“Yes, I have a face to face with my worker Ms. Shelton today. She needed to see my child in person to give me the food stamp and check increase,” Carlene said, using the most proper English I had ever heard her speak in the few times I had gotten to see her in my life. “Jones is my name. Carlene, and this is my child, Kelsi.”
The lady swirled her chair around, checked something, and turned back to the window. “Have a seat. Shelton got six before you. Your appointment was for nine o’clock; you late, you go to the bottom,” the lady said like she had said the same line one hundred times that day.
Carlene let out a windstorm of breath. “Fuck!” Carlene spat, grabbing my arm roughly and pulling me into a corner. She flung me into the wall and turned into me. She was covering me from the crowd so no one could see the fear dancing in my widened eyes. I couldn’t understand what I had done wrong. “Bitch, you see what the fuck you did taking all long? Now we gotta wait in here all fucking day. I was gonna buy you something to eat . . . Now you ain’t gettin’ shit,” Carlene hissed, her breath smelling like a swirl of shit and cigarettes.
I think that was the first time I felt that ball of fire in my chest get a little bigger. I would come to learn as I got older that it was anger inside of me that was growing like a well-watered plant. With hunger pangs tearing my insides up and that fire in my chest, I pictured a thousand ways I could kill Carlene that day. I was eight at that time, but those thousand ways would multiply into millions as the years went by.
Chapter 4
By the time we finished with Carlene’s face to face, which, I found out, meant an in-person meeting with a welfare caseworker, Carlene had been given a stack of what the lady called “emergency food stamps” and Carlene could expect an increase of $175 plus back money in two weeks. When we left the office, I was moving slow. I was so hungry, I felt like I would faint. My merciful biological passage into the world finally stopped at a street frank vendor and bought me one frank, a grape soda, and a bag of Bon Ton plain potato chips. I remember that meal so clearly to this day because it was the first thing I had eaten since I’d been snatched from Nana’s house. I couldn’t even taste the food I had gobbled it down so fast.
When we returned to Carlene’s building, I saw that same little girl again. This time she was doing the Hula Hoop instead of playing double Dutch. And, instead of all yellow, the little girl had on all red. I could tell someone cared about her. Her skin was shiny and clear. Her hair was parted in zigzag parts and she had pretty heart-shaped bubbles and barrettes adorning at least eight long ponytails. She wore a red top with sparkly silver hearts all over it and a red miniskirt. Her socks were folded down with red hearts all over them. She had on pristine white low-top Reebok track sneakers. The little girl stopped Hula-Hooping when she saw me looking at her. She smiled again and waved. This time, I smiled back and I waved again.
Carlene had stopped to speak to a guy, so she didn’t have time to see me and the little girl waving and smiling at one another. The little girl motioned for me to come to her, but I was scared that moving would get Carlene’s attention, so I shook my head no. The little girl tilted her head in confusion. Her shoulders slumped like she was disappointed, but then she stepped out of her Hula Hoop. She hung her Hula Hoop on the black metal gate that surrounded the small patch of grass in front of the building and walked over to me. As soon as she got close, I could smell the fresh scent of baby powder on her. She still had some showing on her neck, too. I immediately noticed the arm full of red and clear plastic bracelets she wore. I wanted them.
“Why was you scared to come over there?” she asked me.
She was even prettier up close than I thought she was looking at her from a distance. I was immediately embarrassed and felt inferior to her. I felt so ugly standing in front of that pretty little girl. “I don’t know,” I said softly. Looking away to make sure Carlene was still talking. I could see Carlene had that stack of food stamps out and she was in deep conversation with a guy who looked like he was dismissing her. Carlene looked like she was begging him for something.
“Is Peaches your mother?” the little girl asked, noticing me stealing glances at Carlene.
I looked down at my feet. I wished I could cover my dirty “play sneakers” so the little girl couldn’t see them. I also wished I could blink and make Carlene just disappear. “What’s your name?” I asked her, totally ignoring her question. I didn’t want anyone to know Carlene was my mother.
“Cheyenne,” she said. “I don’t live in this building, but I come over here sometimes because it’s a lot of my friends over here. I live in the real houses down Sea Gate.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, “real houses,” but I knew it was probably better than this building, or else why would she point it out so fast?
“My name is Kelsi. I live in the Bronx with my Nana, but I had to come here for a little while. I don’t live in this building either,” I said, feeling right away like I had to compete with this pretty little girl.
“I hope you stay a long time. I like you,” Cheyenne told me.
She didn’t even know me; how could she say she liked me? What about me did she like? I still had on my “play clothes” so they looked too small and they didn’t match. My hair needed combing and brushing. My face was probably dirty and, to top it all off, I had spilled grape soda down the front of my shirt trying to drink it so fast, so I looked dirty as hell. Certainly not like someone this dainty, well-dressed, clean, sweet-faced girl would like.
“I like you too,” I lied. Secretly I hated her: her clean clothes, her nicely done hair, and her pretty face. I could just imagine how clean her “real house” was, too.
“Can you stay outside for a little while?” she asked.
Don’t leave out this house without my permission or if me or Took take you out. You can’t go outside unless I say you can go. Carlene’s words resounded in my ears. “I think I might be going back to the Bronx today so pro’ly not,” I answered, lying again.
“Dag. I wish you could stay outside. I want some new friends. The girls around here be my friend for a little while but then they start getting jealous and talking about me and stuff and then we don’t be friends no more. I’m bored out here by myself,” Cheyenne complained.
I wanted to tell her to stop complaining. That at least she had nice clothes, nice hair, and a clean “real house.” I looked over at Carlene again. She was finally exchanging something with the guy she had been talking to. A car horn sounded and caused me to look away. Cheyenne turned around too.
“C’mon, baby girl. We goin’ to the rides,” a man called from a real nice, big, shiny black Jeep-looking car.
From where I stood, I could see that the man had a neck full of thick gold chains and a crisp white shirt on. I couldn’t really see his face. Cheyenne sucked her teeth and turned back toward me.
“I gotta go, Kelsi. That’s my father. He don’t like me to stay out here that long so he always makes up excuses to make me want to leave,” she said disappointedly.
“What’s the rides?” I asked her real quick before she left.
She looked at me with furrowed eyebrows. “You never seen all those rides just blocks from here? Coney Island . . . duh. You never went there?” Cheyenne said like it was something or someplace everyone in the entire world knew about but me.
“I told you I was from the Bronx!” I snapped, my jaw rocked back and forth. I wanted to punch her. The fireball in my chest was starting again. It just wasn’t as hot as it was for Carlene.
“Even people from the Bronx come to Coney Island. On Easter, on Memorial Day and stuff like that. People get all dressed fresh and come to the rides. We are lucky to live right by the rides and we go all the time. Ask that lady you with if you can go. My father won’t care,” Cheyenne told me.
Was she crazy? Carlene would flip if I asked her to go someplace other than wherever she told me to go. “That’s okay. I’m just going to stay here. I might be going back to the B
ronx later anyway,” I said with a straight face. That was just wishful thinking.
Cheyenne’s father blew the horn again. She sucked her teeth. She started walking off, but she didn’t go in the direction of her father’s car. I thought she was going to get her Hula Hoop off the fence. She marched right up to Carlene and the guy. I crinkled my face in confusion. Cheyenne was saying something to Carlene; then she pointed to me and looked back at Carlene.
My body felt hot all over and my heart was knocking into that skinny bone in the center of my chest. Carlene shot me a dirty look from where she stood. Cheyenne marched to her father’s car. Her father blew the horn again. I looked over to the car. He was leaning down looking in the direction Carlene was standing with the guy.
“Yo, Peaches!” Cheyenne’s father yelled. He blew his horn again.
I was frozen in place. What was happening? I couldn’t stop the sweat beads from running a race down my back. My underarms itched and so did my scalp.
Carlene turned toward the Jeep car with a fake smile and waved. “Wassup, Big K?” she answered with a fake song in her tone.
He waved her over. “Let me rap with you for a taste,” he hollered out.
Carlene rolled her eyes at me. “I’ll be right back. Stay right there,” she grumbled to me evilly. She sashayed over to where the man she had called Big K, who I knew now was Cheyenne’s father, sat parked in his big, beautiful, shiny Jeep car.
I watched as they spoke. Carlene was all smiles and giggles like she was talking to her schoolgirl crush. Cheyenne was in the back seat staring out of the window at me. She put her pointer and middle finger up and crossed them over each other. I didn’t know what that meant. Carlene finally looked up from where she’d been leaning down, smiling into Big K’s window.
“B . . . um, Kelsi! C’mere, baby! Hurry up!” Carlene called out, waving me over like the matter was urgent. It was the first time she’d called me by my name, which sounded more like an owner calling a pet than a mother calling her only child. I looked at her strangely. “C’mere and stop acting crazy, girl.” Carlene laughed nervously.
Cheyenne was smiling and bouncing excitedly. I didn’t understand none of what was going on. Whatever had made Carlene refer to me as “baby” surely had to be something or someone big. I made it over to the car.
“Kelsi, this Big K . . . Took’s boss. His daughter wants you to go with her to the rides. I told Big K I was gonna ask you first. You wanna go?” She looked at me with a knowing, squinty-eyed glance.
I darted my eyes to Cheyenne who was shaking her head up and down, motioning for me to say yes.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Carlene said, like she was telling me to say no on the low. I felt the chest ball fire thingy again. I pictured it growing a little bigger inside of me.
“It’s gonna be fun,” Big K said, flashing a smile.
That was the first time I remember looking at him. His eyes were kind and relaxed. They were dark, but not scary dark like Carlene’s. His skin was the color of the coffee beans Nana loved so much, and it was smooth and hairless. He had two shiny gold teeth in the front of his mouth that gleamed and sparkled when he smiled, and his watch had a huge face with rows of shiny diamonds going round and round in circles all over it.
“I ain’t got no money to give,” Carlene started, urgency lacing her words.
Big K threw his hand up in her face. “Don’t insult me, Peaches. Ain’t nobody asking you for no paper. I said I was taking shorty to the rides. Slow ya roll. What I look like asking you for money,” he chastised, putting the emphasis on the difference between him and her. I mean, it was plain to see that there were big differences. Big K looked at me and softened his chiseled, handsome face. “What’s it gonna be, little lady?” he asked in more of cheery tone than he’d just spoken to Carlene.
Carlene was moving her jaw furiously. Maybe that’s where I’d gotten that from?
“I wanna go,” I said softly, parting a nervous smile, not daring to look at Carlene. I didn’t know if it was to make Carlene mad as hell or if it was to be closer to the kind eyes of Big K, but I said it again, louder the second time. “I wanna go to the rides.”
“Yes!” Cheyenne cheered from the back seat, pumping her fist.
Big K laughed. “Calm down back there, cheerleader,” he quipped.
Carlene was sizzling mad, I could tell. Her eyes were low and her nostrils moved in and out rapidly. She stepped back from the car like it was a big, black monster about to attack her. “And there you have it,” Carlene mumbled while keeping a fake smile on her face. “Well then I guess it’s fine with me. I ain’t gonna go against the hand that feeds me right?” Carlene said, nodding at Big K and letting out a half-phony snicker after.
“Get in, little lady. This little one back here been waiting for you,” Big K told me.
Cheyenne already had the back door open. I had to hold on to climb up into the Jeep car. I had never been in one before. Nana didn’t drive. We walked or took the bus all over the Bronx when we had to go somewhere. Cheyenne hugged my neck like we had been friends for years. “I’m so happy you can come with us!” she whispered. It was strange to me, but I went with it. In my mind, if she liked me, her father would like me too. I had already decided that I loved him.
“What time y’all coming back?” Carlene asked, this time with attitude.
“It ain’t gonna be that long. Just enough time for them to ride, play some games, and grab some grub. I gotta stop home and get Desi and Li’l Kev first. We do things as a family. You feel me?” Big K replied, like he was trying to send a message to Carlene.
There were no more words exchanged. Big K pulled off. I watched from the back window as Carlene stared after the Jeep car. I was silently praying that going to the rides would be worth whatever Carlene was going to do when I got back.
Cheyenne had been right. Her house was a real house. Her father had to use a little card to get into big black gates. The gates led to a hidden neighborhood with rows and rows of real houses. The houses all stood alone, not connected, like the buildings I was used to living in. There were grassy lawns out front with little brick structures around them. There were flowerbeds with yellow, red, pink, and purple flowers in them.
Big K turned the car into a driveway in front of a big pale brick house. There were tall green curved, spiral, and round bushes in front. Flowers surrounded the front walkway, too.
“C’mon, Kelsi!” Cheyenne said excitedly. “This is my house!”
I followed her out of the car in wide-eyed amazement. She ran up the tan brick steps that led to the beautiful beveled-glass front door. She twisted the gold doorknob and bounded inside. “Let’s go to my room until they get ready!” Cheyenne instructed, waving me on to follow her.
I was moving slow, taking it all in. We walked through a grand foyer adorned with beautiful gold-framed pictures of Big K, Cheyenne, a little boy, and a real pretty lady. The house smelled like I would picture a home to smell in my fantasies—like rose petals and sweet candy.
“Cheyenne!” I heard a woman’s voice call out.
That snapped me out of my reverie. Cheyenne was already on the steps heading to her room. She turned around and sucked her teeth.
“You took too long,” Cheyenne whispered. “C’mon, now we have to go see my mother before we go to my room,” she huffed, grabbing my hand and dragging me farther into the beautiful house.
“How are you going to try to go upstairs without introducing me to your company? How rude.” A woman’s voice filtered down the long hallway we were walking through.
I was busy looking up at the crystal chandeliers that lined the hallway while Cheyenne led me like a blind person through the maze that was her house.
“Mommy, this is my new friend Kelsi,” Cheyenne announced.
I could feel my mouth hanging open, but I couldn’t close it.
The woman walked toward me with a bright, gleaming white smile. “Ohh, you’re very pretty, Kelsi.
It’s nice to meet you. I’m Ms. Desiree,” the woman said, sticking out a beautifully manicured hand.
I smiled and shook her hand. She was the color of the Disney cartoon character Pocahontas. She was beautiful like a Native American, too, with slanted eyes, but not so slanted you would mistake her for an Asian. Her hair was long and dark, and lay on her left shoulder in soft, coiled tendrils. She had the most perfect mouth. Her lips weren’t big and greasy like Carlene’s; instead, Ms. Desiree had a small, heart-shaped mouth with a light tint of lip gloss on them. She wore a white tennis dress; her long, slender legs looked like she really played tennis for a living.
Cheyenne looked like the spitting image of Ms. Desiree. My heart raced as I touched her hand. I was already wishing that the beautiful woman was my mother instead of Carlene.
“That’s Peaches’ daughter,” Big K’s voice boomed from behind us. I turned around and took him in entirely. Big K was tall with strong arms. His shoulders were square, but not too big. I couldn’t stop staring at his eyes. I had never seen a man with kinder eyes than his. He looked at his wife with such love. My heart was racing and I felt like I would throw up.
“Peaches . . . mmm, hmmm,” Ms. Desiree said, looking back at me.
It seemed like they were speaking some secret language about Carlene, and I could tell from their silent signals it wasn’t good. I wanted to run away and tell Ms. Desiree that I wasn’t Carlene’s daughter, that I belonged to my Nana, but I stood my ground.
“Either way, she’s a cutie pie and you-know-who is all sold on this one,” Ms. Desiree said, tilting her head toward Cheyenne. “Cheyenne, we’re about to go, so why don’t you and Kelsi go take a quick shower and change. You have new stuff you can give her to wear . . . maybe matching but in different colors,” Ms. Desiree said in an overly cheery voice. Again, she was sending some sort of silent-language signal to her daughter.
Girls From da Hood 9 Page 4
