P.S. Be Eleven (17 page)

Rukia asked Mr. Mwila if our group could have more time. She had five written pages of information and she wanted to use them all. He commended her on her thoroughness, but said the idea of presenting a subject is the ability to focus. “Pick out your strongest points and use your allotted time to present them. Two minutes for each speaker, and no more.”

Danny the K said they were ready to blow us to smithereens.

Ellis asked if we wanted to go first, but I did one of his numbers. I shrugged.

“You're pro woman president,” he said.

“So,” I said.

“So . . . you know.” He could barely look me in the face. “It's
pro
and con. So you should go first.”

I shrugged again.

“Yeah,” Rukia said. “You do the first argument. Then Danny goes next. Then me and then Ellis.” Her eyes lit up and she said, “Then we ask the class to vote by show of hands. Should a woman run for president or not?”

“Hey, that's good,” I said, thoroughly surprised.

Ellis nodded and said, “Okay.”

“We already know who's going to win,” Danny bragged. “It's in the bag.”

I went first. Two minutes seemed to go on forever, but I had my points ready. I had practiced. I knew each point by heart, although I kept my paper in front of me. And before I knew it, I was saying my conclusion, and Danny had begun his argument on why women could not make important decisions about war or about the prices of oil and gas. Then he said in his conclusion that women were better cooking with oil and passing gas. Mr. Mwila had to give one hard hand clap and shout, “Decorum, class three,” to settle things down. Rukia spoke jackrabbit fast to jam in as many women leaders in her two minutes as she could. She ended by saying that we'd already had a woman president during World War II. That Eleanor Roosevelt ran the country when her husband, the president, was sick. Then Ellis gave his reasons why men were made
to be leaders and women were not. He almost sounded like Pa.

Mr. Mwila congratulated us on our presentations. He said we all did a fine job presenting our subject and making our arguments. Then we voted.

All the girls said women should run for president if they wanted to. But all the boys raised their hands to vote “No.” Then Michael S. gave Lucy one of those Michael S. looks, and Lucy changed her vote. The boys won.

Before Danny the K could say something clowny, Mr. Mwila wagged his finger and said, “Upperclassmen, be gracious.” Then he turned to me. “An excellent presentation, Miss Gaither.” He smiled warmly and added, “Well done, Miss Marshall.”

When we returned to our seats, Ellis smiled a little and said, “Sorry, you . . . sorry.”

On Tuesday night, Big Ma finally had something to cheer about. She got the president that she prayed for. Pa wasn't too pleased that his candidate, Hubert Humphrey, had lost the election. He said no black person in the US should have voted for “Tricky Dick Nixon.” Big Ma said she wasn't black. She was colored. Then Vonetta said, “And Negro on Sunday.” And Fern said, “A Sunday Negro. Surely is.” Uncle Darnell said he hoped someone good would run in the next election when he was old enough to vote.

Mrs. was down at the Shirley Chisholm campaign
headquarters celebrating her candidate's win. Big Ma couldn't believe the people in New York voted Shirley Chisholm in as their congressman. She said, “Where's your wife, son? Out there politicking and not taking care of her husband. That Shirley Chisholm already breaking up homes.”

Pa paid Big Ma no mind. He and I stayed glued to the local news, hoping to spot Mrs. at the campaign headquarters reveling in the victory. Much to my surprise there were hundreds of people cheering on our new congressman, when I thought it would be just a handful of people.

Or was that
congresswoman
like
upperclasswoman
?

Pa tried to be nice about it. He said, “It's good to have a black person representing the people.”

Big Ma said, “She black, all right.” And I knew how Big Ma meant what she said, and that it wasn't nice or Christian-like. My sisters and I were about the same color as our new congressman. Woman.

I knew it was a good thing. An incredible thing. But I wasn't sure if her victory made a dent. Was it real power, like the Black Panthers mean power, or was it just a taste of power? Like Vonetta being the saver. Vonetta was doing a good job, but it didn't mean everything had changed. She washed dishes and tried to scrub the bathtub, but I still had to get after her to hang up her school clothes instead of throwing them on the floor.

Saturday night, just before Vonetta and Fern jumped into a tub full of Mr. Bubble, Big Ma hollered, “Get your clothes ready for church. I don't want to hear no chicken feet scrambling in the morning.”

She meant that she didn't want to hear Vonetta and Fern tearing up order to find slips, socks, barrettes, and gloves. I used to put everything on hangers for them to make my life easier on Sunday mornings, but not anymore. If Vonetta and Fern could do chores, they could put their clothes together for Sunday. I still ironed their cotton slips and their dresses but they had to hang their clothes and polish their own shoes, and that was always a mess.

Pa and Mrs. watched Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell try to stop each other from scoring baskets. Mrs. seemed to like basketball and knew what a foul was. Wilt the Stilt had put one over on old Bill Russell when she turned to Pa and said, “Sweetie, we're going to church too, aren't we?”

Pa never talked during a basketball game. He just watched. He stared straight ahead and said, “Hmhm.”

“Good!” she said, giving him a smack on the cheek. He paid her no mind, but she kept on talking. “It's been a while since I've gone to church, so why not?”

On that one, Big Ma, not at all surprised, went, “Umhmm.”

Mrs. didn't care that Pa was glued to the Lakers and the Celtics game or that Big Ma was just a step from calling her a backslider and a heathen. She got up and went charging into her and Pa's bedroom the way Vonetta and Fern ran through the house, and came back to the living room flag-waving a green suit with a wide collar before Big Ma. “What do you think?”

I always thought she and Pa were around the same age but now she looked younger than my father. Much younger.

Big Ma said, “That's a smart number, all right. I'm sure you'll look nice in it, small as you are.”

Mrs. was not one to shrink from a compliment. “You got that right!” she hollered.

Big Ma said, “All you need is a hat.”

Mrs. said, “A hat doesn't go with this hair.” She shaped her hands like a globe around her Afro. She was right. No hat would fit over that big, curly Afro.

“You're a married woman, Marva,” Big Ma said. “A married woman wouldn't step foot in church on a Sunday without a hat.”

“This one will,” Mrs. said. She wasn't being mean. Just stating a fact.

Then Pa unstuck himself from Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell to say, “Marva. You'll put a hat on your head. Ma, get her one of yours.” He said it minus the “honey.” Then Mrs. started to say something, but Pa cut her to the quick and added, “Or we're not going.” And that was that.

Big Ma was happy that night.

Come Sunday morning, Mrs. was dressed and ready for church, with a pinned-on hat, a shiny black purse, and black gloves that crawled past her wrists. Pa didn't want to go.

“A man works,” Pa said, fixing his tie. “He need to rest.”

Mrs. fixed her mouth to say some “sweetie” thing but Big Ma was louder, and this time, faster.

“God worked and rested,” Big Ma told Pa. “The least you could do is praise Him on His day.”

That was all Vonetta and Fern needed to get the morning praise going.

Pa was already in his suit. He just wanted to voice himself.

It seemed funny how things had gotten turned around. Before, Pa stayed home and Uncle Darnell went to church with us in his black suit and kept a pair of white gloves folded in his pocket. He ushered along with John-Isaac, the only Banks member of Friendship Baptist. Frieda and Mrs. Banks went to temple on Saturday, and Mr. Banks didn't attend a service of any kind.

Uncle Darnell was asleep in his bed with a cold. He had only gone to church the first Sunday that he was home from Vietnam.

When we got to church, I saw John-Isaac right away, looking all revolutionary in his black suit and beret. Even though Uncle D was back in the US, I knew John-Isaac missed him the same way we did. John-Isaac probably hoped Uncle was back to being his old self, wearing his white gloves and ushering and flirting with girls. When our eyes caught, John-Isaac flashed me a power sign and I returned it quickly before Big Ma could see. The head usher said something to John-Isaac and the beret came off and was tucked inside his jacket.

Big Ma knew what she was talking about, as far as hat-wearing was concerned. Plenty of eyes were on Pa's new wife, and I was sure that Mrs. appreciated Big Ma telling
her how to dress. Our church was filled with unmarried women who had placed home-baked casseroles, bread puddings, and cakes in Big Ma's arms so Pa would know they were good cooks and available for marriage.

After the service, Pa went up to the pastor to introduce his wife, and Big Ma was all smiles. Big Ma's smile soon flattened when the pastor said—his face still glazed in a smile—“You know you're not really married unless you're married in the house of the Lord.” He said that with enough church ladies within earshot. Big Ma was fit to be tied, but she held it in.

Pa spoke up in his warm, smooth way. “Reverend,” he said, “State of New York said she's Mrs. Louis Gaither. I'm sure the Lord will come around.”

The pastor smiled and patted my father on the back and said, “Good man. Good man.”

Usually after service we went down to the basement and had cake, fried or baked chicken, and string beans. Then we went to the noon service. This Sunday, Pa said, “We'll see you back at the house, Ma,” and he told us to get a move on, and we were walking down Herkimer Street headed back to our house. Us three girls, Mrs., and Pa.

One service wasn't enough for Big Ma. She would be at Friendship Baptist until six.

I hoped Pa would treat us all to a late breakfast at the diner, but we went straight home. Pa swatted Mrs. on the
backside and said, “Get in that kitchen and show us what you can do.”

Mrs., who was what Big Ma called a “now generation” woman, didn't put up a protest. She even laughed and took Big Ma's little black hat off her smushed Afro. She'd used a lot of hairpins to make the hat stay on.

“Scrambled eggs and bacon coming up!” she said.

We couldn't wait to get out of our Sunday clothes. “Hang 'em up!” I called to my sisters.

I doubted Mrs. could cook like Big Ma, but I knew she could scramble some eggs and fry bacon without burning them. Even if her cooking wasn't any good, I was hungry and would eat every scrap.

Then I heard screaming coming from Vonetta and Fern's bedroom. I ran. Pa and Mrs. followed.

Vonetta was on the bed hollering, “It's all gone! It's all gone!” at the top of her lungs like she hollered in her crib when she was a baby. The mummy jar had been unscrewed, the tape stripped off, the crayoned picture of the Jackson Five torn. A few pennies and dimes were on the floor, but the quarters, the nickels, the five-dollar bill, and all of the single dollars were gone.

Vonetta and Fern were joined in a crying, sobbing heap.

“The money. The concert money,” Vonetta choked it out. “It's gone.”

Their room seemed small and tight around us. Pa looked at Mrs. and said, “Darnell.”

I said, “Uncle Darnell wouldn't take it. He wouldn't.”

Pa said, “Hush, Delphine. You don't know nothing about this.”

Mrs. went to Vonetta and wrapped her arms around her. Fern ran into me and threw her arms around me tightly. I could feel her rib cage heaving in and out.

“You don't know how sick your uncle is,” Pa said. “You don't know nothing about this kind of sick. It's not for children to know.”

That was when I knew. I knew what Pa was saying. I'd never seen it before to know for sure, but it slowly formed a picture in my mind. My uncle wasn't a ghost rattling around the house. My uncle was on drugs.

“Don't worry, girls,” Mrs. said. “I'll replace the money you raised.”

Upon hearing that, Vonetta began to dry her eyes with her shirtsleeve and Fern shouted, “Yay!” Then Pa said, “No, Marva honey. You can't do that,” and my sisters wailed, “Papa! Papa!” and “Yes, she can,” and “Surely can, Papa. Surely can.” I would have wailed along with them, but I knew Pa's mind was set. Once set, Pa didn't bend.

“Hush.” He spoke firmly. My sisters and I heard the promise of a whipping behind that kind of hush. Vonetta's and Fern's wailing simmered to whimpering.

“But, sweetie,” Mrs. said, “they worked so hard. They held up their end.”

Pa told her, “I don't expect you to understand, but these are my girls and I'm raising them right.”