Excerpt from “Nothing Straight”, an unpublished novel
Steve opened the back door of his childhood home—he still had a key—and walked into the kitchen.
“Mom? You home? Mom?”
Olivia’s voice echoed from the basement: “Be up in a minute, cher!”
He had seldom visited his family since he graduated from college and started working full time. There was little love lost between him, the black sheep, and most of them. He had grown up often being lost in the shuffle of nine souls living in one small house. Any notice he received tended to be annoyance, and early in his life he understood that he was considered by all to be a bit of a nuisance. So as his siblings moved out of the house, starting their own families, he saw little of them. For a while they all made efforts to meet at Christmas, but for the last several years Steve was skipping the Christmas gatherings. He wished them no ill, mind—he simply didn’t care to see them.
Two years ago his father died of complications of long neglected Type 2 Diabetes. His mom insisted that the cause was Frank Jr.’s suicide the previous year; that when the apple of his eye, his eldest son and namesake snuffed out his own life, Frank simply lost the will to live. No doubt, cigarettes, alcohol and a diet laden with starch and saturated fat were the primary causes, but it seems there was some measure of truth in Olivia’s claim. After Frank Jr. killed himself, it was as though Frank Sr. had abruptly shrivelled up.
Now Olivia lived alone. The house that for years had been too small, was too big. She was no longer cleaning offices at night. To supplement her Social Security, she worked a few hours per week cashiering in a grocery store. When the weather was suitable she puttered in her garden. She spent much of her time doing volunteer work for her local church—cleaning, laundering and ironing altar linens, working various fundraisers. After a life spent being busy, she didn’t know how to stop being busy.
After his father died, Steve started to visit her occasionally, about once a month or so, typically on Saturday mornings. He wanted to establish the connection they never had when he was a child, and she welcomed the overture. They would sit at her kitchen table with coffee and cookies or bread and jam, and talk for two or three hours, sharing gossip, some laughs, some reminiscences. They had both come to cherish these visits.
She came up the basement stairs, into the kitchen, slightly winded. “Just doin’ some laundry”, she said. They embraced and kissed.
“Good to see ya, Stevie.”
“You too, Mom.”
“Coffee’s fresh. Help yourself. I’ll get you a slice of sweet potato pie.”
“Goddamn! Sweet potato pie? This is my lucky day!”
“Don’t cuss, cher. Got almost a whole pie left from last night… Mary and Dave and the kids were here for dinner. You can take what’s left home with you.”
Steve sat at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee while Olivia set a slice of pie and a fork in front of him. She began to fill a plate with an assortment of cookies.
“I got a lotta leftover jambalaya too. I’ll send ya home with some of that. Always tastes better leftover.”
“Thanks. I sure as hell can’t say no. Goddamn, Mom. It’s a good thing I’m not here every day. I’d weigh a thousand pounds.”
“If you were here every day, I wouldn’t spoil you like this. An’ I told you, don’t cuss.”
She placed the plate of cookies in front of him and sat across the table from him—slowly, sighing, settling her tired bones in the chair—and sipped her coffee.
“Wish you were here last night, Stevie. An’ I wish you’d see more of your family. The few times you lay eyes on your nieces an’ nephews, they don’t even know ya. That ain’t right, cher.”
“They don’t need me, Mom. I don’t matter to the kids, and my brothers and sisters don’t miss me… and I don’t miss them. Oh we get along OK when we do meet… and maybe we get along better because we don’t meet all that often, ya know? But really, we’re fine the way things are right now.”
“Ain’t right, cher.”
“Well, it is what it is. Anyway, it’s not the biggest problem in my life, that’s for sure.” He put his fork down, and bowed his head slightly, his brow furrowed. She gave his hand a slight squeeze.
“What is it Stevie? Tell me what’s troublin’ ya, cher.”
“Uh… it’s hard to put into words. It’s not just one thing. Or a list of things… it’s just, like… well… it’s everything. It’s like everything I do goes bad. Y’know? Every time I start to feel comfortable and confident about how things are going, it turns out that I got it all wrong. That I was screwing up without even knowing I was screwing up.”
He paused, rubbed his eyes, took a gulp of coffee, gathered his thoughts and continued.
“And the worst thing is that people judge me without knowing me. That’s always happening to me. It’s like they just look at me and they see trouble. I never get the benefit of a doubt. Never. It’s hard for me to fit into this world.”
“I know that feeling, cher. An’ a big part of it’s about your color. You an’ me, we have the same skin and hair… but you got your dad’s eyes, an’ a nose that’s somewhere in between. Anyway, I’ve lived with that all my life, so I sure know what you’re goin’ through… you and me, we ain’t Black or White. And a lot of Black folks and a lot of White folks are quick to say, ‘Get outta here. You ain’t one of us’.”
“Yeah. I run into that a lot.”
“But I know that ain’t the half of it, Stevie. It’s your heart, too. It’s your head. You see things in a different way than most other folks. An’ because they don’t see things the way you see them, they think… well, you’re kinda ‘touched’.” She tapped her temple with a forefinger. “An’ that makes ‘em afraid. They don’t understand you, and that makes ‘em think they can’t trust you. People just don’t trust people they don’t understand. But they don’t get that you bein’ touched means that God reached down from Heaven an’ put his finger on you. I know that makes life real hard for you,—bein’ touched—that’s for sure. Lord gave you a heavy cross to bear. But when God touches people, it’s a blessing. Never forget that. Never. You, with your special soul, with your art… you’re makin’ this world better, more beautiful for everyone.”
They were both quite for a moment. She continued: “Your father, he was that way. Like those other people. He always thought you were kinda crazy.”
“I know.”
“But he was a good man, mind ya. A good man. An’ I love him with all my heart, an’ I miss him every minute of every day, an’ I’ll be missin’ him on my deathbed. But he didn’t understand your soul. But still, he loved you just the same. He always wanted the best for you, an’ for all his kids. Don’t judge him hard, Stevie. Please don’t.”
“Yeah.’
Her eyes began to water. “An’ me? …I feel guilty now that I wasn’t there enough for you, cher, when you were just a child and most needed lovin’ and comfortin’. An’ I wasn’t patient enough with you, and you needed extra patience. Children need love an’ comfort more than grownups. Childhood is the most important time of life, and a mama’s love and comfort is as important to a child as his mama’s milk. An’ sometimes I wake up in the middle o’ the night, an’ cry thinkin’ that I didn’t give you all the love an’ comfort an’ patience you needed back then when you needed it most.”
He gathered her hands into his, held them tightly, and kissed them. “You did alright, Mom. Really. I always knew you had a lot of worries and responsibilities, and a lot of work to do, but I always knew you were doing the best you could by me.… and believe me, I always understood that, even when I was just a kid. I really did. And I’ve always loved you for that.”
