Crave (27 page)

Early to Rise
Early to Rise

No one wakes early for breakfast when there's no breakfast to be had. If a day of wanting lurks beneath dawn, what's the point of rising early? Hunger waits through sleep—builds stabs against sides—knowing its presence cannot be silenced. With so much work to be done, even
it
is in no rush to rise early. Still, I was up before dawn, standing in front of the open refrigerator, staring at sterile walls, light illuminating the absence of milk, eggs, bacon.

A stick of butter sat in the door, littered with breadcrumbs and specks of grape jelly. I inhaled cold air, the hum of the motor cycling on and off. Empty, the refrigerator's stomach was rumbling too. I thought about Momma, whether she was eating at that moment, whether she was thinking about me. I saw her with Mr. Bryan, his tall, dark legs tangled in the sheets of his bed, tangled in Momma, as they had been countless nights before. The miniature refrigerator pressed into the corner of his hotel room was bursting at the seams. His refrigerator walls were hidden by a carton of eggs, a half-gallon of milk, a slab of bacon, jumbo shrimp, leftover catfish—to be tossed into the day's trash—two-liter sodas, one RC, Momma's favorite, one Sprite, mine, and butter, minus the crumbs, minus the jelly. His stick was clean, waiting to be spread on one of the slices crowded into his bag of bread.

I saw this so vividly, I tasted it, felt it rolling against my tongue. I heard Momma whispering, “I do not eat when I am with him. When I know you all don't have food, I stay hungry too.”

Hunger by choice is a difficult concept for a thirteen-year-old to grasp. I pondered the irony while reaching for the lonely last slice of bread, the back end, no less, sitting atop our empty refrigerator. A slice of bread was not much, but butter, butter on anything, made it more. I waited as the oven, on broil, creaked and dinged. I heard my portion taking shape. What was hard became liquid. I felt it in
my belly and that quieted the rumbles for a moment. That image, though, could not quiet the rumblings in my mind, imagining my three brothers and sister, rising later, as hungry as I had been, looking into the refrigerator and seeing the same absence, even more of an absence since I had eaten the last slice of bread. But there was always the butter.

The oven rack whined as I pulled it toward me. My piece of toast sat on grates, sans a cookie sheet or aluminum foil. I grabbed at it with my fingers. No time for rooting for a spatula. One of my siblings might appear and ask me to share. There was not enough for us all, not even enough for me, so best I eat before anyone knew it existed.

I stood in front of my meal, one arm leaning on the counter, the other wrapped around the plate, shielding my food from the air. Then I saw it, as if it had been conceived there, as if it were an embryo floating in a womb, searching for a place to attach. It was brown, long, thin. Tiny hairs protruded from its sides. I might have mistaken it for a piece of hair or thread, but it was not that. I knew it well because I had seen many “its” jutting from the backs and sides of the most tenacious of pests—the roach. The leg floated in an ocean of butter, bouncing off of the bread's shore, soiling my meal, the only one left in the house that morning.

My first instinct was to throw the tainted meal away. Where there is a roach leg, there is a body not far behind. I imagined a whole roach, missing one of its appendages, roasting in the oven, contaminating all food entering the heated cavern. But then the rumbling again, the sound which erased the image of my hungry brothers and sister, the sound which prompted me to protect my meal from the thieving air. That rumbling, louder than the “leg” backstroking in butter, louder than the image of roach-tainted toast crunching in my mouth, propelled me to action. I dabbed my finger into the butter. The leg slithered on. I flicked it into the trashcan, afraid to look lest it began twitching in objection. I returned to my meal, inspected the butter, ensuring nothing
had been left behind. It was an empty yellow, a sun, sitting in the crater of my toasted bread. I lifted the slice to my lips. The sun leaked through the depression. Golden lines dripped between my fingers. The smell of the butter, salty, warm, tickled my nose. I knew I was salivating, even though my mouth was closed. I bit, but I did not hear crunching. Nor did I hear a roach leg roasting in the morning sun. All was quiet, as I heard hunger dying in me.

Food for Thought
Food for Thought

When I was a little girl, Momma would sit me on the kitchen counter while cooking biscuits from scratch. As she mixed self-rising flour, water, and Crisco, I sampled the goods, letting the floury mixture fuse my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Even though the dough wasn't thoroughly mixed and it hadn't been massaged by the oven's heat, I tasted the promise of a fluffy, buttery morsel of Momma's dedication to me, my sister, and my brothers.

“Watch me, Laurie,” she'd begin. “You're going to have to cook like this when you get a man and some kids.”

Those words were my cue to stop tasting and listen attentively.

“First, you put in the flour. Make sure you hold it close to the bowl so it doesn't float out. See?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said as she sifted flour into the bowl and shuffled it with her fingers.

“Next, you put in the grease.” Her long, brown fingers descended into the can of whiteness, resurfacing with a heavy blob, which she plopped into the flour.

“Then you fill a cup with warm water.” With a grin and a flick of her head, she invited me to join.

As she poured the water into the flour and grease, our hands intertwined, slowly kneading the concoction into a growing ball of dough. After we wrestled it into submission, Momma pulled out a warped pan that looked as if it had heated hundreds of biscuits for families like my own. Momma held my hand in hers as we squeezed ball after ball from the circle of dough. We shaped orbs, lined side by side, until they populated the pan. Each roll had Momma's fingerprints centered on the top, her version of a final kiss, before they were popped into the oven.

As I grew, Momma's culinary lessons increased in frequency. I learned to cook navy beans, chicken, spaghetti, catfish, and cakes. I was cooking myself into a woman, a nurturer, one who would
surely keep her man happy. The constant connection between food, family, and affection had always been a puzzle to me, like little pieces of reality I hadn't yet fit together. Still, I knew what Momma was giving as she stood over the stove, as burns from popping grease littered her arms, as fingers cramped from rolling dough for hours. She was cracking herself open for us, for her man, and saying, “Eat me. Take what makes me strong and sustain yourself.”

One summer evening Momma was cooking the biggest shrimp I'd ever seen. She stood in front of the kitchen counter with black biking shorts and a spandex top clinging like the skin of a black Mamba. I watched quietly as Momma shelled a shrimp, sliced its back, and extracted its vein as if it were a piece of cotton being pulled from a spool. Amazed by her craftiness, I vowed to be
that
mother to my children, the mother who treated food with so much care it could will any body or any mind to a healthy existence. I watched as she placed the open shrimp on a piece of aluminum foil next to its counterparts. They looked like a battalion of soldiers lined up and ready for frying. Their pinkish flesh transformed to a purple-blue as I turned my head from side to side. I squinted my eyes and watched as the cascade of colors moved across the shrimp's flesh.

“What are you doing, girl?” Momma playfully asked.

“I'm watching the shrimp change colors. See, first it's pink and then it's purple.” My fingers drew closer to one of the shrimp.

“Laurie, don't touch that. It'll make you sick.”

I couldn't imagine anything made with such care could make me sick, but I quickly heeded her request.

“Momma, can I help?”

“Yeah, but don't touch them until I tell you to and go wash your hands.”

“Yes, ma'am.” I ran over to the sink and grabbed the Ajax dish detergent. The lemony smell meant cleanliness, which Momma reminded me was next to Godliness, and I felt like a goddess, deserving of those fat shrimp on my plate.

“After I finish cutting out the veins, you can wash them for me. Okay?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I replied. Like the shrimp in a line, I was a soldier, ready for mobilization. I stood alongside her hip, as her swaying bumped me gently. We were two dancers in the kitchen. She'd bump to the right and I, in turn, would step right. She'd move to the left and I'd hurry to get closer. I waited patiently for my orders. New Edition's “Duke of Earl” wafted from the small portable radio that sat next to the stove. I sang the chorus as Momma hurried along in her work. After she'd finished cleaning the shrimp, I was given the job of rinsing. I turned them over one at a time and watched as the water slid along their crevices. Even though they were raw, I could smell how good they would taste. Their meat was so clean, so pink, I doubted it had ever belonged to a living thing.

While I rinsed, Momma took out four baking potatoes. Those oversized, brown pieces of earth covered the countertop. As Momma had so skillfully done with the shrimp, she “shelled” the potatoes, being careful not to cut too deeply into their meat. I had the job of washing those as well, making certain not to drop them in the sink while I scrubbed. I handed them back to Momma, and she took to slicing them into steak fries. After she was done, they sat like a small mountain of logs. I imagined climbing them with my tongue. While I battered the shrimp, Momma spooned chunks of grease out of the Crisco can into two frying pans. The grease sizzled and created a lake of oil where the food would rest. After a few minutes, both pans were crackling. Occasionally, a “pop” escaped the pot and landed on top of the stove, still sizzling. From previous lessons from Momma, I knew the grease was ready.

“Stand back, Laurie.” I immediately obeyed. She held one hand over my chest as the other picked up one of the shrimp and lowered it into the grease-filled pan. We both jumped as the violent crackles threatened to burn. She repeated this process until all of the shrimp were swimming safely in the pan. Next, came the steak fries. Momma dropped them in the grease a handful at a time. Like
the shrimp, they screamed and popped in protest like firecrackers in a bucket. How I wanted to be as brave as Momma was, to hold my hand over the fiery grease, and laugh at the threat of injury.

“You want to help some more, Laurie?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I replied as Momma reached for the bread atop the refrigerator.

“Get the bologna out of the refrigerator and the cheese. Do y'all want mayonnaise on your sandwiches?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I paused, as she began making sandwiches. I was young, but I knew the care she put into that shrimp could never be in the bread on which she slathered mayonnaise and placed bologna and cheese. She pressed hard on the top of the bread, attempting to leave her fingerprint on each one, but the bread sprang back, refusing to hold her signature. She then reached for the bag of chips and placed a handful on each plate.

“Momma, why do we have to eat bologna sandwiches when you made shrimp?” I asked.

“Because it's fast, like the shrimp, and y'all won't have to wait.”

“But, why can't we eat shrimp too? I like shrimp.”

“Because you, your brothers, and sister just mess over it. Y'all always wasting food.”

“Not me, Momma. I'll eat all of it,” I flashed a smile demonstrating my sincerity.

“Naw, girl. Y'all are too messy, and you'll understand when you get older,” she ended with a curt grin that meant that the conversation was over, at least the verbal part was.

My mental conversation continued. I did not understand. I didn't understand getting Food Stamps to feed us when those shrimp and steak fries were not for us. They were for Mr. Bryan, her man, the one who sauntered into our house all hours of the night. The man who monopolized most of her time even when he wasn't around, time I craved, time we all hungered for. The one she'd been living in a hotel with, until one of the neighbors threatened to call “the people.” Then, he moved in with us. I didn't understand that either. All in a second, between pops and grease
crackling, I became angry about what I couldn't understand. I felt tears welling in my eyes, popping like oil and burning Momma. I felt my insides tightening around my struggle to understand what should never be understood.

“You all right?” she looked back at me.

“Yes, ma'am,” I quickly looked down. She turned her eyes back to the hot pans on the stove. They were probably cooler than the look on my face.

“You know, Laurie, you will understand this more when you get older.”

I replied with a “Yes, ma'am,” but my mind screamed,
I will not understand feeding a man shrimp while my kids eat bologna. I will not understand spending more time in my bedroom with my man, door constantly closed to my children
. I refused to understand those things and I vowed I would never do them. I would never be
that
mother to my kids.

In my anger, I imagined Mr. Bryan lifting the shrimp to his mouth, with his gold tooth and diamond in the middle. He'd be wearing his baseball cap and he wouldn't even have washed his hands. He'd come in just long enough to eat, but never long enough to see how carefully Momma had cleaned each one in order to ensure no veiny grit touched his tongue. He wouldn't see her standing at the Be-Lo, picking the perfect potato, the one that would make him see her as the woman he loved, the one he wanted to marry. He wouldn't see her explaining to me why it was okay to nourish him when I yearned for that same nourishment. He wouldn't see her and he wouldn't see me. Then, I was no longer angry. I understood even in my unwillingness to.

I went over to the counter and grabbed two napkins. Momma was at the stove cleaning out the colander. Her hip no longer touched my side, even though I wanted it to. I leaned into her and handed her the dishtowel. I placed the napkins at the bottom of the dry colander. Momma took it over to the stove and began spooning out the food. The shrimp were on one side and the fries on the other. I moved the bologna sandwiches to the dining room table
as Momma yelled outside for the others to come eat. I stood in the kitchen waiting for her return. I wanted to tell her it was okay and the feelings in this meal, this morsel of her would be enough for him, more than what it had been for the other men who had disappointed, who had left. But when she came in, I had no words. From the look in her eyes, she had none either.

Momma reached into the colander. She took out one shrimp, holding it by the tip of its tail and handed it to me. I let it rest in my hand before I raised it to my mouth. It was still hot, but that heat I could handle. I bit into the shrimp, past the crunchy outer layer, past the warm and juicy flesh, past the shrimp itself, and I knew I was tasting the part of Momma we children could never digest. I looked into her eyes with all of the understanding I could muster, and said, with more sincerity than a simple shrimp deserves, “Momma, this is good.”