Page 51

Lemonade and Cookies

K age turned down the music, but she could still hear it quite clearly: Blues Traveler’s, ‘Run-Around.’

“So, here’s what happened…Huni formally adopted me, and it was easy ’cause my mama had everything in writing before she passed on.

” She looked up at the sky. More clouds were forming, but there was no rain in the forecast. “I had a good childhood with Huni and my Uncle Joe-Joe, and I loved them so. Aunt Huni had gotten a promotion at the hospital she worked at. My uncle was a cross-country truck driver, so sometimes he wouldn’t be home for long stretches at a time. ” She blew her nose.

Hands clasped, Kage leaned slightly forward, as if making sure she could see him. They locked eyes, and neither let go.

“Well, Huni was workin’ more hours due to her promotion, and she couldn’t rely on Joe-Joe anymore to always be home to watch me, once he started pickin’ up more routes on his schedule.

So, she enrolled me in a daycare. Huni wanted me in a nice one.

” She spotted a dandelion nearby and plucked it from the grass.

“One with good staff, with all the bells and whistles.

Clean. Offered nourishing meals and timely snacks. Educated the children, and let us play.

“She felt guilty for not being able to just keep me at home, but she didn’t have any family to watch me, so she did what she could. She wanted me to have a chance.”

Kage nodded in understanding. His hair swung forward, covering his ice blue eye. He pushed it away with a slow movement of his fingers, never once breaking his stare.

“So, there I was, the only Black child in this White daycare center that offered preschool. A really fancy, expensive one. I only know that ’cause I overheard Huni talking about it from time to time with other adults.

Me being the only Black child in there didn’t bother me none.

” She laughed dismally. “I was practically a baby. Six or seven. Kids don’t see color until an adult brings it to their attention.

” Her eyes narrowed on him, and she tried to control the volume of her voice. “You agree with me?”

“Baby, it don’t matter if I agree with you or not.”

“Yeah it does. ’Cause it’s part of this situation I’m ’bout to lay on you.”

“No, it don’t. And the reason it don’t is because that’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it.

Whatever that opinion may be.” He snatched the dandelion from her hand and ate it, amusing and shocking her at the same time.

“I want to make it perfectly clear that you can feel however the hell you want to feel about anything and everything. I’m not the gatekeeper of your thoughts and beliefs.

The way I feel about it shouldn’t be contingent on whether you tell me or not. ”

“Kage, I get all of that. I appreciate what you’re sayin’, but I still want to know your thoughts on this. Do you think children see color?”

“I can only speak for myself, but if I were to generalize, I’d say that usually, they don’t.

So, I’d agree with you, to an extent. See, when I was child, I noticed people came in different shades.

Hair color. Features. Eye colors, too. I realized early on that most Black people didn’t have blue or green eyes, or light colored hair.

I saw these differences, and nobody told me shit.

” He turned away, spit, then faced her again.

Noora Noor’s, ‘Forget what I said’ was playing now.

“My mama didn’t have to bring it to my attention. I brought it to my own attention.

“My mama never talked to me about race at all, actually. I saw she had different friends and what not that would come over to the house, and so I realized early on, that we were all God’s children.

I still had a curious nature, though. Like, I’d wonder why my friend Doug—a lil’ mixed boy—his daddy was Black, his mama was White, was a sorta golden color, and his hair sandy brown ’nd curly.

And why was the lunch lady at my kindergarten talkin’ with an accent, and her eyes kinda slanted?

I didn’t think nothin’ was wrong with these differences.

They were just differences.” He tossed up his hands.

“I didn’t assign nothin’ to it. I just found it interesting.

I liked that we don’t all look the same. I thought that was neat.”

“You’re an artist though,” she said with a smirk as she plucked another blade of grass and twirled it around her fingers. “Y’all see the world differently. Your talent was God given, so what you’re saying makes sense to me. I think you’re the exception, not the rule.”

“Now that you mention it, me liking to draw may have played a part in it.” He shrugged.

“I ain’t no big time artist, but I get what you’re saying.

Never really thought about it, but, uh, until I heard one of my mama’s friends use the N word, I didn’t understand racism at all.

” Her brow rose, wishing for him to expand on this story.

“It was a guy in my dad’s clique… The Blood Demon motorcycle gang. I was ’bout eight I think.”

“That was the first time you heard someone call somebody a nigger?”

“To my recollection, yeah. My mama jumped on him quick, fast and in a hurry, though. She didn’t like shit like that.

She told that guy not to talk that way ’round her child, or her for that matter.

I remember the guy was tryna argue back with her, sayin’ they call themselves that, too, and she said that wasn’t no excuse, and that it was an ugly word, used by weak, insecure people with limited vocabularies.

See, my father’s motorcycle gang had a lot of white supremacists in it, I guess you could say, but my mama swears up and down my daddy wasn’t like that.

Said if he hated you, skin color didn’t have shit to do with it.

Anyway, we’ve gotten off track. I want to hear the rest of what you were saying. ”

“Damn! I was hoping you’d forget what we were talking about, and I was off the hook,” she said, half-kidding.

They smiled at one another, then she continued.

“Anyway, I played with the other children just fine, and I really liked it there. But then things changed.” She sighed.

“After a while, one of the teachers started pickin’ on me.

It was little things at first. Sayin’ I didn’t hold a pencil or spoon right, and snatching it from me, making me hold it the right way, and if I didn’t, she’d take it and I wouldn’t get to eat.

“Then the name callin’ started. She said I was stupid because I wasn’t keeping up like the other kids with the lessons.

I thought I was following along just fine.

The other teachers used to tell Huni how smart I was.

I knew my alphabet and numbers, and I was readin’ well above grade level ’cause my mama and Huni would read to me all the time.

Then it got worse. This same teacher would start yankin’ my arm, and yelling at me for every little thing that I did.

I was in the bathroom too long. I wasn’t eating all of my snack.

I was eatin’ too fast. I peed on myself because she wouldn’t let me use the bathroom, so, I got in trouble for that.

I was talkin’ out of turn. I was takin’ too long to respond.

It was always something. She’d get so upset with me, but when other kids did the same things I was doing, she was sweet as pudding to them. ”

Kage’s face twisted up in a strange way. His nose wrinkled, and his eyes got small, as if he’d smelled something rotten.

“You okay?”

“Mmm hmmm. I’m just fine.” He didn’t seem alright, but she kept on talking, nevertheless.

“As the abuse progressed, she made sure she didn’t do this stuff in front of other teachers.

Like slappin’ me. Pulling my hair. It got so bad that not one day went past where I wasn’t gettin’ hit, smacked, taunted, made fun of, or verbally abused by this woman.

I started to withdraw. Aunt Huni noticed I was talkin’ less and crying more.

When she asked how’d I get a bruise, the teacher would tell ’er I fell off the swing, or was playin’ too rough with the other kids.

I never corrected the story. I never told her why. ”

“Why was that?”

“The teacher told me that if I complained to my aunt about what she was doing, it would show that I was a big baby, and I could cause Huni to lose her job ’cause nobody would be around to watch me while she worked.

No other preschool would want to take me because I was Black and bad.

That’s exactly what she said. And then we’d be homeless and livin’ on the street.

She convinced me that is exactly what would happen, so,” she shrugged, “I kept my mouth shut.”

She watched his reactions, trying to gauge what he was thinking. Wrapping his legs around hers, she leaned in and listened as Heartless Bastards’ ‘Only For You’ entertained them.

“Go on, baby. Finish tellin’ me what happened to you,” he urged.

She nodded. “…So, uh, where was I?”

“She brainwashed you into thinkin’ that if you told someone, mainly your aunt about the abuse, there would be terrible consequences.”

“Yes… yes. So,” she tossed the blade of grass down and wrung her hands, “the abuse got worse and worse. She would sometimes grab a fistful of my hair and bang my head against the wall.”

“She’d do what , now?” His tone was cutting.

Something changed in Kage’s appearance then.

His eyes darkened to a weird color—a flash of deep red, like old blood.

It happened so fast she thought she was seeing things.

Her heart pounded in her chest as he glared at her.

He looked damn near wild. Taking a deep breath, she repeated herself.

Kage spotted another dandelion, snatched it, and popped it in his mouth.

After he swallowed, he took a deep breath as Janis Joplin’s, ‘Summertime’ started in the background.