Educational Experience

Chapter Thirty-four

34.

I get off the helo and the Hummer’s there, right? And out steps Big Man, grinning from ear to ear.

So I go, “Dude! You’re on vacation!”

And he goes, “How am I supposed to enjoy bein’ on vacation when all hell’s broke loose over here?”

We hugged like we hadn’t seen each other since the turn of the century or something. And then he shoved me upside the head.

“Lil mannish boy--knew I shouldna gone in the first place,” he told me.

“I bet your mama’s pissed, in’ she?”

“Oh, I wouldn’ get too close to her New Year’s Eve, me, that’s for sure,” he said, as he walked around to open the car door for me. “But it was too quiet over home for me. All them old biddies sittin’ around talkin’ about the same thing all day long. What hurts, who died…”

I laughed because I had met his mother, aunts and their friends a couple of times. They were old black women who’d seen it all, been through the whole migration and then some. You walked in the door and they all gave you the stink eye for a minute, trying to decide what they needed to set you straight about physically even before you introduced yourself.

“Y’all out early today,” one of them said to my girls. “I din’ think y’all started walkin’ up’n’ down ‘til ‘way late at night—don’t they look like them girls be out there on the corner in them lil bitty skirts?”

Oooooo boy, you can bet I had to cover Aisha’s mouth, because she got that chicken head thing goin’ right quick—and I didn’t get there fast enough to stop her before she hit ‘em with:

“Who the hell this Crypt Keeper lookin’ bitch think she talkin’ to!?”

But I do believe that toned things down a bit. The next few comments were about how “stacked” they were. And Aisha’s “Indian lookin’ hair.” Aisha never did forgive them that first comment, though. She’ll tell Big Man in a minute that she “din appreciate none o’ that shit they was tryin’a put on us.”

And Big Man said the old ladies told everyone they backed off “’cause that Indian lookin’ one mighta went to cuttin’ people” if they hadn’t. Which…was…sort of true. I don’t know about cutting, but Aisha’ll slap a bitch, that’s for sure. Not a real old one, of course, but they didn’t know that.

And of course, all the men were down with the girls big time. Hell, we had damned near every man in the neighborhood cruisin’ by that house day and night, hoping the see a leg or a tit falling out of something. Their wives brought that on themselves, saying how they didn’t hardly wear any clothes. A man’s naturally going to have to go check that out, right?

Big Man looked more rested than he probably wanted to let on he was, though. They spoil him, those women. All he has to do is get up and sit down at the table. Food just flies out of the kitchen and onto the table and his plate. And if he yawns, they damned near carry him over to the old easy chair his dad used to use and tell him to just sit down and rest, “’cause you works yourself half to death for that boy!”

But “that boy” was glad he was back.

“I wanna sit up front with you,” I told him.

But he shoved me, opened the car door and said, “Git your ass in the car, man! I don’t have time for this foolishness!”

I laughed and slid in, and he slammed the door and got right behind the wheel.

And as he pulled off, he said, “Where to right now?”