Debra Stone
Betty in Trouble
An excerpt from The House on Rondo
Betty wanted a house with no mice. She was embarrassed when the mice chewed the corner of the book cover from the Rondo library and she had to explain to Miss Gleason that they had mice in the house. In many ways, Betty learned to live with embarrassing situations. The book had been her favorite too. It was her first colored poetry book by this author from Chicago, Gwendolyn Brooks, The Bean Eaters. Her favorite poem she memorized was “we real cool.” That poem told it like it is, if you think you’re so smart and don’t need education and always thinking you know something when you don’t. You don’t end up so cool.
Maxwell school was where Patsy, one of her classmates in third grade, was always saying mean stuff about her daddy being white at school. Just because she was light skinned with red curly hair and green eyes. After school was Patsy’s prime time for making fun of Betty.
“Your daddy a white man,” said Patsy.
“No, he isn’t,” said Betty.
“Why you lying girl I seen your daddy.”
“You the one lying, you haven’t seen my daddy because he doesn’t live here. He’s in Detroit working for Berry Gordy.”
“No, he ain’t.”
“Yes, he is. You so dumb,” said Betty.
Patsy threw the first punch. It took Betty by surprise, and she fell on one knee. Patsy was about to kick Betty when Rhonda came from behind and pulled Patsy’s fake ponytail and ran towards the basketball court. Everyone knew Patsy’s hair wasn’t long enough for a ponytail.
Rhonda ran up to the top bleacher. Patsy, who was afraid of heights, pleaded with her.
“C’mon girl gimme that hair. It don’t belong to me it’s my Mama’s.”
“Uh oh, she gonna whip your behind for steal’g.” Patsy didn’t answer. “Yeah, I thought so. Listen up, Ima gonna give you this hair if you stop bothering Betty.”
By this time the playground boys flocked to the basketball court.
“Yeah Patsy, leave ’em alone or I’ll tell my Mama. She’ll tell your Mama you stole her hair and was wearing it at school,” said Spike. His Mama was the neighborhood hairdresser who did everyone’s Mama’s hair.
Rhonda climbed down from the top bleachers and Patsy snatched the ponytail wig. From that point on, Rhonda and Betty were best friends.
So it was no surprise that Betty, like any thirteen-year-old, forgot the time, forgot about coming home to cook supper for her and Margaret. Betty, Rhonda, and Patti had stopped at Moshe’s Corner store on Arundel and Rondo to ogle the candy he sold in the glass case. It was difficult deciding how to spend the nickel each girl was given by Rhonda, who shared her fifteen-cents allowance. Rhonda bought Milk Duds, Patti bought five pieces of Mary Jane candies, and Betty had the hardest time making a choice. Herschel, Moshe’s son, said “Hurry up little girl I don’t have all day.” Like there were other customers in the store, which there weren’t. Betty felt his impatience and pointed to the Hershey chocolate bar. “Sorry kid that’s a dime. Pick something else.”
“Okay, I’ll have the Tootsie roll,” said Betty, placing her nickel on the counter.
Herschel picked up the coin as if it had been contaminated with a disease. As the girls left the store, they all turned around and stuck their tongues out at Herschel and shouted, “We not coming into your ugly store no more!”
The girls savored their candy as they walked, each sharing a piece with each other so that everyone had a taste. Soon Patti and Rhonda separated from Betty into their own homes on Oatmeal Hill and Betty was left walking to Cornbread Valley. Approaching her house, Margaret was still on the stoop where Betty had left her. “Girl, where you been? I told you to start dinner!”
“But you said I could go to Zenobia’s Grandma’s house to play.”
“I never said that.” Margaret’s spittle hit Betty’s face.
“Shut up and tell me the truth!”
“I’m not lying,” Betty whispered.
“Don’t you sass me. I’ll teach you to sass me girl. Who you think you are, grown or something!”
The back of Margaret’s hand slapped Betty across the face. It stung and tears bubbled up in her eyes, rolling down Betty’s cheek. But she didn’t cry. It made Margaret angrier. Another slap caught Betty on the side of her head. Slaps turned into fists that pummeled her shoulders and back. Betty protected her face, but Margaret shoved her to the ground where Betty stayed.
Miss Milton saw it all coming down Rondo Avenue from Saint Phillips Episcopal Church bible study class. She ran from the corner yelling, “Stop Margaret, you trying to kill that child. Get off her!” Margaret didn’t hear Miss Milton in her drunken fury. Miss Milton was fearless when it came to saving a child. Margaret was six inches taller and twenty years younger, but Miss Milton had the reach of a former baseball player. She wacked Margaret with her bible upside her head. It made Margaret pause.
“Whatcha doing bitch!” said Margaret as Miss Milton whirled her bible at her again.
“Don’t you call me outside my name,” said Miss Milton. “Take your drunken ass inside the house ‘fore I call the police. Ima take this child home with me and don’t wanna hear nothing comin’g out of your mouth. Cause I swear on this holy bible I’ll knock some sense into your crazy head.”
Neighbors on each side of Margaret’s rented house peered out their windows, gawking at the sight of Margaret and Miss Milton. Ada Milton played in the Negro league baseball back in the day, if she could manage the men on the baseball teams, she could handle a drunken Margaret.
Margaret went inside the house to sleep off her drunk or maybe had more to drink. Ada pulled Betty off the ground. “Let’s go child and get you supper.”
So, Betty ate her supper, took a bath and Ada Milton made room for her with the other foster children in her care. The next day Ada Milton washed and mended Betty’s ripped shirt. “Now, if your Mama not acting right, you com’on back here, you hear me.”
“Yes Miss Milton. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, baby.”
Betty tiptoed into the house. Margaret was still in bed. The mice on the kitchen table were enjoying a breakfast of spaghetti left on the plate.
Walking on the partially torn up sidewalk, Zenobia stopped to look around. A giant from another world smashed everything. The roar of the bulldozers replaced the sounds of summer on Rondo Avenue. Mountains of dirt piles seemed endless. A long gapping trench exposed the interior of the earth, spilling out tree roots and exposing house foundations. It was difficult to recognize anything. It made her chest tight with anger and tears rolled down her cheeks. Was it dust or her anger? Who were these people ruining her grandparents’ and friends’ neighborhood? Forcing old people from their homes.
Zenobia knocked on Betty’s door; no one answered. Perhaps she was already at the library. At the library she checked in her books with the librarian and searched for Betty. There was a slight musty odor from the books—it wasn’t unpleasant to Zenobia; it was a happy feeling, she felt like she belonged there. The older men sat reading newspapers at a long table, and there at at the end was Betty reading one of her books, the other six in a pile surrounding the chair on the floor.
Betty was deep into her book, her back turned away from Zenobia; she tapped her on the shoulder.
“Hey you, what’s up?” she whispered. “I stopped by to pick you up. Since our books are due on the same day.”
“I had to go before my Mama got home.”
“What’s in the bag?”
“Clothes.”
“What? How come you got clothes in there, you going to the laundromat or something?”
There was this awkward pause for a moment. Betty looked away like she was about to continue reading. She mumbled, “I’m running away.”
Zenobia couldn’t believe it. When you’re a kid you say you’re going to run away, but this was serious, Betty was not a kid anymore. Something must have happened with her Mama.
“You can’t! Where’s your money and…”
“Yes I can, and I will. Mama started drinking again when she promised she wouldn’t.”
“Really?” That’s all Zenobia could say. It sounded stupid, but what could she say? “Maybe you can stay…”
“I’m gonna find my daddy, he’s living in Massachusetts.”
“That’s crazy. Betty you’re not thinking, you don’t have a job, can’t get a job’ cause we’re too young, you don’t know how to get there, what city…”
“Yeah I know.” Betty’s voice reached a high pitch.
“You need to use your common sense. My life isn’t so perfect either, living with my grandparents. Besides, do you even know where your dad lives?”
“He sent Mama a check with his address on it. And he lives in Boston, and I’ve saved up ten dollars—it’s a start ‘cause I jus’ need ten dollars more to take a Greyhound bus to Massachusetts. I jus’ wanna go somewhere where everything is different. I’m sick of being the kid with the drunken, crazy Mama.”
“Shhh.” The old Irish lady librarian, left over when the neighborhood had white immigrants, with squeaky shoes walked over to their table. “Girls, I’m gonna hafta ask you to keep your voices down please. Or I’ma gonna hafta ask you to go outside.” Her lilting accent got on Zenobia’s nerves. They weren’t that loud.
Betty glared at the woman and picked up the bag of clothes, six books, which wouldn’t stay in her arms, dropping three of them as she stomped out. Zenobia rushed to pick up Betty’s books and catch up while the old librarian looked in disgust at them both.
“Wait up would ya, wow Betty. Don’t be mad at me too!”
Together they walked past Moshe’s store not even bothering to look at the glass candy display. They plopped down on the bus bench on the corner to rest. A bus came by; they waved it on. They didn’t have enough money for bus fare.
Sitting in silence, Zenobia didn’t know how to console her friend. Bulldozers rolled down what was left of Rondo Avenue like two bullies.
“I don’t hate her, just so tired of it all. Ya know. I am being stupid; I know that. My dad don’t want me either. When Mama starts acting crazy, Miss Milton lets me stay with her. I bet she’ll put me up until I figure out what I’m gonna do with myself.”
“Yeah, it’s a good plan for now, like you said.” Zenobia was relieved. Miss Milton would take good care of her friend.
“Before I walk with you to Miss Milton’s I gotta get this book about Negro history Grandpa said I should read. I’m still on punishment so I must stay within my boundaries. That’s what he said about me not wandering off.”
“Within your boundaries, girl you really are in jail. Like you on parole or something.”
Zenobia couldn’t help but laugh. Her friend was back making her laugh again.
“Well at least Grandpa let me out on my own for the library and to see you!”
With Zenobia by her side, Betty knocked on Miss Milton’s door. Ada Milton took one look at Betty with her plastic bag of clothes in one hand and six books in the other. And Zenobia carrying the rest of her books. Books were Betty’s refuge and Ada knew that was a good thing for a smart girl child. And Betty was smart, pretty, and Ada knew that could be a lethal combination if someone didn’t look after this child. Betty could stay in the same school and be close to her mother when Margaret had sober moments.
Debra Stone
Debra Stone was a Kimbilio Fellow in 2019. Since then she’s finished her novel The House on Rondo and has published short stories, essays and poetry. Debra lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota