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Grandad was barefoot out the door and down the two steps. His feet sunk in the grass as he came closer to us. It must’ve rained earlier cause his footsteps sounded kind of soggy. He fiddled with the lock on the gate and it made a clanging noise on the iron gate as Grandad pulled it off.
“Gwendolyn?” Grandad asked as though to make sure she was who he indeed saw. “Is wa you doing out ya gyal?” He looked at Ma, then me. “You tell me you was coming?”
“No,” Ma said. “I just decided to-”
“You just decide to wa?” Grandad grabbed the bag and ushered Ma into the house. He left me there to fend for myself, but I followed them anyway cause I wasn’t gonna stay outside with all the dogs barking and howling. “You just decided to get on a plane and come ya?”
“Yes, Daddy,” Ma said.
We stood in a room that looked like it was both the kitchen and the living area. Somehow everything seemed so much smaller than I last remembered. Or, maybe I was smaller and everything seemed bigger. Either way, the love seat, couch, and single seater encircled a table with a glass top. Pictures crowded each other on the glass top. One with me in my YMCA uniform with a soccer ball. One with me in my YMCA uniform playing basketball. One with me in my YMCA uniform playing flag football. I was little though. None of me now. Ma musta stop sending pictures or maybe I stopped taking them. Man, I used to play a lot of sports when I was little. There was one with Ma in her cap and gown maybe when she graduated nursing school. I was little then, not in that picture but Ma had that same picture, except I was holding her graduating cap. No space allowed me to get to any of the seats, so I just stood. I would have had to step over the arm of a love seat and the single seat in order to actually sit. I remained, cause I still didn’t know how pissed Ma was.
“You travel in your wuk clothes? Wat really goin’ on, Gwendolyn?” Grandad’s voice was firm as if he expected a real answer and immediately.
“Daddy, I can’t deal with Kadeem anymore.” Ma started to cry and immediately I started to look for ways to disappear. Right then I wished that the floor would swallow me up so that I wouldn’t have to see her crying. I hated when she did that, especially when it was because it was over something I did or she thought I did.
“Gyal, hush you mout’!” Grandad demanded. Then he looked at me. “Go in dat room, Kadeem.” He pointed to the door on the left. He told Ma to sit down at a table in the kitchen area. I left a crack in the door so that I could hear their voices. Shoot, I should be in the room if they were talking about me; I heard Ma’s sobs, but she was trying to control them, almost like she was trying to stop. Grandad didn’t say anything.
“Daddy, he got suspended again.”
Silence.
“I don’t know what else to do,”
Silence.
“I just thought, maybe -” Ma sobbed again. “I just don’t know, Daddy. I don’t know what to do.”
Silence.
“The only thing he does at school is get in trouble.”
Silence.
“I don’t even want to answer the phone anymore from the school because I know, Daddy-” She blew her nose, a long and messy sound like she was having a real nasty cry, like she been waiting to release them since we been flying.
Silence.
“I just know they are calling me to get Kadeem because of another fight.”
Silence.
“He’s always fighting, daddy.” She sobbed, “Always.”
Silence.
“I don’t even know what this last fight was about. I just know that he was fighting,” Ma said. Her disappointed made me want to go out and explain that, yeah, I had been fighting a lot but this one time, it really wasn’t my fault. I really couldn’t avoid it. But like the Dean, I knew she wasn’t going to listen. She didn’t want to. All those other times I fought, this is the one I really couldn’t avoid. I wondered if Grandad could even understand. At this point, I didn’t even think anyone could. Why even try?
I looked around the room cause I was tired. I was sure it was tomorrow in Orlando and I had already had such a long day. Exhausted, I looked at my phone, one bar, almost dead, still on airplane mode. I dared not take it off airplane mode cause if there was any reason Ma would really kill me besides this last suspension, it would be to run up her AT&T bill. This place was not one of the fifty states or territories so Ma would definitely be charged roaming fees. I planned to ask Grandad for the WIFI password and use WIFI til we left. I looked around the room, a single full-sized bed waited in the middle of the room with a large cherrywood chest of drawers next to it, very similar to my room in Orlando. I had one window though and that faced our neighbor’s wall cause the houses were so close to each other, not exactly a good view. Grandad had two windows in this room. One was facing the street and the other was facing the neighbor’s house but several tall trees blocked the full sight of the house. Both louvres of the windows were open, letting in a slight breeze, slowly and barely lifting the thin blue curtains. It was still hot in here. I’d never leave my window open in Orlando, there were too many chances of people breaking in or worse, critters. A fan hung from the ceiling, I turned it on. The light came on with it so I pulled the string to turn the lights off but kept the fan on. It sounded like they had finished talking about me anyway so I slid my slides off, took off my t-shirt and laid down in the bed, directly under the fan.
A sound of a rooster outside of the window woke me, so loud as if it was under the bed I slept in, but I knew it was not. The sun wasn’t even up yet. I looked at my phone, still one bar. I hoped to God Ma remembered to pack the chargers when she was cramming my duffel. If not, hopefully, I could use Grandad’s charger til we left. I walked out the room and the door leading to the backyard was wide open. Ma was not there. She must have been in the other bedroom. I didn’t wake her because I knew she was tired. She really needed rest. This get away was going to be good for the both of us. Grandad was outside, barefoot, taking shirts from a bucket, squeezing them so that water drained out of them, and hanging them on the clothesline that led from the fence to a pole in the middle of the yard. I cleared my throat so that I didn’t startle him. I sure didn’t want to be blamed for one more thing, especially giving an old man a heart attack.
“I tink you mean to say good mawning!” Grandad said and he continued to pin clothes on the line. On several lines, he pinned up all sorts of clothes, faster and faster. There was just a light from the shed in the back of the yard.
“Good morning, Grandad!” I responded quickly.
“Good mawning, Kadeem,” like we did this every morning. “Go get ready!” He commanded. I wanted to ask for what, cause I didn’t have no school, and I didn’t have no job, so get ready for what? But I didn’t say nothing and just did what Grandad said. The last thing I wanted was to upset him too. I needed at least one person on my side before we went back home.
I wheeled my duffle into the room I slept in. Great! Just like I thought, nothing matched nothing. I wished Ma told me what she was doing so I could actually help pack my own clothes. I just shook my head and pulled out a gray t-shirt and some Nike joggers. Man, it was way too hot to wear joggers and it was gonna be even hotter later. I put them on any way and finished up with my slides and socks from last night. I walked out and found that Grandad was already fully dressed. How did he move this fast? He was wearing a short sleeve collared blue shirt, khaki pants and wide brim straw hat, and Jesus sandals, the ones with his toes out. The ones where Jesus took all his pictures in. Jesus don’t never be wearing no Nikes. His shirt was neatly tucked into his pants with a belt that looked like it was the only thing keeping the pants up on his waist. I wanted to tell him that those pants were too big, but I didn’t say anything cause, I didn’t want him to think I was trying to disrespect him; besides, it was none of my business what he wore, and, I was hungry.
The scent of bread filled my nostrils, like when you passed by Panera Bread early in the morning and the strong scent forced you to stop and buy a bagel. This was like that but instead, right in front of me. There was a loaf of bread on the kitchen table but bread and what? Usually when we visited, Ma brought a suitcase with groceries. Mac and cheese, Chef Boyardee, cereal, Pop Tarts, Doritos. Stuff was too expensive here but she brought the things I liked so I could have enough to eat. I didn’t see her pack nothing like that so I guessed she was gonna buy my cereal from the store here.
I followed Grandad out the back door that lead from the kitchen. Two vehicles in the yard were parked next to the house. There was a large white gate, larger than the one we came through last night. This gate must’ve been the one that the vehicles used. Grandad clambered into the brown van, in the driver’s side that should really be the passenger’s side if we were in Orlando. Why he couldn’t pick us up, I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure where we were going and why we were taking such a big vehicle but he didn’t seem the type of man that I should disobey or even question. Ma probably still slept. I jumped in the front of the bus and put on my seatbelt for a bumpy ride.
Grandad backed out of the yard. “Close de gate!” he commanded.
“You don’t have a thingy?”
“No.” Grandad answered. “I don’t have a ting-ee.”
“Ok!” I submitted, took off my seatbelt, jumped out the van. I pulled the gate like I was playing tug of war against the wall. The gate was heavier than it looked. Once back in the van, Grandad drove off down the hill. We rode through the neighborhood, every house a different bright color and lots of people moving about, doing their own thing. Eventually, we ended out on the main road where even more people were waiting for transportation. Even school children clustered on the sides of the road waited for a ride. Here, they wore uniforms. Poor things didn’t even get to wear what they wanted to school. They had to dress like robots, everybody looked the same every day. We passed rows and rows of tall plants. They couldn’t be grass because they were taller and they had brownish, rods on top. After the last patch of rod grass, Grandad turned onto a street filled with more teenagers that wore the same uniform as the kids before.
“Grandad?” I asked. “Where are we going?”
“To hell if we no pray,” he quipped. Not even a real answer, not to what I asked anyway. I wasn’t sure why he wasn’t answering my questions but I didn’t like it. It was annoying as hell and disrespectful. He made me feel like I didn’t even exist. Like I was talking to myself. I started to get angry but I decided to ignore that feeling I was getting that usually got me into trouble.
He parked the van and jumped out. I followed him. There was a walled fence around several buildings and a sign with a green banner that announced Crayon High School. I grinned cause that was a stupid name for a high school.
“Grandad, why we here?”
Silence.
I followed him to the front office. He opened the door and walked in like he had been there before. Maybe he had. Ma did go to school on this island. Maybe this was the school she attended. All the kids were in some sort of formation looking towards a stage. I could see them from the window of the office. There were a few students on the stage speaking but I couldn’t make out their words. In an assembly or something, every student wore a uniform, the boys in long khaki pants or shorts, but both boys and girls in brown shirts. Some of the girls wore green skirts, and some green jumpers. Why did Grandad bring me here? I was starting not to like it.
Grandad went further behind a counter and through a hallway. I stood outside of the office until he returned. I felt very out of place with my socks and slides. I pulled my joggers up off my butt to hide my underwear cause I didn’t want to draw any additional attention to myself. I was sure everybody else knew that I didn’t belong there. As soon as I pulled up my joggers, Grandad returned with a man dressed in a full suit and tie. I was sure he was burning up because I was burning up in just my t-shirt and joggers. But he was not sweating.
“Here’s your schedule, young man.” The man offered me a piece of paper. No way that was what he said it was. A schedule? For what? For who? I got my own school. I was just here til Ma came to her senses. “We leaving soon, sir,” I wanted to say.
“Naw,” I said. “I’m good.” And I didn’t extend my hand. I didn’t look at this man in his suit that he must have been hot in. Instead, I looked at Grandad like he was crazy. No way Ma was going for this. Was she moving here? Was this where we were gonna live now? No way. I wasn’t going for this. If this was one of her scare tactics, it was working for sure. I was ready to head back to Orlando. Ready to be on the straight and narrow. Ready to stay out of every fight, including the ones I couldn’t avoid.