To Be a Man Read online

  Mrs. Spain replied, “I chose Lorenzo pretty fast. We met and fell in love in only a month!”

  “Monica,” Mrs. Jenkins went on, “I don’t want you to be arguing with me on this. You have a good heart, a soft heart, and so you’ll say to me, “No, no, it’s not true,’ but I know it to be true. I am gonna talk to you from my soul, Monica. I was as ugly as they come when I was a girl. I was six foot tall and just as plain as an old fence. Boys never gave me a second look. I wanted to fall in love and get married like all the other girls. I wanted to have children and a home. But nobody wanted me, Monica. Old Harry was the only one. I knew he was lazy and no good, but he the only one willin’ to take me. I knew it was a big mistake, and he wouldn’t be a good husband or a good father. But I went ahead anyway, Monica. I made this big mistake ’cause I wanted to have a husband and a family, and I never give it a thought what might happen with the children. And for that I feel sad.”

  “Mickey,” Monica Spain responded, “don’t you be calling it a big mistake. Never. I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. How could bringing those four boys into this world be a big mistake? I’ve been to your house, Mickey, and I’ve seen photographs on the wall of Desmond in his uniform and Junior at camp, and all the boys in their gowns graduating middle school or high school. They’re all such fine youngsters, Mickey. They’re the best. No, that wasn’t a mistake. Harry missed out and that’s a tragedy, that’s his bad. But you should be so proud.”

  A single tear gathered in the corner of Mickey Jenkins’ right eye, and slid slowly down her face, a shiny bead of water on chocolate-colored skin. “Monica,” she confided, “nobody has ever said words like you have said to me, and I will keep them in my heart like treasures.”

  “And ease up on Trevor,” Mrs. Spain urged her. “Jaris tells me he’s a light-hearted tease. He tries hard to be a good son, Mickey. Let him prove it to you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  On Sunday afternoon, Jaris, Trevor, and Derrick Shaw were going for a pizza. On their way they passed the Ice House, and a girl’s voice sang out, “Trevor, we got some new flavors today. Want to sample them, you and your friends?”

  “She sounds hot,” Derrick said with a grin. “You know her, Trevor?”

  Trevor grinned too. Having a pretty girl sing out his name was a new experience for him. “Oh,” he replied, “I stopped here a couple times and got a yogurt, and we talked, just for a coupla minutes.”

  “She look as smokin’ as she sounds?” Jaris asked.

  Trevor shrugged. “She’s kinda pretty, yeah.”

  “Maybe a yogurt would taste better than a pizza,” Derrick suggested. “It’s a pretty hot day for pizza.”

  “I’d like to see this chick,” Jaris laughed.

  The three boys went into the Ice House and a red-haired girl smiled at them. “You guys all look real familiar,” she commented. “I used to go to Tubman High.”

  Jaris looked intently at the girl. “You look sorta familiar too. When did you go to Tubman?” he asked.

  “I quit Tubman right at the beginning of my sophomore year,” she answered. “I’m Vanessa Allen. I think I had a class with you, Mr. Pippin’s English, but I don’t remember your name.”

  “Jaris Spain,” he said.

  The boys ordered green mint frozen yogurt and sat at the counter.

  “Why’d you drop out?” Derrick asked Vanessa.

  “It got to be such a grind,” she explained. “My mom and dad expected me to make good grades, but I hated all my classes. It was just so boring. I live with my sister, Dena, now. Dena’s twenty and she likes having me around. I help her pay the apartment rent, you know. And we don’t hassle each other. We’re just free to do our own things. I mean, honestly, you guys, my parents never got off my case.”

  “I hear you,” Trevor agreed.

  Vanessa leaned on the counter where the boys sat. They were the only customers in the Ice House. Vanessa looked right at Trevor and told him, “You’re so cute. I never had a class at Tubman with you. I would have remembered a guy as cute as you. I bet you got a girlfriend, huh?”

  “No way,” Trevor protested.

  “Does that mean you don’t want a girlfriend or . . . ?” Vanessa pressed.

  Trevor shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. He did know that Vanessa was very pretty and that he was attracted to her. Trevor enjoyed looking at Vanessa even more than he enjoyed the frozen yogurt—and he really liked the icy yogurt.

  Vanessa glanced at Derrick and Jaris. “I bet you guys have girlfriends, huh?” she inquired.

  “Yeah,” Jaris nodded. Derrick did too.

  “What’s wrong with your friend here?” Vanessa asked. She reached over the counter and walked her fingers up Trevor’s cheek. “Hello baby,” she giggled. “Want to play with me?”

  Trevor smiled weakly and said nothing.

  “Is he always this shy?” Vanessa asked the two other boys.

  “Sometimes,” Jaris said, “but give him time.”

  When the trio was out on the street again, Trevor remarked, “My ma already hates that girl in there.”

  “How come?” Jaris asked.

  “’Cause she’s a dropout,” Trevor explained. “My mom thinks dropping out of school is a felony.”

  “Well, it’s a stupid idea but it’s not a crime,” Jaris said.

  “If I dropped out of high school, my parents would be crushed,” Derrick added. “I could never do that.”

  “Vanessa sure is hot, Trevor,” Jaris said. “And she’s got her net out for you.”

  “Ma calls her a trashy redhead who lives with her trashy, no-good sister,” Trevor replied. “And Ma says she’s ‘running wild,’ whatever that is.”

  Jaris shrugged. “Seems like she’s a pretty good worker at the Ice House. She must have some sense of responsibility.”

  Derrick split to visit Destini Fletcher, his girlfriend, and Jaris and Trevor were left alone. “Trevor,” Jaris began, “I didn’t want to talk about it in from of Derrick, ’cause it’s just between us. My mom took your mom to breakfast this morning. They had a nice long talk.”

  Trevor’s face lit up. “I haven’t seen my mom today. Just a few minutes this morning before she left for church. Oh man, Jare, it would be so great if your mom got her to be a little less impossible.”

  “Well,” Jaris responded, “when Mom came home this morning after breakfast, she said she really talked up what a good kid you were, Trev. She kind of came at it in a sneaky way. Mom is pretty sharp. She goes, ‘Oh, we mothers worry a lot about our children and sometimes we’re too hard on them. Like I worry about Jaris. Jaris is a big worry sometimes. I used to really nag him, but then he got upset, so I backed off. Besides, Jaris and Trevor are such good kids, they don’t really need a heavy hand.’ So Mom wasn’t like criticizing your mom for how she’s been. She was saying, you know, all moms worry too much, and they bug their kids and maybe they shouldn’t.”

  “Oh man, dude,” Trevor said. “I owe you for this.”

  “Let’s hope it works, that’s all,” Jaris replied.

  Trevor got home around noon. He told his mother that he’d been hanging with Derrick and Jaris and that they’d all been doing their homework together. Even though Mrs. Jenkins liked Derrick and Jaris, she took a dim view of teens just hanging. Trevor always had to add some serious reason for his visits with friends, like schoolwork.

  “Trevor?” Ma called out when the door slammed.

  “Yeah Ma, I’m back,” Trevor answered. He was about to spin another tale about him and Jaris and Derrick having made wonderful progress in preparing for Mr. Pippin’s upcoming test. But before Trevor could say anything, Ma came around the corner without her usual angry frown. “Oh Trevor,” she told him, “just the nicest thing happened this morning after church. I was going to just come home after services, but Monica Spain stopped me and invited me to breakfast. Jaris’s mother just insisted I come along with her. I was just so surprised my jaw dropped, ’cause people don
’t do that out of a clear blue sky, but she’s the nicest lady.”

  “Oh,” Trevor replied, “that was nice.”

  “My goodness, boy,” Trevor’s mother went on, “she took me to this nice place, and we had the most beautiful, tastiest breakfast I’ve ever had in all my born days. French pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream, and then eggs and sausage too. I was so full I thought I’d not be able to eat another single bite for the rest of the day. And even better than the wonderful breakfast, we had the most pleasant talk. It just filled my heart, Trevor.”

  “Oh yeah?” Trevor said. “Well, she’s nice. Jaris’s mom is nice.”

  “She is that, Trevor,” Mrs. Jenkins agreed. “And I think the best part of the whole morning was what she said about my boys. She just couldn’t praise you enough, Trevor. She said she was so grateful Jaris had such a fine boy for a friend. Can you imagine what I felt when I heard that? That fine, high-quality woman who teaches school and lives in a pretty house, she’s grateful that her son has the friendship of my son.”

  Trevor could hardly believe how a friendly smile instead of a frown on her face made such an improvement in his mother. With that angry frown she wore like a mask, she looked like an ogre. Now she just looked like a pleasant round-faced lady “Yeah?” Trevor asked.

  To himself, Trevor thought, “Bless Jaris’s heart. Bless his mother’s heart.”

  “She went on and on about how the teachers at Tubman like you, boy,” Mrs. Jenkins continued. “In my down times, I’ve bitterly regretted marrying your father, but Monica helped me to see it all in a brand new light. She put in my mind things I’ve never thought about. She said it was a blessing you four boys coming into the world, and I need not think I made a terrible mistake with your father. She said you and Tommy were perfect gentlemen.”

  “Wow!” Trevor said.

  “You know,” Mrs. Jenkins went on, “sometime I get so tired trying to care for those old people at the home. Many of them so cranky. They’re sick. Who wants to be sick. They don’t want to be there, and they take it out on the nurses and the aides. They fight with me a lot and I get cranky too, Trevor. I don’t always mean what I say to you, boy. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Sure Ma,” Trevor responded. He came over and kissed his mother’s cheek. “I understand.”

  To himself Trevor said, ‘Yesss!’ ”

  At school on Monday, Jaris and his girlfriend, Sereeta Prince, met Derrick, Destini, and Trevor for lunch under the eucalyptus trees. Destini asked, “You guys get yogurt at the Ice House yet?”

  “We did yesterday,” Jaris replied. “It’s great. And if you’re short on money, you can buy one scoop.”

  “Talk about great,” Derrick said with a wink, “Vanessa is hot.”

  Destini gave Derrick a mock shove. “You guys!” she declared. “You know what, Sereeta? We need to get blinders for our boyfriends. You know these flaps they put on the sides of horse’s eyes? That’s to keep the horse from seeing something that spooks them, but it would keep our guys from looking at other chicks.”

  Sereeta laughed. “Good idea. They could do it for husbands too.”

  “Guys never get over the urge to look at pretty girls,” Trevor announced. “Ma tells me, where she works, guys in their eighties are still flirting with the cute nurses. When they hire a new nurse who’s really hot, all the old guys perk right up.”

  Alonee Lennox came down the trail with Oliver Randall, her boyfriend, to join the others for lunch. “Trevor,” she gasped, looking at his juicy hamburger with lettuce and tomato and onion on it. “You’re eating a delicious looking sandwich, Trevor! What happened to those tuna fish deals your mom made you eat every day?”

  Derrick smiled.

  “This morning, like I couldn’t believe it,” he explained. “She goes, ‘Hey Trevor, here’s some money for lunch. You can get the kind of sandwich you like at school. We ain’t so poor I can’t handle that.’ ”

  “The tuna fish sandwich was healthier for you,” Oliver commented.

  “Downer, man!” Trevor shot back, biting into his burger with gusto.

  “We ought to stop at the Ice House and see who that hot girl is,” Sereeta suggested. “As long as you think I can trust you, Jaris.”

  Jaris smiled. “You probably know her,” he said. “Vanessa Allen. She was at Tubman during her freshmen year and for just a little of her sophomore year. She didn’t dye her hair red then like she does now, but maybe you remember her.”

  “I remember her,” Alonee recalled. “She was the biggest flirt in our freshman class. She’d come to school in these short, short skirts, and if our teacher was a cute guy, she’d try to sit up front right in front of him and flirt with him. You remember Mr. Collier? He was that young history teacher we had. He was like twenty-eight or something. She’d really go after him. He didn’t know where to look anymore. Sereeta, you should remember her from the frozen yogurt shop.”

  “Oh my God!” Sereeta cried. “That was the same Vanessa? I never recognized her with the different hair color. We only worked the same hours one or two times. I remember her. She didn’t like to study. She was flunking everything, and her parents were really giving her lots of trouble. She kept threatening to run away from home.”

  “Yeah, and she’d never want to go to the mall with us,” Alonee added. “She said there weren’t enough boys at the mall. I never remember her having a girlfriend, just guys.”

  Derrick said, “She’s really got a thing for Trevor. You should see her eyeballing poor Trevor. You better watch out, Trev!” Everybody laughed.

  Trevor finished his burger and grinned.

  Tommy sometimes picked Trevor up from school in the afternoon, on his way home from the community college, but on Mondays, Trevor jogged home. He liked to jog and it strengthened his legs for the meets.

  By taking a short detour on his way home, Trevor figured he could stop off at the Ice House. He thought he’d get a small scoop of frozen yogurt. He turned it over and over in his mind. He knew Ma would be angry if he did that, but how would she find out? She worked late on Mondays at the nursing home. She’d never know he stopped off for a green mint frozen yogurt and a few words with Vanessa. What was the harm?

  “Why not?” Trevor asked himself, taking the detour. No girl had ever looked at him the way Vanessa did—at least not a girl who looked like her. That wonderful red hair really delighted him. He took the detour.

  “Trevor!” Vanessa sang out when she saw him. “We’ve got a new flavor—mango peach. You can have a free taste. It’s just come out and it’s amazing.”

  “Okay,” Trevor agreed. Vanessa handed him a little cup with the frozen yogurt and a tiny spoon. “Yeah, that’s good,” he said, finishing it. “I’ll have a couple scoops of that.”

  Vanessa waited on several other students from Tubman. The Ice House was getting to be a popular place since the spring weather turned unseasonably warm. By the summer, business would be booming.

  Then Vanessa came over to where Trevor sat. “Trevor, I get off work at six tonight. If you’re ever bored or something, you could just come over here at six when my sister picks me up. She could pick you up too, and we could go somewhere for a little while,” Vanessa suggested.

  “Oh yeah?” Trevor said.

  “Yeah, you don’t even need to spend any money, Trevor,” Vanessa told him. “We could watch a movie and eat popcorn at the apartment where I live with my sister. We could just hang there. It’d be fun.”

  “Yeah, I’ll think about that,” Trevor responded.

  Vanessa reached out and ran her fingers down Trevor’s arm, tickling him. “You’re so sweet,” she said to him. “I thought and thought, and finally I did remember you as a freshman. I wanted to be friends with you, but you said your mom was very strict and she didn’t want you to go out with girls.”

  “Yeah,” Trevor replied. He was ashamed to say, “She’s still strict, and I’m still afraid of her.” It was hard for Trevor to fully understand w
hy he was so unwilling to break Ma’s laws, unfair as they seemed to be. He thought of all the years growing up with her and of her working almost all the time at different nursing homes like a slave. She’d come home so tired she’d fall into the sofa and lay there gasping. And sometimes Trevor would get scared that his mother was dying, that she’d finally worked herself to death.

  Trevor remembered feeling so sorry that his mother had to work that hard. He didn’t know anybody else whose mother had to work so hard. Ma reminded Trevor of a poor draft mule, overworked and unappreciated.

  Trevor’s mother never had nice clothes. She had one decent flowered dress that she saved for Sundays. The rest of the week she wore T-shirts and dark trousers. She wasn’t in the least bit heavy, and she even looked gaunt. She was muscular and tall, and to see her working, scrubbing, mopping, always working, you might think she was still enslaved. Trevor felt there was little difference between how his mother worked and how the slaves worked, and the thought made him sad and ashamed.

  Trevor felt so sorry for her. It was so unfair what his father did, and yet Trevor couldn’t do anything about it. He bitterly resented her iron rule, but he had a deep love for her. And he was unwilling to do anything against her rules, anything that would add to her burden.

  Desmond and Junior had escaped into the army. Desmond once told Trevor that among his reasons for joining the army was to escape from Ma’s rule. When he was in basic training, he told Trevor army life was easier than living at home. But Trevor didn’t want to go into the army. He just wanted to finish high school, go to community college, and learn something that would get him a good job. Although he wanted to get away from his mother, he also wanted to be able to give her enough money so that she wouldn’t have to work so hard.