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By Root 1093 0

settled in clumps; white flecks of coconut in the honey looked like snowflakes; the coconut and honey scent with a hint of linseed oil drifted through the cellophane and heightened the exotic, tropical appearance of the soap. They wrapped all four thousand bars in clear cellophane. Sent it to the distributor, who would stamp it with a fancy gold label and his French-sounding name and pay them half of the $1.99 price listed in the catalog. Four times a year they did this, and their soap was always the first item to sell out from the catalog distributed to those who could afford $2 for a single bar of soap. Only the distributor knew the fine coconut-honey soap was made by a quartet of American blacks. But the aunts and uncles didn’t mind the anonymity. They understood that maybe rice might sell with a black face attached to it, pancake mix for sure, but not soap, not in 1965, when Alabama and Mississippi were called the places where democracy doesn’t apply to the Negro and cities in the North and East were prone to eruptions of race riots again in the summer.

So the aunts and uncles worked without recognition, lived quiet, modest lives on their soap profits, plus the money they earned from leasing their daddy’s land. They spent their money on quality rather than show so their possessions could last a lifetime. And always, always, they put up a portion of their earnings for Clarise and the girls to inherit.

And now a week later they finally heard some news on the girls. It wasn’t really news, though, more like an update that Vie had so many confidential stickers on the girls’ paperwork that it would take at least another two days. And this information only after Til surprised the buggy-eyed clerk as he stepped out of his basement apartment on Broad Street, headed for the newsstand on the corner to buy a tripack of Old Original El Producto cigars. Til walked right up next to him, pushed her voice through the March wind right into his pointed ears, and said, “Either I get their whereabouts, or my money back, or your forehead mounds out to twice its size on a permanent basis.”

Til agreed to wait two more days. This was Monday morning, Wednesday, she insisted. She’d better know what she needed to know by Wednesday.

This Monday morning was a vulture for Ramona. A barnyard buzzard. Circling, ready to swoop down and pick at those parts of herself that had died over the weekend, a snatch of her spirit, a fleck of her ambition, little fragments of her soul. She was even dressed in black this morning, ready to go to her job at Lit Brothers bargain basement. She and Mae had fought all week long. Over money: Ramona confronted Mae about calling the store and charging things against her paycheck; Mae told Ramona to look at it as going toward the rent she should be paying. Over Addison: Ramona insisted that he go out and at least bag groceries at the Penn Fruit, offer to walk people home and carry their bags, at least make a couple of dollars a day in tips instead of lying around the house all day, eating all the food, burning electricity running the television all the time; Mae said he’d been through a trauma in Buffalo, he needed time to clear his head. Over Larry: He’d followed the girls home from school one day last week, and Ramona was beginning to agree with what Tyrone had said after the first time it happened, that he might need to be reported; Mae slapped Ramona then, told her don’t be quoting that poor little old country boy to her, who was gonna pay her bills if Vie stopped placing children with her?

This most recent fight over Larry happened the night before, and Ramona’s jaw was still sore this Monday morning as she studied the skirt of her black knit set and then thought about what those girls would have for breakfast. She gently dabbed her skirt with a piece of rolled-up masking tape to pick off the lint and decided they would have cereal. She was careful with her appearance, meticulous. Even though she couldn’t afford to shop the upper levels, she doted on her acrylics like they were cashmere, her nylon blends like