the street essay

Sexton, Woorley, Garth and Ash were streets I grew up on. We lived in a small white and black house without a closed garage. Our front yard was filled with pots of plants, large rocks lining the entrance way, and two big trees that always called for falling sticks. Momma would always pick up the falling sticks, break them, and place them in black trash bags. That’s how she met my stepfather. He said that he could use a strong woman in his life.

Our backyard was caged because we couldn’t afford proper wooden fencing. Stray cats always ran throughout. I wanted to keep one and we did for a while. But they always ran away. Our neighbors behind us were always drunk and I would occasionally see them when I would play outside in the backyard. It wasn’t often that I was allowed to play out there, but I would make the most of it. I would hear their slurred speech and see a bottle of beer in their hands. I wasn’t unfamiliar with it. My stepfather drunk from the same bottle. The same bottle that I would grab from the refrigerator. He always liked two at a time.

He had a barbershop that was five-minute walk from our house on Garth and Ash. I loved walking down there to see who would come in and come out. Homeless people always walked around. I was always unsure if they needed money or just needed warmth. My stepfather despite his drunk habits always had a kind heart for them. He gave them a few dollars and said, “God bless”.

Our next-door neighbor’s house always had kids up in there. Cousins, brothers, and sisters. Aunties and uncles. Baby mommas and daddies. You would think that it was a foster home for the loud. Momma couldn’t afford after school care, so the grandma of our next-door neighbor took care of my sister and me. They became my family. There were two young men in the house who I knew as Moneyman and Pooh Bear, they taught me how to fight. They always told me that if I was going to make it in this world, I need to know how to have my guard up. After school on their front lawn were the training grounds. Moneyman and Pooh Bear would hold one of their small cousins up and told me to just go for it. I was taught that life throws punches. I was taught to duck when one is coming fast.

During the day, my sister and I would always walk to school. On days where it was sunny, we didn’t ride the school bus. We became walking school buses. We went house to house, knocking on every single door to see if the kids were ready. Yelling “Let’s go!” in case they didn’t hear our knock. Our “Let’s go!” really meant “Let’s prove these teachers wrong because we know they don’t want to see black children in classroom seats!” But our elementary school minds weren’t that deep.

That was the first time I had ever seen a bird ran over by a car. I cried as it laid lifeless on the side of the road. My sister told me to suck it up because it was just a bird. The rest of the kids just kept walking.

Gunshots and fireworks sounded the same to me. I could never tell the difference. Our next-door neighbors on the 4th of July would love to have firework wars. Black boy joy smeared across their faces as they would throw firecrackers. Smoke across the sky. Momma never let my sister and I join in fear of us getting hurt. So, I would watch inside and peer through the screen door. I was always fascinated with the colors. Red and white and blue. Black and brown. Fascinated with the laughs. I wondered why the police came around and stopped it. I wondered why they had to draw their tasers and guns. Momma would quickly shut the main door and told us to get into our rooms.

Ambulance sirens going always seemed like an everyday thing in my neighborhood. We had young people in our neighborhood, but we also had some old heads. My great grandma lived a few blocks up from us. I remember coming home from school and seeing flashing lights stand outside the front of our house. I was worried that my mother fell ill to the attacks of my stepfather or if my stepfather passed out from his drunkenness. Turned out it was our next-door neighbors. The husband of the grandma that took care of us came out of their house on the stretcher. He never came back.

 Our house faced a church up the street. If you climbed the small hill you could reach the church’s front doors. We never attended that church. I never understood why we couldn’t just walk to that church but instead we got in our two-door white Monte Carlo car to attend a church that was 5 minutes away.

Our church family didn’t really know what went out inside the four walls of our small black and white house. To them, we were perfect. A married couple. Two beautiful children who praise danced and sung their hearts out in the choir. Momma baked cakes for the after-church events and my stepfather was the son of thee John and Deloris Hill. Two ministers of the Lord’s House. We were ideal but I never understood how or why. Momma’s favorite verse was “Love covers the multitudes of sins” and I can see why she continuously forgave a man that did nothing but break her senseless.

I guess when he said that he could use a strong woman like her, he wasn’t lying.

We thought we had a one-way ticket to heaven because we were so perfect. But the devil can be deceiving. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Spine

Knee

911

Bruises

Yelling

Screaming

Cigarettes

Beer Bottles

Ash trays

Scalp

Choke

Handcuffs

Jail

“I

Will

Be

Back”

Take

Him

Back

I wish I could have used my training in fighting to beat the breaks off my stepfather. But momma forgave him, and he came back to our home. He came back to what seemed to be a changed man. He prophesied that we were going to get a big house. I would get a pink room. My sister would get a blue room. We would have a two-car garage and we would want for nothing. Me and my sister believed him.

So, it came to past. A big house. My pink room. My sisters’ blue room. A two-car garage. We didn’t want for anything.

We had to say goodbye to Sexton, Woorley, Garth and Ash.

Say goodbye to drunk neighbors.

Say goodbye to the kids that lived next door.

Say goodbye to my elementary school.

Say goodbye to the streets that taught me how to fight, how to handle death, how to duck when one is coming fast, what to say when the police comes your way, what ambulance sirens mean, why love covers the multitudes of sins, where to go if you want to get a haircut and a laugh…

Where my life began.