I turned back to look at the soccer field. Mima stood on the corner but she didn’t look so mad anymore. She looked sad and deflated. Like she was remembering stuff she’d forgotten about: maybe the Christmas that I knitted mittens in her school colors. Or the famous tantrums Colin used to throw when he was a toddler.
I stopped walking and watched her face that was growing soft in the light of the setting sun. She almost looked like she wanted to come with us. But the church lady she was staying with called to her. She waved. I walked away from my sister. I walked more slowly than the others. I thought about my favorite Radiohead song. I wanted to sing apprehensively to kill the tension. The quickly cooling wind brought cold little droplets of rain.
Colin walked close when I rejoined them. He let his arm touch mine. He elbowed me sharply and quickly. He looked straight ahead innocently as if it were an accident. I kicked him hard with my boot in his calf. He howled and crumpled to the ground. I looked straight ahead innocently as if it were an accident. He limped to his feet and grinned.
He started to whistle. I knew all his whistling songs—his tunes and his patterns. I listened to that and his feet stepping.
I was glad Monique and Ratboy liked us, and we were all together. I understood why Daemon was restless and Mima studied so hard, but I wouldn’t leave the house on Cota Street for a long time. I knew we wouldn’t really go back to the swamp with Dad. He would stay at the mill. And our lives would take place on Cota Street.
We stopped at the park and listened to our tape. Then Monique brought out Toots and the Maytals. We took our time getting home.
Mima got grants to go along with her scholarship fund. Montana State University welcomed her. She came to say good-bye to us on Cota Street. She brought four of her closest church friends with her. Colin and I huddled on the back porch and listened to her talk to Dad through the window. Mima kept her back straight. Her friends looked around our house curiously. They eyed the swords, hunting bows, and the painting of the ship hanging on the walls. An axe gleamed above the fireplace. A rifle leaned beside the door.
When Mima and her friends left, Dad looked lost. He stared out the window all day. He didn’t see the neighbor’s yard. He didn’t watch the swing set creaking back and forth with the weight of the little girl swinging on it. He was thinking his thoughts and feeling his sadness. His tired hands gripped the chair arms.
I wondered if he was thinking about Mima singing in the shower—how we could hear her all over the house. I figured he was thinking about those things, and those things were wrapped up so tightly in memories of Mother he just couldn’t move anymore.
We let him sit there. I brought him one of the corn dogs that Colin and I made for dinner. I put it on a plate with a bright circle of red ketchup. He thanked me but didn’t touch it. He told me he would go hunting soon. Finally, after the whole day, he put his face in his hands. He rested there like that for a long time.
Colin and I cleaned the bedroom after Mima left town. We wanted to keep her stuff nice so when she came back she would see how proper we really were. She would see that we hadn’t let any of the Cota kids run up in her stuff and steal everything. We took turns practicing how to talk like the church kids. We said perhaps and God’s love. We rolled on the freshly swept floor in sad fits of laughter. Our mockery was a weapon that protected us—our mirth was a sharp, bloody sword.
Dad snapped out of his sad thoughts the next morning when Daemon came. He smiled at the sound of the motorcycle. He combed his hair and put on a clean shirt. He got to work frying bacon and eggs for all of us.
Colin and I sat with Daemon on the back porch with the door open. We heard the sound of Johnny Horton from the radio in the kitchen. We smelled strong black coffee brewing.
Daemon told us he would stay until we got sick of him. Colin and I cheered. “That’s going to be never!” I told him.
Daemon yelled to Dad through the open door that Mother was weird about some things. That she would come back when she got over it. But I remembered the look in her eyes when she stared out the window and saw sad things. I knew somehow that he was full of it.
I told Daemon that if I ever got married, I would keep my last name. That I would be an O’Neel until I died. He told me he already felt sorry for the poor sucker who got roped into marrying me. He said that a woman as mean as me could take years off a man’s life. Colin whistled happily. Daemon chain-smoked his cigarettes. He drank cheap beer from a tall can. We all waited for the sound of the train.
PART 2
7
THE NORTHSIDE
I got a job at a grade school in the Northside of St. Louis.
In the Northside the ghetto flew at me adamantly. I viewed it in a confused haze. The inner city fluttered impatiently—demanded to be seen—insisted that I know it intimately and immediately. I could not concentrate. I could not drown in my own thoughts. The streets stared at me—waiting. The children watched attentively while I struggled.
The stoplights went from green to red and back to yellow in a pattern that had no rhyme or reason. The custodian, Mr. P, told me that crack fiends pulled the wires out of the streetlights so intersections would be dark at night. He said cars were easier to rob that way.
I watched mentally ill people wander the desolate avenues. I wondered about them. They talked to themselves—yelled out obscenities. They were picked up from the rich neighborhoods and loaded into squad cars. They couldn’t afford medication or therapy. So they slept fitfully in abandoned buildings. They woke in strange places tortured by their own demons. People in the suburbs forgot about them.
I gave them names. There was Bottle Cap Man, who wore a jacket with metal bottle caps pinned like armor across his shoulders. There was Patti Smith, who was proud, frustrated, and brilliant. There was Mirabella, who wore a torn and dirty sequined gown.
I worried when I didn’t catch them in their usual spots. I examined from afar their unmanned stacks of rubble blowing in the wind—the contents of their shopping carts torn to pieces. I wondered what had happened. My mind jumped to awful conclusions.
I watched as Bottle Cap Man crouched in the center of the street—his trench coat flapping in the wind. The tails of his green woolen jacket resembled a dirty cape that might help him fly. He looked like he’d run to that particular spot with the idea of saving someone—only to find that his help was not needed. Or wanted. There was nothing but a chill morning wind and cracked asphalt to greet him. His face held confusion for a moment. He looked like a mistaken superhero. He sprung upright and waved his hands. He screamed silently. He knew he’d made a mistake. The wind and traffic noise blew his words away. I looked at him waiting there. He disappeared behind a garbage truck that did not slow down for him.
The Northside was overflowing with children whose ancestors had been chased there from sundown towns with sticks and rocks. They were forced into the Northside after the rich families moved out—when the pollution from the factories became too much.
The families that now lived on the Northside looked back at their unwritten histories.
The future spread out before them. They knew the truth. They tried not to let their hearts harden irreversibly.
I worked at Meadows Elementary. The trophy case held framed photographs of a much different student body: smiling pale faces all in a row, freshly starched dresses, blond hair, and pigtails tied with ribbons. The pictures were from a much richer time. Long, long ago.
Mr. P caught me staring at the pictures in bewilderment. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered my silent question. I was startled and turned toward him. “Used to be a white school.” He raised his eyebrows at me and kept walking slowly down the glowing, hardwood floor. He pushed his cart filled with squeegees, paper towels, garbage bags, and a bottle of bleach. He whistled a cheerful tune. His eyes sparkled in amusement.
The children at Meadows told me things. They imagined their stories as ordinary. They did not anticipate that my brain would churn each time they spoke. I co
nfiscated their words hungrily. I coaxed them to share more. Their eyes grew round with excitement. They carefully explained the events of their lives. I kept my face grave. I nodded seriously. They dove into heavy details without hesitation. I learned about their lives. I imagined their situations. I tried to make sense of it all, and drew half-baked conclusions that I mulled over late at night. In turn they studied my gestures and got to know my speech patterns. They asked startling personal questions about why my hair was so straight, my eyes and blood so blue, and my words so soft and stumbling.
A fifth grader named Diamond held my hand. She told me I was her “play momma.” Every confidence was precious. Each stare was a mesmerizing, painful experience. I was being patiently judged, and I knew it. I could not blame the children. They had seen too many things. I tried not to misinterpret. I failed often. It was hard to trust. It was hard for all of us.
Meadows smelled like old wood and rats. The hardwood floors were polished to a high gloss. The principal introduced himself to me and the other new girl—Trinise. He proudly explained how important that floor was. He told us that Meadows was famous for it shining so brightly, so vibrantly. I tried to tread lightly on it as if it were something more than wood—something special and secret—perhaps made of gold.
I listened to the teachers discipline harshly. I heard them yell over the large groups of young people. Each voice was straining to be heard.
It was hard. It would only get harder.
Things were overlooked at Meadows Elementary—minor details that demoralized. Little things slipped in between the cracks: spoiled food was delivered at lunchtime, the lack of air conditioning kept us all sweating, fresh vegetables were rare, there was little time for drawing class, too few funds for sports equipment or music lessons, standardized testing took up important time, the district was watching for signs of failure, the fear of losing accreditation loomed, the tap water tasted like turpentine, the mice were out of control, the teachers were overworked. They encountered one problem after another. They were exhausted.
My head was tired after long days at Meadows. I came home with aching temples. I was relieved to fall into my bed at night. I experienced black sleep without dreams. I woke to my alarm and hot mornings. I did not think about anything.
At Meadows Elementary Trinise and I were hall monitors, lunchroom monitors, and playground monitors. We monitored and we monitored.
I watched the fights during recess. Girls fought boys, little kids fought big kids, brothers fought sisters, and cousins spit and cussed at one another. I secretly didn’t find the fights as alarming as I was supposed to. I knew that the children should keep practicing—that there would be a lot more surprise punches thrown. I wanted them to be able to defend themselves against their many enemies who wore different types of uniforms.
I kept the teenaged boys from the neighborhood off the basketball nets. They jeered and flirted. They walked away and looked back at me.
Mrs. Halls told me not to hug the children during recess—they would not respect me if I did. I let them do it anyway. I wondered how I could say no. Their hot foreheads rubbed sweat on my T-shirts. I secretly needed their fierce embraces. Trinise jumped rope with the older girls. I watched her. She asked if I wanted to join in. I turned the ropes for them awhile. But I would not go into the center. I pictured the ropes smacking my head. I was too big for kids’ games.
Mrs. Halls taught fifth grade. She was old and thin. She was hard lines. Narrow glasses perched on her nose. A scowl occupied her face. Her hair was pulled back tightly. Little wisps of white escaped and framed her face. I imagined that she woke at 5 a.m. each morning. She was never late. Mrs. Halls was six feet tall. She was like a stone statue, a skyscraper, or a sturdy oak tree. She had long, bony arms. They did not hug the children. She glared down her nose.
On my first day her eyes estimated me unabashedly from behind her square glasses. Her upper lip was stiff. Her eyes were cold. I wanted her to smile at me or nod her head. But I knew I would have to earn those things. It was hard to trust. We both had our fingers on our triggers.
Mrs. Halls was a giant spider crouched behind her desk. Three hundred miles stood between us. I crossed and uncrossed my arms nervously. Her back was ramrod straight. I said nothing. She firmly told me the rules: I was to be referred to by my last name, Ms. O’Neel, I was to greet her in the mornings, and I was to be polite. I held my hillbilly tongue.
I watched the children in Mrs. Halls’s classroom, and they watched me. I set my notebook on the kid-size table. I looked at the books on the shelf beside me. I watched two young men cross the street and yell to one another. American cars drove by. The sunshine burned up the tired, old neighborhood.
I sketched some of the students—concentrated on faces and eyebrows—the way sunlight reflected off dark skin. I wished that I had colored pencils to re-create the warm tones—brown with hints of red and yellow, shading with purple and blue.
Mrs. Halls scowled when she caught me drawing (I was supposed to be paying attention). My drawings were distracting the students. The children had begun to pose.
I put my notebook away and smiled. She glared back. I sighed, stretched my back, and tried to sit up straight.
Mr. P told me Mrs. Halls did not want me in her classroom. He said I was another injustice put upon her by the state of Missouri. Instead of giving her school district adequate supplies, they gave her me: an eighteen-year-old with a GED who drew pictures. He told me things I had not known: Mrs. Halls was fifty-six years old, Mrs. Halls had a PhD, Mrs. Halls was a longtime member of the Black Panther Party, Mrs. Halls could have gone somewhere else to work—taught at a university. But she came back to the Northside where she grew up.
I had a feeling Mrs. Halls wanted something more than me. She wanted the whole machine to crumble—to stop eating her children.
I met Marvin in the hallway. He was another young tutor. He was supposed to train Trinise and me. When he saw me, he put his hand up as if he were hailing a cab. His eyes showed a moment of surprise. He wore a dress shirt, khaki pants, and shiny shoes. His mouth remained stuck open in shock. He thrust his hand toward me. I shook it and put my head to the side. I crossed my arms again. I did not know what to say. I felt as country as country could be.
Children ran past us on the steps. They screamed excitedly for the sunshine that flowed through the high windows on the landing.
Marvin knew something I didn’t. He looked me over silently and gauged my flaws. He said he would meet with Trinise and me later. He disappeared into a door that wasn’t labeled. I stared after him for a moment. I wished to be as swift and efficient as him—to always know what I was about to do.
I went to the playground and stood around. I read the cuss words written on the children’s toys. A young man stopped on the sidewalk when he saw me. He leaned against an oak tree. He told me, “This neighborhood gon’ eat you alive.” Then he moved on. I heard his laughter all the way down the block.
The next week Trinise and Marvin and I had a meeting. We ate our lunches together.
Marvin’s words were despondent. He was tired of Meadows. He knew the truth—he’d read all the books and could see the future.
Marvin told me that if I walked anywhere on the Northside I should put the hood of my sweatshirt over my blond hair so that I wouldn’t attract as much attention. He told me never to wear my boots on the Northside again.
Trinise didn’t say not to do anything. Trinise packed her lunch in a purple, insulated lunch bag. She ate smartly: celery sticks, yogurt, leftover soup in a plastic container, and bread wrapped in tinfoil.
I watched her during the last recess break. I studied her as she glistened with sweat. I noticed that even when her body was drained of all energy, she wore a smile and a stately, celestial graciousness. She could have been draped in a choir robe and singing angelically. She directed the actions of the antsy schoolchildren with ease. They listened to her.
Trinise was a Pisces, a projects girl
, an aesthetic fashion queen. She lived in new shoes and tattoos. She wore lip gloss and high-heeled boots. She smelled of fresh, musky perfume. Her hair was neatly done. She did nails for spare money. Went to a Baptist church.
I said her name over again in my mind, Trinise. I listened to her speak. I tasted the sounds of her words—the way she swallowed the insides of them and made each syllable a guttural utterance.
That night my empty, black sleep was replaced by dreams of Trinise. I felt myself looking at her from across a vast sea. Saltwater and ocean currents stopped me from coming closer. On the other side of the water, Trinise’s eyelashes swept across supple cheeks. She moved like graceful gelatin. I didn’t know how to swim.
8
STREET WALKING
Marvin, Trinise, and I couldn’t take the children outside. Hustlers used the basketball nets after school got out. There were too many shootings, too many rapes, and too many wars. Police officers were few and far between. They worked without partners. They were scared and didn’t get out of their squad cars. Trinise, Marvin, and I locked the children safely inside during the after-school program. We stayed with them. We ignored our urges to go home. I thought about swimming in bright blue Lake Cushman. I imagined fishing for steelhead in the Wynoochee River. I knew the water in the Chehalis ran vivid and green. In my mind I walked and walked and never stopped dreaming.
I missed my brother like cool, fresh air. Colin and I walked everywhere. We walked uptown and down. We sat in the All Night Diner for too long. We ordered one cup of coffee between us—paid for it with nickels and quarters. We were loud and rude without knowing it. We chased away the tourist customers. Monique or Ratboy or someone else always stopped by to see us. Too many Cota kids were bad for business. We were eventually asked to leave. We stuck to side streets and alleys—our Converse tennis shoes and Doc Martens boots wore out. We tramped in wide, irregular circles. The streets of David were one rain puddle after another—murky chocolate water and potholes. It was a town everyone else drove through—and kept on going. But we walked. We saw what people did inside their houses. The air around the migrant worker camps was perfumed with heavy Guatemalan, Salvadorian, and Mexican cooking spices—cumin, anise, cayenne pepper, and garlic. We smelled oregano and paprika. We looked at the pots of fresh basil along the sidewalks. We imagined the food while we kicked at stones. We looked at the litter in the gutters. We examined the colorful flags in the windows of the travel trailers.
Vera Violet Page 5