by Dana Dane
“When is Mommy coming back?” Takeisha asked.
“Can I have some juice?” Lakeisha followed.
“I don’t know, okay,” he answered both of them in one breath.
“What are you doing?” Takeisha asked, holding a doll.
“What does it look like I’m doing? Playing cards,” he snapped, as if she had interrupted him from doing something very important.
“Can we play?” Lakeisha asked, getting her juice out of the refrigerator.
At first Numbers thought to say no, but his annoyance dissolved when he looked at them. He loved them dearly.
“Okay, the game is—”
“Go Fish!” the girls interjected before he could finish his statement.
“Go Fish it is.”
Jenny sat in the waiting area in a long-sleeved, white ruffled blouse with a brown knee-length skirt and a pair of brown shoes, her coat draped across her legs. She wore her hair in an Afro and had on little makeup. Though she wasn’t a supermodel, she was an attractive female.
The waiting area was packed with single mothers and their screaming children. It was a madhouse. It took all of Jenny’s strength not to pull her hair out; she hated coming to this godforsaken place. It smelled like dirty diapers and cigarette smoke. Still, it was better than the social worker coming to her house trying to account for every nickel and dime she spent.
“Brian, get over here,” a mother yelled at her kid. “You’re just like your father. His dumb ass never listened either, that’s why the fool is in prison now. You remind me of him so much it makes me sick to look at you. Now, get your ass over here.” The boy paid her no attention and continued romping around the room along with the other bad-ass kids.
“Ms. Johnson,” the caseworker called out as she walked from behind the glass. The young girl who was just screaming at her son stood up.
“Brian, get your ass over here right now!” she yelled. When the boy ignored her she got infuriated, marched over to him, and snatched the six-year-old up by his armpit. “I’m Johnson,” she replied, dragging her son toward the caseworker.
Thank God! Jenny thought, glad the loudmouth girl was leaving the area. Jenny had been coming to this social services office for the last nine years. It wasn’t what she’d planned for her life; none of this had been in her plans. She hadn’t planned on getting pregnant and having to move to New York City. Nor had she planned to move out of her brother’s place abruptly and have to get on welfare.
Even after her sister practically disowned her for getting pregnant at seventeen, Jenny still hadn’t believed her situation was as grave as it was. Indignantly she lashed out as if none of what had happened to her was her doing. “You’ve always been jealous of me. You never loved me. You just put up with me ’cuz you had to,” she raged at her sister Anna Beth.
Anna Beth was fifteen years Jenny’s senior, the oldest of the seven siblings. Since their mother and father had died seventeen years earlier, Anna Beth had taken on the role of head of the household. And as the head, she made one of the hardest decisions she ever had to make in her life: she put her youngest sister out the family house.
At two o’clock that afternoon Jenny packed up what she was able to carry in a duffle bag and left. She was ordered by Anna Beth to be out of the house before her two nieces came home from school. Only her brother Greggor was home when she left, and he hated to see Jenny go; they were the closest of the seven, but he also knew that once the eldest made up her mind, that was that.
Anna Beth never looked up from washing clothes in the big tub in the kitchen when Jenny walked by to leave. She couldn’t bear to see her baby sister—she was afraid she might change her mind.
Jenny walked out into the brisk fall afternoon on Bradford Street with all of $18.34 to her name. She wore bell-bottom jeans, a wool tweed coat, brown shoes, and a brown knit cap that covered her ears. She was seventeen years old, homeless and pregnant. Any other time she would have thought it was a beautiful day to take a walk, but today the twenty-minute walk to Purdy Street where her boyfriend lived felt like a marathon. But she was certain that once she was there, Lewis—her future baby’s father—would know what to do.
Lewis lived with his mother and little sister. He wasn’t exceptionally handsome, but girls liked his flawless bronzed brown skin. He said that most girls thought his family was part Cherokee, but all that was needed to dispel that claim was to look at his coarse hair. It was plain ol’ nappy.
Given his five-foot-nine, slim build, it would be a safe bet to think Lewis was athletic, but it would’ve been a losing bet. What Lewis did have going for him was an uncanny way with digits. He could calculate numbers better than most high school teachers. It was truly a gift. And it landed him a job at Coughlin’s General Store managing the books. It also gave him access to some of the prettier girls who needed help with their math.
His tutoring ability was how he got to meet and get close to Jenny. He was a year older, and she found him mildly attractive. At first it was just friendly, but that changed on the day Jenny was able to manipulate Lewis into cutting class with her. She liked the fact that he was older than she was, yet still a virgin. Now she was the teacher. She taught him everything he knew about sex—but now she wished she would have taught him to pull out.
Jenny slowly approached the two-bedroom, one-level house sitting on cinder blocks. The grass was cut, but the paint was peeling from years of wear. At first she thought to turn around and walk away, but she had nowhere to go. Jenny knocked on the door tentatively and waited. There was no answer.
She turned to leave, unsure what she would do next, when someone walked up.
“Jenny May, hey there, baby, what you doing here?” Lewis asked in his southern drawl as he came up the walkway. He seemed surprised but pleased to see her.
“I need to talk to you, Lewis.”
“What’s with the bag?” he asked, tugging at it playfully.
“Can we go in the house? I walked here all the way from my house. I’m thirsty.”
Lewis walked into the house, followed by Jenny.
Once inside, Jenny dropped her bag on the floor, thankful to be giving her shoulder a rest. She sat down in the living room on a couch covered with a light green floral sheet. Lewis was at the kitchen sink directly across from the couch fetching a glass of water.
They were in the house alone. Lewis’s mother was working at one of her two jobs, and his little sister was at Ms. Pearl’s house. Ms. Pearl watched most of the single mothers’ kids in the neighborhood. It was as close to a day-care center as they could come to in this poor area of town.
“Here you go.” Lewis sat next to Jenny, handing her the glass of water.
She took a long sip, then stared down at the glass trying to figure out how she would break the news.
Lewis could tell she was somewhat uneasy. He placed his right arm around her shoulder and took the glass of water away with his left. “Don’t worry, my mother won’t be home for hours,” he said in his sexiest voice, placing the glass of water on the old wooden coffee table in front of the couch.
Jenny folded her arms and began to tremble slightly. Lewis used the opportunity to make his move, sliding his hand up her leg. “Stop,” Jenny said softly.
Lewis ignored her request and moved his other hand toward her breast, caressing her over the coat she wore.
“I didn’t come here for that,” Jenny erupted, standing up.
“So what you come here for?” he shot back. Tears welled up in Jenny’s eyes, and her trembling increased. Lewis was confused. “What? What? What did I do?” he pleaded, sitting on the couch with his palms in the air.
Jenny managed to get the words past the lump in her throat, “I’m pregnant.”
“Huh?”
“I’m pregnant.” The words made their way out more freely this time.
“So why you telling me?” he asked coldly, jumping up from his seat.
“You know why I’m telling you,” she retorted, tryi
ng with no luck to hold back the tears that were streaming effortlessly down her cheeks. “Please don’t be like that, Lewis.”
“I’m not being like nothing. How you gonna come up in here trying to pin a baby on me, knowing you’ve been having sex way before me,” he rationalized, avoiding eye contact.
It was true, Jenny wasn’t a virgin like Lewis when they got together, nor was she promiscuous like her sister Anna Beth and Lewis suggested. She had had sex with only one boy before Lewis. She’d thought she was in love with him but soon found out he was having sex with one of her so-called friends. She ended it right then and there.
“How dare you say that to me?” she cried. “You know I’m not like that, Lewis.”
“All I know is you better go find the father of that bastard you’re carrying,” Lewis spat.
Before Jenny knew what she had done, she hauled off and punched him square in the mouth. His mouth filled with blood instantly—Muhammad Ali would have been proud of her right cross.
Lewis stood there in shock and fear, holding his mouth. He saw the anger and hatred in her eyes and made the correct decision to not say another word. Jenny was ready to swing on him again, but when Lewis cowed she turned on her heels, grabbed her duffle bag, and stormed out.
When she moved in with her oldest brother, Samuel, and his wife and kids in New York, she thought it was her chance to start over. She lived with them for almost three years after Dupree was born but couldn’t endure the constant fighting in the household. She didn’t want her son raised in such a volatile environment. When Jenny left she wished she had the means to take her niece and nephew with her, but she could barely take care of Dupree and herself.
The first couple of years after leaving Samuel’s house, she bounced around from shelter to shelter waiting for a vacancy to open up in one of the subsidized housing developments social services would provide. In the meantime, she met her daughters’ father.
Elroy hadn’t come around much since Jenny had beat him with the frying pan. He reappeared on the girls’ birthday and like Houdini disappeared, never to be heard from until their next birthday or whenever he felt like it, which wasn’t often. He had the deadbeat-dad disease, too.
When he did come around, he was more concerned with getting back with Jenny than their well-being or spending time with his daughters. Once Jenny let him know she wasn’t interested in having sex with him, he’d catch an attitude and storm out until he felt it was time to try his luck again. Screw him, she thought.
“Jenny May Wallace,” a squatty, light-brown-complexioned man with salt-and-pepper hair read from his clipboard.
“Right here, Mr. Sampson.” Jenny stood up.
“Good to see you, Jenny. Come this way,” Mr. Sampson said. “How are the children? Are they in school today?”
“Thank you, Mr. Sampson. They’re good, and yes, they’re in school,” she lied. The twins were supposed to go on a school trip, but Jenny didn’t have the money to send them. She had Numbers stay home with them.
Jenny followed Mr. Sampson into a small office, where he took a seat behind his desk. She sat in the one metal chair in front of the desk and rested her coat on her lap.
“Have you been working? Is there a man living in your house? Anything you want to declare to me?” he interrogated.
“No,” she lied.
“Jenny, did you think about what we discussed last time you were here?”
“Yes.”
“Then are you going to take the high school equivalency test? You’re a very intelligent young lady, I’m sure you would pass it,” he pressed.
“Yes, Mr. Sampson, I’m ready…. I need this to better my life for me and my children.”
Mr. Sampson was pleased with her response. He genuinely cared about her well-being. He had only been her caseworker for the last year and five months. The change was the best thing that could’ve happened to Jenny. He was much different from the Caucasian lady, Mrs. Whiter, who had been her caseworker for the previous seven years. Mrs. Whiter was condescending, intrusive, rude, and did not care one bit about Jenny’s welfare. Mr. Sampson was more like a father figure than a caseworker.
“Okay then, Jenny, take these papers to Bayard Rustin High School and set up a date to take the test. Once you’ve passed the test I’ll set you up with some job interviews. I’m very pleased that you’ve decided to do this for yourself, and I promise you, you won’t regret it.” Mr. Sampson wrote some information on a sheet of paper and passed it to Jenny. “Next time we talk I want to hear that you have a high school diploma.”
“I won’t let you or myself down,” Jenny said confidently, giving Mr. Sampson a daughterly hug.
A month later, at the age of thirty, Jenny received her high school diploma. A month after that, she secured a job with the city doing clerical work at the health department. City jobs didn’t pay much, but the medical benefits were good for her and her three children. Money was still tight, but at least it was money she was earning herself. This was the first time she truly felt independent.
The Game Changes
It was the fall of ’87, and Numbers’s birthday was right around the corner. On October 8 he’d be turning thirteen. Although he still enjoyed riding his skateboard, his interests were changing. He was paying more attention to the way he dressed, and to girls. And he was beginning to grow out of his baby fat, slimming down and looking more like his father every day. Jenny wished he looked more like her, although he did have her lips and eyes. Overall, she was pleased at how handsome her son was becoming.
The previous month, Numbers had spent all the money he earned in the summer from running errands and playing numbers on helping his mother get school clothes for him and his sisters. His birthday was in seven days, and he was broke. He and Jarvis wanted to take two neighborhood girls to the movies. The one Numbers liked was named Rosa-Marie Vasquez. She was Puerto Rican, and she liked Numbers also, but her mother forbade her to go out with black boys.
One day, when Numbers went to Rosa-Marie’s house to get her to come out, Ms. Vasquez pulled him aside to speak to him. In an almost unintelligible Spanish accent, she said, “Dup’ee, you good boy. I like you. My daughter … you okay to be friends. But you no date her! Latino and Negro no good together, comprendo?” She nodded.
Numbers mimicked her nod but he really didn’t mean it. Ms. Vasquez believed a black man was not as good as a Puerto Rican man for her daughter. Numbers didn’t understand this logic. After all, her husband had left her to be a single parent just like Numbers’s dad did to his mother. He and Rosa-Marie would just have to sneak to the movies.
Numbers figured if he could hit a bolita (two-number betting) or the Brooklyn (three numbers), he’d have enough for his movie date with Rosa-Marie. Over the course of the next four days, he did errands and made number runs, but he didn’t hit any of the numbers he played. School was in session, so he was unable to play in the afternoons and could only play the late number.
After school on Thursday, Numbers walked across the street toward the number spot. Park Avenue’s traffic flowed east close to the projects side, then he had to walk under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, or the El, where people parked their cars. Crispy Carl always kept his light-blue Ford Thunderbird under the El. It wasn’t the latest model, but he kept it detailed. Numbers loved to walk by the car and admire it.
He crossed the street and saw Crispy Carl holding court on the bench outside the number joint.
“If that ain’t the truth, my name ain’t Crispy Motherfuckin’ Carl.” He always said that. When Numbers first met Crispy Carl, he actually thought Motherfuckin’ was his middle name for a while, until he said the name to his mother and she popped him in the mouth. Everyone in the vicinity reacted with a hearty laugh at what Crispy Carl had to say.
“Hey, Mr. Carl.” Numbers nodded as he walked up.
“Numbers, get over here and give your man Crispy Carl some skin.” He beamed, slapping Numbers’s hand. “So, what’s the number for thi
s evening, li’l man? I know you got a fix on it.”
“No clue,” Numbers said softly, unsure of himself. “Haven’t been feeling lucky lately.”
Crispy Carl took a swig of his Jack. “Is that right? Well, let’s see what we can do to make some greenbacks.” He got up from his post, placing the half-pint bottle of Jack Daniels in his inside jacket pocket.
He walked into the number spot with his arm draped across Numbers’s shoulder. The room was smoky with the usual activity. He directed Numbers to one of the nearest counters and joined him with his Big Mack number sheet, pen, and number slip. Carl gazed at the sheet as if in deep concentration. Numbers had grown to recognize that look on Mr. Carl’s face. He knew a story would soon follow.
“You know, Numbers,” Crispy Carl began, “most of the time when it comes to making decisions, the first thing that comes to mind is the right decision. When you think about stuff too long, you end up making the wrong call. I ’member when I was pimping down by the navy yard back in the days. One of my hoes came to me with a proposition. She told me this punk-ass pimp named Smalley had a sweet lick with some cadets on shore leave. My bitch, Lola, and one of Smalley’s bitches would work three cadets and in one night pull in four thousand dollars. My gut told me all money wasn’t good money, not to go in with the arrangement. But my little grimy bitch was like ‘Please, Daddy, let’s get this money, please.’” He made a bad attempt to speak in a female’s tone. He abruptly ended the story. “So what was the first number you thought of today, Numbers?”
“Eight.”
“Why eight?”
“My birthday is in two days, October eighth, and the number was on my mind earlier.” Numbers looked at the clock on the wall. It read 2:55.
“How old you gonna be—twenty-one?” Crispy Carl joked.
“No, thirteen.” Numbers smiled. Crispy Carl always made him laugh. Numbers often wondered how it would be to have Mr. Carl as his father.
