The Women of Brewster Place (16 page)

She turned her head toward the door and sighed when she heard the knock. Now what? It couldn’t be the kids, once they were out she had to go down and scrape them from the streets unless they got too cold or hungry. Did that cranky old woman really call the cops? She opened the door and faced a tall pretty young girl with beaded hair, holding a struggling and cursing Sammy by the collar and a stack of papers in the other arm. The other children littered the hallway and stairs to watch their brother’s ordeal.

“Mama, I ain’t done nothing. Tell this shit face; I ain’t done nothing.”

“What a way to talk.” She snatched him and flung him into the apartment. “Missy, I’m sorry. Did he steal something from you? He’s always taking things and I’ve beat him about it but he still won’t stop. I’ve told the little dumb-ass the teachers have threatened to send him to reform school.” She turned toward her son. “Do you hear that—
reform school,
you little…”

“No, wait, you’ve got it all wrong—it’s not that!” The girl shifted the papers in her arm uncomfortably. “He was downstairs eating out of one of the garbage cans and I thought you oughta know because, well, he might be hungry or something.”

“Oh,” Cora Lee seemed relieved, “I know he does that.” She saw the girl’s eyes widen slightly in disbelief. “He’s looking for sweets. The dentist at the clinic said all his teeth are rotten so I won’t give him anything sweet and he searches through garbage cans for them. I tried to make him stop but you can’t be everywhere at once. I figure once he gets sick
enough from that filthy habit, he’ll stop by himself.”

The girl was still staring at her. Cora went on, “Believe me, my kids get plenty to eat. I got two full books of food stamps I haven’t used yet. I don’t know why I bother to cook; they just mess over their food—always eating that damned candy. But I had to stop Sammy because the doctors said his gums were infected and I didn’t want that spreading to the baby.” Why was this girl looking at her so strangely? She probably thought she was lying. Sammy was really gonna get it for embarrassing her like this. “I was just about to cook dinner when you came to the door,” she lied. She still had two more stories to watch before forcing herself to face the greasy sinkful of day-old dishes and pots that had to be cleared away before making dinner. “Okay, y’all,” she called over the girl’s shoulder, “come on in the house, it’s almost time to eat.”

Howls of protest and disbelief followed in the wake of her words and she ran out in the hall behind the retreating footsteps. “I said get your ass in this house!” she yelled. “Or you gonna be damned sorry!” The unaccustomed force in her voice stunned them into a reluctant obedience. They sulked past her into the apartment with a series of sucking teeth and “we never eat this earlys” that were not lost on the girl.

Cora smiled triumphantly at the girl and let out a long sigh. “You see what I mean—they’re terrible. I just don’t know.”

“Yes,” the girl looked down uneasily at her papers, “it must be difficult with so many. I’m sorry I had to meet you like this but I was coming by anyway.” She looked up and slipped into a practiced monologue. “I’m Kiswana Browne and I live up on the sixth floor. I’m trying to start a tenants’ association on this block. You know, all of these buildings are owned by one man and if we really pull together, we can put pressure on him to start fixing this place up. Once we get the association rolling we can even stage a rent strike and do the repairs ourselves. I’d like you to check off on this sheet all the things that are wrong with your apartment and then I’m going
to take these forms and file them at the housing court.”

Cora Lee listened to Kiswana’s musical, clipped accent, looked at the designer jeans and striped silk blouse, and was surprised she had said that she lived in this building. What was she doing on a street like Brewster? She couldn’t have been here very long or she would know there was nothing you could do about the way things were. That white man didn’t care about what a bunch of black folks had to say, and these people weren’t gonna stick together no way. They were too busy running around complaining, trying to make trouble for her instead of the landlord. It’s a shame she’s wasting her time because she seems like a nice girl.

“There’s plenty wrong with this place, but this ain’t gonna do no good.”

“It will if we can get enough people to sign these forms. I’ve already been through four of the buildings and the response is really great. We’ll be having our first meeting this Saturday at noon.”

“I just don’t know,” Cora sighed and looked around her apartment. Kiswana openly followed her gaze and Cora Lee answered what she saw reflected in the girl’s face. “You know, you can’t keep nothing nice with these kids tearing up all the time. My sister gave me that living room set only six months ago and it was practically new.”

“No, I know what you mean,” Kiswana said a little too quickly as her eyes passed over the garbage spilling out of the kitchen can.

“You got kids then?”

“No, but my brother has two and he says they can really be a handful at times.”

“Well, I got a lot more than that so you can imagine the hell I go through.”

Kiswana jumped as they heard a loud crash and a scream coming from the corner of the room. Cora Lee turned around placidly and without moving called to the child tangled in the fallen curtain rods and drapery. “You happy now, Dorian?
Huh? I told ya a million times to stop swinging on my curtains, so good for you!”

Kiswana pushed past her and went toward the screaming child. “Maybe he’s hurt his head.”

“Naw, he’s always falling from something. He’s got a head like a rock.” Cora followed her to examine her curtains and see if they were torn. “He’s just like his father—all those West Indians got hard heads.” Well, at least, I guess he was West Indian, she thought, he had some kind of accent. “This curtain rod’s totally gone.” She glared down at the child Kiswana was cradling. “And I got no more money to replace it, so these drapes can just stay down for all I care.”

Dorian had stopped crying and was feeling the colorful beads attached to Kiswana’s braids.

“Leave her hair alone and get up and go in the other room.”

Kiswana looked up at Cora alarmed. “There’s a big knot coming up on the side of his head; maybe we should take him…”

“It’ll go down,” Cora said and went to the couch and picked up the baby. Kiswana was still holding Dorian and made no attempt to hide the disapproval on her face. “Look,” Cora Lee said, “if I ran to the hospital every time one of these kids bumps their head or scrapes their knee, I’d spend the rest of my life in those emergency rooms. You just don’t know—they’re wild and disgusting and there’s nothing you can do!” She rocked the baby energetically as if the motions of her body could build up a wall against the girl’s silent condemnation.

Dorian tried to snatch one of the beads twisted in Kiswana’s hair and she cried out in pain as he jumped from her lap with the end of a braid clenched in his fist. “Son-of-a…!” flew out of her mouth before she stopped herself and bit on her lip.

“See what I mean?” Cora almost smiled gratefully at Dorian as he raced around the door into the other room.

“You know,” Kiswana got off her knees and brushed the dust from her jeans, “they’re probably that way from being cramped up in this apartment all the time. Kids need space to move around in.”

“There’s plenty of room in that school yard for them to play, but will they go to school? No. And the last time I let them go to the park somebody gave Sammy a reefer and when my mother found it in his pocket, I caught hell for that. So what am I supposed to do? I gotta keep them away from there or I’ll end up with a bunch of junkies on my hands.”

She saw out of the corner of her eye that
Another World
was going off. Aw shit! Now she wouldn’t know until Monday if Rachel had divorced Mack because he’d become impotent after getting caught in that earthquake. Why didn’t this girl just go home and stop minding her business.

“Look, I have your paper and I’ll look it over, okay? But I got a million things to do right now so you can come back for it some other time.” She knew she was being rude, but there were only three commercials left before
The Doctors
started.

“Oh, sure, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to keep you. You know, I wasn’t trying to tell you how to raise your children or anything. It’s just that…” She involuntarily glanced around the living room again.

“Yeah, I know,” Cora said with one eye on the television, “it’s just that I’m busy right now. You see, I got to get up…”

“And cook dinner,” Kiswana said sadly.

“Yeah, right—dinner.” And she went to open the door.

Kiswana seemed reluctant to move. “You know, there’s a lot of good things that go on in the park too.” She pulled a leaflet out of her pocketbook. “My boyfriend’s gotten a grant from the city and he’s putting on a black production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
this weekend. Maybe you could come and bring the children,” she offered, barely hopeful.

Cora looked begrudgingly at the flyer. “Abshu Ben-Jamal Productions,” she mouthed slowly. “Hey, I know him—a big, dark fellow. Didn’t he have a traveling puppet show last summer?”

“Yes, that’s him.” Kiswana smiled.

“Came around here with a truck or something and little dancing African dolls. I remember; the kids talked about it for weeks.”

“You see,” Kiswana hurried on encouraged, “they love things like that. Why don’t you bring them tomorrow night?”

“I don’t know,” Cora sighed and looked at the leaflet. “This stuff here—Shakespeare and all that. It’ll be too deep for them and they’ll start acting up and embarrassing me in front of all those people.”

“Oh, no—they’ll love it,” Kiswana insisted. “It’s going to be funny and colorful and he’s brought it up to date. There’s music and dancing—he’s going to have the actors do the Hustle around a maypole—and they slap each other five and all sorts of stuff like that. And it’ll have fairies—all kids like stories with fairies and things in them; even if they don’t understand every word, it’ll be great for them. Please, try to come.”

“Well, I’ll see. Saturday is pretty busy for me. I have to clean up the baby’s things and do the wash. Then there’s so many of them to get ready. I don’t know; I’ll try.”

“Look, I’m not doing much tomorrow. After the tenants’ meeting, I’ll come by early and help you with the kids. Then we can all go together. Okay? It’ll be fun.”

Aw dammit! She could hear the opening music to
The Doctors
. Anything to get rid of this girl. “Okay, I’ll bring them, but you don’t have to stop by. I’ll manage alone; I’m used to it.”

“No, I want to. It’s no problem.”

“Yeah, but they’ll just show off if you’re here. It’ll be easier if I get them ready myself.” She swung the door open.

“Okay, then I’ll wait and stop by for you on my way out.
How about six-thirty so we can get good seats?”

“Yeah, all right—six-thirty.” And she opened the door a little wider.

Kiswana was elated and she cooed at the baby, “Hear that, sweetie? You’re going to a play.” She stroked the child under the chin. “She’s a fine little thing. What’s her name?”

Her attentions to the baby bought her a few more minutes of Cora Lee’s time. “Sonya Marie,” she said and proudly hoisted the child up to be admired.

“She looks just like you.” Kiswana took the baby and tickled her nose with the end of one of her braids.

“It’s a shame you ain’t got none of your own. You’re good with kids.”

“I don’t have a husband, yet,” Kiswana answered automatically, watching the baby laugh.

“So, neither do I.” Cora shrugged her shoulders.

Kiswana looked up and added quickly, “Well, someday, maybe, but right now all I have is a studio.”

“Babies don’t take up much space. You just bring in a crib and a little chest and you’re all set,” Cora beamed.

“But babies grow up,” Kiswana said softly and handed the child back to Cora with a puzzled smile.

Cora Lee shut the door and sat back down in front of the television, but Maggie’s battle with the rare blood disease she’d contracted in Guatemala flickered by unnoticed. There was no longer any comfort in stroking the child on her lap. Kiswana’s perfume, lingering in the air mixed with the odor of stale food and old dust, left her unsettled and she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. After a few restless moments, she laid the baby on the couch and went over to the stack of albums she kept on a corner table. She slowly flipped through the expensive studio poses of her babies. Dorian, Brucie, Sammy, Maybelline—Dierdre and Daphane (how pleased she had been that year to have two come at once). Her babies—all her babies—stared back at her, petrified under the yellowing plastic. She must get Sonya’s pictures taken before it was too late.

But babies grow up

She looked at the hanging draperies, the broken furniture, the piles of litter in her living room. That girl probably thought that she was a bad mother. But she loved her babies! Her babies—her…She began to go through the albums again—Shakespeare, humph. Her class had gone to see Shakespeare when she was in junior high. She stared into Maybelline’s brown, infant eyes—
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep
—Where had that come from? Had the teacher made them memorize that from the play, “The Temple,” or something it was called. She had loved school; she always went to school—not like them. Why didn’t her babies go to school? She shook her head confusedly. No, babies didn’t go to school. Sonya was her baby and she was too little for school. Sonya was never any trouble. Sonya…

But babies grow up

She slammed the album shut. That girl probably thought she didn’t want to take her children to that play. Why shouldn’t they go? It would be good for them. They needed things like Shakespeare and all that. They would do better in school and stop being so bad. They’d grow up to be like her sister and brother. Her brother had a good job in the post office and her sister lived in Linden Hills. She should have told that girl that—her sister was married to a man with his own business and a big house in Linden Hills. That would have shown her—coming in here with her fancy jeans and silk blouse, saying she was a bad mother. Yeah, she’d have her babies ready tomorrow.