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

by Bryant Simmons, D.

  I'D MENTIONED TO MR. BRYER about not having a bed and next thing I knew there was a Sears delivery truck outside my house and two real nice men came in and set it up for me. He said it was a loan and that someday I could pay him back. It was a nice enough bed. Not as big as the one I’d picked out but big enough. And every night that week I went to sleep, thinking maybe, just maybe, that would be the night I stayed asleep. But then just like always the clock would strike 2:00 or 2:15 or 2:47 and I’d jerk up outta bed like it was on fire. Only one thing on my mind. I’d sit there in the dark, listening to my house move, thinking about if I’d locked this door or locked that window. Of course none of that mattered because Ricky ain’t need an invitation to come up in my house. He had a key and I didn’t have the money to change the locks.

  I HEARD MY NAME over the loudspeaker, asking me to come to the office.

  “So...how are things?” He asked and reached out to rub my shoulder. “How do you like your new bed? Does it feel good to you?”

  “It’s nice.”

  “I’m glad. I’m really glad, Belinda.” And he was. It was so obvious I ain’t have to think twice about it.

  I’d been working there for three months and made fifteen hundred dollars. I hadn’t saved a penny. Child support was slow coming.

  “Yeah, um...I was thinking about—um actually I kinda wanted to talk to you about getting more hours?”

  “More hours? I thought you wanted to spend as much time with your kids as you could?”

  “I did—I do. I just need more money.”

  “Hmm.” Mr. Bryer stood up, yanking his waistband to a higher more comfortable position and walked around behind me. His short sweaty fingers went to work massaging my shoulders. “More hours...I’m not sure if that’s something we can accommodate. If I give you more hours then I have to take them away from somebody else.”

  “Oh. I ain’t mean—”

  “No, now just let me think.” He sighed, leaning more so into my skin.

  I ain’t mind letting him think. The harder he thought the more relaxed I got. I ain’t even care that his hands were a little wet because they were so warm, kneading my shoulders, neck, and back like they were made of flour and butter. Ain’t even come to me that it wasn’t natural for nobody’s boss to be doing that.

  “I have been considering promoting a few girls...but...it would mean more responsibility. Do you think you could handle that?” The massage stopped suddenly. “Belinda?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You’d be in charge of a few of the sales associates. Just making sure they don’t stay on break too long, that they don’t have any problems with the customers...that sort of thing. How do you feel about that?”

  Wasn’t much I felt good about. I’d just about got used to doing stuff just because it was necessary. Necessary to protect my girls. Put food on the table. That had to be enough for me.

  “Belinda?”

  His fingers stretched down as far as they could until they were just above the round softness of my chest. He ain’t really touch them. Not really, just kinda hovered over them. His wedding ring glinted against my skin but I tried not to notice. He was my friend. Most days it felt like he was my only friend. Took me to lunch when I needed it. Gave me a place to sleep. And now he was about to give me a promotion. I was lucky to have him.

  “Mr. Bryer?” His secretary poked her head into the office.

  I couldn’t see her from where I was sitting but he jerked halfway around and his left hand slipped down the front of my blouse, resting against my boring beige bra. It wasn’t an accident I was sure. His clammy fingers wiggled against my skin, squeezing my tit like he expected to get some juice from it. I wished I could make myself disappear. Click my heels three times and be sitting some place else. How could I have been so stupid? I’d been wrong about Ricky. Wrong about Heziah. And I was wrong about Mr. Bryer. All that affection he had for me…wasn’t no parts of it in the family way. Men ain’t do the things he’d done for me without getting a little something in return. Everybody had seen it before I did. The girls in his office. Helen. I swallowed hard and glared at his desk until my tears knew better than to come pouring out.

  “What is it, Mrs. Holfstein?” He answered quickly then raised his hand back to my shoulder.

  “You have a phone call on line two.”

  The Gray Woman

  THE DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN and Family Services sent a new woman to check up on us. She was younger than the one I’d met at the hospital but she was wearing a gray suit, just the same. She sat at my kitchen table questioning me from a list she probably used with every family she came across.

  “So, you were recently promoted. That sounds promising but explain to me again, Mrs. Morrow, how your youngest daughter ended up in the emergency room a few weeks back.”

  I’d already spun the damn story too many times but she sat there, asking to hear it one more time like I was suddenly about to break down and tell the truth or something. It’d only been twenty minutes or so but I was on my second fantasy. Fantasy about knocking her head clean off so she’d stop asking me all those damn questions.

  “Mrs. Morrow?”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  Should’ve been enough I’d done the right thing and offered the woman my last cup a coffee. Had to sit back and watch as she took two little dainty sips then put it back on its saucer. Watch it get cold while she came up with one stupid question after another. She’d told me her name but I ain’t make no effort to remember it. To me she was just the gray woman, because she was covered from head to toe in it. The gray woman from DCFS come to take my kids.

  “Why you here?”

  “I’m here to make sure this is a safe environment for your kids,” she said without even bothering to look up from her ratty old notebook. “Now back to the hospital. You decided to leave, taking your daughter with you because...”

  “She mine. Why I’m not gone take her with me? Where she supposed to go?”

  “Well. You were supposed to wait until the hospital’s social worker had assessed the situation. You didn’t do that.” Her beady little eyes were just as tired as they were hard and if it wasn’t for the things coming out her mouth I would’ve felt sorry for her. “Mrs. Morrow?”

  “It was an accident. I told you already. She slept in it and it got up in her skin.”

  “And you didn’t notice?”

  “You got kids? You notice everything they do? It was an accident!”

  “I see. And the beating your other daughter received—”

  “Ricky did that. Wasn’t me. Why you don’t go asking him about what he done?”

  She stopped writing long enough to tip the corner of her mouth up at me. Wasn’t no kinda happiness in that smile, was more like she was laughing at me. Making fun of me. I wanted to lean across the table and slap it right off her mouth. Got to thinking so hard on it that I ain’t even hear her next question.

  “Mrs. Morrow?”

  “What?”

  “This would go a lot smoother if you would cooperate.”

  “Your coffee gotta be cold by now. You gone drink it?” I asked just as I poured it down the drain. She ain’t want it to begin with. I ain’t know why folks ain’t just say what they meant. She could’ve just said no thank you and I’d of let it be but n’all she had to go wasting my last cup of coffee.

  Just then Nat came up in the kitchen. Wasn’t nothing special about that but it was something in the way she was walking. Kinda slow and bouncy-like, and in her Easter dress that was a year too small for her. She skipped in, smiling at the DCFS woman then at me. “Pick me up,” she said, throwing both hands up over her head. Ain’t matter that I was entertaining company. But that wasn’t special neither because she was the baby. It was what happened once I did that drove the social worker crazy. Nat squeezed my neck real tight, looking all peaceful in the face then said real loud, “I LOVES YOU, MAMA. YOU THE BESTEST MAMA.”

  The others had
put her up to it and it would’ve been cute if it wasn’t for the sinking feeling I was getting in my gut. My company wasn’t charmed by my baby. Her lips got real thin and she started scribbling real fast on a fresh page in her notebook.

  “I’ll need to speak with the children now.”

  “Why? I answered all your questions already. I did.”

  “I need to speak with them. Alone. Would you please call them down?”

  “What you gonna ask them? Stuff about...about me? Or about their daddy?”

  “Mrs. Morrow—”

  “I said don’t call me that.”

  “Belinda—”

  “Don’t call me that neither. You ain’t my friend. You can’t go around calling folks by they first name then trying to take their kids!”

  That smile came back and it was probably a nervous tick or something but I ain’t wanna see it like that. Was better if she was making fun of me. That way I could let out some of the anger that lived inside me.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I ain’t old enough to be nobody’s ma’am.”

  “I will need to take a look around the house anyway so I guess I could just go on up to them.”

  “They not gonna talk to you about their daddy unless I say it’s okay. And even then...it ain’t a guarantee.”

  “Fine.”

  So, we both went upstairs. I took a slow drag on a fresh cigarette while she looked around, asking me if I had any weapons. I didn’t. Then she asked me why I ain’t cover the outlets.

  “Because my girls know better.”

  She sighed and went back to writing in her pitiful looking notebook. I wondered how many families she’d ruined with that notebook.

  They were waiting for us by the time she got done looking around. The three of them sitting up, looking all unnatural and proper. Their feet hung down over the sides of their beds, not moving at all. Mya and Jackie on one. Nikki on the other.

  “Hello, girls. My name is Mrs. Gibson. I’m a social worker. I’m going to ask you a few questions if that’s alright.” She sat down next to Nikki, which was a pretty good move since she was the most talkative one. But wasn’t no way the woman could’ve known that. “Can you tell me what it’s been like since your daddy moved out?”

  Wasn’t supposed to be a hard question I suppose but they all looked up at me like they weren’t sure what to make of it.

  “Y’all go head and answer her questions. It’s okay.”

  “Do you miss him?” she asked, her pen just waiting for something to write down.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yeah. Do you miss him?” Silence. Not a word. They just sorta looked at each other and shrugged. “I’ll bet he misses you. It’s okay if you miss him...or if you don’t. You can say either way.” Still nothing. “Nikki?” The gray woman turned more to the side like she was real interested. “What would you say is the biggest difference between now and before, when your daddy used to live here?”

  “We got more food.”

  “More food?”

  “Yeah, because he ain’t here to eat it all up. Daddy always wanna take two, sometimes three, scoops of everything, then he usually go back for seconds.”

  “Okay. What about you two? What do you think? Your mama says it’s been a little while since you’ve seen your daddy. How do you feel about that? Mya?”

  I held my breath, waiting to hear her say how much she missed her daddy and how much he loved her but Mya just shrugged, keeping the same steady expression that was hers and hers alone.

  The gray woman ain’t get to ask her next question because Jackie jumped in. My baby ain’t take too well to too much talk about Ricky.

  “My daddy, he take us places and we get to go far far away to where there is pink unicorns and tigers and bears and waterfalls and ain’t no vegetables just ice cream.”

  “Okay. I’m not really sure I understand...”

  “My daddy, he love us. And he-he gonna come get us soon. And he gone marry mama so we be a family. And live happily ever after.”

  “Um...”

  “She just playing around. Jackie stop trying to confuse the woman now! She asking about your real daddy.”

  “He is my real daddy.”

  The gray woman just sorta smiled. “So, tell me more about your daddy. What does he look like?”

  “He brown, like me. Tall. Nice. And he real smart.”

  “That’s nice. What would your daddy say about what happened to your back?”

  “Ain’t nothing happen to my back.”

  “No? Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” Her little feet started swinging just above the floor. She was a better liar than me but still not good enough to convince nobody.

  “Well...I bet that it probably hurt a lot. Can you tell me how it happened?”

  Jackie shrugged and flopped back onto the bed so all we could see was her legs shooting out from behind Mya. Wasn’t that she was trying to protect Ricky none, she just ain’t wanna talk about it. I ain’t blame her. I shouldn’t of blamed none of them but soon as Nikki opened her mouth ants started running up and down my arms, rushing me to blame somebody.

  “She okay now. It was an accident but um...” Nikki’s eyes went up to mine then her voice turned to a whisper. “But Daddy blamed her anyway.”

  “Your daddy? He blamed Jackie? For what?”

  “Because...because of what happened to mama and to the baby—it wasn’t really her fault. She was just being like she is. She can’t help it. She a kid.”

  “I ain’t a kid. You a kid!”

  Nikki rolled her eyes and went right back to telling it. When she got started wasn’t no stopping her. Nobody’d ever asked her opinion about things that happened before. Was like a great, big old spotlight came shining down on her. The more she talked the more the gray woman wrote down. If I could’ve found my voice I would’ve stopped her but I was speechless. I knew the story—knew what it was like living with Ricky just as good, maybe better, than they did, but listening to it. Listening to it come out my girl, my oldest...it was different. It ain’t feel like I knew it was supposed to, the truth. Truth supposed to be familiar, like knowing your body but this truth wasn’t like that. Was like looking in the back of a restaurant that has delicious food and finding out that the kitchen is nasty. Make you wonder about the food. About what you done ate thinking it was good. Nikki kept going until the gray woman had filled up the back of the page and had to turn to a new one. Her fingers were scribbling like mad and there my girl was soaking up the spotlight.

  “And then there was the time he—”

  “Nikki, that’s enough. She ain’t ask for all that.”

  It got real quiet, except for the sound of the gray woman’s writing. Then she stood up and walked out into the hall. I figured I was supposed to follow so I put Nat down and did just that.

  “Why didn’t you file a report with the Chicago PD?” Her eyes were shooting daggers at me, and on top of that, the girls were so quiet I knew they were listening too. “Mrs. Morrow? Why didn’t you try to get help for yourself and your children?” She sighed, squeezing her notebook to her chest. “He’s been beating you for how many years?”

  “Beating...that ain’t how I’d put it.”

  “And how would you put it?”

  “I don’t...I don’t know. He hit me sometimes.”

  “Fine. He hit you and he beats your kids—”

  “He only hit her once—twice! And I got on him about that both times!”

  “It didn’t occur to you to go to the police? Or if you couldn’t do it yourself, to ask a friend to? What exactly did you do to protect your kids?”

  “I...”

  “Because from where I’m standing it doesn’t sound like you did anything at all. Sounds like you thought it was fine to raise them in a house where all they saw was you being thrown around. Is that what you thought? You thought it would be just fine?”

  “No, I just ain’t have nobody to—I ain’t have no way
to...what I was supposed to do?”

  The top to her pen snapped on quickly and she dropped it and her notebook into this bag on her hip. “There are shelters and churches and DCFS and the police.”

  “You don’t know Ricky—”

  “I will make an official report with the court and your lawyer will have access to it. I’ll see myself out, Mrs. Morrow.” She ain’t bother to even look my way as she went toward the stairs. I must have been real disgusting to her because with each creaky step she hurried to get farther away from my truth. How she’d been so close to it and ain’t seen it was beyond me.

  “I’M A GOOD MAMA! I LOVE MY BABIES! IT WAS HIM...he the one...”

  But it ain’t matter. She was already out the door. I went out on the porch after her but couldn’t think of anything better to say. Just stood there watching as she drove away. That’s when I saw it parked a few houses over. The sun was glinting off the shiny black exterior of Ricky’s Cadillac.

  Busy Little Eyes

  "HI MAMA, HOW WAS work?” Jackie was the first one to stomp up the porch steps, grinning from ear to ear. Don’t know why she had to walk so hard. Sounded like a grown ass man coming up in my house.

  She’d gotten real good at acting grown but she was still a chile. So, I couldn’t answer most of her questions honestly.

  “Work was fine.” Which was mostly true since I’d managed to stay away from Mr. Bryer for the whole day.

  “Hi mama,” Nikki and Mya slipped past us and into the house, dropping their book bags near the front door. The two of them took off running. Not long after, somewhere in the back Nat squealed, welcoming her sisters back home.

  Jackie stayed with me. Telling me all about her day while she unpacked her book bag.

  “Y’all can take a rest, have a snack and then you gonna get started on your homework.”

  “Okay, Mama. NIKKI, MAMA SAID FIX US A SNACK! AND MAKE IT SNAPPY!”

  “Don’t be like that.”