Leaving Lymon Read online

  I walked the two blocks down Third Street and made a left to Fourth Street Elementary.

  In class I sit all the way in the back. Most everyone lives in the part of town I don’t, where they got mommas and daddies working and living in nice little houses over near Eighth Street. Not that far away, but a whole lot different from Lloyd Street where I live. I know now school’s going to be the same every year, but the teacher this year is the worst one I had in my four years since coming to Fourth Street. I hear Miss Desmond talking about the lesson, but I ain’t listening much. Can hear the scratch of chalk on the board and the kids flipping through pages. I put my head on my desk and close my eyes. Ma’s snoring kept me ’wake most of the night.

  “Lymon? Lymon? This is a classroom, not a bedroom!” Miss Desmond is standing over me. I sit up quick and look around to see near everyone looking at me smiling. A couple of them laugh.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “You are barely here as it is. You’d think you could at least pay attention when you are in the classroom.” Miss Desmond’s a lot like Ma. She’s talking but not really wanting you to say nothing back. A couple of the kids start laughing.

  This class is like two classes in one. Up front are all the girls, in back are the boys. Miss Desmond’s just as sweet as cherry pie when she’s talking to the girls up front, but in the back, she spends all day yelling at boys, about their homework and fidgeting in their seats. But even then, she saves most of her mean for me.

  “Do you think you can answer the problem I’ve written on the board?”

  I look to front of the classroom and look around some more. Everyone waiting.

  I don’t need to look at the board to know I can’t answer the problem.

  “No ma’am,” I say.

  “I didn’t think so,” she says, happy with herself. She walks back up the row to Virginia Seals’s desk up front. She’s one of those girls who probably comes home after school and does all her schoolwork and drinks warm milk and eats cookies ’fore they go to bed. And her momma makes her hotcakes and sausage, and greases her hair then braids it up good and ties it with ribbons in the morning ’fore she leaves for school. Then her daddy kisses her on both cheeks and says, “Have a good day sweetheart.” ’Course she knows the answer.

  The teacher smiles big when Virginia shouts it out, and I put my head back down on my desk.

  * * *

  When I get home, I check on Ma. She’s in the bed sleeping. The room smells like sweat and salve and cough medicine. I pick up the dirty bowl on her bedside table and put it in the sink. I grab Grandpops’ guitar and head out to the porch in back. On the top step I sit and start plucking out a song Grandpops taught me ‘fore he passed. He used to sit on my bed and show me where to put my fingers on each of the strings. His big hands on top of my little ones. At first my fingers couldn’t reach all the strings, then when they could, he started me with real simple songs. He’d nod his head as I played.

  “That’s it. That’s it. You got it,” he’d tell me before we moved onto something new. Grandpops said I was “a natural” just like my daddy. But before I knew it, he started getting too tired to teach me more.

  He’d say, “Not today, son. Your grandpops needs to rest a bit.” Every day he was resting more and more till it seemed like he slept more than he was woke.

  After Ma and the doctor said it was his heart, Aunt Shirley said it was more like a broken heart ’cause of Daddy being in Parchman. But I didn’t know a broken heart could make you sleepy. More tired Grandpops got, more mad Ma got. Stopped going to church, stopped praying.

  Today I played the last song he taught me, humming along ’cause I already forgot the words.

  “What you doing out there?” I looked up, and Ma was at the screen door looking down at me. Ma don’t never wait for no answer. “Get in here and help me get some supper going.”

  I walked back in the house and put the memory of Grandpops and his guitar right back in the corner.

  FOURTEEN

  Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1945

  A few weeks after my first haircut, when my hair stopped looking as good as it looked that first day in his mirror, I walked by the barbershop on my way home from school, hoping I’d see Mr. Eugene. I stopped at the window and looked in. He was standing behind an old man, and there were men in seats waiting for their turn in his chair. When Mr. Eugene looked up, I waved from outside, and he came to the door.

  “Back for another haircut?” Mr. Eugene asked. I was hoping he’d remember me, but I was still a little surprised he did.

  “You think I need one?” I asked him. He made a big show of turning me ’round and looking on both sides.

  “Looks like you could use a trim,” he told me.

  I showed him the money I had in my pocket. The money I took from Ma’s purse.

  “Put that away. I got a proposal for you.” He pointed me to a seat.

  I followed him inside. The radio was on loud playing the baseball game, but you could hardly hear with all the men talking. Sounded like the Cubs were losing bad against the Pirates with all the yelling and shouting curse words after every play. Others was talking about grown-men things. Mr. Eugene cleared his throat and said, “We have a young gentleman joining us.” They quieted down some. Wasn’t long though before they started up again.

  I waited what seemed like an hour with Mr. Eugene and another barber cutting one head after another. He took his time with each one, just like he did me, each time taking out that brown bottle and putting some of the aftershave ’round the parts he just cut. Finally, Mr. Eugene came over and sat next to me.

  “Lymon, I have a dilemma.” Mr. Eugene told me his daughter went to college, but I think he must have gone too. I didn’t know what half the words he said meant, but I found if I just kept listening, I could catch on. I kept listening.

  “A dilemma?”

  “I used to have a man who’d come around and help me out with keeping the shop clean. Sweeping up hair, wiping down the chairs, things like that, but I haven’t seen him in weeks.” I nodded. “Any chance you’d be interested in taking over a job like that? Say in exchange for some haircuts?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Now I want you to think about it, son, talk to your grandma first.”

  “I don’t need to talk to her. She won’t mind.” I didn’t know if Ma would mind or not. But sweeping up some hair to get a haircut on the regular seemed like a good deal to me, and I wasn’t going to let Ma stop me.

  At school, a few of the older boys let me play football with them in the school yard on the days I came. I was the smallest of the group, but they let me stay ’cause I was the fastest too. Long as someone got me the ball, couldn’t barely anyone of them catch me. If they did, they’d tackle me extra hard, but I kept right on playing. I was tired of the boys in my class, all too fancy, or too smart, or too something to be bothered with me. When the school bell rang after recess or after school, I said goodbye to the older boys, but not one of them invited me home to play. Called me “Little Lemon” and said I was still “a baby.” Sometimes I came home from school with my lip busted up or with scratches on my face. When I told Ma I got them from playing, she told me, “You just watch to not tear up your clothes. Money don’t grow on trees.” I knew money didn’t grow on trees, least not ours. But as far as I could see, it was Aunt Vera who had the job of worrying ’bout buying my new clothes, and she never once complained about not having a tree for money. Sometimes I wondered how Aunt Vera could be Ma’s kin. Ma was loud; she was quiet. Ma was mean; Aunt Vera was nicer than nice. It was like Aunt Vera had to be four people all in one—an aunt, a grandma, a momma, and a daddy to me.

  Mr. Eugene showed me where to find the broom and dust pan and the cleaning rags.

  “Why don’t you start over there?” Mr. Eugene pointed to the other barber’s chair, where there was a pile of hair underneath, and I got to work. But first I took the rag and wiped the extra hair from the chair onto the floor, and then I st
arted sweeping, real slow so I wouldn’t miss any hair. I wanted to show Mr. Eugene I could work hard to earn my haircuts, maybe some extra money too. Before she got real sick, I’d watch Ma do the chores each week, scrubbing the house from top to bottom. Now between the two of us, we could barely get the dishes washed up after supper. Aunt Vera used to come and help straighten up, but when Ma told her she needed to mind her own house and not hers, she stopped coming around, and the house started getting messier and messier. Ma didn’t notice or didn’t care, I didn’t know which.

  * * *

  Working for Mr. Eugene was the first job I ever had. Saturdays and sometimes Friday after school was the busiest day with men and mommas with their sons filling all the seats in the barbershop. I could barely sit down there was so much to do.

  “Looks like someone just earned themselves a fresh haircut,” he’d say after I finished. He’d take out a cape and I’d climb up into the barber chair. He’d turn to the music station channel on the radio, loud the way I liked it, and start cutting. In his chair, Mrs. Desmond, the lessons I didn’t understand, and the boys who never invited me home, seemed ’bout a million miles away.

  FIFTEEN

  Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1945

  I knew when I woke up something was wrong. Ma slept sound, snoring like a man. But this morning, her sleep sounded raggedy and she was sweating.

  “Ma, you okay?” I asked her, shaking her a little.

  She opened her eyes and looked at me but didn’t say nothing. I got out of bed and stood over her. “Ma,” I said again.

  Ma looked like she didn’t even know who I was.

  “It’s me, Lymon,” I said close to her ear. I knew wasn’t nothing wrong with her hearing, but I said it loud anyway.

  Aunt Vera told me anything happen to Ma, I should go next door to Miss Dot’s house, and she’ll get word. So, I pulled on my clothes and ran fast as I could next door. Miss Dot had the radio in the kitchen up real loud and she didn’t hear my knocking at first, so I ran around to the back door that goes into the kitchen. She was at the stove, and I near scared Miss Dot to death when I started knocking, but she turned down the radio and opened the door quick.

  “What is it, son?”

  “My ma…my grandma…next door…” I said out of breath. “Something’s wrong. She’s breathing funny and sweating too. Could you tell my aunt Vera?”

  “I’ll get my Lenny to get over there right away,” she said. “Where’s your grandma now?” she asked.

  “Still in bed,” I told her.

  She walked back with me in her housecoat and slippers. She stood over Ma.

  “Lenore. Lenore.” She tried shaking Ma a little bit. “It’s Dot from next door.” Ma looked at Miss Dot same way she looked at me. Like she didn’t know her. We been neighbors since we moved to the house, but Ma ain’t never said more than a few words to her. Said she don’t like folks too much “in her business.”

  “Go on and get me some water. Lemme see if I can get her to drink,” Miss Dot said to me.

  I ran into the kitchen and filled up a glass. Time I got back to the room, Miss Dot had Ma sitting up. I sat on the edge of the bed watching her give Ma water.

  “Is Ma going to die?” I finally asked.

  “Hush, Lymon,” Miss Dot said. “ ’Course not. She needs to get to the doctor is all.”

  Ma was as quiet as could be, and Miss Dot stayed right there by her, holding her hand, praying soft. I was glad she was there ’cause seeing my ma in bed staring at nothing made me think about Grandpops and dying and being alone and all the things that made me most scared.

  I heard the front door slam, and Aunt Vera came rushing in. We all helped get Ma in her robe and out to the truck.

  “We’ll drop you at the house, Lymon, and you stay there with Uncle Clark while I stay with Ma,” Aunt Vera said.

  “I can come with you,” I told her. “Ma would want me to.”

  She thought on that. “All right then,” she said, rubbing her hand over my cheek, and we drove fast as we could to the hospital, Aunt Vera praying all the way.

  * * *

  It was after midnight when we got back to Aunt Vera’s. The doctors at the County Hospital told us to go on home. Said Ma should have been brought in a long time ago. Said she was “in serious condition.” Didn’t know when she’d be able to go home. Said she might even lose her leg. I felt sick to my stomach then. Ma couldn’t hardly get around on two legs, let alone one.

  Aunt Vera made up a lumpy couch in her front room with blankets and a pillow. As much as I wanted to sleep alone on the couch at my house and not in a room with my ma, I was missing her now, almost wishing I could hear her voice fussing at me once more.

  Momma

  ONE

  Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1945

  EVERY day we waited for news from the doctors, and every day they told Aunt Vera they were waiting on Ma to get “stable.” When I asked Aunt Vera what that meant, she told me to “just have faith.”

  Aunt Vera and Uncle Clark worked long hours at Falk Foundry over on 30th Street. Between me and Ma, Cousin Dee and her babies, their money had to stretch every which way. Some days they’d work so long, I’d only hear Uncle Clark’s snores to know he was home. I had to walk farther to school from Aunt Vera’s house, but she and Uncle Clark made sure I was there every day. Even my teacher noticed after I was at school two weeks straight.

  “Are you finally taking school seriously?” Miss Desmond said one day in class.

  Aunt Vera tells me hating on folks is the Devil’s work, but she ain’t never met Miss Desmond.

  Aunt Vera may have worked a lot, but her house was clean, and she always kept food in the icebox. She looked like a little bird, afraid of her shadow, but she worked like she was two times her size and never once complained. She did her share of praying though. For Ma, for my daddy, for her daughter Dee and her grandbabies, for her son I barely remember who fought in the war and never came back. Figured her knees must be sore from all the time she spent on them.

  When I went to church with her on Sunday, Aunt Vera prayed some more with Uncle Clark right ’long beside her whispering, “Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord.” Up in the front row, I could see the back of Mr. Eugene standing taller than the other deacons. Aunt Vera jumped out of her seat every time the choir sang, clapping loud and singing along, so I had to stand too.

  The singing sounded the same as it did in Vicksburg, but here, I saw they had an organ for the hymns and a piano for the choir. The organ player was up front, pounding the keys and rocking from side to side, almost drowning out our singing. Back home at church, all we had was a small piano Grandpops said was always out of tune. I looked down at my hands, moving my fingers pretending to play along with the organ. Piano fingers, Grandpops called them.

  After church, downstairs at coffee hour while Aunt Vera and Uncle Clark were talking to Reverend Lawson, and I was eating up half the pound cake, Mr. Eugene came up behind me and said in my ear, “Don’t forget to leave some for the deacons.” I nearly spit my cake out laughing. “I won’t,” I told him. He winked and said, “I’ll see you on Saturday.”

  Soon as Mr. Eugene gave me the cleaning job at the barber shop, I told Aunt Vera all ’bout it. She said she was proud I was a hard worker, just like my grandpops. I noticed she didn’t say my daddy. When I told Ma, she had asked, “How much is he paying?” When I told her I was getting free haircuts, she had grunted and said, “You get free haircuts at home.” I nodded, but the next Saturday, after I fixed her breakfast and gave her her medicine, when I told her I was going to the barbershop, she didn’t say nothing more.

  Just when I was starting to get used to living back with Aunt Vera, everything changed.

  One night, ’round midnight, I heard whispers at the front door and then smelled a room full of perfume.

  “Daisy, it’s late,” Aunt Vera said, sounding mad. I was so tired, I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming.

  “You said to come, so I came,” I heard a voice say
. Felt like I heard the voice a long time ago, and then there she was leaning over me on the couch in the dark saying, “Lymon baby, c’mon and get up. It’s your momma.”

  “Let me get his things together,” Aunt Vera said. She turned on the lamp in the corner of the room. Felt my feet moved to the floor and someone sit down at the end of the couch.

  Uncle Clark came in, tying up his robe. “It’s the middle of the night. The boy’s still sleeping.”

  “Lymon, sweetie. You remember me?” She smooshed her lips all over my forehead.

  I didn’t say nothing. But when I looked at the woman sitting at the end of the couch, it was like I was looking at myself. Never thought I looked anything like my daddy. We’re both skinny and have those long fingers Grandpops always talked about, but apart from that, see us out in the street, not sure you could place us as family. But looking at my momma was like looking in a mirror. Same eyes, small and squinty, same big, shiny forehead. Only on her, she wears it proud, with her long hair brushed back into a ponytail, like she’s showing it off. Same small nose, smashed flat at the end, just like mine.

  “Well, well,” she said looking right at me. We sat like that for a minute until Aunt Vera said, “Daisy, I have some things for him in my room.”

  “Well, hurry up, Vera, I gotta long drive back to Chicago.”

  “Why didn’t you just come in the morning?” she asked.

  My momma turned her head quick. “Some of us have to work in the morning, Vera. I had to borrow my girlfriend’s car to get here. ’Sides, I couldn’t wait another minute to see my baby. Was you all kept him from me all these years. Now he needs his momma.” She smooshed her lips on my head again.