Читать книгу Hey Homegirl - Lashell Rivers - Страница 8

Junior High

I stayed out of the house more to avoid conflict and women, and I sought male attention elsewhere, particularly a white boy in seventh grade. All I can remember is doing stupid things for his attention, like blowing up rubbers and placing them in his locker. See, I was developing funny, wearing a D bra already, but my mother had me in a C cup. She was really bugging out over her husband and faith in God. She was hunting for him in the city when he didn’t come home for days, and with a gun mind you. I begged her to buy me some underwear that fit, and in the store, she was acting crazy, just all over the place. I had noticed a lot, for she had to deal with bills, Liv, Viv, me, and him altogether and couldn’t handle it I guess. Actually, I pulled out measuring tape at the store to figure out my panty size…wtf? She bought me size 18 underwear that piled up right under my breast, which were beginning to sag because of the wrong bra size. One day while playing with the girls in the neighborhood, there was a basketball by the court and I called myself doing a jump shot and paid no mind to the underwear. My shirt raised up to show all. Everyone saw my drapes and fell to the ground laughing. I honestly couldn’t figure out why they were on the ground until my mom pulled up for me to get in the car, then it hit me. Shame.

I was in a size 10 woman’s shoe, which wasn’t available in nice shoe wear for women, not in Payless anyway (shrug). My feet were still growing, and in a broke neighborhood, I was looking the part. The only time I didn’t look the part was when Kelly would take me shopping for school and help with outfits or when Tyrone would use me to get back in the house with Nike pump shoes and clothes. I got those shoes quite a few times actually. I could never ask my father for anything, for he would always say, “That’s what I pay child support for,” which was nothing but $92.00 a month that I never saw, for it went toward bills. My shoes cost more than that support money, especially when wearing men’s tennis shoes, and I already mentioned how my breast began to sag. I gave up hope on having nice ones. I was too young to have a job still, which would be the only way to get what I needed as a thirteen-year-old.

I was allowed to catch the metro train alone now, and I would go see cousin Tiff. That was a forty-five-minute ride from what is to this day Dunn Loring Metro Station, SE, Washington, DC, Anacostia Station. And Aunt Monique would come get me with her brother, or I’d catch the bus. All that to get away from home and try to look decent. She would do my hair now, and for free, as she was taking cosmetology classes in high school. I’d be her hair dummy. But after that, I’d go months without a perm and had a unibrow while feeling like shit. I was either the girl with big boobs, big feet, or the unibrow. Soon I became that black girl who liked the white boy, for there was the one I chased during the year but didn’t get to him until that summer. I walked quite a distance to his place during summer break, and I felt the sweaty pussy I had from the walk. I was surprised by the size of his dick, while feeling fear and embarrassment. This would be my first time, yet I always talked shit as though it wasn’t. I wasn’t sure how it was supposed to feel or if being with a white boy was even right. But it didn’t last long, and I made sure to use a condom. HIV was scary, and I spotted blood when he was done with me. He knew he popped my cherry. Then I left as though it was nothing; however, word got out during break. So when eighth grade began I would hear this one boy yelling “Hoe” over and over again from the school bus as I walked to the building. Hearing that while walking with other people but trying to ignore it really hurt. Having sex over summer break for the first time made me a hoe for two straight weeks.

Some memories we keep buried away, but the thoughts never leave. I did speak to that boy in the hall eventually, for he was both embarrassing and mentally hurting the hell out of me. “So having sex one time makes me a hoe!”

“No, Shell, you’re not a hoe. Everyone keeps talking about it though,” and with that look, holding tears back, I simply walked away. The group of girls I would walk to school with at first separated from the aka “hoe,” and I began to walk alone. After my approach, he stopped, but I felt it was a bit too late. I did have sex with my first once more, and that time, you could call me a hoe because we went to the top of a hotel with a couple of our friends just hanging; and we fucked right there in the stairway with both watching. They were crying and laughing. Thank God there were no cell phones yet. Oh well, hey.

There was this new girl in our school that a lot of girls were hating. Boys were so into her. Hell, I was into her. Cleo had a white mother and black father and was so beautiful with, of course, good hair. I was nervous at first. Seeing her so happy and receiving a lot of attention, other girls saw her as a threat. I was never one of those. My insecurities were for all to see.

Bill was out long enough to see his child born while on the run from the police. He had $72,000 hidden under our stairs, and no one knew. And things became hot, with some running their mouths, so the dudes he robbed with were transferring the money. The cash was en route to another spot. All I know is that there was a van being chased on route 66. It ran off the road and flipped on the side with money flying in the air and all on the highway. They were caught, though one ran across the highway like fuck it. They were taken in. This is the Commonwealth of Virginia, and they care more about money than your life.

They ended up moving to a townhome, and my sister joined them while still pregnant. She still showed me hatred, and I believe she took some of her pain out toward me. She found out that her child was going to have a father in jail for 20 years. I guess he hustled. I’m not sure, but I remember her tears on his sentencing day. She was being consoled by a neighborhood girlfriend. So raising that girl on her own was soon to come. “Fuck you, Shell.” I felt she had her own problems, and I refrained from leaning on her. With them finally leaving, I felt some freedom, along with mom taking a break from Ty. I later came to find out that he was in a program for his habit. My brother was so much fun, but he turned himself in with no one going to court and watching him get sentenced. That’s when I was twelve, and he’d been given 44 years. As I was coming in from school and being told that, my mind fell, thinking, Who will love me now?

I focused so hard on my artwork, for who could I talk to? A couple kids from the neighborhood said they were sorry about my bro, for he stayed with us before the townhouse. And Cleo began to speak to me, for she had family members in jail as well. We connected.

There was a time when I was little and still in DC that I’d run the playground, slapping girls on the butt. I saw it a lot, nor did I have one. Then I was called a dyke, and I’d ask, “What’s that?”

“When girls like girls, not boys!” No, that wasn’t me, and I never did it again at age seven.

I liked Cleo, and we soon became best friends since both of our families were dysfunctional. I felt attraction toward her, but I liked boys.

We had a lot in common on the takeoff, for she was so pretty but still that ugh girl. We both focused on our flaws. We both had bellies, regular butts, and sucked at math (shrug). I told you about my family. Now hers was the real shit. From Bronx, New York, she had two little brothers, one just born, and a younger sister. Her older sister was in college, and dayum, she was like Cleo with a model-shaped body and beautiful long hair. Cleo was always compared to her sister, which kept her from seeing how beautiful she actually was, hence her insecurity. Not to mention school and babysitting, for her parents had a hustle of trafficking drugs from up north to Baltimore and DC. Be it dope, weed, etc., they were one of the suppliers. Some parents do what they must or are able to do. And they kept what was left to hustle for themselves. They began supplying my sister with green to sell, for she was raising my niece and was in school for some degree. By this time, with my brother being gone, she came back and had my niece, and we all couldn’t live together again for so long because of too much PMS. So mom and I left her the townhome to continue renting, moving only 10 minutes away.

It was before that that I was in the talent show but on punishment for staying out with a boy, my second sexual encounter; and he gave me the clap. It burned like hell when I pissed for three months, not to mention my sister beat my ass because I got stuck at the asshole’s house while missing the last damn bus, smh. I didn’t fuck him that night because I was on, and back then, we didn’t tell boys we were bleeding. Instead, we were harder to get, but then he did get it! And on top of it, he denied giving me the shit!. How do you go to a parent that doesn’t really know you and tell them this? I hid it.

I drank so much water for months so it wouldn’t burn as much while urinating. One boy tried playing with my pussy, and stopping him was difficult. He was so aggressive, and damn if he ain’t touch it. He was telling the whole playground how my pussy stank. Seeing my sister laugh when hearing about it reminded me of the reasons why I went to no one.

One day after I was on stage practicing with Cleo and some of the other girls for the school talent show, Mom was in the audience, with that “you’re in trouble” look. I did ask her if I could enter the talent show, and she told me no. I went for it anyway (shrug). She got me in the car and smushed out my French roll while driving down the street home. I mean, I actually had a voice too and was even practicing a solo with another girl, but she didn’t want to hear it because Tyrone left the clinic. Who else to take it out on?

The girls from the school show walked to my house to see if all was okay, and telling them I couldn’t sing or dance was heartbreaking. Now my sister answered the door, questioning them, and I didn’t even defend her when some said, “Sorry, but your sister’s a bitch,” for I felt the same. I was happy when we moved. The day after the talent show, I went into the school and saw the one singing the song without me on the hallway TV, for they taped the show. “Love Me” was the song. I’ll stick to art, for it’s meant for me (shrug). Even the gay gym coach kept digging in my ass on my voice compared to others, so I’ll stick to coloring.

And I was still carrying chlamydia from that boy! Apparently, it was for too long, for it made my appendix almost burst. I kept vomiting and telling my mother I was sick for days. Even at school, I was sick. Yet she was angry a lot, so all I kept hearing was “Your ass better not be pregnant!” the entire way to the hospital. (That’s another reason I didn’t mention my sick pussy to her.)

“What boy you been with now? Is it the same one? You know I hear things. You better not be pregnant. I have enough to deal with, bills and shit!”

Emergency rushed me for tests just by the looking at me, for it almost burst and bad fluid would’ve poisoned all in me. To top it off, they were telling my mom about the sexually transmitted disease I was carrying, then how being treated days ago could’ve helped the appendix effects. The dumbest look on her face was priceless, especially after talking all that shit. And now, being fourteen with all this, I was able to begin working my first job, with a part-time school worker’s permit. Cleo and I worked together during that summer, and I had two jobs. I began to help pay bills at home and clothe myself. I was working in the same mall I shoplifted from and the mall behind it. I had a lot to fix on myself.

I was going to New York for the first time with Cleo and her family, and she really wanted me to come since I would be the one to back up all the stories on the boyfriend she has up there and her family. But my hair had to be done, for I was carrying bushy roots with straight ends. So after work, I took that forty-five-minute rail ride to Tiffany, and she had friends over, joaning on my hair like shit. They were friends from her high school, and I sat in the dining room while she was doing another’s hair, just feeling ashamed. For it was at that age that I felt so much to be ashamed for already. I was growing up physically and didn’t know what I was doing. I was throwing underwear covered with discharge under my bed because I didn’t want anyone to see them while washing clothes. I was not washing behind my ears to the point I began developing scabs behind them, and I was not showering every day.

Being down south one time with Dad and his wife, while visiting her family @ a cookout, I danced so much at a party that she handed me soap and a washcloth. “Here, you stink. I don’t know what’s going on at home, but you need to wash.” I was embarrassed and down enough. I began reforming, sometimes soaking in the tub and getting what looked like layers of dirt floating and a dirty ass ring surrounding me.

But I came to work the next day with a fresh perm and cut, seeing mouths drop in shock, surprised on how pretty I really am. That weekend, I went up north, and it was fun. Her pops took me on a tour of the things I had seen on TV like the Empire State Building and the Apollo Theater. Cleo was bracing herself for my reaction, then she was telling me the girl before who went up with them went crazy seeing it all. But oh well, we stayed with her grandmother in the Patterson Projects, Bronx, along with her little sister. And the boys stayed in Harlem with her mom and pops, doing their thing. She and I wore matching dresses that day in different colors. I felt pretty for the first time, and I met the handsome boyfriend she had claimed to fuck. But she was still a virgin and was embarrassed to admit it to the other girls. We shopped together, and she showed me something new on having attention: how to carry myself like she was taught. Then we began 9th grade.