-- Mongrel
-- What did you say
-- Mongrel
Mawma whats a mongrel
-- Why would you say that
-- The old lady down the street he pointed
down the block across the street called
me a mongrel She stood on her porch watching me go by and she said You boy You mongrel
You keep moving I dont want you around my property
Im watching you Im watching
you walk by You best know Im watching you and dont you never stop walking when
you cross in front of my property
I think shes a mean lady Her dog
snapped at me through the fence pickets Liked to get at me get out from behind
that white fence and take a bite of me I think
-- Maybe because youre a sweet little boy honey
-- Maybe thats what the dog thinks
Not
the lady
I
dont know what she thinks Something else but I dont know
Whats
a mongrel Mawma
-- You neednt worry Youre not a mongrel
Im not going to explain what the
old lady thinks Her thinking is wrong Shes a product do you understand product shes
a product of the way she was brought up and she doesnt know any better Its the way she was made to be like when you make something make a product Okay
Shes an ignorant woman
And thats why youre going to
school So youre not ignorant like her She doesnt know any better my little boy Shes
an ignorant woman and you should try to ignore her when she talks like that Her
family brought her up poorly and we can never undo what she learned from them
what she was told Some learning is like bleach like Mawma uses on Daddys white
shirts The bleach makes sure they come out bright white Its harsh You know how
Mawmas hands are red and how they smell after shes washed Daddys shirts Im
afraid honey some learning is like bleach
-- Does it hurt
-- It doesnt hurt her
Unfortunately
she hurts other people So dont you pay any attention to her Dont be
rude Just walk by You just keep walking home and pretend her words are like a
gust of wind Let them blow past you Pay them no heed no attention
-- It is hard when they hurt
-- She should know better But in that absence
you have to know better
-- Shes not nice Mawma
-- Im afraid honey she probably never knew any
better
She was bleached white
Try to remember honey
the boy felt something inside him that he hadnt a word for he didnt like it
he would try though as his mother asked
from the
kitchen the boys grandmother overheard their conversation
her long grey hair was tied back
in four braids that she wound on top of her head the knot of her red flour-dusted
kitchen apron was tied just beneath their relaxed tendrils
she leaned over
the hand-formed loaves of bread that laid on a dusted cuttingboard
she shook her head slowly
very
slowly
she was familiar with the old woman her grandson was talking of
the old woman who provoked him
who didnt feel any shame
likely she felt entitled by her very being her blood
when she had first moved into the
neighborhood a wood two-flat that her children helped her to afford she went up
and down the block on either side of the street to introduce herself
their
new neighbor
in the old country in the small
hamlet they lived in her family knew everyone on the small block abbreviated by
the surrounding farmland and fields for grazing stock it was graced with modest
houses and greenyards and interspersed with small businesses a tailor a seamstress
a shoemaker a very small aromatic bakery which bartered for goods rather than money
exchanged
her grandson she knew
and she would not discourage him
when he grew older he slipped
around behind the old womans house entered her yard through the alley using the
adobe incinerator to bypass her tined wood fence and helped himself to her
fragrant treasured roses
he
very carefully cut them free with his jackknife so not to
betray himself maybe tinker a bit with
her memory
fog her up and brought them home for his mother
small bouquets
she admired his deliberation how he
honed his stealth very nearly into an artform and the whole while the old woman
suspected it was him though she couldnt
catch him redhanded and her daughter
refused to give the old woman any credence that her son was blatantly a thief
every grammar school day he
walked past to and fro the front of her house
relentlessly she chided him
he irritated her by smiling at
her words
allowing
them to bypass his ears
and either before
or afterwards
he took small bouquets home to his mother leaving them bundled
beside the kitchen sink
usually in his
grandmothers care
she kept a small
vegetable and flower garden in the vacant lot beside her two-flat and as often as
her daughter asked about the roses she said she had picked them herself
she knew and was very familiar with the
old woman and her distinct upbringing
knew her kind from the big city
in the old country
she disliked her immensely
when she was introducing herself
to everyone she recalled where the old woman said she was from
she rather enjoyed that her
grandson was getting the better of the woman
and if she helped nominally telling a
little white lie so be it
she
felt the old woman deserved far more than the little white lie she tendered
he was getting the better of her
and if he was
then the old womans beliefs were wrong
they
didnt hold water despite what she thought
curiously her mongrel grandson of
a race the old woman found appalling was bettering her beating her at her own
game innately
her much-professed and exalted white
Aryan stock cantilevered and upheld by
the new sciences then
by evolutionary
biology by eugenics by learned American professors who said a boy such as he was
doomed to misery because he was born a degenerate defective
as all who were that werent born Pure and White and Nordic
and yet her little mongrel and she
were making an abject fool of the old woman
she left Europe to leave those
sensibilities behind
only to discover the race
theorists who were touted actually lived in America
her grandson and she never talked
about it
it was their pact
the boy and his mother didnt speak
of it either until the following year when the old woman again showed up at their door with her venal accusations
Grandmother answered the door
it was her house
it was her family
she listened to the old womans words let them pass like gusts and breezes then dismissed her abruptly shutting the door
in her face
Grandmother said she did however
appreciate the woman taciturn acceptance of the door shut in her face she also appreciated her backbone her relentless
pursuit of her satisfaction
which she would never gain unless she caught the
mongrel
You
did call him a mongrel
redhanded
as a family they never talked of the old woman
1439, Day-between-Two-Ts, 9 9. 15
1345, Thursday – its a hallieday, 10 9.
15
