I GOT A job. I get ten dollars to make sure WK leave this bus without swapping spit with that dude. Staying put next to me would be cheaper, I told him. He walked off again anyhow—smiling. Guess I’m the kissing police now.
When his elbow lift off the armrest and he lean Blaine’s way—I stand up and yell, “Hey! I’m watching you.” Everybody else is too for a minute. I crack myself up and do the same thing three more times mostly ’cause I’m bored. It works. He change seats. I was hoping he would come back to me. He in a seat on my side of the bus right across from that boy. Who don’t know it won’t last all that long?
“Look.” It’s the farmer behind me. “Right there.” His finger taps the glass. “Won’t see many now that the sun is down. Lucky there’s a full moon.”
It’s the most cows I seen at one time. The farmer says there’s seventy, maybe eighty out there. For a while he tells me about his farm. His grandson names the cows, which he say ain’t good to do.
“Because one day he’s gonna find them gone, right?”
“Off to slaughter.”
“Slaughter?”
“Jeepers. You must know what that word means. What do they teach you—”
His wife stops him from saying all of what he thinks. That’s good ’cause I don’t want to hear it anyhow. What he know about me, my school, or what I know? Nothing—just like I don’t know nothing about running no farm or milking cows. I do know it ain’t right how they treat them poor old cows. They look dirty and sad, bored and worn down. Just like some people. Thinking on it some more, I ask, “How do milk turn white anyhow? Grass is green.”
He talks like he a science teacher. Says something about proteins and intestines, chlorophyll. Fifteen minutes later he still explaining. Blah, blah, blah. I quit listening. When I say he should shut up, he gets mad. I get on my knees in the chair and face him. “I’m only saying what other people won’t.”
His wife smiles. “Dear, leave the child alone.”
“She’s interested in cows and farming, what harm does it do to educate her?”
“I’m not dumb.”
He kind of apologizes, but not really. I take my seat, pull a magazine out my backpack. It’s my sister’s. She used to only read magazines about movie stars and cheaters. Now she buy this kind with articles on how to get ahead, talk better, do better, want more. Guess Miss Saunders told her to. “I read, you know. See.” I hang my arms over the headrest and poke the actress’s cheek on the cover.
“I never liked her.” He hits the magazine. “Just a troublemaker.”
“Shhh.” It’s his wife.
“Why do I have to be quiet? Tell her to be quiet.”
The driver asks if the people in the back can please be respectful of others. She’s already seated. Flipping pages, I find the recipe section. It’s the Thanksgiving issue even though Thanksgiving was a long time ago. Where’s the macaroni and cheese? I wonder. The hog maws and chitlins; fatback in the greens? My mother made her food like that. Now JuJu does. Once, Miss Saunders said that kind of food was unhealthy. She was wrong though. Wrong about a lot of things. When I’m married, my kids are gonna eat like I do. “Hey.” I knock on the window. “Mister. You got kids … grandkids?”
He holds up three fingers. “Why?”
“I just wondered.”
“Oh.”
“Any of them like me? You know—with some black in ’em.”
“Jesus. What kind of person is she?”
“I think she means biracial, dear.”
I can tell without seeing that his neck is red. “No.”
“Oh.”
He asks why I want to know. No real reason. I think about that baby in the back. “One day you just might have one.”
“Have what?”
“A grandchild like me.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Maybe not the same color, but black just the same.”
He stands up, sits down, knocks his knees or something against my chair. His wife tell him to be still and watch his blood pressure.
I put away the magazine. Pull out my coloring book. I like princesses, ’cause my father used to call me his little princess. I find a page and start with the crown. It’s got thirty stones in it. So, I take out thirty crayons. I color the way some people paint their nails—slow and careful—perfect. It’s the only thing I do right.