Right before the devastation, I had a good day. God should have
pulled my coattail then and there: “Enjoy this while you can, honey,
because Satan beat me in a poker game last night, and he’s claiming
you and yours sometime soon.” After all the praying and tithing I’ve
done, I deserved a heads-up. Damn. Whatever happened to sending a
sign? Lean cow, fat cow. Burning bush. Dove with an olive branch.
Yoo-hoo! Something.
It was probably better that the events evolved with no
foreshadowing. Preparation wasn’t possible. And what difference
would it have made anyhow? Knowing that the hounds are tracking you
doesn’t mean you won’t get caught; it means you have to get to the
swamp fast.
So there I was, clueless: lolling in the bed, stretching my legs and
my toes-which needed a pedicure-ticking off a list of things to do
in my head, I began to wake up. It was the second Saturday in April.
Sunshine was making its way through a thick haze. Rising up, I
stared out of my bedroom window, squinting a bit as I tried to
discern the LA skyline, framed neatly between the two huge palm
trees in my backyard. Thick pea soup almost obliterated the view,
but I didn’t look away until I sighted those buildings. Once I knew
the city had survived the night, my shoulders came down. Anything
can happen at any time in an earthquake zone, and I’ve learned to
take nothing for granted. I’ve gone to bed some evenings only to
awaken at dawn to broken windows and cracked dishes. That the Bank
of America and Wells Fargo headquarters hadn’t been shaken and
dashed into oblivion during the night meant I had survived as well.
I’m always grateful for a morning with no tremors, no frantic dogs
barking.
Trina was beside me, not a heartbeat away, her hip pressed into my
thigh. She felt warm against me, the pressure of her body weight
comforting. The day after her eighteenth birthday, when most girls
were declaring their independence, my daughter was still creeping
into my bed. Even when she hated me, she wanted to be close. She was
still fresh from last night’s bath and smelled like Dove and that
pale yellow lotion in the big plastic bottle. That staple of
American vanities and kitchen counters promises to banish dry skin
forever but can’t even begin to handle seriously crusty feet. My
grandmother’s feet at the end of February would have had that lotion
begging for mercy. But then, when you grow up plowing Georgia clay
barefoot in the hard times, nothing on or in you remains soft. For
Trina’s smooth, buttery skin, that watery lotion worked just fine.
The toes pressed against my calves were just as supple as the rest
of her and just as lovely. Gazing at my sleeping daughter, I could
take her in without annoying her. Such a pretty child, I thought.
There wasn’t a blemish on her honey-colored face. When she was a
little girl, I was lulled by the well-wishing smiles of strangers
who were bewitched by the dazzling enormity of her round eyes and
endless smile, her marble-sized dimples and naturally sandy hair.
Trina seemed to take the attention in stride, but it inflated me. My
gingerbread-brown face was symmetrical, with two eyes placed where
eyes should be, lips that weren’t full or thin, a nose that would
keep me alive, hair that was thick and strong but otherwise
unremarkable. Nobody turned to stare at me when I walked down the
street, not the way they did with Trina. I used to think of her
beauty as an insurance policy that would guarantee her a perfect
life. A lot of people who aren’t beautiful think this way.
It was six o’clock, and I had a standing appointment with the
treadmill and some free weights. Trina stirred, then turned over and
stared at me.
“Hey, grown woman,” I said, teasing.
“My back hurts,” she said, her voice still tinged with sleepiness.
She yawned and arched her body, then settled herself beneath the
covers.
This was a setup, and we both knew it. “Well, you should get on the
floor and do those exercises I showed you. That will get the kinks
out.”
“Aww, Mommeee!” she wailed, fully awake.
“Aw, Mommy, what?”
“Can’t you rub it just a little bit?”
I felt a twinge of annoyance. She knew I worked out every morning.
“Turn over.”
Her motion was languid, a movement befitting the idle rich.
I leaned over my daughter and began kneading her back and shoulders.
There were no knots of tension anywhere. She became limp beneath my
fingers. In a few minutes she was asleep again.
Downstairs in my kitchen, I stopped to get a bottle of water before
going into the small gym located next to the garage. Thirty minutes
on the treadmill at five miles per hour, followed by fifteen minutes
of lifting free weights, then about twenty minutes of floor
exercises-that was my routine. I’ve always been into fitness. I
opened the windows, turned on loud salsa music, and began my
workout. By the time I had finished running in place, my forehead
was dripping and my clothes were damp. I reached for the free
weights, lifting and lowering, extending and holding, until my
biceps were ready to secede from the rest of my body. I forced
myself to do two hundred sit-ups and fifty leg thrusts, panting and
sweating like a beagle on crack. Forty push-ups to go. I counted
from one to ten, then ten to one, then twenty to one. Shrink the
challenge-my way of psyching myself out. All my muscles seemed to be
bursting when I finally began stretching. Time for euphoria. I did
it!
“Let’s go somewhere, Mommee,” Trina said when I returned to the
bedroom. She hadn’t moved from the spot where I’d left her.
“Like where?”
Trina paused for a moment, considering her options, confident-now
that the morning had begun with her first request being granted-that
her every bidding would be honored. “Let’s go downtown and get some
flowers.”
Her voice was childlike, with a smooth, unperturbed lilt, a tone
that made her sound so vulnerable. This eight-year-old voice gave me
reason to pause, to ponder. She hadn’t sounded like that in a long
time.
Trina was incapable of moving fast in the morning. If prodded, she
turned first irritable and then insufferable. I, on the other hand,
dressed quickly. But then my uniform for Saturdays was easy: sweats
and sneakers, no makeup, no hairdo, totally unlike my fashion-plate
weekday attire. I glanced in the mirror in my bathroom; my mother
stared back at me. Impossible to escape her: same eyes, same mouth
and smile, same cheekbones. I closed my eyes and untied the silk
scarf that held my short bob in place. Two strokes of the comb, a
few little flips with my fingers, and I was done.
From the kitchen I could hear Trina thumping around inside her room,
opening and slamming drawers. She was her own personal tornado; the
mess she’d leave behind her when she finally descended would be a
viable submission for a Guinness record. She had on both the
television and the radio. Hoping she wouldn’t take forever, I made
breakfast, cleaning up and putting things away as I cooked. The
birthday cake I’d baked was still on the counter, the eighteen
candles intact. The stove, floor, and sink were spotless. If I
couldn’t control my child, at least I was in charge of my kitchen.
When she was finally dressed, Trina bounded down the stairs like an
exuberant puppy. “You fixed breakfast. Yummy.”
There it was again, the baby voice.
I made breakfast most days, not that I’m such a little Betty Crocker
but because Trina had to eat well. We sat at the kitchen table and
gobbled up the nonfat bran muffins, scrambled eggs, and oatmeal I’d
prepared. I poured hot coffee for me and orange juice for Trina.
Taking the plates to the sink to scrape them, I could see Trina from
the corner of my eye, stealing a sip from my cup. My shoulders
tightened, inched upward. Trina wasn’t supposed to have caffeine.
But then she reached for the small bottle of pink pills that was
between the salt and pepper shakers. She shook out one, placed it
carefully in her mouth, and swallowed it with the hot liquid. For
the last three or four months I hadn’t had to remind her. She took
another sip of coffee and then several more. Maybe she was having
trouble swallowing the pill.
“You don’t have to keep staring at me,” she said, when I sat back
down.
“I can’t look at my own gorgeous child?” I always tried to stop
myself from watching Trina, or at least being caught at it.
“I know what I have to do. I want to go to school in September.”
“I’m not worried, sweetie.”
Some days that was true.
Crenshaw Boulevard was just beginning to open its eyes as we made
our way down from the hills of View Park, the quiet neighborhood
that looms above the usually bustling business district. It was just
after eight o’clock and the mall was still closed, of course, as
were most of the stores that lined the street. But the small army of
hucksters whose domain was the block just north of Slauson Boulevard
had already queued up.
Their wares were arranged neatly on tables near the backs of their
vans or on portable shelves that were as close to the oncoming
traffic as was legally possible. Or illegally possible. CDs, tapes,
African garb, a few food items, some household products, and
clothing were for sale, as well as the occasional bootlegged video.
“Pssst. Got that new Chris Rock, right here. Gimme five.” The most
colorful items were the T-shirts and caps hanging from the
chain-link fence that surrounded a vacant lot and served as a
backdrop for the makeshift outdoor mall. There were no hordes
walking along Crenshaw. Customers had to be hunted, then captured.
Several salesmen waded into traffic, vigorously waving their goods.
I beeped my horn as I passed Fish Man, a portly gentleman who sold
fresh salmon from the back of a white van at prices that were far
lower than at the grocery store. A few feet away Mr. Bean Pie,
representing the capitalistic interests of the Nation of Islam, clad
in the requisite suit and bow tie, hawked newspapers and
mouth-watering pies created from the lowly navy bean to drivers
stopped at the red light. Beyond the bakery section, young men were
approaching idling cars, holding up T-shirts, caps, and all manner
of Lakers regalia, not to mention American flags in every size, for
every conceivable place. I whizzed by them. I had a flag sticking in
my lawn and one on my car and no longer braked for Old Glory.
The last enterprise zone belonged to Crenshaw’s most ubiquitous
sales force: the Incense People. Later in the day they would prop
themselves in front of Laundromats and beauty parlors, slouch
against the exterior walls of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Rite Aid, and
Savon Drugs, waving their wares and chanting “Buy some incense” to
anyone who ventured close enough to be considered a possible sale.
Based on the sheer size of the IP workforce, it was a wonder that a
mushroom cloud wasn’t hovering over South Central at all times.
Either we were the dope-smokingest folks in the city or we were
meditating around the clock. Maybe both. Several young men were
eyeing my car, their fists dangling the telltale plastic bags, but
fortunately the light was green. Among the legions of hucksters, the
IP were the risk takers and had been known to jump in front of
moving vehicles, defying death and dismemberment for the sale of a
one-dollar bag.
Half a block away, Crazy Man was standing near one of the IP. Some
of my neighbors referred to him that way, and even though I, of all
people, should have known better, I did too. Mumbling to the air
around him, he appeared to have schizophrenia but seemed harmless.
According to some neighbors, he had been normal until he came back
from Vietnam. Others swore his troubles began during high school.
Crazy Man trekked in and around the community all day long,
returning at night to his mother’s house. His hair was a matted
clump that hadn’t seen shampoo, comb, brush, or scissors in a
decade. He was clad in ancient dirty pants and a ragged shirt. His
feet were bare and filthy. It would take heavy-duty equipment to get
him clean. That and a crew. If mania and hallucinations, delusions,
and paranoia have an odor, then that’s what was rising out of his
pores. Maybe pain, loss, and fury too.
The light ahead of me flashed yellow, and I sped up to get across
the street. Just as I pressed down on the gas, I heard “Trina!
Keri!”-a loud, exuberant yell. Trina turned around, and I glanced in
the rearview mirror. A teenage boy in the car next to us was waving
and shouting.
“Mom, that’s PJ. Yo, PJ, whazzup?” Trina screamed out the window. I
waved. My ex-boyfriend’s son was one of my favorite people, and I
hadn’t seen him in the months since I’d broken up with his dad.
“Thanks for the cash!” he yelled as his car sped away. When I caught
a glimpse of him, he wasn’t smiling. Sometimes he looked so sad to
me.
“You’re welcome!” I hollered back, then chuckled. Only two weeks
earlier I’d stuck three twenties into a birthday card and mailed it
to him.
I craned my neck to get a better look at PJ, and at that moment
Crazy Man stepped off the sidewalk against the light, directly in my
path. There was no time to stop. To my right was an SUV; a man was
driving and there were children in the back. Another man stood on
the median, holding a bag of incense in his hand. If I braked and
then aimed toward the median, maybe the concrete riser would slow me
down enough for him to get out of the way. It was my only option.
When my front tires hit the concrete, the huckster jumped back and
his incense went flying into the air, along with some hand picked
words for me. I froze momentarily, grateful that the move I’d
executed had been successful, then caught my breath, put the car in
reverse, and backed up into my lane. Around me horns blared as I put
my car in drive and continued forward, feeling a surge of rage as I
passed Crazy Man. His face was placid as he stared vacantly straight
ahead, seemingly unaware that he’d ever been in any danger.
“What’s up with that stupid fool?” Trina asked.
“Not thinking, I guess.”
“Dag.” She brightened. “Did you see PJ?” She started laughing. “He
was trying to look all hard and everything. He has a mustache.” She
giggled again.
“Does he really?” I always thought of PJ as my little boy, which of
course he wasn’t.
Trina and I had been going to the flower district since we first
moved to LA from Atlanta, nearly ten years earlier. Located
downtown, only blocks away from the huge aquamarine convention
center and the massive Staples Center, home court of the Los Angeles
Lakers, the flower mart was part of a larger area that housed the
city’s garment, jewelry, and fabric districts. In cramped, airless
buildings, immigrant women who couldn’t say union in English bent
over sewing machines, stitching the bodices of prom gowns and
swimsuits. Koreans mostly sold not-so-well-known brands and designer
knockoffs. Israeli wholesale jewelers played dialing for diamonds.
And Iranian merchants offered fine silks, woolens, and blends for
less than a third of the price of the city’s retail fabric shops.
Continues…
Excerpted from 72 Hour Hold
by Bebe Moore Campbell
Copyright © 2005 by Bebe Moore Campbell.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Knopf
Copyright © 2005
Bebe Moore Campbell
All right reserved.
ISBN: 1-4000-4074-4
