The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

  Lydia waved her hands at me, like I had a superpower. She made me sound so interesting, like one of the characters in her favorite book. I laid my head back down on her feet and listened to the game. Mecca had scored a touchdown. Our side was starting to win.

  Permission to Be Excused

  Coco looked like she had cancer. That’s what Mama said when my sister let herself in, dragging her suitcase behind her. It was a Friday in mid-October, the first weekend of fall break. Our mother ran and hugged her, then chastised Coco for taking a taxicab from the train station.

  “All you had to do was call. You know I would have driven down to . . .” Mama stopped and gave a low cry. “Lord have mercy! What did you do? You look like a cancer patient!”

  Coco touched her head, stroking the inch of red-brown waves. There was a part in the left side of her cut. “You don’t like it? I love it! All I have to do is slap on some Murray’s and sleep in a stocking cap. And did you know the barbershop only costs ten dollars? Ten dollars! That’s all the brothers have to pay. Can you believe that?”

  “But why would you cut it all off?” Mama’s voice wavered. “I took such good care of my little girls’ hair.”

  “Aw, Mama, you sure did. And I appreciate you. I appreciate you so much, but I can’t afford to get my hair done every week. It’s, like, forty dollars and three hours every time I go—”

  “I would have sent you the money! You know that—”

  “I know, but then I had to get those relaxer touch-ups every two months, and that’s, like, thirty extra dollars? And who knows how dangerous all that sh—” She caught herself. “. . . that mess is in those relaxers? Those carcinogens going into my blood? No, ma’am. I had to give it up.”

  Mama kept saying there had to be a better compromise than a woman looking like she had one foot in the grave and another on a slick of bacon grease. Maybe Coco could have let her relaxer grow out and just press and curl or do a wet set? And how did she expect to get a boyfriend with a bald head when she already dressed like a field hand?

  I sat on the bottom step of the staircase, watching them. Two small women, identical except for their skin and hair colors. Both delicate-boned with feet that my father marveled at, for how could any person walk on feet that tiny, especially two women as tough as them?

  A tap on my shoulder, and Lydia settled beside me. “You gone say ‘hey’?”

  “I’m just waiting for your mother to wind down. That’s gone take a while.” We laughed, and the sound made our sister turn to us. Her greeting was brusque as usual, but there was gladness on her face. Her eyes crinkled when she asked what did we know good?

  Mama walked behind her, hugging her around the waist.

  “Look at this! All my girls together! God is so good, ain’t he?”

  Her daughters answered in a chorus: “All the time.”

  She called the hospital and left a message for Daddy, but he couldn’t take off from the emergency room. It was Friday night and weekends were the worst time in the City. People getting shot or going crazy from drugs, but that next morning, we heard his voice calling from the living room. His heavy step as he walked into the kitchen. The top of his green scrubs stretched over his belly.

  Mama called from the stove, where she was stirring a pot. “Grits?”

  “You know it. Sausage and toast, too. No coffee, though. I’m going to try to lay this body down and sleep. I got the late shift again tonight.”

  He walked around the table to Coco and kissed the top of her head. “I like this cut, girl! Very elegant!”

  “For real, Daddy? So I don’t look like a cancer patient?”

  “What fool said that?” he asked.

  Coco snorted, and I looked at my mother spooning grits onto a plate. She added three patties of sausage and two pieces of toast, then carried the plate and a mason jar of preserves to the table. She placed the food in front of my father.

  “Thank you, woman,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.” She went back to the stove and fixed her own plate. Grits and toast, but no sausage. When she sat down, Daddy asked, was anybody going to tell him what fool had told Coco that? What kind of person would be so heartless?

  “Your child is signifying.” Mama gestured with her fork. “I’m the fool who said it. Me, and I’ll say it again. She doesn’t look healthy with that haircut and I don’t know why a Black woman with all that long, pretty hair would chop it off.”

  “Oh, I see.” Daddy dug into his own plate, even when Coco scolded him for the sausage. Surely, that couldn’t be healthy for a man of his age and weight. Not only that, he was a Black man, and thus at a higher risk for hypertension, heart disease, and stroke.

  He licked a finger. “So what you’re saying is, if I give up my sausage, more for you? I see your strategy, girl. This is how you Ivy League Negroes trick people.”

  He put his fork down and laid his hand against Coco’s cheek, patting. She rolled her eyes but didn’t move away when he said, look at this. All his ladies together at the kitchen table, eating grits and ridiculing him. It didn’t get any better than this.

  “I was just saying that!” Mama hit the table lightly.

  My mother was capable of surprises every now and then, and she proved it that night at dinner. She asked Lydia, were there any parties that weekend? Maybe she’d been invited to something?

  Lydia sat up straight. “For real? My soror Niecy is back for fall break.”

  “Is she a good girl?” Mama asked. “Not any trouble, right?”

  “No, ma’am. She’s real nice.”

  “Okay, you can go, but you gotta take your sister along, so she can chaperone.”

  “What?” Coco asked. “I don’t want to go. I don’t even know those people.”

  “Getting out will do you good,” Mama said.

  “I am out,” Coco said. “I’m here. Why I gotta go someplace else?”

  “Because you’re almost twenty and you don’t need to be stuck in the house. Just look out for your sister, please.”

  That evening, I followed Lydia around as she prepared for the party. I’d only seen her dolled up for church in Chicasetta, and even then the outfit she wore was modest. Miss Rose didn’t go in for flesh on the Lord’s day. The orange dress that Lydia chose for the party stopped well above her knees and clung to her narrow waist, wide hips, and plump backside. Mama liked to say Lydia might have gotten her skin color and hair from the white folks, but anybody with sense could look at that ass and know there was a Negro in the woodpile.

  Lydia put a socked foot into a long, black boot and zipped it up her leg.

  “I want to go. I could wear something real cute, too.”

  “You wouldn’t have to dress up. You’re gorgeous all by yourself.” She zipped up the other boot and held out her arms. “Come here.”

  “No. I’m very mad at you.”

  “It’s not my fault, baby. You know Mama isn’t letting you go to a college party. Now stop being mean and come here.”

  She wiggled her fingers and I moved into her arms. She smelled nice but foreign. Not a soapy girl anymore, but a woman. She walked to the hall, and I followed. Coco was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, wearing the same jeans and Yale sweatshirt she’d been wearing that morning. I suspected the gold hoop earrings and red lipstick were a concession to Mama.

  I went back to the bedroom and pulled out The Color Purple from the bookshelf. It was my turn to read that evening, and I’d been practicing the character’s voices. Celie’s tone would be high and trembling, but after she found her strength and purpose, her voice would deepen. And Mister would be a nasty bass, like the low-down scoundrel he was. I sat on the couch, reading The Color Purple until they returned. Neither one seemed to notice me, though, and at breakfast time, Lydia didn’t rise early as she usually did. When I came down for breakfast, Coco’s bag was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. In the kitchen, Mama tried to get her to take a later bus, but Coco told her she needed some rest before
classes in eight days. Her manner was brusque when Mama asked her, how was the party? Did they have a good time? In a few minutes, her taxi honked outside. A quick squeeze around Mama’s waist and a kiss on the cheek, and Coco was gone.

  * * *

  “What did I do?” I asked.

  “Nothing, baby. I just need my space.”

  Lydia was in our closet, her voice muffled. She hugged an armful of hanging clothes, lifted them, and freed the tops of the hangers from the closet pole. She huffed under their weight and walked down the hall into our sister’s room.

  I followed behind her.

  “But you didn’t need it before. And Coco needs her room for when she comes back.”

  “She’s not coming back. She’s going to medical school next year. She’ll probably get an apartment.”

  “But what about the holidays?”

  “I’ll sleep in your room, like always. Don’t you want your privacy?”

  I didn’t answer, and she walked back into the bedroom that we’d shared only the night before. The one that wasn’t our room anymore. It was only mine. She pulled more clothes from the closet until her side was empty.

  “Okay, I think that’s it. I’m tuckered out. I think I’ll sleep through dinner.”

  “It’s Wednesday. Dynasty’s on tonight.”

  “I’m sorry, baby, I can’t. I have to study. Tape it for me? We’ll watch another time.”

  She nudged me out the door of Coco’s room, and then closed the door in my face. I heard the click of the doorknob locking.

  I sat on the couch alone that night, watching Dynasty. On my lap, a notebook. I took notes on the plot, so that I could be sure to catch up Lydia. I didn’t have her memory, how Lydia could not only remember the plot, but facial expressions and body language, too. My mother came and sat with me, but she asked too many questions, like why did that brunette lady keep trying to fight the blond lady when it was clear the blond lady could take her? And why would any man in his right mind have his first wife and his new wife living on the same property? It didn’t make any sense.

  “It’s complicated, Mama. I don’t have time to explain.”

  I went upstairs in the middle of the episode and knocked on Lydia’s door, but she didn’t answer. At breakfast, Lydia laughed when I told her that I was mad at her. That she was kicking me to the curb now that she was in college. Don’t start an argument this early in the day, my mother said. Lydia was older, and grown people needed their privacy.

  After days of knocking on my sister’s locked bedroom door with no answer, I called Nana’s house. When Miss Delores put her on the phone, I asked if I could visit that weekend. That is, if she wasn’t busy. When I came over that Saturday, she told me she wanted to discuss important matters. I was a young lady now, and it was time that she imparted serious information to me. For example, why a woman must choose her mate wisely.

  It was a theme she returned to later that evening, during the commercial break of our movie. That night, it was All About Eve.

  “You need to be very careful with the male company you keep. For example, look at the young man that Lydia brought home. It was obvious from the very beginning he was unsuitable.”

  The break ended, but I didn’t look at the television.

  “Why do you say that, Nana? I thought Dante was really nice.”

  “Didn’t you see that boy? He was so dark! And that hair!” She shuddered dramatically. “And his table manners. What on earth did Lydia see in him? Women push the family forward, Ailey, not backward. You are very, very brown, so you must find someone much fairer than yourself. You must think of your children. Why, when I met your grandfather . . .”

  I tried to listen politely as she insisted on strolling through her history with Gandee. Their courtship, when he’d seen her on the campus of Mecca University in her pink-and-green sorority jacket. She’d been leaving the Humanities building, her books clutched to her chest, and he’d called out, “Hello, beautiful!” He’d convinced her to come with him that evening to meet his parents, who hadn’t been prepared for company, but had made do. Zachary Sr. didn’t say much, but Lila McCants Garfield had graciously excused herself and taken her son into the kitchen. She’d whispered it was bad enough that he’d pushed a visitor on her at the last minute, but now this. They were liberal Negroes, but not so much so that Zachary could bring a young white lady home. No, Mother, he’d explained. Claire was Creole, just like them, and when they’d returned to the dining room, my great-grandmother had been euphoric. She’d embraced the young, blond girl, shouting, “Welcome to the family!”

  I looked at the bedroom wall intently, until I almost couldn’t hear Nana’s voice talking about Gandee. What a great catch he’d been. How kind he’d been, at least, in their early years. He’d promised her that she could go on to medical school after they married. She’d taken the required classes in college and had earned the best grades. Then she’d gotten pregnant with my father, and that had put an end to that. As she kept on with her grievances, how the direction of her life had been hijacked, it seemed that my head was wrapped in cotton. I scanned the silver-framed photographs hung on the wall. So many, but not one picture of Mama anywhere. Why had I never noticed that? I’d never noticed, in all the years I’d been coming to this house. Never—

  My grandmother called me back. “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes, Nana.”

  “Then what did I just say?”

  “Um . . .”

  “I knew it! You weren’t listening. How rude!”

  “Yes, I was, Nana. You said, women push the family forward.”

  “I said far more than that.”

  “I’m just summarizing, Nana. I heard everything you said. I understand. I get it.”

  “Good girl. Remember, willful ignorance is not an appealing trait in a young woman.”

  I shifted my gaze to Bette Davis, tossing her hair and flaring her nostrils. I didn’t feel like watching this movie anymore. And I didn’t want to be in this room, either; I didn’t care how lonely I was.

  “Nana, it’s been a very long day and I’ve got homework to finish tomorrow. I should tuck in.”

  “Are you asking my permission to be excused?”

  I waited a few seconds.

  “Uh-huh. Sure, Nana.”

  “Yes, Ailey. You may be excused.”

  That next morning, I rose early and called myself a taxi without even leaving a note to explain why I wasn’t attending Mass with her. I paid the taxi driver with my emergency ten dollars and felt grown when I told him to keep the change.

  At home, my mother was sitting on the couch, almost like she knew that I’d be returning early. She patted the spot beside her, saying that she needed to talk to me.

  “Your sister’s gone away again for a few days. Actually . . . well . . . it’s going to be more like a month.”

  “Where’d she go, Mama?”

  She told me, I was a big girl now, so she would tell me the truth. My sister had been in trouble with drugs. I tried to fix my face, to mirror one of the actresses in a movie that Nana loved. Mama wasn’t fooled, though. She touched my hand, saying she should have known I’d work things out. I’d always been such a smart child.

  That evening, I consoled my mother at dinner; it was just the two of us. It was early November, I pointed out. Lydia would miss her birthday and Thanksgiving, but she’d be home for Christmas. And Coco would take the train down from New Haven and she and I would roll our eyes at our big sister playing that Donny Hathaway holiday song that she loved so much. It would be all right.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, my mother told me Lydia had disappeared again. She’d run away from the rehab center. My father had looked for her, but she couldn’t be found. Mama said she’d wanted to keep Lydia’s problems a secret from the rest of the family, but now that my sister had disappeared, she’d have to let everyone know. We were a family. It was our right to worry.

  I was in the kitchen when Mama to
ld me. She put a breakfast plate in front of me, but I pushed it away. I put my head down on the table and cried.

  Jingle Bells, Damnit

  I didn’t know how much I actually didn’t know until I enrolled at Braithwaite Friends. How I had treaded water at Toomer High, never having to work too hard to get the highest marks. I was frightened by the possibility that I wasn’t as smart as my teachers and my parents—and even Uncle Root—had told me I was. What if I couldn’t keep up? Not only would I disappoint everyone in my family, I’d be humiliated in front of all the white kids at my school, so I rose earlier than anyone, in the pitch dark. I sneaked downstairs and made coffee and made sure that I washed out the carafe and dumped the grounds before Mama came down to make breakfast. I stopped eating in the school dining room at lunchtime and ate my homemade sandwich in the picnic area while I studied.

  I started written assignments weeks ahead of time, because my teachers required papers that were much lengthier than the one-hundred-and-fifty-word paragraphs that had been assigned at Toomer. Now I had to write at least three papers during the term. I called up Coco to complain, but she told me my new school was like college on purpose. Those rich, white folks expected their children to get into Harvard or Yale, or at the very least Brown or Dartmouth. Teaching somebody to write a short paragraph was not going to get it, but the good news was that when I went to college I’d be so prepared that I wouldn’t be pressed.

  In my history class, we had begun a Civil War unit. Mr. Yang and I conferenced ahead of time about my final, longer assignment on the role of Blacks in that conflict. He said he expected that I would maintain a high level of engagement, because my Lewis and Clark essay had been very thoughtful.

  “You weren’t, like, mad, Mr. Yang?”

  “About what? You earned a ninety-four. Does that sound like a mad grade?”

  “I just thought, like, you know, what I said about how white people ruin everything might have hurt your feelings.”