by Landis Lain
“Gotta work tonight,” said Damon. He might be clueless when it came to girls, but he wasn’t stupid enough to discuss Brielle with Chauncey. In his experience with his brothers, dudes gossiped worse than females. Brielle would be certain to hate him if he put the business about Baby Shaq around the school. He didn’t want Brielle to hate him.
Damon had already discovered that Chauncey was incapable of keeping a secret. Within minutes of introducing himself, Chauncey had pointed out the popular ‘fly’ girls, the skanks, the stalkers and the untouchables. The untouchables were either fat, ugly or under age sixteen, which made them jail bait according to Chauncey, who had turned eighteen in January.
Damon also knew which girls Chauncey had already had sex with because he’d say, “Suzy. I tapped that, she ain’t about nothing. Lola, she got her knees so tight together it’s a wonder she can pry them apart to go to the bathroom. Don’t waste your time.”
Damon said nothing, just listened to Chauncey prattle on about his conquests. In Chauncey’s mind every girl, aggressive or not, was considered a potential sexer. Damon made a note to himself to warn his sister Jada about Chauncey’s proclivity to be promiscuous. She seemed to be leaning towards big, buff, football heads.
Brielle walked into the cafeteria with a couple of her girls. Damon didn’t know them but they looked familiar. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Brielle. When she’d bumped into him, he’d been surprised by her soft strength and luscious scent. She smelled like something really good to eat, and made his mouth water just thinking about her. Like a movie star, Brielle had an honest to god little black mole next to her full lips that made him want to lean down and kiss the corner of her mouth.
Damon didn’t know what had piqued his interest in Brielle, he’d known her for years after all, but until their altercation, they’d never really talked. Brielle was his sister’s friend.
He had to admit that she was beautiful. Tall and graceful, she had slender curves in all the right places. She wasn’t banging like Sasha, whose breasts and butt always seemed about to bust out of her clothes. Brielle was subtle.
“You got your eye on the stork?” asked Chauncey. “She’s cute, but too young for me. I’d tap that if she wasn’t jail bait walking.”
Fury washed over Damon in a wave so fierce he wanted to get up and punch Chauncey. He could tease Brielle about her height or think about getting with her, but nobody else better. He caught himself before he jumped in the brother’s face and got stomped for his trouble.
“Her name is Brielle,” said Damon, firmly. His expression was serious. “She’s like a little sister to me.”
“My bad,” said Chauncey, in apology. He held up his hands. Little sisters were always scratched off the blazing list.
“It’s cool,” said Damon, mollified.
“So you gotta work tonight?” asked Chauncey.
“And I got a ton of homework. Figuring out how to juggle,” said Damon.
“Get a babe to do it for you,” said Chauncey, as if it was a no-brainer. “That’s what I usually do.” He picked up the coke can sitting in front of him and drained the can in two gulps. He then smashed the can with one hand and set it back on the table.
“Naw,” said Damon. He wanted to roll his eyes, but didn’t. He could do the homework blindfolded. Why come to the best magnet school in the city of you didn’t care about learning? But the easiest way to start a beef was to make some hulk feel stupid or act too smart, so he took the easy way out. “I don’t know too many babes here.”
“Brother with a face like yours will have them dripping off your jock like honey in no time,” said Chauncey, very matter-of-fact. Chauncey was dark skinned and good looking. He was big, a little taller that Damon’s six-three and bulkier through the shoulders and chest. “Especially if you come out for football.”
“I think I’m ineligible because I switched schools and my parents didn’t move into the district,” said Damon, secretly relieved that he couldn’t play. “Besides, I missed all the summer practices. All I would do is ride the bench. There is nothing more pathetic than a bench riding senior.”
He hated playing football in reality. He liked to watch the game on television but did not see the point in having a bunch of dudes the size of gorillas stomp on him in the name of fun. His brothers had been appalled by that fact and ragged on him for months until his father put a stop to it. Plus, he had asthma. Getting drilled in the chest day after day was guaranteed to trigger an attack and Damon wasn’t looking forward to not being able to breathe. It was too scary.
“True,” said Chauncey. “Dude, that’s whack.”
“Yeah,” said Damon. “That just leaves all the football groupies for you.”
“You know,” said Chauncey, laughing and holding up his hand for a fist bump. Damon gave it to him.
Sasha
Sasha sat in the library and googled for a teen shelter.
“Come on,” she whispered. She scrolled down, looking for places that might take in pregnant teenagers. Several people looked at her with curiosity in their eyes but no one approached her.
The bus ride to Grand Rapids hadn’t been a big deal. The bus was clean and almost deserted. Luckily, she’d had $40.00 in her purse when her mother kicked her out or she wouldn’t have been able to go anyplace. She had been wandering around Grand Rapids for four days. The first few days she had gone to fast food restaurants but the $200 that her father had given her during her ill-fated flight to sanctuary was dwindling quickly. She was still stunned that daddy hadn’t let her stay; that his solution was to suggest that Sasha go back home to her mother. Sasha was certain that daddy expected her to use part of the $200.00 to take the bus back to Lansing and when he got up the nerve to call her mother they would both be frantic that Sasha wasn’t there.
‘Serves them right.’
“I’m not going home,” she whispered. She couldn’t go to her best friend Gabby’s house, because her parents would immediately call her mother. She had stayed to herself for most of the past few weeks and she didn’t have her phone anyway, even if she was increasingly willing to call someone.
“It’s just you and me, baby,” she said looking down at her rounded belly.
Back in Lansing, when she was a young teenager, Sasha had volunteered with her mother at a place called Advent House. It was a drop in shelter for people to come and eat. Sasha had hated the place. Hated the dirty, unkempt people with the scruffy children. Hated the smell of unwashed sadness. And here she was, dirty, stinking, unwashed. It was amazing how fast a person got dirty and smelly when they lived outside as Sasha had been doing for the past few days.
She had often served food and remembered the people seemed so grateful to get donated food. Her stomach growled. She was hungry but the money daddy gave her was dwindling quickly so she was rationing her food.
“God,” she whispered. “If you help me, I promise, I’ll help out more.”
She came to the library each morning to warm up and washed in the bathroom. She had bought a couple of pairs of underwear at the dollar store on Division Street and she washed them out in the sink. But the rest of her clothing stank. After the first night, behind the library freezing in the cool late summer night, Sasha had gone inside Meijer’s to buy a sleeping bag. She was terrified to talk to anyone. She caught the bus to the mall on 28th street and walked around all day. She went to Barnes and Nobles bookstore and sat reading for most of the day. Then she caught the bus back downtown, looking for someplace to stay.
In Lansing, she only had a few friends. Most girls didn’t like her or considered her competition from whatever boy they liked. Sasha figured it wasn’t her fault that she had a pretty face but everybody else acted like she had something to do with it. She regretted getting on the Greyhound bus, instead of trying to stay with one of her friends but she hadn’t considered that her father wouldn’t help her. She was still devastated by his betrayal.
The second night, Sasha went to the homeless shelter. The
men with red, rheumy eyes leered at her and frightened her so much she left as soon as it was light out. She caught the bus to a place called Rosa Parks Circle and sat on a bench, crying. Later in the evening, there was a rock concert and she watched the performance. That night, she lay on the same park bench, eyes wide and terrified over every sound.
By the fifth morning, Sasha was ready to give up.
“Excuse me.”
Sasha slewed around, fearful.
“I cannot help but notice you are looking for a shelter,” said the young woman. She had short brown hair and wireless glasses. “You probably need to go to the Department of Health and Human Services first.”
“What’s that?” asked Sasha.
“It’s the fancy name for the welfare office,” said the woman.
“Oh,” said Sasha. “But I just need a teen shelter for a few days until I decide what I’m going to do. I don’t know about welfare.”
The woman nodded. “All searches begin there. The stuff on the Internet may or may not be updated. Those kinds of places close a lot because of funding shortages. Y could be all over Grand Rapids looking for something that is open. And they may not have anything for you. Do you have transportation?”
Sasha shook her head.
The woman reached past Sasha to the computer. “May I?”
Sasha nodded and slid over to make room.
“By the way,” said the woman. She punched several keys on the computer. “My name is Andrea. I’m one of the librarian assistants here. Your presence has been noted. You haven’t changed clothes in several days. If you can’t find someplace soon, I’ll have to call the police and they will take you to juvenile if you are a runaway.”
“But I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“I know,’ said Andrea. “Voila!” She pointed to the screen.
“Department of Health and Human Services address,” she said. “It’s not too far from here. You can catch the bus on the corner.”
Sasha nodded, miserable. Kicked out again.
Brielle
The last one in the pool, Brielle was finishing her after practice laps. She glided through the water easily, lap after lap. Her coach had told her that if she put in the work, her times would drop and she’d be a world class swimmer in no time. Brielle dreamed of being the first black woman swimmer to win an Olympic medal and was very serious about swim training. As the only black girl on the swim team she spent a lot of time alone. One, she didn’t hang out much with the other members of the swim team and two, they didn’t really hang out that much with her. Oh, she went to the before race pasta dinners and stuff, but she wasn’t a white girl when all was said and done and her weekends were usually filled with debutante activities, getting her braids redone, or hanging out with family and doing church on Sunday.
The coach was in the office next to the pool because no one was allowed to swim alone. The office had a window so that the coach could look out at the pool and still get work done. When Brielle finished her twentieth after practice lap, her arms and legs felt leaden and dead. She hoisted herself up out of the pool and padded over to the bleachers where she’d left her towel, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the tiles.
She bent on shaky legs down to grab a towel and pulled her goggles and swim cap off of her head in one smooth motion, her braids falling to her shoulders. She dropped the goggles and swim cap on the floor and covered her face with the large black towel.
“Hey,” said a soft, deep voice, from somewhere in the bleachers.
Brielle whirled toward the voice and looked up at Damon, lounging on the top bleacher.
She stared at him for a few seconds, drinking in his presence, and then turned her shoulder away from him to continue drying off her body. He had already embarrassed her last week. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Then she wouldn’t be stumbling and bumbling all over the place. She heard him step down towards her but did not turn around. Maybe he would go away if she ignored him.
She felt a gentle touch on her shoulder and whirled around, flinging droplets of water into the air.
“What do you want?” she asked.
She’d seen him hanging with Chauncey earlier in the week. They had been laughing and joking together in the cafeteria. Damon had fixed her with such an intense look that Chauncey looked her way and Brielle just knew that they were talking about her. She wanted to sink into the floor but she’d just kept walking. Chauncey called her jailbait snatch when he wasn’t teasing her about her height, the rude butthead. If Damon was hanging with Chauncey she would have to steer clear.
“I wanted to apologize,” said Damon. He was barefoot, holding a pair of white sock stuffed basketball shoes in his left hand.
“You already did,” said Brielle, her voice muffled by the towel.
“Yeah,” he explained. “I said sorry for what I said. Now, I’m apologizing for hurting your feelings all those years.” Brielle looked up from the towel into his eyes. She cocked her head to the side in inquiry.
“I didn’t know that it hurt you for me to call you Baby Shaq,” he said, softly. “You should have told me.”
“Everybody is always calling me stilts, and stork and Shaq,” said Brielle, her face burning with embarrassment. “I didn’t think it would do any good to tell you to stop it.”
“You never know until you try,” he said. “Forgive me?”
Brielle just looked at him in shock. That her idol should be here apologizing, floored her.
“Brielle,” his voice was coaxing, “please forgive me.”
“Okay,” she said, softly.
He visibly relaxed.
“Don’t let it happen again.”
“Jada always makes me sweat before she’ll let me off the hook,” said Damon.
“That’s what sisters do,” said Brielle, with a shy smile. “I have one, remember.”
“Yeah,” said Damon, looking down at his shoes and then back into Brielle’s eyes.
“So, how come you’re so easy on me?” he asked.
“I like you,” said Brielle. “And I’m not your sister.”
“I noticed,” said Damon, flashing a quick grin. Brielle blinked in surprise.
“You did?”
“Yup,” he said, nodding. “I notice everything about you.”
The swim coach, Mrs. Harris stepped out of her office.
“Brielle,” she called. “Is there a problem?”
Brielle and Damon looked across the pool.
“No, ma’am,” said Brielle. “This is just my friend, Damon. He wanted to know if I needed a ride home.”
“Hello Damon,” said Coach Harris.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” said Damon with a wave.
“Practice is finished, Brielle. Head home.” With a stern look of warning, Coach Harris coach headed back into her office.
“You little liar,” said Damon sotto voice, with a chuckle. “Do you need a ride home?”
“No, my mom’s coming,” said Brielle, with a quick smile. “The coach doesn’t like boys hanging around the pool.” She reached down and picked up her black swim bag. She stuffed her goggles, swim cap and towel inside and started towards the showers.
“See you later,” said Brielle.
“Brielle,” he called softly. She turned around just as she started to open the locker room door.
“What?” she asked, turning quickly and looking at him over her shoulder. Her braids whipped around behind her.
“I see now why they call you the Black Swan,” he said, with a cocky grin.
She blushed and waved at him and then disappeared through the locker room door.
Sasha
“You have to apply for benefits to help you through this difficult time,”
Sasha stifled a sigh and tried to sit up a little straighter. Her back was hurting and her stomach was queasy from lack of food. Sasha listened to the woman in front of her drone on and on about the conditions for staying in the shelter. Bursting into tears was a
n option, but she was all cried out in the last couple of weeks. Her visit to the Planned Parenthood clinic had netted her a three month supply of prenatal vitamins, a lecture on the importance of prenatal care and the news that she was nearly five months pregnant. She also got a pamphlet on adoption. Overwhelmed, Sasha had stumbled out into the mid- September sun and gulped in the sharp sixty five degree air. This was real.
Her next chore, on the bus, was to Human Services to fill out an application for welfare benefits. And wasn’t that one of the most humiliating moments of her life. The entrance was blanketed with what looked like a bunch of tattooed criminals, smoking stinking cigarettes. One of them was even smoking weed, and to her pregnant nose, smelled like a skunk.
“That’s a nice jacket you got on, young thang,” said weed head. She pulled her light jacket closer and put her head down.
“You so fine,” said another, who wore cornrows, expensive sneakers and a baggy black tee shirt with Scarface on it. “You wanna be my baby mama?”
“No,” she said, haughty and stiff. “I already got a man.”
The men laughed.
“That’s what they all say,” said the pot head. “Where’s he at?”
“He can’t be all that since you’re at the welfare office,” said another, following her up the steps. She hopped up the last step, prepared to run.
“Call me, pretty,” said Scarface, but she scooted inside and was relieved to see a security guard. She hoped there was a back way out of this place so she didn’t have to run the gauntlet of grubby men again.
The inside was teeming with the poor, drunk, drugged and unwashed. Babies howled. Phones rang. The line for applications snaked around the building and the receptionist behind the thick glass window was not happy about having so many customers. She snapped papers though the slot at the bottom of the window and hollered out “Next,” like a barker at an auction. Posters, advertising counseling for substance abuse, spousal abuse, child abuse and benefits available, printed in both Spanish and English, plastered the mustard colored walls. The despair and unhappiness were almost thick enough to taste. Sasha spent the whole time with her small designer bag clutched in her hands so tightly her knuckles were nearly white.
