CHAPTER 1
Soul Vibration
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I am four years old, living in a small sweaty town where the dirt roads only come into view as they zigzag their way through the trees. Mom is a young, black, single woman in her twenties with three small children; we are all living in a little two bedroom track house that sits on four sets of cinder blocks and is built with 2 x 4 wood planks. The house is a shade of faded green due to the hot rays of the Florida sun. There are six houses on our street, and only the house numbers distinguish who lives where since we all are living under the same conditions. Mom doesn't have many skills to make a lot of money to care for her children. She takes odd jobs at any place she can, cleaning bathrooms and mopping floors while Aunt Eddie helps care for me and my siblings. Every day Aunt Eddie arrives just in time for mom to leave for work. She is a short, sweet Godly woman with endless love for mom and us kids. Her personality is quiet and easy going; today she enters the house wearing a floral dress with her hair combed down in a pageboy style. Mom keeps order in the house as much as she can but we still run around laughing and playing with each other. After Aunt Eddie arrives she gathers us kids up in the living room, where we huddle around a fan that sits in the window in our t-shirts and underwear trying to keep cool. The living room is small with a brown sofa that is pushed up against the painted white walls. The only other seating in the room is a plush velvet earth tone colored chair. After work mom rushes through the door, exhausted. She cooks dinner and cares for us while pregnant with her fourth child. Her soft, smooth, caramel skin has a glow of beauty; her eyes are dark brown, almond-shaped; her face is round with a petite nose and full lips. She is a beautiful medium-built woman; her hair is styled in a short, round Afro cut, and her character is strong. Because of her strength, she never allows anyone to see signs of her life struggles. In a soft-spoken tone she says to Aunt Eddie, I love you and thank you for taking care of the kids today. The soul vibration of our lives is fraught with no escape and no future. My mother's life commitment and our destiny become solidified together with the birth of each child. Soon her fourth child will be born, my mother will marry my siblings' father Mike, and two years later she will give birth to her fifth child. Her choice will be the beginning and the end of life for the two of us.
I am now living with my family on the other side of the railroad tracks in Titusville. The tracks are an invisible line drawn deep in the dirt, keeping all of the black folks contained in our all-black neighborhoods. On occasion, a car will drive along our dirt roads, kicking the dust up high into the air and leaving a trail of murky visuals behind that doesn't seem to bother folks too much. Besides that, it isn't too often that we see cars. Most people take their time walking along the edge of the hot dirt roads as a way to get around. When people need groceries, that they do not grow, they visit my great grandfathers' tiny, rickety wood store with the tin roof that sits way back in the woods. Otherwise folks survive by growing as much as they can of their own vegetables, owning chickens, or they walk to the nearest creek in town to catch fish. I don't think many people have moved away from my town, and the people who still live here do much of nothing; most have no jobs or job opportunities—it is as if life has slipped away. Many of the older men with their gray and white hair find their sacred place underneath a huge oak tree, where the moss covered branches hang low. They spend all day sitting under the tree looking for any way to keep cool; throughout the day they pass around alcohol concealed in brown paper bags. They are happy laughing, talking or sometimes moving around each other in a rhythmic-style dance. We are living hopelessly in a cocoon where most people have no hope and no exit.
On the other side of the railroad track runs a major highway lined with restaurants, hotels, surf shops, and art stores selling clay pots, ceramic frogs, wind chimes and anything connected to the sea and Florida. There are two shopping malls in town—Miracle City Mall and Sears Town Mall—containing stores such as JC Penny's, Belk Lindsay, Sears and Roebuck, Sears Automotive Center, Fashion Bug and other specialty stores. Titusville always has a steady flow of traffic with people stopping and parking along the highway just to look out at the river. The waves' crash against the riverbank and most of the time the water stinks like rotten eggs. On a windy day the odor is carried through the air and the smell is almost impossible to get rid of. The natives walk onto the pier to catch fish, crab, and shrimp, or just to unwind. When the space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center many travelers and vacationers stand out on the edge of the water to watch the blast off. My family and I always watch from our front yard, looking into the sky as the shuttle passes through the clouds. Our windows rattle and the ground underneath us shakes from its power. I don't understand why it is so interesting to watch; it doesn't make sense to me why people spend so much time and have pure excitement watching a shuttle blast off into space.
I am seven years old. While my mother's financial condition is improving, I'm beginning to feel unwanted by my new father. In his world I do not exist. I never get a hug or a kiss. He doesn't know my name. It is one o'clock in the morning and I am awakened by noise in the house. I sit up in my bed and I am not sure where the sounds are coming from. My bedroom is dark. I sit still and I am afraid to move. I can feel my heartbeat. I recognize my mother's voice even though it's muffled. I listen and can hear sobbing next door in her bedroom. I can't make out what she's saying. I put my ear against the wall, fitting it firmly into place. I need to know why mommy is crying. I can hear mommy talking to my stepfather. She keeps asking him, Why don't you treat her the same way you treat your kids? She is only a child. Why do you not show her any love? How long will you keep treating her differently from your children? You have been in her life since she was three years old. Why can't you love her? She pauses and I cannot hear my stepfather answer any of her questions. I cry myself to sleep not truly knowing why I feel sad after listening to their conversation, but I know something is wrong. I pretend to have a nightmare, screaming and crying to get my mother's attention, doing anything to get her to stop begging him to love me. I scream, Help me! Help me! They are going to hurt me! Mommy rushes in and shouts, What's the matter baby? Everything is okay; its mommy. She holds me tight, giving hugs and kisses until I calm down enough to fall back asleep. The rest of the night ends peacefully with no more pleading from mom to my stepfather.
I look at my mother's face with love every day but only see the features of sadness she can no longer hide. I feel her pain and that pain grows inside of me while my mother keeps her anger quietly inside of her broken heart.
When I turn ten, the sorrow inside of me grows into rage. One day I lock the door to the house to keep my siblings outside because I yearn to fantasize that I am the only child. I scream at my brother, Stop banging on the door! I can hear him crying and banging harder and harder, and then my other siblings join in and all of them plead with me to open the door. I yell at them, Go away! Then, suddenly, it is quiet. They have gone next door to my auntie's house. I find out later that my brother has cut his hand with a wood carving knife. The blood is everywhere and the gash is so deep he is taken to the hospital that day for stitches. Still, I feel no remorse. Later that day I walk outside, to the place in our backyard that I call my safe haven to escape from the feelings of hurt. The carpeted grass beneath my bare feet makes me drift to different worlds represented by each tree. I imagine that underneath the grapefruit tree, with its pink fruit, a world exists where people live who are so tiny you need to be very still to see them. The next day I sit under the peach tree. Its limbs hang low to the ground and the breeze make the leaves dance in the heat of the day. The sun beams bright and traces outlines of the tree limbs onto the ground. I take a blanket and lay quietly under the tree. In my mind I am a famous dancer and I dance all day underneath the blazing sun. In the background I can hear the kids playing in the neighborhood but I am in my own little world. I think of nothing but magical things happening in my life. It's getting dark and I can hear mom yelling, It's time to come inside kids! Go wash your hands and get ready for dinner! We all gather at the table, and before eating, bless the food by saying our prayers. After dinner each kid takes a bath and then it is time for bed. I climb the ladder to the top bunk in the bedroom that I share with my two sisters. I imagine that I am sleeping in a tree house out in the woods. I climb down from the top bunk bed, walk over to my sister Camilla's bed, and sit down on the edge as I quietly whisper; I am going to run away. Do you want to come with me? Camilla cries out, Where are we going to live? I respond, We are going to live in the woods behind Ms. Plathair's house. Camilla immediately says, No, I don't want to run away, but I will give you my allowance money.
The next day I pack a very large suitcase with plates, cups, forks, knives, toilet paper, clothing, and food. I hide it outside in the backyard underneath a huge tangerine tree. The tree limbs hang so low to ground, I know no one could possibility see my suitcase. I put everything into that suitcase so I can live in the woods for the rest of my life. My youngest sister is playing in the backyard when she turns and comes bursting into the house. She asks my stepfather, Why is there a suitcase in the backyard beneath the tangerine tree? He goes outside to investigate and starts to ask questions. He calls all five kids into the living room where he proceeds to question each of us as to who put the suitcase in the backyard. No one answers. He bends down and snaps the buttons to unlock the suitcase. The sound pierces my ears. When he opens the luggage he knows I am the one who left the suitcase outside since my clothes and personal items have already revealed themselves. He asks me, Why did you pack this suitcase? I stand there motionless, afraid to move. He is silent for a moment before asking, Do you think you can do whatever you want to in this house? Unpack your suitcase. Go to your bedroom and stay there. I unpack the suitcase and put everything back into its place, apart from my anger. I sit in my bedroom for hours staring out the window, thinking that my chance to run away from home has forever vanished. I feel like I am no more important than the rug on the floor that we use to clean the dirt off our shoes.
I am thirteen years old and rapidly becoming a marginal person. I don't care to learn anything in school; however, mom knows the importance of a good education and insists that I do well. I lie often. I talk to my mother with no respect. I push my resentment towards her with all of my emotions to see how far I can go. School is a joke. I sit with a cluster of people who want less in life than I do. I know that they support me in a life full of failures, but there is a fear screaming inside of me, begging me to listen. Hush, hush, I tell it, but it begs for me to listen. It whispers about the gun my stepfather keeps in the bedroom closet. It is the first moment I think about death.
CHAPTER 2
Holidays in Florida
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The night before Easter Sunday we dye eggs with mom. She buys the egg coloring kit that comes in a pillbox shaped container with different color tablets. Mom boils the eggs and allows them to cool before saying, Kids! Come on! It's time to color the eggs! Each kid takes an egg, picks a color and slowly drops the egg inside the dye, watching with excitement as the egg changes color. Every Easter we all get new clothes and shoes to wear for Sunday Service. I love my white patent leather shoes.
It's Easter Sunday morning and it's time to get dressed in our new clothes for church. Mom takes her time to comb the girls' hair into ponytails, making sure each part is perfectly straight. After service we run across the street, taking a shortcut through the park to buy penny candy from the convenience store. Once we are home we change our clothes and get ready to go to our grandparent's house for the traditional family egg hunt. My mother's parents' house is the meeting place for most of our large family events. On their huge piece of land sits a little two bedroom wooden house surrounded by a sugarcane field and many different types of fruit trees such as tangerine, grapefruit, mango, and guava.
My mother and her oldest sister live next door to each other in identical homes, built twenty feet apart on the land given to them by their parents. Our house is a modest size home for five kids and two adults. Two other sisters live within walking distance and mom's parents live across the street. My mother's side of the family is very close. We spend lots of time together playing spades, having crab parties, playing softball, or going on boat rides at the beach.
What a hot day it is this Fourth of July. All the relatives gather at the beach to celebrate with a cookout. The kids run quickly to the clear blue water. Our older cousins put the younger cousins up on their shoulders and hurl them into the water. I stop and look around to see a fish jumping in and out of the ocean. My cousin Weston comes over to lift me up and hurl me into the water as I scream, Put me down! I want to get out because the fish scare me! Weston says, That's not a fish—it is a stingray! Besides, it's too far out in the ocean to hurt you. At that point I don't care and instead quickly dash to safety as a few of the other kids follow.
Thanksgiving is always a time for our family to get together; it feels like a family reunion. Dinner is served at the local community center featured in a full buffet style. Typically the menu is always the same consisting of collard greens, macaroni and cheese, ham, turkey, dressing, roast, rice, seven-up pound cake, and bread pudding. Thanksgiving isn't only about having a family dinner but also a ceremonial connection to our past and present. I remember one year when Aunt Valerie stood at the podium speaking on the history of her parents, my maternal grandparents, she said, A lot of our neighborhood land was owned by my parents. Daddy was a tall dark brown man who most people called the bear. He rarely spoke but his appearance demonstrated an aura of power and strength. His silence could never be mistaken as a lack of true manhood; he dominated his family. Although Daddy couldn't read or write, he knew every chapter of the bible and was still able to support Mom plus eight children through the ownership of several small, local businesses. He was a hardworking man who wanted only the best for his family. He had strong family and spiritual values that were passed on throughout the generations. Momma, a feisty woman in character, who always wore a smile, walked with a limp. She owned a juke joint and baked and sold sweet potato pies to help earn extra money for the household.
On Friday after Thanksgiving, before the family would gather for the cookout at the park, my uncle goes out early to start grilling hotdogs, hamburgers, chicken and ribs. That Thursday night all of the aunts start preparing side dishes like corn on the cob, baked beans, potato salad and desserts as well. Shortly before one o'clock on Friday the rest of the family starts to arrive. The children burst from the cars and begin running towards the playground with excitement. Some of the kids then jump on the merry-go-round with one kid staying off to push them. Around and around they go. The rest of the little ones go for the swings, pumping their legs faster and faster to go higher reaching for the sky. The teenagers grab a basketball and race over to the basketball courts. They quickly separate into teams, showing off their skills and taunting each other with competitive remarks like, I'm better than you are! No you're not! If you think so then let me see you make a basket from the free throw line!
