Imani All Mine (20 page)

He say, No, Tasha, that's life.

I ask, You learn all this about life working at the post office?

He let out a long whistle. You'd be surprised what you learn about life working at the P.O. Tax deadline is next week, he say, and we're open to midnight. Pray for me, girl, he say.

We rode on up to Main Street and stayed on it for a while when Mitch say, All they need is some guidance.

By then I really ain't mind talking. I ask, Who?

He say, Who were we talking about?

I say, Oh, yeah. What make you think they ain't got no guidance? Because they black? I guess you think they ain't got no daddies neither.

Mitch say, I didn't say that! You're the one called them vultures.

I say, I can call them whatever I want to. I'm black.

Mitch say, Oh, I get it. I'm some kind of racist. That's what you think about me, Tasha? You're riding around with a racist?

I looked out the window. I say, You the one say it, not me. You the one don't want to listen to rap.

He say, Me? Your Mama doesn't like it either. As a matter of fact, she hates it! Is she some racist?

Naw, she just old, I say. And I laughed. I ain't mean to. It just come out of me. Mitch laughed too.

We was sitting at a red light. He say, Well, then, darling, I'm old too. He turned the radio back on and put it on the jazz station. Now, that's a black man playing right there. Miles Davis.

Who? I ask.

Miles Davis. You don't know Miles Davis?

I put my hand over my mouth and pretended to yawn.

Mitch turned up the music and started waving his hands in big circles. Listen to that music. It's art about pain, about love, about life, he say.

I say, Green light.

Mitch just sat there for a few seconds and a car beeped behind him.

I say, What's wrong with you? You know, it's like red light, red light, red light, green light. Then you go. You on some of that stuff or something?

He say, real quiet, Used to be.

And I knew it. I just knew he had been. I never seen a tattoo on his hands, but I looked close at his knuckles again to be sure. Nothing.

Mitch told me about how his daddy left when he was thirteen. Mitch say that was when he screwed his life into the ground. I ain't even ask him. Mitch say his daddy just left. He got three sisters and none of them knew they parents was having problems. They hid them. He say they never had one fight that he knew of. Mitch say he hated that. They was real polite. Too damn polite, he say. He say maybe if they'd broke up some dishes, or had a fight out on the porch in front all the neighbors, maybe they would've stuck together. He say he just come home from school one day and his daddy's gone. He's left a note for the family saying he just needed some time to think. About life. Mitch say that was a lie. He found out later his daddy had another woman. He'd been seeing her for a long time.

For about a year, Mitch and his sisters seen they daddy and he paid child support, but then he up and left the state. They was living in Kentucky, and he never sent another penny. Mitch ask if I could believe that. That a man would walk off and not feed his own kids. Not care if they got sat out in the street. Because, he say, they was evicted by the sheriff. He say, Everything we owned was set blowing in the wind. I was fourteen then, and things just went from bad to worse. Mitch say they got on the welfare.

He started taking drugs then and ain't get off of them until he joined the army. Mitch say when he was on them, he was trying to fill up spaces inside hisself. He say, You know, all those years growing up without my daddy, I always wanted him to come back. I wanted to knock his damn teeth down his lying throat. But after that, I was going to forgive him. Mitch say he know that was crazy talk. But it made sense to me.

At Tops, Mitch helped me pick out a cake back in the bakery, chocolate with white icing. It was decorated with a teddy bear holding a string of balloons and was dripping with pink and yellow icing roses. We got Imani name wrote on it and
Happy First Birthday
. Mitch wanted to get balloons. But I told him Mrs. Poole say they a choking hazard, along with hot dogs and hard candy. So we ain't get balloons.

On the way back home, we rode quiet most of the way. The radio was on and I ain't know if it was still Miles Davis or who it was. I was glad for the music. Whoever it was blowing on the horn is filling in the space between us. It was already getting dark and I could see Mitch face glowing a little green from the dials on the dash. I ask him, in that growing dark, You think maybe you would've been better off without ever knowing your daddy?

Mitch scratched his chin, and it sounded rough. Sandy. He say, I can't really say. All I know is, I still needed him. Some guidance. Something. Like I said about these young guys. They need it. Something real small, darling. Something simple.

I think maybe that's what I always wanted from my daddy. Something simple. Just his arms to hold me. Just his ears to listen. Just his two lips talking to me. Soft.

When Mitch stopped at a red light a few streets up from our turn for home, I glanced out the window and seen a car with no headlights on stopped on the other side of the street.

I grabbed his arm and screamed, Don't flash them!

He say, I'm way ahead of you, darling.

Red light, red light, red light, green light. Mitch sat still for a few seconds and let the car pass on by us in the dark.

At the party last night, I ain't mind Mitch being there. When I lit the candles on the cake—one for Imani age and one for her to grow on—he flipped off the light switch and stood next to Mama. Which was close enough for me. He was with us in that circle of candlelight, and I knew Imani daddy was beyond that circle. Somewhere in the dark.

I know one day when Imani get older, when thoughts don't wash through her mind. When they settle to the bottom and stay. She going to ask, Who my daddy? Where my daddy at? What's my daddy name? I don't know what I'll say to her.

Last night is when I got to thinking it'd be so much easier if I can lie to her like Mama been lying to me. To tell Imani he dead. I can have a story about
him
with a end instead of beginnings and middles in my dreams.

I can hold Imani on my lap early on a night when she ask me and ask me and ask me about her daddy. I can say, Imani, me and your daddy was young. We was just children when we had you, but we loved each other very very much. I called your daddy Honey and he called me Sugar and he called you his Little Cupcake. Now, ain't that sweet? And Imani will nod.

Then I'll say, But sweetness don't always last. Sometimes it get washed away. Sometimes it get worn away. Sometimes it just disappear in the time it take to close your eyes. Now, close your eyes. And Imani will close her eyes. I'll watch her lids flutter like she chasing dreams, and I'll say, Now, our love was the kind to disappear. Your daddy went away from us. He died. Before Imani can ask, Why? her eyes will open. Her eyes will look up at me and I'll wave my hand over them. Cool. Gentle. Like a wind. I'll close them. Leave my hands there a moment so she can look inside the dark that my hands made like the sky. Hush, now, I'll say. Don't be sad.

It happened sudden. When his eyes was closed. Not like you now. He died in his sleep so peaceful while he was dreaming about us, and he was happy. Don't never cry about him. Because even when some sweetness is gone, you still sometimes taste it in your mouth when you sleep.

Imani will nod while my story settle down inside her. Easy. Like it's truth. Making her lids flutter faster and faster as she try to catch up with her sweet daddy in her dreams.

My story might even seem true to me. Until I sleep. Until I dream. Knowing he still out there. Past the light. And no matter what, Imani will find out there's no sweetness in my mouth for him. Just a bitter taste. Shame.

So last night when I seen Imani face shining in that circle of light, I made my wish. Pressed it inside my two lips. Because I don't want to have to even think about him being out there. I want to have a end with him. A wall between us. Death.

That why I kept on wishing to myself last night over and over while Imani blew out her candles. First one and then the other. Leaving us quiet and alone in the dark.

TEN

I
CAN'T
sleep in the night. I lay in my bed with the window open. Even with Mama laying next to me, it's like I be by myself. Out in the wilderness. Out in the night. Listening. Trying to hear my own voice out in the trees. It was carried away from me by some birds and put into they nests. Talking to the stars. Singing to my baby.

Everybody still waiting for me to have something to say. Waiting for me to say something about what I'm feeling. They all watch me from the corner of they eyes. They won't hold me in the center of they eyes. Nam one of them. They won't have me at the center. Look at me direct where I see myself reflected back twice. Liquid. Anchored. I know it's because they afraid of me. Afraid for me. What I'm thinking. They know there's more in me than what coming out my two lips. And even though they want me to open up, to spill my guts, I think they scared of what will come out from me. That is why they look at me the way they do. Even Mama. She so scared, she done made me her child again. Made me a little girl who she sleep with. She been laying in the bed with me every night for a month. She curl herself around me like I'm in her again. With my big self. With my grown self. She be in the bed with me. Waiting for me to be born back to her. Mama the one who talk. What she be talking about, I don't always know, because sometimes I ain't listening. She like to talk so the dark ain't so empty and so big and we ain't so small inside it. Curled up along its bottom. Where it touch us and cover us. Hiding us until the morning.

I don't say nothing. I just lay with my face looking out the open window. Listening for myself in the big dark outside. Listening for my voice out in the trees. Trying to reach my baby who is dead.

I couldn't even say the word at first. For a day. For a week. For a month. Not even to myself. It's one of them words that was plucked from me. Pulled out my mouth and hid away by the birds. A whole season done changed in just a few weeks while I watch out my window at night. The late and cool blue of spring nights is already gone, and there be a heat burning in the early summer nights. Nights I can see already getting darker. A minute. A minute. A minute more each night. The leaves of the greening trees in the backyard opened they tiny leaves the size of baby hands and grew into the hands of mamas. They dark and shiny sides turned to the sun before I say the word. Last night I say it with my mind in the dark dark night with Mama next to me sharing with me the secret of her hands. A secret she done kept from me so long, I don't remember her hands being so soft. Being so small and smooth. Having the power of something so gentle flowing through them that when she touch me with my face turned away from her, with my face turned out to the night. When she rub one of her hands down my arm, across my leg, I cry. Just tears. Not even a sound, and I don't know Mama even know I be crying, and if she do know, she think it's because Imani dead. Now and forever. But that ain't why I be crying.

I be crying because it's all my fault, and if any one of them knew they'd stop loving me. I want them to stop. There's so much love for me that I can't even stand it. I don't want it. From Aunt Mavis. From Eboni. From Miss Lovey. From Mitch. From Peanut. Even from Mama. I can stand the heat of Mama on me. Flowing into me. Deep inside to my bones. Even now that it's hot and the fan blow on us. From the floor. Not the window. I like the fan on the floor so the window can be open where I can see. I can stand Mama heart beating soft against my back. And her hands still. Resting. But not moving. I only think Mama be sleeping with me anyway because she don't want to sleep in her own room. Because that's where it happened. Where Imani was killed.

The door to it always be closed now. I heard Mama tell Aunt Mavis on the phone that she has found a place and Mitch moving in with us. Mama don't want to stay, because Imani died here. She only go in her own room to grab some clothes and get out quick. Like she being chased. Like maybe my baby is some ghost. Which I know she ain't.

Even though Imani dead, I can't see her that way. I see her as a living angel up in heaven. Above the trees. Above the Earth and moon and stars. She get a free pass into heaven. Eboni told me. All babies go to heaven. Into the arms of Je-sus. He sweep them up to the sky like he they daddy. And I want to hate Jesus. To turn him into the devil. To turn him into the man who killed my baby. But I don't hate him. I'm just jealous. Because I don't know how he get to be with Imani every day and every night, and I don't. He don't need her more than me. Love her more than me. What Jesus know about singing Imani “Miss Sue from Alabama"? What he know about making her jelly bread the way she like it? Where he going to get punch and red and lemon Kool-Aid and mix them all together and make it sweet for Imani the way she like it? I know heaven supposed to be the best place there is, but when they get some Kool-Aid? And what Jesus know about a black girl hair? I know he ain't got no Royal Crown. He ain't got whole packs of ponytail holders and barrettes. He wasn't here with us long enough to know what to do with a black girl. He was down in his box with his eyes turned to the dark. I think Jesus probably got my baby running around heaven looking like a wilderness angel. With her head all nappy and dry. A dark halo around her head. Like she a state kid somebody took in just for the money. Like she lost.

And she is lost, because she got to be looking for me. Wondering where I'm at in the clouds of heaven. I know she ask for me. All the time. I know she cry, even though I can't hear her. I be listening, but I can't hear her. I know she want for me to bring her home. Her face all ashy with dry tears and no Vaseline to grease it. She wondering why she dead. Do she know? Do she understand that, even coming from Jesus? I don't know how Jesus fix his two lips to tell a baby she been shot to death. How he explain that. Why it had to happen. I don't see how he make it clear to her. But maybe heaven is different from Earth. Maybe heaven is where it make some sense that a baby got shot to death. Because it ain't clear to me down here at the bottom of the dark in the middle of the night.