Take Me to Church

- four

I struggled to hold in all she told me.

It felt like I was listenin' to that old crone again, with the way she told her life to me. It weren't nothin' boring, either, which made me want to remember it all. But I couldn't hold it all in, not when I heard some of the horrible stuff she had to go through. So when she offered to take me out for some sweet tea and popsicles, I felt honored. She was, after all, like some kind of walkin' royalty to me now.

Sittin' on the steps of the store, same one she found me in front of the day before, I looked out over the town. I caught gazes and stares, like I was some kind of exhibit at one of them zoo things. They'd turn their lips up in disgust and then mutter among themselves before pointing until they noticed I was starin' back. Then they smiled like they wasn' jus' sayin' something rude about me and go on with their business.

I'd wondered how it'd felt when I'd catch glimpses of all the injustices in places on tv. Unarmed black children bein' shot dead for walkin' home; I figured they must have had it ten times worse than this. I ain't ever seen no one with skin darker than mine until Rivka, so I must have stared real hard at her to start. Like she was something else, some new animal to study. But that weren't right, I know now. She was a queen. The chill of the popsicle sliding down my fingers made me lick up a stripe of the syrupy liquid, just missing the clink of the bicycle headed towards me.

The boy on it had dark hair that did a weird swoop upwards, like he got his head licked by a cow. His face was scrunched up and he was sweatin' buckets. He must have been struggling to breathe, too, because he was hunched over on the bike and hardly sayin' nothin' when he stopped in front of me. I stared until he looked up, having caught his breath.

"Excuse me, you wouldn't happen to know where the library is, would you," he asked, his voice soft.

I didn't know the answer to that. I hardly knew what a library was 'posed to look like. I s'pected if I asked one of them old ladies starin' at us, they'd know. But I don't think they was willing to tell me 'long as I was with this boy. My own brows scrunched up as I tried to think of somethin' to say to him.

"Don' know," I replied, coming up with nothin'.

"Oh," he sighed.

He kicked off his bike, knocking out the little stand for it to rest against the railing by the steps. He gestured to the open space on the steps. I was guessin' he wanted to take a seat, so I nodded and he did. Closer to him now, I saw that he had eyes as brown as the backs of the gators in Rivka's swamp. They shone a bit against his face, reddened from all that effort he must have put in on that bike. He turned his face and I turned away, suddenly real interested in my popsicle. I could see his wide, teeth-bearin' smile from the corner of my eye and my gut dropped like an apple from a tree.

I didn't know what this feelin' was but I didn't like it. I just wanted to eat my popsicle and not roast in the afternoon sun. I bit angrily into the ice cold treat, the chill sinking so deep into my gums it stung.

"I'm Max," he said, holding out his hand to me.

I eyed it for a moment, a little surprised. Ain't never shook a boy's hand before; not while I was with Mama. "Alma," I said, not taking it.

"That's a pretty name," he remarked, droppin' his hand. I thought for a moment his face had gotten even redder, but I think it was just the light.

I didn't say nothing in reply, just bit into the popsicle again. I couldn't think of nothin' to ask, either, so a silence sat between us for a little bit. I heard Xerxes mew from somewhere above me but didn't look up, afraid my face would be just as red as Max's. Aside from that, I could hardly string words together with the heat, the boy beside me, and the popsicle in my hand. I was meltin' away in my own little world when he tried again.