by Ana Gibson
CHAPTER 2
DEVIN
Wasn’t expecting the storm to come so fast. The plan was to get dinner beforehand, but all that has changed. So I take the moment to have a little daddy-daughter time and catch up on all the stuff she's been doing at school. She begins to tell me about all her school drama and latest scoop she's got going on in her first-grade class. Laughs and lots of it fill the air from the both of us.“
And I was like nuh-uh lil’ girl. I will slap those braids outcho head. You betta get outta my face.” Her little busybody jumps up and down on her bed, trying to say each word through jolted breaths. She giggles which makes me laugh. She's always had quite the personality too. Some days I see a lot of me, and other days I see a lot of Mia. I know that feisty attitude is from the both of us, that's for sure, but that sense of humor, she's definitely got it from me, honest.
“And I told her that she was ugly because she called me ugly first. Daddy I know I'm not ugly. She don't know what she talking bout,” she says so serious.
“You're absolutely right, you ain't ugly.”
“She just jealous because I got gold stars all throughout the week and she only got two.”
My baby smart.
“And Ms. Faith lets me help her pass out papers and treats. That's what we get to do when we've got a row of gold stars.”
She starts jumping higher and harder making the springs of the bed hit the box spring beneath. The chopping sound it makes could grind your gears a little bit, but it doesn't bother me none. She ain't hurting nobody. But Mia, on the other hand, swings the bathroom door wide open and stops to look at me first and then Logan.
“Would you stop with all that damn noise? Why are you in here jumping on the bed? Does this look like a trampoline to you?”
She reaches over and pulls her down hard and fast. Logan pathetically falls to the mattress. Her sweet and innocent smile leaves her face and Mia keeps a long, icy stare on her. If looks could kill, my daughter would be dead sure enough. Logan looks away from her, her face pointing towards the floor now.
“I was just having fun.”
“Well, life ain't fun. Act like you got some sense and stop jumping on the bed you little monkey. And you better stop going to school with that smart-ass mouth of yours. You gonna catch the wrong one, one day and they gonna beat your little ass.”
I get up from the edge of my bed and step toward them. She stands upright and gets into my face. She ain't bout that life coming from the glistening hills of Bowie. Not a solid thug bone in her.
“What the hell is your problem?”
“You mind your business. I'm talking to my child.” Her finger points at me and then she looks at Logan again.
“Oh, so now she's your child?”
“Don't play with me. You let her do whatever she wants around here like life is some fun little game. It ain't fun, and you need to tell her that. She needs to get real.”
Logan's happiness deflates by the second. I don't want her seeing us like this. I try my best to be as respectful as I can with her mother, but when she pops off with no warning, it takes everything in me to keep my own self from flying off.
“Come over here, Lo,” I say. She crawls off the edge of the bed and takes a seat onto mine.
“That's all you do is spoil her ass.”
“Don't worry about what I do with her.”
Mia rolls her eyes and sucks her teeth at me and then walks away to the other side of her bed to sit. For once I'd love to be irate just like she is to the both of us. If I didn't care about what Logan would think about me, I'd do it. I'd do it right now, but I can't because she's watching, and the only example she has is me. So instead, I let it go for the time being. Her pretty brown eyes nearly drown in tears. I know what she's feeling.
“Don't worry about her. We're going to be leaving out of here as soon as the storm dies down okay?”
She nods and sniffles. I take her up under my arm while Mia looks our way rolling her eyes again. Please, storm will you hurry up? I don't know how much longer I can be stuck up in this room with her before I go off.
We wait silently as the storm rolls through with the loud thunder and cracks of lightning. Logan jumps at each one and asks why it's so loud. I tell her that it’s just God up there playing bowling with the angels and each crack of lightning is just him getting a lucky strike. My logic makes her smile about it, but Mia doesn’t seem to like it. She pushes away from the headboard and says, “And there you go always making up some shit about God. Look lil’ girl, ain't no God up there playing no bowling or doing nothing that's making the lightning and thunder happen. It's called the weather. That's what it's supposed to do. Get used to it.”
She then gets up to retrieve her purse from the dresser, searching wildly through it.
“Are you for real right now?”
“I need a smoke.”
I'm at a loss for words. Logan remains silent.
“It's not hot in here to y'all?”
“The heat is on but it ain’t that hot.”
“Well turn that thing off. I’m sweating.”
“Stay off them drugs and maybe you wouldn’t.”
“Forget you, Devin. You ain't no saint yourself.”
“Never said I was.”
“Is that what mommy was doing earlier?” Logan asks. I don't want to answer her because I don't think a six-year-old should know anything about drugs, but all of that went out the window once Mia took it upon herself to do the shit in front of her. My child ain't stupid. Did she not think she would catch on?
“Cause’ she was putting this white stuff on the spoon and put fire under it.” She demonstrates to me while Mia chuckles about it.
“And then took this needle and put it in her arm like this.”
“And what did I tell you it was?” Mia says.
“Medicine.”
“Exactly. So don't be tryna make me look like I'm doing bad stuff. I was just taking my medicine.”
“Your medicine? Is that what you call it now?”
“Medicine, drugs, they all the same thing, ain't they? Logan, you gonna be just like me and your daddy. You gonna be taking your medicine soon enough because, with a father like him, he's going to drive you to it. Watch what I tell you.”
I've heard enough. It's probably best I get out of here, rain and all, because she's so close to getting hit in the face. She's real close. I have never hit a woman and never desired to, but at this point, she deserves every slap I feel like giving her.
I rise from the bed and head over to her. She shrinks back onto the headboard and looks me in the eye like she knows she's said too much.
“For all I care, you can mess yourself up on all the drugs you want, but don't you ever do that shit in front of her again. And don't you ever come out your retarded mouth with some bull like that. That is our child.”
She laughs in my face. “Go head, Devin. You need to chill with all this bucking you doing.”
“This ain't no game, Mia. I don't know what happened to you, but this ain't the woman I know. This ain't the girl I fell in love with.”
“Yeah, well that girl been gone. All thanks to you, buddy,” she says and turns her head away from me. I've never been this person—angry, hostile and tired and worn out. And to add insult to injury, she goes and says something like this to her own flesh and blood. All I care about right now is to protect my daughter. That's it. Love or not, her time is really limited now.
“Let's go, Logan. We need to go eat.”
“But it's not finished raining,” she says. I pull my hoodie over my head and help her into hers. “We'll be alright. Go get your shoes.”
She does as told, all the while, Mia continues to sit, scraping under her nails and says, “I was just telling her the truth.”
“For real, I don't feel like talking to you.”
“For real, I don't feel like talking to you. Boy, you weak. You weak as hell,” she mimics. “You ain't shit. Look at you. You can't even p
rovide for us. You can't keep a decent roof over our heads. You got us living in a dirty, moldy ass motel for crying out loud. Bet you wish I had gotten that abortion like I had planned, don't you?”
My leg jackhammers into the floor madly as she continues to spit venom into my wounds.
“And to think I actually loved you and had a child with you,” I tell her. She scoffs. “Believe me, we could've avoided all of that.”
Having Logan with her is one choice I should've made different. Of all bad choices, this is the one I wish I could redo on different terms. It pains me that we're at this place in our lives where a constant tug of war between hate and love is the premise of our relationship.
This addiction is a sobering truth that our lives lay in ruin and there’s no way to make it better. Like I said, me trying to repay the universe by doing good so that my sins will be washed away hasn't helped not one bit. I'm afraid that all it's going to do is keep driving us farther and farther into a place where we may never get ourselves back. I'm working against a ticking time bomb getting ready to explode. I just hope in the midst of the explosion, it doesn't kill me too.
CHAPTER 3
DEVIN
I’m tired as hell. Last night was rough. When Logan and I got back from Waco Taco, we came back to the room finding it in a mess. I thought we had been robbed but turns out Mia was the one who flipped it upside down. She was so strung out on whatever she took that when we found her on the floor, I thought she was dead. It took me a good fifteen minutes to get her to wake up but when I did, the only thing she had left for me was a bitter and ungrateful attitude. She yelled about how much she hated Logan and Me and that she wishes we had never met. Granted, our life hasn't been a bed of roses, I can admit that, but she makes me feel like I'm her curse. She tells me all the time it's because of me that she's like this. She went on and on why her life is the way it is and I just listened like a dummy, watching her, but it brought me to the realization of why my love for her is fading by the day, though parts of me can't figure out why I choose to stay in this relationship. Some would say it's love. Others would call it pure dysfunction. I think it may be a combination of both but mainly because she's all I know. I've done enough convincing to myself that despite what we're going through and where our relationship is right now, she's the one that can give what I've been longing for—whatever that is. She said she wants me to leave her. Crazy she wants me to leave but she ain't got the guts herself. I couldn't tell if it were the drugs talking or if she meant it. I believe that denial plays me as a joke though. It's like I hear her but I can't accept it. However, in all of her mess and stink, harsh attitudes and mood swings, no matter what I want to believe, the sad reality is that this is who we are now. Ain't no saving nobody who don't want to be saved. Nevertheless, while we're here, I'm just hoping that today will be better than last night.
As I button up my jumpsuit and throw my hoodie over my head to get ready for work, Logan crawls over to me at the edge of the bed and wraps her little arms around my neck.
“Do you have to go?”
I wish I didn't but I need to make sure I can take care of her.
“I won't be too long today. I promise.”
“I don't want to stay with mommy,” she whispers. I feel the same way.
“It's just for a little while. When I get back, maybe we can go to a movie or something.”
She smiles and nods. Mia remains to herself on her bed, twirling strands of hair around her finger—thin strands of mess.
“Aight, I'll see y'all later.”
The pep in my step used to be something mean but now it’s more like a dragging of the feet as I make my way to the bus stop. Everything that went on last night took me by surprise. I'm still trying to recover from it, especially since I didn't get much sleep. Between trying to keep watch over Mia so she doesn't try anything stupid, and my life's quarrels running through my brain, sleep was the least of my priority and now I'm feeling it.
As I get to the job, John calls me into his office right before I take ahold of my timecard.
“Devin, come in here, will you?” The sound of his voice takes me back to a time where I'd get called into the principal's office for something I've done. It's never a good feeling.
“Yeah John?”
“Close my door and have a seat.”
I do as told, grab the chair and sit before him at his desk. “Something wrong?”
There's an aura of awkwardness that befalls us as he waits a moment to tell me what it is. He folds his hands, meeting his thumbs together. His lips part, exposing those crooked, stained teeth of his and then he sighs heavily. The pounding in my chest increases by the second cause’ I see where this is about to go. He goes on to tell me, “Devin, it really pains me to have to do this.”
The sweat in my palms loosens my grip on the arm of the chair as I try to situate myself comfortably. He sighs again and readjusts himself the same. Those thick, pale sausages he calls fingers rake through his short haircut and finally he comes out with it.
“We have to let you go.”
Wait, what? Did I hear him correctly?
“Why?”
“I know. I know. It really does hurt me to have to do this, but corporate is downsizing and looking for ways to cut back on spending. We already have two full-time janitors who have been here for quite some time. The part-time position is no longer needed, because like I said, the company wants to cut back. So since you're the new kid, you know—“
“That shit ain't fair.”
His lips tighten and he nods. I didn't mean for that to slip out of my mouth.
“Look, I know it's not easy finding another gig. I get it. Your best bet would be to get unemployment until you can find another job.”
“And what's that gonna do, John?”
He stays quiet for a second. But I want him to answer it. Unemployment for a part-time position that I've been working for almost a year now ain't gonna do much. If my regular paycheck wasn't much—all six hundred and thirty dollars—what the hell is unemployment going to do for me now? It's gonna be half that.
“I'm sorry. I don't know if that will help or not,” he says, “But that's a good place to start. They could also be hiring as well. You could check. And if you need a reference, I'm more than willing to be one for you.” He hands me his card and I stuff it in my hoodie pocket without ever looking at it. Hotness rises to my cheeks. I’m trying to process what's being done here. He hands me my last paycheck, and I take it from him—two hundred dollars and some change—due to the short week I worked, and get up from my seat and head out of the office. His voice echoes from behind, but I'd rather not turn around and acknowledge that he's talking to me because there are a lot of things I'd like to say to him and to this company. I've busted my ass for them. Worked hours that I wasn't supposed to, to only end up with the same lousy ass pay. I've mopped, cleaned, dusted, vacuumed, fixed—put my blood and sweat into this damn building—working hard to make sure this place looks good for them and this is what I get in return? This is all they have to offer me? No thanks. I'm good. Forget his card and forget his well wishes. I don't need it. It ain't doing me no good no way. Never seen a well-wish put food on the table or clothes on my back. Never has it given me much a place to lay my head at night. He can stuff that well-wish up his ass for all I care. I'm out of here.
My feet feel like heavy, grey cinderblocks are mounted around them as I trudge to the bus stop. One step after the other, the pace seems slower and slower and being out here trapped with my thoughts don't help either. I want to throw up. I want to scream. I want to fight. I want to do everything that could possibly take this fear away. But none of that comes out of me. Just a pitiful sigh. I don't think I've been this frustrated in my life—ever.
I don't know if it's just sheer paranoia or what but something inside doesn't feel right. The only way to explain it is that feeling of uneasiness that only a parent can get when it feels like something is wrong
with their child. Though I try to play it cool as I pick up the pace just a little in hopes that it's just my imagination, I can't keep it from spreading through my mind. Could be because of what Mia did in front of her yesterday and all the things she's been saying.
Our room in close view now, I spot Mia out on the walkway, lazily chatting with another man outside. This must be what mister hairy arms was talking about. But never mind her, where is Logan? I don't see that little puffball-wearing child of mine anywhere.
That same uneasiness lingers and intensifies the more I hone in, in hopes she'll pop up any second. But the seconds grow and no Logan. Something is not right. I feel it.
“Mia?” I shout out to her as my steps skip a beat. “Mia?”
She turns around towards me. Her laugh fades and she stands up straight.
“What?”
“Where is Logan?”
“She's fine.”
If she were in her right mind, I'd probably believe her, but previous actions have proven otherwise. Sirens wailing loud within my head sends my brisk walk into an anxious jog.
“Where is she?” I find my way up the steps two at a time, and she comes from around the dude she's been standing in front of and casually walks up to me as I meet her. Her hand presses against my chest, stopping me in mid-step.
“I said she's fine. Chill. Why are you here anyway?”
“Why ain't she out here with you?”
Her friend looks at me like he wants to do something. I wish he would.
“Who's this?” He asks.
“Who are you?”
“I'm a friend of Mia's. That's all. You ain't gotta get all hype about it.”
“Yea, I'm sure you are.” I give my attention back to Mia, her boney hand still up against me.
