Born Blue (2 page)

I said, "How you know what I can sing, Mr. Harmon? You don't know what I can do."

Doris looked at me in her rearview mirror and said, "Sing something for us, Janie. Go on, it's all right. We're all friends."

I looked at Harmon and he nodded. "Go on, thang, you can do it."

Didn't never hear myself sing alone before. I closed my eyes and felt myself down in the basement, laying on the sour rug, listening to Roberta Flack. I heard her voice singin' "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," and I started singin'. And sitting in that car with my eyes closed, singin', felt like entering those pearly gates of heaven I were always hearing 'bout in church, felt like chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup, nuts, whipped cream, and a cherry slippin' down my throat. Felt like the first home I ever known.

M
AMA LINDA COME
to see me. I were coming home from kindergarten, riding on the bus with Harmon. She were waiting at the end of the road where the bus driver always let us off, standing with one leg crossed in front of the other and her arms folded 'cross her chest. She were butter blond and blue eyed and pretty as pink pastries, and kids on the bus was sayin' it had to be my mama 'cause I looked just like her.

I got down off the bus behind Harmon and peeked round him at Mama Linda. She smiled big and opened her arms out. I went on and ran to her, feelin' funny 'bout it 'cause I weren't sure yet if I felt happy to see her or what. She hugged me, so I hugged her back, and my arms closed round her skinny, skinny waist. She smelled like I remembered, even though I forgot I remembered. She smelled like a cake made out of sugar and flowers and cooking oil.

"Now, how's your little face today?" she said, like we just left off seein' each other yesterday.

I didn't know what to say, so I looked back at Harmon, who were behind us.

He had his hands dug in his pockets, and when I looked at him, he shrugged and his face drooped so sad like he was giving up on me, saying good-bye 'cause Mama Linda be there, comin' to take me home.

I reached back for him and grabbed his arm, which were still pushin' at the bottom of his pocket, and said, "This here Harmon. He be my brother now."

Harmon said "hey" to Mama Linda, with his head down so low his fat cheeks was 'bout all I could see of his face. Then he pulled away from me and ran ahead to the stink house without us.

"He's a shy one," Mama Linda said.

"He don't know you," I said. "Are you here pickin' me up? Am I goin' home with you?"

I didn't know what I were hoping the answer would be till she told me no. Then I knew I were hoping she coming for me, 'cause soon as she said no, I wanted to push her down on the road and run off home with Harmon.

Mama Linda stopped walking and pulled my two arms toward her and stooped down in front of me. "Janie, I've been ... ill. I've been in a rehabilitation center 'cause I've ... I've had this amnesia thing." Mama Linda nodded to herself and said "amnesia" again.

"What that be?" I asked.

Mama Linda set her head at a tilt and took a bit of my hair in her hand. "Don't you talk fanny now. Amnesia's when you lose all your memory. You can't remember anything. So, see, I didn't even remember I had a little girl. That's how ill I was."

"Are you all better? Why cain't I come home?"

Mama Linda stood up. "Well, see, they've got to watch me awhile, still, and make sure I don't go back on—get that old amnesia thing again. You wouldn't want me to get it and leave you alone at the beach again, would you? So, for now I'll just come visit you, and if things go well"—Mama Linda started up walking again—"then we'll live back together."

O
NCE A MONTH MAMA LINDA
come to visit, bringing a sack of boiled peanuts in her hands and handing them off to me like that were the reason for coming. I always ate them up before she left, popping in one after another and swallowing them whole like they was vitamin pills. I got sick every night on days when she visited, and Pete said it be the peanuts, so he said not to eat them no more, but still I got sick. I didn't tell no one but Harmon.

"Harmon, I sick again."

"What you gonna do?"

"I gonna go get me some food 'cause I think it a hunger sick in my stomach."

I waited for Patsy and Pete to go on to bed, then I
slipped down to the kitchen in the dark and stashed down as much food as my body could hold. Next day, Patsy did have a fit and then some when she come down and found all her food gone missing. She blamed me and Harmon both, 'cause she said no way could I eat all that food myself, and she told Doris on us.

I said to Doris, "It ain't Harmon, but Harmon get the strap same as me, an' you
gotta
tell Patsy it ain't Harmon."

So Doris and Patsy talked long, and they got up a plan so I don't be gettin' in trouble and gettin' sick Doris give me Mama Linda's phone number and said once a week I could call her and talk, and on days when Mama Linda come, Patsy would set out extra food for me to come down and eat at night if ever I felt sick-hungry.

First time she set the food out, she wagged her angry finger at me and said, "But if you eat anything else besides what I set out, you'll be standing on one foot all day for punishment and so will Harmon." She knew she could get me to do right if she punished Harmon for what I done wrong.

"And thanks a lot for telling Doris about getting the strap, as if we're here beatin' you senseless. One time standing on one foot and you'll be begging for the strap."

When Mama Linda come, I always asked if she be better now, and every time she said yes, she was gettin'
better every day. She never said nothin' again 'bout me coming to live with her, though, and when I called her every week like I supposed to, Mama weren't never home 'cept once. That time I got her, she said I just caught her on her way out and she'd call me back tomorrow 'cause she gotta run, but she didn't never call me.

Me and Harmon talked 'bout me one day leaving and going back to live with Mama Linda, and he said he didn't want me to never leave 'cause we belonged always together. I knew he were right 'bout that, 'cause I loved Harmon and the ladies most in the world, but I knew if Mama Linda ever said, "Come on," I'd come on, 'cause I knew it were just the way it had to be, and I felt sad inside for never telling Harmon this.

Mama Linda kept coming most every month, and one time she brung a boyfriend with her. They took me out to a playground. The boyfriend looked too bored, so the next time, she brung a different boyfriend, and we just stayed outside the stink house and did nothin'.

I never liked any of the dudes she showed me, but just in case, I always asked if they—any of them—be my real father. That's when Mama Linda got creative, makin' up stories, one time saying my father be famous so she had to keep him a secret, and the next time saying she don't even know who my father be, 'cause she had a case of amnesia back then, too.

Sometimes Mama Linda would forget to come see me, and lots of times she didn't stay long and took me
nowhere, and lots of times she got real angry at me 'cause now she were's'posed to come out to see me twice a month and it were messin' up her other plans.

"Grown-ups like to do grown-up things," she said. "I got plans, little face, so I got to cut this visit short. When you grow up, you'll understand what I mean, but you call me, okay? You can always call me. Here, now, I brought you some candy to share with Herman."

I always knew when the visit were gonna be short, 'cause she'd wear something black and sexy that showed off her boobs. On days when she stayed long, she wore baggy jeans and kept her boobs tucked in. I liked her best on her long-visit days, even when we didn't get along.

She were always trying to pick fights with me. One fight she tried to start, she said I acted too much like Harmon, only she called him Herman. "You two are always whispering. I don't like it It's rude. What are you two saying, anyway? Are you whispering about me? "You like making fun of me?"

"We ain't talkin' 'bout you, Mama Linda. We just talkin'."

"I don't like that boy. He's too quiet. It makes me nervous. He's always studying me and grinning. What's he grinning at?"

"Don't he have the sweetest smile you ever did see?"

Mama Linda hated me not fighting with her, but I knew if I did, she wouldn't never come back, so I never
said thing-one against her. Then one time Doris said Mama could take me for a weekend visit, and Mama took me to a motel. Soon as we pulled into the parking lot I got scared, 'cause there be a outdoor pool right at the motel, and last time I were out with Mama Linda, I almost drowned and she disappeared.

"Why ain't we goin' home?" I asked. "I thought we goin' home."

"We're supposed to stay in town, little face. Maybe if this visit goes well, I can take you for a home visit sometime, but that Doris said we've got to stay close by for now. But that doesn't matter, does it? I'm never home much, anyway."

"I know," I said.

Mama Linda pointed across the parking lot "Look, they got a swimming pool over there, and I bet there's a Coke machine right around die corner from our room. We can drink cola all night, if we want"

"I ain't goin' in no water," I said.

"Sure you are, little face. You can swim in your underwear if you don't have a suit You'll be precious. Everyone will think you're just precious."

Mama Linda had a look on her face like she was seeing it all right in front of her, everyone thinking I be precious and her getting all the glory for it.

I didn't have to worry long 'bout drownin' in no pool, though, 'cause Mama didn't stick around long enough hardly to do much but pee. Soon as we stepped into the
room, she put down the overnight case she brung along with her and run off to the bathroom. I stood in the doorway, waiting.

"Doris said you can sing," she said after she got off the toilet and come back into the room, zippin' up her jeans. She looked at me. "Well, come on in the room and sing. Let's see what kind of good singer I've got me."

I didn't move or say nothin'. Mama Linda put her hands on her hips and said, "Sing!" And her voice were angry, just like that.

"I cain't sing," I said.

"Doris said you got a pretty voice. Now, come on. Come on, little face, sing."

I turned round feeing out the door and said again, "I cain't sing."

Then, before I knew it, Mama Linda were shovin' me out the door and scootin' me back out to the car, and we screeched out the lot and back onto the highway.

"You won't sing, I'm taking you back to Patsy. That's the way it's going to be, okay? You going to sing?"

I shook my head with my chin sitting on my chest Much as I wanted Mama Linda to take me back with her, I couldn't do it I couldn't sing for her.

Mama Linda sped on to Patsy and Pete's, saying she didn't care what I told on her to Doris, she were sick of that fet-ass woman sticking her nose into her business, anyway.

She didn't take me all the way to the house. She pulled up to mine and Harmon's bus stop and told me to
get out. "I'll come see you when you're ready to sing, so if you ever want to see me again..."

She didn't say more. I climbed out the car, and she drove on, slow, like she were thinking I gonna come running after her.

I caught her looking in her rearview mirror at me, and I turned from her and walked on toward the stink house. Soon as I did, Mama Linda pulled away with one long screech of burnin' rubber. I just kept walkin' on. I just kept walkin'—and singin'—'cause only thing I knew to do to keep that sick-hungry feelin' away were to sing.

F
OR MORE 'N
a year Mama Linda been comin' to see me, but she told Patsy she weren't never comin' back so now Doris could give me away for adoption. Doris told me not to worry. I just had to let Mama Linda cool off awhile.

Me and Harmon said we was happy being just us two again, but I was sad for wanting Mama Linda back sometimes, and Patsy said I was turnin' into a fatso feedin' myself up the way I did when I got to thinkin' 'bout it Sometimes, when no one were in the living room, I tried callin' Mama Linda on the phone. Two times I got her, and both times she hung up on me.

Then Mr. James and Mrs. James come to visit us. They both had soft brown skin matching exactly like they was brother and sister, and they was both tall and skinny, too, but Mr. James had big teeth and spoke all quiet and smooth. Mrs. James spoke smooth, but she
weren't so quiet and she laughed a lot. I thought they come to see me, 'cause no one never come to see Harmon before, but they come for him. They told him he could call them Mama and Daddy if he wanted to, or John and Cherise. Then they took him off somewhere for a couple of hours, and when they brung him back Harmon were changed. He wouldn't say nothin' to me hardly at all. He wouldn't say what be going on, and I got scared and raided the refrigerator that night even though Mama Linda hadn't come in months and wouldn't stay on the phone when I got hold of her. The next day after school, Patsy made me stand wobblin' on one foot till supper time for punishment for eatin' all her tomatoes. My ankles burned so much, even if I did cheat and change legs when she weren't looking.

One Friday afternoon I couldn't find Harmon on the bus and I cried, and kids called me a baby 'cause I were almost seven and I were cryin', but I didn't care, 'cause all I cared 'bout was knowing where Harmon gone.

Pete were sitting on the front stoop drinking a beer when I got home. He saw my face and said, "What you been bawlin' about?"

"Where Harmon at?" I asked. "He not on the bus with me."

Pete waved me away. "Aw, he's gone off for the weekend with that James couple. They're gonna adopt him. They're gonna be his parents now."

"I ain't never gonna see him again?" I could feel hysterics shakin' my shoulders.

"Calm down, girl. You'll see him Sunday. He ain't gone yet."

I hid out in the basement all weekend, sucking on balled-up bread and feeling scared 'cause Harmon took his tapes with him like he wasn't never coming back At night I got sick-hungry, but I knew I couldn't eat up the kitchen no more, so I snuck outside to the lady's house across the street—the lady with the pistol in her boot—and I didn't care what happened to me. I climbed her peach tree and ate on her unripe peaches till I felt sick. Then I went on back to the stink house and yakked it all up in the toilet.