Chapter 31
The stinky stuff hit the fan yesterday. Mama was at work and me and Jason was out at Bigmama’s. We didn’t think anything about where Phil was. He plays outside by himself all the time. Jason left Bigmama’s to go home and then I heard him hollerin’ for me to hurry up and get home.
I ran across the field wonderin’ what I had to be in such a hurry for. When I ran up onto the porch I got a strong whiff of smoke smell in my nose. Steppin’ through the wide open front door I saw Jason sittin’ on the couch with his face hidden down in his hands. I was fixin’ to say something, to ask him what that smell was when I saw the black wall and burned up curtains and table top.
My knees was shakin’ and I sank down beside Jason on the couch. All I could say was, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
Jason moved his hands and let out a giant breath. Then he looked up at me and whispered one word; Phil.
She’s gonna kill him, I whispered and began to cry.
Jason got up and started walkin’ back and forth across the plastic floor he had helped Mama nail down when we first moved in, as he told me how he had come home, opened the door and saw the flames burnin’ all the way up the curtains. He said he ran in the kitchen, grabbed the trashcan, dumped it out in the floor, filled it with water and came back to throw it on the wall. He said he had to do it like fifty million times! His arms was stretched up high when he showed me how big the flames was.
He said he didn’t think he’d ever get it out. He stopped walkin’, let out another breath, then slumped back down beside me on the couch and began to bite his fingernails.
He has the most awful lookin’ fingernails. It’s a good thing he’s a boy because they are plain ugly to see. Sometimes he gnaws ‘em down so far they bleed.
Scared, I asked him where Phil was. He said Phil had come in right after he got it put out. He asked him what happened and he said he was just messin’ with Mama’s cigarette lighter and laid it down to go outside. Then he ran out of the house before Jason could stop him.
I asked Jason what we should do. He said clean it up as best we can and wait. But then he said he wanted to show me something.
He pulled Mama’s lighter out of his pants pocket. He ran his finger across the top and a tall flame shot out. But when he took his thumb off the lighter, the flame was gone. He asked me if I understood what that meant and I shook my head. I felt sick.
Either she would be so happy that we wasn’t burned up and dead or else she would kill us dead. I decided to wish for the happy one and got busy tryin’ to wash the black off the walls but burn is like brusies, you can’t just wash ‘em off.
It wasn’t long before Phil came tiptoein’ in the door. He asked us if we was gonna tell Mama and we just pointed at the wall. He turned around to run back out the door and we grabbed him, tellin’ him it would only make it worse this time.
When Mama got home we was all sittin’ on the couch like nice quiet children. I was scared to even breathe. Mama closed the door, turned around, and her eyes went straight to the burned up wall. She just kinda stared at us for a minute and I was thinkin’, be the happy one be the happy one. Then her breathin’ got faster and she asked Jason what had happened. He told her that Phil had played with her lighter and he was sorry and it was just an accident and we could fix the wall.
Mama started walkin’ the floor like Jason had earlier but I could hear her breathin’ gettin’ faster with each step. Then she snatched Phil up by his ear and screamed into his face sayin’, I work hard all damn day and this is what I have to come home to! What the ‘H’ ‘E’ double ‘L’ is the matter with you boy? Why would you try to burn down the only home we have? Do you wanna live outside? Huh, stupid! Is that what you want!
She was screamin’ in his face so loud and hard that her eyes had gone beyond glarin’ when she slammed out the back door to got get a switch off the bush. She came back with one that was thick enough to call a stick and I wanted to say, hey Mama, wait a minute, that’s not a good switch let me go get you one real quick be right back no problem at all, but I couldn’t force my mouth to open. Then she beat Phil so hard and for so long and he was screamin’ like something that didn’t even sound like a human person and I hated myself for not lettin’ him run away.
When she was worn out tired she dragged Phil to the bedroom and slung him over on his and Jason’s bed, then she came back and sat down on her end of the couch. I kept my head down and tried to shut out the sound of Phil’s sobbin’ coming through the wall from the bedroom.
Mama got up and went in the kitchen, then came right back out, got all up in Jason’s face screamin’ about why he hadn’t taken out the trash like she’d told him to do before she went to work. He told her he had but he’d filled it up again with all the stuff that was on the table that had gotten burned up. But it was like she didn’t even hear him because she kept on and on fussin’ and yellin’ about him not doin’ what she’d told him to do. He kept tryin’, though. Talkin’ real slow and soft to her like he was tryin’ to talk her into bein’ still but Mama’s madness is like a fire that can’t never be put out.
Since she’d broken the stick on Phil she told Jason to take off his belt. He looked at her like, come on Mama, I didn’t do nothing, plus, I’m like way too old to be hit. But not even him bein’ fifteen years old was enough to stop her. She kept on and on and he kept tryin’ to make her understand but she told him if he didn’t take it off she would knock his brains outta his head and take it off for him. He finally gave up, let out another giant breath, took it off and laid it in her hands with this look on his face.
I’ve seen that look before. One time there was this little kid in the grocery line pesterin’ his mama for some gum. She kept tellin’ him no, over and over but the kid just kept on and on pushin’ and beggin’ ‘til finally , with that same kinda look that Jason had on his face, the mama just gave up, gave in and gave that kid the bubble gum. That kid had the same satisfied look on his face that Mama had on hers when Jason put his belt in her hands.
When Mama finished with Jason he wasn’t even cryin’. It wasn’t because Mama didn’t hit him hard. She was hittin’ so hard she grunted with every swing of his belt. He just looked like he had given up and died inside and everybody knows, dead people don’t cry.
I was still just sittin’ there, lookin’ down at the floor when Mama turned from Jason and grabbed me up by my arm and used his belt on me. She said that I was forever runnin’ around thinkin’ I was special, thinkin’ I was somebody and she was sick to death of seein’ me runnin’ around actin’ like I was the Queen of Sheba, so I definitely had it comin’ and it was long over due.
I was tryin’ to figure out who the Queen of Sheba is or what she acts like, but then Mama started jumpin’ around and makin’ fun of me.
You see, sometimes I like to pretend like I’m a cheerleader like the older girls at Jason’s school and me and Sandra make up routines and cheers and we do ‘em for fun outside. Mama made it look so ugly though when she was jumpin’ around and sayin’ some of my cheers in a mockin’ voice, that now I don’t never wanna do cheers ever again.
When I saw Phil’s legs, they had so many stripes that they didn’t even look like stripes really, but more like opened up sores that had all run together. Aint Ruby saw ‘em and she said a word to Mama that I ain’t never heard anybody ever say.
Mama was tellin’ her about the fire and she told Phil to pull his pants down so he could show her how much trouble playin’ with her lighter had brought him. Mama had that proud light that shines in her eyes when Phil let out a sad little breath and turned around, droppin’ his pants for everybody to see.
Aint Ruby closed her eyes for a minute and shook her head. Openin’ her eyes she looked right into Mama’s face and said to her, that’s child abuse. Mama got so mad! She said it ain’t child abuse when the kid tries to burn the d— house down. Then she said if anybody thinks she’s abusin’ her kids then they can just take ‘em off her hands and raise ‘em themselves! She said we was drivin’ her crazy anyways.
Aint Ruby told her that the State could take us away and that Mama could be put in jail. I started cryin’ then because I remembered what Mama says about the State. About how they would give us to strangers who wouldn’t think twice about really hurtin’ us. And I thought about Mama cryin’ all alone in jail and it made me hurt so bad inside. Mama started cryin’ too and talkin’ about how she does the best she can and Aint Ruby hugged her for a long time, way longer than she hugged Phil so he pulled his pants up and went outside.
Big people are way more important than little kids.
