The Lesson
The Lesson
By Toni Cade Bambara
Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish and me and
Sugar were the only ones just right, this lade moved on our block with nappy hair and
proper speech and no makeup. And quite naturally we laughed at her, laughed the way
we did at the junk man who went about his business like he was some big-time president
and his so
y-ass horse his secretary. And we kinda hated her too, hated the way we did
the winos who cluttered up our parks and pissed on our handball walls and stank up ou
hallways and stairs so you couldn’t halfway play hide-and-seek without a goddamn gas
mask. Miss Moore was her name. The only woman on the block with no first name.
And she was black as hell, cept for her feet, which were fish-white and spooky. And she
was always planning these boring-ass things for us to do, us being my cousin, mostly,
who lived on the block cause we all moved North the same time and to the same
apartment then spread out gradual to
eathe. And our parents would yank our heads into
some kinda shape and crisp up our clothes so we’d be presentable for travel with Miss
Moore, who always looked like she was going to church, though she never did. Which is
just one of the things the grown-ups talked about when they talked behind her back like a
dog. But when she came calling with some sachet she’d sewed up or some ginge
ead
she’d made or some book, why then they’d all be too emba
assed to turn her down and
we’d get handed over all spruced up. She’d been to college and said it was only right that
she should take responsibility for the young ones’ education, and she not even related by
ma
iage or blood. So they’d go for it. Specially Aunt Gretchen. She was the main
gofer in the family. You got some ole dumb shit foolishness you want somebody to go
for, you send for Aunt Gretchen. She been screwed into the go-along for so long, it’s a
lood-deep natural thing with her. Which is now she got saddled with me and Sugar and
Junior in the first place while our mothers were in a la-de-da apartment up the block
having a good ole time.
So this one day Miss Moore rounds us all up at the mailbox and it’s puredee hot
and she’s knocking herself out about arithmetic. And school suppose to let up in summe
I heard, but she don’t never let us. And the starch in my pinafore scratching the shit outta
me and I’m really hating this nappy-head bitch and her goddamn college degree. I’d
much rather go to the pool or to the show where it’s cool. So me and Sugar leaning on
the mailbox being surly, which is a Miss Moore word. And Flyboy checking out what
everybody
ought for lunch. And Fat Butt already wasting his peanut-butter–and-jelly
sandwich like the pig he is. And Junebug punchin on Q.T.’s arm for potato chips. And
Rosie Giraffe shifting from one hip to the other waiting for somebody to step on her foot
or ask her if she from Georgia so she can kick ass, perferable Mercedes’. And Miss
Moore asking us do we know what money is, like we a bunch of retards. I mean real
money, she say, like it’s only poker chips or monopoly papers we lay on the grocer. So
ight away I’m tired of this and say so. And would much rather snatch Sugar and go to
the Sunset and te
orize the West Indian kids and take their hair ri
ons and their money
too. And Miss Moore files that remark away for next week’s lessons
otherhood, I can
tell. And finally I say we oughta get to the subway cause it’s cooler and besides we
might meet some cute boys. Sugar done swiped her mama’s lipstick, we ready.
So we heading down the street and she’s boring us silly about what things cost
and what our parents make and how much goes for rent and how money ain’t divided up
ight in this country. And then she gets to the part about we all poor and live in the
slums, which I don’t feature. And I’m ready to speak on that, but she steps out in the
street and hails two cabs just like that. Then she hustles half the crew in with her and
hands me a five-dollar bill and tells me to calculate 10 percent tip for the driver. And
we’re off. Me and Sugar and Junebug and Flyboy hangin out the window and hollering
to everybody, putting lipstick on each other cause Flyboy a faggot anyway, and making
farts with our sweaty armpits. But I’m mostly trying to figure how to spend this money.
But they all fascinated with the meter ticking and Junebug starts laying bets as to how
much it’ll read when Flyboy can’t hold his
eath no more. Then Sugar lays bets as to
how much it’ll be when we get there. So I’m stuck. Don’t nobody want to go for my
plan, which is to jump out at the next light and run off to the first bar-b-que we can find.
Then the driver tells us to get the hell out cause we there already. And the meter reads
eight-five cents. And I’m stalling to figure out the tip and Sugar say give him a dime.
And I decide he don’t need it bad as I do, so later for him. But then he tries to take off
with Junebug foot still in the door so we talk about his mama something ferocious. Then
we check out that we on Fifth Avenue and everybody dressed up in stockings. One lady
in a fur coat, hot as it is. White folks crazy.
“This is the place,” Miss Moore say, presenting it to us in the voice she uses at the
museum. “Let’s look in the windows before we go in.”
“Can we steal?” Sugar asks very serious like she’s getting the ground rules
squared away before she plays. “I beg your pardon,” say Miss Moore, and we fall out.
So she leads us around the windows of the toy store and me and Sugar screamin, “This is
mine, that’s mine, I gotta have that, that was made for me, I was born for that,” till Big
Butt drowns us out.
“Hey, I’m goin to buy that there.”
“That there? You don’t even know what it is, stupid.”
“I do so,” he say punchin on Rosie Giraffe. “It’s a microscope.”
“Whatcha gonna do with a microscope, fool?”
“Look at things.
“Like what, Ronald?” ask Miss Moore. And Big Butt ain’t got the first notion.
So here go Miss Moore ga
ing about the thousands of bacteria in a drop of water and
the somethinorother in a speck of blood and the million and one living things in the ai
around us is invisible to the naked eye. And what she say that for? Junebug go to town
on that “naked” and we rolling. Then Miss Moore ask what it cost. So we all jam into
the window smudgin it up and the price tag say $300. So then she ask how long’d take
for Big Butt and Junebug to save up their allowances. “Too long,” I say. “Yeh,” adds
Sugar, “outgrown it by that time.” And Miss Moore say no, you never outgrow learning
instruments. “Why, even medical students and interns and, “blah, blah, blah. And we
eady to choke Big Butt for
inging it up in t he first damn place.
“This here costs four hundred eighty dollars,” say Rosie Giraffe. So we pile up
all over her to see what she pointin out. My eyes tell me it’s a chunk of glass cracked
with something heavy, and different-color inks dripped into the splits, then the whole
thing put into a oven or something. But the $480 it don’t make sense.
“That’s a paperweight made of semi-precious stones fused together unde
tremendous pressure,” she explains slowly, with her hands doing the mining and all the
factory work.
“So what’s a paperweight?” asks Rosie Giraffe.
“To weigh paper with, dum
ell,” say Flyboy, the wise man from the East.
“Not exactly,” say Miss Moore, which is what she say when you warm or way off
too. “It’s to weigh paper down so it won’t scatter and make your desk untidy.” So right
away me and Sugar curtsy to each other and then to Mercedes who is more the tidy type.
“We don’t keep paper on top of the desk in my class,” say Junebug, figuring Miss
Moore crazy or lyin one.
“At home, then,” she say. “Don’t you have a calendar and a pencil case and a
lotter and a letter-opener on y our desk at home where you do your homework?” And
she know damn well what our homes look like cause she nosys around in them every
chance she gets.
“I don’t even have a desk,” say Junebug. “Do we?”
“No. And I don’t get no homework neither,” say Big Butt.
“And I don’t even have a home,” say Flyboy like he do at school to keep the
white folks off his back and so
y for him. Send this poor kid to camp posters is his
specialty.
“I do,” says Mercedes. “I have a box of stationery on my desk and a picture of
my cat. My godmother bought the stationery and the desk. There’s a big rose on each
sheet and the envelopes smell like roses.”
“Who wants to know about your smelly-ass stationery,” say Rosie Giraffe fore I
can get my two cents in.
“It’s important to have a work area all your own so that …”
“Will you look at this sailboat, please,” say Flyboy, cuttin her off and pointin to
the thing like it was his. So once again we tumble all over each other to gaze at this
magnificent thing in the toy store which is just big enough to maybe sail two kittens
across the pond if you strap them to the posts tight. We all start reciting the price tag like
we in assembly. “Handcrafted sailboat of fiberglass at one thousand one hundred ninety-
five dollars.”
“Unbelievable,” I hear myself say and am really stunned.