Full Figured 7

by Nikki Rashan

  Fighting the urge to vomit, sobbing and tiptoeing I forced myself forward to investigate. I was trying not to slip in the ice-cold slick puddle that used to be someone’s life force on the floor. I edged my way into the bathroom carefully. No one should ever have to know what it feels like to walk barefoot through another human’s blood; how it congeals, feels slimy, or how it slides in between your toes. I felt lightheaded and realized I’d been holding my breath; I inhaled and exhaled through my nose a few times, reminding myself to repeat the action every few seconds.

  Reaching my hand out cautiously, tears clung to my lashes, momentarily blurring my vision, almost blinding me and I blinked them away furiously. I continued the slow process like when they took me to pet a pony for my fifth birthday and told me she was more afraid of me than I should have been of her.

  The pony paid me no real mind as she chomped away at a stalk of grass, glancing at me every so often as I edged nearer, certain she’d take my head off at any moment. She peered at me eerily through enormous alien-like glossy black eyes that reflected my image to me. It was the only sign indicating her awareness of my intrusion into her space.

  My parents were both there watching. Momma was eating my cotton candy I’d asked her to hold and Daddy was standing behind her, resting his chin on her shoulder, a mixture of pride and amusement on his face. He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up when I’d finally looked back at him shouting, “I did it, Daddy!”

  My fingers met the cold, leathery flesh of his eyelids and I slid them down, gently closing them. I silently said good-bye to the reflection of me now mirrored in his lifeless eyes that were just this morning vivid and alive. I did my best not to look at the long, jagged gash that ran underneath Daddy’s chin across his neck. His wedding band and chain, the only pieces of jewelry he ever wore, were gone.

  Looking around I tried to see if maybe they’d fallen off. His Atum-Ra Egyptian medallion was important to him. It was a solid gold square with a carving on it of a man’s body with a falcon’s head; his arms were outstretched wings. A small snake hung from his beak, which I always thought was just nasty. His daddy had given it to him before he passed, and Daddy always had this saying about Egyptians being black. He believed we were all royalty: kings, queens, princes, and princesses by inheritance. And now, the king of our little castle was slumped in an awkward position between the toilet and the side of the bathtub. Like a doll someone had gotten tired of playing the game of life with and just dropped. His wife beater and shorts were both the same nightmarish dark red as the pool beneath my feet. This wasn’t an honorable death. This wasn’t how my king should have died.

  Buzzz. Buzzz. Buzzz. Buzzz.

  Startled, I carefully traced my steps back to my things and knelt down to retrieve my phone. The worries I had moments ago seemed worlds apart from the worries I was facing now. There was nothing Bri could say at this point that could surprise me or piss me off after this. My little high school drama had immediately become irrelevant. What good was having a grain of sand once you realize you’d lost an entire beach? Flipping open the case I scrolled to her latest text.

  Text From Brianna 12:44: He said he got caught up in the moment and was horny as hell since you won’t give it up. He thinking about breaking up with you because you basically making him insecure, girl. When you gonna give that boy some ass?

  I needed to donate my body to science. There was no way a human heart could possibly sink any lower than my heart had, but at the sight of her words, it surprisingly did. How could his lying, cheating ass do something so unbelievable? He got what he wanted and then just like that it was on to the next. Wow. It was time to pull myself together. I needed to go next door and get a neighbor to call the police. I’d started to close the phone when Bri’s next words made my heart do one of those painful stutter thumps. That type of thump that sends a train wreck of thoughts to your brain in the form of an instant headache.

  Text From Brianna 12:55: Are you there?

  Text From Brianna 12:55: Girl, say something!

  Text From Brianna 1:05: Are you that mad at me? You know I’m down for Korey right now. He’s the star quarterback and he FINE. I’m not messing that up not for your little wanna-be playboy. Oh and, when we were leaving, Manny, rolled past with your momma and scooped him up.

  Carlos got a ride with him? Was he in on this shit? If it was at that level was I next? I couldn’t take any chances, especially not if he had anything to do with it. Whether my momma was with him willingly was still unclear. The police wouldn’t be any help. They’d only get me detained until he got there because they worked for him. The only way I’d be safe was if I got out of here and as quickly as possible.

  Chapter 3

  Would You Bleed For Dead Presidents?

  “What you mean you ran away? Girl, is you crazy?”

  My cousin Charmaine was staring at me wild-eyed in the stuffy hallway of her six-story walk-up in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. Her wet and wavy weave was braided into two frizzy plats that hung strait down both sides of her head. She’d come out into the hallway wearing nothing but a thin, almost see-through pink slip that barely reached mid-thigh, and one slouched white sock.

  Where the hell is your other sock, woman?

  An obsessive-compulsive war silently waged on in my head as I fought to refrain from asking her the question out loud. I kept glancing down at her bare foot, questioning over and over how someone could just walk around with one naked foot. One of my brain cells decided to raise the white flag of defeat, ending the battle. The need for fresh air outweighed the need for an answer. I was out of breath from walking up all the stairs to get to her door, and at the same time trying not to breathe in too much of the stale stank-ass air inside the hallway.

  The entire corridor was filled with the faint odor of urine and dirty diapers mixed with the scent of someone cooking cabbage; either that, or the trash needed to go out. Car horns honked repeatedly, subway trains rumbled, and police sirens whirred in the distance outside. Inside babies wailed while televisions blared loudly behind each of the dark blue doors on every single floor, as if every single person was trying to drown out the sounds of the real world. Lord, I missed Virginia.

  “Well, I’m waiting, girl,” she said while impatiently tapping her ashy naked foot.

  “I . . . I pawned some bangles Grandma gave me, and caught the China bus up here. You’re the only one I could think of who was close by. Yo, why the hell don’t y’all have an elevator?” The words tumbled from my mouth in a nervous jumbled cluster. Leaning forward I braced myself on my knees and stared up at her, sweat trickling in between my shoulder blades underneath my T-shirt.

  She was a few years older than me from my daddy’s side of the family. They had the same complexion and high, narrow nose. Swallowing past the lump in my throat I tried to find a steady voice to plead my case with her.

  “I can’t really talk about it; the less you know the better. I really just need some money and then I need to go. I’ll pay you back, somehow, I promise. But they might come looking for me and if they do you ain’t seen me. Life or death shit, Charmaine.”

  “You know I just had another baby. I really don’t have any extra money right now, boo.”

  Tears filled my eyes at her excuses and I leaned into the wall. It sure as hell didn’t look she’d had a damn baby. Jealousy tried to stick its long, ugly nose over my shoulder and look at the outline of her narrow waist that was so clearly visible through her slip. But, the shadow of dread that had been trailing me slowly clawed its way up my back. Its grisly shroud of misery erased all thoughts not related to my future, or the lack of a future if anyone caught up to me.

  When I’d gone into my parents’ room to get my bangles I’d found Charmaine’s address on an envelope with a picture of the new baby inside, her phone number on the back. When the bus dropped me off in front of Penn Station I’d meant to call her first, instead of just showing up. I was just so determined to get away, and then shocked at actually s
eeing this “concrete jungle” I’d only seen on TV.

  In Virginia, if you look up you’ll see elm and oak trees, tiny finches, and robins as bright as stop signs. I’d seen so many different varieties of butterflies I could never name them all. Now my view was marred by endless stone and cold cement, pigeons, and squawking seagulls. It almost made me climb right back on the bus. Mouth hanging wide open, I honestly stood there, staring like a little country mouse.

  Where were the gargoyles carved out of stone? How in the world did people have picnics or fly kites; hell, black people need a little bit of sun, that’s how we get our vitamin D. I was trying to take in the scenery and people shoved past me. Elbows jabbed me and shoulders bumped me as they rushed to get their bags, and not one person said excuse me or I’m sorry.

  My father always told me, “If you go somewhere you blend in; you don’t stand out like a lost idiot. You walk with a damn purpose, and you get where you’re going.”

  Fighting my way through the crowd I approached our bus driver, a little Indian man who spoke in very fast, choppy, incomplete sentences.

  “Um. Excuse me, sir, how do I get here?” I asked him, handing him the sliver of paper I’d written Charmaine’s address on.

  He snatched the address out of my hand and frowned at the writing. All the while he was scratching at this suspicious “herpa syphylitis”–looking bump on the corner of his mouth. Uhhh! It was like one of the pictures they’d shown us in sex education class.

  Please don’t touch the paper, please don’t touch the paper. Noooooooo! I screamed silently, cringing as he shook his head yes, and then jabbed the address repeatedly with his offensive contaminated finger.

  “It is turty or turty-tree-minute walk. Or go one block dat way, take one train, is red number sign. Veddy cheap veddy quick. Ride train, take no time. Go last stop, get off, and walk uh, tree maybe fie block okay?” He shoved the paper back in my direction.

  Speechless, I took my address back, trying to only touch the edges and simply nodded. Paper-touching motherfucka, what the hell is a turty or a fie? A red what? Was all of that even English? I walked away looking like a madwoman as I mumbled to myself—guessed I’d fit right in.

  Charmaine sucked her teeth loudly, drawing me back to the present. “Come in, I might have a little something. Let me see what I can do.”

  Shuffling my backpack up onto my shoulder, I gave her a watery, sniffly thank-you and walked in, my eyes damn near bulging out of their sockets. What kind of Coming to America foolishness was this? This girl had a projection-screen TV on one side that took up the entire wall, exercise equipment, and those nice couches—the kind you see on display upstairs in the JC Penny’s that they don’t want you to sit on. I could even tell the carpet was plush and soft, and that was with my shoes on.

  “So, my dear cousin, want to go with me to a dance tonight? You can probably make some money.”

  After looking at the layout of her place, I didn’t need to think about it. Charmaine was obviously doing something right.

  “Whatever it takes, girl,” I all but shouted enthusiastically at her.

  After taking Kendall and baby Shane across the hall to a neighbor we spent the entire day trying to find something for me to wear. There wasn’t much to choose from since she was in like a size nothing and I sure as hell was not. I’d never had a reason to dress up before and looking at myself in the mirror was like looking at my evil twin.

  “Is this really me?” I asked, as I twirled and preened in front of her full-length mirror.

  “Yes, boo. I might need to get us a gun. Where you get all those hips and that booty from? I swear they putting something up in that milk y’all drinking. I ain’t have all that when I was sixteen. I had to have babies to get what little ass and titties I got now.” She then squeezed her boobs together for emphasis, making faces and laughing.

  She’d managed to find a pink and black stretchy miniskirt and a pink tank top with push-up cups made into the fabric so I didn’t need a bra. The black button-up top she gave me to wear over the tank top was too small to actually button so I wore it open. Just having it on my arms made me feel less naked. We wore the same size shoes and I just tried on all of hers until I found a comfortable pair of low heels that I wouldn’t fall out of.

  “So the party is at this studio all the way across town in the Bronx, and these fools are talking about take the damn train. My homeboy is gonna come get us, because we’d have to take the one, then the C and I think B to D, and then the four train’ll hit the six, which will put us at Westchester and Tremont; might be the longest way, too. Hell no.”

  She lost me when she switched from numbers to letters and then back. It sounded to me like New York just liked to make shit complicated. None of it really mattered though. I’d take a ride in a car full of strangers dressed as a hoochie over a train car filled with strangers any day.

  The building felt like it was shaking. Charmaine’s one window rattled worse than it did when the train passed, and the glasses in her wine rack clinked together. The duck-and-cover drill crossed my mind but what was I ducking and covering from?

  A roach riot; is there a crackhead stampede downstairs?

  “C’mon, girl. Our ride is here.”

  My chariot for the evening was a dark green Jeep Cherokee with pitch black windows and chrome rims so big they were probably as high as my knees. Climbing in behind the driver seat I was surrounded by the spicy seductive scent of Black Ice air fresheners. Blue interior lighting ran along the floor and underneath the seats. Charmaine yelled over the music to introduce me to the driver, Tarique, and his friend, Chief. They barely acknowledged us, making me feel unwelcome, like an inconvenience or something.

  “Rude asses. Well so much for Southern hospitality. Damn.” Mumbling under my breath I got settled, content with just looking out the window.

  “She introduced your little nobody ass and I nodded. Damn.” Tarique sneered at me over his left shoulder.

  Scrunching my face up at his ignorant self, I could feel my blood beginning to boil. “You calling me a nobody like you’re a somebody,” I spat back.

  “Right now, I’m the somebody with the ride. You just a body. No car, no money. Nobody.” He gave me a look in the rearview that could probably freeze water.

  The music went all the way back up, cutting off any reply I would’ve made if I could have come up with one. The streets were a blur of taxi cabs, pedestrians, and city lights. It was all like a beautiful postcard in motion to my eyes. Jay-Z’s “Feelin’ It” vibrated through my back up to my jawbone through the gigantic subwoofer in the back. The album just came out and it was a helluva soundtrack to ride to through the streets of New York. Every street we turned on made me wonder if someone famous had walked down it or lived on it. We stopped underneath some eerie subway tracks that dripped down the front of the windshield. The greens and reds of the surrounding street lights reflected into the cabin of the Jeep, casting an unnerving glow.

  “All right, y’all, we are here. We’ll be up in a minute. Char, you got your shit?” Chief was the one who spoke. He was definitely the nicer of the two from what I could tell so far.

  “Yeah, bae. I’m goodie like B.C. Powder white not birth control ’cause I got three. Mouths to feed. I do or die whatever ready,” Charmaine half spoke and half rhymed in reply. Her eyes were practically closed. She was bobbing her head, rocking back and forth and snapping her fingers, even though there wasn’t any music playing anymore.

  Okay. Am I the only one who finds this . . . not normal?

  Chief climbed out and opened Charmaine’s door. “Good. Get in there then; call if you need us.”

  “Wait, you aren’t coming with us?” I asked, while giving anxious glances in Char’s direction. I expected her to speak up in our defense.

  “You’ll be fine. Charmaine got you,” Chief replied and laughed, before lighting a blunt and waving me out of the car.

  The studio was on the second floor of a brick three-stor
y building that looked like it was wedged in between some other buildings as a last thought. The light buzzed overhead in the dimly lit stairway; it was so narrow we had to go one at a time. Who in the world would put a studio in a spot like this?

  Charmaine knocked and a huge wall of a man opened the door with a scowl on his face that could probably curdle milk. He had very dark skin with dark brown eyes and a full beard that hid most of his face. Dude had to have been at least seven feet tall and was so wide he took up the entire doorway. At the sight of Char he pulled the door closed behind him and stepped out into the hallway. His face broke into a wide grin, revealing straight pearl white teeth.

  “Mookie-Mook, you made it. I didn’t think you were coming. But yay, you’re here,” he called out to her.

  I immediately looked down to hide the wide grin on my face.

  Did I see a tongue ring? Ooooh is his big butt gay?

  “Hey, my Poo-Poo Percy. This my cuzzo. I told you about her on the phone,” Charmaine replied in a slow sing-song voice.

  He popped his tongue and swiveled his head, looking around the empty hallway suspiciously. He answered her, barely moving his face or his mouth, his voice coming out in a high-pitched squeaky whisper. “Bitch. I am working. You will call me P. Gunna unless we are in genteel company. Now, get y’all’s behinds in here. You’re late.”

  We followed him inside and it was like walking into a sea of people. The little dark room was packed wall to wall with folks everywhere. The music was playing so loud I couldn’t make out the song. All eyes were on us as Perc, P. Gunna, led us farther into the place. We stopped just long enough to fix drinks at a table that was made into a makeshift bar. Char fixed mine since I’d never drunk before. If you could drink gasoline and not die, I was pretty sure whatever was in my cup was exactly what it would taste like.