"They Might Need Some Hugs"

Melvina, Edna, and Aunt Myrtle---aka Aunt Mip---had been in Melvina’s kitchen drinking hot tea with hunks of the german chocolate cake that Aunt Mip baked from scratch the day before.  Melvina collected their empty cake plates and stacked them in the sink.  

     Aunt Mip had been staying at Edna’s, but in the last month had divided much of her time between the Smalls’s and Tompkins’ households:  cooking, looking after young folks, and being in everybody’s business as much as they would allow.  

  

“Now, I know its none of my business but I’m surprised you let Sukie go and get Leslie all by herself.”  Aunt Mip’s upper body softly rolled in a 360 degree circle,  centering on her haunches as she said this.

“Oh, she’ll be okay.  I walk her up to Oakland and watch her cross the street.  Besides, there’s safety guards on the corners between here and the school.  It makes her feel like a big girl.”

Aunt Mip made a face.  “It doesn’t make you nervous having your little girls crossing big streets with all these cars and things?”  

By things Aunt Mip was referring to slick-talking people walking down the street wearing loud clothes, listening to transistor radios, drinking wine, signifying, and tipping ashes off their cigarettes.

Edna and Melvina gave each other the briefest of glances before Melvina replied, “There’s lot’s of children out after school, Aunt Mip.”

“Mmhmm.”

Melvina looked at the clock only to realize that it was a bit later than when her daughters usually bounded up the porch steps and clattered through the front doors bringing in all kinds of sweet and sour smells, gusts of cold air, conversation, dirt and leaves; as well as the treasures of awesome wonder which so excited them:  pieces of a robin’s egg shell; a dead butterfly; an empty cola bottle; a well-worn leather glove; and maybe a few coins.  

“In fact, they should be getting here any minute, now.”

All three women gravitated toward the front of the house with Melvina going straight to the door and Myrtle seating herself in a chair at one end of the oblong coffee table.  Edna lingered to gaze at a photo of Melvina’s mother dressed to the nines and posing in front of a parked car with her new husband---her super-red lipstick looked so real that Edna touched her finger to it with the unconscious hope that it would leave a stain. 

“Melvina, how’s your mother doing?” she asked but Melvina had opened the screen door and was stepping out onto the porch. 

Nearing the house was a woman she knew by face from around the neighborhood---they always waved---with Sukie, Leslie, and Sharalynn in tow.  47 degree winds had ruddied their faces and watered their eyes.  They were holding hands and looked as if they might need some hugs. 
“Hey, there.” Melvina welcomed them with a voice to test the waters as she came down the steps.  “Everything okay?” 

Sukie nodded yes and Leslie said “No!” while Sharalynn thought about her need to use the bathroom.  Mrs. Metrey gave Melvina a tiny smile.  “Hi.  I’m Gladys Metrey.  I live over on Cameron Street.”  She threw her hand in the direction of her house.

“Oh---Mrs. Metrey!---all this time I never knew your name....I’m Melvina---” as she offered her hand with an awkward shrug, Sukie lunged forth and wrapped her arms around Melvina’s legs.  “Hi Mommy! We didn’t do anything bad.”  She hugged her mother reassuringly.  Frowning, Melvina crooked a forefinger at Leslie.  “Why is your lip poked-out? Come here.  And Sharalynn, what’s wrong with you? Are you sick?”  Leslie tried to hang back a little.    

"Hey White Girl!"

Hey white girl! Stop walking on my street!

Yeah! You smell like pee-pee!

*

Sharalynn waited over-long in her hiding place by the thick hedges of a house near the corners of Marston and Oakland.  Having run there, her breathing was just now becoming regular.  She was on her knees, the handle of her book-bag still hooked inside her elbow while her heart pounded loudly in the aftermath of the boisterous part of the afternoon.  Peeking between two limbs of scratchy green she could see the muted colors of Sukie and Leslie’s coats still stalled in front of Mrs. Metrey’s house.  Sharalynn wondered why Leslie did not join her in their shared secret spot.  She rubbed a finger soothingly to her front gums while inhaling the smell of fallen leaves just beginning to rot.  A fat water bug strove to climb the mountains of mud clots that Sharalynn thought about puncturing with her thumb but changed her mind.  She felt dastardly:  2nd grade was turning out to be not-so-friendly for her and her friend, Leslie.

“Hey white girl---what you doing in those bushes?”

“I’m not white, I’m peach!” Sharalynn shouted in the direction of the teenage-boy-voice who had spotted her.  It seemed like the bushes were talking and that made the boy laugh but he was on his way somewhere important and didn’t have time to stop.  “See you later, Peaches!” he tossed the reply over his shoulder at Sharalynn who caught it with a gulp of surprise.

At school she knew some kids had nicknames like Junior, Candy, Neicy, Junebug, CeeCee and Peewee.  Teachers were not members of the club who could invent, call, or respond to nicknames.  Teachers always pronounced proper names aloud from their roll books, a red ink pen at-the-ready for marking someone absent, tardy, good, or bad:  Stanley Bronwell, Jr..  Candace Cummings.  Denise Espers.  Henry Flynn.  Cynthia Robinson.  Karo Abernathy.  

In the house where she lived with her three generations of family, Sharalynn Richmond was always called Sharalynn---her mother saying it breathily as though it was the most beautiful, ethereal name in the world.  But, then again, if her mother was in a bad mood she pronounced the Sh real hard like a curse word, then spit out the remaining syllables without a hint of music.

“Peaches.”  Sharalynn whispered to herself.

Then she heard Mrs. Metrey say “Come on, you two,” to Leslie and Sukie.  As Sharalynn stepped out onto the sidewalk a short limb from the hedges grazed her cheek.

Sukie was the first to see Sharalynn and it made her feel as proud as if she had actually rescued her from the taunts of Teddy, Wynn, and Sonya and the pebbles they had thrown; and how the one boy---dashing fast like a gazelle---had managed to stick his hands up under the coats of both Leslie and Sharalynn and yanked-up the hems of their skirts to reveal their underwear to the neighborhood.  Drying tears streaked Sukie’s face and a little ribbon of snot waved from her nostril.  “Look!” she gave Sharalynn a short-toothed smile and ran ahead to pat her her sister’s friend on the shoulder “Are you okay?”

Leslie’s grouchy scowl gave way to a tattered sigh.

“Oh, Lord,”  said Mrs. Metrey “I guess I’m going to have to walk you home, too.”  Sharalynn nodded her head.

"What's Your Friend's Name, Again?"

“Get away from here! You stupid dumb bells!” Leslie screamed and threw down her book bag as Sukie grabbed her around the waist with both arms.  A gust of October wind mashed against their faces; some crisp muddy-brown leaves spun softly, close by.  Whimpering, Sharalynn ran to hide behind some shrubs.  The cold smell of green bushes was calming.  

The tinny gargle of afternoon school bells had sounded 20 minutes earlier, and now children straggled home from school, kicking rocks, darting around corners, singing, and signifying.  Sukie, Leslie, and Sharalynn had been accosted by three rusty-butt kids while walking west on Cameron Street, and Mrs. Metrey had witnessed all of the commotion from her porch.  She rushed into her house and returned hurrying down the porch steps and onto the sidewalk brandishing a belt yanked from the loops of her husband’s slacks.  Her thick sweater was buttoned wrong.

“Gone! Get on down the street before I take my strap to you!” she threatened from a wide mouth with a reddish mole at the corner.

Retreating, the scrappy gang-of-three tried to jump bad:  they weren’t afraid of her.  

“You can’t hit me with no strap!” shouted Teddy; he was the eldest of the group, which  included his brother, Wynn, and their “play” cousin, Sonya.  Teddy and Wynn wore tattered, ill-fitting navy jackets.  Sonya’s skinny birdlike legs stuck out from beneath a blood-red coat that was two sizes too big. 

“Yeah! You ain’t my mama!” she sassed and stuck out her tongue.  Sonya didn’t know who her mother was.

“You better be glad I’m not your mama, little girl.  I’d tear your butt up!” Holding the buckle end of the belt in her hand, Mrs. Metrey resembled a matadora in a coliseum as she slapped the belt on the sidewalk.  Children, birds, and squirrels, alike, all jumped at the sharp sound. 

The fury Leslie felt was something new:  her body pulsed with an anxious mix of alarm and violence, and a metallic smell filled her nostrils.  Eyes flashing wildly,  she threatened “You better leave us alone!” and bent to pick up a fist-sized piece of brick to hoist after the three bullies, who were now nearly half a block away.  Sukie---frightened by this emotion-filled moment---sealed herself tightly around her sister’s body like a piece of cellophane wrap.  When Leslie attempted to stretch herself out of the vise-like grip, Sukie refused to let go.  The two of them stumbled to catch their balance.

“Are you two girls alright?” Mrs. Metrey asked.  Sukie’s face pinched with tears as Leslie pulled away, answering “Yes ma’am.”---the way she had been taught to respond to adult women.

“Aw, now, don’t cry.  They ain’t coming back this way if they know what’s good for them.  They know I’m not playing when I get my belt out!”

Under the guise of wiping away tears, Sukie examined the skinny belt strap:  it looked like an extra long garter snake.  Down the street she could see Sharalynn and Leslie’s tormentors making obscene hand signs even as they began to fade into miniature.

“I’m not a'scared of them---they’re dumb! Right, Leslie?”

“Ow! You’re getting on my toe!” Leslie bent to rub at a scuff mark on her shoe.

“I’m sorry.” Sukie stepped back.  She didn’t understand her sister’s exasperation. 

Mrs. Metrey touched a finger to her lip.  “What happened to your friend---the little white girl---what’s her name, again?”

“Sharalynn.”

“Shara-lynn.  That’s right.  I see you all walking home from school, together.  What street her people live on?”  Craning her neck slightly, the woman squinted her eyes and made a panoramic scan of the airy slices between houses, trees, and parked cars.

“They live on Chandler, ma’am.”

“You know its a lot of white people moving out of the city, now.  Is her family po’?”

Leslie sneaked a look at this woman who was bent over pulling at weeds with her free hand.  She  didn’t want to see Mrs. Metrey’s round booty pointing in the air and she didn’t want to answer any more questions about Sharalynn.

“I don’t know.”  Then to Sukie she said, “You go home.”

“Where you going? I want to go with you.”

Mrs. Metrey stood up straight as a yardstick.  “You bet’ not leave your sister.  Wait just  a minute; I’ll finish walking you all home.  I want to tell your mother what happened.”

“See what you did?” Leslie huffed at Sukie as they watched Mrs. Metrey march up her porch steps and pull open the door.  “Julius?” she hollered as she stepped inside. 

“I don’t want Mrs. Metrey to walk us home!” Leslie poked-out her lip.

"Imminent Danger and Liberation"

Auntie Mip wanted to refresh herself.  She felt a little sweaty and her joints were stiff.  The Evanses had been to collect her before the sun rose, the sky then changing from blue to purple and they had seen the sun come up in Tennessee.  There was just the three of them, traveling from Selma to Detroit in the Evans’s blue Chevrolet Bel Air.  Auntie Mip sat in the back seat with provisions: ham sandwiches, deviled eggs, peaches, a brown paper sack full of peanuts roasted that morning even before the tweeting of birds or the howling of dogs.  She wore a floral head wrap over the tight curls in her hair that she planned to comb out as their destination grew closer, and she was wearing a new pant suit, the color of a cantaloupe.  Her skin tone was the color of brown mustard and her face was dashed with red freckles.

By contrast, Etta Evans---Auntie Mip's friend from church---was the color of deep maple.  Etta wore two thick braids pinned across the crown of her head and heavy gold earrings dangled from her earlobes.  The two of them would do most of the talking on this trip: comparing their recipes for making fruit pies, frying fish, or canning chow-chow; gossiping about their church ersher board, or piecing-together the whereabouts of members of their families who had left the south.  At times the tone of their conversation was determined by the time and colors of day in whatever state they were driving through. There were some hours when they didn’t converse at all. Being that it was late October, the land was lush with color, and beautiful to look at as they covered northern Alabama, then Tennessee, Kentucky, flat Ohio.  Some eleven hours later they would finally cruise by the interstate sign that welcomed them to the state of Michigan.  

Years later these stretches of highway would become more populated with rest stops and housing communities, but that was too far off into the future for anyone to know.  In 1968 there was a lot of peaceful-looking territory to cover, although, since the Freedom Rides in the summer of 1961, and Freedom Summer of 1964, the air felt (---at least to sensitive people like Auntie Mip) changed.   There seemed to be a blend of imminent danger and liberation hanging in the air.

“Hey, we’re making pretty good time.  What do you say, Rufus?”  Aunt Mip threw this lone bit of conversation to Rufus, who had done all of the driving.

“Yeah.  Making pretty good time.”  Rufus Evans replied. He was a clean-shaven, fine-hat-wearing, caramel-colored man.  “Etta, is there some more coffee left in that thermos?”

“Whatever’s left is probably cold by now.”  Etta reached for the thermos on the floor beside her feet, and shook it to gauge about how much liquid was inside.

“I don’t care.  Let me have those dregs.”

“Don’t you want to stop and get some fresh?”  Auntie Mip sounded hopeful.  She wanted to get out of the car to inhale deeply the scent of trees and earth, as well as to stretch her limbs.  

“Naw, that’s okay.”  Rufus said.  Auntie Mip gazed out of the window and pursed her lips.  Yeah, better not. thought her self-scolding voice.  They were all born and raised in the Jim Crow south and it wasn’t part of their cultural upbringing to move about in the world in uninhibited ways.  Only white people did what they wanted whenever and wherever they pleased.  Although it was often true that white people who aligned themselves with black people had their own hell to pay. 

"Dropping A Dime"

Meanwhile, Leo was driving the Plymouth faster than was legal in residential neighborhoods, making Leslie and Sukie bounce against the back seat of the car with giggles.  Juanita lost her grip on the 45 records that had been stacked around her thumb, and a few of them fell in the seat between her and her uncle.   As of yet, nothing was broken and no one had come to any bodily harm, so Leo didn’t see a need to apologize.  He had no doubt that Melvina was at home wondering what was taking them so long to return.  All of a sudden the day seemed long enough, and he wished he could drum up a good excuse not to go to the parents meeting at Breitmeyer Elementary School.  What time was it anyway?  According to his watch, it was near 6:30 p.m.

“Who is Mrs. Payne?”  Juanita asked while dusting a copy of Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing In The Grass” against the hem of her skirt.

“She’s my teacher at school and she got me in trouble!”

“Yeah, she weared a string on her finger to school because she talks good in class.”  Sukie added, as they were passing the giant replica of a stove on display at the Michigan State Fair Grounds.  Leo wore a bemused expression on his face but didn’t speak.

“You got in trouble because you talk good?---What?” Juanita didn’t understand.  She twisted around so she could see her little cousins. 

“I do talk good,”  Leslie acknowledged Sukie’s comment.  “But Mrs. Payne told Mommie I talk too much.”  

“Oh.”  Juanita frowned.

“She said it to my whole class, too.” 

“She did? Now, why she wanna do that to my Cuz?”

“She’s mean.  Mommie told me the strings on my finger could remind me not to talk so much and I pretended it was my ring but Mrs. Payne said  ‘NO! that’s not your ring, Leslie, that’s because you talk too much stop interrupting other kids’....and stuff like that.  She said it so my whole class could know....”

“What’s your“Cuz”?” Sukie wanted to know. 

By now Leo was making a left turn from Woodward onto Manchester.  The Clock Diner was on their right.

“You mean your teacher dropped a dime on you in front of your whole class? That’s cold.”

“What’s your “Cuz”?” Sukie asked, again.  “Am I your “Cuz”, too?”

“....That hurted my feelings, so I don’t say many things in her class, anymore, even when I know the answers.  And you know what else? Mrs.Payne says I can’t help other kids do their work.”

“That Mrs. Payne sounds like a real pip!”   Juanita was looking out of the window, now.  “Wait until you get to high school, like me.  You’ll have seen all kinds of teachers by then.”

“My first grade teacher was nice.”  Leslie offered, feeling loyal toward Mrs. Bissessi, who---unlike Mrs. Payne---had sung her students’ praises all year long through the many fits and starts of reading sounds until they became words and then sentences.  Mrs. Bissessi had remained soothing and encouraging despite much crushing of pencil leads being pressed too hard against desks, and thick erasers rubbing holes in the soft green paper on which the children practiced writing alphabets.

Leo turned the radio dial to the left of the glove compartment until the Canadian radio station, CKLW, sputtered into audibility.  He liked to listen to WCHB, the black-owned soul station, most of the time, but CKLW was known to mix things up a bit, so he could keep up with the latest tunes from acts such as The Doors, The Beatles, Judy Collins, Tom Jones, Steppenwolf, The Mamas and the Papas, and Cream---along with songs by Dionne Warwick, Sly & the Family Stone, Aretha Franklin, the Intruders, The Fifth Dimension, and all of the Motown groups. 

“What does dropped a dime mean? Is it like a a tattle-taler?” Leslie pushed herself forward so she could rest her chin against the back of Juanita’s bucket seat.  “You smell good.”  she added, after getting a whiff of Jean Nate Body Splash.  Leo braked heavily at the next stop sign.  He turned to give Leslie a warning look to make her sit back in her seat.

"I Want To See You Do Something Else With Your Life"

Kingsley Court was one of those north/south streets like John R, Beaubien, Brush, and Oakland, only it dead-ended at Mt. Vernon, and that was where some of the Northend’s aspiring singing sensations liked to hang out.  Usually, when they were getting a new idea for a song, guys like Stan and Gooch brought their trumpets and met at Mrs. Cleveland’s house because she had a “music room” in her house, equipped with an organ, a drum set, some bongos, and a tambourine.  Mrs. Cleveland thought that young kids would enjoy having someone’s house where they could hang out and have fun, albeit with unobtrusive adult supervision. While she didn’t allow wild parties, loose language, or smoking cigarettes in the house, she got a kick out of listening to them pick around toward the invention of original music with exciting horn sections, clever lyrics, and daring harmonizations.  One day she happened upon them brainstorming names for their group.

“How about The Dewtones?” 

“Naw, I think somebody already got that one.”

“Oh.”

“What about the The ShooBops?”

“The ShooBops?? Are you crazy?” 

They needed their group name to signify a flavor that was irrepressible, irresistible, tangy, and smooth; something their peers in places like St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, Ohio, Chicago, Illinois, and Gary, Indiana would immediately recognize as being cool and hip. 

“You could name your group The Toe-Jams!” offered Jerry, who couldn’t seem to resist throwing in a funny bone when the others were trying to be serious.  At first it looked as if Gooch and Stan would be able to maintain their straight faces but in less than five seconds everyone was cracking-up laughing.

That just gave them an excuse to go off on a tangent of coming up with one ridiculous name after another, including The Tip-Toes, The Thumb Tacks and The Pencilheads.  Then they went on to consider naming themselves after critters and creatures in the wild, such as The Butterflies, The Panthers, or The Zebras.  Taking cues from household and urban life, they tossed-in The Cockroaches, Hammer with Nails, The Shiny Buicks, The Peas & Carrots and The Moist Towelettes.  Like countless other kids around the city, they spent whole afternoons coming up with names like Rudy Bell & The Extraordinaires,  The Fabutones and The Effervescent-Seven.  Tracey Corbin, who was taking Senora Rodriguez’s spanish class at Southwestern High School that year, wanted to name her all-girl group The Sensationarios.  

“Hey, you all.  Look at this sequence of steps I got going.”  Linda piped in.  “Move, now.  I need some more room.”  In addition to her abilty to harmonize any alto and soparano parts, Linda was their resident choreographer.  She was petite and athletic with a shy smile and some of the guys had a crush on her.

Some mothers asked why do you all want to do all this singing and dancing ? Don’t we have enough negroes singing and dancing, already?  I want to see you do something else with your life. 

Well, what’s wrong with working at the plant, like dad and them?

You think your dad spends all his time working in that greasy plant just so you can do the same thing?

What’s wrong with it?

I want to see you do something else with your life.

Still, it was hard not to be impressed by what was happening for kids from poor and working class neighborhoods who went from singing on street corners and stoops to learning poise, refinement, and hip dance moves that they performed while crooning the tight harmonies that had none of that moaning sorrow associated with the blues.  Now that young people were changing the world, they needed their music to sound more promising, more upbeat, romantic, and ready for the world.  They wanted their music to be urbane and exciting.  

"Kingsley Court"

"Afro Boy-Wonder: Reginald Dominics"

Someone hollered after Reggie but he was burning sneaker-rubber all the way down Virginia Park, towards Woodward.  The underarms of his green shirt were damp with sweat.  In his peripheral vision:  houses, tall trees, and cars parked in driveways and at curbside blurred into abstraction as the backdrop of a film starring himself:  a 16-year-old track star from Detroit, Michigan. 

His body and brain pulsating with youthful enthusiasm, Reggie was full of electricity and music, cheeseburgers, and newly sprung ideals.  Something inside of him awoke as he watched the Games of the XIX Olympiad on television.  When the throngs of young athletes entered the coliseum in Mexico City, brandishing their bright flags from countries such as France, Australia, Brazil, Kenya, Japan, the Soviet Union, and Greece, that energy ripped a tear in the fabric of his life.  He felt pride and physical power.  It seemed he could smell possibility in the air.  He felt he could burst through the gate of his solitude, grab the gaggle of alphabets and streams of words floating around in his mind, and, running, form a banner of syntax that waved in the wind behind him, there, for anyone to see:  I AM REGGIE DOMINICS:  AFRO-AMERICAN HERO.  RIGHT-ON!

He would, from here-on-out, become VISIBLE.  Unlike the young people who sat-in at Woolworth counters in North Carolina; or those who braved the walk through crowds of hateful whites who shouted nigger! at them in Alabama and Mississippi; and unlike the children whose parents prayed hard to Jesus for their protection while they were herded into paddy wagons and locked in jails.  Reggie was not one of the young men and women who mobilized themselves to study, to strategize, to push forward into the wilderness of their righteous imaginations; known popularly by their signature black leather revolutionary gear and defiant sunglasses, the prospect of destabilizing the current political system brick by brick filling them with purpose and zeal.  They were the ones inspired by a dream of planting new gardens full of the ripening flowers and foods to feed a nation the blossoms of justice, dignity, and hope.  They were the ones who would yank their bodies from the long lineage of oppression,  a-righting themselves and their families to a place of power and love.

No, Reggie was not one of these.  He was a regular boy just trying to grow up.  A regular, good-natured boy who was reasonably smart and rather silly.  A medium brown boy who wore a reddish natural that he spent twenty minutes each day picking-out to perfection.  A boy with a cleft in his chin.  A boy with slightly protruding front teeth.  A boy with one married sister and another determinedly putting herself through studies at Wayne State University.  A boy whose Life-LOOK-and-Ebony-magazines-reading mother was thoughtful and pretty.  A boy whose father was mostly quiet.  Reggie Dominics was a boy who liked the movie “The Day The Earth Stood Still”, and occasionally, he would knock on the door to visit Mr. Nicolas “Saint” Sams, who collected Marvel comics and spent time archiving articles of note from magazines and the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press.

"Is There Some Kind of Problem?"

“Is there some kind of problem?” Leo moved smoothly down the porch steps and toward the car.

“I’m sorry.”  Sukie whispered hastily.

The red fingernails lifted away from the car door sill.  “I didn’t mean to pry,” began the woman, turning to Leo.  “But I heard their commotion as I was walking by, and....” Here, Leslie emitted a watery groan from the base of her throat.

Edna Smalls turned to shout through the screen door, “Juanita! Get out here, now.  You have had more than enough time to get yourself together.”  She followed Leo down the steps and across the lawn.  “Meredith, have you met my brother-in-law, Leo Tompkins?  And those are my nieces in the car.”  Leo gave a stiff nod and Meredith smiled.  “Hello, Leo.  I’m one of the neighbors.  I live just down the street....” Meredith gestured as Juanita and Barry came out of the house and murmured their greetings, “Hi, Mrs. Berger.”

Edna opened the car door and pushed the front seat forward.  She looked from one niece to the next, taking in their chocolatey eyes filled with tears, the musty scent of childish sweat blended with vinyl; and the way their cardigan sweaters drooped from their shoulders.

“You know better than that.” she said in a voice that was for their ears only.  Then she stepped back and opened her arms, inviting the girls to crawl out and wrap their arms around her.  By now, the sky’s blue was deepening into a private dusk.

Mrs. Berger cleared her throat.  “Well, I guess I’ll get on home.  Talk to you, later, Edna?”

“Alright Meredith.  Take care.”

“Nice to meet you Leo.”

“Likewise.”

“Bye, girls, and no more fighting each other, okay?” Mrs. Berger pointed a red fingernail at Leslie and Sukie, and, still smiling, walked away.  

Rolling her eyes heavenward, Juanita plopped herself into the front passenger seat of the Plymouth. The stack of 45 records hung around her thumb; the parcel of poundcake slices rested in her lap.  A few feet away, Barry and Leo’s hands were locked in a soul handshake and the uncle said something to make the nephew grin and nod with vigor.  Edna held each of her hands soft against the base of Leslie’s and Sukie’s necks.  “Now, I know you all are going to be good girls for Juanita,  aren’t you?”

“Yes, Aunt Edna.”

“And Juanita, don’t let them stay up past their bedtime.”

Juanita gave her mother a doleful look as her little cousins scrambled back into the car.  Just before Leo collapsed his body down into the driver’s seat, Juanita whispered over her shoulder:  “Mrs. Berger is nosy.”

“Yeah,”  chimed Leslie.  “Just like Mrs. Payne!”

"Big Sister, Little Sister"

In the car Leslie and Sukie sat first patient, and expectant with the hope that at any moment the front door of their Aunt Melvina’s house would open and their father and cousin Juanita would come out.  

“It’s quiet.”

“Yeah.”

“Ssshh.”

“Umhm....ssshh.”  Sitting very still, they managed not to slide their legs over the vinyl seats.  They were conscious of their breaths, and, in their ears, could hear the beating of their own hearts.  Outside the sun was going down and fat brown squirrels darted from hiding place to grass, from grass to tree, from tree to tree limb, and then froze.  In a watchful stillness.  A single breeze swept so confidently down the corridor of the street that it collected and dispersed several smells all at once: the smell of something frying in a kitchen, and the smell of fresh-cut grass; the smell of burning leaves and the smell of autumn’s turning coat-of-many-colors.

“It’s a MONster!”

“Ssshh.”

Sukie reached for her sister’s hand and Leslie scooted closer as protector, coward, and dramatic actress all rolled into one.  She turned to stare into Sukie’s face until her eyes began to water.

“They forgot all about us.”

“No, they didn’t.”  Sukie poked out her lips and blew a puff of air.

“Unhunh.  The monster BLEW inside the house and HUFFED and PUFFED and blew Daddy down, down, down, and DOWN! to the ground!”

Sukie gave Leslie a look of distaste.  She had heard the story of “The Three Little Pigs” enough times to know it had been the wolf that huffed and puffed and blew down the house.  She snatched her hand out of Leslie’s grip and moved her body a couple of inches to the left.  Sensing the game change, Leslie moved a few inches closer to Sukie.  

Sukie retreated and Leslie advanced until the two of them were nearly bunched-up together in the corner of the car behind the driver’s seat.  Sukie tried to push Leslie away.  

“Stop sitting by me!”

Leslie, grinning devilishly, tried to put her arm around Sukie.

“I can always sit by you if I want. Because:  I’m the big sister and you’re the ll-iitt-lll sister. Come here, baby, come here.”

“Stop it! I’m telling on you!”

With their braids jabbing the air like horns, they fell into tugging and pinching each others limbs, tumbling and pawing and baring their teeth like cubs in the wild.

“I’m sure your mother wouldn’t want to see you fighting this way.” An immaculate voice-over  came through the car window.  Startled eyes found a woman whose hairstyle made her look like she belonged on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”  Sukie---who had been at a disadvantage---used the moment to deliver a well-aimed shot against her sister’s ear.  Intimidated by the strange woman’s ethereal scolding, and humiliated by Sukie’s cheap shot, Leslie brought a hand to her face and worked to squeeze out a cry.  It took a few moments but she was finally able to get a nice wail going.  Covering her eyes, she peeked at Sukie, who had retreated fully to the other corner of the backseat and was sitting with her hands tucked beneath her legs.  She was suspicious of Leslie’s tears and didn’t like the way the woman placed her bloody-red fingernails near the door locks just as the wailing brought Leo and Edna out of the front of the house.

"A Letter From Auntie Mip"

Melvina Tompkins was checking herself out in the mirror.  She was wearing a navy blue shirt-ways dress with a tie belt, and caramel colored shoes with a T-strap and chunky heels.  Her soft, short natural was round like a halo.  Puckering and dabbing her lips with a frosted pink lipstick, she decided that she looked good.  Melvina peeked at her watch and hoped that Leo would be arriving soon with the girls and Juanita.  She went to front door to unlock it while glancing up and down the street.  It was rare for her to be ready to leave on time and so she gave herself a little go’n Girl! finger snap before electing to tidy-up a few things.
In the kitchen her eye fell on the partially-open junk drawer where, earlier, she had stuffed a stack of mail, which had included a letter with their street address, yet addressed to Melvina Smalls---which was her maiden name, after all.  It had been with a sense of query and amusement that Melvina had opened and begun reading the letter, which she quickly realized was not meant for her eyes, but for those of her sister-in-law, Edna.  Wincing mentally and physically, and listening for the sound of a car pulling up, Melvina unfolded the letter and read it over again.

                                                                                                                                     October 21, 1968
Hello, My Dear One,


I hope that you have time to read a letter from your husband's mother’s cousin Myrtle.  Bernard knows me as Auntie Mip.  It has been just over one year that my mother---God Rest Her Soul---left this world and, I have not been doing so good since. 


The whitepeople here in Alabama are this way, some have turned out to be God’s good people even while so many are still just as mean as the devil.  We are learning who is who because of all the marching and the sitting in and the preaching.  You see peoples true self, now.  Our feelings are right up front now.  Before, we all kept hid by keeping each race to their self, but now some of us colored people have a hard time to call ourself Black because that was not never beautiful, before.  Some of us do not know how to be brave but some just couldn’t wait! And, that makes me feel good and afraid, also.


I want to visit your mother-in-law who is my cousin and lives in California she said to come on out, but, I have never made a long trip across the country like that before.  She told me that Bernard has left his little family (you all) to be a big Freedom Man.  This is not something that I can understand.  She said that maybe I should visit you all as I am lonesome since Mother died and I would like to visit you all and my other relations in Detroit.  I heard about what happened to you all up there last year.  It seems that the whole world is just going to the dogs.  I will be visiting you all soon.  Because a family I know by the name of Evans will be driving there and I have been invited along if I may.  Do you know any people by the name of Evans up there from Selma? 


May the Good Lord Bless You Dearly,
I am going to see you soon,
Auntie Mip (Myrtle) Harrison

Melvina remembered Auntie Mip from her childhood.  Of their mother’s closest sister-women-friends, Melvina and her brother, Bernard, had liked Auntie Mip the least, and suspected that she wasn’t truly a blood relative.  Her marital status had always seemed vague and she didn’t have any children of her own; yet, she was always around.  Auntie Mip had been one of those adults who seemed to be unmoved by children, no matter how sweet, cute, or smart they were.  She was always on the look-out for children to be up to something.
Biting down on her well-coated bottom lip, Melvina could have kicked herself for opening that mail.  She considered re-sealing it with a bit of Elmer’s glue, and pressing it between two heavy books until she and Leo returned from the Parents Meeting at Leslie's school.

"Man Talk"

Juanita was putting a stack of her favorite 45 records together when the doorbell rang.  Edna dried her hands on a dishtowel and walked toward the front door.

“Barry! Put on a shirt and come say hello to your uncle.”  She yanked open the big door and pushed  the screen door outward to let Leo inside.

“Hey, Leo.  What you know good?” They gave each other a hug.

“Aw, ain’t nothing shaking, Edna.  How are you?”

“I’m making it.”  She glanced out to where his car was parked in the driveway.  She could see the tops of two pig-tailed hairstyles.

“Is that Leslie and Sukie in the car? You could have brought them inside.”

“Aw....I....I figured Juanita would be ready.  Anyway, they got their pajamas on.”

Edna smiled.  “Juanita!  Leo’s waiting on you.”

“I’m coming....I just wanted to get my records.”

Edna turned to Leo with a smirk, “Everything is music and records, and records and music.”

“Yeah, I guess....”

By now, Barry was ambling into the foyer, grinning.  

“Hey Uncle Leo.”

“Hey, Youngblood! How’s it going?”  Leo grabbed the boy around his neck in a mock head lock.  Barry allowed himself to be held in this semblance of a hug.  He really liked Uncle Leo, the closest thing he had to his own father, who he hadn’t seen in four years.

“Everything alright?” Leo asked, pretending to tighten his grip on Barry’s head.

“Yeah!”

Edna decided to slip away to see what was taking Juanita so long.  Without letting go of Barry’s head, Leo said “What’d you say?”

“I said:  everything’s alright.”  Barry tried to disentangle himself.

“You sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know you can tell me if things ain’t alright.”

“Yes sir.”

“We got an understanding?”

Barry could feel a lump rising inexplicably in his throat.  He swallowed hard and tried to push Leo away.  “Let me go, Uncle Leo.”  But Leo held on, causing both of them to grunt as they each tried to gain balanced footing.  Barry swung one of his arms ups to punch his uncle on the back of his shoulder.  He could not name the feeling that made him want to tussle and fight, and he wasn’t sure that Leo was the one he wanted to hurt.  An ache coiled upward from his chest and into his throat.  He gritted his teeth and pushed hard against his uncle.  

Hearing the sound of their shoes dancing without rhythm interspersed with small gasps made Edna crane her neck out from the kitchen where she had been wrapping-up a few slices of homemade pound cake in cellophane.  “What’s going on out there?”  Leo looked over his shoulder.  “Oh, nothing.  I’m just having a talk with my buddy.”  He let go of his nephew’s neck.  Flustered, Barry backed-away, unfolding his lanky body and panting. His nostrils flared.  “Yeah, Ma.  I’m just talking to Uncle Leo.”

“I don’t hear much talking...”  Edna sounded skeptical. but resumed packing the brown paper bag which she handed to Juanita.  “You can let the girls have a a piece of pound cake and some milk before they go to bed.”

Juanita looked at her mother, trying to decide how she felt towards her.  Baby-sitting her young cousins was not something she was opposed to doing.  It was just that Edna had given her permission to go over her friend, Diane’s, house....and then-wham!-all it took was one phone call from Aunt Melvina to make her plans defunct.  How fair was that?        

"The Drive to Greenacres"

Leo shook his head at Reggie’s youth but still reciprocated with his own Black Power salute, and smiled into his neck.  “Daddy? Was that for Black Power?” Leslie asked, watching her father’s fist fall from her eyesight.

“What?”  Leo was distracted.  Just last year Detroit was a-blaze with anger; with smoke and fire and tanks.  This year Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had been murdered in cold blood; and after him, Senator Robert F. Kennedy.  A lot of days Leo felt like he was walking around with a heavy mourning stone inside his chest.

“This is Black Power.”  Leslie turned to Sukie to demonstrate the gesture.  Holding her fist close to her mouth, she squeezed her eyes shut to emphasize her sincerity.

“Mmhmm.”  Sukie balled-up her fist, looked at it appreciatively, and then poked two fingers out.

“This one is for Peace.” she said.

Leslie nodded her head.  “Daddy?”  she tried for Leo’s attention, again.  “Daddy do you know UNH, UNGAWA?”

When Leo didn’t respond she turned back to her sister.  

UNH, UNGAWA!

We got that soul pow-ah

UNH, UNGAWA!

We’re the people of the ow-ah!

Sukie was definitely digging the sound of this rhyme and bobbed her head in time.  She tried to lip-sync with Leslie and they repeated it a few times, clapping their hands and alternating Black Power and Peace Sign salutes to each other.

“Can you see us Daddy?” Leslie tried to catch Leo’s eye in the rear view mirror.  He glanced but didn’t comment.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?”

“Can’t you see I’m driving?”

Leslie shrugged her shoulders at Sukie and leaned back on the black vinyl seat.  Sukie leaned back and looked out of the window as the tops of buildings and trees flashed in a blur.  She was too small to see Northern High School, the public library, the brand new florist shop, or the large homes on Arden Park, Atkinson, and the Boston-Edison district.  She couldn’t see the fried fish hut or the gas station or the party stores.  She was too small to see where parts of Detroit resembled the way a person looks when they get hit in the eye with a left-hook and then a right uppercut to the chin. 

They were driving northbound from their home in the North End down Woodward Avenue, where Highland Park was tucked into Detroit’s breast pocket. Behind them traffic faded downtown---some of it veering onto Lafayette and Jefferson streets, and melting into early evening shades of purple and orange.  The sky glowed in golden tones from beyond where Windsor, Ontario sat in Canada on the other side of the Detroit River.  The western sky was brightest; its air still crackling with youthful games being played at sundown in October.  

The family’s Plymouth cruised past the old Ford Motor plant on the eastern side of Woodward, and Sears & Roebuck on the western side.  The girls loved it when Leo bought small bags of warm salted spanish peanuts, there, because it made an ordinary day seem special.  But he didn’t stop at Sears, today.  

Just north of McNichols, Woodward widened, becoming more airy to accommodate the last two miles before Eight Mile Road separated Detroit from its northern suburbs.  Past the woodsy trails, the duck pond, and Good Humor Ice Cream truck parked at Palmer Park---there were residential neighborhoods, two cemeteries, the Michigan State Fairgrounds, and a bar called The Last Chance.  

Edna and her kids lived in a small community called Greenacres on the Detroit side.  Their home was average in size and newer.  The front and back yards were larger than the one’s at Leo and Melvina’s house. Unlike the North End, there were no neighborhood corner stores, shoe repair shops, or barbeque take-out joints.

Detecting a change in the quality of atmospheric energy, Sukie and Leslie sat up on their knees to look out of the car windows.  They saw a boy with a fresh haircut and two girls with ponytails spinning the pedals of an upturned tricycle; they were playing “ice cream truck”.  A man who wore pants with suspenders was setting fire to a pile of leaves he had raked to the curb.      An adult brother and sister stood and plainly stared without smiling at Leo, Leslie, and Sukie, as they drove by.  After a while, Leslie had to ask:

“Daddy? Where’s the black people at?”

"Say It Loud!"

Mrs. Dominics was sitting on the front porch fanning herself with a folded-up October issue of Life magazine.  Her son, Reggie, burst out of the front door, leaped over the steps, and began running alongside Leo’s silver Plymouth, where Sukie and Leslie sat happily in the backseat, ensconced in their pajamas and cardigan sweaters.  Leo drove with one hand guiding the steering wheel while smoking a Pall Mall cigarette with the other. Too small to view anything below where the windshield began, the sisters could hear Reggie’s sneakers slapping pavement and caught glimpses of bright green shirt sleeve as his arms whisked the air.  Squealing, they got up on their knees to get a better look at the way Reggie’s jaws trembled with the speed of his fierce sprint.  He was panting.  Leo turned to gauge Reggie’s distance from the car and and then gunned the accelerator in challenge.  Mrs. Dominics had risen from her seat and was shading her eyes with the magazine.
“Boy....!”  she shouted after him, but he wasn’t paying her any mind.  Ever since the opening of the year’s Olympic games in Mexico City, Reggie had been dashing everywhere:  toppling out of the house and running to the bus stop at Oakland and Mt. Vernon or zooming around the corner at Kinglsey Court to pump his body down the middle of Melbourne where he thought his mother wouldn’t see.  So far he had managed to dodge cars as people backed-out of their driveways, though there had been a few close calls at the intersections where Beaubien broke the east-west streets.
“Catch up, Reggie!” Leslie clapped her hands and cheered.  Sukie followed suit.
“Is he keeping-up?” Leo asked, his eyes stayed glued to the street where, up ahead, about five or six teenagers were spilling out from the sidewalk.
“Yeah!” yelled Sukie.  She and Leslie resumed cheering:  “Catch-up-Re-Gee! Catch-up-Re-Gee!”
Reggie’s face grimaced with effort.  All of sixteen years old, he was trying to teach himself to push hard beyond the point where he felt he had exerted the most energy.  As the Plymouth approached the corner, the teenagers’ four-part harmonizing and finger-snapping drowned-out the sound of Reggie’s heavy breathing.
Baby, baby!
Don’tcha treat me!
Baby, baby!
Don’tcha treat me!
Baby, baby!
Don’tcha treat me SO BAAAAAD!

“Hey! You all sound gooood!”  Leslie stopped cheering for Reggie and stuck her hand out of the window hoping that one of the teenagers would give her some skin.  Sukie clamored to do the same.
“Hey!” shouted Leo.  “Get your hands back in the car and sit down!”  He brought the car to a halt at the stop sign.  Just as Leo threw his arm over the back of the seat to give the girls a warning gesture ---BAM!---they all jumped when something hit the side of the car.  It was Reggie’s fist!
“See you later, Mr. Tompkins!” he shouted as he ran away from the car and around the corner.  Leo waved and began to drive the car straightaway as Reggie turned to raise his fist in an exuberant Black Power salute.

"She's Cool!"

Sukie and Leslie got so excited when they found out that their 17-year-old cousin, Juanita, was coming over to babysit.
“Mommie this is so exciting---I love it when Juanita baby-sits us.  She’s cool!”
Leslie gushed, leaning against her mother’s knee.
“Yeah, she’s ‘citing....and...and...cool.”  Sukie co-signed.  Not quite five years old,  she was on her way to mastering many things that Leslie knew how to do, hoping that would make her eligible to ride the school bus and enter the second grade with her sister.  It had been a shock to them both when Leslie entered the first grade and had to leave Sukie at home.
Melvina snorted.  “Oh, she’s cool, huh?”
“Yeah.  She wears a good hairstyle and everything!”
“Yeah.  Her hairstyle is good---like mine.”  Sukie patted her hairstyle, which consisted of one pitgtail on top and two more just behind her ears.  She and Leslie had tied several bows of red string on all of these, and were proud of themselves for doing so.
“....And she chews her gum like this:” Leslie popped her fingers with a loose wrist to approximate the sound and attitude of Juanita’s rhythmic chewing-gum smacks.

“You two silly-pills need to get dressed for bed.  Go on, get upstairs.”  Melvina scooted them along.  They were already on a tangent of making popping and smacking sounds with their fingers and mouths, wobbling their necks and chirping like baby chicks.

Leo, the husband, the dad, sat quietly on the edge of the sofa while all of this was going on.  His eyes were closed and he was having a raggedy time of getting-in a moment’s peace.   Nine hours of work had already been put in at the auto plant where he was a foreman.  Then he had come home to eat green peas and meat loaf with rice and gravy around a table decorated with the chatter of his wife and daughters.  In a little while he was going to have to drive over to Edna’s and get Juanita.  Tonight there was some sort of meeting at the school and Melvina insisted that they attend together.  Leo didn’t see why he needed to go:  Melvina was the one who knew how to mingle and talk around white people, not him.
“Leo?  Aren’t you going to get Juanita?”  Melvina called from upstairs.  She was helping Sukie off with her clothes.  
“I’m taking the girls with me.” he replied, and then listened to hear their squeals of delight.
“We get to wear our pajamas in the car?!” Leslie gave her mother a wild look.  Sukie was sitting on the floor pulling on her pajama bottoms when she was struck with her epiphany:  “My ‘jammies has feet in them!”  The idea of wearing pajamas outside, in the evening, without socks and shoes had a great feeling to it, already.  This was right up there with eating pancakes and syrup with bacon for dinner!