Allergic 2 Broke

by Carrey, Teruka

  The way he treated their mother like crap and from time to time would curse at them. He was no longer their hero. Laquita loved her father no matter what and could care less that her sisters didn’t love him too.

  Truth was she really couldn’t comprehend all of the fighting. She just knew it was wrong. Laquita was a really smart little girl and she had a remarkable memory. She enjoyed living in Jersey so much that she still remembers her address, to date.

  Once they were settled in their new two bedroom apartment Lena became acquainted with their new neighbor Ms. Leigha. She was much older than Lena and became some what of a role model for her. Lena was a hardheaded chick and never paid attention to detail. The only thing Lena would do is use her as a babysitter and a personal ATM machine. Ms. Leigha became very fond of Lena’s youngest daughter Laquita, so much that she ended up being Laquita’s godmother. She took Laquita everywhere. They even went to Disneyland together. She would go pick Quita up so she wouldn't have to see all of the drama going on in her home.

  Since Ricky had stayed into so much trouble Lena was forced to pack up and move back to her hometown of Beckley, West Virginia. Damn who would ever guess that they lived in Jersey for four years with all of the moving they had done? Eight months before they moved back home Lena had gone against her instincts and allowed her two eldest daughters to stay with her sister Annella for the summer. The girls never returned to their mother. Laquita stayed behind with Ricky and Lena because Ricky was not about to lose his only child, and he knew Lena’s family wasn’t about shit.

  When they did arrive to their hometown Laquita had mixed feelings. She was happy to have her sisters around again, but on the other hand she would miss her second mother as well. She would never forget the day she was reunited with her sisters. She was excited, but Kali and Dashiki didn’t seem so thrilled to see her.

  Laquita could feel the distance between them now that she was older. Dashiki and Kali were living the good life. They could care less if they ever saw their baby sister again. Their auntie had three children that were closer to their age anyway, and for some reason they blamed Quita for Lena and Ricky’s mistakes. They may not have had to clean up behind Laquita, but they now had a whole damn family to clean up behind. Guess the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

  Deep down Laquita envied them because they didn’t have to deal with the drama and hell she went through growing up. She was even more tired of it than they could have ever imagined. Laquita did everything she could to fit in around her mother’s family day in and day out. She tried cracking jokes, singing, dancing, anything to impress them, but it wasn’t working, they still didn’t seem to care that much.

  They would allow Laquita to visit, or spend the night with her sisters, which made her happy. Her auntie washed clothes all the time, and the house always smelled like fabric softner, so for that she loved being around them. The thing that made her upset was how low they made her feel by making her bathe because she didn’t smell the way they wanted her to. She had to change her clothes every time she went to their house.

  “Girl you smell like cigarettes.” Her auntie would say causing the other kids to laugh at her. Laquita was still very young but she was no fool. She knew they were trying to make fun of her.

  No matter how much they made her feel out of place she still wanted to go around them. She would do anything to be with her sisters. When she did go over there they had fun staying up all night eating junk food watching music videos. Laquita liked that very much because they would dance to L.L Cool J. songs and fantasize that one day she would have a husband as fine as him, or at least be a dancer in one of his music videos. The most important thing was that she could get a good night's sleep without being awakened in the middle of the night by her mother's screams, or crack heads running in and out the crib. As much as she loved spending time with her sisters it all had to come to an end, and she would have to go back home.

  Yeah, true enough she loved her parents, but sometimes it was all just too much to handle. Sometimes it was a living HELL! When she did go home they would play the average happy family for a while, but it never seemed to last long enough to enjoy.

  If they didn’t have any money they would borrow money from Annella, or the little old lady Lena worked for once a week for twenty measly dollars. The money would instantly burn holes in their pockets.

  The first thing they would do is invite all of their nasty ass friends over to help drink, the Colt 45, Wild Irish Rose, & Mad Dog 20/20 they’d bought from the local mini mart. Quita was treated like an adult, so she would just hang around like she was as grown as them. They would have her dancing around like it was Show Time at the Apollo. Being in this environment constantly forced her to grow up before her time.

  On many occasions Quita would just sit in her bedroom and cry herself to sleep asking GOD when was life going to get better for her. Quita always wondered if she had done something wrong for life to be so bad. People often say that if a child is raised in a home with both parents they would more than likely succeed in life, and if a child is raised in a single parent home that they would be more likely use drugs & follow a bad path in life. Sometimes it really don’t matter if there is one or two parents, because if your life is fucked up it’s fucked up! No one can change that but you. Just remember it’s not where you come from, but who you become.

  As Quita got older she started to notice that her sisters were a lot different than what she could remember. One day that her sisters took her to a basketball game Quita was having a good time with her big sisters watching all the cute guys in their tight shorts play basketball. Quita looked in astonishment at the players and their fans. Everybody was going crazy because the game was in overtime with 38 seconds left on the clock. The home team was down 2 points and the opposing team had the ball. Quita was just happy to be in the crowd chilling with her sisters and their friends.

  Buzzzz the final buzzer went off scaring Quita damn near to death! The crowd was screaming excitement because Antwon, the team captain made the winning shot!

  “The game was so much fun Dashiki!” Quita told her big sister.

  “Well it’s time for you to go back home because Kali and I are going to hang with our friends.”

  “Why can’t I go with y’all? I don’t wanna go home yet.” Quita just looked at them with her puppy dog eyes filling with tears.

  “Well too bad you gotta go because you’re too little to hang with us,” Dashiki snapped.

  “Come on let her stay with us,” Kali tried to plead with Dashiki.

  “I said no once, so quit asking me,” Dashiki spat.

  “Sorry baby sis, I tried,” Kali told her.

  As they headed through the auditorium doors a group of her sisters' friends stopped them to tell them that they would see them later, but they were caught by Laquita’s beauty.

  “Ohhhh, Dashiki she is so cute. What’s her name?” Jamiesha asked.

  “Oh, this is our step sister Laquita.”

  “Well, she is gorgeous with her pretty hair,” Stacy said rubbing Quita’s ponytail. Quita was very pretty with a butter cream complexion and shoulder length jet-black hair. She looked just like Ricky with her mother’s skin tone.

  “Well, we getting ready to take her back home we’ll see y’all later,” Dashiki told them.

  “Alright then, we’ll see y’all later,” Everybody said in unison. The words that Dashiki said cut through Quita like a knife, she was young but she knew that they were her “real sisters”. Well, at least that’s what she thought.

  It wasn’t the fact that she worshiped the ground they walked on. It just hurt so much more because she had unconditional love for them. She thought they had the same love for her. Kali didn’t really say much to hurt Laquita. Honestly they were a lot closer to one another than they were to Dashiki. Dashika would taunt them both with her abusive words.

  There were a lot of times that both Dashiki and Kali made her feel like nothing at all. Laquita
was really skinny and they would often make cruel remarks about her looking like an Ethiopian child. They constantly called dumb, because everyone else thought she was very intelligent and knowledgeable.

  As the years started to pass Quita became very insecure about her looks and thought nobody loved her. She even thought that the people around her talked about her because of the way she looked and talked.

  There was some really foul shit that happened to her growing up. On her tenth birthday Lena had just got her food stamps and it was on and popping. They damn near bought the grocery store out buying up all kinds of food. They had cake, ice cream, chips, soda, hamburgers, and hot dogs for Quita and her friends to grub on. Everybody was having a good time at the party, which ended up being an adult party. All of Lena and Ricky’s friends were drinking and talking shit as usual. For once everything seemed to be going good and everybody was having a good time. As luck would have it Lena and Ricky got into an argument just because Lena wasn’t bringing the food out fast enough for him to put on the grill.

  Quita tried to get her friends to the back yard before they started fighting, but before she knew it all hell broke loose. At that point Quita started crying her ass off because she knew there wasn’t anything else she could do. She tried her very best to keep her moms and pops from fighting in front of her friends, and on her birthday at that. Unfortunately that Mad Dog they were drinking literally turned them into mad dogs. Lena hauled off and smacked the shit out of Ricky trying to show off. From that point it was a wrap.

  Ricky reached over Quita’s thin frame and punched Lena in her face so hard she crashed into the Bar-B-Que grill head first, knocking over all of the food. Lena knew she had fucked up, so all she could do was lay on the ground in fetal position and allow Ricky to deliver blows to her face and body.

  Quita looked around and saw that all of her friends were gone except for her best friend Alexus. She just sat on the porch looking around at all the commotion. Quita was so close to her because they had similar lives. Quita just stood there and cried her eyes out.

  Finally she said fuck it. She had enough of the bullshit, and since none of their friends were helping she decided to try and stop her dad from possibly killing her mom.

  “Daddy, please stop mommy is bleeding,” Quita pleaded.

  “Get out my fucking way Quita!” Ricky shouted. Quita grabbed his arm to make him stop hitting Lena, but without any warning or thought he turned around and backhanded Quita in the face causing her to fall onto a nearby broken bottle. She cut her left foot wide open. Ricky snapped back to reality and stopped the torturous abuse to Lena’s body. Quita ended up getting six stitches in her left foot. Years later she still had flashbacks about that birthday.

  Two weeks after her tenth birthday drama Quita was at her cousin Tanisha’s house telling her about a boy she liked. Before she could finish her story Starlet, Tanisha’s mom, came busting up into the bedroom telling Quita that she needed to hurry home because she just saw an EMS and fire trucks headed towards her crib.

  Quita didn’t say a word. She just jumped up and ran out of the house full speed because she knew her mom was drunk and trying to cook when she left.

  When she made it to her crib it was already burned to the ground. The only thing left was the roof and the rest of the house was gutted. Quita saw that shit, and the floodgates were open. She fell to her knees and started balling her eyes out. She knew they had no money and nowhere to go and now their home was gone. What they had wasn’t much, but it was all they had.

  That day Ricky beat the living shit out of Lena, because she was home when the fire started. As usual she was all geeked up off that ya-yo and pissy ass drunk, so her judgment was distorted. She called herself trying to cook Ricky dinner before he made it home from work. That nigga pulled out most of her once beautiful, long hair and knocked out a couple of teeth. If that wasn’t enough he broke her arm, and she had two black eyes.

  That day for the first time ever, the neighbors called the police on Ricky and his ass got arrested. Quita was sad but she was also relieved that there would be one night without the drama. However at the end of the day when the dust settles, the realization of them not having a place to go was stressful. That night Lena and Quita stayed over Lena’s friend Shawna’s house. Lena let the whole thing about her and Ricky fucking go because they needed a place to stay, and sometimes you have suck that shit up and do what you have do.

  The next day Lena went out to hustle up some money for Ricky’s bail, and by that evening that nigga was back at home. They stayed at Shawna’s for a couple of days but after that they were living from pillar to post staying with whoever would let them stay. It was very hard for them to find a place to crash because for one it was three of them, and two Ricky and Lena fought so damn much nobody really wanted to deal with all of that drama.

  Finally Lena gained up enough courage to call up her sister Annela and ask her if Laquita could stay with her until she could get back on her feet. Annella didn’t care to deal with the drama or Ricky and his bullshit. The excuse she used so Quita didn’t have to stay with them was she didn’t have enough room for Laquita. They lived in a five bedroom house with a full basement and claimed to have no room. 'Yeah right', Lena thought.

  True enough she had a husband and three kids of her own and they were also taking care of Lena’s other two kids, but they could have spared Quita if they truly wanted to. They had no room my ass. Lena had no choice but to continue to subject Quita to the constant abuse. What else could she do?

  They were staying at a different friend’s house every couple of days, and the cribs they did stay at were fucked up. They had big ass roaches, and rats that looked like cats. It was all kind of muthafuckas running in and out the crib getting high, drinking and popping shit all the damn time.

  Quita hated her life and sometimes wished she was dead. All she did was cry and pray for God to save her from the hell she was living in. On many occasions Ricky’s friends would try their best to violate Quita’s young delicate body. They would act like they were giving her a hug and touch places that they shouldn’t have.

  Although was never done by any of her father’s friends, it did get out of control with one of her older cousins that her father had took in as a son. That moment was in the past and was another subject. Sometimes if you bring too much of your past into the present it can haunt you.

  Quita’s parents and their friends would get high all day and night like she didn’t know what they were doing. Her dad also smoked mad weed and they both drank alcohol like it was going out of style, so she knew what it caused. Not only that but ya-yo smelled like burned plastic bags to her.

  Laquita had to deal with all the bullshit for several months until Lena finally got off her latzy ass to sign up for public housing. They ended up receiving emergency section 8, and they rented a three bedroom house. Quita was so happy they had somewhere to go she didn’t know how to act. She called her sisters over to spend the night with her, but they declined. She went over her best friend in the whole wide world’s house. Lexi lived with her mother across town. Her pops was shot in the back of his head trying to rob a dope boy to supply his habit, so it was just the two of them. Quita walked over to Lexi’s house to see if she could stay over.

  “Hello Mrs.Woods is Lexi home?” Quita asked.

  “Come on in baby she’s in the kitchen eating. Are you hungry?” Mrs.Woods asked.

  “No thanks I just finished eating, but thank you.” Quita walked into the kitchen and Lexi was eating a bowl of ramen noodles.

  “Hey girl, what up?” Quita asked when she walked in the small eat in kitchen.

  “Nothing I’m hungry as hell. Let me finish eating and we can bounce. What’s good with you?” Lexi asked her with her mouth full.

  “Not shit. We just moved into our new crib and I wanted to know if you can stay the night.”

  “I dunno you know ma be trippin.’ I’ll see what she says,” Lexi told her.

  “Alri
ght that’s cool. Yo, Lex why the hell do you be eating ya noodles with all that shit in them?”

  “Cause its good like this ho,” she laughed.

  “Yeah, they are good I love me some oodles and noodles too, but not with vinegar, cheese, and Italian dressing. That shit not only look nasty but it stinks,” Quita said fanning her face.

  “Whatever I like it, and that's all that matters.”

  “Hurry your ass up so you can see if you can stay over.” Quita rushed her.

  Lexi gobbled down what was left of her noodles and went into the living room where her mom was watching her soap operas. Lexi flopped on the couch beside her mom.

  “What you watching momma?”

  “All My Children why, and what do you want? I know y’all little heifers scheming on something.” She looked at Quita to see what they were up to.

  “What y’all coming in here to ask me?” Lexi’s mom asked her.