I Ain't Me No More

by E. N. Joy

  “A shoe.” He said it as if I was an idiot for not knowing what a shoe looked like.

  “Don’t play with me, Dub. I know it’s a shoe, but whose shoe is it?”

  Once again, he gave me that “You idiot” look and said, “Yours . . . of course.”

  “Boy, you don’t think I know my own shoes?”

  “Baby, that shoe been up under there since we moved here. It’s been so long that you probably forgot you even had those shoes.”

  I paused for a minute. I swear on everything that this boy really had me thinking about whether or not this was my shoe. I knelt back down and found the other one. Holding both shoes in my hands, I tried to recall when I’d purchased them, where I’d purchased them, and how much they’d cost. I mean, that was just how in control Dub was of my mind. I swear, if that man had told me that the sky was green and the grass was blue, I’d have thought it was true.

  “These are not my shoes, Dub.” He could hear the uncertainty in my voice.

  “Are you sure those are not your shoes?” He said it the same way Satan had spoken to Eve right before she bit into the forbidden fruit.

  I thought for a moment longer and examined the shoes. After finding SIZE NINE printed on the bottom, and knowing I wore a size ten, I adamantly and confidently said, “I’m sure.” And on that note, I exited the bedroom in search of the owner.

  My blood was boiling like water in a teapot someone had forgotten was on the stove because they were too caught up watching their favorite reality show. Oh, a reality show was about to go down all right—an unscripted one!

  I immediately marched into the bathroom across the hall and pulled the shower curtain back. That music from the movie Psycho was playing in my head, because I had a feeling things were about to get crazy. To my surprise, there was nothing there but the window and Dub’s forehead print from just moments ago, when he’d pressed his head against the windowpane, praying, I was sure, that I’d pull off and go on about my way.

  “Baby, what are you l-looking for? There is n-nobody in this house,” he asserted with a stutter. “Isn’t Nana waiting on you? You better go.”

  I was filled with so much anger at this point that my fear had been superseded. I was like that pit bull that eventually turned on its master. The tables were turned, because now it was Dub who was acting all scared and nervous. He was more concerned with getting caught than getting mad, and my concern was, of course, catching him.

  “What do you sound so nervous about, Dub? And since when do you care if I keep anybody else waiting as long as it’s not you?” I said as calmly as I could, looking in the linen closet and then having the nerve to look in the cabinet up under the sink. Still nothing.

  “It’s just that, you know, my boys and I kicked it here, playing cards, last night. The house is a mess, and I just want you to go ahead and go so I can get it all nice and cleaned up for when you and Baby D come home.”

  I stopped in my tracks and threw my hands on my hips. “You, clean? Yeah, right!” In the five years that Dub and I had been together, he’d never cleaned. “Since when do you worry about a dirty house? You must be smoking weed again.” I laughed, brushing by him.

  The fact that Dub stayed on my heels let me know that there was something to find. Had he not been concerned, he would have just been chilling in that bedroom, minding his own business. Or maybe he would have been so pissed and offended that he would have been trying to fight me. But no, he was nervously dogging my every step.

  After exiting the bathroom, I went into Baby D’s room, heading straight for the closet. Bingo!

  Tucked in between Baby D’s OshKosh B’gosh outfits was the person who I knew was the owner of the mystery shoes. This chick, even though she’d surely heard me swing open that closet door, stood there shaking, with her hands covering her eyes. She should have been covering up her completely nude body, but instead she was covering her eyes. Even as I stood there, breathing down on her, she kept her eyes covered. It was like she was operating under the childish theory “Since I can’t see you, maybe you can’t see me, either.” She might have looked like a fool, but I was the one who had been played for one.

  “Who’s this, Dub?” I asked, staring him down, waiting for my answer.

  “That was some girl so-and-so had over. I didn’t even know she was still here,” he replied, sucking his teeth.

  I couldn’t even recall the name he’d said. All I knew was that if that was so-and-so’s girl, then she would have been with so-and-so instead of in my son’s closet.

  “Negro, please,” I said, mugging Dub in the forehead. After realizing what I’d just done, that I’d just put my hands on him, I braced myself for the worst. What had I been thinking, putting my hands on him? Now I knew I was going to get it for sure. But I was wrong. All Dub did was put his head down like a sad puppy dog.

  I’d never seen him like this, so weak looking and vulnerable. I took advantage of it and mugged him again. Then I slapped him. I knew God’s word said to be angry but sin not, but I couldn’t help it. For years he’d been kicking my butt, and now it was payback time. I slapped him yet again. On the other cheek. After all, the Bible said to turn the other cheek, so that was what I did. I turned and slapped Dub’s other cheek.

  “In my bed?” I said to Dub, shaking my head. “You did her in our bed?” Actually, it was my bed. My bed and my government-subsidized duplex.

  I looked at the girl, who was standing there, buck naked, still covering her eyes. I could see her, though . . . very much so. I could see how tall she was. How much lighter her skin was than mine. How much skinnier she was than me. Way skinnier.

  But it was my own fault I was fat. After having Baby D, I had lost some of my weight. I hadn’t gotten back down to the size I was before I gave birth, but I hadn’t been out of control. But lately I had noticed that I had been heading out of control. The weird part about it, though, was that I was heading toward out of control with my weight on purpose. If I was big, fat, and sloppy, Dub wouldn’t want me anymore, so he’d go away and find someone much more attractive. If he had to move my stomach out of the way just to have sex with me, then he wouldn’t want sex from me anymore. So I ate and I ate and I ate and I became obsessed with food. The fat was there, but the bad thing about it, though, was so was Dub. My plan had backfired.

  No matter what I did, Dub was a nightmare that I just couldn’t wake up from. I couldn’t even recall any good times or romantic times we’d shared. I guess if there were any, they all got obliterated by the bad stuff.

  I’d had several situations arise that seemed like sure outs out of the relationship, but they never were. I’d always been too afraid to just pick up and leave on my own. Dub was the type of person who wouldn’t rest until he had hunted me down and either dragged me back to my prison of a relationship or killed me. That was truly what I believed. I also believed that he’d take out anybody who tried to get in his way. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if someone else got hurt in the process. On another note, I knew he was unstable, but was he so unstable that he’d be willing to hurt Baby D just to hurt me?

  I couldn’t take any chances by just up and walking away. But now, with proof positive, thanks to the naked girl playing peekaboo in the closet and her worn loafers in my hands, this had to be my sure out. What more did I have to go through? Women left men who cheated on them, right? This was a normal reaction, so Dub would have to let me leave. It was weird how I hadn’t come to the same conclusion about women who got beaten. They should leave too, right?

  I noticed the girl was still trembling. I wanted to be mad at her. I wanted to fight her, beat her up right there in front of Dub to show him that I meant business. But his sick, twisted mind would have taken it all the wrong way. I could hear him now. You must really love me and still want me if you’re willing to fight for me. I wasn’t about to give that fool the pleasure.

  Instead, I removed the girl’s hands from her eyes. I recognized her as a girl from high schoo
l. She was probably about three or four years younger than I was, her perky nipples, which had been looking at me instead of her eyes, confirming her youth.

  “Do these belong to you?” I said to the girl, holding up the shoes.

  She gave me a fearful nod.

  Now I knew how the prince in Cinderella felt when he found the girl whose foot fit into the glass slipper. Victory! When God said we were a victorious people, I was sure this wasn’t exactly what He meant, but at the time, it was good enough for me.

  Finally, I had proof. I had found those shoes in my room, under my bed. That meant she’d been in my room. There was no way Dub could get out of this one, which meant now I could get out of this relationship. For good! Forever! What woman stayed with a man who slept with another woman in her own bed? What man expected a woman to stay with him after he slept with another woman in her bed and after she found the woman still in the house . . . still naked, no less? Dub couldn’t expect me to stay with him now. He just couldn’t.

  What might have felt like the worst day of any other woman’s life felt like the best day of mine. God just kept opening those doors for me, just waitin’ for me to get the courage to finally walk out of my situation. Well, baby, I’d gone to visit the Wiz for my courage that day. ’Cause I was out!

  “Here, honey. Take your shoes.” I handed the girl the shoes. “Now, get yourself dressed and get out of my house.”

  At first she didn’t move. Finally, having uncovered her eyes, she just stood there in shock, like maybe this was a trick. She acted like maybe as soon as she went to walk away, I was going to jump on her.

  “Go on,” I told the girl. “Get dressed and go. I ain’t gon’ do nothing to you. It ain’t you I’m mad at.” I cut Dub with my eyes.

  Figuring she’d already been told twice, the girl didn’t say a word. She quickly squeezed by Dub and me and did what she was told.

  I then turned to Dub. “Let me guess. You gon’ blame a naked girl being in my closet on weed too,” I said sarcastically, realizing I’d been a complete fool by not thinking that Dub had caught a sexually transmitted disease and had passed it on to me because he had been having sex with someone else! It might not have crossed my mind at the time, but I just thanked God that the fool hadn’t given me HIV. That was just another way God had been looking out for me while I remained blind, with my own hands covering my eyes.

  “I’m going yard saling with my grandmother. By the time I get back, I want you out of here. Pack everything you own. If you are here when I get back . . . If you thought having to tell your mother you had crabs and was too broke to even buy the antidote was embarrassing, wait until I broadcast this mess.”

  As I walked away, Dub didn’t even try to stop me. He had no pleas, no logical explanations this time. For once, he felt defeated. For once, I had the victory.

  Hallelujah!

  Stone Number Fifteen

  “Can you believe he had the nerve to cheat on me in my own bed?” I said to Synthia.

  Yep, it had been official for only one day that Dub and I were breaking up, but I felt so free, free enough to hang out with my best friend from high school. There was no Dub around to frown on her and my hanging out together. No Dub to accuse the guys who tried to holler at her of trying to holler at me too. No more getting beat up for having a beautiful best friend.

  “How do you feel about that?” Synthia asked with a serious tone as we sat in BW-3, eating chicken wings. “Doesn’t it hurt just a little bit?”

  That question hit me out of nowhere. For so long I’d been trying to find a way out, a safe way out, of my relationship with Dub, and I felt that this was it. I had never stopped to truly dissect the truth of the matter, which was that my boyfriend, my baby’s daddy, had cheated on me!

  I was upset, but not at the fact that he’d been sharing himself with another woman. I was upset at the fact that he was getting sex from willing and able bodies somewhere else and at the same time taking it from me. Why in the heck did he take it from me?

  “I’m not hurt. I’m pissed!” I admitted to Synthia. “I mean, you know how Dub is, how he acts.”

  “Now that I think about it, you probably ain’t hurtin’ none,” Synthia said before biting into a buffalo chip. “You’re probably happy as a lark to break free from that fool. I don’t even know how you manage life with him in the first place. You’re working, taking care of Baby D, going to college, maintaining your own place, car and all that.” She shook her head. “Then throw a jealous, overbearing, crazy baby daddy on top of that . . .” Synthia laughed, and I added a little chuckle of my own. “But seriously . . .” Synthia took a moment to swallow her food. “You think he’ll really let you go?”

  “It’s not about him letting me go,” I said confidently. “He’s the one who packed all his stuff in plastic trash bags and went and moved in with his mama. So how I look at it is, he’s the one who left. And yes, I can let him go.” I bit into a buffalo chip of my own, giving Synthia a smug look. She could have all the doubts she wanted, but I had made up my mind that it was a wrap with Dub and me.

  A week later, at around one o’clock in the morning, the phone woke me out of my sleep.

  “Hello,” I answered, clearing my throat.

  “Helen, this is Ms. Daniels.”

  Although over the phone I couldn’t see the somber expression that probably plagued Dub’s mother’s face, I could tell by the tone of her voice that something was very wrong. It felt like déjà vu.

  “Dub’s been shot,” were the next words to come out of Ms. Daniels’ mouth. Her voice cracked, and she began to sniffle. “He’s at Doctors Hospital North, on Dennison.”

  I just sat on the phone, quiet. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Inside I was saying, So what? Sounds like that’s your problem or the problem of the chick he’s sleeping with. Not mine. But I knew those words would be hurtful to a woman whose son had just been shot.

  “How’s he doing?” That seemed more like the proper thing to say, even though I didn’t give a darn.

  “I don’t know yet, but it’s not looking good.”

  “Well, okay, thanks for calling.” What else was I supposed to say? Obviously, Ms. Daniels thought there was plenty more to say, as she waited in silence, anticipating something more than just that coming from me.

  Although Dub had been living with her for the past week, ever since I’d put him out, I was almost certain he hadn’t told her the full truth about what had gone down between us. She probably assumed we’d gotten into a fight and I had finally put him out or something. My suspicions were confirmed when she filled the silence on the line with her words.

  “I don’t know what exactly is going on between you two, but you might want to get up here. It’s not looking good.”

  I sighed. This was definitely déjà vu again. I sat up in bed, contemplating what my next move should be. Should I go to the hospital? If I did, Dub would think I cared, when in all actuality I didn’t. If I didn’t go, and the police hadn’t caught the shooter, they might say that my actions appeared suspicious. Then maybe they’d think I had something to do with it. Maybe they’d think I hired somebody to kill him the same way he’d killed my spirit. Just my luck, they’d label me the woman scorned who tried to kill her cheating baby daddy.

  Think it sounds crazy, huh? Well, I’d watched enough crime shows to know that it could happen. That was the last thing I needed in my life, especially since I was in college, studying to be a paralegal. Something like that could hurt the career that I hadn’t even started yet. Decisions, decisions.

  “Look, Ms. Daniels, it’s late. Baby D is sleep—”

  “Oh, God! Baby D!” She broke down crying. “I can’t imagine him having to live without his daddy.”

  I could.

  As cold-blooded as it might sound, I honestly didn’t care that Dub was lying up in the hospital, perhaps fighting for his life. Now he knew what it felt like to feel as though he was on the verge of death. No quality of life whats
oever. If I dug even a little deeper, I’d find a part of me that hoped he lost the fight. There had been so many times that I’d wished I had just let Dub die that day he hung himself. That would have eliminated so many days and nights of pure mental and physical torture. Now a piece of me was hoping that I got the chance yet again to let him die. I knew Dub and I had broken up, but his death would engrave my freedom in stone. I knew it sounded selfish, but the truth shamed the devil. And that was the truth.

  I guess it was true when they said that good prevails over evil, because the good in me got off the phone with Ms. Daniels, packed up Baby D, and went to see about Dub. I didn’t think I would be able to live with myself if Dub died and I hadn’t taken his son up there. My good deed would not go unpunished.

  “The surgery went fine,” I heard the doctor saying to Ms. Daniels as I walked toward them down the hallway. He went on to explain to her the exact procedure that had been performed on Dub. I couldn’t understand all the terminology. All I knew was that once we were finally able to go into the hospital room to see Dub, all his intestines were hanging in a plastic bag outside of his body.

  “What in the world?” I said, covering my mouth with one hand while holding Baby D’s hand with the other. Dub was in the ICU, where children weren’t allowed, but the doctor had said I could go in with Baby D for a couple of minutes. That was fine with me, as it was an excuse to get out of a place where I didn’t even want to be in the first place.

  “It’s called a colostomy,” Ms. Daniels said, clarifying the matter. “One of the bullets hit his intestines or something like that. All I know is that the doctor said he has to be like this for several months, until he heals completely.”

  “One of the bullets?” I questioned.