World
In this excerpt Suzy writes a letter (one of many) to her childhood friend. She
reminisces about the day when they played husband and wife.
Dear LaKeisha Ann:
Do you remember that rainy day, when the rain trapped you in my house, (when the
rain was to me like Christmas tinsel and not razor blades), and we played husband
and wife? Do you remember that day? My Big Mama dozed in front of the TV as
"Another World" flickered in front of her closed eyes. Eric snoozed. The sheets
formed a tent from his erection. We watched that tent rise and fall in time with his
breathing. I didn't know then, but now I know why we all of a sudden wanted to
play husband and wife. The rain fills people with romantic notions. That's why I can
forgive a certain bus driver.
We argued over who was going to be the husband coming in from the rain from
working hard on the job. You won when you said the husband had to be a boy.
Why I thought a woman could be a husband, I don't know. I didn't want to be no
boy.
You wore my Mother's colander for a hard hat and a "Ninja Turtles" lunch kit was
your tool box. You went outside on the front porch and stood for a few minutes
while I pretended to be the wife inside the house washing dishes. You kept coming
in before your time and I had to keep sending you out.
"Wait a minute, boy . . . I'm washing dishes . . . No you can't come in yet, I'm
watching 'The Young and the Restless' . . . Okay now you can come in 'cause I'm
cooking your supper . . ."
You came in and pecked me on the cheek, looked in my pot at the imaginary beans
an rice and said they smelled good. Then you said you had to get out of your wet
clothes. I said "you can't get naked in the kitchen. You got to go in the bathroom or
the bedroom." And you said, "where they at?" And I said, "silly husband, you don't
know where your bedroom or bathroom is?" You twisted my arm and made me tell
you. Behind a big old blue vinyl dinette chair where Big Mama had some red flower
pots, was the bathroom. You said you had never seen a red commode. I said
pretend it's white. Underneath the kitchen table was our bedroom.
You went into the "bathroom" and took off all of your clothes for real and
pretended to take a shower. I stopped cooking to look at you. You said, "Woman,
you can't see when I'm taking a shower because there's a wall there." I said, "the
wall fell down. Our bad children knocked it down." You said, Okay you was going
to whip them when you got out of the shower. So you got through showering and
put a dish towel around your waist and came back into the kitchen and asked which
one of our children knocked down the wall? I pointed to my dolls and said all of
them did. You told the dolls "I'm going to whip you for knocking down that wall."
All the dolls that had on panties, you pulled their panties off and spanked them with
your hand. The ones that didn't have on panties, you whipped them harder with an
extension cord because they were nasty for not wearing panties and had been doing
the "nasty" with some boys.
Then you tried to whip me with the extension cord. But I told you you couldn't whip
me like that because I was a grown woman and your wife. You said okay, but I got
to beat you 'cause you let the children tear down the wall and you don't have my
supper ready. and I said okay, but a man beats a lady with his fists. You pushed me
around and pretended to give me a black eye. I found a Magic marker and drew a
half moon under my eye. After you beat me I went out on the porch and acted like I
was crying. You came out on the porch still wearing our dish towel. I forgot we was
playing and said, "Girl, you can't come out on the porch in a dish towel!" You said a
man can go on the porch in a towel or his drawers as long as he ain't naked. I said,
Okay.
I pretended to cry some more. I said I was going to go to a woman's shelter. You
said, baby come back in the house. I'm sorry I beat you. So we hugged and made
up and we went back into the house and I finished cooking your supper. You sat
down at the table in the dish towel. I said hold on wait a minute, you can't sit at the
table in a towel in front of the children. You said I"m a man, I can do whtever I
want. And I said I'm the woman of the house, and I say a man has to be dressed
when he eats in front of the children. You never see the daddy on the "Cosby
Show" eating in a towel in front of his children. And he don't beat his wife. You said
yes he do when nobody's looking.
I started to cry for real and said, "Please LaKeisha Ann, play fair! Yo never want to
do things the way I want to do them. And you said, "Shut up, silly bitch. I don't
want to be your husband anyway. Next thing, you'll want me to put a carrot
between my legs and poke you in your snatch."
You whipped off the dish towel, put on your clothes, and went home. The sun came
out and painted the kitchen gold. But all I could do was sit down at the table and
cry. I cried and the dolls cried too because they wanted their Daddy. And ever
since that day I've been curious about carrots. They served some here the other day
and it made me think of you.
Love,
Suzy
PS. I told the story to Big Fingers and he said a carrot is a poor substitute for a
man, but he like the part about us playing husband and wife.
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