Rain

  Recently, someone overdosed on heroin under a stairwell in our building. The police swarmed over the hallway like blue bees and then left as quickly as they had come, none of them seemed surprised or even concerned. I think they, too, had come to accept the horrors the same way we had.

  Mama always dreamed of getting us out of here, of course. To me it seemed most of the people who lived here could no longer even imagine that for themselves. Mama wouldn't talk to anyone but us about it because she hated the dark, heavy notes of discouragement. Once, when Ken was doing well, not drinking as much and making a decent wage, we were able to put away enough money to actually consider the possibility of at least renting a small house in a better neighborhood, but then one day Ken went and secretly withdrew the money. I remember how Mama came home looking drained of blood after she had discovered what he had done.

  "He killed our dreams," she mumbled. I thought Mama was going to have a heart attack. Her lips looked so blue and she seemed to have trouble breathing. She had to have a shot glass full of

  whiskey to calm herself. She sat staring out the window most of the afternoon, sat there gazing down at the streets with a strange, soft smile on her face and hummed an old tune as if she were looking at a beautiful field or majestic mountains. I tried to talk to her, give her something to eat, but she didn't seem to hear me. I was very frightened, afraid for all of us.

  Finally, Ken came home. Roy wasn't there at the time. I was glad of that because there would have been a fight for sure. Beni and I were in our bedroom doorway, holding our breath. We expected Mama was going to explode with a fury we had never seen before, but she fooled us.

  She spoke calmly in the beginning, just asking him to tell her why he had done such a thing without telling her, and what he had done with the money. At first, we thought he wasn't going to tell. He moved across the kitchen, getting himself a beer, wrapping his long, thick fingers around the bottle, opening it and taking a long gulp. He leaned against the counter by the sink.

  "I needed it," he finally said, "to pay a debt." "A debt? What debt? The electric bill that's past due? The dentist bills for Beni and Rain? What debt, Ken?" she demanded.

  "A debt," he repeated. He avoided her eyes. She rose slowly.

  "Some of that money was money I slaved to earn. Don't I have a right to know where it's gone?" she asked, still remarkably softly for her.

  "I had a debt," he repeated.

  She seemed to inflate, her small shoulders rising, her bosom lifting. I looked at Beni. Her face was full of anger and my stomach felt like hornets had built a nest inside.

  "You gambled away our money, didn't you, Ken Arnold? Go on, tell me. You just threw away all that money, months and months of work, gone!"

  He turned to face her, the beer bottle to his lips, his neck working like the body of a snake. Suddenly, Mama slapped the bottle out of his hand and it flew across the kitchen and smashed on the floor.

  Ken was stunned. For a moment he couldn't move. He was so amazed at her aggression and her anger, it stopped him from breathing too. For Beni and me the sight of Mama, all five feet four, one hundred and five pounds of her fuming in front of Ken with his six feet five inch, two hundred and fiftypound body with his massive shoulders and thick neck, was terrifying. He could squash her like a fly, but she stuck her face into his and didn't blink.

  "You go and destroy my hope just like that and then tell me it was some debt? You go and spill my blood and sweat in the street and tell me it's just some debt?"

  "Back off, woman," Ken said, but I saw he was shaking. Whether he was shaking with his own overwhelming anger or fear was not clear. Suddenly though, he realized we were there, too, and his pride reared up like a sleeping lion.

  "What do you think you're doing slapping my beer across the room? Huh?" he roared, his eyes wide. "You're a crazy woman and I ain't standing here and listening to a crazy woman."

  He turned and rushed out of the house. Mama stood looking after him for a moment and then she went to clean up the mess. I jumped to help her.

  "Watch you don't cut yourself, Rain," she warned in a low, tired voice as I picked up the pieces of glass. Beni was still shivering in her chair.

  "I'll do it, Mama," I said.

  She didn't argue. She went to her bedroom to lie down. I thought she might never get up, but somehow, Mama found the resilience to fight on, to restore her optimism, to replant in her garden of hope and dream on for all of us.

  I think it was Mama's courage more than anything that kept me full of dreams, too. If she could be this way after what had happened to her, I thought, I, who was so much younger and still had so much of a chance, had to be full of heart. I had to hold onto my smiles and not be like Beni. I had to push back the urge to hate everyone and everything. I had to see blue sky and stars even in days of rain, so many days of rain.

  Our school was nothing to look at. In fact, I often closed my eyes when I first turned the corner and the tired, broken-down building appeared. It looked more like a factory than a school and all the windows on it had bars. There was a chain link fence around the property, too, with big metal signs warning against trespassing.

  Two uniformed guards were at the front entrance when the students first arrived for class. To get into the building, we all had to pass through one of those metal detectors you see at the airports. On too many occasions, students, especially gang members, had slashed other students with knives and on one occasion, a tenth-grade boy was found carrying a loaded revolver. The teachers were adamant about added security. There was almost a strike before the powers that be installed the metal detector and kept uniformed guards patrolling the halls and supporting the teachers.

  Mr. McCalester, my history teacher, said all the teachers should be given battle pay as well as their salaries. He made it sound like we should all be thankful if we made it through a school day without being harmed. It was hard to concentrate and care about poetry and plays, algebra and geometry, chemistry and biology while outside the fenced-in area angry young men waited to destroy each other and anyone who got in their way.

  Most of my and Beni's friends were battle worn, veterans of the hard streets. Everyone knew about drugs and no one was surprised to find someone using crack, pot or whatever happened to be the flavor of the day. Neither Beni nor I ever used or tried any of it. Roy was the same way. There were times when I was afraid Beni would give in. Girlfriends challenged us, said we weren't being "sistas" and we were acting stuck-up.

  Some of the girls resented me anyway because of my looks. Mama always taught me that vanity was a sin, but I couldn't help wondering if I had been given some special gifts. My hair was straighter, richer than most. I had a creamy caramel complexion, never bothered much by acne. I also had light brown eyes, more toward almond, with long eyelashes. Roy once said he thought I could be a model, but I was afraid to even wish for such a thing. I was afraid to wish for anything good. Nice things had to happen to us accidentally, by surprise. If you wish for something too hard, I thought, it was like holding a balloon too tightly. It would simply burst, splattering your dream into pieces of nothing.

  When I was younger, Mama loved to brush my hair and hum one of the soft melodies her mama had sung to her.

  "You're going to be a beautiful young lady, Rain," she would whisper softly in my ear, "but you've got to know that beauty can be a burden too. You've got to learn to say no and watch yourself more because men will be looking at you more."

  Her warnings frightened me. I couldn't help but walk through the school corridors with my eyes firmly fixed straight ahead, not returning a glance, not welcoming a smile. I knew most of the kids thought I was a snob, but I reacted this way because of the tiny hummingbird that fluttered in my heart every time a boy gazed at me with interest. That flutter sent a chill through my spine and down to my feet. I'd almost rather be unattractive, I thought.

  I know Beni didn't think she was pretty, even though I thought she had nice features and beautiful ebony eye
s. She had a bigger bust than I did and liked to keep a button or two undone or wear tighter clothes, but she was wider in the hips and Roy always criticized her for looking like a tramp. My lips were thinner and my nose was straighter and more narrow than Beni's. Sometimes, when Beni wasn't looking, I would study her face more and try to find

  resemblances between us. She and Roy looked more alike, although his hair was closer to mine.

  Once, I asked Mama about it and she said sometimes your grandparents show up in you more than your parents do. I thought about it and studied the pictures we had of Ken's parents and Mama's parents, but I didn't see resemblances to me in any of them.

  Neither Mama's nor Ken's parents were alive. Ken's father had been killed in a car accident and his mother had died of liver damage caused by alcohol. Mama's mother died before her father. She had had a heart attack. I got to meet my grandfather, but he lived in North Carolina and he died of emphysema before I was five, so I didn't remember all that much about him except he smoked so much, I thought it came out of his ears as well as his nose and his mouth. Mama had one sister in Texas. Her name was Alana, and she had a brother named Lamar somewhere in Florida. They rarely contacted each other. I never met Lamar, but I did meet Alana one Christmas when I was seven.

  Ken never talked about his older brother Curtis, who was in prison in Oklahoma for armed robbery. A man was killed so he had been given a long sentence.

  Aunt Alana was supposed to have had a baby she gave away, but we didn't know any real details about it except that it was a girl. Sometimes, Beni and I would wonder aloud. We imagined she would be about our age and she probably looked a little like one of us. Occasionally, Beni would tease Roy and say things like, "Be careful 'bout the girls you sleep with, Roy. One might be your cousin."

  Roy hated that. He hated it when Beth talked about sex. He was always after her to put something on lately, too. She would parade about in her panties and bra and sometimes, she would put on a robe with nothing underneath and not tie it too tightly. Roy would get so angry his eyes would nearly explode. He had Ken's temper for sure, only not for the same reasons.

  He was different with me. If he caught sight of me underdressed, he looked away or walked away quickly. I always tried to be properly dressed if I was in the kitchen or the living room.

  Despite his gruff manner at times, Roy was as loving and as protective a brother as Beni or I could want. He tried to be right beside us as much as he could be when we were in the streets. Now that he was taking a job at Slim's Garage after school, he was troubled about our walking home without him. He had told us both at least six times to be sure we went directly home and not stop at any of the jukebox joints to listen to hip-hop music. "The worst types hang out there," he warned.

  "He just wants to keep us little girls forever," Beni complained. Two of her friends, Alicia and Nicole, were always trying to get her to go out after school. Finally, one afternoon after Roy had started working, she met me in the hallway at the end of the day and said she wanted to go with Alicia and Nicole to hang out for a while at Oh Henry's. It was a dingy luncheonette in one of the worst neighborhoods. Roy always said if all the roaches living in it were harnessed, they'd pull down the building.

  "Mama will be upset," I told her.

  "She won't know unless you tell.I'll be back before she gets home."

  "Why do you want to go there?" I pursued. "You know what it's like."

  "I don't know what it's like. I never been there, Rain. Besides ...there's someone I want to see who goes there," she added with a flirtatious smile. I knew she had been flirting with Carlton Thomas lately; he was in a gang because his cousin was a leader in it.

  "If you go, I have to go," I complained.

  "No, you don't. I can take care of myself," she bragged, loud enough for Nicole and Alicia to hear.

  "I know you can, but Roy will kill me if I let you go by yourself."

  "I don't care about Roy. He doesn't run my life," she snapped. "And I don't need you watching over me either, Rain. I'm not a baby."

  She spun around and joined Alicia and Nicole. They started for the exit.

  "Okay, wait up," I called. "I'll go but we're getting home before Mama," I added when I joined them.

  They sauntered along, Bern looking pleased with herself, her eyes full of anticipation, and despite the brave front she put up, a little fear, too.

  .

  The music was loud; the room was smoky and crowded and it smelled greasy and sickly sweet, but no one seemed to mind or care. Some people were dancing. Older boys who had been out of school a while were drinking beer and passing the bottles to those who weren't old enough to buy it. I saw some drug deals being made and bad stuff being passed along. Most of it was done out in the open. The owner and the bartender and waitress acted as if the place was empty. If they saw anything, they looked right through it.

  I glanced at Beni when we all entered and saw the look on her face was not much different from the look of disappointment and disgust that was on mine, but the moment she caught me staring at her, she acted as if she was still very excited to be there.

  "Now that you see what's going on, you still want to stay here?" I asked.

  "Of course I want to stay here. Why else would I come?"

  She dove right into the crowd with Alicia and Nicole, surrounding Carlton, who was talking to members of a gang. I knew they were gang members because they wore Dickie pants with a blue belt hanging down from their pockets. They called it "flue" instead of blue, which was the color for the Crips.

  I didn't see anyone I wanted to talk to so I tried to stay out of sight, more toward the door like someone who thought a fire might start at any moment and it was better to be near an exit. After a while Beni came back for me.

  "If you're gonna just stand there like a statue, Rain, you should go home. They're all laughing at you. At least come listen to the music and dance or something?'

  "We should go home, Beni. Look at this place. Look what's going on," I said nodding toward a couple who were kissing and petting as if they were alone in the back of a car. Across from them, some young man looked like he was in a coma, his body slumped in the chair. The music blasted so loudly around us it was hard to hear.

  "Beni," Nicole shouted. "Carlton wants to ask you something."

  "I'm not leaving," Beni fired at me and spun around to walk back.

  I was so uncomfortable, I considered deserting her. A part of me thought it would be terrible, but another part of me couldn't wait to do just that.

  "I ain't seen you here before," someone said, and I turned to look at the heavily pocked-marked face of a young man. He had a cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth. It looked pasted there on his wet lips. He had a thin scar over his right eyebrow and his eyes were glassy, red. The blue belt hung from his pants pocket. He looked older than everyone else and was probably in his twenties, I thought.

  "That's because I haven't been here before," I said quickly.

  "Slummin'?" he asked with a cold smile. He had a gold tooth and when I looked closer, I saw some hairs curled under his chin. Flattened like a prune dried in the hot sun, he looked more purple than black and his lips curled outward with a bruise on the corner of the lower lip. I actually felt my stomach churn at the sight of him.

  "I'm not exactly happy to be here," I replied and he laughed a quiet laugh, just his body shaking. He shoved a toothpick into his mouth as soon as he withdrew the cigarette, which he just tossed to the floor and stepped on.

  "Come on. I'll show you where it's quieter." He reached for me.

  "No thanks," I said stepping back.

  "I don't bite. Much," he added with another wide smile. I spotted another scar, this one on the side of his neck. It ran down toward his right shoulder.

  "Yeah, well I haven't had a tetanus shot recently," I said, trying to act brave even though my insides were shaking. Come on, Beni, I prayed. Let's get out of here.

  He laughed again and two other
members of the Crips joined him. He mumbled something to them and they all laughed.

  "You want something to drink? Smoke?" he asked me. "No thanks," I said. I backed up a few more steps toward the door.

  "Hey, girl," he said with a look of disgust, "you come here for a good time, didn't you?"

  "No," I said.

  "Then why'd you come?" he demanded, his face folding deeper into anger, his eyes wider, his nostrils flaring like a wild horse.

  "Maybe she likes the food, Jerad," one of the boys at his side muttered, and they all laughed.

  "What's your name?" Jerad asked, stepping closer. I looked for Beni, but I didn't see her anymore.

  "My sister is here," I said for no reason and I looked harder for her.

  "So stick around. What's your name?" he asked, this time more firmly.

  His two buddies stepped between me and the door. I hugged my books tighter to my bosom. Looking around desperately, I saw no one who would come to my aid. If anyone was looking my way, it was with a gleeful smile, enjoying my discomfort. It frightened me even more.

  "What'cha got under there?" he asked nodding at my bosom. "Some buried treasure?"

  They all laughed and the circle they were forming grew wider and tighter as more boys joined them. My heart began to pound. I looked frantically for Beni and saw she was dancing with Carlton.

  "I really have to go home," I said.

  "So soon? What, are you on parole and got a curfew?" he asked. Every time he spoke, his private audience laughed. I felt their eyes all over me, drinking me up in gulps from head to toe. It made me feel naked, on display. My face felt hot as fear planted itself firmly in my stomach and sent my blood raging around my body.

  "Maybe she wants you to walk her home, Jerad," one of the other boys said.

  "I could do that. I could drive you home, too," he offered. *