Allegedly

by Tiffany D. Jackson

  “Straight in what way?”

  Marisol shoots her a glance that would’ve started a fight any other day but China jumps in.

  “Nah yo, I can fill in for her. I’m good at this, getting shorties to talk about their feelings and shit,” China says and cracks her knuckles. “So Tara, tell me, what are you feeling right now?”

  “Hungry,” Tara says and the group snickers.

  “Interesting. Let’s try something else. What you wanna be when you get out of here?”

  Tara shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you turn eighteen, like, soon?” Joi asks.

  Tara nods. “Four months.”

  The room sighs. She really doesn’t have to say anything more; everyone knows what that means. I think about Ted and rub my stomach.

  “Yo, you should join the army or something,” China offers. “You mad strong, they’d like you.”

  “Why would I wanna fight for some white man’s war?”

  The group laughs. Tara giggles, sounding normal, cheerful, despite what she’s up against. I wouldn’t be laughing.

  “That’s what my daddy used to say,” Tara says. “My daddy was like, mad smart. When my moms didn’t want me no more, he took care of me. I was the only one of the kids that got to live with him, that’s how much he loved me. He used to say never fight for the white man, ’cause the white man don’t care nothing about black people. He died when I was thirteen, white man’s AIDS got him. I got sent to the white man’s foster care, the white man’s school, the white man’s prison, and now I’m in the white man’s basement talking to y’all.”

  The group cackles as loud shuffling echoes above us. Ms. Veronica comes booming down the stairs, almost tripping at the bottom.

  “Girls, I’m so so so sorry!”

  “Ms. Veronica, you late. Again!” Joi shouts, foot stomping.

  “I know, I know, but traffic . . . traffic was just terrible. Whew! Okay, okay, so where should we start? Oh no, wait, let’s take out our feeling notebooks first. Right?”

  “Nah, Ms. V, I’m the therapist today,” China says.

  Ms. Veronica flusters then nods.

  “Um, okay! You know, role reversal could be good for us here.”

  China grins and leans back in her chair, pretending to take notes.

  “So Ms. V, what you wanna be when you get out of here?”

  “She already out of here, dumb ass,” Joi groans. “She ain’t ever even been in here!”

  “Man, you don’t know her life! But fine! I’ll change the question. Ms. V, you made it out the hood. Congratulations! Now, why you do what you do?”

  Ms. Veronica fidgets, but holds a fake smile.

  “Well, people say I’m a good listener. I can really get people to open up.”

  Kelly chuckles. “Is that what you think you’re doing here? Getting us to ‘open up’? I hate to break it to you, but you’re doing a real shitty job.”

  Ms. Veronica takes a deep breath.

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear you say that, Kelly,” she says, her voice shaky but determined. “But I am trying my best to . . . give you the emotional tools . . . to help you succeed.”

  “How? By making us write in these stupid books?”

  Kelly tosses her book in the middle of the circle. Ms. Veronica’s face stiffens.

  “You know, even though I haven’t been exactly in your situations, I can still relate,” she says, growing defensive. “I . . . I lost my first boyfriend, my first love. And I was in a dark place for a long time. Even had to move back home with my parents. But I dug my way out of my depression, went back to school, and found a career that I love. So you see, ladies, I’m here, almost to be an inspiration. That you, too, can overcome anything.”

  An entire minute goes by and no one says nothing. Finally, Kelly busts out laughing.

  “What is so funny?” Ms. Veronica demands, clearly offended.

  “Yo, Ms. V,” China says slowly. “No disrespect, but are you really trying to tell me you having a dead boyfriend is like being in a group home?”

  Ms. Veronica’s face turns red. She starts to say something but stops herself.

  “You know it must be real nice being able to come and go whenever you please, even to go to school,” Kisha says sharply. “Not having no record and getting a job wherever you want.”

  “And it must be real nice having a home to move back to,” Joi snaps. “With real parents taking care of you. You lost your boyfriend? Looks like you were able to replace him real quick. I lost my pops and my moms might as well be dead if I knew where she was. I’ve been in group homes since I was fucking twelve! How you suggest I replace them?”

  The room tenses. Bean moves and I wonder if it can feel the years of pent-up anger trying to dig its way out of a shallow grave.

  “So yeah, you right, China,” Joi says, rolling her neck. “I wouldn’t know nothing about her life!”

  Ms. Veronica swallows, avoiding eye contact.

  “You know what,” she croaks. “I think we should end our session early today.”

  Joi huffs. “Don’t you mean on time?”

  There are two DMVs in Brooklyn. One downtown and one in Coney Island.

  “Go to Coney Island,” one of the cooks in the kitchen told me. “The lines there are shorter.”

  He lied. I waited forty-five minutes just to get a ticket number. That’s when Ted walks in.

  “What are you—”

  “I overheard you talking,” he says with a guilty expression.

  Damn, I miss his voice . . .

  The place is empty except for us, or that’s how it feels when he talks to me. Like we’re the only two people in the world. I want to stand here forever looking at him, hating him and still loving him at the same time. He still has my teeth marks on his arm. I walk away and he follows.

  “Mary, come on, talk to me. You can’t just not talk to me!”

  There is one empty seat left between a grandma and some lady with a heap of kids playing around her. I wiggle into the seat and he stands in front of me. The pink ticket says D097. The monitor says D013. This is going to be a long wait.

  “Please, baby,” he begs. “Let me explain. About what you saw.”

  His shoes look brand-new and fancy. Not the shoes of a poor group home kid like me. He kneels down just to meet my eyes.

  “Baby? Please,” he whispers, hand pressed against my thigh.

  “Don’t touch me,” I say.

  “Yo, stop trying to push me away.”

  “I said, don’t touch me.”

  “Mary, what you saw, it wasn’t like that!”

  The lady next to us with the kids is hanging on to every word of our conversation. Across from us, an older man in a construction jumpsuit watches, eyeing Ted like he wants to say something, but doesn’t.

  “Those are new,” I say, a bite in my voice, nodding at the floor.

  Ted peeps down at his shoes like he forgot he had some on.

  “They were a gift.”

  Has Ted always been such a liar? Yes. I knew it all along. It never made sense for him to love someone like me, after everything I’ve done.

  The old woman next to me is so deep into our business she missed her number. She jumps up and Ted moves to her seat.

  “I know what you’re thinking. And I just want to explain. I should’ve been honest with you. But baby, it was for us.”

  D027. Time and this line could not move any slower.

  “The girl you saw . . . she’s not my girl,” Ted whispers. “She . . . I just live with her. Aight. There. You know everything now.”

  Ted is wearing cologne or something. He’s never smelled like this before. Everything about him seems new. He’s a whole new Ted. Or maybe I never really knew him at all.

  “You live with her? For free?”

  “Not really . . . sort of.”

  It hurts to look into his eyes. It hurts to be so close to him. To want him and not want him at the same time. Feels like my ar
ms are being pulled out from both sides.

  “You sleeping with her?”

  He exhales and doesn’t look at me.

  “Baby, I would’ve been out on the street.”

  A knife cuts me open from my heart down to my belly button. I’m bleeding to death and no one can see.

  “But it’s different, with you,” he adds.

  I turn away and stare at nothing. He must take me for an idiot.

  “You don’t believe me? Do you?”

  He reaches for my hand and I snatch it away so fast I almost hit the lady next to me.

  “Baby, I’m doing this for us. So we can have paper for Bean!”

  I don’t respond and he doesn’t push me. We sit there silent, frozen, stubborn as boulders.

  D038.

  “I forget sometimes, how young you are,” he says and slouches in his seat. “You just don’t understand.”

  “You can’t blame my age for your lies.”

  Ted raises an eyebrow. He wants to respond, but is smart enough not to. There’s nothing he can say to save himself.

  We wait in silence for another thirty minutes. Ted only moves to stretch his legs in his seat.

  D072.

  “Me and Leticia, we just cool. She’s smart and knows how to work niggas. So we came up with this plan to, you know, have her bun up with some of the dudes in the building and niggas on the block. They give her money, buy her clothes and all that shit, and she gives me a cut. We figured we could make more money if we brought in some of her friends that are like her. I link them, like I’m doing a homie a favor, and they hit me up too. But I’m not out spending the money like that. I’ve been saving the money for us. For Bean.”

  I look down at his shoes again. Bright green expensive laces. He kicks his foot out.

  “I told you, these were a gift! Leticia gave me these. But I don’t love her, baby, I love you. We’re different. You know that.”

  Stop talking, Ted. Just stop.

  D080.

  “I didn’t tell you about it ’cause I knew you wouldn’t understand. I was gonna use the money to get our spot when the baby was born and dead all contact after that. I swear, baby.”

  “How many girls?”

  “Huh?”

  “Girls, Ted. You have more than just Leticia. You have more places to stay. How many?”

  Ted winces and turns away. The number must be high. How long has he been pretending to be broke? How many times have we pooled our money together like he had none?

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.

  “The same reason you didn’t tell me.”

  For a moment, I forgot I told him about Alyssa. And then I understand. It wasn’t shame, it was fear that kept him from telling me; fear of the reaction from the one person who matters more to you than anyone in the world.

  We hear my number called and I scramble out of my seat. Ted follows to the window, hands in his pockets, sulking. The woman looks like she has been working at the DMV for over a thousand years, face sagging to her chin, hair dyed black with white roots.

  “I need to get an ID,” I say.

  “Where’s the paperwork?” she asks, smacking her lips.

  I open my bag and hand her my birth certificate. She tips her glasses to the end of her nose, looking over my shoulder.

  “Is this your guardian?”

  “No. He’s . . . my cousin.”

  She stares at him again.

  “Then who is your guardian?”

  “I’m . . . I don’t know.”

  “Are you in foster care?”

  I shrug. “Sort of.”

  “Then you need to come back with your guardian.”

  “But . . . I have all my stuff here.”

  “Do you have your MV45b?” she asks, losing patience.

  “What’s that?”

  She sighs.

  “I need your birth certificate, your social security card, and an MV45b form. You also need your legal guardian here with you with a proper state ID to vouch for you. We can’t process you without it.”

  She shoves the paper back toward me and clicks a switch for a new number.

  Another roadblock. It never ends.

  I walk away, slipping my birth certificate back into my bag. Why wouldn’t Ms. Stein or Winters tell me that? Aren’t they my guardians? Did they know? They did know. They did this on purpose. It’s punishment. They knew that I would have to tell them what I needed an ID for.

  Ted walks behind me, rubbing my shoulders while we exit.

  “It’s okay, babe. We can get you a fake ID. I know a dude who . . .”

  I squirm from under his hands and step away. He throws his hands up.

  “Aight, Mary, that’s enough! Quit being like that! I said I was sorry. I’m fucking here and not with them, aren’t I? What, you rather me sleep on the fucking sidewalk? You want me to be a fucking bum on the street?”

  His voice is loud and demanding, but his eyes are begging for forgiveness. I turn away to keep from being melted by them.

  “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  The words come out in a hiss, like a rattlesnake, poisonous and deadly. He steps away from me then sighs, all the fight leaving him. Torn, I quickly walk to the train before I have a chance to change my mind.

  “Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Mr. Giggles! Noooo!”

  Ms. Reba’s screams wake up the entire house. I’m not usually nosy, but when I hear all the doors open and the girls whispering, I follow the voices downstairs. And there’s Ms. Reba, wailing by the doorway. Hovering over, from what I can tell, all that remains of her cat.

  “Oh no! Noooo. Please, no!”

  I never really paid much attention to that cat. You barely saw him but he was a quiet pain in the ass. His white fur covered the house like Saran Wrap and he hated using his litter box. He’d rather piss on the couch instead.

  “Holy shit,” Joi gasps. “Do you see that thing?”

  The cat is a gory mess. Eyes carved out, holes throughout his body like he was jumped in the shower at baby jail, tail chopped off and hanging from his mouth. The hallway reeks of the bleach Ms. Stein likes using on the floor. He must be soaked in it. We all stand around, staring at each other. Why would anyone kill Mr. Giggles?

  “Noooo . . . why! No no no no no . . .”

  This all seems too familiar. Ms. Reba kneeling on the floor, wailing in front of her child. Reminds me of Mrs. Richardson and Alyssa . . . I can almost feel the mud soaking through my pajamas.

  I didn’t mean to throw her . . .

  The coldness sets in and the shakes start, violent as a seizure. I take a step back, bumping right into New Girl, watching Ms. Reba, her eyes cold.

  Ms. Reba stands up, hands bloody, face dripping with snot and tears, eyes blazing in rage. The whole room stiffens.

  “YOU! You . . . you little bitches! You little bitches killed my baby!”

  My heart stops, hearing her hoarse voice echo almost the exact words Mrs. Richardson said that night. Feeling the stabbing pain of her blame. All these years, it’s what hurt the most.

  But I didn’t mean to throw her . . .

  Ms. Reba jumps up, arms swinging. The girls scatter and shriek. I’m so stuck in my past that I can’t move and Ms. Reba is heading right for me, ready to kill. This is it. I’m going to die because I’m Alyssa-ing again. That hollow hole in my chest tightens. Ms. Reba lunges with a scream and I am ready to die, imagining her claws ripping me into shredded meat. But instead she snatches Kisha by the ponytail and shoves her against the wall by the throat.

  “Who did it! You fucking better tell me!”

  “I . . . I . . . didn’t do it, I swear,” Kisha screams.

  “Tell me! You fucking tell me! Tell me NOW!”

  “Reba, yo, calm down, man,” China yells, trying to break them apart. “Kisha wouldn’t do some shit like that, man!”

  Ms. Reba spins around and backhand slaps China to the floor. Kisha coughs, beating against Ms. Reba’s hand, fighting to bre
athe. Tara tries to save her while Marisol helps China to her feet. The rest of us are frozen in fear.

  New Girl calmly takes my hand and pulls me up the stairs as Ms. Stein comes hobbling fast out of her bedroom.

  “Reby! Reby! NO! Stop! You’ll kill her!”

  “I can’t! No, someone else got to do this,” Joi coughs, last night’s dinner by her feet. “Y’all, I can’t breathe. This shit ain’t right!”

  The eight of us are on the floor, cleaning up what’s left of Mr. Giggles. Ms. Stein took one blue sponge, cut it into eight pieces, gave us a bucket of water, Ajax, and a trash bag, and then told us to get to work.

  New Girl and Joi’s job was to get rid of Mr. Giggles while the rest of us crawl around on our hands and knees, scrubbing puddles of blood seeping into the wood. But damn . . . the sight of that mutilated cat. Joi threw up twice just holding the bag open for New Girl.

  “No, I’m not playin’ y’all! I can’t do this shit,” Joi croaks, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “This mad nasty. I didn’t kill that fucking cat; one of you bitches did it!”

  “Yo, shut the fuck up, Joi,” China barks, losing her patience. “Ms. Stein said if we don’t clean this shit up we’ll all be on house restriction for who knows how long!”

  “I don’t give a—”

  China jumps to her feet and slams Joi into the door by her neck.

  “I’m not gonna be on no fucking house restriction because of your dumb ass! We in this together so you better clean that shit up or I’mma put your fucking face in it!”

  “Whoa,” Kisha mumbles. China has never lashed out like this before. No one knows what to make of it so no one moves. Joi gasps for air, teary eyes shifting down to Kelly. For a change, Kelly doesn’t come to her defense, thinking the same as the rest of us—no one wants to be on house restriction. No one wants to go back to life in a cage. China finally lets go of her neck and Joi slumps to her knees. Kelly glances at me, eyes narrowing. Without makeup, you can see her face is still a little scarred with red patches in the shape of random continents. I quickly look away.

  “Yo, don’t you have a man, Joi?” Kisha asks with a chuckle as China goes back to cleaning. “If you ever want to see him again, you better clean that shit up.”