Read Online Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jacqueline Woodson
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the squad, her blue and gold pom-poms in the airâ Come on team, fight-fight with all your might-might, get on the floor and letâs score some more. Go boy!â her ponytail bouncing, her bangs low over her eyes. When time passed and she didnât come home, we imagined sheâd come home baby-less, the crusty auntie or pinch-faced grandmother raising the child as her own, sending Charlsetta back to her life in Brooklyn.
Autumn came and the DJs stopped setting up their amps and speakers in the park. The streetlights stopped flickering from the ebb and flow of stolen electricity. Our boyfriends begged, and again and again we said, No .
Charlsettaâs brother broke both his arms at Bushwick Park, the cast slings crisscrossing over his chest. Is your sister back yet, we asked him. Always, the answer was no. Damn! we said. Sheâs been gone forever.
Was my father as absent as I remember? A folding chair in the kitchen and him in it, his head bent toward his hands, fingers moving over the bump where a thumb had once been, his black suit pants sharply creased by a too-hot iron so that there was a shine to parts of the fabricâa near-burntness that would remain, forever. Where had the fingers gone, my brother and I asked each other well into our teens. A dog ate them, we said. His hands got stuck in a hole and he pulled and pulled until. Until.
Winter came, and by late December Brooklyn was ankle deep in ice and snow. Platform shoes dominated New York, so we stumbled through the neighborhood in knee-high platform boots that zipped up the side but were anything but waterproof. I shivered through the winter, unsteady and half-frozen while my father stared down at his hands. He was living inside his faith by then, which left little room for understanding teenage girls. Where my brother and I had oncebeen locked behind a half-open window, we were now more free than either of us could understand. Some evenings coming home I looked up to see my brother at the window, staring over the block, blank-eyed.
A week after Christmas, a woman was found coatless and dead on the roof of the Marcy Houses projects. Women had been found dead beforeâin hallways, in basements, in the unlit corners of subway platforms. Sometimes, as we walked the streets, we imagined our own selves found somewhere. How long would it take to know? Who would be the first to ask, Have you seen August? Have you seen . . . Angela . . . ?
Angela said, I donât know where my mother is. Her voice was thick, a tremble to the words. I grabbed her hard, pulled her to me. Angela, I said, sheâs fine. Sheâs fine!
Sylvia and Gigi stood back, away from us so that it felt like the world was spinning around an eye of sorrow only Angela and I were inside of.
Itâs not her, Ang. I swear.
But it was her. A Medicaid card and a five-dollar food stamp in her left coat pocket. A photo of Angela, front teeth missing, in her right. Angela âAngelâ Thompson, Age 7 , carefully written in ballpoint pen. Someone at Kings County probably said Lord, I know that womanâs child.
Before we knew it was her mother, Angela spent three nights at my house, the two of us curled together on the pullout sofa, my father in my bed. Her hair smelled of sweat and Royal Crown hair grease, her breath coming fast, even when she was sound asleep. In the only light coming in from a streetlamp, I stared at her and saw deep beneaththe smooth cheeks and broad nose, there she wasâthere was the woman staggering past us with her thin face, nearly toothless mouth, and Angelaâs eyes.
In the near darkness, I saw the roof, Angelaâs mother curled fetal against the cold. I saw the water. I saw Angela crumbling to the snow-covered ground. I saw my father kissing my mother good-bye, the satin lining her bed, the Bible against her chest, the thin gold band on her too-still finger. I opened my mouth to speak. Then closed it again. And stayed that way for
Autumn came and the DJs stopped setting up their amps and speakers in the park. The streetlights stopped flickering from the ebb and flow of stolen electricity. Our boyfriends begged, and again and again we said, No .
Charlsettaâs brother broke both his arms at Bushwick Park, the cast slings crisscrossing over his chest. Is your sister back yet, we asked him. Always, the answer was no. Damn! we said. Sheâs been gone forever.
Was my father as absent as I remember? A folding chair in the kitchen and him in it, his head bent toward his hands, fingers moving over the bump where a thumb had once been, his black suit pants sharply creased by a too-hot iron so that there was a shine to parts of the fabricâa near-burntness that would remain, forever. Where had the fingers gone, my brother and I asked each other well into our teens. A dog ate them, we said. His hands got stuck in a hole and he pulled and pulled until. Until.
Winter came, and by late December Brooklyn was ankle deep in ice and snow. Platform shoes dominated New York, so we stumbled through the neighborhood in knee-high platform boots that zipped up the side but were anything but waterproof. I shivered through the winter, unsteady and half-frozen while my father stared down at his hands. He was living inside his faith by then, which left little room for understanding teenage girls. Where my brother and I had oncebeen locked behind a half-open window, we were now more free than either of us could understand. Some evenings coming home I looked up to see my brother at the window, staring over the block, blank-eyed.
A week after Christmas, a woman was found coatless and dead on the roof of the Marcy Houses projects. Women had been found dead beforeâin hallways, in basements, in the unlit corners of subway platforms. Sometimes, as we walked the streets, we imagined our own selves found somewhere. How long would it take to know? Who would be the first to ask, Have you seen August? Have you seen . . . Angela . . . ?
Angela said, I donât know where my mother is. Her voice was thick, a tremble to the words. I grabbed her hard, pulled her to me. Angela, I said, sheâs fine. Sheâs fine!
Sylvia and Gigi stood back, away from us so that it felt like the world was spinning around an eye of sorrow only Angela and I were inside of.
Itâs not her, Ang. I swear.
But it was her. A Medicaid card and a five-dollar food stamp in her left coat pocket. A photo of Angela, front teeth missing, in her right. Angela âAngelâ Thompson, Age 7 , carefully written in ballpoint pen. Someone at Kings County probably said Lord, I know that womanâs child.
Before we knew it was her mother, Angela spent three nights at my house, the two of us curled together on the pullout sofa, my father in my bed. Her hair smelled of sweat and Royal Crown hair grease, her breath coming fast, even when she was sound asleep. In the only light coming in from a streetlamp, I stared at her and saw deep beneaththe smooth cheeks and broad nose, there she wasâthere was the woman staggering past us with her thin face, nearly toothless mouth, and Angelaâs eyes.
In the near darkness, I saw the roof, Angelaâs mother curled fetal against the cold. I saw the water. I saw Angela crumbling to the snow-covered ground. I saw my father kissing my mother good-bye, the satin lining her bed, the Bible against her chest, the thin gold band on her too-still finger. I opened my mouth to speak. Then closed it again. And stayed that way for
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