Those Bones Are Not My Child (37 page)

“Aww, so what,” Kofi said, dropping the spoons on the table. They went clang-a-lang, and one of them bounced real close to Mama’s arm. She looked up and Kofi tried to play it off, but Kenti felt hot in the race again, her feet cold on the damp floor. She leaned against her mama’s chair waiting for her to say that if she hurried and washed up, pancakes and bacon would be ready by the time she got back. She didn’t want cereal. It was Sunday. And Sunday was supposed to be bacon and pancakes.

“I don’t know nothin’ about no box anyway,” Kofi said, dragging a chair. It made a trail across the mopped floor. “So we might as well go to church.”

“First the box,” Zala said, looking at the marks on the floor. “Just like you found them cowboy boots, mister, you find that cigar box.”

“What box?” Kenti looked at her mama and then at her brother. But neither of them would look at her. They had spears in their eyes.

“Some ole cigar box,” Kofi said after while. “Like I’m supposed to keep up with Sonny’s stuff. Ask
him
, why don’t you.”

“How we going to ask Sonny? You stupid.” And then she was sorry she said it, ’cause both of their eyes stabbed her before they looked away.

“How’m I pozed to know where his stuff at?” Kofi was talking that lazy way, but Mama didn’t get after him about it. “For all I know it could be his locker or someplace.”

“What locker?” Zala dropped her pen, and it rolled toward Sonny’s chair.

“How should I know?” Kofi’s voice shot up into his nose. “Maybe at school he got a locker, or the Boys’ Club. Dag. How I’m pozed to know? You the mother.” He dragged on the chair some.

“See that window over there?”

Kenti moved away. Her mama didn’t sound like her mama. But Kofi wasn’t paying no mind. He was standing hip-shot by the table and sighing like it was a real boring thing to have to look at a window. He
took his time about it too, roaming his eyes over the laundry basket where their Sunday clothes were balled, then he walked his eyes up the wall to the window and drawled some more. “Yeahhhh, I see it.”

“Pardon?”

He flounced around and put his fist on his hipbone like he wasn’t supposed to, not to no grown-up. “Yes,” he said, baring his teeth.

“You see that wide-mouthed Ball Amber Buffalo home-canning preserves jar next to the spray starch?” It made Kenti’s hair shiver. She eased around to the far side of the table and sat down on the edge of the chair, rubbing her arms.

“Yeahhhhh,” Kofi said, two hands on his hips, asking for it.

“Pardon?”

He bared his teeth again and slit his eyes. “Yes. I. See. It.” His gums were fire red.

“Can you picture how your head would look crammed in that same jar?” Zala picked up her pen and jabbed it in one of the books. “Find the box. Period.”

Kenti was hoping Mr. Grier would find something else to put up with that noisy drill, ’cause it was dead quiet and the bottoms of her feet were cold. Kofi grabbed the back of the chair like he was going to drag it on the floor again, but he didn’t. He picked it up high over his head like he was fixing to throw it. Mama didn’t even look up, but when he set it down hard against the table her pen tore through the page. Kofi climbed up and threw his leg over the top rung, being a cowboy maybe, or a mountain climber. Kenti didn’t know what he called himself being, but when he dropped down in the chair, he bumped the table again and Mama turned one of the books facedown so hard, he jumped. Being a fool was what he was being. “Keep it up …” was all she said. Then Kofi started playing with the milk carton, trying to figure out how to pour it on his cereal so it would splash and wet up her papers.

“Sunday school ain’t closed on account of Christopher Columbus, is it?”

“If you don’t want to take us,” Kofi interrupted, “call Daddy. Let him take us.”

“I don’t like calling your father for every little thing.”

“You call him for that thing.” Kofi pointed his spoon at the killer map, and wet cereal dropped on the table.

Zala pushed the napkin holder toward Kofi’s side of the table. He
bumped his knees trying to make the map slide off Sonny’s chair, but she caught it in time and spread it out on top of her papers. Kenti could see that a new house, and an eye, and an X were on the map for the boy they found strangled in the woods. Mama was going over one of the lines with her fingernails.

“So where you think Sonny at this time?” Kenti hadn’t meant for it to come out like that. She tried to think of what to say to make her get up and fix breakfast. All week Kenti had been waiting for Sunday. She wanted her ruffled petticoat pulled down over her head. She wanted to lean her back against Mama’s chest and step into her good dress noisy with starch and warm from the iron. She wanted to stand up in big people’s church and give the lesson from her Sunday-school group. But before that, she wanted to slouch down in her chair and kick her Mary Janes against Miz Butler’s chair so she would look her way and ask how come candy-face Kenti had her mouf all poked out. Then she could tell how they kept doing like they were doing. Cleaning up but not putting her drawings back on the refrigerator. Daddy taking the banana magnet but using it to hang other stuff in his car. Doing stuff like that. And it wasn’t right.

Every time they were supposed to go somewhere, Mama would pull the stop bell before they got there. And they’d have to get off the bus and trot after her while she tacked up Sonny’s picture on a pole. And everybody’d be looking at them too and come over and pat her on her head and ask her did she miss her brother and was she saying her prayers, cupping their hands under her chin like one-potato-two-potato and Mama not saying nothing about them people’s hands on her, except one time when she said real low that children deserved respect. But when Kofi said that, ’cause Mama had snatched one of the drawings off the refrigerator door to write all over the back of it with one of Kofi’s markers, he got hit when Mama got off the phone.

Sometimes they’d start out for the zoo in Unca Dave’s car but drive right on past the grizzly bears, and she’d say, “Hold your horses, this’ll only take a minute, next time bring your coloring book.” Then they’d drive to a train track or a trashy lot and the grown-ups would poke under bushes with sticks or dump dirt in a sifter and shake it for clues. And if they said anything it was “Hold your horses, next time bring your crayons.” Then they’d ride some more to a school nobody went to
’cept to park for games at the stadium. And all the grown-ups would get out of the cars and talk to people about the little boy somebody stuffed under the floor. One time an old man with a gold tooth in front like Grandaddy Wesley leaned his head in the car to say to Daddy that maybe the crust of the matter was that white boy that got beat up bad and now white folks were killing back. And when they said they wanted to go see the seals, it was them horses they had to hold.

One time they almost got to the zoo, but first there was a house nearby where the papers said grown men and little boys were doing nasty and went to jail. Everybody sat and sat in the cars till Kenti’s legs were stuck to the seat and it burned them to move. That’s when one of the men with a dog on a chain gave her the number puzzle to play with. But by the time they all started beeping at one another and drove off, the zoo was closed, everybody gone home. And didn’t nobody say they were sorry, either.

Then yesterday didn’t Mama or Daddy remember to come get them. And when Aunty Paulette walked them home, nobody asked if they’d had a nice day. Well, it wasn’t a nice day, it was a terrible day, ’cause Aunty Paulette and her friend wouldn’t stop smoking cigarettes and crossing and uncrossing their legs drinking iced tea and talking about when they were girls at nursing school together, and kept saying all right, all right, and smoking some more instead of going right to the zoo like they promised. And when they finally got to the zoo, there was a lady in a long dress and bells in her hair who kept getting in their face with her bug-eyed glasses, looking just like the fly Sonny let her look at one time through his magnify glass. And the bug-eye lady kept inviting them to her house for lunch, saying she was a friend of their mother’s when they hadn’t even gotten to the zebras yet. And not only that, the bug-eye lady’s daughter took the number puzzle without asking and did all the numbers zip-zip, showing off.

And when they got to their house they had to eat some funny-looking salad off a wooden plate, and the lemonade was so thick with honey Kenti couldn’t drink it. And all the while the show-off was bringing out games and saying she guessed they were too little to understand the games and putting them back. That’s when Kofi jumped in her chest and said, “Don’t be calling my sister stupid.” And Aunty Paulette got after Kofi for showing out but didn’t say boo to the bossy
show-off. Didn’t say boo to the bug-eyed lady neither when she hauled out her tape recorder and started asking nosy questions about Sonny and the lost children. Kofi had to tell her to mind her own business. And all the way home Aunty Paulette said they’d torn their drawers. Right in front of the friend from nursing school when it wasn’t even true. Then dark came but nobody came to get them. Lights were on in their house across the street, but nobody came. They had to get Aunty Paulette up out of bed to walk them home. And when Mama unfastened the chain and opened the door, she gave a squint and then said, “Oh,” which was a terrible thing to say.

“I’m gonna call Daddy myself,” Kofi said, pushing his bowl away so it sloshed. He sounded like he was going to get the police after Mama for not fixing breakfast two days in a row. But Daddy was just as bad, Kenti was thinking. If they said they wanted dessert or something, Daddy would go in the store and start talking to everybody about the lost children and then come out saying, “Hunh?… what?… Oh yeah, keep your shirt on.” Then maybe they’d drive to another place and they’d see him through the glass pasting Sonny’s picture in the store window. And he’d come out empty-handed with some more “Hunh, what, just hold your horses.” It was the same thing with the planetarium. They kept not getting there. And that wasn’t right, either, after all the fussing Mama had done to get Kofi a card with her hard-earned money. Kenti shook out some cereal and poured in milk. But she didn’t want it.

“I’ma get him,” Kofi said again, not moving. And Kenti tried to suck her teeth, but Mama was sucking hers and it was loud. It didn’t thrill the way the Griers did, though. “Right now,” Kofi said, kicking the table.

“Daddy,” Kenti said, the cereal mushy in her mouth.

“You nasty,” Kofi said, banging his spoon against her bowl. “I’m not gonna eat in this smelly kitchen with some crybaby wiping her nose on her nightgown.”

Zala stood up fast. Kofi ducked and Kenti lifted her head so she didn’t drip in her cereal. Zala pressed down on one of the books and the spine cracked and two pages slid out. She threw the pen down and stomped across the floor, leaving damp prints. Kenti and Kofi’s mouths dropped when she flung the porch door open and it hit against the fridge. Stuff inside was rattling even after they heard her slippers scuff
down the back steps, then get quiet. She was probably sitting on the bottom step with her head in her hands, looking at the rock garden Sonny built one weekend when he was under punishment. It was supposed to be a victory garden for Africa, but Daddy didn’t bring the flags like he said he would. Then Bestor Brooks came by and they painted musical notes on the stones and called it a rock concert.

“What’s a rock concert, Kofi?”

“I ain’t talking to you. You nasty. You a nasty crybaby.”

“And you a fraidy cat!” she yelled back. “You so big and bad, why don’t you call Daddy?” She was sorry she’d dared him the minute he flew out and left her alone in the kitchen with them pink rubbery hands catching hold to the sink, and the eye looking up at her from the map, and the jam jar on the window sill waiting on a head.

“Tell Daddy to come right now,” she called out. “It’s my turn.” She held her breath and listened hard, but bigmouth Kofi was talking low all of a sudden. It was her turn and she wanted to tell the people ’cause now she had it all straight in her head.

Last Sunday it was mixed up. Everybody kept saying they didn’t see why the Prodigal Son got special barbecue and new clothes just ’cause he’d come home. What about the other children who hadn’t run off and worried their parents? She kept getting the Prodigal Boy mixed up with the Gingerbread Boy until Jimmy Crow said there was no witch in the Sunday-school story. But then Sandy Johnson got her mixed up talking about Pinocchio. And by the time Miz Butler got around to asking Kenti what she thought, she was busy thinking how she never did like that ole Geppetto anyway, always getting on poor little Pinocchio to behave himself when all Pinocchio wanted to do was go on the road and see the world and become a real boy ’stead of a wood doll. And seem like if Geppetto wasn’t going to be nice, then he shouldn’t have made Pinocchio in the first place, if all he was going to do was be grumpy all the time. If he really cared, Kenti told the group, he would’ve packed a picnic box and gone on the road with Pinocchio and had a nice time.

But Kenti was sure she had it now. And it was her turn to stand up and give the lesson. It was only right that the Prodigal Boy have a new bathrobe, ’cause while he was away he’d probably missed his birthday or Christmas or maybe Easter. And if she’d been there at the party feast, she’d’ve let him have the pick of the turkey. And if Jimmy Crow and
them started grabbing at the platter first, she’d kick them under the table and tell them to quit being so hoggish.

“I bet you in there digging in your nose.”

“Am not!” she yelled. Then it looked like the rubber gloves moved. Kenti went into the bedroom and curled up under the covers with her Baby Crawler. Course Baby Crawler hadn’t crawled in a long time, ’cause every time Mama went out to get batteries, she’d come back with newspapers instead.

“I’ll wash up first,” Kofi said, running in and parting the curtains. “Daddy be here in a minute, so don’t go to sleep.” He looked down into the fishbowl, then looked out the window in the backyard, drawing a corkscrew near his ear with his finger. Kenti huddled deeper under the covers and hugged her doll baby closer. She hoped Kofi meant Roger, ’cause there was a girl at school named Marva, and they said her mother went crazy and was down in Milledgeville. Marva’s clothes were never clean after that. And whoever was taking care of her didn’t know how to do hair ’cause her braids stuck straight out and underneath was knotty. Every day Kenti would sit next to her in the lunch room trying to be her friend. But Marva wouldn’t talk. And she wouldn’t eat. She’d pick up her milk, holding the container to her mouth a long time but not drinking. And when Kenti would take it from her and set it down, Marva would just sit there with a dry white mustache.