Part 36 (1/2)

Camille hated when Pep talked crazy.

”What he needs is a job,” she said.

”You gonna give him one? There's kids out here with good records can't find no work.”

”Maybe I could pay him a little something to do odd jobs around the house.”

The minute the words left her mouth Camille knew she had stumbled upon a truly bad idea. For the eight years since her husband died, she had been saving fifty dollars a month, stuffing it in an envelope taped to the underside of her bedroom bureau. Her job at the rectory paid two hundred dollars a week. Social Security would pay only half of that. She would have to subsidize her retirement with money from the envelope. She didn't have any money to pay Nicholas.

”You know,” Pep was saying, ”the two of us should put our a.s.sets together. We should start a little business.”

”What a.s.sets?” Camille retorted. She had no more interest in going into business with Pep than she had in getting into his truck again.

”You with your beauty and brains. Me with my green thumb.” He was smiling.

”You had a little business. What happened to it?” She wasn't in the mood.

”Minority-owned and everything. Just couldn't get those big contracts!” Pep shook his head. He climbed out of the truck and came around and opened her door.

”Where's a criminal when you need him?” he sighed. ”Gotta get that grandson of yours to steal me a new vehicle!”

He threw back his head and laughed. Camille stared at him long and hard. He was not particularly handsome. His teeth were yellow; a couple of them were missing. His beard was badly in need of a trim. His eyes were bloodshot, even though he had stopped drinking a couple of years ago. But unlike Nicholas, with his movie star looks, Pep had never been to jail. He was ent.i.tled to his laughter. His only crimes were entrepreneurial.

She wrapped her sweater around her, took his hand, and stepped down into the street. The boy with the copper bicycle was suddenly at her feet.

”Hey, Miz Broussard, 'member me? I used to carry yo' bags.”

”Where'd you get that bicycle from?” Pep growled.

”I found it in the L.A. River.” The boy looked proud of himself.

”That's the bicycle of one of them boys that drowned after that big rain. You best to take that bicycle back.” Pep s.n.a.t.c.hed the bicycle away from him.

The boy protested loudly and held on. ”I didn't steal it,” he hollered, ”I found it. I ain't no thief!”

Camille stared at him hard. ”Is that you, Quentin? You getting big. How's your grandma?”

”She awright.”

”Ain't seen you round the store lately.”

”Ain't workin' there no more.”

”You ain't working nowhere,” Pep brushed him aside. ”You need to be going to school. How old are you? Ten?”

”I'm thirteen! My gramma say I ain't need to go to school no mo'. Gimme twenty dollars, I fix that truck.”

”I'll sell it to you for twenty-five.” Quentin shook his head. Pep threw down the bicycle. He picked it up and rode off. The copper frame gleamed in the twilight sun.

Camille and Pep set off. Three blocks and they would be home. Before they had gone a good ten yards, children were jumping up and down in the back of Pep's truck chanting rhymes and yelling obscenities. The elders did not look back nor wag their fingers in reprimand, nor add their own voices to the din of posterity. They were tired from a long day spent with the future. Together they walked, his arm supporting her elbow, her hand clutching his wrist, two stalwart spirits teetering on the edge of endurance. If not for their surroundings and not again for their circ.u.mstances and not again for their misfortunes, they might have caused a head or two to bow. As it was, theirs were the only heads straining to stay aloft. Burdened with obligations and the apprehension of old people walking a gauntlet of unemployed youth, they struggled to make it home before night descended.

Press and Curl.

BY TAYARI JONES.

It didn't take them all that long to find Rodney's body. Three weeks after he disappeared, they came across him facedown in an Atlanta creek. And by then I was used to the idea of him being dead. I had watched the children's faces on the news, one by one, since August of last year. Last time I checked, three of the pictures had ”missing” up under them and the other ten said, ”murdered.” None of the ”missing” ones ever got found and took off the list. All that ever changed was the word below. Once somebody's picture made it to the news, it was a done deal.

Rodney's family asked if the school chorus could sing at the services. We practiced for three days straight to be ready for Tuesday. Our rehearsals weren't as rowdy as usual, but somebody just pa.s.sing by also wouldn't think we was getting ready to put a boy in the ground. Truth was, most people was a little excited because the funerals always got shown on TV. I didn't like to watch them, but Mama would sit on the couch with one dry Kleenex balled tight in her hand saying ”G.o.d spare.”

Mrs. Scott, the music teacher, was taking us through ”G.o.d Is Amazing” for the fifty-millionth time with Cinque Freeman on solo. He had his eyes closed, singing like he Foster Silvers or somebody. Mrs. Scott banged on the music stand with her conductor wand. ”Let us not forget why we are here.”

I don't think that anyone forgot Rodney. It was just that they didn't know him good enough to have nothing much to remember. He was my friend, true, but I was the only one who got to talk to him. Rodney was so shy, like in that song by the Pointer Sisters. Talking to him was sometimes like talking to my grandfather after he had his stroke. I could tell by looking at Papa that he could hear me but his mouth couldn't work for him to answer me. So when I spoke to him, I would say my part and his, too. But most people not going to go through all that with a eleven-year-old, so they never got to know Rodney Green. That's too bad, because he was good people. So it's not that the chorus forgot Rodney. It just that they didn't miss him enough to forget that come next Tuesday, we'd all be on television.

Mama must have thought about me being on TV, too, because she made an appointment for me to get my hair fixed the day before the funeral. I had been begging her every Christmas and every Easter since second grade to let me wear curls and every time she said, ”What you need to have your hair pressed for? You ain't grown.”

What did I need a press and curl for? Sometimes Mama act like she don't have two good eyes to see with. My hair so nappy that it pulls the comb right out Mama hand when she try to fix it for me. By the time she get it into plaits, my head be tender and the comb so full of hair that it look like a little animal. And all that wrestling for what? n.o.body ever said to me, ”You hair looks real nice, Octavia.” If they do notice it at all, it's to say how short it is. Grown people try to be nice and tell me things I can eat or put in it to make it grow. Kids just poke fun and say, ”Octavia hair so short she can use rice for a curler.”

But my hair not as short as people think. I can pull my braids down till they reach the bottom of my ear, but when I let it go, then pop back up by my eyes. But see, if I could get it straightened it could hang to its full length. Then I could wear it smooth down in the back with a little row of curls. Forsythia Chambers, this girl in my cla.s.s, wears hers tucked under all the way around so she look like a sweet little mushroom. That's how I want mine. I get tired of stupid boys slapping on my neck because I ain't got no hair to cover it up with.

And as for me being grown, you don't have to be grown to get a press and curl. On Easter I see five-year-olds with they hair twisted into s.h.i.+ny s.h.i.+rley-Temples. I think they look cute as pie but Mama just talk about them under her breath, ”Last thing a little girl need is for people to have a reason to look at her.”

Sometimes my Mama act like she don't live in the same world with the rest of us. Listening to her, you would think that you have to be cute for people to look at you.

”I want you to get your hair fixed after school on Monday,” Mama said. She was in the kitchen boiling neck bones.

”Monday?” I asked. Real beauty parlors are closed on Monday. ”Where at?”

”Over Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton, where you think?” Mama chopped celery into big chunks.

”Mama, you know I don't eat celery.”

”Don't eat it, then,” she said.

I couldn't figure out if she was sending me to Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton because she didn't have the money to send me to the Pink Fox Salon or if it was because Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton is the only one doing heads on a Monday.

”What we having with the neck bones?”

”Rice and gravy. Green beans.”

”To drink?” I asked.

”Kool Aid.”

So it was a money thing. When she got cash we have c.o.ke with dinner, or juice. Water or Kool Aid meant money was funny. But it could be worse. In the summer when the electric bill gets really high, Mama do her own hair in the kitchen. It looked okay when she get through but the tops of her ears get burnt where she bring the hot comb in too close.

”Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton do people hair pretty,” I said to show I wasn't tripping. Mama is good for taking something away if I turn my nose up at it.