by Lisa Leslie
I would walk up to her, pleading my case. “Mom, look at me. I was not in your make-up. I promise! I swear to God!” I would invoke God’s name to try to convince her that I was the innocent daughter.
Dionne always got in the last word, though. “I don’t care what anybody says. It was not me!”
This would get Mom really upset. “Go to your rooms. If nobody will tell me the truth, then both of you are getting whuppin’s!”
This would send me into a panic. I was a pretty obedient kid and did everything I could to avoid getting hit by my mother. My mind-set was always, I am not going to do anything to give this lady a reason to whup me. But on those rare occasions when it did happen, it might as well have been a previously choreographed dance.
Mom would walk into my room and close the door behind her. I was quick and would dive under my bed. Mom would move the bed. I would jump in my closet. She would pull me out. Then she would pick up my sixty-five-pound body, lay me across the bed, and lean on my head so she could spank my bottom. This happened every time I ever got a whuppin’. Running away probably made things worse than they had to be, but I could not fathom sitting still to get a whuppin’, especially when I was innocent (not that I always was).
Somewhere in between raising two daughters and working for the post office, Mom found time to date a chef named Max Sanoguet. He was Puerto Rican and had grown up in New York City. Max drove a little yellow Dodge Colt, and he wore his hair in a ponytail. I thought he was really nice. One night I sat on his lap and said, “You’re cute. Are you going to stay over?”
He said, “I hope so.”
Mom looked at both of us and raised her eyebrows. “I don’t THINK so!”
Max was really the first man that I remember being around our house, ever. He eventually moved in with us, and on February 7, 1980, my sister Tiffany was born. I was almost eight years old, and I thought she was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen. We had a real baby in the house! I remember going to school and then rushing home every day to see my new sister. She slept in Dionne’s room, across the hall from me. I would spend most of my free time standing by her crib, staring and rubbing her back. I changed her diapers and volunteered to take a lot of responsibility in caring for her. For some reason, this made Max jealous. “Tell her to get out of there!” he would say to my mother. “She is always around the baby, always around that crib.”
I really liked Max, but he and Mom did not always see eye to eye, especially when it came to me; they definitely had their differences. Not long after, in 1981, Tiffany was a year and a half, Max was out of the house, and Mom was ready to stop delivering mail and start a new career.
Mom is an amazingly optimistic person. To this day, she is always filling my head with positive affirmations. When I was growing up, she would always tell me things like:
“Treat people the way you want to be treated.”
“You cannot receive anything with a closed fist.”
“It is important to be giving.”
“Whatever you say in the universe will come back, so speak positively.”
And my favorite, the 7 P’s: Proper, Prior, Preparation, Prevents, Piss, Poor, Performance.
Her positive outlook always seems to come out strongest when my family goes through difficult times or when one of us needs an emotional or spiritual lift. Mom has always wanted the best for her kids, and that included sending us to college. She realized that her post office salary was not enough to send all three of her girls to universities. So she started considering other job possibilities. She wanted to do something she would enjoy, that would pay well, and that would allow her to build a better life for our family.
So when a friend introduced Mom to a truck-driving acquaintance, her new career path started to take shape. She knew that she liked to talk and loved to travel. And she was willing to try something different. Call her spontaneous, adventurous, or a risk taker, but my mother wound up riding with this truck driver on his trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and she helped him unload furniture when they got there. It was hard, hot, and dirty work, but Mom liked it. She saw that driving a truck might be her ticket to see the country and provide the finances necessary to put Dionne, Tiffany, and me through college. The fact that she had never driven a truck, of any kind, did not seem to bother her.
Mom did some research and found out that North American Van Lines was holding a free seminar in Long Beach, not far from where we lived. Their deal was that if you wanted a new career as a truck driver, you could buy a truck from them, and they would teach you how to drive it and teach you how to run your own business. After that, you could venture out on your own. Mom liked the idea, so she signed up for the training classes. Let me tell you what a giant leap of faith this was. My mom did not even know how to drive a stick shift. She had no clue. On top of that, North American Van Lines was headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana. That was also where the driving classes were held, and that meant Mom was going to have to leave us for a little while.
In order to save money, she took a bus from Los Angeles to Fort Wayne. North American provided her with a truck for the training sessions. The classes lasted two weeks, and by the end of that time, my mother was driving a big tractor-trailer just like a pro. She was going to be a truck driver, and she was not going to do it halfway. Mom took out a loan on our home and paid fifty-four thousand dollars to buy her own big rig. It was an eighteen-wheeler, an International Harvester 9670 that had twenty-seven miles on its odometer.
Mom was extremely excited, but on the same day that she found out about getting her truck, she also got some news about my big sister. Dionne was eight months pregnant and would have to take a break from high school. On April 18, 1983, my fifteen-year-old sister gave birth to my nephew, Marquis.
It was a crazy time for all of us. There was so much drama and concern. When Dionne brought Marquis home, we had two babies in our house, and I became solely responsible for Tiffany. Mom was in way too deep to even think about giving up her new trucking career. Besides, she was determined to improve our family’s quality of life, no matter what. Her plan was still a good one, and she was going to do everything she could to make it successful.
Then came the next bombshell: Mom was going to be headquartered in Indiana. We would have to stay behind in California. To this day, Mom says that it broke her heart to leave us and head off to her new career. Trust me, it broke my heart, too.
In Mom’s new job, she got to drive cross-country routes through all forty-eight states and into Canada and Mexico. Her CB radio moniker was Sugar Chris, and her driving motto was, “I don’t go fast, but I do go steady.” She hauled all kinds of cargo in that truck, from baby diapers to washing machines to tomato sauce, and when school was out, Mom would haul Tiffany and me in her cab, too. We would spend the summer driving across America, talking, laughing, and, along the way, doing our shopping for the coming school year.
On the road, my mother was always trying to keep costs down, so we would stay at places like Days Inn. Their rooms were inexpensive, and kids under twelve got to eat breakfast for free. One morning the waitress came over to take our orders. Mom told her what she wanted, and then she explained that Tiffany and I would be getting the free breakfast. I was ten at the time but was already very tall for my age. The waitress looked at me, then looked at my mom and asked, with a bit of attitude, “Are you trying to tell me that this big old girl is only ten years old?”
The whole thing made me really uncomfortable. Mom told the waitress that I really was ten, and when the woman got kind of fussy about it, my mother had the manager come to our table. Mom explained the problem to him, and the manager looked across the table at me. Mom said, “Let me explain it this way.” She got out of her chair and stood up, all six feet three inches of her. The man seemed to get the picture, and I got my free breakfast.
Mom had all kinds of interesting experiences on the road. One night at a truck stop in Garland, Texas, she saw a poster for a “win
a truck” contest that WMAQ Radio was holding. She filled out an entry form, and unbelievably, Mom won the contest and a new 1996 Ford truck. She got to add all kinds of bells and whistles to it, all the chrome and accessories that she liked, and that brand new rig put Mom into the elite fleet of trucking. She started hauling high-priced commodities. Sony rented her entire truck just to send one small computer from New York City to Anaheim, California. T.G.I. Friday’s hired her to haul one handmade telephone booth, worth a half-million dollars, from Hickory, North Carolina, to San Francisco.
Of course, the driving was not easy. Mom had to haul through rain, sleet, snow, gusting winds, and lightning storms. She jackknifed her truck three times but, fortunately, never got seriously injured. On one trip to Columbus, Mom was driving on a highway in Ohio, and the snow was blowing sideways across the road. Her trailer was empty and very light, so when a fierce wind whipped up, it blew that rig right off the road. The truck was in a ditch, and Mom was stuck in waist-deep snow.
I worried about her constantly when she was away, but the thing that troubled me most was that she could come home only if she got a load that brought her near Los Angeles. After driving from Alabama to Phoenix, for example, Mom would check in with her dispatcher to see if she could get some cargo to haul from Phoenix to L.A.
On those occasions, Mom could usually spend two or three days with us. We could hear her truck pulling into Compton from a block away because it was so loud. She would drive up with her big trailer and then back that rig up, move it forward, and back it up again until she was perfectly parked in front of our house. Tiffany and I would be in our front yard, jumping up and down and cheering her on. We were always so excited. Mom would shut down the truck, step out of her door, and step right back into our lives again, even if it was just for a short time. Tiffany and I would yell and scream as we ran to greet her, and it did not matter that she was dirty, grimy, and sleep-deprived. For her whole stay, we practically attached ourselves to her hips. She would tell us stories from the road, and we hung on every word.
When it came time for Mom to leave, Tiffany and I would promise ourselves that we would not cry. But when she climbed into her truck, we could not hold back the tears. I would hold Tiffany, and we would watch the truck drive away until it disappeared from sight. Then I would do what I had done so many times before. I would sit by the door and cry, and then I would pull out the photo album and look at the pictures of Mom and me holding hands. She was just so beautiful to me. I would look at her picture and wonder where she was, where she was going, why she had to leave me. I was never angry with her about it, but I was always a little hurt.
One of Mom’s friends looked after us the first year she was on the road, but then Mom thought leaving us with family would be a better idea, so my Aunt Pete came in from Texas to help. Her real name was Minerva. She was my grandmother’s younger sister, and she brought her teenage daughter, Kriscita, with her. When Kriscita came to California I did not know her, but my favorite cousin Braquel did. Kriscita appeared to be very conservative and proper. She talked with an accent, kept her hair in a ponytail with a bow, and only wore dresses, very long dresses. Kriscita was a breath of fresh air to me because she was so sweet. She was a Christian, always had her Bible, and never cursed, and she would not bow to peer pressure. This girl stood up for what she believed. I was impressed with her. She stayed with me in my room, while Dionne kept Tiffany and Marquis with her. I was excited to have my cousin in our home. I thought Kriscita could do no wrong.
But Braquel had a very different opinion. “Girl, don’t believe a word Kriscita says,” she warned. “She is such a liar. All this sweet stuff is just an act.” I did not believe her.
Maybe it was all an act, or maybe Kriscita’s new California lifestyle was a bad influence. I cannot be sure, but before long, Kriscita was completely out of control. She swore, wore suggestive clothes, and even dated one of her high school teachers as a student. She was also really disrespectful to her mother. All that “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am” had gone out the window.
Then there was Aunt Pete. She was like a character out of a movie. At times, she was fun-loving. But most times, she fussed and cussed about everything. Her negative personality was the complete opposite of my mom’s. She barked commands and called me names. “Get your tall, skinny, lanky self and your big feet into this kitchen and come clean up.”
I was already Miss Sensitive, so of course, I would start crying. Then, I would go into the kitchen to clean up somebody else’s mess. I would plead with her. “Aunt Pete, it’s not my week.”
“I don’t care. Get in there and clean up, anyway.”
One night I rebelled and talked back. “No, I’m not cleaning nothing! It is Kriscita’s turn, and I’m not doing her work.”
I lay down in the hallway in protest, and all I could think about was my mother. I knew that if Mom was home, she would defend me. She would know I was telling the truth, and she would treat me fairly.
Well, I lay in the hallway so long that I fell asleep, and I woke up to Aunt Pete whuppin’ me with a belt. I cried and jumped up to protect myself, then walked to the kitchen to start cleaning. I muttered under my breath, “I can’t wait to talk to my mom,” and I looked over my shoulder to be sure that Aunt Pete had not heard me. Not only did I have to do my chores; now I had to do Kriscita’s, too. She was out late, fooling around with her teacher, and I was the one getting the beating. I felt like Cinderella living with her evil sisters.
While I cleaned anything and everything, Aunt Pete taught Tiffany how to curse. Tiffany was still in preschool, but she was smart for her age. Mom did not let us speak baby talk to Tiffany. We had to use real words, so Tiffany was good with language even as a toddler.
Every afternoon Aunt Pete would stand with Tiffany in our front doorway, and if kids stepped on our lawn on their walk home from school, Tiffany would yell out, “Get your a—off my f———grass!” Aunt Pete thought this was hilarious.
When I talked to Mom on the phone, I whispered, “Mom! You gotta come home. Aunt Pete makes me clean up all the time. I have to clean up her mess and my mess, everybody’s mess. Mom, you are not going to believe this. Tiffany curses like crazy. She says all the bad words, and Kriscita is dating her teacher! She don’t come home till late. Mom, they even took the toilet paper out of the bathroom. Now everybody keeps their own roll in their own room. You gotta come home, Mom! You just gotta!”
I spoke quickly because Mom was calling long distance, and I did not want to waste money. I intentionally left out what was really bothering me the most: that I felt abused and taken advantage of. Mom had enough to worry about on the road without worrying about me, too. I always kept quiet.
When Mom finally came home, all hell broke loose. She and Kriscita really got into it. My cousin yelled at her, “Can’t nobody tell me what to do!”
Mom said, “You are right. Obviously, you are too grown up to live in this house and abide by the rules.”
She threw Kriscita out of the house, and Aunt Pete went packing back to Houston shortly after.
As Mom started to put things back to normal for me and Tiffany, we got more disappointing news. The people she had entrusted with paying the mortgage had done something funky with the money, and we lost our house. Mom had to file for bankruptcy, but thankfully, she was able to keep her truck. We packed up everything we owned and put it into storage. Dionne had left home to be on her own, so Mom got me and Tiffany settled in Carson, with her sister Judy Carol—my Aunt J.C.—and then she went back to trucking. This was just the move I needed.
Chapter 2
How’s the Weather Up There?
It took a little work to get settled at Aunt J.C.’s house. She was divorced from my Uncle Craig and lived with her two children, Craig II, whom we all called Craigie, and Braquel. Craigie was my only male cousin. He was eighteen, loved sports, and was creative, smart, and cool. Braquel was fifteen. She was my hero. This girl would not back down from anything or
anybody. She was so brave, smart, pretty, and athletic, too. She and Craigie had it made. Aunt J.C. always provided them with the best of everything. They had Barbies, dollhouses, trains, model cars, and very expensive clothes. My cousins had so many things that Tiffany and I did not. I figured they had to be the happiest kids in the world. Oh, they were happy all right, but once we moved in with Craigie and Braquel, I found them to be unaware of just how truly blessed they were.
My cousins did not get along at all. They would really fight. I mean fight with a capital OUCH! I never saw a boy and a girl battle the way they did. He would get on her nerves, and she would kick him. He would choke her. I never knew what to do, except to get Tiffany out of the way while those two went at it. Craigie would punch Braquel. She would punch him right back. They fought like grown men would fight. It was like I had the family edition of professional wrestling going on right before my eyes, but these conflicts were real.
When Aunt J.C. caught her kids in hand-to-hand combat, she would run in, kick off her heels, and jump on Craigie’s back. If that did not break things up, she would run to the kitchen, grab a skillet, and threaten to hit him over the head with it. No kidding! It was serious. Their brawls only happened every few months, but that was more than enough for me. I hated it when my cousins fought. I cried every time. When each free-for-all finally ended, Craigie and Braquel would get a whuppin’. That scared me, too. I knew I had not done anything wrong, but I still worried that I might be next in the whuppin’ line. It would not have been the first time I got spanked for something I did not do.
Aunt J.C. had punished me before, so I was overly nervous at her place. I really felt the pressure of trying not to be a bother in a house that was not my own. I made sure that Tiffany and I did not get in the way or ruffle any feathers. We tried to use as little hot water as possible to make sure that everybody had enough, and we always kept the noise to a minimum. Tiffany and I would put out a blanket (we called it a pallet) and sleep on the floor in the living room, where there was soft carpet under us. Aunt J.C. loved Tiffany and me as if we were her own, but I still felt like we were in the way. I knew Tiffany and I were loved, but I also knew it was uncommon for people to take two kids into their home, even if they were related. One thing I can say about my mom and her sisters is that they truly believe that it takes a village to raise a child. They were always there for one another, and since my village was made up mostly of women, I had a ton of role models, Aunt J.C. chief among them.
