Those Bones Are Not My Child (30 page)

“Hmm.”

Kofi dropped to the floor in a cross-legged position and drew his shirt up over his head. He flung it down near Kenti’s feet, but she was drowsing and didn’t look up. Zala was leaning way over from the bottom bed, braiding and braiding, her lap full of beads.

“Ma, do you think it’s Sonny trying to call us?” He held his breath. She was holding hers too. Then her fingers started braiding again. He heard her tell somebody one night that she was through, that Sonny was in charge of his own skin from now on. Who was she talking to? There was no phone in the bathroom. Who was she yelling, at, waking him
up, loud through the wall, saying she didn’t want to look at any more pictures?

“My neck hurts.” Kenti’s chin was in her chest now, her knees on the slide. Kofi watched how his mama’s legs hugged tighter around his sister’s middle. “Whatchu think? Was it Sonny like Kofi said?”

He whipped his belt out of his pants and slung it toward the closet.

“Probably a wrong number,” Zala said, cutting her eye at his belt on the floor. “Gonna run your bath?” Talking to him but looking at Kenti’s hair.

Kofi rolled over onto his stomach and picked at the rug. He let his feet kick against the chair by the desk, but nobody looked.

“Kofi, turn off that TV. Nobody’s watching.”

“Am too watching, Mama.”

Kofi rolled over toward the TV and punched the belly of Kenti’s cot. “You ain’t watchin’. You sleepin’.”

“Am not.”

“I said to turn it off. I don’t want you all watching that show.”

“I like Gary Coleman.” Kenti was whining, and it wasn’t even Gary Coleman, just a scene from what was coming later on that week.

“All that program is doing is telling little boys to run away from home,” Zala said. “See how they do it?” She was pointing the comb at a Mop ’n Glo commercial and not at
Diff’rent Strokes
like she thought. “Nice rich white man and nice big house with a housekeeper and such nice furniture, even got a nice little white girl to be your sister. Sooo much nicer than being in Harlem with your own people who use drugs and steal and kill and look dirty. So run away. Some nice rich white man will take you in and be your daddy. See?”

Kofi didn’t say nothing. When she started talking like that it was best to be quiet. Kenti was quiet too, thinking it over. She didn’t have no better sense, though, than to answer.

“You a mean mommy, Mama,” Kenti said after while.

“If you don’t hold still, missy, I’ll show you mean. And you too, mister. And turn that TV off.”

Kofi snapped off the TV. She’d been like that all week. At the meeting she stood up and told the people they had to attend the rally coming up and had to form safety squads in the neighborhood too. Like she was the boss and they’d better listen. And they did. That was the funny part.

“You all need to clean up in here,” Zala said, sounding tired. “Time
to put summer stuff away and get out whatever the moths left us.” She was trying to smile. Kenti could feel it and turned around.

She pushed Kenti back down, then looped the thread around the end of a braid and slid three beads on. Kofi watched. He’d been watching a lot lately, and he knew how to fix a tuna casserole and how to fold the fitted sheets without the round corners bunching out. He straightened the games in the milk crate, thinking over what all it took to be on his own, taking care of himself.

“Ma? Why can’t we get this cot outta here and make room? Then it wouldn’t be so junky.” He looked at the top bunk. It was stripped. Fresh sheets and cases were stacked at the foot. Kenti didn’t catch on, so he threw a Parcheesi man at her foot and looked toward the top bunk again. He pulled bent cards through the bars of the milk crate and made a neat deck, waiting for Kenti to say what he’d told her to say. But she didn’t.

“Hey, Ma?”

“Dammit, Kofi, what is it?”

“Never mind.” He made a neat pile of the games, then shoved all the books upright and propped them with the cash-register bank. He picked up his comics from under the desk and piled them on top where he’d finished his homework. “Want me to feed Roger?” The fishbowl was already freckled with food Kenti had shook from the shaker. He asked just to be saying something, just to get his mother to look up. And then she did.

“Must be awful.” She was looking at him like she used to. His face got hot. He tried to smile. “Poor Roger,” she said, like he should do something. “Must be terrible living in a bowl like that. No place to hide.”

“Maybe we could buy him one of those bridges they make for fish, or some bushes.”

“A castle,” Kenti said. “Roger needs a castle.”

“Hmm,” Zala said, then she got lost again in Kenti’s hair.

“Ma, is Sonny a delinquent?”

“What! Where did you hear that? Who said your brother was a delinquent, Kofi?”

“Mama, you pulling my hair.”

“Mrs. McGovern, I bet. Mrs. McGovern say that? Damn that bitch.”

“Ooo!”

“Nobody said it. Mrs. McGovern wasn’t even there. We had a substitute.”

“Then who said it?”

“We were just talking. Me and my friend Andrew, we were just talking.” Kofi picked at his laces. “I was telling him about Sonny a little bit.” He tugged on his shoe.

“Who Andrew? What were you telling?”

Kofi tugged harder and heard the rip up the back seam of his tennis shoe.

“It helps, Kofi, if you untie the laces first. I don’t work like a dog so you can bust up good shoes.”

He let his foot fall down on the rug. Dust rose. “Good shoes,” he muttered, looking at the way his little toe was coming out of a hole in one shoe and now the back of the other was wide open. Zala burst out laughing. So Kofi leaned back on his hands and modeled his shoes, one at a time. But she didn’t laugh long, ’cause Kenti started modeling her bare feet, saying she needed new shoes too and did they have some money.

“This Andrew person—what were you telling him?”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly telling. More like I was asking if maybe he kind of knew something, ’cause … Andrew, he like knows things.”

“Knows things?”

“Yeah.”

“Pardon?”

“Yes. He’s … my friend.”

“Your friend.” Then she was braiding again, yanking Kenti’s head every time she tried to look over at the window. Buster was on the ledge outside, brushing against the screen like he felt itchy. Kofi couldn’t wait for him to turn around and spot the goldfish. And wait till Roger spotted him. Kofi chuckled.

“Am I almost done?”

“Get your hands out of the way, please.”

Kofi pulled the laces nearly out of both shoes before he pulled them off and let them drop. Now he would ask. He put the shoes right where she could see them. Now he would ask for real. But she went on braiding and braiding and beading and braiding, lost in the hair. He hit the rug and some dust came up.

“Ma, would you listen?” He glanced toward the closet and swallowed.

“I’m listening, Kofi. And watch how you talk to me. Now, tell me, what did your friend Andrew who knows things say? I’m really listening.”

“Nothing. That’s not what I … I got a question.”

“He said your brother was a delinquent.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Well, where did you hear that? Who said it? This Andrew, what did he say?”

“Mama, quit pulling my hair.”

“Who you talking to, missy?” She popped her fingers against Kenti’s shoulder. “I’m waiting, Kofi.”

“Nothing, Ma. It was nothing.”

“Don’t tell me ‘nothing’ when I’m talking to you.”

“It wasn’t anything. Dag.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Maaaa.” He slouched over toward the closet door and pulled his socks off one at a time. She was bearing down on Kenti’s head with the fine end of the comb, scratching up dandruff that wasn’t even there. Kenti was scrunching up her shoulders but she didn’t say a word.

“Now. You were at school talking with this Andrew person. And then what?”

“He said maybe Sonny got put in that … you know … hall.”

“Juvenile hall? He said that?”

“Yeah.”

“Which?”

“Yes.”

“Then what? Did you break his nose for saying that?”

“Nawww, Ma.”

“Pardon?”

“No, ma’am.”

“So what happened?”

“You don’t get on Sonny when he says yeah and naw and worse stuff. You don’t make him talk right all the time.”

Zala stopped braiding. She stopped breathing. Then she was braiding again with her face tight, “Sonny’s not here, Kofi. Your brother’s not here.”

The tom raked the screen with his paw. Roger dove to the bottom of the bowl where Kofi couldn’t see him.

Zala sat up. She put her hands against her back and pushed like the big girls did in assembly, showing off their boobs.

“Jesus,” she muttered. “Now they’ve got the children calling the children delinquents and my son right up in the middle of it.” She looked at Kofi.

“Nobody called nobody nothin’, Ma. You always making something out of something.” He moved toward the closet and acted like he didn’t see how she was looking at him. “Since Sonny ain’t here,” he went on boldly, “can I sleep on top and Kenti can take my bed? Then we can get that cot out of here. It stinks.” He waited for Kenti to say what she was supposed to say. But she didn’t say a thing. Then he heard his mother mutter something about beating Andrew up for what he said.

“I’m telling you, Ma, didn’t nobody say nothing. And I ain’t beating up on my friend just ’cause you say so, ’cause you wasn’t even there and Andrew’s my friend. I know what I’m supposed to do when somebody cracks on my family. You wasn’t there and Sonny’s my brother, not yours.”

Kofi yanked the closet door open and went on in and got the cowboy boots like he’d been wanting to all along. If she got mad about it, then she’d just have to be mad, that’s all.

“Can I have these boots? I mean, can I wear them till I get new shoes?”

She wasn’t looking at the boots. She was looking at him, her hands rubbing her knees and her head bobbing, just missing the bump where the top mattress sagged.

“Sonny gonna get you for botherin’ his things,” Kenti said.

“Well, Sonny ain’t here,” he said. “He ain’t here.”

“You two be careful,” Zala said. “And don’t be slinging them nasty socks all over, Kofi. If we got nothing else, Mister Kofi Spencer, we got a hamper for dirty clothes.”

“I know we got a hamper.” He set the boots down and gathered up his socks and shirt.

“Told you before dinner to run your bath, now do it. And pick that lint out of your hair. Hear what I said?”

“Yeahhh.”

“Pardon?”

“Yes. Mother.”

Kofi stomped toward the door. His arm bumped the bunk lamp. It shone right in her face. He didn’t do it on purpose, the clamp was loose. But she didn’t accuse him, so he didn’t explain. She leaned over and slapped the shade down like she wanted to slap him. But he was already in the hallway.

“Tell me something.” She was yelling through the wall, so he banged the hamper lid and turned on the tap for his bath. “This Andrew friend of yours, he ever been in juvenile hall? Does he know Dave? Think Dave might know him?”

Kofi slammed up the toilet seat and unzipped his pants and drowned her out. She kept on talking, coming right through the medicine cabinet when he went for his pick. So he ran the cold water and flushed the toilet again. She was asking about the boots. He picked his hair out a little. Then, since the water was on, he wet his washcloth and ran it across his face. She was still going on about the cowboy boots, the boots he had taken from Sonny’s bag without asking first so he couldn’t tell her ’cause that was way before they’d started looking for keys and clues and he shouldn’t have done it. He looked in the mirror. He had to admit he looked a lot better, but he wished she would shut up.

“Would you leave it,” he said. He thought he heard her grumble, so he took his time coming out.

She was yawning when he walked into the bedroom.

“You sleepy, Mama. You oughta go to bed.”

Zala held the comb out so Kenti could study it. “So, Kofi,” she said, looking up, “was ‘delinquent’ one of your spelling words?”

He brightened. “Yeah.”

Zala parked the comb again and sat back. “Listen, you two.” Kofi dropped down onto his knees. “The police and the newspapers don’t know what the hell is going on, so they feel stupid, because they’re supposed to know, they’re trained to know, they’re paid to know. It’s their job. Understand? But it’s hard for grown-ups to admit they’re stupid, especially if they’re professionals like police and reporters. So they blame the children. Or they ignore them and fill up the papers with the hostages in Iran. Understand? And now … Jesus … they’ve got people calling those kids juvenile delinquents.”

“Don’t cry.” Kenti tried to lean into her lap and got pushed away.

“They don’t know a damn thing and they act like they don’t want
to know. So they blame the kids ’cause they can’t speak up for themselves. They say the kids had no business being outdoors, getting themselves in trouble.”

“You let us go outdoors.”

“Of course I do, baby. We go lots of places, ’cause a lot of people fought hard for our right to go any damn where we please. But when the children go out like they’ve a right to and some maniac grabs them, then it’s the children’s fault or the parents who should’ve been watching every minute, like we don’t have to work like dogs just to put food on the table.”

Kofi walked on his knees toward the bed, but he didn’t lean on her like he wanted ’cause she might push him away. So he just put his hand on the mattress next to hers.

“Those bastards are calling the children hustlers ’cause they had jobs.” Zala wiped her arm across her face and Kofi patted her leg; then he scooted closer and patted her back. And she looked at him. “Oh, Kofi. Just because they had little jobs. Those bastards,”

“Who’s a … can I say it, Mama? Who’s a bastard?”

“The damn police and them stupid reporters who don’t know how to get out on the street and talk to people instead of taking down whatever the police say.”

“Is a hustler like …?” Kenti scrambled up and started dancing.

“Not that hustle, Short Legs.”

“A hustle is a sort of bad word for a job.”