Missus Pearson say I should match every word I say out loud with a word I can find in the dictionary. She say because I’m speaking English, any word I cain’t find in the dictionary is either not a word, or I don’t know how to write what I’m saying.
Missus Pearson say this looking up will not help me with the rules, however. Mostly because the rules explain how to use words in combination. But, she say, the individual words I can work on learning by myself. And I should concentrate on learning the rules from her, since the rules are best explained, then practiced.
I had known how to use a dictionary before, even though I didn’t have one of my own. Mister Fitzwilly had taught me. One time he was reading us a poem from a book and he used the word loam. I asked him what do loam mean, except in my mind I was spelling it like lome. He pointed to the dictionary on his desk and said to look it up. I picked up the dictionary and looked in it for lome. It was a big rich book what with all the pages, with all the different words. I wished I could stop and read the other words I passed going down the alphabet to l-o and then to l-o-m and then to l-o-m-e. “Mister Fitzwilly, it ain’t in here,” I said. “The next word after where it should be is loment,” I said, some kind a fruit.
“It is spelled l-o-a-m,” he told me, using his one good arm to stack together the papers he had graded. I had finished straightening up the classroom and taking out the readers for his Tuesday night group. Tuesday nights the older kids who had to work but still wanted to read came, like my friend Lantene. “Oh,” I said, and before I turned the pages back, I snuck and read the meaning for lofty.
Well, the all-in-all is that loam means dirt. A richer mix a dirt than regular, but it still means dirt. And I had thought that I only was able to find it because Mister Fitzwilly had spelled it out for me.
“How can I look it up when I don’t know how to spell it?” I asked Missus Pearson about that word cad. She told me I knew enough about the English language to figure out how to spell things. “If you look up the word and it isn’t there, you know that you have misspelled it, and you need to try another way. There are only a few possibilities for any given word. And besides, spelling from the sound of words will help you with your speech problems.”
When I got home with my new dictionary, I started with k-a-d, and of course that was wrong. I almost tried k-e-d next, but after I listened in my mind to what she said again, I knew it sounded like add, so I decided to try “c-a.” There it was, plain as day, a lowbreed of a man. Only one d.
She promised me that if I did what she said I would learn to speak English and to make a life for myself. For Gloria Pearson, one was the same as the other.
Missus Pearson say, “Learning to speak proper English is absolutely necessary for all Americans.” She say, “People come to America thousands at a time, and they would give an arm to have the opportunity to learn rules of English grammar and pronunciation, to learn to speak proper English.”
She stop. “Say that,” she say to me. I’m good at repeating by now and I’m ready whenever she stop.
“Larnin to speak propah,” I try.
“Learning to speak proper English,” she stop me. She leans to me, I’m in the front desk. She fixes her mouth like a duck bill, coaxin me to say learn.
“Larning to speak prop-per English,” I try.
“Learning,” she prompt me.
“Learning,” I say.
“Learning is ab-so-lute-ly essential,” she prompt me.
I take a deep breath. “Ab-soe-loo-tuh-ly essential.”
Missus Pearson is smilin.
Missus Pearson tell me to practice closin my throat on all the i-n-g words. I been practicin, that’s how come I can finally say learning. Close off my throat to make a endin, she say. She also teach me about pushin out my lips to improve my vowel sounds, and pushin my tongue off my teeth to make clean ts. “Remember that words have beginnings and endings, and if you don’t say the beginnings and endings clearly, then you haven’t said the word,” she said.
The hardest words I have left to get are the heres and other ear words. You see a short word, but you got to move your mouth around a lot to get it right. She had me promise not to say mouf or souf anymore too. She say very few words in English end in f or f sounds. She say of and staff and the rough-tough family are just about it. I promised, and now I practice harder on words like mouth south birthday; I put my tongue between my teeth.
MISSUS GLORIA PEARSON say the only thing she want me to think about is learnin to speak the king’s English. I told Missus Pearson I wants to learn, and she say, “Say I want.”
Missus Gloria Pearson say she used the sentences we wrote about Missus James, and the things Missus James told her about us to decide how to work with each one. She start up the after-school work right away.
Missus Pearson say me and Josephus Johnson is the two worst in the class on account a we’se both straight up from down South. She say we got to stay late in school until we understand more about English and can speak the language so we is understood by other people. Josephus, he ask her what’s so wrong with the way we talk and Missus Pearson say she gone show us one mistake at a time. She say Josephus can walk me home since it be gettin dark early, before we finished. Josephus was already walkin me home, but neither one a us said. She tell us, “You both tell your mothers you’ll be getting extra help.” Josephus’s mama is in Arkansas. I told Margarete I have to stay late at school to learn the rules a English, and she say I have to learn them by the new moon in March cause after that I have to be home, help with the baby.
One day Josephus and me is the only ones in the classroom; it is clear by then that we are the two to stay the course. I intend to learn while I can before I have to spend all my extra time with Margarete’s baby. Missus Pearson has been talkin bout verbs. It’s time for us to go home, and I am plannin to try to understand this that I have learned today, later on tonight, after I wash the dishes. Missus Pearson go back to the board and write D-E-N-I-S-E.
“Deneese,” she call me, “are you aware that this is the usual spelling of your name?”
Usual, I think. I shake my head. Naw. “Don’t shake your head, Denise. Say no.”
I say, “Naw.”
“Say no.” She has no impatience in her voice, but there’s something else in it that makes me want to tip my head to the side. She pushes her lips out saying no, and holds them tubelike.
“Noe,” I say, with tubelike lips.
“Well, this is the correct spelling of your name. It is the American spelling. I will record your name this way in our school records.” She keeps on: “The two of you are excused for the day. I will see both of you again tomorrow. Josephus, walk Denise all the way to her block.”
We get up, and put on our coats, and leave Missus Pearson in the classroom.
Josephus take me down the boulevard way like usual. There is shrubs and trees without leaves. Would be kind a like a park in the spring and summer. Josephus is talkin a little. I’m not really payin attention to him or the boulevard cause I’m thinkin I’m dumb I have spelled my own name wrong.
What if Margarete’s baby had already been born? Then I would not have been round after school to learn this. I would have grown old and older spellin my own name wrong! And why don’t I know how to spell my own name? My blood starts to rush; what else have I missed? Josephus is talkin, but I do not listen. I hear him callin my name, and in his voice, my name is spelled wrong. “J,” I say, “you think I’m ig’nant?”
He stops what he talks about. “Naw, you ain’t ig’nant,” he assures me and he laughs a little. “We jes country, an we gotta change cause we ain’t in the backwoods no more.”
“You think I kin learn all these things she talkin bout, J?”
“You learnin bettah than all these ole city kids,” he say. “You probly the smartest in the classroom.”
My worry narrows my face. I have worked hard just to come to find I cain’t spell my own name. Josephus continues to talk to me, and I c
an hardly hear. “You mind that I call you J?” I ask abruptly.
He stops what he mutters. “Naw,” he says to me, smilin again, “I like jes one letter by itself.”
So when she wrote them letters up there like that and look at me bout how to spell my name, well, I didn’t rightly know what to say behind that, and I thought I cain’t say much a nothin on account a I don’t know nothin bout the rules. I remember to this day walking out that room with them DENISE letters I ain’t never thought of before written in the neat schoolteacher block cross the front board.
Next time somebody as-su-kuh me my name, I’m a say Gibraltar. Gibraltar Jones.
MISSUS PEARSON TOOK a likin to me after I spelled my name right. She asked me to stay in recess one day, and she sit me down in one a the front seats. I liked that too. She asked me if I knowed I’m a smart young lady. I left the air for her, and she went on to tell me that I could be a teacher one day if I kept goin to school and if I studied most all a my spare time. She start to tell me about the college she went to and how important it was for Negroes to be both teachers and pupils. I was distracted early in the sentence: thinkin bout keepin in school and how Missus Pearson say I have to do the after-school work exactly from three to five-thirty, and how the baby comin soon and I will probably not have no spare time. Plus, Margarete done already told me I have to leave right when school end, come spring.
Missus Pearson see my eyes walk away. Then she ask me do I know what my problem is. I leave all the air for her again. She tell me that I ain’t ig’nant, that I shouldn’t let nobody make me think I’m ig’nant, that my problem is my language. That I live in a country where English is spoke and I don’t know how to speak it. Missus Pearson say I have good things to say, ideas and observations, and if I could learn to speak English, I could become more important. Nobody who sounds dumb will ever be important, she say, no matter how much potential they have. Nobody will ever understand you, nobody who can help you rise, unless you can speak the language of the nation. That’s what she said. Missus Pearson tell me that first I need to learn how to use my mouth, that English is a hard language and that it requires that the mouth do its share a work.
I like the way she talk. And I know she right about hard work on account a she been tryina teach me to make sounds I ain’t never made, and to say words I thought I was already sayin all the time. When Missus Pearson talk, sound to me like some other language, musical. And when she talk specific to me like she do sometimes, I be tryina to keep my eyes from dancin all in her face.
WHEN I DO good in the after-school class, Josephus will reach up and shake my shoulder with his big, country hand. He be sittin behind me, and glad I can improve. I don’t have to look back to know what his grin look like. Josephus think he ain’t no good at this talkin, or practicin English. He think he ain’t good at school, period. But he say Missus Pearson really like me cause I learn so good and so fast. I done seen Josephus grin about this many times. We be walkin home and he tell me how smart I am. He tell me I’m smarter than most a these old dumb kids from Detroit and that Missus Pearson act like she think I’m real smart. I ask him is that last part true.
MISSUS PEARSON ON another day is having me repeat things about the weather. “Col-duh,” she make me say. “Cold-uh,” I say, concentrating on the “duh” sound at the end.
Josephus say that when I repeat after Missus Pearson I sound more like her all the time. I listen to what Josephus is saying to me, and in my head I repeat after him the way I repeat after Missus Pearson, and I make the words have beginnings and endings in my head on account a Josephus don’t say them. So then I realize that I’m not really paying attention to what Josephus say. All his thoughts is stopped and tumbling in my head.
Missus Pearson don’t stay on J about how dumb he sound, not like she do me. He talk almost the same as when we started the after-school work. J said he don’t care; he is just waiting after school to walk with me. My forehead creases: why ain’t she making a improvement out a him? Why don’t she care about his English like mine?
Right use of the English language. That’s what Missus Pearson say she want us to learn. No, appropriate use is what she call it. No, proper English, that’s it.
J and I are leaving Missus Pearson’s classroom. She wants to know why we fly out the door like we do. “Fly out the door?” I ask her. I might of said already that I left her classroom longingly.
“Yes,” she says. “I watch you two through this window.” And she points to the first window in the classroom; it’s directly across from the teacher’s desk. I follow her finger, and look through the glass, and there is the road we go down before we make our first turn. The road stretches out, concrete gray-yellow in these days before spring. I wonder how we look, me with my brown legs and white socks, racing J down the block, trying to keep my books from falling out the strap.
“Josephus, do you have anything to say?” she asks him, while I stand there dreaming, watching that special kind of future, the road.
“Naw,” he answers.
“Noe,” she says.
“Noe, ma’am,” he repeats.
“Denise, why do the two of you run away every day?” She turns back to me cause she knows if she presses me, I will make the struggle and answer.
“We ain’t runnin away, Missus Pearson,” I say. “We jes runnin.”
She doesn’t correct me, but I hear in my English where I’m wrong. Not only that but I ain’t said much a nothing. Her authority and corrections a my English all the time make me tend not to say what I might say from my head, since I know she probly won’t let me finish my thought. She dismisses us, and I think to myself that her question ain’t answered. Children just run, where there’s space to, is how I answer her question in my head. Me and J, we are careful not to run that day. But this and her later noise about Clara let me know that children are not what she knows about or really cares enough about to understand.
HOG DREAMS
DAVID IS UP and bathed, and he tells me Serena is coming over and that she will have dinner with us. Then he and Serena are going to go around and see all her family, he says. I say OK and take out another plate to add to the stack I have set on the counter.
Margarete is reading in bed. It is Easter. I am a mess. Margarete is so pregnant her voice has lowered, so every time she speaks, the baby’s in it, even if she’s just asking me to bring her nail polish from the coffee table. And Big Jim has asked me to cook a ham for Easter Sunday. Margarete knew he asked, and nobody was saying anything. So I went to the market and got his ham; my hands shook and I felt sappy sad, like crying. At home, I absently smeared a paste of honey, orange rind, and powdered cloves over the store-bought ham skin.
It was when I was smearing the ham I decided to go on to church by myself. I went to the notebook I kept and found the bus directions to Hartford, Brenda Greenfield’s church. Saturday night I washed and ironed the best skirt and blouse I had. I went into Margarete’s room and told her that I thought I’d go on to church and was she sure she didn’t want to come with me. “No, Neesey. I’m too tired,” she told me, so I got up Easter Sunday and went to early service.
I saw the raised arms of the church from the bus. Reminded me a how the trees broke the fields down home, providing a direction for you to point yourself. You just angle for that break in the trees. Each arm of the church had a bell in it, and the bells were already ringing when the bus let me out.
I half concentrate on the service. Sitting in the sanctuary, I just think about Puckett and my daddy. Missus Pearson say I dream a lot. I don’t think I dream as much as I remember. Thinking about the two a them, I wonder if Puckett is dead or alive. Regardless, Puckett and my daddy are both long gone now—my daddy to heaven and Puckett to somewhere. The church seem like it’s healthy, and I’m glad to see it. May be in a little of a downward cycle, but the program say that Hartford church been there more than seventy years already. So if they go down, they probably will come up again in time. When service end
s, I go to the missionary bench to shake hands with the church mothers. I am reaching for Granma’am, of course. And also for my father, and for when I was little, when Easter was easy and ham didn’t shake me.
SOMETHING BOTHERED MY vision, like a fly buzzing round, after I got to be friends with Brenda Greenfield. At first I thought it was just how much her house and the cars on the block reminded me of the well-off Kinseys down home. Took me months to see clear, took me that long to feel recognition come down. But finally, one evening after we had ice tea in Brenda’s room, I knew hers was the same neighborhood we had lived in before my daddy died. It just came right to me in her bedroom, that secret I didn’t know I had, and that buzzing fly finally dropped dead.
The houses were sprawling and all the lawns neat cut. Negroes had new cars. They shopped at Hudson’s, and some of them, like Brenda, had vacuum canisters to use on their rugs.
Margarete had moved and moved. I guess you can’t keep no nice house when you don’t have a husband to help you with it or some granddaddy money like Brenda Greenfield got. I looked up at the houses, see would I recognize anything else. Most every one had new paint, and I wasn’t about to wander around looking for the blue house with the changed-every-year shutter colors that we had lived in with my daddy. The blue would probably be long gone, and plus, I might get lost.
“David, Brenda Greenfield lives over on Dexter, off Grand River. Is that where we usedta live?”
“Yep.”
“Where exactly?
“Two blocks over from Dexter, on Tireman.”
“Yeah, you seen our old house lately?”
“Nope.”
WHEN I GET back to the house from church, I go straight back to the kitchen. Margarete has moved from her bedroom to the couch. Big Jim is happy as usual about the food the house smells like. I have already snapped the green beans and put them on. I watch this morning’s church, and Puckett, I look at the old missionaries in my head; how they leaned back in the benches and asked me Where is your family?, peering up through thick experience and weak eyes.
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