The Matter Is Life by J. California Cooper

Author:J. California Cooper
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-02-01T22:00:00+00:00

When I was a little better … almost, Mr. Evers said out the clear blue sky, “Let me show you how to fix your car so nobody will be able to steal it without bein hurt.” I watched and learned how to fix them wires round and do a couple things extra I knew already on my own. I already had one dream. Now I added a plan.

Now, please don’t think I am a mean, ugly person. I am not. I was just tired of bein so abused, not listened to. Lord, have mercy on me, I sure didn’t mean to do nothin to nobody. To hurt nobody!

But, I did fix my car with the wires and everything, right on the side of my house where I lived with Wallace, in my driveway. And I did, when he came in half-drunk from somewhere off with his women, tell him I had to go off … and “NOT TO USE MY CAR CAUSE I WAS GOING TO USE IT WHEN I GOT BACK.”

I started down the street, went back to the house and said again, “Wallace, DON’T USE MY CAR. I MEAN THAT.” Then I went on bout my business.

Least I thought I could. I really had not gone far when my mind told me, no matter what anybody did, I didn’t have no business gettin mean as they were. I turned round and started runnin back home. I was goin to tell him what might happen if he use that car before it got fixed. But I was too late! I saw him steppin into the car. He saw me comin. He laughed that ole ugly laugh of his. Stepped on the starter before he closed the door.

I screamed, “DON’T DO IT, WALLACE, DON’T START THAT CAR!” But he thought I was still tellin him what to do, and … he did it anyway.

Now … I don’t know how all this happened. It was just gonna be a little ole small explosion. But good thing Wallace hadn’t closed that door. The car blew up! Wallace was blown sideways out the car door, then he went straight up! Don’t ask me how all that happened, where all that power came from. I guess that car didn’t like him neither! He went straight up in the air, don’t know how many feet, and he came down in my tree, Baby! Baby like to beat him to death as he was fallin down through the branches. I told Baby, “Get him, Baby, get him!” Baby got him! When he hit the ground he had whelps all over his whole body I could see, from them tree branches whippin his behind! And you know how he use to always STARE at me, like he was tryin to scare me or something? Well, he don’t stare at nobody no more, cause when he finally came down and hit his head on that cement in the driveway, one eye looks up and the other looks down! They don’t look in the same direction no more! But … he can still see.

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