Boaz Brown Read Online Free PDF Page B

hightail it out of here!” It was one of the few times they openly agreed on something.
    Watching them pace around the room as the Mexicans moved their furniture upstairs was rather exciting from my perspective. When I got the chance to peek between the slats of our blinds, I saw a little girl. Finally, a girl! I went outside to play with her that evening, and we played dolls until the lamps came on. Never mind the fact that she didn’t speak a word of English and I didn’t speak a word of Spanish. Words weren’t important. Smiles, hand gestures, and laughter were all the communication we needed to have a good time.
    Momma told me to make sure I took a good bath that night. “Those Mexicans are nasty,” she told me. “It’s all right to play with the little Spanish girl outside, but don’t think you’re   gonna   spend the night over there with her and her kind. Don’t even ask.”
    “What’s Spanish?”
    “It’s the way they talk. It’s a different language,” she told me as she double-checked my scrubbing efforts.
    “How come she speaks a different language?”
    “Cause she ain’t learned how to talk English yet.”
    “Is she ever gonna learn to talk like we do?”
    “I don’t know. Probably.” Then Momma said under her breath, “She should have learned it before she got here. They ought to make ‘em all learn it before they cross the border. That’ll cut out a lot of this mess.”
    I envisioned a group of teachers meeting the Spanish girl and her family at a bus station and then teaching them English in a matter of minutes. “Can I teacher her English, Momma?”
    “You ain’t got time to teach her English.” She stood me up and wrapped a towel around me before lifting me out of the tub. “You need to worry about your own education first.”
     
    * * * * *
    The answering machine blinked the number   2   when I got home. The first message was from my brother, wishing me a happy birthday. The second was from my mother, checking to make sure that I was coming over for dinner. I picked up the receiver and called to assure her that I would be there in a few minutes.
    “You gonna bring the rolls?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” I replied.
    “Well, come on, then.   Me   and your daddy’ll be   waitin’.”
    I hung up my church clothes and put on an all-season denim dress with a split up the back.   Too   risqué   for my church, but fine for Sunday dinner with the parents.   I slid into a pair of low-heeled mules and pulled my hair back behind a headband.
    I took the old familiar back roads to “the hood.” It was beautiful scenery—always had been, until you got across the tracks. I glanced down at my panel, making sure that my doors were locked. As much as I loved the hood and my people, I couldn’t deny the uneasy feeling I had in this twenty-first-century Brockmoore   neighborhood. It wasn’t the same since most of the original homeowners moved out. The new owners, younger and poorer, didn’t give two cents about their property or the neighborhood. Their yards were unkempt, their nonfunctioning cars sat propped up on bricks in front lawns, and dangerous-looking dogs were chained to stakes in the ground.
    And yet, it was my hood, my stomping ground. I had roots there, even if the ground was less than desirable.   If I can’t fit in here, where do I fit in?
      It had all been so simple when I was a teenager. Everybody knew everybody. I wasn’t allowed to socialize with all the kids in the neighborhood, but I did know their names and they knew mine. I could ride my bike and pump Jonathan on my handlebars without worrying about some strange white man kidnapping us.  
    Now almost everyone looked strange. Addicts as skinny as the hungry African children on television walked the streets, giving me gestures and then blank stares. They wanted to know if I sold drugs. Their beckoning made me feel blessed and ashamed at the same time.   Blessed because it could have been me.   Ashamed