FISH SAMMICH WITH CHEESE Eric Jerome Dickey FISH SAMMICH WITH CHEESE copyright © 2000 by Eric Jerome Dickey Previously published in Mothers & Sons edited by Jill Morgan (New American Library, 2000) Excerpts from THE SON OF MR. SULEMAN copyright © 2021 by Eric Jerome Dickey ALSO BY ERIC JEROME DICKEY The Son of Mr. Suleman The Business of Lovers Before We Were Wicked (Ken Swift) Bad Men and Wicked Women (Ken Swift) Finding Gideon (Gideon) The Blackbirds Naughtier Than Nice (McBroom Sisters) One Night A Wanted Woman Decadence The Education of Nia Simone Bijou (eBook) An Accidental Affair Tempted by Trouble Resurrecting Midnight (Gideon) Dying for Revenge (Gideon) Pleasure Waking with Enemies (Gideon) Sleeping with Strangers (Gideon) Chasing Destiny Genevieve Drive Me Crazy Naughty or Nice (McBroom Sisters) The Other Woman Thieves’ Paradise Between Lovers Liar’s Game Cheaters Milk in My Coffee Friends and Lovers Sister, Sister Anthologies Voices from the Other Side: Dark Dreams II Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writing Mothers & Sons Got to Be Real River Crossings: Voices of the Diaspora Griots Beneath the Baobab: Tales from Los Angeles Black Silk: A Collection of African American Erotica Movie—Original Story Cappuccino GRAPHIC NOVELS Storm (six-issue miniseries, Marvel Entertainment) never lived with my birth mother. i When I was about ten months old, she “dropped me off ” at the baby-sitter and never returned. Guess she forgot. Maybe something more important came up. This was how the story was related to me. So, I suppose, that was how we became unrelated. I didn’t have much early memory of her, but I already knew at five that I strongly feared, dreaded my mother. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know if it was because of everyone’s attitude toward her, or if it was due to her actions and attitude toward me. I was living with an elderly couple from rural country, Grenada, Mississippi, who had taken me in as family. Vardaman and Lila Gause. Lila was in her fifties; Vardaman a little older. The Gauses bought my clothes, sheltered me, made sure I went to school, fed me. No one asked them to take care of me, they just did. Neither had much of an education. Lila couldn’t read; don’t think I ever saw her write anything but her name. Functionally illiterate. Still she was a good God-fearing woman who cherished her Bible and gave up much love. She had an older son, Junior, who I don’t remember being around the house until I was at least thirteen. She had experienced one miscarriage after Ju- nior was born. I think her second son was named James. I remember reading a certificate of death or some type of document that said he was stillborn or something. She never spoke of it, but I remember hearing she miscarried while working either the cotton fields or in her own garden. That’s what I heard. I often wondered if she saw me as the replacement for that loss. A godsend. Vardaman could read and “do figures”—as he called it. Back in his day, children only went to school for a short while, maybe to sixth grade, then quit to work the land or do something to support his fam- ily. He worked at Sealy Posturepedic in South Memphis, adjacent to Riverside Park (renamed Martin Luther King Park) until he retired, then had a series of strokes and died in the mid-seventies. I never really saw any white people in my neighborhood, but when they showed up on Kansas Street they were always in nice cars, never on foot or the bus, and they never stayed long. They ran sun- dries in our neighborhood and often came by to collect insurance money, often with attitudes, on Fridays. Taking. Vardaman was a deacon at White Stone M.B.C. on South Parkway East and Third Street. Lila, the woman I will always call Momma, was a member of the Mother’s Board. Daddy had a reserved seat under the minister facing the front. Momma sat on the left front row, always in the same seat. Rain or shine, we went to church every Sunday. They loved me as if I were their own. Yep, these were the only parents I knew. Momma and Daddy. Still, I was alone. I don’t remember ever having a consistent play- mate. No brother. No sister. No best friend. So I felt lonely. As a child I didn’t recognize this emotion, nor could I clearly articulate the need for a companion. I relied on my imagination for entertainment. We lived in a white five-room house at 1858 Kansas Street, the south side of Memphis in one of the colored districts, not the best- looking house in the neighborhood but far from the worst. Land- scaped by hedges. Two big trees in the front that I would sneak and climb. A plum and a peach tree in the back by the clothesline. There was a garage that Daddy had built in the back for parking his car and storing his tools. He called it “the shed.” The shed was my refuge, where I played everyday. I could pick up pieces of wood, or use one of Daddy’s tools and make-believe it was a secret weapon and pretend I was a superhero defending the world. And after I disposed of all of the evil forces, everyone in the world wanted to come out and play with me. I was the play-king. I picked the games, and I made the rules. One day as I dictated the rules of a new game to my imaginary civilization, I heard my name called. All of a sudden I felt fear, dread, anxiety. My name rang from the lungs of Carolyn “Doll” Dickey. My birth mother. She called me “Roni,” as in Rice-A-Roni, that San Francisco treat. Guess she thought it was funny, but I hated that. How could she dare give me a nickname, especially since I didn’t know her? My Uncle Darrell called me Fat Head, and since I stuttered, kids on Blair Hunt Drive called me Porky Pig. But that was different. They knew me. I knew them. I went around to the front of the house, and she stood there next to Lila; Lila was wringing her hands, what she did when her nerves were acting up, doing that over and over as she rocked side to side, bit- ing her lip and forcing a smile. A worried and unhappy smile. Lila al- ways had a distressed expression on her face, always wrung her hands when Doll showed up, which wasn’t very often. Her reputation pre- ceded her. Doll leaned over to me and said, “Give your momma a hug.” You aren’t my momma, but I’ll hug you because you’re bigger and could beat me up. I remember now. You have beat me up for less. You have hit me, said bad thing to me, did whatever you wanted just because you were my “momma”and had the right. I’m five years old, and you have never given me anything but grief and a good backhand, occasionally a pimp slap, to make yourself feel superior. You have never called or re- membered me on my birthday. “Ain’t you gonna speak, Roni?” “’Lo. How you doing?” I responded like that robot on Lost in Space. I crossed my fingers behind my back. Please don’t make me call you Momma, please. God make her drop dead right now so I can go back to my kingdom and finish my game. My subjects need me. How can they play if they don’t know the rules? Are you listening, God? What about Jesus? Can He help or is He busy, too? In church they said He was al- ways listening and everywhere. “You had anything to eat yet?” “No, ma’am. I been playing in dah shed.” “Let’s go up to the snack bar and get you something to eat,” Doll said. I wasn’t hungry. But then I thought, she has never taken me to get anything to eat. This was unusual. It seemed nice. Maybe everyone was overreacting. Maybe she was really a nice person and loved her bastard child. “Will you loan me five dollars, Miss Gause?” Doll asked. Loan? You ain’t got no job! I had heard them say that about Doll. A flag went up. User alert! “I only got a couple of dollars,” Lila said as she dropped her face and looked at the ground, still shifting side to side. “Okay,” Doll immediately said, snapping and overlapping. Momma hurried into the house and came back with three wrin- kled greenbacks. As she stepped off the porch and came back out un- derneath the shade tree, she frantically pulled at the dollars as if she was trying to straighten them out and make them more valuable, more appealing to her aggressor. Momma got close; Doll whisked her hand out, palm opened. Momma looked at me, then slowly raised her hand and paid the ran- som. I didn’t want her to give her money to Doll. I knew that Momma got her money from Daddy, so she was giving her Daddy’s money. I knew Doll wouldn’t give it back. She had never meant to give it back, because she never did. She looked people in the eye and lied to them. Good people I cared about and who cared about me.