by Georgia Rushing
I hate to see water collect on a rainy day. Looking at the yellowish brown water with the little black specs floating around in it makes me sick to my stomach and I’m immediately reminded of Dustin.
One thanksgiving, my aunt Lisa who had been living in California, introduced us to her godson Dustin. I was much taller, but he was older. He was a clean boy with waves in his hair. His smell reminded me of my grandfather.
“Crystal, why don’t you show Dustin the T.V. game I got you.” After Mama’s suggestion, I led Dustin to my bedroom.
“You can call me Dusty.” He said
“Okay, people just call me Chris.” I walked over to the television and turned to channel three.
“So, do you play Nintendo well?” He asked.
“Yeah, you?”
“I play sometimes, but I really like my Sega that my mom purchased me for Christmas.”
He sat on the bottom bunk waiting for me to turn the game on.
“Okay, na it’s ready.” I said.
“Na?” he asked “What is na?
“What do you mean what is na?”
“You talk funny. Everyone in this house talks funny.” He rolled his eyes at me.
“You talk funny!” I snapped.
“No I don’t, you sound dumb.” He grabbed the control and pressed the red button. Mario jumped for joy.
“So, you look dumb. You is eight years old and got a mustache. Why you got mustache?” I asked.
“Because I’m a man. I’m twelve years old.” He was lying. He was eight. I had overheard my
Aunt telling Mama. But I played along anyway.
He didn’t save Princess Peach that day and neither did I. I didn’t have any hope of finishing the game because only the older kids actually finished the game. They would brag about it to us younger kids because even though we played the game, we had no idea what we were doing.
After we played around with Mario for about an hour, he turned to me. “My dick is itching.”
He said scratching between his scrawny legs.
“What is a dick?” I asked.
“You don’t know what a dick is?” He whispered in amazement.
“Naw, I aint never heard of that.” I confessed.
“Well, let me tell you.” He said.
My eyes grew big. I was afraid to find out what a dick was especially if I had to whisper when I said it. “A dick is what a man has.” He explained. “Women like to look at it and stuff. I heard my uncle say that it feels good when women touch it. And sometimes people call it nuts. And if a woman looks at it for a long time, she’ll get pregnant. And, you can even bite it off and spit it up in the toilet if a man makes you mad because my uncle’s girlfriend did that to him. Yep, that is what my uncle told me.”
“Does it look like a peanut?” I asked
“Not really but your close.” I thought I saw a head peaking around the corner but I wasn’t sure. I kept talking.
“Well, I aint never seen no dick before.” I confessed.
“Would you like to see mine?”
“Dustin no.” My aunt burst in the room and grabbed him by his arm. “What are you telling Crystal in here and don’t lie because I heard it all.”
“I was just telling her a story.” He walked up to Aunt Lisa with his hands up to his eyes reaching for a hug. She almost backed off but she had heard too much to just let it go that easy.
“About what?”
He still didn’t tell her.
“Well, we’ll just see what your God daddy has to say about this.” She left the room and Dustin stood there facing the hallway.
“If you tell, that means you’re a tattletale and I’m never going to talk to you again.” He didn’t turn around to look at me. He continued on to the hallway and out the front door.
By then I was thinking to myself, I ‘m done with that Dustin. He’s full of crap, but I still followed him outside. I remained close to the house because it was raining and Mama didn’t like for me to get my hair wet. I was standing there in my own world with my hand out feeling the rain. I wasn’t supposed to be doing that, but I had an addiction to the way rain felt on my skin. Back then, it always seemed cooler, calmer, and clearer than everything else in the world.
“You ever drink rainwater?” Dustin asked me.
“No.” I said telling myself not to fall for anymore of his stories.
“Well, if you drink rainwater, you will turn white.”
“For real?” I asked in amazement.
“Yep, and I know that’s true because it’s in the Bible.”
Well, I thought. If it’s in the bible, it gotta be true. He grabbed my hand and led me to the edge of the porch where the water fell in abundance. He held his head back and started to drink the water as it fell from the roof. I did the same. We would drink for a minute then go into song:
If all the rain drops were lemon drops and gum drops,
Oh what a rain that would be,
Standing outside with my mouth open wide
And with our mouths open wide, we drank.
That rain water was cold and soothing. It tasted good. After every burp, I turned to him and asked. “Am I white yet.”
“Oh yeah.” He would answer. “Your skin is almost white just keep drinking.”
So I did. We drank so much rain that our bellies grew and poked out.
Mama came to check on us because she believed that if a child got too quiet, you should check on them because that means there doing something they have no business doing and she was right. She opened the screen door to find Dustin and me, standing on the edge of the porch, drinking rainwater.
“What in the hell. Lisa come look at what these two bad sons of guns out here doing.” Aunt Lisa came rushing out the house.
“Damn it Dustin. I can’t take you anywhere!”
They dragged us away from the porch. Mama had me by my pigtails and Aunt Lisa grabbed Dustin by the arm. “And look at you.” Mama was beating me in the back yelling “Spit it out!” I had water hidden in my cheeks. I coughed and struggled to get that water out of my mouth.
For the rest of the day, Dustin and I were separated. He was on one side of the living room and I was on the other. When I glanced over at him he would stick out his tongue and mock me. Afraid of mama, I just looked at him shaking my head.
When Mama finally calmed down, she looked at me and said, “What’s wrong Crystal, you know you don’t do stuff like dat?”
“Dustin told me to do it Mama.” I saw Dustin open his mouth in shock.
“And Dusty is gonna be on punishment for the rest of this trip.” Aunt Lisa added shaking her index finger towards Dustin.
“Look baby.” Mama got down on her knees and looked me right in the eye. Mama was starting to suffer from arthritis so he never got on her knees unless she wanted to tell us something we should remember. “Don’t you never let nobody and I mean nobody, make you do nothing that you know aint right. Don’t be scared to tell em no.” Then, she got up saying, “I hope the Lord in heaven have mercy on these crazy chirren. They don’t know nothing Lord. They don’t know what they doing. They just don’t know, they go be grown in due time. They should be praising yo name instead of running round hea being bad as hell.”
“Amen. Halleluiah.” Aunt Lisa shouted waving her hand in the air.
When Uncle Frank got home, he gave Dustin a whooping that Mama laughs about even today. We heard Dustin slam against the wall three times as Frank yelled, “I’m not beating you about the rain, that was just stupid but I’m beating you for what you told Crystal because I know you know better than that. In that room talking about penises and peanuts.” Uncle Frank beat Dustin so bad that he never wanted to come back and I haven’t seen him since.
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