Man Curse

by Raqiyah Mays

  Dexter sat on the floor, legs bent, hands covering his face.

  “You cheating on me, Dexter?” I asked, still fuming. “Tell the truth!”

  “No.”

  “Tell the truth.”

  “No.”

  “Tell the fucking truth,” I screamed, tears running out my eyes. “If you love me, don’t lie to me.”

  “Okay, okay, yes! Okay? Yes,” he said, sweating. “But it was just once. And I don’t know how she got my phone number because I never gave it to her.”

  The curse was alive and well. “I hate you.”

  I got up, ran into the hallway, and outside into the street. Picking up one of the red bricks the landlord used to decorate the front yard, I ran to Dexter’s car and threw it at his windshield. The rectangular hunk of stone shattered the glass and managed to bounce back at my hand and then to the ground. A large circular crack dented the windshield as Dexter ran out of the house.

  “What the fuck did you do?” he cried. “Why the fuck did you do that?”

  “I hate you,” I yelled back, as the neighbors across the street looked on, laughing. “You’re a bitch.”

  Dexter got into his car and sped away down the street, screeching and kicking up dust every inch of the way.

  I walked back into the apartment and looked at my finger. The right middle one was swollen black and blue, puffed up twice its size. The pain throbbed and swelled. But I couldn’t feel it completely, seething anger numbing my senses. Enraged, I looked around for Dexter’s belongings, promptly packing up and pushing his things into the hallway—clothes, shoes, jewelry, his ten fake green plants he’d posted up around the house for his plastic green-thumb hobby. I pushed the cabinet and sofa in front of the door, just to block him from getting inside. Out of breath, I crawled into the bed, crying, a plastic bag of ice nursing my throbbing finger. I woke an hour later to shouting.

  “Let me in, Meena! Why is my shit in the hallway! What the fuck?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Meena, I know you hear me.” Dexter’s voice was deep, loud, and angry, his Southern twang more pronounced than usual. “Let me in.”

  He paused.

  “Let me in, Meena!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “You want me to keep the building up tonight? I will.”

  No answer.

  “Oh, you playing the ignore-a-nigga game. Cool. Watch this one call the police on your ass.”

  I sat in bed crying for the next thirty minutes, until I heard a tap at the door.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “The police. I need you to open the door, ma’am.”

  I looked through the peephole to see two burly white men in uniform, standing beside Dexter, who looked depressed with bloodshot eyes and a red and blue knot on his forehead.

  I unlocked the door.

  “Ma’am, has this man been living with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long?”

  “I dunno, a couple months.”

  “The law says that if he’s been living here for sixty days or more, he’s a legal resident and can’t be thrown out. You’ll have to let him in.”

  “But this is my apartment. My name is on the lease. I let him live with me!”

  “Ma’am, you’ll have to let him in, that’s the law.”

  I looked at Dexter and rolled my eyes before turning and walking back into the bedroom to call Meredith.

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  “What’s wrong, girl?”

  “Please come get me. Please . . .”

  “Girl . . . what happened?”

  “I’m moving out. Dexter cheated on me. Cops said I can’t . . .” I sniffled and coughed, unable to finish my words. “Just come get me!”

  “It’s seven o’clock. I won’t be there till at least ten. Can you go somewhere till I get there?”

  “Yeah, I’ll just . . . I dunno. I’ll just go to the mall or something. I dunno. Just please come.”

  “I got you. Just get out that house,” Meredith said. “Promise me you’ll leave and won’t say anything to him?”

  I looked at the cops standing there, hands on holsters, eyeing the apartment. “She broke my necklace, my pager, she’s out of control, Officers . . .”—he glanced at their badges—“. . . Bennett and Douglass. She’s out of control, guys. Crazy.”

  A long-simmering boil soured my stomach. I imagined myself leaping over the suitcases, using the forward momentum to punch him in his stupid face. But instead I grabbed my keys and pocketbook and walked out the door. “I promise, Meredith,” I said into the phone. “I’m leaving now. If I stay here they’ll arrest me. So please hurry up. I’ll be around somewhere. Call me when you’re close.”

  I hung up the phone and walked down the block. An hour went by before my phone rang. Dexter’s name lit up the caller ID and I stuffed the phone in my bag. I sat at a random bus stop. Staring at the cars whizzing by. Suddenly thirsty and hungry, I walked in a daze into a diner, sat in an empty booth, and ordered a hot chocolate, banana split, and a glass of water. Sipping slowly, I stared at the words on a newspaper, ink smudged with my teardrops, till Meredith rang the phone. A short ten minutes later, she was outside the diner, picking me up and taking us back to the apartment.

  I walked into the house. Grabbed a suitcase and began dumping clothes inside. Dexter was wearing boxers, in bed, on the phone with his mother. Nodding his head and giggling. After packing my backpack, I grabbed the leash off the front door and the dog’s traveling bag.

  “No, she stays here,” Dexter said, following me into the hallway. “You can’t take her. I bought her.”

  “You bought her for me!”

  “Well, you can’t take her.”

  “You fucking bitch! I hate you. You—”

  Meredith tugged at my arm. “Come on, girl. The dog ain’t worth it.”

  I sucked my teeth, seeing Dexter in my bed, with my dog, on my phone, talking to his mother.

  “Yeah, Mom, she’s leaving,” I heard him say. “She’s crazy. She destroyed my car.”

  “Did you tell her how you attacked me?” I yelled, hoping she’d hear me. “Did you tell her you cheated on me? Did you tell her you raised your hand to hit me?”

  “Come on, Meena,” Meredith urged, tugging at my bicep. “He’s a bitch.”

  “He’s on my phone! In my apartment. On my motherfucking bed. And I’m leaving? I hate him!”

  I was almost out the door with Meredith, before I did an about-face. I marched back into the bedroom and yanked the cord from the wall, tearing the clear plastic connector off the phone cord. Fuck him.

  “Asshole!” I screamed before finally leaving out the front door and driving off.

  Chapter 7

  The next morning was a reminder of how much I hated not having my own space. A place to be alone, breathe, and scream if need be. I’d grown accustomed to it in college. But now? Being back home? Pure misery. I hated the sound of my mother’s early-morning voice talking to herself. She mumbled about everything—worries and mostly things crumpled up in her head. Things that she wished were said differently in the past. She talked to herself so much, it was loud at times, angry or comical, ending in laughter or a huff and puff. She sounded like an actor practicing a script. It drove me nuts. Insane. Hearing her talk at eight in the morning, to no one, when I’d gone to bed at three after a night of smoking and drinking. When I wanted to sleep in, the breeze from my cracked window blew a slight opening to my bedroom, and I could hear her crashing through cake dishes downstairs, mumbling to her only friend: herself. It made me want a straitjacket.

  This particular morning, the one-person conversation was about Aunt Connie and their latest argument. Apparently Mom had tried to call her. Connie replied with a dial tone. The light sleeper in me was awoken by Mom’s mumbling
around the kitchen.

  “Stupid. She’s so stupid,” I heard her say. “Acting like a damn baby. Always.”

  I could hear the slam of the kitchen cabinet. She crashed through pots, looking for something to cook with. Maybe a tin for blueberry muffins.

  “She’s just not smart. Dumb. She’s been this way since she was a kid. She’s still the same. Then she’s gonna hang up on me?”

  I tossed and turned with each grumbling word.

  “Oh my God!” I breathed under the pillow, until I finally sat up in bed. “I mean, really?” I said to myself. “What the fuck. This is some bullshit!”

  I stretched for the cell phone and checked my voice mail. There were ten.

  Message 1: “Hey, babe, it’s me.” Dexter’s voice was sad and raspy. “I miss you. So does Baby. She’s the best dog ever. Please call me.”

  Delete.

  Message 2: “Heeeeey, pretty lady. Hope you got my last message,” Dexter said, this time sounding shiny and happy. “It’s a beautiful day. We’re in Virginia. Baby and I are at the beach. She’s chasing seagulls. We wish you were here!”

  Delete.

  Message 3: “Yo . . . Why are you not calling me back? Something wrong with your phone? You on your period? What the fuck? Hit me back. You said you love me. Show it.”

  Messages 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: Hang-ups.

  Message 10: “Hey, girl!” It was Meredith, always the early riser. “Where you at? Hiding from your mom? Yo, I got that good sticky stuff. Straight from Brooklyn. What you doin’ tonight? Call me back . . . beeeyatch!”

  I tripped out of bed and slowly sleepwalked down the stairs to make coffee. Mom was still slamming pots around. I breezed past her and grabbed the teakettle. The silence between us was typical. Almost uncomfortably normal. Although I hated mornings and despised talking until I had caffeine, with Mom it was a tiptoeing-on-eggshells relationship that had trained me to speak only when spoken to. I often didn’t know what to say to her or how to word it for fear of being snapped at.

  It had been like this since childhood. As I’d sit at home watching HBO, she’d spend late weekend nights out with coworkers, hanging at hotel bars, sipping on Zinfandel. At the time, she was an independent lady with a $40,000 salaried job and health benefits. During the day, she worked as an assistant at a financial management firm, where she answered phones, scheduled meetings, and filed documents. Despite the generous administrative assistant pay for the ’80s, she disliked her job’s tedious duties, resenting the lack of mobility and raise after three years of loyalty. This, combined with hating her single relationship status, loathing the Valentine’s Day advertising weeks in advance, made for an unending depression. She wanted to be in love, hated being alone, and blamed the opposite sex for her misery.

  This all made living with my mother difficult. It was like being forced, daily, to play a stressful guessing game of what taboo topic to avoid.

  “Jerk!” I remembered my mother slamming the phone down against the kitchen wall mount, opening the cabinet, and reaching for the flour in a sudden urge to make biscuits. “Talkin’ about I need to get a life. And why am I sending mixed signals. And why can’t I wait for him to call me back,” she murmured while taking the milk out of the refrigerator. She emptied a scoop of flour into a bowl, added the other dry ingredients, and poured in the wet ones. A piece of eggshell slipped into the bowl. “Shit!” she said. “They’re all dogs!”

  I’d usually be sitting in the next room, trying to watch television, when she’d go off on a cranky tirade. I always thought that if I used the TV to phase out her voice, she would forget I was there and not direct her anger toward me.

  “Meena, come here!” she yelled.

  “Yes!” I answered, without taking my eyes off the screen.

  “I said, come here.”

  As I walked to the kitchen, my heart began a gradually more rapid beat.

  “Clean up that sink,” she spit. “A kitchen full of dishes is nasty.”

  I quickly turned on the faucet, wet the sponge, put a few drops of detergent on it, and picked up the cup to scrub. One time, not realizing how hard the water was running, when I rinsed off the cup, sudsy water sprayed to the left where my mother was standing. Her back hand moved as fast as a flyswatter.

  SMACK!

  The side slap knocked me off balance as I grabbed my right cheek and stared at her, teary-eyed, wondering why I’d been hit.

  “Turn that water down, stupid! Why you got it running so high? You wet my damn blouse!” She looked at me with a familiar grimace. “Gimme a paper towel!” I grabbed a towel and passed it to her. She snatched it away and smacked me with the opposite hand. “Don’t look at me like that!”

  I wasn’t sure how I was looking, especially when I tried so hard not to make eye contact or stand in the way of her notoriously fast hands. But she was a mother. She had this gift of seeing things from the back of her head. Perhaps past my fear, she sensed seething resentment. Maybe she could feel my urge to run away, knowing I had nowhere to go. Maybe she could read my mind, and see the constant countdown of days, months, and years till I was old enough to go far away to college, and be free from her stifling hold over my emotions and my life. Free from the daily bubbling in my stomach that gave way to gas whenever her car pulled into the driveway. Free from being out of breath from rushing around before she got home at six o’clock.

  Each evening at five forty-five was the same. I would run through the apartment, quickly cleaning any evidence of after-school playtime. The pleated skirt and ruffled top I’d thrown on the floor after changing into my play clothes would be scooped up and stashed in my bedroom closet. The Pathmark peanut butter jar and sticky knife covered in jelly would be unstuck from the kitchen counter, washed, and put in its proper place. Schoolbooks, shredded paper edges, and pencils rolling across the living room table would be moved and replaced with the fake potted plant that normally occupied my homework spot. Dishes were washed, dried, and neatly stacked by plate and cup size into wooden cabinets. And when I knew I had cleaned every corner, at 5:59, when the engine of her 1985 Ford Escort came rumbling into the driveway, I would wait, tense, my stomach somersaulting with anticipation.

  I never knew what mood Mom might be in after work. Was it good? Would she walk into the house with a smile and say, “Hellloooo? I’m hooome. Nobody to say hello to me?”

  Or was it dark? Would she open the front door, suck her teeth, and after a long, sad exhale, drop her bags, and observe every stick of furniture as if she were a home health inspector? Moving through the house, she was like an uncontrollable locomotive, steaming from the top, blowing her loud whistle to make things move.

  “Why is this mail on the chair? Put my mail on the table. And what’s that piece of tissue on the floor? Meena, come pick this up! Why’s that TV so loud? Are you deaf? And what’s this plate doing in the sink? I told you to clean out the sink before I get home. This place looks like a pigsty!”

  I’d curse myself under my breath: “Stupid!” Mad that I’d gotten that cup of apple juice just before Mom pulled into the driveway. But I always remained silent. Sitting like a mannequin, motionless, expressionless, eyes glued to the same spot on the TV screen as I watched my favorite show, Double Dare, on Nickelodeon. Kids ran wildly, smiling and laughing as they were dared to do crazy stunts for dream prizes. I always wished I could be there, with them, away from New Jersey.

  “Meena, turn off that crap,” she’d say. “Put the news on.”

  I’d hear Mom’s long, tired sighing from the kitchen that was always followed by “I hate my job.” Then she’d add, “I gotta get a new one.”

  The loathing was contagious, because I couldn’t stand being home. Especially in the mornings when she’d wake up cranky, grab a leather belt, and beat my butt into a welted rouge, as she cussed at me for not getting up with the alarm clock. Other mornings she’d corner me in th
e bathroom and pound me with her fists, eyes glazed in a tired rage prompted by a minor infraction, like not reminding her to buy more toothpaste after using the last bit. Or for major fuck-ups, like admitting I’d lost the house keys . . . again. From day to evening, I’d stress to please. Racing to get to school on time, speeding home to fix the house up, aiming to do right and be a good daughter, only to miserably fail and be harshly reminded of my stupidity. I was tired, mentally sore, emotionally worn down to the balls of my feet from tiptoeing room to room, finding a safe space away from the hurricane gust of emotions spewing around 222 Lincoln Street.

  As a result, after I moved back home, I stayed in my messy room. Dresser drawers open with T-shirts hanging from the sides. Pants scrunched up inside out, thrown across the middle of the floor. Clean clothes piled high inside a laundry basket next to the bed. A mountain of assorted clothes, camouflaging a chair. One wall was spotted with pictures representing memorable moments of my past. A set of black-and-white photo booth pics showed the trip Meredith and I took last summer to Great Adventure. My first-grade class picture had me smiling toothless in the back row. In another, Dexter and I stood on the beach, kissing for the camera. Not sure why I hadn’t taken that one down yet. And one from my eighth-grade graduation of me in a cap and gown. Down at the bottom in the corner was a tattered photo my mother had given me years ago, of me and my father, smiling as I sat on his knee.

  When it came to memories of him, recollections grayed the brain like thin clouds of vanishing smoke. My mother would mention him briefly, here and there making passing mentions of her relationship with him and his with me. But it was all in tidbits. Everything else I was forced to make up.

  I had one vivid memory, of sitting in my father’s burgundy Cadillac. I remember the white leather seats sticking to my tiny thighs. I wore a yellow dress with sunflowers and bows that ruffled in the warm Brooklyn breeze. The car engulfed me as I sat in the front seat, stretching my neck to see out the window. I was four or five, smiling as we passed stray dogs, peeing and sniffing grimy green garbage bags on street corners.