The Warmest December (3 page)

The clothes came next.

We stood there, Glenna and I, our hearts beating in quick unison as polyester bell-bottomed pants and knit shirts came down around us. Then the shoes came flying down like grenades, sending us scurrying into the street for safety. We did not look at each other; our eyes remained on the boxer shorts and black silk socks that flew from the window like wingless birds.

“He ain’t never coming back in here!
Never
!” Pinky’s affirmation could be heard from Nostrand Avenue all the way down to Bedford Street. It was a refrain every woman in that neighborhood had heard or said more than once.

The clothes stopped coming and then she was on the stoop: Pinky, with her milky brown skin, carrot-colored hair on top and black roots on the bottom. She was wrapped in a red silk robe that barely covered her thick thighs and broad behind, and to make it worse, she had forgotten to knot the belt. Her breast, heavy and bruised, but still beautiful to the men who stopped to stare, played a swinging peek-a-boo with the audience that was gathering on the sidewalk. She did, thankfully, have on underwear; black nylon that barely covered her privates, lending onlookers a glimpse of the wild, black Panamanian hair that grew there.

Glenna gasped but didn’t move. Pinky was leaping down the stairs like Spider-man, cussing with each step she took.

“Fucking asshole!”

Step.

“Pendejo!”

Step.

“Maricón!”

Step.

“Bastard!”

She hit the sidewalk and snatched up one of my milk crates all in one motion. I took another step backward, anticipating the outcome of that action. Pinky ran over to Pablo’s cream-colored, four-door Cadillac and brought the crate down hard into the front window. It shattered and buckled beneath the impact. Then she ran to the rear window and repeated the deed, with increased force and intensity. The men who watched forgot about the swinging breast and scrunched their faces against the destruction that was unfolding before them. She smashed each side window and then pulled an ice pick from the pocket of her robe and bent over, revealing her tight broad behind to the world, and sliced, stabbed, and jabbed at each of the four tires, until the air whistled out of them and they were dead. Then she crumpled into a heap of female ruin on the pavement.

The crowd moved on.

Delia approached, at first with caution and then her steps quickened. Hy-Lo stood up and cleared his throat. Delia shot him a quick unsteady glance but kept moving. I looked at my father and his mouth was hanging open.

Delia was also wrapped in a robe. Pink and white terry cloth patched in noticeable places hung open in order to accommodate the child that was growing inside her. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun that had not seen a Saturday wash ’n press appointment in over a month.

She knelt down beside Glenna’s mother and coaxed her with soft words, until Pinky raised herself up from the pavement and pulled her robe closed around her body. They sidestepped the clothes that littered the ground, making their way up the steps and into apartment number A5.

Our apartment had seen its own days of wrath. The white kitchen wall was tinged yellow in spots where no amount of scrubbing could completely lift the bloodstains away. That was the night Hy-Lo had come home from work early and found Delia chatting on the phone, the sink piled high with dishes and the food still sitting in cold pots on the stove. There were few words passed between them before he hauled off and slapped her, breaking the vessels in her nose and splattering her blood, thick and red, across the wall.

But for the moment apartment A5 was quiet and would be a place for Pinky to sit and cry.

My father laughed at their backs as they walked inside. A loud, long laugh that chilled me and I shivered. He had a can of beer in his hand, his fifth for the day. He tilted it up to his mouth and finished it in one long swallow. He never looked at me, not directly, but he knew I was watching him and that my young eyes were filled with disgust.

I blinked back that summer and saw that the old woman was staring angrily at me. “Fucking bitch!” she yelled and then gave me the finger before bending over to show me her behind. “Kiss my ass!” she screamed.

I moved on, feeling more insulted by the long-ago laughter of my father than the revolting invitation from the old woman.

Chapter Two

A
nurse with dark eyes looked back at me through the glass at the visitors’ check-in. The gold beads that graced the elaborately braided hairstyle she wore would have made her appear regal if not for her heavily shadowed eyes and bright white lipstick. Looking at her hurt my eyes and so I looked down at the metal shelf.

She’d repeated herself a few times, but each time she spoke into the microphone her words came across in distorted shreds of syllables that made no sense to me and further agitated her.

“I’m sorry, I—I just can’t—” I started to say again.

The woman turned her eyes up and cocked her head. She pushed the mike aside and cupped her hands around her painted white lips. “What room?” she yelled. I saw that she had a gold tooth and a missing molar.

“Oh,” I said, and thought that a foolish smile should follow, but I had no smiles left in me to offer.

“201,” I said. “D building,” I added.
Dead dog building,
I wanted to say, but bit my lip instead.

I pressed my forehead against the glass and watched as she scrawled my destination on a large green sheet of paper. I turned my head a bit hoping that the words she scrawled there said
Go home,
because I needed some other forces besides myself to help me get out of this thing I had started to do.

“Thank you,” I said as she shoved the paper through the open space and shook her head.

“Next!” she yelled.

I looked down at the paper and my name was written there, as was my destination and time of arrival. I kicked at my ankle with the heel of my boot. If I could not be trusted to remember or control my feet and the places they led me to, then my ankles should suffer for not maintaining some sort of authority. I kicked the other ankle before moving on.

The elevators in that building frightened me. They smelled of sick people and despair and reminded me of the months before I found Hy-Lo half-dead in the courtyard, his lungs pulling so hard for air that his chest looked as if it would explode.

I took the stairs, avoiding the faces that moved past me as I made my way up, up, up.

I walked into the room and the rosy-cheeked nurse stepped out from behind the green curtain. She was close to my father’s age and she smiled brightly at me before she whipped the curtain around the bed, exposing Hy-Lo. He looked the same as he did yesterday. Broken and bent.

“Hello, dear,” she said as she walked past me, snapping off her plastic gloves as she went. Her name tag said
D.
GREEN
, and her eyes reminded me of someone, but I did not know who.

“Hi,” I responded as she passed me, but I didn’t move closer to Hy-Lo. I swallowed hard and waited for my feet to make a decision.

I couldn’t do it. Not again. Maybe it was too soon. Two days in a row was a bit much. After all, who was gaining from this? Not Hy-Lo, he didn’t even know I was there. Not me, all it did was conjure up unhappy memories.

I gained control and forced my feet to carry me in a wide circle that placed me back at the door, and then I walked out of the room and down the hall toward the stairway.

The closer I came to the exit sign, the warmer I became. I pulled at my wool scarf and wiped at the perspiration that formed on my brow.

“Shit,” I said as my hand came to rest on the doorknob of the staircase entrance. I stood there for a long time staring at the red letters that told me this was the way out.
Exit
. But I couldn’t open the door. Or maybe, looking back, I wouldn’t.

I tucked the scarf around my neck and started back toward the room. Nurse D. Green looked up at me as I passed the nurse’s station and smiled.

I pulled the chair to the spot I had left off at. I was parallel to Hy-Lo’s covered feet. The bare wall behind Hy-Lo mocked me, and the lonely nightstand dared me to make his space homey and bright with a slash of purple and bit of green in a vase shaped like an egg or maybe one of those oversized cards with glittering words that said,
Get Well Soon,
signed by everyone he knew.

I ignored the challenge because he did not deserve any warm wishes, flowers, or cards. None at all, not after what he’d done to Malcolm, my mother, and me. “Humph,” I grumbled aloud. I straightened my back and my lips began to move. Words escaped. Mere whispers really, not even loud enough for the other patients to hear over the game show contestants’ squeals of joy emanating from the mounted wall television.

“Remember, Hy-Lo,” I began with a little disgusted laugh. “You were standing over me, breathing down on my head. I didn’t hear you approach but I knew you were there. Not because of the wide-eyed, frightened look that stole Malcolm’s smile away as he sat across the table from me, but because the air grew heavy and it became hard for me to breathe.”

We always ate alone, my brother and I. Delia was usually ironing clothes for the next day or busy trying to wake my father from his drunken slumber so that he could make it into his night job on time. Family dinners were reserved for special holidays only. I was glad holidays were few and far between.

My brother dropped his eyes and began to tremble. I held my breath and stared down at my peas.

Thwat!
The first strike came in the form of a rolled-up newspaper. Malcolm jumped and his cup of Kool-Aid fell over into his plate, drowning his food in purple sugar water. My body slumped and my head dipped forward from the blow.

“Sit up,” Hy-Lo commanded in his low, hard voice.

My eyes filled with water and I fought to keep the tears from spilling down my face. I pulled my body erect but kept my head down. I wanted to reach up and rub the spot on my head he’d attacked, but that would show weakness, that would mean he’d won this round. I wouldn’t do it.

“Malcolm?” Hy-Lo temporarily turned his attention to my brother. “Pick that cup up out of your food now.” Malcolm slowly, carefully removed the cup from his plate. He kept his eyes fixed on the peas that floated lazily around his plate.

“Eat it,” Hy-Lo’s voice came again and I knew he was smiling. Malcolm’s mouth opened and then closed. I saw the first tear escape from the corner of his eye and drop off the side of his cheek to mingle with the purple Kool-Aid in his plate. He picked up his fork and scooped up a small hill of dawn-tinted mashed potatoes. He swallowed twice before he put it in his mouth and then he gagged.

“Boy, if you puke it up you’ll be eating that too!” My father’s voice became deeper, meaner, but I knew the smile was still there.

Malcolm slapped his palm over his mouth and swallowed hard. He was sobbing now.

“What’s going on?” Delia’s shrill voice came from behind my father. There was a pause as if she actually required an answer and then she sucked her teeth long and hard.

“Mind your business, Delia.” Hy-Lo’s voice remained the same but I was sure the smile was gone. I dared not turn around to confirm my suspicion.

“Get up and empty that plate, Malcolm.” Delia’s voice was firm but Malcolm did not move. His fear of my father was too severe. Malcolm’s sobbing increased and he dropped his fork to the floor.

Delia tried to push past Hy-Lo but he caught her by the wrist and twisted her arm backward. “Pick it up, you little crybaby.” His voice was labored as he tried to keep my mother back. Delia moaned in pain and her knees began to give way. I quickly reached up and rubbed the burning spot on the back of my head.

“Pick it up!” He barked his command this time and Malcolm jumped from his chair and onto the floor to search for his fork. My mother’s moans graduated to screams. I clasped my hands over my ears and began to cry.

The buzzing sound of the doorbell ended everything. Malcolm’s head popped up from where he was searching for the fork and his expression said,
We’re saved
. I nodded back at him in grateful agreement. Hy-Lo released Delia’s arm and she fell back against the wall massaging her wrist and whimpering to herself.

Hy-Lo walked to the door and looked through the peephole. He stepped backward and drew in a deep breath before he unlocked and opened the door.

“Mother,” he said in his driest voice.

“Hyman,” came the response, and my grandmother Gwenyth stepped in.

Gwenyth was a thorn in my mother’s side from the first time Hy-Lo brought Delia home to meet her. Gwenyth had looked her up and down, snuffed at her, and declared that she did not much like Southern girls and that she would have no son of hers eating pig intestines and corn bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Later she had accused Delia of getting pregnant on purpose and did not even come to their wedding.

She remained mean and cold-hearted toward my mother even when she came to live in the same apartment building Hy-Lo and Delia had moved into after they got married.

245 Rogers Avenue was a small, five-story walk-up that held two apartments on each floor. We were on the fifth floor and my grandmother lived on the first floor. It seemed as though the neighborhood started to change before the ink had dried on my parents’ lease. They were the first blacks in the building and the third black couple on the entire block. The Ackermans and Epsteins did not keep secret their unhappiness at my parents’ presence. They would rush past my mother and into the building ahead of her, letting the door slam in her face as she struggled with groceries and her swollen belly.

They moved far out of her way when she passed them in the street, as if being black were a catching disease, and they mumbled Jewish vulgarisms beneath their breath whenever they found themselves standing behind her in line at the A&P.

By the time I was born there were only two Jewish families left in the building and they were living out their security. No one ever saw them leave. They moved when the night was in its deepest darkest stages, leaving the doors to their apartments swinging wide open on their hinges.