by Mary Monroe
“Baby, can you break me off a few dollars? I had some unexpected expenses this week, and I’m a little short,” she cooed.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said eagerly, removing the five-dollar bill and three ones that I had in my Windbreaker pocket. The woman who lived in the apartment below ours had paid me ten dollars to do her laundry and bathe her dog two days ago. “How much do you need?”
“How much you got?”
“I can let you have five,” I told her in a sheepish voice.
“Is five all you can spare?” she asked, looking at the three remaining dollars I was clutching in my hand.
“Uh, I was going to buy me some magazines and some gum,” I replied.
“All right then,” she said, then sniffed. “The boy’s over on Shattuck, at the Eye-talian restaurant all you kids like to go to. Gobbling up one of them spicy-ass pizzas they sell over there. Damn them dagos,” Miss Louise said, with a smirk, snatching the five out of my hand so fast, she almost pulled my arm out of the socket. The money disappeared into her apron pocket as she mumbled a thank-you under her breath. Then she folded her arms and gave me a pensive look. “When my boy makes it big in Hollywood, he’s going to buy me a house, a new car, some new frocks … everything but a mockingbird. And guess what I …”
I didn’t even hear the rest of Miss Louise’s sentence, even though she followed me off her front porch out onto the sidewalk, still talking. As soon as I got to the corner, I took off running toward Shattuck Street, almost dashing in front of a bus.
When I got to nearby Giovanni’s, where Wade was supposed to be, I was glad to see him sitting with some white boy that I’d never seen before in a booth in the back. Wade had on a black leather jacket and a baseball cap turned sideways, looking straight-up awesome. I had to close my eyes, hold my breath, and blink. The space between my thighs started itching and sweating, and for a minute, I thought I was going to cream all over myself right there in the middle of the restaurant floor.
I waved and ran over to Wade’s table, almost knocking a waiter to the ground. The boy with him had on a sweater that had a snowman on the front with crossed eyes and a joint sticking out of his mouth.
“Hi, Wade! Your mama told me you was here,” I squealed, waiting for him to invite me to join the party.
First, he looked from me to the white boy and back. “Do I know you?” he asked me, with a shrug and an annoyed look on his face.
I swallowed hard and blinked at him. “It’s me,” I said sharply, pointing to my face.
“Me who?” Wade demanded. The white boy covered his mouth with his hand and snickered so hard, the snowman on his sweater moved in a way that made it look like he was puffing on the joint hanging off his lip.
“I … I was at your house day after Thanksgiving,” I stammered, hoping I would not have to explain any more than that. “My mama had borrowed a roasting pan from your mama to cook our turkey in, and I brought some money that your mama wanted to borrow.” At this point, I leaned over the table and lowered my voice. “You, uh, showed me your room …,” I said, with a nod.
“Oh. That was you?” he gasped, looking embarrassed, then amused.
“That was me,” I mumbled, my face burning with anger. Who the hell did this nigger think he was? I had heard that some boys treated girls like shit after they’d fucked them. But I never thought that it would happen to me.
“Well, what do you want me to show you now?” he sneered. That motherfucker! I didn’t know if he was being for real or if he was just trying to entertain and amuse the boy across from him at the table.
“I just wanted to say hi,” I said. I didn’t give him the chance to make me feel any worse. I slunk out of the restaurant and ran all the way back home, with tears streaming down the sides of my face, wondering if anybody would ever really care about me.
I had no cigarettes or alcohol to ease my pain. And, because Miss Louise had talked me out of most of my money, I didn’t even have enough to buy any from some of the older kids I knew.
Mama and Daddy still occupied the same spots that I’d left them in. They didn’t even look up when I stumbled across the living room floor to my room. I could not have felt more insignificant if I’d tried.
CHAPTER 16
Christmas was the one thing that made my family seem normal. Well, almost normal. But that wasn’t saying much.
What was different about Christmas was the fact that Mama cooked a big meal, Daddy put up a tree, and we even exchanged gifts. Each year I gave Daddy either a pair of socks or some Old Spice aftershave, which he used as a breath freshener. I always gave Mama something practical, like a new frying pan. Me, I never knew what I was going to get from them. One year all I got was a pair of boots with a note that had both Mama’s and Daddy’s names scribbled on it.
When I was twelve, I received two dolls, some clothes with the tags from Kmart still attached, and a Monopoly game. I hadn’t played with dolls since I was five, the clothes were three sizes too large, and I knew as much about Monopoly as I did about rocket science. But I played with the dolls, anyway, sold the clothes to a fat girl and used the money to buy some similar outfits in my size, and traded the Monopoly game for a carton of Newports and two cans of Coors Light.
I had to kick Denise’s butt when she came to my house and tried to sneak out with half of my Newports and a pair of my new jeans in her backpack. There was quite a ruckus in my room as we rolled around on the floor, pulling each other’s hair and cussing. When Daddy knocked on the door and told us to, “turn off that damn rap music,” Denise and I laughed so hard we couldn’t fight anymore. Even though we laughed, I could tell from the look on Denise’s face that she was not happy I’d won the fight, but I assumed we’d make up and still be friends. I had fought with other girls before and still stayed friends with them but Denise never came around me again after our fight.
Denise had scratched my face and I still had some of the scars by the time New Year’s Day rolled around. I coated my face with a lot of makeup to hide the fact that I’d been fighting. But I got drunk at a New Year’s Eve party at Maria’s house and told everybody about the fight anyway. I had a good time dancing with Maria’s brothers and some of their friends, but the only boy I really wanted to be with was Wade.
I was in love for the first time. Ever since I’d fucked Wade in his mama’s house, I’d been on cloud nine, and I assumed that he was, too. I had gotten over that little stunt he’d pulled on me at Giovanni’s. Somehow I managed to convince myself that that white boy I’d seen him with had something on him. Something that kept him from admitting that he was my man. I refused to believe that a boy who had fucked the daylights out of me had lost interest in me that fast.
I began to think otherwise because I hadn’t seen or heard from Wade since I’d cornered him at Giovanni’s. “I ought to go to his house and smash his windows!” I told Maria. “I ought to steal that mangy dog of his and drop him off in East Oakland somehere.”
“Then you won’t hear from him again for sure and you might get arrested,” she replied.
“He could at least call me up and tell me he don’t like me no more.” I pouted. “What am I supposed to think or do? I don’t like this shit! He can’t fuck with me like this and just forget about me!”
“I think he already did,” Maria said with a nod. “Give the boy another chance. There might even be a good reason why he hasn’t called you up.”
I gave Maria a thoughtful look and then I rushed home.
We didn’t have an answering machine, so I didn’t know if he’d tried to call me during the day, when nobody was home at my house. But he didn’t call in the evening or at night when I was home, either. And the evenings and nights that I was out lollygagging, there were never any messages left for me with my parents when I got home. But I always asked, anyway.
“Did a boy call for me?” I asked Mama. I had just come home from a party at a skating rink a few blocks from my house. I had had a few beers and a little tequila, and had
taken a few hits off a joint, so I was a little tipsy. I didn’t know if my parents knew about me drinking and getting high, because I never did it in front of them. I never looked or acted drunk or high, so they never knew when I was. I was the kind of girl who could get drunk as a skunk and as high as a flying monkey and still not stagger or slur my words. I had that much control over myself. That was one of the reasons I had such a hard time believing that I’d been played by Wade.
Even though I missed him, and would have jumped at the chance to marry him and have his babies, his absence was beginning to get on my nerves. But I still wanted to see him again. If he didn’t like me anymore and wanted nothing more to do with me, I wanted him to tell me so, to my face. “This boy that I’m expecting a call from, he’s a good friend,” I said, more to myself than to Mama. I wasn’t convinced that that was true.
“A lot of boys call you,” Mama told me, not even looking up from the television. Daddy was stretched out on the sofa, snoozing like a cat. He was on his back, with his arms folded across his chest. He was already a dull and lackluster man. When he slept, he looked like a dead man. The only reason I knew he was still alive was because he snored like a freight train.
“Did any of them leave any messages?” I had to talk loud so that Mama could hear me over Daddy’s racket.
“Naw,” Mama said, with a grunt.
There was a rolled-up Enquirer in Mama’s hand that she had been reading off and on for over a month. She glanced in my direction as she swatted a fly the size of a nickel on the arm of her chair with the old Enquirer. Then she unrolled it and started reading stuff that was so old by now, it no longer mattered. Like the two stars on the cover celebrating their lavish wedding. They’d already gotten divorced. But that didn’t matter to Mama. She had magazines that were older than me that she was still reading and using to swat flies.
I dragged my feet to my room, hoping that I would never have to introduce Wade to my parents. It was bad enough that he had a strange mama to deal with, too. Just thinking about Miss Louise, with her greedy self, made me smile as I flung myself across my unmade bed. I always stuffed a few spare dollars into my sock every time I left the house because I never knew when I was going to run into Wade’s mama. She had paid back the hundred dollars that she’d borrowed from Mama three days after I’d delivered it to her house, leaving it with Wade. But she’d come to borrow it back two days later.
I was so confused about my relationship with Wade that I could hardly think about anything else. Even though almost every girl I knew had told me at least one story about some boy fucking her, then disappearing. I never thought that one day it would be my story, too. But that’s just what it turned out to be. Wade had disappeared so completely from my life that it was like he had never existed. There were even a few times that I found myself wondering if I’d imagined the whole thing. I even went so far as to kick off my panties, straddle a mirror on the floor in my room, and stick my finger inside myself, checking to see if my cherry was still in place. But my innocence was gone. Just like Wade.
CHAPTER 17
As dull and out of touch with reality as my parents were, I was surprised that Mama bought me a blue suede jacket that was too stylish and cute for words for Christmas this year. It was a nice change from the mammy-made, dull-colored things she usually bought for me off the discount-store racks. That was the main reason I got so caught up in shoplifting.
My parents rarely came into my bedroom, and when they did they had no interest in what was in my closet, but I kept it locked anyway. When I wanted to wear one of my stolen outfits, I waited until my parents were in bed. When they stayed up later than they usually did on a night I had a party to go to, I left the house dressed in one of the frumpy outfits Mama had bought for me. But my party clothes were in my backpack. Half of my closet was full of hot “hot” outfits.
It was a cold and dreary Saturday evening, with puffy black clouds sliding slowly across a sky that looked like a gray blanket. I had just gotten over a cold that had been so serious, I hadn’t even been able to crawl out of bed for the last two days. But on the third day, I was well enough to hit the streets again.
“Mama, can I go over to the skating rink and hang out? I want to show my friends the new jacket you got me for Christmas.”
My mother was in the kitchen, washing dishes. She turned and looked at me with a blank expression on her face, which had become so familiar over the years. “Ummm,” she muttered. “You can do whatever it is you want to do.”
I already knew that. But out of respect and because I knew that it was the right thing to do, I asked, anyway. Neither one of my parents really cared about what I did. No matter what it was. I could skip school, ignore my household chores, eat junk food for days, stay out all night if I wanted to, and not have to worry about any consequences. Even though some of my friends lived in neighborhoods rougher than mine and had parents that drank, fought, and abused them, they had curfews and rules that they had to follow. To them, I was living a kid’s dream. And, it was fun, but only up to a point.
I was still in middle school, and I didn’t know what to do with myself most of the time. It was an awkward time for me. I was so confused, I didn’t know if I was coming or going.
As much as I hated school, I liked going sometimes because my teachers made sure I followed their rules. Even though I bitched and moaned about it, it made me warm all over when one of my teachers scolded me for not turning in my homework or for acting up in class.
Two weeks after Christmas, I came home after hanging out with a few of my friends a few hours later than I normally did. All of the lights were out. The old Chevy that my daddy drove was not parked in front of our building like it usually was this time of night, and my parents were not home. They had no friends that were close enough to visit, so there was nobody for me to call except the man that they worked for.
“Mr. Bloom, this is Christine Martinez. You seen my mama and my daddy?”
Mr. Bloom coughed for a full minute before he spoke. “Reuben’s girl?” he asked, clearing his throat.
“Yes, sir,” I muttered impatiently. “Are my mama and daddy still at your house?”
“Why, no, sunshine. They are supposed to be in Gilroy for some kind of festival. They bugged me about it for a week before I finally told them they could take the weekend off to go. Did you not know that?” Mr. Bloom asked, sounding surprised. I didn’t really care that much for Mr. Bloom, with his big red face and wiry gray hair. It didn’t matter to me that we lived rent free in one of his buildings. I thought that he took advantage of my parents, making them work long hours and paying them low wages. I usually hid, ignored him, or rolled my eyes at him when he came to the house. He knew I didn’t like him.
It was no wonder that he was surprised to be hearing from me, and just as surprised to hear that I didn’t know where my parents were. But he was not as surprised as I was that they had not mentioned the festival to me, invited me to go along with them, or even left me a note telling me their plans.
“Oh yeah! I remember now. Ha ha ha! Dummy me! They did tell me they were going to that festival in Gilroy. It’s some kind of celebration that the black people from Guatemala get off into every year.” I sniffed. “Mostly old folks. I didn’t really want to go. I told them that I wanted to spend some time with my friends.”
“I see,” Mr. Bloom said. A stony silence followed. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Uh-uh.” I hung up and sat on the hard sofa in our living room for several minutes, wondering what I should do next. And that’s where I ended up sleeping that night.
As many friends as I had, and as much as I got myself into, I was a very lonely child. That’s why when I woke up the next morning, I wandered over to People’s Park, where there was always something exciting happening.
Even though the park was not that far from downtown, people put up crude tents, which they slept in until somebody killed them or until they got thrown in jail. People
got drunk or stoned, fucked people they didn’t even know, and even walked around naked. One drunken woman had even given birth during the middle of an orgy one night. It seemed like every time I looked up, People’s Park was in the news. Most of my friends were not allowed to go anywhere near that place, because in addition to the occasional murders and rapes in or near the park, there were a lot of fun activities going on there that involved drugs.
There were a lot of white kids in the notorious park, some even younger than me. Most of them had run away from home. A lot of them were the kids and grandkids of the same hippies that had slept, fucked, and got high in People’s Park back in the day. These were the kids who always had the best weed.
I saw Wade before he saw me, but I had no intentions of acknowledging that sucker. He was with some big-butt white girl, anyway. I was stunned when he galloped over to me, with a cocky grin on his face.
“Hey, Christine,” he greeted, squatting down on the ground where I was sitting. I hid the joint that had just been passed to me behind my back.
“Do I know you?” I asked, with a profound smirk. It pleased me to see the hurt look on his face. Now he knew how I’d felt that day at Giovanni’s when he’d disrespected me in front of his friend.
Wade stuck out his bottom lip, and for a moment, I thought he was going to cry. “So it’s like that, huh? You treat your brother like a piece of shit when you with your Caucasian friends.” He said the word “Caucasian” like it was a cuss word.
“I don’t have no brother,” I snapped firmly, giving him a hot look. All the other kids laughed, and that seemed to make him madder than everything I’d said.
