Joy. Marsha Hunt

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СКАЧАТЬ in Oakland from Wilmington, Delaware. It’s such a cute picture. She got her hair in two braids and is smiling to beat the band with both front teeth missing, which she tried to pencil back in ’fore she gave it to me and which completely ruined the photo, but I still put it in a nice gold painted picture frame. At the time, though she wasn’t but eight, it made me furious that she was childish enough to draw in her teeth, and I asked her why she did it. She could see I was in a temper and said she’d erase it, but like I said, ‘Child, you can’t be erasing on no picture. That’s ridiculous.’

      ‘Don’t tell Mama. Please please don’t tell my mama,’ she all ’a sudden cried out with her eyes bucked like she was scared to death.

      I hadn’t never seen Joy crying, not that I’d known her more than a couple months, but she was happy natured and didn’t never get into stews like children usually do. But she was sure scared that day that I’d tell Tammy.

      It made me wonder whether Tammy beat on her or something, but I didn’t never hear no whipping noises and didn’t never see Tammy raise her hand to none of her children. Not even Anndora, who needed it ’cause she could get set on doing something and bring the house down till she got her own way. But Joy didn’t never put a foot wrong at that age that I could see, so there wouldn’t of been no reason to hit on her.

      Anyway, that day Joy gave me her picture I made her a promise that I wouldn’t never tell her mother. She made me say, ‘Cross my heart to God or hope to die’, ’cause she wouldn’t believe me. Over the years I had to promise not to tell Tammy quite a few things. ‘Don’t Tell Mama ought to be your middle name,’ I used to say to Joy.

      Standing there in my living room looking down at that first grade picture, I said out loud, ‘Miss Joy ‘‘Don’t Tell Mama’’ Bang.’

      The sound of it made me chuckle, though thinking back, I had many a sleepless night ’cause I was worried that Tammy should have been told something that Joy made me promise to keep back. Though most of the time, when she was little, them secrets was about kids’ stuff. Like when her and Brenda’d been jumping up and down on their mama’s bed and broke the springs.

      But there was a few times I promised Joy that I wouldn’t tell Tammy something that I knew I had to keep from Freddie too, ’cause although he’s ready to turn a blind eye to most of what folks get up to, being a good Christian, he ain’t ready to tolerate things that is well and truly wrong. Like the time Joy was s’posed to go to her eighth grade picnic, and I discovered she was hiding down the hall in Artie What’s-his-name’s apartment.

      He was a ex-sailor that Freddie B didn’t want to rent to no way, ’cause he was white. But like I told Freddie, Mr Houseman who owned the building was white, and it didn’t make no sense that we’d work for white but not let ’em rent. But Freddie B is from New Orleans, same as me, and it took him a long time to trust white folk, and at that time we hadn’t long been out the South.

      Anyway, that morning of Joy’s eighth grade picnic, I’d seen the girls off to school like usual, ’cause their mama was off to work before them, and I was setting in my place watching The Heartline on the TV when I smelled something burning. I got a real good nose, and no apartment house I’m managing will ever burn to the ground, ’cause when I get a whiff of something I don’t wait a minute to check things. Soon as I opened my door, I knew the smell was coming from down Artie’s ’cause his apartment was the onliest one down that end of the ‘L’ shaped hall. And like I thought, it was coming from his place, but when I knocked loud on his door, didn’t nobody answer. And being as me and Freddie B was in charge of the building, I didn’t have no choice but to open it with my spare key, ’cause I couldn’t let the place burn down to the ground. But to my open-mouthed surprise I found Artie, bold as day, sprawled across his put-you-up in a nanky looking undershirt and puffing on a cigarette as nonchalant as if he couldn’t smell nothing.

      I could tell once I was inside the room that it wasn’t nothing but some toast that had burned, but at least, like I said to him, he should have opened the window to let the smell out. Warm as it was that morning, he needed to let some air in anyways, which is what I was fixing to do when I marched over the other side of the room to his window.

      That’s how I spotted Joy’s feet in her old red tennis sneakers peeking out from behind a brocade curtain in the corner of Artie’s room where he kept his clothes hanging on a rail.

      The shock of discovering that Joy was in there nearly give me a heart attack, and I felt a hot flush come over me so fast that I didn’t know where I was and was rendered speechless with my mouth hanging wide open. But something told me to go and lay in wait outside the door instead of causing a ruckus right then and there in that white boy’s room.

      I couldn’t hear nothing but myself breathing once I got outside his door, and I was standing there for what seemed like an hour ’fore Joy came creeping out on her tippy-toes shutting Artie’s door real quiet behind her.

      She had her hair in a chignon on top of her head with a red ribbon tied round it, and from the back she looked grown though she wasn’t but thirteen.

      I let her get ten paces away before I called out in a harsh whisper, ‘Tipping ain’t gon’ help you none, Madam.’

      Dim as it was in the hall with no window and no light on, I could still see she was so scared that she jumped a pace and looked ready to pee herself. The whites of her eyes was practically glowing, ’cause they had popped out so from fear of what I was gonna do to her, I reckon.

      ‘What on God’s name was you doing in that white boy’s room?’ I hissed at her like a alley cat. ‘It wasn’t but two hours ago I waved you off with your packed lunch and them cupcakes I baked for your picnic. So what on earth is you doing back here? And in there with Artie of all people!’

      That day is the closest I ever came to hitting Joy, ’cause I was so mad she’d done something to leave me feeling like I didn’t know her. Far as I knew, she hadn’t taken no notice of Artie except to mention that she didn’t understand why he never came to my place for the cups of coffee I offered him from time to time when we bumped into him. But standing there fussing at her in the hallway, it seemed I may just as well have been talking to a stranger though I’d known her ’bout five years by then.

      She said, ‘Don’t get in a temper. I was just trying to help Artie.’

      ‘Help him do what, pray tell!’ I almost shouted though I was trying hard not to raise my voice.

      She didn’t answer right away which made me suspect she didn’t have nothing reasonable to say and then she broke out crying by the time I’d escorted her ’round to our end of the passage.

      ‘Don’t tell Mama, will you?’ she begged, falling down on her knees with her hands clasped together like somebody praying.

      ‘That’s supposed to mean something?’ I asked her. ‘Any ol’ body can do that. I ain’t fooled.’

      ‘Please don’t tell Mama,’ she said like a four year old expecting a whipping.

      ‘Joy, I can’t keep something like this back from Tammy,’ I said. But no sooner than I said it, I knew that there wasn’t no way I could tell Tammy that I’d found Joy in Artie’s room, ’cause Tammy had grown short of temper back in those days, and there wasn’t no telling what she would of done.

      ‘You know that Mama won’t let me go to church with you anymore if you tell. And that’ll be the end of choir practice and Sunday school and everything!’ Joy cried.

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