Being Clem Read online

  She handed Momma her uniform from the ironing board, and Momma looked like it had snakes crawling all over it. But Clarisse pushed it into her hand again, wrinkling it. Momma didn’t even notice.

  “Get dressed, Momma,” Clarisse said, looking her in the eyes. It was one of the only mornings where there was no fussing getting out of the house. Me, Annette, and Clarisse got dressed quick and stood at the door waiting, it seemed like for hours. Just when Clarisse was about to call out “Momma” again, Momma walked out of the bathroom with her uniform on.

  She didn’t look at us but went straight to the front closet, put on her coat, took her purse, kissed each of us goodbye, and left for her first day working for the Franklin family in Hyde Park as their maid.

  FIVE

  With Momma working during the day at the Franklins’, I got to spend a lot more time with Annette and Clarisse.

  “When you get home from school, get yourselves something to eat and start in on your schoolwork,” Momma said. “Clarisse, I may need you to get dinner started on Thursdays. Mrs. Franklin said those are gonna be my late nights.” Clarisse was looking down at her fingernails.

  “Clarisse is gonna cook? Momma, are you trying to kill us?” I asked, laughing. But Momma didn’t want to hear any of my jokes tonight. I’d never seen her look so serious. She had us lined up on the couch and was giving directions like she was a drill sergeant and we were recruits.

  “Annette, I’d like you to get the floors swept and mopped on Fridays before I get home. And help out Clarisse as best as you can.”

  “What am I gonna do, Momma?” I asked.

  Momma looked down at me hard. “You just focus on getting home after school, Clem. The work in fifth grade is challenging so just get your schoolwork done,” she said.

  “You mean because he can’t do anything else?” Clarisse asked Momma, sweet as could be.

  Momma frowned at both of us. “No, it’s just that… well, Clem, you need to make sure you keep your grades up,” she said.

  “Me and Annette don’t need to keep our grades up?” Clarisse asked.

  “You know what I mean,” Momma said. But I didn’t know what Momma meant. I was glad to not have to cook dinner or mop the floor, but somehow not having anything to do made me feel like nobody needed me for anything.

  “And absolutely no company in this house while I’m not here. Is that understood?” When Momma said this, she looked right at Clarisse. We all nodded, but it was usually just Clarisse’s friends that came over. All of them pretty and loud-talking like Clarisse. It was like Clarisse went and started a Bossy Girl Club at DuSable High School, and her friends were all members. They came in like it was their house, dropping down their purses and taking up all the space. The whole house smelled like perfume and girl sweat and bubble gum. They talked loud, played the radio loud, and if I came out of my room, they teased me loud just like Clarisse did.

  “Ooooh, it’s little Clem,” the big one named Sherry always said whenever she spotted me. “Come here, Clem, and give me a hug.” I always ignored her and kept on walking to the kitchen or bathroom or wherever else I was going, listening to the sounds of them behind me. “I don’t think your brother likes me,” Sherry would say, laughing, and Clarisse would join in. I hated those girls and their loud-talking ways. Annette told me to pay them no mind.

  “They’re just playing with you, Clem,” she said.

  Best thing about Momma being at work was I didn’t have to hear the Bossy Girl Club anymore, now I only had to deal with the president, Clarisse.

  Not two weeks after Momma sat us down like new recruits going over the rules, I came home from school and thought Clarisse had turned on the radio and was having herself a party in the kitchen. Annette had club meetings sometimes after school, and those were the days Clarisse had the house all to herself for just a little while till I got home. I was making my way into the kitchen to break up her party when I first smelled the perfume and then heard my least-favorite voice saying,

  “Girl, don’t get me started…”

  Sherry.

  I had barely closed the door when Annette came in behind me. She looked right at me, then looked at the kitchen where all the noise was coming from. Annette took off, fast as Jesse Owens. Next thing I knew the Bossy Girl Club came running out of the kitchen and into the front room, grabbing their coats and yelling, “Relax, Annette,” and “Dang, you ain’t nobody’s momma.”

  Clarisse was just standing there looking like she was going to kill Annette first chance she got, but when everyone finally left and the door closed, Clarisse turned to Annette and opened her mouth.

  Annette put up her hand. “Save it, Clarisse. Momma doesn’t ask much, just don’t have people up in this house while she’s not here. You got a problem with that, take it up with Momma.”

  Clarisse closed her mouth, and Annette walked into the bathroom and shut the door.

  “What are you looking at, Clementine?” Clarisse yelled. Now she was mad at me, probably thinking I told on her to Annette. I don’t know what Annette and Clarisse said to each other later that night, but Clarisse never had her friends over again.

  I know my momma kinda said Clarisse was in charge when she wasn’t there, but now Clarisse took it too far. From the time I walked in the door, there she was, “Take off your shoes,” or “Wash your hands,” or “Don’t even think about another bite until you finish your schoolwork.” Like it was her job now to show me how to follow the rules. But even our own momma was never this bad.

  As mad as I sometimes was at Clarisse for bossing me, I was proud too for the way she stepped in, cooking meals when Momma had to stay late or go to her NAACP meetings. Turned out Mrs. Franklin asked Momma to stay late a lot more than Thursdays. Seemed like every other week she was staying late for one reason or another, and every time it would be past the hour when Momma was supposed to be home and we didn’t hear her dragging slow up the stairs, Clarisse would start taking things out of the icebox to make dinner. Now, Clarisse ain’t no kind of cook, but she did all right. And Annette did just like Momma said with sweeping up, but she did even more. The house was almost always neat. I think it hurt Annette to have Momma have to come home and even wash a dish after doing for white folks all day long, so she cleaned our apartment like she was the Thurber family maid. But me, all I did was do my schoolwork, watch everybody else work, and wish just once, someone would treat me like I had something to offer.

  SIX

  Me and Momma both like to get up along with the sun, before Chicago gets going good. For most of the day, Chicago is about the loudest place on earth, with car horns honking and the el training rattling overhead, but early in the morning, it seems like me and Momma are about the only ones up and about, and it’s as still and silent as that time I barely remember when I visited my daddy’s folks in South Carolina. Of course, then I thought I was about to lose my mind with the same nothing sounds every day, but by the time we left and we were driving back to Chicago, I was missing those nothing sounds.

  In the early mornings in our apartment, sometimes my momma seemed miles away from Prairie Avenue. I didn’t know where she went when she sat quiet, looking out the window, but sometimes it looked like she’d never find her way back. But sitting quiet by herself was when I could tell she missed Daddy the most. I almost felt jealous, wishing I had memories of my daddy so big and strong, they could carry me as far away as the places on my maps. But only Momma had those, and it seemed like she wanted to keep them all to herself.

  But the mornings when Momma was the quietest were the mornings when she sat at the kitchen table to pay the bills. The envelopes were sitting in a stack and Momma kept a big pad of paper and a pencil next to her and did a lot of scratching and erasing.

  On those mornings, listening to the scratch-scratching of her pencil and every once in a while hearing her breathe in deep and slow, I knew not to say one word, not even ask a question. I just pretended to be busy eating or drawing, but I was really watchin
g Momma with her head in her hand, adding and erasing rows of numbers on that pad of paper. It looked to me like maybe Momma was not so good with math because the numbers never seemed to add up right, and she shook her head and had to start all over again.

  Once there was so much erasing, I couldn’t help myself and asked, “You need help with the math, Momma?” thinking I was probably better at adding up the numbers than she was.

  She shook her head, staring at the paper. “It’s not the math I need help with, Clem,” she said with her lips tight.

  Momma, Clarisse, and Annette didn’t tell me much, but I could tell Momma was buying less food, and even though she used to buy a pretty dress or nylons with the seam up the back, or a new hat for church service, she never bought anything nice for herself anymore. Instead of buying dresses from the store for Clarisse and Annette like she used to, she bought fabric and patterns to make their dresses.

  “This will be fun. We’ll be like famous fashion designers, making our dresses,” Momma said, trying to sound like this was what she wanted all along.

  Later that night, when Momma was in the kitchen, Clarisse wrinkled up her nose at the idea of wearing dresses Momma made at home, and I heard her whisper to Annette, “I’d rather go to school naked than wear some old homemade dress.”

  “Then you’re gonna be cold come winter,” I heard Annette say back to her. I loved Annette more than ever then.

  Something told me that Momma couldn’t make numbers add up on paper when she didn’t have the money in her purse. All of a sudden, things I never once thought about, I couldn’t stop thinking about. I knew plenty of people at school who lived in parts of Chicago Momma told me weren’t safe and to stay away from. Now we were gonna be their neighbors, living in a kitchenette apartment with Annette and Clarisse going to school wearing homemade clothes or going naked. Here was my momma, who went to college, and me, skipped a grade, and Annette and Clarisse, who were smart too in their own way, and between us we were doing worse than ever without my daddy.

  I didn’t have to be good at math to know wasn’t none of this adding up. What good was being smart if you couldn’t figure out how to keep a roof over your head or food on the table? But more than anything else, I wondered why no one thought I had a right to know what was going on. It was like there was a secret club of Thurbers, only they forgot to invite me to the meetings.

  SEVEN

  On the mornings when it was just me and my momma visiting my daddy in her faraway place, she would all of a sudden come back to Prairie Avenue, just like that, saying something like, “Clem, would you go and make sure your sisters are up, baby?” and then she was Momma again. She didn’t mind me being up, sitting with her at the table, reading or copying maps from my books, as long as I could do it “quietly.” Sitting quietly ain’t my favorite thing to do. One morning when my momma told me I ask questions like I’m a private eye, I knew she was telling me to stop with my talking, so I sat with my mouth shut. I know Momma felt bad talking mean. But she turned and went back to looking out the window, and I nearly had to bite my tongue to keep from asking just one more question and let her be until she came back to Chicago.

  Today Momma stood at the ironing board in her housecoat pressing her clothes while I ate my oatmeal.

  “I’m going to be a little late tonight, baby,” Momma said, the steam from the iron floating up over her head.

  “Why? It ain’t Thursday,” I said, not looking up from my book. And I sure didn’t need to remind my momma how many extra late nights she worked, because on those nights when the Franklins kept her too late for “just one last thing,” Momma was barely in the front door before she started in.

  “… not respecting my time,” she’d mumble before she even hung up her coat. “‘Just a few more minutes, CeeCee,’” she’d say, sounding just like Mrs. Franklin in her white people voice.

  Momma laughed. “No, not the Franklins tonight. It’s an N-A-double-A-C-P meeting.” For the life of me I can’t ever remember what those letters stand for, but I know it has something to do with colored folks, important business, and making changes. Behind Momma’s back, Clarisse calls it the N-A-double-A-B-C-P meetings, “the National Association of the Best Colored People,” but she only says that to me and Annette.

  One time, Annette said in my ear after Clarisse left the room, “I’m surprised she ain’t the president.” We just about bust a gut laughing.

  “I left some sandwiches in the icebox for dinner,” Momma said.

  “Momma!”

  Here we go. I tried to shove the last of the oatmeal in my mouth before Clarisse came in.

  “Momma, where’s my skirt?” Clarisse looked at me. “I can smell you from here, Clem. Momma, does he ever take a bath?”

  I grabbed my book and breathed oatmeal breath all in her face as I passed her in the doorway. “Momma!” she yelled.

  “Please, don’t start,” Momma said, smiling at me behind Clarisse’s back. “I just pressed it, Clarisse.” She pointed to the back of the chair, where she had hung the skirt on a wooden hanger, with every pleat pressed sharp as a knife.

  I knew the Franklins paid Momma to be their maid, but far as I knew Clarisse wasn’t paying our momma to be hers.

  “Why can’t you iron your own skirt?” I asked her, ducking fast before she hit me.

  “Mind your business, baby boy,” Clarisse said.

  “Annette,” Momma called out to the back bedroom, not paying any attention to me or Clarisse. “C’mon, let’s get moving, baby.” No matter what happens, Annette is not going to rush for anyone.

  Momma got dressed in the bathroom while they ate in the kitchen, and we all left out together. She liked to kiss each one of us goodbye at the door, though I could see Clarisse turn her head so Momma couldn’t kiss her good. Momma acted like she didn’t notice. They went on ahead downstairs, Momma to the streetcar, Clarisse and Annette walking to meet their friends on the corner of Forty-Fourth and Michigan, and then they walked over to DuSable High School. But I stopped on the next floor and went to apartment 2B and knocked. I could hear the sound of a man’s loud snoring from outside the door. I knocked a little harder. Finally, the door opened and standing there looking at me cockeyed was Errol.

  EIGHT

  I know Momma felt bad about me being a boy and not having a daddy around. Not even a brother to talk to. And I know she was hoping Errol could be a kind of a brother to me. But if that’s what she was wishing, she might as well have been waiting on a genie with a magic lantern because me and Errol being like brothers was never going to happen. Just like family, me and Errol never had a choice about whether or not we wanted each other’s company. Being together was just the way it had to be.

  Seemed as soon as Errol and his family moved into our building, our mothers met, standing side by side in the cold, waiting on the streetcar. Coming home, they got off on the very same streetcar at the very same time and walked home together. And just like women do, it wasn’t too long before it was, “Ooh, I have a son just about that age,” and “Ooh, I work for a family over in Hyde Park too.” Sometimes it seems to me that you only need to be a woman to start telling each other all your business just as soon as you meet. Next thing I knew Mrs. Watkins was up in our apartment every night at our kitchen table like she was a paying boarder. She’d stay there so long, Errol’s daddy would make his way upstairs, start pounding on our door, asking if Mrs. Watkins forgot she had a family downstairs to look after. And then Mrs. Watkins would get all red in the face and say, “Thank you, Cecille, I’ll be getting on now,” but rolling her eyes at the same time, and they would laugh some more.

  After a while, Mrs. Watkins started bringing up Errol so she could sit and talk a little longer.

  “You boys go on and play,” Momma would say. But you can’t play with someone who don’t say but two words to you.

  When they’d get to the apartment, Mrs. Watkins would say to Errol, “Do you wanna go on and show Clemson the new army men I bought you?”
and he’d say something only she could hear.

  “Errol left them downstairs,” she’d tell us, like he’d said it clear as day. Or she’d ask him “You want something to eat?” And then she’d tell my momma, “He ain’t hungry yet.”

  I once asked my momma if Mrs. Watkins was a mind reader like the one we saw in the tent every summer at the South Side circus who can tell what you’re thinking just by looking in your eyes, because she sure seemed to know everything in Errol’s head.

  “Just give him time to warm up, Clem,” she told me.

  Being friends with Errol was like going onstage every day as Edgar Bergen and putting my hand in the back of his Charlie McCarthy doll and making him talk. Only I wasn’t no ventriloquist, and Errol wasn’t no dummy. At least not a wooden one.

  “What time is it?” Errol asked me, holding the door with his hair half combed.

  “Well…” I pretended I was looking at my wristwatch. “Looks like it’s about a quarter till late.” Errol’s about the only person I know slower than Annette. I begged my momma to let me walk to school by myself, but she said it’s safer two boys going on to school together. Even if it takes a little bit longer to get there.

  “Just a minute,” he said, same as he said every morning, and went back inside. He came out with his army sack on his back, coat over his arm, his hair combed almost all the way through, holding his lunch sack, and locked up with the key hanging from a chain around his neck. But now his shirt was untucked and he had dried milk on his top lip.

  “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the crustiest Negro I know?” I said. He looked at me like I was speaking martian.

  I shook my head. “You break another mirror?” I laughed. “’Cause you sure ain’t looked in one this morning.” Errol just stared at me. I wiped at my mouth. And then he wiped his, cleaning it off. I didn’t bother to tell him about his shirt.