. I started crying.

  “There you go with that woman stuff again. What? You don’t wanna go down there by yourself? Want me to find somebody to go with you?”

  “N-N-No.”

  “Then what’s the problem? Stop all that damn crying. What you got to be crying about? Huh? Got you this nice house...so...stop crying. You making me feel funny.”

  I WANDERED FROM ONE living room set to the next. Leather...suede...plaid...I even saw a sofa in the shape of somebody’s lips. And big flaming lamps with all sorts of things stuck to them. Then there was the rigid looking pieces, made of all white with a little gold thrown in around the edges. I was lost. Nikki thought they were all toys. The brighter it was, the more she wanted to touch it. The more something moved or had moving parts, the more she wanted to play with it.

  “Need some help, girl?” Her name tag read Helen E. She ain’t look like a Helen. She wore an electric blue miniskirt with bright green tights and her legs just kept on going from the floor up until they reached the green swatches across her eyes. I never saw anybody with green paint across they eyes before. “You look lost.”

  “I am I guess.”

  “Whatcha looking for, honey?”

  “Furniture.”

  “That’s good. Because we got a lot of that. What kinda furniture? You don’t look like you into the latest and most fashionable.”

  I smiled even though I was embarrassed pretty tough. I had a new dress that would’ve changed her mind but I’d only worn it a few times before I’d outgrown it.

  Helen leaned into me, taking my arm to apologize. “I’m sorry, honey. That ain’t come out right. You see that couple over there?” She asked and pointed to a tall thin man with platforms and bell bottoms. Both him and his old lady had the same shoes on. There were little bitty fish swimming in them. “They wanted to snatch up every black light and lava lamp we got. Like they ain’t never heard of going overboard. But anyway...who’s this? She yours?”

  Nikki wrapped herself around Helen’s legs and looked up at us like she was sure to get some extra love or something.

  “I’m sorry! Nikki, stop that.”

  “Oh it’s fine.”

  “No, she can’t just be running up to folks and grabbing them like that. Nikki, stop.”

  As it turned out Helen had family from the same corner of Mississippi that I was from. She had only gotten down there a few times but that was better than nothing. We wandered around the chairs and sofas, chatting about the way things were changing and she steered me away from the pieces folks came back in to complain about. Nikki helped us test out each piece, and by the end of it all, I’d told Helen all about Ricky and our life together. Well not everything, just the stuff you’d tell folks when you don’t want them to pity you.

  “What he look like? I’ve probably seen him walking up and down the street here.”

  “Um...about yay tall. Wide shoulders. He got real pretty eyes and that straight wavy kinda hair like he permed it only he didn’t. Most folks think he mixed or something.”

  “I bet. You two must be something together.”

  “I guess.”

  “You should get the dining set over there. The one with the skinny legs. I had a customer come by once and say it looked sexy. You believe that? Sexy furniture. These people...I tell you. There’s no less than a hundred types of crazy in this world. Now, we got some real nice dishes and stuff that’ll go with it.”

  “I want red.”

  “Whatcha say, honey?”

  “Red. You got red dishes? I always...kinda liked the color red.
You think that’s too much to eat off of?”

  “N’all. I think that’s hot. Come on, let me write all this stuff down.”

  “And um...maybe we could get a chandelier to go over the table. I see a lot of folks have them.”

  “Sure thing, sweetie. What else you want?”

  It was like the flood gates opened. I couldn’t stop. Matching chairs, un-matching chairs, I needed them both. Beds to go in all the bedrooms. Two sofas, well three if you count the one I got to go in my bedroom. But it was a real small one, just the tiniest cutest little thing I ever saw! Lamps, lights to go in the ceiling, rugs...by the time we’d finished Helen had invited me out for drinks. She said because of me she was going on vacation and the least she could do was take me out for a few drinks.

  “I’ll wait until you done with this here.” She grinned and swirled her index finger in the general direction of my stomach. “But don’t take too long.”

  And I didn’t. Two days later Mya Ann Morrow made her appearance. Ricky was in the ring but he came right after. His face was puffy and bruised but not too bad. He said I should’ve seen the other guy. I ain’t need to, I could imagine. He slumped down in a chair and yanked his sweater over his head. Said it was hot. That was the beginning. He complained about the heat, about the sheets, he complained that the nurses kept coming in and bothering me. Then he demanded a private room.

  “Mr. Morrow, we don’t have any other rooms available.”

  “Yeah you do! I know you do! You just don’t wanna give it up! And how long it take for the doc to take a look at her anyway? Huh? What you doing to my baby?” Ricky got like that after a fight, especially when he thought he could’ve done better. Knocked the guy out in three rounds instead of four.

  The poor nurse was quivering in her boring white shoes. “I’ll go and s-s-see.”

  I felt bad for her but I wasn’t about to get in it. I’d just pushed a human out of my body. I needed my rest. “Ricky, baby, calm down.” He cut his eyes at me and then dragged himself to my bedside. “She just doing her job.”