Read Online Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether - Free Book Online Page B

nobody was drinking it except Papa Dan and Slim Jim. Most of the women were eating up our cake.
    â€œWhatcha gonna get new?” Sukie asked me.
    â€œA pair of shoes for Sunday and a yellow dress I saw in Woolworth’s basement.”
    â€œI’ll wash and straighten your hair tomorrow,” Rebecca offered, “a late birthday present.”
    â€œThank you, Rebecca.” My twelfth birthday had been last week. Mother had given me a dime and Daddy a quarter and now I was gonna get some new clothes, too. I smiled at Sukie, glad that we were best friends again and sorry that when I had that thirty-five cents last week I kept it a secret from her. She always shared the money she sneaked out of her mother’s purse with me, and I decided then and there that I wouldn’t hold out on her no more. Starting next week.
    The Twins and their parents came in, Mrs. Petrie’s stomach marching ahead of her as usual. Each of the Twins had a smaller child by the hand, a girl and a boy about a year apart, one coffee-brown and the other very black. All of the Petrie children were a different color. Mrs. Petrie was fair and her husband dark and they seemed bent on having a baby every color in between. The Twins were round and yellow, like a butterball, and they didn’t seem to mind thatwherever they went they had to cart some of the younger ones with them. Mother went in the kitchen and brought them all back a dish of ice cream.
    â€œStop that dribbling,” one Twin told her little sister, and wiped the child’s mouth with the back of her hand.
    â€œYou want some more ice cream?” I asked Rebecca.
    â€œNo, but I think I’ll go get some more punch.”
    I walked back to the kitchen with her and as soon as we got there I knew why she liked that punch so much. The boys were standing in a circle around that big dishpan Mother had made the punch in and James Junior was sparking it with King Kong. Sterling and Vallie were watching him, together with Sonny and some other boys from Madison Avenue. That tall black one with the curly hair was Luke Washington, I thought, and the boy that looked just like him was probably his younger brother. I had heard that they both belonged to the Ebony Earls.
    Rebecca grinned at Junior. “Mr. Punch Man, what you got for me?” She held out her cup and Junior smiled back at her as he dipped it in the pan. She jive-talked with the boys and stood there sipping that punch like she didn’t know it had King Kong in it and I thought, if her mother saw her standin’ there drinkin’ that stuff she’d slap her up side her head. King Kong was homemade gin and Daddy said the niggers acted like they didn’t know Prohibition was over ’cause they were still brewing their own.
    I got a cup and handed it to Junior and he was filling it up when old Sterling said to me: “And just what do you think you’re doing?”
    â€œGetting me some punch. What does it look like I’m doing?”
    He pointed to the milk bucket on the sink which hadsome straight punch in it. “Drink that,” he said, taking the cup out of my hand and emptying it back into the pan.
    â€œI don’t want none then,” I said.
    Rebecca was smoking that bamboo straw we made baskets with at the playground and passing it around to the others. I smoked straw, too, but I didn’t dare do it now with Sterling watching. He was the strangest brother a girl ever had, always shouting and punching me when I made him mad, but never letting me have any fun.
    â€œYour sister’s growing up, Sterling,” Sonny said, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “You oughta let her have a little sip.”
    All eyes turned on me and I felt stupid and mad at Sterling for treating me like a kid in front of everybody.
    â€œShe ain’t that grown,” he said.
    â€œWell, she did grow some,” Vallie said. “That’s the word for Francie.