“Well, I should start at the beginning, then. Back when I was growing up, a lot of the country was still segregated. That means Black folks couldn’t be with white folks.”
I nod, cause I remember learning bout Rosa Parks in school during Black History Month. We learned that she was important cause she ain’t wanna give up her seat on the bus to a white person. After my teacher told that story, I asked her a bunch of other questions bout Rosa Parks, but she ain’t seem to know much bout her, cept that one little ol’ story.
“Even though Black folks was supposed to be equal,” Granddaddy continues, “most white people at the time weren’t ready to start welcoming Black people with open arms.”
“So, what would they do?” I ask, shifting my weight to lean against the arm of the couch.
“Well . . .” Granddaddy pauses. “They would do all sorta mean stuff, to let Black people know that we wasn’t never gon’ be equal, no matter what the law said.”
“What kinda mean stuff?” I ask again. Granddaddy don’t start answering right away, so I add, “Did any white people ever do mean stuff to you back then?”
Granddaddy clears his throat like he’s gon’ say something, but then he don’t. Instead of talking, he keeps turning his hands over so that first his palms are up, then he flips them over and picks at his nails. He repeats this pattern three times, slow, but still don’t speak.
“Granddaddy?” I whisper, which causes him to finally stop flipping his hands and look back up at me. “What happened?”
When I ask this, something in Granddaddy seems to soften, just a little. He sits up, sighs deep, then sits back again and folds his arms. “It was the first day of summer,” he begins. While he talks, he looks up at the ceiling like the memory is up there, waiting for him to pull it down. “I was nothin’ more than seven, eight years old. Me and my buddies, Lil Earl and Tyrone—we called him Head cause he had a big ol’ head—was gon’ go down to the store and buy some candy, cause we had earned some change doin’ little jobs round the neighborhood.”
At this point, Granddaddy sits up and starts to talk a little faster. “We was excited the whole way to the store,” he says, “cause we ain’t usually have no money to buy nothin’。 This was gon’ be a big day for us.”
I look down at my hands, scratch my pointer finger with the nail on my thumb. Seems like this bout to be the bad part.
“But before we even got to the store, we was stopped by a white man who saw us walkin’ down the street, talkin’ loud and wavin’ our coins in the air. He ran up on us and called us some thieves. Said we must’ve stole from somebody, cause he ain’t ever seen no nigger boys with that much money.” Granddaddy looks me straight in the eye now. “That white man took all the money we had worked so hard for, and ain’t even look back when we all laid down, right there in the middle of the sidewalk—me, Lil Earl, and Head—and cried.”
Granddaddy look like he might cry now, just thinking bout it. I try to imagine what it would be like to have something like that happen to me, but it don’t seem like nothin’ that would happen anymore. Still, I wanna make sure Granddaddy know I been listening, so I think and think of a good question to ask.
“Why you ain’t just get some more money and go back to the store?” I finally ask, cause I can’t think of nothin’ better. Plus, it don’t seem like such a big deal to me to lose a couple coins.
Granddaddy sighs. I can’t tell if he’s disappointed or just tired. “Well, in the time after slavery, things was different than they are now. And not just cause of segregation. Black folks ain’t have the same opportunities as white folks, to do stuff like go to school or get a good job. Back then, a lot of Black folks still worked for the white folks. Like my grandfather, he worked twenty-four years for a white man named Mr. Harvey.” I clear my throat and he stops, but I ain’t got nothin’ to say yet, so he goes on. “He worked every day for Mr. Harvey, from sunup to sundown in scorching-hot fields with no shade and not much water. Then, at the end of the week, Mr. Harvey would give him seven pennies.”
“Seven pennies?” I ask, curious. I reach into the small pocket of my shorts, where I got more money than that hidden, cause I found a dime earlier by the pond.
“Yeah, he only made pennies,” Granddaddy says, then folds his hands, slow, into his lap.
Before we came to Lansing, I heard Momma call Granddaddy a penny pincher. And when I asked her what it meant, she said that he ain’t ever gon’ give nothin’ away for cheap. I wonder if that’s why Momma thinks he’s so stingy with money, cause his granddaddy worked so hard for only seven pennies. Or cause when he finally made his own money, it got took by that mean white man. I wanna ask, but then Granddaddy turns the volume up and the sounds of Wheel of Fortune fill the room.
I stand to go back outside. I came in to ask Granddaddy if I could call Momma, but it don’t seem like a good time no more. And what I really wanna ask now is if I can still play with them white kids, since I got this dime in my pocket; plus, things ain’t even like that no more. But Granddaddy seems sad now, so I don’t ask.
“Can I play outside?” I ask instead.
“Stay away from around that house,” Granddaddy grumbles without looking my way.
I nod, even though Granddaddy don’t see me. I can’t tell if he’s lost in Wheel of Fortune or lost back on that sidewalk with his friends. Either way, he don’t move when I leave, not even a flinch when I let the door slam shut behind me.
* * *
Back outside, I find a spot in the middle of the grass out front and sit down with my legs crossed and my list unfolded in my hands. I think bout what I would’ve said if I had called Momma. I was probably gon’ tell her that I know why she had to leave us here and it’s okay. But then I remember her sad frown as she backed out the driveway. That same sad frown that I been looking at since the night Daddy died. I get that Momma is sad, but her sad is so big that it takes away from other people. Sometimes it feels like Momma’s grief for Daddy keeps me from having my own grief for Daddy. I bet it’s hard to lose a husband, but it’s hard to lose a daddy, too. I guess she don’t get that, though, cause her daddy been right here this whole time, and she barely even sees him.
I squint my eyes as the sun shifts higher in the sky. On second thought, maybe it’s good for me and Momma to have this time apart. Maybe it’s good I ain’t call.
I fold the list into a tight square that fits in my pocket, then lay out in the middle of the green grass, not quite happy or sad. I count the long, skinny blades poking between my bare toes. By seven, I’m bored. I flip over and pretend I’m a swimmer in a deep, olive ocean. Then flip on my back and look at the sky. Ain’t no clouds in all that blue. I close my eyes and listen to nothin’。
Then, the nothin’ is replaced by the rattle of a too-loud car on the road. I recognize the sound immediately, cause one time the muffler in Momma’s car went bad and when we drove past a school, a little white boy at the corner yelled at Momma, “Turn that car down now!” Nia and me both laughed and laughed, but Momma ain’t smile not once.