by N. Godwin
True Colors
I barely had enough time to scoop Cecil up from mid-mouthful and make the mad dash upstairs to my room before Levi Washington, our Gestapo HRS counselor, hits the front door. His surprise visits always get closer and closer together the warmer it gets because he likes our free beer on a hot day.
I try to unclasp the choke hold Cecile has on me but her eyes are playful and she refuses to let go of me, so I give her a loud raspberry kiss on her cheek and listen to her giggles as my eyes try to adjust to the diffused light within my room. I can feel an unwelcome intrusion around us. I can feel it on the rays of light coming in through my window and on the breeze from my ceiling fan. I can feel the heat of its breath on my neck and face. I can feel evil eyes penetrating into my solitude and I hug Cecile in closer as panic sweeps over me.
I want to throw open my doors and run downstairs into the café but Levi would spot us for certain. I can feel Satan watching, waiting, so I walk us over to my window and opened mini blinds and look down into the parking lot. I sigh realizing Levi was probably having his see-nothing lunch (as Eunice calls them) and won’t be gone for at least an hour. I look down at Cecile and try to think of what to do to occupy the time and calm this new fear I feel creeping insidiously closer. I quickly close my blinds and like magic the sensation dissipates.
“Cecile,” I say too brightly, “don’t you want to play with your toys?”
As she shakes her head no I look around the room, crowded with the paraphernalia of three very different people; a small green and purple Barney bed and covers for Cecile and the red, twin bed with the horseshoe headboard we’d found at a yard sale for Kelly. We’d put Kelly’s bed in the corner as close to the bathroom as we could get it because it is by far her most favorite room in the place. Sometimes Kelly will invest an hour in a lukewarm Miss Piggy bubble bath and sings these impromptu rap ballads at the top of her lungs, but only when that bathroom door is closed and the rest of the world is safely outside. Once she exits the bathroom she always alters back to her quiet secrets.
People would be amazed to hear the depth in Kelly’s music because it’s often difficult getting Kelly to voice an opinion on anything, like her preference of condiments for a cheeseburger, what she’d like to do tonight, or tomorrow, or what music she’d like to hear. During her reading lessons, Ken says she barely utters a complete sentence. Yet Kelly’s musical range is awesome and I can sing a bit myself so I know what I’m talking about. My music is light and airy, trailing over you invisibly with a soft soprano’s hand. Kelly’s music is earthy, like the scent of rain on scorched thirsty soul. I’ve vowed to entice her into a round during a poetry bash one Thursday night except I can’t figure out how to get her bathtub down to the café.
As awesome a voice as Kelly has, it is her subject matter that rivets me. I once listened as she sang about the joy of owning her own toothbrush that brought tears to my eyes. I’ve learned more about Kelly With-No-Last-Name from her rapping in the bathtub than I have from living in close quarters with them for three weeks.
I tweak open the blinds and look back down into the parking lot and take another look at Levi’s car. I give in and go over to my CD player. Cecile is still hanging on to me even though I’m using both hands to putter with this and that and I put Beethoven on to fill the silence.
“Okay, Cecil, let’s play a little game,” I say removing her firm little grasp from around my neck. “I spy something red.” She just looks up at me like I’m nuts so I try another tact. Grabbing her box of crayons off my desk, I pull one out. “This is the color red, red. Can you say red?”
Crickets.
“This is the color blue. Blue. Can you say blue? This is Horst’s and Ken’s favorite color.” Her eyes are dancing and she smiles big and wide at the mention of their names. “This one is the color green. Can you say green? No? Hum. Well green is the color of money, see? Green is no doubt Randy’s favorite color.”
She giggles at the mention of Randy then makes an icky face. I sit down in the rocking chair and draw her into my lap, laughing at her expression. She smells like the strawberries and honey she’d been eating and her appetite makes me laugh out loud.
“Now this color is brown. Can you say brown? Brown reminds me of Hobie because his hair and birthmark are brown. So are his eyes. As a matter of fact, so are your eyes. Oh look, this color brown matches your skin almost perfectly.”
As I hold the crayon up to her arm for comparison Cecile frowns and shakes her head no. “You don’t think it’s a close match?” Her bottom lip is curling and tears are forming in her eyes. “Oh my, you don’t think brown is a beautiful color?”
Tiny paths of tears spill down her cheeks and she shakes her head angrily and hits the crayon out of my hand. The color brown goes flying across the room.
I hug her into my chest and want to apologize to her for something, anything, but I don’t because what I want to say to her could be all wrong. I study her eyes very carefully before speaking and as I stroke her arm images dance before me.
My eyes are suddenly her eyes and I am a tiny, silent, brown child in a world full white, and the only other brown I’ve known is a van full of people too horrible to comprehend, and one other defenseless child whose name I’ve never been able to utter. I see the ratio of brown and I realize with a jolt that I’d rather be white because I think it’s an easier color considering all those ratios and stats. And I know prejudice by any rational is still ungodly. Prejudice is the sin of social sloth and pride and wrath combined; sins that absolutely interfere with the ability to attain spirituality. No man can know true God in such a state.
Once again, I am reminded of my inadequacies because I am unworthy. I am uneducated lowlife, the rancid gum on the bottom of the shoe of life, a pimple on the face of social accountability. The only apology I should give this child is for myself because up until this very moment I think I’ve only been going through the motions, and also because I think I’ve gone and mixed my metaphors.
I start to cry softly and I hug Cecile in close and begin to rock us back and forth. I’m hugging her while my tears dribble down the top of her head. I’m crying for me and her and all other creatures of chance. I’m crying because evil is just beyond these walls and I don’t know how to leave our fates behind and just simply be.
Cecile catches my eye and tries to patty cake. Her peek-a-boo routine makes me laugh and I focus on the immediate. I wipe my tears on my apron and think of what I know about being brown.
“There lots of wonderful brown people. Lots and lots of them,” I say blowing my nose into my apron and drying my face. “I mean, there’s Martin Luther King—he changed the world; there’s Langston Hughes, Condolezza Rice and Sojourner Truth and Maya Angelou, who I will read to you immediately by the way, and everyone wants Oprah for a sister. And there’s Toni Morrison and Nelson Mandela,” I say all this in one breath as she smiles up at me. “And those are just some of the famous ones because there’s also our very own Freckles, and nobody red, yellow, brown or white is a better man than Freckles. Most aren’t even half as good.”
She’s giggling now and as she lays her hand over mine and as we rock I begin to hum a favorite song of my childhood, one I haven’t sung in years. Her face lights up when I begin to sing.
Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black or white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.
Cecile laughs and looks over my shoulder. I turn my head and follow her gaze and notice that Kelly has come in the room and is standing silently behind us with her arms curled tightly into her chest with a strange look knotted on her face. I realize I am emotionally spent from my cathartic encounter with a three year old, so I ease Cecile out of my lap and wipe away any remaining trace of tears.
“Is Levi still here?” I ask. She nods her head. “Did he notice you?”
“He come close,” Kelly replies.
“He came close,” I c
orrect.
I stand and walk over to my stereo and turn the music up slightly as Kelly frowns. Cecile is busy coloring an ocean of blue people. I look at Kelly who appears by my side.
“She don’t love you like she loves me,” Kelly whispers so softly I can barely hear her.
“She doesn’t.”
“It’s what I said. She likes me better. You just spoil her is all.”
“Whatever,” I say as I stand and stretch.
“What you always do that for?”
“What do you always do that for?” I correct as she frowns. “And what am I always doing?”
“Always saying whatever all the time?”
“I say whatever when I don’t want to have to think about saying anything else.”
“Always correcting everything I sez--”
“Say.”
“Like you’s my mama. Well, y’a ain’t!”
“Aren’t.”
“And you ain’--aren’t Cecile’s mama, neither!” She has raised her voice this time and I stand perfectly still. “Girl, you just aggravate me sometimes, and I’m gon tell you something else too--” she says angrily but her eyes squint up in fear suddenly and she looks shocked and covers her mouth, looking around the room for evil others.
“Say it, Kelly,” I coax. “Tell me what you feel. You’re allowed to say your piece. Come on, tell me whatever you want. I won’t ever get mad. Cross my heart.”
“This music just sucks!” She shouts and closes her eyes as if waiting to get smacked upside the head.
“Yes!” I shout. “Kelly, that’s wonderful! You said my music sucks!” I hug her up and spin her around. “What else do you think sucks?”
“You makin’ fun of me?” Kelly asks pulling away from my victory dance, “cuz I’s so stupid?”
“No!” I say firmly. “I would never do that.”
She studies me and I turn to the mirror and look at us. My cheeks are flushed so I twist my hair back off my face and reach for a handful of bobby pins. She watches every move I make as I twist my hair up into a bun.
“I didn’t realize how much it hurts your feelings when I correct your grammar,” I finally say, “but I correct everyone’s grammar when I care about them, because it’s my job to teach you how to survive.”
We are staring at each other in the mirror. I step behind her and take her hair in my hands. Her hair is course, pliable and thick and I analyze all its potential. She doesn’t shrink from my touch or I from hers as I begin twisting her hair around my fingers.
“Grammar?” she asks.
“Yeah, grammar, the art and science of a language, the structure of how our words relate, the patterns we speak. I don’t believe we technically speak the Queen’s English any more. I’d say we speak a hybrid Americanized English, wouldn’t you? Anyway, your grammar is all out of whack so we need to straighten its spine, so to speak. Trust me, this is very important.”
Kelly nods silently as I twist her hair back to match mine and carefully pin it up. I wisp out her bangs and smile into her upturn face. “Look at how good this holds. Maybe we should add a color enhancer, just for fun. We need to make a hair appointment for you with someone who’s great with your hair and we definitely have to get your ears pierced because jewelry is fun. It won’t hurt, just pinch.”
“That’s me!” she says into her reflection.
Her eyes study her hair then mine; her face then mine. She looks at her figure, then mine. She is twelve with a typical, twelve year old body and is still mostly flat and she’s really thick around the middle, not a curve in sight, but she is still just a kid. I spray a small dab of my Magic Noir on the back of her neck as an obvious thought hits me.
“I think you need some money of your own to spend. I remember what it’s like to have to ask someone else for money. It’s not a pleasant feeling.” Kelly just shrugs and her silence is deafening. “I think it’s time we have you wait some tables.” I can tell she likes this idea. “We’ll work around Levi somehow. Let’s start your training this Sunday night. Levi never comes on Sundays.”
“Really?” she asks. “And I keep my money?”
“Absolutely, but there is one catch.”
“Another No-No?”
“Nope, just know I’ll never stop correcting your grammar. I’ll keep right on because it’s part of my job description, to make you wear your words like armor. People can’t see into your head so they judge you on your words.” I can tell she’s a little confused. “Make your words your sword.”
Kelly cocks her head at this and studies my face. “What else we judged on?”
“Are we judged on. Appearance, dress nice people immediately assume you’re nice. Cothes can work as decoys to your advantage. Notice how we’ve bought you name-brand outfits that are beachy and resort-casual, right down to your Rainbow sandals? We did this on purpose so you can blend in and look like you’re just another tourist’s pampered kid.”
“What else?”
“The company you keep. People always judge you on that. Surround yourself with kind, positive people and you will become kind and positive. Works like osmosis. Osmosis is--”
“Then what you doing here?” she interrupts, staring straight into my eyes. “You hang out with loser kids nobody wants, kids with lousy grammar who ain’t got no--”
“Who don’t have any.”
“Nobody’s stupider than me. Not even Randy.”
I smile at her because she’s made a joke. “Stupidier’s not a proper word. And by the way, Kelly, you’re not stupid.”
“I know,” she says and smiles back at me coyly. “You’s—you are not stupid, neither.”
“Either.”
“Whatever!”
“Come on!” Hobie pleads again. “You’ve got to tell Eunice we need a banana eating contest here. You’ve just got to!” he pleads.
We can’t help but dance around one another while emptying the dishwashers. We bang into each other putting flatware and dishes in their cabinets and drawers. Hobie keeps banging shut his cabinets because this is how he deflates his anger whenever he’s told no. He is just fifteen, after all.
“Come on! It’d be great for business. It’d draw all kinds of guys in here.” He slams the cabinet door shut then reopens it so he can slam it again. It springs back open and he goes nuts with frustration.
“I don’t want to draw all kinds of guys in here,” I laugh and this makes him madder.
“Come on! It’d draw a huge crowd long after the 4th of July. Business is always slow the two weeks after the 4th.”
“Says who?” Randy wants to know.
Randy’s cornered me with a large heavy pot in my hands. He bends down shadowing all along my body on his way to finding bar napkins. I hold my breath because I hate it when men flaunt this advantage.
“My dad, stupid. He owns three motels, remember?” Hobie scoffs rolling his eyes heavenward.
“Okay, guys. What exactly is this contest anyhow?” I ask and set down the large pot.
“Girls,” Hobie sighs looking far away. “Girls eating bananas, eating bananas real slow.”
“Yeah,” says Randy looking at that same far away galaxy, “reeeeeal slow.”
“You guys are depraved,” I say with a sigh as I walk away.
I haven’t worked on my list in over a week because life has intervened, but today, despite the onslaught of customers, I am driven to study Hobie whether I like it or not. Hobie is number 3 on my list.
Hobie has been thrown out of more nightclubs than I can count. They even have notches in the railing at Club La Vela (his Mecca) for every time they’ve caught him scaling the back deck in his futile attempt to see female flesh up close and personal. He is possibly the most sexually frustrated kid I’ve ever been around and that’s saying something. I think his embarrassment over his virginity is genuine and this makes me sad.
Hobie believes in God but not his parents. He seldom misses mass or a meal. Any time one of us messes up he’s quick to tell
us how deep a sin we’ve waded into; whether it’s the shallow waters of a venial or if we’ve jumped head-first into the black depths of blistering mortal sin.
Hobie is a genuine pain sometimes but then he’ll surprise you with a pair of hundred dollar sunglasses or your favorite candy bar. His body is sort of in between kid and man, like one of those Mr. Potato Head dolls you assemble, with odd parts here and there, each piece seemingly oblivious to the dynamics of the entire.
Hobie wears the latest in designer surfing gear. His flip-flops alone cost over a hundred bucks, which just goes to show you that money cannot buy you love or happiness, because if that were the case then Hobie’s clan would be downright giddy.
Hobie’s mom sends the housekeeper over once a week with a few hundred dollars and a note, sometimes even in her own handwriting, telling Hobie how much they’ve changed. I couldn’t even tell you what the woman looks like.
I watch from my stool as Hobie purposefully avoids eye contact with me, feigning every dramatic gesture he can muster in protestation. He’s still mad about having one of his perverted pet projects rejected by me, again, and Lord knows he comes up with some doozies. Hobie will lord his displeasure over me for at least an hour. I smile anyway as he passes by on his way to bus the tables.
I always explain his hormonal teen angst to him by assuring him that all the other dude’s his age are usually just as crotch-driven. And he laughs any time I say crotch-driven, even if he is mad at me, on account of his great sense of humor. Doc Marvin tells him his humor has saved his life but we’d all figured that out by ourselves, anyway.
Hobie tells me all his secrets. He reveres farts and loves to discuss their longevity, their aroma, or decibel level. I tried for years to get him to say flubber instead of fart because of its social repugnance and all, but Hobie just likes the way the word fart rolls off his tongue and causes people to react. Never get on an elevator with Hobie.
I know Hobie is guilty of the sin of lust. Some days I work him extra hard to try and tire out his demons, but he’s a resilient kid full of hormonal angst and dirty heterosexual thoughts that I’ve made him cross his heart and swear not to share with me ever again! I figure lust is a giant improvement in Hobie, anyway, because when he first showed up here two years back he was consumed with wrath and anger. But that daunting sin was just contrary to his nature and he wasn’t meant to wallow in wrath for too long. Within one summer his fury was gone and had been replaced with carnal cravings for pleasures of the flesh. So now he’s just horny, like 24/7 or something, and I, being me, just flat-out don’t get it.