Much thanks to Vermont College of Fine Arts and the Hurston/Wright Foundation for creating a nurturing literary environment, fertile ground for narratives like my own to grow.
To my writing group family: Betty Cotter, Christy Bailey, Corrine Lincoln-Pinheiro, Jennifer Haugen Koski, Mark Lupinetti, Geri Whitten, Sheila Stuewe, and Anthony Caputa, thank you for reading my words as if you always knew they would reach a reader’s hands. To Vel Gatlin, Ramona Broomer, Jay Smith, Tammy Ince, Ronald Davis, Kathleen Trate, Norrice Herndon, Cynthia Ward, and Earl Herndon, thank you for being my literary and spiritual Army. You were the voices encouraging me to jump.
To Remica Bingham-Risher, you selflessly gave your time and offered your critical eye. Thank you for helping me see. To Tim Seibles, my birthday twin, not many can do what you do with words and still walk among us, humble, inspiring, a friend to all. I can never repay you for all you’ve done, for your friendship, your mentoring, your smooth literary skills. I’ll just say “Always and Forever,” Big Brah.
To all of the Boone Babies, I hope I did you proud. You have been a constant source of strength. I give special thanks to Grandma Rachel, Granddaddy Andrew, Aunt Ella, Uncle Junie, Uncle Joe, Aunt Della, Aunt Angie, Uncle Leonard, and Uncle Barry. Through the difficult times, I have always felt blessed to be part of a brood so big I could never truly be alone. To Aunt Vonne, Uncle Bruce, and Aunt Bir’t, thank you for filling in the holes, for sharing your stories with me, and for encouraging me to write my truth. Your care and confidence carried me through some of the most difficult times.
To Aunt Vonne’s girls, thank you for sharing your mother and sisters with me. I’ve admired each of you since I was a little girl. To Sherry B, my second big sister, thank you for kicking my butt one minute and standing up for me the next. You will always be my sister. To Tricia, you have been protecting and loving me since we were little girls. Thank you for sharing your secrets, for tightly holding mine, for always having my back, whether I was wrong, right, up, or down. I would have kept this book hidden in my closet if not for you.
To my brother, Champ, we fought hard, loved hard and I am proud of the father/husband you have become. You had no male blueprint and you still found your way to peace. Dathan, sorry for all of the mess we put you through. I’m grateful our antics didn’t change you, didn’t harden you to us. If they had, I would be missing out on the love of an amazing “little-big” brother. Tom-Tom, the baby, you are the hardest working man I know. Thank you for supporting my craft and showing me that hard work pays off. To Mary, my road dog, my little sister who thinks she’s my big sister. I am so grateful to have you in my life. As we walk individual paths, I know I will always have you beside me. Champ, Dathan, Mary, Tom-Tom, I wouldn’t want to have lived this life with anyone else. What Momma said is true of each of us. “Whatever you put your hands on will prosper. It’s already written.”
To Momma, what a brilliant, beautiful, loving, strong woman you are. Thank you for placing your stories in me so I might later use them. You never allowed me to accept that what happened to you, to other strong women in our family, was what had to be. You poured in me the belief there could be another way, even as I rejected your pouring, even as you had so little for yourself. Thank you for spending hours reliving the darkest parts of your life, for crying with me when I thought I couldn’t continue, and for trusting me with your experiences. I honor and love you. I pray I will be able to place in my daughter the same resolve, the same fight, the knowing that her spirit is one of strength, longevity, even as external evidence attempts to prove otherwise.
To my babies, Dereck, Tariq, and Sanaa, you gave up time, cooked your own food, cheered me, and hugged me through the painful days of writing and the nights overwrought with dark memories. This book is as much yours as it is mine. It is part of your history, but it is proof that my history, my mother’s history, my grandma’s history does not have to be your future. Use these lessons wisely. For you, it is already written. Dereck, you are next.
To Chico, only a special man could love me broken, torn, until I became whole. I could not have completed this journey without you. Thank you for reminding me I have always possessed the power to save myself.
All praises to my Heavenly Father. Through Him all things are possible. This story proves that.
CRAVE
SOJOURN OF A HUNGRY SOUL
LAURIE JEAN CANNADY
Pretty and her five.
Clockwise: Pretty, 23; Champ, 7; Dathan, 5; Tom-Tom, 1; Mary, 3; Laurie, 6.
Before I spent a moment in this world, I was hungry. Momma told stories of my body tightening inside her body even though she was just four months pregnant with me. Food was a scarcity in Momma’s womb, my first home, and with most meals consisting of unsweetened tea and butterless biscuits, there was never enough to soothe her rumbling belly, my nursing brother, and me inside.
Luckily for Momma, for us all, delayed satiation was nothing new. She’d also been hungry since before she was born, just as her mother and her mother’s mother had been. While some families bequeath legacies of power, wealth, and pride, my family passed down the ability to withstand prolonged periods of starvation.
Momma was born April 5, 1956, unless you believe her birth certificate (which claims she was born April 9) over her daddy’s word. She was the youngest of Andrew Boone and Rachel Griffin’s eleven children, which meant she’d survived on leftovers and hand-me-downs long before she had us. Her birth name was Lois Jean Boone, but everybody called her “Pretty.” The local milkman, a white man who handed her a silver dollar each time he delivered, proclaimed “She’s so pretty, ‘Pretty,’ should be her name.” In a severely segregated Chesapeake, Virginia, his word meant something, so the name stuck.
Her daddy, Big Boone, cleaned ships at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. After he and Grandma Rachel had fourteen children, with only eleven surviving childbirth, their fast-growing family proved a perfect combination for the type of poverty that makes the poor feel prosperous. Big Boone, being a resourceful man, supplemented his meager income by partnering with a German immigrant, becoming Deep Creek’s first corn liquor bootlegger.
Big Boone brewed liquor so potent it singed nostril hairs. That’s why he was the most sought-after bootlegger in all of Chesapeake; potency equaled power, and there was no denying that long jowl, those bushy eyebrows, and protruding eyes had the power to break a man in half.
On Friday evenings at the Boone home, coworkers became customers as they crowded his kitchen, plastic cups of liquor in one hand, small cans of grapefruit or orange juice in the other. They exchanged dollars, quarters, and dimes for spirits, and by the end of the night, some were even paying with pennies, for which Big Boone kept stacks of penny rolls.
Once old enough, Momma, alongside her brothers and sisters, quietly served them, dodging quick hands, negotiating bodies, pressing, as men moved from room to room. Before Friday nights became juke nights, the house had been quiet, filled with Momma’s brothers and sisters cooking, cleaning alongside their mother. They had been happy then, most times. Big Boone, still himself, loved hard, but his hard balanced well with Grandma’s soft way of doing everything, her way of kissing Momma when she sent her off to school, her way of consoling her daughters when she learned they were pregnant, and her way of loving Big Boone, open, as if she could fold all of his hard into her soft body.