Breakthrough, of Sorts

I left work late tonight--like nearly an hour late--and so I didn't get home til nearly 7, by the time I'd stopped to pick up chicken. (Apparently I'm a little more noticeable than I would have thought; when I walked into Uncle Remus, and the guy behind the counter asked me for my order, the girl who had just finished her shift recited it to him verbatim. She was close, too--normally I -do- get 8 wings, but I'd had a late lunch and so I only wanted 6.)



So I walked home, as usual, and when I turned the corner the block was pretty active, particularly if you counted the kids. Normally there are five or six; today it looked closer to twenty. As I opened the gate, a little knot of them were walking toward me, headed for the corner; and as I opened the gate I heard a little voice: "Hello..."



I looked up, pleasantly surprised--having just graduated from apartment life, where no one said anything unless they were hitting on me in the laundry room or needed some favor, I'm not yet used to people being sociable and nice to me--even kids. So I smiled, trying to figure out which one of the seven or so little ones had spoken. "Hi there," I said.



They were heading toward the corner, I think, maybe to the yard with the basketball hoop--but the woman who lives in the building that belongs to that yard was out on the walk, having one of her Moments. (A further portrait of this woman, whose name I don't yet know, may be attempted at some other time, but truthfully I'm not sure I'm up to the task; the best snapshot I can offer isn't mine, but comes from Shondra next door: "Girl, when she gets to drinkin' and smokin' that stuff, she get FOUL, and I mean FOUL. One night? She come out and start screamin' at that man who lives in there, her landlord, and she was cussin' him out, and then?" :::pause for effect::: "....she reach down the front of her pants and start wavin' her period in his face!!" Clearly, this woman has some big ol' capital-I Issues.) Anyway, Issue-Lady was on the walk, just completely acting the fool--I mean, pointing, gesturing, "motherfucker"-ing at the top of her voice, wagging her head like she was deep in a very serious argument, except there was nobody there. If I was a kid, I would have been scared to pass her; hell, I'm nearly 34 and _I_ wasn't even sure I wanted to risk walking through her sight-line!



So the kids stopped in front of Len and Phoebe's house, next door, and just milled around a little, waiting, as I walked up my front stairs.



Then--the little voice again. "You got kids?"



This time I could pick out the owner of the voice, a little girl maybe eight or nine, with pigtails--the front of the group, its clear leader despite being younger than a couple of the others. "Nope, no kids..."



"You got any nieces and nephews?"



"No, sorry--just a couple of bad little kitty-cats..."



"Is your husband home?" (I'm not sure whether the inherent assumption here comes from the innocence of children--any man who lives with a woman MUST be her "husband"--or from the moral stance of the adults--even if they're NOT married, we're gonna CALL him the "husband" so the kids don't get the wrong message. Either way, I think I'd better stick with the accepted terminology--I'd prefer not to offend the neighborhood mores just yet!)



"No, he's out." I'd gotten the front door open. "I'll see you all later..." I said, and closed the door.



I'd just sat down to eat my chicken when there was a knock on the door. When I went to answer it, there was no one there--but Pigtails, a smaller girl, and a slightly bigger boy, were standing suspiciouly close to the front gate.



I made a very big production of looking to both sides of the door--which was entirely unnecessary, since the view of the porch is clear even from inside the house. Finally I looked at them and said, "Did someone knock on my door???"



The boy--in a gesture I remember as entirely typical for boys of that age--pointed at Pigtails. "Her..." he said accusingly.



"Nuh-uh!" she said. They opened up the gate, and a small squadron followed them into the front yard and up the steps.



"Is this a house?"

"You live here by yourself?"

"Can we see the kitties?"



At this point, Whitey came sauntering up to the front door, with a wary look. Immediately, seven or eight little hands reached for him.



"Is he gonna bite me?"

"What's his name?"

"Where's the other one?"



Whitey was getting very nervous, all those hands and little voices, and he finally decided that "out" was the best direction. So he hopped over one little arm, to a chorus of yelps and one decidedly-terrified shriek, from a little boy of about seven. The shriek set off a chorus of imitators, Whitey sprang back into the house, and the little boy shot down the stairs like the fires of hell were at his back--if the fires of hell could make you giggle, that is.



I coaxed them both back--the little boy to the porch, the cat back to the door--and said to the crowd "Okay, so what are all your names?"



There was a Monique and a LaRon and a Jasmine (who was about two and had recently had a very close encounter with a purple popsicle), and a Tamika and...well, that was where my short-term memory quits. The boy in the front, I remember because he was quite incensed that I didn't already know it..."YOU know MEEEE," he said. I knew him by sight because he stays with Len and Phoebe; now I know not only his name, but his nickname (Bug) and the fact that he's quite the practical joker.



This fact I discovered when, following Whitey's next retreat into the house, the crowd decided it would be a good idea to pursue him. En masse, they moved in--some through the hallway, some toward the kitchen, some into the living room to check out LJ's PlayStation.



Apparently the grown folks were watching from their assorted porches, and when the kids came in, the chorus of mama's voices began--"Tamika! Come out of there, and bring your sister..." (I can't say I blame them. If there was a total stranger living on my block, in questionable circumstances, and my kids went over there and disappeared into the house for a minute--well, I suppose I'd worry too.) When I finished herding them out the door, I noticed the mob seemed a little thin--and when I turned around, there was Bug, hiding behind my bookcase with a big grin.



I finally got everyone out of the house and told them I had to go eat my dinner, but I have to admit I was charmed. Kids are like the advance team for the adults; they're the ones who carry the info back home that the strange white lady, the one who never comes outside and doesn't talk much to anybody, really isn't that scary. I know I have to go out of the way to get to know more people on the block; once I get the porch painted, I'm going to get myself a chair and sit out there at night, get to know people a little more. I mean, that was the whole reason I wanted a house in this neighborhood in the first place...well, one of the reasons, anyway. I wanted to put down roots, develop some ties--but for eight months now I've been hiding in the house, except for the few minutes when I'm walking to or from the bus stop. When I was out digging up the grass, every time I went out there, someone always stopped to ask me "Do you live here?" I think the only ones who knew I was here were Phoebe and Len and Shondra, and the guys on the corner--whose names I -also- still don't know.



It's becoming clear that the strategies which worked well for me in my apartment-living days aren't going to be advantageous anymore. I have to train myself out of this annoying shyness, if I have any hope of being accepted here. But for a few minutes, when the kids were crowded onto my porch asking questions and scaring White Cat, I felt like I might yet fit in.