Crave (24 page)

The Living Doesn't Get Easier
The Living Doesn't Get Easier

There comes a point in every project girl's life that she decides which road she will travel, whether she will forever become a part of the community landscape or begin the process of separation which will eventually free her. At thirteen, I hadn't decided which road would walk me through the rest of my life, so I straddled back and forth between the allure of handsome, hood-rich drug dealers and the cinder walls of my bedroom. I often stared out of the window at the busyness of it all, at the brand new cars with lifesaver colors, with rims shining so brightly they could have been used as mirrors. Boys, men in the horseshoe parking lot in back of my home, bent over, shooting dice, a forty in one hand and dice in the other. No matter how low they crouched, no matter how hard they threw the dice or snapped their fingers after, real men could maintain balance through it all.

In a world where dysfunction reigned, one in which they could have been snuffed out at any moment, they had become beautiful to me. Their looks, their noises, which seemed to be the soundtrack of all Lincoln Park occupants, loud, rhythmic, booming, became my biggest temptation. I marveled at their ability to transform as soon as the words “Po-Po” bounced off of project walls and they spotted the black and white police car rolling into their space. Forties went under cars. Pockets were emptied and contents hidden under rocks or in fences' divots. Eyes followed, breathing stopped until the cruiser was out of sight. Only then were high fives exchanged, followed by hearty laughter. But through the hilarity, brows were wiped, tense lips that were earlier clenched by the fear of detainment curved into smiles exposing gold teeth decorated with stars, hearts, and initials.

I admired and despised each and every one of them because, as drawn as I was to their movement, I knew they could transform into something guttural. When I went to visit friends on the other
side of the Park, their words sometimes assaulted my ears. With such ugliness emanating from mouths, I wondered if one of them had snuck into my home and stolen what it was that made Momma who she was. Sometimes, I could see the bulge of their guns next to the bulge in the front of their pants as they grabbed their crotches and asked if I wanted any or requested I “take a ride.” It was at those moments I was paralyzed, unsure of what to say. I feared a resounding “no” could have prompted one of them to turn their guns on me out of embarrassment. A “yes” would cause an influx of those same requests, thus heightening my fear. So, I kept my head low, stared at my feet, and prayed they'd think I hadn't heard.

HUNGER PAINS
HUNGER PAINS

Cutting Into a New Me
Cutting Into a New Me

After Kenny, I hadn't dated much, partly because Momma wouldn't let me go anywhere, but also because I wasn't the nicest girl in Lincoln Park. I wasn't having sex, and I was known for being rude and cussing people if they looked at me the wrong way. It was difficult to move from behind the cloud of anger that had been attributed to me. I often stared in the mirror, wondering why my face felt so relaxed but looked as if it had been wronged one hundred times over. Friends would walk up to me when I was sitting on my porch and ask what was wrong, what had someone done to me. I often had no answer.

The first thing I had to do was teach myself to smile, to loosen my forehead muscles beyond that feeling of relaxation that had tricked me into believing I looked normal. Just as I had in my search for my father, I stared in the mirror, eyebrows up, eyebrows down, smile up, frown down. I memorized the way my face felt when I looked happy, the way my eyebrows pushed against my forehead as they reached toward my hairline. This practice replaced my usual scowl with a look of excitement and surprise. Then, I studied the way my cheeks bunched against my eyes when I feigned delight. I turned my face side to side, eyeing the dimples, small depressions, which dipped into my cheeks. I twisted my mouth, left and right, making them appear and disappear. I also began to take more of an interest in my hair and begged Momma to let me get a Jheri Curl. If I wore the perfect smile and had the perfect hair, I was certain that perfection could land me the perfect guy and maybe, just maybe, he'd be the one to get me out of imperfect Lincoln Park.

Hair had always been an issue for me. First, Momma and Mary shared the same silky hair that curled into shiny locks whenever it was wet. A little Magic grease, water, and a brush allowed Momma and Mary's hair to morph from a feathery 'fro into lines of waves,
confined by one rubber band. My hair, no matter how much grease I applied, no matter how hard I brushed, remained brittle, coarse, and untamable. If I were able to muscle my nest into rubber bands, they'd often pop right off of my head before I left the house. Momma would straighten my hair from time to time, but when I slept, I'd sweat, and when I would sweat, I'd wake with the hair in the back of my head matted, tangled into knots that earned me the nickname “sheep-booty head.” Champ had initially coined this term, but before long, all of my siblings, even Momma, at times, called me this.

The Saturday before I entered eighth grade, Momma arranged for me and Champ to meet her at Woolworth, where she worked. Momma had made me an appointment to get my hair done at a professional salon downtown. I was grateful Momma had set aside money just for me, just to help me feel special as I entered high school. I felt anxiety all day, pacing around my bedroom, checking the clock every five minutes, so excited I couldn't do much before Champ and I started our three-mile trek to downtown Portsmouth. I couldn't clean the kitchen as I was supposed to, couldn't make up my bed, and the most important thing I couldn't do, or rather I didn't see a need to do, was comb my hair. I was more interested in making my way to the salon than staring in the mirror and making sense of the chaos that sat on my head. So, at two o'clock as Momma had instructed, Champ and I left Lincoln Park and began walking to Woolworth.

“If you going with your hair like that,” Champ smirked, “Momma gonna get you.”

“Shut up, Champ,” I responded, hoping he was wrong. I couldn't imagine Momma being angry with me, considering the fact I was going to her job because I needed my hair done. What better way to prove that than to walk there with the naked truth of my knotty hair waving along the way? I knew the front of my hair looked like feathers which sat on the head of a cockatiel, and the back was a matted concoction of hair, lint, and Dippity-Do gel I'd used to control flyaways, and all of my hair was flyaways, but I didn't care because I was going to get my hair done. I would be like those girls
in Lincoln Park who got their hair done every week, the same girls who wore EK glasses, Nike shoes, and Louis Vuitton pantsuits. I knew I'd never have all of the things they had, but getting my hair done on that Saturday afternoon was a start.

We walked through Prentis Park, eyeing homes with manicured lawns, flowerbeds, and cars sitting in driveways. We continued through Swanson Homes where we were met with brick structures all lining the street, sporting the same ambivalent stares that met those traveling to Lincoln Park. And we sojourned through Ida Barbour, the projects which Momma had always told us to walk quickly through and not to stop and talk to anybody because Ida Barbour was worse than Lincoln Park. Momma said drug dealers ran the whole project and no one, not even girls with bird's nests on their heads, were immune to the violence often covered on WAVY-TV news. Throughout our journey, Champ peered at my face, then my hair, and snickered. Sometimes under his breath, he mumbled, “sheep-booty head” and other times he loudly snarled, “Your head is knotty as hell.” Vaulting his long legs in tremendous strides, one in front of the other, he walked-ran from me and my hair. By the time we made it downtown Portsmouth, I was out of breath.

“Slow down, Champ,” I called to him. “Momma said you had to walk me to the job.”

Champ yelled back at me, “She said I have to walk you, not walk
with
you.”

I struggled to keep up with Champ. With sweat dripping down the back of my shirt and thighs pounding with each step I took, I was happy to see the Woolworth sign staring out at the street. Champ rushed inside. As the doors slid open, I saw Momma standing at the cashier's station looking out at me. I too rushed in, relishing the air-conditioned breeze as I hit the door. I beamed at Momma, allowing all the excitement surrounding my appointment to shine. Momma's smile, that beautiful smile that could quiet my most pervasive fears, disappeared. I was not close enough. I could not hear her words, but I could see her slowly close her eyes, cover her mouth, turn her head to Champ and mouth, “Get her out of here.”

Champ stomped past me, lines of perspiration running down his brow, sweat beads resting on the curve of his lips, “Momma said to get you out of here. Now we gotta sit in the sun on the freaking bench.” I followed without a word, wishing I could make my whole head disappear. I'd embarrassed Momma and that was a crime. I'd worn my hair, in all of its kinkiness, as if it were my own. How was I to know it belonged to Momma just as much as it belonged to me? Her face, her disbelief, and then her embarrassment were seared into my brain. My head itched as every follicle of hair seemed to multiply in weight on my head. If she had decided she didn't want me as a daughter anymore, I would have understood. I was so angry with myself, punching frogs into my thighs as I sat on the bench. The sun burned against my neck as I waited for Momma to clock out.
What was I thinking
, I asked myself over and over again, that I could walk into Momma's job, see her coworkers and those rich white women she waited on, with a stack of hay-like hair waiting to be raked off my head?

I counted the people that walked in and out of the sliding doors, waiting for Momma to be the one to walk out. Would she slap me for embarrassing her? Would she yell at me for leaving the house with my hair in such disarray? I braced myself for what was to come, resigned to the fact that I deserved whatever I got. Champ wouldn't even sit on the bench next to me, cussing under his breath about the heat and how my “sheep-booty head” made him sick. Normally, I would have hit Champ with a joke about his chunky nose, or his large thighs, which rubbed together whenever he walked, but I wasn't in any position to trade barbs. Arguing with Champ, I feared, would only make my sentence worse.

At 3:05, the Woolworth doors slid open. Momma walked out, pocketbook dangling from forearm, right hand on hip, hair bouncing with each step she took. I braced for a slap strong enough to straighten my tangled strands. I squinted, unsure of whether I was blinded by the sun scorching my neck or by the scorned look in Momma's eyes. I opened my mouth to apologize when Momma said, “Girl, why'd you come out here with your hair like
that?” She attempted to flatten the pile on top of my head. “You shouldn't have come to my job like this.”

My response was a simple, “Yes, ma'am.”

“You know what those people would think if they saw you like that?” I looked away, ashamed to have been myself, ashamed to have been a daughter.

“Champ, you can go home,” Momma nodded his way. “We gonna hook Laurie up.” She said this last part with a smile and lifted me by my arm from the bench. “Come on, girly. Let's get this head done.”

Momma and I walked down the street, arm in arm. She hugged me close to her, whispering in my ear, “You gonna look good, girl, when you walk into that school.”

“You think it's gonna be long, Momma?”

“Yeah, all of this,” she said as she palmed the knottiest part of my hair, “is gonna be long once it's all straightened out.”

“Will it look like Michael Jackson's?” I asked.

“Better,” she grinned.

I imagined my hair bouncing as Momma's did, curls bordering my face, like my own entourage. I imagined my new hair, my new self the entire walk to the salon. Momma still loved me, even though I believed I wasn't worthy of her love. Momma stopped me before we went into the salon, took my hand in her hand, and held my chin in the other one. I looked into her eyes as she poured her words into me.

“Laurie, I'm sorry I sent you out of the store, but I'm mostly sorry your hair looks like this. I should've straightened it, washed it up and made it look good before you went to bed last night. It's not your fault that it looks like it does.”

“It's okay, Momma,” I began, but again she stopped me.

“No it's not. I'm the momma and I'm supposed to take care of this stuff. You know I'm just working all of these hours at Family Dollar and Woolworth. I got your brothers and sister too, so it's hard sometimes. But I should help you take care of your hair. That's my job too and I gotta get better at it.”

I stared into Momma's face and saw parts of her I wasn't often able to see. She did work hard, leaving the house early in the morning, working late into the night. I didn't make things easier with my grown mouth and my unwillingness to help around the house as Momma often asked me to. What was worse was when I was being punished, cornered in my bedroom, glaring out at Momma in between a barrage of slaps, saying words she could not hear, screaming over and over in my mind, “I hate you,” and “I hope you die.”

My hair no longer, alone, felt heavy—every part of me seemed to have packed on pounds. In that moment, I could see Momma. I could see that she didn't always do what was right, but she never stopped trying. It was then I felt blessed to be a daughter.

Momma and I walked through the chiming doors of the beauty salon. The pungent smell of chemicals stung my nose, changing aroma with each step I took. In one direction, I smelled bleach, and in the other, ammonia, as the stench of perfumed shampoos and conditioners mingled between the two. Mirrors were plastered along the walls. A line of salon chairs sat facing the center of the shop. Hair dryers, with no one under them, hummed, emitting heat that instantly made my shirt stick to my back.

Posters of Grace Jones, Beverly Johnson, and Naomi Campbell hung sandwiched between mirrors. I imagined this was so customers could see themselves alongside unquestioned African beauty. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror: pale skin, arrow-shaped nose, buckteeth, and red, hay-like strands jutting in all directions as if the eastern, western, northern, and southern regions of my hair were warring for domain.

“Oh, Lord,” one of the stylists exclaimed as Momma and I made our way to a chair. I lowered my head in response. A Jheri Curl 'fro framed his face and he wore a gray T-shirt that had been cut into a V-neck. His top fit so tightly I tried to hide from his nipples, which were staring at me. I'd seen gay men before, specifically because my cousin Bruce Smith was gay, but Bruce wasn't the stylist's type of gay. Bruce had done everything to hide his sexual orientation from my machismo-filled family, often wearing jeans, large shirts,
and tennis shoes. This man, my stylist, was oozing femininity. His high voice, widened eyes, immaculate skin, the way he delicately held his fingers in the middle of his chest, and allowed the thumb of his free hand to rest in the belt loop of his jeans—he was more beautiful than any woman I'd ever seen.

“Girl, what is going on with your head?” I expected him to laugh, to order me out of his chair, but his question was actually a question. There was no waiting for the punch line or reaching for a joke. He seemed as if he really wanted to know what had happened to my hair. He paused for my response as if I would explain that a bomb had exploded on my head or that I'd been chased by a flock of crows that had plucked strands of hair from my scalp. Momma jumped in before I could say a word, “She had a bad perm and we're trying to get it healthy again.”

“Child, a bad perm is an understatement.” Again, I waited for a chuckle that never came. “Don't worry, Chick,” he said as he rubbed my shoulders, “Romero is gonna hook you up.” I stiffened under the weight of his hands. “You can relax, girly. We're gonna get this hair right. Jody, come on over here and see. Somebody did a number on her. And you're such a pretty girl. Ain't no reason for you to have to walk around here looking like that.” He talked fast, not leaving room for anyone to respond. Jody left the counter and came over to inspect the spectacle that was my hair. He tried to run his fingers through it and I flinched as his hand became tangled in my knots.

“Romero, this is work. You're gonna need my help.” Jody's voice was deeper than Romero's and he, in pressed slacks, a button down shirt, and penny loafers, looked handsome enough to date Momma. I liked his haircut, a mini afro with sideburns that linked with his goatee and mustache. His brown skin twinkled under the salon lights.