The Disturbed Girl's Dictionary

by Nonieqa Ramos

  I love to eat chicken but not the Church’s Chicken kind. The kind in the cartoons that have this smell that wakes a guy up so he floats toward the oven in his sleep. I always asked Yasmin, Could we make this? She’d say, With what? How we going to get a chicken?

  Alma: “Blah blah blah blah! So? Macy?”

  Me: “Uh, what was the question?”

  She sighs. I try her patience.

  Blessing

  Noun. Bless rhymes with a big-ass mess. And Alma already told me B for Blow don’t go before B for Blessing, so I don’t need you to tell me. Who is you anyway? You don’t know my life. This dictionary defines my ass, not yours.

  Science teacher taught us about genetics today. Kids in our class talked about how their whole family had blue eyes or how their mom’s side had the cancer.

  Our whole family has been to prison. Even me. Don’t know if it’s something in our genes or not.

  I was there because I was born there. My mother told me when I was in her belly, she could see my hand under her skin. She said the women in the prison would lay their hands on her belly. Press their hand to mine. I’ve seen it in my dreams. But am I dreaming of what my mother told me or what really happened? How far back can a person have a memory?

  I want to ask someone: When those women in prison touched my mother’s belly was I blessed or was I cursed?

  I look at my mother and her guest on the couch. They start singing the song “Bend Over.” Guest cracks a joke about my father bending over in prison. My mother titty-twists him. He atomic wedgies her, yanking her thong a foot in the air. I think more about genetics and I feel queasy.

  Because this shit is the reason why people like me end up talking to abandoned buildings. I focus on a easier question: When is the CPS bitch getting here?

  You remember CPS, Dear Reader? (See A for All About You.) Every time a car pulls up outside our place my chest gets tight. Is it Daddy with flowers or a shotgun? Is it CPS with Zane AND a court order to take me to foster care? My mother told me foster care might as well be prison.

  Another caseworker is supposed to pick Zane up from his secret location and bring him to my house. We’re all going through the Mickey D’s drive-thru. Then we’re all going to prison to see Daddy. I know. You’re so jealous. Hater.

  Yasmin: “Wait outside, Macy. I don’t want the CPS bitch in my house. She got no right.”

  I step outside for air. There isn’t none. Only the stank of dumpster and grease.

  Oh shit!! I can see Zane from a mile away! I jump up and down like I’m six, got a dollar and see the ice-cream truck. My brother’s shaggy head hangs outside the window like a dog’s. ZANE!!!

  “Woof! Woof!” Zane barks as he and the CPS worker pull up in a silver Prius.

  I stick my head in the window and the stank of old French fries hits me. Probably from all the other kids CPS kidnapped.

  Miss CPS flashes her badge and tries to tell me her name. I cut her off: “Got any gum?”

  Zane: “Woof! Woof!”

  Miss CPS: “Young lady, no need to be rude. It’s—”

  Me to Zane: “Good boy!” I rub his ears. He starts licking up on my face. “Nasty!!!” I push him off by the face, but we’re both laughing.

  As I climb into the backseat I see Miss CPS’s’s’s (I HATE apostrofees with the letter S) frowny face in the front mirror. Zane and I chow down. We’re rolling past 3211 now. The whole family stands all up in our business folding their arms, nodding their heads, and no doubt clicking their tongues. Zane flips a paw. I flip a finger and throw a chicken McNugget.

  Miss CPS: “Hey, Macy, you stop that!”

  I do stop. But not because of Miss CPS. Because, I realize, I wasted a perfectly good McNugget. And because 3211 can’t see us anymore and every gang member looking for a reason to start shit can.

  Zane, how-fucking-ever, don’t have a STOP button. He keeps flipping his paw in the back window.

  “Bad dog!” I say.

  “Arf! Arf!” Zane whimpers. “Wooooooo!”

  “Don’t be sad.” I open up the window. He sticks his head out, happy.

  Miss CPS: “Do you think you ought to encourage his behavior?”

  Me: “I think somebody ought to encourage something about him.”

  That shuts her face up.

  I stare out the window, taking in every store, every restaurant, so I can find the exact place where normal ends and prison begins. I’m feeling too many fucking feelings. I kick Miss CPS’s seat. She says stop. That makes me mad. Being mad is what I need.

  “Why does everything good go fast and everything that sucks go so slow?” I ask. “Is the prison at the ends of the earth?”

  Miss CPS offers me gum to shut me the hell up. She has opened the gum floodgate. I must have it all. Then, lucky for her, Miss CPS’s GPS says, You have arrived at your destination.

  In the distance I see the words: Something Correctional Facility. I never heard of no one coming out the cooler being correcter than they used to be.

  We pull up by my mother’s car in the parking lot. Her latest guest is driving and she’s in the passenger seat. Miss CPS hops out to meet them, but Zane stays put. It’s been weeks since he’s seen my mother. Ever since the court order, she’s not supposed to have unsupervised contact with him. My mother says that means if he’s in the hospital bleeding to death because his foster parents beat him down, she can’t so much as stick her head in the room if CPS ain’t there. His own mother.

  She has gotten out of her car and taps on the Prius’s’s window hard like she’s trying to get a dead fish to move. I open Zane’s door. He lunges out and tries to bite her.

  I grab him by the collar.

  Miss CPS writes a note on her pad.

  “What the fuck, Zane?” my mother says, raising her hand to hit Zane on the head. I jump up and give my mother a high-five.

  Didn’t fool Miss CPS. She takes another note.

  My mother is about to say something to Miss CPS before Mr. Guest sticks a cigarette in her mouth, smacks her ass, and walks her to the side of our car by her ass cheek. He whispers, pointing to Miss CPS’s’s notes. She nods.

  I grab Zane by the belt loop and lead him across the lot toward the steps of what looks like a factory. Everybody else follows. EVERYBODY.

  Me to my mother: “Is Mr. Guest coming in?” I pretend to let Zane loose on him before yanking him back. I look up at the prison windows in the distance and wonder what my daddy can see. My mother follows my stare. She gets a lightbulb. DUH.

  My mother: “I—uh—m.” (That awkward moment when you need your ride to wait outside.) She manages to squirm out of Mr. Guest’s arms like they were getting ready to kiss good-bye the whole time. “Of course not,” she says. “He’s got better things to do.”

  Then I change my mind, and I’m sorry I warned her. I want Mr. Guest to go in so Daddy can see him.

  Me: “Like what?” My scalp itches like I’m growing horns. “I mean, he drove you all this way. I think Mr. Gues—”

  Guest: “Rico, damn it! My fuh—” (he looks at Miss CPS) “name is Rico.”

  Me: “Rico! Yes, yes. You should go in. I’m sure Daddy would want to thank Rico for taking his—” Insert a long-ass pause here. For all you ignorant motherfoes, you can fill in the blank with:

  Cheetos

  car

  bed

  couch

  TV

  wife

  “What, Macy?!” my mother screams, stomping her stilt.

  Me: “Uh . . . for taking us to see him.”

  Rico: “Uh. I don’t—”

  My mother: “—want to interrupt our family time?”

  Me: “Oh, thank you, Rico, for not interfering with our time. Zane, thank him.”

  Zane: “Grrrrrrrr! Rrrr!”

  Rico: “What the fuck did he say? What the fuck is everybody saying?”

  “All right!” Miss CPS interrupts all of us. “Macy. Why don’t you lead Zane inside? Maybe hold him by the hand instead of t
he belt loop. Sir? There’s a waiting room with a television.”

  Rico: “Television? I got me a phone. And I don’t feel like going through metal detectors. I’ma cool it outside.”

  We push through giant doors and go through a check-in station where guards inspect our bags and our shoes. Of course, Zane refuses to take off his shoes.

  Zane: “Grrrrrrr! Ruff! Ruff!”

  “God damn it,” my mother says. Miss CPS takes notes.

  Skinny guard: “Y’all are going to have to get your shit together or y’all will have to leave.”

  My mother to me: “Take him to the car.”

  Miss CPS: “No, that would not be appropriate. Let’s—”

  Me to my mother: “You take him to the car. You’re his mother.”

  My mother to me: “How dare you say I’m his mother!”

  Skinny guard scratches his ear and raises his voice: “Look, y’all have thirty seconds. I don’t have time for this.”

  Miss CPS calls her supervisor. My mother has a lightbulb. She lunges for Zane’s shoes. Zane bites her. My mother is screaming. Miss CPS is trying to put Zane back on his “leash.” Zane is climbing onto the conveyor belt of the X-ray machine.

  As a result, we get told the visit has to be rescheduled. In addition, the SWAT team that has descended upon our asses tells CPS if Zane does not get his hyperactive self away from the X-ray machine, we gonna have a problem. A guard with a tattoo of a eye on his eyelid grips his Taser.

  “No,” I say real quiet like Miss Black do. She is the sensei of silence.

  Everybody shuts the hell up. Whoa. DOPE.

  Guard with tattoo of a eye on his eye: “What?”

  Me: “No. You can’t cancel the visit. I didn’t do nothing. Why shouldn’t I go?”

  My mother: “No, no, no. She don’t go if I don’t go.” My mother throws me the evil eye. My ears feel hot.

  Miss CPS: “Actually, Yasmin—”

  Skinny Guard: “A’ight. You go with”—he looks at Miss CPS’s’s badge—“Miss Lebowitz.”

  Yeah. And I might as well lock myself in a cell because it would be safer than going home with my mother tonight.

  Then my mother does the worst thing she could do. She looks worried.

  FUCK. “Wait!”

  My brain talks to itself: With what my dad is going through, this ain’t gonna work. Yeah, my dad, the man no one here seems to be thinking about. He’s probably been talking about the visit to his buddies all day. He’s probably covered head to toe with tattoos of my mother. My mother. The one he is needing the most.

  It’s happening again. Too many feelings. Like I’m carrying a tray of 10,000 dirty dishes. I’d rather just let em crash and walk on glass. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.

  Me: “Please let my mother in. I’ll get my brother out of there and we’ll wait here.” I talk in Miss Black’s soft voice.

  Miss CPS: “No! The whole purpose of the visit—”

  Skinny Guard: “Miss Lebowitz, only God knows the real purpose of anything.” He turns to my mother. “You got five minutes.” And now he looks at Zane, who is sitting on the X-ray machine’s conveyor belt swinging his legs. “Zane, you one lucky dog to have this girl looking out for you.”

  I snap my fingers. Zane hops down, runs to me, and sits. I pat him on the head.

  Miss CPS to me: “You couldn’t have done that in the first place?”

  Me: “You got the badge. I’m not the one in charge. She-it.”

  A scar-faced guard waves my mother forward through the metal detector.

  I drag Zane up to his feet. “We have to wait with Rico now. Just remember what to do if I say sic him.”

  The skinny guard laughs. My mom is about to disappear behind a huge heavy metal door. I call out: “Ma, tell him I love him.”

  My mother don’t even turn around: “I only got five minutes. Can’t remember the last time you said that to me.”

  I mouth: FUCK!!!!! With Zane’s neck in one hand, I fling the door open with the other. The skinny guard catches it.

  “Hey girl,” the skinny guard says. “It’s probly best you didn’t see him. He wouldn’t want you to see him like this. I know him. I’ll tell him. By the way, you can write him. Any time. Without permission from anyone. All you need is a stamp.”

  “A’ight,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s a blessing he have you.”

  I don’t answer the guard. I just replay in my head what he said while we wait with Miss CPS. Miss CPS is babbling into the phone to her supervisor: “At least the siblings are getting a visit with each other. Sort of . . .”

  The guard said I am a blessing—something nobody’s said before and nobody will probably ever say again. Something my mother has never said. Something I know is bullshit. Something I don’t want to live up to.

  On the way home, I replay the dream. The dream of the women laying hands on my mother’s belly—on me. I can hear them whispering, but I can’t hear what they’re praying. I think of when I laid hands on my mother’s belly when she was pregnant with Zane and what I wished for him. That he wouldn’t come out like our neighbor’s baby did, missing parts. (That boy didn’t have a anus. Doctors gave him tubes and a bag attached to him so he could poop.)

  I prayed Zane would be strong. Is he? Does he understand? What about me? If those women knew me now, what would they say? Did I come true?

  Breasts

  Noun. Yes. That’s what they is called. Not boobs, boobies, titties, tetas, wah wahs, chi-chis, knockers . . .

  Alma and I are sitting in homeroom listening to the guys rate the girls. Dudes are undressing maybe four or five girls with their eyes but making us all feel necked. It happens every time a girl’s new tetas grow in. She had headlights before, but now they are on high beams.

  “Even bad pizza is kind of good and even an ugly girl with big boobs is kind of good,” one dude says, nodding at a girl getting written up for wearing spaghetti straps.

  “Right,” another answers. “That’s what the dark is for.”

  Fucking profound, right? Move over Socratees, Playtoh, Neecha. Yup, I know who these motherfoes are. Miss Black threw out a bunch of their Cliff Notes last week. (See D for Detention.)

  “Boobs,” I say to Alma. “The dudes around here act like you personally grow out this crop,” I point to mine, “so they could harvest it.”

  “Right? But like my mom says, boys will be boys.”

  “If boys gonna be boys, Macy gonna be Macy. I got a plan.” Bwahahahaha.

  Alma says when I say “idea” or “plan” her heart is striked with fear.

  George sits down by us and nods like he’s been there for the whole convo. I fist-bump him. He goes to fist-bump me back and I know to hold on so he don’t knock my ass off the chair.

  Alma drops a pencil and reaches for it. The boys dash to catch a peek of her boobs like they’re going for a touchdown. George morphs into Peyton Manning. The long hairy shadow he casts over Alma sends all the boys scrambling for their desks. False start!

  Another girl walks in with boobs squeezed together so tight I swear she has a monoboob. George almost crashes trying to get his big-ass self out from the desk. He rips off his coat and throws it on the girl’s chest. She screams like she’s been attacked by the coat.

  “Alma,” I whisper, “you’re cold.”

  Alma: “Huh? Oh! Right. I’m so cold, George!”

  George rips his coat off the girl, then stops. He offers her monoboob his helmet. She shakes her head so hard I swear she gets whiplash.

  He comes crashing back and knocks into Alma’s desk, tipping over her water bottle.

  Alma: “Oh, it’s okay, George. No problem. I’ll just get a tissue and—”

  George throws his coat on the spill and sits back in his desk. We HEART George. Alma dabs the coat dry with a tissue and drapes it back over his shoulder.

  Alma: “My desk is fine, I promise. Thanks, sweetie.”

  He smiles and settles in for a nap. Mo
noboob girl rubs hand sanitizer on her shoulders where the coat touched her.

  Miss Black walks in and sits at the computer to do attendance.

  I yell “HERE!” before she asks.

  Me to Alma: “I was watching this documentary on TV and I found out that there was chicks who fought in the Civil War. And other wars too. They had to pretend they was guys. So they wrapped their boobs to make them look flat.”

  “Oh my God.” Alma studies my boobs. “They’re wrapped right now, aren’t they? . . . They are. They look like two bricks. Two enormous bricks.”

  “Yes,” I say. “Taped. Solid. Like armor!”

  “Macy!” Alma hits the desk, lowers her voice after everyone turns around, and bends her head toward my ear. “This is absurd,” she hisses. “Nuclear missiles can be hidden. Whole entire planes from Malaysia can disappear. But not our breasts!” She looks up at the ceiling. “What type of tape did you use?”

  “I don’t know. The kind I found on Teacher Man’s desk.”

  “Then it’s reasonable to assume it was just—masking tape?”

  “Yes, whatever you just said, and it masks my boobs very well, don’t you think?”

  I fan myself with the book I’m supposed to be reading and gulp down the remaining contents of Alma’s water bottle.

  Alma massages her temples. “Listen. I can take care of it in gym class. I can probably cut you loose after attendance. I’ll use my nail clippers.”

  Nail clippers . . . These must be tools to clip nails. I look at my hands. I glance at my shoes. My teeth have always worked fine. But this nail clipper tool intrigues me. Perhaps it can also be used for other purposes. “You bring nail clippers to school?”

  “And toothpaste, and a toothbrush,” Alma chirps and pats her purse.

  I look at my pointer finger, which has served as my toothbrush many a time. “Ain’t you fancy. PS, I don’t want you to cut me open.”

  “I’m going to cut you open, Macy. Otherwise you’ll develop a rash. And who exactly do you expect to apply the ointment, huh? Why in the hell do you need tape anyway?” She points to my hoodie. “Aren’t XXL man jerseys enough?”

  “Enough is never enough,” I say. “Enough is never enough?” Do I know what that means? Wait. Yes, I do. “Enough is never enough!” No. Wait. That don’t—