The Kid (26 page)

Thirteen going on fourteen, a boy. The side of my face itches like hell, the skin tightening as it heals? I want to scratch it. Scarred face, black, Harlem—all that go together? Yeah, Jaime, I look like Denzel except my face is scarred. Permanent. I ain’t Crazy Horse. I’m a stupid kid, nigger, like they say in public school, with a gash across the side of my face for life, not Crazy Horse. No cheeseburger, I remember the quiche, spinach and cheese, about to be chucked up with all the chocolate cake I’d eaten. I crawl through the window over the ledge falling, falling down to 125th Street. They’ll all be sorry now. But I never got to the window, I just threw up. I wish I had got to the window.

“Auntie Sweet point to Big Pink, who ain’ even pink, point to de little hogs suckin’ at her tits. De tits pink. Look at de little one, Auntie Sweet say, ’Member when dey was inside Big Pink? Yeah, I say, ’n now dey on de outside! Well, she say, dat’s what done happened to you, you got a little one inside of you. Hog! I holler. No fool, a baby, a little boy or gal. How? Well, from you ’n Jonesy doin’ de nasty, I hear it right. You ain’ storyin’, is you? Naw, I ain’ storyin’, I tells her. Storyin’ is a whippin’ fo’ sure!”

I’m sitting at one end of the table near the door, she’s at the other end of the table, her chair facing perpendicular to me so I’m looking at her silhouette rocking and talking crazy. She’s hunched back, look like she don’t have a neck. I just feel like the heebie-jeebies listening to her like when a roach scurry across the floor STAMP IT! I never seen a green refrigerator. Underneath some spots of the peeling blue paint you can see the walls was yellow, the color of old piss. Everything here is old, like from the 1950s or something, maybe the ’70s, I’m not sure. When did people have shit like this? I never seen a hog.

“It was twins is what it was! Of course, I didn’t know dat den. So hog, baby, whatevah it was, I knowed I was gettin’ bigger ’n bigger every day.”

She’s like a movie, rocking, the green refrigerator behind her. Insect, I think, I step on her and throw her out. She’s an insect. She ain’t human. Her being human makes me ashamed.

“I be chewin’ on sumptin’ ’n a toof fall out. Or I wake up chokin’ ’n it on a toof, roll ovah ’n spit it out. Dey was half gone when I got here. All gone now. Keep yo’ teef, boy! Den it’s like my bones wax, not my back like it is now, but my legs start to bend, like wax git warm, bend—I gits bowlegged whar I was nevah like that befo’. Auntie says thas what chile birfin’ early do fo’ you. But nothin’ else change ’cept my body, I keeps followin’ Auntie out to de fields every day. Evah git some chicken, Auntie say, eat de bones. Whar I’m gonna git chicken from, I live wit’ her since Mama gone, she don’t give me none. Eat clay, she say. I like the taste ’n it fill me up. Only time I filled up livin’ down dere. Later Beymour tell me, thas wrong. You pregnant, shoulda drinked milk.”

She looks at me. “Gon’ git you some milk.”

Broke-brain retard, what milk? I get up. The only doors I’ve opened since I been here aside from “my” room and front door is the refrigerator doors, ain’t no milk. Like she could read my mind.

“Wadn’t none befo’, but de home attendant from de ’fare, she shop fo’ me sometimes. I got to give her some of de food stamps, but I don’ care, I don’ hardly eat none no way. Gon’ git some milk, it’s milk ’n bacon in dere, biscuit mix, no tellin’ what else. Clay’s got lead ’n shit in it, ain’ always good, Beymour say. He took me to de dentist when I got here. I’m in de field, I got my hoe raised, not high, you know, but I got it raised, you know, you chop ’n you step, chop ’n you step, like dat. Don’ be wastin’ no whole lots of energy raisin’ de hoe all high, ain’ nobody takin’ yo’ picture, you workin’! I grab de hoe so hard, screams Oh, OH, OH! Auntie put her hoe down, walk fast ovah to me. Ride it, ride it! she hollerin’. I pure dee don’ know what de fuck she talkin ’bout. If you’ll excuse my French. Dis hurt more den Nigger Boy bustin’ me open. Dis breakin’ me. Feel like de bones in my back on fire. Shit! Den oohhh weird like a egg PLOP easy thing fall outta me, Auntie say later, fo’ she could ketch it. She pick it up, Hush now, it’s ovah. But I go to hollerin’ again. Whatever it is she done picked up ’n done pulled out, it ain’t movin’. She bite de cord, her teef strong, she ain’t nevah had no kids. Hush, she say, it’s dead. She soun’ sad. I nevah heard her soun’ like that befo’. Ahhh! I scream. Someone say, Ain’ ovah yet, Auntie, sumptin’ still up dere. Well, I wadn’t jus’ screamin’ to be screamin’, thas yo’ gran’mother up in dere—”

I feel my head is swelling. What’s going in my ears like air being pumped into a balloon.

“Yeah, yo’ gran’ma up dere but don’ nothin’ come down. Sun past high in de sky when dey bring Mavis. Ninety-two years old, white folks call her de same thang dey call Auntie, ’n Auntie Sweet: Auntie. Only Mavis tell ’em, I ain’ none of you people’s auntie! Cain’t call me Mavis, don’ call me! But dey call her Auntie Mavis anyway. Master’s first son, white doctor do him ’n forceps clamper his brain, after dat dey call Mavis. Yeah, she say, dey got to call ol’ nigger Mavis! I don’ call her nothin’ at de time’cause I’m layin’ in de dirt in so much pain I’m jus’ goin’, Oh, oh. I’m sho’ Ize dyin’. Bring me some water, Mavis holler, some water ’n hawg grease. I’m fidden to go up in her. Sumptin’ up dere. I think of Big Pink’n her little worm hogs, oh, no! Den I don’ think no more. If my bones was on fire befo’, they thunder ’n lightnin’ now. I don’ know whether it takes minutes or hours, but it feel like all de bones in me is bein’ pulled apart. Den it’s all ovah. Nevah to happen again. Someone say, Shucks, it got hair enough to braid! Big thang, Girl. I feel sumptin’, not proud, but sumptin’. Dirt all ovah my shoulders, I remember dat! A boy ’n a girl done come outta me. Boy died.”

A roach is crawling over the table. She pops it back with her thumb. Splat. I push back from the table, but the leg of my chair sticks in a hole in the linoleum. She looks at me.

“You de first boy to come out alive.”

My skin is crawling.

“I don’ remember from dere. Somehow I musta got back to de cabin. Maybe somebody carry me, maybe I walks. I’m tired.”

Shut up,
I think,
would you just shut the fuck up!

“I lay down on my blanket wit’ de baby on top of me. I wanna throw up.”
Shut up shut up!

“But ain’ nothin’ to throw up. Auntie look at me stretched on my pallet. It’s in de dirt. What I hate ’bout back den—lyin’ on de dirt, birfin’ in de dirt. Auntie say, my name Mary. I look at her, you know thas nice, but I’m tired. Yo’ mama ain’ nevah comin’ back. Why she tell me dat? Youze in my house, she say, why don’ you name de baby after me? I hadn’t thought ’bout it, but if I’d had a minute I woulda said, Dessa, dat was my mama’s name. Make sense to name her dat. Auntie say again, Why don’ you name de baby after me? Auntie? No, fool, Mary, my name is Mary. So dat’s how Mary got to be Mary.”

I feel like roaches is crawling all over me now. I want to scream shut up, shut up! Slap her. The balloon my head has become, every word, every word—pressure. I hate how her back curls over, the ugly hump, how she talk all country and shit. She’s staring in front of her like it’s TV, only turn around to look at me when she got something extra retarded to say, like hog babies or some shit. I unbutton top button of my Levi’s. I don’t know what she’s talking about. She’s talking roaches walking over me, feel crazy. OK, hog babies and all that shit, we so motherfucking crazy. Let’s go crazy. I unzip my jeans take my shit out and start jacking off while she’s talking. OK, the shit is equal now. Up and down up and down up down up down try to see the pretty colors in my kaleidoscope not hogs and country girl busted up down by some river I never seen. Ohhh, I can change the picture, um huh another one comes up instead of this dumb one, I see little blue lights, it’s dark, the dark is smooth like the preemies, how smooth they skin like babies, how strong I am, how the white girl come to Imena’s class looking at me, can’t take her eyes off me, sitting on my dick now, she’s telling me I love you, Papi, or whatever white bitches say I love you ohh shake shake kaleidoscope dick shake don’t break me mirror explain this shit Oohh! to me, what I did to end up with this old bitch talking about Nigger Boys, hogs and shit. Jaime’s asshole is like a velvet apple to my tongue, the smell like leaves from a tree. Ohh! I stand up my dick in my hand pumping now, I feel like a tower of light power like light is in me, not blood ohh ohh! I feel like a beautiful white girl is sucking me off! Shit my hand moving faster and faster and faster!

“Crazy!” she screams. “You fuckin’ CRAZY!”

It come out like white light, divine goodness like Brother John said Jesus so loved his brother as he so loved himself, it is good to touch yourself oooohhhhhhh let Brother John see it go SPOUT OUT SPLAT! How you like that, you old WITCH! Running around talking all that weird old shit. I’m normal normal! Old roach bitch! I run my fist clenched down the shaft of my beautiful penis to the tip and then shake WHAP! Cum splatter onto the plastic tablecloth. Ha, ha, ha! She screaming how she gonna tell the social worker I’m crazy and shit. Let her! Who gives a fuck, I’m just spozed to listen to stupid shit? She ain’t my relative. Maybe I find out my father ain’t really dead or this bitch ain’t my real relative, which I already know she ain’t. I zip up my pants button my fly pull the chair out from the table, grab the back of it like it’s a barre, it’s the right height. First position! Tendu à la second, demi and up, demi and up, now demi grande plié and up. I’m in Roman’s class when I really see myself, discover myself, in the mirror. My hand is on the barre. I’m looking at the flabby thighs and big butt of the white girl in front of me. The meat hangs off her arm between her shoulder and elbow like a dead bird’s wing, her wrists break instead of doing like Roman says,
Extend in a straight line out from the shoulder to the elbow to the wrist like you is holding a giant beach ball.
She’s looking at Roman to see if he’s paying her any attention. I look at him too, then look straight ahead of me at the girl, at all the bodies lined up in front of her jammed in the same position, trying to execute the thing called rond de jambe, hardly anybody able to do it right like Roman had demonstrated. We’re beginners. Everybody’s anxious. I look to the side of me in the mirror. It’s almost a shock, like I’ve never seen before the way the muscles of my thighs stand up and out as if somebody called their name, quadriceps, biceps, soleus, femoris? Quadriceps femoris? I want more books where am I going to get them from harder to steal from the library now that they got that sensor thing. I want to know the names of every muscle, everything in the body, period. Brother John found Christ when he was a little boy. I know here is the Holy Eucharist. Fuck God. The way my black tights are holes and raggedy like Jesus in a way makes my thighs look more perfect. I look in the mirror on the opposite wall, which reflects the mirror on this wall and is endlessly repeating my body! The mirror is magic! Giving yourself back to you over and over again.

We step away from the barre to center floor in front of Roman, who is standing in front of the mirror.

“Glissade, assemblé!”

I stumble. Someone giggles. At me? I’m flooded with humiliation. And determination. What I can’t do, I will. Roman knows it. Fuck these people. Shake shake disappear, motherfuckers, like bits of colored glass rearranged into oblivion with my kaleidoscope.

“Assemblé!” Roman screams. “Like this!” And he shows me with his hands and arms what my feet and legs should be doing. I try again and again. “Leave it for now!”

Inhale, plié.

“Did you hear what I said? I said leave it for now!” Then with something almost like regret he says, “You’ll get it. Don’t worry, boy, you’ll get it.”

“I strikes out when I’m twelve! I had been done lookin’ down de road every day—” she says.

I sit back down for now, exhausted, my barre a chair again.

“Wonder what could be down dat damn road! De road, de road! How far it go, whar it take my mama ’n what’s at de end of it? Sumptin’ pullin’ at my bones. Heel hittin’ de road, dirt ’tween my toes, barefoot in a blue dress same color as dese plates. I bought dese, not Beymour or Betsy, for de house seem like a hunnert years ago. I got dese at Klein’s. I don’ even know if dere is a Klein’s anymo’. Dress same color as hour befo’ night sky. Same color as my dreams!”

I look at her.

“Huh! I got dat dress off a clothesline, one of de missuh’s children! Blowin’ in de wind, like a piece of de sky, I thinked. I’m young I ain’ nevah been afraid to take sumptin’. Beymour liked dat ’bout me. I got on de sky, dust ’tween my toes, little rocks under de bottoms of my feets. Ground feel different. Breathe in, air seem different on de road! Feel like I’m breathin’ in some of Mama, breathin’ out some of de lonely. I don’ even hear Auntie come up behind me, slap me down to de ground, Gal! I get up start to run, she snatch me by de collar of de dress, rip it off. Whar in Job’s name do you a think you goin’! Bap! You jus’ like your nothin’ mammy! Ize standin’ dere in some drawers made outta a sack. Sun hot, I gits cold. Get dark inside, yeah, whar was I goin’, no money food shoes. A blue dress. Dreamin’.”

Passé fifth, passé fifth changement. Hmmm, then what did he do? Oh! Dégagé with the back foot. Fourth. Plié.
That’s your preparation for your turn. Plié, turn—Jon and Sara, doubles. Paul, single. Not you, Abdul, passé relevé only. No turn.
But I will turn.
I said, NO turn!
he screams.
You listen or you get out!
I look at myself in the glass, see how I’m gonna be.

I look at the blue plate, empty except for the rings of thick white grease left by the hamburgers. What is it about plates? What did Miss Lillie say? This kitchen is a rectangle, the table pushed against the side wall. At Miss Lillie’s the table was in the middle of the room, only one refrigerator and a cabinet full of plates. No orange juice, eggs sausage jam pancakes steak fries but plenty plates.
I got them out the washing-powder box. They used to give you something when I was coming up. You need something with a house full of leeches sucking the life out of your purse. I done had them plates longer than you niggers been alive!
White with red roses on them. Baked beans wieners. Batty Boy BAP! Then after that one ear different. Running Knife of the Sioux stabs Miss Lillie’s scout to death. Scout masquerading as a dog! They cared about that! I hate dogs. What they do with Tyrese’s finger? Forget about it, my mother says. I do. What a lot of people don’t know is that the Lakota were the westernmost arm of the Dakota nation. I don’t hate dogs. I want to cut myself. Or pierce, yeah pierce, something. Tattoo? I’m so dark would it really stand out?