Coffee Will Make You Black (2 page)

“Grandma, how come your skin's so soft and smooth? Do you use Ivory liquid?”

“Chile, good black don't crack.” Grandma smiled. Grandma carries herself like a queen. She's tall and big-boned and wears her gray hair in French braids. She has what she calls laughing eyes and she says she's proud of her large nose and full lips.

I took color from my mother's side of the family, 'cept I've got a lot of red in my skin. My daddy's grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. All of Daddy's sisters live in Oklahoma, where he's from. I've never met them. His mother and father are both dead. Mama says she wishes I'd gotten more of Daddy's lighter color and especially his curly hair. She says she prayed that if I was a girl I'd have good hair that didn't need to be straightened. Mama says one reason she married Daddy was cause she was looking out for her children. She says it was almost unheard of for a colored man to marry a woman darker than himself. Mama says she was lucky.

Anyway, Mama says she doesn't know where I was when they were handing out color and hair. She says I let my nine-year-old brother David get ahead of me in the hair line and my six-year-old brother Kevin get ahead of me in the color line. But at least I've got nice features, she's thankful for that, Mama always says. In other words, she's glad I don't have a wide nose and big lips like Grandma and some other colored people. And Mama likes that I have high cheekbones, of course.

My brother David is tall and slim, with Daddy's features and Mama's color. Kevin is short and chubby but otherwise looks like Daddy spit him out. David and Kevin are the regular type of brothers that you want to keep out of your face as much as possible. But otherwise we get along pretty okay.

I would describe Mama as looking like Dr. Martin Luther King's wife dipped in chocolate. They have similar features and they both seem to have serious looks on their faces most of the time.

Daddy, on the other hand, smiles a lot, but you still know you'd better not cross him. He's big and tall with muscles and narrow eyes like the Indians who are always getting killed on TV. His skin is the color of peanut butter, just like my little brother Kevin's.

“Jean, if you don't get off of your grandmother's lap, you better.” Mama had sneaked up on me in her furry slippers.

I looked up at Grandma. Her eyes were closed; she had dozed off.

I got up, mainly because I didn't want to hear Mama's mouth.

“You oughta be ashamed of yourself, a big girl like you having the nerve to be in up somebody's lap.”

Maybe Mama was right, I thought, maybe I should be ashamed, maybe there was something wrong with me.

“Lord have mercy, Evelyn, why can't you let the child be?”

Grandma always took up for me.

“No, I won't let her be, Mama. Now, I'm not going to have it this year. Jean Eloise will be twelve in September. Jesus began preaching at twelve. Now she's too old to be up in somebody's lap. How's she gonna learn to be a responsible adult? She needs to get out with girls her own age.” Mama let out a sigh. “Ever since that Terri moved away she's stayed cooped up in this house feeling sorry for herself.” Mama stood over me with her arms folded.

Grandma didn't argue with Mama, she just reached in her apron pocket and handed me a peppermint. Mama started putting the dishes away, Grandma picked up the quilt she had been working on, and I sucked my candy.

I sat down at the kitchen table and laid my head on top of my arms. Terri used to be my best friend, but she moved away last fall, right after we both got our applications from the Peace Corps in the mail. Me and Terri had planned to join the Peace Corps and teach in Africa together when we grew up.

I felt like crying just thinking about Terri now. We had been best friends since kindergarten and we used to do everything together.

Mama turned away from the dishes she was putting up in the cabinet.

“Jean, I told you, you should've never had a best friend in the first place. Always have a group of friends, then you won't be so dependent.”

I kept my head on the table.

“Mama, I didn't set out to have a best friend, it just turned out that way.”

“Why don't you call one of the girls from the Methodist Youth Foundation?” Mama asked.

“I'll see them tomorrow at Sunday school. They're church friends. There's nobody I really want to hang out with that much anymore. Unless they were really cool or something.”

“You seem awfully particular for somebody sitting up in the house by yourself on a Saturday afternoon.”

My secret wish was to be popular, to have all the cool people flocking to be my friends. This girl in my class named Carla Perkins is popular. When she had her birthday party last month, kids practically begged her to invite them. Me and Carla don't know each other 'cept to speak, but I had secretly hoped that a miracle would happen and I would get invited to her party. But of course when Carla had passed out her invitations, there hadn't been one for me.

I wondered what it would feel like to have a bunch of friends to walk with and give you Valentine cards and invite you to all the cool birthday parties. Being popular must feel different from making the honor roll or having your poem published in the school newspaper, or even having a best friend, I thought. Then I remembered Michael's note. Maybe he wanted me to be his girlfriend. I would really be something then.

Mama dumped a fat brown paper bag on the kitchen table in front of my face. She tore it open. It was full of fresh string beans.

“If you're going to stay cooped up in here, then you can just make yourself useful. Steada lying around here like a May snake, you can start snapping these beans.”

I sat up and began popping the ends off the bright green beans and breaking them in the middle. I liked hearing their snapping sound.

Grandma looked up from her quilt.

“You know, Evelyn, I suppose every mama wants her child to be popular. I remember one time, you must've been along in age with Jean Eloise, you had to stay home from school, counta you twisted your ankle. What made it so heartbreaking was it was Colored Day at the Carnival and your class was all set to go. I hated to have to leave you home alone that morning, but I ain't had no choice. I was working for a new family on the other side of Gainesville and your Daddy was doing day labor on a farm. Neither of us could take a chance on missing a day. When I got home that night you and the rest of the kids was asleep. I ain't get to talk to you face to face till that next evening.”

“Mama, why do you have to use ‘ain't'? I had to get after Jean yesterday about saying ‘ain't.'”

“Anyways,” Grandma continued, ignoring Mama, “you told me half the class had come by to see you, they had even brought you by some pink cotton candy, don't you remember? Yassuh, I was so happy to hear that I didn't know what to do. Like I said, I s'pose every mama want her child to be popular. But I'll never forget that you told me this other girl, by the name of Lillie Mae, had been out sick the same day as you and didn't nobody even ast about her, remember?”

“Didn't nobody?” Mama frowned.

Grandma ignored her again. “Your exact words was ‘I'll never forget them so long as I know Jesus,' you said. ‘Nobody cared about Lillie Mae, they ain't care whether she lived or died.' Them was your exact words, remember? My heart went out to Lillie Mae just as though I'd give birth to her.”

Me and Mama were quiet; all you could hear was the snapping of our beans.

“Somebody colored's on TV!” Kevin yelled from the living room.

“Well, I sho hope it ain't that Stepin Fetchit fellow again,” I heard Grandma say as I followed behind her and Mama.

I was hoping I wouldn't end up like Lillie Mae.

chapter 2

It was Sunday after church and Mama was standing at my bedroom door with these two girls from the other sixth-grade class. I was shocked that Denise and Gail seemed to be here to see me. It wasn't like I had older brothers to get next to or anything. Mama looked surprised too. Denise and Gail were fast girls who wore their hair in French rolls and liked to crack their gum. Gail already had two big bumps sticking through her shell top, and they both had hips holding up their cutoffs. I knew Mama looked down on people who wore shorts before Memorial Day, even though it was warm and humid outside.

“Jean, didn't you hear me calling you?”

I shook my head. I'd been playing with my yo-yo.

I nodded at Denise and Gail and they nodded back. I tried not to seem too surprised by their visit.

Gail was no bigger than a minute but she had a shape. She had delicate features like a Siamese cat, and her skin was the color of an old penny. Denise had some meat on her bones, large eyes, a wide nose, full lips, and was light-skinned. Mama would call Denise “yellow-wasted.” That's what she called light-skinned people with hair nappy enough to be straightened and/or African features.

Mama leaned against the wall with one hand in her apron pocket. I motioned for Denise and Gail to come into my room.

“Well, girls, we just got in from church not too long ago.” Mama frowned at my Sunday dress and petticoat bunched up in the chair. “Twenty minutes earlier and you wouldn't have caught us.”

“Gail, you can sit on this chair,” I grabbed my dress and petticoat. “Denise, you can sit on the bed here,” I scooped up the stack of Archie comic books, and looked around my small, junky room for a place to stuff them. Denise and Gail eyed the matching white bedroom furniture that Mama and Daddy had bought at a house sale in the suburbs.

“When did your churches let out?” Mama asked as the girls sat down.

“I ain't went to church this morning. I ain't got up in time.” Denise answered.

“I ain't got up in time either.”

Mama closed her eyes, and made a face like she'd just eaten something that tasted bad. “You ain't got up in time?”

“No, my mama and them was playing cards last night, kept us all up late,” Denise explained.

I turned away from the closet and gave Mama a look that begged her to shut up. But there was no stopping her.

“Girls, listen to yourselves, you're butchering the English language!”

Denise and Gail looked at Mama like she had just landed here from Mars.

I sat down on my bed and stared into the quilt Grandma had made me. I was sick of Mama. It was bad enough she had made Daddy paint my room pink. She knew blue was my favorite color.

“Girls, you should have said, ‘I
didn't
go to church this morning because I
didn't
get up in time.' And you shouldn't be kept up all night because of your mother's card playing. I hate to think some people would put card playing ahead of church services. And by the way, have you girls ever heard Dr. King speak?”

Gail and Denise hunched their shoulders. I couldn't tell if they were saying no or that they didn't care. I remembered how Mama and Daddy had called me and David in from playing to watch Dr. King give his “I Have a Dream” speech on TV, two summers ago. When Dr. King said the part about having a dream that one day he would live in a country where his four little children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, I looked over at Mama and she had tears running down her face. It was the only time I'd ever seen her cry except at her father's funeral when I was five. David had asked Mama why she was crying. Mama had answered, “Because he makes me proud to be a negro.” Next thing we knew Daddy's eyes were wet, and by the time Dr. King ended with “Free at last, Free at last, thank God Almighty, we're free at last,” shivers were running down my spine.

“If you ever get a chance to hear Dr. King speak, pay close attention to his command of the English language,” Mama continued.

I cleared my throat as I sat on the bed, hoping Mama could take a hint. It was obvious that Denise and Gail didn't want to be bothered.

“Well, I've got a chicken to cut up. You girls have fun this afternoon and, Jean, as soon as your company leaves, clean this place up. You should be ashamed for anyone to see your room looking like this.”

Denise and Gail rolled their eyes when Mama hit the door.

“Dog, is she always like that?” Denise wanted to know.

“No,” I lied. I felt embarrassed to even be connected to Mama.

“Well, that's good, is she a English teacher or something?” Gail wrinkled her forehead.

“No, she's a bank teller.”

I forgot about Mama and went back to wondering why Denise and Gail had come over in the first place.

“Do you all want to play Monopoly?”

“No, not today.” Gail smiled.

“Jacks?”

Denise shook her head. “Some other time.”

“Barbie dolls?” I asked, willing to forget I'd ever been a tomboy.

“Stevie, did you know that me and Michael are cousins?”

I looked at Gail's face to see if they favored each other. They did, sort of.

“No, Gail, I never really knew that.”

“Well, we are. Anyway, dig up, I hear you been talking to Michael.”

“Well, he just passed me a note, we didn't actually talk yet.”

“We knows all about the note. Do you call yourself digging Michael or not?” Denise jumped in.

I wondered if Denise was his cousin too. I couldn't tell from their faces if I was supposed to dig Michael or not. I felt like I was on Perry Mason.

“Well, I think he's cute, and I think he's really cool. I'm not sure if I know him enough to dig him or not. We've never really had a conversation. The note was a big surprise. I didn't even know he was paying me any attention.”

“When he sent you that note asking you if you was a virgin, you put down ‘Not exactly,'” Denise reminded me.

I stared down at my quilt and ran my fingers along the different patches.