Somebody's Someone (21 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

CRAB BALL

IF I’D KNOWED I
was gonna get caught at it, I wouldn’t’ve done it in the first place. But somehow I had to show that big-mouthed tattletale Dennis a lesson. For the record, Ruby’s boys and me got on rightly fine for the most part. But there was days when one of ’em in particular worked my nerves. Dwayne Edward, he was nice all the way round. All he ever wanted to do is play golf, bowl, and read. All you had to do is tell him once, maybe twice, and he’d know when to get on out the way. Now Dennis was just as nice a boy, the only difference being, he kept a secret like a baby who ate Ex-Lax kept her bowels. I got so tired of him promising he wouldn’t tell, just so he could come along with me, then turning round and blabbin’ anything he could r’member, that I had to do something ’bout him.

This one Saturday, a couple of us neighborhood kids was playin’ doorbell ditch—that’s where you ring a doorbell and run—a few streets over from our own house, and we came to a yard that had a package from a place called Hickory Farms layin’ beside the mailbox. I figured the folks didn’t want the box no more since it was left outside, so we took it with us, forget-tin’ all ’bout ringing the doorbell, and found a place to open it. For a minute we all stood wide-eyed, wondering whose house we was gonna take our new treasure to.

After nobody could make up they minds, we ended up at the back of our house, out near the creek. Once we was all situated I opened the box and found all kinds of food inside. There was cheese shaped like a baseball then rolled in some kinda nuts, and big ole sausages, with li’l mustard jars to dip ’em in. We went to town, Dennis included, throwin’ out the ball-shaped thing first, then eating the rest of the goodies. But when we went back inside our house and Ruby asked us what we was up to, Dennis goes and say, “I didn’t wanna eat that stuff they stole in the first place, but Gina made me.”

I could’ve beat him down right then and there. I narrowed my eyes at him like a hawk on its prey. “Shut up!” I mumbled at him, and moved to pinch the daylights outta his arm.

“You betta’ stop it,” he said, cryin’ and holdin’ the place on his arm where he was feeling the fire.

“What the hell is goin’ on here, Regina?” Ruby asked me.

“I don’t know what he talkin’ ’bout,” I said, with my arms crossed behind my back and my face turned to Dennis as I said the words slow, to show him he betta’ not say another thing.

“Dennis, now you betta’ tell me what is so, and I mean real quick-like. I ain’t got time for all this shit.” Ruby’s face looked just like she said, like it didn’t have time for no shit. Her eyes, mouth, and eyebrows was pulled towards her nose, sayin’ she was not to be played with.

He told the whole story. Dennis also told Ruby that I said I’d beat him up if he spilled the beans. For being a yellow-bellied mama’s boy, Dennis got off without being cussed at or told off, and being the youngest didn’t hurt either. Ruby told me that I was the oldest and should’ve knowed betta’, so I could expect a ass whippin’ when she could get round to it; but in the meantime, I was to stay in our yard only, with no kid visitors. “And furthermore,” Ruby told me, “if I find out you touched that boy in any way, I’m gonna whip yo’ ass twice.” That was fine by me. I didn’t mind hanging with myself, ’cause it gave me time to make a real good plan to get that blabbermouth back.

Everybody knowed the meanest boy on our block was Ernest Thurgood. He was a bully who’d beat the crap outta anybody for no good reason. I also heard he’d beat the crap outta folks for a good reason, if the price was right. This is where my plan came in. One Monday morning I ran out to get on the school bus, a full five minutes ahead of the boys. Me and the boys rode the same bus even though we didn’t go to the same school. I got on, told the bus driver that the boys was comin’, and spotted Ernest right off. Man, was he a big sloppy-looking boy. He still had that pus-looking stuff in his eyes from just waking up and was twice the size as both my brothers put together.

I asked the fat bully-boy, who was nothin’ close to cute, if he would beat the mess outta Dennis the minute he stepped on the bus. When he asked me why, I told him ’cause Dennis had talked ’bout him behind his back, and if that wasn’t ’nough to make him wanna go off on him, then I’d be willing to give him some money, to do it just b’cause. He asked me how much, and I told him thirty-three cents—it was all I had. It was a deal. I adjusted myself in my seat like nothin’ was goin’ on. As I peeped out the window I could see ’em coming. There they was, Dwayne Edward in the front and “Li’l Bigmouth” bringin’ up the rear. I couldn’t keep myself still waiting to see what was comin’ next. Up the stairs they came, and as Dennis took his sit, Ernest walked over and hit him in the eye, just like that. B’fore anybody could say one thing Dennis had run back off the bus and into the house, hollerin’ like a ninny all the way.

Quick as a flash, Ruby was out the door and on her way, with Dennis’s sorry ass in tow. She was draggin’ him right back ’cross that lawn and straight onto that bus.

“Who the hell is Ernest? And I wanna know now!” Ruby was not playin’; she had that pulled look on her face again—the same one she wore the last time there was a problem with me and Dennis. All the kids pointed right at Ernest, and Ruby walked right up on him. “Who the fuck you think you are hit-tin’ my child? Who told you you had the right to touch him?”

Ernest looked like he was gonna go on hisself. Ruby grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and was ’bout to ask him again when the boy screamed out and pointed right at me. “She did. She told me to beat him up ’cause he talk too much.”

Ruby’s eyes turned to where his point landed—right smack in the middle of me. “Regina, I know you didn’t do what he just said.” She must’ve frog-leaped over the seats to get to me.

“Get yo’ ass up and let’s go.” I looked at the bus driver, praying she was gonna do something, but she didn’t. “Come on, you rotten li’l thing. Get yo’ ass up now!”

Ruby had her hand round the back of my neck and was slapping on me all the way off the bus. I could hear all them stupid kids laughing at me as the door closed and the bus drove off. Ruby was still slappin’ me as she pushed me ’cross the street.

“I thought I told you not to bother Dennis, and you have to go and get that boy beat up, your own brother at that.” She never took a breath as she hit me all upside my head with her fists. I just kept telling myself,
That didn’t hurt—that didn’t hurt.
Ruby’s hittin’ wasn’t as bad as Lula Mae’s, plus Ruby didn’t use water hoses and extension cords. She used fists and if necessary guns. But I wasn’t worried that she’d shoot me on account I wasn’t Sister.

“Get yo’ grown ass outta my face. I don’t wanna see you no time soon.” She pushed me outta her way as she walked off. I stood where Ruby left me for a minute, right on the grass in the front yard. I put my hands up to the places that really did hurt and rubbed ’em. I wasn’t gonna let her know I was cryin’, so I kept the tears inside and let ’em pile up in my throat. As Ruby left my eyesight, I headed for the li’l creek in the backyard of my house. I let her words stomp ’cross my mind again. “Get yo’ grown ass outta my face. I don’t wanna see you no time soon.” Those words wasn’t news to me; plus, I didn’t care if I ever seen her again. I plopped down on the green grass, which was wet from the mornin’, and just sat there cryin’ quiet for as long as I could think. I knowed that something in me changed for Ruby right then. I still loved her and wanted her for my mama, but I saw how she could really be. Far as I could tell, this was just one of the many times she picked one of her boys or a man over me. I thought Doretha’s leavin’ had made it betta’ for me, but I could see that Ruby just wanted to be with boys; they was the ones she stuck up for. Now I don’t feel so sorry ’bout those eyes that seemed so sad ’cause I thought they’d seen so much that was hard. I could see that she prob’ly brought hard on herself for sticking up for the wrong folks. I didn’t wanna worry ’bout Ruby no more. I felt sorry for my own head and heart.

It took a while for the story of my mama whoopin’ my ass to die off a bit on that stupid bus. I had to clamp my teeth down on many a day, just to keep from kickin’ somebody’s tail for pokin’ fun at me. “Boohoo, yo’ mama beat you. Boohoo, yo’ mama beat you,” them mangy li’l kids would say to me. Finally I told ’em that the next one who reminded me of that whoopin’ was gonna get whooped themselves. I guess they came to see that anybody crazy ’nough to get they own brother beat up was somebody not to fool with. Shortly after that, all the boohooin’ stopped.

The only thing that made riding that stupid bus all right was knowing that it was takin’ me to school. I loved my new school. I specially loved Physical Education, ’cause I got to play a bunch of sports that I never heard of b’fore—like climbin’ ropes that was connected to the ceiling of our gym, and doing basketball. I was real good at both of those. I don’t ever r’member doing nothin’ like that back in Texas. The only sports I ever did there was runnin’.

It didn’t take long for me to fall hard for my PE teacher, Ms. Peterson. She had to be one of the nicest people I knowed— even though she looked just like a fella. That didn’t bother me a’tall. Miss Ida looked like one too, and she was my friend. I was keen on Ms. Peterson ’cause she paid more attention to me than I could ever r’member getting, without me being in trouble. She said that I was real good at all kinds of sports, but specially good at crab ball.

Crab ball was a game that had two teams. Each team was on either side of a line. The idea of the game was for all us girls to get our hands in the back of us, feet in the front; knees bent, and our bottoms on the floor. We was to crawl round like crabs, kicking a ball to the opposite side of a line that was taped to the gym floor. You got points after the ball flew over the marked line, and the first team that got to ten points won. The ball was a gigantic beach ball that floated in the air when you kicked it, so it wasn’t all that easy to make a score.

“That’s it, now, Regina, you’ve really got the hang of it. You are a real pro at crawlin’ on that floor!”

Ms. Peterson won me over right then and there. I had never heard words like that ’bout me. Lord knows she should have never said a thing to me, ’cause after that I became a super tomboy. There wasn’t a sport I didn’t do, specially if she was round, ’cept maybe swim. I was a li’l bit scared of water on account of the things you could swallow without you even knowing. I got really good at basketball. So much so that Ms. Peterson told me ’bout a camp in Raleigh, at the university.

“Regina, why don’t you apply for the basketball camp at the University of North Carolina? I think it will help you hone in on your skills. Check it out with your parents and let me know. Plus, I think you’ll get a kick outta living on campus with lotsa other girls your own age.”

I ain’t never heard of no university till then, and I couldn’t wait to get home so that I could let Ruby know what my teacher said.

The first thing I did when I seen Ruby that night—I stayed up till eleven-thirty to talk to her when she got off work—was tell her what Ms. Peterson said ’bout the camp and living in a university. She said, “I’ll see what I can do. But you know money don’t grow on trees.” That was good comin’ from somebody who complained a lot ’bout not having no money. Maybe Ruby was wanting to be different with me.

One day, not long after asking Ruby ’bout the camp, I was out on the porch talking to Nichelle and her sister Carol when Ruby called me in to talk on the phone. She told me it was somebody I didn’t know but that he wanted to talk to me, and for me to never turn down a man who was interested in talking, specially when you was the one wanting somethin’.

“Hello.”

“Well, hello there. How are you, Regina?”

The man on the other line sounded like a white. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how he knew my name.

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“Your mother tells me that you would like to go to a basketball camp. Is this so?” Who on earth was this man?

I could hardly understand him, with all that proper talking. Plus, why was this white man asking me questions ’bout my “mother” and camp? I let him go on.

“Yeah, I want to go to camp. My teacher say I’m good.”

“Do you know who I am, Regina?”

“No, sorry, cain’t say I do,” I replied.

“My name is Glenn Hathaway. I am your father. Do you remember me?” Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! I sho’ didn’t ever think I’d hear from Odetta’s son Glenn, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. But on the other hand, if he was calling to do good by me for a change, then maybe him calling was a good thing?

I was quiet, caught by a mem’ry—I could see it as clear as water: Ruby sitting down and telling me ’bout the light-skinned stranger....

“Hello, Regina. Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Is you gonna send me the money for camp? It costs two hundred dollars.” The way I saw it was, if this man wanted to send me money to go to camp, that was fine with me. That didn’t mean I had to like him.

“You waste no time driving in your point. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Bye now. I gotta go back to my friends—they’s waiting on me.” I didn’t wait to hear what he said. I handed the phone back over to Ruby and went back outside.

I just couldn’t believe it when the money came. I was even more surprised that Ruby used it to send me to the camp. With Mr. Nasty runnin’ things and all, there was no tellin’ what could go down. Maybe in her own way Ruby knowed what her dirty-dog boyfriend was up to and she was trying to get me outta his sight. Whatever the reasons, I didn’t give a hoot. I just wanted to go and be away from home and have some fun.

After riding on a bus for several hours we arrived at the University of North Carolina’s girls’ basketball camp. I couldn’t believe it! I was on a real college campus. All the yard surrounding the school was green and cut short, nicer’n Aint Mae’s back home in Texas. I knowed I was gonna love it here. The counselors told me I was gonna stay on campus for five days and live in what was called a dormitory. I ain’t never seen somethin’ so big and clean as them buildings the dorms was in. I wished right then that I could live there. The next thing our counselors did was set us down and let us know what to expect for the next couple of days. I wondered how they would be able to know what was gonna happen every day we was there. I thought they was real smart. One thing they said made my belly jump all over the place: they told us to invite our families to see us in our last game. Somehow, I knew betta’ than to even think ’bout it. It was one thing to ask Ruby for money for a camp; it was another to ask her to come and watch me play some game. I didn’t let myself believe one minute that that was gonna ever happen. Instead I tuned them words “invite your families” right on outta my mind.