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THE MIMOSA TREE 
1
(THE MIMOSA TREE is my very first very first very first very first written story. The language was sanitized so that I could enter it into an EBONY Magazine short story contest. After that , it became the first story in the published,PARENTAL ADVISORY collection known as “Sculptured Nails and NAPPY HAiR”. Enjoy!) 
I“Happy birthday, Maddi,” said my Daddy as he watched his ten year old test driveher new cassette-radio. It was the perfect gift for the green-eyed kid who knew everyinstrumental break to every song played on the air for the past eleven months; allwithout owning a single record.“Thanks. I love you, Daddy. You comin’ back soon?”He answered quickly, because Mr. Clyde, his bid whist buddy was fidgeting in theback seat of their puttering car.“I’ll be back soon. I promise, Maddi. Here’s ten dollars. Tell your mom to get youthe Pro-Keds or Converses or whatever those shoes were that you said you wanted.You wanted new sneakers, right?”“Yup.”When Daddy closed the door,
that was the end of our relationship.
What a liar.Instead of coming back to see my sister, Chandra and I, Richmond Charles Lee (theonly man in my life at the time besides my gym teacher) ran off to the Blue RidgeMountains with some nineteenish
hot-to-Trotsky 
; only to discover that he was unable tokeep his
footloose
up with her 
fancy-free
. So, upon issuance of a Divine warrant,Daddy’s cardiac proceeded to arrest, arraign, indict, try, convict and sentence him todeath on
December Tenth,
1974. Maybe, I thought, if he’d stayed with us when his
 
THE MIMOSA TREE 
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cardiac arrested him, he’d only be serving probation today. I can’t seem to remember a time when capital punishment was the law in New York State.After the rigomorolis of seeing her (pompous) in-laws at her husband’s funeralhad set in , my Mommy took her new position in society with the same stride she hadtaken the new society with. Becoming a widow and being forced to take a second job(as a
barmaid 
, of all things) was right in line with Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and thewomen’s liberation movement; Ralph Nader and the consumer advocacy brigade;Angela Davis; Assata Shakur (Joanne Chesimard) and the Black Panthers; along withthe ‘
Death to J. Edgar Hoover 
’ and ‘
 Aluta Continua
’ (The Struggle Continues) buttonseverybody was wearing — and the countless offers to become ‘kept’ by the wideselection of married vermin in the area.Mommy got an evening job tending bar at the watering hole down the street tocover her home owning incidentals like food, water and oil. Every smidgen of thepittance she was thrown by her main employer, the Board of Education, had to gotowards the mortgage. Once in a while, she could squeeze enough out of her financialstone to take her babies to an African crafts fair; or to a more spectacular event like
Dance Africa
— at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. If nothing else, Suzette HopkinsonLee took pride in the fact that her children had their own bedrooms on a tree-lined streetin Queens and were culturally aware.“Why are you eating your cereal without any milk, Madelyn?”“Beecuzz, Mommy. You put that powdery stuff in it and you never did thatbefore.”“Oh, I see. Since you’re so smart, how do you know whether I put
 powdery stuff 
 in it or not?”It always took my seven-year-old headache, Chandra, to butt into the
 
THE MIMOSA TREE 
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conversation and get the ball wrecking.“Because it tastes
nastee
!”“
Nasty 
— “ Mommy began to scream in
my 
direction, no doubt, “ — what aboutyour messy-behind
room
, Maddi — now,
that’s
 
nasty 
! Clothes and shoes every gotdamwhere... get upstairs outa my face if you can’t drink the milk I buy!”By the age of thirteen, while experiencing my last year in private school, I was aboard-certified straphanger in the New York City subways. I knew French,Shakespeare, Impressionist art, Baroque music and underground New York like theback of my hand.“Hey, Mom! Did you realize that there are three different ways to get to ConeyIsland on the train from here? Either you could take the
 A
to Franklin Avenue, transfer tothe shuttle upstairs and change at Prospect Park for the Brighton Line, or you could... ““Not now, Madelyn: Mr. Whitney is here... “ she said as I burst through her bedroom door, “ ...and he has to go to work in the morning.”“Sorry Mommy. I didn’t know you had company. Is it okay if I go outside for awhile?”It seemed like every night now, I was going outside. That was, until Dondi from131st Street gave me something else to do. One night, I was outside on the porch,practicing a tune on my soprano recorder (I got it from school) and Dondi stopped by. Itwas a documented fact that he was the finest guy in the neighborhood and all the girlswere after him, but I just
knew 
that he really wanted to be with me. I knew because
hekissed me in the mouth a couple of years before.
 “Hi, Maddi. What’s that? I didn’t know you could play the flute.”
Besides — when I was eight years old, I wrote him a letter. He was supposed tocheck either the YES or the NO box to indicate whether he loved me or not.
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