Stateway's Garden Read online

  That’s where I developed the habit of keeping distance from my mother when asking questions, especially about the West Side.

  * * *

  “YEAH, IT’S JUST better than over here, Tracy,” my mother repeated, remaining by the stove.

  I took a step closer. Seemed safer. I was standing by the open area of the kitchen now, about two feet from the front door to the right. The living room of our apartment in Stateway was connected to the kitchen with no door separating the two. Viewing it from that distance made it resemble a studio apartment.

  “How is it better?”

  “You were just there last year. You don’t remember?”

  “I just ’member the store mostly,” I lied, gently massaging the spot on my neck.

  She continued rubbing her chin like a thinking man with a beard. She then ran both her hands, simultaneously, along her head, using the palms as combs pulling hair to the back. It was in a tight ponytail with a rubber band. She must have done it while in the bathroom. “How can you not remember it?”

  “I kinda do.”

  “I took you there because I figured you would remember.”

  “I thought you only took me because Jacob didn’t wanna go no more.”

  She turned quickly to me, collarbone somewhat visible as it poked through her T-shirt. Her elbow bumped the handle of the empty pot on the stove. Had I been closer, the pop would’ve been swift. I didn’t notice that she’d turned the stove on before, because smoke was rising from it.

  “I took you there because I wanted to show you where you’re from. We didn’t always live on the South Side and definitely not in these dusty projects.”

  I’d never actually noticed the project buildings being “dusty” until she said that. But before I could ask another question, maybe something about the buildings and their dustiness, she’d turned back to the stove.

  * * *

  “VAN BUREN STREET!” the driver yelled from the front of the bus.

  The tall muscular man reached over our heads to pull the cord right above the window. It made a loud buzzing sound. I saw his dope watch again. He looked down at my mother and smiled when he released the cord, then made his way through the stuffed aisle to the exit.

  “You were actually born on the West Side.” She started the sentence from nowhere. I was so afraid to get another pop that I remained quiet.

  “Congress Parkway is next!” the driver shouted.

  “We didn’t always live over on Thirty-fifth. Didn’t know that, did you?”

  “Nope.” I was still afraid to turn completely toward her. That would give her a good and clean shot at my neck, a hit the quickest fly couldn’t dodge. I turned anyway. Couldn’t control my interest. “Did we live by the store?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish we still did. I could go visit Ms. Rose and Mr. L. D. Sutton and Mr. Isaac every day. I could even talk to the man with no face!”

  “His name is Richard.”

  “Why we move? Why didn’t you wanna stay there? They like me there.”

  Her eyes focused after I said that. I tightened my body to the seat and sat upright. Had to prepare.

  “It costs too much,” she said. “Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to.”

  “Harrison Street!” the driver announced.

  “It cost more than in our projects, Mother?”

  “Of course, Tracy. You know that. Don’t ask questions you know the answers to.” Her shoulders relaxed and she exhaled deeply. “West Side apartments are big and spacious and they cost quite a lot.”

  “But our apartment is big, too.”

  “That’s a different kind of big.”

  “Taylor Street!”

  “Mother, what’s a parkway?”

  She turned her head left and to the side, lowered her chin, and looked at me closely. “That’s just another way to describe a street, another way to name it. Now shush, boy.”

  “Okay.”

  “And come here.” After so many questions, I was expecting a painful one this time. But she just looked me in the eye. “You have candy crumbs all over your mouth.” She took her right hand, the same one that could pour green alcohol along my old neck bruise, and touched the side of my cheek softly. She opened her hand completely and used her palm against the side of my face. She ran it around in small circles. “You do have some nice skin,” she said. “It’s shiny.” She then took the two fingers for popping and brushed them against my entire mouth, spending extra time in the corners. She didn’t use much force at all.

  “Roosevelt Road! Get off here for Roosevelt!”

  * * *

  “DID YOU WASH your face today?” Mother said while standing by the stove. “You have crud and stuff all over it.”

  While remaining a nice distance from Mother in the living room, I spread both my hands and aggressively attacked every area of my face that I could. The movements were so vicious that they caught her attention. “It’s clean now,” I replied.

  “Don’t hit yourself like that!” she yelled after taking a couple of steps toward me. “You’ll give yourself bruises and people will think I’m in this building beating and abusing you or something!” She turned off the pot in a quick motion and frowned after finally noticing she’d burned it. “Stand right here.” She pointed, turned, and began walking toward the hall leading to the bedrooms. “I’ll be right back.” Her long legs moved quickly down the hall. I made certain not to move but craned my neck, extending it as far as I could to see her turn into the bathroom. The water began running and I heard her splashing it like she did earlier. She then cleared her throat a few times. Sounded like she was warming up to give a speech. “You would have probably liked living on the West Side.”

  “Yep.” I smiled from the other room, waiting for her to continue. I noticed it taking her longer than usual to get going.

  “You don’t remember anything else but the store? Nothing else?”

  “That guy with the big beard.”

  “Isaac.”

  “That man with no face…I don’t remember his name.”

  “Richard.”

  “And I remember the people were nice to me.” I smiled harder after saying that.

  “Well, just so you know, your mother grew up over there.” She always said this like it was her first time telling me. “Spent all my young years there.”

  “Seems funner over there.”

  We were having a convo with ten feet of space and an open door between us like it was normal.

  “I guess maybe it is. For one, you’re not trapped in a building all day with nothing to do. We used to go out and play in the snow during winters like this.”

  “Can we go play in the snow outside, Mother?”

  “Nah, we can’t. We’d only be rolling in slush. The parking lot is too close to the building. There’s no spots with just clean snow.” She came back to me as I stood at the invisible divider separating our kitchen from the living room. Mother took the black towel I assume she’d wet while in the bathroom and held it in the air. The bleach spots made it very ugly. “Hold still.” I must’ve been really dirty because she dug into the corners of my eyes, and used it around my mouth like a napkin after spaghetti and meatballs. “There, that’s better.”

  * * *

  “ROOSEVELT!” THE DRIVER YELLED.

  The bus took a deep breath as we sat there. The area on Roosevelt and Western Avenue was kinda busy. There was an A&P grocery store on the corner that had shopping carts spread about messily like they’d been used as bumper cars. People were going in and out of the store. Burger King was on the opposite side and I couldn’t help but notice the little girl with two long braids coming out with a bag in hand. I know she had a Whopper with the poppy seed bread, some ketchup and no onions. But I didn’t tell Mother I was hungry again, simply co
ntinued studying all the people walking to the bus. It was already crowded but at least twenty-five more people boarded at Roosevelt and Western. A tall man with a low haircut got on and paid his fare and took a transfer ticket from the driver. He was unusually tall and carrying a two-tape-deck stereo that he switched off the moment he moved to the aisle. He had to duck down. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had been playing a song I liked on his tape deck. A woman with a buggy of groceries got on too. There was a big, thick bottle of grape Faygo and a box of Honeycomb cereal poking from the top of one of the bags. There was also a gallon of unbagged orange juice at the bottom of her buggy. I remember that the low-haircut man helped the woman carry the entire thing using just one of his hands. There was another skinny and short lady with a crying baby in a stroller who boarded right after. Her thick lips were curled tightly and her eyebrows pressed together. She carefully positioned the stroller on the steps during her climb one at a time—front two wheels, then back two. While standing by the driver, she held a shiny red baby bag with her left hand and the stroller tight in her right. I don’t know which hand she used to pay the fare. She had to have had another. Mother huffed at her because the baby continued crying.

  “That’s some South Side stuff,” I heard her say under her breath. “Letting that baby just cry like that.” Mother looked her up and down.

  But coincidentally, the man in the gray suit, sitting across the aisle to our right, stood, allowing the woman to sit once she finally arrived. Mother had to listen to the baby cry even louder. The lady clenched everything close while walking down the aisle. I could tell she was trying to make herself even smaller. I couldn’t help but smell the baby powder and lotion mix as she squeezed and shuffled past everyone in her effort to sit.

  “Is the baby sick, Mother?” I always cried when I felt sick.

  “I doubt it. He’s probably just hot.”

  “Okay.”

  The driver then punched the last passenger’s transfer ticket. He seemed to yank the steering wheel as he pulled off, shooting the bus into the street so abruptly that passengers standing had to grab the overhead rails to prevent themselves from falling.

  “Sit here,” Mother said. I looked her in the face, not knowing what she was talking about. “On my lap.” She patted her legs gently. I got excited. She stopped allowing me to sit on her lap when I was, like, four. “Sit here and let her rest.” We then moved to the seat by the window. That’s when I saw the other woman standing above us, holding the bar attached to the seat. “You remember the manners I taught you?”

  “Like West Side men?”

  “Yes. Like them.”

  The woman was dressed in a beige skirt and wearing big flower earrings that continued to sway and smack against her cheeks as the bus moved. She released a deep breath as she sat and smiled at my mother.

  “Eighteenth Street is next!” the driver announced. “This bus is going express to Eighteenth!”

  We were sitting by the window and I looked up at my mother. “What does express mean?”

  She pulled me close, just like when I was four. “Your face and clothes are still a mess,” she said, almost ignoring me. “Crumbs are all over you.” She used the back of her hand as a broom, sweeping my pant legs spotless.

  “Eighteenth Street coming up!”

  * * *

  “YOU’RE SEVEN NOW,” she said, then went back into the kitchen, standing in the exact same spot close to the stove. “I shouldn’t still be cleaning your face and things for you.” She turned the pot on high, adjusting the handle inward so she wouldn’t bump it again. She turned her body to directly face me. “You remember my friend Gloria?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Well, you probably don’t remember but she lived here with us for a while. She moved back to Milwaukee with her sister, though. That all was when you were much smaller. But Gloria’s from my old neighborhood. And Renee from the next building is too! I’ve known them both since I was about your age.”

  “Oh.”

  “Wanna hear something funny?”

  “Yep.”

  “When we were all little we went to the parks a lot. They were every few blocks and we’d go to the corner candy lady and buy stuff first. One of us always found a quarter or some change on the way. We’d buy Mike and Ikes or Jolly Joes. I think a whole box was only a dime, maybe even five cents. I don’t remember. But Renee was so goofy and nerdy and clumsy. She’d always drop her candy in the grass or on the ground or somewhere in the park. Me and Gloria laughed every time ’cause she’d pick it up off the ground talking about kissing it to God or something, that God made dirt and so it don’t hurt.” Mother’s eyes lowered as she gripped the handle of the empty pot with her right hand. “Yeah, they were some big parks.” She turned the pot toward her, and began pulling it back and forth as if there was butter or oil coating it. Nothing was inside the pot. Smoke began to rise. She straightened herself and cleared her throat again. But there were no words this time. Her white socks seemed to glow even though our concrete floor was filthy. She then took a plastic cup from the cabinet, walked to the sink, and ran cold water into it. She began dumping cup after cup of cold water into the pot. I think she did it three times. After a few moments, I could hear the sound of the water as it began boiling. Mother moved the handle back to the outside, close to her. I didn’t say anything during the silence of her preparation, though. Didn’t want to destroy rhythm. That would set the convo back at least an hour if not end it altogether. “The buildings around here take up too much of the space for parks,” she said. “They even block out the sun. Where we grew up, buildings only go about three stories high. Maybe four.” Mother looked down again and simply stared into the pot. It was almost as though she looked through it, or saw something floating in the boiling water. Her hand lost its tight grip on the handle and seemed to be using it more as a resting spot. “I really didn’t want us moving over here.” She seemed to be conversing with the pot.

  * * *

  “THIS IS TWENTY-SECOND Street!” the driver blasted. “Cermak Road! Get off here for Chinatown!” He closed the door and once again quickly pulled from the curb. That forced a teenage boy who’d just boarded to stumble along the steps. Mother held me tightly as the bus moved. I surely felt four.

  “Express means nonstop,” she finally answered. “Means the driver only stops at the main streets and busy streets but nothing in between.”

  “Is the West Side a main street?”

  “That isn’t a street. It’s an area.” I pulled my shoulders together and braced, expecting those two fingers to alcohol my neck. Nothing came. Mother leaned back in the bus seat like it was a recliner. Had the woman with the large flower earrings not been sitting next to us she’d probably have propped her right leg on that seat. She then gently placed her right hand to the top of my stomach, then the left, pulling me back against her chest. Her skin on mine felt warm.

  “Thirty-fifth Street coming!” the driver called out.

  “Is our street a busy express street, Mother?”

  She looked down at me and smiled. “Yeah, I would assume so.”

  * * *

  MOTHER HADN’T SPOKEN for a few moments while standing by the stove. The water continued boiling, but by then it was making more of a sizzling sound. I knew there were no eggs there. She used her left hand to turn the fire off and shifted the pot inward. She then looked at me. She left the stove, walked past me and into the hall leading to the bedrooms. At first, I figured she was just going to the bathroom again. But she kept walking and turned into her bedroom. I craned my neck like I’d done earlier. The door closed slowly and I heard it latch. I think I stood there for about five minutes waiting for her return. Maybe longer.

  “Mother?” My voice was stronger than before. “Mother, you coming back? The water ready.” But she didn’t answer. I didn’t hear her moving, so I walked down the hall
to her bedroom. “Mother?” I whispered it into the door, lips almost touching wood. “Mother, you want me to leave it off?” I heard the bed creak and my mother sobbing. Even though the door separated us, I heard her heavy breathing, followed by sniffles. I then backed away and walked to the kitchen. I was still hungry.

  I used the stool by the refrigerator and placed it just to the side of the stove. I was careful to maintain balance because it was still hot there. I then reached into the cabinet and grabbed a pack of the chicken-flavored ramen noodles, making certain not to bump the pot. There was very little water left in it. This was my first time and I did it exactly like Mother: cup from sink, ice-cold water, fill three times, pour all in, turn on pot, get a boil. The moment the water began boiling I used my teeth to cut the tough plastic of the noodles. And I placed them inside.

  * * *

  THE DRIVER APPROACHED Thirty-fifth Street with such speed it seemed he’d planned to pass it or something. He accidentally rammed the bus against the curb after pulling over, forcing it to lift and tilt to the side in an abrupt jerking motion. That made everyone on the bus, even the passengers who were sitting, bounce into the air simultaneously. Mother grabbed me by the waist using both hands and gently pulled me even closer to her chest. I felt like a carton of eggs in one of the A&P grocery bags.

  “Thirty-fifth Street,” the driver yelled. “Get off here for Comiskey Park!”