LIGHTENING

Penda Aiken is a business owner and a fiction writer. She attended Hunter College, earning a BA degree in Creative Writing from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program in 1998. Currently she attends Columbia University School of the Arts MFA fiction writing division, where she has a novel-in-progress. Ms. Aiken won Honorable Mention in the 1997 Stony Brook Short Story Contest for “Lightening.”

If Momma would let me, I’d take a brown egg from out of the refrigerator and crack it open on my bedroom window ledge. Then I’d sit quiet and watch to see how the sun would bake its runny, clear liquid and yolk. By the time it finishes cooking, I hope it’ll look more like the eye of the alien from the planet Xeon than the eye of Junebug after it got punched by Buddah.

But Momma says, “No sense wasting good food. Once that egg cooks, I expect you to eat it, Jamal.”

Yuk!? Whether they’re baked on my window ledge, boiled, scrambled with cheese, poached, or fried, what’s good about eggs? After Momma fixes our Sunday breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast, an hour later, like clock work, wherever I am I start farting. If I’m at AME Zion church, in the middle of Pastor Evans’ sermon, sure enough the room gets funky. And it’s not like the perfumed sour-sweet body odor that comes from Ms. Ya’na, Ms. Ellie and the other church women when the holy ghost grabs them and they start jumping up and down, sweating and yelling hallelujah. No, my farts smell like a rat crawled up in its hole and died. I ask Momma how can she torture me like this, week after week? She tells me because the nutritional value of eggs far outweighs its smell; furthermore, she adds, nobody’s paying attention to me and my farts
anyway.

To make a long story short, I have to scratch my it’s hot enough to fry an egg on my window ledge experiment. Instead I rely, like I always do, on the trusty old thermometer my Daddy gave me when I was eight. I keep it outside my window, propped up in the corner. I look at it every morning. Today its thick red line of quicksilver reads 96.5 degrees.

We’re headed for another one of those days. For the past ten days it has felt like a flying dragon has breathed fire across the tenements of Harlem and evaporated every drop of water from the sky. In its wake, the air is hot, the streets are hot, people are hot, tempers are hot. Tempers are hot. Momma said the last time it was like this, Harlem had a riot. It was after the black out. People ran up and down 125th Street clutching brand new televisions, bicycles, clothes, screaming burn baby burn.

I don’t know about us having another riot, but if this weather doesn’t break soon I think something weird is going to happen. Already me, Twan, June Bug, Raji, our friend from Lagos, Nigeria, and the other guys who live in the Dunbar have had to cancel yet another game of stick ball and some of the fellas are starting to get restless. I notice that other bad things are starting to happen, especially to June. Seeing him drag all of his
weight around like a lug makes me feel lucky to be a small kid. June sweats so much that twice Buddah (Buddah the Bully we call him) snapped and called June Ms. Piggy. Then Buddah took a brown mushy banana from out the garbage can and started using June for target practice, throwing pieces of rotten banana at June’s wet t-shirt that clung to him
like a wet rag. Some of it stuck on June’s fat arms that could crush Buddah, but June did nothing. None of us budged a muscle, except our eyes. They looked on helplessly as our friend got humiliated. Speaking for myself, my mind told me to do something. Anything. But when I went to move forward, it was like the friction generated by the 96 degree heat against my arms to melt to my side and my feet to the dirt. Even my lips glued shut.

When June finally mumbled, enough already, under his breath, I thought maybe he was talking to Buddah. But then when Buddah, known for scaring us more with his foul breath than his fists, shoved June in his back and June fell onto the baseball diamond on his face and the dust stirred all around us, but mostly into June’s mouth, I really concluded that the weather was making bad things happen.

It’s wasn’t just stuff happening between Buddah and June. Tempers were flaring up all over the Dunbar. The police were feuding with the neighborhood people over the johnny pumps. As soon as they put on the caps, somebody took them off. They said in case of a fire, the trucks wouldn’t be able to save lives because the water pressure would be too low. But how else were we going to cool off? Momma didn’t own an air
conditioner.

But yesterday, Twan’s mother, Mary Mack, showed her true color when she cursed out Julio because he charged $2.00 for a bag of ice that he only charged $1.50 before the heat wave started. We heard about it from the horse’s mouth when me, Twan and Raji went into the bodega to buy sodas. Julio was still mad over the incident and embarrassed Twan when he started talking about that “crazy woman.” I didn’t snap on Twan because all us got stuff happening with our own mothers. Being poor is hard work. But I can see what Julio means. From my window I can see Ms. Mack walking through our courtyard moving her head back and forth, back and forth, dabbing at her nose and eyes with a white handkerchief. Mumbling to herself. I yell out to her, “Hello, Ms.
Mack,” but she ignores me.

One good thing to happen out of all this hot weather is I’ve gotten to sleep on the fire escape on my nylon sleeping bag. It is real cool, meaning neat, fun. The night air feels much better than it does inside our apartment where it stands as still as a brick wall.   Even Rajii’s father lets him sleep out on the fire escape. Rajii lives below me and June Bug lives overhead. Last night the three of us heard night voices that we don’t normally
get to hear when it’s late. It seemed like the whole neighborhood left their short hot tempers inside and went outside to have a gigantic block party under the full moon. Soul music was playing from every direction. Several radios had on Heat Wave and Nowhere to Run by Martha and the Vandellas. Our Hiic neighbors, Ricardo and Maria Rodriguez, were playing Latin music. Peaking over the side rail, I saw Momma and her
boyfriend, Mr. Harry, dancing. Rajii’s father playing the congas. Smoke from somebody’s hibachi drifted by. It smelled like barbecued franks and hamburgers.

Long after I drift off to sleep, the laughing and dancing continue into the wee hours of the morning. I know because in my dream, I’m downstairs with Momma, Mr. Harry and the others from the Dunbar running in and out amongst them, chasing fire flies in the night.

Me and Momma are mopping around inside our hot apartment, number 4G, like two rag dolls. We’re sitting in the kitchen at the window that faces the courtyard where the trees are. Not a single leaf stirs or blows. I’ve just finished telling her about what happened the other day to Junebug and how bad I fell for him and his big size. “Buddah
just lost it and went off on June.” Momma tries to explain but she can’t understand what I’m trying to figure out because she’s a girl. When I go on to tell her that one thing I learned from that incident, is I’m starting to feel better about being small.

Momma says, “You’re small boned just like your Daddy. As long as I’ve known Lee, he’s always looked like a boy. Even after he turned 30. I think you’re going to grow like him too.”

“Skinny and without big muscles. It might be okay for now, but believe me Momma, I’m not keen on being short and small all my life.”

But she tells me not to sweat it, no pun intended. “Your father is a fine Black man,” she says. Then she gets all goo-goo eyed and she kisses me on the cheek. I take my hand and rub the spot where her lips touched my face. I let her think I’m wiping off the sweat, wiping off her kiss, but I’m rubbing it in.

“One day you’ll understand. Besides,” she continues dropping the subject, “didn’t you tell me that the older cats from the Minisink Jr. Baseball League want you on their team whenever they practice at The Green because you’re so fast?”

“Yes,” I smile. “I’m fast. That’s why they call me Lightening.” I pause for a moment. “But what has that got to do with you and my Daddy?”

Momma gets up from the table without saying a word and walks over to the sink. She turns on the water. “Not now, it’s too hot Jamal.” Before I can say, “Why,” the door bell rings. Her wet hand pauses on my shoulder as she walks past to answer the door. It feels wet and cool against my burning, sweaty skin.

He knows I love baseball and asks me how it’s going? I tell him about how I stole third base after June threw the ball wide to second base. Then I stole home plate when Buddah got so mad at June, he threw down his mitt and started yelling. June ran off the field. Said he had to go pee. But he ran out the park, past Julio’s Bodega, past our apartment building, all the way to Angelo’s ice cream truck parked in front of the 145th
Street subway depot.

Just give me a drink of water from the johnny pump and I’m good to go until Angelo drives up after we’ve finished the game I tell Mr. Harry. Until then, Angelo waits inside his pink ice cream truck while the trains screech and grind and rumble beneath him. Sometimes, when several trains are coming and going at the same time, it’s hard for the other kids around the way to hear the truck’s carousel. It’s almost as bad as when we’re playing ball and the cars zooming up and down Harlem River Drive drown us out when we score a run or contest a call.

Mr. Harry says that’s why Angelo parks where he does, over the subway grating, in order to break the monotony of that crazy sounding dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum. We’re sitting at the kitchen table. Mr. Harry is tapping his finger nails on Momma’s gray formica table top. I correct him. “The melody is more like la, la, la, la de da.” I hum the
tune. I wave my arms about like I’m conducting an orchestra.

Momma half-heartedly interjects, “How many times do I have to ask you to stop buying ice cream off that truck Jamal? It’s not sanitary. Angelo handles the money without washing his hands. Besides, there’s something weird about that little man.”

Her voice drops when she says weird as if she is trying to signal in a grown-up way to Mr. Harry something about Angelo. Mr. Harry doesn’t get it, however, and fumbles the pass.

“Ollie, leave the boy alone. A little germ won’t hurt him none. But, getting back to the real deal -- give me the screaming and -- I mean the screeching and the grinding any day.”

He smiles and winks at Momma. She smiles back. “Just stay away from Angelo and his pink truck, Jamal. When you want ice cream, go to Julio’s. If you want soft, I’ll take you to Carvels.”

She thinks I don’t know about what they’ve been saying about Angelo liking boys just because sometimes he gives us free ice cream and likes to take our pictures when we gather around his truck.

When I ask Mr. Harry to explain how he views our neighborhood’s character, he starts to talk about the Dunbar and its rich history; and suddenly the shadow that normally clouds his face brightens. His face lights up like a 100 watt bulb.

“I lot of positive Black folk passed through these walls.” He makes a wide arch his arm. Jamal, you might have a hard time seeing it, because they passed so long ago, but their spirit watches over this place. When you have time, take a trip down to the Schomberg and read it for yourself,” he says. “Now that you’re getting that rich, private school education, me and your mother we gotta be extra careful that you don’t start forgetting how deep your spiritual roots really grow. Believe me, West 79th St. is a long
way from West 150th.”

Saying that, Mr. Harry takes my mother’s hand in his and turns to her and as if he’s said enough and I my presence is no longer there. His big hands smother hers. Suddenly I start to once again think about Daddy.

Momma pulls her hand away and wipes a strand of her dark brown hair from her forehead. “Jamal, go play in your room.”

Since I’m an only child and Momma has to work and still have her personal time too, like right now with Mr. Harry, I get to do a lot of things by myself. I collect magnets–all different shapes and sizes. It’s the magnetic 1981 calendar stuck to the side of the refrigerator to remind us of important dates that I got from Mr. Ortega, our All-State Insurance man, that I look at as I squeeze past Momma and Mr. Harry, now involved in their own private conversation.

I also collect stamps from different countries like Panama, Burma and Ghana. This one here Rajii gave to me when he got a letter from his cousin in Lagos, Nigeria. That stamp is my favorite. It’s the face of a Black African warrior with three cuts on each side of his face looking straight at me. Rajii says they are tribal marks. He says had he never
come to Harlem, he would have gotten those same markings on his face. It’s a symbol of entering manhood. I’m not sure what he’s saying, because here in Harlem you don’t have to cut yourself to become a man, unless you’re the member of a gang. You just grow up and one day, when you’re 21, you’re a man. Then you can drink beer, get married, get a job. Or is that at age 18? But if Rajii said it, it’s must be true.

What else do I collect? Cat eye marbles and comics. I love comics. Asterix is my favorite. Neither June, nor Twan, and definitely not Buddah, know this. Except for Rajii maybe, they’d laugh at me if they knew that I prefer Vikings named Asterix and Obelix to Superman and Green Lantern.

What else is in my room? Well, you won’t find things like the chemistry set I use at Collegiate School to turn a copper penny into a zinc penny or the Hasbro erector set I build sky scrapers with to look like the Empire State Building. But you will find the camera that Angelo leant me when I told him I had to take pictures of historic places in the neighborhood for my school’s history project. He said one day soon he’ll even take
me to photograph Striver’s Row, Jumel Mansion, Alexander Hamilton’s homestead and the Schomberg. He said it’s better to keep it our secret though. I agreed, so Momma doesn’t know about it. Angelo is really a nice man. I can’t believe he’d do anything bad like they suspect. As Momma always says, “the proof is in the puddin’.”

If I’m quiet, I can hear Momma and Mr. Harry talking low, giggling. The fans, the ones that stand on a pole, hum; making it kind of hard to hear. One sits in the kitchen where they are and the other one stands in my bedroom doorway, at the other end of the hall. When it’s not so hot, the fans create a cross-current, but not today. Today they just hum. A few minutes later Mr. Harry starts talking again. This time, about the weather.

“Not like the way summer’s supposed to be, Ollie,” he says. “Can’t hardly breathe. All the time I’m walking around feeling like I’m carrying a wool blanket over my head.” Mr. Harry coughs and clears his throat.

“Jamal, run down to the Associated and buy me six lemons and a bag of sugar so I can make us some lemonade,” Momma calls out.

I interrupt Sun Man, my only black action figure, and GI Joe who’ve joined forces to smash Darth Vadar’s evil empire. I place them on my bed and wait five minutes, hoping Momma will forget she asked me to run her errand. I just know she wants to get rid of me for a short while so she can spend a little private time with Mr. Harry.

“I’m coming, I coming.” As I walk past the two of them still sitting at the kitchen table. I mumble loud enough for them to hear me, “Why can’t Mr. Harry go to the store?”

“Now I know I taught you better than that, didn’t I boy?” Momma doesn’t get up, or raise her voice or slap me upside my head like Twan’s mother does him.

“Yes, ma’am,” I apologize. “It’s this damn heat.” I mouth the words because if Momma heard me, right now the ambulance would be taking me to Harlem Hospital. After Mr. Harry pealed by flat as a pancake self off the floor.

She continues to sit with her hands, not much bigger than mine, folded. With her hair piled on top her head, she looks more like an older sister than my mother. Still, I’m remind that looks can be deceiving when she tilts her head slightly to the left, drops her chin and locks eyes with mine.

“Do you need anything else?” I stumble over the fan’s cord as I head towards the door.

“Ollie, by the year 2000 there won’t be any Negroes left in the United States. There will still be Hiics, Asians, Hatians and other people of color, but none of us.

I stop at the door. “Well, I’ll still be around.” Aside from boys like Buddah the Bully who can give this place a bad reputation, I like living in Harlem just fine.

As soon as I step outside, I feel the heat. The tomatoes, green peppers and collard greens from Ya’na and Ms. Ellie’s vegetable garden are wilted and turning yellow. The trees need water. They no longer look strong enough to climb on, hang from or hide behind when I play hide-in-seek with June, Twan and Rajii. The courtyard, normally filled with us playing, is quiet. As I enter onto Seventh Ave. is see only a few people outside.
In spite of the water shortage, Julio is doing his Saturday washing down the sidewalk. Lucky for him, no police are around. Lucky for me, neither are Momma’s friends, Ya’na and Ms. Ellie.

When I approach the corner, I make a quick right turn onto 149th and head towards St. Nicholas. Momma doesn’t want me walking on this block. It has a lot of abandoned buildings on it. She says it isn’t safe. Too many bad people live and hang out on it. Drug dealers and drug addicts, prostitutes, homeless and crazy people.

She keeps forgetting that I know how to take care of myself. Besides if anything wrong goes down, I can always run, fast.

I look back. I don’t see anyone I know. I look up and down the block. The sun shines through holes in the roof and floors of the half-gutted out buildings. Some of the windows have curtains. It looks like people still live there. 149th is a street I would not want to live on, and there are other blocks like it. Some over on Bradhurst are even worse.

Mr. Harry is right, 79th Street is a long way away. And although I’ve visited my Collegiate classmate’s home twice, I don’t think his parents will keep their promise and let him visit me this summer.

A lot of garbage in front of a building has spilled from the cans onto the sidewalk. I walk around it. A large Black woman, who reminds me a lot of Twan’s mother, walks toward me. I drop my eyes and cross the street. Just as I step onto the curb, I bump into Angelo. At first, I don’t recognize him without his pink ice cream truck and its carousel music, until he calls my name.

“Angelo, where’s your ice cream truck?” I’m happy to see a familiar face.

“In the shop,” he says. “I’m working from my car today. He points towards a sky blue Chevrolet station wagon. It looks dull and beat up, nothing like his ice cream truck.

“It’s too hot to do grocery shopping. Want a ride? Maybe we can take those pictures now.”

Momma’s warning, “Don’t ride with strangers,” flashes through my head. But Angelo is no stranger. He’s been driving around our neighborhood since I was 10. I feel safe, I’m 12 1/2.

I think about the four long city blocks I’ll have to walk to the Associated and back with the five pound bag of sugar and six lemons. What the heck, I hop into the front seat. But as my little backside sinks into the ndentation of the dirty beige corduroy seat, I start to feel guilty. This is the second time in less than 15 minutes, I’ve disobeyed Momma. My legs dangle over the side not quite touching the floor. My eyes barely see over the dashboard, but they clearly see Angelo bend over and snatch up some pictures from the floor. One of them looks like it might be June in a bathing suit. “Pictures,” I exclaim. “Can I see?” Angelo tells me “no, not now, later” before he slams the door shut. The sound vibrates off my back, into my ears. Without knowing why, I feel swallowed up. Through the rear view mirror I see Angelo. He is not much taller than I, but thicker than a tree trunk. He opens the back door.

He looks into the cooler. “Orange and raspberry pop sickles, ice cream
sandwiches, fudge pops, chocolate covered vanilla, Bazooka blasts.”

Angelo pulls from the curb as I tear off the wrapper. The orange melts faster than I can lick. Its sticky syrup runs between my fingers, down my hand and arm. The station wagon is not air conditioned. My orange sickle tastes good, as I alternate between licking it on the stick and it on my hand and arm. It cools me off a little.

Angelo turns the car left onto Bradhurst. The sharp turn pulls me towards him. My pop sickle falls from its stick onto his lap. Angelo laughs.

I move my hand to pick it up, but then I stop. The sickle has slid between his legs and is melting into his pants. His pants become stained with a wet ring that looks like pee.

“It’s okay, mi amigo.” His eyes, ringed with sweat, shift back and forth from the road to me. He again grins from ear to ear. His gold tooth flashes.

His hands grip the steering wheel. The knuckles of his light brown skin turn white.

His words drift on the stale air smelling of coconut, musk and pine air fresheners. The Christmas tree shaped air fresheners dangle left to right from the rear view in front of my face.

I look down again. The pop sickle no longer sits in his lap, it is nothing but a stain. “Excuse me?” He can’t be speaking to me I think to myself. My breath quickens.

Angelo makes another left turn. I look at him, sitting not much taller than I pumped up with a seat cushion. He continues to look straight ahead. I turn to my right. 145th St: Children are running in and out of the water of a johnny pump. An air conditioned NYC bus full of my neighbors pass by. Who’s on it that knows me? I think. We pass the 47th Precinct. A cop walks by with his face shaded by his cap.

“Don’t want your mother getting mad at me ‘cause you fell out the door,” Angelo says as he crosses back onto Seventh Ave.

I scramble towards the back seat, screaming, “let me out, let me out.”
A picture of boys who are butt naked holding their peters stare at me. One of them looks like June. I can’t tell for sure because Julio’s hand wraps around my arm and yanks me back into my seat. My arm muscle strains against his grip. With lightening speed his hand moves towards my face. It feels like cold metal against my hot sweaty cheek. He drives
past Harlem Hospital with its wailing ambulance; past the Dunbar. Through a steady stream of tears and the reddening of my left eye, I see Buddah. I scream through the glass that separates us, “tell Momma and Mr. Harry I’m trying to get home with the lemons and sugar.” He glides from the wall of our building towards me like he’s holding onto my
string of words. Angelo’s hand digs deeper into my upper arm. As he shakes me, his fingernails scratch my skin. My remaining words “get help” rattle against my teeth. We drive past Julio washing down the sidewalk. He turns and sprays the water hose in the direction that Buddah is moving and pointing. Towards me, Angelo and the dingy station wagon, the water sprinkles light across the window pane. I wish for it to glow so that Sun Man, Mamma, Daddy, Mr. Harry, the police, anybody looking, will see what Angelo is about to do to me as we pass The Green with a little girl hanging upside down on the jungle gym and onto the Harlem River Drive with its zooming cars.

This Story Won Honorable Mention in the 1998 Stony Brook Short Fiction Prize competition.