'Lucy Green Eyes'

Why don’t you want to play with me? I’ll let you have a piece of my sandwich if you’ll play with me. It’s a fatback sandwich. Sure, I’ll be happy to have a bite of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Mmm, it tastes good. You can take the rest of my fatback sandwich. I’m sick of it anyway.

No... please don’t laugh at my shoes. My grandma made me wear them. They’re not that ugly. Hey—do you want to hear a joke? I know lots of funny jokes and you can laugh at them instead.

Yes—I have hair, but I had to wear this cap because my grandma said she didn’t have time to fix my hair this morning. Please don’t laugh until you hear the funny joke. No—I am not the joke. Listen—why did the chicken cross the road? Why did the chi—oh, you heard that one already?

No—please don’t do that to me. I know you say that you’re just playing a game, but it hurts really bad when you punch me so hard. You just like to see me cry, don’t you? Well, I will not give you the satisfaction of seeing my tears. So you may as well stop punching me. I bet if my real mama or Mr. Lonnie Dunbar was here, you would be nice to me. ALL of you would be nice to me.

Anyway, it’s almost June. My real mama comes to stay for two whole weeks every June. I will be important then. I will matter to people. My mama is really pretty and everybody is gonna say that I look just like her.

When I told my grandma that you hurt me, she didn’t believe me. I don’t know why she thought I was lying. Maybe because I wasn’t bleeding or crying. You want to know a secret? I actually was crying. But she nor anyone else ever sees my tears, even though I wear them all around me. That’s because my tears are invisible. Even more invisible than I am.

It’s almost my bedtime. I love when it’s time to go to sleep because that’s when I drive my red Corvette nonstop to New York City to see my real mama. She buys me pretty dresses and hats. And she buys me pretty shoes that people don’t laugh at. And there are no cotton fields in my dreams.

Toby Ranch just drove up to the house. Mama is happy because he’s gonna finish chopping down that big ole tree for her. Mama is grinning all over herself because he also brought over some fresh snap peas straight out of his wife’s garden.

Mama loves Toby Ranch like a son. He has strong hands and durable arms. But she don’t know that his hands do more than just chop down her trees. They do more than nail down a loose board on the porch. She don’t know how he winks at me when nobody’s looking. Please, ma’am, don’t leave me alone with Toby Ranch again. I know you love him like a son, but that’s only because you just don’t know.

****

Mama and Toy are in the yard talking to a friend. Me and my cousins are playing. Toby Ranch came over to finish up some yard work for Mama. Good—since he’s occupied, I can go to my room and use my pee-pot.

I hear footsteps outside my door. Heavy footsteps that seem to be searching for something.

For someone.

For Me.

I tip to my door and press an ear against it. The heavy footsteps have gone past the living room and through the corridor where they linger. I hold my breath until I hear the footsteps move toward the kitchen. I can breathe again. Now is my chance to escape.

I open my door and exit my room, through the hall and into the living room. The footsteps begin to follow me from the kitchen. My head tells me to run, but if I do, he’ll know that I know that he’s bad.

I try my best to walk normally, but as the heavy footsteps get closer, I react. I pull the screen door open and run out onto the porch. The front steps come sooner than I expect and I slide down, bumping on my rear. Toby Ranch reaches out to stop me from falling. As he grabs my right shoulder, his fingers reach down to grab one of my baby-boobs before tickling my neck, all in one quick, smooth motion. And, as if on cue, I giggle. Anyone watching thinks he’s helping me. They have no idea that I am mortified. With every Toby-touch, another breath of my innocence evaporates.