Brown Girl Dreaming (8 page)

Maybe it’s another New York City

the southerners talk about. Maybe that’s where

there is money falling from the sky,

diamonds speckling

the sidewalks.

Here there is only gray rock, cold

and treeless as a bad dream. Who could love

this place—where no pine trees grow,

no porch swing moves

with the weight of

your grandmother.

This place is a Greyhound bus

humming through the night then letting out

a deep breath inside a place

called Port Authority. This place is a driver yelling,

New York City, last stop.

Everybody off.

This place is loud and strange

and nowhere I’m ever going to call

home.

We did not stay in the small apartment

my mother found on Bristol Street,

Brownsville, Brooklyn, USA.

We did not stay because the dim bulb that hung

from a chain swung back and forth

when our upstairs neighbors walked

across their floor, casting shadows

that made my brother cry

and suck hard on his middle fingers.

We did not stay because the building was big and old

and when the bathroom ceiling fell

into the bathtub, my mother said,

I am not Henny Penny and that is not the sky!

So she called Aunt Kay and her boyfriend, Bernie,

they borrowed a truck and helped us pack,

bundled us up in winter coats

turned off that swinging light

and got us out of there!

So we moved to Herzl Street

where Aunt Kay and Bernie lived upstairs.

And Peaches from Greenville lived below us.

And on Saturday nights more people

from Greenville came by

sitting and running their mouths

while the pots on the stove bubbled

with collards and sizzled with chicken

and corn bread baked up brown

inside Kay’s big black oven.

And the people from Greenville

brought people from Spartanburg

and Charleston

and all of them talked

like our grandparents talked

and ate what we ate

so they were red dirt and pine trees

they were fireflies in jelly jars

and lemon-chiffon ice cream cones.

They were laughter on hot city nights

hot milk on cold city mornings,

good food and good times

fancy dancing and soul music.

They were family.

Some days we miss

the way the red dirt lifted up and landed

against our bare feet. Here

the sidewalks burn hot all summer long.

Here we wear shoes. Broken bottles

don’t always get swept up right away.

But our block has three johnny pumps

and a guy with a wrench

to turn them on. On the days when the heat

stops your breath, he comes up the block

pulling it out of his pocket. Then the johnny pump

is blasting cool water everywhere

and us and other kids running through it,

refreshed and laughing.

Even the grown-ups come out sometimes.

Once, I saw my

never-ever-barefoot-outside-in-the-city mother

take off her sandals,

stand at the curb

and let the cool water run over her feet.

She was looking up at the tiny piece of sky.

And she was smiling.

My mother has a gap between

her two front teeth. So does Daddy Gunnar.

Each child in this family has the same space

connecting us.

Our baby brother, Roman, was born pale as dust.

His soft brown curls and eyelashes stop

people on the street.

Whose angel child is this?
they want to know.

When I say,
My brother,
the people

wear doubt

thick as a cape

until we smile

and the cape falls.

Aunt Kay at the top of the stairs, her arms open,

her smile wide

and us running to her.

Aunt Kay dressed up on a Friday night

smelling of perfume,

her boyfriend, Bernie, her friend Peaches.

Aunt Kay in the kitchen with Peaches and Bernie

passing a blue-and-white box of Argo starch

back and forth, the hard white chunks of it,

disappearing into their mouths like candy,

the slow chew and swallow.

Aunt Kay and Mama and Peaches, in tight skirts

singing in a band.

Aunt Kay braiding my hair.

Aunt Kay running up the stairs to her own apartment

and me running behind her.

Aunt Kay laughing.

Aunt Kay hugging me.

Then a fall.

A crowd.

An ambulance.

My mother’s tears.

A funeral.

And here, my Aunt Kay memories end.

After the falling

the stairs were all wrong to us.

Some days I head up there,
my mother said,

forgetting that Kay is gone.

After the falling

Bernie and Peaches

packed their bags, moved out

to Far Rockaway, telling my mother

how much Kay loved the ocean.

After the falling

we took the A train

to their new apartment, played on the beach

till the sun went down, Mama quiet on a blanket

looking out at the water.

Kay was her big sister, only ten months older.

Everyone always thought they were twins

so that’s what they said they were.

Couldn’t look at one of us,
my mother said,

without seeing the other.

After the falling

the hallway smelled

like Kay’s perfume

whenever it rained

so we moved again

to the second floor of a pink house

on Madison Street.

Out front there was a five-foot sculpture

made from gray rock,

ivory and sand. A small fountain sent water

cascading over statues

of Mary, Joseph and Jesus.

People stopped in front of the house,

crossed themselves, mouthed a silent prayer

then moved on.

This house is protected,
the landlord told my mother.

The saints keep us safe.

This house is protected,
my mother whispered to us.

By the Saint of Ugly Sculpture.

After the falling

sometimes I would see my mother

smiling at that sculpture. And in her smile,

there was Aunt Kay’s smile, the two of them

having a secret sister laugh, the two of them

together again.

And somehow, one day, it’s just there

speckled black-and-white, the paper

inside smelling like something I could fall right into,

live there—inside those clean white pages.

I don’t know how my first composition notebook

ended up in my hands, long before I could really write

someone must have known that this

was all I needed.

Hard not to smile as I held it, felt the breeze

as I fanned the pages.

My sister thought my standing there

smiling was crazy

didn’t understand how the smell and feel and sight

of bright white paper

could bring me so much joy.

And why does she need a notebook? She can’t even write!

For days and days, I could only sniff the pages,

hold the notebook close

listen to the sound the papers made.

Nothing in the world is like this—

a bright white page with

pale blue lines. The smell of a newly sharpened pencil

the soft hush of it

moving finally

one day

into letters.

And even though she’s smarter than anything,

this is something

my sister can’t even begin

to understand.

The first time I write my full name

Jacqueline Amanda Woodson

without anybody’s help

on a clean white page in my composition notebook,
I know

if I wanted to

I could write anything.

Letters becoming words, words gathering meaning, becoming

thoughts outside my head

becoming sentences

written by

Jacqueline Amanda Woodson

Some days in this new place

there is only a box of pancake mix

an egg, and faucet water, the hiss

of those together

against a black cast-iron pan,

the pancakes sticking to it

syrupless but edible and us

complaining about it wishing like anything

we were back in Greenville,

where there was always something good

to eat. We remember

the collards growing

down south, the melons, fresh picked

and dripping with a sweetness New York

can never know.

We eat without complaining

or whining or asking our mother when there will be

syrup, butter, milk . . .

We remember Greenville

without her, count our blessings in silence

and chew.

My hand inside my sister’s hand,

we walk the two blocks to P.S. 106—

I am six years old and

my sister tells me our school was once a castle.

I believe her. The school stretches for a full city block.

Inside

marble stairs wind their way to classrooms filled

with dark wood desks

nailed down to dark wood floors polished to a high

and beautiful shine.

I am in love with everything around me,

the dotted white lines moving

across my teacher’s blackboard, the smell of chalk,

the flag jutting out from the wall and slowly swaying

above me.

There is nothing more beautiful than P.S. 106.

Nothing more perfect than my first-grade classroom.

No one more kind than Ms. Feidler, who meets me

at the door each morning,

takes my hand from my sister’s, smiles down and says,

Now that Jacqueline is here, the day can finally begin.

And I believe her.

Yes, I truly believe her.

Because my grandmother calls and asks

if we’re spreading Jehovah’s word,

because my mother promises my grandmother

she’ll raise us right in the eyes of God,

she finds a Kingdom Hall on Bushwick Avenue

so we can keep our Jehovah’s Witness ways.

Every Sunday, we put on our Kingdom Hall clothes

pull out our Kingdom Hall satchels,

filled with our Kingdom Hall books

and walk the seven blocks

to the Kingdom Hall.

This is what reminds us of Greenville,

the Saturday-night pressing of satin ribbons,

Hope struggling with the knot in his tie,

our hair oiled and pulled back into braids,

our mother’s hands less sure

than our grandmother’s, the parts crooked, the braids

coming undone. And now, Dell and I

are left to iron our own dresses.

My hands,

my mother says,

as she stands at the sink, holding a crying Roman

with one hand,

her other holding a bottle of milk

under hot running water,

are full.

My mother drops us off at the Kingdom Hall door,

watches us walk

down the aisle to where Brothers and Sisters

are waiting

to help us turn the pages of our Bibles,

lean over to share their songbooks with us,

press Life Savers into our waiting hands . . .

Then our mother is gone, back home

or to a park bench,

where she’ll sit and read until the meeting is over.

She has a full-time job now. Sunday, she says,

is her day of rest.

When the kids in my class ask why

I am not allowed to pledge to the flag

I tell them
It’s against my religion
but don’t say,

I am in the world but not of the world.
This,

they would not understand.

Even though my mother’s not a Jehovah’s Witness,

she makes us follow their rules and

leave the classroom when the pledge is being said.

Every morning, I walk out with Gina and Alina

the two other Witnesses in my class.

Sometimes, Gina says,

Maybe we should pray for the kids inside

who don’t know that God said

“No other idols before me.” That our God

is a jealous God.

Gina is the true believer. Her Bible open

during reading time. But Alina and I walk through

our roles as Witnesses as though this is the part

we’ve been given in a play

and once offstage, we run free, sing

“America the Beautiful” and “The Star-Spangled Banner”

far away from our families—knowing every word.

Alina and I want

more than anything to walk back into our classroom

press our hands against our hearts. Say,

“I pledge allegiance . . .”
loud

without our jealous God looking down on us.

Without our parents finding out.

Without our mothers’ voices

in our heads saying,
You are different.

Chosen.

Good.

When the pledge is over, we walk single file

back into the classroom, take our separate seats

Alina and I far away from Gina. But Gina

always looks back at us—as if to say,

I’m watching you.
As if to say,

I know.