35

Scags with a Black Eye

It doesn’t take much to get into a fight in my neighborhood. Davy is in them all the time because kids are always making fun of his mother. The gypsy, they call her and even worse. I just watch and when they’re on the ground I run home and tell Odessa so she can stop it. But she says, Oh never mind, they’ll be the best buddies tomorrow. So when Davy says to me that Ricky’s been saying things about my Pops, I march straight over to Ricky’s house with Davy close behind.

I knock on the door and when his little brother Bobby answers I say, Tell your brother to stop saying things about my Pops. Ricky hears me and comes to the door. You’re scared of me, I say. He says, Your old man is a crazy and everyone knows it. He says this all through the screen door like he doesn’t want to fight me and that makes him look like a skinny little nothing and I tell him to come outside and say that to me.

Davy says, Scags don’t start a fight. He pulls on my arm and says, Let’s go home, we can play in my mother’s bedroom. I yell at him, Go away, you little homo. For sure he gets angry at me and hauls his arm back and bops me right in the eye. I fall down more because he surprised me than because he hurt me. Ricky’s laughing and Bobby is too. Davy takes off faster than I have ever seen him run. I hear Davy screaming, Your dad’s a loony and you are too. I sit on that front lawn so long that Ricky and Bobby go inside leaving me there with an already shut eye.

I go home. I take my time because my butt hurts and so does my face. I touch my eyelid and already it is hot and puffy. I wonder how I am going to hide this shiner from everyone. Davy shouldn’t have hit me when he knew I really wanted to fight Ricky. I don’t want them all to think that Pops is crazy.

I go into my back yard to my tree and sit down. My eye hurts so bad and I know, I know, no one is going to not notice my eye and what do I say to Pops when he sees right through me. He’ll know I’m more hurt than Davy’s punch. My eye is swollen shut and even lying down on the grass doesn’t make it better. I get up and walk to the back door. Odessa is at the sink, looks up at me, and her eyes become as big as stars and out of her mouth comes a trail of Oh my Gods, so that I think she is never going to be quiet.

I put my finger to my lips. It doesn’t work. Mama has heard her and comes running. She takes one look at me and bursts out saying, How did this happen? Who hit you? I start crying. I can’t help it. Mama says, Shush, shush now.

Odessa says, Those children got nothing better to do but beat up little girls? Mama bends down to take a look, a close look at my eye. Odessa takes a cold rag and sets it on my face. What happened to you? Odessa asks, who hit you? I can’t stop crying. The cold aches my head. My butt hurts. As I cry some more, Mama holds me, and I say to myself for as long as Mama holds me, I’ll cry. Mama runs her hand through my hair and I cry even harder for my long lost hair, and for the way everyone says Pops, my Pops, is crazy and I want to know what is happening to him.

Mama picks me up and carries me through the kitchen, up the stairs to my room. She says, You’re getting to be a big girl. I rest my head on her shoulder and wish we could walk like this forever.

When we get to my room she lowers me to the bed and I wrap my arms around her neck and don’t let go. What is it Scags? Mama asks in my ear. What happened? I whisper in her ear, Everyone says bad things about Pops. Everyone says he’s crazy. My tears wet Mama’s face, I think, until I hear her crying too. She pushes me to the side of the bed and lies down next to me, her face in my neck and her arm thrown across my stomach.

Mama says, We’re still his favorite girls, you know, and he’s trying the best he can and he is still your Pops. I say, But all these things he does, like setting fires you know and the dandelions—Shush, shush now, Mama says and puts her finger over my lips. It smells like perfume, her perfume, the one she wears every day and that settles on all of us. I kiss her finger and she taps my lips a couple of times.

Mama says, Don’t get in anymore fights. They don’t understand how it is with Pops. Okay? You promise? she asks and tickles my stomach. When I laugh and wrinkle up my nose it hurts. My whole head hurts and I yell stop. Mama stops.

I’m sorry, she says, that your friends don’t understand, but you do, don’t you, your Pops is going through a bad time. A very bad time and we need to be strong and love him and believe that he’ll get better soon.

Do you love me, Mama? I ask. What a silly question to ask, Mama says, and then she sits up next to me, puts the cold towel over both my eyes and says in a very soft voice, as if she were telling a secret, Of course I do. She gets up and leaves my room. I hear her close the door and walk downstairs.