I cried as I sat in the already dirty water and Meech chuckled while he watched me wash. I cried but not for what he thought. No, my mind was somewhere else. I know he thought I sat there and had tears in my eyes because he was gonna beat my ass some more and let his homies come over and gang rape me. Had I been an ordinary woman that would have been the cause of my tears. However, Meech didn’t know that the pussy shit he was about to do to me was my mama’s type of torture most of my life. That wasn’t enough to make me cry because I knew his pussy ass wouldn’t kill me even though I didn’t give a fuck about death. No, that wasn’t it.
As I sat there and scrubbed my body with the bath brush Meech gave me and liquid soap, I cried for all the dope I didn’t get to use, but was about to be punished for. I cried for the additional bodies that would be on my conscious when I eventually merked Meech and whoever else he had to touch me. Most importantly I cried for the four little kids I brought into the world and would leave behind because I knew that the chain of events which were unfolding would lead me to one and one only solution. I knew that my end would be just as violent as my beginning I just hoped it would be on my terms and I could finish all I planned before then.
“Hurry up bitch cause I got real plans for you. Let that damn water out then standup and take a shower, wash all that damn dirt off. My niggas already ain’t keen on fucking junky hoes. The least you could do is be a clean one. I mean you ain’t ugly anyway and from what I heard you used to be a baddie, down ass bitch. Straight up GD and nice with them hands and a strap. I heard you fell off once your mama died and yo sister and brother jumped state. I guess that shit fucked you up huh? Well, that still ain’t no excuse to steal from me and just be a bummy ass bitch now. Hoe they took yo kids too didn’t it?” Meech asked as I shook my head yes as I looked down at the water.
“Yeah, you one of them worthless hoes so what I’m about to do to you ain’t gonna matter anyway. Ain’t nobody gonna miss yo nothing ass. I might as well do what I was gone do at first and rid the world of your scurvy ass. Might as well huh bitch?” Meech said as he laughed and then reach over to punch me in the mouth when I didn’t respond. I held my lip that he busted on impact as the fresh blood dripped into the water and I fell straight into a flashback. Suddenly I was back in time and couldn’t even really hear Meech as he yelled that I had ten minutes to finish before he left the room. I just remained in that position, frozen stiff in a daze trapped in a memory with my hands up to my mouth as blood dripped from between my fingers.
I closed my eyes as the memory seemed to embody me and I opened my eyes as 17-year-old Terricka back in the tub at my mother’s house while the blood from my sore, battered, once virgin vagina tinted the bath water I sat in. I could still feel the pain between my legs from the ripped flesh as I cried my heart out. As I cried I vowed to one day kill my mother and make her feel the pain I did. I prayed out loud with conviction too and begged the Lord to give me a chance to help him exact vengeance on my mother.
“Please Lord punish Denise and let me help you. Make her pay for all she has done. I know my sister says it’s not good to hate, but I hate her and I know you spite the devil that has manifested in your vessel so please Lord just take her away and make her accountable for her own sins.” I prayed through my sobs as the door to the bathroom suddenly opened.
When that door opened I felt betrayed by God as Satan himself walked into the bathroom in the form of my mother. She had on a pair of red leather booty shorts and matching top on with red devil horns on her head. Although I knew that was one of her costumes for the trick she had in her room, I felt it was totally ironic at that moment. It was so ironic I laughed before I knew it, but in a cold, flat tone I barley recognized that caught me off guard. I guess it caught my mama off guard too because she suddenly turned to look at me with big eyes.
“Oh its funny huh bitch? It’s funny? We’ll see how funny it is in a minute. I heard you in here praying to that God you and your sister cherish so much, but let’s see if he helps you now hoe. You wonna rid the world of me huh? You want your God to punish me and make me pay for my sins huh? Bitch my biggest sin was you. YOU TERRICKA. Having you began my hell. Hell, you whole conception was a sin. I know you have heard so much from you grandma on how I was a hoe and all y’all have different daddies. I know you think you daddy some junky nigga I fucked while we were high out of our minds and Tisha daddy some gangsta nigga I drove away. Y’all wrong though.” My mother said as she turned around and looked at me with hate and malice.
“YO DADDY WAS MY FUCKING GRANDFATHER AND MY MAMA KNEW IT. She pretended not to know her daddy liked little girls and would volunteers to keep all the girls in the family and never the boys because he wanted to have his way with us. She pretended she didn’t know but she did. Even when I got older and would be beaten by him and held down by my uncles the point where I had bruises all over when I came home, she ignored it. So hell yeah, I ran away. I started to do any drug I could to get high and numb my pain. I hit the streets on my own at 15 after he beat and raped me so bad I bled for days. That was the day you were conceived. After that I was gone. I did so much shit while I carried you I just knew you would be born retarder or some shit, but you weren’t. When I had you, you were perfect all beautiful and shit and I vowed to protect you no matter what and I did for a while. Then I met Tisha’s dad and he showed me love. He loved me but something inside wouldn’t let me accept that love.” She said.
“By the time Tisha was born something had begun to change inside of me and the robots began to open my eyes to so much. I fought their help for a while and for a while we were happy, but then one day I just snapped. I snapped and he left and that’s when everything became too much. All alone with two babies, no money, no education, no family, and these damn robots trying to help me, I fell into depression. They robots seemed to be the only thing I had so I listened to them. I listened and they showed me you were the root of it all. You started this curse so it must end with you.” My mama said before she began to slice me with the cord from the curling iron she picked up off the bathroom counter.
She beat me like a runaway slave as blood flew all over the walls and her. I remembered how I screamed and cried while she beat me and I pulled my upper boy up and over the side of the tub. When I did that she wrapped her arm around my waist and jammed the curling iron she still had in her hand up my ass. I cried and bucked as she sodomized me with the curling iron in between punches to my back and head while she yelled how much she hated me and the curse had to end. Once she was out of breath and tired she let my battered, bloody body fall back into the tinted water as I cried and stared at her with hate.
“See that look you giving me right now proves what I thought. Bitch you just like me. You’re just as evil and the true cause of the curse. If I go by that bible I hear y’all quote that means you’re an abomination that has to be purged. I hate I have to be the one to do it but regardless of my ties to you, I have to end this.” My mother said as I sobbed and watched her walk two feet over to the counter and plug in the curlers she had just sodomized me with.
I had no idea what she was about to do as I sat there and sobbed while every inch of my body burned or throbbed with pain. I begged her to stop as she turned to walk back to me but that dead look in her eyes told me that my mother was gone. It was the drugs and mental illness that beat and hurt me not her but I really saw no difference.
“Please mama. TISHAAA.” I yelled as she walked closer while she swung the curlers from side to side. “Don’t please mama, me now bitch when you just prayed the lord would kill me. Now you want mercy. Fuck you!” My mother yelled as she pretended to throw it, but quickly pulled it back.
I felt my heart stop when she did that because I could just feel myself being electrocuted if she would have let those curlers go. I cried as my heart raced and I closed my eyes to brace myself and my mother laughed. “Look at your tough ass now, scared as shit. Well, good bye evil little bitch. Goodbye to you and your curse.” M
y mama yelled as her voice was suddenly cut off and I opened my eyes to see Tisha on the ground on top of my mother.
My little sister had bust in and tackled her right before she threw the curlers into the tub. She had saved my life. I quickly jumped out as my mother punched and kicked until she got up then she beat us both with the curling iron that was hot and still plugged into the wall. “Nooo, mama I remembered I yelled in my flashback as Meech suddenly grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the shower, which brought me back in time.
He snapped me out of my flashback and I was back there in his trap house as he pulled me naked by my arm and hair into his living room. When he pulled me inside I got a little scared when I saw all of the big, ugly niggas who waited with their dicks in hand. After that I blocked everything out, much like I did that memory of when my mother said I was the root of the curse. I blocked out all of the dicks and foreign objects they stuck into every orifice on my body as the robots told me that was my fate but I could end it all if I did what my mother had tried to do. The only thing I didn’t block out and could still feel as I sat there on the cooler in the corner store, hours after the attack was Meech’s hand on my arm as he held me down. “Terricka. Terricka!” Cooley yelled as he shook me by my arm and brought me out of my memory within a nightmare.
I opened my eyes and looked into his face as my heart still raced in my chest. “Damn Terricka, what’s wrong with you today? You’re even more fucked up than you usually are? What the hell happened to yo face?” Cooley asked me as I turned to the left and stared at my swollen, bruised face in the beer box.
He was right I did look fucked up, just like a drugged out zombie with my swollen and battered face, dull, dry skin, and disheveled appearance. I grimaced when I looked at myself because no matter how bad shit had gotten I had never looked like that. “What the fuck did happen to me?” I asked myself out loud as I jumped off the cooler and walked closer to stare at myself in the glass on the beer box.
I stuck my hands in my hair and turned my head from side to side as I looked at myself, just like a crazy person would.
“That’s what the fuck I just asked you Terricka. What the fuck happened to you? Anyway, whatever happened you gotta get the fuck up outta here because you running off my customers. Besides I don’t want Meech in her tearing shit up and I already heard you on his bad side. Sooo Bye Felicia.” Cooley said as I continued to stare at myself I the cooler and the voices in my head got louder. “FUCK YOU COOLEY! I’M OUT THIS BITCH OLE UGLAS!” I yelled as I stormed to the front of the store as the robots in my head told me to buck.
On my way out of the store I knocked down rows of cookies and candies, grabbed a big bag of chips, and opened them before I poured the entire bag on the counter. “Terricka you raggedy bitch!” Cooley yelled as he ran around the corner and chased me out of the store. I laughed as I ran out and crossed the street with old times on my mind. I saw me and my sister as girls as we ran around the same corner after we stole soap and food from that exact store. “See Tisha, I told you we would get away.” I said to my sister as she ran beside me and we both laughed.
I ran all the way up to the first street non-stop as I continued to laugh with my sister when suddenly her laughter stopped. I looked to the side to see what was wrong and like a ghost, Tisha was gone. “TISHAAA.” I yelled as I spent around in a circle and looked for her behind bushes and in people’s yards. “TISSHHHAAA. Why you keep leaving me? You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.” I yelled to the wind as people in the cars that whizzed by me stared while I talked to myself.
Suddenly the voices in my head filled my ears again and I couldn’t take what they had to say. They told me I was about to lose it and they were the only friends I had left. The voices said to kill Meech and his goons then out myself so I wouldn’t feel anymore and that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I mobbed down the street with murder on my mind, the voices in my head, and an itch that started from my toes and worked its way up. That was an itch I hated but loved at the same time because I needed my cocaine to function. That’s why I knew I had to abort my mission momentarily and get to Millington with Tangie to load up and get my mind right. That would calm the voices and give me the strength I needed to do what needed to be done.
“Yeah, let’s call Tangie.” I said to myself as I pulled out my phone and one of the semi-logical voices in my mind told me not to get high and for a second I listened. I fought the urge to snort until I couldn’t anymore and possibly fill my veins with the drug I craved. It was the only thing that made me feel sane sometimes and I wanted it. I wanted it but I listened to the voices as I walked up the hill and entered Breezy Point. I staggered to my apartment still in a daze as horrible visions from the past and my own guilt threatened to drive me deeper into insanity.
When I got close to my apartment just the sight of it made me weak because for a second I was sane enough to remember what I had done. For a second I saw myself when I came back from my binge once Tisha had bonded me out and I got my kids back from Sky. I saw myself as I did good for a couple of days and then everything went downhill. After that I saw the day they came to take my kids and I flapped around the floor like a fish out of water and cried. I saw their little faces as I walked up to the door and tried to turn the knob only to notice there was a padlock on the door.
“WHAT THE FUCK? WHY THE FUCK IS THERE A PADLOCK ON MY DOOR? WHO THE FUCK IN HERE? VITO, BITCH OPEN THIS MUTHAFUCKING DOOR!” I yelled as I banged on and kicked the door. I stood there for minutes and beat like a madwoman until finally the man from next door came out to tell me what was going on. “WHO THE FUCK OUT HERE BAMMING?” the drunk man named Doug next door said as he came out on the porch in late November with a wife beater on and boxers.
I watched him and laughed as he swayed from side to side while I did the same and it seemed we both did our best to focus. “Oh Terricka it’s you. Witcho crazy ass. What the fuck you want girl? Why you out here beating and shit?” He asked me as he lifted the fried chicken leg that dangled from his hand and bit it like a starving dog.
I rolled my eyes at him as I folded my arms and looked his dumb as from head to toe. I Didn’t know what the fuck he meant by why I was there? Hell I was there because it was my house and I was ready to go home, bathed and then hit the streets to get high before I ended it all. “What you mean ole drunk muthafucka, this my house. Where the fuck Vito at and why he lock my damn door?” I asked Doug through clenched teeth as I took a Newport out of my pocket and lit it.
I inhaled the stale nicotine deeply and blew the smoke out in Dough’s direction as he staggered across to my porch so that he was right in front of me. He stood there in my face for a few minutes with a smug expression on his face. “Oh…you don’t know do you? Witcho ole crackhead ass, talking about I’m drunk. I’d rather be a drunk than a fuck up. First you get yo kids taken now you ain’t go nowhere to stay.” Doug said as I looked at him like he had lost his damn mind.
I had to step back a little then step back up almost nose to nose with him to try to understand what he said. “What the fuck you just say ole man?” II asked Doug as I clenched my left fist and hit my cigarette with the other. One of the voices in my head told me to hit his old ass since he wanted to test my gangsta. However, I was too preoccupied with what he had just said to even listen to the voices.
“You heard me bitch. You know they took yo kids, but I guess you didn’t know yo ass put out huh?” He said in a sing song like a little kid who had just snitched on the other. I shook my head no to let him know I had no idea I was put out as he shook his head in disbelief. “You mean to tell me nobody ain’t told you what went down at yo place?” He asked me as I stared at him and shook my head no again before he took my hand.
I let him pull me over to the edge of the porch before I sat down on the top step right next to him and concentrated on the silence beyond the voices. When we sat down he put his wrinkled, dirty hand over mine and looked at me lovingly and with a glimmer of pity for the first
time. We usually went back and forth about who was the worst person and cursed each other out like sailors whenever we saw one another, but not then.
Even on my bad days when I couldn’t get high or the voices were just too powerful I would attack him if he even looked at me wrong. This day was different though and that was what scared me the most. I didn’t want him to be nice to me because in all actuality I was a piece of shit. I didn’t want him to be nice to me at that moment because I felt like it was a cushion for a shit storm of hurt that was on its way. I was right too and he proved it when he opened his mouth.
“I hate to be the one who tells you this Terricka, but Vito is dead. While you was gone somebody came over her and shot this house up. Vito got shot and two other niggas. Some girl even drug the Meeka bitch up out yo house and stomped her in the ground. I heard some people say the girl was yo sister but you know I don’t listen to these messy hoes over here. Anyway, after that and they couldn’t find you the office put a stay out notice on the door and padlocked it. It’s been like that for a minute. Terricka you know this mean you can’t get Section-8 again so what you gonna do? How you gonna get yo kids back?” Doug asked me as everything he said swirled around in my head.
I didn’t want to believe what he said as I sat there dazed, but I knew it was gonna come anyway because I had already gotten locked up. That automatically kicked me off of all forms of public assistance, which meant even if I wasn’t a crazy ass bitch, I still wouldn’t have been able to take care of my kids. Either way it went homeless or still in subsidized housing, I knew that my reign of terror had come to an end and it was over for life as I knew it, and at that point I was okay with that. I quickly stood up and walked off the porch as Doug called my name behind me. “TERRICKA. TERRICKA! WHAT YOU DOING? WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GONNA GO?” Doug yelled behind me as I began to slow down while I laughed.
Sins of Thy Mother 4 Page 22
