Coffee Will Make You Black
A Novel
For my mother,
JULIANNA SINCLAIR
And in remembrance of my maternal grandmother,
JULIA BELL GUNTER
“If I should live forever and all my dreams come true, my memories of love, will be of you.”
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF APRIL SINCLAIR
Coffee Will Make You Black
“A funny, fresh novel about growing up African-American in 1960s Chicago … Sinclair writes like Terry McMillan’s kid sister.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Whether she’s dealing with a subject as monumental as the civil rights movement or as intimate as Stevie’s first sexual encounters, Sinclair never fails to make you laugh and never sacrifices the narrative to make a point.… What is clear is that Stevie is a wonderful character whose bold curiosity and witty self-confidence—through Sinclair’s straight-talking words—make her easy to love.” —Los Angeles Times
“Heartwarming … Memorable … Told with earnestness and humor … A coming-of-age story with a twist.” —Chicago Tribune
Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice
“Hard to resist … The freshness of Sinclair’s voice makes both the familiar and the unfamiliar an adventure worth smiling about.” —The Miami Herald
“This tale has verve and readability.” —The New Yorker
“A hoot … High-spirited and entertaining … A disarmingly upbeat novel about race and sexual preference.” —San Francisco Chronicle
I Left My Back Door Open
“A Bridget Jones’s Diary for black women … Readers will respond to this novel’s honesty, to its colloquial humor, and to its exacting exploration of Daphne’s relationship woes.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Any sister who has felt unlucky in love will identify with Sinclair’s smoothly written tale.” —Essence
“Snappy, entertaining.” —The Washington Post Book World
“Sinclair’s jazzy new novel is her best yet. Her syncopated rhythms and her cool, bluesy tones make her Ella Fitzgerald’s literary rival.” —E. Lynn Harris
PART ONE
spring 1965
summer 1967
PART TWO
fall 1967
fall 1968
PART THREE
fall 1969
spring 1970
chapter 1
“Mama, are you a virgin?”
I was practicing the question in my head as I set the plates with the faded roosters down on the shiny yellow table. When Mama came back into the kitchen to stir the rice or turn the fish sticks or check on the greens, I would ask her.
This afternoon at school a boy named Michael had passed a note with “Stevie” written on it; inside it had asked if I was a virgin.
My name is Jean Stevenson but the kids at school all call me Stevie counta there’s been this other Jean in my class since the first grade. Now I am eleven and a half and in the sixth grade.
So, anyhow, I was really surprised to get this note from a boy like Michael Dunn, who’s tall with muscles and has gray eyes, curly hair, skin the color of taffy apples, and wears Converse All-Stars even though they cost $10 a pair.
I’m not saying I look like homemade sin or anything. It’s just that I’m taller than most of the other girls in my class and half of the boys. Mama says I’m at that awkward age, and that soon I won’t just be arms and legs; I’ll need a bra and a girdle. I can’t picture myself needing a bra, as flat-chested as I am now. And to tell you the truth, I’m not too hot on having my behind all hitched up in a girdle. I have to help Mama into hers on Sunday mornings, and I feel sorry for her, all squeezed in so tight you wonder how she can even breathe.
I stirred a pitcher of cherry-flavored Kool-Aid. I loved Daylight Saving Time; it was after six o’clock and still light outside. The sunshine pouring in through the ruffled curtains made the flowers on the wallpaper look alive.
I studied my reflection in the pitcher of Kool-Aid. It wasn’t like I wasn’t cute. I had dimples and my features seemed right for my face. My straightened hair was long enough to make a ponytail. My skin was the color of Cracker Jacks. But most negroes didn’t get excited over folks who were darker than a paper bag.
“Jean, turn off the oven!” Mama shouted from her bedroom.
“Okay.”
I stared out the kitchen window at the row of gray back porches and dirt backyards. We had been in the middle of Social Studies when I had gotten Michael’s note. I had lifted the lid of my wooden desk and felt behind the bag of old, wet sucked-on sunflower-seed shells and pulled out my hardcover dictionary. I’d snuck a peek inside and looked up the word “virgin.” I’d seen the words “pure” and “spotless” and “like the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus.” I thought I was a good person for the most part. I didn’t steal and I tried my best not to lie. I went to Sunday school, and when I stayed for church, I always put my dime in the collection plate. But I wasn’t about to put myself up there with Jesus’ mother. It seemed like Michael was asking me if I was a goody-two-shoes or something.
So I’d had no choice but to answer the note with the words “Not exactly” and pass it back to him. I wondered what Michael thought of my answer, I hadn’t seen him after school. I hoped he would say something to me on Monday. I knew it wasn’t my place as a girl to say anything to him. I would just have to wait and see what happened, I told myself.
Mama returned to the kitchen. She looked glad to be out of her girdle and work clothes. She was wearing her oldest print housedress, and the extra pounds showing around her waist didn’t make her look fat, they just made her look like somebody’s mother. Mama had tied a scarf around her hair so she wouldn’t sweat it out, and she was wearing Daddy’s old house slippers. It struck me how different Mama looked from June Cleaver or Donna Reed on TV, not just because of her pecan-colored skin but because they practically did their housework in pearls!
I turned facing Mama, and folded my arms across my chest. I watched her take the pan of fish sticks out of the oven and set them on a plate.
I cleared my throat. “Mama, are you a virgin?”
Mama lifted the top off the pot of collard greens and breathed in the steam. She glanced at me and turned off the gas. I could tell by the look on her face that she was trying to think up a good answer.
“Jean, where did you pick up that word, at church?” Mama asked, rearranging the pressing comb and the can of bacon grease on the stove.
I stared down at the yellowed gray linoleum.
“Well, no, not exactly … at school.”
“Mrs. Butler brought it up?”
I pulled on the tie of my sailor blouse and twisted it around my fingers.
“No, Mama, Mrs. Butler ain’t brought it up, this boy asked me if I was a virgin.”
I had the nerve to glance up at Mama. Her large dark eyes were arched up like she had seen a ghost.
“Don’t say ‘ain’t’! Didn’t I tell you to never say ‘ain’t’? I can run from ‘ain’t.’”
In my opinion, this was not time for an English lesson, so I just hunched my shoulders. “Mrs. Butler didn’t bring it up, this boy asked me if I was a virgin.” I repeated, correcting my English.
“Well, Jean Eloise, you should have told him he’ll never get the chance to find out.” Mama frowned as she stirred the rice. “Humph, you stay away from that boy; he’s got his mind in the gutter.” Mama pointed her finger in my face. “All men are dogs! Some are just more doggish than others. Do you hear me?”
“Mama, the dictionary said something about the word ‘virgin’ meaning pure and spotless, like the Virgin Mary. I don’t understand why you say Michael’s got his mind in the gutter then.”
“’Cause he’s a dog, that’s why! I just got through telling you that.”
I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my blue pedal pushers and looked Mama in the eye. “Mama, am I a virgin or not?”
“Lord, have mercy, I forgot about the cornbread!” Mama opened the oven door and took out the pan of cornbread. It looked fine.
Mama let out a big breath. Maybe it was hard having a daughter at an awkward age, I thought. “Jean, all unmarried girls should be virgins.”
“Mama, Michael knows I’m unmarried.”
“You haven’t even started your period yet, of course you’re a virgin.”
I stared down at my brown penny loafers. “Mama, what happens when you start your period?”
Mama patted her cornbread. “I don’t think you’re ready for this kind of discussion.”
“Mama, I’ll be twelve in four months.”
“Jean Eloise, I’ll tell you everything I want you to know when the time comes. Now, call your daddy and the boys for dinner, the fish sticks are gettin cold.”
I groaned as I left the kitchen. Boy, I could’ve gotten more out of Beaver Cleaver’s mother.
It was Saturday morning and Grandma was visiting; my Aunt Sheila and my Uncle Craig had dropped her off in their shiny, new ’65 Buick. They didn’t have any kids yet, and they lived downstairs from Grandma in her two-flat building. Grandma owned a chicken stand down on 47th Street in the heart of the South Side. It was named after her: Mother Dickens’ Fried Chicken. I was proud of her. My mother’s youngest brother, Uncle Franklin, and his wife, Aunt Connie, helped her run it. My uncle Arthur worked on the railroad. He lived in Orlando, Florida, with his wife and twin boys. Grandma said she wasn’t rich, but she’d come a long way from Gainesville, Florida.
I buried my face in Grandma’s big chest. I could smell the peppermint candy that she kept in the pocket of her cotton housedress. Grandma held me close as she rocked me in the sunny kitchen. I traced her fudge-colored arm with my finger. Mama says Grandma spoils me. Grandma says I’m her heart. Mama can’t stand to see me up in her mother’s lap; it really gets her. But I can’t help myself, Grandma’s lap is my favorite place in the world. Unless maybe if I had a chance to go to Disneyland, but that’s all the way in California and Grandma’s lap is right here on the South Side of Chicago.
“Grandma, how come your skin’s so soft and smooth? Do you use Ivory liquid?”
“Chile, good black don’t crack.” Grandma smiled. Grandma carries herself like a queen. She’s tall and big-boned and wears her gray hair in French braids. She has what she calls laughing eyes and she says she’s proud of her large nose and full lips.
I took color from my mother’s side of the family, ’cept I’ve got a lot of red in my skin. My daddy’s grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. All of Daddy’s sisters live in Oklahoma, where he’s from. I’ve never met them. His mother and father are both dead. Mama says she wishes I’d gotten more of Daddy’s lighter color and especially his curly hair. She says she prayed that if I was a girl I’d have good hair that didn’t need to be straightened. Mama says one reason she married Daddy was cause she was looking out for her children. She says it was almost unheard of for a colored man to marry a woman darker than himself. Mama says she was lucky.
Anyway, Mama says she doesn’t know where I was when they were handing out color and hair. She says I let my nine-year-old brother David get ahead of me in the hair line and my six-year-old brother Kevin get ahead of me in the color line. But at least I’ve got nice features, she’s thankful for that, Mama always says. In other words, she’s glad I don’t have a wide nose and big lips like Grandma and some other colored people. And Mama likes that I have high cheekbones, of course.
My brother David is tall and slim, with Daddy’s features and Mama’s color. Kevin is short and chubby but otherwise looks like Daddy spit him out. David and Kevin are the regular type of brothers that you want to keep out of your face as much as possible. But otherwise we get along pretty okay.
I would describe Mama as looking like Dr. Martin Luther King’s wife dipped in chocolate. They have similar features and they both seem to have serious looks on their faces most of the time.
Daddy, on the other hand, smiles a lot, but you still know you’d better not cross him. He’s big and tall with muscles and narrow eyes like the Indians who are always getting killed on TV. His skin is the color of peanut butter, just like my little brother Kevin’s.
“Jean, if you don’t get off of your grandmother’s lap, you better.” Mama had sneaked up on me in her furry slippers.
I looked up at Grandma. Her eyes were closed; she had dozed off.
I got up, mainly because I didn’t want to hear Mama’s mouth.
“You oughta be ashamed of yourself, a big girl like you having the nerve to be in up somebody’s lap.”
Maybe Mama was right, I thought, maybe I should be ashamed, maybe there was something wrong with me.
“Lord have mercy, Evelyn, why can’t you let the child be?”
Grandma always took up for me.
“No, I won’t let her be, Mama. Now, I’m not going to have it this year. Jean Eloise will be twelve in September. Jesus began preaching at twelve. Now she’s too old to be up in somebody’s lap. How’s she gonna learn to be a responsible adult? She needs to get out with girls her own age.” Mama let out a sigh. “Ever since that Terri moved away she’s stayed cooped up in this house feeling sorry for herself.” Mama stood over me with her arms folded.
Grandma didn’t argue with Mama, she just reached in her apron pocket and handed me a peppermint. Mama started putting the dishes away, Grandma picked up the quilt she had been working on, and I sucked my candy.
I sat down at the kitchen table and laid my head on top of my arms. Terri used to be my best friend, but she moved away last fall, right after we both got our applications from the Peace Corps in the mail. Me and Terri had planned to join the Peace Corps and teach in Africa together when we grew up.
I felt like crying just thinking about Terri now. We had been best friends since kindergarten and we used to do everything together.
Mama turned away from the dishes she was putting up in the cabinet.
“Jean, I told you, you should’ve never had a best friend in the first place. Always have a group of friends, then you won’t be so dependent.”
I kept my head on the table.
“Mama, I didn’t set out to have a best friend, it just turned out that way.”
“Why don’t you call one of the girls from the Methodist Youth Foundation?” Mama asked.
“I’ll see them tomorrow at Sunday school. They’re church friends. There’s nobody I really want to hang out with that much anymore. Unless they were really cool or something.”
“You seem awfully particular for somebody sitting up in the house by yourself on a Saturday afternoon.”
My secret wish was to be popular, to have all the cool people flocking to be my friends. This girl in my class named Carla Perkins is popular. When she had her birthday party last month, kids practically begged her to invite them. Me and Carla don’t know each other ’cept to speak, but I had secretly hoped that a miracle would happen and I would get invited to her party. But of course when Carla had passed out her invitations, there hadn’t been one for me.
I wondered what it would feel like to have a bunch of friends to walk with and give you Valentine cards and invite you to all the cool birthday parties. Being popular must feel different from making the honor roll or having your poem published in the school newspaper, or even having a best friend, I thought. Then I remembered Michael’s note. Maybe he wanted me to be his girlfriend. I would really be something then.
Mama dumped a fat brown paper bag on the kitchen table in front of my face. She tore it open. It was full of fresh string beans.
“If you’re going to stay cooped up in here, then you can just make yourself useful. Steada lying around here like a May snake, you can start snapping these beans.”
I sat up and began popping the ends off the bright green beans and breaking them in the middle. I liked hearing their snapping sound.
Grandma looked up from her quilt.
“You know, Evelyn, I suppose every mama wants her child to be popular. I remember one time, you must’ve been along in age with Jean Eloise, you had to stay home from school, counta you twisted your ankle. What made it so heartbreaking was it was Colored Day at the Carnival and your class was all set to go. I hated to have to leave you home alone that morning, but I ain’t had no choice. I was working for a new family on the other side of Gainesville and your Daddy was doing day labor on a farm. Neither of us could take a chance on missing a day. When I got home that night you and the rest of the kids was asleep. I ain’t get to talk to you face to face till that next evening.”
“Mama, why do you have to use ‘ain’t’? I had to get after Jean yesterday about saying ‘ain’t.’”
“Anyways,” Grandma continued, ignoring Mama, “you told me half the class had come by to see you, they had even brought you by some pink cotton candy, don’t you remember? Yassuh, I was so happy to hear that I didn’t know what to do. Like I said, I s’pose every mama want her child to be popular. But I’ll never forget that you told me this other girl, by the name of Lillie Mae, had been out sick the same day as you and didn’t nobody even ast about her, remember?”
“Didn’t nobody?” Mama frowned.
Grandma ignored her again. “Your exact words was ‘I’ll never forget them so long as I know Jesus,’ you said. ‘Nobody cared about Lillie Mae, they ain’t care whether she lived or died.’ Them was your exact words, remember? My heart went out to Lillie Mae just as though I’d give birth to her.”
Me and Mama were quiet; all you could hear was the snapping of our beans.
“Somebody colored’s on TV!” Kevin yelled from the living room.
“Well, I sho hope it ain’t that Stepin Fetchit fellow again,” I heard Grandma say as I followed behind her and Mama.
I was hoping I wouldn’t end up like Lillie Mae.
chapter 2
It was Sunday after church and Mama was standing at my bedroom door with these two girls from the other sixth-grade class. I was shocked that Denise and Gail seemed to be here to see me. It wasn’t like I had older brothers to get next to or anything. Mama looked surprised too. Denise and Gail were fast girls who wore their hair in French rolls and liked to crack their gum. Gail already had two big bumps sticking through her shell top, and they both had hips holding up their cutoffs. I knew Mama looked down on people who wore shorts before Memorial Day, even though it was warm and humid outside.
“Jean, didn’t you hear me calling you?”
I shook my head. I’d been playing with my yo-yo.
I nodded at Denise and Gail and they nodded back. I tried not to seem too surprised by their visit.
Gail was no bigger than a minute but she had a shape. She had delicate features like a Siamese cat, and her skin was the color of an old penny. Denise had some meat on her bones, large eyes, a wide nose, full lips, and was light-skinned. Mama would call Denise “yellow-wasted.” That’s what she called light-skinned people with hair nappy enough to be straightened and/or African features.
Mama leaned against the wall with one hand in her apron pocket. I motioned for Denise and Gail to come into my room.
“Well, girls, we just got in from church not too long ago.” Mama frowned at my Sunday dress and petticoat bunched up in the chair. “Twenty minutes earlier and you wouldn’t have caught us.”
“Gail, you can sit on this chair,” I grabbed my dress and petticoat. “Denise, you can sit on the bed here,” I scooped up the stack of Archie comic books, and looked around my small, junky room for a place to stuff them. Denise and Gail eyed the matching white bedroom furniture that Mama and Daddy had bought at a house sale in the suburbs.
“When did your churches let out?” Mama asked as the girls sat down.
“I ain’t went to church this morning. I ain’t got up in time.” Denise answered.
“I ain’t got up in time either.”
Mama closed her eyes, and made a face like she’d just eaten something that tasted bad. “You ain’t got up in time?”
“No, my mama and them was playing cards last night, kept us all up late,” Denise explained.
I turned away from the closet and gave Mama a look that begged her to shut up. But there was no stopping her.
“Girls, listen to yourselves, you’re butchering the English language!”
Denise and Gail looked at Mama like she had just landed here from Mars.
I sat down on my bed and stared into the quilt Grandma had made me. I was sick of Mama. It was bad enough she had made Daddy paint my room pink. She knew blue was my favorite color.
“Girls, you should have said, ‘I didn’t go to church this morning because I didn’t get up in time.’ And you shouldn’t be kept up all night because of your mother’s card playing. I hate to think some people would put card playing ahead of church services. And by the way, have you girls ever heard Dr. King speak?”
Gail and Denise hunched their shoulders. I couldn’t tell if they were saying no or that they didn’t care. I remembered how Mama and Daddy had called me and David in from playing to watch Dr. King give his “I Have a Dream” speech on TV, two summers ago. When Dr. King said the part about having a dream that one day he would live in a country where his four little children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, I looked over at Mama and she had tears running down her face. It was the only time I’d ever seen her cry except at her father’s funeral when I was five. David had asked Mama why she was crying. Mama had answered, “Because he makes me proud to be a negro.” Next thing we knew Daddy’s eyes were wet, and by the time Dr. King ended with “Free at last, Free at last, thank God Almighty, we’re free at last,” shivers were running down my spine.
“If you ever get a chance to hear Dr. King speak, pay close attention to his command of the English language,” Mama continued.
I cleared my throat as I sat on the bed, hoping Mama could take a hint. It was obvious that Denise and Gail didn’t want to be bothered.
“Well, I’ve got a chicken to cut up. You girls have fun this afternoon and, Jean, as soon as your company leaves, clean this place up. You should be ashamed for anyone to see your room looking like this.”
Denise and Gail rolled their eyes when Mama hit the door.
“Dog, is she always like that?” Denise wanted to know.
“No,” I lied. I felt embarrassed to even be connected to Mama.
“Well, that’s good, is she a English teacher or something?” Gail wrinkled her forehead.
“No, she’s a bank teller.”
I forgot about Mama and went back to wondering why Denise and Gail had come over in the first place.
“Do you all want to play Monopoly?”
“No, not today.” Gail smiled.
“Jacks?”
Denise shook her head. “Some other time.”
“Barbie dolls?” I asked, willing to forget I’d ever been a tomboy.
“Stevie, did you know that me and Michael are cousins?”
I looked at Gail’s face to see if they favored each other. They did, sort of.
“No, Gail, I never really knew that.”
“Well, we are. Anyway, dig up, I hear you been talking to Michael.”
“Well, he just passed me a note, we didn’t actually talk yet.”
“We knows all about the note. Do you call yourself digging Michael or not?” Denise jumped in.
I wondered if Denise was his cousin too. I couldn’t tell from their faces if I was supposed to dig Michael or not. I felt like I was on Perry Mason.
“Well, I think he’s cute, and I think he’s really cool. I’m not sure if I know him enough to dig him or not. We’ve never really had a conversation. The note was a big surprise. I didn’t even know he was paying me any attention.”
“When he sent you that note asking you if you was a virgin, you put down ‘Not exactly,’” Denise reminded me.
I stared down at my quilt and ran my fingers along the different patches.
“I didn’t think I met the definition of the word totally,” I said, glancing up at Gail and Denise. They both looked interested. “I’m not completely pure and innocent. I’ve done a few things,” I admitted, remembering the time I picked some cherries off some people’s tree without asking, and other stuff along those lines.
“So who’s the boy you messed around with?” Gail asked.
“Huh?”
“Okay, you ain’t gotta give his name, but what did y’all do, just play with each other’s thangs?” she asked.
I remembered the time me and my brother David had played doctor when we were four and six. “Yeah,” I nodded, trying to seem cool.
“Did he stick his dick inside you?” Denise wanted to know.
I raised my eyebrows. He was only four years old, I thought to myself.
“Just rubbed it against you?” Denise continued.
“I’m too embarrassed to talk about it,” I said, swallowing.
“I understand, we ain’t mean to get all up in your business,” Gail cut in. “But ain’t no sense in me lying, I was surprised when Michael told me about you. All this time I had you figured for a L7,” Gail drew a square in the air.
I shook my head and tried to look surprised. Me an L7? No way.
“Well, we just wanted to check you out, see what your story was.” Denise said.
“Hey, any girl my cousin talk to, I make it my business to check out. ’Cause don’t nobody get next to Michael without coming through me,” Gail pointed to her chest.
“We’ll be in touch,” Denise said, getting up.
Gail stood up too.
“Well, thanks for stopping by, it’s been really boss. I mean, feel free to drop by the crib anytime.” I tried to sound hip.
Monday was cool, damp, and gray, but I was walking home with guess who? Gail and Denise. I had been surprised to see them waiting for me when our class let out. Me and Michael hadn’t crossed paths all day long. I still didn’t know what he thought. But I wasn’t about to say anything to him, so I’d just have to wait. Michael must be interested or Gail and Denise wouldn’t be giving me the time of day, I figured.
I usually walked home with Linda and Melody. They were nice but square. So, when I saw Denise and Gail waving to me, I told Linda and Melody to go ahead on.
Denise and Gail were all the way cool, and if I was walking home with them, people would figure I had to at least be halfway cool. I hoped that my ponytail and pleated skirt fit in okay with their French rolls and tight, straight skirts. At least all three of us were wearing pullover sweaters.
The three of us walked through our neighborhood, past the rows of two-flat brick buildings and occasional bungalows, cracking our gum as loud as we could.
“Niece, you got any more of that red-orange fingernail polish, girl?”
Denise shook her head and cracked her gum.
“Where’d you get it from anyways?” Gail asked.
“I copped it from Walgreen’s that time, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right.”
I almost swallowed my gum. I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, “You mean you stole it?” Gail didn’t bat an eye.
I decided to try and change the subject. We weren’t that far from Walgreen’s now; I didn’t want them to get any ideas.
“Mrs. Butler asked me if I was gonna write a poem for the school paper again this year.”
Gail and Denise just went on cracking their gum.
“Have either of you ever thought about writing anything for the paper?”
“Humph, that’s the last thing I would wanta do, write something,” Denise groaned.
“Yeah,” Gail agreed. “Why you bringing up school stuff? It’s bad enough we got to sit up and look at the teacher all day long, now we gotta listen to your ass.”
I stared down at the new blades of grass and the tulips about to bloom in front of a house.
“Mrs. Butler mentioned it to me on the way out, so it was kind of fresh on my mind, that’s all. But I think I’ll let it go this year. It ain’t no biggie.”
“Sho ain’t,” Gail agreed.
“Not unlessen you a square.” Denise laughed.
“Thank you,” Gail stretched her hand out and Denise gave her five.
I cracked my gum and shook my head to let them know that I was at least halfway cool.
“Oooh!” I shouted, feeling a hand grabbing my behind, through my skirt. I slapped the hand away and turned around and saw Michael standing there grinning. This other boy, Calvin, was feeling on Gail.
“Leave me alone!” I shouted, backing away from Michael. “Don’t touch me like that again!”
For some reason, Michael started dancing around, doing the Mashed Potato.
“Oh, you know y’all like it.” Calvin smiled as he ran his fingers through his greasy, processed hair. He was just too cool, with a do rag tied around his head and wearing a black leather jacket, gold knit top, burnt-orange pants, and cockroach-killing shoes.
“No, I don’t,” I answered. I could still feel Michael’s hand on my butt, and it was a creepy feeling.
Calvin draped his tall, skinny body around Gail, resting his head on her shoulder and holding her waist. “Girl, you know you crazy ’bout me.”
“You a lie,” Gail said, smiling.
“You another lie.”
“No, I ain’t. Get away from around me, nigger, you overdrawn at the funk bank.” Gail pushed Calvin’s arm off her and broke away.
Denise laughed real loud, maybe ’cause nobody was paying much attention to her. Michael was kicking a rusty can. I had to admit that he looked cute in his White Sox baseball jacket, his khaki pants, and his high-top Converse All-Stars.
“Niece, what you laughing at?” Calvin wanted to know.
“You black nigger, you!”
“Who you calling black, little girl?”
I didn’t like Denise throwing Calvin’s color up in his face. A person couldn’t help being dark. Calvin’s smooth skin reminded me of the eggplant that Alice, the Chinese girl, had brought for Show and Tell in first grade. I knew that Calvin was hurt; I could see the pain in his narrowed eyes.
“Look in the mirror and you’ll see,” Denise answered Calvin. Calvin scrunched his face up until his top lip almost touched his bunny-shaped nose.
“Shut up talking to me, little girl. I bet you still pee in yo bed.”
“Nigger, you pee in yo bed so much the rats and roaches gotta wear raincoats.” Denise laughed.
“Doon, baby, doon!” Gail shouted and held her hand out and Denise gave her five.
“That’s okay, Calvin, man, cause you know Niece and them so po, man, I was at they crib, and I stepped on a roach, man, and Niece mama yelled ‘Save me the white meat!’” Michael said, laughing.
Calvin gave Michael five.
“Forget y’all forgot y’all never thought about y’all,” Denise sang.
“Shut up, bitch, just shut yo ass up,” Calvin shouted as he and Michael ran away laughing.
“Yo mama!” Denise yelled as the boys turned the corner.
“If they touch us like that again we should report them to somebody,” I said.
Denise and Gail stood looking at me with their mouths hanging open.
“Are we supposed to like it?” I asked, confused.
“Course, fool, you just s’posed to act like you don’t dig it,” Denise said, rolling her eyes like she couldn’t believe how dumb I was.
I didn’t really appreciate her calling me a fool.
“Nobody felt on you, Denise,” I reminded her, wondering if she knew how icky it felt.
“You ain’t got to rub it in. Michael’s felt on Niece’s booty plenty of times before, right, Niece?”
“Damn straight!” Denise put her hand on her hip and stuck her behind out. “Michael’s felt on my booty plenty of times!”
I didn’t know what to say so I just cracked my gum.
Another Saturday had come already. I was in the backyard hanging up clothes. The sun was shining but the wind was blowing through my T-shirt and jeans. They didn’t call Chicago the Windy City for nothing, I thought, chasing a dish towel that had blown out of the clothes basket.
Me and Gail and Denise had walked home together for a whole week now. Michael still hadn’t said anything to me about the note, although yesterday he and Calvin had run up to us again. Michael had walked between me and Denise and put his arm around both of us. It had been exciting walking down the street all cool with somebody fine having his arm draped over you—as long as I didn’t run into Mama or Daddy or one of my tattle-tale brothers.
I pushed a clothespin down on Daddy’s big, white undershirt. I liked the smell of the clean clothes.
“Stevie!”
“Girl!”
“Stevie!”
I turned away from the line and watched as Gail and Denise kicked open the metal gate and burst into our yard. Their eyes were all stretched out like something big had happened.
“Girl, we got something to tell you!” Gail said, all out of breath.
“What?”
“Don’t tell me she ain’t heard!” Denise said, huffing and puffing and raising her eyebrows.
“What, heard what?”
“Gail, I thought sho she’d heard by now!”
“I haven’t heard nothing. Tell me.”
“Girl, Carla Perkins saying she gon kick yo ass! Counta you been talking to Michael,” Denise explained, pointing her finger at me.
I swallowed hard. My head was swimming. Carla Perkins was going to kick my ass for talking to Michael? I hadn’t even ever been alone with the boy; we’d never had a whole conversation. He’d felt my behind once and put his arm around me, but that had been it.
“I didn’t even know Carla liked Michael.”
“Girl, we know,” Denise continued. “Everybody knows you and Michael been talking for a whole week now. I don’t know where that bitch Carla is coming from.”
“Shoot, Michael’s probably fixing to ask you to go with him any day now. What yo answer gon be?” Gail put her hands on her hips.
I picked up a pair of Kevin’s jeans and started hanging them on the line. “Gail, I don’t know now. I just don’t want to get in any mess. I don’t even know Carla, ’cept to speak to her. I had no idea she even liked Michael.”
Gail reached in the clothes basket and pulled out Mama’s slip and started hanging it up. “You can’t let her take yo man away from you, girl, without putting up no fight though.”
I kept on hanging up clothes, trying to block out what they were saying.
Denise picked up my paddle bail off the ground and started pounding the little red ball in the air. Like I wasn’t already starting to get a headache.
“Stevie, I hear you, girl: don’t start no bull, won’t be no shit. Excuse my French, honey, but the shit done already started,” Denise said between bats.
“The girl done started talking about yo mama!”
“Don’t tell her that,” Gail interrupted.
“No, Gail, she may’s to well hear the truth.” Denise pointed with the paddle. “I would want somebody to come tell me if somebody was out there talking about my mama, now, wouldn’t you? Otherwise how could they call theyselves your friend?”
“I s’pose.” Gail nodded and picked up a pair of Mama’s panties and put them on the line. I wasn’t sure Gail knew me well enough to be handling my family’s underclothes.
I tried to sound casual. “So, what did Carla say about my mama?”
Denise threw the paddle ball down on our old barbecue grill.
“Girl, she say yo mama … she say yo mama so black that when she sweat she sweat chocolate!”
I cleared my throat, “My mama’s so black that when she sweats she sweats chocolate!” I folded my arms.
Denise nodded and pulled on the plastic clothesline.
“Look, I ain’t said it, Carla the one said it.”
“Look, Stevie, she just telling you what the heifer said. It ain’t like she and her people’s ’zactly light-skinned theyselves.”
“Yeah, she got her nerve,” I mumbled.
“Hey, if’n it was me, hey, something would have to jump off! It’d be me and her, ’cause don’t nobody talk ’bout my mama and get away with it!” Denise shouted.
I reached in the basket and pulled out my sailor blouse and hung it on the line.
Denise grabbed the clothesline. “You gon jump on her, Stevie?” Her eyes were as big as silver dollars.
“Niece, you think I should fight her?”
“Hey, is fat meat greasy? Damn straight! Sides, you ain’t got no choice. She say she gon kick yo ass if she catches you!”
“Oh,” I said, feeling like my knees might give out.
I held on to the clothesline for support. “Maybe me and her could just stay outta each other’s way. She sits two whole rows away from me in class. I mean, I haven’t had that many fights before. And I never fought over a boy.”
“Look, you can’t let somebody just push you around, talk about your mama, take away your man, uh uh, not if you wanna hang with us,” Gail said, shaking her head.
“If you run from her, people will walk all over you the rest of your life, girl!” Denise shouted.
“Are you sure she said she’s gonna jump on me if she sees me?”
“That’s exactly what the hoe said. Don’t tell me you scared of her ’cause she’s taller than you and already twelve. Don’t let them long fingernails she got scare you neither,” Denise continued, glancing down at my short nails.
“Look, Stevie, you ain’t got nothing to be scared of. Carla might be taller, but y’all got ’bout the same mounta meat on y’all’s bones,” Gail pointed out.
“I guess you’re right.” I forced myself to smile.
“Could you believe Carla told me that Michael’s gonna ask her to go with him? Michael ain’t thinking about that gap-toothed hoe!” Denise laughed.
“So what you want us to tell her?” Gail asked. “You say you ready for her anytime, anyplace, right? You say y’all can duke it out!”
“Tell her you say, Come awn, baby, come awn!” Denise cut in.
Gail and Denise didn’t wait for me to answer; they put up their fists and pretended to box. I tried to act like I was having fun watching them.
“Jean! Jean!”
“What, Mama?”
“Don’t what me, come in here and see what I want. Your daddy needs you to go to the store.”
“See you, Stevie.” Gail patted my shoulder.
“Don’t worry, girl, we’ll be watching out for you.” Denise winked.
“Yeah, girl, we got your back,” Gail added.
“Thanks.” I let out a big sigh as I walked toward the house.
chapter 3
Mama was standing in front of me trying to push a dollar into my hand.
“Here, run to the store and get your daddy some Ex-Lax, run on now.”
“Mama, can’t Kevin or David go? They’re not doing nothing but watching TV.” I sure didn’t want to go out now, if Carla was looking for me.
“Don’t tell me who to send, I’m sending you. Now get going.”
“It’s not fair, I’m the one who has to do everything around here just because I’m the girl. They don’t have to wash dishes, they don’t have to hang up clothes, they don’t have to clean the bathroom, they don’t have to lift a finger!”
“You forgot to mention that you were the only one who got a new Easter outfit last month. And I didn’t hear the boys complaining then. Funny you never complain about being the only one who doesn’t have to share a room with anybody. Now the boys are watching a baseball game, it would be unfair to make one of them go to the store. You know how it is when you’re involved in something. You could’ve been halfway to the store by now steada standing here arguing with me.”
“Mama, I can’t go …”
“Don’t make me have to whip you.” Mama tried to hand me the dollar.
Instead of taking the money, I ran to my room. I fell on my bed and buried my face in my pillow.
“What’s wrong with you, Jean Eloise? Do you want me to call the asylum? Have you lost your mind?” Mama shouted from the doorway.
“No,” I said, staring at my pillow.
“Then get up or I’m going to get a belt and wear you out!”
“Nothing’s the matter,” I said, sitting up.
“Well, if there’s nothing wrong with you then I’ll let you explain to your daddy why you can’t go to the store, that is, if you’d rather deal with him than with me.”
Mama started folding my clothes on the chair and putting them in the dresser.
I decided I’d rather deal with Mama; at least she wasn’t constipated.
“Mama, this girl says she’s gonna beat me up if she catches me.”
“What for? What she want to fight you about?”
“Over Michael, she likes Michael and she knows I like him too.”
“Now, that’s stupid, two girls fighting over some old, stanky boy.” Mama groaned and sat down in the chair.
“Jean, come here and pick these marbles up out of the floor.”
“Mama, she says Michael is going to ask her to go with him.”
“To go where?”
“Oh, Mama, you know,” I said, putting my marbles in their pouch.
“No, I don’t. Where are they going? They’re not going anywhere. How much has he spent on her? I bet he hasn’t so much as bought her a Tastee-Freez. Humph. All he can do is get her in trouble. Thought I told you to stay away from that boy anyway. Going together! You better go with some schoolbooks! You got no reason to fight anybody.”
“She said something about you too, Mama. Carla Perkins said something bad about you.”
“About me? I don’t want you fighting anybody counta what they said about me. They don’t even know me. What do I care what somebody out there in the street says about me. They’re not First National Bank; they don’t sign my check.”
Mama pointed to the floor. “Look, if you’re not going to finish that puzzle then put the pieces back in the box.” I got on my knees and started breaking up the Empire State building.
“So, what did she say about me?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“First you want to fight over a boy, then just over plain nothing.”
I looked up from the puzzle. “It wasn’t just nothing, Mama, it was bad!”
“She doesn’t even know me, how bad could it be?”
“Real bad.”
“Girl, you done started, so you may as well finish it. Out with it now!”
I stared at the puzzle pieces. “She said—she said you so black when you sweat, you sweat chocolate.” I looked up at Mama out of the corner of my eye.
“Is Carla Perkins that gap-toothed child across the alley? Her mama does hair at No Naps Beauty Salon; they came over here passing out cards a year ago?”
“That’s her.” I nodded.
“You scared of her? She’s nobody to be scared of, aren’t you bigger than she is?”
“No, not anymore, she grew.”
“Well, you can’t stay cooped up in this house forever. You’re going to have to face her sooner or later.”
Daddy walked into the room, and I sat down on my bed.
“You back from the store? Where’s my Ex-Lax? What’s going on here?”
I glanced at Daddy standing in the doorway in his gray janitor’s uniform. He didn’t look too happy. I just stared down at my quilt. I decided to keep my mouth shut and let Mama do the talking.
“Ray, she’s scared to go out ’cause some girl says she’s gonna beat her up over some boy,” Mama said, sucking her teeth in.
“What!” Daddy folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. “Look, if anybody messes with you, you pick up something—a brick, a rock, whatever—and say, Come on, you think you bad, I’ll show you who’s bad, come on! If you don’t see anything to pick up, take your fist and bust them dead in their mouth!”
For a minute I saw myself being tough just like Daddy said, and I couldn’t help but smile a little.
“Ray, listen how you sound. You’ll have somebody out there getting hurt.”
“Yeah, and it won’t be her. Evelyn, she’s got the right to defend herself. And if knocking somebody upside the head is the only way people will leave her alone, too bad. I was a red nigger in Oklahoma, remember. Now g’on girl, get outta here and get me my stuff.”
I could hear my brothers clapping and yelling. “Home run, jack! Home run, jack!”
“All right!” Daddy shouted, rushing toward the living room.
“Jean, sometimes you have to stand up to somebody before they respect you,” Mama said.
“Evelyn, bring me another beer!”
I let out a breath as I took the dollar from Mama and stood up to go.
I had made it to the store in one piece and was on my way home with Daddy’s Ex-Lax in my pocket. I had been careful not to pass Carla’s building and I would be able to reach my gate without passing her yard if I cut through our alley. I checked to see if the coast was clear. I let out a breath; there were only a couple of little boys playing with a big red ball. Hey, maybe by Monday Carla would’ve forgotten all about me, I thought as I walked down the alley. I could relax, I was almost home now.
“Hey, y’all, there she is!” One of the little boys yelled. All of a sudden a bunch of kids came running out of Carla’s yard toward me. I immediately recognized Carla, Denise, Gail, and Michael with his White Sox cap on backward, in the crowd.