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The Road To Astroworld....
Dear LaKeisha Ann:
Do you remember that rainy day, when the rain trapped you in
my house, (when the rain was to me like Christmas tinsel and not razor blades),
and we played husband and wife? Do you
remember that day? My Big Mama dozed in
front of the TV as Another World
flickered in front of her closed eyes. Eric snoozed on his sickbed. The sheets
formed a tent from his erection. We watched that tent rise and fall in time
with his breathing. You wanted to touch it, but I wouldn’t let you. I didn't
know then, but now I know why we all of a sudden wanted to play husband and
wife. The rain fills people with romantic notions. That's why I can forgive a certain bus
driver.
We argued over who was going to be the husband coming home from
working hard on the job. You won when you said the husband had to be a boy. Why
I thought a girl could be a husband, I don't know. I knew I didn’t want to be
no boy.
You wore my Mama’s vegetable strainer for a hard hat and a Ninja Turtles lunch kit was your tool
box. You looked more like a knight than a construction worker. You went outside
on the front porch and stood for a few minutes while I pretended to be the wife
inside the house washing dishes. You kept coming in before your time and I had
to keep sending you out.
"Wait a minute, boy . . . I'm washing dishes . . . No
you can't come in yet, I'm watching The Young
and the Restless . . . Okay now you can come in 'cause I'm cooking your
supper . . ."
You came in and pecked me on the cheek, looked in my make
believe pot at the imaginary beans and rice I was “cooking” and said they
smelled good. Then you said you had to
get out of your wet clothes. I said, “You
can't get naked in the kitchen. You got to go in the bathroom or the bedroom.” And you said, “Where they at?” And I said, “Silly husband, you don't know
where your bedroom or bathroom is?” You twisted my arm and made me tell you. The
“bathroom” was behind a big blue vinyl dinette chair where my Big Mama kept her
flower pots. You said you had never seen a red commode. I said, “Pretend it's white.” Our “bedroom”
was underneath the kitchen table.
You went into the "bathroom" and took off all of
your clothes for real and pretended to take a shower. I stopped cooking to look
at you. You said, "Woman, you can't
see when I'm taking a shower because there's a wall there." I said, "The wall fell down. Our bad children knocked it down." You said, Okay you was going to whip them
when you got out of the shower. So you
got through showering and put a dish towel around your waist and came back into
the kitchen and asked which one of our children knocked down the wall? I pointed to my Raggedy Ann doll and said she did it. You called me a liar and
picked up Sweetie Pie my favorite doll and said she probably did it because
that was my favorite and the baddest. You grabbed Big Mama’s strap off the
nail, pulled Sweetie Pie’s panties down and started to whip her. I grabbed your
arm and tried to stop you, but you kept on hitting her. You didn’t stop until I
bit you. You dropped Sweetie pie on her head and looked real mean at me.
Then you tried to whip me with the strap. But I told
you, that you couldn't whip me like that because I was a grown woman and your
wife. You said okay, but I got to beat
you 'cause you let the children tear down the wall and you don't have my supper
ready, and you bit me. And I said okay, but a man beats a lady with his
fists. You pushed me around and
pretended to give me a black eye. I found a Magic marker and drew a half moon
under my eye. After you beat me I went
out on the porch and acted like I was crying. You came out on the porch still
wearing our dish towel. I forgot we was
playing and said, "Girl, you can't come out on the porch in a dish
towel!" You said a man can go on
the porch in a towel or his drawers as long as he ain't naked. I said, Okay.
I pretended to cry some more. I said I was going to go to a woman's
shelter. You said, baby come back in the house. I'm sorry I beat you. So we hugged and made up and we went back
into the house. You said, “Let’s go in the bedroom and make love like they do
on TV. I took off all of my clothes. We grabbed each other around the waist and
rolled back and forth under the kitchen table. The hard floor hurt my bones and
I bumped my head. We kissed. Your lips tasted like bubble gum. We heard
footsteps and got real scared, but it was just Nettie shuffling in. I jumped up
and clucked her upside the head and made her go back to my Mama’s room where
she slept. And I finished cooking your supper.
You sat down at the table in the dish towel. I said hold on wait a minute, you can't sit
at the table in a towel in front of the children. You said I’m a man, I can do whatever I
want. And I said I'm the woman of the
house, and I say a man has to be dressed when he eats in front of the
children. You never see the daddy on the
Cosby Show eating in a towel in front
of his children. And he don't beat his
wife. You said yes he do when nobody's
looking.
I started to cry for real and said, "Please LaKeisha
Ann, play fair! You never want to do
things the way I want to do them.’ And
you said, "Shut up, silly bitch. I don't want to be your husband anyway. Next thing, you'll want me to put a carrot
between my legs and poke you in your pussy."
You whipped off the dish towel, put on your clothes, and
went home. The sun came out and turned
the dreary kitchen golden. But all I
could do was sit down at the table and cry.
I cried and the dolls cried too because they wanted their Daddy. And ever since that day I've been curious
about carrots. They served some here the
other day and it made me think of you.
Love,
Promise
PS. I told the story to Big Fingers and he said a carrot is
a poor substitute for a man, but he like the part about us playing husband and
wife.
Harvey's Website
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