Street smart

 The street was darker than the darkest Black I had ever seen. Blacks-that's how the whites referred to them as or that was how they ought to refer to them as. Mommy, my grandmother of seventy held my trembling hand in her sturdy palms. My sweaty palms absorbed by her sponge like cold hands. We both walked uphill in search of Jones. It was 8pm and even boys of his age ought to be back home by this time. It was a rule, and to overpower it was to walk over the Bible. In absolute silence, Mommy stomped her foot to scare off any earthy reptile. My palms were working overtime today, and the sweat made the grip loose yet she didn't transfer me to the next hand. Her right hand perennially held a rosary. The glutinous beads fell in seconds like lousy raindrops. But today she was praying fervently though she didn't make it evident. If Jones, a milky white teenager whose croaked upper incisor popped out when he smiled was not found, Megan, Mommy's daughter would kill her.

Megan, my mother who preferred us calling her Mam in public and Megan in private was a movie star rocketing stardom in California. Or that was what she bragged about when she came to Solano County, a small town with little white population. Megan visited us like the viral flu, sporadically once or max twice a year. We were here obligations and additional source of income. Our father,  Mr. Rackson, was a fithly rich man. As alimony he paid Megan a sum that she ate greedily not allowing even a burp. Megan was gracious enough to send money for schooling and squandering to cinema halls and circuses. Only entertainment that Momma felt was appropriate for our age. The old lady loved us for aptly the same reasons she hated Megan. Again, she had no choice. 

Momma, or Mrs. Brown as everyone called her,very contrary to her vanilla vanity was a widow of World War-2. Principles over pampering was her style of raising Megan and till today it reflected on us. There was enough to feed the two distraught women but Megan's ambitions were escalating and she had escaped Momma's tyrannical rule. In California, she was experiencing the greener side of pastures. 

Between missing our mother and following our grandmother, me and Jones grew together. Jones was elder to me a year, all of fourteen, yet he had the maturity of a father figure. His beard was just sprouting while freckles smeared his milky white complexion. He preferred calling himself a man over 'Oye boy !' His life desired the urban excitement which was missing in our rustic living.

After the lights went out at 8pm and the prayers were said, we both snuggled in our cramped bed to play video games. Fast, racy and adrenaline rush games excited us. As it is the most that is prohibited is loved by teenagers all around. We weren't any different. Jones had traded this with a Black boy at our school for the story books Momma purchased for us as Easter gifts. As Momma was not educated herself, for testimony she asked us to recite a story from the book and Jones faked it with pride. I, too, enjoyed the lies that we lived by the day to drown in our innocent reality at night. 

Solano County, was a drowsy town with few whites and many blacks adorning its map like designer polka dots. Yet, the minority ruled majority. Our gardener-a black, our milkie-a black, our sweeper-a black, everything that had to do with the street and pavement was occupied by Blacks. At church, too, we had separate appointments with God while like lepers they visited Him at odd hours. We were never allowed to shake hands or borrow books from the black kids at school. Their classrooms at far end near the toilet while our near the breezy playground. No water filters for them, they ought to bring their bottles from home. The cafeteria, too, was white sassy inflicted. Thirst and hunger were colour biased and they harassed only the whites. Lincoln 's America was still in its nascent stage.

So, we were gasping and panting now more out of Megan's terror than Jones's absence. It was 9pm, the streets nearly empty. Suddenly, we heard the tumbling of an empty coke can. Not that I could see it but my imagination thirsty of drinking the dark soda could tell it. There was some human company strutting along the opposite end. As the figure with darker outlines came near, I could see the milky white face. That croaked incisor was at display even though it's possessor didn't smile. 

"JONES IS HERE!!!" The excitement jumped out of my mouth.

My hand escaped Momma's and I dashed towards my brother. Encompassing him in my warm embrace I could only reach upto his neckline. He stood still. Very unusual of him to have not reciprocated the gesture. His heart was pounding against his ribcage as if it would now break the bony barricade and fall on my hands. Momma scaled upto us and pulling me aside, chided him.

"Boy, now you better get home and watch what a stew I make of your bones!"

In the dark, I could see her dilated pupil and his lowered gaze. He stood at her mercy like a criminal. Whatever it was things were going get worst by the time we reached home.

"Sister, you better go wash yourself, till I have a word with this gentleman!" Her stern looks and heaving chest now crystal clear in the lights of our doorway. Fearing the impending doom, I rushed to the bathroom, only stopping meters away from it. I was out of Momma's sight. Her glares now pierced the ashamed Milky white boy.

"Tell me where were you?" She lashed out at him.

Silence. Eternal one.

Thumping her fist on the teak table she again repeated, "Jones, boy, where the hell were you?"

Silence. Perpetual one. He was empty.

"Getting too big for your britches, huh? You can't come home. You want to worry your grandmother to death?"

Unable to control her soaring temper, Momma shook Jones yet no reply.

SLASH! 

The sound of peach tree switch- raspy on naked skin. She whipped him hard. I screamed and grabbed for the belt, but with the other hand Momma caught me.

"Now you have pity on him Miss. Unless you desire the same. Go have your bath!"

The hand that held a rosary was now swinging the whip. 

Momma was exhausted but Jones neither whimpered nor whispered a cry. Like a frozen milk candy, he allowed the atrocities. 

Here on, Jones was never the same. No video games at night. No stealing of cookies. His eyes terror stricken as if seen a ghost. He walked because he had to. He breathe because he ought to. Like the discipline Momma always wanted us to grow in, he ate his meals in silence and completed his homework on time. Momma was proud her beatings had worked its magic. 

But I was sure there was more mud under the nail than she believed. There lay an earth of secret agony over something. It was not too late till the day I found out.

On a gloomy Friday morning, days after this incident Jones and me were on our way to school. When the black boy with whom Jones secretly exchanged story books crossed our paths and Jones avoided an eye contact with him.

"Boy, now don't you shy away. Your Momma calls us black and your mother sleeps with one!"

The words hit me like a bullzai gone wrong. I don't remember what profanities were exchanged between the raving boys but coming of age was also happening to me and I could decipher what that lad meant.

Back home, I urged my brother to spill the beans. In the name of Christ, I begged and to some extent even threatened for an explanation. After hours of stomping and trampling, the boy spoke.

"Sister, I saw mother."

Where? How? When?

But I held my horses.

"The day I got late, the community boys had secretly got together for an adult movie. That's what everyone at fifteen does."

For a long time, he struggled to swallow his words with a ball of sticky saliva. His fists curled, eyes blazing in anger, finally the volcano erupted.

"I SAW MEGAN IN THE MOVIE!"

Now he just couldn't call her mother. Who could?

I slumped against the pillar. The pictures of Megan and us, we had set in handmade frames crashed down. The glass shards pricked my sweaty palms. I needed a rosary to hold. Jones cried the whole night. I was empty. In the warmth of the house that Megan had built for us we felt devasted as on the dark, empty street.

I wished I was whipped with Momma's belt. This was more painful. 

Our life was never the same again. Megan in true sense would never be the mother, we never had. Years later, as I moved out of Solano County on the streets of California many more revelations came searching for me. I could neither forgive nor forget Megan. She was definitely street smart!