Crave (10 page)
Authors: Laurie Jean Cannady
Side Dishes and Entrees
Side Dishes and Entrees
Our home on Dorset Avenue, one of many in the cluster of houses that made up Academy Park, was a muted palette for Momma and us kids to paint our futures. Each home in the public housing complex was bone white with black posts running from concrete porches to small roofs. An aerial view of the development would have looked like a mouth, littered with jagged, crooked teeth.
Our first day there, Momma herded us onto the porch, pushed the key into the doorknob, and leaned. The door opened with a pop to a room as white as the outside of the house. The floor was a dark brown wood, with veins and arteries that stretched from one side of the room to the next. There was a large heater that looked like a metal dresser, in a recessed corner with posts, similar to the ones on the porch. I looked around and tried to imagine our voices bouncing off the walls and our socked feet sliding across the floor.
Momma led the five of us in a line from the tallest to the shortest. We all moved from room to room as Momma gave us a tour of our new home. “This will be your bedroom,” she said to all of us as she opened the door to a room that would hold the twin beds we were getting from the Salvation Army.
On move-in day, we only took Tom-Tom's crib and Momma's bed from the house on Victory Boulevard. Deliverymen brought a living room set, which had an aroma I'd never smelled beforeânew. Almost everything we'd ever owned had belonged to somebody else first, clothes, furniture, even food. But this house appeared unscathed, newly conceived, starting with the breeze that floated through the room when Momma opened the front and the kitchen doors, to the dribbles of paint on the floor Momma made us scrape with butter knives.
That night, when Momma put us into our new-to-us twin beds with our new-to-us sheets, I gazed at the full moon's glow creeping between the curtains. A glimmer of hope crept through the slits of me, promising tomorrow and tomorrow's tomorrow held something brighter than yesterday.
Casualty of War
Casualty of War
We settled into Academy Park nicely. Since we'd moved, we didn't have an opportunity to make friends, so we spent most of our time in the backyard together. Momma met our next-door neighbor, Mr. Holmes, and he offered her a job at the AAMCO station that he owned across the street from our house. That arrangement allowed Momma to go to work and she didn't have to get us a babysitter. During her ten-minute breaks, she'd run to the house and check on us.
Champ, a sheepish boy, with burnt umber skin and curls that looked like a nest of fat, black worms, declared himself the family enforcer. He knew how Momma liked things and always made sure the house was in order when she came home from work. None of us had daddies, so he was everybody's daddy and not opposed to kicking my butt if I got out of line. He doled out chores and it was our responsibility to do as he said. In my case, that rarely happened. I was a little too sassy and a little too independent for Champ to be the boss of me, so I often rebelled until he threatened to tell Momma I wasn't minding. Then, I'd sulk off to our bedroom and act like I was cleaning the closet until Dathan or Mary discovered me napping there.
We had to wash baseboards, clean windows, and scrub the tub. Each floor had to be swept every day and dust bunnies, wherever they may have hidden, meant to Momma the floor hadn't been swept. Since Champ and I were the oldest, we also had to clean the kitchen, which meant washing and drying dishes, cleaning the table, counters, stove, and sweeping and mopping the floor. Champ and I often fought over which chores we had to do. Sometimes, the arguments went on so long we'd scramble to clean before Momma came home. Washing dishes was always favorable to cleaning the floor because it didn't require the constant bending that sweeping and mopping required. The job of the dishes also meant cleaning
the counters and the stove, while the floor included washing the table and wiping the refrigerator and lower cabinets. Another incentive for washing dishes was not-so-clean or not-so-dry dishes were easier to hide than a sticky floor or a glob of jelly hidden under the table that Momma would surely detect.
On one particular night, Momma's shift ended at eleven. She came home on her dinner break and cooked the chicken, navy beans, and biscuits she'd prepped before she went to work. The beans had been simmering all day and all she had to do to finish dinner was pop the biscuits into the oven and fry the chicken. Once she finished cooking, Momma rushed back to work while we ate.
After dinner, I was comfortable in the living room, with my back resting on one arm of the chair and my legs draped over the other. Tom-Tom was beside me, and his eyes were growing heavier with each second that passed. Mary and Dathan had already made their way to the bedroom, free of any other responsibilities that night. Champ walked into the living room and stood his lanky self in front of the television. He was so tall for an eight-year-old that I could still see the television through his long legs.
“Laurie, we gotta clean up the kitchen,” he said. “You can do the dishes this time.”
Now, I was no dummy, and I knew if Champ was electing to do the table and the floors, that was a much sweeter deal than the dishes. I wrestled myself from under Tom-Tom's heaviness and went to survey the damage. The aluminum pot Momma had stewed the beans in was filled with beige flakes of crushed beans, some of which had stuck to the bottom of the pan. The fried chicken grease sat on the rear eye of the stove, with a half and half rationing of oil and left-behind grime that had to be strained before I even washed the pot. There was a mountain of dishes that sat in the sink, waiting to be washed, dried, and put away. On top of all that, the counter was filled with half-dried pasty flour that had been used to knead the biscuits and later coat the chicken.
I looked at Champ through squinting eyes, placed my left hand on my hip, stuck my chest out as far as it could go and said, “You
must be crazy.” I could feel my neck moving in a circular motion and my toe tapping in unison with each word that came out of my mouth. Champ and I made a dash for the broom. We reached it at the same time and wrestled over the long stick for about two minutes. Taller, older, and stronger, Champ muscled the broom out of my hands, so I rushed toward the mop, thinking if I had half the tools for the job then I'd have equal standing with him, but he reached his string bean arm over my head, grabbed the mop, and held it high in front of him.
On a normal night, I would have conceded and vowed to be quicker, faster, and smarter next time, but a concession speech was not what I had in mind. I don't know if it was the beans churning in my belly or my resentment toward Champ in that moment, but I was having no part in yielding.
“If I can't do the floor, I'm not doing nothing,” I said.
Champ sharply stared. With the mop in one hand and the broom in the other, he looked like a broom-wielding god, pondering which form of torture to unleash on me in that moment. I thought I had trumped him because he couldn't do the floor or the table, until I finished the dishes and the counters, but he just walked toward me with the broom and mop sliding across the floor. I readied myself for him to hand both cleaning utensils, however abruptly, to me, but he walked past me and went into the bedroom. I hadn't anticipated that, but I was not giving in. So, I woke Tom-Tom from his slumber, shuffled him into the bed next to Mary and climbed in next to them. It wasn't long before our snores began to dance the dance that often populates the bedrooms of sleepy, satisfied children.
Later that night, I felt someone pulling me out of bed by both of my hands. My butt landed on the floor and my feet followed. I was being dragged out of the room before I could process what was happening. After my vision and my wits began to communicate, I saw Champ leaning against the loveseat rubbing both of his eyes. I looked over to our bedroom door and saw Momma quietly closing it, with the belt, or “leather fly” as we'd unaffectionately named it,
wrapped around her hand. She turned around to Champ and me and without words, began whipping our butts.
Champ and I clamored over each other, trying to shield ourselves with the other's body. We screamed and screeched in pain as Momma raised the belt over her head and brought it down on one of our butts, backs, legs, or arms. At that moment, it didn't matter which one of us she was hitting; we both felt the sting. Momma swung and we fled. It was like a jousting of sorts, only our side was weaponless and on a constant retreat into the kitchen. Momma finally stopped swinging as Champ and I stood in front of her at the sink.
Tears stained our cheeks and our chests rose together as each sob left our mouths. Momma towered over us, both hands on her hips, still clenching the leather fly. She looked like a belt-wielding goddess, with electrifying bolts shooting from her eyes through our bodies. She raised her hand, pointed at the mountain of dishes, and asked with a resounding voice, “Why didn't you clean this kitchen?” Champ and I looked at each other, ready to begin the blame game, but Momma raised her hand and said, “Don't even open your mouths. Clean my kitchen, and clean it now!”
Champ and I hurried to action. We almost bumped into each other rushing to the sink. We heard Momma in her bedroom, fussing about our laziness and nastiness. We tried to be as quiet as possible as we began stacking dishes and filling the sink with water. “It's your fault,” Champ snarled.
“No, it's yours,” I replied, rolling my eyes as hard as my eyelids would allow. Then we both heard Momma walking toward the kitchen.
“I better not hear your mouths,” she said. So we silently fought, pushing aside each other's hands in the sink, shooting looks of disgust each other's way. I ended up doing the dishes, but Champ helped with the pans. We scrubbed the floors, stove, and table with determination and cleaned each grain of flour on the counter. As we were finishing, Momma came back into the kitchen wearing her nightgown. In the light, her gaunt silhouette was visible through
the sheer fabric. Her usually free head of hair was bound with a rubber band and she stood in the door of the kitchen, shaking her head at us.
“Now, why couldn't you two have done this before you went to bed?”
We both started at the same time, “Well, Champ . . .”
“Well, Laurie . . .”
The look on her face showed it wasn't a question she wanted an answer to.
“You know, I work hard every day to buy y'all good food. I come home on my break to cook it for you, and all I ask is you clean up the kitchen afterward. That's all I ask you to do and you can't even do that. Then I have to come home and see my kitchen all messed up. Who's supposed to clean it up? Me, after working twelve hours today?”
“No ma'am,” we responded in cadence.
“Do you think that I wanted to come home and have to beat you?”
“No ma'am,” we sang again.
“All I wanted to do was come home, eat a little bit, and go to bed. Now, you two make me beat you.”
Momma then turned her back to us, facing the darkness of the living room.
“I just want a little help. I just need a little help,” she said to the empty room. I'm not sure if Champ and I knew at the same time, but I could hear the tears before I saw them on her face. I wanted to reach out to her, to hold her like she often held me, but I felt unworthy. At first, it was a war between Champ and me, but I never imagined Momma would be our casualty. “Just go to bed,” Momma said, as she remained turned away from us.
Champ and I shuffled into our bedroom. The darkness and the small snores of Mary, Dathan, and Tom-Tom quickly enveloped us as we entered. Champ and I felt around the room until we found our beds. “I'm sorry,” I said, not really to Champ, but in his vicinity.
“Me, too,” Champ said as I heard him slipping into bed next to Dathan.
I wished I could have said that to Momma, to let her know I hadn't done it on purpose. I mean I had, but I hadn't. I wished real hard she'd just know, just as she'd always known when I was the one who left the spoon in the peanut butter or that I was the one who hadn't folded the clothes just right. Like most childhood wishes, that thought hung between my mind and the room's walls. Thankfully, I heard the sounds of television floating through the cracks of the bedroom door. Any sound was better than the darkness of the living room, where I could still hear Momma's tears, even though I could not see them or her.
After what Champ and I deemed the beat-out-of-sleep night, we all tried to work together better and help Momma around the house. Mary and I made it our business to take care of her when she was off work, cutting apples, oranges, and even grapes into small squares and making fruit salad. We'd serve her breakfast in bed with toast and tea after she'd finished a long night of working. I'd take to memorizing pages of Shel Silverstein's poems and reciting them as she brushed her teeth in the morning.
Once I realized how hard Momma was working, I began worrying about her health. She'd always been small-framed, but she'd grown so skinny after we moved to Academy Park that her arms were as thin as mine. The long nights of working and days of caring for us were devouring her. She was only one person and we were, in fact, five.
The more we grew, the more food we consumed. Momma took to fasting or “not being hungry” whenever there wasn't enough to satisfy us all. I noticed her sitting in the living room while we ate, sipping on unsweetened tea and eating a dry biscuitâa meal unsuitable for a child, and yet, she survived on it. She never complained, even though I could feel the rumbling of her stomach when I hugged her and headed off to bed. It was on those nights, when the rumble followed me into the bedroom, when I spied her inspecting our leftovers for edible pieces, that I cried for her. It became a ritual for me, where I'd spend the final minutes in bed, before sleep overcame me, crying, praying that Momma wouldn't die. On one such night, Momma walked past the room and heard my sniffling.
“Laurie,” she tiptoed in and sat on the bed beside me. “Why are you crying?” I wiped the tears from my eyes and the snot from my nose, startled out of my moment of crisis.
“I don't want to tell you, Momma. You might get mad.”
“I won't get mad,” she said tenderly.
“You're gonna die, Momma,” I said as I hurled myself to the bed, face first. Momma giggled softly and began rubbing my back.
“What do you mean, Laurie?”
“You're gonna get sick and die.” Momma paused for a second, probably pondering whether I was a psychic or a medical prodigy.
“How do you know I'm going to die?”
“I don't know. I just do,” I said in between tears. Momma laughed again.
“But everybody's going to die one day, Laurie. Even you're going to, so I'd rather you cry for yourself than for me. Okay?” I thought about that for a second and erupted into a new set of tears.
“Why are you crying now, Laurie?” she asked.
“Because I'm gonna die.” Momma gave me a hug and rubbed the back of my neck.
“It's okay, girly. Can you do me a favor?” Momma asked. “When you worry like this, I want you to pray to God. Just pray he'll watch over all of us and it'll be okay. Okay?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Now, get to sleep. I gotta go to work tomorrow.”
“Yes, ma'am,” I replied.
Momma slipped out of the room and I began the job of praying. Praying for her, and then praying for myself. But halfway through that prayer, I thought about Champ, Mary, Dathan, and Tom-Tom, so I had to pray for them, too. And then I started thinking about Aunt Vonne, and Aunt Bir't, Uncle Bruce, and Aunt Della, so I had to pray for them as well. And I couldn't forget all of my favorite cousins, Tricia, Sherry, Lisa, Tedren, Lynette, and Latrice, so I began praying for them one by one. By the time I moved from the world of the waking to slumber, there were still prayers bouncing around in my head and my list of prayees began to look like an upside-down pyramid, starting with Momma and ending with friends and relatives that hadn't been met or born yet. Thankfully, I never cried about Momma's death again after that night. I had the more pressing charge of organizing my list of prayees, so I could get them all in before sleep hijacked my thoughts.