Cheyenne Madonna. Eddie MDiv Chuculate
kids would bail out and race to claim the bottle. When they got a sackful, they would cash them in for pop and candy. It also was usually a good time for Granny to take a leak.
Around one o’clock Jordan went into the front room to turn on the NBC Game of the Week with Tony Kubek and Joe Garagiola. Typically, the channel wasn’t coming in so he had to go out and wrestle the antenna, which was strapped to the side of the house. He twisted mightily to point the rickety thing in another direction and had to repeat the process when he went back inside and found the reception worse.
On this second effort he saw YoYo’s black head bobbing in the tallgrass pasture next to the brick house. Just as she was about to reach the cut field where he would be instantly visible to her, he darted inside and slammed the door. He crouched below the window and peeked over. She was already coming into their front yard. Must have ran, he thought. Before he could get a plan together she was banging on the door.
“Jordan! It’s me, YoYo. Open up the door.”
He was hidden in his bedroom but heard plainly.
“Jordan! I know you’re in there!” She banged hard again. “Open up the damn door.” She was standing on the porch, peering through the window.
Crouching, Jordan snuck up under the window and when she knocked again he jumped up suddenly and pressed his face against the glass, flattening his lips and nose.
YoYo screamed and leaped off the porch and was about to take off running when Jordan opened the door. YoYo saw him, stopped and took a few seconds to catch her breath, then lit into him.
“Motherfucker be playin’ games. Always playin’ motherfuckin’ games!”
Jordan sat on the porch, and she came over next to him. She ran her hand through his hair and even though it pleased him, he blocked her arm.
“I knew you was off in there,” she said. “I saw yo’ grandfolks go by and I waved at them and they stopped.”
“So.”
“So? So they said it was OK for you to come over to my house. Your grandmammy, she said for us to have fun, so we gonna have us some motherfuckin’ fun.” She stood. “Come on.”
“Naa.”
“Naa? What you mean, naa?”
“I’m going to watch baseball.”
“All you thinks about is baseball and fishin’. Come on, you can watch it at my house. We gots a big ol’ TV and air conditioning. They went shopping in Tulsa and won’t be back ’til tonight.” She assumed a pleading tone. “Please, baby, please.” She ran her fingers through his hair again.
“What’s that,” YoYo said, pointing, after Jordan returned from turning off the TV and all the fans and collecting his records.
“It’s my record player,” he said, holding it by its little plastic handle. “You said you wanted to listen to records.”
“I gotta record player, cuz. Leave all that here.”
When Jordan came back with his two favorite records – “Short People” and “Convoy” – YoYo said she wanted to run to her house.
“Not a race, just jog.”
They took the dirt road instead of cutting through the fields and Jordan stepped on the bottom strand of barbed-wire and pulled up on the middle strand to let her through. She did the same for him. The wire was spotted with tufts of black and blonde cattle hair, caught when cows stuck their heads through to eat on the other, greener, side.
On the road they began jogging easily, but when her house came into view YoYo took off sprinting. Instinctively, Jordan took off after her. She was moving fast, soles spitting little rocks and pebbles and puffs of chalky red dust. She cut suddenly onto her driveway, and Jordan slipped and dropped his records trying to mimic the move. He stopped to pick them up and when he caught up with her she was already jumping up and down underneath the goal.
“I’m Evelyn Ashford! I’m the champ!” she shouted, arms above her head. She walked up to Jordan and said, so close to his face that he saw gold fillings at the back of her mouth, “I tole ya, I tole ya! You cain’t hang with the champ!” Again she threw playful rapid jabs, hooks, and uppercuts at him.
Abruptly, she cut the routine and told him to come on in. She led the way through a small door, which Jordan thought would lead into the house but instead led into a spacious garage. A creamy white Corvette, crouched like a predator underneath a speed bag, glowed in the dim light.
“When I gets my license this year you be seein’ me off in that motherfucker,” YoYo said. “Pops, he say he ain’t gonna let me drive it. He say he gonna buy me some funky-ass new Honda. I cain’t be stylin’ in no square-ass Honda!”
Jordan followed her into the house. Just like at Safeway, the cool air washed over him when he stepped in. They went into a bright kitchen, and YoYo poured two glasses of Kool-Aid for them.
“Come on, sugar pie,” she said, and led Jordan down a myriad of oak-paneled hallways until they were at her room.
“Kick off your shoes,” she said. “I don’t want no cow shit on my carpet.”
Jordan felt the spongy thick cushion sink beneath his feet. He had never felt anything like it. She had a large dresser and mirror along one wall, covered with medals, trophies, and brightly colored ribbons. Along another wall, underneath the window, was the biggest stereo system Jordan had ever seen. All around were posters of sports stars. On the ceiling looking down on them was the afroed Dr. J, holding a red-white-and-blue basketball high over his head with one hand, soaring towards the basket.
YoYo put a big stack of 45s on the cartridge above the turntable and swung the metal arm into position. The bottom record dropped down, the turntable began to spin, and the arm with the needle slowly swung over and settled down. There were scratching noises then a heavy thumping bass as red and green lights jumped along the face of the receiver.
“You act like you ain’t never seen a stereo before,” YoYo shouted. “You ain’t gots a stereo?”
“I’ve got one,” he lied.
She took their glasses and set them on her dresser, removed a magazine from it, and stretched out on her bed, moving over to make room. She slapped at the pillow beside her. “Lay down right here. I show you who Evelyn Ashford be.”
Jordan stretched out and she began turning the pages.
“There! See?” She turned the magazine around and pointed to a large picture of a sprinter. Ashford was frozen in midstride, a knee to her chest, fists clenched. Her eyes were wide, and her lips made a perfect small circle.
“That looks like you when you run,” Jordan said.
“I be off in a motherfuckin’ magazine one day, too.”
They lay on their backs looking at Dr. J and listening to the sweet, churning soul. Lord, let your Holy Ghost come on down, Lord, let your Holy Ghost come down on me, the song was saying.
YoYo was tossing a little orange Nerf basketball in the air. She was quiet for a while.
“My mother, she wants me to be a teacher. My father, he wants me to be a dentist,” Yolanda said. “Me, I don’t want to be either. I just want to run track. Look.” She held her palm up to Jordan’s face. It was dotted with tiny black marks.
“What are those?” Jordan said.
“Cinders. From the track. They’re stuck in there forever. I got tripped on a relay and they stuck in my hand. I look at it every day. They could dig them out but I don’t want them out. Reminds me of my goal. Mom told me I can’t run track forever, but I’m going to try.”
Outside, beyond Yolanda’s hand, the sun, a watery reddish ball, cut a slow curving trail across the window as YoYo began to hum along low, soft, with the record. It reminded him of the women singing