Somebody's Someone (5 page)

It was there, in the closet, I learned to hold my breath and count.

Sometimes it’d be to a hundred, and other times I’d just count till I couldn’t r’member where I started from. I ain’t too sure of what would happen to my sister while I was in the closet. But I do believe she’d put up a good fight. Even through the door that was closed with a thick dresser up against it, I could still hear flesh thumping up against flesh—like big hands slapping on a watermelon to see if it was ripe. And when I’d come out of that stupid closet, my sister would either be gone or sometimes I’d find her on the floor b’tween our twin beds balled up like a newborn baby—cryin’. Funny thing, though; I don’t ever r’member Big Lawrence picking on them boys too much.

One day, while I was outside, trying to put the chain back on a bicycle I’d borrowed—a tall light-skinned man came up to me and said, “Excuse me, can you tell me where Ruby Carmichael lives?”

After giving him the once-over, I told him, “I ain’t to be talking to no strangers.”

He said that he was sure my mama wouldn’t mind. And that he was a real old friend of hers. Then he handed me a present. “Here, I have something especially for you.”

I took it and worried if he was the kind of man that I’d been warned against getting in the car with. Holding the present in my hands, I looked round, saw no car, then figured the fella was okay. I turned the gift over in my hands. It was a plastic white pen that was planted in a little flowerpot, and at the end of the pen was a white dove. “Thank you.” I turned the plastic object round in my hand and wondered why he’d gave it to me. More than that, I wanted to know what I should do with it. I wasn’t able to write with pens in school yet.

“Over there—Ruby lives in that there house.” I pointed to the house ’cross the street from where I was standing. Holding on to my new pen, I forgot about the bicycle chain and watched as the man crossed the street. His legs was long and narrow and shaped like a wishbone. He was wearing a pair of pants with a matching coat. From the looks of him, I could tell that he wasn’t the kind of man that Ruby was used to. He talked like he wasn’t from round these here parts—he sounded like Dick Clark from
American Bandstand.
I watched as the stranger knocked on the door and waited. Within minutes I heard Ruby screaming and shouting. “Oh, Glenny, is that you? Where the hell have you been?” Then she pulled him into the house and shut the door. I knowed not to bother ’em, so I went on about my playing.

Later on that day Ruby called me in and sat down with me at the kitchen table. She told me she had something to talk with me ’bout. “I know we ain’t never talked like this b’fore, but I gotta tell you ’bout cha’ daddy.” I could feel my stomach jump up to my throat and hang out for a while. For a minute it felt like I wasn’t no longer sittin’ on the chair, but slowly rising up towards the ceiling. In all my life I didn’t even have time to think on no daddy, on account I was so busy worryin’ ’bout Ruby. I wondered for a second why she wasn’t talking to Sister too. Then suddenly I knowed right then and there that me and Sister didn’t come from the same man, and that that man come to visit was my so-called daddy, not hers. I didn’t really feel bad for Sister, though, ’cause I didn’t know what either of us needed a daddy for.

“Now me and Glenn, we go way back. I’ve been knowing him since I was a child.” I could tell that Ruby had been sipping out her liquor bottle by the way her words was starting to get deep with drawl and by her sounding like a wee l’il girl.

“Outta all the mens I ever liked, I liked Glenn, ya’ daddy, the most. Hell, for all I know I prob’ly loved him. And that’s why I never told you ’bout him or him ’bout you. I didn’t wanna get in his way of being famous.”

I was too besides myself to understand any of them words pouring outta Ruby’s mouth. I didn’t know how to believe a sound she said. Far as I knowed, he was another one of her men friends that she was bound to run off and leave us for. And from the looks of things, she seemed like she was stupid in love over him already. I noticed she’d taken the time to put herself together real nice-like. Her hair was softly set, then pulled into a curly ’fro puff, and she had fancy makeup on. To top that off Ruby wore her l’il halter-top outfit with the pink and red flowers. In the short time I was with her, I hadn’t seen her dress herself like that for nobody. Finally she stood up, as if she couldn’t sit next to me no more, and repeated herself ’bout how Glenn was not to blame, ’cause he didn’t know nothin’ ’bout me. And the reason he didn’t know nothin’ ’bout me was ’cause she’d wanted to protect him. She said he had dreams to chase, and she didn’t want him to feel trapped here in Texas by no baby. Something inside me told me to go on and ask Ruby the question that was burning inside my mind and belly waiting to get out.

“Ruby, is that man only my daddy, or is he anybody else’s daddy too?”

“Nah, he ain’t nobody else’s daddy, just your own—at least that I know of.” Ruby sniggled as she threw in that last bit. “Don’t worry ’bout nobody else, ’cause I know you meaning Doretha Ann, and that ain’t none of ya’ damned business.” Just then, I did feel bad for Doretha, but Ruby kept right on talkin’ so much that in a minute’s time I seemed to have forgot ’bout my sister and her not havin’ this daddy.

Ruby also told me how Glenn worked ’cross the United States, writing songs for a famous man, and that’s all I needed to know. I watched her hoot and holler, but I never believed a word she said. As far as I could see, that man named Glenn was as close to a white man as they came. He looked more akin to Donna Janine than he did me. If it wasn’t for that big ole natural he was wearing, and the wideness of his nose, he could’ve maybe passed. Plus I didn’t sound nothing like him. Up to then, I ain’t never heard no black people talk like him. So far as I was concerned, he wasn’t real kin to me after all. Plus I didn’t need to have a daddy if Doretha didn’t have one.

The next day, “the man named Glenn” went out and bought me toys. I got a swing set with three seats, a seesaw, and a slide that sat in the backyard. There was also a doll that you could pull her hair out from the top of her head if you pushed her belly button. That was all nice, but I still didn’t have no daddy feelings towards him. Plus, I don’t recall him striking up no conversations to speak of with me.

That afternoon Ruby took “the man named Glenn” to Austin Municipal and put him on a plane back to California. A little while later, I was laying on the floor watching TV, and I heard what I imagined to be his plane pass over my head. From out of nowhere water was running down the sides of my face. I hadn’t even got a chance to tell him anything ’bout myself or to ask him if he was Doretha’s daddy too. Worst of all he hadn’t even asked me if I wanted to go back with him. I looked up towards him in the sky and thought, I don’t know who you think you is, but you sure ain’t no kin to me. I didn’t know much ’bout daddies, but I knew for sho’ that no decent man would come and see “his child” and not even offer to take her back home with him. Secretly, I’d wished the li’l white dove could’ve come to life and flown me right alongside my daddy. But knowing it couldn’t made me not want it no more. I traded it to the fella who’d let me ride his bike. That very next week me and Sister had to go back to Big Mama’s. I didn’t know why we hadda leave, but Ruby said we did, and that was that. I couldn’t take the swing set with me, and the doll’s head, arms, and legs was no longer hooked to her body—from what I could tell, somebody’d tore her up in a flat-out fit—so I had nothing to remind me of the man called Glenn. I never heard another word ’bout him again until the day I met Odetta Fontaine—my so-called daddy’s mama.

I forced my eyes back open and returned to right now. “I think she lives round here somewhere,” I told Mrs. Perez. “And if you let me use your phone, I’ll call the operator and get her number.”

She took the phone off its cradle and handed it to me.
“Sí. Sí, mija.
Ju go right ahead,” she told me.

With my body throbbing to the bone, I picked up the receiver and dialed the number zero and waited for someone to pick up. Once the call was received, I told the operator lady my daddy’s mama’s name. After a short stall, she gave me the num ber. Taking my second finger, I placed it on the button that would clear the line, while letting go of the breath I didn’t even know I was holding on to. I put my finger into the seven different numbered circles, one at a time, and dialed the number, willing with all my body that this woman I was callin’ would still know who I was. I’d spoken to her on the phone a few times, but I hadn’t seen or heard from her in a long while. But now I could recollect her voice saying, “Call me if you ever need somethin’, chile.” And I sure needed somethin’, so here I was calling on her.

The line must’ve rang ten times or so b’fore Odetta finally picked it up.

“Hello.”

There was a long quiet, the kind that made you wanna hang up. It felt like a prank call that left you wordless with a stranger you had no business messing with. “Hello, anybody there?”

“Uh...hi is this the Odetta Fontaine house?” I asked, my voice trembling above a whisper. While waiting for her to answer me, I reached up and started to pull on the patch of hair that made up my sideburn. I had rubbed and pulled it so much in my life that there was barely any hair left. Big Mama had me put Glover’s sulfur ointment on the spot to help it grow back. She said it was unsightly for a girl child to be bald on one side of her head and that it made me look like a dog with mange that nobody wanted.

“Well, who wanna know?” Odetta asked after some time.

“I do,” I said.

“Who is you?” she asked slowly.

“I’m Re... gina—you know, you came and met me and stuff. You even took me shopping once on behalf of your son, and you told me I could call on you if I needed somethin’.” I hoped I had the right Odetta.

“Lawd have mercy, chile, what’s the matter wit’ cha? Why you callin’ on me now?”

I had no answer for her. I could barely talk.

“They b-beat m-me.” I stuttered and choked on the tears that tripped my words up; I wasn’t meaning to say that. I don’t know what I was meaning to say. It was like the words themselves needed to have somebody listen to ’em. I just wanted to be gone, and for a minute or two, it seemed like God had opened up the floor and pushed me down into a big hole and every time I stuck my hand out to grab along the sides I’d slip even further. Hearing her voice made me holler. I thought if I cried loud ’nough, somebody who’d really want to know would hear me and come break my fall by grabbin’ ahold of me and claiming me for they very own. I hated that stupid Glenn for having me. And I was mad at my own self for making that stupid pact with God. I couldn’t stand him!

“Who...? What...? Where you at, baby?” Odetta asked in a soft, high-pitched Texas way. “I come get cha, wherever you be.” In all my life I couldn’t r’member nobody calling me baby that I could think of. I sho’ didn’t feel like I was anybody’s baby. I thought for sho’ I was gonna break in half right there on the spot. I told her the address to where I was, and that it wasn’t too far from the place she’d come to see me b’fore. Odetta promised me that she was on her way.

“Be on the lookout for a black-and-white checkered taxicab, baby. It’ll be me. I’m on my way.” After swearing to her that I wouldn’t call nobody else, I just stood where I was, letting ever’thing work itself right on through my mind. Then it all hit me, and I could feel my body breaking from the middle.

I dropped the receiver and slid down the wall, hitting the floor with my bottom. The tears kept falling. Seemed like the harder I moaned and balled my fists, the deeper my nails cut into the palms of my hands. I just wanted to disappear. Mrs. Perez picked up the receiver and talked as best she could to Odetta. When she was done giving Odetta her address and stuff she hung the phone up.

I hadn’t took notice of it until I started crying hard, but somehow Lula had cut me ’cross the neck with the Green Monster, and the salt from my tears found their way to the welt and made it hurt like the dickens. I laid a wet paper towel over the partially blood-hardened gnash, cooling it off with a quickness.

I sat on the floor next to the cabinet wall I’d slid down. My body was so sore it was the best I could do to just sit there and wait for my daddy’s mama. As Mrs. Perez finished up her cooking, I sat and watched till my thoughts started chasing Odetta.

The day Miss Odetta came out to the Thornhills’, she said that she’d come on behalf of her son. I wanted to know what that meant, but I didn’t bother to ask her on account I was too happy to see somebody come just for me. Miss Odetta went on ’bout how ’shame of hisself her son should be, specially since I was so pretty, but that we shouldn’t be too hard on him ’cause he’s out in some place called California trying to make something of hisself. I already knowed that. I asked her why Glenn hisself didn’t come if he was the reason she came. “Honey, that boy works real hard, and he cain’t come just yet.” I r’membered liking her calling me “honey.”

Last time I seen her, she came to take me shopping—just me alone and not my sister. I kinda felt bad for Sister, but I didn’t know what to do for her, other than to let her boss me round. I didn’t understand all the particulars of grown folks’ ways of who belonged to who and this and that—I just liked having Doretha as my sister, and I felt bad when it seemed like I had a li’l more than she did. Seemed like nobody ever came and did nothing nice for her like Miss Odetta was doing for me. Except not too long ago when this ole fella come to our place to give her something called a scholarship to one of them big New York schools for drawing and painting. Without nobody knowing, Sister had answered one of them contest ads in the back of one of my Richie Rich comic books, where you have to draw the picture of a dog called Dippy and send it in for money to go to school with. Well, Doretha Ann won the contest fair and square. The man told Big Mama that they hadn’t seen nobody with that kinda talent in a long time. But Big Mama wasn’t gonna have none of it! She flat-out told the ole fella no and said she ain’t never heard of no sixteen-year-old black girl runnin’ off to no big school halfway round the world to learn something she already knowed how to do. That man tried to talk Big Mama into letting Sister go, but ended up leaving Doretha right where he’d found her. Later that same night, I found Sister buried deep under the covers of our bed cryin’ softly like a baby. When I asked her what the matter was she told me that she hated me and everybody else out at Big Mama’s and that she wanted to die. I didn’t say nothin’. I simply laid down behind her and prayed to God to let her wanna live.