Crave (26 page)

We Each Miss Her
We Each Miss Her

Despite the inconvenience of five kids, Momma, with silky, straightened hair that cupped her face, with biking shorts clinging to her shapely legs, and a long enough shirt to hide the specifics while accentuating the curves, was still enough woman to make the men of Lincoln Park drop their cigarettes, turn their heads, and even crash their cars as she walked by.

I don't remember the point at which Momma became more Mr. Bryan's than ours. There must have been a switch, something that turned off in our lives that hid us from her. All I know is that the day Mr. Bryan's baby blue Caprice Classic skulked up to our house we went from the five of us competing for Momma's attention to none of us being able to capture it.

Mr. Bryan was unlike the men Momma had dated in the past. He didn't attempt to befriend us. He barely acknowledged our existence. Most days I'd sit on the front porch, concrete slab pressing against my thighs, sun kissing my shoulders, and Mr. Bryan's absent eyes would turn to the grassless yard, the cracks in the sidewalk, the bare spot on the tree which sat in front of our house. No eye contact was made, just the usual huff, masquerading as a “Hello,” letting me know I was little more than alive in his eyes. I watched him, wondering how certain of himself he must have been to know he could have Momma without us.

I dreamed of an escape from Lincoln Park, but Momma was woman enough to capture that escape for herself. Nights out blended into days. Before I knew it, there was a perfect chain of days and nights in which I hadn't seen Momma. She and Mr. Bryan spent most of their time in an efficiency on Airline Boulevard, while we spent most of our days wondering what she was doing there and when she would be coming home.

Although there were still five of us living in the house, populating the small, block rooms, our space seemed empty without Momma there. The freedom we relished, the ability to leave the kitchen as messy as we liked or to stay up all night if we so desired, was overshadowed by the quiet behind Momma's bedroom door. No television channels clicking, no air conditioning cycling on and off, her silence spoke. Sometimes, even with the five of us there, the house was so quiet, so still, it was as if we were willing her absence louder than our presence.
We each missed her in our own way
.

Champ, at fourteen, was the eldest, but he had never actually been the baby, never truly an only child. Babies began growing in Momma well before his feet touched earth. Milk meant to nurse him, soon suckled by another, then another. Back then, he was too young to understand what was lost, that which was his birthright, not exactly stolen, but birthed away. During Momma's absence, he sat, neck deep in his lacking, trying to keep his head above bouts of cursing, fussing, his response to what he deemed betrayal. At least he had his own room. In that space, he could be more than the first; he could be the only.

He spent his time drawing pictures of Nike shoes, his name in graffiti, anything that escaped his marker, ink racing to paper. Blots transformed to masterpieces, at least in his eyes. I sometimes wondered what he was thinking. Even more, I wanted to ask if he felt what I felt. I wanted to know if he missed her too, if he was angry too. But we didn't talk. We used to, but now words led down roads neither of us wanted to speak into existence. Best to let the silence ring. Our voices, our existence had never been loud enough anyway.

I was surrounded by books, encased in a den of lines and open space. My favorites,
The Bachman Books, The Dead Zone, Pet Sematary
, and
Carrie
, were heaped at the foot of my bed. Books sat atop my dresser leaning lazily into one another, heavy with the weight of the worlds I often escaped to. I had read them all more than once. I was reading them again because, like food, there was a
scarcity of books in my home. Eventually, I found a solution to that literary famine, one as simple as picking up the phone and ordering books like I would Pizza Hut if I had the funds to do so. Commercials touting book club subscriptions tempted me more than
Family Ties
and
Who's the Boss?

I watched those shows, not because I was intrigued by Alex P. Keaton's latest antics or Tony Micelli's newest dilemma concerning Angela, but because of the commercials offering 1-800 numbers that promised book after book, day after day of reading escape. Some nights, I was disappointed as the only commercials were with that little old woman who had fallen and couldn't get up or those Wendy's-loving ladies prying under a bun, screaming “Where's the beef?” On those nights, I retreated to my room and reread books I
borrowed
from the local library before they revoked my privileges because of overdue fees.

On some nights I was lucky. Some nights, I waited no more. 1-800 numbers, books flying from the top, sides, and bottom of the television screen were enough to make me squeal as I reached for the pen and paper sitting next to me, as I scribbled numbers that had my books sitting at the other end of the phone line. True, I deceptively gave the operator my mother's name. True, I would never pay a dime once the bill was received. True, I felt an immense sense of guilt as I lied, time and time again, to 1-800 number after another about my intention to pay for the gift of words, words I fed off of when food was not enough. But, once I received the cardboard box cradling books with hard covers so shiny I saw my smile staring back at me, my conscience was as clean as the empty spaces holding the lines on the page steady.

There were many 1-800 numbers, touting magazine subscriptions and book clubs for me to occupy empty time.
True Story
, T
rue Confessions, Reader's Digest
, book subscription after book subscription—I ordered and read them all as I waited for her return. In those paged worlds, we were together. Momma was the forever heroine, I, her sidekick. There was always a happy ending, always a promise the story would continue. This is how I knew she would continue
returning, because there were more books to receive and stories that had not yet been written.

I wrote my own stories on the electric typewriter Momma purchased for me. The clicking, clacking, dinging reminded me she had witnessed me searching for voice.

Dathan sucked his thumb, ambled around the house trying to find something to do. He ventured into my room, asked what I was reading, but he was met with my evil eye, maybe even a middle finger, as I ordered him from my lair. I heard him knock on Champ's door, asking did he want to play cars, but I never heard Champ's door open. I only heard the knocking. He found his way to Mary, as she rocked on the couch downstairs. First there was silence, then a scream, maybe even tears as licks were exchanged and he made his way to another part of the house. He could have always played with Tom-Tom, but what big brother wants to play with his little brother? If Momma had been there, he might have fried up some potato logs for her. He might have asked could he get some Bullethead Nikes for school that year. He might have hugged her and reminded her of how much he always loved her chicken, so much so he'd eat the backs and booties, even though no one ever wanted the junk part of anything. But Momma was not there and he was alone, while sharing the house with the four of us. So, he elected to draw on the walls or pull the stuffing out of pillows, or he began his rounds again, going from room to room, trying to insert himself into someone else's reality, trying to be seen so he would know he was not by himself.

Mary, undeterred by Dathan's pestering, sat in the middle of the sofa, eyes closed, legs pulled closely together, hands in her lap, as she rocked back and forth, like a mother lulling a baby. She lulled herself. From time to time, she opened her eyes. They were fixed on the television, which was turned off. She stared at the blank screen as if an interesting program was being broadcast. She never talked, never moved from that spot, unless she was instructed to.
And, of course, unless Dathan attempted to invade the space she and her rocking occupied. She just rocked, sometimes from sunup to sundown, waiting for that which all of us knew but none of us named. She rocked so much, the springs popped from the chair and there was a crater that contained her rocking. She rocked as if her body, cocking back and forth, back and forth, had reach enough, strength enough to reel in what we had all been working to bait.

Tom-Tom, the youngest of us all, did not miss her within the confines of our home. Only eight, he was possessed by his mission as he woke early every morning and walked the streets of our projects, our city. He cut lawns, washed cars, hauled trash, worked for what it was he craved, and when the day's work was done, like an ailing, elderly man, he returned home, sweaty, dirty, tired. He returned with his wages converted into snack cakes, all stamped with the smiling face of the white girl with brown hair. Little Debbie Cakes, so sweet, so soft, he split his booty with us, but be certain he had one or two stashed that he could savor later alone, without our prying eyes and wanting hands. He would do that every day without excuse and without complaint. Still a baby, he had a mission, and the waiting—that would have to wait until he was done.

Chicken Little
Chicken Little

Sometimes, I liked the feeling of hunger, the way my belly and body felt so light, I believed I could float. During those times, hunger
was
the escape, not the thing I was trying to escape. That night was not one of those nights. That night, I was so hungry I considered eating the can of peanut butter Momma had gotten from the Food Stamp office. Without a can opener, if I were to open the oversized can, I would have to hammer, saw, and pump my way through tin with a dull steak knife. I opted to stay in bed. Too much work when the prize was clumped peanut butter under three inches of oil.

I rested silently, hands on flat stomach, feet perched on the wall in front of me. I did not count sheep. I counted hot dogs, pizzas, chicken legs, and bowls of macaroni and cheese. I could eat macaroni and cheese every day of my life. I loved it so much each of my siblings offered me a spoon of theirs whenever Momma made it. I don't know what it was about the curve in the pasta that I split with my teeth, the cheese stuffed into every macaroni's orifice, the butter pooling at the bottom of the bowl, but I vowed to stock my cabinets with Kraft Macaroni and Cheese when I had my own home and my own children, when hunger would be as silent as I was in that moment.

Air sucked through the crack between the floor and door of my bedroom. The window inhaled and exhaled curtains as the front door opened. Footfalls past my door, down the stairs, in the living room jarred me from my meditative state. “Momma,” I heard from behind my closed door and I, too, sprung out of bed.

Momma stood alone with a broad smile across her face. We did not run to her and wrap our arms around her neck or waist. We enclosed her in a circle, as if the ring our bodies formed was the hug we could not give. One year shy of thirty, she looked as if she were seventeen. No one would believe she'd held five bodies
in such a small frame. Her long, thin hair rested on her shoulders. Her skin had not a splotch on it. Acne scars she often complained of as she stared in the mirror were invisible to me. There was a slight shine lain across her cheeks. That glimmer remained no matter how happy or sad she was. Everything about her was thin, her face, neck, waist, breath, mind, everything. Every time I saw her, I feared her body was folding into itself and might one day be too weak to hold her straight. Still, as she stood near the door, so faint, so fragile, dimly lit by the kitchen light, I knew she was the breath I had been waiting to breathe. I knew there was rest for me in her.

Momma's smile broadened, white teeth a complement to the white bag, balled in the fists of her hands. She moved to the small dining room table, placed the bag there, instructed Champ to get saucers. The room erupted in applause.

True magician style, Momma pulled one, two, three, four, five sandwiches from the bag. We refrained from clapping each time her hand disappeared and reappeared. I watched, hoping to discover the mystery of the deception, waiting to see how many more would pop out. Champ placed three saucers on the table, one for him, one for me and Mary, and one for Dathan and Tom-Tom. I would normally have complained about sharing with Mary, but hunger had always been able to shut my mouth. I waited for Momma's cue to eat. She nodded toward the saucers and we five descended upon our meal.

The magic ended as we removed the wrappers. A small bun surrounded an even smaller chicken patty. Both appeared to be shrinking as they sat on the deceptively large wrapper. I only needed one hand to hold that meal of KFC Chicken Little Sandwich. In fact, two fingers would have sufficed. I resisted the urge to do just that, to hold the sandwich up to the light, turn it over and over, before deeming it flawed and unsuitable for our empty bellies. But Momma was still smiling, still looking, still so thin. I peered down at the sandwich again. It was little more than two bites, then back at Momma. She was much more. I wondered where she got the money to bring us that morsel. I wondered how many times she'd
asked Mr. Bryan to drive her to KFC, then to Lincoln Park, so she could present what was less than a meal to us.

I felt my face expressionless, as I stared at my sandwich, weighing my options. Once it was eaten, it was gone. As long as it sat on that table on that saucer, there was
something
to eat. My brothers and sister must have been thinking the same as they, too, abstained from eating.

I went first, nibbled at the sides of the sandwich, careful not to take too much off too quickly. My minuscule bites were not enough to chew, so I sucked until the bread and patty in my mouth were no more. Salt, spongy meat, bread, the pickle and mayonnaise commingled with the dough. That sandwich was much better than sawing tin cans or stirring until oil and peanut butter reunited. But it was such a small portion, I contemplated mid-sandwich whether it would have been better not to have had it at all. I wished it had not tasted as good as it did. I multiplied it with my savoring. Once the sandwich was gone, I decided I was full even as my belly begged for more.

Momma watched as we consumed our meals. There was pride or sadness in her face. The room was dimly lit and she was not looking directly at me, so I didn't know which one. Once the last crumb was sucked from the plate, Momma grabbed her jacket and the empty bag. Magic show over.

The smell of the chicken was still with me, seasonings still danced down to my stomach. The magician took the magic of the moment with her. I was physically satisfied. For the first time in a long time, I felt full, but as Momma stepped out of the front door and looked back before she got into the car next to Mr. Bryan, I found I was still hungry. In fact, I was hungrier than before she came.