Tiffany: “What do you mean?”
Step-Father: “Remember that car accident? You all was supposed to be in the car. I had a life insurance policy on all of y’all. I’m supposed to be a multimillionaire now, and y’all supposed to be gone.”
He told me this whole story. That he took out all the insurance policies. Then he cut the line in her brakes. He said he knew that she drove too fast, and we was all supposed to be in the car that day. We was supposed to be dead.
That was the day that my mom left us all home, because I told her I could take care of the little ones. He said he hadn’t planned for that, and that was the only reason it was just my mom.
He told me this.
I did not know what to say or do. I did not know if I was supposed to believe him or this was some weird fairy-tale horror story he thought would make me want to live. I was totally in shock. I had no idea how to take it. Later he would say that it was not true, he hadn’t done any such thing. But it was too late to get it out of my mind.
After that, I started dating police officers. I started fucking police, trying to figure out how can I find out if this was real. And if it was, how can I get him prosecuted. How can I get him sent to jail?
But all the police were like, “Well, there’s no way you can prove it. Where’s the vehicle? It’s just him saying it. He could have just been saying it to make you feel better when you were depressed. There’s no way you can prove it in a court of law.”
Fuck it. I didn’t care. How much would it cost? I tried to get lawyers involved. I was dating lawyers, dating everybody, still trying to find out if this was real, if he should be prosecuted. But everybody said the same thing: “There’s no way you can find out now. Too much time has passed.”
It was pretty depressing. Had this man tried to kill us, ruined my mom’s life, and for what? Or was he just so perverse that he had put this horror show into my mind thinking it would help?
You know what’s funny? I could have set him up, if I really wanted to. Because he did it again. Years later, he asked me if I wanted my physically abusive ex-husband killed.
Step-Father: “Your sister told me what happened to you, with your husband. Do you want me to have this motherfucker put to sleep? I can have him put to sleep. You know I was in Vietnam. I got motherfuckers that’ll put him to sleep.”
Tiffany: “Nah, I don’t think you’re really good at putting people to sleep. You’re good at fucking up people’s lives, but I don’t think you’re going to be able to put them to sleep because you didn’t put my mama to sleep. I’m still awake. You’re not good at that. I don’t think so.”
Step-Father: “All right. Well you let me know if ever you need me to put somebody to sleep. I ain’t got nothing to lose.”
So either way, this dude was messing with my head.
I try to forgive him. I really do try to find a place of forgiveness in my heart for him.
That shit is hard, though.
Foster Care
I was in foster care from the time I was thirteen until I was eighteen. We was taken from our mom when I was thirteen. I was moved around a lot in that one year. By the time I was fourteen, my grandmother got custody, but she kept us in the system so that she could have the money to raise us.
The reason I went into foster care in the first place was because my mom got in a fight, and she hit a baby with a two-by-four. For real.
It’s a long, complicated story—as crazy family stories can be—but it boils down to this:
We had some neighbors that were all messed up, but my mom used to talk to the lady all the time. Her husband would always try to holler at my mom. One day, my mom got tired of the man and told him, “You leave me alone. Leave my kids alone.” And they ended up getting in some kind of fight. Now mind you, this is after her accident, and she was mentally sick, of course.
When I got home from school, there was police everywhere. My mom was in the police car. The social worker was packing up my sisters’ and brothers’ clothes in trash bags. She told me to get a trash bag and put my clothes in the bag, ’cause my mom was not coming back home. That we gonna be placed in a foster home.
Tiffany: “Why are you all taking my mom away?”
Social Worker: “She got in a fight with the man, and she hit him with a two-by-four, and she accidentally hit his baby.”
The baby was fine, but it caused all of this ruckus. The police showed up, and after talking to her, the police ended up taking her to the hospital, and diagnosing her. They gave her a 5150, so she had to be there for a seventy-two-hour hold. Then the doctors decided she’s schizophrenic. They diagnosed her with that. She ended up being hospitalized for a year.
Step-Father was there, though. He showed up when I did.
Social Worker: “If he wants to take you guys, he could take you guys. At least take his biological children, and then I don’t have to place them.”
Step-Father: “Oh no, you take ’em. I don’t have nowhere for ’em. You take ’em all.”
So my mom went into a state mental facility for a year, and all my sisters and brothers went into foster care.
We didn’t get to see my mom when she was in there. I remember we went to court one time and she was at court, and it didn’t go well.
Judge: “You have to take your medications, you have to take a parenting class. You have to do all of that, it’s the law.”
Mom: “I don’t need to do none of that by the law of God. Them is my kids, and y’all gonna give me my kids back.”
She did not do any of those things, and so she did not get us back.
My grandma ended up taking the parenting class and doing what she had to do to get us. They wouldn’t let her have us at first. I guess they felt like ’cause my grandma was there during that time that we were in danger, and she allowed us to be in danger, they didn’t let us go to her right away. But, eventually, she got us.
But not before I had to spend almost two years in foster care.
I was in group homes for a while. Man, I hate thinking about that. It was more like a prison. I was only there for a while, but man, it was scary. That’s when I started using my comedy skills, though.
My comedy came in real handy, because them bitches was out to beat my ass. We was in a dorm, like a big room and there’s bunk beds everywhere. That’s why I don’t like bunk beds to this day. We was in there and these older girls was like:
Bully Girl: “Yeah you going to cry tonight, bitch, you’re going to get your ass beat.”
You ever seen Saved by the Bell? There’s this episode where Screech puts his hand over his face, then he sticks his other arm through the crook of his elbow and punches with one arm while the other arm protects his face, but he looks all funky. So I started doing that, and they didn’t know how to handle that.
Bully Girl: “Oh, this bitch is stupid. Is you stupid?”
So I started cracking jokes, and I’d bark like a dog. They started laughing, and then they started making fun of my hair.
Bully Girl: “You funny-looking, do anybody ever do your hair?”
Tiffany: “No, I got Raggedy Ann hair. This hair, you can’t comb it. It breaks combs.”
I thought that if I made these girls laugh, they wouldn’t beat me up. They’d let me be the goofy one in the crew or something. But that didn’t really work.
Bully Girl: “Yeah, they’re about to lock these doors. When they lock these doors, that’s it. You trapped in here with us.”
Tiffany: “Oh yeah, we’re going to be trapped? It’s going to be like we in an Indiana Jones movie.”
Bully Girl: “Ahhh bitch, we is still going to beat your ass . . . but you funny.”
My social worker came and got me after two days and took me to a home. It was off of Normandy and 128th, which is the hood. This lady was so ghetto, but her house was so dope.
The first day I got there, she and my social worker were smoking weed and talking about me. They were sitting there, having a powwow in the living
room, talking about me, getting high.
Foster Mom: “Well, is she fucking? Is she having sex? That’s what I need to know.”
Social Worker: “Well, she’s thirteen.”
Foster Mom: “That don’t mean shit. Is she fucking? That’s what I want to know.”
Social Worker: “I don’t think she’s fucking. I’m pretty sure she’s not fucking.”
Foster Mom: “Hm, hm, you’d be surprised, these little kids be out here fucking. ’Cause you know the last one you had up in here, she was eleven years old, and I had to get her a whole box of condoms.”
I was standing there, right in front of them, and they just talking all this shit. Then she decided to take me, and that was that.
She had her dad living with her, and she told us to call him Foster Grandpa. And he didn’t have no teeth or nothing. He was kind of creepy, but he was nice. At least it seemed like it.
Foster Mom give me a tour of the house. “This is the bathroom you’re going to be cleaning. This is the kitchen you going to be cooking in, ’cause everybody here contributes. This ain’t no vacation spot. And here is the room you’re going to sleep in. You see this drawer right here? This top drawer? It’s full of condoms. Now, the Social Worker said you’re not out here having sex, but who knows? Who knows? You probably are having sex, you just ain’t telling nobody, right?”
And I’m just looking at her like completely confused. Of course I wasn’t having sex!
This was when that movie Crooklyn came out, by Spike Lee. Foster Mom took me to see it, along with two other foster kids she was taking care of at the time. We went to that drive-in theater that was off of Centinela. We went to the drive-in movie theater, and the two little foster boys were in the backseat. They were giggling and trying to touch me. They was nasty little boys and I was pushing them off me. They were like eight and seven, right? The movie started and she went:
Foster Mom: “I know you’re going to cry at some point, don’t cry in my car.”
Tiffany: “I ain’t gonna cry.”
She started blazing weed. Remember, this is in a car, and she had the windows up, so she was straight hot boxing us in there. There was a man in the front seat with her, I can’t remember who it was, some boyfriend of hers.
Foster Mom: “This is going to help you all to relax.”
Boyfriend: “You know you crazy, right girl? You know?”
Foster Mom: “Man, these kids gonna be exposed to way more bullshit than this. You don’t know what these kids been through. This ain’t nothing. All y’all shut up and enjoy this movie.”
I remember watching that movie and feeling like, I know how this little girl feels. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t cry.
Then, when we was driving back, my eyes was burning and stuff, I guess ’cause I had a contact high, and I didn’t even know it. Foster Mom saw me and said:
Foster Mom: “You know what, Tiffany? You seem like a really nice young lady, but I know you’re out here doing things. I know you doing things. You probably gonna cry tonight, ’cause all that innocence is gone. It’s all gone.”
I didn’t understand what she was talking about at all, not at that point. Still, I did cry a lot that night.
• • •
About a week later, I was doing my chores, and one of the little boys who was also staying with her came into the bathroom. He was butt naked with a condom on, talking about:
Foster Boy: “You wanna play with my dick? You want to play with my dick?”
Tiffany: “What the hell? What the hell is this?”
I freaked out and start running through the house, calling out to Foster Mom to get him.
Tiffany: “He out here naked! He out here naked!”
Foster Boy: “Stop being a snitch. Don’t be a snitch. I’m gonna fuck your shit up.”
Then she tried to blame it on me!
Foster Mom: “Oh, you tell this little boy to be naked like this?”
Tiffany: “I ain’t tell that little boy to be naked. He’s running around here with condoms on his dick. I don’t know what that’s about.”
She slapped me in the mouth.
Foster Mom: “Don’t be saying dick.”
Really? This eight-year-old running around naked with a condom on, and she’s worried about my language?
She told him to put on some clothes and stop playing.
The next day, that boy and the other boy started to make water balloons, right? Except all they had was condoms to make them with. Foster Mom was gone when they did this, and they started throwing these water balloons at me. Water-filled condom balloons.
I wanted to beat them up so bad, but I didn’t. I just cleaned up the mess and threw all them condoms away. Threw out the condoms and told them to stop playing games.
She came back, and later that night, she found the condom drawer empty.
FosterMom: “Oh, you fucking, huh? How you fucking this many people that fast? What is you doing? Are you a ho?”
Tiffany: “No, I’m not a ho! They made water balloons. They was throwing them at me.”
FosterMom: “Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wait till I tell your social worker. Wait till I tell your social worker.”
I guess she never told, ’cause nothing ever happened.
When school started back up, I was still living there. One day Foster Grandpa caught me in the bathroom, putting toilet paper in my little training bra I had.
Foster Grandpa: “What are you doing?”
Tiffany: “Ah, just putting some tissue in my shirt.”
Foster Grandpa: “Why you doing that?”
Tiffany: “ ’Cause all my friends, they got big boobs and I want to be like my friends.”
Foster Grandpa: “Well I can help you make your titties grow.”
Tiffany: “You can?”
Foster Grandpa: “Yeah, just let me suck on them every day. If you let me suck on them, they’ll grow.”
So, I started letting this old-ass man suck on my titties every day when I was thirteen.
He never tried to touch my cootchie or nothing. He just would suck on my titties for fifteen minutes before I left for school. Then I’d go to school.
When I was nineteen, I was hanging out with one of my girlfriends, and she was like:
Friend: “Yeah, I’m going to get a boob job.”
Tiffany: “I don’t know. I probably should get a boob job too, maybe.”
Friend: “Or maybe we get somebody to suck on our titties every day until they grow.”
Tiffany: “Oh that don’t work.”
Friend: “How do you know it don’t work?”
Tiffany: “ ’Cause I did that shit when I was thirteen years old.”
Friend: “What do you mean, you did that when you was thirteen? I thought you didn’t lose your virginity until you was like sixteen, seventeen?”
Tiffany: “I didn’t, but this was different. This old man that was in my foster home, he would suck on my titties every day before I’d go to school, and it didn’t do nothing. They didn’t grow or nothing. They still the same size.”
Friend: “Bitch, you was molested?”
Tiffany: “Wait, what?”
I had no idea I was molested. In my mind, “molested” meant somebody hurt you in some kind of way. Like, they took something from you that you didn’t want to give. And what that old man did never hurt. It didn’t necessarily feel good, either, it was just whatever. And he never tried nothing else with me, not even once. It was just like—in my mind—he was helping me out.
Look, obviously I can see now that this was messed up and absolutely was molestation. But at the time, I had no clue I was being molested. Even at nineteen, I had to have this pointed out to me.
I used to talk about it onstage all the time, ’cause parents say, “If somebody touch your private parts, or if somebody hurt your pee-pee, or if somebody pushed their private parts on you, you tell somebody.”
But that man never did any of that. I never saw his penis. I never touched
his penis. He never tried to make me touch him, and he never tried to touch my privates. He just sucked on my titties every day. And he wasn’t even like, telling me not to tell anyone. I just never said anything, because I thought he was hooking me up. I thought he was helping me out.
I guess maybe we gotta update what we tell kids—that old men sucking your titties is also molestation.
Belonging
As a young kid, it didn’t feel like nobody cared about me or protected me (except for my grandma). It didn’t feel like anybody gave two fucks about me, unless it was benefiting them. Unless they was getting paid. Unless it was making them look good in some kind of way. Me just being myself was never good enough for anyone to love me.
My auntie Gina, she taught me how to dance. We would dance together, but that was so I could dance with her at weddings and make her look good. Having a little girl copying her moves. But I don’t think it was because she loved me or liked to spend time with me or dance with me. That was just to make her shine.
My auntie Mary, she would do my hair. She would sing songs with me and stuff, but that was because she was rehearsing for her own thing. She’d be like, “Now, you do backups.”
Now that I think about it, she was teaching me about music and performing, but really that was her getting ready for her own shit. It wasn’t about me. It was about her looking good.
I didn’t get much from my family, so I tried to be a gangbanger. But they wouldn’t let me gangbang.
When I was a foster kid, I would have to walk through the gang hoods to get to the bus stop. I used to try to holla at all of them. I wanted to be in the gang, because I felt like then I’d be a part of something.
And I’d have me a man. Every gangbanger girl got a gangbanger boyfriend. You had somebody, that’s what I wanted.
But it didn’t work out like that. I couldn’t get into the gang.
Gangbanger: “You too cute. You gonna be something one day. You can come and kick it, but you can’t gangbang with us. If you want a drink or something, you can have a drink.”
The Last Black Unicorn Page 4
