Ellen Foster (6 page)

What do you think I should do? What would you do if you was me?

She wanted to know what I usually do.

I always turn the next age during the day then I go to bed and feel different.

How about a little celebration?

That is not for me. The only girl I know good to invite is Starletta and she by herself is not a party.

Sure she is!

She came to my house. Starletta came on Saturday morning and she brought the present and the little town just like I requested.

She was proud because she had only lost the post office and the fire marshal.

I took her right into my room and unfolded the town. I tried to trick her into letting me keep the town and she keep the present she brought. I figured it being wrapped up would appeal to her but she was not paying attention to me but to looking all under the bed and examining all that was not nailed down.

This was party enough for Starletta. She did not need cake or a matinee movie to have the fine time.

She liked the idea of scratchy carpet on the floor and all into the closet and under the bed she crawled on her stomach. She was in love with rubbing all her body parts on my floor.

When she got through touching in my room we loaded up and went to the movies. Julia dropped us off and said to be good and wait inside after it was over.

Starletta was the only colored girl at the movies and she was mine. When it got our turn to get tickets Starletta could not produce her dollar.

Oh God I said to Starletta and pulled her off the line where I could search her.

I told her to stand still and be lucky that I am not the police that will rough you up a little in the process. I searched all up in her shirt and around the rim of her drawers where a mama will usually pin a dollar.

I finally found the dollar rolled up and stuck down her sock.

She was better than I expected her to be in the movies. She squirmed a little at the start but when she got used to the dark and the music she went to sleep.

Roy had a cake on the kitchen table when we got home. It featured my name Ellen in curvy letters like a bakery but Roy swore he made it. It tasted the way you might expect pink to be.

They scared my pants off telling me to make a wish so loud. I wished I could make the wish later when I could think to myself.

Starletta stared at her slice until I told her it was food and to dig in. She did not understand how slices and modest servings go so I had to tell her when to quit eating.

Save some to take home with you is what I told her.

It made me grin to think of Starletta having some birthday cake after her supper. She took a hunk with the N part out of my name.

The cake left the table and here come the presents.

It was just Christmas and you know all the things I got then now just look at all the presents on this table. Julia said they went all out.

Starletta waved and pointed to the one she brought so I opened it first. It was not in a box but wrapped as is.

Her mama had made me a Dutch girl pillow to stick on my bed. You can always tell one by the hat and the shoes.

Tell your mama I thank her I said to her. Say it over in your head and out loud so it will not leave your head.

Roy and Julia gave me a round thing with colored pencils
stood up in circles and circles until the white one at the top in the middle you use to make clouds with is the point by itself. You will always grab for that one first.

But the pencils were not all. There was oil paint.

We do not even have paint like this at school. I said Julia this is like your paint.

By God they are oil paints that do not wash out or off with water and to change a picture idea after you have started one you just have to tear the whole business up and start over. You can use them to paint something the way it is supposed to be not all watered down but strong.

I want to thank everybody for the party and gifts and Starletta especially for coming.

Old Starletta is amazed at all the pencils and little tubes spread out over the table. She would smear her whole self up like a trick or treat Indian if I let her.

I told her do not even think about it. I am serious about this art supply. You can have my old crayons if you need something to ruin.

When she was standing at the door for Roy to ride her home I gave her the crayons and her town. I did not ride to get her or to take her home because Roy and Julia were afraid of who I might see on the way. They lived miles from him but Starletta is a neighbor. I thought about him too and we all walked outside to say goodbye.

You tell your mama.

9

My daddy came my way. I did not go his.

He stayed in that house I know stewing thinking how to wring my neck.

He came to the school one day during naptime. We always put our heads on the desks to rest for a while. I cannot sleep in that position so I fake it. There is nothing to do but fill up your pencil tray with spit.

The day my daddy came to school nobody got a good nap.

My room then was on the front of the school that looks like a red shoebox. I heard a car sound outside and knew without thinking long that it had to be him. My whole self knew at the same time and my eyes had spots.

I dreaded to look at him. If I had seen this on television he might have looked funny but since it was me and real life I could not see the humor.

The teacher had to be on coffee break so I took over.

Everybody sit back down and stay quiet, I said loud. They all wanted to see what was outside.

He did not know exactly what room I was in so he made a general announcement for the whole building.

Get the hell out here is what he told me to do.

He had parked his truck in the flower bed the special handicapped children had planted. Later that day when they saw the mashed ground and the obvious dead marigolds they each threw little separate fits. The kind you would throw if somebody said the end of the world was coming up shortly.

He stepped out of the truck waving some cash money and telling Ellen dammit to come back he would pay for it.

Then my teacher came back in the room and looked at me like I invited him. She told the children to finish their naps but who would sleep when that man Ellen’s daddy is outside?

You have to wonder what they will remember when they are big. A man coming to school? A man waving dollars and screaming? One man my daddy waving dollars, yelling and undoing his britches during naptime?

I told the teacher I could make him stop. Just give me a pistol and then go out there and scoop him up.

It does not even make me squint to see that in my head anymore.

I yelled for him to put his dollars on the ground and go back home. There was no sense in him leaving with the money.

When he heard me he stopped still like a bird dog when you blow the silent whistle. He wondered where my sound was coming from.

The police came in a while and slapped the bracelets on. We all watched him go away.

Somebody sent for Julia and she came to me finally. Her art room is in the back apart from the rest of the school so she had not seen the time but she pulled my head to her stomach and said to let’s go home.

When we got home I stopped feeling dazey and wondered if he had left the money. She took the dollars out of her purse and then I had them.

Hot damn I thought.

It was back normal for a while until Julia and Roy came in my room for a chat. He did most of the talking. She mainly patted the bed beside her and held her fingertips up to her nose holes.

He told me the court believes you should be with your family now.

I do not believe it. It sounds crazy to me because the three of us could pass for a family on the street.

But it was true and the next week I went in front of the judge.

Julia bought me a dress for court we both hated. She said it is not exactly our style but there are some times when you have to play the game she learned the hard way.

It had a sailor neck collar and she said here is the worst part. Lace stockings and black patting leather shoes. Conformity she said.

When we went in the court I thought staying in the middle of Roy and Julia was best. My daddy was over there in the middle of two police but you still have to be careful.

And lo and behold my mama’s mama.

I had not seen her since the graveyard and there she is again to watch this time.

They talked mainly above my head. Usually I can jump in and hang on to what you are saying but I felt so dazey in my head again that not a word made sense.

Then the judge in the box who was extra old to have a job talked right to me. He said he had grandchildren of his own and could certainly understand her point.

Whose point? I needed to know.

Then I caught on it was she my mama’s mama. She was it. I knew when she looked down the row at me with the kind of eyes that say ha ha I got you now.

All the arrangements are made they said so why bring me in here and do this in front of everybody like Julia who wants to scream she says. What do you do when the judge talks about the family society’s cornerstone but you know yours was never a Roman pillar but is and always has been crumbly old brick? I was in my seat frustrated like when my teacher makes a mistake on the chalkboard and it will not do any good to tell her because so quick she can erase it all and on to the next problem.

He had us all mixed up with a different group of folks.

On Sunday the food at my new mama’s is as good as it can be.

The only thing is you have to go to church before you can have one bite.

Usually a child will make a fuss about going to church but we do not. You might expect us to tug at our hats and kick the pews but we know better. We behave like we are somebody because my new mama gets part of the collection money every week. That goes for our support, our food and clothes.

You go in that church and act genuine. Even if you think what he has to say that week is horse manure or even if you believe it is a lie you sit there and be still. Worse could happen than for you to sit for a hour. You could be where you came from.

I mostly read the stain glass windows and wonder all about who they are in memory of.

We have windows like the Pope has but his are art. I know all about that.

The preacher says that today yes even on this very day his word will free us from the torments and distractions of the mind.

It is hard to be a hypocrite. I look at the preacher and at my new mama and fix my face to look like hers. We all sit lined up with faces like hers. She says to be appropriate.

It is hard too when you want to smile at the collection plates set up on the altar spilling over with folding money. Every Sunday she gets her fair share. Reach down and give! I want to announce to the sinners.

All of us but the baby boy Roger is expected to be here on Sunday. Some teenage women tend to him in the nursery. He is much like Starletta except he is white and a baby boy.

We always get in here and to our places before the organ prelude. That way folks can see us and rest sure that their money is well spent.

Dora and her mama attend this church on special holidays like the Lord’s Supper and Thanksgiving. They both glide all down the row and wish they had mink stoles to flag in our faces. They stay too dressed.

When I had to live with them a while we would come to
this church even before I learned the name of my new mama. Of all the ladies in the church that could make into a new mama she of all people was the one for me. Even when I got back to Dora’s house I thought about her and all that she looked like to me.

I watched her in the churchyard when she would walk straight and square down the steps like she might be a Queen or a lady going to be executed with dignity. Down the steps she would go by the gossipy ladies quiet and I always tried to catch her eyes. Lord eyes that would flush all the ugly out of your system and leave in you too much air to breathe.

She certainly was a oddity and I had to step back when I saw her and was not looking for anything in particular but knew her time was what all that I needed to grab. I would think when I went to the house and write down ways and tricks of how to have her.

Now it is done. It worked and I pat myself on the back each Sunday I walk down the steps close as I can be up next to her.

When or if you come to my house now after church you will smell all the things that have been simmering on low. It has been waiting for me and me for it.

If I am very hungry my dress comes off of me in a heartbeat. Sometimes I hurry too fast and I forget to unzip my back. It is helpless to smell lunch through a dress that is hung on your face. I have busted a zipper and ripped two neck collars trying to strip and my new mama told me some things about patience.

I stay starved though.

Everything we do almost on Sundays has to do with food.
When we finish the meal on hand it is time to prepare chicken salad, ham salad, bread, three bean soup, or what have you for that week’s lunch boxes. That way my new mama says she has a head start and will not need to go crazy in the morning times when there is already breakfast to get in you and coats to get on you.

I know that ten years from now I will be a member of the food industry. Or I might read or do art. I have seen many pictures drawed or painted of food. They always appeal to me.

Everybody like me, Stella, Francis, my new mama, Jo Jo, but not the baby are involved in this Sunday cooking. Only Stella and me came with useful experience so we get to work the stove. My new mama says I fry a mean egg.

Today it is bread and soup. It does not sound like much but it is hardy and I like to show it off in the lunchroom when all the other people have a measly tray of this or that.

When we are in the kitchen we are a regular factory. It is just on Sundays we all get to cook supervised. The rest of the week we learn one at a time.

Jo Jo gets time off from the kitchen to practice dancing to her records. Not rock and roll but slow and no singing music. Some of the records I cannot tell apart but some of them I get in my head and use them for background music for my old stories.