Under the Radar

by Tsan Abrahamson
copyright 2000

Opal lowered herself slowly onto the floor, grabbing the edge of the credenza with one hand and leading with the other. Over the years, it had taken increasingly longer to reach the claw-foot legs of the antique pieces in the dining room, but Opal took pride in her work, and the feet needed polish as much as the top did. A little arthritis and a few extra pounds weren’t going to stop her. Besides, being down here gave the illusion of privacy, and a chance to think, which she needed after the events of the summer.
She opened the credenza doors to give each a once-over with her oil-soaked rag. Inside lay the good china she always carefully stacked with felt pieces in between. She remembered when the Graysons had bought that china – 1972 – because they had given her their old stuff.
“There’s some pieces missing, Opal – a cup, I think and a couple of salad plates from when Greg threw that tantrum, but it’s mostly all there and you’re welcome to it, if you can stand that awful pattern. Whatever was I thinking to have bought that?” Mrs. Grayson had laughed.
Opal’s boys had grown up on that set of dishes. She couldn’t believe it had been almost 30 years. Not a piece broken since she got it. She smiled for a brief moment, losing herself in the memory of her children, little ones, sitting at her table eating beans and rice or hot dogs from plates clearly meant for the andouiette and foie gras that Mrs. Grayson served at her dinner parties.
Closing the doors and hoisting herself up again, she folded the rag, laid it in the cleaning drawer next to the bottle of polish, and headed off to the kitchen to finish dinner. It was Mr. Grayson’s 66th birthday, and though the family’s diet had long ago switched to fish and chicken, Opal had, nonetheless, decided on his favorite: brisket with oven roasted potatoes, sliced carrots, creamed spinach, and sweet potato pie. It would make him happy. Someone should be happy. Rinsing the potatoes in cold water and carefully peeling off the skin down the middle of each, she felt a stiffness in her hands. She flexed her fingers. She was tired.
Opal was beginning to wear under the weight of the summer events. The police, trolling through her home at 2am, searching for who knows what with their flashlights, dirty boots, and hurtful words. Her son, yanked from his sleep, handcuffed and shoved headlong into the back of the patrol car. The neighbors, awakened from the sirens, voicing loudly their opposition to, and adding to the confusion of, the all too familiar scene in their neighborhood. Her husband, sallow and beaten-looking as he returned from the Bail hearing to report to her that they could not make Rob’s bail, even with a bondman. She had asked him to go, not being able to bear the sight of her son in that orange jumpsuit, knowing he couldn’t come home.
And the meetings that followed. Lord, the meetings. Meetings with the lawyer. Extra prayer meetings at the A.M.E. Meetings with the mortgage broker about a second for the lawyer’s fees. Neighborhood meetings about the block party to raise bail money. More meetings with the lawyers. The meetings seemed to be endless.
Opal arranged the potatoes around the partially cooked brisket. The heat from the oven felt comforting on her face as she opened the door and returned the meat to cook another hour. She closed her eyes and remembered her pastor’s words from last evening: “God makes a way out of no way, Opal. God makes a way out of no way.”
“Mmmmmm…. Something sure smells good, Opal!” The cheery voice startled her. She quickly rose, ran her hands across the front of her uniform, and hurried over to where Mr. Grayson was standing, in time to swat his hand away from the cooling pie on the counter.
“You get away from that, Mr. Grayson. It ain’t dinner time just yet and it sho’ ain’t pie time,” she said. She reached into the ceramic cookie jar under the cabinet, and handed him a pretzel. “Here, you can have this to tide you over.” He smiled and accepted the bribe.
“I can’t even get a break on my birthday, huh?” He nibbled on the pretzel and grabbed a chair at the counter. “Well, I guess I can wait, then. Anyway, birthdays just don’t feel right with Greg gone. I guess you pretty much feel the same, what with your youngest out of the house, too.” He sighed, “Oh, Opal, remember the parties we used to have?”
Opal remembered. The Graysons had been famous for their parties. Big parties with lots of extra hired help. Bartenders and waiters and even extra clean-up people so Opal wouldn’t be stuck with the mess. And rich folks eating and talking and laughing about things they had read in the paper or seen on television. Sometimes they would talk seriously, earnestly about the state of black folks in society. Opal knew this because they would get quiet and smile apologetically at her when she came around to refill their glasses.
On those big party nights, when her Robbie was still little, she’d bring him along to help. He’d peel potatoes, haul bags of trash out the side door, and generally busy himself until Greg, tipped off by his father, would discover Rob in the kitchen. The two of them, only 6 months apart in age, would trot off together for the duration of the evening, and Opal would lose her helper. At the end of the night, Mrs. Grayson would send Opal home with leftovers, and Mr. Grayson would slip her an extra $50.00 or so, silently placing his index finger to his lips, nodding toward his wife.
“Robbie worked hard tonight,” he’d say, and wink. Those extra fifties had become savings bonds that last year had helped pay Rob’s tuition to Boston University.
They had grown old together, she and the Graysons. Mr. Grayson swinging a golf club instead of a gavel, Opal getting rides from her husband to work so she wouldn’t have to stand on the crowded commuter train, Mrs. Grayson keeping busy with civic activities now that the children were gone.
“Those were some fine parties, Mr. Grayson,” she replied, as she sprayed the fresh spinach leaves, one by one, with cold water to blast out the dirt. “We had some fun back then.”
“We’re still having fun, Opal, aren’t we?” He rose from his barstool and put his arm around her, tugging her close once or twice, like an old school chum. “We did good, didn’t we? Our kids are off making their way in the world, and now, it’s just you and me,” he paused, “and the old battle ax upstairs.” He looked at her thoughtfully and, stocked with more pretzels, slowly made his way toward the study. He wagged his finger at her as he reached the door. “I’ll be back when that brisket is done, and I’m not taking your pretzel bribe again.”
Mr. Grayson was a kind man. Always had been. Though it was not in her nature, she considered telling him what had happened, asking him for a loan to pay the bail bondsman, or perhaps to call the mayor, whom she had seen at a number of those big parties. Surely the Graysons had noticed something was weighing heavy. It might be good to talk, get it off her chest.
“Have you lost your natural mind, woman?” Her husband’s dropped fork had made her jump. “You been workin’ at that house too long. Now you think you got privilege too? All you gonna do is get yourself fired.”
“I’ve been working for the Graysons half my life, old man. They wouldn’t fire me. And they know people we don’t know.” She was resolute. “Mostly, they know Robbie wouldn’t cause no trouble like this.”
“You don’t know what they know. They white folks,” he said. “They might think to check the silver you tell ‘em your son’s in jail for robbing a convenience store.” Opal felt her spine stiffen.
“And what you think? Old Mr. Grayson’s gonna call up the police chief and say ‘let that boy out?’ The Graysons don’t live in no rectory; they got no cause to be helpin’ poor folk and sho’ don’t need no trouble. You think they gonna keep you around you tell ‘em something like this? Your meatloaf ain’t that good.”
Opal refused to believe the Graysons would abandon her after so many years. She knew of Mr. Grayson’s fondness for Rob and felt sure he would want to do all he could. Still, with the trial coming up, she couldn’t afford to lose her job.
In a basket near the cooling pie were fresh lemons. The gardener had picked them from the garden in hopes that Opal might be persuaded to make some of her famous lemonade. She looked at the lemons. God makes a way out of no way, she thought again.
She pulled out the wooden cutting board and sliced each lemon in half. She had been making lemonade for longer than she had been working for the Graysons. The trick was to liquefy the sugar by cooking it over the stove so the grains would dissolve rather than sink to the bottom of the pitcher. She had made it for Mr. Grayson countless times, when he used to work late into the evening, making calls from the big black book he called his bible. Of course, it wasn’t a real bible, the Graysons not being particularly religious. Opal would bring lemonade and a snack to his office after dinner and there he’d be, perusing its contents --pages filled with loose newspaper articles and scrawled with notes and numbers -- making calls to important people. Occasionally, he would pat the cover and tell her he could save the world or bring down any politician in the city with it.
She hadn’t seen the bible in recent years. Occasionally, when asked to speak at a commencement or some proceeding or other, he would haul it out, rummage through its contents, and replace it on the shelf to collect dust until the next time he let Opal clean his office.
Opal’s special lemonade had been Rob’s preferred drink, too. The previous summer, she watched Rob and his friends go through 2, 3 pitchers in an afternoon, studying – or what they called studying – at the house. Lord how that boy could put away some lemonade. Sometimes, she would crush black raspberries that grew wild in the vacant lot behind the house and add them to the lemonade. Sometimes she’d float mint sprigs from her kitchen window box. Sometimes she’d just serve it plain.
She hadn’t made lemonade once this summer for Rob, and the burden of that realization at once made her head too heavy to hold up. Folding her arms on the counter, she laid it down and let the tears come. The tears came in a slow stream, even and unrelenting. And resolved. Like her son, when his first lawyer –the public defender – had flipped through his file and suggested a plea to the lesser charge of assault. With no criminal record, the sentence would be light. No, Rob had insisted. He wasn’t going to spend 9 months in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. They would get another lawyer. They would get a second on the house. They would make a way.
Opal let the tears roll onto her arms. She waited. The house was still. She waited, and the tears dried. She squeezed the lemons, liquefied the sugar, and floated mint leaves on the top of the lemonade.
5 O’Clock. The days were showing signs of getting shorter, though the weather still held some of its summer heat. Opal opened the windows as she always did, to let in the mild breeze and ventilate the kitchen. No use getting food smell in the curtains sooner than it already would. The fragrant climbing roses on the side yard were in full, if final bloom. She knew that soon, the gardener would cut off the spent roses and prepare the bushes for winter. He would bring her the petals and she would make rose jelly. For Opal, their entry into the kitchen marked the beginning of fall. This year, they would also remind her that her youngest should be starting school again. She removed the pie from near the window so it wouldn’t catch a wayward leaf or bug.
She could hear the sound of Mr. Grayson’s feet padding around in his boat shoes upstairs. She knew he was trying to busy himself until dinner. Retirement had been especially difficult on him, she had observed. The women of the house had long ago developed a routine that depended on his absence, and so he often ended up being in the way. Mrs. Grayson would shoo him off to work in his study or to chop balls in the back yard. Opal felt sorry for him, however, and never minded the extra mess he made changing the grease screens on the stove or rearranging the refrigerator shelves. Opal figured, like the rose petals, he was trying to make himself useful again.
She made her way up the stairs and tapped on the door of the study. No response. The door was partially open, and she could see him inside, reviewing some papers that had come in earlier by messenger. Dinner would hold. She headed toward the family room, converted by Mrs. Grayson to be a sort of office command center for her various causes. Mrs. Grayson looked pretty much the way she did this time every evening: her head cocked right, holding the cordless phone, her hand scribbling on a yellow legal pad, her friendly voice alternately listening and responding. Opal waited for her to finish. A homeless benefit at the museum, a walk-a-thon for breast cancer, another Junior League cookbook. The conversations were all starting to sound the same.
“Yes, definitely. Whatever it takes. This has to get done soon.” Pause. Nod. “Do we really need to convene a -- what seems to be the holdup now?” Scribble. “We’ll be there, if that’s what it takes, Bill. We’ll come down right now and bang on his door.”
Opal smiled. Mrs. Grayson could be fierce when she was passionate about something.
“I want this done tonight, if possible. It’s already been 2 months. Yes, I’ll wait.” Long pause.
“Dinner’s about done, Mrs. Grayson” Opal whispered, still at the door.
“Oh, gracious. I didn’t see you there, Opal. Were you waiting long?” Mrs. Grayson whirled around in her chair, and covered the phone with her hand.
“No, just a few seconds. We’re almost ready to eat. I was thinkin’ to use the good dishes tonight,” Opal said.
“Oh nonsense,” said Mrs. Grayson. “That silly gold leaf has to be washed by hand. Too much trouble for one old man’s birthday. Just use the every day stuff.” Mrs. Grayson turned back to her call.
“Yes, I’m still here.” Pause. “Can you hold on a minute, Bill? I’ll get him for you.” She collected a large black book and, carrying it and the phone, brushed past Opal to the landing.
“I have just a couple more things to do, Opal. Can we say 20 minutes?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Opal, and she headed downstairs.
Downstairs, Opal removed the brisket from the pan and placed it and its on a serving tray, accompanied by the pearl onions and potatoes. Then she covered it with foil and returned it to the oven, lowering the setting to warm. She followed suit with the other vegetables and then set the table for 2. Once she got them settled, she would leave. She picked up the receiver to tell her husband to be on his way. She hadn’t realized the line was still engaged.
“Glad to help,” she heard Mr. Grayson say.
Opal hung up the phone. She’d wait until the Graysons had started on dinner to call. She had time.
The door from the study opened and Mr. Grayson called down.
“Phone, Opal,” he said.
So quick? She hadn’t even heard it ring. Opal had never been asked to answer the phone as part of her duties, and so the noise of it over the years had become part of the household din of things to which she was not privy. “I’ve got it,” she called back as she picked up the kitchen extension.
It was the lawyer. Opal listened while he explained the events of the day. It appeared that someone had been picked up on a murder charge some weeks ago. During his interrogation by the police, the suspect had proclaimed his innocence by implicating himself in a robbery that had been committed at about the same time across town. Opal did not understand why he was telling her all this. Well, so, anyway, the lawyer continued, this evidence was favorable to Rob. The charges hadn’t been dropped, he said, but the case had been made a lot simpler with the discovery of this new information.
Opal went back to the dining room and collected the dishes from the table. She walked to the credenza and lifted out the good china plates from between their felt pieces. She heard Mr. Grayson pad down the stairs.
“Well,” said Mr. Grayson, as he entered the dining room, rubbing his stomach. “I believe we’re gonna have ourselves a celebration.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Grayson. And it’s a fine evening for it. Happy birthday.” He took a bow.
“Thank you. Thank you. Now where is that wife of mine? Marian?!”
“On my way,” Mrs. Grayson called from the study. “Just have to put something back.”

Moments of Reprieve

By Tsan Abrahamson

I am asleep on my sister’s couch. I have been out of prison less than 24 hours, determined not to go back, but knowing I will somehow slip back into the life that put me there in the first place. It is not my desire to go back; my will is as strong as my biceps, chiseled and strengthened in prison. It’s simply this: I will make more bad choices in the weeks to come. But for now, I am out. I am free. I am still full of hope. And I am asleep.

Only an ex-con can truly understand the sleep that comes outside prison walls. It is a deep sleep, a painfully thick sleep, and it is more beautiful that the most perfect woman, and more fleeting – at least before you drift off -- than that moment a clean shot of junk reaches your brain. In the joint, you are never asleep, not really. You cannot give yourself over to the temptation to fall completely, totally asleep, and yet it is that very sleep that you so badly need to keep from going crazy in the six by nine cell you have come to call home. The concrete crib with nasty blankets and scratchy linens, the gray food, gray walls, gray books. Sleep: a luxury most cons cannot afford. Fall too deeply asleep and you may never wake up. I did not sleep in prison.

I'm out now, a five year bit tucked under my belt. Hours earlier, I had played with my sister’s kids. The boys ran to me when I walked through the door. So big and so small all at once, they had jumped into my arms with the enthusiasm that only small children can muster. Uncle, tell us about prison. Uncle, are you going to take us to the show? Uncle, we love you. Uncle, show us your new tattoo. We wrestled, the way little boys do with their uncles, and we ate. My sister made dinner, and with it I sucked down beers at her small kitchen table, while the boys picked at their food and continued to ask me questions. And for a brief moment of reprieve, I was not the ethnic throw-away that society had treated me as for so long. I was not the garbage I had come to believe defined me.

My sister and I are cut from the same cloth, suspicious by nature, suspicious by experience, and so we had watched each other move around the house, her striking green eyes mimicking my own. She is my sister, mi familia. She would not let me sleep on the street. Still, she had grown up in the same home with me for 16 years, and I knew she was wondering if she had done the right thing by letting me stay with her. Could she trust me? After all, she had kids now. Banging was understandable, but not desirable, especially around her boys. She wanted the boys to know their Uncle, but not ride the wake of destruction I had created.

It was time for bed, and she had scurried the boys off to sleep. They had wanted to stay with me, but she promised them I would be there when they woke up. Reluctantly, they hugged me and went to their room. Mercifully, they left me alone in the living room.

Now I am alone. My plan is to watch television, smoke some bud maybe (having scored on my way over), and kick it for a little while before driving over to a friend’s house. But sleep – real sleep -- is calling me. And East Oakland can wait.

Oakland, or at least this part of it, hasn’t changed much since I went in. The same shitty, broken down apartments, houses and projects with their dead lawns and old cars out front; the same slum landlords trying to squeeze off a few more bucks for a one bedroom with roaches and a toilet that leaks. The same single moms who clean houses by day and try to get their kids off the street at night. The same liquor stores hawking malt liquor and smokes to 13 year olds. The same cops cruising the streets in their prowlers, harassing otherwise good kids because they look like Latino or black gang-bangers. The same cheap-ass prostitutes parading down West MacArthur in outfits that look like disco throw-aways. The same fucking cars riding on the same fucking streets over the same fucking potholes. There might have been a proposition or a bill passed to fix the streets, but the money never seemed to trickled down to East 14th Street. It can all fuckin’ wait until I get some rest.

It’s not long before I am face down on the couch, my face buried in the faded cushions, my arms dangling at my side. I am drifting, slowly, steadily toward a perfect sleep. The street noises that were so annoying only an hour ago now become a low murmur in my brain. I am vaguely aware that my sister is coming in and out of the living room, tidying up, phone cradled between her neck and shoulder as she talks to her girlfriends about one thing or another. And suddenly I am completely, totally, unabashedly asleep. There are no guards here. There are no crazy cons trying to steal my shit. There are no vendettas on my sister’s couch.

I am back in prison in my dreams. I am protecting my space. I am holding court in the yard. I am slammin’ bones. And I am watching my back. Edgy. I am edgy. I am patient, but fast-moving. I am calm, but acutely aware. No one better fuckin’ touch me. No one better fuckin’ touch my homies. I am sweating. I am asleep. If I were white, I would be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But I am Latino, so I am just fucked up. I’m asleep and fucked up.

I sense someone coming into my cell. Fuck, it’s dark. My body stiffens. I cannot see him but I know he’s there. Who is sneaking up on me? If he thinks he’s gonna get the jump on my ass, he’s got another thing coming. Wait, maybe I’m dreaming. It’s nothing.

No, it’s not a dream. My instincts don’t lie; they are what kept me alive in this place. I feel someone’s hand. Someone is definitely trying to kill me. I whirl around on my back and I grab that asshole. I grab him and I throw him across the cell. I throw him into the concrete cinder block walls that I have lived with for the past 5 years. I am standing when I throw him, because I am quick as shit, and I put my entire body into the throw in hopes that he doesn’t come back at me. He doesn’t. He is slumped on the floor and screaming in pain. Only it is not into the cinder block that I have thrown him; it is into my sister’s crappy drywall in her living room. And it is not a con trying to kill me, it is my 7 year old nephew who was too excited to sleep and has jumped on my back to play. And it is not a dream. He is screaming. He cannot move his arms. They are positioned in a most unnatural state and are doubtless broken. I am fully awake now.

For a moment, I am paralyzed from fear. And as the realization slowly works its way through me that I have slammed a child into a wall, I begin to panic. The thump of his body hitting the wall and the subsequent screaming have brought my sister and other nephew into the living room. My sister is screaming at me that she is going to kill me. She is going to call the police. I am an asshole, a fucker, a derelict to do this to a child. I am a piece of dog crap. I cannot be trusted in her home. I want nothing more than to explain myself; to tell her than I was dreaming and I thought he was hurting me. I want to make it better, to take it back. He is screaming. She is screaming. She is making threats and I cannot bear the thought of going back to the joint. I want to take him to the hospital, but I am at once afraid that I will end up in a bloody pool on her living room floor if I stay around. So I leave.

As I run down the street, my sister’s screams permeating the noisy cross-traffic, I am not sure what to do. I have fucked up. Big time. I have attacked my sister’s kid. And now I am running. Fuck that crazy bitch. I had to run, didn’t I, or my ass would have been back in jail. She didn’t let me explain. If she had only let me explain, then I wouldn’t be running. I hear an ambulance screaming down 98th Avenue. I wonder if it’s for my nephew. I cannot believe I am going to go back for hurting my own blood. Shit. I loved that boy. He and his brother were the only ones who made me feel truly important in this world, and I have destroyed that, like I destroy all the good things in my life.

I am fulfilling my destiny. Perhaps it’s a good thing. Without real ties except for my gang-bangin’ homeboys out here, I don’t need to worry about my family any more. I am free to fulfill the destiny that got its start in a violent and abusive home, was further honed at the California Youth Authority, and finally got polished to perfection in Chino Prison. It’s what I was told I’d be; why fight it? Shit, grab myself a 40, roll up on my friends down the street to wait for my sister to calm down (so I can get my stuff), and cut her and her little boys out of my miserable, predictable fucked up life.

I duck into a liquor store and pony up the $6.98 for a case of Old Milwaukee, which I carry over to my friend’s house around the corner. He won’t be expecting me. It will be a surprise. I am sure that by the time I get though half this beer, I won’t even remember my nephew’s name and my sisters screams will be drowned in the fermented malt beverage I’m hauling under my arm.

I push open the door at my boy's crib. My homeboys are pretty much where I left them when I was arrested: hanging out, banging, clockin’, and talkin’ shit. I am greeted as if I never left the fold of the group. There are hugs and comments about how prison has made me strong, and there is coke and dope, and crank. I am struck by how very identical things are since I went in, as if time stood still. In later years, when I am clean, I will realize that this sort of stillness equals death, and I will fight hard to shake things up. But now, it is comfortable and I am floating happily in that semi-state of consciousness that takes away the pain I feel most of the time.

My mind races back to the house. I wonder if my nephew will be OK. I down another beer, to drown out the visual and the sound, but the pain in his eyes lingers with me and I am now no longer frightened for myself, but for my nephew. What if my sister cannot afford to pay the doctor? Will they push him off and let the white kids go first? I have to know. They probably took him to Highland Hospital, not far. I could call. No, I’m cool here. Nothing I can do anyway, and my sister is crazy right now. Seeing me would send her over the edge.

My head is spinning, but not from the splif that just passed by me. Give me some money. I need some money. I ask my friends to fork over what they have and they do. Amid comments about getting laid and scoring crank, I stash the cash in my front pocket and grab my coat. Why do I care about this little boy? He wasn’t even born when I went away.

I grab my boy’s chevy for the ride to Highland and I am there in four minutes. I am going back to prison. I walk toward the emergency room entrance knowing that I’m going back to fucking prison because I have tossed an innocent child into drywall. I should just get the hell out of there. My sister will calm down. Maybe I can get out of this if I lay low. I guess I always knew that I would be back; it’s what the counselors – or what they called counselors – at Youth Authority told me when I was 13. I’m a habitual. This is the life I was born to.

My sister is not in the waiting room. Maybe they didn’t need to go to the hospital. I tell the nurse I’m looking for my nephew, hoping she will tell me there is no one by that name here. She looks down her list and her finger stops on my last name. She points down the hall and smiles at me. I watch myself walk toward the curtain. If my sister goes crazy again, that crazy bitch, I’m ready to take off.

I walk into the room. My sister stands there with my nephew. His arms have been cast and he is sitting on the examining table. He sees me and his face widens into a smile. Uncle! My sister whirls around and at once I see her face and I know her blood is boiling. There he is! There he is! He did this to my son. She is screaming and pointing. Fuck. I am going back to prison.

When Malcolm X wrote his autobiography, he wrote of an epiphany he had while he was in the hole; a single event that changed the direction of his life. When Sanyika Shakur wrote Monster, he talked about a visitation from God. I did not have such a focused road to clarity or salvation or self-direction, or whatever you call it. When I went back to prison, I took my time learning the concepts of goodness and grace. There was no divine spirit, no light that would not go away beaming into my cell, no God that spoke to me. Over time, I came to understand that people were both good and bad. Most importantly, I came to know that I was worth something in this life, worth saving. That day in the emergency room, the grace of a little boy started me on that journey.

“STOP! It’s not his fault.” The tiny voice of my nephew pierces the chaos. I freeze. My sister freezes. The doctor who has been running toward me with an orderly freezes. We look at my nephew. Big fat tears rolling down his eyes, his arms reaching out toward me. “I surprised him. He thought I was attacking him. He thought he was back in prison. I’m sorry, Tio.”

How does he know this? He is crying and I do not know where his tears end and mine begin. The anger has left my sister and she is sobbing, too. The doctor and orderly are still frozen, not sure what to make of this scene. My sister opens her arms and includes me in her embrace with my nephew.

I will go back to prison for stealing a car in the months to come. I will get hooked on heroin again. I will lose the few legit jobs I get when I get out. I have more to learn about life and redemption and grace. But I did something right and something honorable, and I was rewarded with compassion from a little boy. And I believe that I am destined for something more than another prison tatt.

The Press and Curl Conspiracy

Copyright 2002
Tsan Abrahamson

Annie’s duty to the curling iron had been forewarned by her mother. “Teetah and Helen want to do your hair now that you’re older,” Rose had explained – somewhat reluctantly -- on the plane ride out for their Summer visit to Chicago. “So just be gracious and smile and let them do it, OK? It would mean a lot to your grandmother,” she said, and let out a long sigh. “And, well, it’s probably time, anyway, I guess. I’ve sort of neglected you in this area.”

“Does it wash out?” Annie asked her mother, figuring -- or at least hoping -- that whatever strange manipulations were in store for her head could be reversed by a romp through the fire hydrant with Poo.

“And what’s wrong with my hair, anyway?”

Rose smiled. “It’ll wash out. And there’s nothing wrong with your hair. It’s just, well, your grandma wants you to look like -- ” she hesitated, “like a movie star. You know, Lola Falana or Mary Tyler Moore, just while we’re in Chicago.”

“Do you have your hair done?” Annie asked.

“Not like they’re talking about, no. I don’t have to have my hair done anymore, thank God. But your grandma and Teetah, well, they’re not quite ready for 1970, honey.” Annie’s mother pulled her compact out and surveyed the increasingly more salt than pepper short-cropped afro she had worn for the past 3 years.

“But can’t you just tell them this is the way I like my hair?” Annie said. Rose sighed again. “It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

Grandma was waiting for them at the Parker House when they stepped out of the airport shuttle bus. Annie gave her grandmother a hug and crawled in the back of the Thunderbird for the ride to Teetah’s house. She loved her grandmother, despite the stale cigarette smoke that hung heavy around her most days.

“Put them grips in the back, Rose,” said Annie’s Grandma. “We’ll stop quick at Teetah’s first – the boys are there playin’ bones -- and then we’ll head on out to Hyde Park. Helen’s over, too.”

On the drive out, Annie played with the electric windows, letting in the humid outside air and then counting the seconds until the air conditioning vanquished it. Every year, they visited the family. Every year Grandma met them at the Parker House. And every year they headed straight to Aunt Teetah’s. She didn’t mind Teetah, but it was her grandfather she couldn’t wait to see. It was he who would really take care of her this summer.

“How ‘bout some ice cream?” he would ask when it got too hot to stay in the apartment. After dinner, he would teach her betting games like liar’s dice and craps, the ante for which was a popsicle. At night, he would darken the living room and tell ghost stories with a flashlight pushed up against his chin, which would hollow out his Cajun skin and frighten her something fierce.

Last summer, when the temperature went above 100°, Grandpa got his ‘magic’ wrench and turned on the fire hydrant so she and Poo could cool down in the powerful spray. This, naturally, made her the most popular girl in the neighborhood.

And it was Grandpa who had taught her how to throw a baseball. So well, in fact, that when the neighborhood kids chose up sides Annie was always in the top 3 picks, despite the presence of older boys with a longer reach.

The two of them were thick as thieves. Definitely, Grandpa was her favorite part about trips to Chicago, Annie mused.

“Teetah is all ready for Annie,” said her grandmother to Rose.

“Um hmm,” came her mother’s flat reply.

“And this year’s a zero year so we have the whole family together on the 4th. Little Man, Philip, Pookie, Buster, She-She, Poo, TT, Butch, Isabel, Big Ted; even Marshall might fly up.” She turned back to Annie.

“You excited to see all your aunties and cousins, baby?”

Aunt Teetah was not Annie’s real aunt. For that matter, Aunt Helen was just an older cousin, and TT was somebody’s ex-husband who had been co-opted into the family years ago, but no one seemed bothered by these irregularities. Annie was looking forward to seeing all of her cousins, especially Poo, who was really Paul, Jr. but since his father wasn’t around, he just went by his nickname. Even Annie’s mother’s real name was Jean, but everyone called her Rose, “on account o’ them cheeks,” her grandfather once told her.

Teetah’s house always smelled like something was cooking, which was usually the case. There was corn bread or biscuits – the good, lumpy kind that come from dropping big wads of dough from a spoon onto a cookie sheet -- and cold chicken in the refrigerator, and always some kind of soup or beans or casserole on the stove for that night’s dinner (unless it was Sunday in which case it was ham). Annie was encouraged to take as much as she liked, though Rose would squeeze Annie’s hand under the table whenever beans were served. (“too damn much fatback,” her mother would tell her, when they were safely at Grandma’s house in Hyde Park).

“Is Poo gonna be at Aunt Teetah’s?” asked Annie, another possible cousin. Annie knew that Poo wasn’t Teetah’s son, because Teetah was old like her grandmother, but all anyone had ever told her was that he stayed there. When Annie came to visit, Poo would stay with her at her grandmother’s place, which gave Teetah a rest. No one talked about Poo’s mother, though once Annie heard the grownups say she stayed at the Steel Chateau, which must be nice since it was French sounding.

“Yes, Annie, and he’s looking forward to seeing you, too,” her grandmother said. They turned the corner and pulled into the driveway of one of the many identical yellow brick houses on Higham Street. Annie was pleased to see a small group of neighborhood kids playing softball with a Nerf ball.

“Can I go play?” Annie asked, quickly stepping out of the car.

“Later sweetheart,” her mother whispered. “Let’s go in and see everyone for awhile.”

“Oh my Lord, look at that nappy hair,” said Teetah, laughing. “Come on over here and give me some sugar, baby.” Annie was barely in the door, still eyeing the two neighborhood kids, but she knew Teetah was talking about her. Aunt Helen nodded and hummed; the same hum Annie heard when Helen agreed with the preacher on Sundays. They followed Teetah into the family room where the men were finishing up a house of dominoes.

“Now, wash them bones good, boy,” Annie heard her grandfather instructing Poo as he shuffled the dominoes for the next round.

“Hi Grandpa.”

Her grandfather turned around and lifted her up with a groan to signify how heavy she’d become.

“Oh my LORD!” he shouted. “Look at you, little one.” He put her down and whispered to her, “How’s that throwing arm?”

“It’s fine,” Annie said, making a muscle for him to feel. “Wanna see me?”

“Later, baby,” he said, and winked at her. “We got a helluva match goin’ on in here. You and me got all summer.”

“This little one sure is growin’ up, ain’t she?” said Teetah, motioning Annie out of the family room and toward the back door in the kitchen. Aunt Helen and Grandma followed. Rose followed, too, her perfectly manicured hand guiding Annie’s shoulder.

“Buster!” Teetah called back to her husband “We headed out to the shop with the baby. Don’t let my beans boil over, now, and y’all don’t make no mess on my table and floor with them pork cracklins!”

CrrrRACK came the response; someone’s domino slammed on the metal-edged formica tabletop in the family room.

“GIVE ME MY MONEY, NEGRO!” Buster shouted and laughed. Someone scribbled points on a pad.

“Buster, you hear me?” Teetah called out again.

“I hear you, old woman. Ya’ll go on and do your girl stuff and don’t be worryin’ us. Poo, go stir them beans.” Poo, left his post behind Buster and dutifully slid his gangly seven year-old stocking feet across the plastic runner into the kitchen to check on the red beans that were simmering with the ham bone on the stove.

“Wanna play outside after you finish?” Poo asked Annie as she queued behind her grandmother. She nodded.

“See you after lunch,” she said. “And don’t start without me.” At eight, Annie was bigger than Poo; her admonishment would stick.

The foursome of women followed Teetah out the kitchen door, across the lawn, and into to the renovated garage out back. The fluorescent bulb revealed two beautician’s chairs, a washing sink, a large hair dryer, and a couch, all of which sat, somewhat haphazard and awkwardly on a worn brown checkered linoleum floor.

“Flip the fan on, baby,” Teetah said, motioning Annie toward a shelf that ran alond the wall above the washing sink. The shelf sagged under the weight of the fan and the various trade tools it held: half-filled jars of blue and green jelly-like hair dresssings with names like Oil of Bergamot, Tres Flores and Ultra Sheen; carbon steel curling irons and hot combs, colored black from 30 years of straightening and recurling coarse, kinky black hair; old shoeboxes filled with bright colored curlers ranging in size from cigarettes to soup cans.

Endless knick-knacks were also crammed on Teetah’s work table. Bottles, jellies, tubes of cream, tiny neck papers, scissors, electric clippers, combs in bright blue solution, plastic jars, cotton balls, bobby pins. Rising above the flotsam and jetsam on Teetah’s work table sat a small steel box with a hole in it – like a birdcage without a pitched roof, Annie thought. Teetah reached down, plugged in the old cloth cord, and touched the top to make sure the box was heating. Rose whispered to Annie not to touch it if she valued her fingers.

“C’mon, now,” said Teetah, patting the beautician’s chair already piled with both volumes of the Chicago white pages. “Come on up here and let Auntie Teetah put some sugar in that spice, baby.”

She made her way toward the chair, fingering the cool glass of the jars on the shelf. Annie hoped this summer would be the summer Teetah would stop calling her Baby. She could, after all, read and spell and was likely the best kickball player on McKinley Avenue in Berkeley, a collection of traits that were certainly worthy of a more noble moniker.

“Come on now, little Miss Pele,” Teetah said, patting the barber chair a little harder.

“Pele plays soccer, I play kickball, Aunt Teetah,” she said as she made her way onto the chair.

“Oh I see. OK, how about Willie Stargell?”

“Willie plays baseball, not kickball, Aunt Teetah.”

“Lord, will you listen to this child, Helen? She’s got sports on the brain.” Teetah turned to Rose. “Rosie, what you been teachin’ that child out there in California? She looks like that Angela Davis, all this hair, and all she talks about is that damn kickball.”

“She’s fine, Teetah,” said Rose, watching her daughter fidget to fit herself in the oversized chair.

“Yessir, Rose, all that envelope stuffin’ and whatchacall farm worker protestin’ and whatever-all else you been writing us in those letters done made you lose your mind behind this child. It don’t look like the child ever been to the beauty shop. Look like she got two doo doo balls on her head,” said Teetah, eyeing and then loosening the elastics around Annie’s two hastily made afro-puff pigtails. She looked down at Annie.

“Auntie Teetah’s here and she’s not gonna let her baby walk around with a head lookin’ like a sack o’ woe.” She pondered her task and turned to Rose. “You need to start taking this child to the beauty shop more regular.”

“It’s just not the way we do things anymore, Teetah. Annie doesn’t need her hair pressed. I don’t even know how I let you talk me into this. It’s not the forties anymore. Little girls don’t wear patent leather and pressed hair; they wear sweatpants and, well, doo doo balls.”

“You’re here because you know you this child should learn how colored folks need to act and look if they gonna be presentable. She’s not a little baby any more, Rose.”

“We don’t say ‘colored’ and we don’t have to press our hair to be presentable. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, it’s just not compulsory, Teetah. You know, it’s not a step ‘n’ fetchit world, anymore. And anyway, from a practical perspective, Annie’s a tomboy. She can’t keep herself prim like that. Taking her to the beauty shop would be a waste of money.”

Teetah let go of the patch of hair she had been beating into submission and laid down the black comb on her work table. She fixed her gaze on Rose, and deliberately placed a hand on each hip.

“I don’t know who you think you talkin’ to. Ain’t nobody in this house ever stepped and fetched nothin! And if they did, you better believe it was that or get themselves lynched. I know you ain’t forgot where you came from. If it weren’t for your daddy goin’ to that university every day to mop them floors, you wouldn’t have all that education you got right now!” She picked up another section of hair and resumed her detangling. Her voice softened. “Well, anyway, all I’m talking about here is some plain old little girl manners. No matter what kind of world we’re in, my little Annie is a young lady now. She needs to – whatchacall – start being a woman or she’s gonna end up like that Billy Jean King. Now, isn’t that a shame.” Grandma and Helen hummed.

“Of course, Teetah. I’m sorry,” Rose said.

“Nothin’ to be sorry about, child. Now go on and get your old mama and aunties some lemonade up to the house while I work on this rat’s nest.”

Rose went up to the kitchen and came back with lemonade and potato chips. She and Annie listened while the women talked about recipes and TV shows. Teetah continued to work on the hair, occasionally swinging Annie around to the mirror so she could watch the progress.

Annie was still too small to sit in the shampooing chair so Rose set up the ironing board right to the sink height. Teetah dipped her hands into the various colored jars and massaged the floral-smelling goo into Annie’s hair.

“Do you wash Poo’s hair?” Annie asked.

“No, baby, he’s a boy,” Teetah said.

It was like a secret club, just for the women, a private club where one drank lemonade and talked about television shows, and got one’s hair washed. Teetah’s hands felt good massaging her scalp and she thought briefly that perhaps this initiation into what was certainly womanhood might be worth sacrificing her former post next to Poo, snatching pork rinds and onion dip from the table, while the men played dominoes.

“Do you wash Mom’s hair?”

“No.”

From the washing board, Annie, along with the phone book stack, was hoisted into the drying chair. And from there, back to the beautician’s chair. The oven had been heating the pressing comb and curling iron and Teetah tested them with her fingers and then laid them on a white towel, while she greased the edges of Annie’s hair with a blue vaseline-like cream.

“Now hold your ears, like this,” she said, and bent the tips of her own ears forward. Annie followed her lead. Then Teetah grabbed the hot pressing comb and sunk the teeth of it into the tuft of hair she was holding.

“OOOOOOOUCH!” Annie screamed and jerked away. The edge of the comb had touched her tender neck and a welt was forming. Annie’s face twisted as the smell of burning hair reached her nose.

“Sorry, baby, it won’t happen again,” said Teetah. “Helen, go up to the house and get some butter for this child’s neck.” Annie looked over at her mother, hoping, knowing she would rescue her. Rose was watching the floor.

There were a few more burns and several more smears of butter while the hot comb and curling iron turned Annie’s fuzzy kinks into a series of perfectly coifed tiny ringlets, secured by two pink bows.

“Now!” Teetah said triumphantly and whirled Annie around to the mirror. Annie smiled at her reflection in the mirror, somewhat surprised to see that it was actually her.

Back in the house, there came the requisite oohs and aahs from Grandpa and Buster. Annie bowed and twirled once, as she had learned in her folk dance class and the men clapped. She enjoyed the compliments from her grandfather and uncles, the new attention. Still, she was drawn to the front window where she had seen the two boys playing earlier.

“Can I go out to play?” She asked after a time. She had, after all, completed her assignment as promised, and she wanted to show Poo that she had learned how to really swipe the bag over the last year.

“Oh, goodness child, no!” The response from Teetah was swift and definite. “You just got your hair done. How you gonna keep that hair, you start swinging bats and such? No sir, you can go sit on the stoop and watch, but you got to give all that rough-housin’ up, baby. You take care of that hair and it’ll look pretty for a week.”

Poo looked at Annie, who eyes were beginning to fog. This wasn’t the deal. She looked at her mother, who shook her head, evidently agreeing with Teetah.

“That’s alright,” said Poo. “You can watch me play. Come on out to the porch.”

Annie turned and followed Poo toward the front yard and heard Teetah call after her to stay on the stoop. She lowered her heavy body, weighted by a lifetime of 8 year-old ringlets, onto the top step and watched through vision blurred by tears as Poo picked up a game of catch with the two neighborhood boys. Behind her, Rose opened the screen door and walked over to the stoop. They sat together watching silently while Poo and the neighborhood boys tossed a ball between them.

“Oh, sweetie. Don’t take it so hard. You look so pretty.” She wiped the tears from her daughter’s cheek with the back of her sleeve. “When we get back to California, you don’t have to go to the beauty shop any more and you can play anything you want with your friends.”

“Why,” said Annie, not sure what she meant.

“It’s hard to explain, Annie. It’s all wrapped up in some confusing history and I’m not even sure I know why. But I’m proud of you for making your aunties and grandma happy.” Rose stood up and started back to the house. “Don’t worry, baby. It’s just a day. A week at the most. Things will be back to normal when we get home.” Annie heard the screen door closed behind Rose.

Annie closed her eyes and prayed her mother would return with a wrench to turn on the hydrant. But she didn’t come. Annie watched Poo play. She looked behind her through the windows of the front room where Rose was watching.