Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

Mr . or Miss before tre first names
of grown-ups and address them'
that way . We didn't know it was
wrong until we had grown older .
By then, it didn't matter .
Everybody thought Miss Ruth
was pretty . Men liked her . They
were always coming around to see
her . There was one who used to
come around a lot . He was very
tall-much taller than my dad, who
was five feet ten . He had curly hair .
Mama used to say that men like
that are blessed with the hair their
sisters should have had . After all .
what's good hair to a man? Curly's
yellow skin was smooth and soft
looking . I always wanted to touch
it t~ see if it were really as soft as
it looked . One of Curly's eyes was
smaller than the other . When he
looked at you, it seemed as if one
eye was looking at you while the
other one was looking at something
on the other side of the room . I
used to hang around waiting for
Curly . Sometimes I played jacks on
the front porch and watched Miss
Ruth and Curly out of the corner
of my eye. She said he was her
cousin . But one day I overheard
Miss Mabel tell Mama that they
were "the funniest cousins" she had
ever seen . Then she laughed .
Mama shook her head sadly and
talked about the Lord . Mama knew
all about the Lord because she was
saved . I think she was the only person
in the whole house who was
saved .
Most of the time, Curly came to
see Miss Ruth at night . He usually
5 6
brought a carton of beer with him .
We would stay up late playing hide
and seek and Curly would still be
around when we went inside . Once,
I even saw him leaving Miss Ruth's
house early in the morning . Then,
for no reason at all, Mike, Jim, and
Tina started whispering and giggling
every time Curly came to the
house . On that day, the game started
. I don't remember who started
it, probably Mike . He was always
thinking of things to do . Anyway,
I wanted to play too .
One evening, while Mama and
Dad were looking at T.V ., I went
out to play on the porch . Janice
was already there . She sat in a
kitchen chair, on her side of the
porch . Her head was buried in a
book, and her feet were propped
up on the bannister . I looked at her
with envy . She had on a pair of old
blue jeans which someone had cut
off at the knees and a dirty white
shirt . My mother wouldn't let me
wear shorts . I sat down on the top
step and took a small rubber ball
out of my skirt pocket . I tossed the
jacks on the floor . Janice didn't pay
any attention to me . I bounced the
ball on the porch several times . But
she didn't even look up . I waited
until Tina came out .
"Hey, Tina," I said, "will you
play jacks with me?"
Tina shook her head "no ."
"Why?" I asked .
"cotta talk to Mike," she said .
"Can't you play until he comes?"
"No . He's coming now," Tina
said . She rushed to the screen door
March 1968 NEGRO DIGEST