by H. M. Mann
I hold it to my chest. “It’s gonna hang down to my knees.”
“So? Baggy is the style now, right?”
I take off my shirt and put it on. Though it’s short-sleeved, the sleeves almost reach my wrists. I look down and don’t see my knees. “I look ridiculous.”
“We all friends, right?”
“I guess.”
“So it don’t matter none.” He laughs. “Though Rose gonna talk about you all night long.”
We meet up with Rose near the front gangplank, and she looks so beautiful in regular jeans and a simple pink top. “You are looking fine, ma’am.”
“And you look like you’re wearing a tent.” She frowns at Rufus. “Bet you told him he’d look fly wearing this thing.”
Rufus smiles. “Yep.”
“If the wind picks up, he gonna blow away.” She points at a cab. “That’s our cab.”
“We ridin’ in style tonight!” Rufus says.
“Wait up!” I hear Penny call, and she joins us looking very un-Penny-like with flowing brown hair down to her shoulders without the fake piercing in her nose. She looks plain wearing jeans and a nice white blouse.
“She comin’?” Rose says too loudly.
“I invited her,” I say.
“Hmm,” Rose says.
Rose isn’t happy.
The ride to Covington, Kentucky, takes us across the Licking River down Fourth Street, and I see one-way signs all over the place. The same fools who designed downtown Pittsburgh must have designed this place. We get out on Scott, where I find a mailbox and mail my letters, and then we go into Mysterious Tattoo. It’s weird to see a tattoo parlor right near the Daystar Christian Worship Center, but I guess they don’t do business at the same time.
Once inside Mysterious Tattoo, Penny, who hasn’t said a single thing so far, takes over while Rose and Rufus check out all the designs, and there are hundreds to choose from.
Penny pulls over a guy who is tattooed from head to foot. “This is the guy,” she tells him. She nods at my arm, and I push up the sleeve. Thankfully, the guy doesn’t say a thing. I guess I’m not the first junkie to come in here. “What can you do for him?”
He turns my arm side to side and looks at me. “Could probably put a cross on it.”
A cross. I’ve seen lots of fellas with them, though most of them weren’t religious in the least, and a cross makes sense because the lines almost form one on their own.
“Or a spider’s web,” he adds.
A snake on one arm and a spider’s web on another? I’ll scare my son to death! “The cross sounds good. How much?”
“One color?”
“Yeah.”
He looks at my arm again. “Fifty.”
“That’s way too much,” Penny says. “You did my rose in two colors for fifty.”
“Got a lot of work to do on this one because I’ll be working without a pattern.”
“What you talkin’ about?” She runs a finger on my lines. “The pattern’s already there.”
“I could maybe go forty, but that’s as low as I’ll go,” he says.
“That’s still too high for only one color.” Penny takes my arm. “Come on. We’ll go somewhere else.”
“Just a sec,” the guy says. “I’ll throw in some gold around the edges.”
I look at Penny and shrug. “Sounds good to me.”
“Make it fancy,” Penny says.
“I’ll try,” the guy says.
And then I have a guy needle me to death for the next hour while only Penny watches. Rose and Rufus glance over every now and then, but I can tell they’re wincing. It hurts some but not too bad, I guess because I’ve built up calluses or something. After he edges the cross with gold and even fills it in for free, I don’t see the lines anymore. He slaps a bandage on it and tells me not to get it wet for at least a week, and I pay him forty dollars.
“Anybody else?” he asks.
Rufus waves his hands and says “No way.”
Rose shakes her head.
Penny shrugs and says, “Maybe next time.”
“Where to?” Rufus says, and he rubs his stomach.
“Is that all you think about, boy?” Rose asks.
“Ain’t me thinkin’,” he says. “It’s my stomach.”
“How about Jack Quinn’s?” Penny suggests.
Rose frowns. “That Irish place? We look Irish to you?”
“Just a suggestion,” Penny says, and she pushes through the door to the street.
“The nerve of her suggesting that,” Rose says. “Jack Quinn’s is an Irish ale house.”
“Oh.” Where gin could flow. “It doesn’t matter to me,” I say, peeking under the bandage at my new arm, “as long as it’s a place to sit down and be served for a change.”
“I hear you,” Rose says. “How about the fish bar?”
Rufus rubs his hands together. “Now you’re talkin’.”
We sit in a booth and eat at B&J Fish Bar where Rufus sucks down a school of flounder filets and a bushel of fries. No one talks much, which is fine by me, because I am throwing down on a sampler platter of every kind of fish in the sea, dipping whatever I’m eating in cocktail sauce and tartar sauce and ketchup.
“Try this,” Rufus says. He dumps a stream of malt vinegar onto one of my filets, and it doesn’t taste too bad. “Wish they had some Louisiana Lightning up in here.” He twists his head, and the whole booth moves. “Somethin’ hotter than this stuff.” He grins.
“Glad I ain’t roomin’ with you, Rufus,” Rose says. “Better get you some matches, Emmanuel.”
“I got night watch again,” Rufus says, “so only Cincinnati will know what I been eatin’.”
“Rufus, that’s gross,” Penny says as she picks at her shrimp. She looks over at me. “How’s your arm, Emmanuel?”
“Okay. It feels a little tight.”
“It’ll be like that for a few days,” Penny says. “I have some aspirin for you if you want it.”
“I’ll be all right.” Because I’ve had much worse.
Rose leans forward. “I’ll take you off dish duty for a while till it heals.”
“Thanks.”
“I have some lotion you can use,” Penny says, “so it doesn’t itch so much.”
“Save room for some sweet potato pie, Emmanuel,” Rose says. “Made it for you special before we left.”
I see Rufus’s head going back and forth from Penny to Rose, like he’s watching some of the passengers playing ping pong. What’s going on?
“We have got to get you some clothes that fit, Emmanuel,” Penny says. “No offense, Rufus.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Rose says. “We got some clothes in the lost and found on the boat that might fit you, most of it from the last century, though. They’re being washed as we speak.”
Now I get it. I have two women, one white and eighteen, the other black and pushing sixty, laying claim to me. I want to laugh at how ridiculous it all is, but I’m afraid to.
Thankfully, Rufus laughs out loud for me, hopefully breaking some of the ice building up between Penny and Rose. “Dang, if I knew I’d get this much attention from gettin’ a little ol’ tattoo, I’d have got me one. Aspirin? Lotion? Clothes? Shoot, I could use ‘em all.” He smacks his lips. “Especially that sweet potato pie. Is there enough for me?”
“Rufus,” Rose says, a tiny smile sneaking out, “there ain’t enough sweet potatoes in the state of Kentucky to make a pie big enough for you.”
“I only want one slice,” he says.
“I made it especially for Emmanuel,” Rose says. She shoots a look at Penny that says, “Top that.”
I expect Penny to back down, but she doesn’t. “I have the morning off tomorrow, so if you want to sleep in, Emmanuel, I’ll cover for you till you get there.”
They’re still at it. It makes me feel special, but this could get seriously ugly. “Thanks for the offer, Penny, but I need the hours.” I could only send checks for fifty each to A
untie June and Mary thanks to me taking no exemptions on that W-2. I hope it all comes back at tax time. “And I’m stuffed, so I couldn’t eat another thing tonight, Rose. Can the pie keep until morning?”
“I suppose it could,” Rose says with a little pout, “but it tastes so much better fresh.”
“I can have it for breakfast,” I say.
“Suit yourself,” Rose says with a sigh.
While Rufus picks through his fries, Rose sits back with her arms folded and Penny looks away from the table, a thin pink line instead of a smile on her face. I have just made two women mad for declining their favors. This is too much drama to be having at the B&J Fish Bar in Covington, Kentucky.
After we divide and pay the bill, we argue about how to get back to the American Queen. Rose suggests getting another cab that she’ll pay for, Rufus suggests the bus since he had trouble fitting in the back seat of the cab, and Penny says she’d rather walk. The three of them turn to me to make the decision.
“How far is it if we walk?” I ask, and Penny’s face brightens.
“At least a mile, maybe a mile and a half,” Rose says with a scowl.
Time for a compromise. “Well, if we walk, I’m sure I’ll be able to walk off enough of my dinner to make room for some of that pie.”
“Now you’re talkin’,” Rufus says. He slaps me on the back, and it hurts!
I’m going to have Rufus’s handprint on me for weeks.
“Who needs the bus?” Rufus says.
“All right,” Rose says, real cool like. “We’ll walk then.”
It’s a nice night for a walk, too, with only a few clouds scooting in front of the stars. It’s strange to have solid, unmoving ground under my feet after seven days on boats. I keep expecting that little sway I feel whenever I’m on the American Queen.
We make a funny quartet moving through Covington, let me tell you. Rufus, who can sing his guts out, starts some song that goes “Manny, po-panny” or something like that, and I can’t stop laughing. Penny fakes a Spanish accent and calls me “Man-well” and nicknames Rufus “The Roof, The Roof, The Roof-us is on Fire.” Rose simply hums while she walks and laughs at us every now and then, and she seems to have settled down.
But when we get to the bridge over the Licking River, things get serious again.
“Licking is a funny name for a river, huh, Man-well?” Penny asks, looking over the edge. “But I don’t see a tongue anywhere.”
“Neither do I,” I say. “You see a tongue anywhere, Rose?”
Rose’s face is practically made out of stone. “Why you gotta be nasty all the time, Penny?”
“What did I say that was nasty?” Penny replies.
“You know what you said, girl, and it’s shameful,” Rose says. “A girl your age shouldn’t be talkin’ like that.”
Penny takes two steps toward Rose. “And a woman your age shouldn’t be flirtin’ with a man half your age, ma’am.”
“Catfight brewin’, Manny,” Rufus whispers. “Better do something.”
“You’re bigger than me,” I whisper back. “You do something.”
“I ain’t gettin’ between them,” Rufus says. “I might get bit.”
Rose stands her ground. “And you shouldn’t be in heat over a man who could be your daddy.”
Either way, I’m feeling pretty old right now.
“Why you always gotta be someone’s mama, ma’am?” Penny says. “You ain’t my mama.”
Oh no. She shouldn’t have gone there. I wonder if Penny knows about Rose’s past.
“And I’m glad I ain’t a mama to you, you … hoochie!” Rose shouts.
“Do something,” Rufus whispers.
“What?” I whisper back.
“I don’t know, something.”
Penny swaggers up to Rose, and there isn’t but a speck of light between them. “You just jealous cuz I got something to be a hoochie with, old lady.”
“Whoa,” Rufus says.
Rose doesn’t bat an eye. “Least I know how to act my race.”
Ouch. Even Rufus winces.
“I am what I am, ma’am,” Penny says, bucking her little shoulders.
“And what’s that, huh? What they call you, a wigger, right?” Rose says.
“I ain’t no wigger,” Penny spits back.
“Not content to be an American princess, little Penny?” Rose says. “You think it’s cool to be black? Child, it ain’t nothin’ but a weight that’s been on my body since the day I was born. Why you want to put that weight on you?”
Penny’s lower lip quivers. “Cuz … cuz my grandma’s black, just like you.”
Everybody’s real quiet then.
I look more closely at Penny, and, yeah, she got some black in her, that little nose of hers spread out under those wide-spaced eyes.
I look at Rufus. “Did you know?”
“Nuh-uh,” he says. “She don’t look like it at all. Her nose is kinda flat, though. Maybe she is.”
Rose’s body shakes a little. “You ain’t black, child.” But I can tell by the way she says it that she’s not sure.
“I am.” Penny drops her eyes. “Grandma’s light-skinned, a little lighter than Emmanuel. I wasn’t supposed to ever know.”
Rose blinks. “When … when’d you find out?”
Penny’s eyes well with tears. “Just before I came here.” She wipes at her eyes. “It’s why I left in the first place.”
“How did you find out, child?” Rose asks.
“Grandma told me.”
“Let me understand this,” Rose says, looking over at us then back to Penny. “You ran away from home because you found out you were part-black?”
“No.” She turns her back on Rose.
“Why then?” Rose asks.
Penny looks up at the stars. “Cuz no one told me, and cuz I was the last one to know.” She turns back. “My mama, who’s half-black but so light you’d never know it, my mama forbid me to date black boys. Can you believe that? She told me that white girls don’t mess with black boys. And all the while, she knew. She knew.”
“I don’t think there’ll be a catfight now,” Rufus whispers.
“Shh,” I say.
Rose’s face softens. “Why … why didn’t you tell me?”
Penny’s mouth opens and closes as more tears fell. “I guess I thought … I just … I just hoped you would notice without me having to tell you.”
“Cuz of the cornrows?” Rose asks.
Penny drops her chin to her chest. “I don’t know, I just thought … I just thought black folks would recognize me as one of their own. I mean, I grew up white. I was a princess, just like you said.” She shoots a look at me. “My real name’s Jessica Anne.”
“Jessica Anne?” Rose says, and she laughs softly.
“Yeah. Pretty white, huh?” Penny shakes her head. “I just … I don’t know the first thing about what it means to be black, and I need to know. Why else you think I’d invite myself along tonight with y’all?”
Rose smiles and puts her hands on Penny’s face. “You’re startin’ to sound Southern and black, girl.”
“I am?”
“You just said ‘y’all.’ That’s a mighty big step.” She runs a hand through Penny’s hair. “And you got better than good hair, child. Wish I had me some of this.”
“It doesn’t stay braided long enough,” Penny says.
Rose places her hands on Penny’s sagging shoulders. “I know a few tricks.” Rose turns sharply to us. “Y’all just gonna stand there or what?”
“I, uh,” I stutter, “I don’t know what—”
“Come over here,” Rose orders, and we get to stepping. “Now get up in here and give your sister a hug. Both of you.”
“Yes ma’am,” I say, and I pull Penny to me as she weeps. My eyes are filling, too. What is happening to me?
“Why are you crying?” Penny whispers.
“It’s nothing.” I pull away drying my eyes on my shirt and walk down the sidewalk to wa
it while Rufus lifts Penny high into the air and calls her “Sis-tuh Penny!”
Rose walks up to me. “You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“You hurtin’?”
“Some.” But not for a fix. Or maybe I am, I don’t know. I’m just irritable all of a sudden. I should be happy that Penny found “her people,” but I’m not. She just found her “family” on a bridge over the Licking River. Why can’t I be so lucky?
“We’ll get on back then, get you some of that pie, okay?” She squeezes my arm.
“Yeah.”
The pie is delicious, reminding me of Sunday lunch after service at Ebenezer, but I’m not feeling the conversation Rufus, Rose, and Penny are having.
“I do so got some extra on my behind,” Penny says.
“But you ain’t got back,” Rufus says. “You ain’t got you a shelf.”
“You don’t need one and you don’t want one, child,” Rose says. “You got to learn to do with what you have.”
“I’m going to bed,” I tell them, putting my dish in the sink.
“I’ll walk you up,” Rose says.
“That’s all right,” I say. I force a smile for Penny. “See y’all in the morning.”
“Good night, Man-well,” Penny says with a giggle.
I go up to my room and get into bed. I turn on the TV to a baseball game and half watch while I try to think.
I feel … I feel like a guy stuck on second base who has to keep running back to the bag, who can’t go to third because he isn’t fast enough to steal the base, who’s stuck halfway from home. It’s hard to be half a man. It’s like I’m up at the plate with a toothpick trying to hit a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball. It’s helpless to be half a man. It’s like I’m some outfielder staring up into the night looking for a ball that will never come down, but if I don’t catch it I’ll catch hell from the coach and get booed by the fans. It’s futile to be half a man. It’s like I’m a pitcher trying to throw strikes but the strike zone keeps moving so no matter where I throw it the ball is high and outside or low and away and the only word the umpire knows is “Ball!” It’s frustrating to be half a man. It’s hard, helpless, futile, and frustrating. No one ever hugged me like that and called me “Bro-thuh Emmanuel!”
Then that scratchy voice visits me again.
Cincinnati’s right over there, Manny, just across that river. You’re on the slave side of the river, boy. Go get yourself free. Big city like that, I bet you can find a nice corner.