1 Gorilla, My Love
Toni Cade Bambara (1972)
That was the year Hunca Bubba changed his name. Not a change up, but a change back, since Jefferson Winston Vale was the name in the first place. Which was news to me cause he’d been my Hunca Bubba my whole lifetime, since I couldn’t manage Uncle to save my life. So far as I was concerned it was a change completely to somethin soundin very geographical weather like to me, like somethin you’d find in a almanac. Or somethin you’d run across when you sittin in the navigator seat with a wet thumb on the map crinkly in your lap, watchin the roads and signs so when Granddaddy Vale say “Which was, Scout,” you got sense enough to say take the next exit or take a left or whatever it is. Not that Scout’s my name. Just the name Granddaddy call whoever sittin in the navigator seat. Which is usually me cause I don’t feature sittin in the back with the pecans. Now, you figure pecans all right to be sittin with. If you thinks so, that’s your business. But they dusty sometime and make you cough. And they got a way of slidin around and down sudden, like maybe a rat in the buckets, So if you scary like me, you sleep with the lights on and blame it on Baby Jason and, so as not to waste good electric, you study the maps. And that’s how come I’m in the navigator seat most times and get to be called Scout.
So Hunca Bubba in the back with the pecans and Baby Jason, and he in love. And we got to hear all this stuff about this woman he in love with and all. Which really ain’t enough to keep the mind alive, though Baby Jason got no better sense than to give his undivided attention and keep grabbin at the photograph which is just a picture of some skinny woman in a countrified dress with her hand shot up to her face like she shame fore cameras. But there’s a movie house in the background which I ax about. Cause I am a movie freak from way back, even though it do get me in trouble sometime.
Like when me and Big Brood and Baby Jason was on our own last Easter and couldn’t go to the Dorset cause we’d seen all the Three Stooges they was. And the RKO Hamilton was closed readying up for the Easter Pageant that night. And the West End, the Regun and the Sunset was too far, less we had grownups with us which we didn’t. So we walk up Amsterdam Avenue to the Washington and Gorilla, My Love playin, they say which suit me just fine, thought the “my love” part kinda drag Big Brood some. As for Baby Jason, shoot, like Granddaddy say, he’d follow me into the fiery furnace if I say come on. So we go in and get three bags of Havmore potato chips which not only are the best potato chips but the best bags for blowin up and bustin real loud so the matron come trottin down the aisle with her chunky self, flashin that flashlight dead in your eye so you can give her some lip, and if she answer back and you already finish seein the show anyway, why then you just turn the place out. Which I love to do, no lie. With Baby Jason kickin at the seat in front, egging me on, and Big Brood mumblin bout what fiercesome things we goin do. Which means me. Like when the big boys come up on us talkin bout Lemme a nickel. It’s me the hide the money. Or when the bad boys in the park take Big Brood’s Spaudeen way from him. It’s me that jump on they back and fight awhile. And it’s me that turns out the show if the matron get too salty.
So the movie come on and right away it’s this churchy music and clearly not about no gorilla. Bout Jesus. And I am ready to kill, not cause I got anything gainst Jesus. Just that when you fixed to watch a gorilla picture you don’t wanna get messed around with Sunday School stuff. So I am mad. Besides, we see the raggedy old brown film King of Kings every year and enough’s enough. Grownups figure they can treat you just anyhow. Which burns me up. There I am, my feet up and my Havmore potato chips really salty and crisp and two jawbreakers in my lap and the money safe in my shoe from the big boys, and here comes this Jesus stuff. So we all go wild. Yellin, booin, stompin and carryin on. Really to wake the man in the booth up there who musta went to sleep and put on the wrong reels. But no, cause holler down to shut up and then he turn the sound up so we really gotta holler like crazy to even hear ourselves good. And the matron ropes off the children section and flashes her light all over the place and we yell some more and some kids slip under the rope and run up and down the aisle just to show it take more than some dust ole velvet rope to tie us down. And I’m flingin the kid in front of me’s popcorn. And Baby Jason kickin seats. And it’s really somethin. Then here come the big and matron, the one they let out in case of emergency. And she totin that flashlight like she gonna use it on somebody. This here the colored matron Brandy and her friends call Thunderbuns. She do not play. She do not smile. So we shut up and watch the simple ass picture.
Which is not so simple as it is stupid. Cause I realize that just about anybody in my family is better than this god they always talkin about. My daddy wouldn’t stand for nobody treatin any of us that way. My mama specially. And I can just see it now, Big brood up there on the cross askin bout Forgive them Daddy cause they don’t know what they doin. And my Mama say Get on down from there you big fool, whatcha think this is, playtime? And my Daddy yellin to Granddaddy to get him a ladder cause Big Brood actin the fool, his mother side of the family showin up. And my mama and her sister Daisy jumpin on them Romans beatin them with they pocketbooks. And Hunca Bubba tellin them folks on they knees they better get out the way and go get some help or they goin to get trampled on. And Granddaddy Vale sayin Leave the boy alone, if that’s what he wants to do with his life we ain’t got nothin to say about it. Then Aunt Daisy givin him a taste of the pocketbook, fussin bout what a damn fool old man Granddaddy is. Then everybody jumpin in his chest like the time Uncle Clayton went in the army and come back with only one leg and Granddaddy say somethin stupid about that’s life. And by this time Big Brood off the cross and in the park playin handball or skully or somethin. And the family in the kitchen throwin dishes at each other, screamin bout if you hadn’t done this I wouldn’t had to do that. And me in the parlor trying to do my arithmetic yellin Shut it off.
Which is what I was yellin all by myself which make me a sittin target for Thunderbuns. But when I yell We want our money back, that gets everybody in chorus. And the movie windin up with this heavenly cloud music and the smart-ass up there in his hole in the wall turns up the sound again to drown us out. Then there comes Bugs Bunny which we already seen so we know we been had. No gorilla my nuthin. And Big Brood say Awwww Sheeet, we goin to see the manager and get our money back. An I know from this we business. So I brush the potato chips out of my hair which is where Baby Jason like to put em, and I march myself up the aisle to deal with the manger who is a crook in the first place for lyin out there sayin Gorilla, My Love playin. And I never did like the man cause he oily and pasty at the same time like the bad guy in the serial, the one that got a hideout behind a push-button bookcase and play “Moonlight Sonata” with gloves on. I knock on the door and I am furious. And I am alone, too. Cause Big Brood suddenly got to go so bad even though my mama told us bout goin in them nasty bathrooms. And I hear him sigh like he disgusted when he get to the door and see only a little kid there. And now I’m really furious cause I get so tired grownups messin over kids just cause they little and can’t take em to court. What is it, he say to me like I lost my mittens or wet on myself or am somebody’s retarded child. When in reality I am the smartest kid P.S. 186 ever had in its whole lifetime and you can ax anybody. Even them teachers that don’t like me cause I won’t sing them Southern songs or back off when they tell me my questions are out of order. And cause my Mama come up there in a minute when them teachers start playin the dozens behind colored folks. She stalk in with her hat pulled down bad and that Persian lamb coat draped back over one hip on account of she got her fist planted there so she can talk that talk which gets us all hypnotized and teacher be comin undone cause she know this could be her job and her behind cause Mama got pull with the Board and bad by her own self anyhow.
So I kick the door open wider and just walk right by him and sit down and tell the man about himself and that I want my money back and that goes for Baby Jason and Big Brood too. And he still trying to shuffle me out the door even though I’m sittin which shows him for the fool he is. Just like the teachers do fore they realize Mama like a stone on that spot and ain’t backin up. So he ain’t gettin up off the money. So I was forced to leave, takin the matches from under his ashtray, and set fire under the candy stand, which closed the raggedy ole Washington down for a week. My Daddy had the suspect it was me cause Big Brood got a big mouth. But I explained right quick what the whole thing was about and I figured it was even-steven. Cause if you say Gorilla, My Love, you suppose to mean it. Just like when you say you goin to give me a party on my birthday, you gotta mean it. And it you say me and Baby Jason can go South pecan haulin with Granddaddy Vale, you better not be comin up with no stuff about the weather look uncertain or did you mop the bathroom or any other trickified business. I mean even gangsters in the movies say My word is my bond. So don’t nobody get away with nothin far as I’m concerned. So Daddy put his belt back on. Cause that’s the way I was raised. Like my Mama say in one of them situations when I won’t back down, Okay Badbird, you right. Your point is well-taken. Not that Badbird my name, just what she say when she tired arguin and know I’m right. And Aunt Jo, who is the hardest head in the family and worse even than Aunt Daisy, she say, You absolutely right Miss Muffin, which also ain’t my real name but the name she gave me one time when I got some medicine shot in my behind and wouldn’t get up off her pillows for nothin. And even Granddaddy Vale-who got no memory to speak of, so sometime you can just plain lie to him, if you want to be like that-he say, Well if that’s what I said, then that’s it. But this name business was different they said. It wasn’t like Hunca Bubba had gone back on his word or anything. Just that he was thinkin bout gettin married and was usin his real name now. Which ain’t the way I saw it at all.
So there I am in the navigator seat. And I turn to him and just plain ole ax him. I mean I come right on out with it. No sense goin all around that barn the old folks talk about. And like my mama say, Hazel- which is my real name and what she remembers to call me when she bein serious-when you got somethin on your mind, speak up and let the chips fall where they may. And if anybody don’t like it, tell em to come see your mama. And Daddy look up from the paper and say, You hear your mama good, Hazel. And tell em to come see me first. Like that. That’s how I was raised.
So I turn clear round in the navigator seat and say, “Look here, Hunca Bubba or Jefferson Windsong Vale or whatever you name is, you gonna marry this girl?”
“Sure am,” he say, all grins.
And I say, “Member that time you was baby-sittin me when we lived at four-o-nine and there was this big snow and Mama and Daddy got held up in the country so you had to stay for two days?”
And he say, “Sure do.”
“Well. You remember how you told me I was the cutest thing that ever walked the earth?”
“Oh, you were real cute when you were little,” he say, which is suppose to be funny. I am not laughin.
“Well. You remember what you said?”
And Grandaddy Vale squintin over the wheel and axin which way, Scout. But Scout is busy and don’t care if we all get lost for days.
“Watcha mean, Peaches?”
“My name is Hazel. And what I mean is you said you were going to marry me when I grew up. You were going to wait. That’s what I mean, my dear Uncle Jefferson.” And he don’t say nuthin. Just look at me real strange like he never saw me before in life. Like he lost in some weird town in the middle of night and lookin for directions and there’s no one to ask. Like it was me that messed up the maps and turned the roads posts round. “Well, you said it, didn’t you?” And Baby Jason lookin back and forth like we playin ping-pong. Only I ain’t playin. I’m hurtin and I can hear that I am screamin. And Grandaddy Vale mumblin how we never gonna get to where we goin if I don’t turn around and take my navigator job serious.
“Well, for cryin out loud, Hazel, you just a little girl. And I was just teasin.”
“‘And I was just teasin,'” I say back just how he said it so he can hear what a terrible thing it is. Then I don’t say nuthin. And he don’t say nuthin. And Baby Jason don’t say nuthin nohow. Then Granddaddy Vale speak up. “Look here, Precious, it was Hunca Bubba what told you them things. This here, Jefferson Winston Vale.” And Hunca Bubba say, “That’s right. That was somebody else. I’m a new somebody.”
“You a lyin dawg,” I say, when I meant to say treacherous dog. But just couldn’t get hold of the word. It slipped away from me. And I’m crying and crumplin down in the seat and just don’t care. And Granddaddy say to hush and steps on the gas. And I’m losin my bearins and don’t even know where to look on the map cause I can’t see for cryin. And Baby Jason cryin too. Cause he is my blood brother and understands that we must stick together or be forever lost, what with grownups playin change-up and turnin you round every which way so bad. And don’t even say they sorry.