Assignment Eight: An Adult scene - Essay Example

She could not have been any more than four years old when she first knelt alongside her sharecropping parents in the warm Mississippi red clay dirt, picking cotton. She found herself bent down again later, in a wealthy White family home as a young teenager, on hard tile floors, where she learned to wash and wax until the floor reveled her reflection. She watched her image grow old in those floors. Nazareth is alone now for the first time in the house she once shared with her parents and eight other siblings.

She sat down in what use to be her mother’s favorite chair, right next to the window. She looks out into the street peering through the mini-blinds. She can still smell her mother’s lavender perfume; it is embedded in the fabric of the cushions in the chair. She loses her eyes and breathes in deeply. From that same chair she recalls her mom combed her hair, and kept a watchful eye on her when she played in the yard, and called Nazareth in for dinner. There she was also praised for getting a good report and corrected when she erred.

Nazareth’s sweet reflection was interrupted by the sound of a ball hitting the pavement. She watched out her window as a teenage boy wearing a baseball cap backwards on his head trotted down the sidewalk. He had on a black T-shirt and wore his blue jeans way passed his hips; this revealed his red plaid underwear. His pants were almost to his knees. Nazareth feared that for sure his pants would slip down to his ankles -- how was he able to walk without them falling both amazed and insulted her.

The way he moved his legs reminded Nazareth of the many Black men she often saw as a child working alongside the dusty roads, or on parchment farms. The men wore black and white striped jumpers and had chains around their ankles. Nazareth shook her head and said aloud to herself, “ Hum, Lord help em.” Suddenly the phone rang. Nazareth grunted as she stood up from the chair and shuffled her way to the phone. “Hello, Adeline? You made it in alright huh?” Nazareth asked relieved. Nazareth and Adeline chatted for a few minutes.

They both agreed that the time they spent together was too short and scolded themselves for seldom visiting their family, except during times like these. “Seem like we only get together now-a-days are doing weddings and funerals,” Said Adeline. For Nazareth, it has been far too many funerals of late. Adeline’s usual stentor voice became subdued. She says to Nazareth, “You let me know when you are ready, and if you need any help; you know I will come back? Nazareth, you don’t have to do that alone.

” Nazareth replied softly, “Thank you, sister, I just need some time. I love you Adeline, now you go and get yourself some rest.” Nazareth instructed her big sister. Both women laughed at the role reversal. It had always been Adeline telling Nazareth and the other seven siblings what to do. Adeline being the oldest child was expected to reinforce the house rules and oversee that the chores were done according to her parent’s instructions. Her parents rose early each morning to work at the farm.

Both would leave to work at their second job; her dad worked at the cotton mill and her mom, like her, worked as a maid. Nazareth hung up the phone and stood for a moment in the middle of the living room floor. She looked around the room, and then stared at her parent’s picture hanging on the wall next to a large wooden crucifix. She looked longingly at