Possessing the Secret of Joy - Alice Walker [23]
As we ascended the steps to the third floor, I turned to Adam and said, attempting a joke, I want to go home.
So do we all, he replied, grimly, with the downcast, helpless look of a man bound to a woman and to circumstances perpetually beyond his control.
BENTU MORAGA (BENNY)
IT IS ONLY MONEY that changes anything or makes anything happen, I said to my mother, glancing at my notes.
You mustn’t think that, she said, gazing out the window. It’s so New African.
But look at what you have here, I said, gesturing at the freshly painted walls of her cell. Her bright red plastic chair, her desk, writing materials and books.
I can’t be guilt-tripped, she said, smiling. I’m already in prison.
I smiled with her. I liked the person my mother was in prison. She was warm and comfortable, as if she were an entirely different person than the driven, frowning mother I’d always known.
Not many of the other prisoners have a private cell, I said.
No, she agreed. Only the bigwigs who will soon buy their way out and escape punishment altogether. She frowned, and for a moment looked like her other self.
We heard the bigwigs down at the other end of the corridor. All day long they played cards, kept their radios blaring and drank beer. Unlike my mother’s, their cells were never locked, and so they visited each other far into the night. They would sometimes visit us, and bring my mother an occasional beer, which she accepted.
I had not understood “bigwig” until I saw the judges at my mother’s trial. Sure enough, they wore huge white wigs, with curls at the sides and a queue down the back. My mother laughed at them, which I thought they certainly noticed and which I felt sure they’d punish her for. I wrote a note to myself about this as I sat observing the proceedings in the courtroom.
There are a lot of things I can’t do—drive a car, for instance—or even think about. I used to feel there was something mysterious about the way I could never quite keep up in school. I almost made it, but then there would come a point at which I felt myself literally slipping back down the slope. It was a relief, finally, to have it explained to me—not by my mother or my father but by a teacher—that I was a bit retarded, something to do with memory, which meant that just as some people are tall and some are short, some people can think longer or shorter thoughts than others. Not to worry! said my teacher, Miss MacMillan, laughing. You have the attention span of the average American TV viewer. And so I was spared the feeling of being, as my father phrased it, negatively unique.
And yet, there were times when I wished I could remember the name of something for which my mother sent me to the store. I wished I could do without the lists. A list for the market. A list for school. A list of what things to take and bring back from an afternoon of playing in a neighbor’s yard. A list of street names by which to steer myself home. Nothing that I was asked to do stayed in my mind. Nor could I even remember I’d been asked. Only the look of exasperation on my mother’s face held my attention, but only for a moment. Then I forgot even that.
One of my mother’s favorite expressions was: It’s a wonder you don’t forget I’m your mother! But I never did. Perhaps it was because I felt connected to her scent. Which was warm, lovely, soft. I felt I could quite happily have spent my lifetime under one of her arms. This, however, I never mentioned because I sensed it would offend her. My mother bathed constantly, as if to rid herself of any scent whatsoever; to her an agreeable