Even Sinners Still Have Souls

by Joy, E. n.

  “What? And you sent me out there?” I demanded.

  She flicked her cigarette in the grass. “That was a minute ago. Thangs are back to normal out there now. Dudes just wanna ease some tension off in a woman. But back to what I was saying before you rudely interrupted me. Things were hot then, and a little scary. So since I always been a slick broad, I put two and two together. Mr. Baker is a man. He likes a little action. And what better action than in your own building? So I shot a spark at him.”

  “What did you do?”

  She pulled out another cigarette and lit it before saying, “I bent over, raised my skirt and told him to get his worth of the missing rent out of me.”

  I held in my laugh just thinking about her and Mr. Baker’s old behind together like that. “Well, what happened?”

  “He took the bait. My rent payment was fulfilled and all my kids had at least one gift for Christmas.”

  I looked down at my ashy feet and then back at her as she puffed on her cigarette.

  “It’s just another option, Shortcake, just another option.”

  I frowned. There had to be other options for me.” I just can’t see me doing this for the rest of my life.” I shook my head. “I used to be a secretary. I could always go back to work.”

  “You won’t make it, boo. Look at the big picture. If you make over a certain income bracket, you’ll get kicked off government assistance living and have to pay a full rent. There’s your whole paycheck right there. And the bracket is a dirt poor one I might add. Welfare will cut you off too, so you’d be going at it all solo. The average cost of a two bedroom is probably around a thousand a month outside of this place. Think about food, utilities, healthcare, and childcare. Your kids ain’t old enough to be home alone. That’s how Medina lost custody of her kids trying to go at it right, working a minimum wage job. Can you afford that all on your own?”

  I shook my head. As a secretary, after taxes I took home only fourteen hundred a month. But I was okay because it was only me. At that time I was only paying six hundred a month for rent for a one bedroom, plus utilities. I caught the bus to work and didn’t have to worry about feeding anybody but myself or buying clothes and necessities for anybody but myself. Valerie was right. The list of things I’d need to do in order to provide for my kids outweighed the money that would be coming in. Just the thought of not making it and being worse off than I am now paralyzed me with fear.

  I sighed. Something had to give. I still hoped my husband would have that moment where he would stop and look at what he was doing, go get help and we could be the family that we once were.

  “The whole system is set up for us to fail, girl,” Valerie stated. “All you can do is raise your kids the best you can and hope they have a better life than you did, even as yours passes you on by.”

  I nodded. She blew a cloud of smoke in my face, giving me a headache on top of the headache my thoughts on trying to find a way out had given me. Who was I kidding? Valerie was right, and so was the devil; there was no way out. Nope-there was only the Track.

  Chapter Five

  I remembered the first time I had to be sexual with Mr. Baker when I was short on the rent. I almost threw up in the act and I did throw up afterwards. It was the day that Joshua had snatched some of the rent money from me, punched me in my stomach when I demanded he give it back to me and was out the door.

  So when Mr. Baker swept his little behind in my apartment like a hurricane, I knew I had no choice. That first time, the kids were already gone when I did it, so I didn’t have to send them next door to Valerie’s. I had scraped up some loose change from the furniture and sent Jo Jo and Tricie out to get some ice cream. My fingers hated to peel away that three dollars in change, not because I didn’t want them to have it, but because I needed every extra cent I could get my hands on. But I had to get them out of the house. I’d peeked out the window and saw Mr. Baker making his rounds. I knew it was only a matter of time before he made his way to my place. Since I didn’t have what he was initially coming for, I knew I’d have to offer him something else.

  I had ushered them outside and told Jo Jo, “After y'all get your ice cream, take your sister to the park and come back in an hour, or I’ll beat your butt, boy.”

  “Yes, Mama,” he said excitedly. His face looked like he could already taste the ice cream. It made me feel horrible that I always had to skimp and couldn’t do simple things like take my kids for ice cream or to a movie or skating.

  Mr. Baker was coming as the kids were going. He stepped inside and stood in his soldier stance. I kept my head down.

  “Shortcake, you know it’s the first. Where is it?”

  I took three steps towards him and placed the folded up dollars in his hands, almost hoping he wouldn’t count it, but just trust my judgment, knowing somebody like him wouldn’t.

  “You’re sixty bucks short, girl,” he said after counting every bill.

  “I know, Mr. Baker. But I’m - I’m good for it.” That’s what Valerie told me to say. I bit my bottom lip as the anger and irritation slowly faded from his face and it was replaced with lust.

  “Oh really, girl? Just how good are you for it?”

  “R…Real good for it, Mr. Baker.”

  “Come over here and show me then.”

  I pulled my shift dress over my head so I was nude in front of him.

  “I always wanted a taste of you anyhow, Shortcake. You’re a pretty colored woman.”

  I swallowed hard, but the lump in my throat wouldn’t go down. Would it ever? I wondered? I hoped God wasn’t watching me sin yet again. I hoped He could forgive me.

  I sat on the couch and waited for Mr. Baker to do what he had to do. I closed my eyes as I heard the jingle of his belt buckle, the unbuttoning of his slacks, and the unzipping of his pants. The sounds reminded me of the night with the other man in his car. Please let this be just as quick. I prayed.

  “Okay. Here you go. I hope you ready for this, girl.” He slipped between my legs and his hands were all over me, fingering my flesh, prodding, probing. Having his wrinkled hands all over me made my skin crawl. It really did. “I’m ready, Shortcake.” He gripped my thighs in his hands, and then pulled his body against mine. He was breathing heavy like he was having an asthma attack, still he continued to pull out and regain entry inside of me. His old claw-like nails were digging into my thighs, stinging my skin. I closed my eyes at the stinging. His breathing started coming in short pants. Then suddenly, I felt a spasm ring out threw his body. Then he fell atop of my chest. After a few seconds, after he was able to calm his breathing down, though not entirely, he rose off of me. “Girl, go get me something to clean myself with.”

  I rushed away feeling tears slip from my eyelids. I came back with a warm washrag.

  He snatched it from me and muttered, “I hope this is clean.” He turned his back to me and cleaned himself. Then he dropped it to the floor like my living room was a trashcan. He pulled his pants up and got himself together. Then, without even a glance my way, he was out my house.

  When Joshua finally came back home, the stench of funk, piss and burnt plastic was on him. He had the nerve to sit right at the dinner table with us. I was already trying my best to split up two small pork chops, a can of lima beans and a cup of rice between me and the kids. There was also a little grits. I really wanted to save them for breakfast for the kids, but if worse came to worse, I’d just have to serve it now and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. I sighed. Now our meal that was really for one person now had to be split between four. And Joshua took the biggest portion of meat.

  He shoved his portion down his measly throat and washed it down with a tall glass of water, something we always had a lot of. It was a trick my mama used to get me full when I was a kid. Now I used the same trick to get mine full. Next Joshua started running that nasty mouth of his.

  “Why is this all we got to eat?” he demanded to know like he’d given me a ton of grocery money and this was all I came back from the s
tore with.

  “It’s the end of the month. I have to make the food stretch.”

  “That don’t have nothing to do with it. A real woman knows how to make a dollar stretch.”

  “But I-”

  His fist slammed down on the table, cutting me off and making me and our two kids jump. “Stupid!” A look of hate was on his face. I knew that hate was all for me. Every time he looked at me in that way, it made me want to cry. I used to get nothing but looks of affection, kindness and admiration even when I gave birth to both of our kids. He continued, “Don’t argue with me!” There was more silence before he asked, “You hear me? Do you?”

  “I hear you,” I whispered.

  “You gonna learn to stop playing with me.”

  I nodded and said,” We got some grits. Here.” I sighed inside and brought the pot over to the table and scooped them onto his plate. I was angry that he had the nerve to put me down when I was doing the best that I could. It really hurt my feelings.

  He took his hand and slapped the plate with the grits off the table. It made a loud crashing sound as it hit the floor. The grits splattered everywhere.

  I watched my son bite his bottom lip, probably to stop himself from making a comment about his sorry daddy. I bent over and retrieved the broken plate. That caused more problems for me, because he narrowed his eyes at me when I stood back up to my feet with the broken glass.

  “You look more like a street walker than a lady.” He stared at me in disgust. “You look nasty. Like trash. Nothing like the ladies where I’m from.”

  It was a little too late in the game for him to be telling me how to dress or what was ladylike and what was not. But when I saw that angry look in his eyes, I swallowed those words and said, “I was-”

  Before I could get out another word, he backhanded me so hard I flew into the table. I winced in pain and watched when my youngest, Tricie, screamed and ran from the room. That’s how she always handled it whenever she saw her father hit me. She would bury herself under her covers and cry the entire night away. It wasn’t often that Joshua would beat on me. That was because he was never around. He only came home when he was out of drugs or means of getting any. Not having the drugs made him angry, so he took his anger out on me.

  Jo Jo frowned so hard that his eyes closed.

  Joshua stood and looked at me while he cleaned out a corner of his teeth with his tongue, making a tsk sound. Then he looked at Jo Jo as if daring him to do something. “Shortcake, you wanna be disrespectful? That’s what you going to get.”

  I told myself it was the drugs that made Joshua act this way, or lack thereof should I say. That this was not by any means who or what he was. That he was not this selfish, violent man he was being.

  Once Joshua walked out the door, Jo Jo ran to me and put one of his frail arms around my shoulders and asked, “Mama, you okay?”

  I nodded, although the side of my mouth was oozing out blood. The slap caused my bottom lip to slam into my upper teeth. My lip was visibly swollen.

  “Mama, why won’t you make him go? We don’t need him.”

  I ignored the question. “Go to bed, baby. I’ll be okay.”

  I could tell by the look on Jo Jo’s face he wanted to say something else, but instead he just relaxed his once tightened jaw muscles and said, “Okay, Mama. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Jo Jo,” was all I could say. “I love you too.”

  Although I attended church, I never involved myself in any types of function they had there. I was too embarrassed about my life and was always afraid someone would find out about it. No matter how many times the preacher told me I was a child of the King-an heiress to His throne-it sure didn’t look or feel that way. Maybe the other church folks were living like royalty, but I sure wasn’t, and I didn’t want them to know otherwise.

  It was the same way with the few people in my circle I had met over the years at my job. They were now long gone because I never made an effort to maintain a friendship after Joshua started using drugs. For one, I did not want anyone to know about his addiction, and for two, I was so miserable and broke I had little time to hang out and would be no fun because I was always depressed. I also knew they would not understand my situation; how I could still be with a drug addict who beat on me in front of my kids. So eventually any friendships I had died off and I certainly didn’t try to ignite any new ones.

  Jo Jo hated the fact that I made us all go to church on Sundays. He didn’t believe in no kind of Lord. I guess he figured if there was such a thing as a Lord and Savior, we would have been saved by now. He felt that no way would the man they talk about in church allow us to be in the situation we were in, my being married to a woman-beating drug addict and Jo Jo and his sister having to see their mama hold everything together ’cause their daddy sure wouldn’t. I was just glad he didn’t know the worst of it, which was what I had to do sometimes to keep a roof over our heads.

  What I had done with the manager of our apartment the other day was still in my head. But I had to admit, it wasn’t worse than the last time when I was short on almost all the rent because Joshua had struck again.

  A couple of times a month I had sell my body. If I didn’t, there wouldn’t be food to put in my kid’s stomach or any lights on in the house. I had to do things with Mr. Baker; things that really made it hard to look in my kid’s face the next day, let alone in a mirror. But at the end of the day, I always told myself they were counting on me so I had to do something. Nobody else would. That county check and food stamp card only went so far. Sometimes it didn’t go further than my husband’s hand. Then we were really in for it. My faith and my kids were the only things that kept me going. And believe it or not, in the back of my mind I always hoped God would save Joshua.

  At the end of church, the Pastor always made us all get in a circle and pray. Every one would close their eyes; at least me and Tricie would, but Jo Jo, no way. He never did.

  “Was that a good sermon or what?” I always commented as we walked home after church in the blazing sun. I just wanted to get a feel on whether or not the kids were getting the concept of the teachings.

  “Yeah, it sure was, Mama,” Tricie would reply, skipping alongside me, clutching my right hand.

  “What about you, Jo Jo? What did you think about it?” I’d ask him. He’d shrug. That wasn’t good enough for me. “Well, I’m waiting.” I turned my head so it rested over my shoulder and waited for a response.

  “Mama, I don’t know why you always do this. You know I don’t believe in that stuff they be preaching about. I don’t give a squat about nobody’s God. He don’t put food on the table or clothes on our back. He don’t make you, me or my sister warm at night. And most of all, He don’t make Daddy right.”

  “Boy. Be quiet with all that.” He obeyed, and after a pregnant pause I said, “You don’t believe in God? Well, you better start because this ain’t always promised.”

  “What ain’t?” he demanded, kicking an empty beer bottle on the ground. It spun into the street.

  “This. Us. Your family.” I pointed to each of us. “What if you ain’t have us-your sister and me? Who do you think you’d have?”

  He smirked. “Then I guess nobody.”

  “Wrong, fool.” I paused my walking, pulled away from Tricie and slapped him upside the head. Tricie snickered. “You ain’t never got nobody ‘cause even when you got not a single soul on this earth, you always got God. He’s always there!” I gripped his shoulders. “You got it?” I was so frustrated. I didn’t know if it was from trying to get Jo Jo to believe the words I was saying, or if I was trying to get myself to truly believe them.

  He pulled away. “Yeah, Mom, I got it.”

  “Good. And I don’t care how bad things get for you, you have to believe in Him.”

  We continued walking home. I could tell by the look on Jo Jo’s face that he needed a little more convincing about this God thing. And if I was really keepin’ it real, so did I.

  Chapter
Six

  Drama hit the fan the next day. “Where is it?” he demanded. It was my husband back from hitting one of his corners and on his way to another one. But I couldn’t give in this time. We needed that money or we’d have no lights or gas. I couldn’t do that to my children again. I couldn’t do that to myself. In a way, I was selling my body, not to take care of my kids, but to take care of Joshua’s habit.

  “We need that money for the bills, Joshua,” I told him.

  He slapped the wind from me. Instead of falling, I gripped the end table and stood back to my feet weakly. I clutched my stinging cheek.

  “No. I need that money! Me.” He pointed to his chests. “This what you want, huh? Me groveling for it? Man, I hate you!”

  I crossed my arms under my chest stubbornly, ignoring his hurting words. My actions implied that I never wanted to see the man I used to be deeply in love with again-whether he got clean or not. “I can’t do it this time. Think about our children, Joshua!” He didn’t, wouldn’t, probably couldn’t.

  “Mama!” Jo Jo flew into the living room after hearing our raised voices. He looked at me holding my stinging cheek then he looked to his high daddy. “Why you gotta put your hands on her?”

  Joshua narrowed his eyes at his son. “Boy, since when do you question what I do? I’m a grown man.” Joshua began to glare at Jo Jo the way he always glared at me right before doing me bodily harm. “What? You think you a man now or something? You trying to step to me?” Joshua took a step toward our son.

  “Baby, go back to sleep,” I pleaded with Jo Jo, walking in between my husband and son. Jo Jo just stood there, then I pleaded with my eyes, willing him back in his room. He still refused to leave, but knew better than to respond to his father’s questions.

  “So you gonna give it up or what, Shortcake?” Joshua had turned his attention and his anger back to me since Jo Jo didn’t have nothing to say.