Roosevelt 1950
Photo: Martin Dalsgaard
I went to my Grandma Mamie’s every summer, sometimes even during the year, but this was the first time Roosevelt had visited me.
“What’s first?” He blinked slowly, a lazy eye Grandma said, hit by his drunken father one too many times before Grandma took him in.
“Bubble gum,” I said.
“Where?”
“I’ll show you.”
“Bring me my papers, boys,” a deep voice boomed from the kitchen table.
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
We ran down the street until we came to the corner store “Night and Day”, more of a newsstand really. We went straight to the bubble gum jars. There were all sizes and flavors. He pointed to the small yellow ones, looking in my direction.
“That’s banana.”
“Oh,” he said.
“What about this one?
“That’s lime green.”
“That one, the red one, is cherry. I know that one,” he said.
“Yup.”
“And this one.” The largest one with crunchy bumps on the outside. So big you couldn’t put it in your mouth. You would have to break it open with a rock.
“That one?”
“Big enough for two.”
“Let’s get that one. The purple one.”
“Grape.” Two voices became one.
“But it cost . . . ” I looked at the change in my hand and counted.
We had to buy two papers, the Daily News and the Morning Post.
“Can’t we just say we dropped a dime?” he asked
“Huh?”
“Can’t we just say we dropped a dime and buy this?”
“You aint right. In the head.”
“Huh . . . ”
“You wanna be dead by nightfall.”
Roosevelt scratched the round place on his head, flicking a few head lice to the ground.
“Come on then, don’t be a scaredy cat.”
“I might be scared, but I aint stupid.” Let’s pitch pennies to make up the difference.
And that is what we did. I was the smallest kid, but I was pretty good, and we came up with the extra nickel plus two more pennies left over. We planned to have some real fun after that.
The movies.
“Yes, if you watch Layla for me, I will give you each an extra nickel.”
“For the movies?”
“A whole nickel, Mrs. Brockington?”
A whole nickel, with an extra dime you could—”
“Buy a soda.”
“Yes, ma’am We’ll watch her real good.”
“Real good.”
“She is upstairs in the tub. I am just going next door to get some thread from Mrs. Jackson, and I will be right back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I could already imagine the movies that were playing at the Odeon Theatre on 14th Street.
“What kind movies they got?” He wanted to know.
“You askin? You aint seen more than two movies in yo life.”
“Have to . . . ”
“Have not . . . ”
“In that old rickety church caint half see on the sheet they hang up, they only ever showed Charlie Chan or Tarzan”
“Hmmm.”
“I’m ready.”
“Wait . . . we gotta check on Layla.”
The shadow of recognition passed over their faces like a dark cloud. Roosevelt swallowed hard. They heard a key in the lock; four feet scrambled up the stairs to the hall bathroom.
Quiet, no sound, like death.
“Layla.”
Screaming her name, Mrs. Brockington’s voice echoed through the air. She ran to the tub, lifting the baby out of the water. Layla was sopping wet and still. Then she began sputtering and kicking and crying. She dropped to the floor, wiping Layla’s face and hair over and over, rocking back and forth.
The boys became invisible.
“You did what?” Pop said.
“Git yo shit.”
Roosevelt slowly packed his battered suitcase, the one with fabric straps and stood at the front door. He got in the truck and looked straight ahead. He did not look back, and he never came back.
I cried all night.
Karen Frederick
Karen Frederick is an avid reader, runner and teacher. She divides her time between Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Her stories have appeared in Scriblerus, The Paragon Press, The Evening Street Review, Underwood, Moonlight and Indigo, Inlandia, the Book Smugglers Den, Sangam Literary Magazine and Way Words Journal. She is currently working on a short story manuscript “Mestizos”.
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I went to my Grandma Mamie’s every summer, sometimes even during the year, but this was the first time Roosevelt had visited me.