The Lesson

“Miss Moore was her name. The only woman on the block with no first name. And she was black as hell, cept for her feet, which were fish white and spooky.” 

This description of Miss Moore makes her seem both intimidatingly proper and faintly monstrous, and shows how disorienting she is to the narrator, as a single childless woman whose style and manner is different from that of the other women around her. The narrator’s mention of her dark skin and strange white feet shows the degree to which she does not know how to place her or make sense of her; it also shows what wary close attention she is paying to her.

“Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish and me and Sugar were the only ones just right, this lady moved into our block with nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup.” 

This opening sentence shows the narrator’s conspiratorial closeness to Sugar: a closeness based in part on making fun of everyone else around them. The sentence also implies the rift that will open up between the narrator and Sugar later in the story. 

“She been screwed into the go-along for so long, it’s a blood-deep natural thing with her. Which is how she got saddled with me and Sugar and Junior in the first place while our mothers were in a la-de-da apartment up the block having a good ole time.” 

The narrator’s living situation is unconventional; she lives with her Aunt Gretchen, while her mother lives nearby with another aunt. However, this is the only mention in the story that the narrator makes of her home life. We understand that—apart from her best friend and cousin Sugar—her real community is not so much in her home as in her neighborhood.