Jen Bryant - Feed Your Mind: A Story of August Wilson

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Table of Contents

Guide

A STORY OF AUGUST WILSON

BY

JEN BRYANT

ILLUSTRATED BY

CANNADAY CHAPMAN

FEED

YOUR

MIND

ACT ONE

THE HILL DISTRICT, PITTSBURGH

They call it Little Harlemthe city within a city.

A mile east of downtown, it is a mishmash,

a melting pot of workers and their kin

Syrians, Africans, Poles, and Jews,

Irish, Haitians, Germans, and Italians

their row homes, apartments, and shacks

jam-packed between sloping streets.

On April 27, 1945, in a tiny apartment behind Bellas Market,

Frederick August Kittel Jr. is born. Named for his father,

a white German baker, who sometimes visits

with bread in his hand

but mostly is not around.

Now, Freddy walks down Wylie Avenue

with his mother, Daisy Wilson,

past barbers, butcher shops, bakeries,

where people speak Italian, Hebrew, or Greek,

their unique voices blending like an orchestra,

their smells (corned beef, lamb, okra, fettuccini!)

making his small mouth water.

Summer nights in the backyard, Daisy plays

card games with the neighbors as someone

strums a guitar, their laughter drifting over children

playing dodgeball and stickballloading the bases.

Freddy plays, but hes an observer, too:

always watching and listening.

When night falls and the children are called inside,

he notices how most of them have

a mother and a father to tuck them in.

But not Freddy. Instead, with just a sixth-grade education

and a job cleaning other peoples homes,

Daisy reads to him at night, filling him up

with stories, words, and hope: If you can read,

you can do anythingyou can be anything.

BREAKING THE CODE

Loops and lines in long, neat rows

but what do they mean ?

Mother reads... she knows.

He likes to turn the pages, feel the lightness of paper.

Look here, Freddy, she says, pointing

to labels. His eyes follow her finger to the shelf,

his mouth sounding them out:

soup, tomato, rice, beans.

He is smart, curious. He is four.

One morning on the way out the door,

he spies Sisters schoolbook, open on the floor:

The suns light brings the leaves out.

and suddenly the loops and lines begin to mean .

Each day after, he practicestextbooks,

newspapers, street signs, clothing labels

drinking the words in faster and faster.

By the time he turns five, he even reads breakfast:

Golden Yellow and ready to spreadParkay!

Strawberry Jam. Smucker Company, the brand you can trust.

Posts Grape-Nuts Flakes... its Hopalong Cassidys favorite whole-wheat cereal!

Mother stops her washing. She looks at the table,

then back at her word-loving son.

Get your coat, Freddy. Were going out.

WYLIE AVENUE BRANCH,

CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH

Tall walls. Big windows.

People sitting at long tables, whispering.

Rows and rows and rows of shelves!

One moment, please, says the blue sweater

behind the counter.

Mother squeezes his hand. Ill wait. You go on and pick out a book.

Running over to the shelf, his fingers glide

along the cool spines. He slides one out, brings it

to Mother, who shows him

a small card printed with his name.

This means you can borrow any book in this room.

Is that the one you want? It is.

Later...

his eyes move across the page,

following each line into a bright new world.

WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS

Morton Salt! Mother cries out her answer

to the radio game: Name the product that uses this slogan...

and you win a brand-new washing machine!

A dime hurried into his sisters hand,

Sister running down to the pay phone on the corner,

calling the number, shouting into the receiver: Morton Salt!

A voice on the other end:

Please stay on the line so we can get your name.

Jumping joy and jubilation!!! No more scrubboard

for Mother. No more bleeding, peeling hands.

His sister tries to stay calm, saying the family name

and address. Where, miss? Say it again?

She repeats... and click swift as an electric switch

that new machine vanishes.

Instead, the man says, You get a certificate to the Salvation Army.

They have some used ones there.

The slow, shuffle-walk home, his sister thinks on how

to soften the news: But Mother, isnt that better than nothing?

Better than having your back and wrists sore, your hands bleeding?

At least you wont be scrubbing no more...

Mother stirs soup, her silent rage rising with the steam.

Tell them I said no. They can keep their used machine!

RELOCATION

For twelve years, Freddy has known only

these two rooms (and an outhouse in back)

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