The Last Black Unicorn

by Tiffany Haddish

  Tiffany: “I don’t drink.”

  Gangbanger: “You don’t even drink! Take your ass to school, bitch. Get the fuck up off the block.”

  Tiffany: “Let me hit the weed.”

  Gangbanger: “Your ass can’t hit no weed. You don’t know how to smoke, bitch. Go take your ass home and go read one of those heavy-ass books you got in your backpack.”

  They could cuss me out all the time, but I didn’t mind. I just wanted to be a part of something, you know?

  And the cool part was, I got to party with them, but didn’t have to do all the terrible shit you have to do to be in a gang. Best of both worlds. Not a lot of shit went my way when I was young, but that did.

  Grandma

  Like I said, my grandma eventually got custody of me and my siblings when I was fourteen. I was still in the system, because even though my grandmother got custody of me, she wanted to get paid. So we had to go to court and stuff. And the social worker came and checked on us every month and everything. We were with our grandmother, but we were still state property.

  Even though my grandmother was my legal guardian, she didn’t want to teach me to drive.

  Grandma: “I don’t want to be responsible if you kill somebody. I’m not signing any paperwork.”

  I took the driver’s ed class in school, and I did good.

  I needed to be able to drive, because at that time I was making money as a hype woman for Bar Mitzvahs, and most of those were out where there wasn’t many bus routes. So I had to get my social worker and a judge to sign that paperwork, for me to be able to get my driver’s license.

  I had the money to pay for the driving class and all of that, because of the Bar Mitzvahs. I remember my grandma was like:

  Grandma: “Oh you think you just so smart, huh? You just figuring out ways around everything, huh? You think you so smart.”

  Tiffany: “Grandma, I’m going to be somebody. I’m going to be something, and I know I’ve got to have a car to do it.”

  Grandma: “You got that right, you do.”

  I never understood my grandma. She would be so encouraging sometimes, and so mean at other times. I’d be like, I don’t know who this bitch is. I don’t know if she here to help me or she here to hurt me.

  When I was eighteen, she put me out. She wasn’t getting paid for me anymore, so she just put me out. I was just homeless.

  Daddy

  My first real memory of my daddy is when I was three and he head-butted my mom.

  She was wearing one of those all-white jumpers like the girls had in the eighties, those sexy jumpers that women used to wear. I don’t know why they were fighting, but I remember being on the couch and screaming loud and stuff and seeing blood. He head-butted my mom, and beat his own head, and blood was pouring down his face and her nose, and her white jumper was just covered with blood, all over.

  Not too long ago, I asked my mom about this:

  Tiffany: “Was that a dream that I had, that Dad head-butted you and your nose was bleeding?”

  Mom: “No, you remember that?”

  Tiffany: “Why was y’all fighting?”

  Mom: “Because I threw hot water on him.”

  Tiffany: “Why did you throw hot water on him?”

  Mom: “Because he came in the house at two in the morning, and he didn’t give me the $300 he was supposed to give me, so I went in his wallet and I took the money. And then I found another woman’s number, and I called the number, talked to the lady, and then I boiled some water and threw it on him.”

  Tiffany: “You threw boiling water on him?”

  Mom: “His skin wasn’t burnt, I just wanted to get him to wake up.”

  My dad even admitted this when we briefly reunited.

  Dad: “Yeah that happened. She stole my money, so I beat her ass.”

  I thought it was some crazy dream I’d had. I remember screaming so hard, till I couldn’t scream anymore, you know like when a baby screams himself out?

  Mom: “Yeah you pulled your hair out. There was blood, you had my blood on your face and your hair was missing.”

  At three, trying to make them stop fighting, I remember screaming until I pulled my hair out.

  My dad is Eritrean. He abandoned me when I was three. I was reunited with my dad when I was twenty-seven. That’s when I got married. He even came to my wedding. He was part of my life for a little while.

  But then he just abandoned me again. It happened as I was working on this book. He was supposed to stay at my house. I flew him out, paid for him to be out here in LA. When he got here, I bought him all these clothes. All this stuff he wanted. Everything he asked for, I got it. Got him an iPhone 7, even.

  Then I woke up on Monday, and he was just gone. He decided to take the Greyhound home. I called him:

  Tiffany: “You know you had a plane ticket to go back to wherever you came from.”

  Dad: “No, I just decided to take the Greyhound, ’cause you made me feel like a pauper.”

  Tiffany: “How did I make you feel like a pauper?”

  Dad: “Because, you think you’re better than me!”

  Tiffany: “When did I ever say I was better than you?”

  Dad: “You walk around like you’re better than me.”

  Tiffany: “What do you mean? Everything you asked for, I gave you. Anything you wanted, you had. How is that better than you?”

  He hung up on me.

  My friend told me that the answer to my question was right there, in his answers. He pointed out to me what he was trying to say, but couldn’t say. This is what my friend said:

  “He’s ashamed of himself, because he left you when you were three, did nothing for you, and you ended up being very successful without him, and then you buy him stuff. You are not only a better person than he is, but you are kind and responsible where he is not, and you’re providing where he did not. Not just as his child, but as a woman, providing for him. Your goodness holds up a mirror to his ugliness, and that is too painful for him, so he has to project this onto you, by saying you make him feel less about himself. It’s nothing you did. It’s guilt.”

  I don’t get it. I don’t get it, ’cause he’s my dad, and whatever he asks for, he can have it. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for your parents?

  I don’t know. I just know that I was crying all day after he left. I was crying all day, because I just felt like that abandoned three-year-old girl again. I felt horrible.

  All I wanted was for my father to be there with me. I didn’t care about none of that other stuff.

  Watch Yo Back

  When I was twenty-three, I was staying at one of my grandma’s properties. I told my grandma I’d take care of the property, so she’d let me stay there for free.

  One day, I was getting ready to leave from the house to go to a party, and I had a cute little outfit on. All of a sudden, I heard this loud-ass knocking on the door.

  It was my mama.

  Mama: “Let me in the house. Let me in the house.”

  Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in this house.”

  Mama: “It’s my mama’s house. You let me in the goddam house!”

  Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in this house, Mom. Like, you need to go somewhere. Go to Grandma’s house, but I’m not letting you in this house.”

  Mama: “This is my mama’s house! She own it!”

  Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in. I’m about to go. I gotta go to an event, anyways.”

  I walked out the house with my short little skirt on.

  Mama: “Where do you think you’re going with that short-ass skirt? You trying to get pregnant out here? You out here being a prostitute?”

  Tiffany: “No Ma, I was just going to an event, so leave me alone. Just leave me alone.”

  She had this long rearview mirror in her hand. Remember in the eighties, when they had them long, detachable rearview mirrors that had the smaller individual mirrors in it, which tilted to the sides? Somehow, she had found one of the
se mirrors. It was like two feet long. I could not understand why she had that in her hand.

  I walked past her and said:

  Tiffany: “I’m outta here, Mom. You need to leave, too. Get off the property.”

  Mama: “Oh, so you just think you grown now? You think you fucking grown?”

  She reared back and threw that rearview mirror at the back of my head. It hit me. It hit me so hard in the back of the head, I just fell to the ground. Collapsed.

  Mama: “That’s right. You need to watch your back, bitch. Take that mirror with you and watch yo’ motherfucking back.”

  I was looking so cute, I had on my little heels and everything, and it’s just, BAM!

  Tiffany: “I cannot believe you did that. I should call the police on you right now. I should call the police.”

  Mama: “Call the police, but just let them know that I got your back. I’m watching your back, bitch. Don’t go out there getting pregnant.”

  Then, just as quick as she showed up, she left.

  I had no idea what to do. So I just picked up the mirror and put it in my Geo Metro.

  In my heart, I was so hurt and mad . . . but also I felt like that was so funny. Who throws a huge, broke-ass rearview mirror at people?

  Sometimes I laugh so hard about it, but sometimes I just cry, because I know my mom is sick. She’s sick, and she’s trying to be a good parent, I think. In my mind, I like to think she was trying to be motherly, she was trying to tell me to be safe and not get pregnant. Trying to keep me out of trouble. You know?

  But to this day, if I have words with somebody, I never walk past them. I never turn my back on them. Now I’m always watching people. I’ve never had that problem with somebody hitting me in the back of the head no more. Never again after that.

  Mama

  One time, when I was twenty-three, I got my tax return, and they gave me $4000 back. I told my mom:

  Tiffany: “I’m going to spend a thousand dollars on you at the Walmart. I’m going to get you whatever you want at the Walmart.”

  I was doing it partially because she was my mom, but also because her mental illness was not going well. She was basically becoming a bag lady, carrying trash around.

  But it was weirder than that. She would collect the trash, and she’d mail it back to the companies that manufactured it. She would say that’s how she recycles and keeps the post office in business. That’s how she would spend her disability checks, mailing trash back to the companies that it came from.

  When you’d go into her apartment, she had five kids’ car seats that she found. I don’t know where she found them. And five piggy banks of the same type. My favorite character was Wonder Woman, so she had five Wonder Woman piggy banks, five Hello Kitty piggy banks. Like, five of whatever our favorite characters was as kids, for each one of my brothers and sisters. Five of everything, for each one of her kids.

  Everywhere she went, she wanted to carry one of these bags of trash with her.

  Tiffany: “Well, I’m going to take you to the Walmart. We gonna shop. Leave your trash at home. Leave it at home.”

  Mama: “It’s not trash. It’s not trash. This is recycling. I am helping the environment. I am removing my footprint. What are you doing for the environment?”

  Tiffany: “I’m taking you to Walmart to buy you some stuff. That’s what I’m doing.”

  We pulled up into the Walmart parking lot. She tried to take the bag of trash into the parking lot.

  Tiffany: “Mom, you cannot take that into the Walmart. Leave it in the car.”

  Mama: “I’m not leaving it in the car, somebody might steal it.”

  Tiffany: “Mom, just leave this trash in the car. Just leave it here, and we’ll come back for it.”

  Mama: “I’M NOT LEAVING IT IN THE CAR!”

  She started yelling at me, and I don’t do well with that. I just don’t do well with people yelling at me.

  I got mad and I snatched the trash and I tried to run to the dumpster. But before I could run to the dumpster, she snatched me by the back of my shirt and threw me up against the car and started punching me, repeatedly, in the chest and the stomach, in the mouth.

  I started trying to fight her back, but she’s crazy strong. She’s five-foot-ten, two hundred and some pounds. Strong as shit. My little punches don’t do shit. There’s all these people walking by, and I started yelling, “Help! Help!” ’cause she is beating my ass and nobody is helping. They just looking.

  She finally got tired of punching of me. I never did let go of that bag of trash, though. When she got tired, I just started jetting over to the dumpster, and I threw the bag of trash in the dumpster.

  Once I got the trash in the dumpster, she tackled me and beat me up again by the dumpster.

  Tiffany: “Mom, I just want to take you shopping with my money. This is crazy.”

  Mama: “Fuck you. I hate you. I hate you, Renee.”

  She started calling me Renee, which is the woman who my stepdad was cheating on her with.

  Mama: “I hate you, Renee. I fucking hate you. I should kill you, but I’m not. I’m gonna let you suffer. I’m gonna let you fucking suffer.”

  She just walked away and went towards the Walmart. Like nothing happened.

  At the front of the Walmart, there was a man in a wheelchair, the greeter. He’s probably a veteran, and he’s missing legs, and he’s Mexican. He had one of those big mustaches and a Walmart shirt on, and he said, “Welcome to Walmart.”

  My mom spat on him.

  Mama: “Your people make me vomit. I hate your burritos and everything. You make me vomit.”

  She hocked another loogie and spat in his face.

  Once she spat on him, she continued to walk through the Walmart. Like nothing happened.

  I was shocked. I tried to apologize to that man, but he was in shock, too.

  Then and only then, did the police show up. They showed up immediately after that. Like, not even five minutes later.

  I was getting my ass beat in the parking lot for forty-five minutes, and nobody came to help. But they immediately showed up when she spat on this Walmart employee.

  The police came, and she started sprinting away from them, so they started chasing her. She ran out of the Walmart, into the actual mall, and they followed and chased her around the mall. It was crazy.

  She is a big woman, and she was straight sprinting from the police. I didn’t know what to think, except, damn, I did NOT know she could move like that.

  They eventually caught her. I was following right behind them:

  Tiffany: “That’s my mom. Please don’t hurt my mom. That’s my mom. Please don’t hurt my mom.”

  But she started struggling with them. It took six police to get her subdued. They had to hog-tie her. They tied up her ankles, and they made her legs connect like shackles, you know? Nobody wants to see their parents like that.

  Mama: “Tiffany, this is all your fault. I could have been at my house, counting my shit. Tiffany, this is your fault. This is your fucking fault.”

  Tiffany: “Mama, it’s not my fault. Why did you spit on that poor man?”

  Mama: “I fucking hate you, Tiffany. I fucking hate you. This is all your fault. All your fucking fault.”

  They took her to the hospital. They ran her file and stuff.

  Police: “Oh, she’s a mental patient.”

  Tiffany: “She’s not a criminal. I’ve been telling you this for an hour!”

  Now remember, my lip was bleeding. My eyes were swollen, my ribs were hurting, and everything.

  Police: “Who did that to you?”

  Tiffany: “My mom did, but no, I do not want to press charges. I just want her to get help. She just needs help. She needs the right doctors.”

  She went into a mental institution then. She has been in and out, ever since.

  Titus the Boyfriend

  I’ve had some messed up relationships, but none were more fucked up than my time with Titus.

  I met him in
2001, when I was coming back to LA from Daytona Beach. My friend Shamona and I had gone to the Black College Reunion, which was the new name for Freaknik (if you’re young, you probably don’t know what Freaknik is, and I’m not even sure if you can YouTube that shit, it was that long ago. So go ask some old person, and they’ll tell you all about it).

  I was waiting at the gate to board, and I looked at this guy who was watching a video with his homeboy. They had one of them old school handheld video cameras (this was before iPhones), and they were hunched together watching the tiny screen. I looked over their shoulders to watch, too.

  The video was basically a black Girls Gone Wild. It was chicks shaking they asses and twerking, and the guys were smacking asses and grabbing booties, and all this stuff.

  Tiffany: “Ooh, you guys had a good time, huh? Y’all had a blast.”

  They whipped around, looking scared, like they been caught . . . and then we all started laughing.

  Now, let me pause real quick, and give you some background. Black College Reunion was like when all the salmon go upstream to spawn, and they squirting mating juices everywhere—that was basically Black College Reunion. Except with more DMX playing in the background.

  But me and my friend Shamona, we thought we were better than that. We were the girls there who acted real uppity and classy. When dudes tried to talk about “Shake that ass!” we’d be like, “Ugh! Buy us drinks!” We were real snobby, talking about how we didn’t do that stuff . . . but of course we went to Black College Reunion knowing what it was.

  So we weren’t any different, we just fooled ourselves.

  I talked with them for a while, and as we were boarding, Titus saw me use my employee pass.

  Titus: “Oh, you work for that airline?”

  Tiffany: “Yeah, I work for them.”

  Titus: “Oh, that’s crazy, I work for an airline too. Where you work at?”

  Tiffany: “LAX.”

  Titus: “I work at LAX, too!”

  Tiffany: “That’s cool.”