“Abdul.” Rita’s shaking my shoulder. “Let the lady pass.” I stand up and a big white lady who had been sitting down the aisle from us squeeze past.
“Hello,” she say when she gets up front. “My name is Sondra Lichenstein. I met Precious almost eleven years ago when I was working for the Board of Ed. I won’t even try to describe the circumstances that we met under, that’s like a book or something, really. But I will tell you I stayed in touch with her, sometimes whether she wanted it or not.” She laughs. “Eventually we became friends. Before she died, in addition to being a student in the SEEK Program at City College, she worked as a peer counselor at Positive Images in Harlem, and was a full-time mom of a beautiful little boy, Abdul, who is a wonderful student; and it was Abdul who made the computer graphic design you see next to the Langston Hughes poem in the middle of the program. I’m going to sit down now and let Blue Rain, one of Precious’s teachers, speak.” She comes to sit back down. Good, I’m glad; it makes me sick to hear people talking about Mommy like she’s dead.
Oh, I know her, lady with dreadlocks. I seen her before, she’s one of my mother’s friends.
“Hi, I’m Blue Rain, I was Precious’s teacher and later became her friend.” Blue Rain looks down at a little card and says, “I didn’t want to forget anything I had to say or go on too long, so I wrote down what I had to say. I remember once Precious telling me, ‘What difference does it make whether the glass is half full or half empty? You just drink as much as you can while you can.’ Abuse truncated her life and led to the AIDS”—AIDS! What she talking about?—“which finally took it. But she showed me, all of us, what a good game you can still play when the deck is stacked against you.”
“Ashé!” someone yell.
“Tell the truth!” someone else yell.
“She learned to read and write at the age of sixteen.” Who she talking about? “At twenty she received a GED and began the slow walk toward a college degree. Her achievements were remarkable because of what she was able to overcome and perhaps even more remarkable because of what she wasn’t able to overcome. We who knew her watched a child become a woman, a half-full glass spill over, something broken become whole. And in the act of witnessing became more whole ourselves.”
If I had been good and done what she said, she wouldn’t have gotten sicker and sicker. Do you have to make so much noise! My job is to clean the bathroom. When I open the medicine chest over the sink—Don’t bother with that, I’ll do that—I count thirteen bottles of medicine. In the morning in the afternoon at night. Why, if nothing’s wrong with you? I know you don’t have what they’re saying because you’re good we’re good I’m good we don’t have that, we’re, I’m a boy who’s going somewhere, gonna be something. I didn’t mean to be making noise I miss my father I wish he would come and get me and make it alright I want to go horseback riding if I had a father I could go horseback riding all the time. But I don’t and I won’t I wish my mother would get up out of that box and holler (even though it’s November) APRIL FOOLS! APRIL FOOLS! I PSYCHED YOU OUT! I PSYCHED YOU OUT! and we could go home again like before I feel so tired and I don’t like listening to all these stupid people talking. This is the fourth, no fifth one. Tall skinny woman in blue jeans and a jacket and tie.
“We are all here today—oh, my name is Jermaine Hicks—as we were saying, we are all sad to see our friend and sister lose her valiant—I mean that in every sense of the word—val-lee-ant, fight for life. She was a star, a diamond among rhinestones, a warrior. That’s not rhetoric, that’s real. I guess there were bad things you could say about her, there’s bad things you could say about anybody. But to me this moment is about celebrating the life she did have, as well as pouring out our grief for the one she didn’t have and now will never have. Her shit was not easy—Oh, I’m not supposed to talk like that here?” She look over at Rhonda. When I look at Rhonda, Rhonda is staring the girl down so hard her eyes look like traffic lights. “I’m not supposed to mention Medicaid didn’t want to pay for her drugs or that the ’fare was threatening her again to leave school or lose her benefits, that there’s a padlock on her door and that she died broke and depressed, deeply depressed.”
Rhonda mumble behind us, “I done had enough of dis bungee-brain crack addict.”
Rhonda get up. The girl is still talking.
“And now we’re looking at her laid out in a white dress talking about her like she was an angel. Yeah, well, maybe that’s irony or something,’cause her life sure the fuck was hell!” My mother’s life wasn’t no hell!
“Excuse me,” Rhonda say. Jermaine don’t pay Rhonda no mind. “She died broke, depressed but with a heart too mutherfucking big to be bitter.” She looks at Rhonda, who’s standing next to her now. Rhonda say something to her.
“Yeah, I’ll sit down when I’m finished, but I ain’t finished yet.”
“Hey, let’s go!” Rhonda stare at her until she go sit down.
“I think Rita have a few words she want to say before we close out dis part of the service,” Rhonda say.
Rita lean over kiss me, then get up in front Mommy’s casket. Rhonda come sit next to me.
“This girl was my friend, my sister, and sometimes my daughter. I loved her.” She unfolds a piece of paper. “This poem is called ‘Mother to Son’ by Langston Hughes. The first time I heard it was when Precious memorized and recited it to the class, serious back in the day!” She laughs. “I’m going to read it now.” She looks at me. “This is for you, Papi.”
MOTHER TO SON
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
She turns around to Mommy. “I love you, Precious.” Then comes and sits back down. I like her poem, I feel good.
“What’s next?” I ask. PING! go Rhonda upside my head again. I hate her!
“Dis ain’t no show, boy! ‘What’s next?’ I never hear the like!”
“Would you jus’ stop!” Rita says to Rhonda, Rhonda jus’ roll her eyes at Rita. Rita lean over and whisper, “They’re going to close the casket now.”
“Huh?”
“The pallbearers, they’re the ones who actually carry the casket out the funeral parlor to the car, and then when it’s at the graveyard they take the casket out the car and to the grave site.”
“So—” I don’t understand but I stop talking, one of the guys done turned out the little lamp over Mommy’s head. Another guy is moving a hinge on one end of the casket, another guy at the other end is doing the same thing. They lowering the lid over Mommy’s face. “She won’t be able to breathe!” I tell Rita.
“She’s not breathing, Abdul. She’s dead. They’re closing the casket so we can take it to the graveyard and put her body in the ground.”
“No!” I throw my arms around Rita, push my face in her dress, crying. The material of her dress gets all stiff when it’s wet.
“It’s OK, it’s OK,” Rita say over and over. Someone picks me up from the bench, I don’t know who, I’m still crying. I bury my face in his clothes squeeze my eyes shut. I open them again as a big guy is setting me down on the sidewalk on Lenox Avenue next to Rita. It’s gotten colder outside than it was, but the sun is still shining bright.
“Come on, boobie,” Rita says, “get in the car.??
? I scoot in next to her. I like riding in cars. We pull out from the other cars and get in back of the black Lincoln with Mommy in it. I don’t know where we’re going. I’m just reading the signs on the highway. The world is zipping by like when you on the computer playing a game in your car. I feel a little sleepy. I like cars. Mommy, why we don’t have a car? Mommy, I’m talking to you, why we don’t have a car? Well, is what she would say, because we can’t afford one right now, Abdul. But she don’t say nothing now. We turn off the freeway, houses out here got grass and swing sets. I’m gonna live out here when I’m grown.
Coffins? Graveyard? Spooky place from Halloween movies on television. Dracula climbing out the casket with spiderwebs and stuff. Dark, scary stuff. But when the car stops, it’s like a pretty park, green grass, sky blue with fluffy white clouds. I lean back on the seat close my eyes, hear car doors open people talking, hear this car door open, open my eyes, get out. Me and Rita walk behind the pallbearers and Reverend Bellwether up the white gravel path sparkling in the sunshine. Then we turn off the path onto grass. I like walking on grass. It’s like a city out here! Green grass, the gravestones are little houses; a person is under each one? First a person then they turn to bones? We go up a hill, there’s some chairs, a big pile of dirt; get up closer see the big hole. I look up at an airplane disappear across the sky.
On one side of the big hole is a big pile of dirt. The casket is on the other side. Reverend Bellwether is holding the Bible but she don’t open it. She look at everybody then up at the sky then at everybody again.
“Heavenly Father—” she say.
“Amen!” Rhonda shout. Why? All she said was Heavenly Father.
“Heavenly Father,” she say again, “Great Spirit, what we know you taught us, where we are you brought us. And from our mother’s body we are brought forth and to the body of the Great Mother we shall return.”
Guy in dirty overalls wave his hand and the pallbearers move the casket over the hole on top some ropes and like strips of canvas. Then he go to the end of the grave and turn a handle. When he turn the handle, the coffin go down.
“Ashes to ashes!” Down, down, handle go round and round. “Dust to dust!” Lurch, bump. I look up at the sky. Blue. The sun shining bright. I look for another airplane. None. The man in the overalls picks up a shovel, shove it down hard in the dirt.
“Come on.” Rita pulls my hand. “It’s over.”
RITA ASK THE MAN driving to drop us off on 125th Street at the Harlem State Office Building instead of the funeral home.
“What’s here?”
“Some friends of your mother’s have cooked some food. People gonna eat some, talk, and then go home.”
“Home?”
“Come on!”
“I’m not hungry!”
“Yes you are, stop acting silly!”
“I wanna go to McDonald’s!”
She laughs. “I thought you wasn’t hungry!” She points across the street. “See that.”
“What?”
“The Hotel Theresa, that’s where I met your mom. We learned to read and write together.”
“Whatchu mean?”
“Whatchu mean, what I mean?”
“About you and my mom learning to write, or whatever, at the Hotel Theresa.”
“She never told you about that? No? Well, remind me to one day. We ain’t got no time now.”
I got time now. Plus I don’t want to go in there, whatever it is in the Harlem State Office Building. Rita hold out her hand, I shake my head.
“Come on, stop acting silly and bring your booty over here. People are waiting on us.” We go up in the elevator to a room with people walking around smiling and sitting in chairs against the wall eating food and drinking coffee. Rita take me over to a woman in a black and white stripe dress.
“Abdul, I want you to meet Mrs McKnight. She used to be head of Each One Teach One before it closed down.” So what was it? Lady leans over to kiss me. I’m tired of people kissing me, I don’t want her to kiss me, but she does.
“You eat quiche?” Rita asks.
“I like the mushroom kind.”
“Well, try this, it’s spinach and cheese.” We move down the table of food. I get some ham and potato salad, I stop in front of a whole bunch of cakes, a lot of them. “Go ahead, get what you want.” I get carrot cake with frosting and chocolate cake.
“Let’s sit over here.” She points to some chairs against the wall. I never seen these people before. What this got to do with my mother? My mother said I was the most important person in her life. The quiche taste good, ham too. I don’t like this potato salad; I like the way my mother make it.
“After you finish your cake, we go talk to Ms Rain.”
RITA CLOSES THE DOOR to the little office. I hear the people outside talking and laughing with their food. Ms Rain is sitting behind a desk.
“Have a seat, Abdul,” Ms Rain say. I don’t want to sit down. I think I know what they’re going to say. I wanna run out the room, go home. But home is with my mother, without my mom ain’t no home. How I’m feeling? What she think? I don’t talk smart. My mother don’t allow that. I look at Rita. My stomach feel funny. I wish they would just go on and talk.
“Well, your mother is gone. And your father too, evidently he’s been dead for quite a while. I guess you already knew that?”
I didn’t. I look out the window. I don’t usually be this high up, what, we on the twentieth floor or something? I look outside see a computer screen instead of the sky for a second. Plane tumbling down first slow then over and over again then whoosh screen bust into flames! Then I see myself tumbling through the air. Headlines NINE-YEAR-OLD BOY JUMPS TO HIS DEATH. They’ll be sorry then they lied about my father and saying stuff about AIDS.
“Abdul. I know you’re wondering what’s next, where you’re going to stay and school—”
“I catch the bus to school,” I tell her. Rita looks at Ms Rain, then at me.
“I never told you, boobie, I’m a little sick myself.” I feel hot, the room, Rita look like a dream, red lips powder face. I run to the wastebasket, almost make it before ugh! Quiche, chocolate cake, grape soda ugh! AHHH!
“It’s OK,” Rita say. Ms Rain hands me some tissue.
“Are you alright?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say, and sit back down. I know what’s coming. Kids at school ain’t got no parents live at fosters homes and group homes and stuff. I look out the window see myself tumbling over and over again like the plane. BLAM!!
“Where’s all my stuff?” I ask.
“Huh?” Ms Rain seems surprised.
“My computer, my toys, my books, my posters, my bike.”
“Your mother sent someone over to the apartment before she died to get her notebooks, papers, legal documents, and stuff. I don’t think she believed she was going to . . . to pass away. I think she thought she was going to get better one more time. Rita and I went over there the day before yesterday, and there was a padlock on the door and a sheriff ’s notice of eviction. I don’t know if she had been behind in the rent or if the landlord just is pulling a fast one. He’d been wanting that apartment back for a long time. But we just have the stuff of your mother’s that her friend got—papers, books, notebooks, some jewelry. Rita has records with your shots and old report cards, birth certificate, things you’ll need at your new school.” She turn to Rita. “Did she ever get him a Social Security card?”
“She would have had to because of social services.”
“Of course. I’ll try to get as much together before I leave today and give it to you to take back to the hotel. I’m going to London at the end of the week. Abdul, you’re going to spend tonight with Rita. She’s been putting off going into the hospital—”
“Don’t say that, La Lluvia.”
I start crying. “We was gonna get a dog.”
“What did he say?”
“I don’t know. What, boobie?”
“We was gonna get a dog!” I scream.
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“I know it’s hard, Abdul. If I could change it, I would. I think this is the hardest part. Once you’re settled in, it’ll be better. Rita can come and visit you,” Ms Rain say. She’s looking at Rita, Rita’s looking out the window.
“I’m going to a foster home.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“In the morning.”
TWO
Rita hands me a shiny plastic square that opens out to be a garbage bag. “It’s clean, new, put your stuff in it for now.” She’s standing by the bed holding my good shoes. My suit is on the bed folded up and wrapped in plastic from the dry cleaners, my shirt too. My shirt,
black suit, good shoes, and leather jacket, and what I got on—jeans, my Batman T-shirt, and sneakers is all I got from home. Everything else I got is at home. My CD player, my mother’s but I’m the one use it most, my TV, my mother’s but she don’t like TV, my computer, my mother’s but my school don’t have computers for the fourth grade, my jeans, not baggies, my mother don’t allow that, my down jacket Triple Phat, Timberland boots, my favorites, what I’m gonna wear when it gets cold. My swimming trunks for when I go swimming, flippers, guy down the hall gave me, even though I can’t swim yet. My CDs, me and my mother’s, some is mine, some is hers. All is hers, she said after I traded one I thought was mine, MC Lyte, for Biggie Smalls. My mother attaches to old school. My G.I. Joe men, Indians, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Custard and the soldiers, map from the Battle of the Little Bighorn, marbles (I never play with), string, knife (Swiss Army knife that I’m never, NEVER spozed to take out the house), the goldfish, they probably not alive anymore if didn’t no one go in and feed ’em. My books. I got a lot of books about black people and Indians. I like Native Americans better than black people. Ain’t no Indians stupid like Danny. My play clothes, crayons, paints, my paints but my mother use ’em more than me. On my dresser is a picture of my mom, where’s it at? Who got my stuff? I want it.