The Bitches of Barcelona Street

Abstract

My Grandma Louisa always smelled of sherry wine. Whenever she minded us kids while Mama did work for one of the white families in the neighborhood, Grandma would herd us all out to her favorite spot in the backyard, and, with a heavy groan, plunk her bulk down in the used-to-be-green metal lawn chair that had been part of the landscape back there for as long as I can remember. We laughed when the paint-flaked old chair let out a groan almost as loud as Grandma did when she sat in it. Then we began our mad scramble for the most coveted seats: on her ample lap where we could rest our heads on the soft cushion of her equally ample bosom. When two of us had each claimed a knee, the others found a spot in the grass still warm from the day's heat. Whether standing or sitting, we began at once with our favor ite pastime: unplaiting and combing Grandma's two long, thick braids that age had turned first white then yellow. We'd drape the loosened hair over her shoulders like a shawl and style it, which she let us do until her head was too sore to take any more of our grooming. By then, her hair stuck up and out like chickens had been plucking in it. Grandma Louisa always sang to us, most often tunes that were popular in her day. She'd croon Red Sails in the Sunset, I'll Be Seeing You, and other love ballads. We were a rapt audience. While she sang, she sipped sherry from a fifth bottle stashed beneath her chair, and sometimes I got the feeling that she wasn't even aware she had an audience, rapt or not. Often in the middle of a song her voice would slowly fade, and her entire body would sag. She appeared to be spiraling down like my brother's spinning top, then her head slumped to her chest and the singing stopped. The forgotten bottle dangled from her hand, then dropped with a soft thud on the grass like a period at the end of a sentence. The quiet that hung upon the night then seemed to amplify the usual nocturnal chirr of crickets, cicadas, and whippoor wills. We kids looked at each other, but no one spoke. What was there to say? We all knew Grandma was drunk. But even though we