Mommy's Angel

by Miasha

  Antione handed me a black business card with silver lettering.

  “Here,” Antione said. “My man is the owner. Call him up and tell him that you’re my little sister and I said it’s cool for you to work there. He’ll set you up from there.”

  “Thank you so much, Ant Man,” I said, meaning it.

  “Whatever, just remember what I told you,” he said, getting back to his food.

  We finished eating and I got ready to go. As I was leaving, Antione gently grabbed my arm.

  “Ay, if you have any problems, any at all, come holla at me,” he said with a serious face. “You know where I stay. Don’t be no stranger.”

  I gave Antione my word that I would be all right and I left. I had about two more hours before I was to call and get Jamal out of work so I decided to kill time at C & S’s. the bodega around the corner from my house.

  “Stay-cey,” I sang as I walked into the cozy corner store.

  “Hey, girlfriend, what’s up?” Stacey asked with a slight Jamaican accent. “No school today?” she asked.

  “Not for me,” I replied.

  “Girlfriend, what did I tell you about cutting school?” she asked jokingly.

  Stacey was an old head, like thirty-one, but she was real cool. I looked up to her. She was kind of like a mentor to me. She was the only other person I could spill my guts to. Whenever I wanted to get out of the house I would just go to her store, well, her fiancé’s store. She would hook me up with free sodas and chips and we would just sit and talk for hours until Cat, her fiancé, would come in and cuss us out for eating up everything without paying. He was all about money. He didn’t even like his own girl to take free stuff. But I guess that was the way he had to be in order to make a profit and stay in business.

  “Stacey, let me use the phone,” I said.

  “Girlfriend, you better hurry up before Cat comes back,” she said as she took two quarters out of the cash register and slid them across the counter to me. I took the money and went to the back of the store where the telephone booth was.

  I reached in my pocket and pulled out the business card I got from Antione. I put the fifty cents in the phone and dialed the numbers off the card.

  “Hello, may I speak with Shake?” I asked in my most sophisticated voice.

  “Who is this?” the husky voice on the other end of the phone asked.

  “This is Angel. You don’t know me, but my brother Antione told me to call you about getting some work.”

  “Antione, hahn? Well, how old are you?” he asked.

  “Old enough,” I answered, trying to sound mature.

  “Old enough, hahn? Well, that’s all I need to hear. Can you meet me at my club this Saturday?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right. Let’s make it like ten,” he said.

  “A.M. or P.M.?” I asked.

  “P.M.,” he confirmed.

  Shake sounded impressed at how I handled our brief conversation and after giving me the directions to his club we hung up. Just as I put the phone on the hook, Cat came strolling in.

  “Bumblaclot!” he yelled immediately. “What did I tell you ’bout making calls on me?” His heavy Jamaican accent bounced off the walls.

  “Baby, chill out. It’s only two quarters,” Stacey said as she walked up to her man and caressed his chest.

  He kissed her on her forehead, and although she was being sweet, he still had to make his point. “Quarters make dollars, Stacey,” he said.

  I just smiled. I was used to Cat fussing. I walked back to the front of the store and leaned against the counter. In admiration, I watched Cat and Stacey kiss each other on the lips. They were the cutest couple. Stacey was light brown like honey with hazel eyes and naturally straight hair that flowed down her back. You could tell she was Caribbean. Cat, on the other hand, looked like he was Hispanic, even though he had more Jamaican in him than Stacey did. He was light-skinned with thick wavy hair that he kept cut low. He had defined features, a pointy nose, Chinese eyes, full lips, and high cheekbones. The two of them were bound to make beautiful babies.

  I interrupted their affectionate behavior and said, “Don’t worry, Cat, in about a week, I’m goin’ to pay you for every soda, bag of chips, and phone call I ever made, I promise.”

  Cat lifted his eyes off Stacey and directed them to me. “Is tat right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, and matter fact, I’m going to add interest.”

  “You pullin’ my leg, mon?”

  “No. I’m dead serious,” I said, smiling.

  “All right,” Cat said, “but if you don’t make good on your promise, your ass will be out tere sweeping the front of this store every Saturday for a month, mon.”

  “No problem,” I said with confidence.

  I was feeling extra good about the possibility of getting a gig.

  Ain’t No Turning Back

  The three days it took for Saturday to come seemed more like three months. I woke up that day as if it were Christmas morning. I wasn’t able to sleep the night before. I was anxious about meeting Shake. So anxious, I got up at six forty-five and started cleaning the house. I even trashed my mom and Marvin’s needles that I swore I’d never touch. By the time I had finished cleaning, I was hungry, but our last box of cereal had roaches in it, so I skipped breakfast and got dressed. Then I went in the basement and started rummaging through trash bags of summer clothes. I was looking for something I could take with me to Shake’s just in case he wanted me to start working right away. I wanted to be prepared. I pulled out a bikini that I had since seventh grade. I washed it in the kitchen sink, wrang it out, and went upstairs to hang it on the radiator in my room to dry.

  When I walked in my room I noticed Naja wasn’t in her bed, which was unusual for ten o’clock on a Saturday morning. The bathroom was empty so she couldn’t have been in there, and I had just come from downstairs so I knew she wasn’t down there. I walked into my brother’s room, and he was sound asleep. The only other option was my mom’s room. The door was closed and the towel was in it. That meant “do not disturb,” but I wanted to know where my sister was. I crept up to the door and tapped on it. No one responded.

  “Mom,” I called out.

  “Whaaat?” my mom whined.

  “I’m sorry to wake you up, but do you know where Naja is?” I asked nicely.

  “Whaaat?” my mom whined again.

  Then the door opened and Marvin appeared. He was buckling his belt, and with a frown on his face he said, “She’ll be out in a second. Now go ’head back to doin’ what you was doin’.”

  Past Marvin’s skinny body I could see my mom sitting on the floor. Her back was leaning against her dresser. Her head was down as if she was sleeping. She had on a nightgown and there was a belt dangling from her arm. She had just shot up. And she was so high she could care less that her boyfriend was having sex with her twelve-year-old daughter right there in her bed. I couldn’t see my sister, but I was determined to get her out of there.

  “Naja!” I yelled. “Come on! Get out oft there!”

  Marvin intervened, “I said she’ll be out in a minute. She’s reading something for me. Now go on.”

  I was mad. I had taken all I could from Marvin at that point. It was one thing for him to get away with raping me, but I was not about to just stand around and let him take my little sister through that shit. He must have lost his mind. And the audacity to do it in front of my mom. Both of them done crossed the line.

  “She ain’t readin’ nothin’ for you. I ain’t stupid,” I yelled as tears gathered in my eyes.

  Marvin ignored me and attempted to shut the door in my face. I pushed it open, hitting him in the process. He snapped and back-slapped me. I lost my balance and fell on my butt. The door shut and the towel was back in its position. I got up off the floor and ran down the steps. It was cold and I ran out of my house barefoot without a coat. I climbed the banister and started banging on Jamal’s door.

  “Yo, what happened?” Jamal
asked as he opened his door.

  I was so upset I couldn’t talk. I just kept wiping my bloody nose with my pajama sleeve. Tears were pouring down my cheeks as I walked in Jamal’s house.

  Jamal comforted me. He sat me on his couch and held me in his arms.

  “Whenever you get ready to talk I’ll be ready to listen,” he said, rubbing my head.

  I wanted to tell him what had been going on in my house so bad, but I knew he would have went over there and hurt Marvin and then he would be the one going to jail. So I just sucked it up and decided to lie.

  “Me and Naja got into it,” I said.

  Jamal smacked his teeth and said, “Y’all need to cut it out. Y’all sisters. Y’all shouldn’t even be fightin’ like that, to the point that your nose is bleedin’. That ain’t cool.”

  “I ain’t wanna hurt her. That’s the only reason why my nose is bleeding. If I would have fought her like she was a girl in the street I would have killed that little girl. That’s why I just ran over here. I ain’t wanna hurt her.”

  Jamal squeezed me in his arms. “You did right,” he said as he wiped my tears.

  I stayed over Jamal’s that whole day. His mom was in Atlantic City, thank God, because I was not in the mood for her attitude. She was the one person who hated the fact that I was her son’s girlfriend. And it wasn’t about me being fifteen and him being eighteen. I think she felt like Jamal was too good for a junkie’s daughter. She was one of them uppity ladies who thought her shit didn’t stink.

  We ate fish stick sandwiches and watched a movie on Showtime. Then we played Mortal Kombat on his PlayStation. And of course we did it. I loved doing it to Jamal. It was the only time I actually felt loved, safe, and happy. He was my first sexual partner. And if anyone deserved that title it was him. He respected me and he proved he wasn’t after just one thing like Stacey warned of older guys. He really had love for me.

  And the thing I loved most about Jamal was that he knew how his mom felt about me but he never once denied me or fronted on me. When it came to me, he would tell his mom to relax in a minute.

  The sun had gone down and it was close to eight o’clock by the time I woke up from a catnap. I sat up in Jamal’s sofa bed and almost panicked. I looked around the basement and Jamal was on the other side playing Madden on the PlayStation.

  “Why you let me sleep so late?” I asked him.

  “You was chillin’,” he said, not taking his eyes off the game.

  “I told you I had orientation tonight,” I said sweetly.

  “I know. I was about to wake you up,” he responded, his eyes still glued to the TV screen.

  I put on my sweatpants and started to put on my pajama shirt, but I noticed the dried-up blood on the sleeve.

  “Jamal, you got a old T-shirt I can put on?”

  Jamal told me where his T-shirts were. I took one out of the bottom drawer and put it on inside out and all. I found my socks balled up underneath the sofa bed and started to put them on. Oh shit, I have to polish my toenails, I thought. I made up Jamal’s bed and walked over to him to give him a kiss. He finally paused the game.

  “I don’t want you to go,” he said kissing me on my lips.

  “I don’t wanna go, either, but I have to. My cousin put a good word in, and I don’t want to make him look bad. I’m not even supposed to be working under sixteen,” I explained.

  Jamal walked me upstairs to the front door. We kissed each other again and I climbed the banister and went in my house.

  I felt a little guilty that I had lied to Jamal about where I was going. I told him my cousin hooked me up with a housekeeping job at a hotel. But I couldn’t tell him the truth. He would not have been able to handle it, even though he knew how desperate my situation was.

  It was pitch dark in my house and cold. I clicked on the lamp by the door and walked over to turn on the heat. I went upstairs and looked in all the rooms. No one was home. I wondered where Naja and Kindle were. I was a little concerned. I hoped they were okay, especially Naja. I wondered if that was the first time Marvin had done that to her or had it been going on all along like with me.

  I went in my room and turned on the light. I cut on the radio to listen to the countdown while I got dressed. I turned the volume up loud enough to hear it in the bathroom. It was still cold in the house so I ran the hot water and closed the bathroom door to warm the bathroom up. I took a quick bath and brushed my teeth. I borrowed Naja’s Wet Seal jeans. I liked how her jeans fit my butt. I put on a white fitted shirt that had baby phat printed in silver across the chest. I slipped on my Air Force is, put on the Rocawear coat that my mom, Naja, and me shared, and headed out. I was carrying my book bag on my back. In it was the bikini I found earlier, a jar of Vaseline, and a bottle of perfume I got from off my mom’s dresser.

  Walking to the bus stop, I was shivering. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was cold or nervous. It could have been both. I didn’t know what to expect from meeting with Shake. I mean, he sounded nice on the phone, but what if he was this big fat-ass arrogant nigga just out to take advantage of girls? Or what if he looked at me and said if you don’t take your little young ass home? What if I see somebody in there that I know? All types of thoughts were running through my head.

  The 52 bus was right on time. I took it to the subway and took the subway over to Harlem. I got to Shake’s fifteen minutes earlier than our ten o’clock agreement. The club was livelier than what I had thought it would be. Maybe I watched too much TV, because I imagined it being this small hole-in-

  the-wall bar with like two women dancing on poles and like six old drunk men watching them. But before I even got in the club, I could tell Shake’s was nothing like I had imagined. There were cars double parked outside for blocks and they were hot cars, too, like Benzes and Lexuses. I grew more nervous as I approached the entrance.

  I got inside Shake’s and didn’t know where to turn. It was packed. The air was misty and clogged with weed smoke. The lights were dimmed and the music thumped. I felt overwhelmed. My mind wasn’t able to keep up with my eyes, and I couldn’t hear myself think. I took a few deep breaths and tried to pull it together. I watched people pass by me and was ready to approach just anybody to ask about Shake, but I saw a waitress in the distance and decided to ask her instead.

  “Hi, I’m Angel. I’m here to meet Shake,” I said.

  The tall, thick, light-skinned waitress frowned up her face and yelled over the music, “What? Speak up. I can’t hear you.”

  “I’M HERE TO MEET SHAKE!” I raised my voice.

  “Shake stepped out for a minute. Are you here for business or pleasure?”

  “BUSINESS,” I responded.

  “Oh, well, follow me,” she said, as she darted through the crowd carrying a tray of drinks.

  I followed her to a table of straight dykes. I know, right-straight dykes? Anyway, the waitress placed the drinks on the table and turned to walk away when one of the butch-looking dykes smacked the shit out of her on her butt. I just knew the waitress chick was going to turn around and sucker punch the dyke, but she didn’t. She just kept walking as if nothing happened. She led me over to a two-person booth in a smaller private room in the club.

  “I’m Butter,” the waitress finally introduced herself.

  “I’m Angel,” I said.

  “So, what business do you have with Shake?” she said hurriedly.

  “He told me to come down about working,” I said, wondering where was Shake and why I couldn’t talk to him.

  “Well, Angel, how old are you? Because don’t get me wrong, your body says twenty-five, but your face says twelve,” Butter said, looking me up and down.

  Trying to sound polite and stern at the same time, I answered, “Shake and I already discussed that.”

  Butter raised her eyebrows and began to give me the rundown. “Oh. Well,” she, said smacking her teeth, “the dressing room is over there, right through those red doors. Go in there and change into your getup. When you’re read
y, meet me at the bar.” Then she left out the room.

  I walked out the room behind Butter. On my way to the red doors, I eyed the club. Chicks were dancing topless on the stage, doing nothing I hadn’t already seen in movies. But on the floor, it was going down. Only porn movies exposed the kind of stuff the girls were doing down there. They were giving guys lap dances without their panties on and some of the guys actually had their things out. You do the math. Seeing that made chills creep up my spine. I wasn’t sure I belonged there. But I didn’t want to turn back, so I proceeded through the red doors.

  There were about seven girls in the dressing room. One was counting money. Some were putting on makeup and changing. And a couple were just sitting down drinking water.

  “Oh, girl, you ain’t sayin’ nothin’, mommy! His dick was harder than that fuckin’ math test I took last week!” a Hispanic-looking girl shouted.

  “Ahh ha!” the other girls laughed as they slapped each other’s hands.

  The laughter and conversation came to a stop when I walked in. All the girls looked me up and down before any of them said a word.

  “Look at this baby. She know she don’t need to be in here,” the Hispanic-looking girl said, as if I wasn’t in the room.

  The other girls just mumbled things under their breath and kept doing whatever they were doing. I was scared. I didn’t know if I should have been a bitch and get in fight mode or been nice and broke the awkwardness.

  I frowned up my face and got into defense mode. I was used to that option. Besides, I figured I couldn’t show any weakness if I had planned to work there. I had to remember what I was there for and stick to my plan. It was like school—I didn’t let Marie and them keep me from doing what I had to do there, and I wasn’t about to let those old bitches keep me from doing what I had to do at Shake’s.

  I walked over to an empty station. I took off my coat and clothes. I wished it was a bathroom or somewhere private I could have changed, but it wasn’t. I put on the bikini and God, my C cups were bustin’ out of the extra-small top. More mumbles and some laughter resulted from me trying to squeeze my developed body into the bikini. I pretended like it didn’t bother me, even though I was ready to cry.