Coffee Will Make You Black (20 page)

“Terri, I can't understand why anyone would want to do something like that to somebody. I mean, what do you all have against this Roberta?”

“We don't have anything against Roberta, she's just out of step with Charisma, that's all.”

I folded Kevin's shirt. “Don't you think Roberta's feelings will be hurt?”

“I don't believe you, Stevie. It's only a joke!”

“I know, Terri, but why put somebody down for wearing her hair in a natural?”

“Stevie, Charisma is a social club, not the damn Peace Corps!”

“I know that Terri, but still.”

“Stevie, this is nothing, you should see the dirt they do in sororities and fraternities. You need to talk to my cousin.”

“What did Reggie have to say about your little plan?”

“Nothing, he was cool with it.”

“Oh.”

“Stevie, let's talk later. I've gotta run, I told Beverly I'd go shopping with her out to Evergreen Plaza. Stevie, think about getting a perm. You won't have to worry about your hair going back in the rain or when you go swimming. Besides, everybody in Charisma has a perm.”

chapter 17

Mama walked into my bedroom grinning, carrying a brown paper bag. I was at my desk doing homework.

“I got you something, baby.”

“What?” I asked, surprised. It wasn't my birthday, or Christmas.

Mama shoved the bag under my nose.

I stared at the small tubes.

“Toothpaste samples?” I couldn't hide my disappointment.

“No, silly, bleaching creams. I got them for free from a teller at the bank. You've heard me speak of Ivy, we eat lunch together. Anyway, her brother works at a company that manufactures these, and he gets free samples.”

“But, Mama, you remember how that bleaching cream burned Aunt Sheila's face that time. She still has scars. I'm not going to have people pointing at me and whispering the name of some bleaching cream.”

“Look, baby, this is some new, improved stuff. It's different from that mess your Aunt Sheila used on her skin.” Mama reached into the bag and pulled out a tube. “Ivy's been using this and I swear she's two shades lighter!”

“Mama, being two shades lighter doesn't peel my paint. I'm happy with my color. If color means so much to you, why don't you use them?”

Mama sighed, “My life is behind me. You've got your life in front of you.”

“Oh, Mama, please, you're not even forty yet.”

I turned back to my geometry problems.

Mama stood over my shoulder. “Jean Eloise, you can't just think of yourself, you have to see yourself the way others see you. You've already got a strike against you with Charisma. You're from the wrong side of the tracks. You can't afford to be too dark on top of it.”

“Mama, where have you been? Don't you know that black is beautiful?”

“I know that black is supposed to be beautiful, but you use these bleaching creams, just in case.”

I looked up from the angle I was drawing. “Just in case what, Mama?”

“Just in case it's a fad and people go back to thinking the way they've always thought. Don't fool yourself. Deep down, black men are still color-struck.”

“Some black men, Mama, not all.”

“I bet the boys connected to Charisma are.”

“Look, Mama, at this point, I can take Terri and the club or leave them. After what they said outside the church, and after hearing how they plan to treat this girl named Roberta.”

Mama sat down on my unmade bed. She rubbed her hands nervously against her housedress. “What are you talking about? What did they say?”

“Mrs. Mathews told Terri they'd better get in before dark, because this was Boogaville. And Terri said to her mother that she hoped that I didn't tell anybody that Daddy is a janitor.”

Mama hesitated for a moment. She had a sad look in her eyes. “Jean, you've got to act just as important as they do. Don't let where you come from, or what your father does hold you back.”

“Mama, I don't want to act important, I just want to be myself. Besides, you don't understand. The club members got together and decided that no boy would ask this girl named Roberta to dance, just 'cause she's wearing her hair natural. Everybody has agreed behind her back to ice her. It's their idea of a joke.”

“Well you know how I feel about the natural, but I don't agree with that. They should just be up front with the girl. Tell Roberta to straighten her hair or get out of Charisma.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Oh, Mama, what they're planning to do is just plain cold-blooded and it shows zero pride.”

“Jean, I'm not condoning it, but who are you to talk about pride? Your best friend is Carla Perkins. What is she going to do for the race but have a bunch of babies on ADC?”

“Mama, you don't know that.”

“Isn't her sister Marla pregnant again? Or is she just fat?”

“You mean Sharla?”

“One of them.”

“Yeah, she is, but she's getting married.”

“I'll believe it when I see it.”

“Mama, I'd rather be friends with a bona fide sister like Carla than a snob like Terri any day. Me and Carla will be friends to the end.”

“It'll be a dead end,” Mama sighed. “If your father had spent half as much time studying as he did sitting in a tavern or at the bowling alley, he wouldn't be stuck in that dead-end job now. He'd have gotten promoted. Your father's problem is he makes the wrong choices.”

Yeah, he married you, I thought. “Mama, you don't understand about the System and you don't understand about Charisma. I was making the wrong choice when I considered joining that stupid club.”

Mama stood up, “How can you say that about Charisma? You need Charisma!”

“Mama, I don't want any part of Charisma any more than I want any part of these bleaching creams. And besides, they won't want me in Charisma because I'll be wearing my hair in an afro.”

“An afro!”

“Yes, an afro.”

“You're not going around here looking like a Ubangi!”

“Mama, it's my hair!”

“Well, I'll tell you one thing, I'm not paying for you to keep it up.”

“It costs a lot less than a perm or even a press and curl, for that matter.”

“I don't care if it cost ten cents, I'm still not paying for it!”

“Fine, I'll pay for it out of my allowance.”

“If you want to throw your money away, Jean Eloise, and if you don't want to take advantage of opportunities to better yourself, then it's no skin off my nose. You deserve to end up a nobody, just like your father!”

I slammed my protractor down and stood up and faced Mama. “I'd rather end up like him than …”

“Than what? Say it so that I can knock you into next week.”

“I'd rather end up like him than like you,” I said clearly, looking Mama in the eye.

Mama slapped the side of my face, shaking tears from my eyes. I sat down on my bed and held my stinging cheek. I wanted Mama to take her bleaching creams and get out of my room. The hell with Terri and the club!

“If you plan on going around looking like a boogabear, Jean Eloise, then I'm through.” Mama grabbed the paper bag and headed for the door. “I'm through, do you hear me?” She shouted from the hallway.

“Is that a promise?”

Mama let out a loud sigh. “And to think we used to be so close.”

I could've said the same thing about Terri.

The barber finished trimming my 'fro, and sprayed Afro Sheen on it. He turned the chair around and I admired my reflection. My natural was big and bouncy, I imagined myself on a
BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL
poster. The girl in the mirror looked like somebody I wanted to get to know.

“How do you like it?” the barber asked, revealing a couple of gold teeth.

“I like it a lot.”

“G'on girl, with your bad self, knock 'em dead,” he teased.

I felt proud as I walked out into the sunshine.

“What's happenin', sister?” a tall brother asked respectfully as he passed by.

“Not much, brother.” I smiled.

“Mama, she's got a nice 'fro. Why can't I get my hair like hers?” I overheard a teenage girl say as I turned the corner. I smiled all the way home.

I switched on my bedroom light. A frown replaced my smile as I watched the culprit in Batman pajamas yawn and rub his eyes.

“Kevin, what are you doing in my room? In my bed?”

“I was looking for your diary, but this is all I found.”

Kevin pointed to my Afro-American Poetry Book.

“Boy, did it ever cross your mind that maybe I don't have a diary?”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“None of your beeswax.”

“If you have a boyfriend, then you should have some nasty stuff to write about.”

“Believe me, as long as I have a nosy little brother, I will not keep a diary.”

“Dog, what good is having a big sister if you can't read her diary?”

“Sit up, boy, and listen, I'm gonna read you a poem I wrote.”

“You wrote it?”

“Yes, it's going to be published in the school paper.”

I held the book in my right hand and wrapped my other arm around Kevin as we leaned against the headboard. Kevin reached up and felt my head.

“Your hair looks cool.”

“Thanks.” I smiled.

“‘What Good,' by Jean ‘Stevie' Stevenson.

What good is a flower if it can't bloom?

What good is expansion if you have no room?

What good is a twig if it can't sprout?

What good is a voice, if it can't shout?

What good is life, if you can't be free?

And what good am I, if I can't be me?

Clap! Clap! Clap!

I looked up, surprised to see my father leaning against the wall in his bowling clothes.

“Look, Jean, Daddy's clapping.”

“Girl, that was beautiful. And I like your new do, too.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

“Jean wrote it. It's going to be in the school paper,” Kevin bragged.

“Is that right?”

I nodded.

“A person who has a way with words like that is pretty special.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

“I dream about everything you said in that poem. I just could never express it like you done,” Daddy said with a faraway look in his eyes.

“A person with a dream is pretty special too, Daddy.”

Suddenly, I felt proud to be a janitor's daughter.

PART THREE

fall 1969

spring 1970

chapter 18

“She's sixteen years old, she's sixteen years old, she's sixteen years old, she's sixteen years old!” Mama, Daddy, the boys, and Grandma sang in a variety of keys.

I blew out the pink candles on the pink-and-white cake. Mama was still ramming pink down my throat. It didn't matter how many times I told her blue was my favorite color.

“Did you make a wish?” Kevin asked.

I nodded.

“What did you wish for, Jean?”

“Boy, you sho is nosey.” Daddy rubbed Kevin's head playfully. “You is one nosy son of a gun,” he teased.

Mama cringed at Daddy's grammar, but she just pulled the candles out of the cake.

“Come on, Jean, what did you wish for? Tell me,” Kevin begged.

“It's personal. Besides if I tell you it won't come true.” Actually I'd wished for a boyfriend, but I felt guilty that I hadn't wished for something like us winning the War on Poverty or at least the end to the Vietnam War.

Mama set a box in front of me. I pulled the pink wrapping paper and white bow off. It was a brand-new Smith Corona typewriter!

“Thanks a lot! It's super cool!” I hugged Mama and Daddy. “Just a couple of weeks ago, I was saying I wished I had a typewriter. This will help with my English paper on the
Canterbury Tales
.”

“Open mine,” Grandma shouted, pointing to the huge box wrapped in white butcher paper with a big blue bow on it. I wondered what it could be as I tore into the paper.

“It's a new stereo! It has separate speakers and everything! Thank you, Grandma!” I hugged her. “You shouldn't have. But I'm glad that you did!”

“First, new bicycles for Kevin and David on their birthdays, and now this. Business must be booming,” Mama said.

“Evelyn, what else am I gonna do with my little money?”

Kevin and David handed me their presents. David gave me
Aretha Franklin's Greatest Hits
and Kevin gave me Stevie Wonder's new album. Grandma must've tipped them off. I couldn't believe that Kevin had managed to keep his big mouth shut about the stereo. I was impressed. The boy was growing up; he was twelve now.

“Thanks, you all. I have to pinch myself to make sure this isn't a dream.”

“You won't have any trouble keeping up with the Joneses now.” Grandma smiled.

“This is better than having a party.”

“I told you you'd come out ahead this way,” Mama reminded me.

“Forget the Joneses,” Daddy said. “I just hope we'll be able to put all three of you kids through college.”

“I hope they'll get scholarships,” Mama said, handing me the knife so I could cut the cake. “Our savings won't be enough.”

David made a sad face. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste, y'all.”

“You remember that and maybe you'll bring home a better report card next time,” Mama said without cracking a smile.

“If I had came North ten years earlier, I could have got ahead quicker,” Daddy said as I served him a big piece of cake.

“Yeah,” Grandma agreed. “But you done well. You done real well.”

“Mama, Ray, you make me want to scream, the way you're butchering the English language.”