Read Online An American Story by Debra J. Dickerson - Free Book Online

little. The chains came loose and I caught the jumper just before it hit the ground.
    â€œI can fix that,” he said, inspecting the chain. “Jes take my pliers to em. Good as new.” He grinned; he was happy knowing that the nearly free dress would require labor and tool usage.
    â€œYes sir,” I said, and dutifully draped the dress across my arm. It was important not to sigh, not to give any sign of unhappiness. Suspicious, he was still watching me, so, nonchalantly, I picked the rest of my clothes at random from the next three rows and added them to my load.
    â€œFinish,” I said in his general direction, and dropped my new school clothes in our cart.
    The shoes were the worst part. For some reason, I was much harder on shoes than anybody else. This pair was expected to last the school year, but by spring the area surrounding my big toes would wear through down to my socks; next, the entire soles would flap free. For weeks, months, Daddy would refuse to buy me a second pair; he said my walk was slovenly and that I just needed to concentrate on doing it correctly.
    Desperate, I burrowed down to the bottom of the big refrigerator box the shoes were in and found a pair that seemed barely worn. They were a little too small but I could get them on. With perseverance and practice, I was sure I could stretch them and make it through the fourth grade without my socks showing through. I added the least worn pair of everyday, nonsneaker shoes I could find and dumped my new shoes in the baskets Daddy had commandeered. When he wasn’t watching, I ran to the car to claim a window for the ride home and finish
The Old Curiosity Shop.
Hot as it was, I went around and closed all the windows to block out the VV, the smell, the neighborhood.
    On the way home, Daddy was feeling good.
    â€œI figger we done saved ourselves at least twenty-five dollars. Shoot, maybe more! Don’t make no sense payin full price for the same stuff these fools payin top dollar for down to Sears. All we gots to be is patient.”
    He shook his fist at the big Sears at Kingshighway and Page as we passed. A car pulled up next to us filled with huge Afros and covered with political posters.
    They raised their fists back at Daddy and yelled: “Power to the People.” “Capitalism Must Go!”
    They had mistaken Daddy’s hatred of Sears, and the full prices it represented, for the black power salute. Daddy nearly killed us all trying to catch up with them and give them a piece of his mind.
    TROUBLE
    By the time I was nine or ten, I knew that our home was not a happy one. The bad times became less isolated events, the good times began to take on the hazy quality of dreams. I can remember us all lingering at the table long after it was cleared, begging Daddy for more stories, more jokes, more silliness on those rare evenings when he was his old self and preening for our approval rather than swaggering jackbooted through our fear. I couldn’t have put my finger on exactly when the decay began, but I knew that things were falling apart. I knew it for sure the Thanksgiving I was nine when I walked with Paw Paw to the liquor store (my old granddad pretty much lived on Old Grand-Dad and Kool cigarettes the last twenty-five years of his life). In one of only two or three serious conversations we ever had, he quizzed me about our household, about whether my father ever hit my mother (he did not), and whether or not my mother ever talked about leaving (she did not. Not yet). He wouldn’t answer any of my questions, but that settled what had been taking shape in my mind: something was wrong with our family. I didn’t have a name for it, I didn’t know where we were headed, I just knew trouble was in the air. On top of it all, I had my own problems.
    â€”—
    By first grade, I was the designated “brainiac” and good girl. I loved school, I loved teachers, and I loved books. If I didn’t exactly love