Long Division(62)

“Get all that sickness out of you,” I told her. “They got these Red Naval cats around here. And those things will come after you and start talking if you don’t watch it. And these folks here, they don’t even dress like real people.” I picked up a few acorns and tossed them at the base of tree. “All you can see is their eyes, and if you joke with them, they love to make you suffer.”

“That’s better than it is back home, where them goons look just like you. I’m serious. Female goons get to hating on you, too. The most basic of bitches wanna fight you for being glamorous and focused.”

“Did you really just say that?” I asked her. “Hard head makes a soft glamorous ass. You gonna be begging to get stomped out by a female goon after the Klan get ahold of you and throw you up in that colored bathroom with one of them Red Naval cats.” I threw an acorn at her forehead. “You laughing now, but when they start choking you out, don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

“Damn, Voltron,” she said, “can you not hate for like the next five minutes? Damn!”

We walked toward the Freedom School and peeked in the window. There was this slim, light-skinned lady talking to a tired, greasy-looking black man. The lady was walking around pointing and yelling and holding some paper with her back to us. The man was facing her, sitting at a desk and laughing.

“Who are those people?” Baize asked me.

“I don’t know. Be quiet.” I looked harder. “Is something wrong with that lady’s face?…I can’t tell. Just stay behind me.”

We decided to go in the Freedom School, since the people looked nice enough. They didn’t look rich at all, but the hair on both of their heads was so shaped up and neat that I started brushing my own hair.

“Whose babies y’all is?” the lady turned around and asked when we opened the door. I’m not sure how to describe her face, but the skin beneath her eyes and all over her forehead looked like it had been burned really bad and it was maybe just starting to heal. The craziest thing was that her eyes looked normal and they were huge and shiny.

“We ain’t babies,” I told her. I looked at Baize and she looked back at me.

“I’m City and Shalaya’s baby,” Baize said, stepping forward. “But I stay with my great-grandmama.”

I dropped Long Division.





AND A WAY.


After reading the craziest chapters yet of Long Division and sitting there with Pot Belly, I started to understand the sad that he was feeling. There were some red, green, yellow, white, or orange sprinkles in the sad I felt, but mostly, the sad was all just layers and layers of the thickest blue you’d ever seen in your life. Whenever I’d come close to feeling that blue before, I’d pick scabs, or I’d turn off the light and get nice with myself, or I’d come up with a plan about how to get some shine in homeroom at Hamer, or I’d troll the internet with the screen name Megatroneezy, or I’d post something inspirational or something extremely ratchet on Facebook, or I’d eat bowls of off-brand Lucky Charms until I got severe bubble guts. For some reason, I didn’t want to do any of that since I had lost at the contest.

I started thinking about Grandma, Uncle Relle, LaVander Peeler, Baize Shephard, and Mama. And when I really thought about all of them, I just felt so much bluer than ever. Yeah, all those folks tried to mask their different blues, but after the praying, smoking, rapping, thinking, drinking, and running, there just seemed to be nothing else left but blue rooms with people who were really even lonelier and bluer than Octavia Whittington, the bluest girl I ever knew.

Octavia Whittington was the light-skinned girl at Hamer with ashy elbows and the bad self-esteem. Octavia almost transferred from Hamer after her adopted parents said, “Fannie Lou Hamer doesn’t provide an environment conducive to Octavia’s depressive condition.” At one of those parent-teacher-student meetings, I remember LaVander Peeler Sr. saying that he was offended that another parent would try to bring that “doggone language of depression” into our school. He didn’t say it as plain as he wanted, because a decent number of students were at the meeting, but I do remember him saying loud and clear, “Those other folks might do it that way, but how are we any better than them if we start drugging the doggone feelings out of our kids.”

I remember the standing ovation he got, even from Mama, who was usually too busy to come to those meetings. I don’t know why, but I always felt sorry for Octavia after that. Yeah, she always stayed alone, and her eyes looked crazy as hell because she only blinked once every minute, but if there was any kind of pill or drank that could make Octavia love living, I really think she should have been allowed to take it at school, especially if other folks at school were chasing the blue away by getting nice with themselves in the bathroom and dissing the hell out of each other with long sentences.

I pulled out a pen from my pocket and finished writing my will on the last page I’d read in Long Division.

11. I leave my favorite pen to this white man in the shed because he needs to write an apology to Grandma and maybe even to Baize. That would make him not feel so sad.

12. I leave this copy of Long Division to LaVander Peeler.

13. I leave the other copy to share between Grandma, Shay, Baize, and this white man in the shed if he decides to apologize.

14. I don’t want to die yet but I don’t want to feel this kind of blue ever again. So sad ain’t no joke.