And always, when Mistah Fitzwilly made the class learn about the outside Richmond things, he talked about them all as if they was one and the same. Harold Grayson, who went to school and travelled round, and Jerry Parsons who lived in Cleveland, and Margarete Starks who was my mother, all got discussed as if they was living in one neighborhood called North. Everything outside of where we were was one and the same thing. Only reason I knew any different was cause I had been to Detroit, I had walked the paved streets.
MISSUS—MISS PEARSON was saying, “I was just telling your mother what a credit you will be as a teacher one day, Denise.” She stood up, talking, and Margarete stayed where she was. Miss Pearson kept going on, saying things about teaching and learning and effort and credit. It was all bursting sweet on my head, like soap bubbles; I couldn’t help myself. Margarete was perturbed as any old thing, mouth turned down at the corners.
Miss Pearson walked over to me and asked me to get her wrap. I put down my books—I was still holding them—and got Missus Pearson’s coat off one a the hall nails. I brought it back and held it up, wide, for Missus Pearson to get in it, like Mrs. James had done when she gave me the church coat. Missus Pearson’s coat was heavy.
I was feeling flushed and nervous. I wanted Missus Pearson to get in her coat and be on her way. I could see Margarete staring the both of us down. I walked ahead in my mind. Margarete was gone have plenty to say about Missus Teacher being so bodacious, coming into her house like that. I knew Margarete was gone say I had asked her to come. But I didn’t. I sure appreciate Miss Pearson wanting me to keep learning so much, but I didn’t ask her to come.
Miss Pearson stood in front of Margarete and me and gave a silent sermon, putting finger by finger in her gloves. Margarete’s mouth was holding shut with not much patience. I could see Margarete without looking—she watching me watch the teacher. I’m looking down at Missus Pearson’s gloves.
Dog, Margarete is mad at me. My mind shouts.
Once her gloves was on, I opened the door for Missus Pearson to leave. She put her firm covered hand under my chin. “Well, Denise, I’ll see you tomorrow, and we’ll figure how to keep you studying once your mother’s baby comes.”
“Yes,” I answered her, pushing my teeth together at the end. She winks at me. I grin.
MARGARETE WASN’T SO nice to me that night. She was hot as white coal.
When I come back in from letting Missus Pearson out, I expected Margarete to want to holler at me. I was gone let her, but first I wanted to use the bathroom. I had had to pee since me and J left the schoolhouse. “Margarete, I jes hafta go to the bathroom,” I said.
“Come here, Neesey,” she said to me.
I stopped in my spot and repeated myself.
“I said come here,” she repeated herself too.
I stood in front of her, not too close. “Did you ask that teacher to come to this house, Deneese?”
“Noe, I didn’tuh,” I answered her. I didn’t say ‘Margarete,’ on purpose; I was thinking it might make her worse mad.
Margarete lifted up her head off the chair back, slow. She looked me in my face. I looked back, but not too bold. The situation was dangerous, close to impudence. Margarete had me stand there a long time. I thought I would pee on the floor.
NOW, WHEN I was down home, children stopped school all the time. I didn’t. I was a continuous student, thanks to my Granma’am. It was my job to do the catch-up work with the kids who stopped all the time. The ones who’d be lucky to get education enough to read the Book of Psalms by wick light. My friend Lantene was one of those kids, except she wanted to read newspapers, not Psalms.
AFTER I DON’T know how long, Margarete said, “It’s a chicken in there need to be fried for dinner. Jim’ll be home in forty-five minutes.”
“OK, Margarete,” I answered and turned toward the bathroom.
Margarete raised her voice, “GO IN THAT KITCHEN AND FRY THAT CHICKEN I SAID.” I turned around and stood still again, trying to check on her face.
“Go in that kitchen and fry that chicken, Deneese. I’m not gone tell you again.”
There were two chickens, not one. There needed to be two. Big Jim and David and Luke edward all ate three or four pieces of chicken apiece. One chicken don’t hit it. While I cut up, put seasoning and flour on the chickens, I tried hard to keep my fury up over my drawers. I looked out the window, and evening hadn’t come. I peered close to see my face in the pale white glass. Nothing showed. Of course it wouldn’t. Decisions belong to the feet, and only come much later to the face.
Now, here I stand: in Detroit, frying chicken, looking out the window trying to decide what I hate. I like to cook, still. I like the changing of food from one state to another. So it’s not the cooking I hate. It’s the bawling threat of the baby I don’t like. It follows me everywhere. It is responsible for my having to leave Granma’am. Now that I have moved, and I know there are other worlds, the baby is forcing me to lose again. I’ve started to see how much I have to learn, and Margarete’s baby is going to keep me from doing much of anything but frying chicken, and later on, pulling the chicken off the bone for the child. And right now, when I could be looking at the diagrams I’m studying, it’s Big Jim’s dinner I’m fixing. Both my brothers will come in, hungry and expecting too. I wonder about all this. Somehow it seems like I fail myself.
I HAD THE chicken browned on the second side and was peeling the potatoes when Margarete called in that I should go to the bathroom and get out of my school dress. My need to pee had turned into an angry burn. Hold it, I kept telling myself. I did what she said: I went to pee and changed my clothes, but I did not look at her when I walked back through the front.
SAILING THE BLACK SLATE
“NEESEY, STAY WAY from that hot water now!” Margarete had a warning way of teaching. When I was a little girl, I used to try to run baths for Margarete. The water would always be scalding hot. Can’t tell you how many times I had to jerk my hand away from under a spigot, hot water just a-running. I jumped around yelping, skin singed.
In the kitchen, I would get up on a chair and just turn the hot water on. I liked to let it run until it steamed, and then I liked to watch the smoke, how it made the air white and then disappeared. The hot water would whiten up the air above the sink, and I liked to feel my face change temperature. Hot water has power. It can sear your fingers and make you run the dickens away. It has strength enough to burn away dirt, and filth, and dark spots of things. At the time, I didn’t know many more potent liquids, and none that could be turned on and off with my own hands. Mama said she didn’t know where in the world I got that fascination, but she said I better stay way from that hot water. She said I was gone learn something ugly, the hard way.
See what I mean, warning.
TODAY IS MARCH 2nd.
Dear Granma’am,
The baby is gone come real soon. You probly know. I wonder how the moon will be when the new baby come. I look at the boys and girls in my class see who got birthdays round now. I wish I was with you so you could tell me about the stomach shape. I jes cain’t remember. Her stomach low. Even if it ain’t real low, it is all round not pointed and hi up. Don’t that mean a girl? It is a girl in my class with a birthday next week. I been watchin her about this new baby comin. This girl she nice but she seem spoilt. But that is her rearin right? Not like she was born like that. It is a boy in my class, he been my best friend. Did I all ready write to you about Josephus Johnson? He ain’t much fun as Lantene. I ain’t known him as long. Plus he ain’t a girl best friend. But he still fun. He from Arkansaw. He stay after school with me while our teacher try to make us speak english better. He say the teacher think I do good. Our teacher she say may be I can go to normal school after I finish grade 11 or 12. Isnt this excitin Granma’am? It is exackly how we said may be I could come up here and do good. Josephus remined me today how I stayed in my grade. Most of the kids come up from down south have to be put back some in school. I might get behind when the new bab
y come. I think she will have a girl. May be it is your oil I believe in that make me think that. The teacher visit here to find out if I can keep up english study after school and not take care of the baby all the time. Mama said no. May be we could find somebody else to keep the baby once she can crawl and have milk from the store. I want to stay to school. I want to tell you bout what I am learnin but I am sleepy now and I am scared to think bout when I will not have the english study. My teacher she say no body can understand my bad english. She say I got to learn. What do you say bout all this? I am prayin you miss me but not much as I miss you.
Love, Denise.
Earlier, in the daylight, I had decided I want to spell my name like it was in English.
I EXPECTED HAROLD Grayson to be through round the fifth. He came like a timepiece. Lord, I wished I was going back with him. I miss Granma’am. I miss standing by her in the kitchen, hands on the food. Not much would be growing full yet, but the yard would hint of green. And me and Granma’am would be making our way through the last put-up pole beans and tomatoes. I miss eating what I planted, picked, and put up in Ball jars. I miss running out in the yard to get pickings for dinner.
MARGARETE IS THE cause of all this I miss and all I worry about, I decide. She is having the baby. She had had Luke edward and has let him run wild. She had had David too and seems to have let him stoop so under and under that he didn’t learn the difference between building and hauling. She running Big Jim out, and so now she has to make up to his anger with good treatment. And her need to give him good treatment has plenty to do with this chicken I’m frying. I have always had a thousand things to do, and loneliness to do it in, here and there.
Miss Pearson says that there are only a few things in life that really need remembering. She says most everything important can be found. She says I should read and write as much as I can. She says I should parse many sentences to teach me the parts of speech.
Knowing which things she taught me that needed to be remembered would be easy. Certain times, her eyes would get bright and more latching than ever. She would put down her chalk and pause her lovely writing on the board. Maybe sit down. She would ask, Do you understand? I got to the place where I drew a box in my book by whatever it was she was talking about that lifted her eyes so high. I would stop writing in my book, and I would look at her lifted-up eyes and listen to what she was explaining. When I got home I would write what I remembered about it and put a checkmark in the box. It was something I had seen her do, and I liked it: the boxes and the checkmarks in my notebook. Doctor Dew Boys—I wrote down his name without knowing how to spell it—was somebody she introduced me to with lifted-up eyes. He had a box in my notebook for weeks since she talked about him and about a lot of other things at once, and so it was some time before I caught it really who he was and what he did.
First I got to put a check in Doctor Carver’s box. And before Doctor Carver, I got to study Scarlet Sister Mary. All the time Miss Pearson was mentioning her, I thought she was a real person, but when Miss Pearson brought the book, she told me Scarlet Sister Mary was made up. “It’s called a novel,” Miss Pearson said, “a very long made-up story.” I read all of Scarlet Sister Mary, by Mrs. Julia Peterkin. I loved it. Miss Pearson said Mrs. Julia Peterkin got a prize for writing the book.
When Miss Pearson asks me to pick a hero, I was too shy to say her although that’s exactly who I should of said. She says, that’s why I’ve been teaching you about all these different people, so you could choose a hero. Now, there has to be at least one person you admire, for the time being.
So I mentioned Scarlet Sister Mary, and Miss Pearson says, shocked, that she was a servant, a slave. That she didn’t give me the book for me to admire the servant.
Confused, I said, “Well, I liked the book.”
“If you liked the book, then that has to do with the author,” she said.
“The author. The lady who wrote the book?” I ask, to get this thing straight.
“Yes.”
“Can I pick Mrs. Julia Peterkin, then?” Now, how did I get sense enough to ask?
“Denise, Mrs. Peterkin is a whitewoman.”
I didn’t know that.
“You choose a hero to help you color in the outlines of your dreams. Can’t you think of a bright Negro who has accomplished some of the dreams you have?” Confounded again, and deeply respectful of all she knew, I said nothing. Miss Pearson finally chose Doctor Carver for my hero, just so I could get on with the learning. “He was a farmer,” she said. “You can understand about that.”
Now I understand exactly what book learning is. And I’m practicing how to get it out the books into my head. Miss Pearson say that only books can lead the way beyond my station. Miss Pearson say that books can teach about everything. Even about down-home things. Miss Pearson brought in a book on canning one day: The Bell’s Home Guide to Preserving Food. Miss Pearson say preserving is another way to call canning, and that I should look up the verb preserve.
A nice book, jewelry-box size. Talked about putting up food different than we put it up down home. Said you need to get the temperature for the water with a cooking thermometer, and use a special pot what got a particular rack for jars. Well, Granma’am and I, we used the same heavy gray pot all the time, and we just arranged spoons to keep the jars off the bottom and separate from each other. Had to save bent-up spoons but that’s all right. I didn’t say too much to Miss Pearson about that book. I told her I liked it and told her I probably write to my Granma’am about what the northern cookbook say about putting up food.
“Will probably,” she answered me.
“Will probably,” I repeated, not having the first idea about where it went in what I had said. But I had learned from repeating after Miss Pearson that there is proper English, and then separate, there is your train of thought. As long as I repeated what she said, she was satisfied, and then I could follow my own train of thought.
I guessed it was a whitepeople’s book Miss Pearson had. Granma’am had already told me that whitepeople got special equipment to do all the same things we did with our homemade glue. Miss Pearson is very particular bout whitepeople and they ways.
Miss Pearson smile at me about the writing to my Granma’am. She always want me to feel encouraged to write, since it will be so helpful to my learning, she said. (It is during this time, I think, that I decide I have to write myself to a future. One that leads to eleventh grade, twelfth grade, normal school. Way out beyond Margarete’s little baby.) I look back at her and smile too. Miss Pearson’s hair, it has the nice waves put in it like Margarete say take so long to do at the shop.
BOB
IN SEVENTH GRADE, I started to pin the ends of my plaits down with the bob pins Margarete had. None of the girls in Detroit let their ends stick out. Shortly after I start the eighth grade, in September, Margarete tells me I need to wear my hair a new way. I am not surprised because Margarete has been complaining about my plaits. That’s part of why I pinned them down. One Saturday when Big Jim say he’ll watch Baby Clara, Margarete has me go down to the shop with her at seven-thirty. Her first Saturday appointment is at eight-thirty, so she has me wash my hair the night before.
It is the first time I sit in Margarete’s hairdresser chair. Clara is out and gurgling, and Margarete has lost all the weight she gained. I still feel Margarete’s stomach press into my neck where she leans on the chair.
First, she uses the hot comb. In the mirror, I see her fingers—long and knobby and shining with grease. Miss Sally has already come in. They are talking to each other over my head. Every once in a while, Margarete will say something to me directly. Or, Margarete and Miss Sally will say something about me, and Margarete’s stomach will jiggle near my neck while she laughs. When Margarete wants me to hold my head down, she pushes it forward.
Miss Sally thinks I’ve grown so much! Miss Sally remembers when I was talking so clear and so early. Miss Sally used to get so tickled at the poems I used to recite at Zion church
. Miss Sally thinks my hair ain’t so bad. Miss Sally thinks maybe my ends could use clipping. Margarete thinks so too. Miss Sally wants to know do I have a boyfriend. Margarete wants me to hold my head still. Miss Sally thinks I would look cute with a little bob. Margarete wants to know do I want a little bob.
“Noe,” I say.
Margarete says she keeps telling me I better sit still before I get burnt. Margarete wants to know don’t I even want to see some pictures and Miss Sally thinks I should at least look at some pictures. Miss Sally wants me to let her show me the pictures before Audrey Chatters comes in at eight. Margarete wants me to look at the one Miss Sally is pointing to, and she holds the hot comb in the air so I can look. I turn my head sideways. Miss Sally’s almond nail points to a pretty girl, no hair. I shake my head and say “Noe” at the same time. Margarete catches my ear with three fingers of her other hand and holds my head. She pulls on my hair with the hot comb again. I stretch my eyes to raise them to the mirror and I see that there is still half a head left to be straightened.
Miss Sally recognizes refusal in me. She takes the book of hair pictures away. She smells sullen, but she is wearing her be-nice-to-the-customers posture, so you can’t really see what she smells like. She goes to the bathroom. Margarete keeps a silence of sucked teeth, or maybe not quite that bad. Maybe she thinks I’ll always be country, what with the bob I don’t want. Audrey Chatters knocks at the locked front door. Margarete puts the hot comb in the orange-glowing steel oven with the black leg base so it can heat up. She goes to open the door. Her feet shuffle in the flat shoes she has changed into, and Miss Sally flushes the toilet. I stretch my neck.
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