P.S. Be Eleven Read Free Page B

while sitting up front next to Pa. “Wait. Just wait. I’m gonna beat the Oakland out of you. I tell you NOT to goout there in public stirring up a grand Negro spectacle and you make it your business to do exactly that. Don’t you know the world’s got its eyes on you? But an eyeful isn’t enough. No, sir. You haul out the Amos ’n Andy Show for all the spectators. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern, how many times must I tell you, they’re always watching. Always.”
    I prayed Vonetta and Fern knew when a question didn’t call for an answer.
    â€œIt’s that no-mothering mother . . .” Big Ma went on.
    â€œMa,” Pa interrupted, probably to keep her from talking about Cecile. “Your blood pressure.”
    To that, Big Ma gave a spit sound without actually spitting. “If my pressure don’t kill me, these children will.”
    Pa sighed. “It sounds like Delphine had to get Fernie to the toilet, and Fernie couldn’t hold it,” he said. He was calm while the Wildcat went back to rumbling.
    â€œSurely couldn’t,” Fern said.
    â€œThat’s why you hit everything but the toilet bowl,” Vonetta said.
    And before they started up, I gave them my own evil eye, and Fern muffled a “she started it.”
    Big Ma said to Pa, “Junior, there’s a right way to go about things and a wrong way. Wrong will get that gal strung up. Mark my words.”
    â€œWe’re in Brooklyn, Ma.”
    Another spit sound. “Brooklyn. Alabama. You still haveto carry yourself just to get by.”
    Vonetta and Fern hadn’t stopped poking at each other. Vonetta said, “I didn’t start it but I’m ending it,” and stuck out her tongue. Fern couldn’t get back at the Mouseketeers who had stuck their tongues out at her, but only one person separated her from Vonetta. Fern tried to kick Vonetta but ended up kicking me, and then Pa said, hard, firm, but not loud, “All right, girls,” and put an end to it all. My knee throbbed.
    Traffic on the Belt Parkway kept us in Queens longer than Pa had planned. The drive to Brooklyn seemed to go better if no one spoke. We all took the hint, including Big Ma, but we were all thinking about something.
    A white woman had spoken to Big Ma about me. I resigned myself to seeing lightning in the whipping of a lifetime. A whipping that would outdo my last whipping at age nine for letting Vonetta and Fern get into the grape jelly. They dropped and broke the glass jar and had grape jelly and glass everywhere, when I should have been watching them.
    At least the short brunette stewardess didn’t show up to report how we ran away from her.
    The Wildcat crouched, leapt, then sat along the Belt Parkway in spurts. Silence had given way to yawning, and then Big Ma, Vonetta, and Fern napped. They slept hard and didn’t stir when the quiet got broken up by the Temptations. Not the singers in matching suits, spinning andsnapping fingers into one loud pop from the radio. Just one of the Temptations’ tunes whistling clear-water cool through Pa’s lips. I heard all the words and instruments, complete with stereo highs and bass lows to “My Girl,” fluting out of his long but happy face.

Herkimer Street
    I felt like a thief trying to steal a good look at my father’s face through the rearview mirror. He caught me and winked. For a second it was like having Uncle Darnell with me. Uncle D. Always happy, singing, and still doing the Watusi when that dance had been long gone.
    I shuddered as a picture flashed before me. Would my father pick up dancing? The last thing I wanted was a father who danced and carried on like he was fresh out of high school.
    As soon as that shudder passed, another overtook it. The gymnasium in June. The sixth-grade dance. The happening no sixth grader could avoid, unless her parents forbade her to go. That wasn’t likely. All the PTA motherslooked