“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.
