YESTERDAY’S MEMORIES

Donna and her mother, Cora, are sitting on the steps outside of their apartment, eyeing the same people: the homeless pushing their shopping carts of belongings, the alcoholics with their whisky in brown paper bags, which they share with each other, and the scantily dressed prostitutes, day after day, walking back and forth in the neighborhood going somewhere but getting nowhere. The sound of police sirens and ambulances is often heard as they speed up and down the streets.

‘’Soon you and I are going to move from this run-down neighborhood. Every Saturday night, someone is getting shot, stabbed, or killed,” said Cora.

Cora and Donna had lived in Chicago in the same tenement for years. Donna wanted to move somewhere else also. She wanted friends, and maybe a boyfriend, to go to school activities, the movies, and the mall like other girls her age, but Cora kept her isolated from the outside world. She was beginning to wonder if Cora was her real mother or if she was kidnapped as a baby. Could there be a rich family somewhere out there looking for her?

Donna did not know anything about her mother’s past. Her only remembrance was riding in the back seat of an old beat-up car, driven by Cora. It was on a very hot day, and after riding for hours, she was hungry, thirsty, and needed to use the bathroom.

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

“I’ll stop at the next service station, get us something to eat and drink, and get some gas. I’m almost on empty…. There’s a Texaco!”

Cora drove into the station and parked at the third pump. What happened next on that day is etched into Donna’s mind. Now that she is seventeen and becoming an adult, she wants answers as to why her mother kept her isolated for most of her life and why she was so upset with the man who worked at the gas station. He was sitting outside on a stack of Coca-Cola crates. Could he have been someone from Cora’s past? Could he have been Donna’s father? The father that she has never known? The father that Cora gets violently angry with Donna when she asked about him?” She knows a father, if alive, is out there somewhere, but where would she begin the conversation?  ‘’I know, Donna thought, I’ll begin with our car ride to Chicago. I remember that day as if it were yesterday.”

“Mama, do you remember the day we drove from Alabama to Chicago?”

“Oh! I am Mama now and not Cora. It must be very serious. Yes, I remember that day.”

“Well, you were driving that old Ford ….”

“It was a Chevrolet.”

“Ok it was a Chevrolet! It was packed with most of our belongings.”

 “I remember. Keep talking, I’m listening.”

“We were thirsty, hungry, and even with the car windows down, we were very hot. It was in July.”

“It was in August, and the car didn’t have air-conditioning.”

“Well, it was August. Anyway, I remember you telling me that at the next service station you would stop and get us something to drink and eat, and get some gas. You didn’t want to run out of fuel and be stranded on the side of the highway with a young girl. It wasn’t long before you saw a Texaco. You drove into the station and parked at the third pump. A fat man wearing dirty overalls was sitting out front on a stack of Coca-Cola crates. He slowly got up and walked over to the car. You gave him ten dollars for gas. While he was putting gas in the tank, you went inside the store.”    

“I didn’t give him money for gas. I told him that I wanted ten dollars in gas. We went inside the station where I paid the clerk, a young girl popping gum, for the gas and everything else we bought. You were standing there with me.”

“You left me in the car.”

“No! no! I would never leave you alone in a hot car with no air conditioning. I took you into the Texaco with me. I remember the clerk, still popping that gum, taking her time giving me the key to the bathroom. Before I ordered our snacks, you and I used the bathroom, then we purchased our food. Do you remember?”  

“I think so.”

“Like I said, you were very young. When the tall skinny man came inside….’’

“He was short and fat!”

“He was tall and skinny, young lady! I remember him telling the clerk that I had gotten ten dollars in gas. She added up everything: the gas, one orange soda, one Coke, a large bag of potato chips, and Oreo cookies. It came to $15.34. That was a long time ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. You were ten. Too young to remember what was done or said on that day, but go on, I am listening. It makes a great story. You should become a fiction writer.”

“I am not lying! I was sitting in the car, waiting for you to come back, get me, and take me to the bathroom. You wanted to go with me so you could help me pee without sitting on the nasty commode.”

“After the short man….”

“Tall man!”

“If you say so. After the man finished pumping gas, he came over to the window and began to talk to me until he saw you coming back to the car. When you saw the man’s face, you screamed: “Get the hell away from my daughter! I don’t want her or me to ever set eyes on you again!”

“Your outburst caused the other customers to stare. Looking back on that day, I truly believe that if those other people were not looking, you would have taken your Coke bottle and broken it across his head. You got into the car, slammed the door, and sped away, leaving the man standing at the pump.”

Cora laughed, “That did not happen! As a matter of fact, the man I talked to was very friendly and young, and he wasn't working at the service station. He was a customer too. You were standing there with me when he offered to pay for our snacks and gas. I said no, but he insisted, so I let him. He walked you and me back to our car. I didn’t see anyone else nearby. You are remembering a dream about that day. Tell me, what did the man say to you in your dream?”

“He asked me my name.”

“Did you tell him?”

I said, “My name is Donna Johnson.”

He said, “My name is Robert Johnson. What is your mother’s name?”

“And what did you say?”

“I said, Cora Jackson. Then he began to cry.”

When Cora heard Donna say the man’s name, she looked as if she had seen a ghost rising out of the grave.

“He couldn’t have been.”

“You know him?”

“I never saw a man talking to you. After all these years, you dream of a man with the same last name as ours.”

“Let me finish my story.”

“Didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“When we were back inside the car and had driven onto the highway, you tossed the Coca-Cola bottle out of the window. It hit the hot pavement so hard that it shattered, spewing liquid and glass onto the road.”

“Well, my lovely daughter, I don’t know a Robert Johnson. It is a common first and last name. Now, as I remember, I did know a Robert Johnson, but he died in a house fire. It is just me, you, and your vivid imagination.”

“Am I correct about anything, I said?”

“Have you heard the saying, “The truth will set you free?””

“I heard you say it a lot.”

“Do you know what the truth means?”

“It means not lying, even if it hurts.”

“Very soon, Dona, you will be eighteen years old, and even if it hurts, you will know the truth.”