When Kid meets Morris at ten years old, his life changes from a lonely existence in a house full of turmoil to a hopeful future in music. A solid friendship turns fragile as money, alliances, and betrayal cause it to finally collapse.
Despite losing...
The end of summer came too quickly. Kid made a goodly amount of money in the months of May and June playing proms and school dances and saved it all. He only bought one thing the whole summer; an electric guitar. He paid on it every two weeks until the end of the forth of July.
Buying clothes for high school would come next. He did not want to waste his money so he shopped and priced things carefully. There are two categories, stage clothes and school clothes. If he planned right, some could overlap. He envisioned himself in long fringe on stage. Long sleeve fringe looks good when you are playing guitar as long as it does not get in the way.
Kid moved into the basement. Francis gave his permission because he really did not care. Juanita worried she could not keep an eye on him in the basement. "Mom, you can't see me in my bed room either. I could be hacking up a little girl with a machete in there. You'd never know."
"Kid why would you say something so ugly?!"
"Because you know me better."
She acquiesced as long as there was no lock on the basement door. Francis changed the door knob for her.
Kid bought a poster of Lonette McKee and taped it to the ceiling above the bed. He let Mona paint harlequins, butterflies, love signs and paste glow in the dark stars on the walls.
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Juanita never asked Kid for money. She made long speeches about how he earned his own money like a man so he should be able to decide how to spend it. But when she sent him to the liquor store to get her Hennessey, she never gave him any money. "You can do this one thing for me," she said.
She hid her bottles in various places in the house; in the hutch, behind the china Francis' mother, Mildred had sent up when they got married, in the linen closet behind the old table cloths, behind her women things beneath the bathroom sink and she poured it inside jars of peach preserves in the basement. She coached Kid on which jars to get when Francis got a sweet tooth.
Juanita adored her son, kissing his cheeks hard and frequent until he got old enough to defy her. She became very irritable if she did not get enough liquor in her system on a daily basis. When she got home from work, Francis allowed her to have one drink. "Everybody has the right to unwind after work," he told her. But if Francis was not home, she poured another and another until she passed out. If he was home, she drank from a mouth wash bottle she had watered down or the carefully concealed peach preserves.
Kid could not think of the right word. He would have to change the whole line if he could not find the right words to rhyme with the right amount of syllables. He had been on a roll writing a song until this point when he heard Juanita open the basement door tentatively. He knew what she wanted.
"Mom, you've already had enough," he said before she could attempt to steady herself on the stairs. "Francis will be home soon," he issued a warning.
"Do you have any money, Son?" she said breathily.
"No," he lied. Kid walked up the stairs and met her forehead with his drooping over the rail. He walked her to her bed and for once she went without protest.
"Kid, Mona keeps calling and you're never here."
"I'll call her tomorrow."
"Kid, you said that yesterday," Juanita looked him in the eye. "Look, it's okay if you don't want to be with her anymore, but it's wrong to string her around like this. If you don't want her anymore, just tell her so she can enjoy her last year of junior high school." Kid could tell her words were backed up by experience- an experience she would never tell him about.
Kid kissed his mother on the cheek. "I'll take care of it," he said, serving as her crutch to the bedroom.
She slumped across the bed spread she had crocheted the year she didn't work. "Do you want me to help you in?" Kid whispered. She was snoring before he could finish asking. He took off her shoes and folded the bed spread over her legs. That was the best he wanted to do. He needed to get back to his song.
Francis knew she was drinking again. He was no fool except in love. He just didn't know what to do. He could not beat the evil out of her. Bills were piling again. He had too much pride to ask the boy to pay any bills. He wished someone had let him play the way he wanted when he was that age. If he could do it all again, he would not have quit his music so easily.
