"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!

"Barry Smells Himself"

But Mother, I had plans!"Juanita jumped up from the floor to follow her mother down the hallway after Edna hung up the telephone from talking to Melvina.  Edna turned and just folded her arms across her chest, looking at her daughter with equal parts of compassion and frustration.

She was standing right next to an inexpensively but tastefully-framed triple-portrait which featured President John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy hanging on the wall.  The hallway lighting was less bright than usual because one of the light bulbs beneath the ceiling fixture was out.  Edna Smalls was somewhat distracted by this: another thing to remember to fix , another thing to attend to....shoot!   She was hoping there were some spare 50-watt bulbs in the linen closet or underneath the kitchen sink or maybe on the top shelf of one of the kids’ closets.

“Barry! Get a fresh light bulb for this hallway!” she shouted, while she was still thinking about it.

“Ma! Why can’t Juanita get it! She’s the oldest!” Barry stuck out his head from the bathroom and into the hallway.  He had been in there examining his chin, underarms, and the area beneath his navel for the new smells and growths of his pubescence.

“Boy, don’t make me snatch you!”  Edna threatened.

“But I didn’t even do anything, Ma! You treat me bad, no matter what.  It’s always you and Juanita against me!”  

     Barry slunk out into the hallway, giving both his mother and sister a grimace on his way to the kitchen.  He was the shirtless underdog with smelly armpits.  Juanita squeezed her eyes shut to demonstrate her disgust at the sight of him.  Just now, Barry was nothing to her but a big, annoying head crowning a scrawny neck and torso, newly-hairy lanky legs, and feet with long, crooked toes.  Even Edna was slightly rattled at the sight of her son:  he wasn’t a baby anymore.  She had done her best by him up to this point, but, now...?  

“That’s not true.” she said weakly, as Barry stomped past her, leaving a loud aroma of 12-year-old funk on the air.

“Mother, I’m nearly graduating from high school---I’m not a kid.  I wanted to go out with my friends, tonight.”  Juanita attempted to manipulate her mother’s emotions by slowing-down her impassioned delivery and making an inward gesture toward her chest with her fingertips---something she had learned in Mr. T’s Interpretive Reading class at her school.  

Perturbed, and somewhat displaced from her usual center of Mother Power, Edna turned her back on Juanita, her eldest child, nearly a young woman, and marched straightaway to her bedroom.  She wanted so much to close the bedroom door on her daughter’s advancing face.  The conflicting sensibilities inside of her wanted to strong-arm things back to the way they were when she was clearly the mother of young children; not the mother of young birds eager to try out their own wings in the world.     

"Juanita's Change of Plans"

Juanita was standing in the mirror picking out her afro and grunting snippets from the latest James Brown jam, “Say It Loud (I’m Black And I’m Proud), when the telephone rang and her younger brother Barry scrambled to answer it, tripping and falling over his own awkward knees and feet.

“Boy, that call isn’t for you!” Juanita pointed the afro-pick and lunged after him.  “Ma! Barry’s trying to answer the phone instead of doing his homework!” she shouted, then tripped over the bunched-up corner of the hallway runner.  She fell on top of Barry and tried to pin his arms to the floor.  A few feet away the rotary telephone sat on its own table, brrringing!---brrringing!---brrrrining!

“I can answer the phone if I want to! That phone ain’t yours!” Barry tangled against his sister. 

“Barry, what have I told you about saying “ain’t”?”  their mother, Edna Smalls, came around the corner to see her children rolling on the floor.  “And Juanita! If you don’t get up off of him, I’m going to bop you with this receiver!”

Edna Smalls yanked the receiver from its cradle, shook it in the air for affect, and then calmly answered “Hello?” Both Barry and Juanita tried to get in a few extra slaps and hits on each other.

“Is that you, Melvina?  Girl, hold on a minute....theses kids....!” They didn’t see their mother take off her house slipper and bite down on her bottom lip as she came across the room.  She raised that shoe high up in the air and then came down on them with some well-placed swats to their heads and backsides. 

  

“DIDN’T.  ” Pop! Pop!

“I. ” Papbap!

“TELL.  ” Spapp!

“YOU.”  Fllrrapp!

“TWO.” Paa!baap!

“TO.” Faapp!

“STOP???”  POP!POP!POP! 

Edna Smalls replaced the house slipper on her foot, dusted her hand, wiped her mouth, and walked back over to sit in the chair next to the telephone table.  She picked up the receiver and breathed into it:  .“Giiirrrrrrrlll....!”   She could hear her sister-in-law, Melvina, on the other end, laughing.

Barry tried to kick Juanita away at the same time that she she was getting up off her knees.  “I can’t stand you!” She hissed at him.  She tried to straighten and smooth the disarray of her new mustard-yellow and brown pantsuit.  Noticing a smudge on the hem of her shirt, she turned to gape at her mother. “Ma!” Juanita wailed.  Her mother, who was listening intently to what Melvina was saying, could not detect the slight discoloration from across the room.  She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and said “Melvina needs you to baby-sit Leslie and Sukie, tonight.”

Juanita’s eyes popped.  “But I had plans, mother!”  she whispered, desperately.

“I don’t remember us discussing anything.”  Edna Smalls whispered back.  

Into the telephone she said “Of course she can do it, it’s not going to be a problem.”  This made Juanita drop to her knees with her hands clasped in a gesture of pleading but it was all in vain.

"A String around My Finger" circa 1968

One day my mother told me that she was going to my school to visit my teacher.  They were going to have a talk about how I was getting along in the second grade.  My posture straightened with pride and I gave my mother a large grin. I knew my teacher would tell my mother that I was the best student in the class.  

Instead, Mrs. Payne told her that---while I was smart, I talked too much and interrupted other children who were trying to complete their class work.  I told my mother that I only talked when I was finished with my work.  

“And I help them to finish their work.” I explained with the palms of my hands facing upward to emphasize what a good thing this was.  But Mommie shook her head NO, a little frown creasing her face.

“Leslie, you can’t talk in class when you’re supposed to be doing your work.  You have to be quiet.  You have to let other children finish their work in peace.”

“But...I...” 

My mother raised her index finger up to my eye level. “Op!” she dramatized the strange non-word that meant there was was nothing more for me to say.  I began to pout. 

“Let me tell you what we’re going to do---” Mommie began, trying to sound cheery.  “I”m going to tie a string around your finger, and every time you look at it, you will remember not to talk in class, not to interrupt other children who are trying to get their lesson.  See?” She showed me a dangle of string.  I shuttered my eyelids so I wouldn’t have to see it all the way.

“Open your eyes.  Now, I’m going to tie it around your finger, like this.”  She tied a double bow around my finger.  It was limp and lackluster and I didn’t like it.

“You can pretend that its a ring.”

I tried to warm to this idea but I had seen better looking rings in the bubblegum dispensers at the A & P grocery store.  I gave my mother a mopey look with my lips poked out and my nose crinkled as if I smelled something that stank.  Her shoulders slumped with a sigh.

“Well, you only have to wear it long enough to improve your behavior.  Once you’ve learned to be quiet, you won’t have to wear it anymore.”

“Do I have to wear it at home?”

“No.”  My mother untied the string and I went away to lick my wound.

The next morning’s breakfast of oatmeal with raisins in it was dee-LISH! and I was in a good mood until Mommie tied the string around my finger and asked if I remembered why I was wearing it.  Once we reviewed its purpose, she gave me a warm you-can-do-it! hug and sent me off to school.

I didn’t want my classmates to know that our teacher had had a private talk with my mother about my behavior so I flaunted the droopy bow to a few friends.  I told them it was my “pretend ring”, and tried to make it seem like something they might want to imitate.

The bell rang and Mrs. Payne told the whole class to come to order.  It was time to stand beside our chairs to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with our right hands held flat against our chests.  Facing the limp American flag on its pole in the front corner of our classroom, our voices droned like a drowsy swarm of hornets, wasps, and bees.  Afterward, the classroom came alive with the banging of desktops and chairs screeching on the floor as we readied ourselves for the first lesson of the day.  In her gelatinous perfect penmanship, Mrs. Payne wrote the day and the date on the blackboard, then turned to scan her eyes over the group of us. 

“Everyone:  Today, Leslie is wearing a string around her finger.  Do you know why?”

Some boys whipped their heads around, anticipating a homemade contraption consisting of pulleys and ropes.  My friend, Sharalynn, raised her hand and tried to smooth her blond bangs on her forehead.  One of the things that drew us to each other was the fact that even though I was “black” and she was “white”, we both wore bangs and our top front teeth were growing-in slowly.  When Mrs. Payne called on her,  Sharalynn blinked her eyes, cleared her throat, and said, “It’s her ring.”  We gave each other a gummy smile.

“No,” said Mrs. Payne.  “It is not a ring, but a reminder of---” here, she raised her eyebrows at me.  The sting from her betrayal began to make my eyes water and equal parts of shame and resistance mingled recklessly in my stomach.  Focusing on the pukey green and gray floor tiles, I filled my mouth with enough air to make my cheeks swell.

“To remind you of what, Leslie?”

I deflated my cheeks to make room for words to become available in my mouth before I said “Not to talk in class.”

“And what else?”

“Not to....” I reached around in my mind for the other part, as if it were the last  shred of my dignity that I couldn’t give up.

“Not to...” 

Some children giggled while others held their breath and Mrs. Payne cleared her throat.

“Not to help...other kids with their work.”  

Mrs. Payne corrected me:  “Don’t talk to other children while they are working on their lessons.”

“Okay.”

“So, if Leslie interrupts you while you are doing your work, you can remind her of the string that is on her finger.”

Wide eyes sneaked looks at me. 

“And Leslie, if you finish your work before the others, then you may sit quietly.”

And that was the lesson for that morning, and two mornings afterward.  By the fourth day, the novelty of the string had worn off and neither I nor my classmates was interested in it, anymore.     

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