Mommy's Angel

by Miasha

  “It was all right,” I said out the corner of my mouth.

  “Oh. They let Marvin out,” she said joyously.

  “Um,” I huffed and walked up to my room.

  I slammed the door and put the lock on it. I didn’t want him coming nowhere near me, especially while I was carrying a baby. I wanted to go downstairs and ask my mom had she lost her mind and remind her that she said being away from Marvin helped her stop shooting up. So what did she think was going to happen now that he was back, I wondered. Did she think she would stay clean and be with him at the same time? If she did, she was dumber than I thought, and I was giving her one day to see if she would let him stay. If so, I was out of there. I didn’t care where I went and even though my home was where my heart was, with Marvin in there, it was where my hell was—and I wanted no more parts of hell.

  Same Shit, Different Toilet

  No! No! Please, Marvin! Stop!” I yelled, holding on to the banister that led down to the basement.

  “You want ya mother to hear you?” Marvin asked. “Keep on yellin’ like that and I’ ma beat that baby out of you.”

  Marvin was pulling me, trying to get me down the steps. This was the first time since he had been back at our house that he had tried this with me, and it had been a few weeks. I thought that it was because I was pregnant, but I was wrong. I was showing and everything and that didn’t matter to him that morning. But it mattered to me. I never used to put up a fight with Marvin because he always threatened me. But even with the threats of him beating my baby out of me, I was fighting back. I would have rather him do that then put his nasty, dirty dick anywhere near my child.

  “No! Stop!” I continued to yell. All I wanted to do was eat my cereal in peace, I thought while I was holding on to the banister with all the strength I had.

  Marvin’s eyes were bloodshot red and veins started to pop out of his neck. He gritted his teeth like a pit bull and said, “You’ re playin’ games with me?!” Then he took one of his hands off me and slapped me across my face.

  The slap caught me off guard and made me lose my grip on the banister. I stumbled and almost fell on Marvin and down the steps.

  “Aaarh!” I screamed as Marvin dragged me down the basement steps.

  “You done pissed me off, now!” he said, standing over me, practically ripping off his pants.

  At that point I was outraged and in so much pain. I didn’t care if he beat me to death, I was going to fight him. I grabbed his wobbling calves to lift myself up, at that same time making him fall over. I got up off the floor and tried to run up the stairs. I thought I had it, but right as I reached my hand out to push open the basement door, I felt Marvin’s hand wrap tightly around my ankle.

  I used my hands to keep my face from hitting the steps as Marvin pulled me down them.

  “Marvin, please,” I begged, my eyes filled with tears. I was out of breath and weak. I couldn’t fight back anymore if I wanted to, and at that point I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I knew I had said I didn’t care if he beat me to death, but that was because I didn’t think he would. But I realized that he just might. So I tried to get him to stop civilly. I tried to buy some time and I hoped and prayed that in that time he would come down from his high and let me go. He didn’t. I cried and begged the whole time from beginning to end. I damn near lost my voice. But he kept going until he was finished. Then he rolled off of me and laid on the cold basement floor in satisfaction. I got up slowly, pulled my pants and panties up, and limped up the steps. I walked past the bowl of cereal that I had been eating before Marvin came into the kitchen. And I walked out the front door.

  Knock! Knock! Knock! I banged on Jamal’s door.

  “What happened?” Jamal asked, concerned.

  I could barely talk. I was so sore and I couldn’t stop crying.

  “Jamal, I need to go to the hospital,” I managed to say. “I think I’m bleeding.”

  Before Jamal could say anything, his mom was standing behind him.

  “What she want this time of the morning?” she asked.

  “Mom, it’s not the time.”

  “My stomach is hurting, Jamal,” I said, bent over, still at his doorway.

  Jamal helped me inside his house.

  “What happened?” he repeated.

  “My stomach,” I said.

  “What are you bringing your stomach pains over here for? Don’t no doctors live over here,” Jamal’s mom said.

  “Mom! She’s pregnant, all right! It’s not the time!” Jamal snapped.

  “Pregnant!” she shouted, “By who?”

  I lifted my head up and looked at Jamal’s mom.

  “Ms. Brenda, I’m pregnant by Jamal, and I’m in a lot of pain, so…”

  She cut me off, “Excuse me? You a stripper, you cheated on my son, disappeared, and come back talkin’ about you pregnant with his baby! And you think I’m just goin’ buy that!”

  “Mom! Yo! Chill out!” Jamal defended me.

  “Yes. Please, because I need to get to a hospital,” I said, talking back to Jamal’s mom for the first time.

  Her face lit up. She was on fire, I could tell. But I didn’t care. I just needed Jamal to take me to the hospital. I was scared for my baby, and his mom wasn’t making matters no better.

  “Oh no, you didn’ t!” she shouted. “Yes, please me in my house! You must have lost ya mind! You have got to go, okay! Out of my house! My son ain’t claimin’ no babies unless a paternity test says it’s his! Ya word is as good as those bruises on ya face—very questionable!”

  I looked at Jamal, then at his mom, and I realized I had no win. Jamal had eventually taken his mom’s side. I could tell that he had taken what she said to heart. He was probably starting to question my baby being his. That was why he didn’t say anything in my defense anymore. I knew what it was, so I just left. Jamal didn’t come after me. He didn’t offer to call me an ambulance, nothing. His mom had got in his head with that comment. I couldn’t blame him, though. I got myself in that situation, so I had to get myself out.

  I walked up my street, holding my stomach. The guy that lived in the crack house was on his porch.

  “You all right?” he asked me.

  I didn’t want to, but I started crying. I shook my head.

  “Yo, you need a doctor or somethin?”

  I nodded.

  He ran off his porch and helped me up the steps and then into his house. He sat me on his sofa.

  “I’ma call the ambulance for you, okay?” he said, heading for his kitchen.

  I nodded again. I was in so much pain. I leaned my head on the arm of the couch and closed my eyes. I heard him on the phone with the ambulance. Then I heard somebody walking down his steps. I opened my eyes.

  “Ant Man? What you doin’ here?” I asked, tears still falling down my face.

  “I’m servin’. What you doin’ here is the question?” he asked. “You okay?”

  “My stomach hurtin’,” I told him.

  He looked at me closely. “You pregnant?”

  “Yeah, and I think something is wrong.”

  Just then the guy came out of the kitchen. “The ambulance is on they way.”

  “Naw, it’s cool. She don’t need ‘em. I’ll take her to the hospital.”

  “Word?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s okay with you, shorty?”

  I nodded as I slowly lifted myself off the couch.

  “She my peoples,” Antione told the guy.

  “Oh, damn, I ain’t know that. It’s a small world, ain’t it.”

  Antione helped me out the house and into the backseat of a car that was parked outside. Some other guy was already in the driver seat. He looked at me strangely. He probably thought I was a crack-head. I was sure I looked like one, all sweated out and bruised, coming out of a crack house. Then he shot Antione a look like he wanted to say What the hell you bring this pregnant crack-head in my car for?

  “This my peoples. Take her up the way,” Ant
ione instructed the driver before he had the chance to ask anything.

  The guy huffed, put the car in drive, and pulled out of the parking space.

  I was in a lot of pain and didn’t feel like talking, but I was curious about when Antione had got out of jail.

  “When did you get out?”

  “Get out of where?”

  “Wasn’t you locked up?”

  “Naw.”

  “Butter told me you got locked up out of town around the time they ran in Shake’ s,” I explained.

  “Ohhh. Naw. I was out of town. The cops ran up in my crib but it wasn’t shit there. Naw, I ain’t get locked up.”

  I left it at that. I wasn’t in the mood to interrogate him anyway. Shit, what was done was done. I wasn’t going to cry over spilled milk. Besides, I shouldn’t have trusted Butter’s word. I should have went by Antione’s house myself. That was my fault.

  Antione took a dutch from behind his ear and lit it. He took a few puffs on it and passed it to the driver. The smell was tempting. It reminded me of how good I felt whenever I smoked weed. I was in so much pain, physically and emotionally, and I wanted something that would make it go away. That blunt was calling me.

  “Ant man, can you pass that back here please?”

  “But you pregnant.”

  “I know, but it hurts so bad. Just a little bit to take my mind off this pain,” I whined.

  Antione took another puff and then passed it back to me. When I got the dutch in my hand, I hesitated. I thought about the baby, but something inside me told me that my baby was already harmed. It told me I might as well go ahead and smoke it. I puffed it. Then I puffed it again and again and again. After a while I laid my head back and just chilled out.

  “I thought up the way was the hospital,” I snapped when I realized Antione and the guy had driven me to Butter’s house.

  “Angel, you can’t go to no hospital after you done smoked weed while you pregnant. They ain’t goin’ do nothin’ but run ya name, see that you got a warrant, lock you up, and take ya baby from you the minute it’s born.”

  He made sense, but why Butter’s house? Why not his own? I was steamed, but I wasn’t stupid. Something wasn’t right with that picture. Then Butter came out of her house. She approached the passenger door and bent over like she was going to kiss Antione, but Antione stopped her.

  “Look who I ran into,” he said.

  Butter looked in the back seat. The expression on her face when she saw me was unforgettable.

  “What corner you pick that ho up from?” she asked.

  “Be nice,” Antione said. “She pregnant and shit.”

  “She knocked up?” Butter asked with an attitude. “What kind of money is she goin’ make knocked up?”

  “Pregnant pussy is the best pussy,” Antione replied. “You ain’t know that.”

  I started to put the pieces together in my head, and I knew what was wrong with the picture. I was surrounded by a bunch of shady bastards who had a fucked-up scheme going on and were trying to involve me in it.

  “Ant man, I don’t care about the police locking me up. I just wanna make sure my baby is all right,” I told Antione, with hopes he would have a heart and take me to the hospital.

  Instead, Antione got out of the car and opened the back door. He grabbed me by my arm and pulled me out. I looked at him with so much anger and hate. I hoped he would get the picture and realize that he was dead wrong for whatever he was about to do. He just smirked. Butter walked up the steps to her brownstone and opened the door. Antione forcefully pushed me in the house. The driver took off.

  Once I was inside Butter’s house, I thought about giving up. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t put up a fight. My stomach pains were coming back, and honestly, I just wanted to die. I was asking myself, how did that morning go from me getting up, getting dressed, eating, and getting ready to go take the test to get me back in school, to me being raped, cussed out by Jamal’s mom, and then brought here to Butter’s house for more abuse by Antione, my own fuckin’ family.

  “You look like you need a bath,” Butter said with her lips twisted up.

  “Yo, clean ‘er up, get ‘er some weed, and let ‘er chill,” Antione told Butter.

  Butter rolled her eyes at me and walked up the stairs. That was the first time I seen Butter actually take orders from somebody. She didn’t even listen to Shake like that. Meanwhile, Antione pulled me over to the couch and sat me down.

  I figured that was a perfect opportunity to find out what was going on with him and see if I could snap him out of his obvious insanity.

  “Ant Man,” I shouted, “What is up with you? Why are you doin’ this to me? It’s me. Curt’s sister. Me and you are like family. What are you doin’?”

  “Go upstairs and get cleaned up,” he said, ignoring all of what I said.

  He pulled some money from his pocket and started counting it. He didn’t seem to have any remorse for my situation. He knew that I was in pain. He knew that I was pregnant and needed to go to a hospital, but it didn’t seem to matter to him. Me being his little sister went out of the window. I didn’t even know the nigga that was sitting there in Butter’s living room counting a fistful of fifties. He sure wasn’t the Antione I grew up with. He was no different than Butter and probably worse. I was disgusted at him and her, and I would kill them both if I had the chance.

  “Go ‘head,” Antione reiterated about me going upstairs and taking a bath.

  I slowly walked up the steps and into the back bedroom that was once mine. I sat down on the bed and cried. In no time, Butter came into the room with a blunt. She took a puff and gave it to me. She put an ashtray on the floor in front of me and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  I put the blunt in the ashtray. I wasn’t smoking shit from her. I didn’t care how bad I wanted to. I heard somebody walk up the steps and down the hall. Then I heard Antione’s voice. It was muffled, like he was whispering. I heard Butter whispering back. They sounded like they were in the bathroom next to the room I was in. I got up and put my ear to the door.

  “Go a little easy on ‘er,” Antione whispered.

  “Since when you want me goin’ easy on a ho?”

  “Don’t get it confused, ain’t nothin’ changed around here. It’s just that I feel a little bad for her. I was part of the reason her brother got killed, the least I can do is cut ‘er some slack in this muthafucka.”

  “All right,” Butter stretched her words with attitude.

  I walked out into the hall. I was ready to fight a motherfucker. “Antione, what the fuck did you just say?”

  Butter looked like she was going to hit me, and I ain’t give a fuck. I was ready for her ‘cause her ass whippin’ was long overdue. But Antione intercepted her.

  “I got this,” he said as he grabbed my arm and walked me back in the room. He closed the door behind him, leaving Butter out in the hall.

  “Antione, I don’t believe you! It was you who got Curtis killed? You was like his fuckin’ brother! He looked out for you! Why the fuck would you do something like that to him?”

  Antione’s face grew angrier. “It’s so much more to the story, you don’t even know. Ya mom set that up. I just didn’t stop it!”

  “Stop with ya bullshit! you did enough, okay! you hurt me enough!” I screamed, picking the blunt up out of the ashtray.

  “No! You wanna be in grown folks’ business, then you goin’ listen!” Antione said. “Ya mom had a problem way before Curt died. She owed so many people so much money from gambling. And Curtis would pay niggas off for her over and over again. And the more he made, the more she gambled and the more she owed. Then Curtis told her he wasn’t payin’ no more niggas for her. He told her she needed to stop with the gambling and the drinking and get her shit together. She begged him to pay one last debt and he was like naw. And I ain’t blame ‘im either, ‘cause she was takin’ advantage of’ im.”

  In between taking puffs off the blunt, I cut Antione off
. “She ain’t have my brother killed! I don’t care what you say. She might have had a gambling problem, she might have drank, but I know my mom and she do a lot of fucked-up shit, but she ain’t have my brother killed. Curtis was my mom’s heart!”

  “She ain’t have him killed. She had ‘im robbed. But the robbery turned into a homicide. She ain’t mean for him to be killed. She just told the dudes she owed money to where they could collect it from. She knew he was going to sell a beat. She knew he was going to have money on ‘im. I’m the one who told her our route.”

  “So both of y’all bastards set my brother up?!”

  “Ya mom owed me money. Matter fact to this day she owe me money! I wanted to get paid. The other niggas she owed wanted to get paid. And all Curt had to do was give up the money. I told ‘im to give it up and we’d see those niggas later. But he wanted to be hardheaded and hit the gas. None of that shit would have went down if he would have just gave them niggas what they was askin’ for. They ain’t have no intentions on killin’ nobody. That wasn’t the plan. But y’ all some hardheaded mothafuckas. You and ya brother both. See all this shit you goin’ through right now. Had you just fuckin’ stayed here at Butter’s house, did what you was told, I would have been paid off and you wouldn’t be here right now, chokin’ on ya own tears and shit! Lookin’ fuckin’ pathetic!”

  “Antione, I don’t believe you!” I cried. “My mom and my brother looked out for you! When ya mom died, my mom took you in our house! She fed ya ass, she clothed ya ass, she made sure you was taken care of!”

  “She ain’t do shit! She was always talkin’ about she couldn’t afford to take care of me and she was ready to let the city come and get me! She ain’t start actin’ like she cared until I started hustlin’ and helpin’ her pay niggas off. That’s when she was like call me Mom! She shady, Angel! And she usin’ you to pay off her debts just like she used Curt! And you know what she owe me? Fourteen thousand! You ain’t worth but fourteen thousand to ya mom.”

  “Aaaarrrh! Aaaarrrh!” I screamed.