Iron Balloons (15 page)

But that night, though, out on the back porch—let me tell you—that little darling really help to calm his mother nerves. Yes, I had my tea and Valium, but they were not enough.

Listen to me. Let me tell you something. Don’t make ghost fool you. Nothing can lift you like the love of a child, any child, but especially a child who’s yours. I had two in that house, but only one was showing me any kind o’ love.

I’d be the first to tell you I was defeated, that I found myself in the situation where what Karen thought of me was the thing that mattered most in life. If at that moment she’d come to me and told me she wanted to spend the rest o’ the month up at Claudia, and if I felt that it would make her come and tell me that she love me, and she not ashame o’ me, I would drive her up to Claudia myself. And if she say she was going up there to live for the rest o’ her life, I would crawl on my knee and beg her not to go. I’d tell her to stay and I’d let her do as she like. I’m not ashame to say it, now. That is how I felt. No lie!

And let me tell you, if that girl had used her common sense, or even humbled herself a wee, I might have been her slave for life. For let me tell you—when your child has you in the kind o’ position like Karen had me, you’re her slave for life, like that woman I saw today in Duane Reade; and whatever they want to do, they do; and whatever they
don’t
want to do, they don’t do. And if they turn out good in the end, they’ll say it was
in spite
o’ you. And if they turn out bad … well, of course, it was
because
o’ you. Any which way you turn, you lose.

Pops went to bed around 10 o’clock. I heard his brother come in through the front door at 10:30. He said hello to his sister two times. She didn’t answer him at all. All the time I could hear her moving through the house. Going to the pantry, the fridge. Then at 11 o’clock, I hear when everything in the living room just one by one shut down.

I called out softly, “Karen?”

She didn’t answer, so I called again. This time my voice was louder, but even more loving in tone.

Who says I didn’t try? You know what Karen do? She slam the bathroom door. And before she slam the door, I hear some teeth get suck.

I didn’t want the boys to know I was crying, so I walk down by the back fence. You want to see me feeling in the dark. For if you move too fast and the clothesline catch you, head gone clean, one time.

So, I feel and feel until I found the stand where we use to bleach the clothes. And I drop my face into my hands and bawl. You’d think somebody dead or I just got a telegram that I lose my job. I don’t remember how long I was bawling for, but it was a good amount o’ time, and is while I was bawling that she made her big mistake.

At first I didn’t hear it. Then I hear it, but I didn’t know is what. Then I figure out is what, but I couldn’t believe that what it was is what I hear.

My fellow classmates and professor, I could hear it just as you can hear me now. Clear, clear, clear, clear, clear. But let me tell you, when I really decide for true that I was hearing what I hear, I cock my head and listen it good to be more sure again. And when I think of what Karen was doing, and how what she was doing indicate where she was going to go, going end up down the line, a spirit rise inside me and a voice say—and when I say “say,” I mean “say,” like how I’m saying this to you here now—“You better get off your ass and go in that house and do what you have to do. Otherwise, you going to lose that child. Don’t care if she hate you. Don’t care if she never talk to you for the rest o’ your life. Don’t care if she even go as far as change her name so nobody won’t know she’s your blood—go in there and do what you have to do. You can’t make this pass. You can’t make this pass. You can’t make this pass at all.”

You know what the girl was doing? You know what the girl was doing? Who in here this evening can stretch their mind far enough to imagine what this girl was doing now, on top of everything she a’ready did that day?

She was singing in the shower. On the top of her voice. Like is “Prostitute” she name. And you know what she was singing? Guess and tell me. Go into the furthest part of your mind where you pu’ down ideas that don’t have no use and things that just don’t make no sense.

The little wretch was singing, “Born Free.”

Wha’ kind o’ idiot she think I was? Because I never finish school she think that would pass me just so? She think I don’t know sarcasm and irony? She think I wouldn’t get the point?

Jesus Christ!

As I start to walk up to the house now, leaves crunching under me like gravel and I get a mind to bus’ her ass with everything I touch. The pole that hold up the clothesline. A piece o’ switch from off a bush. Even down to the little floppy belt on my duster. One time I grab for the rake.

When I step up on the back porch, I turn on the light and see Miss Noddy iron in a corner by the iron board, and a palm it for the cord, but the body was too heavy to maneuver so I put it back. And Jesus Lord, the closer I get—naturally—the louder she sound. And all I can think is,
If I lose her, then the odds is that I’ll lose her brothers. For she’s the oldest. And all this Rasta foolishness is going round. And if she turn worthless, them going turn worthless too.

Singing in the shower like a damn prostitute! What? She crazy? Or is bad she think she bad? In truth, that gal did think she bad. Singing in the shower like a damn prostitute! And worse, she was doing it for spite!

It had to be spite. It had to be spite. Because I never ever hear my daughter do a thing like that before. Never in my life. Never in hers. Because she know my rules. But is not only the rules. She know how a thing like that would make me feel—like a mother who don’t train her children right!

When I step in off the porch, I kick off my slippers by the door. I didn’t want the wretch to hear me coming through the house. Is like I was James Bond or Emma Peel. I go inside the kitchen. Nobody don’t hear me make a sound. And I start to search around. How come when you really want a thing you can never just find it yet? It took awhile, but eventually I found the kind of thing I had to use.

I took my time and pass the rooms. Barefoot on the cool gray tiles. Everything turn off except the bathroom light. Sometimes I stop and listen to make sure she didn’t hear me, then I walk again. I could hear the boys snoring little bit. Good. They were asleep. It was me and she alone.

When I push the bathroom door, the little bugger was so caught up in herself she never hear me. Nothing register to her at all. No change in light. No new shadow. No little something in the air. How you could be in a small bathroom with hot water running and somebody open the door and you don’t sense a little something in the air? You know how? When you feel like nothing can’t happen to you because you’re the ruler o’ the world.

Believe you me, I stood up there with the extension cord in my hand for about five minutes and she didn’t see me. It was a old brown one that was suppose to throw away because one end of it was frazzle out. Well, good. Cause now it was my little cat-o’-nine.

I listen to the singing. I watch her shadow through the blue curtain. I could hear the rag
slop-slopping
as she soap up herself, which mean the licks going soak. How she never see me? Perhaps her eyes was closed.

And the more soap she soaping, and the more sing she singing, the more loud she getting loud—no, it wasn’t just me—and the more loud she getting louder, the more she start to stress the words.

“Booooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn frrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”
Like she was chanting. Then after a while she slow it down, and start to overemphasize each word until it don’t sound like a song no more, but like a political speech.

So what a joy it was when I draw the curtain …
voom
… and she look at me and couldn’t talk.

She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t scream. She open her mouth and cringe but the scream wouldn’t come out, like it frighten too, like it get a glimpse of what going to come.

And I look at her, you know. And I see how she nice and plump and soapy, and I start to imagine all the sounds the strokes going make, and the marks they going leave.

I size up all the juicy parts and then I start to beat.

I brace one foot on the tub, you see. And I grab the shower curtain rail. And when I sure I have a anchor now, I start to put it on. I beat that wretch so much that one time she slip in the tub and I jump in there with her, although the water soaking me and wetting up the floor. And wha’ she do? She kick me—she kick me—and use a dirty word and say she hate me. And is that time now I
really
put it on.

The boys hear the noise of course and come to watch. And before she plead with me to stop or she apologize, Karen start to tell the boys to go away.

“Stop watching me. I’m naked. I’m naked. Mummy, they’re watching me naked. Tell them I’m too old for them to look at me. Tell them to leave me alone.”

And when she say that now, I put it on some more.

As I paint her body red, I look at her and say, “You think you is a woman in this place?”
Whap
. “You think you is woman, eh?”
Spa-DIE
. “What you have to hide?”
Whap
. “You’re brother.”
Whack
. “And sister.”
Vap
. “Same mother.”
Zip
. “Same father.”
Vam
. “And further …”
Whap
. “And further …”
Whap
. “And further …”
Whap
. “You’re a child.”
Skish
. “You’re a child.”
Wha-cka-PIE
. “You’re a child.”
Pie
. “You’re still in school. You’re still in school. You’re still in school. What you take this for? You think you’s a woman in this place?”
Whappa-pappa-pappa-pappa-PIE!

Finally, she said it: “Sorry, Mummy. Sorry. I won’t pass my place again.”

I’m going to be honest with you. While I was beating her I began to feel a little guilty, but not too much, because I had the conviction that what I was doing was right. Because I knew—and even she told me, more than once, years later—that I was saving her life.

You know where she’d gone that afternoon when I had to wait for her for an hour outside her school? Not to the shopping plazas. Years later, she confessed. To an apartment with an older guy.

Claudia was fooling with the fellow. I forget his name.

He use to own a club in New Kingston, near the Pegasus Hotel, and Claudia inveigle Karen to go with her to meet him on a side street near the school; and up in his apartment she saw him take a spoon he use to wear on a chain around his neck to give Claudia cocaine. I was so naïve about certain things, I didn’t even know they had cocaine in Jamaica those times. After Claudia snort it now, the fellow took her in the bedroom and start to use her as a mattress, and poor Karen was so nervous she start to beat down on the door until the fellow open it, and she see Claudia naked on the bed. Is run she run back to school from New Kingston why she was so sweaty. After she left, Claudia make the fellow drive her back to school and she wait for Karen at the front gate to make her promise she wouldn’t tell nobody. So that is how I saw them coming ’cross the hockey field same time.

Listen, I don’t want to bias you against Claudia deMercardo. Is two sides to every story, but the fact remains she’s not alive to give you her own. I don’t want to get into the
why
of it. When I ask, I don’t get anything straight. All I know is they found her body tie up in a car trunk in Fort Lauderdale with plenty bullet in her head. Rumor had it some people took her hostage and her boyfriend run away and didn’t pay. That was maybe 1988.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I apologize for going over time, and I know I maybe didn’t do the “how to” aspect very well. But I didn’t want to push it, cause I saw that certain details make you cringe.

However, if you can allow me one more minute, I’d like to leave you with a bit of advice—love your children but don’t let them use that love to rule you. Harden your heart when you have to, and put it on. They strong, you know. You ever see them on the playground yet? Jumping and rolling and all o’ that?

In Jamaica we say that puss and dog don’t have the same luck. I can’t tell you what will work for you. But I can testify about what work for me.

Listen. Let me tell you something. You think I had any real trouble with Karen after I straighten her out that night? No sir. You think I had to give her something even close to that again? Not at all. I had to drop a little one slap every now and then, for sure. But nothing big like that.

Children have memory, you know, so whenever I got frustrated with her and the arguing and the stubbornness, I use to make it go and go until it reach a certain point. After that, I just say cool and easy, “Karen, I think you’re overheating. You need to cool off. Go take a shower, nuh.”

After that, let me tell you, she see everything my way.

ALL AH WE IS ONE
by Elizabeth Nunez

O
n a steaming hot day on a Caribbean island that shall not be named, an African American couple, Joseph and Anita Streeter, a husband and wife in their forties, walked into the Paradise Country Club with their teenage daughter, Linda. They paused briefly at the reception desk, but finding no one there, headed straight for the changing rooms next to the swimming pool. Ten minutes later they emerged.

Joseph, his black skin gleaming in the brilliant sun, was wearing light blue swimming trunks, his wife, whose skin was not much lighter, had on a red halter-top bathing suit, and his daughter, neither as dark as her father nor as light as her mother, her hair in braids to her shoulders, wore a white bikini that showed off her perky bosom, slim hips, and long, shapely legs. Joseph climbed the steps to the diving board, and looking to his right and left, apparently to make certain no one was in his way, bounced twice on the board and dove into the water, barely making a splash. His wife and his daughter, who were standing at the edge of the pool looking at him, applauded.

“That was fantastic, Joseph,” Anita said when he surfaced.

“Your turn,” Joseph countered.