Free High Crime Area by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

aunt Chloe had done. I am a big girl for thirteen. And I stand tall. I don’t take shit from even the big boys, just look them eye-to-eye. I’m the one that knows the answer to the math problems not them.
    Who is that girl, another teacher in the hall said looking into the room, she’d mistaken me for a teacher’s aide from the college. I just laughed and did not speak fast or excited but calm as I have learned and clear-eyed meeting their eyes.
    A blush came into my face, they were looking so hard at me.
    But I never tell them anything of Momma, or of Toad-Baby who is my young brother. Even when they ask, and touch my wrist to show they are sincere and want to help, if there is help needed by me, I never say anything that is real but only just Things are OK at home. Things are good.
    Then I laugh, to show that I am all right. If they touch my wrist I throw off the touch without seeming-so.
    Who it was who’d beat my father to death, I don’t know. Momma told police she did not see any faces and did not hear any voices and when she came out of hiding, it was all over.
    I was three years old then. I don’t remember any of that time or even where it was but I know that it was somewhere else, not where Momma lives now.
    It is like a wall that has been hosed down, that time. What was there is faded and torn and even if you touch it with your fingers to help you read what it was, you can’t.
    Momma did not mean to hurt Toad-Baby but Momma is very sad and tired sometimes. And Momma’s breath smells sour, those bad times.
    Sometimes, Momma is angry. Why is this my life? This is not my life.
    Momma says That minute he stuck it in me, if I could remove that. Then I wouldn’t have this ugly nigger-toad-baby. I would not be here in this place undersea. Momma looks at me with her eyes glinting like silverfish and the eyelids scraped raw.
    It’s scary when Momma speaks like this. I wish she would not.
    Momma says A baby is too big to fit inside a woman. Better to have eggs that hatch like birds or snakes, you wouldn’t even have to be there.
    When Evander went away Momma’d had accidents with Toad-Baby dropping him on the stairs where she was stumbling, and the lightbulb burnt out. Bad bruises on Toad-Baby’s head and a “concussion” they said at the ER where they asked me questions as Momma had needed me to come along with her and I told them that my baby brother squirmed and kicked and got loose of Momma’s arms and fell and maybe they believed me, or maybe not.
    Seeing Toad-Baby with his dark, dense hair and mottled skin, they could see he was a mix-race baby . If they held this against Momma they did not show it like Momma’s family did.
    Momma is self-medicated she calls it. Keeping her thoughts from turning bad, she says. Like backed-up drains, the way your own thoughts can strangle you in your sleep.
    Last night here at Momma’s. She’d looked at me strange like wanting to scream at me Why are you here, I don’t need you! Helped Momma with supper and cleanup in the kitchen. And putting Toad-Baby to bed. Trying then to stay awake watching late-night TV. And Toad-Baby fussing and kicking in his crib. And Momma sees that my eyes are shutting and takes advantage getting up from the sofa soft-barefoot-walking into the bathroom to fill the tub and bring Toad-Baby inside to bathe with her because she does not want to be alone. I can’t let Momma shut the door, I will have to bang on the door and break it down if I can, and then Momma’s nightgown is wet and Toad-Baby’s diaper is soaked and has to be changed. My hands are shaking, I promised Momma I would protect him for there is no one else.
    I am Toad-Baby’s only sister. I am eleven years older than Toad-Baby and I think that he will never know me really, I will always be his old sister. And my skin-color different from his. These days will be long forgotten for his skin-color will draw