Who Asked You? (8 page)

“I do. But if you don’t mind me asking, Miss Betty: Hasn’t she been off her feet for some time now?”

“Yes, she has. I know you’re not blind, Nurse Kim. I’m just trying to do right by my grandsons because I can’t save my daughter.”

“No, you cannot.”

“Anyway, I’m going to have my hands full around here and I know you’re applying for that traveling nurse position and it sounds like a wonderful opportunity, but I was wondering if you do get accepted, would you be willing to stay on a little longer, just until I get things figured out around here? Is that too iffy for you?”

“Not at all, Miss Betty. Anything I can do to help you and Mr. Lee,” I say.

H
ere come Grandma, Ricky!” I point at all them cars in a line that look just like a funeral but we just happy we getting picked up from school. I’m holding Ricky’s hand. I hold his hand everywhere we at and everywhere we go. He a runt. Big kids like to pick on him.

Ricky in first grade. He in special ed. But he way smarter than the other special ed kids. He told me. And Ricky don’t lie to me. I’m in second grade. I wait for him outside his room. I like being his big brother. I’m tall for my age: seven and a half. Everybody always saying it: “Luther, you tall for your age, son.”

We standing with a whole lotta other kids but we can’t move till Grandma’s car is right in front of us. I hope she take us to McDonald’s drive-up window so we can get some McNuggets and I hope we get to spend more nights at her house, ’cause me and Ricky don’t wanna go home today or tomorrow, ’cause we don’t like where we live and we don’t gotta sleep together on the let-out couch and Grandma is nice to us and she don’t call us names or say get out of my face can’t you see I’m busy and don’t no strange men knock on the front door and walk past us without saying hi and just go in our mama’s room and close the door. And don’t nobody bam on the door and wake us up and say: “Yo mama at home? She owe me some goddamn money.” And I ain’t gotta lie through the door and say, “She ain’t home and I don’t know where she at,” even though she be down the hall hiding in Twinkle’s apartment.

I wave to Grandma since she getting closer. Ricky start waving too. He a copycat. Try to do everything I do but he can’t do everything I do. He can’t spell and he can’t add or subtract and he can’t make a basket. He a runt. He have to take medicine ’cause our mama had drugs inside her body when he was born. I don’t.

One thang I do know, when I grow up, I ain’t doing no kinda drugs. None. I don’t care if they free. And I will kick Ricky’s ass if he ever try any. We don’t wanna be drug addicts. We don’t wanna live in the projects, either. I’m going to college so I can be somebody when I grow up, even though I know I’m somebody now. That’s what our grandma always be telling us, which is why she always be trying to stop us from talking like we do. She be making us repeat stuff over and over even though she know what we saying. “It’ll all pay off, boys,” is what she always be saying whenever she take us places. I don’t know what she mean by that, but I just know it’s good.

Anyway, don’t nobody hardly believe me and Ricky is brothers, ’cause we don’t look nothing like each other. I think it’s cool. We don’t know who our daddy is and I really don’t care. Plus half the kids in this school and in the building where we live don’t know who they daddy is either. Whoever he is, I think he got a lotta nerve not showing up for our birthday and Christmas. If I ever meet him, I’m gonna tell him he can kiss our ass.

We used to have a little sister but her daddy came and got her to live with him when she only had six teeth. She should have a mouthful now. I wonder where she at. I wonder who her new mama is. I wonder if she remember me and Ricky. I wonder if she got her own bed. I don’t know if I really care or if I’m just wondering. I think she still our sister. And I think she probably always be our sister. But you never know.

Grandma need a new ride. I think it might be old as her. Like seventy or eighty. I don’t know what kind it is but it’s a color that almost ain’t got no color. It look like my milk after I eat all the Cheerios out the bowl. I ain’t about to complain, ’cause at least me and Ricky ain’t gotta walk home today. Sometimes we run. So nobody won’t mess with us.

“I hope Grandma take us to McDonald’s, don’t you, Luther?”

“Yeah,” I say, and pull his Spider-Man backpack up on his shoulders. Ain’t much in it but his stupid meds that sometime I forget to give him, some coloring, and a whole buncha sideways papers with the same alphabet letters he write over and over and some not even on the line. I remember when I had to do the same thing. Kindergarten got on my nerves. I looked out the window a lot ’cause Miss Prince just said the same thing over and over and over. I wanted to say, “You must think we all dumb or something!” Plus she talked to us like we was retarded. Some days she was real nice and talked like white people on TV but then sometimes she would yell at us when didn’t nobody even do nothing and she would pinch our ears or make us hum a song or stick our tongues out for like a lot of minutes or make us sit there and not move for like a year and then she would laugh and give us all hugs. She didn’t teach me nothing except how to sit up straight and how to pay attention and not to point. I wish I coulda skipped kindergarten and went straight to first grade. I’m glad Ricky didn’t get her and I ain’t even seen her in the hallway no times, so maybe she went to another school.

I like second grade. I get to write real words. A lot of words. Writing is easy. And so is math. But math is funner. I like adding and subtracting. Borrowing and carrying. I don’t gotta sit there writing so hard the lead on my pencil break or till my desk look like orange sand from erasing so much. And I don’t gotta guess either. I see the answers in my head. Which is why I get A’s in everything. I’m smart. And I can’t help it. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t, ’cause a lot of kids tease me. “Smart-ass!” My mama told me to kick they ass but if I do that I get in trouble and I don’t wanna get in trouble and plus they got big brothers and sisters and some of them is Crips and Bloods so I just act like I don’t hear ’em or like it don’t bother me. It don’t. I rather be smart than dumb any day. Ricky ain’t dumb either. It just take him longer to learn.

Now that Grandma is closer she look weird. She got on that brown wig I don’t like and I can see her gray hair going from one ear to the other like the headbands our mama wear. Grandma look like somebody whispering in her left ear. Something she don’t wanna hear. Maybe when I tell her the question I got to ask my teacher today it a cheer her up.

“Hi, Grandma!” I say real loud so everybody can hear me. I bend down and open the back door and push Ricky in. We put on our seat belts.

“Hi there, my sweet boys,” she say and then, “You two want to go to McDonald’s?”

Me and Ricky just look at each other, then give each other high fives. We can’t believe our grandma know what we be thinking. We like her. Then, at the same time, we scream, “Yeah!”

“What did you boys just say?”

“We mean ‘yes,’ Grandma,” I say for me and Ricky. He just nod about ten times.

“That’s much better. Thank you.”

Then she don’t say nothing for about three blocks.

“We gotta go home after McDonald’s, Grandma?” My fingers is crossed ’cause I want her to say no.

“No, you boys are going to stay with me and your grandpa for a little while.”

Me and Ricky give each other high fives again. But then I wanna know how long is a while so I ask. “How long is a while, Grandma?”

“It depends. It could be a week or a month or maybe even longer, I don’t know right now.”

I wanna know why we staying at her house for a while, so I ask, “Why we staying at your house for a while, Grandma?”

She don’t say nothing at first, like she trying to come up with a good lie or something, like me and Ricky do when our mama ask us do we like her orange macaroni and cheese or what happened to those dollar bills in her purse. Before she get a chance to tell us the truth since we don’t think Grandma would really lie to us, we pulling up to the drive-up window, but it’s a long line and we at the back of it.

“Is her dead?” Ricky asks, like he’s hoping he guessed right. “Did her OD like NoNo’s mama did?”

“No, but she needs some time to do some things that will make her feel better.”

“Drugs make her feel better,” Ricky says.

“No they don’t!” I say. “They just make her high and she act crazy and say mean stuff.”

“She wants to stop,” Grandma says. “What do you boys want?”

“McNuggets,” Ricky says. “Please,” he say, ’cause he just remembered we always supposed to say please and thank you when a grown-up asks you if you want something or if they give you something.

For some reason now I don’t want no McNuggets. “I would please just like a cheeseburger and fries, Grandma. Thank you. And our mama don’t want to stop using drugs,” I say.

“How do you know that?”

“Twinkle’s brother told us. His name is Wally. He live on the first floor. One day he stopped me and Ricky by the elevator and he said, “Yo Mama gon’ end up dead at the rate she going ’cause she don’t know how to say no to them drugs.”

“Does Twinkle have a job?”

“Yes!” Ricky says before I get a chance to say, “No she don’t!”

“Her sell pussy. On Crenshaw.”

“Shut up, Ricky!” I say.

“Please don’t let me hear you say that word again, Ricky.”

“You mean
pussy
?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, but her do. I ain’t lying. Mama said hers is better than Twinkle’s ’cause Twinkle only get twenty dollars for her p-o-s-e and Mama said she get fifty for hers.”

“That’s enough,” Grandma says.

I elbow Ricky to shut up. Sometime he say the first thing that come outta his mouth, which is one reason why he get in trouble so much in first grade. He live in time-outs.

When we finally get to the drive-up window, Grandma orders our stuff and a Filet-O-Fish and french fries for herself since me and Ricky know it ain’t for Grandpa. He only eat fried chicken, tuna fish sandwiches, potato salad, beets, boiled eggs, bread sticks, Twizzlers, applesauce, oatmeal, and strawberry yogurt. And that’s it. We know everything that go in his mouth, ’cause one time when our mama went to the drug hospital we spent all that time at they house and me and Ricky was big boys and helped Grandma out. Grandpa ate sitting up at the dining room table then and he knew who me and Ricky was. But since I got out of first grade, our mama said, “Pops is out to lunch,” but that ain’t the real name for what he got. Grandma told us but I can’t remember how to say it. It’s something some old people get when they can’t remember. He can’t even take medicine for it. Right now I’m smarter than he is and now he don’t know who me and Ricky is. We done told him our names over fifty times. But we don’t laugh at him. ’Cause it ain’t funny not being able to remember a lot of stuff and when I get old and forget who my grandkids is I don’t want nobody laughing at me. Plus, it just ain’t nice to make fun of people.

And then I get a rainstorm! “Grandma, since you the biggest mama over our mama, when she come back to pick us up this time, why don’t you ‘Just say no’?!”

“Yeah! I mean, yes!” Ricky just have to say louder than me.

“Because I can’t just decide to keep you boys. You belong with your mother. She loves you. And I love you too.”

She don’t know what she talking about. I seen love on TV and it ain’t never happen like that in our apartment. But I’m little so I just keep my mouth shut so I don’t be disrespected my grandma.

She hand us our food and we wanna wait to eat it when we get home. Grandma usually always talk to us when she driving but right now she just driving so it probably mean she got a lot on her mind. That’s what our mama always say when we be saying something to her or ask her a question and she don’t answer. “I got a lot on my mind, some stuff I need to figure out, so please don’t bother me right now.” And we didn’t. I wanna take away some of the stuff running around inside my grandma’s mind so she smile, so I say, “Guess what, Grandma?”

And she say, “Yes, Luther?”

“Today it was my turn to ask Mrs. Wilkerson any question I wanted, ’cause she told us, ‘There are no stupid questions,’ so you wanna know what I asked?”

“Well, of course I do,” she says.

“Not me,” Ricky say.

I pop him upside the head.

“Yes, I do. Yes, I do!”

“I asked her, ‘Why fish don’t have feet?’”

“Well, that was a good question. And what did she say?”

“She said because they don’t walk. They swim and they use fins to swim through the water.”

“That was a good answer.”

“I know. But I got sixty-three other questions I wrote on a piece of paper I wanna ask her before second grade is over.”

“That’s just wonderful, Luther. You can also ask your grandma some, and if I don’t have the answer, we can find it.”

“But you don’t got no computer,” Ricky says.

“I don’t have a computer,” Grandma says

“Can we get one?” I ask. “Please, Grandma, please?”

“And can we get a puppy?” Ricky asks.

“We only staying awhile, Ricky. Puppies turn into dogs and they bite.”

“Grandma needs a little time to think about just what we can and can’t do right now, until we get everything figured out. Do you understand what that means?”

“I do,” I say.

“I don’t,” Ricky says.

“Don’t worry about Ricky, Grandma. I’ll explain it to him.”