She come back she got latex gloves on like the hospital. “Come on, let me wash you up so you can come eat. You ain’ had no breakfast. Neither has Batty, that’s probably why he’s so irritable.” She wipes my face with a warm washcloth. “You alright, you got a little bloody nose and a black eye. If Batty ever ever lay a hand on you again, they won’t have to take him out of here, I’ll kill him myself! Don’t you worry, that’s why he’s here’cause I’m one of the few that can handle him.”
She pulls my hand for me to follow her in the kitchen. Everything seems red or maybe everything is red, at least the tablecloth and chairs and kitchen cabinets. I can feel my eye swelling shut. My head is . . . feels like it’s broken or something.
“What you staring at? You done seen a roach before. Good thing is they only in the kitchen. Some people got ’em all over. I gotta get the man back in here to spray.
“Sit down, sit down.”
She places a plate in front of me, it smells good. I didn’t know I was so hungry. It stings the cut on my lip! I push the plate away and lay my head down on the table and start to cry. “I wanna go home! I wanna go home! I wanna go home—” The tears is burning my eye and the cut in my lip.
“Hush up, J.J., it’s over.”
“I wan—” I can’t hardly talk. “I . . . go home.”
“Hush, J.J., you is home.”
I put my head back down crying. I don’t know where to go. If it was the olden days, I could run away to be with Crazy Horse, be a great warrior. Walk in moccasin shoes. I feel cold, I got my head down. I don’t see him or hear him, but I feel Batty Boy in the room.
“Look at him! He can’t go to school like that! Goddamn you, Batty! Put your hands on him again and your simple ass is going to a group home or Spofford, hear! HEAR!”
Loud as she’s screaming, he oughta be able to hear. Heeeaaar! HEAR! I raise up to look at Batty, like those dogs, can she control him. I’m surprised, he looks like a different person from a few minutes ago, bright and cheerful, smiling, not weird.
“Soup,” he says.
“What!” Miss Lillie says.
“What! Smut! Some soup, that’s what!”
“Good idea, Batty! You smart as a whip when you wanna be. Put him some soup in a bowl.”
I’m looking at him, then it seems like he disappears, like everything disappears. The cabinets is turning from red to rainbows.
“Here, drink your soup, J.J. It ain’t gonna burn you.” Batty Boy’s voice comes through the colors, sounds nice like a mother almost.
Miss Lillie is putting some ice in a plastic bag against my eye. “You can’t go to school like this. I do know that. Lord have mercy! What you say to Batty to make him so mad? Here, hold this ice on your eye and finish your soup. Then when you finish you can come in and watch TV with me.”
I look up at the wall, the clock is all twinkly with stars, but I can’t tell what time it is.
“What you looking at? I swear you is the peculiar-est chile I done seen in a while.”
“I’m looking at the clock. What time is it?”
“Ain’t no clock up there.” She looks at her watch. “It’s twelve o’clock.”
“I wanna lay down.” My head really hurts.
“OK, you can finish your soup later.”
I gotta get outta here, go home. Go back home. I’m hungry. My shirt and jacket is all messed up—
“Come on.”
My mother’s there, back home. Follow Miss Lillie to her room.
“Don’t you want to take your jacket off before you lay down?”
“No.”
I’M CONFUSED when I wake up. I think I’m Mommy. But if I was her I wouldn’t be thinking I’m her, I would just be her. Then I think like on TV, that cartoon, the magic genie, or that TV show where you get another chance, get a wish, make it better, do it different. Mommy is not dead but in bed and like in the movie gonna change and she gonna get up and we go home or to have pizza and our life be good. We win like the Indians winned once, we win like that, I’m so glad to be in the hospital with my mother. Huh? Huh? I don’t think this guy understand, he keep asking me stupid stuff. Nothin’ happened! Me and my mother, we getting ready to get out of here. You can’t keep us here we don’t want to be here. We well. My mom is well, I won the show, I get to go back, my wish? Today is not today, it’s yesterday.
“Come on, I think you do know. Can you tell who did this to you?”
Me and my mother gonna get pizza and go to the Apollo. Don’t nobody in my class go as many places as me—“Did what! What you talking about. Leave me alone! Nothing happened.”
“J.J.? J.J.? J.J.?”
My name ain’t no stupid J.J. and I’m not a little boy—
It seems like all the light’s whiteness is pouring in my eyes and I honestly don’t remember. I’m a little boy a little boy a little boy I’m a little boy! No I don’t, don’t have to, don’t wanna remember I don’t remember. I told you once! He banged my head on the floor. The floor was black and white squares on the linoleum. I don’t remember I don’t remember. It didn’t happen.
“What didn’t happen?”
“What you’re thinking didn’t happen. What you thinking—”
“Somebody hurt you, J.J.”
I forget all I don’t know. Sink further down in the bed even though I’m already flat on my back.
Home, home. How do I feel? I feel like I want to go home. Turn off the lights, Doctor.
so I can go to sleep
night in the hospital is light.
so you know what happened to you
so you know what happened to you?
Batty Boy jumped out of his bed and jumped me
for my jacket
I don’t know Batty wanted my jacket so he beat me up.
orange juice please
you like orange juice
yes I
yes I
five dollars
I had five dollars from the laundrymat guy
Star Magic Kaleidoscope from Rita
He hit me
“Where?”
I
Batty Boy hit me?
“Anything else? Did he do anything else?”
Nothing happened, really, I fell and hit my head at school and my head hurts bad I wonder can you fix it. In my dreams I’m not black, and if I am I’m only half black and an Indian. I’m a warrior riding across the plains, in my dreams we drive the Europeans back into the ocean, in my dreams sometimes I am black, blacker than I am now, the blackest black man, Hannibal riding an elephant over the Alps, a ruler of a kingdom of a land where my father’s picture is like George Washington’s on the dollar bill, in my dreams I have not been beat. Or left alone. My dreams are mine, I do ’em with my eyes open. When I close my eyes my dreams belong to the boogeyman, the devil. They are the devil’s lies. But my dreams were not lies before my mother died, or, except, maybe that time just before Mommy died was bad dreams. Before that my dreams was very good, like I was clear who I was gonna be when I growed up, I was like Michael Jordan. Like how my father must have been.
My mother says everyone even the ones who go to the same church have different ideas of what’s God. It’s different for every person, Abdul. I don’t know exactly how to describe it to you, Mommy’s learning herself. Sometimes I feel you know more than me. But how I see it—I dunno. OK, see that apple, tell me about it.
It’s green.
Yeah.
It’s shiny.
Is it?
No, but apples can be shiny.
How big is it?
Little.
Littler than a ladybug?
No.
Littler than a golf ball?
I never seen a golf ball.
Are you crazy—Tiger Woods!
But that’s on TV.
Is it littler than a basketball but bigger than a golf ball?
Yeah!
OK, see, that’s like they tell us in school, you and I have agreed upon reality. You
and I look at the apple and see some stuff about it and say OK, but ain’ nobody seen God. Bible say he had skin like copper, hair like wool. I read it! One professor brought us pictures of Venus of Willendorf from ancient days, big ladies, said they was goddesses. I’m not down on the white people’s God, but then when I think about my life I ain’t down with it either, at least I don’t want to be.
You don’t have to be, Mommy.
Whatchu mean?
What we think can be God. We can think anything.
You get so programmed, baby, in spite of yourself, you get so programmed.
WHEN I CLOSE my eyes I fall down without moving, like I’m tumbling through space, like astronauts but I’m not weightless and keep tumbling down to a dark place and my breath feel like fear in my throat. In the hospital I been dreaming one thing. One thing that didn’t happen. Batty did bad. Batty hurt me. They ask me questions over and over. I wanted the tubes out my nose and hands. I don’t have AIDS. I don’t have pneumonia. Stupid questions. When will I get my computer back, go someplace that’s not here? To Michael Jordan, to training camp. To the Indians. I don’t want to talk.
“In the three weeks you were there—”
Stupid guy! “I was not there no three weeks!” What’s he talking about. I was only there for one day. It hurts to turn my head.
One day an extra-stupid lady comes with dolls. She holds up one of the dolls. I hate her. She has flakes of dandruff.
“What happened to this little boy?”
She leans toward the bed. I feel like I’m swimming on the white walls, the air, like I can go anywhere. Just float. I’m anybody. I could be God if that was the agreed-upon reality. In the dream I have a bad headache for two weeks and we’ve finished dinner and I want to do my homework. In the dream Batty is sitting across the table from me. Snowball is on one side of me, he’s a little albino boy. He doesn’t like to be called Snowball but that’s how it is. I forget his name anyway. My head hurts all the time. Bobby and Richie Jackson are sitting next to Batty, across from me. I’m hungry. Everybody’s eating, I’m not. I’m hungry but sometimes my head hurts so hard I can’t do nothing not even eat. Miss Lillie say it will go away. I just need to eat and drink plenty of water. I do. Miss Lillie says shut up crying or I’ll give you something to cry about. But she doesn’t. She’s nice sometimes lets us watch TV in her room. Miss Lillie doesn’t ever hit us, none of us, not even Snowball when he doo-doos in the bed. Batty hits us. Until my head echoes like a bell. In school I can’t remember nothing. I sit there. They talk about dinosaurs. I go to the library and check out books I had at home: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Indian Chiefs, Sitting Bull and Other Legendary Native American Chiefs, Michael Jordan: The Athlete and the Man. In real life if real life was real I am not here. My father came and got me the minute he found out my mother died and they had put me in foster care. Not my son! My head hurts so bad. All the time I vomit. Inside I feel like Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. (My mother had got her nose pierced.) “My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more.” My mother said he probably didn’t say that, they probably just wrote it that way to make him sound like a fool. Mommy, do you hate them? White people? Yeah. No, why, does it sound like I do? Yeah, sometimes. I . . . I, but I don’t, I really don’t, but they hate us, and they hated the Indians and the Asians, but now it seems like it’s us they hate the most. Why? A lot of reasons, none of them good. BONG! BONG! My head. I’m scared he’s going to hit me again. I look down at the hot dogs and pork and beans on my plate.
Miss Lillie orders Chinese food for herself. We eat breakfast and lunch at school. It’s different every day. Here, we eat the same thing for dinner every day, hot dogs and pork and beans or leftover Chinese food, every day. Miss Lillie always talking, not to us, just talking.
“I useta cook. I don’t mind cookin’ but why should I? These damn kids don’t appreciate nothin’! Uh huh, I useta cook, broccoli, mashed potatoes, meat loaf, the whole shebang, you know what I mean. And these stupid niggers be passing the meat loaf to the dogs! Balling up they vegetables in they napkins, sticking toy soldiers in the mashed potatoes. Yeah, baby, the Battle of Bull Run at the dinner table; this one got the whole damn infantry stuck in the mashed potatoes, that one got his cornbread on top the toy tank delivering it to the wounded and shit. Honey, these niggers is crazy! So finally I said, ‘What do you niggers want to eat? ’Cause y’all wasting my time and money. This little bit of money they give me for y’all ain’t shit. Damn sure ain’t enuff to be throwing away. Well, tell me something!’ I said. So they said, ‘Hot dogs!’ And another one said, ‘Yeah! With pork ’n beans.’ So, honey, it’s been hot dogs ever since.”
Our plates have big red roses on them. It’s seventy-five of ’em in the cabinet. Snowball counted ’em once. Miss Lillie got ’em in the soap powder before we was born, in the olden days, those were the days.
“I done had these plates thirty years if I had ’em a day! Got ’em in Tide, you hear me. They useta give you something for your money when you went to the store, honey, but all that done changed. Ain’t like that no more! Bidnesses is in trouble nowadays, whole economy is in trouble! Too many people on welfare and this dope messing shit up. And Clinton, that calm freak we got for a president, boy, was that a goddamned mistake.”
Except she’s not talking to us, she’s talking to the TV or the wall or something. Something that don’t talk back, or like if she had a boyfriend or a sister that’s her own age, like a friend. We’re not her friends. She don’t like us or hate us, except Snowball. She likes Snowball. When we get home she takes out two packages of hot dogs and two packages of hot dog buns from the freezer and sets ’em in the red dish rack. Then she get two big cans of pork and beans out the cabinet and sets them on the kitchen table and goes back in her room to watch TV. Then Batty Boy is like our mother, puts the hot dogs in a pot of water to boil and warms the beans up. He gets the mustard and ketchup out the cabinet and puts them on the table and always remember that Richie likes mayonnaise and gets it out the refrigerator. He turns on the oven and puts the hot dog buns in the oven. Then he puts our beans on our plates, four hot dogs and two buns that are always hot on the outside and cold in the middle. Then he sits down, folds his hands, and bow his head and mumble:
Bless, oh Lord, and
dese die gifts
If my head don’t hurt too bad I eat my hot dogs, ’cause I want to grow big and strong and get out of here and go find my father. Tonight Batty leans over across the table toward me, puts his hand right into my plate, and grabs one of the hot dogs on my plate in his fist.
“You and me.” He laughs, shaking the wiener, orange sauce from the pork and beans is running down his arm. “No, you. Ha ha ha, you!”
I can’t figure out if Batty laughs like a grown-up or a maniac. Sometimes I look at him and see that first day, the black and white bedroom floor like a checkerboard or chessboard, blood all on it, then taste blood in my mouth. You and me? What’s he talking about, a book, a game? I have so much homework. I tell Miss Garnet at school my head hurts. “Your behind is what oughta be hurting! Don’t come in here with a bunch of excuses, we got kids in here who’ve been through more than you could dream possible and you know what, they do their homework.” Batty tells everyone at school that my mother died of AIDS. I say it’s a lie. It is, a big one. Number one, my mother ain’t dead. Number two, my mother didn’t die of AIDS.
in the dream he ties my hands
in the dream Batty is bad and
my head hurts more
HE IS A BAD BOY
the eyes of Richie and Bobby
is floating around without they heads or bodies
in thick clouds
i have never done this. i never kiss a girl
except my mother
but my mother don’t put her tongue
inside my mouth
in the dream i wake up and Snowball and Bobby is wrapping
wire around my wrist. i try
to move my other hand but it’s tied to
the bedpost. i try to sit up but i’m laying on my stomach. it’s hard to
breathe i open my mouth breathe go back to sleep
“J.J.” SHE HOLDS UP one of the dolls. “Tell me what happened to him.”
I look in her eyes. Go away, go away.
“I never saw that doll before. How’m I gonna know what happened to it?” She puts the puppet doll away and asks the guy who’s cleaning the floor if he could bring us a dinner tray. I’m not hungry. She takes some toy soldiers and toy Indians and line them up on the tray.
“Of course you don’t know the doll, but we’re pretending. So let’s play with these little guys here that we know aren’t real. What we can do, what everyone playing does, is give some of our own feelings and thoughts to the little toy soldiers. OK? OK, J.J.?”
The Native Americans are yellow plastic and the soldiers look like they got on Civil War uniforms or something like it, they got silver sabers, they’re blue.
She holds up a yellow man on a horse with a war bonnet. That bonnet is eagle feathers like One Who Is Not Afraid of Horses. “Who do we want this to be?” she asks.
“Curly.”
“Can you tell me a little about Curly?”
Hey! While she’s talking, the African doctor from when my mother was here puts his head through the door, but when he comes in the room he walks over to the baby in the crib way across from where I am. I sit up. He reminds me of my father. He loved me. He’s black.
“Hi, Doctor,” I say.
He doesn’t hear me.
“What’s up, little guy?” he says to the baby.
Stupid thinks I was talking to her stupid self.
“You can just call me Kate, J.J.”
I hold out my arms to the doctor, but he doesn’t see me and walks out the room.
“Are you O.K.? Do you know Dr Ngugi? No? Well, O.K., J.J., tell me a little about Curly. What’s he doing?”
“He’s high on a rock dancing and singing to God.”