Leaving Atlanta (14 page)

When you awaken the next morning dark clouds filled with water shroud the sky, obscuring the fading stars. The drumming of
water on earth and brick and glass is hypnotic. Your father knocks twice on your closed bedroom door before you answer.

“Sir?” You are suddenly tense between your Snoopy sheets.

He thrusts his squarish head into your room. You are glad that the lights are out so he cannot see the socks peeking out from
half-closed dresser drawers. “Put on your shoes and get your raincoat. I need some help.”

“Outside?” You reach for your glasses on the night table.

“Drain pipe came aloose again. I need you to hold it still while I strap it in place.”

The door closes. You stare at it. It opens again.

“When you get home from school today, clean up this snake pit.”

You stare at the door again, but thankfully, it stays shut.

Apprehension envelops you, permeating even your bones. Father never solicits your assistance in such decidedly male endeavors.
What did rotund Officer Brown say?
If you don’t know who it is, you don’t know who it’s not
. One dead girl was taken out of her window. The barbershop consensus indicts her stepfather. “Who else could get a child
out the house without her screaming and carrying on?” the men wanted to know, as clippers buzzed against their necks. And
who else besides a father, of some kind, could harbor such malevolence, you mused, sitting very still in the red-cushioned
chair.

Now you are uncertain how to proceed. Your yellow slicker is zipped over your green-and-white pajamas and you lace on your
sneakers without socks. Father is waiting. You call upon wisdom culled through close readings of the Hardy Boys series. On
a sheet of lined notebook paper you write,
My father has taken me out of the house early on Tuesday morning.
You fold the sheet into quarters, then eighths. Then, you carefully print,
OCTAVIA.

You can’t see the ground upon which you plant your canvas sneakers. You press down hard with every step, hoping to leave a
trail, but the rain rinses your footprints away like birds eating a path of bread crumbs. Father, walking several paces ahead
of you, curses the weather but does not look back.

The offending drainage pipe rests against the side of the new den, added on last spring. It is painted a cheerful green to
match the shutters.

“See that?” Father says. “We need to tape the plastic pipe on the end to send the water away from the house, before the basement
gets flooded.”

The plastic pipe is flexible with accordion pleats. Father positions it to guide the runoff into the neighbor’s yard. You
decide against sparking a debate on the ethical implications of this act. You don’t care much for those neighbors anyway.

You feel the water coursing though the pipe like gallons of blood through a giant artery as you hold it in place. Father breathes
heavily as he encircles the pipe with four layers of gray tape. You watch the adhesive give way only seconds after Father’s
satisfied, “That should do it.”

“Shit,” he says. “Hold it again.”

You do. Father applies more tape. Your feet are going numb from the cold stagnant water in your shoes, but you enjoy the pain
as you witness Father’s sheer ineptitude. How long will it be before he realizes that “duct tape” is a misnomer?

“Damn,” he mutters. He cut his finger with his pocket knife. You concentrate on your frozen ears to keep from laughing as
he sticks his injured thumb in his mouth and sucks like a baby.

Since it is raining, Mother drives you and Sister the five miles to school. Because she takes an early bird yoga class at
the YWCA, she drops you at school thirty minutes before the first bell. Sister dashes into the building to see if she can
be of aid to her teacher, while you stand on the porch watching the orange rivers adjacent to curbs.

“Where you been?” Leon looks like a raisin. His head, arms, and legs jut from the crumpled garbage bag that serves as his
raincoat.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. Wasn’t we supposed to do something this morning?”

You don’t recall any appointments.

“The candy corn?” Leon prompts. “Come on.” He heads toward Lewis’s Market. “We only got fifteen minutes before the first bell.”

“But it’s raining,” you protest.

“So.” Leon looks back as you tie the drawstring around the hood of your sunshine-yellow raincoat.

“Don’t be laughing at me because I’m wearing this Hefty bag. I got a yellow coat just like yours at home. It just wasn’t raining
when I left the house. When it starts coming down, I see this Hefty bag by the side of the road and put it to good use.” He
spins around now. “You can’t mess with a boy as smart as me.”

You nod, although the concept is hardly ingenious. Leon’s head is soaked by the time you get to the store. His faded jeans
are stained deep blue with rain.

Mrs. Lewis looks up as the two of you enter. “Good morning, boys.”

“Morning.”

“Leave those wet coats and bags up here. I don’t want you dripping water all over my floor.”

“Yes’m.” You slowly remove your jacket. This is completely unprecedented. Does Leon expect you to follow through even though
you are deprived of your tools? You put your book bag on the counter and gingerly walk to the back of the store.

Mrs. Lewis declares Leon too wet to go any farther than the front counter.

“But miss, I wanted to buy something,” he complains.

“Just tell Rodney. He’ll bring it up here for you.”

The sound of your name startles you. The small bag of candy corn falls to the floor.

You bend to retrieve it. The little sack is made of your least favorite packaging. Stupid Leon has no understanding of the
logistics of shoplifting. Why can’t he ask for Pixie Sticks, which come wrapped in soft cardboard that slides noiselessly
into one’s pocket? Or even Life Savers in discreet wax-lined foil? Candy corn comes in cheap cellophane, which crackles like
burning logs. You carefully put the pouch into the front pocket of your Toughskins. You are going to have to walk gap-legged
until you get out of the store.

“Rodney!” Leon calls. “Bring me some candy corn. She won’t let me come back there.”

You do not enjoy this type of improvisation, but you pick up another packet of candy corn and head toward the counter. You
shove it wordlessly toward Leon.

Mrs. Lewis says, “What did you get for yourself?” She looks at you with narrowed eyes, as if she were trying to read the words
off your sweatshirt without her glasses. The lines at the side of her mouth look like sideways exclamation marks.

“Wasn’t none back there,” you mumble.

“Beg your pardon?”

“There aren’t any back there.” You hope her disapproval is rooted in your failure to meet her grammatical expectations.

“What are you looking for? I just stocked up yesterday.”

You mentally whiz through the candy aisle like an accelerated film strip. She is right. Everything is back there. “Pop Rocks,”
you say, because you remember they had been taken off the market because they had somehow caused children in Maine to die.

“We can’t sell those anymore,” she says.

Leon says, “We gonna be late.”

“Ten cents.” Mrs. Lewis opens the cash register.

“I don’t have no money.” Leon pats his sodden pockets. “You got a dime, Rodney?”

All you have is your lunch money but you reach into your pockets. There is no way you can get the money out without disturbing
the stolen packet of candy corn. You shake your head no.

“What did y’all come in here for if you don’t have money?” The question is clearly rhetorical. She looks at Leon. “Get on
out of here, boy.” He shoots out of the door, into the rain, without bothering to retrieve his black garbage-bag coat.

“And you, Mr. Rodney,” she says. “I’m telling you this because you are like one of my own.” She leans over the counter so
your faces are nearly level. Breakfast is heavy on her breath. “Don’t fall in with the wrong crowd. That boy you come in here
with never had nothing and ain’t never going to get nothing. Look at this.” She holds up the wet Hefty bag and shakes it,
sending lukewarm raindrops onto your cold face. “Is this all you want out of life?”

You are not quite certain what she is asking, but clearly the appropriate answer is no, so you say it. “No.”

“Pardon me?”

“No ma’am.”

“Now, put on your coat and run over to school before you get in trouble.”

Miss Russell, the art teacher, comes to your class one Tuesday a month. You enjoy the freedom of art class but you are ambivalent
about Miss Russell. Her thin brown hair tends to hang in her face, obscuring her spooky hazel eyes.

Octavia uses the easel beside yours. She stares at her canvas for a long time before she dips her brush into the yellow paint
and dabs carefully. Her bottom lip is caught gently between her teeth.

You don’t want her to see you studying her artwork for fear she will make good on yesterday’s threat to hurt your feelings.
Turning your attention to your own canvas, you paint fluidly, moving your arm in broad arcs and strokes, dragging the brush
behind, forgetting to rinse it before dipping into a fresh color. The hues on your canvas are bruised hybrids.

You take a couple of steps back from your easel to see what you’ve made. Your hand brushes Miss Russell’s arm.

“Ooh,” she says, looking at your canvas from under her visor of hair. “My.” She pauses and then peeks again. “What do you
want to be when you grow up?” she asks.

You understand that she likes your picture. Her question is one of two ways adults have of starting conversations with children.
The other, of course, is
how old are you,
which you prefer since a one-word answer will suffice.

You try to formulate an answer. Picturing yourself as an adult requires more imagination than you can muster on such short
notice. Your body would be stretched tall like a piece of bubble gum pulled out of shape. But that would make you big, rather
than grown. Being grown meant that you wouldn’t always be relegated to the drumsticks when your mother bought a bucket of
chicken. You have to chew through the stringy veins and rubbery cartilage while Father happily tears through the breast.

Miss Russell nudges you. Her limp hair is the color of acorns. “Do you want to be a policeman? A fireman?” She laughs a little
bit. “An artist?”

Why doesn’t she just ask you how old you are and move on? Tayari Jones, two aisles over, is sniffing rubber cement and could
use a little adult supervision. But Miss Russell squats beside you and leans forward as if your vocational leanings are of
some consequence.

You know she doesn’t want to know what you want to
eat
when you grow up, but you can’t take your mind away from the dinner table. Just yesterday you were forced—at the threat of
whipping—to eat several mushy mouthfuls of au gratin spinach that smelled of feet. Father hadn’t even put any on his plate.
Instead, Mother had served him three tiny red potatoes glistening with butter and dotted with flecks of parsley.

“Hmm?” Miss Russell says.

“A father,” you say finally.

“A fireman,” she says. “How nice. I’m sure you’ll be a very good one.”

Octavia looks up from her work and communicates nonverbally that she thinks your ambition is ridiculous. You dunk your brush,
heavy and red, into the paper cup of black paint. The mix of colors is like a beetle squashed underfoot. Her eyes are on you
still.

“That’s pretty, what you made,” you tell her.

“What is it then?” she challenges.

You study the configuration of splotches the colors of marigolds and daffodils. You are sincere in your compliment, but the
painting bears little resemblance to anything you recognize.

“See, you don’t even know what it is.”

“A butterfly?”

“No, stupid.” Her hand is on her hip. “It’s a plate of scrambled eggs and cheese.”

No one has ever called you stupid before. You are pleased. You laugh and she joins you, covering her mouth with her hand,
smearing spring colors on her dark cheeks.

You don’t win first prize for your fall project. Mr. Harrell pins a purple-blue ribbon on Tayari Jones’s collar. Evidently,
her mother is more talented than yours. Tayari’s project includes moving cardboard parts.

Octavia sucks her teeth as a beaming Tayari pulls a little lever that causes a miniature hiker to climb up her poster-board.
Her sweater is turned inside out.

“It’s not fair,” Octavia complains. “You know her mother made that for her.”

You nod, eager to agree with her.

“Yours is good,” she continues. “Better than mine. But you can still tell that a kid did it.”

You smile at the unintentional insult to your mother. You resolve to sit with her at lunch today, if she asks you.

Octavia, in front of you in line, is as quiet as she has ever been. She stands rigidly and takes each advancing step as a
regrettable but unavoidable necessity. Your eyes are trained on her neck as your feet move to some choreography that you can’t
understand. You want to speak and disrupt the lunch-line conveyor belt.

“What are they having today?” you open your mouth to say, but the words get tangled in your inner machinery and are deposited
in your stomach.

Today is yesterday. The milk in the cooler is still warmer than ideal but you will drink it anyway. The cafeteria ladies’
hair nets still bite into their foreheads. You will exchange forty cents for your lunch, Octavia, only a dime.

“Tetrazzini?” says the cafeteria lady.

“Yes’m,” from Octavia.

“Tetrazzini?”

You nod.

She plunges her heavy spoon into the casserole and plops a sprawling portion onto your green sectioned plate. The noodles
shine orange with oil and cheese. You open your mouth to express your astonished gratitude, but she’s serving the next tray.

Octavia sits alone at a round table with red stools attached. She does not lift her eyes to see where you will sit. She uses
her fork to spear a single kernel of corn.

“Is somebody sitting here?” The words make it out of your mouth after first passing through your gut.