I thought about Mr. Hungry, how he stayed with me even though I didn’t remember a single thing about the commercial. “It’s not real crazy,” I said. “Just a little bit crazy.”
Samantha stared at us.
“If you see a empty pinball machine,” I said, “get it. And stay on it until I get there.” I gave him the peace sign.
The Jesus Boy looked confused for a minute. Then he smiled. Then the smile got a little bit bigger. “See you tomorrow,” he said.
Me and Samantha watched him walk away.
“Was he trying to ask you on a date or something?”
I stared at his back.
We started walking again.
“Nah,” I said. “He’s just a new kid. That’s all. Remember when I was the new kid?”
“That was a long time ago,” Samantha said.
“You forget a whole lotta stuff by the time you’re eleven and a half, Samantha. But you don’t forget that. It stays with you. Always.”
Samantha turned again and watched the Jesus Boy. “It would have been nice, Frannie. It would have meant all that believing and hoping I do all the time means something, you know.” She took my hand. “If he had really been Jesus, that would have been nice.”
“Yeah,” I said, squeezing her hand. “I would have asked about Lila—if she was okay. If she was having fun.” I looked at Samantha. “And I would have asked about the one that’s coming—about all the ones that are coming all over the world . . . I would have asked Him if we were all gonna be all right.”
I looked up at the sky and took a deep breath.
“Some days,” I said. “I just want to know that we’re all gonna be all right.”
We walked the rest of the way without talking, Samantha holding tight to my hand.
22
The baby inside Mama’s belly grows and grows. This morning, I wake to find her in the rocker by the window, staring out into the sun. She looks beautiful sitting there with all the light around her.
“Hey sleepyhead,” she says. “Can you believe this sun? After all those weeks of snow?” She smiles. “Your daddy just went out to get some muffin mix. This one craves the same things you did.”
I craved burgers, Sean says. He is in his blue pajamas and has his head against the wall next to the stereo speaker. There is soft music coming out. Sean puts his hand on the speaker and sways. Just like a true basketball star.
I don’t know what burgers have to do with basketball, but I don’t tell Sean.
Everything in the living room is lit up bright gold by the sun. I stand there staring at the way it falls across the couch and the coffee table and Mama in her rocking chair and Sean on the floor beside her.
Ms. Johnson says each day holds its own memory—its own moments that we can write about later. She says we should always look for the moments and some of them might be perfect, filled with light and hope and laughter. Moments that stay with us forever and ever. Amen.
On the stereo, a man with a beautiful high voice is singing about a bridge over troubled water. When darkness comes, he sings, and pain is all around. I will comfort you . . .
Maybe later, I’ll tag along with Sean to the rec center. Maybe I’ll watch him play and think of evil things to say to the hearing girls.
Maybe I’ll stand in the hall and find some new graffiti on the posters. Maybe I’ll beat the Jesus Boy at pinball and be the pinball champion of the world.
I climb onto Mama’s lap and put my head against her shoulder, my feet hanging all the way down to the floor. Sean rolls his eyes and signs, Big baby. But Mama just laughs and puts her arms around me.
And if Samantha shows up, maybe we can all three hang out together and she can start to see the Jesus inside the boy inside the Jesus Boy.
Maybe.
“Let the baby have some room, Franny,” Mama says, shifting a little.
From somewhere inside Mama’s belly, a tiny foot kicks at me.
“For a little while longer,” I say, “I’m the baby in this family.”
“For a little while,” Mama says.
And in case you didn’t know, Sean says. A little while isn’t long at all.
I stick my tongue out at him and he laughs.
I know that, I say. A million times I know that!
Then I put my head on Mama’s shoulder and close my eyes, the sun warm against my face, the man’s voice on the record getting softer and higher. Then fading away.
Each moment, I am thinking, is a thing with feathers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With so much love and thanks to Nancy Paulsen, who has always seen the book inside the mess that is the early draft.
Toshi Reagon, Patti Sullivan, Jill Harris, An Na, Valerie Winborne, Jana Welch, Linda Villarosa, Jane Sasseen, Jayme Lynes, patient listeners that you are—thank you.
The young people in Cynthiana, Kentucky, in St. Louis, Missouri, and right here in Brooklyn at New Voices Middle School—thanks for listening.
And thanks also to Toshi G., Omilana, Gus and Jo, Ellison, Tashawn, Kali, Nicky, Juna, Lissa, Baby June, Ming, and Ella. Each day, you are my feathers.
Turn the page for a sample of
Jacqueline Woodson’s newest book,
Peace,
Locomotion
Imagine peace.
I think it’s blue because that’s my favorite color.
I think it’s soft like flannel sheets in the
wintertime.
I think Peace is full—
like a stomach after a real good dinner—
beef stew and corn bread or
shrimp fried rice and egg rolls.
Even better
Than some barbecue chicken.
I think Peace is pretty—like my sister, Lili.
And I think it’s nice—like my friend Clyde.
I think if you imagine it, like that
Beatles guy used to sing about?
Then it can happen.
Yeah, I think
Peace Can Happen.
—Lonnie Collins Motion,
aka Locomotion
Dear Lili,
As you know, in a few days I’m going to be twelve. That means two things:1. In six weeks, you’ll be nine.
2. In nine more years, I’ll be twenty-one and then I’ll be old enough to take care of you by myself. And when I’m twenty-one and you’re eighteen, I’ll still be your big brother and kind of like the boss of you. But I won’t be mean. And if you want, we can keep living in Brooklyn. Maybe we’ll even find a place near your foster mama’s house because I know you like it a lot over there since it’s right near the park and there’s a cool playground and stuff. When we’re together again, I’ll take you to that playground myself so you won’t be missing it. Even if we’re big, we can still go, right? I see big kids at the one over here sometimes. They hang off the jungle gym and go down the slide. They be acting all crazy and having a real good time.
When we were small, Mama used to take us to the playground over by where our old house was. Since you were still real little, she’d have to go with you down the slide. “Lonnie, you take your sister down the slide now,” she’d say sometimes.
And even though I felt kind of stupid doing that with my friends there watching and singing, Lonnie gotta baby-sit, Lonnie gotta baby-sit, I did it anyways because Mama would get that smile on her face. Daddy used to say, “That’s a smile make a regular man climb Kilimanjaro.”
Back then, I didn’t even know what Kilimanjaro was. Now I do though. It’s a mountain in Africa. And if Mama and Daddy were alive and we were still little kids, I’d take you down that slide a hundred times. And climb Kilimanjaro if Mama asked me to.
Love,
Your brother to the
highest mountain,
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
This morning, when I got up and saw the rain still coming down, I sat on the couch watching it for a long, long time, thinking about you and Mama and Daddy. Thinking about when
we was all together and we’d do things like take the bus to the Prospect Park Zoo and take the train to Coney Island. Or like when me and Daddy used to go to the Mets games and everybody would always be asking us how come we liked the Mets when the Yankees was the ones always winning. I remember Daddy said, “Ain’t it boring to always be winning?” And I thought about that for a long time even though I was just a little kid. I thought about how if you walk out on the field or the basketball court or the handball court already knowing you got the game in the bag, what’s the point? Like when me and Angel and Lamont and Clyde be playing ball and we get some in and miss some—well, like when that ball finally goes through that net and you hear that swoosh! sound and your homeboys be slapping your back and saying “good shot” and stuff? If you knew that was coming, you wouldn’t even get that good feeling you get when it happens. You’d just be all regular and not caring and stuff. But when I was a little kid, I’d just say, “Winning’s fun and I sure wish the Mets would win a little bit more!” Daddy used to laugh that big laugh of his and hug me so hard I couldn’t even feel my breath moving through my lungs.
Felt real good, Lili.
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
Every day, the memories get a little bit more faded out of my head and I try to pull them back. It’s like they used to be all colorful and loud and everything. They’re getting grayer though. And sometimes even the ones that used to be loud get real, real quiet.
Lili, do you remember? There was a time when all of us were together. There was a time before the fire and before nobody wanted to be my foster mama until Miss Edna came along. There was a time before your foster mama came and said, “I’ll take the little girl but I don’t want no boys.” You were the little girl, Lili. And you didn’t want to go. It was raining that day just like it’s raining now. And you held on to me and cried and cried. You kept saying, I want to be with my brother.
And I hope you know that I wanted to be with you too. But I didn’t want you living in a group home anymore. I wanted you in a nice house with nice people and not kids everywhere taking your stuff and being mean to you.
Remember I said, One day, we’ll be together again? I know that day is taking a lot longer to come than it should, but I still believe it’s gonna get here, Little Sister. And that’s why I’m trying to write you lots and lots. Because I love writing and I love you and when me and you are together again, I’m gonna want us to remember everything that happened when we were living apart. I’m gonna hold on to all these letters and when we’re living together again, they’re gonna be the first present I give you. A whole box of the Before Time. That’s what this is, Lili, even though I know when me and you get sad, all we think about is the other Before Time—before the fire, before we lived apart from each other. But this is a whole new Before Time. And it’s cool, because we’ll be able to remember a whole other set of good things, right? So I’m writing. And I’m remembering. For me. And for you, Lili.
Love,
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
I know it’s been three years since that day when your foster mama came. But the way I figure it—me and you are both gonna live to be at least a hundred years old and given that fact—three years, four years, even if it takes nine years—well, that’s not a real, real long time after all.
Love you to eternity,
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
Today in school we got the good news that Ms. Cooper is going to be leaving soon. Her belly’s been growing a lot since school started but nobody in class liked her enough to ask if that was a baby inside. Not even LaTenya and LaTenya likes everybody. On the first day of school, I told Ms. Cooper I was a poet since last year Ms. Marcus told me that’s what I should call myself because she said my poems were real good. I liked saying I’m a poet a whole lot and every time I say it to Rodney or Miss Edna, they always say You sure are, so just keep on writing those poems, Lonnie. But when I said it to Ms. Cooper, she just looked at me and folded her arms. Then she asked me if I’d published any books. I said not yet, since I’m only in sixth grade and all. But I told her I wanted to publish a whole lot one day. Ms. Cooper just gave me her back and walked over to her desk. She said, “Until you publish a book, you’re not a poet, you’re an aspiring poet, Lonnie.” So after that I went back to being just a regular boy—not a poet like Ms. Marcus had said. I don’t think Ms. Marcus had been lying. I guess there’s just people that think you’re a good poet and people who don’t really care about poetry and the people who like to write it. I still write a few poems but mostly I’m writing these letters to you, Lili. It’s not like I believe Ms. Cooper—it’s just that she made me feel a little stupid for thinking I was really a poet. I hate that feeling. And plus, the very next day after she said that, I got a forty-two on the pop quiz she gave us. It became just like in the olden days, before Ms. Marcus said I was a poet. Back when I used to get bad grades all the time. And then, after Ms. Marcus told me I was a poet, it was like my schoolwork started getting easy. Well maybe not easy easy, but if I got good grades and stuff, Ms. Marcus would let me have free time to write and that made me want to get good grades. But now Ms. Cooper and her mean old words and her big old belly are leaving. We’re getting a new teacher. I don’t know who it’s going to be, but anybody is better than her. When she told us she was leaving, I wanted to stand up in my chair and start cheering. But I knew if I did that, she’d put a mark in the book by my name and I already have enough marks in her book. I hope her book leaves with her.
I got my fingers crossed that Ms. Cooper’s replacement is going to be somebody who doesn’t think you need a whole published book to be a poet!
Love,
x-poet
Locomotion
Feathers Page 9