I’d hear Pa say, “Darnell. Isn’t it time you get out there and find work?”
Darnell always said, “Yeah, Lou. I’m looking.”
“Look harder,” Pa’d reply.
Then Uncle Darnell would go out and come back without a job.
“I don’t see why you’re pushing him to get a job when he’s been in Vietnam fighting and saw all those terrible things,” Big Ma told Pa, time and time again.
But each time Uncle came home without a job, Pa said, “You’ll have better luck tomorrow. As long as you’re looking.” But Darnell wasn’t lucky, and Pa finally said, “House is getting small, Darnell. You’ll have to get a job, earn your way.”
“We,” Big Ma said, pointing to herself and Uncle Darnell, “can go home if this house is getting too small.” She meant Alabama home.
Pa’s face looked long and exhausted. “Ma.”
“Don’t ‘Ma’ me nothing,” Big Ma said. “He been to war, Junior. War. Do you know what that is? Stop rushing him out the door so you can bring little Miss Cute Gal in here.”
Then Pa put on his jacket and muttered about having to leave his own house. Uncle Darnell lay down on the sofa, and Big Ma threw a blanket on him and said, “You just sleep, baby.”
Uncle Darnell would sleep half the day away, then walk and walk into the night. His friends from Boys’ High School would come around. Friends who didn’t have to go to Vietnam. Big Ma always told them he was sleeping but she’d let him know they stopped by. Two girls from his high school came by once and Big Ma told them, “Young ladies don’t go calling on boys,” and closed the door.
Papa hadn’t left the house muttering too long ago when the doorbell rang. It was Frieda’s big brother, so I yelled back to Big Ma, “It’s John-Isaac,” before I unlatched the chain and opened the door.
“Darnell home?”
“Yeah,” I said, and let him in. I hoped Frieda had tagged along, but it was just John-Isaac.
Vonetta had a crush on John-Isaac and came running out of the kitchen with her soapy, dish-washing hands. With dish towel in hand, Fern came running behind Vonetta. I couldn’t blame them. He was looking fine in his Black Panther beret and leather jacket.
“Heard you and your sisters got some education out in Oakland.”
They saluted him with power signs.
“All right, my fine young sisters.”
Vonetta was giggling as if Jermaine Jackson had walked into our living room. John-Isaac had been coming over to paint model cars and airplanes since as far back as I could remember. He had even brought Frieda over when we were really little, so I could have someone besides my sisters to play with.
Big Ma came out of the bathroom to see what was going on.
“John-Isaac,” she said, getting a good look at him. “Do you want to go to jail? Get shot up in the streets? Take that Black Panther mess off and act like you know better.”
He put his arms around her. “Hey, Ma.”
“Don’t ‘Ma’ me nothing. Coming in here with that Black Panther stuff on. Don’t spread that mess around here,” Big Ma said. “We can’t use it.”
“We already using it,” Vonetta said.
“Power to the people,” Fern said.
“Slap me some skin,” John-Isaac said, holding a hand out to Vonetta then to Fern. “All right, all right.”
He and Frieda were so different, but probably not any more different than I was from my sisters. I figured he and Frieda were what Big Ma called “war babies.” Their mother was a German Jewish lady, and their father was a black army soldier. They met when Mr. Banks was a sergeant stationed in Düsseldorf. I used to love it when Frieda told that story. Her parents’ love story sounded as magical as Uncle Darnell’s stories, except Düsseldorf wasn’t a make-believe place, and Frieda’s parents were real.
John-Isaac kissed Big Ma, who really liked it but pushed him away, just like she did with Pa and Uncle Darnell. He took off his beret and planted it on Big Ma’s scarfed head and walked right by her over to Uncle Darnell, who was lying on the sofa—and Big Ma never let anyone lie on the living room sofa. Big Ma shooed us into the kitchen to finish up our after-dinner chores.
I could hear John-Isaac calling out, “Rooster! Rooster!” Then he crowed like a rooster. John-Isaac nicknamed our uncle “Rooster” because he was so “country” when he first came to Brooklyn from Alabama. And he used to do yard work before the sun came up.
“Rooster. Roo. Man. Get up.”
“Let him sleep,” I heard Big Ma say. “He tired.”
I pushed my mop to the edge of the kitchen to see better. John-Isaac sat by Uncle Darnell like he was visiting a sick classmate in St. John’s Hospital. Uncle Darnell made some “Yeah, man” sounds, but he never got up. When John-Isaac left, he hugged Big Ma for a long time. Like Uncle D was the kind of sick that didn’t get better.