The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Read online

  “Put the étagère over here, daddy. Mommy did you see the balcony? And look at the view. Ooh, I can›t wait to decorate,» she crowed.

  The Shipps watched Sylvia bounce from one room to the next and were at last at peace. More than anything else, they like all parents were happy when their daughter was happy. Over the next couple of days, they managed to unload the huge truck with minimal help from outsiders other than one neighbor, a teenage boy who seemed taken by Sill. They spent the remainder of their time getting directions and getting lost as they traipsed from landmark-to-landmark and from restaurant to restaurant.

  Sylvia never dreamed Atlanta could be so large or so cosmopolitan. Mrs. Shipp on the other hand, was fascinated by the sheer number of Black people in one place. And Mr. Shipp, po› thing, who refused to drive in the city was just happy to sit in the back seat of the tiny Ford Escort and let his neck turn from side to side and prayed that the Lord would bestow a photographic memory so he could remember every fine sista he saw, to take back to Elizabethtown with him. Lord, so many fine, fine, hammers. If only he were twenty again he thought to himself.

  Sylvia couldn›t recall ever enjoying her parents as much as she did those first three days in Atlanta. Sure they bickered but it was all in good fun. That›s just the way old married couples do, she guessed, and only hoped to have what they shared after thirty-four years of marriage. Together they laughed and joked and ate then ate some more. And, for all intents and purposes they had a grand ol› time. When it came time for them to drop off the U-Haul and pick up their train tickets, it suddenly dawned on Sill that not only were they leaving but that she would be alone in a city that made Elizabethtown and Greensboro look like Andy Griffith›s Mayberry. Her parents saw the growing apprehension when they mentioned their leaving and agreed to stay another day, which just happened to be Sill›s first day teaching.

  When she returned that day after her first day in the classroom, Mr. and Mrs. Shipp knew that their baby girl had found her niche and would be all right. Sylvia quickly found teaching to be a revelation, an eye-opener. For so long Sylvia had searched to find out exactly where she belonged, just how she fit into the whole scheme of things. But the first time she stepped in front of those twenty-six, grinning, eager third graders, there was no question as to her purpose in life. Sure, she›d been nervous but, closing the door to her classroom, she knew two things: These were now her children and her children were a reflection of her. That being the case, her children would be the best and the brightest. She vowed to defy the odds and take them where others had failed and written them off. Sylvia considered each tiny personality that stepped in her classroom each day hers. She didn’t have time to blame the parents or the school system. She only had time to teach. And she felt that it was equally important to teach them how to be strong little African-American boys and girls, as it was to teach them how to read and write. With hugs and love and an occasional harsh word for some of her miniature wannabe street toughs, Sylvia Shipp soon had her third grade class eating out of her hand. And soon thereafter, she was not only the talk of the school but the talk of the neighborhood as well.

  It was not at all unusual for the diminutive third grade teacher to be seen in the evenings long after the school day was over walking through some of Atlanta’s most dangerous neighborhoods searching for the home of one of her students. If a child’s attitude changed drastically, Ms. Shipp was ringing that child’s doorbell to see what was wrong. If one of her children missed more than a day of school, Ms. Shipp was ringing the doorbell. And no matter how bad the neighborhood was said to be she had no fear. What was even more remarkable was that everyone knew her. Even the young thugs who hugged the corners in Atlanta’s worst ghetto stopped their trade and spoke to her out of reverence. Most of them had younger brothers and sisters and it didn’t take long before the word was out that there was a newcomer in the hood and she cared. Every now and then, a case worker from Social Services shuffled into the projects before daybreak and rushed to get the hell out of there by nightfall. But not Ms. Shipp whom they joked about before they got to know her.

  “Bitch, sho’ must cain’t tell time. Either that or she ain’t got no watch, yo,” one young thug quipped to another as she exited Raul’s building one evening.

  “Must not, yo. Walkin’ roun’ here this time of night she sho’ don’t know what time it is,” they laughed.

  But Ms. Shipp didn’t care about them or the crackheads they served. All she cared about were her kids. A week later, the same two thugs who had joked about her not knowing what time it was, nodded as she passed. “Evenin’, Ms. Shipp.” Somewhat surprised that they knew her name, she returned the nod.

  When her supervisor became aware of her evening forays, he immediately called her down to his office to warn her about the dangers and the risk she was taking but she refused to take heed and continued her journeys, so committed was she to her students. If they weren’t in school, then they couldn’t learn, she reasoned. And unless they were terminally ill there was no good reason why a third grader should not be in school. Armed with her student’s well being at heart, Sylvia spent her evenings scrupulously correcting papers and seeking new and creative ways to reach some of her hard-to-reach children. If a child wasn’t learning, then she wasn’t teaching and so it went. It didn’t matter that the little Black children she taught were from single parent households or that her school district still hadn’t received their books and Thanksgiving was just around the corner. She expected her kids to learn in spite of it all. And they did. Despite the odds, they learned. And they learned at a record pace. She made no excuses and found a variety of ways to motivate them to reach new heights each school day and they loved her all the more for it. At lunchtime, her colleagues remarked that she had more kids in her room than during her regular class period. The word was out that Ms. Shipp was out to make a difference and it wasn’t long before the parents were there offering there help as well.

  Mr. and Mrs. Shipp called almost nightly checking on Sill and were almost as excited as she was about her new found success. But they still worried and couldn’t help but wonder if she were truly happy or if it were all a facade. Sylvia had little time to entertain their concerns. There was simply too much to do.

  Never one to make time, she was late frequently. She blamed it on the drive in to the inner city which was always hectic. There always seemed to be an accident or a bottleneck no matter what time she started out. Once she got to school, she had virtually no time to prepare so she would usually begin her day by assigning her class a journal topic to start them off and give herself a chance to gather her thoughts and unwind from the long commute. She would teach until almost two-thirty then gather her belongings and start the savage trek home.

  After picking up her dry cleaning, stopping at the supermarket and Office Depot for supplies it would usually be some time after five. Then by the time she took a quick shower and prepared herself something to eat there was little time to do anything other than check her kid’s papers and go over the next day’s lesson plans.

  Too often, she found herself nodding off in her easy chair, exhausted, red pen still in hand. It was not until the weekend that Sill began to feel that something was amiss, that perhaps her life was anything but full and rewarding.

  It wasn’t until Friday afternoons, when her white colleagues discussed ticket prices for the upcoming Cher farewell concert, did she come to the realization that her whole life centered on a bunch of third graders. And if Friday afternoon’s were bad, Saturday afternoons were the worst. Never one to sleep late, by the time Saturday afternoon rolled around Sill had changed the linens, washed and ironed her clothes for the week and cleaned her house despite never having any company. These were the times she dreaded most. Those dull, ordinary Saturday afternoons drove her crazy.

  When she first arrived in Atlanta, it was nothing to curl up with a bag of those greasy ol’ Wise Barbeque Potato Chips, some French Onion Dip, a large Pepsi and a good
book but in time she found the dip going straight to her hips and herself in a rut. The five movies for five-day thing from Blockbuster didn’t work either. There were no plots, no themes, and no storyline in movies anymore. Nowadays, everything was graphics and special effects. Aside from A Beautiful Mind, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a good movie and that was years ago. In the days and weeks that followed, Sylvia finally conceded, that she had always been lonely and a loner. Even with mom and dad, her sorority sisters, Chad...

  Growing up out on Highway 46 in Elizabethtown, the houses were so far apart and the neighbors so few that she often had to find solace in waving at the passing cars. Her brother, David, was eleven years older than she was already driving and dating when she first came to recall him as a memory. Her best friend had been Pinky who was an imaginary person she’d made up. Pinky used to wait along with her each evening for daddy to come home from work. Then together she and Pinky would jump out from under the table to greet him when they could no longer wait for him to find them. She wondered and wondered if there had been something wrong with her as far back as Pinky.

  When she reached high school, so desperate had she been for friends that she latched onto the first group of kids that looked to extend a hand in friendship. Of course, these were always the worst sort but she’d been so desperate for friendship that it hardly mattered. With them she found friendship and camaraderie as well as cigarettes and alcohol. Still, there was only so far she would stray from the nest so when they decided to go on their little shoplifting sprees, she would always find her way back home.

  Casual sex was out of the question. In fact, she was still a virgin until those animals raped her. In her eyes, she was still a virgin. Probably would remain one the rest of her life. Hell, what was the point of having sex anyway? She couldn’t have kids. Matter of fact the only person she had ever considered having sex with was Peter and he hadn’t seemed the least bit interested. Sylvia never had understood that. Peter was constantly telling her how good she looked but he had never approached her other than as a complete gentleman. In fact, it was she who had to initiate or better yet, force him to kiss her at the end of the night or whenever they went to the movies.

  After dating for a little more than two months, Sill actually wondered if her parents had engineered the whole thing. She then remembered that it was she who made the impromptu stop at the dealership on her way home from work that day. Their meeting was no more than coincidence at best. Then she wondered if her father had spoken to Peter and warned him about putting his hands on her. But if that were the case, and Peter was like the rest of the guys she knew he would have bolted then. And, Lord knows, the boy had all the money in the world. He was probably making more than the entire Shipp household combined so they couldn’t be paying him off. Still, she had never run into a guy like him. Never. Sylvia smiled at the thought. Yep, Peter was definitely the man for her. She could marry Peter, never have to tell him what happened at school and not worry about how she’d respond since they’d probably never have sex. If she was frigid, she’d never know.

  Sylvia laughed out loud then caught herself. Most people occasionally laughed aloud but Sylvia was always careful to catch herself She wouldn’t even allow herself to daydream. She called it a waste of time. What she was really

  afraid of was being lost in time and reverting back to the months she lost staring, daydreaming and laughing to herself.

  “The hell with Peter Townsend,” she said aloud, now angry that she had given him the time of day and even angrier that she was talking to herself. “I’ve got to get out of this house before I go stir crazy. I’ve got to find something to do with my time.” There it was again. She was talking to herself once again but this time it didn’t bother her quite as much.

  This time she had devised a plan. She smiled. relaxing now she curled back up on the loveseat and turned the television back on but left the volume on mute. There! Now she had company in the house but the voices on the television could not distract her as her thoughts quickly returned to Peter and his unusually low sex drive.

  CHAPTER 5

  Sill smiled as she remembered the warm night in April when the two of them were sitting on the rusty old porch swing in front of the house. Peter sure was old to be twenty-three, she mused. In many ways, he acted as old if not older than her father and daddy was in his sixties. Nothing made her father happier than to grab his pipe after the end of a long day and a good meal than to sit out there on that old, rusty swing and just let life pass him by.

  Maybe that’s what it was that attracted her to Peter. He reminded her so much of her father. Peter liked to sit there after an evening out and just listen to her go on and on about her co-workers at Penney’s or her sorors. But on that particular evening, she was going to find out just what Mr. Man was made of. She remembered the night as if it were yesterday and began to smile at the thought as she remembered their conversation.

  “Peter, you don’t mind if I run upstairs and change do you?” Sill asked. “This skirt is killing me. I think I ate too much.”

  “No, not at all Sill. Go ahead. Take your time,” he replied. He was used to Sill changing after a night out since he usually picked her straight up from work before she would have a chance to change.

  “Do you want some popcorn or anything?” she asked as the screen door slammed shut behind her.

  “No baby, I’m fine,” he said, then added. “You can’t possibly be hungry after the meal you just ate. I swear I don’t know where you put the food, little as you are.”

  And he was right about that. Standing no taller than five-four in her stocking feet, she would always insist she was five-six. Whether five-four or five-six, Sylvia did not have an ounce of fat anywhere.

  At one hundred and thirty-two pounds she was a knockout. Her cocoa brown skin looked as if it had been poured on, so rich was it. Her eyes suggested an Asiatic slant, uncommon in Southern Blacks. And her thin Roman nose also suggested mixed blood but her full lips countered any misconception of her African heritage. Sylvia’s perfectly proportioned hips and round buttocks were in sharp contrast to her tiny waist and though they would never allow her to grace the cover of Vogue or Cosmopolitan magazine they kept heads turning. They weren’t so large as to seem obscene but were just large enough to make a devoted husband walking with his wife do a double take. And her legs only made men beg for more.

  Always subtle in her attire, Sill never wore a dress above knee length but the shapely calves that protruded from beneath her skirt suggested an abbreviated high school track career that only managed to firm what was already too firm. All in all, Sylvia Shipp had the power to make most men leave home without so much as a glance back. But not Peter.

  Peter stopped daydreaming long enough to check his watch. It was already a quarter past nine and he had to get up and be on the lot by seven. He could smell the popcorn but still there was no Sill. And then, she appeared like a Black Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. Sylvia stood before him wearing a red floral evening dress that stopped just above the ankles. Gone were the fashionably faded jeans and blouse with the Penney’s badge. Gone were the panty hose that masked her golden, brown skin. Decked in red pumps that said I’m ready for anything, Sylvia watched Peter for any signs of an irregular heart palpitation. When she noticed no change in his demeanor, she immediately went to Plan B. “Popcorn, sweetheart?” she asked, turning to place the pitcher of lemonade on the wicker end table to her right. As she turned and readied herself for their long kiss goodnight, Sylvia made it a point to cross her leg purposely revealing much of her long chocolate thighs. And when Peter didn’t notice she brushed her arm ever so gently against the bowl of popcorn. Popcorn scattered everywhere, Sill smiled.

  “How clumsy of me,” she said in her best Scarlet O’Hara impersonation. Bending down on one knee, Sylvia began picking up the kernels of corn as slowly as she could. Realizing that she would not allow him to leave without their goodnight kiss, Peter bent d
own to help her. Hearing him gasp and breathe heavily she dropped her head hoping he wouldn’t see the smile now spreading across her face. Mission accomplished she whispered to herself.

  Sylvia never liked the dress she now wore, always figuring it was too Southern, too debutante ballish. That night however, it was just what the doctor ordered. She’d worn it because it showed more cleavage than all her other outfits combined. And tonight she made sure that she wore no bra to cover her thirty-six double D’s. Aside from that it had always been a size too large giving her plenty of room to move around inside. And when she knelt down to pick up the popcorn, she made sure the shoulder strap fell giving Peter a full view of her breasts, nipples and all.

  “Sill, sweetheart, I’ve really got to run,” he’d said, now breathless and almost panting. Before she knew it, she heard the modified engine of the F-150 crank up and the low roar as it headed down the road.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Sill, said on the way into the house to get the broom. Her parents were sitting in the kitchen watching the news on CNN when she walked in and burst out laughing for no apparent reason. What a chicken, she thought. Probably still a virgin. Poor little mama’s boy, I guess we’ll have to learn together.

  Sill thought of Peter’s expression as he’d eyed her breasts, thought of him gasping and then broke out laughing again. Her parents looked at each other and then at their daughter.

  “Are you OK, Sill,” her father asked. They were always so worried nowadays.

  “Yes, Daddy, I’m just fine,” she replied somewhat sarcastically.

  “Where’s Peter?” her mother inquired.

  “Now that’s the person you should be asking about,” Sill replied. “I bent over to pick up some popcorn I spilled and I guess he saw a little too much cleavage. Next thing I knew, Peter’s up in the truck and flyin’ out the driveway. I think the twins scared him away,” she laughed, referring to her breasts. They all had a good laugh about Peter that night. Her father, glad that nothing more had transpired, called Peter a “good ol’ boy” while her mother warned her about wearing something so provocative. Little did they know that Peter’s rejection of her that night would stick in her craw, gnawing at her until she’d convinced herself that Peter Townsend was the man for her.