Buying Cigarettes For My Dead Mother

“Hearts” collage by Tiffany Dugan

by Cynthia Robinson Young

In a time when no one would suspect a child of buying cigarettes for themselves,
a time when Ray-Ray was called limp-wristed behind his back and meaner things were said to his face, and no one ever felt the need to apologize,
but who was loved anyway because he could sing Lazarus out of his grave at church on Sunday morning, and stand on any stage and compete with anyone at Amateur Night at the Apollo in Harlem, and be sure to win– if he ever would leave this town that knew his daddy and his daddy’s daddy, this town that had determined it was their job to keep him Safe from the world that didn’t raise him or know his kin.

In a time when a girl could walk to the corner store and know every granny and auntie
was sure they were looking out for her and every other young girl, watching through lace curtains and from sun porches, a girl walked to the corner store to buy her mother a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes.

In a time when parents were hesitant to talk to their girls about sex, not wanting to give them ideas, just hoping their daughters would tell them if an uncle did something that felt strange, no one expected Mr. Jimmy the barber, who had touched every man’s head Since they were boys, and even had kids himself, that he would lure A little Girl into his chair with the promise of beauty from a facial massage, A Girl who was so far away from puberty, she would never believe she would evolve into anyone better looking than what She looked like on that day, never dreamed any male would want anything from her flat chested and hairless body-

In a time when it was always the woman’s fault to her shame, and everyone just had to figure out how and why, The Girl told on Jimmy the Barber anyway, because She didn’t know the world better.

In a time when judges shrugged and gave Negro molesters a slap on their hands, and side- eyed sympathy for their Negro victims,
She learned that justice might not always be just, and no one has the power to protect in the way they need protecting…

So, Ray-Ray stayed in the small town and sang in the church choir on Sundays, and kept a secret life the rest of the week.
And Mr. Jimmy stayed being The Barber because he was the only one in town who kept up with Flat Tops, and Gerry Curls, Fades, and Cuts,
and so, the townsfolk thought they had no other choice but to determine to keep an Evil Eye on him.

            And the mother died from the cigarettes the White Folks in charge promised did not cause cancer in people.

And The Girl?

She’s all grown up now…
But sometimes she thinks she still feels Jimmy- the -Barber’s sweaty fingers in her lover’s hands.

These are the times she fishes out from her bedside table the red pack of Pall Malls, bought so long ago, she can’t remember when. She is careful to light just one, inhaling, then exhaling smoke like incense, until it forms a ghostly shape. It encircles her with a smell that never fails to resurrect her grief,
safety and protection, like twins, tethered in its scent.

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