Coffee Will Make You Black (12 page)

“Don't hand me that cat fat. The negro doesn't even look like he knows a chess from a checker. Humph, he'd like to play with your chest,” Mama said from the refrigerator.

“Oh, Mama.”

“Oh, Mama, nothing. Look, I wasn't born yesterday. I know riffraff when I see it! I smell a rat, mark my words!”

“Mama, you don't even know Yusef.” I sneaked a couple of butter cookies as I put the box in the cabinet.

“Look, I don't have to know the nigger! I can look at him and tell where his mind is. Got that cigarette behind his ear, he's not fooling anybody. You need to stay clear of him.”

“He just walked me home. Dog!” I groaned between bites of cookie.

“That's how it starts.”

“Why don't you all just send me to a convent now so I won't have to suffer through four years of high school.” I poured a glass of milk to wash my cookies down.

“Get smart with me, will you? You're not too big to be whipped, don't you forget that! Just because I carried that bag of groceries four long blocks, don't think I don't have the strength to wear you out. I'll do it if it takes my last ounce of energy.”

I stuck my mouth out as I watched Mama put the eggs on their shelf in the refrigerator.

“Here I am the vice president of the Block Club Association,” she continued. “I wouldn't stand out there in broad daylight and kiss your father, and I'm a grown, married woman. And you know how Mrs. Joseph and Miss Pugh stay up in their windows. Don't think they won't talk. They'll know more about what's going on in my house than I do.”

“Mama, it was just a kiss.”

“Don't talk back to me. Don't hand me that ‘it was just a kiss' mess. It starts with a kiss. And I'll tell you one thing, Miss Smarty, you make your bed hard, you sure will have to lie in it. If you want to avoid a lot of heartache and suffering, you'll play ball with me. I expect more from you than the boys, plus you're the oldest. If anybody has to set an example, you do.”

“It's not fair for everything to be on me 'cause I'm a girl.”

“Life isn't fair, child. I'm telling you how it is. Nobody much cares what a man does. No matter how low a man stoops, he can always get up, brush himself off, put on a clean set of clothes, and he's still Mr. Johnson. A woman has to consider her reputation. You think those busybodies in the window are gonna run to the phone and talk about what Mrs. Brown's son did? No indeedy, they're gonna be talking about Mrs. Stevenson's daughter, that hoe, that slut! When they get finished you would've been practically doing the do out on the grass! I know people. No matter what a man does, he can always get somebody. Baby, they got women who want to marry murderers on death row! It is still a man's world and don't you forget it. I'm telling you this because I want you to be somebody. And I won't stand to let anybody drag my only girl through the mud, not as long as I've got some fight left in me!”

“Mama, I've finished putting the groceries away. Can I go watch TV?”

“Okay, but you remember everything I've said.”

“Yeah, Mama.” I headed to the cabinet and got a handful of butter cookies.

“Give me a couple of those cookies.” Mama stretched her hand out, forgetting about her diet.

chapter 10

I was sitting in my favorite swing at recess, just letting my feet drag through the wood chips. I didn't have the heart to swing.

“What's going on, Sally Sunshine?”

I looked up and saw Carla standing in front of me.

“Yusef asked me to go with him,” I mumbled.

“Well, can't nobody 'cuse you of dancing in the streets.”

“There's a catch.”

“What's the catch? You gotta give up Roland?”

“Very funny. He wants me to pee with him.”

Carla sat down in the swing next to me.

“Wow, I knew Yusef Brown was cool, but I ain't know he was this cool! Wow, Stevie, I knew you was square but I ain't know you was this square.”

“Shut up, Carla, seriously. I told him I had to think about it. I would be lying if I said I wasn't kind of scared. I wanted to get your opinion, okay?”

“Stevie, sometimes you have to get over being scared. You can't stay a baby forever. Look at it like this, it's just a body function, it's natural. You pee all the time. He pee all the time. The only difference is y'all will be peeing together.” Carla looked at me like she'd just finished describing one of the most romantic things in the world.

“Would you do it?” I asked her point-blank.

“Sure, if Tyrone asked me, I'd do it in a minute.” Carla snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”

“Sure you would, like fun.” I tried to call her bluff. “I never heard of you peeing with Tyrone or anybody else for that matter. You've never done it before, have you?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“You would've told me, wouldn't you?”

“I don't tell you all my business.” Carla tried to sound grown-up.

“Well, I bet you and Tyrone never peed together before.”

“Who says it would've had to have been with Tyrone?”

“If you'd done it with some other boy, I'd know about it, wouldn't I?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Oh, stop being so doggone mysterious.”

“Look if you must know, I have peed with a boy before, okay?”

“Who? What's his name?”

“You don't know him.”

“Yeah, me and nobody else. How old were y'all, three and four?”

“No, I was twelve. It happened summer before last; I was visiting my grandmother in East St. Louis. You think you're the first girl some boy ever asked to pee with him? Folks been peeing together all over East St. Louis, way before you was born, not to mention the South.”

I took a deep breath. Maybe I was making too big a deal out of it. I had to admit when I squeezed my legs together and thought about peeing with Yusef I got an excited feeling. Scary, yes, but exciting just the same.

“Well, how was it?”

“How was what?” Carla asked.

“Peeing with that boy in East St. Louis?”

“It ain't something you can really put into words, it's something you gotta experience for yourself.” Carla started swinging.

“Carla, he wants us to do it after school tomorrow, behind his house.” I started swinging alongside Carla.

“Stevie, you've come too far to turn back now. You this close to being Yusef's lady.” Carla held her thumb and finger real close together.

“Okay, I'm gonna do it, Carla. I'm just gonna go head and do it!”

“Do it, do it, do it till you satisfied!” Carla laughed.

I started swinging faster. I wanted to see how high I could go.

I usually hated the fact that I always had to be the one to wash the dishes because I was the only girl. Mama and Daddy wouldn't hear of my brothers having to so much as rinse out a glass. But tonight I was kind of glad that everyone was out of the kitchen, leaving me to my dishes and the thoughts running through my head. I started cleaning off the table and thinking about peeing with Yusef tomorrow.

“How many times have I told you not to throw away my glass!” Daddy shouted. I jumped as he grabbed my hand over the sink. I watched the thin brown stain almost disappear.

“I thought it was empty,” I said softly. There couldn't have been but a drop, I told myself. My wrist was hurting where Daddy was holding it. I was afraid to move it because I might drop the glass in the sink, and if it broke then he would really get mad.

Mama stood in the doorway. “You know your father wants the last drop of whiskey. Just leave his glass alone. I don't care if it looks empty or not, just leave his glass alone.”

Daddy let go of my wrist and grabbed the glass out of my hand. He walked over to the cabinet and poured himself another drink.

“I'm sorry, Daddy, I really thought it was empty.” He ignored me, which I took to mean that he accepted my apology. I could get back to thinking about peeing with Yusef, now.

I squeezed some Joy into the dishpan and filled it with water. There was the exciting, scary part about letting Yusef see what was up under my panties and me seeing his dick. But what was also going through my head was, what if we got caught or what if my parents found out? I tried to picture it in my mind. I could see Mama now; she'd probably have to lie down for a week. She would say over and over how if anyone had told her I would've done something like this, she wouldn't have believed it. If it had been one of the boys maybe, but not her Jean Eloise, named after her favorite grandmother, may her soul rest in peace. Then she would grab a belt. No, it was June, she'd send David out to pick her a switch. As she hit me, she'd shout, “Six summers of vacation Bible school down the drain! I'm gonna beat you till I beat the devil out of you. I'm gonna whip you till I can't whip you no more. I'm gonna beat you till I drop!” Then we would both collapse and I would be glad, because at least after hitting me she would feel better. Then she'd be able to pray for the Lord to show me the way.

If Daddy had been there and whipped me instead, I could picture him just going off, beating me to the ground with his belt, leaving welts on me, like he did on Kevin and David last month when they forgot and left their bikes in the yard, and somebody could've come by and stolen them. But maybe if Daddy had had a few drinks, he might be in such a good mood that he wouldn't let anything spoil it, not even me peeing with Yusef. Then Daddy might just go to bed or go back out into the street. Then Mama would cry and ask God what she'd done to deserve a no-good husband and a wicked daughter. Mama would say that if she had to stay on her knees the rest of her life she would. “Lord, just give me the strength to get through this,” she'd pray.

I looked up. I had practically finished washing the dishes. I squeezed out some more Joy and started on the last pan. I couldn't believe I was gonna actually pee with Yusef. Mama always said the devil was powerful. Probably God would forgive me quicker than Mama. Didn't seem like peeing with somebody all by itself would keep a person out of heaven. What with all the worse things people did, like murdering and raping folks. Didn't we sing in church, “There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul, there is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole”?

My stomach was in knots and Yusef Brown was forever smiling at me from across the room. I had told him this morning that, yeah, I would pee with him today.

I hadn't done doodly squat all day. I was gonna have to do homework over the weekend. I would have to tell Mr. Cox I had been sick and that's why I hadn't turned in the assignments. I just hadn't said anything at the time, I'd say. I had it all figured out in my head.

Aside from being scared, I was excited about seeing Yusef's thing. Oh, forgive me, God. Me, an alto in Faith's Junior Choir, me, with almost perfect Sunday-school attendance. I wondered if there was really hope for a wretch like me. I would have to remember to ask Mr. Berry, the junior choir director, to let us sing “Amazing Grace” as soon as he could fit it in.

“How come you so quiet?” Yusef asked, as we walked between the bushes and his brick apartment building. I hunched my shoulders as Yusef opened the metal gate leading to the backyard.

“Just down these steps; see, there's a drain by the basement door.”

I glanced at the backyard. It was all dirt, not a blade of grass, and there was a lot of old toys and junk lying around. It smelled like somebody had peed in it already.

“Don't worry, ain't nobody here.” Yusef put his hand on my shoulder. “It's gonna be fun, you'll see.”

It was hot, even for June. I squinted as Yusef pulled me toward him and kissed me. I felt a little weak and dizzy, like I was in a dream. Yusef started to unbuckle and unzip his pants. I squatted and reached up under my dress. I grabbed hold of my cotton panties. They felt heavy and wet on account of the heat, I supposed. I couldn't help but look at the bump in Yusef's underwear. We're just gonna pee, I told myself as I pulled my panties down from my waist.

“Stevie, Stevie, hold up.”

I stopped and looked up with my panties hugging my thighs under my dress. It was Carla; I recognized her voice.

I wondered if my mother had gotten wind of what was going on and that's why Carla was here.

“Carla, what do you want?” I asked as she came through the gate. Yusef looked like he didn't know what to do, standing there in his Fruit of the Looms.

“I gotta tell you something.… I ain't never peed with that boy in East St. Louis! I ain't never peed with nobody!”

“Carla, you mean you lied to me?”

Carla nodded. “Stevie, I'm sorry, I was just talking smack, that's all.”

I pulled my panties up and Yusef pulled his pants back on.

“What you talking about, girl? Don't nobody care about what you done, or ain't done.” Yusef frowned. “This here ain't got nothing to do with you.”

Carla ignored Yusef, “Stevie, don't go through with it if it ain't you, girl. I was wrong to push you into it.”

Carla hadn't peed with anybody, she was admitting she'd lied. She was sorry she'd pushed me into peeing with Yusef. I couldn't believe Carla was saying all this stuff. I had never seen Carla look so concerned.

“How you know it ain't her, maybe it is her,” Yusef growled.

A lot was going through my mind. I remembered when we were at Riverview last summer and I was scared to go up on the roller-coaster ride and how Carla had waved to me down on the ground. It seemed like I was always looking up at her. She'd gotten her period a whole two months before I'd gotten mine last year. For once, I felt like I could have something happen to me first. I would be the one to tell her how it felt. I was the one going up on the roller coaster, she was the one left on the ground. It was the first time she couldn't call me “chicken.”