Boaz Brown

by Stimpson, Michelle

  “Hey,” he prodded, “what kind of rolls did you make?”

  “I bought ‘em at the store,” I said in answer to his real question, pulling a cookie sheet from the cabinet beneath the counter.

  “Hmm,” he said with a frown on his face.

  “What’s wrong with the rolls, Daddy?” I asked him, sighing and placing one hand on my hip.

  “There’s nothin’ wrong with them. I’m just waitin’ for the day you start makin’ them from scratch,” he said.

  “Daddy, I don’t even know where ‘scratch’ is.”

  “That’s the problem, now,” he said, looking down his nose at me. “How do you expect to get a good man without knowing how to cook? You watched your momma and me make plenty of meals that you claim you can’t whip up now. Don’t you know the Bible says the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”

  Momma contradicted him. “That ain’t in the Bible.”

  “It ought to be,” Daddy said with raised eyebrows. He pushed his stomach forward indignantly and let his arms dangle at his sides. “They sure left a whole lot out if that’s not in there, ‘cause it’s the truth, so help me God.”

  “Well, if you would read the Bible for yourself, you’d know what’s in there,” Momma said as she spread low-fat margarine on top of the unbaked rolls.

  “See?” Daddy pointed. “Stuff like that—fake butter— probably has all kind of chemicals and preservatives. That’s what’s makin’ people so sick these days—givin’ everybody cancer. I swear, we didn’t have all these problems y’all have today. Now, we had high blood pressure and arthritis and sugar, but we didn’t have all these no-name quick-killing diseases y’all have today. You know why? Because we used natural fat, F-A-T!”

  “What else should we be using, Daddy?” I opened that can of worms knowing that he’d bring up something utterly ridiculous like using apple butter in place of light syrup.

  He proceeded to tell us, for what was probably the hundredth time, the Vaseline story. He repeated it as though he’d never shared it with us before. “I swear to God.” He held up his right hand. “One day your Grandmomma Smith was in the kitchen about to cook us breakfast. She barely had enough stuff to make the pancake batter—probably just some flour, eggs, water, and powdered milk, but we were gonna eat it because that’s all we had. Momma looked in the cabinets for some shortening or some butter to fry them pancakes up in, but we didn’t have any. All we had was some Vaseline from when she did Debra Jean’s hair, so that’s what she used. And it tasted just fine. I ain’t lyin’! Call my momma on the phone right now and ask her! She’ll tell ya! We ate whatever we had.”

  “Ain’t nobody fixin’ to call your momma.” Momma shook her head.

  “My momma told me about you light-skinned women,” he teased her. “Y’all worked in the kitchen. Don’t know anything about real cookin’ for black folks.” Daddy sauntered back toward the living room to watch more of his game. “But you turned out all right, gal; you grew on me after a while.”

  “Jon, please. Your momma said I was the best thing that ever happened to you. According to her, I rescued you.” She turned from her cooking and looked at him above the rim of her glasses. “And I thank God every day I never had to work in another woman’s kitchen.”

  “Well, you can thank God and me. Somebody had to work around here.” Daddy headed toward the living room.

  “I worked right here in this house! Matter of fact, I’m still workin’. They ain’t come up with a retirement plan for full-time mothers yet,” she fussed. “And anyways, your mother didn’t work.”

  “My momma knew how to make money stretch, though.” Daddy stopped in his tracks and pivoted to address any concerns Momma had about Grandmomma Smith.

  Please don’t get this man started on his momma.

  “Watch out, now. We don’t want to talk about mommas,” Momma tempted him.

  Daddy marched back into the kitchen. “I’ll call my momma up right now. I betcha she’ll hop out of that wheelchair and whip anybody try to jump bad with her.”

  “So what are you saying, Daddy? You want us to use some Vaseline for the rolls?” I tried to bring the stand-off to an end.

  Daddy waved his index finger at me. “Be careful, girl. You never know what you might have to do in a bad situation. You see how these white folks fixed that election back in two thousand? They never intended to let Al Gore become president. Had all those people in Florida countin’ ballots like they were little elves or somethin’. If the blacks don’t get off their butts, we’re gonna be back on the boat!”

  “Momma, is he still talkin’ ‘bout that election?” I asked her.

  “Just like it was yesterday,” she sighed.

  I set the table while the rolls browned. We used Momma’s best dishes every Sunday. The main platters had roses in full bloom splattered around the edges, while the plates and saucers had tiny buds sparsely placed near the rim. The silverware was engraved with the letter S. Momma said that we used them every Sunday because we never knew when it would be our last.

  She put the food in serving dishes, and Daddy went back to his lounge chair in the living room, looking over his shoulder every few minutes to see if we were ready yet.

  In the natural process of bending over to get the rolls out of the oven, I must have given my mother an eyeful of my thighs and behind.

  “You ain’t got no slip on under that dress?” she asked me, squinting to find a trace of silk or lace.

  Why is she watching my behind? “No, Momma, I’m not wearing a slip.”

  “You got on a girdle?”

  “Momma, people wear shapers and control-top pantyhose. Most women don’t wear those heavy-duty girdles anymore.”

  “I don’t know who told you that!” She turned her back as she finished preparing the table, and talked to me over her shoulder. “In my day we didn’t like all our stuff showin’ and jigglin’.”

  “I’m jigglin’, Momma?” I managed to laugh through what I considered an outright insult, the kind that only your mother can get away with.

  She sensed my dismay and compassionately explained her position. “It ain’t nothin’ wrong with you, Shondra. You’re a woman. You got the curves and lumps God gave his most beautiful creation on earth. But that ain’t for everybody to see. Shouldn’t nobody but you and your husband know the shape of your thighs, chile.”

  “This dress is denim, Momma. I don’t need a slip under it. Nobody can see my lumps through this.”

  “You’re supposed to wear a slip under every dress,” she fussed, taking hard breaths and willing her blood pressure to stay low. “I hope you ain’t goin’ ‘round the saints at your church like that, shakin’ your goodies and provokin’ the men. They gonna think I didn’t teach you any better. They haven’t pulled you to the side and talked to you about it?”

  “No, Momma. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone being taken to the side,” I said. “Are they still putting handkerchiefs over people’s knees at Gethsemane?”

  “Any time we need to.” Her chin shook as she declared her church’s stance. The bun at the base of her head took on a life of its own, bobbing up and down as she continued her lecture. “Only reason your church ain’t doin’ it no more is because y’all got that new pastor. That church ain’t been right since your old pastor died. Now, that man knew the way.”

  “Leave her alone,” Daddy called from his favorite seat. “Your church’s got more devils runnin’ around in long skirts than anything.”

  “How would you know?” Momma called back to him, rising up from her slump over the stove and putting her hands on her hips.

  “They’ve always been a bunch of fakers and shakers,” he teased.

  “You be careful what you say about the saints.” She resumed the task of scooping macaroni and cheese out of the pot and into a quart-sized serving bowl.

  It took me a while to figure out that the petty disagreements my parents had on a daily basis were actually how they communicated
with each other. Despite the outward appearance of constant dissension, I don’t think either of them would have had it any other way.

  At times like those, I wished that Jonathan were home. He was the only other human being who’d grown up at 700 Dembo Street. He understood the atmosphere, the aura, the smells, and the memories there. He knew why the fourth canister was missing. He remembered the day I messed up the ceiling fan when my balloon flew up too high. We’d gotten whippings together with “the brown belt.” He knew that sometimes you had to turn the doorknob backward to open the front bathroom door. Jonathan also knew that no matter how much Momma and Daddy fussed, they had done the best they could to give us what they thought we needed.

  Since we were kids, I’d envied Jonathan. It seemed he could get away with murder. As young adults, he seemed light years ahead of me spiritually. But since the Lord had begun working with me, I’d found Jonathan to be one of the most prudent people to talk to. I valued his insight, and I admired his wisdom at such a young age. I told him that once, and he told me, quite frankly, that he’d received it from God and there was more than enough to go around. With anyone else I would have been offended, but my little brother loved me. I appreciated Jonathan, and I missed him dearly. The house wasn’t the same without him.

  Momma said a prayer over dinner, and we began eating. I enjoyed my parents’ company, for the most part. Though our time together sometimes reminded me of a roast, it was routine. Momma, on my left, could be hard to get along with, but she had good intentions. Across from me, a man who had worked hard all his life to provide for Jonathan, Momma, and me—and complained the whole time, although he wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d overheard him tell one of our neighbors, he had a good thing at home.

  However, sitting there with them Sunday after Sunday made me all the more curious about my future. Who will I eat Sunday dinner with when I’m sixty? If it was nothing more than a few girlfriends, I wanted to eat with somebody. Maybe by that time I might know how to make a decent pan of corn bread.

  “Have you been seeing anybody?” Daddy asked me. He had a knack for starting in on me without warning. Daddy planted his elbows on the stained oak table, awaiting my answer.

  “No, Daddy, I’m not seeing anybody.” I endured his line of questioning.

  “What’s the holdup, gal? You’re not getting any younger. What are you now—thirty-five?”

  “You know I’ll be thirty-one, Daddy. Where did you get thirty-five?”

  “You’re gonna fool around and be an old maid,” he said. “Better quit being so choosy.”

  “You leave her alone.” Momma jumped to my defense. “She needs to be choosy. We don’t want her with just anybody. Besides, women these days have other things on their minds. They’ve got a whole lot more opportunities than I had in our day, Jon.”

  “Okay, am I not sitting right here?” I asked as they literally talked around me.

  “Maybe she’s looking in the wrong places.” Daddy took a bite of his chicken, letting the grease run a moment before grabbing his napkin and wiping the trail.

  “We need more choosy women with some kind of sense,” Momma laughed, getting up from her seat to get more ice. “Some of these girls today just don’t have any kind of standards about themselves. Just hop in the bed with anybody.”

  My stomach leaped and I kept my head down low, chomping away at my food. I’d done a good job of keeping my business off the streets and out of the COGIC. Aside from the time Momma accosted me about the spread of my hips when I was a senior in college, there had been no other discussion about sex and me.

  Momma went on, “And these Negroes today are just sorry! I don’t know how you do it, LaShondra. From what I see on this TV, there ain’t hardly any good men left. But don’t worry, baby. God’s got somebody for everybody.”

  “Somebody like me, for example,” Daddy added. His humorous side, my favorite persona, came forward. “I’m telling you, Shondra, there are a lot of good black men up at the Postal Service. Who’s your postman?”

  “I know you don’t think I’ve been sitting outside waiting to find out who delivers my mail. What am I supposed to do—take him a glass of lemonade?” I sassed.

  “That’s how your momma lucked up on a good man like me,” he bragged.

  Momma let out a sneaky laugh at the freezer door. “Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”

  “Yeah, I said it. I know I’m a good man.”

  “Who told you that you were a good man?” Momma put the pitcher of tea back into the refrigerator.

  “Nobody had to tell me. I already knew that.” Daddy slapped Momma on her behind just as she lowered herself to the seat. “Jonathan Smith, you stop that!” she said as the corners of her lips turned up.

  “How are things going at your job?” Momma asked me.

  “Oh, the same. Just handling problems with kids and teachers and parents.” I shrugged.

  “White folks?” Daddy asked.

  “All kinds of people, Daddy.” As much as I respected my father’s position on race relations, he could be a bit overbearing. I did agree with him regarding the need for black people to learn to stick together before we undertake the task of becoming a part of America’s melting pot, but I picked my battles with him about exactly how the goal should be reached.

  I don’t think jumping into the melting pot was on Daddy’s list of things-to-do-as-an- African-American-man. I didn’t foresee myself jumping in the pot, either. But I did want it for the future, maybe generations from now, after all of us who still had reservations died off. It might happen, I guessed, but not in his time.

  He’d lived through everything I read about when I studied Martin Luther King, Jr., in school. And I figured there were enough white people who came of age in my father’s day to duly influence their offspring for another two or three generations. Those like me—the first generation to be legally recognized as U.S. citizens with all rights and privileges therein—still had our doubts. We’d heard things from the horse’s mouth. And those we loved and trusted had taught us to be suspicious, careful, and viciously protective.

  “You just keep your nose clean at that school, you hear?” Daddy pointed his fork at me.

  “I always do,” I said in a monotone voice.

  “All right”—he let his voice swing up—”you think you know everything. Can’t nobody tell you nothing. Not that much has changed in forty years, you know.”

  “I know that, Daddy.”

  “What exactly is she supposed to be doing, Jon?” Momma asked.

  “Just go to work, do your job, and come home. That’s exactly what I did for over thirty-five years with the United States Postal Service. Only problems I ever had with my work were with dogs. I know those higher-ups overlooked me for promotions because I was black, but they always wanted me there because I was a good worker. Didn’t miss a day unless it was absolutely necessary. Rain, shine, sleet, or snow.”

  “Thanks for your hard work, Daddy,” I half-thanked, half-patronized him. I don’t think he could have withstood actual gratitude without throwing some kind of de-sentimentalizing twist on it. “I appreciate it, and so do the white people at my job.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” he moaned, bringing a margarine-laced roll toward his mouth and taking a bite. “You think that’s funny. Just keep on livin’. You gonna learn that white people don’t mean you any good.”

  “Not a single one of ‘em, Daddy?”

  “There’s always one or two, but you don’t have any way of tellin’ which ones are really okay and which ones are just tryin’ to stab you in the back or ease their minds about what they did in the past. Just no way of knowin’. It’s best to just steer clear of ‘em. Keep to yourself and do your job.”

  “Ooh, can we please talk about something other than white people?” I asked him. “You would think white people live here as much as you talk about them.”

  “I’m not talking about white people. I’m talking about you.

  “What about me, Daddy? I
work with people of all different colors every day.” I was getting more and more irritated with his insinuation that I was selling out.

  “And you like the whites just as much as the blacks?”

  “When I deal with kids, it’s really not about color, you know?” I turned toward my mother, who might have been more receptive to my case.

  “Kids grow up.” Daddy demanded my attention. “And I’ll betcha some of those same kids’ parents tell them not to listen to that old black vice principal.”

  “Well, I don’t know if they do or not, Daddy.” I shook my head and continued eating. Perhaps if I stuff my mouth, he might leave me alone. Talking with Daddy about white people wasn’t like talking with Peaches and Deniessa. We laughed, we joked, and we went on with our conversation. But with Daddy, it was serious. I’d realized very early on that he was consumed with race and discrimination and prejudice, as though these issues dictated every aspect of his life.

  I ate, drank, and breathed race at 700 Dembo Street. With that came a sense of pride and damnation all together. Grateful to be at a point in time where I could dream, but perhaps damned to a life of overexertion in my efforts to be all that my ancestors could not be. These privileges, these rights that many before me had bled and died for, came with such responsibilities.

  With so much more at stake than my white counterparts, I was resentful. Why do I have to put forth 110 percent while the white woman next to me gives maybe 75 percent? What makes her so special? Looking at white people—particularly white women—and feeling that they thought the privileges of this country belonged to them set up a kind of grudge. Not intentional, I reasoned, but an inevitable byproduct of slavery.

  Chapter 4

  What’s your name?” I asked the new girl when we went out to recess.

  “Patricia,” she barely spoke. I watched her shift the dirt with her patent leather Buster Brown shoes. With her head down, I could see the zigzag part between her ponytails. I’d asked Momma to do that for me, but she never had the time.

  She still hadn’t looked me in the eye. I noticed the way her legs bulged out of her socks just above the elastic. Then I thought of my own scrawny, chicken-looking legs. Mother Dear had said that I looked “po’.”