Each time the house lights rose, Aisha’s hand was up and waving a dollar before the “another bump, another buck” announcement was even finished. Ride after ride she waved her dollars, while outside a red-orange band of light softly unfurled at the horizon.
As the last rays of daylight withdrew from Coney Island, so did the sight-seeing tourists, strolling families, and handholding couples. In their place came lone women with wobbling hips, guys with beepers, and cops dangling guns and billy clubs. Multiple collisions had left Aisha with bruised shins and a sore neck, but she was thrilled.
Aisha and Kevin stood at the counter of Nathan’s Famous in front of a spread of mustard-drenched hot dogs covered with sauerkraut, ketchup-soaked french fries, and king-size Cokes. “‘The freaks come out at night … the freaks come out at niiiight,’” sang Aisha, perfectly happy. Kevin laughed through a mouthful of food. A shirtless man with feet as black as shoes and sooty pants shuffled up to them, his hand outstretched and his eyes on their mountain of food.
“Ugh, get away!” hollered Aisha. “Police!”
A dark-haired cop appeared holding a paper coffee cup in one hand and his hat in the other. “Move it, buddy! How many times I gotta chase you outta here? You disturbing the clientele. Come on, take a hike!” He ushered the derelict out onto the street, nodded at Aisha, and resumed his watch in the doorway, still sipping coffee.
“Hey, did you check out the name on his badge, Ai? It said Don Lennon. Like that hippie singer.”
“Yeah, I remember him, the one they shot over near Central Park. But why you all in the cop’s badge like you gonna report him or something? He was cool, saving us from that dirtbag after our food.”
“Oh, it’s just a habit. My moms got me trained from when I was little. She be like, ‘Kev, if a cop say anything to you, don’t talk back smart or nothing, but make sure you memorize his name so if something happen.’ Same thing with car plates. In case I get knocked down in a hit-and-run . Like I would even be able to see license plates being all broke up under a car. You know how moms be, worrying about us. I guess that’s they job.”
“Not mine. Louise be like, ‘If one of them cops out there catch you running the streets on a school day and whip your tail, I’ma go to the station myself and shake the man hand.’”
“Your moms is a trip and a half. Anyway, so what you wanna do now? We could listen to music at my place. Mines won’t be home, she doing some overtime.”
That was good news. The last thing Aisha needed was to run into Mrs. Vinker, who couldn’t stand her or any girl Kevin had ever hung with. Just her luck to go out with an only child, and an only boy on top of that. Every only boy-child she knew had a pain-in-the-butt mother who wanted to keep him all to herself.
“Okay. I’ll call home and say the train broke down and I’ma be late. You got a quarter?”
“Definitely!” he said, bringing his lips to Aisha’s.
Four
Kevin had sure been a lot of fun in those days. But as for school, Aisha could only stand it when she was bugging—like setting off the metal detector with her bracelets, shooting spitballs through straws, popping her gum loud in class, or making fun of girls in gym. Her alphabetically assigned seat was next to Raven’s, whose last name was Jefferson, and they’d hung tight right through elementary, junior high, and part of high school.
Then Raven had a baby boy, got scared about the future, and ran off to some college way out in the boondocks where nobody could even visit her. It was a good thing her mother Gwen was cool and didn’t mind looking after her grandchild while Raven was away. The day Louise did something that nice would be the day Aisha went back to school. Which she would never do. Even though she did have fun when she was there.
The husky teacher the kids mockingly called “Elvis” because of his name and sideburns spotted Aisha slipping into science class through the back door. She was very late as usual.
“Who can tell the class what the five senses are? Why don’t you give it a try while you’re here, Aisha, since we don’t know when we might see you in class again.”
Cackles.
“Why you gotta say that, Mr. Elveen? I was sick with the monthlies, and I even got a doctor note.” Aisha was convinced she was good at doctor handwriting, even though her teachers never fell for it.
“Well, I guess we learn something new every day. I thought you girls got your periods once a month, not every week.”
Louder cackles.
“Whatever. Let me think, the five senses … umm, lend me fitty cents, ya mama ain’t got no sense, the Bible say don’t commit sins, and why go to school since we ain’t getting good jobs nohow!”
The class burst into laughter. Raven laughed so much, tears were running down her face. Aisha looked around with pride like she’d correctly recited the name of every muscle and bone in the human body.
“That was only four, Aisha, but no matter—your grade just went from a D to an F.”
“Then F you, Elvis. I hate your class anyway.”
An angry Mr. Elveen leaped to his feet just as the bell rang, but Aisha was already gone.
The lunchroom was noisy. Trays bumped against trays, silverware clanked. Rows of tables and benches stretched from one end of the room to the other, prison style. Voices shouted out commands.
“Get me a milk while you up!”
“Ask the lady if they got any extra grilled cheese sandwiches!”
“Bring me two desserts! I’m holding your place!”
Students pushed trays along the food counter and piled them with sandwiches, milk, apples, and cupcakes. Using her big body and bigger attitude to shoo kids off, Aisha saved an entire table for her friends—Raven, Keeba and Teesha Washington, and Toya Larson.
“Grilled cheese again?!” complained Teesha. “Just ’cause the school get free government cheese don’t mean we want to eat it every day. I needs variety in my diet, some fried baloney or chicken bresses or something.” She took a bite of the sandwich.
“What you mean? You already got chicken bresses,” teased Aisha, pointing at Teesha’s small breasts.
“Unh-unh, Ai, don’t be making fun of my sister’s bress buds, or I’ma hafta lay you out right here on this table—even though she do wear a size thirty-two thimble cup!” Keeba exploded into laughter so hard that other kids laughed just from hearing it. Teesha stabbed her thumb into the center of her sister’s sandwich, leaving a buttery hole.
The girls ate, drank, and gossiped about who looked like she was trying to hide being pregnant and which knothead boy probably did it. Toya said the Bible teaches chastity until marriage.
“I believe in charity too, Redbone,” laughed Aisha, using the nickname Toya got because she blushed like a white girl, “especially if he poor and cute.”
Raven rolled her eyes. “Chastity, Aisha, chastity. Meaning staying a virgin, not putting out for the poor.”
“Chadiddy, charity, whatever. All I’m saying is everybody s’pose to love one another, and since me and Kevin in love, that’s what we do.”
“Oh, please!” protested Toya. “Doing the nasty when you still a girl is not what that means. I just hope y’all using some kind of birth control, because ain’t no turning back once you knocked up. Look at what happened to that girl Sarah Elly from home economics class. Where’s her Jeffrey now? Gone on to the next hottie!”
“Listen up, Virgin Mary,” smirked Aisha. “Boys don’t like it if you be all like, ‘Oh, baby, can you put this on first.’ It break they concentration and cut off the feeling. At least, that’s how Kevin is.”
“You’s a sucker born yesterday, Aisha,” said Teesha, picking up the last crumbs of her grilled cheese on her fingertip. “Kevin just can’t be bothered. If he was really trying to look out for you instead of just getting some, he’d do it anyway, right, girls?”
“Right,” agreed the girls in unison.
“Y’all just jealous ’cause your chicken bresses cain’t get you no man!”
“What
?!” said Toya.
“I know you don’t mean me!” said Keeba.
“You better look at the skank in the mirror!” said Teesha.
“Ya big mouth done done it now!” said Raven.
An apple core bounced off Aisha’s chest, then a piece of cupcake hit her on the nose. Within seconds, balled-up napkins, chunks of bread crust, and bits of cheese were raining down on her, amid screams and laughter and the lunch lady yelling, “Girls! Girls!”
Gym class was scheduled after lunch so the students could work off the calories they consumed in the cafeteria. Aisha was still giggling to herself as she squeezed into her gym suit. “I’ma get all of them. I’ma get ’em good.” She adjusted her pantyhose snugly inside her sweat socks. The gym teacher said the girls were to wear socks only, but Aisha refused, saying she couldn’t exercise without pantyhose holding in her thighs.
Nobody understood why a professional hooky-player like Aisha showed up regularly at the one class everyone hated most—gym. Even Raven, who got “best attendance” in every class, had to force herself to the weekly torture session of circular arm movements, jogging, waist bends, and, worst of all, sit-ups.
Pat Black, a stocky Southern belle, told them her greatest love as a gym teacher was “whipping chunkies into shape.” It seemed she also loved blowing the whistle that dangled from her neck, which she was doing when Aisha sauntered in, took a small board from the stack, and joined the “posture line-up.”
“Are we all here? Let’s go! Form two lines. Step right, step left, step right …”
Balancing the wood on their heads and holding their backs straight, two rows of ten girls each stepped right and left and right and left, from one end of the gym to the other. They were determined to do whatever it took to pass gym and not have to make it up during the hot summer months. A couple of boards hit the floor, causing curious heads to turn and dump more boards.
A sharp whistle stopped the march. “Girls, we are not watching other girls because we are not nosy. We are concentrating on holding our backs erect. Now step, and step, and step …”
Aisha whispered to Sandy’s back, “Check out how far Marcia’s butt sticks out … talk about ‘baby got back,’ she could deliver pizza on that tray.”
Sandy, holding her head straight, cut a glance at Marcia. She made a sound like a muffled sneeze, clamped her hand over her mouth, and threw her head back laughing. Her board flew into Aisha’s stomach, which doubled Aisha over with giggles that toppled her board to the floor and sent her to her knees to get it, which made the girl behind her look down and lose her board … By the time Miss Black had pierced every eardrum with her whistle, the whole class was in hysterics, picking up wooden boards.
“That is enough! Everybody get mats! You’ve all got so much energy, let’s see you put it to use for a few sets of leg raises.”
The room filled with moans, groans, and grunts. And that was before the first leg was even raised.
“I hate gym! Hate it, hate it, hate it,” hissed one girl.
“My stomach so big, I can’t see my legs, let alone lift them up,” complained another.
“How’s somebody s’pose to be able to raise both legs off the floor at the same time? I can slide my feet up to my behind, but that’s it.”
“Miss Black’s crazy. I read in a magazine that leg raises are bad for your back. I better not get hurt, or I’m suing.”
And so went the complaining and griping as girls crawled, sat, and rolled onto their backs on the thick green mats, all eyes on the gym’s water-stained ceiling. Aisha made herself real comfortable, placing her hands behind her head as if relaxing at the beach. A shrill whistle marked the beginning of the count.
“This is hurting me!”
“I can’t! My knees won’t go up!”
“If my back break, Black getting whacked!”
Aisha was daydreaming about the times she was in that same position snuggling up nice and close with Kevin. There was Prospect Park and the Coney Island boardwalk and his cousin’s car and …
Miss Black’s whistle screamed directly above her head. Aisha jolted upright.
“You scared the mess outta me with that whistle, Miss Black, what’s wrong with you?! If I go deaf, this whole school in trouble!”
“Your ears are just fine, Aisha. What you need to worry about is that waistline of yours. Leg raises will tighten those abs up. You can do it. Lie down and give me your ankles. And what’s with this outfit? You know you’re not supposed to have on tights and socks.”
She pushed Aisha’s shoulders down onto the mat, squatted, gripped her ankles, and hoisted them up and down.
“There you go, Miss Ingram, you’re doing leg raises. See, girls! You all can do it if you just make the effort. Now Aisha, try to hold your legs up when I let go, so you really work your stomach muscles.”
The teacher released her hands, and Aisha cut loose a loud fart as her legs dropped down. Miss Black fell back onto her butt, grimacing.
“Sorry, ma’am,” said Aisha in her best Southern accent, “must be dat dang gubmint cheese.”
Long after she had dropped out of Benjamin Franklin High, students were still telling the story about Aisha’s leg raises.
Aisha’s early teenage life was in a pleasant groove. There were more trips with Kevin to Coney Island. Meaning more stops under and above the boardwalk, tumult on the Cyclone, and collisions at Eldorado. There was disruptive fun at school—that is, when Aisha went, which happened if she was in the mood to hang out or wanted a free lunch. Keeba and Teesha lived in her building and had friends over whenever Mrs. Washington was away doing ministry work. Aisha would party with them all night, dancing, singing, and occasionally making out with some other fine boy if Kevin wasn’t around.
When the weather got warm, people set up huge speakers in the street and held block parties with home-cooked meals, dance contests, and occasional fistfights between drunken spouses. Aisha would put on her shoe skates and go zooming in a pack of speeding girls all around the neighborhood. Or she’d just kick it on the benches, gossiping, playing cards, and telling ‘ya mama’ jokes. Evenings, she chilled at home, eating and watching movies and TV sitcoms late into the night.
Other than Louise’s outbursts about her being “just like bonehead Louis,” Aisha had it made. Sure she’d have to settle down and get a job when she was older, but that was the future, and the future could wait. She was about one thing—having a good time. Something she did quite well. Until the good times ended abruptly that summer, when, still just fifteen, she got pregnant.
Aisha’s mother was enraged. For hours and days and weeks she ranted about stupid fast girls bringing illegitimate brats into the world and stupid lying boys without a pot to pee in. Her daughter’s life seemed a world away from the one Louise Brown, a seventeen-year-old newly crowned Miss Teenage Schenectady, had lived in when she met Louis Ingram, a drummer in the pageant band.
When she was her daughter’s age, Louise was petite, curvaceous, and dreamy with fantasies about the fabulous future that awaited her. She would go for the Miss Eastern New York pageant, then Miss New York State, maybe even Miss America. After those successes would come the commercials, modeling career, and movie stardom. The pretty daughter of the town’s sanitation chief, “Lil’ Lou” was popular and confident. There was no doubt she’d get as much of the world as she asked for, and Louise wanted it all. Beginning with Louis. Louise and Louis made a cute couple, and everybody called both of them “Lou.” When former teen queen and pageant director Sara “Brown Eyes” Hill moved her operation to the next small town of starstruck young girls, the drummer stayed behind. All Louise knew about the tall, flirtatious musician was that he could make a drum sing. Back then that was enough. Now, her bonehead husband was just a bad memory—one Aisha felt her mother took out on her.
“Ain’t you old enough to know that sooner or later every man starts barking?” Louise responded in disgust when Aisha broke the news about being pregnant.
> “Kevin loves me.”
“Please! Every boy say he love you until he get what he after. Do he love you enough to marry you? To hold down a job to support you? To stay home at night? Plenty fools out there bringing illegitimates into this world, but I never thought I’d raise one!”
But as Aisha’s stomach grew larger, her mother’s tirades got shorter, until finally Louise announced that she was washing her hands of all of it.
“And do not, I repeat, do not take me for no live-in babysitter. That child gon’ be yours and yours alone—you responsible. Now you take your fast, unwed-mother tail over to that welfare office and sign up for food stamps and aid money. My little check can’t stretch but so far.”
Aisha knew Louise had her own problems. Drinking had taken its physical toll, and since getting on disability because of her high blood pressure, Louise mostly passed her days watching TV. But still, thought Aisha, she was gonna be a grandmother. At least she could try to act like it.
Kevin’s reaction bothered Aisha the most.
“You sure it’s mine?”
“No Kevin, it’s Sanny Claus baby. Of course it’s yours! Who else baby it gonna be? You know, you a trip, talking out your face about loving me and everything, then coming out your mouth like that when I tell you about our baby.”
“Awww Ai, don’t be like that, you know you my main squeeze. It’s just that Qua-Qua cousin said you was hangin’ around with this dude at Keeba’s party, so I figure maybe—”
“What?! Who the hell’s Qua-Qua’s cousin? I know you don’t mean that skinny-behind, gossipin’ Shanet who been trying to get with you from day one! I’ma bust her up! Hey, we can do that DNN or whatever it is test they got today and settle this right here, right now.”
“Nah man, we ain’t gotta be doing all that, Ai. If it’s mines, it’s mines. That’s cool.”
Soon after that Kevin started dropping by less and calling on the phone more. He was busy getting things set up for them, he said, looking for a full-time gig. When Aisha called, his mother always picked up. “Not here.” Click. Aisha wasn’t about to let herself be played like that and stopped calling.
Chill Wind Page 2