by Joy, E. n.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Okay fine, you don’t know how to act when someone is being nice to you.” He pulled out his gun and pointed it directly at Jo Jo. “Give me that money or I’m gonna cripple him.”
“Joshua, no!” I dropped to the ground fearfully, crying uncontrollably unable to believe that my husband would pull a gun on our son. “Please, Joshua!”
My son was sobbing so hard his shoulders were shaking uncontrollably. He started calling my name. “Mama.” His tears were a mixture of tears of anger and fear. He was angry that he couldn’t do anything about the situation. He was fearful that something bad would happen if he didn’t.
Joshua laughed and clicked the gun. Urine flew from Jo Jo’s boxers and streamed down his skinny legs.
“You sure are a sissy if I ain’t ever seen one.” Jo Jo fell over laughing onto the couch. “Boy, ain’t nobody gon’ shoot you,” he teased our son, tossing the gun next to him.
That’s when rage swept threw me. Of all the things Joshua had done, this was the lowest, and I couldn’t let it go like the other stuff he had done. I rushed forward. “You sorry piece of trash, don’t you ever pull a gun on my baby! You think it’s funny?” I punched him in the arm with my fist as hard as I could, trying to inflict pain on him.
He turned serious from my assault. “Get off of me.” I ignored him and continued to throw my fists at him, until he stopped my swinging by punching me in my stomach. I moaned and bent over in pain, clutching my stomach, almost not breathing.
“Don’t you ever put your hands on me,” he raged as he jumped up from off the couch. He started kicking me over and over again in my stomach ‘til I rolled over and tried to protect my soft part. He then yanked me up by my hair. That’s when I heard the gun click, and me and Joshua both froze.
Lord, I prayed silently. Say it ain’t so. I closed my eyes briefly for what I knew I was about to see and couldn’t run away from. My ten-year old was holding a gun and aiming it at his father.
“Get off my mama!” Jo Jo ordered.
I screamed, “Baby, please put that gun down!” Joshua pushed me away and looked at his son in surprise. He was speechless. Guess Jo Jo wasn’t as big of a sissy as he’d thought.
“No, Mama. He needs to stop hitting you.” Jo Jo’s voice got louder. “Enough is enough. I’m tired of living like this. Tired!” My poor baby stood there with grown up pain on his face-in his voice.
“Calm down, baby. It’s going to be all right,” I coaxed Jo Jo. “See, Daddy stopped.” I took a step towards Jo Jo.
“Mama, move. I want Joshua to understand something.”
I figured if I stayed calm, he would too. “Okay, baby.” I backed away.
Joshua smirked as if my baby aiming that gun at him was a joke. “Oh yeah, pissy boy. Understand what?” Joshua must have assumed that if Jo Jo hadn’t shot him by now, that he wasn’t gonna. He started taunting him-calling his bluff.
“We don’t want you around here anymore, and we don’t need you.” Jo Jo sniffed, and a sob tore threw him. “You-You don’t do nothing for us no how but cause a lot of heartache. And I’m sick of you putting your hands on my mama. Tonight, one way or another, you leaving.” He gripped the gun between his hands and repositioned it at Joshua’s heart.
Joshua threw his head back and laughed. “Boy, you came from me. One of my tadpoles went up in your mommy and then she pooped you on out.” He pointed at his chest and said, “I brought you in this world, so do you really think I’m gonna let you shoot me and take me out?”
Jo Jo wasn’t hearing his father. It was like he was in a zone. I knew I had to do something. “Jo Jo, this is your mama talking, baby, I love you. Put the gun down,” I pressed.
Jo Jo looked at me as I spoke. As soon as he did that, Joshua lunged forward to grab the gun. Jo Jo jumped and fired. The bullet hit a window. It busted. Tricie ran in the room screaming, causing Jo Jo to jump and fire again. I know in my heart he didn’t mean to do what he did next. When Tricie ran into the room screaming, without thinking, Jo Jo aimed the gun at her. In panic he fired.
Jo Jo screamed when he realized he had shot his little sister. Tricie fell to the floor. I rushed forward and scooped my baby in my arms. Blood was spilling from her chest onto her nightgown and onto my hands. “Call 911, Joshua,” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Jo Jo just stood there frozen. His shoulders were shaking. “What did I do? Tricie,” he said dryly, in a daze.
I rocked my baby but her eyes were taking on a glassy look. My shoulders and entire body shook as I sobbed. “My baby, oh dear God don’t take my baby from me!” Her head laid back like she no longer had control over it. The rest of her body was limp in my arms as well. I sobbed and felt like my heart was caving in. Blood leaked onto my clothes.
Joshua had his head buried in his head and bawled loudly and kept repeating, “What did I do?”
“Joshua, call the police!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. He’d just been standing there the entire time like he couldn’t move or something.
Joshua reached for the phone. He put it to his ear and then slammed it down. “The phone is off,” he yelled back at me.
“Then go to a neighbor’s house,” I continued yelling. “Please, just do something.” I turned my attention back to Tricie’s lifeless body. “Please, just do something,” I whimpered.
Joshua raced for the door to do as I asked while Jo Jo still just stood there looking frozen in shock.
My whimpers turned to screams. “God, nooo. Don’t take my baby.” I kept rocking her body and laid one of my hands over the bullet wound in her chest. Her heart was still beating faintly.
In all the confusion, I had forgotten about Jo Jo. He was still standing there with the gun in his hand saying over and over, “I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean to.”
I continued to rock my baby as tears streamed down my face. Before I could respond to Jo Jo, I heard another gun shot. The moment I heard the gun shot and saw Jo Jo’s body fall to the floor, I felt Tricie’s heart stop beating. I looked over at my son. I was horrified. “Noooo!” I dragged Tricie's body with me as I crawled to Jo Jo. “Baby!” The front of Jo Jo’s face was blown off and his heart didn’t have a single beat in it. I cradled his body in my other arm. I looked to the ceiling and screamed at the top of my lungs. I didn’t scream any words any particular, but I’m sure God made out what I was trying to relay to Him. After all, the preacher always told us that sometimes we didn’t have to say anything-that God knows our hearts. I’m sure He certainly knew mine.
Chapter Seven
“Miss, this is your fourteenth day here. You were supposed to be up and gone by 4:00 a.m. This bed belongs to someone else now. I need to have it changed and the sheets and blankets washed. Please respond so I know that you hear me.”
Sleep, that’s all I had been doing since the death of my kids. My kids were dead, which meant I wasn’t a mother anymore. I hadn’t been much of a mother anyway. I couldn’t even afford to bury my own kids. The State had to cremate them. I felt dead too. I was no good to do anything.
“Miss.?” The shelter staff member continued her efforts in trying to get me to respond.
I rolled over onto my back and blinked a few times before looking up at her. The middle aged black woman, who worked at the homeless shelter, stood over me and took a deep, exasperated breath. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “You have to leave.” Her tone was so cold.
“Who is that you over there fussing at, Clare?” An older and shorter black woman came and stood next to the woman whom she called Clare.
“This client, Ma’am. She won’t respond to me. It’s like she’s dead. I get so tired of these women of the night selling their souls to the devil and then coming in here for down time. They’re taking a bed from an innocent child.”
She was right about that, I felt dead but the women of the night thing? Whatever. “Go on and tend to something else. I got this,” the other lady told her.
“Al
l right, Mrs. Hope,” the lady named Clare said to the old woman.
I stared up at the older woman whose skin was so wrinkled that she looked like she had to be 100 years old.
“I am,” Mrs. Hope said to me.
I shook my head. “Excuse me?” There was something different about her expression than Clare’s.
“As old as I look,” she responded like she’d read my mind.
I offered a tight smile.
“Don’t mind Clare. Her and her husband got into an argument last night. That’s why she got that ‘tude.”
I nodded.
“But she is right; you should have been out of here already. I’ll give you a few minutes to get dressed.” Mrs. Hope turned and walked away.
I sat up in the bed and proceeded to put on my clothes so I could get out of that place. Only thing was, I didn’t know what I was going to do because I had nowhere else to go. Joshua had been arrested and locked up after what had happened with our kids. I can’t remember exactly what the charges were; something about endangering a minor-having a gun without a license and some other stuff I think. All I knew is that no matter what they charged him with or how long they locked him up, my babies were gone.
Shortly after that, I was evicted from my place. Since my kids were deceased I no longer qualified for government assistance. Mr. Baker could care less about what I was going through. Rent was due, and I was in no state of mind to be “good to him” so he evicted me. He had the Sheriff’s Department put me and all my stuff out on the streets. I slept on Valerie’s living room couch until Mr. Baker found out and threatened to kick her and her kids out, so I had to go.
For the past two weeks I had been living at the homeless shelter. Maybe my fate was to now be a woman of the night, like the lady, Clare, had accused me of being. Maybe she knew my fate.
When Mrs. Hope came back, she had a mug in her hand. “Here’s some coffee. It should get you moving and shaking a bit.”
“Thanks.” I took a sip of the warm liquid that tasted like everything else I had attempted to shove in my mouth before pushing it away: nothing.
“You’re the first I ever seen in here black, with red hair and freckles, child. Where you come from?” she joked.
I shrugged and sipped the warm brew again while the old woman with hair so gray it looked white studied me.
“‘Cause of course you know this ain’t the first time I’ve seen you.” I narrowed my eyes at her trying to see if I recognized her. I was sure I’d never seen her before. I figured she’d probably meant that she’d seen me at the shelter before today since I’d been there so long. But to my surprise, that wasn’t the case.
“I seen you in church with them handsome kids. Boy, you sure used to sing them songs, girl!” I thought about all those times during praise and worship I used to sing hard like I was up in the choir stand singing to the Lord Himself. I never thought anybody heard me; not even God sometimes. “I thought for sure one day you’d join the choir,” she added.
“No, Ma’am. Not me.” I shook my head.
“You never got involved in the church activities, meetings, and Bible study. You just came to praise the Lord, huh?” She smiled and clapped her hands together. “That’s all right too, my sista.”
Mrs. Hope was right. I did. It was the only time in what I was going through that I allowed myself some type of joy when I was at church. But now… I didn’t share the same joy about church anymore. I simply mumbled, “Thank You,” and handed her the now empty mug.
She rushed away quickly; guess ’cause of the awkward moment; her throwing me out and knowing good and well I had nowhere else to go but to the streets. This was a moment she probably didn’t want to be a part of.
I looked down at the floor for my beat up sandals. One strap was hanging limply and was about to give out any minute. I pulled them on as best as I could. I pulled the blanket and sheets off the bed, balled them up at the edge like they instructed me to and walked out of that place. Clare watched me as I exited, shaking her head.
Once I stepped outside, the cold morning wind hit me in a gust. I shivered, then wrapped my arms around myself. The early morning was still dark. It made my heartbeat speed up. I took one step, when I felt a hand on my back stopping me. I jumped back and spun around. I took a deep breath when I saw that it was Mrs. Hope that had touched me.
“I was wondering...I have a small room in my home. Nothing special. I use it for storage. ’Cause Lord knows over the years…” Her words trailed for a moment. “I have acquired a lot of stuff from me and my late husband. And for the next couple days, ‘till you get on your feet, if you want to, you can stay there. Now if you want meals too, then you gonna have to work for those. Laundry, cleaning, and what not, whatever you see needs to be done, you can do it. You ain’t too old. What, you in your thirties?
I nodded.
“Well, that means you’re able to clean.”
I nodded again, glad I wouldn’t have to sleep on the streets.
“My house is on Kornblum. The house number is 1943. It’s the fourth to last house on the corner. Here’s an extra key. Go ahead and let yourself in.”
I stared down at the key in complete disbelief. I mean, this woman didn’t know me from Adam. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to play some cruel joke on me. When I reached out for the key, was she going to snatch her hand back and say, ‘Syke?’ But she was too old to be playing games. This had to be real.
I slowly reached out and took the key from her hand.” Thank you, Ma’am.” I was shocked that a complete stranger would do something like this for me, but I appreciated it nonetheless. Still thinking in the back of my mind that she might have a change of heart and confiscate the key at any minute, I just stood there.
“No I don’t trust you,” she said, once again reading my mind. “But it’s God I do trust, and if He led me to invite you into my home, then I’m gonna be obedient because God will never lead His sheep astray.” She winked with a smile. “Now go on. Walk down two blocks. Make a right. Pass Yukon Street, make a quick left and you there.”
I nodded and made a mental note of what she had said and walked off. I didn’t just make a mental note on what she’d said about how to get to her house, but what she’d said about God too. I sure was glad she trusted in God. Hopefully she had enough trust for the both of us.
Chapter Eight
It wasn’t nothing to clean-up in Mrs. Hope’s house. It was spic and span. The room that she supposedly kept her and her late husband’s things in was practically empty, except for some old records, hats and boxes. I didn’t touch any of it; I just slipped off my shoes got in the bed and let sleep take over.
I was hoping I could sleep the day away, which is what I had been doing. I only woke up to see what time it was. Not only did I sleep the whole day away, I was prepared to sleep the night away as well, but Mrs. Hope killed that when she came in the small room I was in and turned the light on. I turned over and shielded the light with my hands, not bothering to uncover them as she spoke.
“Why don’t you come in here and sit with me. I bought a cake from the store; red velvet. You looked like a red velvet kind of girl; with all that red hair and freckles and all. And I got some cold milk too.” She turned and walked away, letting me know she was not asking.
I slipped my pants and tee shirt over my head. All I had was two outfits, the one on my back and a dress. It was all I grabbed when I got thrown out. I didn’t care about that material stuff. All I wanted was to be with my babies. I did managed to grab two photos of Tricie and Jo Jo though. I kept them hidden in my bra. I slipped on my shoes, stood to my feet and walked into the living room. Mrs. Hope was already seated and slicing a huge hunk of cake that she placed on her plate. Across from her plate was an equally large slice on another plate and some milk in a champagne glass.
“Go on and sit,” Mrs. Hope ordered.
I did. When I made no move to grab the piece of cake, she pushed the plate my way. “Thank you,�
� I whispered hoarsely.
“Um humph. They say this supposed to be some good cake. I never had cake better than sock-it-to-me, so we’ll just have to see.”
“Red velvet cake is good,” I said flatly.
“Oh, you have had it before?” she asked without looking up. Her eyes scanned an Ebony magazine that had a man and a woman on it, which she tossed to the side on her end table. She picked up her fork and started attacking her piece of cake.
“Yes.” I didn’t tell her that it was the kind of cake me and my husband had at our wedding.
“What you think about that Jay Z and Beyoncé?”
If I were in better spirits and wasn’t so numb inside, I probably would have cracked up laughing at this woman old enough to be my great-great grandmother asking me about Hip Hop’s most famous couple. I probably would have even engaged myself in her pointless, but fun, conversation because we all at one point in our lives gossiped about the stars. Some wishing they were them. Funny though, when things were the way they were before Joshua’s addiction, and I was raising the kids in our house, I wouldn’t have traded that for any amount of riches and fame.
“That girl sure can pop that bubble-behind of hers. You built up like her too,” Mrs. Hope said matter of factly, biting into her cake.
I nodded and gave a dry “Thank you” for the compliment. Over the last month and a half I had lost so much weight I definitely didn’t feel like I looked like Beyoncé’. She was just trying to be nice-make me feel better than I knew I looked.
“That boy Jay Z sure know how to push out those rhyming words too. I try to listen to it when my grandson comes over, but I gotta admit,” she chuckled and waved her hands, “I can’t keep up.”
I thought, I’ll never have grandkids.
“You think he really loves that girl?”
“Look, Mrs. Hope, I don’t want to be rude, and I thank you for opening up your doors to me.” I swallowed hard. “And after I say what I’m about to say you may close those same doors. But I gotta say it. If you’re looking for a companion and conversation, then I’m the wrong person. You ain’t gonna get it from me. And it’s not because I’m rude or have a bad attitude. It’s simply because I don’t have nothing in me to give.” I pointed to my chest with my right index finger. “I’m dead on the inside. I appreciate everything you offering me. I mean, you are genuinely kind. But that deadness in me is nothing pretty or engaging, and can’t nothing change it.”
