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Oak Black Oak

      My first memories of Pee Wee don’t include his age or information about how he met Momma. I just remember he was tall. With dark skin and coarse, black hair that made his face coppery by comparison, he seemed nice, doling out candies and calling me Minnie Mouse as he patted my puffy ponytails. I never had the illusion that Pee Wee was my daddy. I knew my brothers and I belonged only to Momma, but from a distance, I watched the way he walked, with his back upright and tall, like an ironing board. I watched the way he ate, with a ferocity that made food disappear. And, I watched the way he touched Momma, sometimes softly palming the small of her back or holding her hand when they walked together. I loved him for the way he loved her even though he could never be my daddy.

      One of the things I appreciated most about Pee Wee was the disappearance of hunger when he was around. I remember him and Momma tromping into the house, grocery bags under each arm. He wore a smile that meant there was a Hershey bar hidden in the bottom of the bag just for me. I’d watch, expectantly, as he and Momma unpacked food and loaded cupboards until they looked as if they would burst from fullness. Then I’d receive my treat, a blob of chocolaty sweetness I swished back and forth from cheek to teeth to tongue until my mouth became a chocolate cavern.

      Pee Wee babysat us when Momma went to work. Most days consisted of a visit to “Tom and Jerry” land, a lunch comprised of a thick slab of bologna, a square chunk of cheese, two slices of bread, and a glass of juice, which left us with red mustaches on our faces that we licked like cherry lollipops well into the day. Then we’d play together, outside or in the house; it didn’t matter as long as we were running, jumping, and screaming. We weren’t lucky enough to have our own bikes, so we hopped on our neighbors’, Ryan and Tyler’s, which were bikes pieced together out of parts from the junkyard.

My brothers and I often got into little skirmishes when we played with Ryan and Tyler, the Wozniak boys. The Wozniak boys were rough. They ran up and down Victory Boulevard, shirtless, and wearing shorts that formerly were pants. Their skin was so white I could see veins running along their chests and up their necks. And their necks were a dingy gray, with dirt that sometimes resembled paint splotches. Their teeth were a yellowish brown, as if the boys had been sipping coffee, even though they were only eight and ten.

      What intrigued me about them was they were white, but they were as poor as we were, maybe poorer, and they looked nothing like the well-dressed kids I adored on Eight Is Enough. I remember Ryan and Tyler scrounging in our backyard, combing through trashcans for treasures Momma may have unknowingly discarded. It wasn’t unusual to see Ryan wearing the same holey, butter-cookie shoes Momma had thrown out because they were too mangled for Champ to wear.

      When I was four, Champ sold me to Ryan for a raw, peeled potato. All I had to do was let him grind on me for ten seconds, and Champ would split the booty with me. The potato was brown and tattooed in lines of dirt from Ryan’s hands. Tyler stood partially hidden, snickering against the side of the house. I didn’t think it was a good trade, the potato for myself, but Champ and I were hungry and dinnertime seemed years away. Even with all of the dirt covering the potato’s flesh, it looked tasty. And I’d never eaten a potato like an apple before, so I imagined the juicy crunch would be foreign, refreshing, and worth what I was giving.

So, I let Ryan do the nasty to me while we leaned against the side of the house. His hands were placed on both sides of my head, as he stared straight at the wall. His breath smelled musty as it ricocheted from the siding to my nose. His lips twisted into a grimace as he thrust his pelvis into my stomach, without any specific rhythm or purpose. It was just pulsing, pushing for the sake of itself. I looked past Ryan, past Champ, and past the potato to the interstate that ran in front of my house. I saw the cars whizzing by to worlds I often imagined. I then looked at the big black oak hovering over me, and wondered what it felt like never to be wanting, to be so big, so grand, so free, waving in the wind.

      Champ counted, “One, two, three . . . ,” slowly and melodically. After he reached ten, Ryan pushed off of me and ran away with our dirty potato. Champ tried to chase him, but Ryan was too fast. After making his way to his bike, which squeaked as he mounted it, Ryan quickly took off. Champ then ran back to me out of breath.

      “Man, you should have held him,” he said.

      “I know,” I squeaked. “Next time, I will.”

      “Don’t worry. I’m going to catch him and beat him up,” he replied.

      Champ then grabbed a hold of my arm and we walked hand-in-hand back to the front of our house. Later that day, all had been forgiven. We picked right back up with Ryan and Tyler where we had left our friendship, running, playing, and laughing.

      One sunny afternoon, I’d been playing hopscotch by myself while Champ, Dathan, Ryan, and Tyler were wrestling, imitating NWA wrestlers. Champ was Dusty Rhodes and Ryan was Ric Flair. Dathan and Tyler were the managers, the fans, and the referees. In the middle of one of their toughest matches, where Champ had Ryan in a headlock and Tyler was positioning himself for a sneak attack on Dathan, Pee Wee came barreling down the stairs and stood tall in the middle of the doorway. Normally, his voice wafted down the stairs. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted one of us to do that he couldn’t have done for himself when he’d gotten up, but I was ready to comply, hoping there’d be a chocolaty treat at the end of his request.

      “Laurie,” he said.

      “Yes, sir,” I replied.

      “I need you to come upstairs for me right quick.”

      “You need Dathan and Champ, too?” I asked.

      “No, just you,” and he quickly went back up the stairs, taking two steps at a time.

When I entered the living room, with only a loveseat, television, and my little sister’s crib, I expected to see him sitting there with his long legs hanging over the side. I was startled to find he was behind me, closing and locking the door.

      Pee Wee walked over to the chair. His feet, dragging along the floor, sounded like the swish of the broom. He sat on the loveseat and told me to go into Momma’s room and get her brush. I quickly moved, skipping into the room, hoping he’d reward me with a glass of juice afterward. I was already planning to rub my liquidy treat into Champ and Dathan’s faces as one skip after another carried me into Momma’s room.

      I looked for the brush on the dresser, but it wasn’t there. Then, I went over to the nightstand because I thought that it had fallen on the side of the bed, but it wasn’t there either. Then, I remembered I was watching Momma brush her hair in the bathroom before she’d gone to work that day, so I turned and bolted for the door, but there Pee Wee stood between me and the open space in the living room. For some reason, he was bigger than I remembered, as if he’d grown ten feet from the time I left him in the living room to that moment when he was standing between me and the door. His face was different too, darker, and his eyebrows were so close they could have been kissing. I stopped, mid-sprint and said, “Excuse me, Pee Wee. I think the brush is in the bathroom.” He didn’t move.

      “Excuse me, Mr. Pee Wee,” I said again and attempted to step around him. I flinched, as he sharply dropped to his knees.

      “Laurie, are you scared of me?” he asked. Normally, I would have said “no,” because Momma would have been there to save me if Pee Wee or anybody tried to hurt me, but this time, I wasn’t sure of what to say. I’d always been able to joke with him and he often laughed whenever I said something Momma considered grown, but this wasn’t Pee Wee kneeling in front of me. This was a dark cloud of a man that could hurt me because Momma was at work and Champ and Dathan were outside. Since I was on my own, I replied with a nod of my head.

      “Do you think that I’d ever hurt you?” A sharp smile appeared on his face, but his eyebrows were still crowded at his forehead.

      I nodded again. The smile then faded.

“You’re right,” he said. “I would. Do you love your momma and your brothers and sister?” he asked.

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