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Tess, Anthony, Amanda, and I walked back to school after lunch which seemed like a really long time in which to eat but I did not complain. Even with no bell, Tess, Anthony, Amanda and every kid in uniform seem to know when lunch ended. With that time, I really could’ve ordered the chicken and chips that I wanted. Next time, I would for sure. I could really get used to this but why bother, because I wasn’t gonna be here long. After lunch, the other classes sped by like a car in the Fast and Furious movies. I fought to stay awake. Tess helped by frequently tapping me on my shoulder. I learned. Kept my head down. Didn’t say much. Volunteered answers when the teacher looked at me... I was gonna make it out of here just fine. My week’s suspension was gonna feel quicker than the way spring break week felt, quick, like it never happened. In no time, I’d be back on a plane on the way out with the island shrinking smaller and smaller the higher and higher the plane rose.
The school bell rang at the end of the day and like everybody else, I headed out the doors, down the steps and towards the gate where Grandad parked. Somehow, I just knew that he’d be there, but I didn’t expect to see him in what he wore.
“Dass you grand-farda out day?” Tess asked. He stood out like a sore thumb. Not only was he taller than everybody by the gates, but his clothes stood out in the sea of uniforms. He was the only dang parent standing out front like I was in the third grade or something. Grandad wore jeans cut off at the knee and every thread that could be free, hung loose. His t-shirt had seen better days for sure, faded cream from what used to be a yellowy lemon color and filled with holes and tears. These holes weren’t the kind of stylish holes that you found in the shirts at Hollister. These holes were different, like the shirt had seen hard work. Ma would never pick me up from school looking a hot mess like that. She wouldn’t even come inside the school wearing her scrubs to pick me up! One time in the third grade Ma came to pick me up in her scrubs. She marched right into the school wearing those ugly things draped to the floor which covered her ugly white Sketchers. I was like, “Ma, why you gotta come get me looking like this?” I remember cause it felt like everybody, even the janitor was watching us, focused on what she was wearing. Just from that one question and I guess the look on my face, she never came to pick me up looking like that again. This was another reason I was so surprised that she got on a plane with her ugly scrubs and her too-white Sketchers.
“Yeah!” I said. Was the island so small that everyone knew each other?
“I thought you was gonna walk home wid us but I guess you got a ride.” If I’d known her longer, I’d swear she sounded disappointed but I didn’t want to read too much into it.
“Yeah!” I said. Earlier in class, Tess had said that I could walk home with her and Amanda and Anthony. I didn’t normally like walking but I wanted to see what this was like, so I said sure. The island was small enough where it didn’t seem like it was a long enough walk to torment me. Plus, I didn’t mind her company. Tess told me that she lived in the village south of Grandad’s and Anthony lived in the same village as Grandad so I wouldn’t have to walk far and I wouldn’t have to walk alone.
“We gon see you to-mara den!” Again, it sounded like she was saddened by my sudden change of plans, but I still didn’t want to think too much of it. They disappeared into the swarm of uniformed kids, and I walked towards Grandad.
“You ready?” Grandad asked as I got closer to him.
“Yeah, Grandad!”
“Yes, Grandad!” he corrected.
“Yes, Grandad!” I repeated. Though I slept a lot in class, or at least tried to, I was too tired to try to be defiant. Plus, I wasn’t gonna be there long so I didn’t want things between us to be unpleasant. Grandad walked behind Tess and the hoard of other students that streamed away from the school. We walked longer than I thought we should have to, unless Grandad parked his van someplace different than he had before.
“Where’s your van, Grandad?” I asked.
“In me yard, way it ‘pose to be.” He left the van at home, his home, which meant that we were, like the rest of the people in front of us, walking home. I noticed the hill in front of us and put the straps of the backpack over both of my shoulders just so that I’d be balanced. I didn’t notice that hill coming to school. I didn’t notice it coming from the airport. But now, here it stood tall and bold like it was the steepest thing ever. It was. It was the steepest hill I would ever climb. Tess, Amanda, and Anthony were within earshot so I didn’t want to complain. I didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t used to walking home from school. Plus, it was so hot it seemed like the heat of the sun made the hill steeper. My underarms were sweating, dampening my shirt. The street seemed narrower than it had in the van. In fact, it seemed choked with all the school children on both sides heading in our direction. Busses whizzed by us one after the other; no one seemed to be afraid that one may somehow veer into the crowd. With Grandad to my side, some of the tallest looking grass I’d ever seen crowded the roadside. Grandad’s silence killed me.
“Grandad, why is there fields and fields of grass wherever we go?” There was. I’d noticed them since we’d gone to the mountain. If not grass, then a house.
“Grass?” Grandad sounded skeptical. “Is wa grass you talking bout bwoy?”
“This thing!” I dragged my hand against it as I walked. “Ouch!” I yelped and Tess looked back at me and grinned.
“Bwoy, be careful!” he commanded. “Dis here is sugar cane.” Grandad stopped and broke off a piece from the plant. What he broke off looked like grass but then he quickly peeled off the long green material revealing what could pass as a rod or a walking stick with brownish skin on it.
“Grandad,” I whispered, “can you do that?”
“Do wa bwoy?” He then put the rod-like thing in the corner of his mouth and pulled off the skin with his teeth.
“Grandad, you can’t just take people’s stuff.”
“Who is people?”
“You know, the people who own this stuff.”
“How you know I ain’t people? How you know I ain’t own dis stuff?” he asked. The truth... I didn’t know. Maybe Grandad was super rich, and he just chose to live in his two-bedroom house, with one bathroom, with no air conditioning for absolutely no reason at all.
“You’re right, Grandad,” I gave in.
“Dis ting coming up from de grung,” Grandad continued. He chewed on the cane. “Who gon tell me dat I cyaan tek it.” He sucked his teeth and chewed. He then offered me a piece but, I refused. I didn’t want to be a part of whatever he was getting involved in just in case he wasn’t really super rich and actually didn’t own this cane. I was already in my own trouble and didn’t want things to be worse than they already were. Plus, I didn’t want to eat a grass covered rod. Grandad would not give up. He kept pushing it towards me. Finally, I bit into it like I saw Grandad do, on the side of my mouth. It was hard. I imagined if I’d bit into it with my front teeth, it could probably yank them out. I didn’t want to go back to Orlando toothless like a hockey player! I peeled the skin off just as Grandad did to reveal a cream-colored rod. I bit into it like Grandad did but I couldn’t get it to separate like it did for Grandad so I just chewed on its top. It was sweet and juicy.
I stopped chewing long enough to say, “This is good, Grandad, but it’s sweet.”
“Is wa you expect?” he asked but he wasn’t expecting an answer cause the sugar cane was back in my mouth. It was like drinking refreshing sweet water. “Is sugar cane, ain’t sour cane you eating.”
The juices ran down my forearm, off my elbow and onto my shirt.
Grandad warned, “Do-an let dat drop pon you cloze eh!” But it was too late. It was all over my uniform. “You gon just gah tu wash it when you get home cause is de one uniform you got.” I smiled when he said that. I didn’t know if he noticed but he pretty much confirmed that I wasn’t gonna be there long. One uniform? No way was that gonna last me; I saw their game, Grandad and Ma. Right then the sugarcane started tasting sweeter and sweeter as we walked.
Turned out, we weren’t the only ones eating the sugar cane. The other children walking home from school were too. They yanked stems out of the field, breaking it off piece by piece, peeled it, chewed it up, and discarded the remains on the ground. Did they own it too?
“Later, Kadeem,” Tess waved. Her green uniform skirt disappeared down a narrow alley. I waved back and smiled. Anthony and Amanda kept on walking ahead of us, a part of a bunch of other kids. The village before us meant we were almost home, Grandad’s home anyway. Places started to look familiar. For instance, once we passed the basketball court on the right, that meant that we were closer to Grandad’s. After passing the court, Grandad turned through someone’s unfenced yard. Anthony and Amanda had already walked ahead of us on the same path. No way I was doing this in Orlando for fear of a dog, the owner, or even the cops, but here it was nothing! Clothes on the line hung out to dry. The path was worn; a few wisps of grass proved that Grandad wasn’t the only one taking that path on a regular basis. Turned out, it was a shortcut to Grandad’s and I was glad cause even though the sugarcane was good, the sun was still too hot even to be outside, never mind walking home from school. Tess was right. Anthony and Amanda veered off one of the many streets of Grandad’s neighborhood. They didn’t wave bye like Tess did but that was okay, I guessed.
Why did Grandad’s house have to be on the top of the hill in this hot sun? Another hill to climb, but once there, it was good, cause it was like all the breeze from the ocean blew our way. It felt so good that it almost made me forget that I’d just walked a hundred miles to the house in the hot-ass sun. Grandad didn’t appear tired, but the sun seemed to have sucked all the energy out of me. He sauntered into the yard and around to the back of the house like it was nothing. Both vehicles sat idle in the yard. That annoyed me cause the only time I got a whiff of some ac was when I was in one of those vehicles. He could’ve totally picked me up in one but whatever. I followed him around to the back of house. Was something wrong with the front door? The only time I’d seen him use it was when me and Ma arrived that night. Since then, it had been locked and covered with a curtain like it was a secret door or something. His back door, though, was wide open. It looked like it’d been open the whole time he was out. No way, I thought. There was no way we would do that in Orlando! Opened door while gone? We didn’t even leave the door unlocked when we were inside much less leave it wide open when we were gone. This was no doubt reckless. Grandad took out a large tub from the tiny house in the back of the yard. I called it a tiny house because I’d never been in there and I’d seen that Tiny House show with Ma enough times to form an idea of what it could possibly contain. He filled the tub half full of water and placed it on the ground.
“Tek off you cloze,” Grandad commanded.
“What?” I asked. We were in the yard and the fence was not tall enough for me to undress behind. Neighbors lived further up the hill, people who could see right into the yard.
“Tek dem off and put dem in here,” he said nonchalantly pointing to the tub. He was serious. I thought about protesting, going into the house, changing into my joggers and t-shirt, and bringing the uniform out, but I thought against it. I didn’t want Grandad to get upset with me and give Ma a bad report either so I just peeled off the uniform. I wore boxers so I wasn’t completely naked.
“Here,” I said and handed him the shirt and pants but I still felt uncomfortable in the yard without clothes.
“Why you a ge dem to me?” Was Grandad asking me why I was giving him the clothes? I wanted to say, hey, you asked, but I knew better. Was I on the road to making better decisions? By the time I got back to Orlando, I was gonna be a whole new dude. “Me no wear dem!” Grandad continued.
“I know you didn’t wear them, Grandad, but I thought you asked me for them so that you could wash them.”
“You tinking wrong again.” Grandad left the tub of water on the ground and went back into the tiny house. He emerged with something that looked like a large cutting board and the bluest bar of soap I’d ever seen.
“What’s that, Grandad?”
“Dis is how we wash.” He submerged part of the wooden board into the water while the rest of it rested on the edge of the tub. “I don’t know wat Gwendolyn up dere teaching you if you never wash you own cloze before.”
“I do my own wash, Grandad.” This was partially true because I’d collected whites and my colors when I had enough, and Ma would wash them, fold them and put them on my bed.
“Good, cause you gonna do you own wash while you here,” he stated matter-of-factly.
I leaned over the tub in the same manner as Grandad, but on the opposite side. He dipped the shirt in the water so that it was soaking wet. Then, he rubbed some of the blue soap on it. “Mek sure you no put nuff soap on it aw it gon mess up you cloze.” He then put the soap down on the ground, not even on a soap dish. He didn’t care that pieces of grass would stick to it like a magnet to metal.
“Watch wa a doin’ eh!” he commanded.
I did. He held the shirt in his two hands now and rubbed his hands together with the shirt in between. Then he gave it to me.
“Do it,” he commanded.
I did. I dipped the shirt in the water again and rubbed it between my two hands. I kept at it and the shirt started to look clean. The discoloration under the armpits disappeared when I concentrated on rubbing that area; so did the discoloration from the sugar cane juice. I did the same to the pants. I began to feel angry again when I thought about why Ma left me out here basically in the wild to fend for myself. No ac and now no washing machine, not that I knew how to use it anyway, but, damn; I was in a backyard washing clothes in my boxers. If this wasn’t enough punishment for something that wasn’t my fault, I didn’t know what was. Grandad went into the tiny house and got another tub also half filled with water.
“Now you gah tu tek dat,” he pointed at the clothes in the other tub that I washed, “and rinse it out, hang it on de wire and pray it dry fa school in de mawning.”
I did almost everything he said. I hung the clothes on the line. I did not pray for them to dry cause I didn’t care.