tell if a man is worth his salt by the way he treats his mama and his sisters,” Mama told my older sister Babette and me on a regular basis. My own daddy treated all of the women in his family like Nubian queens. He showered us with gifts and ran when an argument erupted.
At least once a week, Chester hauled huge bouquets of roses and neatly gift-wrapped packages to his mama and his baby sister, Kitty. Katherine “Kitty” Sheffield was my best friend at the time. She and I were the only girls Chester allowed in the tree house he and his boys had built in his backyard. Chester never gave me roses. And I didn’t get too upset that time he slid a frog down my blouse when Kitty and I followed him to Lake Mead, where he went fishing with his boys. That slimy frog was a small price to pay to retain my position as Chester’s sister’s best friend. Chester and I were two halves that would eventually come together as one. I knew it right after that time he goosed my butt during a game of hide-and-seek when I was ten and he was fourteen. It didn’t matter to me that he had already done the same thing to three other girls that same day. It meant something when he did it to me.
Because of my long, sturdy legs and the fact that I could kick a ball as far as most of the boys and hang upside down from trees, kids had a lot of nicknames for me. Slim, Long Tall Sally, and Stretch were just a few. Chester was the only one who called me Crazy Legs.
Chester’s parents owned Sheffield’s Market four blocks from our house, and Mama sent me there a few times a week to pick up one thing or another. And whenever I had money, I went there on my own to buy magazines or junk food. The only thing I wouldn’t buy when Chester was in the store was tampons. I always knew when Chester was in trouble because his parents punished him by making him work in the store. I spent a lot of time visiting Kitty when Chester was home, so I could keep an eye on him.
I was confused, but I had decided that I was “grown” enough to make my move on Chester. With all the mean tricks Mother Nature played on young bodies, my moods would swing from one extreme to the other. I had been a tomboy all of my life and didn’t want to give up grungy clothes and marbles for dresses and makeup. I was willing to make these sacrifices to get Chester’s attention and keep it.
That hot Saturday afternoon that June haunts me to this day. I had eagerly volunteered to walk to the Sheffields’ store to pick up four cans of corn. Mama needed it for the bowl she was planning to donate to our church dinner the following Sunday. I didn’t like church, but watching Chester lead the youth choir at the Second Baptist Church on Third Street kept me from falling asleep before services ended.
I had seen Chester strutting past our house bouncing a basketball on the sidewalk an hour earlier that Saturday, so I knew that he was on his way to the basketball court. The court was three blocks down the street from my house.
“The Piggly Wiggly is cheaper,” Mama reminded me, handing me a crumpled five-dollar bill. “And everybody knows Brother Sheffield jacks up his prices.”
“I thought you and Daddy said we all need to support Black businesses more,” I said proudly, knowing how much Black pride my folks had. I reminded them when it was necessary. It was the one thing that worked every time.
Mama sighed and gave me a slightly exasperated look. Then she smiled weakly and shook her head as she glanced at her watch. “If Sister Sheffield is behind the counter, tell her I said she is putting way too much salt in the headcheese. We Black folks need to be more careful about what we eat.” Mama was tall like me, but a lot heavier. With her light-brown skin, light-brown eyes, straight black hair, and sharp nose, people often mistook her for Creole. But she was quick to deny it. She was one of the few Black people I knew who didn’t run around talking about how much mixed blood they had. I don’t think my mother realized how exotic she was. If she did, she must not have considered it anything to make a fuss over like other women I knew who looked like her. Mama was a serious woman and didn’t smile a lot. Sometimes when I caught her staring off into space, I wondered what she was thinking, but I never asked her. I do know that she had a rough life growing up in the South when it was still segregated. She was proud of the fact that as one of the most aggressive Civil Rights marchers, she had helped make the South a better place for me. I was proud of her for doing that. I couldn’t imagine being told what to do because of my color.
“We sure do need to watch what we eat, Mama. If the Sheffields got some fresh okra, I’ll get some of that, too.” Knowing how much I hated most vegetables, Mama gave me a suspicious look before she waved me toward the door.
Chester was not at the basketball court when I went to the store—just some boys from the projects. Dancing around the perimeter of the basketball court trying to impress me, they kicked up a lot of the orange sand Alabama was famous for. But not enough to hide their homely faces and scrawny bodies. I ignored them.
On my way back from the store, Chester was on the court with the same dusty, ugly boys. Seeing me prancing down the sidewalk, Chester tossed his basketball to one of the two other boys and headed out to the sidewalk toward me. His two beastly friends followed close behind him, all three marching like warriors about to fight a battle. Even though my breasts had not made their presence known yet, I had started filling out in other places. My slightly curved hips and bubble butt made up for my flat chest. I was glad I had on my tightest and shortest shorts. As long as it was not something too outrageous, my parents told my sister and me they didn’t care what we wore as long as it was clean and didn’t stink. I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup yet, but I had smeared on some lip gloss to cover a scab on my bottom lip. Even though Chester was sixteen and I was just twelve, I knew that when he got around to asking me out, I’d find a way to go. I knew a lot of girls my age who were already sneaking out of the house to hang out with boys. That’s what windows were for. A lot of girls envied me because my bedroom was on the ground floor of our two-story house. If and when the time came, I was confident that I would have no trouble easing out of my window to be with Chester. Since I’d spent so many years climbing trees and running track, unlike my slightly plump, clumsy sister, I was as graceful as an antelope.
Chester stopped in front of me and folded his arms. The sleeves on his shirt were rolled up to his elbows, revealing soft hair on his arms that looked like black corn silk. I couldn’t believe how tall and thick his body was. I was already five-feet-six myself, but he was still more than a head taller than me and outweighed me by at least fifty pounds. He was about my shade, pecan brown, maybe a little lighter then. But from spending so much time outside fiddling around with balls and fishing in the hot sun, he would get darker as he got older. His wavy black hair was in cornrows, a style I didn’t particularly care for on boys. But his small, slanted black eyes, full lips, and high cheekbones made up for his natty hairdo. He didn’t smile that often when he was around me, but when he did, he showed off some of the whitest, straightest teeth I’d ever seen.
I was facing the sun, but I didn’t need its blinding rays to give me a reason to start batting my long black eyelashes. I thought I was being cute. I thought my heart was going to leap right out of my chest and bust through my new Bob Marley T-shirt. I had to start breathing through my mouth. It was time for action. Besides, I was getting impatient. Still batting my lashes, I started grinning, hoping Chester wouldn’t make too much of a fuss over how cute I was and embarrass me in front of his friends. I wondered why Chester had such a scowl on his face. I had so much work to do on this boy.
“Where my five dollars, Crazy Legs?” he growled, stabbing me once in the chest with his long, hard-knuckled finger. I didn’t mind him getting sand on my clean T-shirt.
Stunned, I stopped grinning and batting my lashes right away.
“What five dollars?” I asked nicely. That was the first time I’d been close enough to him to see that his left ear was pierced. I was glad he didn’t have an earring in it. That was another thing I didn’t like on boys.
“My sister Kitty told me you the one what knocked over my bike in front of Ray’s Poolroom. The side of my back rim is all scratched up and I got to get it painted. Shit!”
“You better tell your sister to get her some eyeglasses. She didn’t see me knock over your bike or nobody else’s bike. I am not even allowed in the same block as that poolroom with all those nasty boys and men slopping all over the