Leaving Lymon Read online

  “Tomorrow?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Least you could have done was washed up these dishes.” She started slamming the breakfast dishes into the sink.

  “Yeah, why you didn’t wash the dishes, Lymon?” Theo asked.

  “I’m going to lie down. Lymon, take these two outside for a bit. I got a headache.” Momma went into her room and closed the door behind her.

  Theo and Orvis tore out the door and down the stairs. When we reached the stoop, they said, “Take us to the candy store.”

  Just like in Milwaukee, Chicago got lots of stores. But here they got a funeral parlor next to a hair salon next to a church next to a pool hall. Don’t make much sense to me. Everybody’s in a hurry, so I walked faster, catching up to Theo and Orvis. We turned onto 43rd Street. The street numbers never went this high in Milwaukee. I saw some men in real fancy suits, in colors and one with thin stripes. I was thinking I’d look real fine with a suit like that. Man smiled at me when he saw me looking hard at his suit.

  “Stop staring,” Theo said, pulling my hand. Every woman was prettier than the next, hair done up nice, but none as pretty as my momma. She always had on some kind of makeup, but you could tell she’d be just as pretty without it. Wonder what happened between Milwaukee and Chicago make people look so good. A whole city full of lookers. I was wishing now I had a fresh haircut from Mr. Eugene. Maybe Momma would get me some new clothes too. I heard a loud sound above us and Orvis told me that was the el train. I wished Aunt Vera could see that in Chicago trains run on tracks as high as the buildings instead of through town.

  We kept walking till we got to the candy store. Theo snatched up about half the store with his greedy self, and I had to put some back in the bins.

  “How much money you got?” I asked him.

  He pulled out a pocketful of change. All the money I took from Ma’s purse here and there never added up to that much.

  “You take that from Momma’s purse?” I asked him.

  “My daddy gave me this,” he told me.

  “Daddy always gives us money for candy,” Orvis told me. Daddy?

  “Why you call him Daddy if he ain’t your daddy?” I asked Orvis.

  “He’s just like a daddy. ’Sides, I ain’t never met my real daddy, but Momma says I ain’t missing much.”

  “Where’s your daddy?” Theo asked.

  “He’s travelling now with a band. But he’s coming to get me soon.”

  “To take you back to your people?” Orvis asked.

  “Not sure where we’re gonna go, but we’re gonna be together real soon.” Sounded just like Daddy then.

  “You don’t like Chicago?” Theo asked. He was big and fat like Robert, but his face was round and sweet as a baby’s. Skin was as soft and smooth as one’s too.

  “Chicago’s all right, but I need to be with my own daddy.” I put some candy pieces back in his hand, grabbed a few for myself and hoped he didn’t ask me why I didn’t want to be with my momma.

  From the minute she picked me up in Milwaukee, I knew that what Ma told me all along was right. You can’t make someone into a momma that don’t want to be. And I didn’t want to lie to that sweet face.

  FIVE

  Chicago, Illinois 1945

  MOMMA finally got ’round to signing me up for school at Lincoln Elementary. And just in time too. Thought I was ’bout to go crazy sitting in that apartment everyday waiting for her to get home from work. Started looking forward to taking Theo and Orvis outside, bad as they was.

  Robert worked downtown in one of those high-rise buildings as an elevator operator.

  “I never been in an elevator,” I told my momma.

  “Well, you don’t want the job Robert has, baby. All day long white folks talking to you like you got no sense. It ain’t all bad, but it’s gonna be better once he gets in the union.”

  I don’t know anything ’bout a union, and I ain’t said nothing ’bout wanting to work an elevator, just wanting to ride one, but it seems like my momma only listens to half of what I say.

  “That’s gonna mean some real money,” she said. “And then we’re gonna move to the place I showed you. And I can finally leave Campbell’s and stop smelling like soup every dang day.” She smiled so big and wide, like she really believed it. I wondered if my momma waited on my daddy’s dreams too.

  Momma had to go in late the day I started school, and she talked about it all the way there.

  “They gonna dock my pay,” she told me like it was my fault. She was walking so fast I could barely keep up. Didn’t ask her why Robert couldn’t take me, since he took the boys to school every morning.

  Lincoln Elementary was white brick instead of red like Fourth Street and at least two stories higher. Seemed like every building in Chicago was tall. In Milwaukee we had grass in the yard where we had recess and that’s where I played football. Wouldn’t be no playing football here with the whole school yard concrete. There was a swing set, but that was for babies, not sixth-graders.

  Kids in this school look more like me than the ones in Milwaukee. Half of the boys needing haircuts, no one wore a tie, and their shoes were as run-over as mine. Think all the kids from fancy families went to school in another part of town, maybe over where Momma wanted to live.

  * * *

  In the school yard, out at recess, right away I could tell there was one boy who was gonna be trouble. Big ole fat boy like Robert. Acted like he owned the school.

  He came over to me quick. “Where you from, little man?” He put his sausage fingers on my shoulder.

  “Milwaukee,” I told him.

  He squeezed my shoulder so hard I thought I heard bones crack. “Welcome to Chicago, Milwaukee.” He smiled, a big gap in his front teeth. Another boy came running past, and he shoved that boy so hard he fell down flat on his face. Nobody said nothing. The boy got up, wiping his face and kept moving, like he tripped himself. Big boy strutted away like he was President Truman himself.

  Two boys near me said, “You the new one, right?”

  “Yup,” I told them.

  “You best not mess with Curtis,” one told me.

  “Who, fat boy?” They laughed then. “He don’t scare me.”

  “Well, you better keep that to yourself,” the other one said. Looked like Curtis scared them pretty good.

  “I’m Errol,” the taller one said.

  Little one said, “I’m Clem.”

  “Lymon,” I told them.

  “You said you was from Milwaukee? I been there once to visit my cousins,” Clem told me. He told me names, but I didn’t know any of his folks. He talked so much I forgot we just met.

  At lunch I sat with them, eating our dry ham sandwiches. Recess I stayed with them in the school yard. Clem was small and fidgety, jumping all over the place and never stopped talking. But Errol was real quiet, like he got a lot on his mind. I fit right in the middle.

  * * *

  With Clem and Errol, I didn’t mind going to school as much as I used to. Schoolwork was still the same, lunches just as bad. So were the teachers, but it got me out of the house and out of Robert’s face.

  I stayed out of fat boy’s way. Thought he forgot all about me too, till one day I felt his hot breath on my neck behind me in the school yard. Could see on Clem and Errol’s face it was him, but I just kept right on talking.

  “Le-mon,” he sang in my ear.

  I turned to see his big smile. All around everyone was getting closer trying to see what was going to happen next. He stepped close to my face, but I didn’t move. My forehead reached right about to his chin. He must have missed a grade or two. Ain’t no way he was only eleven.

  “C’mon, Lymon,” Errol said, pulling me away.

  But I could see if I ran now, I’d always be running.

  “You heard your friends? Go on, Le-mon,” he said.

  “I ain’t in no hurry,” I told him. He looked surprised for about a second, then shoved me in my chest with both hands. Felt like I was hit by a tr
uck. I’d been shoved by the older boys at my school, and hit by the back of Ma’s hand. Wasn’t no way I was going let this boy do it too. I walked back to him, and he shoved me again.

  “Hit him, Curtis!” I heard someone yell.

  “Hurry, teacher’s coming,” a boy whispered.

  When I turned around, I saw Errol and Clem looking scared for me, like they knew I was going to get beat bad. I could see Mr. Harold walking over toward the crowd of us, and I balled my fist hard and swung with everything I had. Curtis was so busy looking for the teacher, he didn’t see my fist coming. Knocked him dead in his nose, and the blood went flying. Some squirted on my shirt but most dripped on his. He looked down at his shirt, then looked at me. Looked at me then his shirt. Pretty sure I heard Errol laughing behind me.

  “He got him,” Clem said, like he was proud.

  The teacher snatched up both of us and Curtis still hadn’t said one thing to me. Everybody in that school yard was staring at me. In my old school, they looked at me like I was nothing. “Lemon,” living with his old, raggedy grandma. But here in Chicago, nobody knew that Lymon, and I aimed to keep it that way. Grandpops once told me a man has got to demand respect. After seeing Curtis’s face and everybody else’s, ’specially Errol and Clem, I think I did just that.

  SIX

  Chicago, Illinois 1945

  AT home, there wasn’t no getting away from Robert. Didn’t take me long to know we wasn’t going to get along. He always looked like a bomb ready to go off whenever I was in the room. Guess he was waiting for an excuse, and wasn’t two weeks in ’fore he found it.

  That elevator job must have been as hard as Momma said ’cause Robert came home some nights looking mad as can be. Those days I just stayed out of his way. Went down to the stoop or walked ’round back and watched boys play stickball. I knew football and tag, but never learned how to play any of those games with a ball and bat ’cause I was in the house so much with Ma, but I liked watching. Daddy said, soon as he was home long enough he’d show me.

  Every night Robert got home and every morning he woke up, he looked like he just remembered all over again I was sleeping on his couch and eating his food. Even though was me now had to take the boys to school, you’d think he’d ease up on me some, but he wanted to know what took me so long in the bathroom, why I folded my blanket the way I did, and did I ever close my mouth when I ate my food? Momma didn’t say one word, like she didn’t hear nothing he said. Sometimes when he wasn’t home from work, I’d ask Momma if she heard anything yet from Aunt Vera ’bout my grandma, but she’d just shrug.

  “No, Lymon. I told you, your people only get in touch with me when they need something.”

  “But she didn’t send you a letter or nothing?” ’Course she’d roll her eyes at me then.

  I couldn’t believe Daddy hadn’t been in touch yet. Made me wonder if it was me he didn’t want to see or Momma.

  * * *

  My ma wasn’t the best cook, but my momma can’t seem to make nothing taste good. Don’t no one seem to notice but me. Her fried pork chops are dry and the beans barely got any seasoning. I was pushing food ’round on my plate, thinking about Ma.

  “Food ain’t good enough for you?” Robert asked me.

  I looked down at my plate still almost full of food. “I ain’t that hungry.”

  “You think I work all these doubles to feed this family for you to throw away good food?” he asked me.

  I looked at Momma, but she was wiping Theo’s mouth.

  “What you looking at your momma for when I’m talking to you?”

  “No sir.”

  “No what?”

  “No, Mr. Robert,” I told him.

  “We don’t waste food in this house.”

  I started eating, hoping I didn’t choke to death on those dry pork chops.

  Next time Robert started in, he didn’t waste his time talking. It was late when Robert got in from work. Most times we were all asleep, but there were some nights when no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking ’bout my daddy and sat up at the window. I heard his key at the door and tried to get to the couch quick, but not before he saw me. I pulled the covers up and closed my eyes.

  “What you still doing up?” he asked.

  Just like I used to do with Ma, I pretended not to hear him. I closed my eyes tighter.

  I heard him breathe heavy, take off his coat, and then I relaxed.

  But when I opened my eyes, Robert was looking right down at me.

  “Get up,” he said soft.

  “I’m sleeping,” I told him.

  With one hand, he snatched me up so fast, I felt like I was flying. Used his other hand to take off his belt.

  “What did I do?” I asked him.

  “When I ask you a question, you answer me. You gonna pretend like you sleeping, when I just saw you up. You think I’m stupid, boy?”

  He didn’t wait for me to answer. His belt hit my side. Hit it again two times quick. I wondered how many times Robert thought was gonna be enough for pretending to be asleep when my momma came out.

  “Robert?” she said.

  Not Lymon?

  She looked so young standing behind him. Like she must have looked when my daddy first saw her at that dance years before.

  “Momma, I—” He hit me again.

  She never even told him stop. Looked at me like it was me making him do it. I didn’t yell out like he wanted me to. If I had, he probably would’ve stopped sooner. Each time the belt hit my backside, I thought about how I could hurt him back worse. Not now, but when he wasn’t expecting it. Maybe I’d wait till he was sleeping good. I could take a whipping. Been taking Ma’s whippings for years, but he was putting all he had behind it. My knees was getting loose and I bit down on my tongue and swallowed the blood.

  “Okay, Robert,” my momma finally said, touching his arm real soft, like she wasn’t sure.

  “Step out of line again, and you got more of that coming, you hear me, boy!” Now I could hear Theo crying in the room.

  “Hush up in there,” he yelled.

  “Maybe your daddy’s family ain’t taught you nothing, but I sure will,” he said.

  What you gonna teach me my daddy’s family ain’t? Was all I could do not to say the words in my head back to Robert. He could see on my face I was thinking something.

  “You got something you wanna say to me, boy?”

  “No sir,” I answered, knowing he wanted me to call him Mr. Robert.

  “Didn’t think so. Now you can go to sleep.”

  Finally, he put his belt back ’round his big ole waist.

  My momma asked Robert if he was gonna eat the plate she left out for him.

  “Lost my appetite,” he told her, and went down the hall to the bathroom.

  I don’t think Robert ever lost his appetite. When Momma walked past the couch, I turned over so she couldn’t see my face. I waited all this time to be family again with my momma. Come to find out, I wasted a lot of time wishing for something I didn’t even know if I wanted anymore.

  Lying down on the couch that night with the springs poking in my side, the hard part in me went soft. I ain’t been to church in I don’t know how long, but I prayed like Aunt Vera and said to God, whispering again and again, “Please God. Please tell my daddy to come and get me.”

  * * *

  Never thought being at school would be better than being at home, but it was. After our fight in the school yard, I didn’t have no more trouble from Curtis for the rest of the year. Errol and Clem stuck to me like I was their bodyguard. Three of us would laugh the way Curtis would find someplace else to be whenever I came to lunch or recess. ’Side from Errol and Clem, most everyone else stayed away too. But the three of us got along just fine. One thing I liked ’bout the two of them, they didn’t ask a whole lot of questions. Maybe they were scared I’d do to them what I did to Curtis, or some of the other kids who made me mad, but on the days when I came to school, so sore I sat with my leg
tucked up under me or with a busted lip or my eye swolled, they didn’t ask one thing. And that was just the way I wanted it.

  Having Errol and Clem as friends was a lot like having Little Leonard and Fuller. Sometimes I wondered if they ever thought about me. Or I tried to picture what they looked like now. Or what it’d be like if I’d stayed in Vicksburg. Errol and Clem made listening to teachers and getting through the day a whole lot easier. Think Errol didn’t much like school either, but Clem was a different story. I could tell he understood everything the teacher was talking about. I saw him slip his homework papers on the teacher’s desk when he got in in the morning. During spelling tests, he was the first one finished, but he covered his paper when the teacher handed back the grades. “A” is what I saw marked on his paper when I got ’bout three words right. One day when he opened his satchel, I saw it was filled with books. I think Errol knew about Clem too, but it was the first time I had someone to sit with at lunch. I wasn’t ’bout to ask him why he spends so much time on his schoolwork.

  * * *

  With Theo and Orvis gone most of the summer staying with Robert’s sister in Indiana, it felt like back in Milwaukee when I spent all day by myself. I missed taking them to the candy store and the park, but most of all, I missed Errol and Clem.

  I saw Clem out on the street one day with his two pretty sisters, but they didn’t let him stop and talk. Clem yelled from across the street, “Lymon, call the police. They’re kidnapping me!”

  The younger one knocked him on his head, but I could tell she was laughing. Made me miss Theo and Orvis a little bit then. When I asked my momma why I couldn’t go with them to Indiana, she told me, “Frannie got kids of her own, Lymon. She’s doing us a favor taking my two. And I can’t ask her to take three.” So, I spent just ’bout the whole summer walking the streets of Chicago like I walked the streets of Milwaukee, doing my best to stay out of Robert’s way.