Street Love (3 page)

Melissa wants spaghetti

Miss Ruby wants chicken

But won’t remember what she asked for

We have some beef left over and enough

On the card for onions, cheese, and rolls,

I’ll make sandwiches

And not think of Damien

Who is he? High horsing into my life

And me teetering on the rim of the

Volcano, choking on its fumes

He strews his path with prose

And expects me to skip from verb to noun

Making garlands of his wit

How dare he hi-yo-Silver me when I am so

Needy, my palms turned up in begging

Lágrimas de luna por favor

The onions are perfect. Melissa

Will want to keep one on the kitchen

Table. A nine-year-old romantic

Wanting to be an Old Master

What can Damien want of me?

Once he smells the sulfur pouring

From my life he will run

When he reaches for my hands

And finds them wringing in hopelessness

He will shrink away. What does he know

Of my lips, twisted in cursing and defiance

What does he know of my body

Bent double with the weight of my days?

Won’t he cringe and move away? Isn’t that what

Men do to girls like me?

Cheese wrapped in plastic, colorless Wicca cheese

But good enough on leftover beef with

Fried onions and Goya sauce

Thinking he is a man, he invites me

To coffee. Thinking he is a moment away from the

Rage I have become, I will go

Too soon, or reach too greedily into

Promises neither of us can fulfill

Rolls, I must have rolls

The soft kind that Miss Ruby can manage

Damien appears sweet, as boys go, and offers

An untested heart. He needs a girl

Who thinks of love as June pleasant days

Or shopping

With nothing lost that cannot be replaced

But I am not that girl. I am Street

My needs are fierce. I am hungry

And my teeth are sharp. Where will he

Find the strength to hold me?

What can he bring to the vacant lot

Of my horizons

And whatever he brings

Will it be street enough to keep us safe

Against the storm?

Could it even withstand the voltage of

His mother’s shock?

I was in the living room

Everyone thought my red dress

The one with the neat silk stitches

Was blue and Miss Ruby touched it

With her long fingers and sharp nails

And said I shouldn’t wear locs because my hair

Wasn’t strong enough to wear them

But I wasn’t wearing locs, my hair was up

The way Junice had put it and so I put my

Head against her chest and

Listened to her heart

Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Ka-thump! And I wasn’t as scared

Anymore and then some other people were walking

Around the room, only now the brown and purple

Rug was a wooden floor that sounded shlud-shlud

As people walked and everyone said not to mind

Because I looked so pretty in my blue-green dress

Only Junice knew I was wearing a red dress

Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Ka-thump!
Again and again and again

Damien is different, a tender

Boy with a heart too forgiving for its own dear sake

Uneasy with the higher way that for him

Is as natural as rain in spring

Not that he pretends to royalty or

Misunderstands his birth although that

Birth should not be denied, my side at least

Has made its mark in three eastern cities

And has been in Who’s Who several times

Not that any of that matters because

It is my son’s bright future that concerns

Me. I don’t want it lost in the slanting

Chasm of this busy concrete forest

With its neon snares and jazzy traps

No, my son has a greater role to

Play than is offered on this

Meager stage.

Junice favors me. Something about the mouth

The way she stands to her full height

The arch of her back. The length of those brown

Thighs that men capture in their minds long

Before they glimpse the reality of her womanhood

But she is naïve. Wearing her childhood around

Her neck like a laurel. At her age I had already lost

One child and she was on the way. Some would say

She’s spoiled but I know she just hasn’t

Found the fight in her as yet. We are scufflers

We in the Ambers clan.

We don’t let each other down. She

Will fight by my side as I fought at Miss

Ruby’s side. She knows what family means

And it’s that meaning that concerns me.

No, there is more to her than

These walls, these cells, can stand against.

It is not the petty hustlers

Who worry me. He’ll handle them

It’s the unsuspected ones. Bright

And so clever in their come-ons

That he will think that he is the hunter

Not the hunted. Easy money

And easier pleasures waiting

For him to taste, to be enticed

By a pretty face, a quick and

Breathless conquest. He’ll think it’s love.

I know better

It’s not the glaring mornings

That worry me. She’ll handle them

It’s the quiet nights alone, nights

In which she thinks that she is cold

Even as the radiator hiss

Fills the room or the August heat

Makes her sweat drip in the darkness

The nights will make her show herself

In moonlight as the hunter finds

Her in his sights. She’ll think it’s love.

I know there is no such thing.

I will not let him fall

In lust with some low child

With legs that run then fall

Apart as if surprised

Upon my solemn oath

As long as life is in

My bosom I will hold

Damien safe. I will!

Uh-uh, she won’t fall

Not my Junice—or turn her back

On me when I am stuck

Inside these walls

Miss Ruby’s mind is nearly gone

I got no one but my baby girl

Our destinies will go hand in hand

As long as there’s breath in me

When I was Damien’s age I was hard

Not that the boy should be as rough as me

But I wish we could talk a little more

He could tell me of his dreams and what part

I might play in them, if I have a part

What with his mother hovering over

Him like a protective vulture. Too harsh—

She means him well, I know she means me well

But still, I sometimes wish he would find time

To talk a little more. That would be good.

I heard that Leslie got herself busted

For selling drugs—some heavyweight

Action somewhere upstate. Well, she was

Always sly and fly, chasing that big paper

Hey, that big paper brings some big time

You don’t want the time—don’t do the crime

That’s the way the story goes

You got to check out where you strolling

You can’t tell people how to live their lives.

Junice? Was that her girl’s name?

How old is she? Ten? Eleven? She probably

Hanging with Leslie’s mama.

Now that was a woman who could

Drink some gin. I tell you,

She could drink some gin.

I have to open my sister’s mouth

And fill it with thoughts as hard

As stones so she can practice her lines

She needs to speak clearly

As she lies.

“Melissa,” I will say

“Miss Ruby will run the house

She’ll make fried chicken and okra

Hamburger and broccoli

And when her mental hat flies

Off down some weird and wondrous

Street she will not chase it

Will not ramble as she talks

Or twist fragments of the past

Into a hopeless stew of

Neverwasness. Miss Ruby will

Be our Strength and Center around which

We will build Family

Are you listening, Melissa?

Will you tell them how sure we are

Of our grandmother? Can you understand

That we sell the Shadow to support

The Substance of Miss Ruby?

And dear Melissa, you have to say it all with

Happiness in your voice. You must smile

Sweetly. It is always Miss Ruby

With a tilt of the head, and Mama

With love in your voice and—”

She left!

—Call her Mama!

She left, that’s all to say

—One day we’ll be with her again.

She left!

One day

If we hold on

Hold ourselves together

We’ll find some way to bring her home Again

Never

She walked away

To live in her own world

Junice, I hate her! She left us!

She did!

I know

Baby, I know

We have the same ragged

Steel tearing at our guts, ripping Our lives

I know

Oh look

Into my eyes

There’s fear, but there’s fight, too

We can be more than we should be

We two

Just you and me

Melissa and Junice

Two strong Black women against all

That’s wrong

Junice

I’m filled with scared

My stomach aches with sad

I believe in you, my Junice

I’ll try

I have a job to do, a thing, a chore

To look into, investigate, to know

What is happening, what’s the score

What makes this family tick, what makes them go

And if there is a danger, then it must be seen

Put aside, taken care of, duly filed

With each detail revealed, all secrets seen

With the clear aim that what is intended

Is not some vague desire, no “if I could”

No debate, pointless and open-ended,

But that clear truth we call “the greater good.”

There is no room for maybes when babies

Are involved and they are so young, these two

To be brought into family court

The younger girl crying, the older glares

But I only write the Final Report

I am not the cause of their despair

What they don’t understand

Is that the precise list of regulations

Properly numbered and indented

Is family. They still long for blood and

Flesh although blood and flesh has failed

Them. The mother, Leslie, is my age.

The report says that she has a tattoo on

The side of her neck that says “Kitty.”

I could never imagine myself with a

Tattoo, or selling drugs, or having

Children without a father at least listed

As Divorced.

At sentencing she pleaded that her

Children needed her, would be desperate

Without her. The judge asked her

Where were her children when she was

Out selling drugs? She had no answer.

Now she has given her family to the

State.

The girl is sixteen, and much like the mother

Her hair uncombed, her face looking older

Than it should, her eyes darting back and

Forth as she talks. She is a thinker,

But what does she think? Her mother

Is the kind who doesn’t think, who pushes

Her way through a crowd of days

As if she were in a hurry to get somewhere

And yet turns at every obstacle to start in

A new direction.

My report will be straightforward, to the point.

Should the state intervene, wrap its arms

Around the girl and the sister? The sister

Is almost ten, and shy. I almost caught myself

Reaching out to her. Almost felt myself being

Stirred by her youth, the eyes that looked

Through me as if they could see

The cool marrow of my being.

Once she smiled for no clear

Reason and I felt that she had seen

The little girl in me that once was as

Pretty and hopeful as she is now.

And when she smiled I smiled back

But then…but then I knew I must

Move on and find that

Greater good.

The Final Report will depend on the

Grandmother. Can she care for these

Children? There is already a file on

Her, it is thick with yellowed papers

And the accumulation of forty years

Of dampness. Her Report, 1076-A,

Individual Court Record lists her

As Stokes, Ruby, aka Ambers, Ruby—

Black, two felony convictions.

Assaults, one with a knife, one with a

Bat against a man.

What kind of life

Is defined by felonies, by street

Fights? What can she give these

Girls? What can she contribute

To the greater good?