Around the Way Girls

by Karen Williams Chunichi

  “No, sir.” I signed my first and last name like I normally did.

  The DA showed the jurors the paper I signed and the signature on the adoption papers. Then he showed the paper to the judge.

  “As you can see, both these signatures are completely different.”

  The judge nodded.

  “Your Honor, I would also like to enter into evidence a money order receipt in the amount of three hundred dollars. This is the amount that Ms. Black pays young girls for their babies.”

  It was the same amount that Jamilah’s sister testified before me that she was paid for her son. She was here in the courtroom too. Rhonda was brought in from her cell for this case as well. She looked miserable in all orange sitting in that room next to Tabitha.

  “No further questions, Your Honor,” the DA said.

  Without looking up, the judge said, “Defense.”

  “Defense does not wish to cross-examine, Your Honor.”

  “Fine. We will deliberate and be back at twelve.”

  I took a deep breath and was able to step down. Once I did, I slipped out of the courtroom and sat down on a bench near the courtroom.

  “Diamond.”

  I looked up quickly to find Deidra in front of me with a drink and sandwich in her hand.

  “I brought you something to eat.” She handed it to me.

  “Thanks.”

  I had been staying with Deidra ever since that day I’d showed up at her business. She had opened her arms to me like I always wanted my mother to. I had become a part of her program, was getting counseling, taking parenting classes, and studying for my GED.

  “It’s almost over, baby,” she sang.

  “I know.” I took a deep breath.

  My worries were that they would be unable to find my baby girl. The dread probably wouldn’t go away until she was back in my arms.

  I forced myself to eat the sandwich and swallow down the soda.

  “You have to be positive. Everything will fall into place for you.”

  I sighed, wishing she had been my mother.

  She handed me my GED book, and in that three hours we waited, I studied. When it was almost noon, she told me, “Okay, it’s three minutes to twelve you better get in there.”

  Deidra said she couldn’t be in the same room with Rhonda, so she waited outside for me.

  I understood. I nodded, closed my book, stood and walked back to the courtroom. I sat down and waited for the judge to come back into the room.

  He took his time sitting down, put on his glasses. “Does the jury have a verdict?”

  A female juror stood, cleared her throat, and said, “We, the jury, find the defendant, Rhonda Grey guilty and sentenced to ten years in state prison.”

  I jumped because she was also sentenced to nine years for the case with Otis.

  “We, the jury, find the defendant, Tabitha Black, guilty and sentenced to ten years in state prison.”

  The people in the courtroom clapped.

  I glanced at my mother. She wouldn’t look at me.

  The judge told the DA, “Prepare the paperwork to release the infant back to her mother.”

  Fifteen minutes later, me and Deidra were standing outside the home of some white couple who Tabitha had sold my baby to. The cops were inside the house, and were supposed to retrieve Star for me.

  I kept pacing around Deidra’s car. “Damn! What’s taking so long?”

  “Be patient,” Deidra said.

  “Yeah, but what if she is not here, or dead?” My lips trembled as I talked. I continued to pace like a mad woman.

  Finally, after ten minutes, I said, “Fuck this.” I walked toward the door.

  Deidra grabbed me, and that’s when the door opened. I saw the two police officers exiting the house, one with a baby in his arms.

  A white woman chased after them as they walked down the porch steps, screaming at the top of her lungs. Then a man came out and grabbed her before she could get any closer to the cops.

  She sobbed in his arms and kept screaming, “No! Don’t take my baby.” But the officers ignored her and continued down the steps.

  The officer holding the baby made his way toward me. He uncovered the blanket off her face to show her to me. And it was Star.

  With hungry eyes, I stared at my daughter. My lips trembled as the distance between us closed and he placed Star in my arms. God, no feeling felt better than this.

  I pressed her body into my chest, inhaled the sweet smell of her hair, and couldn’t help but sob as hard as the woman on the porch was sobbing.

  Deidra watched me with tears in her eyes. Jokingly, she asked, “Anything else you need help with?”

  There was one more thing I needed to do, but I knew I had to do it alone. “Yes. Tomorrow I need you to babysit.”

  Deidra gently pulled Star out of my arms. “No problem.”

  So the next day, a Saturday, before they had a chance to ship her out, I went to Twin Towers to visit Rhonda, my mother. I waited in that line forever before they had me sitting across from her with a glass between us.

  I picked up the phone. She just stared at me for a moment before picking up her phone. This confrontation had my stomach in some serious knots. But I came here for a reason, so I had to get it over with.

  “So I guess you wanna know why, right? That’s what you here for, answers?”

  “Yeah.”

  She licked her dry lips. “Everyone got their reasons for what they are, the way they are. Maybe they were abused and shit. Made to feel like they were nothing, not loved adequately and then they didn’t know how to give their kid what wasn’t given to them. Or maybe they turned to drugs to deal with their demons, and maybe the drugs made them make fucked-up choices when it came to their kids. But the truth is, I don’t have one.”

  She had me confused. “You don’t have a one what?”

  “I don’t have a reason for why I treated you the way I treated you, other than I never wanted you. And I never loved you, Diamond. I never bonded with you even when you were a baby. And it wasn’t because you were bad, or anything you did. You were a good baby, and started off being a good kid. You turned bad as a result of the household I brought you up in. But there is no rocket science to this shit, no deep, hidden meaning. I just plain out didn’t want you, Diamond. That’s what it is.”

  Some tears ran down my face at what she was telling me, but she was unfazed by them.

  “I don’t understand why you lied to me all these years about not being my mama.”

  She slid the phone to her other ear. “Because, look, I didn’t want you to expect me to be motherly to you. All I felt I was liable to do was provide a roof over your head. And I always did that, didn’t I?”

  What about food? Clothes? Love? Checking on me when I didn’t feel good? Kissing my boo-boos away, or tucking me in bed? Teaching me about why women have periods, talking about the birds and the bees? Making sure I ate, making sure men didn’t come in my room at night and rape me? Making sure I didn’t experiment with drugs? Not giving me drugs? Seeing if my room was warm at night?

  I didn’t ask her this ’cause I didn’t want her to hurt my feelings further.

  “But if you didn’t want me, why did you take me back from your sister?”

  “’Cause at that time they were giving out Section 8 vouchers, if you had kids.”

  More tears dropped, and my heart felt like somebody was crushing it with a boulder. “Who is my daddy?”

  She shrugged. “Some crackhead. I don’t remember his name. We got high and fucked one night. I don’t recall ever seeing him again.”

  I closed my eyes and opened them quickly. “Why did you pass Frederick off as my daddy all this time?”

  “Shit. ’Cause you was calling him daddy. He never had a problem with it, so I rolled with it. And, plus, if I wasn’t your mama, what other reason did I have to say why you were there? You had to be related to someone, just as long as you wasn’t related to me.”

  “Y
eah, but for sixteen years I thought he was my daddy.”

  “Well, he ain’t your fuckin’ daddy. Live with it!”

  “Why you sell my baby?”

  “Gotdamn! You like torturing yourself? I sold your baby for two reasons. I didn’t want no fuckin’ baby running around thinking I was gonna be a grandma to it.”

  “And the other reason?”

  “I didn’t want you giving someone something I couldn’t give you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Love. Shit! Now you happy? You feel good?”

  I shook my head. My shoulders were shaking so hard, I couldn’t talk.

  “The thing you gonna learn about life is that people are who they are because that’s who they are. I’m not shit because I chose to not be shit, and that’s before drugs ever entered my body. I made a choice to be who I was. And once I became that person, I embraced it.”

  I stared at her for as long as I could, tears running down my face and my whole body trembling. I didn’t cry because of what she said. I cried because I knew. I knew deep down in the core of her that she was telling me the truth. She wasn’t lying to me.

  And knowing that killed me, but I knew I had to get past it. Before I could ask another question, she sucked her teeth at me, rose from her chair, and walked away from me. That was the last time I ever saw her.

  Epilogue

  “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.”

  Star was cracking up as I sang to her while I was giving her a bath. And unlike most babies, she loved getting in the water. She just cracked up.

  So much had happened in the past year, finding out my mama, the woman I craved to meet, was right in my face all my life, and the man I thought was my father was not. I wondered if I’d ever know who my father was. Yes, I wanted to know. But if I never found out, I would count the other blessings I have: Star, my baby girl. I don’t care how down and out I get, how lonely or depressed I felt, I would never, ever let any type of harm come my baby girl’s way. And if a nigga so much as unsnapped my baby’s diaper, I was gonna kill his ass!

  I was also blessed to discover and meet Deidra. She has brought so much direction in my life. I am emancipated from my mother.

  I have my own place, a small one-bedroom, but mine nonetheless, and it was decorated so fly. I got some bright red couches with a gang of pillows in different colors in the living room, a bomb stereo system, and a flat-screen. I sleep in the living room, and the bedroom is for Star. It is decorated in pink, from the comforter in her crib to the pink hearts and angels I hand-painted myself on her walls.

  She even had something I always dreamed about having when I was a kid: Her very own doll house. It was so big, it had to sit on the floor.

  When I’m not busy, we sit on the floor, and I play with her like I am a little girl all over again.

  I ended up passing my GED, and I’m taking classes at Long Beach City College, to be a registered nurse. Who would have thought my ass would be in college? But I have to provide a stable future for my baby girl.

  And if that ain’t crazy enough, I also go to church. I also decided to be a born-again virgin and not have sex until I was married. Sometimes, I think about my past and laugh at the foolish girl I used to be and the dumb things I used to do. I realized they were all my way of acting out and crying out for attention. I buried her, the old me, with all that drama and all them monkeys on my back, the anger of never having my mother’s love and the anger over being sexually abused.

  Since I buried the old Diamond, I have changed so much. I rarely curse, I am more respectful to adults, and I live a regular life. No weed or drank or wild partying. My life is about my daughter and being something she can look up to. I wanted her to be able to say I’m her mother with pride.

  But don’t get me wrong, I still have a little attitude. But the baggage is so gone. Whenever I feel myself about to go there with someone, I think back to what it was like sleeping on a box spring. That always humbles me.

  In my own way, I was even able to forgive my mother for the role she played in my life. I mean, I had to understand the whole purpose of forgiving to get to that point, and it wasn’t easy. Forgiving wasn’t something I did for my mom, but it was more for myself ’cause, once I did forgive her, I was able to let go and move foward.

  I also had to look in the mirror and take accountability for the bad decisions I was making, despite what I had gone through in my life. I couldn’t blame everything on her.

  Yeah, my life had come full circle. I may not have a father and probably never would, I may not have had my mother’s love and probably never would, but I had a daughter who was so special, so sweet, and she loved me. Finally, I knew what it felt like to be loved.

  Paper Chase

  by B.L.U.N.T.

  MISHA

  “Give me that pussy! Aaah, uhm, aww yeah, girl! You got some sweet-ass pussy.”

  Misha knew damn well her pussy was sweet. She didn’t need this half-ass-dick-having motherfucker to tell her that. She was ready for him to be done. And with Pete, she knew that it wouldn’t be much longer. Lucky for him, he was good at eating pussy, or Misha would have already gotten rid of him.

  Misha was so tired of the same old thing—niggas getting their shit off and leaving a few measly dollars behind. Yeah, she may have gotten a few outfits here and there. Some of the dudes took her out to dinner to some all right places, but she knew she was just as good as those bitches who niggas tricked on heavily. Her cousins who lived in Harlem had ballin’-ass niggas buying them furs, renting them whips, and paying their rent. Shit, she looked just as good as they did, if not better. She wondered why she kept winding up with the wack niggas with little to no money.

  “Misha, girl, I’m tellin’ you, you da bomb!” Pete lifted his heavy sweat-filled body up from off of her.

  The bomb? Who in the world uses that word anymore? Misha wanted to laugh out loud at this pudgy cornball now standing at the edge of her full-sized bed, putting his clothes back on, but she knew it was time to ask for what she needed, and that was no laughing matter.

  Misha needed three hundred dollars to add to her Section 8 voucher. She had to make an appearance in housing court in the morning. Financially, it had been a rocky month, and she was facing eviction from her apartment in Webster Projects for the fourth time this year.

  “Pete, I need a favor.”

  “Uh, huh, sure, Misha, anything for you.”

  She really hoped that he had meant what he had just said because she desperately needed him to come through with some real scrilla, not just the hundred dollars that he usually left her.

  “I need more than your regular drop, baby. I need three hundred dollars.”

  “Uh, um, well, wow!”

  “Uh, um, well? You wasn’t at a loss for words when your dick was all up in me, so what the fuck is the problem now?” Misha asked, switching her tone up completely. Fuck the nice-girl approach. Nice girls finished last.

  “I mean, damn, Misha, I don’t have no three hundred dollars. A brother got a lot on his back. I had some shit to take care of. You know my situation.”

  “Well, a sista got a lot on her back too, and I have some shit that I need to take care of, Pete, my muthafuckin’ rent. That’s my muthafuckin’ situation!”

  Pete stood in her bedroom looking lost. He didn’t want Misha to kick his ass to the curb, but he didn’t have what she was asking him for. Pete had a wife and three teenagers at home, and with the recession that had kicked in, he was having a hard time supporting them all. Misha was just someone he loved to fuck, not to mention, she was really nice to look at.

  He knew that Misha was looking for a sugar daddy when they had met one another two months ago at Lucky Strikes, the bowling alley on Forty-second Street and Twelfth Avenue. Pete had played the role like he could handle what Misha was dishing out to him that night. The way she stretched her fat ass across the pool table to slide her eight ball in the corner pocket had him wanting to
put his balls in her corner pocket, but the truth was he simply wasn’t financially qualified to deal with her. He should have known that once he had fucked her, he was signing his name on the dotted line of Misha’s very own employment application.

  Misha caught herself and slipped back into her original mood. She needed this man’s money and she wasn’t going to get it by turning him off, so she figured that she had better get on her job and turn him back on.

  “So wha’s really good, Pete? Are you finished with this sweet pussy that you love to fuck?” Misha took her finger, licked it, and began to finger her clit. She slipped her finger inside of her wetness and then pulled it out. She seductively looked up at Pete, put her moist finger in his mouth, and said, “Or are you gon’ find a way to get me what I need?”

  Pete slowly pulled her finger out of his mouth. He had never tasted anything so sweet. He then frantically began pulling every dollar and dime he had out of his pocket. When he had finished counting, he had come up with a little over one hundred and fifty dollars. He handed the money over to Misha.

  She happily took it. It wasn’t the whole kit and caboodle, but she was halfway where she needed to be on her rent. It was still early in the afternoon. Misha was sure that she could go through her black book and find someone to come to her crib later on in the evening to secure the balance. She wasn’t due in housing court until nine o’clock. Shit, by then she could fit in two niggas if she had to.

  As soon as Pete left, Misha got into the shower. She lathered up her golden skin with Suave Cocoa Butter Body Wash. She made sure she cleaned herself thoroughly and let the water wash over her body. She didn’t want Pete’s scent or his juices lingering in her pussy for her next victim to smell or taste.

  Misha began to add up all of the bills that she had due. Her rent was just the tip of the iceberg. Her home phone had been cut off two weeks prior, and now her cell phone was about to be cut off if she didn’t pay what she owed. She had two rooms of furniture that she was still paying on. She didn’t know who was stupid enough to give her broke ass three credit cards, but they did, and now after maxing them all out, she owed them too.