Raisin
BEEN THREE YEARS SINCE I come out of that lake and find my mama there, waiting for me with her arms open wide. Most times I call her Nola B., though, not mama. She all right. Now that we know my life ain’t hers, or her mama’s. It mine.
Didn’t wanna come out here. Didn’t wanna live in no wanga-man’s shack. But Nola B. say, either we stay at Blue’s place in the woods or we gonna leave Pearl. Tell me to take my pick. So I do.
It ain’t so bad. We got most them old wanga things out and fix the place up some. But Nola B. still won’t take that musty-smelling horseshoe from over the door. Say it protect us, bring us luck.
She say a lotta truth in things Blue used to say and do. Say he the one pull me back from them black arms under the lake. Say he the one take her to the spot in the woods where my daddy let his spirit go. Tell her she the one gotta make peace with the spirits, not me.
She say what was left of my daddy’s bones was inside the little red box. Blue tell her to add some roots and water to the dust inside the box and then sprinkle the mix on my daddy’s grave. Say the Night People would come and take the mix away so my daddy’s soul could be free.
And I don’t forget what Blue do to Sin-Sin, turning him into a man and all.
“Septeema, come here,” Nola Bvsay one night, soon after we start living in Blue’s shack. She still don’t call me Raisin.
She got a little jar in her hand.
“Get that frown off your face, girl. This ain’t nuthin of Blue’s,” she say, and laugh. She make a motion for me to take off my clothes.
“Got something for your skin,” she say, like that little jar hold all the promise in the world.
Don’t wanna take off my clothes at first, but slowly I do what she say. She got white candles burning on the bureau in the room we share. Every now and then we sleep in the same bed. It kind of like sleeping with MC and Wilhelmina and Douglass, but it different. Those nights she hold me and whisper and sing soft in my ear till I fall into a dream. Some nights I hold her.
So this what a mama is, I say to myself—a soft warm holding place, a round dark-smelling wishing place, safe as a womb.
She take her strong fingers and put the wet paste all over my body.
“Crushed comfrey leaves,” she say. “Help take the wrinkles out your skin.”
Didn’t believe them leaves was gonna do nuthin for my wrinkles, but I let her put them on me most every night. After a while, my skin start loosening up, smoothing out a bit.
One day, Lucille see the change in my skin. She one of them fast-tailed gals always fanning their behinds around boys at school. She even fan her tail around Sin-Sin. I act like I don’t even see it.
She call me out in the schoolyard. “Got some wanga put on you or something?” she say, laughing nasty-like. Seem like everybody ever been born looking at me standing in the yard with my face getting hot.
“Raisin putting swamp-water on her face at night,” she keep on. “Out in the woods drinking chicken blood with her mama. Think somebody gonna think she pretty.”
I look in Lucille’s mean mean eyes thinking I’m gonna see two devils inside, but what I see instead is me.
“She better than pretty, Lucille,” Sin-Sin say, walking up on us, “she interesting-looking.”
Sin-Sin talking to me for the first time since Blue die.
We walk quiet down the road toward home. Don’t ask him why he don’t speak all this time. Don’t ask him if he blame me about Blue drowning.
“How’s your mama?” Sin-Sin ask.
He act like ain’t no time passed tween us. Like that night in the woods never happen. Like Blue’s spirit ain’t walking down the road with us.
“She fine, how yours?”
“Good. Good,” he say, then silence. After we walk a way, he stop and say, “I just wanted to talk to you before I go.”
I stop walking too and look in his face. Orange-brown boy-man face. His eyes don’t got that gimme-look inside like the other boys got.
“Where you going?” I ask.
“Down to stay with some of my mama’s people in Louisiana for a while. Going to college down there. Blue always say a man gotta learn all kinds of things, all kinds of ways, so I’m gonna do some of that. Going to learn some more about things Blue tried to teach me from some other men like him.”
“What kind of things?”
“About plants and things. About the old ways of doing things, old ways to be.”
“You blame me for Blue, don’t you?” I ask.
“Huh?” he ask.
“You think it my fault he dead,” I say.
“No. Blue did what he had to do, like we all do,” he say.
“Like you gotta go to Louisiana.”
“Like that,” he say and smile. “I thought you thought I should’ve got you out of that lake instead of Blue.”
“Huh?” I say.
“Since all the time I was running around talking about being a man, I thought you thought I was a coward cause I almost let you drown.”
I look at him and laugh. Shake my head. Tell him, “I don’t never expect you or no other man to be running around trying to save me from nuthin. I can take care of myself.”
“Yeah, well, that’s good to know. Next time you might have to drown.”
We both laugh. It feel good. Standing in the road, laughing with Sin-Sin.
“You different,” I say. “You different now cause Blue done changed you into a man?”
“Naw. I got a ways to go before I’m anywhere near the man Blue was.”
“But you ain’t like you used to be,” I say.
“What used to be missing, ain’t missing in me no more. It’s hard to explain,” he say, then get quiet again. “You know I’ll be going by a new name now. Kle Goodnight. You might want to know it for when you write me letters.”
I look at him like he crazy. Why he think all I got time to do is sit up in Pearl and write him letters? I ain’t none of them tail-fanning gals.
He laugh like he know what I’m thinking. “I’m coming back to Pearl after I learn what I need to know. What you got planned for the next few years?” he ask.
“I don’t know what all coming my way,” I say. “I ain’t but fifteen.”
“You got time,” he say, and we quiet again.
That evening I sit on the bottom step of the porch tween Nola B.’s legs while she plait my hair in two thick braids. She still don’t think I’m old enough to fix my hair the way I want. Miss Marius gonna fix Wilhelmina’s hair in a style Wilhelmina saw in a magazine, for when we go to the picture show tomorrow. But Nola B. don’t wanna hear nuthin about what Miss Marius gonna do. She just look at me and say she grown and I ain’t, and ain’t neither one of us gonna be following behind what Miss Marius, or anybody else, say or do.
I lay my head back in her lap and look in her face. Smell the warm musk rising beneath her soft cotton dress. Such a sadness floating inside her eyes, the black pools of her eyes. I see me in there. See me staring at myself, smiling. Her tears drip slow on my face, blessing me, forgiving us for the hurt we will give each other in the years to come.
“I’m glad you come back, mama,” I say, and start to hum like her mama hummed, and then she start, and we hum till we turn into one dark body inside the holy sounds.