Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil

by Lezley McSpadden

  I sat down next to Mike Mike and Déja on the couch. I was shaking, trying to keep my emotions together. I wouldn’t be no good to them if I was all broke up.

  “Grandaddy got sick and passed away.” I spoke slowly and took a breath in between my words.

  “He died, Mama?” Mike Mike frowned, then lowered his head. His tears started to flow. Just seeing him cry broke me. My eyes filled with tears.

  “He loved you more than anything, Mike Mike.” My voice was shaky now.

  “You think he in heaven?”

  “I know he in heaven.”

  Mike Mike was still my baby, and I held him in my arms and let him cry. His best friend was gone forever.

  At the hospital, the lights were stark and everything was just cold-looking when I walked down the long hallway to Mr. Brown’s room.

  He was still lying in the hospital bed, but he didn’t look peaceful. There were still tubes coming out of his body, and the room was too quiet. They had put tape on his eyes to keep them shut. I stood there for a minute with Mike, and when he walked out, I touched Mr. Brown’s hand. I closed my eyes and prayed, asking God to receive him into heaven. Then I looked at Mr. Brown and thanked him for being like a father to me. He was a peaceful, kind man. I kissed his forehead and said my final good-bye.

  Mrs. Brown and her pastor, Pastor Larry, were in the hall. I hugged her tight. Mike’s new girlfriend was sitting nearby. I nodded to acknowledge her. As everyone was getting ready to leave, Mike pulled me to the side.

  “Nette Pooh, I just need to ride wit you for a minute.”

  I was a little leery but said OK. I could tell he just needed to be around family right then, and no matter what, that’s what I had become.

  When we got in the car, the thought of Andre popped into my head. I know how niggas be thinking and acting, and I wasn’t trying to have him or nobody else spot me with Mike.

  “Okay, I gotta ride over on Acme and pick up Nina,” I said, starting the car and driving off.

  I picked Nina up and our other girl Toya, and as we were walking out Nina’s house, lo and behold, here come Andre driving down the street. He pulled over when he saw my car and walked over, only to find Mike.

  He tapped his gun on the window.

  “Andre!” I called out in a panic.

  “Hold up, Andre! Let me explain!” Mike pleaded from inside the car.

  “Naw, nigga, I don’t wanna talk!”

  “Andre!” I said, running down the front steps and ducking between two nearby cars.

  “Oh, what, you tryin’ to save this nigga?”

  “No I was just givin’ him a ride from the hospital. It ain’t like it look, Andre,” I pleaded.

  The anger was pouring off him, but he put the gun back in his pants and jumped back in his truck.

  “C’mon, y’all, let’s go!” I called out to Nina and Toya.

  We jumped in the car and were off. I was sweating and shaking. I just wanted to get Mike to his mama’s.

  As we coasted down Natural Bridge Road, one of the main North Side thruways that took you from the city to the county, the car was quiet and I was starting to calm down.

  “Nette, stop at Mac Liquor for a minute,” Mike said.

  “For real, Mike?” I peeked at Nina through the rearview mirror. She nodded as if it was OK. “I really need to get back to the kids,” I said.

  “C’mon, Nette. I need a drink to take the edge off.”

  Parked in the liquor store lot, something just didn’t feel right. Next thing I saw was Andre’s truck riding by, down Natural Bridge. Thank God he kept going. My heart began to race faster and faster. Mike was taking his sweet time getting back to the car. I barely let him get in and close the door before I started up the engine. Before I could shift the car into reverse, a green Chevy Cavalier pulled up, coming to an abrupt stop. It was Andre in a different car.

  Mike jumped out and took off running. Andre was pacing the parking lot like a madman. My stitches hurt and I could barely move. I was struggling, trying to get out the car to calm him down.

  “Andre, wait, it’s not what you think,” I pleaded from the car. In an awkward move, I hit the gearshift, sending the car into reverse, and me and Nina hit a light pole.

  The police had swarmed the scene within seconds. Andre jumped back in his car, threw it in drive, and sped off. Flashing lights were everywhere.

  I was in tears, with my face buried in my hands as the police began to question us about what had happened. Nina was hyped up and running off at the mouth, just like she was some kind of ghetto news reporter. “OK, see, Officer, that was old baby daddy took off runnin’, and then that was the new baby daddy that just skidded off!” Nina was talking a mile a minute.

  The police took our statement, then let us go, especially since nobody got hurt. I think they realized right away that this truly was a hot ghetto mess. I was embarrassed. Thankfully Andre did leave, or they might have caught him riding dirty. That’s all I needed was for him to get busted with some drugs and locked up.

  • • • •

  I went to Mr. Brown’s funeral. Moo Moo was eight weeks old, and Mike Mike and Déja needed to be with their daddy and grandmother.

  Mike Mike and Déja sat close to me at the funeral. My son, especially, was taking it all in, quiet, looking at everyone’s reaction, listening to what people were saying. When the pastor was reading scriptures, Mike Mike was paying attention, taking it all in. He looked composed even as his tears flowed. When he wiped them, he patted me on the hand like he was consoling me. Seeing and understanding death for the first time is real big. He was handling it like his granddaddy’s little soldier.

  Mike Mike and Déja rode to the cemetery in the limo with Mrs. Brown. I rode with Big Mike in his cousin’s car.

  Mike pulled close and leaned into my ear. “Nette, let’s get married.” He was trying to give me his best sensitive thug look.

  At that moment I just wanted to push him out the car. There was a time I would’ve cried tears of joy if Mike had asked me to marry him, but not now.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  GROWING PAINS

  Late one night, I was flipping through channels and found myself watching the movie Boyz n the Hood again. It got to me. I thought about how hard it had been for Mama to raise us. I understood why she’d sent Bernard to live with Granny and Aunt Bobbie. Thinking about my life I was scared. I wondered, Will I always be a single parent strugglin’ in the hood?

  I had two sons now. Mike Mike was getting older, and it was dangerous out there. Mike Mike wasn’t a thug. He wasn’t a street dude. He wasn’t a hood kid running around. You weren’t going to see him walking down the street bouncing a ball on the way to the corner store. No, that wasn’t my son. Then coming back, getting on his bike and hitting a couple corners, causing chaos with no roughnecks. No, that wasn’t my son! I was doing my best raising him with the help of his grandparents.

  I had just finished a catering job for work and my phone rang. It was Mike Mike.

  “Hey, Mike Mike. Whassup, baby?”

  There was a long strange pause, then in a muffled voice he said, “Mama, I’m hungry. I don’t like what Granny cooked.”

  “I’m on my way, baby.”

  I hung up with an uneasy feeling. Ten minutes later I was running up Mrs. Brown’s front steps and banged on the door. It felt like it was taking forever for somebody to open the door. Before Mrs. Brown could invite me in good, I was looking around her and saw Mike Mike sitting on the couch. He was crying, holding his face. I ran to him, kneeling, taking his face in my hands to check him out. His eyes were swollen and black-and-blue, his lip was busted, he had a knot the size of a small egg on his head, and his cheek had been scraped.

  “What the hell happened? Mike Mike, what happened?” My voice was rising, my eyes darting between Mrs. Brown and Mike Mike. I stood up, ran into the kitchen, and got some ice, wrapped it in a paper towel, and gently put it on Mike Mike’s head.

  “Well, see Nette
,” Mrs. Brown stammered. “I didn’t wanna call you.”

  “Call me? This is my son, Mrs. Brown. If something happen to him, I need to know before anybody else do!” I said, taking his hand and placing it on the makeshift ice pack. I started pacing the floor, demanding answers. “Mike Mike, what happened?”

  Mike Mike had been at the park two blocks down the street from the Browns’ house. The park where his bike had been stolen years before, the park that was still off-limits. I didn’t even like calling it a park, because it didn’t have swings or slides or a trail. It was like a deserted lot on the side of a barbershop with leftover playground parts.

  Mike Mike was big for his age, had been since he was young, and this one boy was always trying to coerce Mike Mike into being in his gang. There were other kids in the neighborhood who followed this dude around with their chests poked out, trying to bully any kid they thought was new to the neighborhood or who wasn’t from around there.

  The boy had tried to fight Mike Mike, and Mike Mike didn’t want to fight him. He pulled a gun out on Mike Mike and hit him in the face.

  I dropped my head, collapsing in a nearby chair.

  “Mike Mike I tell you what I don’t want you to do, and you do it anyway and then this happens,” I said shaking my head.

  Here I was thinking that having my kids here was making life better for them. But seeing Mike Mike beat up and scared like this was proof that it wasn’t. I just wanted to provide for them, but my progress wasn’t happening fast enough. There isn’t anything worse than a mother feeling like she can’t do for her kids the way she wants to. I was mad at myself, feeling like I was losing my power as a mother.

  I made sure he ate a good dinner, kissed him good-bye, and told him I loved him. As I was driving back home, I started to cry. The movie hit me all over again. I felt like I couldn’t even be there for my oldest son like I wanted and needed to because I couldn’t get out of my own damn way with my issues.

  • • • •

  I had Mike Mike and Déja settled at Mrs. Brown’s, and I was working at St. Louis Parking, a public parking lot. Andre’s mama, Rita, had gotten that job for me. Moo Moo was about eleven months old when I got the news that my uncle Carl’s son got shot and killed over on Goodfellow Boulevard, and the family was all gathering on Acme Street that day to have a memorial for him.

  Afterwards, I went back to Andre’s apartment. I hadn’t stayed there the night before, but was spending the nights there regularly. But, Andre made a rule that I couldn’t leave anything behind when I left. I was constantly carting around not just my stuff, but Moo Moo’s too. Andre’s younger brother, Beanie, was there with him. I sat Moo Moo down and tried to chitchat with Beanie and not deal with my suspicions that Andre had been with another woman. But when I walked into the bedroom, Andre started going off, yelling at me, accusing me of not making up the bed.

  He was standing by the bed and the doorway was next to him. When I tried to walk past him, he grabbed me and started punching me in my face. He was much taller and bigger than me. He had me held at arm’s length, by my hair. He began punching me in my face again and again.

  God just don’t let me die. I don’t want to leave here like this.

  My nose burst open and blood gushed out. Maybe I deserved this. I was gurgling and choking on it, and blood came out my mouth. It was splattered on the walls all over me, him, everywhere. He suddenly stopped and walked away. I stumbled to the bathroom to look at myself. I had two black eyes, welts across my neck and face, my lip was double the size. He fucked me up. He had never put his hands on me like that. I could hear Moo Moo faintly crying in the other room.

  Andre locked me in the room for several hours. He came in and out to clean up the blood and was still talking to me real bad.

  “See what the fuck you did? See what the fuck you made me do?”

  It had become my fault. I was quiet. I feared that if I said anything he’d just do it again.

  He left after a while and came back and demanded I started gathering my belongings. Then he dropped me off at Mama Lady’s house. Nina was sitting in her mama’s kitchen. I didn’t want to make eye contact with anyone. So I went to Mama Lady’s bedroom and sat down. When she came in I told her what happened. She was an understanding woman. She wasn’t telling me to leave him, but she made it clear that I didn’t need to be around Andre with no baby or my other kids. She was shocked too, because she took a liking to Andre.

  By the next day the word had spread to my family. After all, my granny did live across the street. But I tried to avoid her because I didn’t want her to see what this man had done to me. I didn’t want to go outside, where folks were coming by to see what had happened to me. I wore sunglasses and put a weave in my hair to help cover up the cuts and bruises, and to hide the patches of my scalp where my hair had been pulled out.

  My mother rushed over, and I turned away.

  “Why won’t you look at me, Nette Pooh?”

  I turned and met her eyes.

  “What the fuck! That mothafucka is going to jail, Nette! He cain’t get away with this.” The next day Andre came back to Mama Lady’s house to bring Moo Moo some shoes. When he got there, there was a crowd of my friends and family waiting for him.

  “Why the fuck you do that to my cousin? Bitch, we’ll fuck you up,” one of them shouted.

  Andre hopped back in his car and started talking shit and backing up at the same time. He skidded off.

  My father showed up next, and he took me to the St. Charles Police Department.

  After the beating, my family swooped in and took care of me. Brittanie moved into her first apartment, a cute two-bedroom in the Normandy Villas complex, and Moo Moo and me stayed with her for a while. It was summertime, so I didn’t have to worry about getting Mike Mike and Déja to school. They just stayed at my mama’s, while I hid myself for several days. I didn’t want them to see me looking like that.

  The state picked my domestic violence case up, and it went all the way to them assembling a grand jury. Now I had to deal with answering a lot of questions about Andre and his life and business. I was suddenly kicking myself for opening this nasty can of worms. I didn’t want my kids to ever know what Andre had done to me, or what a fool they mama had been.

  Once my eyes healed and the bruises went away, what I felt was shame and fear. But to tell the truth, I was less scared of Andre than I was of what would happen if he went to prison. I was on the fence each time I had to go in for questioning.

  Then I just stopped going to the meetings with the grand jury. I still had his child and I was worried about him being taken to prison. What if I had to bring Moo Moo to see him there? I just wanted to get on with my life.

  Unfortunately, the State picked up the charges and still arrested him. I hadn’t spoken with or seen Andre in several months, and I was happy to be free from his controlling ways. Out of sight wasn’t totally out of mind, but I was working on that, too.

  Money was an issue more than ever. I went on food stamps. I didn’t have a car anymore. I couldn’t afford a new one. But, I did eventually find a small place to rent in the University City area, not far from where we’d stayed with Daddy when Mike Mike was born. Kingsland Avenue was a nice residential block. Along with working and my Section 8 housing subsidy, I was able to pay the rent and bills.

  One afternoon, I fired up the grill. Brittanie was expecting her second child. I had a little extra, and I wanted to make her favorite, steak. It was her one craving during her whole pregnancy. Kiah and Moo Moo were toddlers and having a ball playing with Mike Mike and Déja. We had the music going and between the kids’ laughter and the smell of charcoal and steak I couldn’t remember being happier.

  It took a year before I let Andre see me again. However, Mama Lady had been helping me take care of Moo Moo during that time, and she orchestrated Andre visiting him at her house. I wouldn’t even take him to Rita’s place. One day I came over and Andre was still there. My heart fell into my stomach.
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br />   He spoke to me. I spoke back then walked on past him. Like there was nothing between us.

  I got a notification that my application was approved on a small three-bedroom house in a quiet neighborhood called Berkley, where the houses had small yards, and they were ranch style mostly, with uniform siding.

  Things were looking up. I was twenty-six years old and finally felt like I was growing up. It was our first house that we’d be living in as a family. I even found a job that I liked a lot. I was working at Straub’s Supermarket, a gourmet grocery store, working in the deli department. I always loved making people happy with food, and now I was going to get paid doing it at a place where I might have a real future.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  STRONGER WITH EACH TEAR

  That June Mike Mike graduated from Pine Lawn Elementary. When he graduated from kindergarten I cried—my baby was growing up and moving on up—but this was different, this was a big achievement. He’d be going to middle school in the fall.

  I was excited to see his accomplishments on paper when I got home from work that evening. He had awards for perfect attendance, and was even recognized as an outstanding student and for completing the sixth grade. He was so proud to show me everything. I was disappointed that I couldn’t be here to cheer him on, but he understood that I had to work.

  The other good news was that Brittanie was moving in for a while with her kids. Her son, MJ, had arrived, and she wasn’t working so she kept the kids when I was at work. It was feeling like a normal household, especially when Mike Mike and Déja would argue about washing the dishes. But I got the biggest kick out of seeing my influence on Mike Mike in the kitchen. I had never given him a formal cooking lesson. I guess he just watched me and my mama a lot—unlike me, he didn’t run his mouth when he was in the kitchen, he paid attention.