Quick Feet: When Counting to Ten Isn't Enough

A few weeks into the summer, one month before the start of eighth grade, two days after that psychologist's directive to "count to ten in case of emergencies and limit your intake of simple carbohydrates," you dropped me off with Grandmama in Forest, Mississippi. Before speeding off, you wiped away your tears. You said you were sorry. You kissed the roundest parts of my cheeks. You said you were sorry. You claimed Grandmama would make everything okay.

You said you were sorry.

I loved Grandmama but I didn't really love going to her house any day other than Friday. Every Friday, Grandmama let me watch The Dukes of Hazzard, a show you said "operates in a world even more racist than the one we live in, where two white drug dealers, who keep violating probation and making fools of the police, in a red Dodge Charger with the Confederate flag on top called the General Lee, never go to prison."

The Friday night I was sent to stay with Grandmama, I asked her if black folk like us could ever get away from the police like Bo and Luke Duke could.

"No," Grandmama said before I could get the whole question out. "Nope. Not at all. Never. You better never try that mess either, Kie."

The one or two times we saw black characters on The Dukes of Hazzard, I remember Grand-mama and her boyfriend, Ofa D, getting closer to the screen and cheering for them the same way they cheered if the Georgetown Hoyas were playing, if Jackson State won, or if there was a black contestant on Wheel of Fortune.

Like most black women in Forest, Grand-mama had a number of side hustles in addition to working the line at the chicken plant. One of her side hustles was selling vegetables from her garden. Another side hustle was selling fried fish, pound cakes, and sweet potato pies every Saturday evening to anyone who would buy them. The most important of Grandmama's side hustles was washing clothes, ironing, cooking, and doing dishes for this white family called the Mumfords.

After church that Sunday, on the way to the Mumfords, I complained to Grandmama that my slacks were so tight I had to unzip them to breathe. Grandmama laughed and laughed and laughed until she didn't. She said she wouldn't be at the Mumfords for long. I always saw the Mumfords' nasty clothes next to Grandmama's washer, and their clean clothes out on the clothesline behind her house.

I hated those clothes.

The Mumfords lived right off Highway 35. I was amazed at how the houses off Highway 35 were the only houses in Forest that looked like the houses on Leave It to Beaver, Who's the Boss?, and Mr. Belvedere. When I imagined the insides of rich-white-folk houses, I imagined stealing all their food while they were asleep. I wanted to gobble up palmfuls of Crunch 'n Munch and fill up their thirty-two-ounce glasses with name-brand ginger ale and crushed ice tumbling out of their silver refrigerators. I wanted to leave the empty glasses and Crunch 'n Munch crumbs on the counter so the white folk would know I'd been there and they'd have something to clean up when I left.

Grandmama left the key in the ignition and told me she'd be back in about twenty minutes. "Don't say nothing to that badass Mumford boy if he come out here, Kie," she said. "He ain't got a lick of home training. You hear me? Don't get out of this car unless it's an emergency."

I nodded yes and sprawled out across the front seat of the Impala. Damn near as soon as Grandmama went in the house, out came this boy who looked like a nine-year-old Mike D from the Beastie Boys. The Mumford boy was bone-white and skinny in a way Grandmama called "po'." Grandmama didn't have...