Letter to My Daughter (2 page)

Revelations

It had to be the days of Revelations. The days John the revelator prophesied. The earth shuddered as trains thundered up and down in its black belly. Private cars, taxis, buses, surface trains, trucks, delivery vans, cement mixers, delivery carts, bicycles, and skates occupied the air with honks, toots, roars, thuds, screams, and whistles, until the very air seemed thick and lumpy like bad gravy.

People from everywhere, speaking every known language had come to town to watch the end and the beginning of the world.

I wanted to forget about the enormity of the day so, I went to the Fillmore Street 5 & Dime store. It was an acre-wide shop where dreams hung on plastic stands. I had walked up and down its aisles a thousand times over. I knew its seductive magic. From the nylon slips with cardboard tits to the cosmetic counter where lipsticks and nail polish were pink and red and green and blue fruits fallen from a rainbow tree.

That was the city, when I was sixteen and brand new like daybreak.

The day was so important I could hardly breathe.

A boy who lived up the street from me had been asking me to be intimate with him. I had refused for months. He was not my boyfriend. We were not even dating.

It was during that time that I noticed my body’s betrayal. My voice became deep and husky, and my naked image in the mirror gave no intimations that it would ever become feminine and curvy.

I was already six feet tall and had no breasts. I thought maybe if I had sex my recalcitrant body would grow up and behave as it was supposed to behave.

That morning the boy had telephoned and I told him yes. He gave me an address and said he would meet me there at 8:00 o’clock. I said yes.

A friend had lent him his apartment. From the moment I saw him at the door I knew I had made the wrong choice. There were no endearments spoken, no warm caresses shared.

He showed me to a bedroom, where we both undressed. The fumbling engagement lasted fifteen minutes, and I had my clothes on and was at the front door.

I don’t remember if we said goodbye.

I do remember walking down the street, wondering was that all there was and how much I wanted a long soaking bath. I did get the bath and that was not all there was.

Nine months later, I had a beautiful baby boy. The birth of my son caused me to develop enough courage to invent my life.

I learned to love my son without wanting to possess him and I learned how to teach him to teach himself.

Today, over forty years later, when I look at him and see the wonderful man he has become, the loving husband and father, the good poet and fine novelist, the responsible citizen and the world’s greatest son, I thank the Creator that he was given to me. The Revelation is that day, so long ago, was the greatest day of my life—
Hallelujah!

Giving Birth

My brother Bailey told me to keep my pregnancy a secret from my mother. He said she would take me out of school. I was very close to graduating. Bailey said I had to have a high school diploma before mother returned to San Francisco from the nightclub she and her husband owned in Nome, Alaska.

I received my diploma on V-day which was also my stepfather’s birthday. He had patted me on the shoulder that morning and said, “You are growing up and you are becoming a fine young woman.” I thought to myself I should, I am eight months and one week pregnant.

After a salutary dinner celebrating his birthday, my graduation, and a national victory, I left a note on his pillow saying, “Dad, I am sorry to bring disgrace to the family, but I have to tell you that I am pregnant.” I didn’t sleep that night.

I heard my dad go to his room about 3:00
A.M.
When he didn’t knock on my door immediately, I puzzled over whether he had seen and read the note. There would be no sleep for me that night.

At 8:30 in the morning he spoke at my door.

He said, “Baby, come down and have coffee with me, by the way—I got your note.”

The sound of him walking away was not nearly as loud as the sound of my heart racing. Downstairs at the table he said, “I’m going to call your mother. How far along are you?”

I said, “I have three weeks.”

He smiled. “I’m sure your mother will be here today.”

Nervous and frightened are not words which even barely describe how I was feeling.

Before nightfall my pretty little mother walked into the house. She gave me a kiss then looked at me. “You’re more than any three weeks pregnant.”

I said, “No ma’am, I’m eight months and one week pregnant.” She asked, “Who is the boy?” I told her.

She asked, “Do you love him?”

I said, “No.”

“Does he love you?”

I said, “No, he’s the only person with whom I had sex and we were together only one time.”

My mother said, “There is no reason to ruin three lives; our family is going to have a wonderful baby.”

She was a registered nurse so when I began labor she shaved me, powdered me and took me to the hospital. The doctor had not arrived. Mother introduced herself to the nurses and said as a nurse herself, she was going to help with the delivery.

She crawled up on the delivery table with me and had me bend my legs. She put her shoulder against my knee and told me dirty stories. When the pains came she told me the punch line of the stories and as I laughed, she told me, “Bear down.”

When the baby started coming, my little mother jumped off the table and seeing him emerge, she shouted, “Here he comes and he has black hair.” I wondered what color she thought he might have.

When the baby was delivered, my mother caught him. She and the other nurses cleaned him, wrapped him in a blanket and she brought him to me. “Here my baby, here’s your beautiful baby.”

My dad said when she returned home, she was so tired, she looked as if she had given birth to quintuplets.

She was so proud of her grandson and proud of me. I never had to spend one minute regretting giving birth to a child who had a devoted family led by a fearless, doting, and glorious grandmother. So I became proud of myself.

Accident, Coincident, or Answered Prayer

His name was Mark. He was tall and well built. If good looks were horses, he could seat the entire Royal Canadian Mounties. Mark was inspired by Joe Louis. He left Texas, where he was born and found work in Detroit. There he intended to make enough money to find a trainer and become a professional boxer.

A machine in the automotive plant cut three fingers off his right hand and his dream perished. When I met him he told me the story and explained why he was known as Two Finger Mark. He did not show any rancor about his dreams deferred. He spoke softly to me and often paid for a babysitter so that I could visit him in his rented room. He was an ideal suitor. He was a lover with a slow hand. I felt absolutely safe and secure.

After a few months of his tender attention, he picked me up one night from my job and said he was taking me out to Half Moon Bay.

He parked on a cliff and through the windows I saw the moonlight silver on the rippling water.

I got out of the car and when he said, “Come over here,” I went immediately.

He said, “You’ve got another man, and you’ve been lying to me.” I started to laugh. I was still laughing when he hit me. Before I could breathe he had hit me in the face with both fists. I did see stars before I fell.

When I came to he had removed most of my clothes and leaned me against an outcropping of rock. He had a large wooden slat in his hand and he was crying.

“I treated you so well, and you lousy cheat, low-down woman.” I tried to walk to him but my legs would not support me. Then he hit the back of my head with the board. I passed out. Each time I came to, I saw that he continued to cry and to beat me and I continued to pass out.

I must depend on hearsay for the events of the next few hours.

Mark put me into the backseat of his car and drove to the African American area in San Francisco. He parked in front of Betty Lou’s Chicken Shack and called some hangers-around and showed me to them.

“This is what you do with a lying cheating broad.”

They recognized me and returned to the restaurant. They told Miss Betty Lou that Mark had Vivian’s daughter in the back of his car and she looks dead.

Miss Betty Lou and my mother were close friends. Betty Lou phoned my mother.

No one knew where he lived or worked or even his last name.

Because of the pool halls and gambling clubs my mother owned, and the police contacts Miss Betty Lou had, they expected to find Mark quickly.

My mother was close with the leading bail bondsman in San Francisco. So she telephoned him. Boyd Pucinelli had no Mark or Two Finger Mark in his files.

He promised Vivian he would continue to search.

I awakened to find I was in a bed and I was sore all over. It hurt to breathe, to try to speak. Mark said that was because I had broken ribs. My lips had been speared by my teeth.

He started to cry, saying he loved me. He brought a double-edged razor blade and put it to his throat.

“I’m not worth living, I should kill myself.”

I had no voice to discourage him. He quickly put the razor blade on my throat.

“I can’t leave you here for some other Negro to have you.” Speaking was impossible and breathing was painful.

Suddenly he changed his mind.

“You haven’t eaten for three days. I’ve got to get you some juice. Do you like pineapple juice and orange juice? Just nod your head.”

I didn’t know what to do. What would send him off?

“I’m going to the corner store to get you some juice. I’m sorry that I hurt you. When I come back, I’m going to nurse you back to health, full health, I promise.”

I watched him leave.

Only then, did I recognize that I was in his room, where I had been often. I knew his landlady lived on the same floor and I thought that if I could get her attention, she would help me. I inhaled as much air as I could take and tried to shout, but no sounds would come. The pain of trying to sit up was so extreme, that I tried only once.

I knew where he put the razor blade. If I could get it, at least I could take my own life and he would be prevented from gloating that he killed me.

I began to pray.

I passed in and out of prayer, in and out of consciousness and then I heard shouting down the hall. I heard my mother’s voice.

“Break it down. Break the son of a bitch down. My baby’s in there.” Wood groaned then splintered and the door gave way and my little mother walked through the opening. She saw me and fainted. Later she told me that was the only time in her life she had done so.

The sight of my face swollen twice its size and my teeth stuck into my lips was more than she could stand. So she fell. Three huge men followed her into the room. Two picked her up and she came to in their arms groggily. They brought her to my bed.

“Baby, baby, I’m so sorry.” Each time she touched me, I flinched. “Call for an ambulance. I’ll kill the bastard. I’m sorry.”

She felt guilty like all mothers who blamed themselves when terrible events happen to their children.

I could not speak or even touch her but I have never loved her more than at that moment in that suffocating stinking room.

She patted my face and stroked my arm.

“Baby, somebody’s prayers were answered. No one knew how to find Mark, even Boyd Pucinelli. But Mark went to a mom-and-pop store to buy juice and two kids robbed a tobacco vendor’s truck.” She continued telling her story.

“When a police car turned the corner, the young boys threw the cartons of cigarettes in Mark’s car. When he tried to get into his car, the police arrested him. They didn’t believe his cries of innocence, so they took him to jail. He used his one phone call to telephone Boyd Pucinelli. Boyd answered the phone.”

Mark said, “My name is Mark Jones, I live on Oak Street. I don’t have money with me now, but my landlady is holding a lot of my money. If you call her she will come down and bring whatever you charge.”

Boyd asked, “What is your street name?” Mark said, “I’m called Two Finger Mark.” Boyd hung up and called my mother, giving her Mark’s address. He asked if she would call the police. She said, “No I’m going to my pool hall and get some roughnecks then I’m going to get my daughter.”

She said when she arrived at Mark’s house his landlady said she didn’t know any Mark and anyway he hadn’t been home for days.

Mother said maybe not, but she was looking for her daughter and she was in that house in Mark’s room. Mother asked for Mark’s room. The landlady said he keeps his door locked. My mother said, “It will open today.” The landlady threatened to call the police, my mother said, “You can call for the cook, call for the baker, you may as well call for the undertaker.”

When the woman pointed out Mark’s room, my mother said to her helpers, “Break it down, break the son of a bitch down.”

In the hospital room I thought about the two young criminals, who threw stolen cigarette cartons into a stranger’s car. When he was arrested he called Boyd Pucinelli, who called my mother, who gathered three of the most daring men from her pool hall.

They broke down the door of the room where I was being held. My life was saved. Was that event incident, coincident, accident, or answered prayer?

I believe my prayers were answered.