by Zi'ere
Me: Granny we are fine. The only problem I’m having is keeping food in the house. Every time I go shopping it’s like she pops up and then takes it all. I don’t know who in the hell she is feeding cause she ain’t eating it all by herself. She is so small and she looks so rundown.
Granny D: Now see I got something for that shit right there! I promise you that lil problem will be fixed by the time you get out of school. I bet she won’t take shit else up out of there when I get done with her no good, trifling, un-fit ass!
Me: Please do not do anything that will make her act worse. We don’t need those kinds of problems because she is the devil to live with after you leave us here with her.
Granny D: I know she ain’t puttin her hands on ya’ll?
Silence.
Granny D: Oh, she done lost her muthafuckin mind now! She don’t know how to act her damn self how she chastising somebody else. That bitch don’t have the right to stomp away a fuckin squirrel!
Me: Granny calm down before you have a stroke!”
Granny D: I play about a lot of shit but the four of ya’ll- that is off limits and everybody in Chandler know I will get down for my muthafuckin crown when it comes to my grandbabies!
I sat down on the edge of my bed and put my face in my hands. There was no off switch to Grandma D. Once she was in turn up mode, you had to wait til she was ready to turn down. According to Rob she is acting worse than she ever did in her younger years. I didn’t know how old she was exactly but it didn’t matter because age didn’t mean a damn thing to her. She kept her hair short and slayed in the latest styles. She even carried a nine with her everywhere she went, even to Wal Mart.
To make Grandma D’s cake even more sweet was the fact that she grinded like a twenty year- old man. She had trap houses, prostitutes reporting to her, and she sold every drug known to man-kind. She paid for Rob to go to college out right and he made good on her investment by graduating. His downfall was meeting Angel and his mama told him that the very first time they met. She said it directly in front of Angel’s face. Only problem was Angel had already gotten the scoop and she knew Deloris did not have a problem tagging anybody’s ass.
It was a late Sunday afternoon and I was taking the time to braid Zina’s hair for the week so I wouldn’t have to deal with the kinky red bush in the mornings before school. With the way she slept, I could only pray it lasted for the week. After taking care of her hair as if I was a certified cosmetologist, she had a head full of long thick and healthy hair. I looked over at Angel sitting on the couch. Her hair was matted to her head. She looked like death. She was feening and didn’t have a dime to her name at the moment. When she was broke, we all knew it because she remained in the house causing chaos.
“Damn Maya! Don’t braid her hair like that she going to look like a fuckin dyke!” Angel hissed at me as she walked passed me to get to the kitchen.
“Takes one to know one…huh?” I challenged her with my eyes.
She was beyond my last good nerve. It was the eleventh time she’d gotten up in the last five minutes. She lived to irritate me like she was a little kid. She acted as if I was braiding Zina’s hair straight to the back like she was in prison or something. In reality I was twisting one part and braiding another part of her hair in delicate sections that started on one side of her head and would be pinned up on the other side. Zina would look like an African princess when I was done. Angel was just a hater because I refused to do her hair.
“Let me do what I do and leave me alone, please. When I get done she is going to look like a nice little girl who is being well taken care of. That has nothing to do with you so shut up if you don’t have anything positive to say!”
I rolled my eyes at her so hard I got a little dizzy.
“That mouth gonna get you fucked up lil girl! I keep tryna tell your ass!” She pointed and shook her finger at me.
“I tell you what boo-boo, I’m not about to sit here and listen to you disrespect me, cussing me out, nor am I about to let you insult me when I’m doing your job! How about you do this while I go pack my bags and go somewhere I won’t be criticized? I will leave since you don’t have anywhere you need to be today!”
I stood to leave.
“Nana Maya nooo! You can’t leave us here with her, please don’t leave us. You said you would never leave us…” Zina began to cry and hopped up from the crate she was sitting on.
In a matter of seconds she had her arms wrapped around my neck.
“I will lay your ass to rest before I let you walk out on me! You know I need help with these kids and you are going to do just that! Ain’t shit out there in the streets but trouble! You are going to stay your fresh ass right here!”
Before she could get her words out I was already out of her grip and then had my fingers wrapped around her neck.
“I will lay your coked ass out if you ever put your fuckin hands on me like that again!” I was wheezing because she’d cut off my oxygen seriously but my neck wouldn’t be the only one
“Your lil spoiled ass needs to know that I ain’t lettin Maya go nowhere without taking ya’lls crying asses with her! I’m not trying to hear all that whining and shit getting…on my last damn nerve!” Angel’s tongue was sharp.
“Don’t talk to her like that! She didn’t ask to be here! She is the victim in this life, not you!” I kissed Zina’s cheeks and wiped her eyes. “Go get cleaned up baby girl then come back so I can get finished and we can do something else.”
“Yes ma’am.” My little princess walked toward our side of the house where she knew there was a clean bathroom Angel wasn’t allowed to use.
14
I checked the hallway twice to make sure my little sister was out of hearing range of the only language Angel understood.
“I have already told your trifling ass that you don’t get to talk to them as if they ruined your fuckin life! You ruined our lives and you still trying to kick the neglect up to another notch even now!”
“Maya I will lay your ass out in here if you pop off at me one more gotdamn time!” She stood sure footed as if she was daring me, seriously daring me.
“Fuck you Angel! Go whore in the street so you can get your next high and leave us the fuck alone! Please don’t bring your mangy ass back up in here and we will be just fuckin fine!” I was again now on my feet.
“Oh you can bet your lil sweet ass if I could leave up out of this muthafucka I woulda been gone! You can have this shit since you enjoy running my damn house so much!”
“You won’t fuckin run it so who the hell else is going to do it?” I demanded to know with my hands now on my hips.
“Maya shut the fuck up! You making my damn head hurt!”
“You and your head can go to hell! I don’t give a damn about your head just like you don’t give a damn about your kids! Fuck is you talkin bout?”
“My first mind told me to leave Rod be so that he could take care of ya’lls disrespectful and needy asses! FUCK I MESSED UP!”
“You damn sure did because he’s the only gotdamn parent we have! How is it that he is doing more than you and he is in prison is fuckin unbelievable! But even he wants you gone out of his house!”
“His house?”
I started to laugh. I’d officially fucked her head up for the day. She loved putting on airs like she was doing Rod a favor by having the children he begged for. When the truth is she had long since ran through her inheritance and any other money she could scheme our grand-parents out of. Rod worked to be legit about the digits in his bank account. He was paid before Angel, even more paid with her, and was now sitting on racks that were piling up while he served his time.
“Since he got you talkin big shit to me when he gets out, I mean a big fucking ‘if’ his thieving ass gets out- he can have this muthafuckin house and everything in it- including you!” She tried to light a cigarette as she talked.
Her not being able to do it let me know I had really rattled her nerves. This wasn’t our first scre
aming and cussing match. She knew what buttons to push to get my pressure high and I knew how to shut her ass up. But, one thing was for sure, if she didn’t want us, I did and I wouldn’t miss a day without taking care of their every need. We all had seen first- hand how a few bad mistakes could ruin your life. Angel had not even finished high school. According to grandma, she spent more time focused on boys then she did anything else.
It took my grandpa to speak on how our dad had fallen victim to Angel’s games that landed him in prison the first time and then led to his stiffer sentence the second time. He also knew that Angel had pushed Rod away from his kids that everyone he would lay down his life for. Grandpa wasn’t told the truth about Rod’s specific charges handed down to him by the DEA by Angel, and he had no idea he had been incarcerated all this time. All the while Angel had no clue that her ex- boyfriend/baby’s daddy wrote his kids more than she did, which was on a regular schedule.
Angel wasn’t even sure that we all had the same dad. From prison our dad requested and paid for a paternity test. I was just as curious as he was so I answered the letter on Angel’s behalf. All of us were tested in private and it was confirmed with the high probability that we all belonged to a black man named Rodney Westin who had requested the test. He had heard too many stories from white and black men alike who had dealings with the Angel he thought he knew. The paternity issue wouldn’t allow him to sleep some nights.
Sometimes I can barely remember Rod’s actions toward us when we were younger, but he definitely remembered his four children more than Angel. He had been writing to all of his children separately for years now. Not sure how he did it, but he also managed to send us money through Western Union. Sometimes it was large amounts and sometimes it was a couple hundred dollars. The money came like clockwork just like the letters did, every Monday there was something in the mailbox from him no matter what. It took a while to gain trust in him but I had come to realize that our dad was in the right frame of mind to make sure his children were ok even though he wasn’t there physically. She felt his encouragement emotionally and listened to his fatherly wisdom without complaint.
Rod had apologized for putting his faith in the wrong woman. He confessed that he had let Angel trick and trap him into committing fraud through his personal business. She had gotten away scot free with his and his client’s money while he went to prison. He would never tell us how much time he had left so I looked it up on the internet. He still had a minimum of four years before he could be released on parole. I prayed for him and lit candles in church that the four years would fly by for the five of us. I loved Rod not just like a father-daughter relationship, I loved him because it would have been so easy for him to turn his back on us and serve his years. Instead he went through great lengths to make sure we had everything we needed. Angel was only concerned with drugs, money, and keeping up with the Jones’ who no longer felt she fit it.
15
My mind shifted back to Angel. I had no idea what it was exactly she was having withdrawals from, but I’d looked it up online for the warning signs. Every one of her actions fit the description for someone with a dependency problem. For someone who abused their bodies the way that she did every day, her actions were very unpredictable. Sometimes she could over power me and others I got the chance to walk her ass like a dog.
“Oh don’t worry sweet thang, he’s getting out and he can’t wait to see you especially after I’ve been sending him pictures and talking to him every single day about your trifling ass. He’s going to see you before he stops to see Grandma D. Now put that in your pipe and smoke on that trick!”
“FUCK YOU AMAYA, FUCK ROD, AND FUCK DELORIS’ OLD ASS! YA’LL DON’T INTIMIDATE NO DAMN BODY!”
“I BET YOU AIN’T BAD ENOUGH TO SAY THAT TO HER FACE AND YOU DAMN SURE BETTER NOT LIGHT THAT FUCKIN CIGARETTE IN THIS GOTDAMN HOUSE! I KNOW THAT!”
Angel knew she wasn’t supposed to smoke in the house because of the twin’s asthma. She knew from history smoking in the house would surely be a fight between us.
My cell phone began to ring. Angel cut her eyes at me then walked off, with the threat gone, I answered the phone.
“What the hell is going on over there? I can hear ya’ll all the way in my room!”
I wasn’t ready to tell my best friend exactly why I had to talk to my mother like a stranger in the street so I hung up on him. He lived next door and knew too much about my life as it was. I knew he would be upset and bothered but I didn’t give a damn. No one was more upset and bothered than I was.
Zina was on her way back to reclaim her seat on the crate between my legs. After another hug and kiss, all was well between the two of us. Angel walked off without another word. I tried my best to talk respectfully in front of the little kids. I prayed that I could keep my tongue and keep some kind of respect for her but she fucked it up every single time.
I finished Zina’s hair and adorned it with beautiful ribbons tied into bows. She looked exactly like the little princess I imagined in my head. I had never seen her hairstyle on anyone. The next day my phone was going to be ringing off the hook to fix hair her little friend’s hair exactly like or similar to Zina’s. I thought about cosmetology school again. I was on the fast track in high school with a perfect four point zero grade point average. I was already going to be graduating a year ahead of time and I’d started taking college courses. I tried to work out a feasible schedule in my head again that would allow me to get the credentials I needed to become licensed while taking care of three kids and attending college.
I always dreamed of being great at many things and doing hair was the ultimate hustle in my head. The girls at our school paid good money to have me come to their home to do their hair instead of them having to wait in the salon for hours at a time. I had dreams of opening my own salon one day as just one of my many private businesses. Because there was the issue of my dysfunctional mother and her shenanigans at all the wrong times, I couldn’t have a stranger over to the beautiful home we lived in to witness her heathen-like awful behavior.
16
My mind was going ninety miles per hour. I needed to figure out a for sure plan to get away from Angel and raise my siblings by myself. She had been progressively getting worse every week. There was no room in the house for the both of us. One of us had to go and since Angel had only carried her kids for nine months- and not a damn thing more, it damn sure wasn’t going to be me. She needed a new address as soon as possible.
I was moving around the house in a daze restoring my area back to order. Zina wouldn’t leave my side so when she followed me into my bedroom, it was she who locked the door. She looked so sad. I felt I needed to cheer her up. I had to find out what had her so clingy, more than her usual actions.
“Baby girl is everything okay? You know you can talk to me about anything right?”
I sat down on the bed and outstretched my arms towards her.
“Angel told me not to tell you but I can’t keep it to myself no more Mama.”
My antennas shot through the hair on my head. My imagination ran wild. I would literally kill Angel if she had violated my baby sister in anyway, there was no getting around it.
“You remember when I told you that if Angel tells you not to tell me something that it is a very bad thing and I really need to know right away, right…you remember that?”
Zina looked down at the floor. I felt a tear drop on my leg.
“You don’t have to tell me until you are ready but you know I would do anything for you guys to make sure you are safe.”
She wiped her eyes.
My heart was about to pop out my chest and lay at my feet.
“You remember the other night when she and her friend had a fight. He left slamming the doors and cussing her out in the yard until the neighbors called the police.”
“Yea, that was the night she did something to him…what was it, she cut him for stealing from her.”
I knew all about the situation because it was
one of the few times Angel had taken up for herself when it came to one of her big money sugar daddies.
“Angel didn’t cut him. I did.” Zina put her face in her hands.
“WHAT?”
I grabbed her shoulders to face me.
“I didn’t know what else to do he came in my room and he started touching me and she just stood at the door and watched him. I had your box cutter under my pillow and while he had his eyes closed I cut him as hard as I could.” She was now in full blown tears.
That trifling stankin ass bitch would offer up her own children to keep these sleezy muthafuckas that should be in jail in her life. When I get my hands on her ass I am going to need bail money. What kind of mother does this shit to her children? A nothing ass mammy that is who! Oh I hate that bitch!
“Mama, you can’t say anything! You can’t tell her that I told you. Please! Please don’t say anything to her. She cleaned my carpet and fixed my room back just as it had been…she stayed up all night so you wouldn’t find out but she made me swear on the Bible that I wouldn’t tell you. She said you had enough stuff to take care of and that she had taken care of it for you.”
I was speechless. I didn’t curse in front of the kids unless Angel was turnt up and needed to be brought down to planet earth. Zina held on to me for dear life. As much as it killed me, I wouldn’t say anything to Angel directly. There was no reason in lying because someone was going to touch Angel for me. She needed to know what it felt like to have unwanted touches. She needed to know what it felt like to be violated in her own home. She needed to know that there were real boogie men in the world that had no problems putting her in a horror film even though she was a grown ass woman.
I held on to my baby until my arms got tired. I decided to pamper my mini me a little bit we both needed to get out of the house. After I finished polishing Zina’s nails, I left her hands and toes out in front of the small fan for them to dry while I took a shower. It was almost time for me to pick up the boys from a Cub Scout camping trip they’d attended over the weekend. I wasn’t in the mood to cook so I decided to take us all out for a nice Sunday dinner- without Angel.
