MAMA’S BOY
A Short Story
By Hal Jones

Copyright 2006
H.V. Jones

L’il Robert walked briskly away from the house where the lady was screaming. He would have run, but he didn’t want to call even more attention to himself. His face tried to look casual, but his legs showed his real feelings.
The screaming woman was his mother. She was yelling about what he’d have to do if he wanted to sleep in her house that night. She was always yelling about something since she got sick - unless she was passed out. He used to say she took too much medicine, but he wasn’t so slow as to believe that. And if he were, the neighborhood kids would be quick enough to tell him what his mama did with her time and money.
It was a very hot, steamy afternoon for May, even in Miami. For a while he just wandered around the neighborhood. On the next street he saw some girls singing “Cinderella dressed in yella” and skipping rope. He used to play with them a couple years before and, to tell the truth, was better with the rope than they were. He wouldn’t do it now, of course. That was girls’ stuff, and, besides, they were some of the ones with bad tongues.
He didn’t consciously start walking east but realized he was going that way when he found himself across from Simpson’s market. He liked that old man and used to hang out there with the other kids about this time in the afternoon, pitching pennies and joking.
He was thirsty and hungry. A big kid had stolen his free school lunch when the monitor wasn’t looking. He wanted to cross over and get a soda, but his mama had taken all his change before she threw him out. Not wanting to bum off the kids starting to gather on the market stoop, he kept walking.
Twenty minutes later he was near Little Haiti going through a neighborhood he didn’t like. There were gangs around there, and a couple of gang kids had pounded on him once when he went that way. Just as he thought about that, one of those kids came around a corner and started walking toward him. Quickly, Robert ducked between two houses and down the alley behind, hoping he hadn’t been seen.
The alley, it turned out, was a good choice. One house had huge avocado and mango trees that drooped over the back fence. They were both loaded down with fruit. He loved avocados, especially like his Granma used to fix them with brown sugar and molasses, but he knew these wouldn’t be good until November. On the other hand, the mangoes were so ripe they covered the ground, and their rotting filled the air.
“Hey, kid, c’mere,” the gangbanger screamed from the far end of the alley.
With small kid’s savvy - without thinking about it - Robert jumped to the top of the fence, grabbed three fat mangoes, and hit the other side running. Instead of going out to the street, though, he found a broken lattice and crawled way back under a porch. As he bit the end off a mango and pulled away the rubbery skin, he thought about the old Panamanian lady who lived down his street and used to take care of him. She had names for all the mangoes. One was papayo; one was querosín; and this one was calidad, the best. The meat was sweet and crisp, not stringy. He stuffed himself, then fell asleep in the musty cool.
It was evening when he woke and started out again. That didn’t matter. His business didn’t have strict hours. When he got to Biscayne Boulevard, his usual bus bench near the Omni was occupied. At his size he couldn’t make a stink about it, so he walked north until he found another. He made himself as big as he could, throwing his arms over the bench back, legs apart. From there he could see down 18th Street to Pace Park and the bay. He didn’t have to stay at the bench, he thought. He could go to the park where some older guys he knew were probably playing soccer. He could hang with them, and maybe they’d give him a place to sleep. Or he could stay in the park. He’d done it before. It wouldn’t get cold that night, and in the morning the bay would be a perfect silver floor stretching all the way to those condos in Miami Beach. Some day he’d just slide across that floor and live with all the rich people over there.
Then he remembered the zoo. The next day the sixth graders had their spring field trip to Metrozoo. He loved the zoo: the white tigers, the machines that made animal forms with hot plastic, even the precooked burgers in their foil bags. If he went to the zoo, he’d have to go home that night. Not that he’d get much sleep - with all the weird guys who hung out there now - but he could clean up and change into the new school uniform his auntie’d given him. He’d packed it in a box and hidden it under the floorboards in the closet where his mama couldn’t find it and sell it like she’d done with his Nikes and new bookbag. She’d said he had to bring twenty dollars. If he could make more, he could hide it from her and spend it all at the zoo.
Somewhere in his brain the white Town Car had registered as it passed by the first time. Now it pulled to a stop in front of the bench, and its door was held open by a thick hand with a clunky gold ring on one finger. Robert studied the ring for a minute, then walked over and got in. Sitting in the plush leather seat, he could scarcely see over the dashboard. He glanced briefly at the slimy point of a cigar butt protruding from the ash tray then looked straight forward, fixed on the fake walnut trim, as the negotiating began. And later, he didn’t think about what he was doing; he just kept thinking about the white tigers.
He was still a good boy. He still loved his mama.