The Apple of Despair

5 July 2009

The man pounds up and down the aisle of the red line train, talking fast, frantic.

“I’m just askin’ for something, some change for my daughter. Anything, some food, anything. We ain’t got nothin’. I tryin’ to get the money to go to court, see I used her momma’s Link Card when she was alive and then, they said I owed $685, ‘cause it wasn’t my card. We don’t got anything.

Please. I just tryin’ to raise my daughter right, just tryin’ to keep her fed. We ain’t got nothing.”

‘A Link Card is food stamps,’ Philipp whispered.

I turned around in my seat and I saw a tiny girl, too small to even reach the seat, watching her Daddy, her eyes wide, confused. She had an oatmeal cream pie in her doll-like hands and there was something scary in the way she ate it, so focused on gulping it down.

My heart broke.

You can’t, just can’t give money to people who ask you on the street; especially a to men. I had been swindled too many times by sob stories; been cornered by women asking for money to escape from their abusive husbands, who produced real tears, then became hard faced as they counted the money you gave them and asked for more.

But the little girl. I couldn’t bear it. Hadn’t he asked for food, too? I’d do that—at least I’d know where it was going to. I found an apple in my purse, newly purchased, shiny, mottled yellow and red. I wobbled down the aisle, clutching it.

‘I don’t have any change but… can I give her an apple?’ I asked.

‘Anythin’, anythin’’ her daddy said.

I knelt down by her. She was so small. I placed the apple in her tiny, outstretched hands. It seemed too big, too shiny, too beautiful for the context. It was an apple for a fairytale, not for this story. It dwarfed her, making her look like a little, fragile Thumbelina.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked. Something to remember her by.

‘Janeshka,’ she whispered, mouth still full of oatmeal cream pie.

‘Her mouth full,’ he said.

‘How old is she?’ I asked, straightening.

‘Three,’ he said.

The train jolted to a stop and the man yanked on her little arm, darting out of the sliding doors and onto the next car. She seemed to fly behind him, like he was a child dragging behind him a little, lost doll with a shiny apple in her hand.

Isaiah and Cornelius: A Love Story

The impossibly tiny little boy glared from his seat, seeming to send angry lasers out at everyone on the bus. His gaze seemed to rise up from the center of his being and shoot out from his eyes over the sippy cup of pink lemonade he was drinking. I had never seen a baby as cute, nor as intense. His dad, a skinny man with snaggled teeth and the look of someone who had been through hard times, was talking about the little boy in an amicable voice to the woman across the aisle.

His mama as black as I am, he said.

Really? ‘Cuz it look like you got a white baby. She laughed.

I know!

Nah, but you can tell, ‘cuz his hair, he ain’t white.

The man looked down adoringly at the little boy’s soft black curls. If the little boy was projecting a death glare, all things good in the world were encompassed in this one man’s glance. Love showered down on the imp in radiant beams.

He may look cute, but he bad. The man grinning, seemed oblivious to the little boy’s death stare. I had no trouble imagining he had some tricks up his tiny sleeve.

Somehow, at this point, we got invited into the conversation.

Terrible twos, Peggyjoy commiserated.

That’s right! The woman answered. I ain’t never had that with my boy, ‘til now, she said, indicating a sullen little boy of about seven sitting next to her.

What’s his name? Peggyjoy asked.

Tavian, the woman answered. I noticed that she had My son, my heart tattooed on her arm and even though her son was in a sultry phase and she might complain about it, her love was apparent too.

What’s his name? I asked, returning to the tiny little man still glaring from his seat.

Isaiah, the man said proudly.

How old is he? I asked.

He be two in a month, the man said. He been with me seven months.

He’s not yours?  PJ asked, surprised.

Nah, the man said, but then added, beaming all over, But I in the process of adopting him.

You with his mother? She asked.

He shook his head. We both free. Nah, I just took him on to raise him. Couldn’t deal with him bein’ fatherless. And besides, his mama—she a good mother—but she slow. She do things that no mother, no woman with sense would do. I’d go over and be like—Nah, did you just…? Stupid things.

Like what? I asked.

Like… like, she’d leave the house—leave the house—with his face all dirty. Or put him in dirty clothes. And when I first gave him a bath, he just screamed and screamed.

Oh, like it was his first one? I said, horrified.

Yeah! He exclaimed.

You think he slow, too? The woman asked.

Nah! Nah! The man said. He so smart. He beamed at Isaiah, just smiling with every fiber of his being. He so smart. He gave him a squeeze, then looked at us. When I decided to take him on, I changed my life around. I was a mess seven months ago. Wasn’t I different seven months ago?

You was different seven months ago, the woman agreed.

But when I realized I’d be taking care of him, I had to get my life together, he said. I quadrupled my salary since I had him. I had to!  But he just gives me joy, he just my life now.

He scooped little Isaiah onto his lap, wrapping his arms around him. The little boy relaxed into him, still glaring out at the world, but obviously in the safest space in the world.

He not gonna fall asleep unless he on someone, the man said, looking down at Isaiah’s soft head.