Certain days ought to come with warning notices. WARNING: This day will be hazardous to your health. Instead, most day start out normal. Maybe even better than normal.
Which is so much worse.
~
I woke up feeling good. It was Thursday, and that meant choir practice. More than anything, I wanted to be a great singer. Not a rock store, but a singer who changed the world with my voice, like Nina Simone, Whitney Houston, Adel, Mahalia Jackson. I wanted my music to make people stop in their tracks.
Of course, seeing as I was only twelve and Forester, that was a universe away, but if my voice teacher, Ms. Marion, I taught me anything, it was that even the most unlikely person could succeed.
"Didn't the great Mahalia grow up in a house right here in New Orleans with thirteen people under one roof?"she said. "Didn't she have to leave school in the fourth grade because her family couldn't afford to send her anymore? If a black girl could rise up in the early 1900s when everything was against her, then a skinny little white girl like you hasn't got any excuse."
So I kept one of those tear-off calendars beside my bed in the last thing I did every night was to rip off that day's page. It was a dumb calendar with facts about cars from a box of leftovers Ma hadn't been able to sell online, but that hardly mattered. All I wanted was the pleasure of crumbling of every day of the week that wasn't Thursday.
I set up that morning and ran my fingers through my sick, tangled hair, and then I started a hum to warm up my vocal cords. Ms. Marion what is a stickler about warming up properly.
Lazy singers never last.
Through the security bars on my window, I could see that the sky was full of clouds, ready to burst. The ominous streaks of gray might have been assigned, except in New Orleans so I'm can come and go in ten minutes flat--especially in June.
I got up and made my way into the shower, turning the water up hot and letting the spray scald my skin as I belted out the lead line of the gospel song my choir was practicing.
The Rainbow Choir was a course of kids made up every race, color, and creed, and we were supposed to inspire a sense of community in our audiences. At least, that was Ms. Marion's vision. Me and my best friend, Keisha, had been founding members back when we were nine, but in the past 3 years, I wasn't sure we'd done any inspiring.
Still gave me an excuse to sing.
Ma and I live in a rickety old shotgun house outside the Irish Channel. Or rooms were close together, so I was thankful Mama slept like the dead. Nothing woke her up--not even my powerful alto voice--so I could sing as loud as I wanted and let the acoustics in the bathroom carry the sound up to the ceiling.
I stepped out of the shower on to the gritty bare floor. New Orleans is hot as blazes in the summer, and I already felt sticky again--not a good sign this early in the day. I wished for the thousandth time that we had and air-conditioning, but I propped open the bathroom window instead, hoping a breeze might come my way.
Nothing moved, outside or in.
I dressed, brush my teeth, then push past the clutter to my bedroom. Ma's main job was as a baker at the Winn-Dixie Tchoupitoulas, but as a side job she sold people's unwanted stuff online, and that meant our house was always chock-full of empty boxes, bubble wrap, foam peanuts, and random items like angel figurines, antique toys, or prom dresses that had gone out of style. Ma figured out how much they were worth, put them up for auction, and if they sold, she got a percentage. It is stuff didn't sell, half the time it ended up staying here.
Ma's bedroom is at the end of the house, so I had to step over a dozen puzzles and dusty Xbox games in order to peek inside. She was asleep on the oversized bed, and her uniform from the previous night's late shift had been dropped where is she taking it off. A McDonald's hamburger wrapper and half a tub of fries lay on a chair where several small cockroaches with feasting on the remains.
Cockroaches gave me the creeps, so I set Ma's garbage pail next to the chair and took out our shoe-on-a-stick, then quickly push the whole mess into the bin before they cockroaches could Scamper away I tied up the garbage bag extra tight, wanting to retch, but I choked the feeling down.
For a moment, I stood watching Ma's thin frame rise and fall with sleep. Ma looked peaceful with her auburn hair spreaf loose across her pillow, but she'd had more than her share of troubles, and if anything else came her way, I suspected she'd crumble like the plaster on the stairs of the new Heaven Baptist Church. Those steps had look fine, right up until two giant slabs fell off the side, revealing the twisted metal bars underneath.
I covered Ma with a blanket and kissed her cheek, went outside to practice my vocal exercises on the front stoop, knowing it would be a long wait for choir.
I was right. It took half of forever and a quarter of eternity.
What I didn't know was that the whole time I was waiting, trouble was creeping up, and it was the kind of trouble that would leave me and Ma swirling in its wake.
Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Pieces of Why.
Make sure you check out daily to see chapter 2! Anyways, make sure to like this and comment what you think of it. Bye everyone!
