The Truth About Butterflies: A Memoir (9 page)

I can only
imagine the torment that follows having made such a decision.  I, however, had
no idea what was happening, but as we rode along quietly in the car, the
caseworker asked, “Do you know any Black people?”

“I know Mrs.
Peters.  She’s a nurse that works with my mom.”

“Well,
you’re gonna go live with a nice Black family.”

“But I live
with Aunt Betty.”

“You’ll
still see your aunt Betty; you just won’t live with her.”

For the rest
of the ride, I anticipated this “nice Black family,” and wondered why I
couldn’t just live with Aunt Betty. 

As we pulled
into the driveway, a short, heavy-hipped woman came out of the house and down
the porch steps to the car.  She had golden-brown skin and dark,
shoulder-length hair.  Her large, almond-shaped eyes led me to believe she was
Japanese even though the casework had said she was Black. 

I had become
obsessed with all things Japanese ever since I’d come across a book of
photographs at Mrs. Peters’ house.  Whenever my mother and I visited, I would
go straight to the book of pictures.  Like a yearbook, every page was filled
with black and white photos of Japanese children.  Sitting poised for the
camera like little porcelain dolls, they had wonderful names, like Junichiro,
that rolled off the tongue and floated in the air like bits of rice paper. 
Looking at the photos, I made the youthful decision that I myself would become
Japanese.  I’d have pin-straight hair black as pitch and resemble everyone else
around me. 

Years later
in casual conversation with one of my college professors, I mentioned the
book.  He said, snapping his fingers, “Oh yes, that was probably one of those
adoption catalogs of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki orphans.  Many Americans
adopted those children, you know.”  I found it sadly ironic that I had wanted
to be one of them. 

It was
obvious from their interaction that the lady and the caseworker knew each
other.  They talked a bit amongst themselves, and then the caseworker
introduced us, “You’re gonna live with Mrs. Daniels now, and she has other kids
just like you.”  The two women gathered my things from the car and carried them
into the house. “Her aunt will bring her bedroom furniture later,” the caseworker
told Mrs. Daniels.  Then, without much else, she returned to her car and drove
away.

Mrs. Daniels
sat down on the sofa and ordered me to stand up straight and tall so she could
get a good look at me.  “Where are your kids?”  I asked.

“At school,
but they’ll be home directly.”

“Do you have
any girls?”

“Just boys,
now.  I had Vanessa, but she went back to her mother.  Matter of fact, today’s
Vanessa’s 10
^th
birthday.”

“Why did you
have someone else’s girl?”

“That’s what
I do, baby.  I takes care of chilluns that don’t have nowhere to go.” 

“But you
said she had a mother, so why didn’t her mother keep her in the first place?”

Mrs.
Daniel’s smooth countenance quickly changed into one of displeasure.  Aunt
Betty, in her letter to my mother, had concluded by admonishing: “Nancy is so
smart and quick.  She needs to be treated as your child, though, and not as
your equal.  Lately, she has been acting as though she were 21 rather than
seven.”  Apparently, Mrs. Daniels thought so as well.  When I’d asked why Vanessa’s
mother hadn’t kept her in the first place, Mrs. Daniels scolded, “You’s too
womanish, chile!”  I would come to learn that two things Mrs. Daniels disliked
were a woman who acted childish and a child who acted womanish, and it was the
latter of these two that would keep me in hot water.

 It would
take a while for me to learn that being womanish had little to do with
what
I said and more to do with how, when, and to whom I said it.  But I had
something even more important to learn, and Mrs. Daniels didn’t waste any time
teaching it.  In her opinion, I was already behind schedule, and the sooner I
learned it, understood it, and made peace with it, the sooner I could get on
with the task of living.

This second
lesson came immediately on the heels of the first.  It wasn’t a lesson as much
as a fact of life, and I didn’t learn it as much as stumble into it.  After
looking me over, Mrs. Daniels picked up the phone to make a call.  “This is
Erma Lee,” she announced.  “They done brought her to me.  She chubby and
curly-headed, cute little girl, but she done been here b’fo.”  
Having been
here before
is another phrase to which I would quickly grow accustomed. 
“You know,” she continued, “her family give her up ‘cause she Black.”  Hearing
her say I was Black was like being hit in the face with a snowball.  “I’m not
Black!”  I protested.  I was shocked that she would say such a thing, and she
was shocked that I was shocked.  She said to the person on the phone, “I’ll
call you later.”  She hung up the phone and folded her hands in her lap.  “What
you mean, ‘You ain’t Black?’”

“I’m not.”

“What are
you?”

“I’m White.”

“And who
told you, you were White?”

“My mom said
I’m just like she is, and she’s White.”

“Do your
skin look like your mama’s?”

I’d never
given any thought to my skin.  But I knew what Black people looked like, and I
knew that no one in my family was Black.

Not wasting
any more time on that question, Erma Lee swiftly moved on to the next.  “Do
your hair look like your mama’s?”  My hair had been the bane of my existence. 
No one in my family had hair like mine.  Aunt Betty and her three boys, Aunt
Jean and her three children, and my mother herself all had silky hair.  Mine
was the hair no one wanted to comb.  I couldn’t sling it over my shoulder, or
run my fingers through it, or sweep it from my eyes like they did.  Out of
desperation, I had, on many occasions, draped a bath towel over my head while
watching Sonny & Cher.  I would sling it left and right every time they
sang, “Babe (sling, sling), I got you, babe (sling, sling)…  My screaming and
writhing every time my mother combed my hair had taken its toll on both of us. 
She eventually had it cut off leaving me with a short, curly afro, which she
adorned on one side with a bow. 

I didn’t
answer Erma Lee when she asked if my hair was like my mother’s.  But it didn’t
matter; she summed it all up for me in three and a half words: “You’s Black,
baby.”  I was crushed.  Even at eight years old, I knew that being Black meant
not being liked. 

Though I had
refused to believe that I was Black, I was well acquainted with the word
nigger
because I’d heard it frequently.  I knew that word had something to do with
Black people and although I wasn’t quite sure what, I knew it was bad.  I had
once asked my mother if I was a nigger as the neighbors insisted, and she
became enraged, saying there was no such thing as niggers, and I was to never
use that word again. 

My mother
had always said people were mean to me because they were jealous of how smart
and pretty I was, but Erma Lee’s explanation of why people had been so mean was
much more plausible.  My being Black was the reason so many bad things
happened, and for my mom and me there had never been a shortage of bad things
happening.

Too often,
my mother had to call the police because of trouble with the neighbors.  The
police would tell her if she wanted to keep me safe, she should keep me in the
house.  Keeping me imprisoned in the house, however, was not an option for my
mother.  As such, there were consequences, the most violent of which came from
a little old lady who lived across the street from us.

The old lady
had a small, white terrier, and the two of them would sit out in the front yard
on a daily basis.  Her yard was a good size and was enclosed with a chain-link
fence.  She positioned her lawn chair in the center of the yard facing the road
and tied the dog’s leash to the arm of the chair.  She had never spoken to me
before, so I was surprised when she beckoned with her finger for me to come. 
As soon as I approached the fence, the dog started barking.  “C’mon and take my
doggy in the house for me.”

“Does he
bite?”

“No, he
ain’t gonna bite ya.”

I was six
years old, and she was a grown up.  She said he wouldn’t bite me, and I believed
her.  She pulled the long leash until the dog was close to her.  She grabbed
him at the collar with one hand, and with the other she untied the leash from
the chair.  I was still standing outside the fence.  “Well c’mon!  What are you
waiting for?”  I opened the gate and went into the yard.  “Take him up yonder,
and turn him loose in the kitchen.”  I looked at the long, narrow flight of
stairs that ran up the side of the house.  The dog, even though the woman was
holding him by the collar, was snarling and trying to pull free.  “Hold out
your hand,” she said.  I stuck out my arm, and she placed the loop over my hand
and wrapped the remainder of the leash around my wrist.  She motioned with her
hand, “Up the stairs… and don’t you hurt my doggy!”  Then she let him go.

Immediately,
the dog bit into my leg.  I was wearing shorts. So there was no barrier between
his teeth and my skin.  Frantic and screaming, I began kicking at the dog while
trying to unwind the leash from my wrist.  The old lady yelled, “You better not
let him go!”  What followed was a frenzy of screaming and kicking, biting and
yelping with the old lady in the background, “Don’t you hurt my doggy!” 

Finally, I
took off up the stairs dragging the yelping dog behind me, his small body
thudding on each step.  After I got the dog in the house, I ran down the
stairs, past the lady, and out of the gate.  She yelled, “You get back here and
close my gate,” which I did. 

By the time
I made it into the house, I was caught up in a breathless cry so that I
couldn’t tell my mother what had happened.  She had been getting ready for work
and was fully dressed in her nursing uniform.  When I caught my breath, I
yelled, “She made me take her dog in the house.”

“Who?”

I pointed,
“The old lady.”

My mother
immediately picked up the phone and called the hospital to tell them she’d
either be late or wasn’t coming.  Then she called the doctor’s office and told
them she needed to bring me in right away. 

When I heard
my mother making the appointment, the incident with the dog no longer seemed
relevant.  I knew a trip to the doctor after a dog bite meant 50 rabies shots
in the stomach, and if I didn’t get the shots in time, I’d start foaming at the
mouth.  How I’d arrived at that scenario is beyond me, but it sounds very much
like something my cousin Kenny would’ve told me. 

Pleading
with my mother that I was okay and that it really didn’t hurt anymore was
useless.  When we stepped outside, the old lady was still sitting in her yard. 
I got in the car and watched as my mother stood motionless staring at the old
lady; the old lady stared at my mother; the two stared at each other for what
seemed like an eternity.

My mother
was right.  I didn’t need 50 shots in the stomach, but having my wounds cleaned
was nearly as bad.  After all was said and done, there was only one bite; the
rest were claw marks and abrasions. 

When we left
the doctor’s office, my mother dropped me at Aunt Katie’s and went on to work. 
Aunt Katie was a very good friend of my mother’s, and as a youngster I probably
spent eighty percent of my time with Katie and her family.  Katie and her
husband Rosco were quite a bit older than my mother, and it was one of my aunts
who explained how the friendship between my mother and Katie had come to be.

We owned
a small corner grocery store and Katie and her family lived next door.  Your
mother was a rebel, and when Mama wouldn’t let her have her way, she would run
to Katie’s house.  Mama would tell Katie, “When Sue comes running to your
house, you need to send her back home.”  But Katie never would. 

Mama
always felt Katie was filling your mother’s head with nonsense.  Katie had a
Black housekeeper, and as an adult your mother spent lots of time talking with
her as well.  It was a strained relationship between ours and Katie’s family,
but until the day she died, your mother remained close friends with them.

Aunt Katie
and Uncle Rosco had three older sons who were my mother’s age and then three daughters,
the youngest of whom was four years older than I.  Everyday when my mother went
to work, I went to Aunt Katie’s, so after the incident with the dog, going to
Aunt Katie’s was almost as comforting as being with my mother.

By early
evening, Uncle Rosco had come in from work.  Their sons would always stop by
when they got off work before heading to their own homes, and one by one they
drilled me about the dog.  They looked at my legs; they wanted to know what the
old lady was doing while the dog was attacking me, if she got up to help or
tried to call the dog off.  I told them that the old lady just kept saying,
“You better not hurt my doggy.”

My mom
worked the afternoon shift, so around midnight she came by to pick me up; we
went home, and the next day was like any other day.  But a few days later, the
old lady’s dog turned up dead.  Its small, white body was lying in her yard
stiff as a board, its leash still around its neck.  Whether my mother and
Katie’s boys had anything to do with it, I’ll never know.  What I do know is
that when provoked, my mother and the boys didn’t play nicely with others.  Up
until that time, the neighbors had called my mother a nigger lover.  After the
dog was found dead, they started calling her a witch.