Grace After Midnight_ A Memoir - Felicia Pearson [31]
“She dead.”’
“Your stepmother.”
“I don’t want her here. I don’t want her to see me in this mess.”
“Anyone else?” she asks.
I think for a while.
“Call Uncle. He can talk to me. Uncle can talk to me any time he wants to.”
BRAIN DEAD
Sitting there across the table from me, he looked beautiful. He put a smile on my face.
“Girl,” he said, “looks like you haven’t smiled in a while. Looks like they done turned you mean in here.”
“Why you say that?” I asked.
“That’s what they told me.”
“Who told you what?” I wanted to know.
“The supervisor said you turned against your classes and turned against your teachers.”
“One teacher,” I said. “One bitch that has it in for me.”
“Why’s that?” Uncle asked.
“Closet case. She hates that I’m out and she’s in.”
“Sounds like you’ve been taking psychology classes,” Uncle said.
“I don’t need no psychology to see what she’s about.”
“Whatever she’s about has nothing to do with what you’re about.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” I said.
“That’s what you’re saying but it ain’t what you’re doing,” Uncle explained. “What you’re doing is fucking up your education over one teacher. That don’t make good sense, does it?”
“I don’t need to kiss anyone’s ass.”
“I ain’t telling you to kiss ass, Snoop. I’m telling you that you’ve been in this place two, three years already. You’re eighteen years old. You’ll walk out of here in another couple years. You’ll walk out educated or you’ll walk out brain dead. That’s what it comes down to.”
“The Cut will kill off your brain cells no matter what.”
“Not if you change your attitude it won’t,” said Uncle. “Right now you’re all negative up in here. You done made that choice. No one made it for you.”
“Except the bitch,” I said.
“The bitch is a bitch. That ain’t gonna change. But how you react to the bitch is up to you. You can let her throw you off or you can go your own way.”
“What way is that?” I asked.
“Well,” said Uncle, looking at me square in the eyes, “there’s only two ways. Up or down.”
“And you saying I’m going down?” I ask.
“I know it. I see it. You got to check yourself, girl, or you don’t got a prayer. You’ll get more bitter by the day, and by the time you look around you’ll be nothing but a crazy angry bitch yourself.”
I started to answer back, but Uncle stopped me. He said, “Just think about what I’m saying.”
I thought about that expression “brain dead.”
Who the fuck wants to be brain dead?
“You serious about this brain dead shit, ain’t you?” I said to Uncle.
“Serious as a heart attack, baby. You got to take advantage of what this place got to offer. If you can get your GED inside here, grab it. You’d be a fool not to.”
We spent another half hour or so talking ’bout what was happening back on the block.
“You all right?” I asked uncle. “The shops in good shape?”
“The shit is always crazy,” he said, “but you don’t gotta worry about that. You just gotta worry about keeping yourself in good shape. You a jewel, Snoop. You a valuable jewel. When you get outta this joint, you gonna shine.”
I had to hug the man for saying that.
I had to hug the man for coming down to the Cut to set me straight.
No one else could do that except Uncle.
LOOKING UP
Uncle was right.
Up’s better than down.
Looking down you see nothing but concrete.
Looking up I see that window.
I look out that window.
Little buds are popping out all over the branches of the trees.
Soon the buds will burst open into leaves.
Soon spring will be warming us up.
Flowers will start blooming and things will smell sweeter.
Longer days, brighter light, more time to play in the yard.
In the Cut, winter’s a motherfucker. Spring’s a breath of fresh air.
Winter can make you crazy. Spring can make you hopeful.
After Uncle’s visit, I was ready to get hopeful.
I needed that turnaround. I needed to put myself on a sensible course of learning something besides making dildos in three different sizes.
I needed Uncle’s energy and the knowledge that he really cared for me, no matter what kind of mess I got