The Disturbed Girl's Dictionary

by Nonieqa Ramos

  Oh Jesus Christ. Does she even know about the fire?

  This is not a movie. There is no soundtrack. Only the sound of me choking on snot and blood and tears. The sound of George howling. The sound of Alma’s heart beating—I swear I can hear it through George’s coat, right through her chest.

  “Put her down, George,” I say. I’m standing up now. Barely. Alma is wearing a Kleenex and a Chewbacca coat. This is not a movie.

  “I will never leave you,” I say, taking out my machete. “If I leave you, I have nothing.”

  “Then, you’ve always had nothing,” Alma says turning away.

  “Fuck you,” I say again. “Fuck that.” The door cracks open.

  “Macy! Macy!” she begs. “Please, okay? We can meet one more time. For a few minutes. 565 Broker Street. Apartment 3C. 12:15 tomorrow night. No earlier.”

  Two bouncers motion to Alma, and George and I get ready to run.

  Alma runs for the door, trips on her heel, slips back into The Hole.

  Scar

  Noun. How we’re stitched together, George.

  “Ma!” I yell, coming through the door. “George needs help!”

  “Yeah, I can see that,” my mother says. She is sitting on the—multiple guess:

  Couch, packing a bowl

  Bed, smoking a bowl

  Toilet, eating a bag of marshmallows

  Answer: All of the above, in that order.

  While she is otherwise occupied, I grab my stash from underneath the floorboard—my dad’s coke and my birfday money—and stuff it into my backpack along with Mi Machete.

  My mother comes out the bafroom hiding a big-ass marshmallow in her cheek and turns her back to zip up her pants. George is standing in the living room scraping fresh marinara sauce off the wall. How did I miss that?

  “What is he, we-tarded?” my mother says through the remainder of the marshmallow.

  “Well, he’s not deaf.”

  George shrugs.

  “Listen,” my mother says, licking her teeth, “I got a guest coming over.”

  “I should have known. You’re wearing your I’m having a guest thong,” I say. I see it sticking out of her whitewash jeans.

  “I ain’t in the mood for your shit. And your nose looks like shit. Damn, Macy. Really? What are you, gang-banging? Put some makeup on that.”

  “Help me then, and I’ll get out of your hairs. George needs to dress gangsta.” I wait for my mother to ask me to explain, but she don’t. She just walks around George like you do a used car, inspecting his exterior.

  “My ex, Nacho, was your size. I got a few things he left behind. That motherfucker ain’t coming back.”

  I look at George. I know what I have to do before my mother gets back. I know what could happen to me too. “George,” I say, pointing at his head. “George, the helmet.”

  George shakes his head. He shakes it harder the closer I get until the helmet falls over his eyes. “George, do it for Alma.”

  He hears her name and takes off the helmet just like that. I see what I think is a scar but he flicks his hair on it real fast.

  I HEART George.

  He pounds his chest and touches my cheek. His eyes are all red and I know he wants to cry—just not in front of my mother. I hold out my fist for a bump. He bumps back. I stick the helmet in my backpack quick before she comes back in and makes a comment.

  My mother struts in holding up a outfit and eyeballing George. She’s on a mission now. In a snap she has George stripped down to his tighty whities. George does not know how to say no to my mother. No man can.

  Ever hear of pimping your ride? My mother pimps out my friend. In a matter of minutes, he goes from being a cream puff to a puff daddy.

  “Hey, check you out,” I say to him.

  I can tell my mom wants me to say something to her. She wants me to tell her she did something good and she wants me to thank her. I would if I didn’t smell the garlic from the pizza she ate on her breaf. She hates it when I do that: sniff around her face like a dog.

  I back up. “Okay,” I say, more to the walls than to any particular person. “We out.”

  “You know, your father spoiled you,” I hear from outside the door. “Cunt!”

  Sister

  Noun. This is for her too, George.

  We hoof it for twenty minutes and soon we are approaching the Palace Apartments. American Horror Story could shoot their next season here. The ratio of cockroach to person is one million to one. Rats as big as dogs are kings of trash mountains. Shitty cars sit on cinder blocks. You get the picture. Ghetto in the ghetto. I feel George slow down as he takes it all in.

  The only way I’m going to be able to walk up Broker Street and enter Palace Apartments alive is to have George stand up straight and put one gangsta foot in front of the other.

  I stop in my tracks and look George in the eye. “What would Alma do without you, George? What would I do without you? You’re our hero.” I kiss my finger and lay it on that scar under George’s hair. Look away. He don’t say anything. We walk in silence for a minute. Then I realize I’m getting out of breaf trying to keep up.

  George is walking tall. He’s even got a little swagger. Separately George and I aren’t the strangest or scariest assholes ever seen, but together we are dynamite. Motherfoes just have better things to do than say something to a 250-pound gorilla and the sidekick with a foot-long machete sticking out her backpack. The key is to be a mystery. The minute people start getting too close and asking questions, we’re dead ducks because, basically, George is bound to start quacking like one. And it won’t take long before somebody offers us drugs or hookers and knows we don’t belong.

  “Just don’t speak,” I warn George before we get to the top of Broker Street. “Just pretend you’re listening to music. Zone out.”

  George smiles. He’s never needed a reason to hear music. He bobs his head up and down. He looks badass.

  He raps like Ice Cube: “Today was one of those fly dreams . . .”

  “Didn’t even see a berry flashing those high beams.” I can’t help it. I crack a smile.

  He cracks one back. “You look good like that, Macy.” He taps my mouth and tilts his head.

  He means: When’s the last time you smiled, Macy? I don’t have a answer.

  We walk past a meth lab. Past hookers hanging in car windows.

  When is the last time I smiled? When is the last time Alma smiled? I can’t remember. But I do remember that time we stayed up all night on my mother’s cell. I told her funny stories until she fell asleep. I could hear her sleep snores through the phone. It was like we were sleeping in the same bed. I heard her laugh soft in her sleep. She never saw the sunrise that morning but I did—for the first time. I had never seen a sunrise before. I say more to myself than to George, “I smiled when I saw that sun rise.” But he hears me.

  We stop. Not just because we’re at the stoop of Palace Apartments. Because we are being followed.

  George motions to me and I know to follow his lead. We spot some trash cans and walk behind them. So do our shadows: two guys in bomber jackets on our tail.

  George reaches into his pocket. I’m thinking, what in the hell could he possibly have in his pocket that’s going to do us any good? I debate if I should grab my machete.

  George pulls out a needle. He drops his pants down right then and there and stabs himself. I’m thinking that this is a epic WTF moment when he motions for me to pull up my sleeve. I admit, I almost chicken out. But this was the guy who took his helmet off for Alma. I roll up my sleeve and shut my mouth as he stabs my skin.

  George stands up to his full height and throws the needle into the grass like Agüeybaná. Our Shadow Men disappear.

  George: “No worries. Just meds for me. No cooties.”

  I look at the tiny prick on my skin. He hadn’t pushed the plunger on the needle down for me. George pulls out a Hello Kitty Band-Aid from his pocket, sticks it over the pinpoint, and rolls down my sleeve.


  “I know, George. I fucking HEART you.”

  We climb up steps into Palace Apartments when there are steps to climb. We climb over people when there aren’t. We hear a loud squeak that seems to be coming from—like—everywhere. “All sudden my mom’s housekeeping don’t look so bad,” I say to George.

  We reach the top of the steps. George and I review the game plan. He will play lookout and bodyguard on the outside while I work on Alma on the inside. When my mission is accomplished, George will carry Alma out caveman style. The next stage of the plan is to rob my mother’s guest-of-the-hour blind and use whatever money we find to get on a Greyhound. To go where CPS and Uncle can’t find us. Till things cool down. Or forever—but I haven’t told George this. George hearts his mother.

  Leaving George on the landing with his instructions, I walk into the dark hall. I pull my hoodie on.

  In front of 3C, I inventory my backpack. Cash . . . check. Coke . . . check. Machete . . . check. I stuff the cash and bag of coke in my pocket for easy access. Grip my machete. I push on the door and it cracks open, but I don’t see nobody. I hear a whisper: “In here.”

  My Spidey sense tells me it’s safe as it’s gonna get, so I step inside. The only light is coming from a window with a lamp post outside it. I’m inside one large room. A king-size bed is in the center, a trunk in front of it.

  “Psst!”

  I turn my head and I still don’t see nobody. A electric chair would look less scary than the stove yanked out of the wall. My nose finds the fridge before my eyes do. Nasty. A ghost stands behind a counter.

  I run my hands on the wall trying to flip a light switch on.

  “No. Don’t.”

  “Why?!” I squint. Walk toward ghost girl. Alma is wearing another costume. The robe and the nightgown are white. I can see through them.

  I see why she wants me in the dark. I yank her nightgown. “What is this—?”

  I shit you not, Alma says, “Stop! It’ll tear!”

  “That’s your damn concern?”

  “Tío bought it for me.”

  “You still call him Tío? Why are you crouching like that? Can we step out of the—uh—kitchen? My shoes are sticking to the floor!”

  “No. Just stay here.”

  “Why?”

  “Do it!”

  “You know who you talking to, girl?” I’m getting loud. “I don’t just do nothin.”

  “Please!”

  I have a lightbulb. Look from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. “Oh shit. Alma? Is there a camera in here?”

  She nods. “Just stay here. He can’t hear us. I don’t think.”

  I pull her toward me. Her hair smells like cigarette smoke.

  “No! No! Don’t touch me!”

  George pokes his head in and out, then closes the door.

  “For real?” I hiss, throwing Alma against the wall. “Don’t touch me? This from the girl who wrestled me in my sweatshirt?” I grab my mother’s phone from my backpack and aim the flashlight at her face. “Oh my God. What are you on?”

  Her eyes look too big, like she’s seen something horrible and she’s seeing it over and over and over again. I aim my flashlight over the room. Holy shit. Every wall is covered with mirrors.

  “Put that down!” Alma reaches for my phone. Her hands are shaking bad. Like she wants to do something terrible and she just can’t.

  That’s okay, I’ll do it for her.

  “What is this place, Alma? What did he do to you?” I grip my machete. “I will be waiting behind the door when Uncle comes home.”

  Alma reaches onto the counter. Pulls out a nail. Squeezes it in her hand until she bleeds. A crazy girl Jesus.

  “Stop it, Alma!” I lunge toward her but she backs up until she hits a wall. She holds up a hand. It’s firm. Steady.

  “Do not come closer to me,” she says. “I have to do this. It wakes me up. It brings me back. I’ve been taking them out of the walls, the counter. At first I burned myself on the radiator, but then Tío turned the heat off. I tried the stove too, but Tío pulled it out.”

  God, is this real? “What did he do to you, Alma? What is he doing? Did he rape you?”

  “Did he rape me? Did he rape me? No! He raped her!” She points to a mirror, screams deep down in her chest. A scream so loud God could hear it, so deep her uncle can’t. Her body has just caught up with her mind.

  I’m frozen. It’s not that she’s told me something I didn’t know the minute I saw her outside the Hole. But it is all hitting me at once. No matter what I’ve ever gone through, no matter how bad I thought the world was, I still believed there was good in it because of Alma. NEVER AGAIN.

  “What happened that weekend? After you left me at the bus stop and went with your uncle.” I cover my ears even though that don’t make any sense.

  “He was taking me to a photoshoot. I was going to be a model.”

  “ALMA!” I scream. “Why did you let him?!”

  “Fuck you, Macy! Let him? Let him? He gave me pills. I couldn’t even say no. But it was there. Those two little letters trapped between my teeth!” She groans. “Two letters. Two letters,” she says over and over.

  No.

  Alma drops to her knees. She screams again. She screams a scream that should have been heard off every rooftop of the world but is stuck in this shitty room.

  “Alma!” I drop to my knees beside her. “Alma, why?”

  “I was just so tired! School was supposed to save me, right? But how was I supposed to do well at school when I couldn’t even concentrate? And all the teachers kept asking me what was wrong. Saying that I was changing. What did they expect from me? For me to say something and get my mother in trouble again? So CPS could get me? I just thought I could make some money and get out of here . . .”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”

  “Because I couldn’t even tell myself.”

  “Alma, what happens when he gets tired of you? When he’s got you dancing at the Hole? When he’s pimping you out to—”

  “He would never do that! He l—”

  “Loves you? I love you, Alma. Let me help you.”

  “Help me? Save me? There’s nothing left to save!”

  “Alma, you’re not what happened to you. You’re the girl who walks out this door. Alma. Come with me.”

  Alma collapses on the floor. She tosses the nail in her mouth and chews on it. I pull it out. Her gums are bleeding.

  “I can’t,” Alma cries. “I can’t leave. He’ll never let me leave. He will follow me anywhere I go. I couldn’t leave him even if I left this room.”

  “I will kill him, Alma. And I won’t just do it for you. I’ll do it for every other girl. You tell the police it was all me. Just promise to visit me in jail.”

  “Macy, you can’t just kill him. You’d have to kill his men. His boss. His organization. You could never kill them all. I can’t go. They’ll kill my family. What’s left of my family.”

  Oh shit. She does know about the fire.

  “Your family? Why aren’t they here fighting for you?”

  “My mom is fighting just to stay alive right now. She lost everything in the fire. Because of me. She thinks I’m better off with my uncle. At least that’s what she chooses to believe.”

  “You aren’t his. I see you, Alma. I know you. You ain’t what’s in these mirrors. In any mirror. Let’s go.” I climb to my feet. “Stand up!”

  She kneels. “This is my penance. For my babies.”

  “Alma! That wasn’t your fault! How do you even know your uncle didn’t set the fire?”

  She hugs her knees. “Please go before Tío gets back. He’ll kill you.”

  I look at all the mirrors. Think about what Alma’s been forced to watch. I know what her uncle will do. He’ll think Alma let some dude (me) into the apartment. One of her neighbors is bound to say something, if they haven’t already.

  I walk to the door and stick my head out. I speak to George. He cries. I tell him not to come ba
ck in no matter what. I close the door. Tighten my hoodie. Grip the machete.

  I face Alma. My stomach lurches. The only thing that holds my dinner down is Miss Black’s pink roses. But the roses can’t hold back my tears. I’m never going to see her again.

  “You will never forgive me,” I say to Alma.

  “I’ll forgive you, Macy. Get out!”

  I step forward and raise my machete.

  “Oh my God—What are you—”

  For once I’m going to do something for her. Something she can’t do for herself.

  “Macy, what—”

  Her words get cut off as I slash her face. Stripe her with blood. Blood spatters bloom on her nightgown. I knock her on the floor and cut off her hair. Cut all the motherfucking petals off the rose.

  “Now you’ll be safe. Nobody gonna touch you now.”

  She screams into the linoleum. I stop. Wrap her in a blanket. I take the blow out my backpack and shake it on the floor like a blanket of Canada snow. In it I spell:

  You’re next Motherfucker

  I tuck that hundred dollar bill from my fifteenth birfday into Alma’s twitching hand. Then I go knock on the door. It opens and I slip out. Through the door I can hear her stumbling around the apartment, crying.

  Out in the hallway, I wait a minute even though George is pulling on me. I want to see if someone is going to come. Is just one person going to open their door? At least yell they’re going to call the police? All I hear is two doors shutting and someone turning their TV way up. Some girl screams but it’s coming from the set. The moonlight glints off the tips of George’s fur coat.

  Stain

  Noun and verb. Rhymes with pain.

  We go the Laundromat and use the pay phone to call 911 and tell the rude bitch on the other end to send a cop and ambulance to 3C at the Palace Apartments. George strips down until all he’s wearing is his tighty whities. He puts the Ninja Turtle Helmet back where it belongs.

  He holds up his Puff Daddy clothes and calls out over the washers and dryers, “Switch?”

  It don’t take two minutes before George swaps clothes with some fool and is wearing a giant red M&M T-shirt with camo pants to complete his crazy-ass outfit.