For the Love of Money (37 page)

She was right on point. I asked her, “Are you a poet too?” I didn't put it past her.

She smiled and shook her head, “No, but I know the inspiration.
All
artists have it. They have a way of taking regular everyday things and shedding light on them with their deep introspection.”

I nodded, thinking,
Damn! This white girl is just too cool.

I said, “So you think that I'm an artist?”

She grinned at me. “Of course you are. You have the words
passionate artist
written all over you. It's in your veins. I know enough gifted people to be able to tell.”

I'm sure you do,
I thought to myself, referring again to her family ties. Although I didn't want to use Susan to make my way in Hollywood, I still figured that we could kick it because we clicked. So we hung out for the rest of the night until close to three o'clock in the morning.

My drummers would beat
an urgent rhythm
on golden paved streets,
while big voices
attached to little feet
yell out, “SHE'S COMING!”
The strong
armed, brown men keep drumming.

As I approach, the drums grow
louder, deafening
with blaring horns.
BA-DURRNN!
BA-DURRNN!
For miles they hear
my clearing path, while
my pounding drums pop ears.

They fear me,
the fabulous, BLACK
and pretty, inner-city
'hood girl, with
ambitions and visions
to rule the world, while
my drummers keep drumming
in loincloths and sweat.

I announce myself
to the masses,
“HEAR ME!”
and my voice echoes
in the distance,
bringing silence
as I continue, “WHO HERE
OPPOSES MY RULE?”

And the silence
was infinite!

Copyright © 1989 by Tracy Ellison

W
hen I was ready to leave Raheema's beautiful family on Sunday afternoon, they all lined up outside to see me off, Ernest, Raheema, Jordan, and Lauryn, and I hugged each one of them.

Ernest said, “Whenever you want to wind down with a good family, Tracy, you call on us and we'll receive you with open arms.”

I smiled, and I knew that they all meant it. My girl Raheema had done real well. I hated to leave, but that was her life, and I had to go back to my own.

“Call me when you get in,” Raheema told me.

“Call
me
too,”Jordan piped with a chuckle.

I laughed myself and told them that I would.

On my way home from Plainfield, I began to think about family and what it meant to me. I wasn't planning on grabbing onto the first man who presented himself to me, but I figured there was another way for me to stay rooted to family and loved ones.

I made it back to my parents' house and immediately called up my little cousin Vanessa with a plan.

“Vanessa, it's Tracy,” I said, recognizing her voice.

She got excited and said, “Hi.”

“I have a big idea for you,” I told her.

She hesitated. I guess she figured I had more big-girl advice for her, but I didn't. Or at least not at
that
moment.

She asked me, “What big idea?”

I said, “How would you like to spend the summer out in California with me?”

“Oh, yeah, I'll do that!”

“First I have to talk to your mother though.”

She calmed way down and said, “Oh.”

“Why'd you say it like that?” I asked her.

“You'll see. She already says that I think I'm special.”

“You
are
special,” I told her.

“Well, tell
her
that. She's not home right now though.”

“When will she be back in?”

“Any minute. She only went to the grocery store around the corner, and she could
use
the exercise too.”

I chuckled and stopped myself. “Don't talk about your mother like that, Vanessa, that's not right.”

“She doesn't do anything that's right. She's always hollering at somebody, as if
she's
all perfect.”

I didn't get along with my mother as a teenager myself, but I was still made to show respect. I told Vanessa about my problems coming up, and how it was all behind me now. My mother and I had a solid relationship as two respecting adults, and that's what Vanessa needed to think about.

“So, you didn't hang out with my mother at all?” she asked me.

“Nope,” I told her. “Patricia was four years older than me, she lived in North Philly, and we hung with totally different crowds, but I heard about when she got pregnant with you though.”

“Was she in trouble with my Grandmom Marsha?”

I thought back and said, “Shit, girl,
everybody
was in trouble with Aunt Marsha. She hated
my
mom.”

Vanessa laughed and said, “I know. She's still mean like that 'til this day.” She sighed and said, “Sometimes I just feel like I was born into the wrong side of the family. Grandmom says that I remind her a lot of
your
mother.”

“I can see that. All that red bone,” I told her. “God gave
me
a little bit of honey in my tone.” I stopped myself and said, “Damn, that sounds like a good line for a poem. Let me write that down.”

Vanessa broke up laughing and said, “You got a poem for everything.”

I asked her, “What did you think about my movie
Led Astray
?” I had never bothered to ask for her opinion on it.

“I thought it was deep. She was very cunning, the way she set everybody up like that.”

I laughed and said, “I know. Thanks. So if your grades are still good, I'll reward you with a trip to California every summer.”

“If my
grades
are still good?” She sounded offended. “That's easy.”

“Let me see you prove it to me in June. Then I can try and get you in UCLA.”

“For real?! UCLA?!”

“For real,” I told her.

“All right then.”

“Vanessa!” someone shouted in the background. “Why are you always on that damn telephone? I
swear
I don't know how you get good grades, because you're always running your damn mouth on that
phone
!”

“That's your mother?” I asked Vanessa with a grin.

“Mmm hmm,” she mumbled. She whispered, “You see what I mean?”

I figured that if Vanessa didn't get a chance to express herself, she could very well be a problem soon, especially with her introverted ways. A hyper-active mother pressing her all of the time didn't make matters any better. Mercedes and Raheema went through hell with that with their father. However, on the flip side,
I
took my mother through hell.

I said, “Let me talk to her,” referring to my first cousin.

“Mom, the phone is for you,” Vanessa told her mother.

“Who is it?!”

“It's your cousin Tracy.”

“... Oh.” Patricia came to the phone and said, “How are you doing, Tracy?”

“I'm doing fine. How are you doing?”

“I'm doing what I'm doing,” she told me.

I didn't get into that. I said, “Well, I was wondering if I could give Vanessa a gift for getting good grades all these years.”

“A gift? A gift like what?”

“A summer in California.”

There was a long pause. Patricia said, “I don't think it's good for her to separate from her little sisters like that. They may think that she's getting special treatment.”

“Well, she
is
the oldest.”

“And she
thinks
that she's the
cutest
too,” my cousin snapped. “No, I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Mom—”

“I'm
talking,
Vanessa!”

I didn't know what else to say, but I had to say
something
because I had gotten Vanessa's hopes all up.
Shit, I should have asked Patricia about this
first! I told myself.
What the hell was I thinking?

I said, “I was thinking about trying to get her into school out here at UCLA.”

“Temple is good enough for her. That way she can help me out around
the house with her younger sisters,” Patricia countered. “Temple's a good school. Your brother goes there.”

I said, “Well, maybe she wants to do something for herself.” As soon as those words slipped out of my big mouth, I knew that it was a mistake.

“You know what, Tracy?” Patricia started, “I didn't ask you for your fuckin' money. I didn't ask you for your fuckin' time. I didn't ask you for your advice, and I
damn
sure didn't ask you to come around here putting that Hollywood
shit
in my daughter's head
either!

“For what?! So she can be another big-screen hoe?!” my cousin screamed at me. “You better check yourself, Tracy, because you
will
get
wrecked
!”

She went ahead and slammed the phone on my damn ear.

When I put the phone down, my mother caught me staring into empty space in my old room.

She said, “I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but were you just talking about Vanessa in California or something?” I had my door open the whole time.

I didn't even want to talk about it. My brother walked in next, and I guess he had caught the tail end of my mother's question.

“You taking Vanessa out to California?” By then, Jason was six foot two (an inch taller than my father), and was sticking his chest out because he had his own apartment at nineteen, a golden number it seemed for men. They even had an antidraft song about being nineteen back in the eighties.

I shook my head and said, “Vanessa could use a break. I can feel it.”

“You can feel what, Tracy?” my mother asked me. She had that mother-knows-best look in her eyes again.

“I can just tell that she needs a change of pace. A getaway.”

“Oh yeah, well, I could use one of those too,” my brother told me. “I'll go out to California with you. Can you set me up with a summer job out there?”

My mom said, “I thought that was what you were trying to do, and it's wrong.”

“What's so wrong about it?” I asked her.

“Do
you
have a child, Tracy?” she asked me back. “I didn't
think
so. You can't impose yourself on people's lives like that. That was wrong.”

I knew she was right, and I couldn't really argue with her, but that didn't change the fact that I had already opened up the can of beans.

“So, what do I do now?” I asked. “Vanessa was willing to go.”

“You can take me instead. You can impose yourself on
my
life all you want,” my brother interrupted again.

My mother just looked at him and didn't say a word.

“What, Mom?” he whined. “I could
use
a vacation. I didn't even go away to school.”

“That's because you wanted to follow your little friends to Temple,” she shot at him.

“Her mother's just going to ruin her life, Mom,” I said, referring to Vanessa and my cousin Trish.

“Who are you to say that? Are you an authority on parenting all of a sudden? Do you even know how to
raise
a child?” my mother asked me. “What master's degree do you have on that?”

I frowned and said, “Come on, Mom, you know Trish isn't the best mother to those girls. She was pregnant at sixteen, and she still hasn't learned her lesson about making the right decisions in her life.”

“But
you
have?”

“Yes, I have,” I snapped.

My brother read the intensity inside of the room and said, “I think that's my cue to go,” and walked back out.

My mother said, “Tracy, regardless of what you, me, or the rest of the
world
for that matter,
thinks
about Vanessa's welfare, it's only
our
opinion, because Trish is her mother. Now when the girl turns eighteen and graduates from high school, if she wants to break out and do her own thing, then that's
her
prerogative to do so. Until then, she's still in high school and under her mother's roof, so you leave her the hell alone.”

I shook my head defiantly. “I hope nothing happens to her before then.”

That only made my mother curious. “Why are you so concerned about her all of a sudden. Did you find out something?”

“No, I'm just saying.”

“You're just saying that you want her in California with you for the summer because she's your little cousin. And what about when you start working on this next movie? Then what?”

“I take her on the set with me as my assistant and pay her. Vanessa would
love
that!”

My mother shook her head and started to walk out from the room. “It sounds like the same old Tracy to me.
My
daughter, as selfish and conniving as she wants to be.”