Prologue
When I was a little more than six years old, my first-grade teacher. Mrs. Waite, pulled me aside after school to tell me that if I didn't talk, if I didn't answer questions in class, and if I continued to behave like a mute, all the thoughts in my head that should have been spoken would eventually expand, explode and split my head apart.
"Just like an egg!
"There's a warehouse in your brain for storing thoughts, but there's just so much room in there," she explained. "You've got to let more thoughts out and the only way to do that is to speak. Do you understand me, Ice?" she asked.
Mrs. Waite always grimaced when she pronounced my name and spoke through clenched teeth as if she hated it and as if simply pronouncing it made her teeth chatter with the chill.
During the one and only parent-teacher conference Mama attended when I was in grade school. Mrs. Waite questioned the wisdom of naming me Ice. I was sitting there in my little desk and chair with my hands clasped (as they were supposed to be every morning when our day began) listening to her talk about me as if I was listening to her talk about someone else. It embarrassed me. so I turned my attention to a sparrow pacing impatiently back and forth on the window ledge.
I really was more interested in the sparrow. I imagined it being bothered by our presence and wondering why human beings were here making human noises, interrupting her private singing rehearsal.
"It's more of a nickname than a name." Mrs, Waite said aggressively. "Doesn't she have another name, a real name?"
"That is her real name." Mama turned her lips in when she spoke. She did that whenever she was very angry. Her ebony eves practically glowed with rage.
It was enough to intimidate my petite teacher who wasn't much bigger than some of her students. She was barely five feet tall with childlike features and very slim. She cowered back in her chair and glanced at me and then at Mama who kept her eyes fixed on her as if deciding whether or not she would lean forward and slap her on the side of the head.
"What do you mean by asking me if my daughter has a real name?"
"Well. I... just... wondered," she stuttered, instantly backpedaling, "I mean, she gets teased a great deal by the other students. I thought if we could do something about it now, she would avoid any of that as she grows up. You know how cruel other children can be. Mrs. Goodman.'
"She'll take care of herself just fine." Mama replied, twisted her lips, nodded at me and then stood up. 'Is that it?"
"Oh no," Mrs. Waite cried. "no. Please don't leave just yet," she pleaded.
Mama took a deep breath, lifting her very feminine shoulders and firm breasts. She was proud of her beautiful figure and wouldn't wear a bra even to a school conference. Mama had me when she was only eighteen, and despite her smoking and drinking, she could still pass for a high-school senior. Her complexion was as smooth as the color of a fresh coffee bean. Daddy, who was a big, burly man with a stark black mustache that began to show some gray hairs before he was even thirty, was often teased about having a child bride or bringing his daughter around. Mama loved that. In fact. Daddy would occasionally accuse her of deliberately dressing and acting like a teenager just so it would happen. Mama would spin around on him and vent her outrage, the words flung at him so fast and sharply, they were like a handful of rocks.
"What are you accusing me of. Cameron Goodman? Huh? What are you saying about me? You saying I'm some sort of street girl? Huh? Well? What?"
Daddy would throw up his hands, shake his head and step back. "You do what you want," he'd say.
"And what are you looking at me like that for?" she would ask me while I stood in the corner watching them argue. I didn't say anything. I stared at her and then went back to whatever I was doing.
Their arguments weren't pleasant to hear or to watch, but they weren't yet having the all-out, slambang quarrels they would have when I was older. That was to come. It loomed in the shadows and corners of our Philadelphia apartment like bats sleeping, waiting to be nudged. disturbed. Eventually, they circled us on an almost daily basis, eager to swoop in at the slightest sign of dissension.
"What else do you want me to know about my daughter? She sass you?" Mama asked Mrs. Waite.
"Oh no. Mrs. Goodman. I couldn't ask for a more polite child."
"So then?"
Mrs. Waite looked at me and leaned toward my mother as if she was going to whisper, only she didn't. She wanted me to hear it all.
"It's nice to have a shy girl these days. So many of the youngsters lack decorum."