Soul Vibration

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I am four years old, living in a small sweaty town where the dirt roads only come into view as they zigzag their way through the trees. Mom is a young, black, single woman in her twenties with three small children; we are all living in a little two bedroom track house that sits on four sets of cinder blocks and is built with 2 x 4 wood planks. The house is a shade of faded green due to the hot rays of the Florida sun. There are six houses on our street, and only the house numbers distinguish who lives where since we all are living under the same conditions. Mom doesn't have many skills to make a lot of money to care for her children. She takes odd jobs at any place she can, cleaning bathrooms and mopping floors while Aunt Eddie helps care for me and my siblings. Every day Aunt Eddie arrives just in time for mom to leave for work. She is a short, sweet Godly woman with endless love for mom and us kids. Her personality is quiet and easy going; today she enters the house wearing a floral dress with her hair combed down in a pageboy style. Mom keeps order in the house as much as she can but we still run around laughing and playing with each other. After Aunt Eddie arrives she gathers us kids up in the living room, where we huddle around a fan that sits in the window in our t-shirts and underwear trying to keep cool. The living room is small with a brown sofa that is pushed up against the painted white walls. The only other seating in the room is a plush velvet earth tone colored chair. After work mom rushes through the door, exhausted. She cooks dinner and cares for us while pregnant with her fourth child. Her soft, smooth, caramel skin has a glow of beauty; her eyes are dark brown, almond-shaped; her face is round with a petite nose and full lips. She is a beautiful medium-built woman; her hair is styled in a short, round Afro cut, and her character is strong. Because of her strength, she never allows anyone to see signs of her life struggles. In a soft-spoken tone she says to Aunt Eddie, I love you and thank you for taking care of the kids today. The soul vibration of our lives is fraught with no escape and no future. My mother's life commitment and our destiny become solidified together with the birth of each child. Soon her fourth child will be born, my mother will marry my siblings' father Mike, and two years later she will give birth to her fifth child. Her choice will be the beginning and the end of life for the two of us.

I am now living with my family on the other side of the railroad tracks in Titusville. The tracks are an invisible line drawn deep in the dirt, keeping all of the black folks contained in our all-black neighborhoods. On occasion, a car will drive along our dirt roads, kicking the dust up high into the air and leaving a trail of murky visuals behind that doesn't seem to bother folks too much. Besides that, it isn't too often that we see cars. Most people take their time walking along the edge of the hot dirt roads as a way to get around. When people need groceries, that they do not grow, they visit my great grandfathers' tiny, rickety wood store with the tin roof that sits way back in the woods. Otherwise folks survive by growing as much as they can of their own vegetables, owning chickens, or they walk to the nearest creek in town to catch fish. I don't think many people have moved away from my town, and the people who still live here do much of nothing; most have no jobs or job opportunities—it is as if life has slipped away. Many of the older men with their gray and white hair find their sacred place underneath a huge oak tree, where the moss covered branches hang low. They spend all day sitting under the tree looking for any way to keep cool; throughout the day they pass around alcohol concealed in brown paper bags. They are happy laughing, talking or sometimes moving around each other in a rhythmic-style dance. We are living hopelessly in a cocoon where most people have no hope and no exit.

On the other side of the railroad track runs a major highway lined with restaurants, hotels, surf shops, and art stores selling clay pots, ceramic frogs, wind chimes and anything connected to the sea and Florida. There are two shopping malls in town—Miracle City Mall and Sears Town Mall—containing stores such as JC Penny's, Belk Lindsay, Sears and Roebuck, Sears Automotive Center, Fashion Bug and other specialty stores. Titusville always has a steady flow of traffic with people stopping and parking along the highway just to look out at the river. The waves' crash against the riverbank and most of the time the water stinks like rotten eggs. On a windy day the odor is carried through the air and the smell is almost impossible to get rid of. The natives walk onto the pier to catch fish, crab, and shrimp, or just to unwind. When the space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center many travelers and vacationers stand out on the edge of the water to watch the blast off. My family and I always watch from our front yard, looking into the sky as the shuttle passes through the clouds. Our windows rattle and the ground underneath us shakes from its power. I don't understand why it is so interesting to watch; it doesn't make sense to me why people spend so much time and have pure excitement watching a shuttle blast off into space.

I am seven years old. While my mother's financial condition is improving, I'm beginning to feel unwanted by my new father. In his world I do not exist. I never get a hug or a kiss. He doesn't know my name. It is one o'clock in the morning and I am awakened by noise in the house. I sit up in my bed and I am not sure where the sounds are coming from. My bedroom is dark. I sit still and I am afraid to move. I can feel my heartbeat. I recognize my mother's voice even though it's muffled. I listen and can hear sobbing next door in her bedroom. I can't make out what she's saying. I put my ear against the wall, fitting it firmly into place. I need to know why mommy is crying. I can hear mommy talking to my stepfather. She keeps asking him, Why don't you treat her the same way you treat your kids? She is only a child. Why do you not show her any love? How long will you keep treating her differently from your children? You have been in her life since she was three years old. Why can't you love her? She pauses and I cannot hear my stepfather answer any of her questions. I cry myself to sleep not truly knowing why I feel sad after listening to their conversation, but I know something is wrong. I pretend to have a nightmare, screaming and crying to get my mother's attention, doing...