understand, and it made me feel like I didn’t belong anywhere.
My favorite time during that period was when we lived at the bottom of a hill, off of a dirt road, in a rural section of Miami called Hanley. Our house had a living room, a kitchen, and one bedroom. I liked it because we were so close to the woods that squirrels and other creatures wandered into our backyard to eat out of my hand.
The only furniture we had was a stove with no legs and an icebox that shook so much we kept it unplugged most of the time. We had a table in the kitchen but just one chair. Mama and Daddy took turns sitting on the chair. There were two tree stumps at the table that we used in place of chairs. I always had to sit on the smaller one. In the living room we had a couch with a floral design. It was clean and comfortable, but both arms were about to fall off. Things like coffee tables and lamps were not only luxury items but cumbersome. When we left a place it was usually in such a hurry we only left with what we could carry.
We slept on the bedroom floor in our clothes until a preacher gave us a stained mattress, a ripped sheet, and a blanket that was so old and worn you could see through it. We ate off of cracked plates or out of cans most of the time and drank water from a spring a few yards from the house. We had one forty-watt lightbulb that we carried from room to room and hung naked from an extension cord. When it died, Mama brought home a coal-oil lamp she had found along the side of the road. “God sure is good,” she swooned, shaking the rusty, cracked lamp in my face.
On the days that Mama didn’t work, she was busy sewing, cooking, and washing our clothes by hand with homemade soap. There were no kids my age close enough for me to play with, so I spent most of my time running around with squirrels. One with a white paw got so friendly with me he was bold enough to climb up on our back porch and scratch the door. Mama would chase him away with a whisk broom. Daddy always petted the squirrel, and yelled, “Annette, you got company!”
Mama and all the other Black women I knew made soup and stew out of most of the wild creatures that inhabited the woods, even snakes. When Mama suddenly started getting too friendly with my squirrel, petting and feeding it, commenting on how plump he was, I got scared. The week before at a church dinner, one of the sisters brought a big bowl of some type of mysterious meat floating in fiery red sauce. It was delicious. I had two helpings. “Your girl sure is lap-pin’ up that squirrel soup,” the sister commented. I ducked out of the church, ran behind a tree in the back, and vomited, praying that I had not eaten the squirrel I had become so attached to. When we got home, it was too dark for me to look for my squirrel. But the next morning he came to the back door. Mama and Daddy were still eating breakfast. I took the squirrel deep into the woods and turned him loose. I never saw him again, and when other squirrels ended up in a bowl on our dinner table, I refused to eat any, afraid it might be my former pet.
Daddy returned from the fields around the same time every evening, just before it got dark, no matter where we lived. Every evening I would sit on the front porch and wait for him like a spider. He brought home fruit for me, and sometimes discarded toys he found along the road. My eyes would light up when I spotted him struggling to make it the rest of the way home from the main road. I would jump up from my spot and run and leap into his arms, almost knocking him down. “Girl, can’t you see how tired I am,” he used to scold, all the while helping me climb onto his back. Then he would carry me back to the house. The first thing he would do was check with Mama to see if it was time for us to move again. I was glad every time Mama said, “Not yet, Frank. Not yet.”
We didn’t have a radio or a television. They were two of the many luxuries we didn’t allow ourselves to think about owning. That’s why we didn’t know about the tornado coming one Sunday after we had come home from church. The day had started out like any other summer day in Florida—hot, dusty and humid. We got up, peeped out the windows, and later that evening we walked two miles to a Baptist church across the main highway. It was during the sermon when the wind started whistling, and it didn’t seem as hot as before. “Mama, it’s going to rain,” I whispered, sitting between her and Daddy on a wobbly bench near the back of the crowded little country church. “Shhhhh!” was all she said, then she went back to shouting, “Amen,” like everybody else. I just hoped that we would get home before the rain started. We didn’t have anything to protect us from it and rain—unless you had naturally straight hair—was considered one of a Black females worst enemies. I hated when Mama had to straighten my hair with a hot comb, what little bit I had.
After we arrived home from church, Mama started cooking, and I followed Daddy to a nearby lake, where he fished for part of our supper. The lake contained fish, crawdaddies, crabs, and things I couldn’t identify. Everything in the lake was free, and often it was all we had to eat. We just had to catch it.
“Don’t you get too close to that water, girl,” Daddy advised. “You know I ain’t got the strength to jump in there after you.”
“All right, Daddy.” I smiled. By then, not only was the wind howling, it was darker than usual for early evening. I guess that’s why I was not doing what I usually did when I was at the lake, running up and down the bank beating bushes with a stick and throwing rocks in the water. Instead, I sat down on the ground next to Daddy and placed my head against his chest. I liked being so close to him. I could feel the heat his body generated, and I could even hear and feel his heart beating like a drum.
When he was not looking, I stared at the side of his face. Compared to most of the other men I knew, he was good-looking. He had big black slanted eyes, but there was sadness in them. I had the same eyes. There were noticeable lines on his face and around his mouth. His nose reminded me of the noses I saw on some of the Indians in the area, big and hawklike, but still attractive. He had said something about having Indian blood. One of Daddy’s front teeth was missing. A white policeman had knocked it out with a billy club when Daddy sassed him. You hardly noticed the missing tooth when he talked or smiled because he had a thick mustache. He was tall and powerfully built, and dark brown like me. I didn’t know how old he was, but his hair was thin and starting to turn gray.
The fish were not biting much, so Daddy and I left the lake after he had caught only two catfish. Mama cleaned them, fried them, and we feasted on the fish, some pork, and yams and greens from a garden Mama had around the side of our house. It had started raining, and the wind was stronger. Our little house was shaking and rattling so much our table wouldn’t stay still.
“It’s a good thing I didn’t hang out them clothes like I had planned.” Mama sighed, looking toward the kitchen window. Mama frowned at me and let out her breath. “Annette, stop chewin’ so loud.” She paused for a moment, then turned to Daddy. He seemed to be worried about something. He was eating real slow and staring at the wall. I just figured he was concerned about the storm. When it rained too much, he couldn’t work in the fields. And when he didn’t work, he didn’t get paid. Less money meant less of everything, and we were already on the poverty level. “What’s wrong with you, Mr. Goode?” Mama asked. Daddy’s first name was Frank, but I only heard her use it when she was mad at him or when she was serious. Daddy didn’t answer right away, he just kept staring at that wall.
“Maybe the cat got his tongue,” I suggested. Not only did I get a cold, hard stare from both of them but Mama shoved a pig foot into my mouth. That’s what they usually did when they wanted to silence me. It was no wonder food became my “drug” of choice.
Before Daddy could respond, Mama felt his forehead. “You want a dose of cod liver oil or some homebrew?” she asked.
Daddy just shook his head, and said, “No, I’m all right. We’ll talk after the storm.” He was talking to Mama but looking at me. My first thought was Daddy was going to talk to Mama about another move.
He pushed his plate away, then got up from the table and went to sit on a footstool in the living room and started looking out the window.
“What’s the matter with him?” I wanted to know.
Daddy was a strong man. Not just physically, but he had a strong personality. Unlike some of the Black men I knew, Daddy didn’t back down from white folks. I used to see men bigger than he was cowering nervously and keeping their eyes on the ground when talking to white folks.