Rain (Hudson 1)

whiskey to calm herself. She sat staring out the window most of the afternoon, sat there gazing down at the streets with a strange, soft smile on her face and hummed an old tune as if she were looking at a beautiful field or majestic mountains. I tried to talk to her, give her something to eat, but she didn't seem to hear me. I was very frightened, afraid for all of us.

Finally, Ken came home. Roy wasn't there at the time. I was glad of that because there would have been a fight for sure. Beni and I were in our bedroom doorway, holding our breath. We expected Mama was going to explode with a fury we had never seen before, but she fooled us.

She spoke calmly in the beginning, just asking him to tell her why he had done such a thing without telling her, and what he had done with the money. At first, we thought he wasn't going to tell. He moved across the kitchen, getting himself a beer, wrapping his long, thick fingers around the bottle, opening it and taking a long gulp. He leaned against the counter by the sink.

"I needed it," he finally said, "to pay a debt." "A debt? What debt? The electric bill that's past due? The dentist bills for Beni and Rain? What debt, Ken?" she demanded.

"A debt," he repeated. He avoided her eyes. She rose slowly.

"Some of that money was money I slaved to earn. Don't I have a right to know where it's gone?" she asked, still remarkably softly for her.

"I had a debt," he repeated.

She seemed to inflate, her small shoulders rising, her bosom lifting. I looked at Beni. Her face was full of anger and my stomach felt like hornets had built a nest inside.

"You gambled away our money, didn't you, Ken Arnold? Go on, tell me. You just threw away all that money, months and months of work, gone!"

He turned to face her, the beer bottle to his lips, his neck working like the body of a snake. Suddenly, Mama slapped the bottle out of his hand and it flew across the kitchen and smashed on the floor.

Ken was stunned. For a moment he couldn't move. He was so amazed at her aggression and her anger, it stopped him from breathing too. For Beni and me the sight of Mama, all five feet four, one hundred and five pounds of her fuming in front of Ken with his six feet five inch, two hundred and fiftypound body with his massive shoulders and thick neck, was terrifying. He could squash her like a fly, but she stuck her face into his and didn't blink.

"You go and destroy my hope just like that and then tell me it was some debt? You go and spill my blood and sweat in the street and tell me it's just some debt?"

"Back off, woman," Ken said, but I saw he was shaking. Whether he was shaking with his own overwhelming anger or fear was not clear. Suddenly though, he realized we were there, too, and his pride reared up like a sleeping lion.

"What do you think you're doing slapping my beer across the room? Huh?" he roared, his eyes wide. "You're a crazy woman and I ain't standing here and listening to a crazy woman."

He turned and rushed out of the house. Mama stood looking after him for a moment and then she went to clean up the mess. I jumped to help her.

"Watch you don't cut yourself, Rain," she warned in a low, tired voice as I picked up the pieces of glass. Beni was still shivering in her chair.

"I'll do it, Mama," I said.

She didn't argue. She went to her bedroom to lie down. I thought she might never get up, but somehow, Mama found the resilience to fight on, to restore her optimism, to replant in her garden of hope and dream on for all of us.

I think it was Mama's courage more than anything that kept me full of dreams, too. If she could be this way after what had happened to her, I thought, I, who was so much younger and still had so much of a chance, had to be full of heart. I had to hold onto my smiles and not be like Beni. I had to push back the urge to hate everyone and everything. I had to see blue sky and stars even in days of rain, so many days of rain.

Our school was nothing to look at. In fact, I often closed my eyes when I first turned the corner and the tired, broken-down building appeared. It looked more like a factory than a school and all the windows on it had bars. There was a chain link fence around the property, too, with big metal signs warning against trespassing.

Two uniformed guards were at the front entrance when the students first arrived for class. To get into the building, we all had to pass through one of those metal detectors you see at the airports. On too many occasions, students, especially gang members, had slashed other students with knives and on one occasion, a tenth-grade boy was found carrying a loaded revolver. The teachers were adamant about added security. There was almost a strike before the powers that be installed the metal detector and kept uniformed guards patrolling the halls and supporting the teachers.

Mr. McCalester, my history teacher, said all the teachers should be given battle pay as well as their salaries. He made it sound like we should all be thankful if we made it through a school day without being harmed. It was hard to concentrate and care about poetry and plays, algebra and geometry, chemistry and biology while outside the fenced-in area angry young men waited to destroy each other and anyone who got in their way.

Most of my and Beni's friends were battle worn, veterans of the hard streets. Everyone knew about drugs and no one was surprised to find someone using crack, pot or whatever happened to be the flavor of the day. Neither Beni nor I ever used or tried any of it. Roy was the same way. There were times when I was afraid Beni would give in. Girlfriends challenged us, said we weren't being "sistas" and we were acting stuck-up.

Some of the girls resented me anyway because of my looks. Mama always taught me that vanity was a sin, but I couldn't help wondering if I had been given some special gifts. My hair was straighter, richer than most. I had a creamy caramel complexion, never bothered much by acne. I also had light brown eyes, more toward almond, with long eyelashes. Roy once said he thought I could be a model, but I was afraid to even wish for such a thing. I was afraid to wish for anything good. Nice things had to happen to us accidentally, by surprise. If you wish for something too hard, I thought, it was like holding a balloon too tightly. It would simply burst, splattering your dream into pieces of nothing.

When I was younger, Mama loved to brush my hair and hum one of the soft melodies her mama had sung to her.

"You're going to be a beautiful young lady, Rain," she would whisper softly in my ear, "but you've got to know that beauty can be a burden too. You've got to learn to say no and watch yourself more because men will be looking at you more."

Her warnings frightened me. I couldn't help but walk through the school corridors with my eyes firmly fixed straight ahead, not returning a glance, not welcoming a smile. I knew most of the kids thought I was a snob, but I reacted this way because of the tiny hummingbird that fluttered in my heart every time a boy gazed at me with interest. That flutter sent a chill through my spine and down to my feet. I'd almost rather be unattractive, I thought.

I know Beni didn't think she was pretty, even though I thought she had nice features and beautiful ebony eye

s. She had a bigger bust than I did and liked to keep a button or two undone or wear tighter clothes, but she was wider in the hips and Roy always criticized her for looking like a tramp. My lips were thinner and my nose was straighter and more narrow than Beni's. Sometimes, when Beni wasn't looking, I would study her face more and try to find

resemblances between us. She and Roy looked more alike, although his hair was closer to mine.