"I'm not trying to ruin your happiness, Beni," I said when she came out to the kitchen. She puttered around, sullenly setting the table. "I mean it," I said.
She slapped a dish down so hard, it almost shattered and then she put her hands on her hips and turned to me.
"Okay, if you mean it then don't spoil my good times," she said. "I want to go to Alicia's Friday night to meet Carlton. She's having a party. Mama won't let me go unless you say it's just a bunch of girls getting together. She won't let me sleep over if I ask but she'll believe you. Are you going to help me or what?"
"You're making a mistake, Beni," I warned.
"If I make a mistake, it's my mistake, not yours, Rain. Well, are you going to help me with Mama or not?"
I was silent for a moment. "Well?"
"Okay," I said, tired of the bickering. "Maybe it's better you learn things for yourself."
"Good." After I gave in, she became more enthusiastic about getting dinner prepared.
"Just stay away from Oh Henry's. Please," I said. "Okay, but Carlton said Jerad really thought you were pretty," she revealed.
"What do you mean?" I gasped. "Why were you talking about me?"
"I'm just telling you what Carlton said. Jerad thought you were fine."
"I'd rather get a compliment from
Frankenstein," I told her.
She shrugged.
"Everyone's afraid of Jerad around here."
"That doesn't make him some kind of hero. That makes him dangerous and even uglier to me," I said to her.
"At least no one puts him down," she said. "Even the police stay out of his way."
She returned to our bedroom to call her girlfriends with the good news, and I suddenly felt this terrible sense of doom. It was as if a dark cloud had slipped in under the window and pasted itself to the ceiling of our apartment, just waiting to drop its belly of cold rain on our pathetic little world.
Two days later, it almost happened. We were returning home from school. Now that Beni was satisfied that I would support her request to go to Alicia's on Friday night, her girlfriends backed off and there were no more confrontations with me in school. They looked arrogant and pleased with themselves as if they had won some important battle.
I didn't really have many close friends at school. I had never slept over anyone else's house. Boys did ask me out on dates, but like Beni stated, I never had anyone I could call a boyfriend, and just about all of them had stopped pursuing me. I spent most of my time with Lucy Adamson, a girl in my class who was at least twenty pounds overweight. She was very bright and very shy and from time to time we studied together, but I didn't tell her any personal things, and especially didn't talk to her about Beni and me.
On Thursday after school, Beni and I started out for home, as usual. Since I had agreed to help her with Mama, she returned to her old self, pouring out a continuous stream of conversation, telling me about Carlton and his likes and dislikes, his favorite music, even his favorite foods. I realized she was really infatuated with him. In a way I found myself being a little envious. It was as if feeling so strongly about a boy had changed the nature of her world, had put color into the drab grays that surrounded her. Her voice was lighter, running through with excitement, full of bells and music. She talked about her hair and her clothes and wished aloud that she could wear some of my things.
"Wouldn't it be nice if we were closer in size, Rain? Why did I have to be born with such big hip bones and look how dainty your shoulders are. My shoulders belong on a football player," she moaned.
"Oh, that's not true, Beni. You can't have everyone looking the same anyway. You have a nice figure. I know a lot of girls who would like to look like you."
"Yeah? Who? Lucy Adamson?" she asked.
"Exactly, and many more."
"You really think I'm pretty, Rain?"
"Yes, I do, and I'm not just saying that because you're my sister, Beni. You have beautiful eyes."
"Mama never tells me that."
"She does so," I insisted. "I heard her."
"If she did, it was so long ago, I can't remember." She was sad for a moment and then she brightened. "See if you can get Roy to let me wear his leather jacket Friday.
He'll let me if you ask him for me, Rain. I look real fine in that jacket. Will you ask him? Will you?"
"Okay," I said laughing. "But I'm sure he'd let you wear it if you asked him yourself."
"No, he wouldn't. He would carry on about me being like some homeboys or something. He doesn't want me looking good."
"Oh Beni, stop being so critical of him. He loves you. With Ken running out on us all the time, Roy feels responsible. It's not easy being our big brother."
She looked at me with her head tilted and her lips pulled back deeply into her cheeks.
"Sometimes you talk like you're twenty years older than me, Rain. It makes me wonder how we've both been raised under the same roof."
I started to laugh as we rounded the corner, but it ended up being only a brief smile because directly in front of us, leaning against a car, was Jerad Davis. He stood up when he saw us. He wore the same clothes he had worn in Oh Henry's, but he looked uglier and more frightening to me when he smiled and sauntered toward us.
"Well, well, well, look who I bumped into, the Rain girl herself," he quipped.
Beth stopped, her mouth agape. She looked at me in anticipation. I stared at him when I paused, but I didn't speak.
"Can't you say hello? It's not like we don't know each other. Hell, we kissed."
"You mean you forced yourself on me," I accused. He just laughed.
"You were the one who came rushing at me, girl. I've been thinking about you and I decided I'll give you some of my time." He looked at Beni. "I hear you're going to see Carlton Friday night. Why don't we make it a double date, huh?" he asked, turning back to me.
"Excuse me," I said. "We have to get home."
I started around him, but he stepped in my way, holding his arms out.
"Now that's not polite and here I've been telling everyone I met the politist Rain in the city." He laughed.
"Please, let us pass," I said.
"Not until I get another kiss," he declared.
"I'd rather kiss the gutter."
He roared and I tried to walk around him again, but he skipped in front of me, his arms out as if he was going to embrace me.
"You liked it, baby. Admit it."
"It made me sick," I said. "That's all I'll admit."
Beth looked absolutely mortified, the look of terror in her eyes adding to my own fear. Jerad's face hardened, his eyes like stones.
"That's not nice," he said, still blocking my way.
"Let them go by," a voice shouted from behind us. We turned to see Roy come walking from between two parked cars. He had a tire iron in his right hand, gripped like a club. Jerad didn't move, just stared at Roy, his eyes narrowing and the small smile on his lips growing cold and sharp.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Their brother, that's who," Roy said.
"What are you going to do with that tire iron?" Jerad asked.
"Whatever I have to do," Roy replied. He came up beside me. In the silence, I thought everyone could hear my heart pounding like bongo drums.
Suddenly, Jerad's face melted into a smile again.
"Well, that's what I would expect a good brother to do for his sister. You're a lucky girl, Rain. You got a big brother watching over you." He turned back to Roy and looked slyly at me. "You sure you're only watching her like a brother?" he asked.
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know. It might mean something. It might not. He always trail in the back, keeping his eyes on your behind, girl?"
I looked at Beni, who kept her eyes down, and then at Roy. His face was full of rage. I saw the way he tightened his grip on the tire iron, and I shook my head vigorously.
"Maybe he wants to keep you all to himself," Jerad continued.
&nbs
p; Roy glanced at me and then he turned to Jerad, stepping toward him, his body filling up with fury.
"Only a mind grown in garbage would think that."
Jerad laughed. He frightened me because he wasn't in the slightest intimidated by my brother and my brother was so much bigger than him.
"Okay, watch behind her." He stopped smiling and glared at Roy. "But who watches over you, big brother?"
"I watch over myself:'
"That might not be good enough."
"I'm okay with it," Roy said, not blinking. Jerad smiled again. It was so frigid a smile, it made his teeth look like pieces of ice.
My heart felt as if it had collapsed like a punctured balloon. I don't think I'd taken a breath from the moment Roy had appeared.
"All right. Long as you're okay with it," Jerad said. He glanced at me. "See you soon, baby," he muttered and stepped back.
I didn't think my legs would work. Beni had her eyes to the sidewalk. We started away.
"Just keep walking," Roy ordered. "Don't look back."
I didn't say a word. I sped up and Beni did the same. That was how we learned that Roy had been watching over us all week. He escorted us to The Projects.
"I gotta get back to work," he said when we arrived. "Just stay off the street for a while. You need anything for dinner tonight, Rain?"
"Mama didn't say," I told him. He stared at me for a moment. I couldn't help it that I was still trembling and I was sure he saw it.
"You okay?"
I nodded and he looked at Beni. She still looked frightened, but she wasn't trembling like I was.
"Maybe we should call the police, Roy?" I asked.
"Naw, they won't do anything, Rain. We have to take care of ourselves. That's why," he emphasized, looking more at Beni than me, "we've got to be careful about where we go and who we see around here."
He gazed at me once more and then he turned and headed back to Slim's. I started for the front entrance, Beni right behind me.
"How come he was there? He must be following us, watching us all the time," she said.
"And I'm glad of that," I said, even though I was more worried for him than I was for myself now.
"He's just lucky Jerad didn't have his gang with him," she muttered. "He probably had a knife or a gun, too. That was crazy. Roy's crazy."
I stopped and turned on her.
"What would we have done if he hadn't come along, Beni?"
"Oh, nothing would have happened," she insisted. Her expression changed, her lips tightening. "You better not back out of helping me with Mama because of this, Rain. You just better not."
"It doesn't frighten you, what just happened and what could happen?" I asked.
She forced a firm face.
"No," she said.
I continued up the stairs thinking Beni was right to wonder how we could be so different living under the same roof.
As it turned out, we weren't so different after all, but that was a discovery Beni would make for herself. That night Beni made her plea to Mama, asking her to let her go to Alicia's and sleep over Friday night.
"Who all's going to be there?" Mama asked quickly. "Just me and my girlfriends," Beni said. "Can't girls get together and have some fun?"
Mama's eyes were two dark slices of suspicion, especially when Beni shifted hers guiltily away. Mama turned to me.
"That true, Rain?"
"She's been talking about going there all week, Mama," I said, avoiding the question.
"How have your grades been this week?"
"I didn't fail anything," Beni said. She hadn't done especially well in anything, either.
"Which one's Alicia? She the girl whose mother was arrested for being drunk in the movies?" Mama asked.
"No," Beni said. Mama looked at me again, but I really didn't know about that, so I just shook my head.
"We're all going right after school so we'll be there before it gets dark," Beni continued.
"You ain't going anywhere but her house?"
"That's all, Mama. We're going to chip in and order pizza and listen to music. Can I go?" She held her breath.
Mama hesitated. Giving Beni or me permission to do anything at night was a burden to her. I could almost see the turmoil going on in her heart, the fear closing in like a fast thunderstorm. She didn't want to be a monster to her children, but she was so worried for us. Beni couldn't appreciate that now. She was interested only in her own pleasure.
"You better not go to any hip-hop joint after," Mama warned as a way of saying yes. Beni started to swear on a stack of Bibles, but Mama wouldn't listen.
"Just look me in the face and tell me you're not going, Beni Arnold, and that's all I want. I want my children to be honest with me and never lie to me, understand?"
"Yes, Mama."
"When you start lying to your own, you're losing the battle with the devil. Just remember that and carry it with you whenever those other girls try to get you to do something you know I wouldn't want you to do," she told her. "I was your age and I made lots of mistakes, Beni. I know what it's like having all your friends urging you to do what they want to do."
"Oh, Mama," she moaned.
"Oh. Mama, oh, Mama." Mama sighed deeply, her shoulders crumbling under the weight of her worry. Ken hadn't called or returned since he had walked out and the pressures were building on our little world. We were all in a small boat, being tossed and bounced on a sea of trouble.
"All right," she said, "but don't make me sorry."
When Roy came home, he was angry that Mama had given Beni permission to go to the party. He turned to me.
"You aren't going, too?" he asked.
"It's just Beni's friends," I explained.
"Yeah, I seen some of her friends," he quipped and I had to look away or he would instantly know what I knew. For the moment I thought it would be worse to betray Beni than to tell him the truth.
After school Friday, she went directly to Alicia's. Mama actually forgot about it and wondered where she was when she returned from work that night. I reminded her.
"Oh yeah," she said scrubbing her cheeks with her dry palms to revive herself. She looked so tired. "I hope she isn't getting herself into any trouble," she muttered. She thought for a moment and then looked at me closely. "How come you aren't going to any parties, Rain, or asking to go on any dates?"
"I don't know, Mama. I'm too particular, I guess," I said. "That's what all the other girls think about me."
"Good," she said. She stabbed the word at me. "Good. Be particular. Set high goals for yourself. You won't be sorry."
"What if they're too high, Mama? What if they're so high no boy will ever ask me out?" I wondered.
"The right one will when the time comes," she said, full of faith. "You're special, Rain. Always remember that."
"Why am I special?" I asked.
She turned me around so I could look at myself in the mirror as she held my shoulders and gazed at my image with me.
"Look at what you see there, girl. You're special. Anyone can see you have something more in your eyes, in your mind. You're not just pretty. You've got quality and one day, you're going to make me proud," she predicted.
I shook my head. Was she just seeing me through a mother's prejudiced eyes or did she really see something I couldn't see, something her age and experience pointed out for her? I hoped she was right, but I was also afraid she was right. It made me more worried about making some terrible-mistake.
When Roy returned from work, the first thing he asked was whether or not Beni actually had gone to the party. He wasn't happy about it and mumbled so much at dinner Mama told him to stop his worrying and go do things boys his age do.
"Why don't you find yourself a nice girl, Roy?" she asked him. "It isn't natural for you to spend all your time trying to be the man of this house. You got a life too. I don't ever want to steal away my children's lives, understand?"
"You're not stealing anything I don't want to give you, Mama," he said.
She smiled and looked at me. Then she grew sad again. "My children have to grow up faster than most. It doesn't seem right."
"It's too dangerous to be a child and live here," Roy said. "You got to grow up."
"Ain't that the truth. It's what the reverend says too. The precious time of innocence is shorter for us."
Mama was falling into one of her deep depressions. I tried getting her mind off it by getting her to describe her own childhood and her mother and some of the places she had been. She talked a little, but after dinner, she closed her eyes and almost fell asleep in her seat. Roy and I cleaned up and Mama went in to watch television, which meant she would fall asleep in her chair and wake up after the late news to go to bed.
"Why don't we go to a movie?" Roy suddenly asked me.
"You don't have to spend your time amusing me, Roy," I told him. "I have some reading I can do."
"It's no sacrifice. I want to go to a movie and hate going alone," he told me.
"Mama's right, Roy. You should be going on dates, too."
He bristled.
"And what about you?"
"When I find someone I like and he asks me, I'll go," I said.
"That's the way I think too," he said and we both laughed. "In the meantime, we can go to the movies. I got money just waiting to be spent."
I always felt safe with Roy and it wasn't just because he was big and strong like Ken. He was always alert, cautious, aware of what was going on around us in the streets, and he hovered over me like a protective angel. Without speaking, he would take my arm and gently but firmly turn me to cross a street or wait while some gang members passed in front of us. Roy always believed it was easier and wiser to avoid confrontations. It didn't make you a coward; it made you smarter.
Neither of us had spoken a word about the dirty things Jerad had implied when Roy rescued us that afternoon, but I felt he was a little more self-conscious about every look he gave me, self-conscious every time he touched me. Once, I would have thought nothing of him taking my hand when we walked in the street. He was my big brother. Why not? But suddenly, a whole new world of meaning surrounded every move we made, every word we spoke to each other, and every look we exchanged. Even an innocent thing as a big brother asking his sister to go to the movies felt a little uncomfortable, but I didn't want him to feel that way, so I agreed and we went.