Читать книгу Hey Homegirl - Lashell Rivers - Страница 7

Okay

Leaving DC in the late ’80s was a blessing in disguise. I never comprehended that until moving to the new place. We moved from the city to suburbs, and I never heard of Fairfax, Virginia. All of a sudden, I was surrounded by woods, and I was a thirty-minute ride away from all and who I grew up with. I thought I would never see my cousins or grandma again, which wasn’t true; I just felt the pain of leaving. I thought about a lot on that ride as my mother spoke, seeing a few nice houses and trailers. She pointed out the mall as though it would catch my interest. I’d never been to one nor knew what it was. “I hear that mall is so big, they’re still building a second one to it.” But I didn’t care. In fact, it wasn’t until we made a turn by the firehouse and headed down a hill that she said, “Look, you can go swimming to that pool now,” being a member at YWCA instead of Dunbar High School like before. There were no corner stores, and there was a junior high school in the bearings, walking distance. At the bottom of the hill were the houses, and we were moving into one. Briarcliff Court was the name of them, and I actually felt happiness because we were moving into a house that looked Caucasian.

Yeah, I thought that because the only time I’d ever been in a nice townhome while young was when it belonged to a white girl in my classroom. She was the only white girl in my DC elementary school, and she was talented and cool. And this was low-income housing, however they looked according to the area without any such thing as a liquor store, and there was little public transit. I was more so around different races of people, but there were still black families in my neighborhood. And starting fifth grade there wasn’t easy. The school level in that state was way above the district’s school level; however, being that I was in the gifted and talented class, they took that chance with me, along with mom telling them I caught on fast. Therefore, holding me back a grade wasn’t necessary. And I started this elementary with the shoe on the other foot, being the only black girl in the class, then being reminded by a few students quite a bit (shrug).

“You know you’re the only black person in the class, right?”

“There are three of you in this grade.” And so on…

It was not a good feeling, but neither was being from DC at that time, for it was known as the capital of deaths and crack. With the entire drug war happening in what was then 1987, the playgrounds at this school didn’t have the containers and needles. Teachers would look out for drug trash every morning at the DC school and take it from us young kids that didn’t know better. If we found something, we played with it. We filled needles with water and wrapped foil around sticks. But now I was waking up and coming out to fresh air in Virginia without seeing the bums sleeping on our wooden playgrounds and benches.

Some teachers looked at me funny, as though waiting for me to do something wrong. Sometimes I heard, “You know it’s not like that here,” while they looked down at me, having conversations among themselves. I would stare out of the window as I sat alone on the school bus. A bus I’d only rode once in my life before became a daily routine. If I only had my cat Cindy to come home to still. We couldn’t have pets in those houses, and I lived with a lonely mother who couldn’t get back with Dad, even though they still fucked around. But he couldn’t get past that. And I could tell they were officially through on the day Mom pulled me to the side and said, “Shell, I know it’s just me and you here, but how would you feel about Tyrone moving in?” And I just looked around, thinking of being in a townhouse and so happy to run up and down the steps that only she and I walked, in a three-bedroom house with only us. I wasn’t enough, so saying okay while staring down was all I could say. Then just like that, he jumped from around the corner, yelling, “Hey.”

When we were still in the city, she walked in on him smoking crack. Her feelings for him had already began to grow, and trying to save her marriage didn’t work because Dad made her his side chick. So she said, “Fuck it.” I guess Tyrone was either clean or she was so pressed for love that she chose a crackhead with a job and dick (shrug).

Her frown turned upside down after that, for he was a man that drove a big rig truck and they would travel by driving. Even if he was not on the job, he liked to go on long rides. To Mom, that was new and adventurous. I of course felt like a third wheel whenever they took me with them, either way I no longer received much attention from her. She was thirty-five now and with a new man in her life. Both would smoke cigarettes, choking me on the long rides and at home. Hell, at least Dad didn’t smoke cigarettes and hit his weed on the balcony, away from me. That turned to sometimes sticking my head out of the window like a dog. I slowly became invisible, but once again my brother came to save me.

Bill migrated from hustling to robbing and moved to Virginia too, only further out; so I saw him more, which was cool but confusingly crazy. He married at a young age to a different girl named Lori, and I saw her as a big sister. Actually, all the woman he and Uncle Ron had were my big sisters (shrug). But Bill became a player with dough, attracting a lot of hoes while married to Lori, and she did give birth to his first child, whom I only saw once as a ten-year-old. I was an aunt. Lori’s father was a pastor, so I guess my brother was that wild side of her whom she eventually grew out of. And he did give diapers and cash, but that wasn’t enough, especially when making threats to get my niece from her. Yet at the same time, he was fucking a set of twin sisters and chose their big sister to become serious about. They were Dominican, and not only did she become his thing but so was upgrading from selling crack to taking on restaurants and banks with his homies.

But why would I give a damn at that age? I honestly felt he was all I had, and I knew a few of the stories.

There was a seafood restaurant not far from the house I moved to. He and one of his boys went to eat, ordering lobster, shrimp, you name it, with wine. They were looking professional as few black men looked then. The time for the bill to be paid came, and he asked for the manager on duty to speak to, as they reached in their coats to pay it.

“Hey, fellas, hope everything was good. Is there anything else we can provide you with?” said the Caucasian fellow.

And my brother’s response was, “You sure can…take us to the back” while opening the side of their coat at the same time. They were sitting and showing the guns on the inside.

With the “fake me out” stare, trying not to panic, the manager said, “Sure, fellas, come right this way.” And that was a full meal with eight grand in their pockets leaving through the back.

He had a thing for money. I remembered him also dating this older woman named Linda who recently lost her husband, and he was sweet-talking her out of ten grand. But she fell for it and fell for him. So much to the point they remained distant friends. I’ll never know what he was using all that money toward. I mean, it couldn’t have been a car because Mom had to cosign for him to have one, and he didn’t pay for it (hand to face). He was fucking up her credit and causing mother-son arguments, but at the same time, he was keeping me out the house. In my opinion, that brought her pleasure, for that was alone time with her man. Instead of traveling to the mountains, being that third wheel, and watching the trees turn to fall colors, I’d be at the house where he and his one of boys were renting with his girl Viv. This time, he had boa constrictors you fed rabbits to and a cat he kept from them. I saw his guns but paid them no mind for some reason; it just didn’t bother me. I’d rather be surrounded by that than a man getting my mom drunk and playing music in the room that was at one time going to be my sister’s. But praise God I wasn’t dealing with her shit too.

I remember, when I was getting ready to turn ten years old that I felt so happy. For it was just me and mom in the house, and I walked in her room with both of my hands up, saying, “I’m two digits now :D,” as she was lay back in the bed, looking as though it didn’t mean much to her. Tyrone was out of town on one of his work routes, and that was when I truly began to feel it deep. But I wouldn’t let her see me cry. I’d just draw a picture of it instead.

And I began to handle a lot of feelings that way. I couldn’t express my true feelings to her, so I’d sketch. Even in school the teachers were actually beginning to take me more seriously. No more assumptions of me being a bad ghetto kid; instead I became the smart kid and began doing all the science fairs on the human body, as I did before leaving my last school. I actually read and studied so much on the body that I was predicted to becoming a doctor. With my drawings of different parts and with me beating the other kids winning first place, it made me feel…something. If anyone showed me true joy, it was my brother.

Back then we still had encyclopedias, and Tyrone bought me what was the Britannica, which cost over a thousand then. He saw the attention I was getting. I came to find out that buying that was his way of getting good with my mom. He fucked up, for it was on those work trips that he began to use again to stay up all night, driving a big rig while high. She began drinking more, eating more, and smoking cigarettes to the point where I had my head out the window more. And I read from the encyclopedia to her about how smoking turns her lungs black, begging her to stop. That was never a project for me though. I became the art girl in school and began to feel cool. I went to slumber parties and began to sing with the neighborhood girls. Sometimes I would just be quiet and observe, comparing the life of others to my own.

While sleeping one night and Tyrone was home, I heard screaming coming from downstairs. It could only be my Mom, so I ran to help, only to see him with her on the floor, pulling her hair, while fighting and screaming, “Shell, go call your brother!”

“What!” Ty yelled, and without even looking back, I went to my neighbor whom I was friends with, crying to her mom about my parents fighting and asking if I could call my brother, not the police.

They let me right in on the phone. “Billy, Mom and Tyrone are fighting, and he has her on the floor!”

“What! Wait, wait, wait, Shell. Slow down. What the fuck you mean on the floor?”

“He’s choking her!”

“What! Where the fuck are you?”

“At the neighbor’s house.”

“You call the cops?”

“No.”

“Well, don’t! Here I come.”

And he was coming from Warrenton, Virginia, which was a distance away. But being that the neighbor whose house I was over lived right behind us, I stared out the window, seeing Tyrone leave.

She checked up on me while staring. Her daughter, Tasha, was my friend, and we didn’t wake her. “I see him leaving. I can go back now.”

“Okay, be careful.” She hugged me like a mother would their child, and I walked in the dark with my pajamas on. I saw the door cracked open and walked in with a racing heart.

There was a bathroom both upstairs and down, and I heard the water running while coming in. I knocked on its door and called out, “Mom?”

Only to hear her tears in reply, so I sat there on the steps. Then I saw car lights pull up from the side window and ran again. Billy was with a car full of men, and I ran up to it. All I saw were big guns, and I heard loud music. At this time, he was only twenty years old. He jumped out of the car so I wouldn’t see everything.

“Shell, come on, I don’t want you seeing all that. Where’s Mom?”

And I just finally burst out crying while he held my arm, as though I was falling to the ground. “In the bathroom. I haven’t seen her.”

“You haven’t seen her?”

“No, I heard her crying.”

“Oh, fuck that. That nicca still in there? You see him leave?”

I simply shook my head to show that he left, then he had his homeboy Rick come out of the car.

“Aye, man, watch Shell real quick. I’mma check on Ma,” he said and walked to the house.

I blocked the rest of that night out, for that was a Saturday and there was no Sunday dinner or Tyrone the next day. It was more so silence and staying in my room, playing on my record player, and drawing. The other kids didn’t see me until after that at the bus stop. Actually, I avoided them; you can tell when people know things. Children are bold enough to ask, “Did your parents really fight this weekend?” By then all I would say was, “Yeah, they argued, and I called my brother.” I ignored the other stuff. With Mom at work before I even left for school that morning or dealt with the others, Bill showed up with Uncle Ron.

“Hey, Shell, you okay?” I just jumped in his arms, for I hadn’t seen him since we left the city as well.

“Go ahead to school, Shell. We gonna chill here.”

Having my brother hug me, I rolled out.

I didn’t see anything, but I heard mouths running about it days later.

Like Tyrone coming back that very morning I left, thinking no one was home. And out of the bathroom, Ron dropped his ass to the floor while he and Bill beat his ass. Mom came home from work having no clue, but Ron did call her at work, saying that he was at the house. And he hadn’t come to the house before this so (shrug). And she walked in to see her beat-up man with a gun being held in his mouth by my brother. She didn’t even jump.

Tears coming down Ty’s eyes. “Tell me now, Mom, ’cause I’ll kill this nicca!”

“No, don’t kill him. He just better never put his hands on me again.”

“Baby, I’m so sorry” he said with a dull, busted lip, and then the knockout punch with the handle followed.

He woke up knowing that she then had a gun in her possession, for Ron told him he was giving it to her and to kill him if he’d ever touch her again. That hurt never came again; however, different types followed.

Tyrone was a crazy man who blinded my mother with good dick and attention, I say that from one night of waking up and hearing her holler, thinking something is wrong. But no, he was on top of her, fucking. And I never heard her with Dad. She did drift a few times with other men, but this one caught her. It was a man that was a veteran, who moved to Washington, DC, from Atlanta, Georgia. He had his own daughter whom I met one time before moving, but he didn’t biologically claim her. The child he did claim passed away as he slept next to her. He rolled over, suffocating the baby to death; and that was his excuse for using crack. I guess you can get any lonely woman with that story. :/

And mom took that bullshit, along with us all of a sudden attending church on a regular.

Tyrone sung in the men’s choir and cursed like a sailor afterward, and yes, she would chastise him while becoming more deep into the Word. She was in so deep that she read “The man came before the children” in the Bible and she literally took that to heart. By now I was twelve years old and had my first period. I was getting ready to start junior high school. She came home with maxi pads, asking if I had any questions, but I learned sex ed in elementary. And besides, the comfort in coming to her was starting to fade because of that man she chose over my dad and began to choose over me.

That ex-veteran would be off from his truck routes sometimes, and he’d make me clean the house like true training camp. I would vacuum with all the line patterns facing a certain way, mop, and use a toothbrush to get the corners of the floor. I cleaned every inch of the toilet to the point where I was on my knees doing it, not to mention at the same time, he talked shit about my father and the child support payments he was giving mom. When I did have time with Dad and I complained about Tyrone, he would say, “Your mother chose him” or “Talk to your mother.” And this was that same man who once loved my mother so much. The only thing I had to show for it was a photo of him with “To the love of my life and my wife, Brenda” written on it. I kept that picture in my room, and that crackhead bitch she married painted nail polish on my picture! Mom ain’t do shit. There was even one night that I forgot to take out the trash. He had my mother wake me @ 2:00 a.m. to do so. She even went on a diet to lose weight for him, and I remember us going to see my sister in the city. She was renting a house with her friend, and I heard Liv giving Mom compliments while getting out the car. We went to see her after church one Sunday, and I’m sure I had the “fuck it” look on my face. Olivia, seeing Mom with the same man we saw after school in her bed a few years ago, made smirks and remarks on the down-low to her girls and jokingly said “Have fun” to me because of that man! I now dealt with that along with Mom. If only I could shit talk back!

Sometimes, Mom would still get pissy drunk with him in their hangout room. They would sit in there, playing slow jams, and liquor was his substitute when not hittin’ the other stuff. It was when he had withdrawals that he’d turn me into the “clean the fuck up” slave junkie. But she did slow up on drinking with him. There was one time I actually began to question my body to her. I noticed one of my breasts developing faster than the other. I came out the restroom with her hanging with him. “Aww, girl, how should I know?” So I began to lean on Kelly, just in an undercover type of way, like visiting dad without a training bra on because I was growing out of them and Mom was neglecting me.

She started focusing more on money because that asshole would spend his whole paycheck on freebase. And once again, Mom threatened the man to get his shit together, and he went clean again.

It was by this time that Bill had got locked up and Viv was pregnant. She needed somewhere to stay while waiting on him to get out, so Mom was about to give her Olivia’s room. I’ll be damned if Olivia didn’t come to Mom, crying about moving to Virginia because she and the girls were being put out and she was pregnant too. Shit!

Mom said, “I’ll think about it,” hurting her feelings. But what the fuck do you expect? That’s three grown women and her man. Let’s not forget about me, not to mention Liv’s pregnant nature could be hell, and it was.

Yeah, Mom came to me first, for it was a few months prior to all that that I ran away from home. Because of that crackhead dick that she chose over me. I did not want him there, and with him talking shit about my father when Mom wasn’t around to my face, I had enough; I packed up and rolled out. We had pay phones back then, and Dad wouldn’t come get me after begging him to. I told him what that man was saying about him and how he was treating me. But he didn’t care, and I wasn’t worth it. I just didn’t really fit into his new family. The police were out looking for me, and I came home to him, convincing her that I ran away over a boy and not him. “I believe you. I hear you.” I witnessed her saying to him with a nod while walking through the door. And I could say nothing but “I’m back” while going to my room to cry. Dad did call her that night. And she knew how my sister bullied me to a certain point, but not everything. I had no problem with Viv, who had already started moving in, but I knew Liv was coming too.