Leaving Atlanta (25 page)

I didn’t turn around.

The Pink Pig is a roller coaster that they only bring out at Christmastime. It rides around the giant Christmas tree on the
top of Rich’s. From the bus stop, Mama pointed again. “There it is.”

We went inside and took an elevator to the roof. I gave this white man the pink ticket I got at school for having perfect
attendance. He fastened me in a little car built for two kids. Some other cars were filled up because a lot of kids came together.
Right before we were ready to get moving, a little white boy came up with his perfect attendance ticket. The white man looked
at the empty seat next to me. After a second he said, “Wait for the next trip.” Then he pressed some buttons and the pig started
inching up the track with little clicks.

I’m not scared of heights. Never have been. I have rode on the Scream Machine at Six Flags and that’s ten times bigger and
faster than the Pink Pig. But from the roof of Rich’s downtown I saw the whole entire city except everything was too little
to really see. One of the little spots out there had to be my Uncle Kenny. If he was to wake up he might see a little spot
way up here and not even know it was me.

The only thing I could get a real good look at was the Big Tree itself, and it was ugly up close. The red, green, and gold
decorations were as big as baby heads cut off and hung upside down by a hook where the neck used to be. Lights flashed in
between the branches and I saw my face all pulled out of shape in the shiny sides of the baby-head ornaments.

When I got off, my legs were weak as matchsticks.

“Wanna ride again?” Mama had another pink ticket in her hand. “Look what I found. We can wait a minute till the man forget
you, and you can go again.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

She was looking up at the tree. “That tree is something, huh? I think it’s a hundred feet tall. I wish grown folks could ride.
Was it fun, Sweet Pea?”

I nodded my head.

“I never been on a roller coaster before,” she said. “There wasn’t no Rich’s in Macon. And even if there was, black folks
wouldn’t have been allowed to ride. We couldn’t even use the rest rooms in town. Did you know that?”

I nodded.

“So now that we can get on, I’m too old.” She laughed. “That’s a shame, huh?”

“Yes’m.”

“So you want to ride again?” It was like she was asking me for a favor.

I rode again. But when the Pig started clicking up the track I closed my eyes and refused to see the city or my face in the
baby heads.

I pumped my legs on the swing. The cold air dried out my wide-open eyes but I tried not to blink. I watched everything get
small then big again. I swung up so high that the chain gave a little jump every time I went out. Some people walking by turned
to look at me. They was wondering who is this big ol girl riding that baby swing like it’s going to take her someplace. I
stuck my tongue out and the air dried it too, like a towel on the line. I kept pumping my legs thinking about what I could
see and what I already knew.

The swing couldn’t get me high enough. I pushed with all I had, but I couldn’t see no farther than the bread factory. I saw
the tops of the soft-color projects near to where I stay at, but I couldn’t get so high that I could see the people turn into
ants and teach myself not be scared.

I kept pumping anyway like it was going out of style. Then I saw a man walking by. His hair and skin was the same brown-on-brown
as Uncle Kenny. He walked with a little dip when he stepped, just like Kenny, except I thought that Uncle Kenny did his pimp
on the other side. But maybe I was wrong and this man was walking just like Kenny. He kept walking and popping his fingers
to some music playing in his head. Maybe it was him.

“Hey!” The swing chain jerked. “Kenny!” He didn’t turn around. I pushed my legs back and forth racing to catch up with him.
Then it was like my brain said to my body,
You still on the swing, fool.
And my hands, embarrassed, let go. For a second, I felt myself in the air with my legs moving like a cartoon. “Kenny,” I
said, but I was on my way down. I called him again with all the air in my chest.

My face hit the concrete but the rest of me landed in the grass. My lip was busted open. Blood on my chin. The man stopped
popping his fingers and looked over my way. He turned his head to one side like he was trying to figure out exactly what it
was he was looking at. He took a couple steps over with that wrong-side pimp. I looked up over my head and a streetlight was
shining on me like on a stage.

I picked myself up and he stepped back one step. I looked around me. It was getting dark. Even when kids wasn’t getting killed,
Mama said it wasn’t safe to be out when the streetlights was on.

I grabbed my book bag with one hand. My knuckles were getting blood everywhere but I didn’t care.

He took another step my way, looking around. I looked around too and didn’t see nobody. Was this Uncle Kenny? I needed to
tell him that it wasn’t really my fault that Mama put him out. And that I didn’t tell her that he was looking at me in the
bathtub that time because it was an accident, like it was an accident that I told her about the dope needles. I breathed hard
out my mouth. If he would come one step closer, I could see if it was him. But if it wasn’t him, another step or two could
be close enough for him to get me. My heart was going hard in my chest like when me and Delvis knocked over a wasp nest with
a stick and took off running. The man stood stock-still like he was the one scared of me.

I couldn’t take it.

Counting three in my head, I got my hurt arms and legs together and ran down the hill toward home. I was booking, jumping
over stuff like Carl Lewis and Wilma Rudolph put together. Cold air was freezing my chest together, but I kept running, forcing
the wind into me and out again.

When I got to the sidewalk in front of my house, Donathan and Darlita were standing out front shaking their little fingers
at me.

“Ooh, Sweet Pea, you in trouble!”

Donathan reached up toward my face. “What happened? Somebody try to snatch you?” He crumpled his face up.

“No,” I said. “But you better get yourself in the house. Streetlights on already.”

Then Delvis came running out from behind the pecan trees, scaring the mess out of all three of us. “Sweet Pea,” he said, like
he had found the Easter egg with the foil on it. “People been looking for you.” He put his hand out like he was going to shake
my hand or give me a one-arm hug. “What happened to your face? Did somebody—”

“Where my mama?”

“Up in y’all’s place. She was down here a little while ago, cussing people out. She said she was fixing to call the police.”

I ran toward the building. Everything hurt. I tripped up the stairs. I felt the skin on my lip pull apart and the bleeding
started again. Our door was half open; I pushed it in.

“Mama, I’m okay.”

She put the telephone down. “Octavia Yvette Fuller, where the hell have you been?”

Whatever words I had disappeared because my mama didn’t cuss at me.

“I was at the park,” I said, but that was only half of it.

“What happened to your face?” Mama’s voice was high like Darlita’s.

“Nothing,” I told her fast. “I just fell; that’s all. I was up at the park.”

“At the park?”
Mama grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me hard. “Don’t you ever go off like that again. I work too hard to have to be
worrying about you. I didn’t know if you were kidnapped, somewhere raped, laying dead in a ditch.” Her fingers mashed my skin
like dough. “Or with some boy.”

“But, Mama, it wasn’t like that.”

Then she hit me cross the face.

I tried to pull away, but she still had me hard by the shoulders. She put her face right up to mine. The white part of her
eyes was crisscrossed with red. Mama’s breath in my face was strong like a whole pack of Kools. She shook me again and my
head flopped back and forth like I was made of rubber.

“How many children got to die before you learn to bring your ass home?”

She slapped me again and had her hand back to give me another one. I opened my mouth to holler so maybe somebody might hear
me and save me, but Miss Darlene came busting in, turning on the light.

“Yvonne! What you trying to do? Beat the child half to death?” She was looking at my face. Her eyes stopped on my chin. The
blood drying there made my skin tight.

“Somebody see this girl and they’ll call the county on you. That what you want?” Miss Darlene shut our door.

Mama let go of my shoulders and put her hands on the side of my face. I was scared she was still crazy. But at least she was
moving slow. Miss Darlene was shaking her head like me and Mama both need to be shamed. I didn’t really want Mama touching
me, but I didn’t want Miss Darlene to see me scared of my own mama. So I stood stiff and pretended that I was on the roof
of Rich’s and Mama was a little speck that couldn’t hurt me.

Mama touched my chin with her finger. “Sweet Pea.”

Miss Darlene gave a couple of clicks with her tongue like she was God’s secretary writing all of this down.

“I was already hurt. I fell on my face in the park.” And that was the truth.

Miss Darlene made the sound again like she was adding
lying
to her little list.

“For real,” I said.

Mama was looking at her hands like she never seen them before.

“You want Sweet Pea to stay over to my place till you get your act together?” Miss Darlene said. “What’s the point of carrying
a child for nine months just to kill them when they get here?”

“Get out of here,” I said.

“Watch your mouth; I’m the one trying to help you.”

“I don’t need nothing from you. I told you my mouth was cut when I got home so get out.”

“Yvonne.” Miss Darlene looked at Mama, who was sitting on her knees on the carpet. Her head came up as high as my chest.

I kept my eyes on Mama too. I never talked crazy to a grown person before and I didn’t know what she was going to do. I ducked
my head in case she was going to up and slap me again. But Mama just waved her hand like me and Miss Darlene was a couple
of flies trying to spoil her picnic.

“If you need something,” Miss Darlene said, “you know where I’m at.”

I didn’t know which one of us she was talking to, but neither one of us said anything to her.

Mama pushed herself off the carpet holding her hands out in front of her like she had on wet fingernail polish. I wasn’t scared
of her no more. I could see tears all over her like a hidden picture. Tears in her face, on her hands, swirled in her legs.
Whatever had rose up in her was back down now. I couldn’t say that it was gone forever. She sat on the couch and I sat at
the kitchen table.

The blood on my face was drying up. I picked at my chin and brown flakes fell to the table. I brushed them away and the table
wobbled on its short leg. Mama hadn’t said anything to me since she tried to slap my face right off my head. To tell the truth,
I really didn’t want her to. She the one always talking about she don’t believe in beating children. And then she didn’t even
give me a chance to explain.

The phone rang. Mama didn’t move. It rang again.

“Want me to get it?” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. Her voice was as faded as her blue jeans.

“Hello,” I said.

“You back! Praise God!”

“Yes ma’am, Granny,” I said looking over to Mama to see what I was supposed to do. But she didn’t look up.

“You scared your mama half to death. And your granny too. I was fixing to hop on the Greyhound and find you myself. I need
to call Ray and tell him you alright. Where were you?”

“I was at school doing extra work. I forgot to tell Mama.”

“That’s a shame,” Granny said. “That’s why Yvonne need to get you out of that city. People like to talk about us living in
the country, but at least we don’t have to call the National Guard when a child stay a little while after to get her lesson.”

“Yes’m.”

“Now let me talk to Yvonne.”

Mama was still froze in her place on the couch.

“She in the rest room,” I said. “Want me to tell her to call you back?”

“Tell her she can call me collect.”

“Yes’m.” I wonder if Granny know she wasting her time every time she call this house. She can probably count every true word
we ever said on one hand.

I hung up the phone and went back to the table. I kept rocking it back and forth like a loose tooth. The little taps it made
was like a clock. It was about seven o’clock. I hadn’t had nothing to eat since lunchtime. Mama was still on the couch like
a magician had hypnotized her and told her she was a rock.

She was still sitting out there when I came out the bathroom. Once I wiped off all the blood, I looked a lot better. My lip
was split and meat was showing, but the rest of my face looked okay. Thank God, I’m dark. Light-skinned people are soft and
show bruises easy. If a child go to school bruised, the teacher could call the county.

“Mama,” I said, hoping my new and improved face would make her snap out of it. The word came out funny because it hurt to
touch my lips together. Mama turned in my direction and I hurried over the couch. “See, it’s better.”

“Sweet Pea, I’m sorry, baby.” She kept her hand in her lap. “Oh, look at your lip.” Then tears started rolling down her face.
They kept running into each other and getting bigger and bigger.

I got mad again. I’m the one got pimp-slapped twice. My lip was swollen up bigger than JJ. I’m the one who didn’t have no
dinner. And
she
sitting here crying like her feelings hurt?

She reached her hand out like she was going to touch my face. I jerked back. “Don’t touch me.” She snatched her hand back
and I felt guilty. “It’s too sore.”

“I’m so sorry, baby.”

“You said you don’t believe in beating children.”

She let the air out through her nose. “I know.” She shook her head. “You scared me so bad.”

“But you didn’t let me tell my side. You just started shaking me and stuff.” Then out of nowhere my tears found their way
out.