L. A. Child and Other Stories by Penny Jackson

Author:Penny Jackson [Jackson, Penny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Untreed Reads Publishing
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Louise in Charlestown

Louise didn’t say goodbye when she left.

I guess the Jacksons wanted to get out of Charlestown real fast.

Someone set their door on fire.

Their windows were always broken.

My Uncle Jack even threw a rock into their window.

It got so the Jacksons didn’t even bother repairing anything anymore.

My Uncle Jack said good riddance after they left.

Said the niggers got what they deserved.

I told him to shut up.

Louise was my best friend.

I miss her very much.

Dad smacked me hard in the face.

Said I had to show Uncle Jack some respect.

I give respect to my elders, I told him.

Uncle Jack is only sixteen.

I’m thirteen.

That’s what happens when your Mom’s got eleven brothers and sisters.

My Grandma didn’t have an easy time of it.

But we’re Catholics. Catholics have big families. We don’t kill babies when they’re still inside the mother’s stomach and we don’t take that Pill.

Louise told me about that Pill.

She was on it. Even though she was fourteen.

She got it for free in a place in Cambridge.

It was all part of a school program they had in Roxbury.

Louise didn’t like it at all. Said it made her pimply and fat. But she didn’t want any babies.

I told her it was a sin to take that Pill.

Louise said I was full of shit.

Louise is the only girl I know who knows how to swear.

She’s also the only girl I know who done it a couple of times too.

Louise said it was nothing at all.

Before you knew it, it was all over.

I told her she would burn in hell for that.

Louise laughed and said she didn’t mind hell, at least it’s warm.

It’s always cold in Boston.

It’s even freezing in school. The nuns wear these long woolly scarves and red mittens and are always sneezing.

Louise called them little Frankensteins in black.

I thought that was funny. I told Pam Fitzgibbon who told Mary Trevor who told Sister Elizabeth.

Sister Elizabeth didn’t think that was funny at all.

I had to stay late after school and sweep the hall with a broken broom and a dustpan.

The dust got to me so I started sneezing and couldn’t stop and the next morning I woke up with a sore throat and I was sick in bed for two weeks.

All because of Louise Jackson.

But she was my best friend.

When Louise Jackson moved into this neighborhood, there was trouble. Black people are supposed to live in Roxbury. There are about fifty other Doyles here in Charlestown. My name is Patricia Doyle. There are nine other Patricia Doyles in our apartment building alone. My Mom calls our block “Little Cork.” So why in heaven’s name, my Mom would say, would people like that want to come over here?

It’s integration, Father Joyce said. We have to face the times.

He’s the new priest. He’s very young. Most people here in Charlestown don’t like him. They miss Father O’Connor, who was very old and had a red nose and would always talk about our fighting brothers in Northern Ireland and then start crying.

Father Joyce said that love knows no colors.

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