MARCH 1997
How I Made the World Safe for Democracy
by Mary F. Chen-Johnson
Lil
Sis was born of immaculate conception. That's what she'd have you believe.
I was there the whole time and it was anything but. Momma'd trailed home
one of those Navy boys on spree and nudged me toward the couch before locking
me out of our bedroom. He had a sweat stain the shape of Florida across
his lower back and his shoes tended toward the outside on account of his
bowlegged, springy walk. That night it sounded like a dog fight behind the
door. Growls, crashing, yelps. The next morning when he left, the sweat
stain was gone but the shoes still slanted. I looked in and Momma was asleep,
buck undone, with every corner of the sheet off the bed. When I got home
from school that day, the bed was fixed and Momma acted like she didn't
know what sailor man I was talking about.
So Momma ballooned, sent
me to Aunt Dee's for a week and when I got back, there was Lil Sis. Purple
and squinty like something stuck and not ashamed of it. Momma pulled back
the quilt to show me that twisted foot of Lil Sis. She kissed it and acted
like that club foot was something life or death. And Lil Sis, she's been
milking it ever since.
Whew, I will say, she's
got smarts. Evil and brains don't have to be oil and water. Lil Sis, she
used both to break me and Monkey Boy up. I tell anyone caring that she began
her deed that spring I finished high school, after Monkey Boy gave me the
ring. Now I see it was all laid down way before. Way back, when I first
looked down into her box bed, she hissed. Momma took her side, course, and
said it was gurgling, sister love. I swore to High Wajoma she'd curled her
lips and hissed something nasty. I got the back of Momma's hand for thatthe
other hand cupped Lil Sis' cheek while the baby sucked on Momma's thumb.
That was Lil Sis' way of giving me a taste of what was to come.
We ran outta boxes big
enough when Lil Sis turned five so she moved up on the bed. Momma slept
on the side to the wall, arms crossed over her head like it was raining.
I slept out, face cooling from the slips of breeze from the window. Soon
as Lil Sis got to the bed, she pointed to my edge. I closed my eyes. Momma
was already whistling through her nose. The next day, we had to dry out
the mattress on the fire escape.
"No matter,"
Momma was saying to Lil Sis as the child curled to the side of the couch.
Momma was stroking her like some pup, fingers riding over the hair. "I
know you didn't mean it, Sissy. No matter. Just an accident."
That night, Lil Sis was
already lying on my side when I got there. Then, she was bare more than
skin and bones so scooching her over was easy. I had to help Momma haul
the mattress out again the next day.
"Poor Sissy. Something
must be worrying her." Momma was peeling potatoes and handing them
to me to rinse, in between my dishwashing. "She never used to wet."
I'd finished washing
before she got through the third potato. It was easy since we only had five
plates. I didn't even have my hands dried when Momma set in again.
"Mona, see. Sissy
can't move so well with that dis-a-bil-i-ty." She was tasting each
syllable before spitting it my way. "Maybe she can't get to the toilet
in time, wedged in between us like she is." Momma was looking at me
long but I made myself busy with drying.
Momma was awake when
I got ready for bed. Lil Sis was done spread on my edge. Momma didn't turn
over and cover her head till I laid down in the middle. I didn't sleep and
couldn't near move in there. Whistling on one side and heat on the other
from that spare body of Lil Sis instead of the breeze that cooled me down.
I never liked it but
learned to have to. The bed stayed dry and things became set. "That's
all it was," Momma explained. "All it was."
By then, I was wearing
Momma's hand-me-downs. Pumps with the shine all gone. Thick pins belting
a skirt, sticking into my waist. Lil Sis always got polished shoes from
Kinney'stwo pairs at one shopping since the twist needed more space
and a bigger size. And real Wrangler's to ride low on the bigger shoe. Never
any money left for even a lipstick after Lil Sis' needs got taken cared
of.
Then there was Monkey
Boy. I didn't share the him and me with anyone for a long time to keep that
store-bought feeling. The got - something - going - home - with - something
- girl - all - mine feeling. He claimed me at the Christmas Pageant Dance.
Busted in between Carlos Wong Smith and me slow dancing to "Dream"
and kept me to himself the rest of the night. By spring, we'd done some
messing around and he'd made a whole lot of words to me laying across Cuz
Robbie's hammock behind the school bus depot. We spent hours in that fishnet,
tracing each other's faces, blowing root beer breath. At the Senior's Ball,
he made it official. I came into the kitchen afterward and showed Momma
the ring and Monkey Boy. She chuckled as she patted my hand. Then, the oh
so sweet timing of Lil Sis as she stumped in for waterhair on
the fly and clothes on the loose from sleep. Even then, fresh outta primer
school, Lil Sis had shape to her and the thin, opening pajamas did a fine
job of showing. She gave her little cat yip and made big theater of closing
up her top. Momma made some cute remark, introducing my Monkey Boy to Lil
Sis as her new big brother. It was supposed to be my night so I didn't have
the time to 'spect my own Lil Sis.
I started working at
Panalise's, unpacking greens and spraying down plums so they'd look shiny
while Monkey Boy kept up his bit at the Chevron. I piled oranges even and
high like I was laying a house. Each new row, I figured I was that much
closer to a new pan or maybe even a secondhand Singer sewer for when Monkey
Boy and me got our place. Then, Monkey Boy got laid off part-time so he
took to lazing around the apartment when the sun was high. Momma says she's
the one asked Monkey Boy to start taking Lil Sis down to the park for air,
but Lil Sis had her way of planting seeds and Momma thinking all her doings
were homegrown.
Monkey Boy'd drop me
off at Panalise's on his way to the Chevron, then take Lil Sis to the park
in the afternoon and pick me up on the return. At first, he was right on.
That Monkey Boy, he's not the cleanest, but he's good with time. Then, it
was a minute or two late, then thirty, forty. Lost track, low tiresMonkey
Boy always had a say ready. That last time, he was a full forty-five minutes
late and the both of them was soaked through. Lil Sis was sitting in the
back seat looking down and panting, her clothes so wet I could see every
bit of them dark nipples. And Monkey Boy, laughing like a fool about the
fire hydrant, the cool, the fun. Back home, he flew to open her door wide,
lifting her out into the world while she stumbled and leaned before walking.
I told Momma that night Lil Sis had to wear a brassiere. And Monkey Boy,
it didn't look proper for an engaged MAN to be parading with a wet, seen-through GIRL, did it?
"Geezus, Mona, it
was hot and the girl was hot and so was I if you care to know and the water
was there and cool."
I didn't care. Not to
hear any seeds from Lil Sis spurting from Monkey Boy's or Momma's mouth.
But everyone was acting like I should care while Lil Sis dragged around
the house as if linoleum made her moving a hardship. Then, filling their
plates with fuller mounds of mashed potato. Slipping me the chili with the
unmelted hunks of cayenne and bitter peppercorns. Later, dragging that big
foot like she didn't know better, giggling when Monkey Boy kicked a fallen
napkin out from fronta her. When Monkey Boy told about some magician with
a purple satin cape pulling pigeons outta a lady's ear, the two bowed their
heads to laugh while she kept that big foot propped out like it was too
heavy to move when I had to get by.
So. Who could blame me
when I tried to saw that foot off? I couldn't stand to hear any more about
the magician and took myself to bed. Laying there, I waited for the big
sink of Momma and the little one of Lil Sis but it never came. I waited
till I had to get up. Lil Sis still sat on the couch with Momma on one side
and Monkey Boy on the other. All asleep, with the two heads drooping down
toward the middle, toward Lil Sis. Each had a hand draped over Lil Sis'
belly like they were warming their fingers front a stove. And then, Lil
Sis opened her eyes just a slip and flashed those black stones, kept those
stones on me as she pulled Momma's thumb till the big hand slid off her
belly, then pulled Monkey Boy's thumb till his hand was off her, too. She
yawned, smoothing down her dress, then closed her eyes. Whole time, that
club foot propped on a stool like some museum piece between me and them.
I don't remember running
into the kitchen for the big turkey knife or gliding the blade back and
forth on the ankle, right above where the twist began. Or if it was me or
Lil Sis screaming thin and sharp like green asparagus. I didn't feel hitting
the wall where Monkey Boy threw me and Momma pressed me against. I just
remember Lil Sis, curling her lip and straightening that bloody foot for
a bare moment before dropping it back to the inside and letting her head
flop.
© The Raven Chronicles 1997