Some People's Kids

By Kate Freeman

Jimmy sat watching golden and red-pink leaves drift down in whistling showers onto the small creek below him. Here the old wooden bridge had deteriorated until the property owner finally tore it down to eliminate any possible liability should one injure their leg as it plunged through a moss-covered plank. Only the cement foundation remained and it jetted out a foot over the rock-bottomed drainage ditch. Here Jimmy had spent hours hunting crawdads, playing tag, and sitting alone on this cement ledge contemplating his life's direction. Today, a growing feeling of loneliness had brought Jimmy to the creek.

James would leave soon. His mother had fallen behind in house payments. James said his mom just let the phone get shut off since the only people calling her wanted money James' mom just didn't have. About month ago, a white man wearing a pink button down shirt had knocked on James' door and offered to buy the house for what James' mom owed on the mortgage. The pink-shirted man would put them up in another home for a few months rent-free. This would give James' mom much needed time to catch up on her bills.

The rental place wasn't all that far away, but it belonged to a different school district. Jimmy had other friends. He wouldn't face high school alone.   He just wouldn't have James, his closest friend, with him.

The October wind picked up and leaves once again danced around Jimmy's small frame. He knocked a few pebbles into the water below him and heaved himself up to climb the hill back to his home. His mother had ordered that he finish raking the leaves in the yard before she got home from work. He also had to check on the pump.

Back at his home, Jimmy had several piles of leaves dotting both the front and back yards. His body ached from forming these wet, heavy, leaf-piles and he had no desire to carry these piles to the backyard fence to toss as his mother had instructed. While Jimmy loved the big oaks, elms, and sycamores scattered throughout his mother's small plot of land, the trees had caused his small family much grief.

For one, the small backyard sloped upward away from the house. During heavy rains, the water washed fallen leaves down this slope and toward the house. The small hole of a sewer drain sat just before the basement door. It took very few leaves to clog this drainage system. A good rain always meant a clogged drain and therefore a flooded basement.

In previous years, his mother had developed various systems meant to stop this flooding. She had built a net-contraption around the sewer hole, but the first good storm had destroyed her net frame. She would run outside during heavy rains repeatedly to scoop leaves away from the drain, but these efforts also proved frivolous. Last year, his mother had implemented a household policy of raking leaves every single day. But even this seemed fruitless as rain just knocked leaves from the trees, which in turn clogged up the drain, which of course caused more flooding. Jimmy's mother had given up. Now she allowed the water to just come into the basement and she bought a small pump to empty the rooms after the act.

The pump his mother had purchased to clear the basement muck water would normally power a cleverly crafted water feature surrounded with fashionable landscape in finer neighborhoods. Jimmy's mom had attached a hose to the pump, which ran the water over the hill in the back yard and toward the creek in the common ground. Jimmy smiled as he watched robins gleefully splash about in the nasty basement water coming out the end of this hose. In this way he could tell the pump still worked.

Jimmy carefully stepped through the basement door and into the two inches of standing water. He took slow even steps toward the pump and moved it to a section of the basement where the water seemed a bit deeper. Then he made his way back outside to get rid of his leaf piles.

As he placed the last pile of leaves upon an old worn sheet, James arrived.

"Just like you to show up when I'm just about done," Jimmy said without stopping his work.

"I got my own leaves. I spent all day yesterday gettin' rid of dead leaves. My body hurts like hell."

"Yeah, I know that feelin'," Jimmy said chuckling as he felt the strain in his back. "Mind helpin' me get these over the fence."

James and Jimmy gathered the corners of the sheet and Jimmy hefted the load up as James held the bundle closed and they walked up hill to the chain-link fence which separated Jimmy's yard from the common ground. The two of them grunted melodramatically as they pushed the leaf bundle over the fence and watched the leaves slide down the other side of the hill toward the creek.

"You got heat in your place?" James asked.

"No. Basement's flooded again. Mom has to call the gas company out to check the furnace again before we light any pilot lights."

"Sucks don't it. Mom ain't turnin' on our heat. She's holdin' out till we move. Came to see if you had hot water to take down to Miss Emma."

"Got water! Got more water than we know what to do with! Probably don't wanna wash with it, but we got water."

"Well, I brought buckets. Do you mind helpin' me carry a few down to her place anyways?"

Jimmy never really minded this chore. Miss Emma always acted so grateful that one could not but like to do for her. Jimmy followed James back toward the buckets he had left next to the spigot on the side of the house. They filled the buckets with the slow steam of water.

The root systems of the lovely mature trees also caused problems in the neighborhood. The trees knew they could find water in the pipes leading toward people's homes and their roots sought out and cracked open these pipes to access this life-giving water. The compromised plumbing often meant a great drop in water pressure or, worse still, no more running water at all. The state tore-up the street and fixed all the pipes for which they felt responsible. But much of the damage remained under the ground of people who could not afford to tear up their ground.

Jimmy had noticed the water pressure dropping more each day. He wondered how long it would take before he and his mother would need people to bring water to their home.

They toted these buckets down the road trying not to slosh the water onto their cloths as they went. Miss Emma's yard didn't do too good this year. In fact, it hadn't done too good for a number of years. The yard had come to look like a true suburban jungle. Jimmy remembered that Miss Emma use to keep rose bushes in a hedge along one side of her yard. Honeysuckle had since moved in where the rose bushes use to grow. The English ivy grew everywhere and other vines had grown-up through the giant trees limbs. She had a pine that seemed as good as dead. Miss Emma didn't like it there in her yard, but she said it would cost $3000 to remove. Miss Emma's leaves still hadn't gotten raked, but she had swept the walk from the street to her house.

Miss Emma stood and held the door open for the boys to enter. The little round woman wore green-colored acrylic pants and an oversized sweatshirt. She greeted them with a huge smile. "Thanks, boys. Thanks, boys. I need to get a few things washed. It's good of you to bring an old woman water."

Jimmy squeezed by Miss Emma and set his bucket beside the sink in the kitchen. He grabbed Miss Emma's fluffy gray cat, Smoky, and slid into a seat at the kitchen table. Smoky wrapped his front legs around Jimmy's arm and kicked at Jimmy's elbow with his back legs. Then he bit down on Jimmy's thumb. Jimmy let out a yelp and Smokey quickly made his escape across the living room.

Miss Emma had painted her kitchen pink. She had pink curtains, pink cabinets, pink walls, and little pink pig brick-a-bracks scattered here and there. Jimmy's mom hated the pink kitchen, but Miss Emma said it reminded her of houses along the coast of her home state Mississippi.

James stopped-up the kitchen sink and filled it with the water from one of the buckets.

"This goin' be enough Miss Emma or do you need more?"

"No child. That's plenty water for now. You boys done enough today. When's your mom get home Jimmy?"

"4:30, but then she has to go to the gas station job from six to ten."

"You get your homework done, Jimmy. I don't want you boys to make your moms worry any more than they already do. Understand, boys?" Miss Emma said as she shot them both an accusing look.

Jimmy had failed a few math tests. His mom had gotten upset. Apparently she talked with Miss Emma about it. Nice, mom .

"I won't Miss Emma," the two boys said in unison.

"Alright boys. Thank you much . . . Our preacher up at church talked to a plumber for me. He's goin' to come out Wednesday n' see what he can do 'bout gettin' me some water goin' again. There's some good folk up at that church. Nice of that man to volunteer his skills and his time like that."

"Well, that's cool. Good luck with that," Jimmy said as he watched James finish off a stale cookie from a jar on the kitchen table. The boys left Miss Emma at the door and began to walk up the street toward Jimmy's home.

"Hey nigger!" came bellowing from the neighboring house. The boys turned to face the thin brunette in bicker shorts and halter-top. She stood with one hand on her hip and the other held her door wide open. "Stay away from my goddamn spigot! That water ain't free just cause you take it!"  

"Fuck off!" James yelled at the woman and then increased his speed to escape from the house.

Jimmy began to jog to keep up. The woman yelled more, but Jimmy could not make out actual words.

"What the hell's that about?" Jimmy laughed not knowing what would cause the tweeker to pop-off yet again.

James shook his head and rubbed his face with both hands. "I took some water from her place. I didn't think she'd be awake that early. I just didn't feel like walking all the way back up to my house. She came flyin' out the house all 'Nigga wha cha doin'? Dis ain't yor yard. You's tresspassin'! I'll kill you!'" All the while James waved his arms about frantically, imitating the woman's actions and bringing life to his story.

Jimmy laughed. "So she went crazy on you for a bucket of water?"

"Yeah! I started walkin' back to Miss Emma's and she yells 'And quite shitin' in the yard you fuckin' animals!'"

"What?" Jimmy burst out laughing.

"I ain't got a clue. But she pissed me off, so I just started yellin' back at her. I called her a junkie bitch, white-trash crack whore. I told her that her kind of thin was scank-nasty thin and I just . . . went off on her. She got all-mad and called my mom and told her 'I WAS DISRESPECTFUL'."

Jimmy laughed at James some more.

"Apparently Mom must of gone off and told Miss Emma all about it. All that, 'Don't do nothin' to upset your mother'. I mean jeeze."

Jimmy just continued to laugh. Maybe his mom hadn't talked to Miss Emma about his tests after all. "What did your mom say?"

"She gave me this talk about how it was wrong to cuss my elders, but it wasn't like she got mad. I mean . . . I ain't grounded."

James and Jimmy flopped their bodies down upon the concrete porch in front of Jimmy's home.

"Can you imagine that bitch calling me nigger? What the hell does she think she is? Stupid-white-nigger-bitch."

"Oh don't worry. One day her people will call her back to the other side of the river with the rest of them and then she will no longer plague our street."

"Oh right, because her people really want her around. Please, there's a reason why she's here with us," James said rolling his eyes. "I'm so pissed! It would be so therapeutic just to smash out her windows. Wouldn't it?"

"Hey, now. Let's not think like that. Just take comfort knowin' that one-day the cranked-up crazy will end-up breakin' her own windows. Either way, Miss Emma wouldn't like no broken windows in the house next to her."

"I still hate her. I wish she'd just OD."

"So do I. So does the whole danged neighborhood. Everybody hates the crazy chick with the washin' machine settin' in her front yard."

"Good. Just so long as I know you're on my side," James said laughing and grabbing at weeds growing out of cracks in the concrete.

"Some people's kids," Jimmy said chuckling at his friend.

Then the engine of the brunette woman's blue 1976 Malibu Classic screamed as it moved up the road and past the two boys. They watched the brunette's car pass and the woman seemed completely oblivious to their presence only yards away. James jumped up in ran into Jimmy's house. Jimmy stood and watched James unsure what his friend's sudden movement implied. James opened the refrigerator door and pulled out the carton of eggs.

"No man. No. It's daylight," Jimmy pleaded as James grinned from ear to ear.

"Ain't nobody goin' to see us in her weeds."

"No man. Come on, Miss Emma will see us."

"Miss Emma's in her kitchen doin' laundry. She ain't gonna see nothing. We'll attack from the far side of the yard, in all that honeysuckle," James said placing two eggs in each pants pocket. He held out an egg to Jimmy.

"No man. My mom will beat me. I ain't doin' this."

"Fine. Miss the fun. I don't care." And with that James moved quickly toward the door with his hands in his pockets, keeping the eggs from exploding and running down his leg. Jimmy followed and they made there way back down the street. They ran across the yard adjacent to the angry woman's home and dove into the yew bushes. They crawled through the yews and through the encroaching honeysuckle to the other side. James pulled the eggs from his pockets and then they knelt for a moment listening and watching to ensure they had not been spotted from the street. Jimmy's heart pounded with anticipation.

James nailed the window with the first egg. They both covered their mouths with their hands to muffle their laughter long enough to listen for movement again. When no sound came, James threw the second egg and just missed the mailbox, winging the side of the other window.

"OH! So close James, but no cigar!" Jimmy whispered and laughed some more. James quickly released the third egg only for it to fall short and splatter on the porch. "Oh my God! Just miss the whole house why don't ya. Freaking loser," Jimmy said with muffled laugher in his low voice.

"You do better then," James said holding the last egg up to throw.

"Gimme it fool. I'll show you." James handed the egg over with a smile. Jimmy, egg in hand took, a deep breath, visualized the egg smashing against the mailbox and dripping down the side of the house. Then he hefted the egg away. It not only hit the mailbox, but hit with such force that it knocked the box crooked and splattered across the door. "Yeah, baby! That's what I'm talkin' about!" Jimmy squealed with delight

"Shit yeah!" James said to praise his friend's accomplishment.

"In your face," Jimmy said throwing his hand up in James face. "That's how that's done fool."