WAKE ME UP BEFORE I DIE by Kennedy Brazier (books for 8th graders TXT) 📖

loves me…Yes Jesus loves me.” He sung the words over and over smiling as he tiptoed alongside his mother. He danced, avoiding the rocks, happy with innocence and joy on a road that would lead to a place where it would be difficult to feel those things again.

         And soon Johnny could see a structure in the distance, and his gleeful singing was silenced with worry. He realized they were not heading to a different Church, as he thought, as the vision appeared in the distance.

The moisture from a surrounding swamp had left a misty fog in the air, but the shadow of a house larger than he had ever seen before was coming into Johnny’s view. Weeping willow trees were lined up on either side of the road with green budding, stringy branches stretched out like dangling weary arms bending over the two of them as they walked slower, hand in hand. The crooked road straightened to meet the estate standing up high at the end of it.

A strange feeling of fear formed inside of Johnny as the morning mist engulfed the tremendous structure of the house, creating an eerie grey cloud around the grand home.

As they grew closer Johnny’s heart pounded heavier and when the sun slowly cleared the haze, it revealed a magnificent and elegant two-story white house that erected like a tower before him.

The bright sun gleamed off the windowpanes, making the lofty house with its black wooden shutters and southern towering pillars seem colossal to Johnny. He stood in awe, from the bottom of the stairs, gazing up at its entirety, as his mother sluggishly climbed the tall stairs and stopped at the broad door in front of them.

Martha Johnson stood up again as straight as she could stand now and set the suitcase down by her feet.

Lifting the shiny brass door ring, that was centered in the massive door; she knocked with two hard taps. There was no answer. Then after a heavier knock, the wide oak door swung open abruptly. It frightened Johnny when a large dark-skinned black younger man appeared in the doorway. His thick black hair was combed back, with glistening fixed waves of hair rolled across the top of his head. His wide face was blanketed with large protruding eyes and a plump bottom lip that was pruned out with inquisition towards his mother.

Martha Johnson gestured for her son to come closer, with the swoop of her hand, but Johnny stepped back in caution, afraid to approach. She spoke in an angry tone, loudly, to the giant stranger, who was attempting to speak lowly in the doorway.

“Because, I can’t take care of him! And I have another baby coming soon!—That’s why! ---He already has grown out of his shoes and I gots no more money to buy new ones!” she yelled at the man. “I can’t see Mrs. Lureaux wanting Buzz’s child to be in an orphanage- I know she wouldn’t have no such thing, due to him carrying you ‘alls last name too!-But If you don’t take him in, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen!”

 “Johnny come on up here, child!’ she turned towards her son, stretching out her hand again to him.

“Martha, the boy is still a baby,” the man said, starring, over her shoulders and down the stairs at the listening youngster.

“I don’t care, Chugs!” she continued, “I can’t take care of him no more!…Every time I look at him I get crazy thinkin of what Buzz did to me! —Everybody looks at me wrong now. They talk behind my back, sayin bad things about me- and I just can’t do it no more! I can’t go on one more day like this!  Ya'll can take him over there to Buzz if you want to or take him in yourself,--but I can’t do it! Not one more day!”—Her eyes begged for Chugs understanding.

“Johnny! Come on! -Get up here, now!” she demanded, stumping her foot down as she yelled with urgency at him.

Johnny had never heard his mother speak to him in such a frantic manner. He looked at his Mother surprised and walked up the steep stairs slowly, obeying her request. When he reached her at the front door, he could see that she was crying as she bent down to him, squatting, as the seams in her black dress stretched to her bended and widened frame.

Her lips quivered as she whispered to her trusting toddler and tried to speak to him.

“Johnny,” she began, in a softer tone, with his name barely escaping her lips. Then she cleared her throat, gathering courage to speak again.

“Johnny Lee,” she said louder this time, “You listen here, now….” She paused again and Johnny watched a tear trickle from the corner of his mother’s eyes and run down the side of her cheeks as she continued to talk to him. The feather on top of her hat brushed against his anxious face; as she looked down to open her purse.   She twisted open the metal clasp on top of her black purse and fumbled inside of it and pulled out a pair of white gloves and a matching handkerchief.  Then she patted the fine linen cloth to her eyes. 

Johnny could smell the light peppermint gum on her breath that she had chewed earlier to stop her nausea, her lips were close to his.

“I know this ain’t the home you use to, but these folks here are gonna take good care of you now. They are your kin folk, so they are gonna look after you now, as if you are their own. This here is gonna be your new home and it’s a much better home for you than the one you had. Now don’t you fret about nothing, Johnny Lee. Do you here me? I don’t want you fretting about your stay here and I want you to listen to everything these folks in her tell you to do.  You need some good rearin’ and your other family in here is gonna be able to give you everything you need son. It’s gonna be alright, don’t you fret, ok? ”

She didn’t await her toddlers’ response, only tensely pulled the white gloves over each of her hands and bent down closer to him. She nervously connected together the top button of Johnny’s heavily-starched, cotton white Sunday- school shirt and then stroked his tiny chest, to ease her son's fearful, racing heartbeat that she felt beneath her hands.

“I have got to leave you here and you have got to stay son and that’s all to it!” she said conclusively, as she struggled to stand up from her temporary squatting position.  She grunted lightly and shifted her weight to the porch banister besides her, then lifted herself up to stand over her child.

Johnny looked up, staring deeply into his mother’s eyes and she tried to avoid his sadness by turning away from him. He pulled and tugged at her frail hand hanging listlessly at her side; the beautiful camellia flower he had given to her seemed lifeless, now, its pink petals dropping and wilted as she cupped it inside the palm of her cool gloved hand.

“But Momma- I’m ready to go to Sunday school!—I’m ready to go to church with you, okay? He offered in question.

 Martha Johnson turned to look at him again to respond to his suggestion.

“I’m sorry, Johnny, but you can’t go with me no more. -Not to church or anywhere else! I might be just over yonder, but you can’t come back there. You have to listen to what I say.” –

She sniffled back the moisture running through her nose and closed her eyes to finish talking.

“This here is your home now…This is where you gonna be at. Now, go on Johnny!”  She said with aggression as she shook his little hand away from hers, as if to shake away the attachment connected to her and then she starred down at him.

“No, No- Mama, please, I wanna go with you! Don’t leave me! - I wanna go with you!” Johnny pleaded as he pressed his face to her, beneath the small bump in her belly and threw his arms around her tightly, squeezing her around her child-bearing widened hips.

She wanted to hug him back, but only touched the top of his head lightly. She wouldn’t allow anymore feelings to interrupt her plans.

“Johnny Lee- let me go.” she whispered over the light panting in her breath. She was exhausted with emotion and breathed lighter to cure the dizziness and fatigue that suddenly overwhelmed her.

But Johnny pressed his nose into her linen dress and as the soft and familiar scent of lilac and talc, arose from her body, he grabbed her closer, holding her tighter, hoping his mother would change her mind.

She couldn’t leave him here! He sobbed, burying his face against her pregnant stomach. She just couldn’t leave him here!

“Please don’t go! I’m sorry for wettin the bed, Mama- and throwing rocks at the rooster, and taking your nickel off of your bureau…” He tried to recall every disobedient action against his mother.

“I’ll be good;-I’ll be a good boy! -- I promise, I promise, I will! Please don’t leave me here!” He wept even harder, holding her; refusing to let her go.

She was frozen, stiffened with anguish, but fought off the need to nurture and comfort her son. Inside she knew that this was something that she had to do, for herself and for the sake of her child. He couldn’t see it now, but she no longer had anything to give to him. Even the love she had for him was depleted beneath the heavy responsibilities she could no longer keep as his mother.  He would be better in a life away from her.

“It ain’t about wettin no bed or bein good Johnny Lee…- I can’t take care of you. That’s all! --- Now, please, - please let loose of me-- I gotta go!,”  she said as she pulled his clinging hands from off of her hips and looked down at his face again.

She lifted his chin up with the tips of her fingers and raised his head so he could meet her eyes.

“And you stop that whinin – and be a good boy- you here?” Her bright hazel eyes had dimmed and reddened, filling up with more tears and she abruptly turned Johnny’s shoulders around and away from her to position him towards Chugs. She had to carry out her plans, forcibly towards her son.

Chugs still stood at the door, with uneasiness now; uncomfortable with the scene before him.

“You give Mrs. Lureaux my best, Chugs, and ----Johnny,--” Martha Johnson’s throat grew dry inside. She looked at her son then stopped; unable to finish her sentence, as she returned her stare back into the hazel eyes she had given Johnny.

“You mind these folks in here and you be a good boy, - --“I gotta go.” she mumbled, and turned her face down towards her shoulder to hide her tears, and then turned around completely, facing the road in front of the house.

She stood still, quietly for a second, her back to her sniffling child, gazing down at the woodland of trees, swaying in the distance.  It would be long walk home, alone, without Johnny to question every move or to sing to her, or simply smile at her. A lonely and long walk indeed, without her son by her side. She lifted her head with determination and tightened her gloves, pulling them around her wrist, and then straightened her dress, tugging either side of the hem and then proceeded down the stairs.

Johnny tried to chase her, but Chugs stopped him, grabbing him, lifting him into the air, and holding him around his waist as Johnny kicked in protest.

“No, Mama, - Please...Please… I wanna go home with you….Mama!” Johnny screamed, demanding an answer. But she ignored his cries.

“Take care of him Chugs!” she yelled in finality with her head in the air, defying her inner emotions, and torpidly headed down the dirt road,