The Mimosa Tree

The Mimosa Tree was LiNCOLN PARK's very first completed story. The abrasive language was sanitized and it was entered in an EBONY Magazine short story contest. Then, it became the first story in the collection known as, Sculptured Nails and NAPPY HAiR. Enjoy!)

THE MIMOSA TREE

I

"Happy birthday, Maddi," said my Daddy as he watched his ten year old test drive her new cassette-radio. It was the perfect gift for the green-eyed kid who knew every instrumental break to every song played on the air for the past eleven months; all without owning a single record.

"Thanks. I love you, Daddy. You cominn' back soon?"

He answered quickly, because Mr. Clyde, his bid whist buddy was fidgeting in the back seat of their puttering car.

"I'll be back soon. I promise, Maddi. Here's ten dollars. Tell your mom to get you the Pro-Keds or Converses or whatever those shoes were that you said you wanted. You wanted new sneakers, right?"

"Yup."

When Daddy closed the door, that was the end of our relationship. What a liar. Instead of coming back to see my sister, Chandra and I, Richmond Charles Lee (the only man in my life at the time besides my gym teacher) ran off to the Blue Ridge Mountains with some nineteenish hot-to-Trotsky; only to discover that he was unable to keep his footloose up with her fancy-free. So, upon issuance of a Divine warrant, Daddy's cardiac proceeded to arrest, arraign, indict, try, convict and sentence him to death on December Tenth, 1974. Maybe, I thought, if he'd stayed with us when his cardiac arrested him, he'd only be serving probation today. I can't seem to remember a time when capital punishment was the law in New York State.

After the rigomorolis of seeing her (pompous) in-laws at her husband's funeral had set in , my Mommy took her new position in society with the same stride she had taken the new society with. Becoming a widow and being forced to take a second job (as a barmaid, of all things) was right in line with Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and the women's liberation movement; Ralph Nader and the consumer advocacy brigade; Angela Davis; Assata Shakur (Joanne Chesimard) and the Black Panthers; along with the 'Death to J. Edgar Hoover' and 'Aluta Continua' (The Struggle Continues) buttons everybody was wearing - and the countless offers to become 'kept' by the wide selection of married vermin in the area.

Mommy got an evening job tending bar at the watering hole down the street to cover her home owning incidentals like food, water and oil. Every smidgen of the pittance she was thrown by her main employer, the Board of Education, had to go towards the mortgage. Once in a while, she could squeeze enough out of her financial stone to take her babies to an African crafts fair; or to a more spectacular event like Dance Africa - at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. If nothing else, Suzette Hopkinson Lee took pride in the fact that her children had their own bedrooms on a tree-lined street in Queens and were culturally aware.

"Why are you eating your cereal without any milk, Madelyn?"

"Beecuzz, Mommy. You put that powdery stuff in it and you never did that before."

"Oh, I see. Since you're so smart, how do you know whether I put powdery stuff in it or not?"

It always took my seven-year-old headache, Chandra, to butt into the conversation and get the ball wrecking.

"Because it tastes nastee!"

"Nasty - " Mommy began to scream in my direction, no doubt, " - what about your messy-behind room, Maddi - now, that's nasty! Clothes and shoes every gotdam where... get upstairs outa my face if you can't drink the milk I buy!"