Character Sketch: "Cinnamon Sugar"

“Cinnamon Sugar.”

That is how I always introduced myself.

And if you pay close attention, you will notice that I don’t say “Hi, my name is Cinnamon Sugar.”

First of all, I ain’t formal like that. Never was and never been.

You see, that’s because I’m not a fancy secretary, or a teacher. My occupation don’t involve getting a steady paycheck every two weeks.

I make my money by the day. No, that’s not quite what I mean.

I make my money by the job. Some day I have many jobs, and I make good money. Other days the jobs are scarce, and when you gotta compete with other girls in the same line of work as you are?

You get creative.

And that’s why I always introduce myself with two words.

“Cinnamon Sugar.”

Those two words bring about a change in a man. Makes his mind go back, way back to when he was a little boy, and his Mama would make toast. And Mama would take that knife and spread a little butter over the top. Then she would sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top, and then toast it in the oven until it’s nice and golden brown.

“Cinnamon toast,” the boy would say sometimes. “Mama can I please have some cinnamon toast?”

“Yes you can, baby,” she’d say. “Anything for my baby.”

I would’ve like to called myself “Cinnamon Toast”. But that just sounds downright crazy.

Besides, it don’t roll out the mouth and off the lips quite right.

So Cinnamon Sugar it was.

“Cinnamon Sugar.”

Of course even though cinnamon was the color of my skin, it wasn’t my real name. My birth name is Samantha Ripley. That name sounds funny coming out of my mouth. I rarely say it. And I haven’t been called that in years. As a matter of fact, if you see me far off somewhere, you may have to yell it once, twice, three times before I turn around. And if I do turn around, it ain’t to answer. It’s to see who the hell yelling like they done lost their gotdamn mind.

People in this neighborhood would do better to call me by my street name.

“Cinnamon Sugar!”

Yes, that’s my name. And I have a lot of regulars who know it well.

But one day, one hot spring day last year, there was a new man walking up the street. I had never seen him before. I noticed he sometimes went into the Copper Skillet, the neighborhood restaurant and bootleg house. So he had to be alright if the owner Miss Eartha was letting him in. Miss Eartha don't fool with many people.

Me and the girls would stand on the corner and watch him when he walked by. No, we never called out to him. He coulda been a cop, you see, and who the hell wanted to spend time in jail when that time could’ve been spent making money?

He looked kind of different. He was a white man, but he had those strange eyes, like he might’ve been one of them Asian people, but not quite. So maybe he wasn't a white man. He was mixed with somethingn else. Me and the girls, we talked, no, we debated this thing. (That is a fancy word, isn’t it? Debated).

And one day, when he was walking past us, down the other sidewalk on the other side of the street, I said something.

“Hey man, come here a minute!”

Of course he didn’t come my way. That meant that he probably wasn’t a cop. Because cops quick to run up on you, and act like they’re your best friend, when you ain’t seen them a day in your life.

That next day, when he walked up the street, I got a little bolder.

“Come here, man! Let me talk to you for a minute. You want a little company!? I ain’t never did a Chinese man before. Come here and let me talk to you for a quick minute.”

He wouldn’t say anything, only touch the tip of his baseball cap, and nod and smile.

After awhile, I just stop calling out to him. Wasn’t no use in me wasting my time on him. We just watched him as he walked by, with his tacky self. Always had on some of those red high top sneakers and shorts and a muscle shirt that didn’t match. Just tacky.

Then one day, me and the ladies were talking and he crossed the street and walked right toward us. I mean he walked right up to us.

I was ready for him, and the other ladies were ready too. You see, We took a self defense class up at the community center. It was free, and we got to yell “No!” and “Stop!” as loud as we could. They taught us how to poke a man in the face with our fingers and do a throat chop, bust him in his neck. It was exciting, and we were ready to use our fighting skills.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so rude to you, Ma’am,” he said. He held out his hand. “My name is Andrew Hattori. I am new to the neighborhood.”

I looked down at his hand, then back up at him. “You kidding, right?”

He stood there with a slight smile on his face, his hand still outstretched. “No, I’m not. What’s your name?”

I slowly took his hand and shook it. “Cinnamon Sugar.”

The ladies giggled.


“Ah, that’s a very nice name. My mother use to bake apples, and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top. I loved that.”

“I can only imagine,” I said.

“I miss that. It makes me want to almost go home and make some. Or ask Miss Eartha what day she’d have that on the special down at the Copper Skillet.”

The ladies laughed. And so did I.

“Eartha would tell you about yourself if you walked up in there wanting some apples covered with cinnamon and sugar. She’ll have security escort you out.”

He laughed. “You know you’re probably right. Miss Eartha will let you know exactly how she feels.”

I nodded for lack of knowing what else to do or say.

“Would you like to accompany me down to Poplar City Park?”

I glanced back at the ladies, and then back at him. “The Park?”

Andrew nodded.

“You want to handle. . . business. At the park.”

“Well, if you want to call it that. If handling business is a nice walk to the park and sharing my dinner, then business it is.”

He offered his arm, and I looped mine with his.

And we walked to the park, like we didn’t have a care in the world, with nothing but the sounds of our footsteps and the chirping of birds creating our runway music.

It was only a block and a half to the park, but it felt real good, walking down the street on the arm of a man. No, on the arm of a gentleman.


Honey, I wanted to turn around and do it all over again. But we headed towards a lone picnic table under a large poplar tree at the edge of the park. I across from him, at the table. He placed the backpack he always carried on the table.
I closed my eyes and pretended that I was sitting across from my man at the Red Lobster.

(Well, I closed one eye. I kept my good eye on him. He coulda been pulling a gun or a cop badge out of that backpack.)

“What’s your name?” he asked, causing me to open my eyes and realize that I wasn’t where I wanted to be.

“Cinnamon Sugar,” I said, low and slow, like I always do when I’m trying to make my money. “I told you that already up the street at the corner. You forgot that quick?”

“Of course I didn’t forget. Cinnamon Sugar is a beautiful name,” he said. “But I’m sure your mother and father didn’t write that down on your birth certificate.”

“No they didn’t,” I said. “They said ‘Look at this little girl child. Her complexion is the same color as peanut butter. So they wrote my first name as Peanut, and my last name as Butter.”

He laughed.

I liked his laugh.

“I’m just playing with you, Andrew,” I chimed.

He smiled. “I hoped you were. But that was funny.”

“My real name is,” I began. I cleared my throat and sat up straight. “My parents name me Samantha Ripley.”

“That’s really pretty. Samantha Ripley.”

“You can call me Cinnamon, though.”

“I will,” he said. "Even though Samantha is a prettier name. But I can call you Cinnamon.”

I liked the way my name sounded coming from his lips. I wanted to ask him to say it again and again.

And again.

But I didn't. This was business. At the park.

“So,” I said. “You a cop?”

He smirked.

“I mean, what are we down here for?”

Andrew unwrapped a sandwich and laid it on a napkin. “I wanted to share my dinner with you.”

He pulled out a baggie of cheese cubes and two juice boxes.

I was so hungry. I hadn’t eaten all day. I don’t eat unless I make at least thirty dollars during day. And today, I’d only made twenty. That meant that I couldn’t take a break before the nighttime action, and I'd probably have to be on the corner a bit late that night. And I was here, talking to this man, when I could’ve been making some money.

“Look, I don’t have time for that. You wanna go over there in the bushes or something? What you want done? Fifteen dollars if you want some head. Twenty-five if you want to bend me over and hit it. Thirty-five dollars will get you both head and ass.”

“I don’t want to do anything.” He pulled out a crisp fifty dollar bill and sat it on the table. “Eat with me. Just share dinner with me.”

The sandwich did look good. The money looked even better.

I palmed the money from the table. “If you’re a cop, you can’t arrest me for sitting here and eating with you. You know that’s against the law, right?”

“I’m not a cop,” he said. He took a big bite of his sandwich.

It looked so good. I could smell the bread and the mayonnaise. I could hear the crunch of the lettuce as he chewed.

“What kind of sandwiches are those?”

“Ham and cheese, with tomato and lettuce. And peanut butter sandwiches.”

“I’ll take the peanut butter sandwich, please.”

He gave me one,hen handed me a napkin. I tore the crusts off the sides, and set them on my napkin. I tasted it. Savored the creamy peanut butter and soft wheat bread. It was good.

Or maybe I was just starving.

We ate quietly. And I have to say I was glad for the peace of it all. It was good to sit and relax, instead of calling out to cars as they passed by my corner, hoping to convince some lonely man that he needed my company. For a small fee.

“So, Cinnamon Sugar. Tell me about yourself.”

I finished chewing the piece of the sandwich I’d just bitten. “About myself? Why?”

“Just curious. You seem like a smart girl. Why are you out here?”

I leaned forward, looked him square in his eyes. "You sure you not a cop?"

He held my stare. "I'm assuming you don't like cops."

"Hell n'awl," I said. I turned my head to the side and pointed at the tattoo on my neck. "What that say, Andrew? What that there tattoo say?"

"It says 'Fuck the Police'."

"That's right. It's written in prison green, not in the cute colors these little girls around here do their tattoos in. That let's you know I mean business. I don't like cops. When they drive by, I point at my neck. This lets them know how I feel about them. And I'm the wrong one to step to."
"And I'm not going to even ask why, Cinnamon. I'm just not. I don't even think I want to know why."

"They shady. That's all you need to know."

Andrew sipped red juice from his juice box.

"Can I have some juice, too?"

"Yes, of course," Andrew said. He handed me a juice box.

"But I like the lady in charge of the police department. That detective lady. Always booming Diana Ross from her car speakers. Cool cop."

"Commander Bivins," Andrew said. "Commander T. Lutrice Bivins."

"Yes I like her. That's a bad sister right there. She a cop, but she fair. She act like she got some sense. When she roll by in her black undercover police car playing that Diana Ross music? I hide my tattoo." I thrust my chin to my collarbone.

"Really?"

"I sure do. And I hold up my fist in the air and get in that black power stance. I give her her respect. One of the men cops was talking trash to me the last time I got locked up. I cussed him out. I caused such a commotion that she came and talked to me. Next thing you know, she fired that sucker. I'm down for her."

"Even though she's a cop?" Andrew asked.

"Yeah. Because she's a sister first. Cop second. And I respect that."

"Okay Cinnamon, I'm not a cop. Now answer the question. You seem like a smart girl? Why are you out here?"

“You saying I’m not smart?”

“No, I didn’t say that,” he said. “I think you are smart. I don’t see this as a career choice for someone as bright as you.”

I finally managed to stick the skinny straw in the juice box. I sipped hard. The juice was good and cold. “This isn’t a career choice. This career here, my line of work? It chose me.”

He didn’t say anything. Just looked at me as he ate his sandwich.

I sat up straight, careful to remember my posture. “My family, they are from the northwest side of town. Over in Vine City. The Ripleys were very prominent people back in the sixties, seventies and eighties. We had a liquor store and a grocery store. Granddady had an auto repair shop. And a gas station , too. My family were business people. We were entree pures.”

“Entrepeneurs,” Andrew said.

“What?”

“Your family. They were business minded. Business people. They were entrepenuers.”

“Entrepeneurs,” I said, pronouncing the word real slow.

Andrew popped a cheese cube in his mouth. “So that means you’re an entrepenure, too. You come from a long line of important business people.”

“Yeah, I’m business minded all right. I handle my business on these streets. Without a pimp. If that's not being business minded, I don't know what is.”

“That’s one way to look at,” Andrew said. He bit into his sandwich.

“That’s the only way to look at it.”

“Well, if that’s what you say,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

“Humph.”

He pushed the bag of cheese cubes towards her. “What’s that suppose to mean?” he said.

“Andrew, I’ll have you know that I was prom queen at Archer High School. I was homecoming queen for each grade, every year I was there. I had real good grades, even did a little college. I have my Associates of Arts degree. I have a college degree.”

“Wow. Okay.”

“I was on my way to being somebody, until life balled its fist up tight and bust me in the face. I went to one too many parties, screwed one too many men, drank one too many dranks, and did more drugs than a person should do in a lifetime. I should be dead. But I’m not.”

I looked up at the sky. “Then one day, I looked up, and I was out on a corner, selling ass. I was sleeping on people’s back porches. Doing whatever I had to do to get that next high. Even though I look up at the sky, and it’s the same, clouds rolling by, still blue as ever. My life, though. It changed.”

“Everyone’s life changes,” Andrew said. “I think some of us hold on a little tighter to the reins of the horse when it starts kicking and bucking. Some of us fall right off.”

“Well I fell off the horse and the horse was gone, you hear me? I fell on my ass, Andrew. And I got the bruises on my behind to prove it.”

“I’m sure you do.”

"The horse gone. Some people have a horse. I don't. My horse, it left me in the dust years ago."

Andrew nodded. "I understand."

“So you asking all these questions about me. What about you? Why you here in Pop City?”

“Why you say that? Is there a rule against me living here? It’s a real nice place to live. Nice people. Nice streets. And a real nice park.”

I laughed hard. “The hell you say. This is the hood. This Pop City. And not many people like you live around here. The Lings own the corner grocery store down the road from Eartha’s, but they don’t live around here, and they treat us like shit.”

“I like it here. I work nearby.”

“Really,” I said. I leaned forward a little. “Where you work?”

“I teach History over at the community college. And it’s only three miles away. Good for my gas tank.”

“What street you live on?” I asked.

“Over on Poplar Avenue.”

I mashed a cheese cube between my fingers so it would be soft enough for me to eat. “Pop Avenue. And you not bothered by the killings that go on around here?”

“Haven’t heard much about that.”

“They killing thugs around here. Look like every time you turn around, somebody get popped.

I formed my hands into the shape of a gun. "Rat-tat-tat-tat. POW."

Andrew's narrow eyes went wide.

"Some say it’s the klan. Some say it’s the cops. No one seems to care. Crime is real low now that the thugs are scared. You can walk these streets in the middle of the night with hundred dollar bills taped to your body and nobody’s gonna bother you. It's like Mayberry around here the past couple of years. All the thieves behind closed doora. They scared of getting their wigs split. It's heaven on earth in Pop City!”

Andrew frowned. “Wigs split?"

"Yeah, Wigs split. They scared of getting shot. Scared of death."

That’s a bad way to live, scared like that.”

“Better scared and alive than dead and gone,” I said.

We sat there and ate our dinner and talked for a whole hour. Never has a man stared so deeply into my eyes and listened to every single word I said. You couldn’t tell me that I wasn’t that same smart girl back in high school, able to make a perfect speech, and make those good grades.

At that picnic table, I was Samantha Ripley.

Cinnamon Sugar had taken a nap.

Sometimes I’d wish she would stay gone.

“Oh, I have apples,” Andrew said as he pulled a sandwich bag of sliced apples from his backpack.

I grimaced at the sight of them. My hand automatically went to my mouth. My mouth of rotten teeth began to ache from just looking at the crisp apple wedges. It had been so long since I ate any hard food.

“No thank you. I’m full.”

He nodded. He ate the apples.

He continued to let me talk.

“You sure you not a cop?” I asked again.

“You can think what you want to think, Cinnamon Sugar. I would rather you think that I am a man who just shared a nice dinner with a nice woman who calls out to me each and every day that I walk up the road.

"Hey Man," he said, making his voice all high. "Come here a minute. Let me talk to you for a quick minute. I ain't never did a Chinese man before. Come here, man!"

I laughed so hard that I started coughing and choking. "I do not sound like that."

"Oh yes you do. And I love it. A lady calling out like that, like my name is Denzel Washington. Wow."

"Aww, you need to stop tripping. I'm a ho. I call out to everybody. I'm trying to make my money."

After an hour, he walked me back up the road. My arm was hooked in his, and I closed my eyes and imagined myself the same young lady who wore a crown and walked on the long red carpet at the Homecoming dance. Except I walked the concrete sidewalk back to my place of self employment– the street corner.

Cars blew their horns as they drove by. And my coworkers–the Pop City hos–laughed at us.

He said good-bye, and wished me a good evening. And then he was on his way. I stood there and watched him as he disappeared around the corner.

“What you and that Yang do down around the corner, Sugar?” one of the ladies asked.

“We had a real fine dinner.” I rubbed my stomach. I was full from the two peanut butter sandwiches I’d eaten. I thought about saving the crusts that I tore off. I could save them for later and suck on them if I got hungry. But that would’ve been embarrassing in front of such a refined man.

The ladies laughed. “She think she something special. You just a ho, Cinnamon. A ho name Cinnamon Sugar.

“No,” I said, my head held high. “I’m not just a ho. I’m Samantha Ripley. That’s who I am.”

"Samantha Ripley."