Springle... The House

Today is July 3, 1972. It is my twelfth birthday. We shall see what today holds. I don’t feel any different so far, but I am still in bed. Not for long I’m sure.

The day in The House began as usual. It was still summer vacation, and we still went through the drama of being called lazy and ungrateful. I still had to do the lion’s share (female lion’s share…male lions just roar, eat, and procreate. Occasionally they are called upon to chase off some danger or the other) of the chores. Though, my mother’s activities in the house were somewhat different today. I thought it was due to today being the day before a holiday. She had me go to the corner store, which had a butcher counter, to get spareribs. From there I have to go to the fruit/vegetable market to buy mustard and turnip greens, and lemons. And, since the fruit/vegetable market is across the driveway from the A&P grocery store, I have to go there to get bottled barbecue sauce to which my mother will add onions, lemons, and honey, with a bit of some kind of liquor. She calls this “home-made” barbecue sauce. It is so bitter and nasty. It would be better if she just used the un-modified bottled sauce. I also have to pick up corn meal, vinegar (to soak the spareribs in over-night), charcoal, and lighter fluid. I hope I will be able to escape eating her barbeque. She never lets the lighter fluid burn completely off, or she adds more while the meat is on the grill. This results in a following day of diarrhea while my body tries to get rid of the toxicity of the lighter fluid and the nastiness of her home made barbeque sauce. I brought all of this back in the grocery cart, since I was walking because we didn’t have a car.

As I get home and am going inside to put all the groceries away, my mother follows me into the kitchen. My thought is that she is going to launch into her usual micro-management of any and all things that I am doing. I sigh and wait for the onslaught of instructions and criticisms (mostly criticisms). Instead, she proceeds to help me put the groceries away. I am confused, but I don’t verbalize my dismay. She explains that since it is my birthday I shouldn’t have to work as hard as usual. I snapped my head around so fast it nearly popped right off my neck! She had hardly ever let me off light on chores unless I was sick. She tells me that when all the groceries are put away, I don’t have to do any more chores today. The thought of being leisurely felt kind of weird. It was like I was dreaming or someone had made a mistake and it would be found out soon. I felt guilty, as if I had cheated on a test, or stolen something. Mom then left and went across the street to LaRon’s house. I don’t know why she’s gone over there, I’m just glad she’s gone. I go into my room and stretch out on my bed. It is my chance to rest without anyone else in the house. Stephen is out and about in the neighborhood. Miss Cat is dozing in my window-sill, and Poncho (my dog) is sprawled out on the rug next to my bed. Ahhh…peace and quiet. Maybe 12 years old will be a good age.

I was going into my room to settle in when I hear a small, almost whispering voice saying my name. Leslie, Leslie. I know this is the voice that calls Stephen and me when our mom is not home and the house is really quiet. I muster up some courage and quickly go to close my mom’s bedroom door. Whatever is in there stays in there and won’t call me when the door it closed. I go back to my room and just as I breathe a sigh of relief and let myself settle into full relax mode, the phone rings. Damn!! When mom is not home, if I do not answer the phone and she knows I’m there I will be in trouble. This is before cell phones, and we didn’t have an answering machine. I get up to answer the phone. It is mom. She wants me to come over to Uncle LaRon’s house. We call him Uncle LaRon because we are not allowed to refer to our elders without an appropriate handle, but also because we love him and he really treats us as if he were our uncle. He is not one of mom’s many boyfriends. I can’t imagine why she would want me to go over there. I figure I will be asked to help do something. She did call me over to the blind pig across the street one time to help her figure out how to use a joint rolling machine for marijuana. She told the people I was very mechanically inclined.

I get to Uncle LaRon’s house to find her and her drinking friends in the back yard waiting for me. Surprise! It is a birthday party for me. Horror!!! There are no people there my age, just music coming from a portable record player, and a cake on a card table. Oh, and liquor. Every person (all grownups) is holding a plastic cup of liquor, and smiling at me. There is Uncle LaRon and his cousins, Matt, Bill, and Donald. Uncle LaRon’s sister Aunt Cloria is there (thank God). She and Uncle LaRon are the only ones that are not holding a cup of liquor. Aunt Cloria drank occasionally though I had never seen her drunk; and Uncle LaRon drank but I had never seen him actually do it. The only thing I had actually seen him drink was ice water from the gallon jug he always carried. He was very respectful and cautious around us kids. I think he and Aunt Cloria were two of the few grownups that considered kids’ feelings and deemed us worthy of any sort of respect. Mom’s philosophy about how kids should be treated was “they should be seen and not heard, and do what I say not what I do.”

So, the party begins. I guess I should be happy. At least she remembers that it is my birthday (unlike my father). I always got a birthday card and a present from my father, but I found out years later that the cards and presents were from Mama Frances, his wife. Mama Frances sent Stephen things for his birthday as well, but he never acknowledged them. Stephen hated Mama Frances. He felt that she had taken our dad away from us and messed up our family. I’m not quite sure why I’m getting all this attention for my birthday. Stephen’s birthday was last month and I think all he got besides the things from Mama Frances, was a mumbled “Happy Birthday” from mom, and ten lashes for his obligatory, yearly ritual birthday “beating” from me. My mom starts the music. This is very weird to me, as I have never seen my mother actively engage in listening to music. We had a “hi-fi” at home with a turntable, but I had never seen her touch it. As a matter of fact, she never even liked when we listened to music in the house. She hated it when I danced. She told me that all Black people knew how to do was sing and shake their asses. This certainly didn’t apply to her. She couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time, let alone dance. I don’t recall ever hearing her sing either. I liked to sing and had been in the glee club since elementary school. Every time I started to sing within her hearing she would always say “shut up making that noise.” The music is blaring, nobody is dancing (certainly not me), and I feel pressured to attempt to have a good time. I listened to music a lot, but this was not a period in my life where I indulged in dancing. I was still pretty shy. I spent most of my time trying not to be noticed at this “party” and in life in general. Today my staying invisible strategies are not working. I stand in a safe corner in the yard, holding my can of pop (it’s what mid-westerners call soda), and tapping my foot to the music. I now notice that there are cans of pop on the table with the cake and liquor. I grab a fruit punch, open it, and am glad to have something to do with my hands. I should have grabbed some of the liquor. I’m sure no one would have noticed. But, liquor disgusted me. I saw what it did to the grownups around me, and I did not want to be a victim of the observed after-effects. I didn’t even like the smell of it.

After about twenty minutes Harvey, a big brother of one of my neighborhood associates, walks into the back yard holding hands with a young lady about his age. I think Harvey is about 18 or 19. He says that he heard the music and came to see what was going on. He asks if he is welcome to stay. We say yes. He and his friend grab a pop from the table. After they finish drinking, they start to dance. I am relieved because now there is something to pay attention to that is not me. By this time, Stephen has shown up and I feel a little better with him there. He’s my annoying little brother, but he is also someone that knows and understands all the craziness we have to endure in The House, a built-in ally. Harvey and his friend start out doing the popular dances of the time, such as those seen on a show called Soul Train (The Bump, The Rollercoaster, etc…). The more they danced, the more it looked like they were trying to have sex with their clothes on. Uncle LaRon finally stopped them from dancing when they ended up doing some sort of dance that involved writhing entwined on the ground. After which, they left.

All that was left to do was to sing Happy Birthday to me and give gifts. The singing wasn’t bad. Aunt Cloria and all the cousins had great voices. Some of them had formed a group and sang at local venues regularly. The only gifts I remember were from Uncle LaRon. Mom said her present had been the party. Ugh! Uncle LaRon gave me the portable record player, an album by the Persuasions titled Street Corner Symphony, and an outfit consisting of a beautiful pink, turtle neck sweater, and a pair of pink extra-wide bell bottom pants (elephant legs). I loved all of these presents. I think the others gave me money. I played that album until I knew all of the words, and wore the outfit until it no longer fit. It was the only outfit I had at the time that made me feel pretty. I was so tall and skinny, and tired of being teased about it by the other kids. I was told that I didn’t have a butt. Not having a butt in the Black world was terrible. It was like you didn’t belong. You weren’t Black enough. The other girls of my age were already starting to need to wear bras and have curvy hips. I wore a training bra, and was all legs. My mother kept telling me that those girls would be fat by the time we got to high school, and although she was right I felt not pretty, and unnoticed at the time. Aunt Cloria rescues me from the party to go and try on the clothes. I am so grateful. She knows that I would rather be anywhere else. The rest of the grownups stay to finish drinking, and I go back home with my presents and finish relaxing. I hoped my mother would never again throw me a party. Her heart was in the right place, but her party planning skills sucked!

That night it was back to life as usual. I had to stay up late to help mom prepare the spare ribs and the rest of the food for her barbeque for the fourth of July. So much for 12 years old being any different than any of my other ages. I am still alive; I take this to mean that I still have something I am supposed to contribute to this life. Little did I know that this was the year of big changes for me.