Push

Precious wakes up at six o’clock on her first day of school and looks at her picture of Farrakhan. She loves Farrakhan, explaining that he “is against crack addicts and crackers. Crackers is the cause of everything bad. It why my father ack like he do. He has forgot he is the Original Man!” (34) After years of physical and sexual abuse, Carl realized that Precious was pregnant and disappeared for years. Mary took Precious and the baby to the welfare office to add them to her budget for benefits. At 16, Precious could now qualify for welfare herself but worries that she doesn’t know how to live alone. However, she sometimes hates her mother and knows that Mary doesn’t love her. Precious often feels worthless and ugly and imagines giving in and just eating in front of the television all day with her mother while Carl takes turns having sex with them both.

Precious thinks about the gleeful, slimy way her father talks, calling her nicknames like “Butterball Big Mama Two Ton of Fun” (35); she despises this almost more than the sexual assault. Precious finds it confusing that the rape sometimes feels pleasurable. This confusion makes her move around in a stupor for days, daydreaming about being beautiful and riding in a car with an attractive man like Tom Cruise or John F. Kennedy Jr. Suddenly, Precious realizes that it’s eight o’clock and she only has an hour to get to school, which she sees as her way out of her current life. Precious washes and dresses quickly, reassuring herself that she doesn’t smell like her mother. With no money for food, she wraps some ham in tinfoil. The woman at the front desk told her that she only needs to bring herself, a pencil, and a notebook, and she rushes back to her room to grab the latter two.

Precious recalls starting school with a positive attitude but enduring bullying from the start. She was mocked for being quiet in kindergarten and first grade. In second grade, her father started raping her. Wishing she had money for McDonald’s, Precious starts eating the ham as she walks. She plans to ask Mary for money from her next welfare check; the school will also give her a stipend for attending. Precious flashes back to the boys’ constant harassment at school, remembering that she became silent in second grade and peed on herself in class instead of moving. Her teacher, appalled, called for a conference with her mother. Eventually, the principal told the teacher to let it go, asserting, “Focus on the ones who can learn,” prompting the teacher to ask, “What that mean? Is she one of the ones who can’t?” (37)

Precious has a headache from hunger and only 15 minutes until school starts. She goes into a restaurant and orders a basket of chicken with potato salad, which she knows will need to be fetched from the refrigerator. While the worker’s back is turned, Precious grabs the chicken and runs, disgusted when a person with substance use disorder on the street yells, “Scarf Big Mama!” (37). Eating as she rushes to school, Precious arrives five minutes late and realizes with frustration that she left her notebook and pencil at the chicken restaurant. Precious reassures herself that because the teacher, Ms. Rain, is Black, class likely won’t start on time. In the lobby of the Hotel Theresa, Precious is overcome with self-doubt and flashbacks of being bullied and lonely. She remembers being seven. Her father raped her nearly every night, insisting that she wasn’t a virgin because there was no blood.

Lost in her thoughts, Precious is frozen in the lobby. Ms. Rain, whom Precious recognizes from the day she registered, looks out from a classroom and asks if Precious is all right. Terrified, Precious forces herself to follow the teacher into the class. The small class stares as she sits in the front row (she has always had trouble seeing the board from the back of the room). Precious looks at Ms. Rain’s dreadlocked hair, a style her mother dislikes, unsure how to feel about it. Precious is self-conscious about having no notebook. Another girl walks in, and Ms. Rain chides her for being late. The girl, Jo Ann, insists that she had to stop for food. Then she announces that she found a notebook at the chicken restaurant, and Precious surprises herself by blurting out that it’s hers. Jo Ann gives it to her, delighted. She looks at Precious’s pregnant belly and asks when the baby is due, frowning when Precious doesn’t know.

Ms. Rain decides that they will go around the room and get to know each other for the benefit of the new students. She prompts the students with a short list of questions about who they are, where they come from, what they’re especially good at, and why they’re in the class. The teacher begins by introducing herself as Blue Rain, explaining that she ended up teaching the class after filling in for her girlfriend and then taking over when she quit. Rhonda Patrice Johnson, a light-skinned Black girl with red hair, says that she is from Jamaica, is a good cook, and wants to improve her reading to get her GED. Rita Romero, a thin Latina girl with drug-damaged teeth, says that she left school due to substance use disorder and needs to read and write better. She adds that she is “a good mother, a very good mother” (44).

The next student, whom Precious describes as “a girl [Precious’s] color in a boy suit” (43), introduces herself as Jermaine, which Precious finds shocking. Jermaine came to the school to escape bad influences in the Bronx. Jo Ann speaks next, announcing that she is a rapper and needs a GED to have her own “record layer” (45). A pretty Latina girl introduces herself as Consuela Montenegro, but she doesn’t want to answer any of the questions, which Ms. Rain says is fine. Everyone stares at Precious, who wishes for a moment that she could be in the back of the classroom again. She introduces herself, and Rhonda interjects to prompt her to tell the class what she does well. Precious says, “Nuffin’” (46), but Ms. Rain pushes her until she says quietly that she can cook. She is shy because she has never spoken up to participate in class before.

With the introductions finished, Ms. Rain explains that the class is not GED preparation but pre-GED, teaching beginning reading and writing. Jermaine interjects, surprised that this isn’t a GED prep class. Insulted, Jo Ann exclaims that she knows how to read and write and should be in a GED class. Rita announces that this is the right class for her because she can’t do either, and Rhonda adds that she belongs there too because she can only read and write a little. Jermaine looks uncertain. Ms. Rain tells Jo Ann that she is welcome to take a placement test that afternoon, and Jo Ann storms out. Ms. Rain looks at Precious, who has been silent, asking, “Do you feel you’re in the right place?” (48). Precious wants to explain the years of sitting in the back row and being afraid to move from her seat, but instead she starts to cry and asks, “Is I Miz Rain, [...] is I in the right place?” (48). Ms. Rain replies, “Yes, Precious, yes” (48).

The class takes a break, and Precious fights tears of gratitude when Rhonda loans her money to buy chips. Precious distances herself from Jermaine, whom she thinks of as “freaky deaky” (49). When they reconvene, Ms. Rain’s assertion that they will read and write every day overwhelms Precious; in high school, she had received As in English even though she had done nothing but daydream about being in a music video. The class begins with the alphabet. They will be expected to recite it on Wednesday, so Precious decides to practice. Music starts to play in her head and she thinks about her pregnancy, which makes her uncomfortable. Her mother wants Precious to get her own welfare check. Precious wonders if this baby will have a disability like her daughter, but she isn’t sure if she wants to go on welfare and thinks about what it might be like to read books. At the end of class, Ms. Rain wants to speak to the students one-on-one and tells them to come to her office in alphabetical order. Before she leaves, she offers that they can call her Blue or Rain, which makes Precious uncomfortable. She worries briefly about alphabetical order before Rhonda takes charge, using her written alphabet to help figure it out.

When it’s her turn, Ms. Rain asks Precious to read a page from a book. Precious panics, unable to breathe. A rap music video plays in her head, and she wants food or even the feeling that she gets when her father rapes her. Concerned, Ms. Rain wants to call 911, but Precious confesses that the pages all look the same to her. Ms. Rain pushes her to try and helps her sound out the title. Precious is overjoyed to have read something for the first time, but when she returns home, her mother berates her. Mary hasn’t left the apartment since Precious gave birth five years ago. She is angry that Precious hasn’t been there to cook for her. Precious explains that she has been to school and Mary accuses her of lying, insisting that Precious go and apply for welfare immediately. Precious feels a surge of anger toward her for abusing her, taking her welfare money, and knowingly letting her father rape her. She agrees to go to the welfare office in the morning but announces firmly that she now attends school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Precious then panics again, breathless as she thinks about giving birth and pretending she isn’t pregnant. She thinks about her father molesting her, confused because she hates it, but it also feels good. She wants to rest, but her mother insists that she go to the grocery store and then make lunch. Precious goes over the alphabet in her head. That night, she dreams that she is a child, choking between her mother’s legs. Precious calls to her younger self, who starts to sing the alphabet.

In class on Wednesday, Jo Ann has returned, sullen when Ms. Rain asks pointedly if she is in the right class. Everyone but Jo Ann recites the alphabet. Ms. Rain explains that they will write in their journals every day. The class is doubtful, but Ms. Rain urges them to try to write down their thoughts. Precious writes, “li Mg o mi m,” which she reads to Ms. Rain as, “Little Mongo on my mind” (61). Ms. Rain corrects her sentence and writes, “Who is Little Mongo?” (61). Precious writes back, “Litte mony is mi cie [Little Mongo is my child]” (62). Precious is pleased with the exchange.

At home, Precious realizes how lonely she has been—a feeling that the constant danger of living in an abusive household previously eclipsed. She allows herself to acknowledge that she is pregnant and that the baby’s father is her own father. Precious plans to see a doctor in the morning since Ms. Rain and the rest of the class reacted with horror upon learning that she has had no prenatal care. Ms. Rain has also given her a poster of Harriet Tubman to hang alongside Farrakhan. Precious rests and practices the alphabet, planning to teach it to the baby right away and to refuse to allow her mother to take this child. Precious blames her mother for failing to stop her father’s and for not valuing her as if she were a white child. Ms. Rain has told her that personal values are as important as money, but Precious finds this ridiculous. However, she does not agree with her mother, who thinks that the school is pointless. She plans to start taking a Family Literacy course on Tuesdays to help her prepare for the baby. Precious writes out the alphabet and adds words for each letter, several of which highlight her consciousness of her own racial oppression or express her anger toward her mother.