Rain

  "No one's going to miss us. Don't worry," he said.

  I followed him out. It did feel strange leaving the apartment. I felt exposed, vulnerable again. While I was surrounded by grief and condolences, I was in a cocoon, wrapped in my own misery, but shut off from the prying eyes of the curious. Sounds of life seemed awkward and incongruous. Why wasn't everyone as sad and gloomy as we were? Why were they all so unaffected by Beni's horrible death? Wasn't it close enough to them? It was painful to be out in traffic and noise, to hear laughter and see people smiling and enjoying themselves.

  Roy walked quickly, his shoulders hoisted about his neck as if these sounds and sights stung him as well. We went around the building and then across a street to a vacant lot. It was filled with debris, rusted metal, bags of garbage, old tires, even pieces of old furniture. He stood there for a moment looking over the site like a general inspecting the aftermath of a battle scene. He spotted what he wanted and marched to it.

  I watched him set a few pieces of broken furniture in the center of a tire. He added some paper and found a smashed and battered gas can. Apparently, there were a few drops of gasoline left. He let them drip on his little pile and then he dropped the envelope of negatives on top of it.

  "You're going to burn them?"

  "Damn right, I am," he said.

  "Isn't that evidence though, Roy?" I asked. He shook his head.

  "You want people looking at that, even police?"

  "No," I said thinking about it, about some strangers leering at poor Beni naked. "I guess not."

  "Me neither."

  He knelt before the tire and lit the little pile. We both watched the flames lick the envelope and finally ignite it. The negatives curled as the small, dark puffs of smoke rose. How I wished the entire event, the beastly things that had been done to Beni, could be burned away and turned into nothing more than smoke. Roy remained kneeling, watching it burn. I gazed around, suddenly feeling fearful, feeling as if someone might be watching us. Every vacant building, every broken window, every cavernous structure looked ominous. The sky itself had darkened with an impending rainstorm. The breeze strengthened and lifted some debris, sending papers, boxes, and garbage bouncing around us. I embraced myself.

  "Let's go back, Roy," I urged.

  He acted as if he didn't hear me and then he stood up and stomped on the little fire, crushing what remained into the ground. He kicked the tire and turned away. I saw the tears that glazed his eyes. It knocked the breath out of me for a moment. Then he nodded and we started back. A police car with its siren screaming and its bubble lights spinning shot down the street to our right. We watched it pass through the neighborhood.

  "They'll catch them, though, won't they, Roy?"

  "What if they do? They've gotten away with something like this before," Roy said. "There's only one way to stop someone like that...."

  It was quiet when we returned to our apartment. Mama's friends had all left. They had cleaned up nicely, even taking care of the mess Ken and his drinking buddies had left. Mama was lying down.

  "You want something to eat, Roy?" I asked.

  "Maybe," he said. "I'll wash up."

  I looked in on Mama. As usual, she was able to sense me around her, no matter how quiet I was. Her eyes opened and she gazed at me.

  "Tomorrow," she said, "I have to bury my baby. There isn't anything worse for a mother, Rain. Nothing the devil himself could create," she said.

  I ran to her and wrapped my arms around her. She stroked my hair and gave me comfort, even though it was I who should be comforting her.

  Guilt was a disease invading every part of me more than ever on the morning of Beni's funeral. It started in my heart and trickled around my body in my blood, infecting my legs and my arms, my neck and my shoulders. It made my eyes ache so that I had to keep them either closed or fixed in a downward gaze, avoiding anyone else's eyes. When we sat in church, I could feel the heat of condemnation at the back of my neck, and when we rose to leave, I was afraid to glance right or left. There weren't that many people at the funeral, and even fewer at the cemetery. Those who kissed and hugged Mama, hugged Roy and shook Ken's hand either just nodded or glanced at me. I had left my sister in the valley of death. That was what I believed they thought.

  The rain that had begun the day before still fell, but sporadically. We were actually able to get through the service at the grave site before it began to pour. The rain chased everyone back to his or her vehicle and we left the cemetery faster than I had anticipated. It was so final.

  When we got home, the dreariness invaded our apartment and our hearts. Ken's solution, of course, was to drink more and faster. He eventually drank himself into a stupor and collapsed in bed. Roy withdrew and fell asleep in his room. Mama tinkered in the kitchen, made herself some tea and sat with me for a while before trying to sleep herself.

  "We all just have to get back to living," she said finally. "Nothing we do will change things."

  It seemed an impossible task to me, but somehow Mama managed to get herself up and back to work the next morning. Her strength gave me strength. Roy and I walked to school, unable to ignore the emptiness around us. How much we would have given to hear Beni arguing with us about something silly. Roy told me he was returning to work right after school.

  We had yet to hear a thing about Jerad or Carlton or the others. .For now it seemed Roy was right. Nothing would be done. It would just go away like most of the terrible things that happened around us. Returning to school, however, was far worse than I had imagined it could be for me. Some of the kids I knew told me how sorry they were, but Beni's crowd went after me with a vengeance. It was almost as if they thought Jerad and his gang were innocent bystanders, just doing what came natural to them.

  "If you hadn't left her behind," Nicole charged in the hallway between classes, "she would be fine. They were just joking with you."

  "You don't know what you're talking about," I said.

  "Yes, I do. Your white blood showed itself," she declared. "And you ran. You're no sister, not to us."

  Her friends nodded.

  "That's stupid. You don't know how stupid you sound," I snapped back at her. I was tired of her, tired of all of them.

  " 'Course, we're stupid," Alicia declared sarcastically. "Meanwhile, you're alive and Beni's dead."

  "She wouldn't have gotten into trouble if you hadn't played that horrible trick on her at the party. You're the ones who should feel guilty, not me," I cried. "You were some sisters, betraying her like that, making her feel too embarrassed to show her face."

  "Just listen to this girl," Nicole said. "What are you trying to say?" she asked, putting her face into mine. "You trying to put the blame on us, girl? Huh?" She poked me in the chest between with her long, bony forefinger. It hurt, but I didn't retreat.

  Instead, something inside of me finally exploded. I hated them for what they had done to Beni and I wouldn't let them twist and distort everything to make themselves look good and me bad. Using my books as a club, I slammed them into her side so hard, she fell down and the girls screamed around us. She was stunned for a moment, but she lunged like a panther and seized my hair. I dropped my books and grabbed her at the waist. We both spun, and she hit the lockers hard and then pulled me down. A crowd quickly gathered.

  Before she could come at me again, Mr. McCalester and Mr. Scanlon grabbed her. She kicked and swung her arms, but they held her back and forced her to turn away. She cursed and screamed at me as they continued to drag her down the hallway. More teachers came out of their classrooms. The uniformed guards came running up the hallway and the crowd was ordered to disperse. I was led to the principal's office behind Nicole, who let loose a string of curses from her mouth like dirty bubbles meant to float back and splatter on my face.

  They made her sit in the outer office and brought me into the principal's main office. All I could think of was that on top of everything else, I had brought new grief to Mama's door.

  Our principa
l, Mr. Morgan, was a burly man who had been an outstanding football player in college. We were told he nearly played pro ball, but opted instead to continue his education and go into the field of education because he liked working with young people. He had a deep, resonant speaking voice and sang in the church choir. I admired him because he seemed to be able to be firm whenever he had to be firm, and yet friendly and interested in students as well.

  I was greeted by his look of astonishment and then disappointment when he was told what had occurred. "All right," he declared. "Take a seat."

  He thanked the teachers who then left his office. "Well," he continued after he sat behind his desk, "do you want to tell me exactly what

  happened?"

  "They all attacked me in the hallway," I cried. I touched my scalp and looked at the blood on the tips of my fingers.

  "Why?"

  "Because I told them they're to blame me for my sister's death," I said. I had to look away from his steely eyes. "I hate them. I hate all of them and they hate me. They always have."

  "Why have they always hated you?"

  "They just do. Because I don't think much of them and because I tried to get my sister not to hang out with them. They call me a snob," I added.

  "Did you think fighting in the hallway would change anything?" he asked softly.

  "No, but I was tired of their nastiness," I said. "Tired of them pushing me and poking me and mocking me."

  "You know about our strict rules against violence. Little spats grow into serious ones very quickly around here. I can't tolerate them; they must be dealt with seriously," he said.

  "I know, I'm sorry."

  "If someone is bothering you, you come to me," he lectured.

  "I wasn't thinking," I admitted and then I looked up at him. "It hasn't been exactly an easy time for me or my family?'

  "I understand that and I'm sorry about it, but I have to think of the whole school. I'll have to suspend you for three days. Your mother and/or your father will have to come in to see me before you can be readmitted. When you return, I hope you'll think hard before fighting again and if you're bothered, you'll come to me."

  "They'd only hate me more," I said, "and make things worse for me."

  "Let me see about that," he retorted. "Is there anyone home in your house?"

  "Maybe Ken," I said.

  "Who?"

  "I mean, my father. He's out of work."

  "I'll have Mrs. Dickens call. If there's no one home, have the truant officer take you home. I'm very disappointed, Rain. You're one of our better students."

  "It's not something I wanted to happen, Mr. Morgan," I fired back at him.

  He nodded, his face now showing some sympathy and even some pain. I knew it would be difficult if not impossible for him to let me off and punish Nicole. He really didn't have much choice.

  "It won't happen again," I promised.

  Ken wasn't home so the truant officer had to take me. I couldn't hide the incident from Mama since she had to go to school with me. She would have to get out of work and that made it even worse. Roy found out what had happened and came home before he went to Slim's. I told him the whole story.

  He smiled.

  "I heard you gave her a huge lump on the forehead." "It's no great accomplishment. Look how much trouble I've created."

  "They better not pick on you anymore," he said, his eyes blazing with anger,

  I closed mine and looked away. Was I going to get everyone in some trouble? Was that my destiny?

  Mama was upset, of course, but she was more concerned about my being attacked than she was about my being suspended.

  "It isn't safe here for any of us," she muttered. She complained to Ken, but there was little he could do or would do. He didn't even have a new job yet, much less any options for moving the family.

  Three days later, Mama accompanied me to school and met with Mr. Morgan. She lost two hours of pay, but she was feisty, demanding that the school do more to protect me. In the end there wasn't much the school could do. What happened to me next, happened off school grounds.

  Nicole was too afraid to bother me in school. Mr. Morgan had threatened to have her expelled next time she got into trouble, but she wanted her revenge so badly, I could see the longing in her eyes whenever she gazed at me. I should have been more cautious, but I was almost indifferent to my own fate.

  Nicole and her friends waited for their opportunity. They followed me home one afternoon about a week later. I didn't hear them coming after me until they were right upon me. All I heard was my name and I turned to be splashed with a small canful of gasoline.

  I screamed and then Nicole nonchalantly walked to me and threw a lit match at my dress.

  "Let's make you darker, Miss Prissy," she cried.

  My dress caught on fire and I ran, hysterical. It drew everyone's attention and a security guard at an office building across the street shouted at me to roll on a small patch of lawn. I did what he instructed, but my thighs were burned enough for me to have to go to the emergency room. The hospital called Mama at work and by the time she arrived, I was bandaged and lying comfortably on a gurney in one of the

  examination rooms. They had given me something for the pain.

  The policeman outside told her what had happened and the emergency room doctor explained my injuries. There was a possibility my legs would be scarred.

  When she came in to see me, she was crying. She rushed to my side and held my hand.

  "I'm all right, Mama. I'm fine."

  "You could have been killed!" she cried. She shook her head. "They aren't going to stop. I know them. They run on hate." She pulled herself upright and made her lips firm. "I'm not losing you to the streets, too," she declared. "They aren't going to get any more chances to hurt you."

  "What do you mean, Mama?" I asked.

  "I lost one child here. I'm not losing two. No ma'am, no sir. No."

  "You won't lose me, Mama," I said.

  Her expression didn't change. I had never seen her look as determined. Her eyes were cold gray stone. She brushed my hair out of my face and stared down at me, shaking her head softly.

  "I know you won't ever stop blaming yourself, Rain. You aren't ever going to be safe here now, child. And you aren't-ever going to look at yourself in the mirror and feel good about what you see as long as you're here."

  "Well... what are we going to do, Mama?" I asked, my heart thumping.

  "It's not what we're going to do, Rain. It's what you're going to do."

  "Me? What am I going to do?"

  "You're returning to your blood. You're going back to a safer world. I'm going to see to it," she asserted.

  I was sure my heart stopped and started again. I shook my head.

  But no was not in Mama's vocabulary anymore. She had been to hell and back with the loss of Beni. She was determined not to travel the same highway again, no matter what the cost, even if it meant losing me. She was like the mother in the Bible when King Solomon threatened to cut the child in half. She would rather lose me than see me harmed.

  I wanted to hate her for even thinking about it, but deep in my heart I knew her thoughts were like flowers springing out of a bed of love.

  I could hate this place. I could hate the girls who had done this to me. I could even hate myself.

  But I could never, ever hate Mama.

  8

  Face-to-Face

  .

  The burns made it hard for me to walk so I

  remained at home for nearly a week after the attack. The police arrested Nicole, but because of her age, she was treated as a juvenile and put on probation. Roy thought it had been a waste of time even to make the complaint. Nicole was already back in school and being treated as a heroine by her followers while I was recuperating at home and missing school.

  Roy was still very angry about it and about the police's failure to arrest Jerad and his gang. This just added to the winds of frustration that fanned the fire in his heart. Jerad was s
ighted at a number of places, but the police never seemed to get there in time to capture him. There were so many problems and other crimes for them to address, Roy was positive they had put the case at the bottom of their smokestack-high pile. Mama and I knew that Roy went out from time to time on a hunt combing the hip-bop joints, hoping to run into Jerad.

  We were like two people watching a movie, holding our breaths at a dangerous moment. Both of us lay in our beds with our eyes glued open until we heard him come home.

  And then, one night toward the end of my week of recuperation, we heard the news that Jerad had been found dead in a vacated building, a victim of a drug overdose. His friends suddenly came out of the shadows, willing now to admit that Jerad was totally responsible for Beni's death. I thought Roy would be pleased, but he was even more frustrated by the news. He hadn't gotten his chance to level his own justice and revenge on Jerad, and now the others, whom we all knew were probably just as guilty, were going to get off scot-free.

  I never saw Roy wrapped more tightly, all of his nerve endings like wicks on dynamite sticks, just waiting to explode. Whenever he spoke, he ranted about the degeneration of our neighborhood and the indifference of the government, sounding more and more like Ken. His temper was short and for the first time, I saw him drink hard liquor. Mama was very troubled and walked about with deep lines of worry etched in her forehead.

  And then, the inevitable clash of titans finally occurred. Roy and Ken got into a bitter argument because Ken had not found work and was spending all of his time in the taverns, drinking up the

  unemployment checks. The quarrel broke out late one night. Both Mama and I had gone to bed. I had just gotten to the point where I could walk without any pain and I was looking forward to getting out and returning to school, despite Nicole and her gang.

  I woke to the clatter of Ken's and Roy's loud voices. Soon after I heard a bottle break and a chair fall over. I leaped out of bed and went to the door just in time to see Roy toss Ken over the table. He landed on a chair and shattered it. Wobbling, Ken rose slowly, blood trickling down the side of his head. He shook his fist at Roy, and started to go back at him. Mama screamed from her doorway and Ken turned on her.