Genesis Begins Again

by Alicia D. Williams

  I stuff Billie Holiday’s biography in my backpack and fling it over my shoulder, already itching to read it, and on my way to the front doors—there’s one more bathroom. If she’s not in here, I’m gonna feel real stupid for wasting all this time searching for her. Still, I push the door open, calling out, “Sophia, are you in—”

  Sophia’s standing at the sink. Just standing there, with her face bright red. And I’m no expert, but it looks like she’s been crying. And instantly I get a flashback of me crying in the bathroom just two days ago.

  “What’s the matter? What happened?”

  “There’re no more paper towels,” she says, washing her hands.

  “What? Paper towels?” I check, and okay, there aren’t. “So, just wipe your hands on your pants and come on.”

  She doesn’t move. These suburb kids need what Dad calls street smarts. You’ll never find a Detroit kid wiggin’ out about the lack of paper towels. Shoot, we’d be lucky if there was toilet tissue. Sophia still doesn’t move. I start to worry that there’s something seriously wrong. There’s only one real reason that someone would be hiding out in the restroom with a flushed face. And it’s called “Don’t let me catch you after school.”

  “Who’s messing with you?” I ask.

  “Huh? Nobody’s picking on me. It’s just—” Sophia holds her hands up, water runs down her wrists. “It’s just that they’re out of paper towels, someone should tell them.”

  “They’ll figure it out,” I say, considering what’s really up with her. So I ask, “You good? You’d tell me if you weren’t, right?”

  Sophia nods, but doesn’t follow me to the door.

  “You really need paper towels?” I ask, and she nods a second time. “Fine.” I run all the way to the other bathroom, grab a handful of towels, and run all the way back. “Here.” And then I ask again if she’s okay for real, she tells me that yes, she’s fine and wishes I’d stop asking because it’s starting to weird her out, thank you. Then, she waits for me to open the door as if she’s the queen of England and passes without further explanation. Outside, when the wind shifts our way, Sophia calms down and admits that she freaked out about her social studies test.

  “I did awful,” she says.

  “Of course you didn’t,” I assure her, but heck if I know. I tell Sophia all about my great library find. And as soon as we part ways, I get the book from my backpack and slowly cruise home, reading Billie’s story. I skim through the pages and catch phrases like “. . . moved around due to poverty . . . income paid for her addictions . . . fragile relationship with her father . . .” I stop right in the middle of the sidewalk. Dang.

  thirteen

  Friday evening, Dad drops me and Mama off at Grandma’s to borrow her car. Grandma hardly drives her Cadillac anymore, claims her eyes aren’t what they used to be. It’s a good thing, too, because apparently riding the bus all the way from Farmington Hills is not only wearing Mama out, but expensive. Did I mention that I have to stay overnight, too? Yep, Mama’s working all weekend, Dad has weird new hours, and neither will let me stay home alone.

  Now, you know my grandma is preachy, right? That’s why the next morning I’m already up before she has a chance to rant about how only lazy people sleep in.

  But I don’t go to the kitchen for breakfast. I can’t help myself from moseying to the big picture window in the living room, hoping Mama’ll pull up any moment. Grandma’s living room is cluttered with porcelain angels and a bunch of other breakable knickknacks. Next to the grandfather clock stands a huge six-shelf case that’s a shrine of ancient photographs. There’re pictures of young Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding, her standing with her mama and dad, and more of Grandma and Grandpa way before he died, and Grandma and her sisters. The photographs look so old that those folks could’ve sang “The Drinking Gourd” for real. So I’m thinking there’s got to be some passed-down story like the one Mrs. Hill shared. I’d ask, but Grandma might tell me one about baby Jesus and Bethlehem for the rest of the afternoon.

  Mama’s baby pictures—at least ten!—sit safe and protected in gold frames. She looks like a little white baby, all posed in pretty, frilly dresses. Grandma has three small pictures of me. One is of me crying on Santa’s lap, another from kindergarten, and the last one of me, Mama, and Dad—that one doesn’t have a frame. I wipe off the dust and slide them near the front.

  Grandma comes bursting in just as I finish. “Here you are,” she says. She then examines the photographs, and shifts the ones I’d moved back to where they’d been. She picks up one of Mama’s baby pictures. “People would stop me on the street and tell me how beautiful your mama was. She was a good baby too . . . hardly ever cried.”

  “My dad says I’ve got Mama’s smile.” I beam proudly.

  “Hmph . . . that’s what he says?” She says this as if it’s not true, but I know Daddy wouldn’t have admitted it if it wasn’t.

  I decide to ask Grandma about our history. She eagerly begins telling me—again—who was baptized in an actual river, and the ages when each kin strode down the aisle to meet Jesus. But I know all that—I want the history she hasn’t told me. So I point to a picture that she always skips over. “What about her?” Could she have been the one to sing old spirituals?

  Grandma can barely glance at that one. But she does say, “That’s my sister, Elizabeth. She’s not with us anymore.” Then she clears her throat. “You hungry? I could use more coffee.”

  I don’t answer, and quickly try again. “My music teacher told us about her great-great-great granddad who was a slave. Did we have slaves in our family?”

  Grandma gives a sniff. “No, we did not come from slavery,” Grandma says, enunciating each word. “Our roots are filled with senators, architects, lawyers, and even ministers. Now, I can’t speak for your father’s side, but we come from hardworking people. My papa and grandpapa before him owned their own land down in North Carolina.” Grandma takes a seat on the couch, and I sit beside her. I want to ask how they got the land in the first place, ’cause in social studies we’re only taught that Blacks weren’t allowed to own property—and then the lesson jumps all the way to Rosa Parks not getting off that bus. So what Grandma’s saying doesn’t add up. I’m also curious about Dad’s side. Daddy’s mama died when I was a baby, so I ask Grandma if she knows much about her.

  “Of course I do. You don’t think I’d let my daughter marry someone without knowing their family, do you?” She rocks herself up out of the couch and goes to the kitchen. I’m right on her heels asking, “What was she like?”

  “What was she like? Hmph, country and unrefined.” Grandma pours coffee into her cup.

  Did my other grandma fry catfish on Friday nights? Or tell funny stories about Dad and his brother? Would she have fussed at me about looking like her son? Or wrapped her arms around me and tell me that she loved me just the way I am?

  “Your father looks like her.” Grandma opens the kitchen curtain. A brown bird quickly flies away from the ledge. “She didn’t care for my Sharon. Claimed we acted uppity . . . because we were ‘yellow.’ ” Grandma snatches the curtain closed. “What kind of nonsense is that?”

  I can tell right then that Grandma’s the one who didn’t like Daddy’s mama. Based on how often Grandma puts Dad down, I’m realizing that she was the one acting stuck-up. And if that’s true, then maybe Grandma wasn’t feeling Dad because she didn’t get along with his mother? Whoa.

  “Grandma?” I start, deliberating about asking this question, but I need to know. “Why don’t you like my dad? Is it because his mama called y’all yellow and stuff?”

  Grandma gives me a sharp look. “What makes you think I don’t like your daddy? I’ve never told you such a thing.”

  Should I be totally honest? Why not. “It’s just that sometimes the way you talk about him makes me feel like you don’t.” I sit at the table, hoping she’ll sit, too, and be truthful.

  “Well, Genesis, some things are just . . . complicated.” Grandm
a eyes me, as if judging how much I know.

  “What is?”

  “I shouldn’t be talking to you about this, not without your mother, anyhow.” Grandma taps the windowsill. Is she nervous? Irritated? Finally she sighs and says, “But this conversation has been coming for a while now. I guess it’s about time for you to know some things.”

  “What things?” My heart starts beating like crazy. She sounds like she’s about to reveal some major secret.

  “That picture you asked about . . .” Grandma starts easing into the chair across from me.

  “Your sister?”

  “Yes. Lord, I haven’t told this story in years.” Grandma struggles with her next thought. “My daddy, you see, was a good man . . . a proud man. Everything he learned was passed on from his papa.” She clears her throat, continuing. “Now, my daddy used to tell us how his papa would get so frustrated with the other Blacks in his county, Nash County. He said they bowed, scraped, and sharecropped for seed just to end up owing everything to white folks. But not my grandpa . . . he didn’t till no land or work in any mill. He was smarter than that.”

  I’m listening real close, picturing Dad working hard and sweating harder at the plant, and then of Troy’s dad all finely dressed, sitting at a computer. So I interrupt. “Why’d he get mad at ’em? I mean, somebody had to sharecrop, right? Why’d they be dumb for that?”

  Grandma looks stumped for a beat, then says, “I’m not saying they were dumb, I’m saying they weren’t . . . motivated. There were better jobs.” Grandma takes another sip of coffee. “My grandpa, he knew enough not to break his back. He sold insurance, moved the family to Durham, and worked at North Carolina Mutual . . . a Black insurance company.”

  I’m not sure what any of this has to do with Grandma not liking Dad, so I remind her of my question.

  “You see, Genesis, the folks my grandpa sold insurance to, those folks working in the mills and doing the hard manual labor were Black men. And, the poor sharecroppers? Black men. If he was able to get ahead, why couldn’t they? Then he realized something—most of these men weren’t just regular brown- or light-skin men, but . . .” Grandma stops herself.

  My face must look as confused as I feel because then Grandma glances around, lowers her voice. “My grandpa understood that the only way we were going to stay ahead, as a family, was if we marry up.”

  “Whaaa? Marry up?”

  “Look hard at those pictures, child. You can see how attractive our family is. And every one of us had respectable jobs.” Grandma inspects a small nick on her coffee cup, then says softly, “Elizabeth, she was the most appealing of all four of us girls. Papa never said it, but we all knew she was his favorite. And she knew the family expectation, but what does she do?”

  Grandma barrels on, not expecting an answer. “I remember the day she came back home from the university. She was so happy, her new beau by her side. You could see it in her eyes.”

  Now Grandma’s gaze shifts from inspecting the cup to eyeing me. “Papa took one look at him,” she says, “went to the kitchen and got a brown paper bag. He stepped up to Elizabeth’s beau, held the bag next to his face, and dropped it right there in Elizabeth’s lap. Then he marched out the house without saying a word. She knew what that meant. And she cried and cried, but Papa was resolute. He wasn’t about to break with family tradition . . . not for Elizabeth, not for love, not for nothing.”

  A bag to the face? Wait—I’m trying to work it out—no! Nope, nope, nope, it’s too . . . terrible . . . to consider. But Grandma’s face says yes, consider. Consider that a brown paper bag was the determining factor to decide who to love, who to let into the family, who had the right color skin.

  My hand goes to my mouth, my thoughts fraying.

  “Genesis?”

  How can Grandma be proud of that? Be proud of any of this?

  “I can tell what you’re thinking,” Grandma is saying.

  No, no, no, she can’t. I don’t even know what I’m thinking besides—my great-grandfather put a bag up to his daughter’s boyfriend’s face! But things are starting to make sense. All the times I’ve stared at Grandma’s photographs, in the back of my mind I kind of noticed that everybody was light skin. And I wasn’t truly bothered that Grandma only had three pictures of me—and just one of Dad—Mom’s not great about taking pictures. But I get it now. We don’t fit the mold to be in her shiny gold frames. How did I not realize this before? I feel so—stupid.

  Grandma tries again. “It’s shocking to hear, I know. But I’m not telling you this to confuse you or get you angry.” Grandma reaches across the table for my hand. I don’t reach back. “Understand that my grandpapa was a forward thinker. Our lineage is full of doctors and professors and successful businessmen. It’s not luck, Genesis.”

  It is luck, my entire insides are screaming. Luck to be born the right color, the right shade of light. Luck to be able to shove a bag next to someone’s head, knowing no one will ever shove one next to yours. Luck to only use lemons for spots on your hands and not your entire body. Grandma’s luck. Great-grandpa’s luck. But me? Dad? And I ask her, flat-out. “Would he have turned my dad away?”

  Grandma’s gray eyes go soft. She rubs that stupid nick on her mug. Finally, slowly, she tells me how she pulled out a brown bag for Dad. “I pleaded and prayed, but . . . your mother—she didn’t care anything about tradition and sacrifice.” Grandma dabs the corner of one eye.

  Is this what Grandma meant when she reminded Mama that Dad wasn’t the type of man for her to marry? Impossible. Grandma calls my name again, and I realize I’ve scooched my chair back, farther away from her. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  “Oh, Genesis.” She reaches out to me again. “You must understand—it was never anything personal. It’s just . . . look around. Who’s getting arrested? Who gets the worst jobs? Don’t you see, honey? My papa didn’t make the rules; he just understood them.”

  I hate, hate, hate to admit that she might be right. Yet my mind is racing because . . . because I’m reminded of the times girls said, “I thought you were mean,” just because I’m dark. Or even when kids called me ghetto and dumb. I hear it all the time. And who’s to blame? Mama for loving Dad? Dad for his strong genes?

  “Truth is, I’ve come to realize that Elizabeth, who like your mama, married her man anyway, well, her husband was one of the good ones. He took wonderful care of her and . . . and was a smart businessman. But no one could’ve predicted that, not even my papa.”

  The good ones. One of the good “dark” ones.

  I’m suddenly struck by another terrible thought: If this marrying-up business is what Grandma’s family has always done, Mama clearly married “down” by marrying Daddy. So Grandma can’t help but to look on me with shame. The same way Dad looks at me when he’s drunk.

  Wait—so . . . so did Dad try to marry up himself? And it didn’t work, because look at me. And now I know—I don’t guess or think—I know for sure what sends him to bars and casinos. Me.

  I jump up from the table. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  Grandma’s face relaxes. Of course it does. I’m leaving the room!

  My brain is buzzing like mad. What if I inherited all Dad’s ways? What if no one recognizes that I’m . . . one of the good ones?

  And you know what? Sayings like “Beauty isn’t everything” and “Beauty’s on the inside” or “Be Black and proud” are lies. Flat-out lies. If someone ever offers me one of those stupid lines, I promise I’ll scream loud enough to make the walls of Jericho tumble down, because beauty is everything. I’ll tell you what beauty ain’t. It ain’t some organ hidden on the inside—no one cares about how good your heart is. And another thing, being Black like me ain’t nothing to be proud about.

  I can’t stop fuming over Grandma’s revelation even after I’m done with my chores. I’m still boiling as I finish up my homework. Her theory can’t still be true nowadays, can it? Take . . . Troy! He’s dark, and he could seriously be a senat
or, mathematician, or something. But according to Grandma, he’s one of the “hood” ones, until proven otherwise, like . . . my dad?

  The questions keep flooding in. If I’m the spitting image of Dad, does that mean he hates the way he looks too? And you know what suddenly comes to me? This is why I shouldn’t feel bad for trying to make friends with light-skin girls. ’Cause if I’m with them—well, then it means they think I’m okay, and then everybody would think I’m okay, and eventually I’ll blend in to be one of them . . . kinda. Whoa. I think my brain is going to explode.

  Grandma sidles up beside me and tugs on my clothes. “Stand up straight.” I gape at her—but then she quickly says, “Grandma doesn’t mean any harm with her fussing. Can’t you see Grandma loves you?”

  Good question.

  fourteen

  As soon as Grandma falls asleep, I search the kitchen drawers for a paper bag. Ain’t no reason to raise it to my face; my hand fails the test—as I knew it would. What am I, like three, four . . . five shades darker? Stupid, ugly bag.

  Immediately I grab two lemons, three yogurt cups, and a scouring pad. Well, how else am I supposed to exfoliate? It’s an extra-strength trial type of night.

  I plant myself in the center of the bedroom and wait for the voices. Even welcome them. Dad. Grandma. Grandma’s papa. Regina. Chyna. Porsche. Terrance.

  Who you think’s gonna love you . . . ?

  Every single night I’ve prayed for God to make me beautiful—make me light. And every morning I wake up exactly the same.

  Look at you . . . thick lips, big nose, nappy hair, and blacker than black. . . .

  I start with my left arm and rub with the scouring pad. Light at first. The voices get louder, and I press harder.