CHAPTER ONE No in between here. That what Grannie use to say. Everything either black or white. Me, I'm black.
When I'm on the porch sometime, or up in Timmie and Albert room, I think about my Grannie. Seem like what she say always running through my mind. Stories she would tell and all. Mama say she make most of them up. Grannie say Mama claim that so she don't have to think about truth. But Grannie say ain't no sense in to run from it, and ain't no in between with it, cuz truth is truth.
The weather miserable today. Didn't have much winter before the weather turn plain hot. The air hot and thick as cocoa. Feel tight around you like outgrown sleeves. Hard to breathe. You could smell it, too. Smell solid. Seem like a mess of dirt, damp clothes, syrup, sweet honeysuckle, and rain all mix together. Real sticky.
Nobody feel like doing nothing but fan and drink lemonade. Wasn't no wind neither cuz the air too stiff and stubborn. But, bad as it was inside, seem like it was worse outside. At least you stay dry inside. Outside the air melt on your skin and stick to you like butter. Dribble down your legs like they cobs of corn. The fan don't help none. Those blades have to struggle to stir the thick air, but they can't move quick enough to make a breeze.
Pam Elizabeth come running down my street. She kick up dust that stick to the molasses air.
"Ooh, Sister! Sister, you not gonna believe! You wait!" She holler when she get excited. Then a smile rip across her face to show white horse teeth. She still pretty, though.
"What you got good to say, you simple fool? Screamin' like you crazy," I tease her. Pammie and me can joke because we close.
"Girl, you won't believe!" Pammie leap up the porch steps and plop down on the wooden swing Papa make.
"Naw, I sho won't believe less you tells me already!" I'm anxious since Pammie looking tickle at whatever it is.
"You know that big ole house? The one cross the field back of your house? Political man own it or somethin'. Well, my brother Edward say he hear from his boy Skeemo that folks is fixin' to move in Friday!" She smiling like she ain't said it all.
"That your news?" I play like I don't really care, but really I'm curious. That house so big and mysterious. Been empty ever since I can remember.
"Here's what else." She hitting me with the punch. "They's white folks, what's fixin' to move in!" She beam, satisfied that she drop me.
"Naw, sure enough? They's white?" I pronounce the word real clear, and my eyes get wide because I'm sure enough surprise. No white folks never come to our part of town even to visit. But to live?!
"And they rich, too. Got to be to afford that ole place. Skeemo say it need some work, but it real big. It got something like eight or ten bedrooms in it. And land for miles and miles. They say part of that field back of your house really belong to that house. Wonder how they gonna tend all that land, Sister?" The swing is old and the paint is chip and crack away. Pammie use her long skinny fingers to peel away layers of the paint.
"Quit pickin', Girl! Spose they ask some of us town folks to help them. Wonder what they comin' here for? Plenty of fine houses closer to town. Why they gonna live near us? Grannie say white folks is trouble."
"Spose she was right. I reckon we have to wait and find out for sure. You miss your grannie?" Pammie lift one foot up on the swing and use the other to sort of push and make us go.
"Yeah. Sometime it don't seem like she really gone. So much of what she say always runnin' round in my head. But she better off now, I guess." My Grannie pass last winter. She was 86.
"I miss Daddy, too. Seem like the people you love the most the ones that die first. Least he got to see me finish school. He always want for us to finish."
"Grannie, too. But she pass before I finish."
"Do your mama ever cry about Grannie? Mama, seem like she cry all the time. She a little better now that she teach piano again. Use to be she just sit around and cry. I guess she lonely."
"Mama don't cry. She pray. Me, I use to cry, but not no more. I still get lonely sometime, though."
"Why you lonely? Your husband ain't pass."
"Yeah, but Grannie pass. And your daddy pass. I ain't got no daddy. And people pass. And I ain't got no husband. I don't know. Just seem like maybe somethin' missin', I don't know." I finger my springy-coil hair.
"Right. That's why I wanna get away from here. I don't think there anything here for me."
Pammie and me talk a little longer. She always saying she going but don't go nowhere. Pammie ain't even got a job yet. She don't know what she want. Say she got a cousin name Bluff live in Detroit. She say she going and stay with him.
Me, I ain't press to go. One thing I do know is I wanna sing. Ever since I's little, I be writing down words. You know, like catchy phrases. Then I add a melody to it. Call myself writing songs. When I go to Pammie house, I play piano. Her mama play at the church and she teach some, too. I never had the patience to take from her. She wanna make you study theory or some mess. I just wanna play what I hear and sing what I play. I do like to sing in church, though.
Soon Pammie get on her going-to-Detroit kick, and I get bored. I say I'm going in the house, and she walk on down the street to hers.
Enemy Fields © 2004 by J. Marie Darden.
