“Most of my friends aren’t. Keith’s mom says it’s going downhill.”
“Your mother and I don’t think it’s going downhill. It’s taking a different path. Some new kids are coming.”
“From where?”
“A housing development in South Central LA. It’s ninety-nine percent black.”
The opposite of Laurel Canyon, which is ninety-nine percent white. Not boring white. We’ve still got hippies living in the Canyon. Rock stars too, like Graham Nash, Joni Mitchell, and Carole King, whose daughter was in Andy’s class. And we’ve got movie producers like Reggie Jones, who lives across the street and throws wild parties with naked ladies in his pool.
Can you blame a boy for peeking?
We don’t have many black people, though. There were a couple of half-black kids at Wonderland last year, but that family moved out of the Canyon. The only all-black people I know, besides Mrs. Gaines the Yard Supervisor, are Nathaniel and Gwynne, who work for my dad.
“Don’t they have their own schools?” I say.
The streetlight is taking a long time to come on.
“The Supreme Court has ruled it isn’t fair to keep black and white kids separate. Our city is trying to bring them together by busing some up here.”
“Are they busing any to Carpenter?”
“Carpenter seems to have missed the map.”
“So that’s why so many families are sending their kids to other schools,” I say. “They’re racist.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, Charlie. They’re doing what they think is right for their children.”
I can’t help it. Just for a second, my eyes leave the streetlight to look at Dad’s face.
“And you and Mom?”
“We’re doing what we think is right for ours.”
I look back at the streetlight. Just my luck: it’s already on.
Armstrong
As the only boy in a house full of girls with a working mama and a one-legged daddy, guess who gets all the nasty chores.
When my daddy’s drips land on the bathroom floor, I get the blame—and the sponge. When the toilet clogs with whatever it is females put down there, who do you think is given the honor to plunge? And the one time we had mouse droppings in the bathroom, did they call an exterminator?
No. They called me, Armstrong Le Rois.
You ever empty out a mousetrap? Most people take the longest shovel they can lift, scoop up the dead mouse—trap and all—and chuck it into a brown bag, then throw the bag away.
I wasn’t allowed that luxury.
“Mousetrap costs forty-nine cents,” my daddy said. “When’s the last time you earned forty-nine cents?”
So instead I had to peel back the metal bar and shake the dead mouse into a grocery bag so I could reuse the trap. It was nasty and I didn’t want to do it.
“Can’t somebody else empty the trap?” I said.
“Who you expect that to be?”
“I’ve got five sisters.”
“They’re too squeamish.”
“Mama, then?”
“She sees enough death at the hospital.”
“Why not you?”
“I saw enough in Korea. You don’t want The Flashbacks to come, do you?”
The Flashbacks are my daddy’s nightmares that come by day. He can be in the kitchen making dinner or paying the bills when all of a sudden he starts to scream like a thing in the forest, calling out names of men I never met, shouting words I’m not even allowed to whisper.
When I was little and The Flashbacks would come, I thought they were ghosts in the house. I’d hide under the table and grab hold of my daddy’s one leg like it was a tree that could save me from a flood. He’d scream and I’d shake. He’d yell and I’d pray—for The Flashbacks not to touch me with their damp, cold hands.
Soon as the nightmares stopped, my daddy would reach down and lift me into his lap.
“It’s just The Flashbacks, Armstrong. I never know when they’re going to come.”
“Can I help you fight ’em?” I’d say.
“You just did.”
Another chore I’ve got is to help my sisters fold the laundry. It’s something we all do together because six kids times their clothes is a lot of clothes. Since tomorrow’s the first day of school, everybody wants to start with a clean pile.
Here’s a pretty little tank top Charmaine wore all summer. I fold it up and put it on her stack.
Daddy plucks it off.
“That’s Charmaine’s,” I say.
“It’s yours now.”
He puts it on top of my jeans. A pretty little pink tank top.
“I’m not wearing that. It’s pink.”
“What’s wrong with pink?”
“Girl’s color.”
My sisters all bust up again.
“Armstrong, do your sisters take sewing?”
“No.”
“Do they take cooking?”
“No.”
“What do they take?”
“Shop class with the boys.”
“And why’s that?”
“’Cause you marched into the school and said your girls can do anything a boy can.” Except empty out mousetraps, I think but don’t say.
“And my boy can do anything a girl can, right?”
“Most anything,” I say, hoping he won’t ask for the exceptions.
“Including,” Daddy goes on, “wear a pink shirt. Now, this one cost three ninety-nine. When’s the last time you earned three ninety-nine?”
But Charmaine’s not ready to hand down the tank top. She plucks it off my pile and puts it back on hers.
“I like the way it fits,” she says.
“So will the eighth grade boys,” says Daddy, putting the tank top back on my pile. Then he reaches over to Cecily’s, nabs a top two sizes up, and drops it onto Charmaine’s.
“That’s my lucky shirt!” Cecily says.
Daddy takes another shirt—this time off Lenai’s stack—and puts it on Cecily’s.
“What am I supposed to have,” Lenai says, “one of Mama’s? One of yours?”
“You can have a new one. That’s how hand-me-downs work. The oldest gets a new shirt.”
And the youngest gets a pink one.
Charlie
Mom has spent the last hundred days mostly in bed. She gets up for important things, like the bathroom or morning coffee. Some days she gets up to shower, and some nights she comes down for dinner, which Lily cooks. Once a week, Lily drags her to the market.
Lily is our housekeeper. She came to America in the trunk of a car and had to pay a coyote, or smuggler, to get her here. Her room smells
