Leaving Atlanta (18 page)

“Viola,” Mama said, “this ain’t no time to be worried about no bad checks. This your
baby.
”

“You right,” Miss Viola said. She pushed up on the table to get up.

“Wait a second.” Mama put another cup in front of her. “You better get another cup of coffee in you before you go talking
to the police.”

Now, why she need to have coffee before she talked to the police, I don’t know. She didn’t look to me like she was about to
fall asleep. Maybe coffee makes you brave. Granny say that it put hair on your chest. But Mama don’t let me touch it because
she believe it will stunt my growth.

So when they put Jashante on the eleven-o’clock news I was ready. But this Rodney thing caught me by surprise like a cheap
trick. Like when Leon put vinegar in my thermos at school and I took a big gulp, setting my whole head on fire. I coughed
so hard the vinegar came out my nose and all the kids laughed. When I saw Rodney’s school picture on the screen with the task
force number blinking under it, my crying came hard and sudden like a coughing fit. And the tears were hot as blood.

Then I had a stupid idea and I dried my tears up. Maybe he wasn’t dead yet. Miss Camille Bell was on the TV a few weeks ago
saying that her boy, Yusef, stayed alive almost a week before they killed him. When they found little Yusef he was clean looking,
well-fed, she said. But he was still dead. Then I thought something even more crazy. Maybe Rodney was having a good time with
those child murderers. They might be giving him Big Macs and strawberry shakes to keep him from hollering and running for
the police. Like with Yusef. But like the man in the electric chair and the fried shrimp, Rodney would be too scared to enjoy
himself.

They put a big clock on the screen. “It’s eleven-fifteen. Do you know where your children are?”

Mama knew where I was and I knew that she was at the Sunbeam factory making bread and imitation Twinkies. But knowing don’t
mean nothing if you can’t be there. And anyway, by the time a mama can figure out that she don’t know where her child is,
it’s all over with anyway.

A commercial came blasting out of the TV. It was loud like somebody had snuck up behind me, screaming in my ear about washing
powder. Two little white boys dropped blueberry pie all over their white shirts. “Uh-oh,” one of them said. They mama said,
“It’s okay; we got All.” The kids hollered, “Hoo Ray!” Uncle Kenny used to say, “Who is Ray anyway?” I would laugh because
Ray is my daddy. “Nobody,” I said. Uncle Kenny would be laughing too and bounced me on his lap hard and kissed the back of
my neck. The TV showed how All can lift off any stain. “Hoo Ray!”

Rodney’s picture was back on. Sometimes you can see a picture of somebody you know that don’t really look like that person.
Like a picture of Mama when she was a girl. It’s her but then it ain’t her. Her driver’s license is like that too. And the
photo of Rodney hit me the same way. In the picture he looked like a regular boy from our class. He was by himself so you
couldn’t tell that he was shorter than most of them and just nicer and smarter than all of them put together. Kodak commercials
say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but the one they showed of Rodney ain’t worth more than three or four. Boy.
Black. Dead. Rodney was what my mama call “good people.” Nice for no reason at all. Sometimes he might leave a Blow Pop on
my desk and not say nothing about it. He just wanted me to have it. I turned around one time and said
thank you
and he looked shocked like he didn’t have nothing to do with it. But I know it was him because nobody else in our class say
hi
to me let alone give me nothing. And Rodney come from a family with a lot of money. He always had so much candy in his pockets
like he must spend two, three dollars a day. But I said thank you to him anyway. My voice was always a little bit soft when
I talk to him. It was because he speak almost like a whisper. Talking loud to Rodney Green would be like screaming at a librarian.
But you couldn’t see none of that in the picture up on the screen. I could tell it was Rodney, but the picture didn’t show
him good enough for someone to see him and know him.

But it don’t matter anyway, I guess. Gone is gone.

My alarm clock scared the bejesus out of me. Mike Roberts said, “This is V One-o-three FM” and I like to had a nervous breakdown.
It’s been like this on and off ever since this first started happening with the kids. When the first kids got found, I was
jumpy at night like after I seen
Night of the Living Dead.
Then I started getting over it. Then Yusef Bell who went to E. A. Ware Elementary got snatched. I didn’t know him but I knew
where that school was at and I got tied up all over again. When Jashante got took, I couldn’t get no scareder. As a matter
of fact, when he got killed it cooled me down a little bit. I was thinking that it couldn’t happen in the same place twice.
That’s what they say about lightning. But now it seems like bad luck could be like chicken pox. You got to catch it from somebody.
And if anybody could catch it from Rodney, it would be me. After all, I was the only one he talked to really.

When I looked over at the clock again, it was seven A.M. My mama probably was punching out at that very second. She told me
that her and Miss Darlene be out the door by seven-o-two. Sometimes if I’m running late, I’ll see her just as I’m heading
out.

I went in my room to see what Mama had laid out for me to put on. “Man!” I said out loud. My green jeans were stretched across
my chair. Why she feel like she have to pick out my clothes anyway? These pants were way too short for me, but she don’t care.
Now if they were too tight, she would get rid of them in a hot second. Last week, I had on my favorite jeans. They were kind
of light blue with long legs rolled up into fat cuffs by my shoe. I was about to go out and Mama stopped me. She pulled at
the back pocket.

“Take them off,” she said.

“Why? These my favorite pants.”

“They too close in the seat.”

And I haven’t seen them pants since. I bet she put them in a box to send to my cousin Kay-Kay in the country. It makes me
mad to think that I’m going around with these in-the-water green pants and Kay-Kay having the only instyle thing I got. And
Kay-Kay stay out in Macon where they don’t even know what style is.

But there wasn’t nothing I could do about it that morning. Once I had the outfit on, I went to the bathroom and stood on the
commode so I could see how I looked in the mirror over the sink. “Man!” I said again. The pants were riding up my legs so
high that my socks showed. Mama need to stop bragging to everybody that I’m growing like a weed if she don’t want to buy me
no new clothes. Now when I walk into class, everybody going to start singing “Wade in the Water.”

But no, Rodney Green got snatched yesterday. I bet everybody in that whole class would be quiet and scared.

When I was headed out, I bumped into Delvis Watson. I was shocked to see him so early. Since his mama work eleven-to-seven
with mine, he have to get his little brother and sister ready for school. The three of them was usually running late. Today
they were out early, but they should have spent another minute or so in front of the mirror. I couldn’t tell if Delvis had
dressed the twins or if they had dressed themselves, but they looked a mess. Darlita’s skirt was twisted and Donathan had
a sock on his left hand and a glove on his right. His eyes were ringed around with a soft crust. I couldn’t tell if it was
from sleep or from tears.

“What’s the matter, Little Man?” I asked him.

“Darlita bit me.” He looked like just saying it was going to jump-start his crying.

“It was a accident,” Darlita said.

I didn’t see how you could bite somebody without meaning to. Especially since both twins were missing their main biting teeth.

“You seen the eleven-o’clock news last night?” I asked Delvis.

“No. I was sleep. What they said?”

“Somebody in my class got snatched.” I didn’t like saying dead people’s names.

“Who?”

I started describing Rodney.

“Just tell me the name.” Delvis rolled his eyes.

“Can’t,” I said. “Bad luck.”

“It’s bad luck to say the name of
dead
people. When people just missing you can call them all you want.”

“Rodney Green,” I whispered, in case he was dead.

“For real?”

I nodded.

Delvis was real quiet. The sound of wind in the pecan trees was like girls giggling. He bobbed his head a little bit like
an old man agreeing with the preacher. The twins stopped passing licks and followed him like quiet baby ducks.

“Get one of them so we can cross the street,” he said. I took Darlita’s cold hand. Her nails were colored with blue Magic
Marker.

“Rodney Green,” Delvis said all loud. He didn’t let go of Donathan even though we had been gotten across the street. “He in
your class; wear glasses?”

I nodded.

“Always be in Mrs. Lewis store stealing candy?”

I shook my head. “This boy I’m talking about not like that. He real quiet. Smart too.”

“Got a blue book bag with a green stripe?”

“No. Not Rodney. He got money. Sometimes you see his mama bringing him to school in a long blue car with a tan top.”

“That’s him.” Delvis brought his cheek low to scratch his face without having to let go of his brother. “His sister in the
same class with the twins.”

“Who?” they said at the same time. They know better than to get into big kids’ conversations, but when somebody say their
name they think they can join in.

“What’s that girl name in your class who wear her hair curled like on
The Brady Bunch?
”

“Patricia Green,” said Darlita.

“Her pencils got her name on them,” Donathan added.

Rodney had the same kind of pencils when we were in the baby grades. I wish I could find one maybe under the radiator and
take it home to remind me.

“See,” Delvis said. “That’s him.”

“But he not roguish.” Delvis needed to mind his own business. Calling up the dead is bad luck, but lying on them is just plain
evil. And anyway, how he got all this time to be watching Rodney? He needed to be watching the twins. He let Darlita out the
house with her plaits sticking out from the side of her head like a TV antenna.

“I seen him with my own eyes.” Delvis looked at me like I had gone crazy in ten minutes flat. “Why you getting so mad? Y’all
go together or something?”

“I’m mad because the boy got snatched and you all up in his business like the police.” I licked my lips. Why he had to say
something about going together? He bad as Mama. All I got to do is say a boy name and she asking fifty million questions.

Darlita squeezed my hands, smashing two of my fingers together. “Patricia’s brother got killed?”

“At school?” Donathan put his fingers in his mouth. He been looking for something to cry about all morning. “He gone to heaven
with Jashante?”

Delvis gave me a ugly see-what-you-did look.

“I don’t want to go to heaven,” said Darlita, probably because somebody told them Jashante was there. All the little kids
hated him because he liked to give them Indian burns and take their milk money.

“Well hurry up then.” Delvis pulled hard on Donathan’s arm. “We gonna miss breakfast.” He turned around and said, “Come on
Sweet Pea. I got a extra dime if you want to get chocolate milk.”

Just as we got ready to cross Beckwith Street, we saw a white man standing on the corner wearing a red hat, kinda like a beanie,
but baggy. Me and Delvis saw him at the same time.

“Where Miss Wilcox?” Delvis asked, looking for the regular crossing guard.

“It’s too early. She don’t be out here till seven-thirty.”

“Well, who is the white man?” He took Darlita’s right hand like me holding her left wasn’t enough.

“He just one of the Guardian Angels. They from New York.”

“How you know?”

I hate it when people act like I don’t know what I’m talking about. I also hate standing out in the cold weather. We were
only about half a block from the warm school building. “I saw them on the news.”

“How you know they okay?”

“I didn’t say they was okay. I just said that I knew who they was.” The Angel had his arms crossed in front of him like Superman.

“We need to cross someplace else,” Delvis said, looking around.

“Let’s just cross,” I said. “That man ain’t nothing to be scared of. He not even in a car. How he gonna kidnap somebody without
a car?”

“But still,” Delvis said.

“Oh come on. We look crazy standing out here in the cold.” And my ears were starting to hurt from all the wind blowing up
in them.

Delvis still didn’t move. I was surprised because he is usually the one making other kids do things they know better than
to do.

“Delvis, them Angels alright. When I saw them on the news they were with Miss Camille Bell. They work in the evenings with
the Bat Patrollers.”

“They didn’t have no black Angels in New York that they could have sent down here?” He was steady complaining, but I know
he felt better knowing that Miss Camille Bell be with the Angels. People say she stay around here somewhere. Over by Friendship
Baptist Church. But I ain’t never seen her, except on TV.