Whispers in the Night

by Brandon Massey

  On the way out the door, she ran into Lady Black. Everyone in the neighborhood called her that because she was more proper and pleasant than most in that part. And her easygoing way called for respect, despite the fact that she was still black, like the rest of them.

  The old woman always told Malaya stories of how things had been in the neighborhood when she had been younger. Malaya loved the Lady, and Naomi imagined that the Lady felt the same for her sister. If she had to admit it, she would have said that the Lady scared her more than anything. It was her eyes.

  “Well, there, how is the most important part of the Three Musketeers?” She always called Naomi that.

  “Off to work. Someone has to pay the bills.” She smiled.

  “Too bad it’s you, huh?” The old lady’s eyes had a way of saying much more than her mouth, and Naomi found herself turning away. Those eyes said too much.

  Naomi shrugged.

  “Where would the miss be right now, if she had her choice?” Lady Black asked.

  “Oh boy.” Naomi closed her eyes, letting the thought take her where it would. She opened them, a sad look on her face. “Where else could I go? Colleen and Malaya need me.”

  The old woman stared at her in surprise, as if she had never heard such nonsense in her life. “Why, anywhere you want, girl. Anywhere in the world.”

  When she left the old woman, she saw the old man from upstairs. He wasn’t really old like Lady Black. About thirty-five, she’d guessed. She had come to call him that because he had made it a habit to chase girls much younger than him. The younger the better. Naomi had even caught him flirting with Malaya. She hated him.

  “I saw your sister, Chocolate, gettin’ in some old man’s car,” he said. “You think she was gonna do him?”

  Pervert, she thought. “Her name’s Colleen.”

  “Well, they call her Chocolate on the streets.”

  “Not all of us hang out in the streets.” She didn’t even bother smiling; he knew she despised him.

  “Well.” He smiled, showing all of his toothless gums. “Some of us make it our job to work the streets.”

  “My sister’s not a whore!”

  “Maybe you should tell her that.” He smiled at her one more time before he walked away.

  God, I hate him. He had no right talking about her sister that way. She knew that Colleen had problems, but she thought maybe if she could get her help, things could go back to the way they were before Mama died. Maybe things would be all right.

  Mama had been less than forty when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Naomi remembered thinking how brave her mother had been when she’d sat all of them down and told them. They had cried, but Mama had said simply, “Don’t cry for me, I’m going home.” She was dead two months later. Colleen was strung out by then, and Malaya was still in high school. And Naomi was working her ass off to keep them all together. She had to make Mama proud. She just had to.

  On the bus ride to work, Naomi pondered just dropping everything and leaving. She, Malaya, and Colleen could just make a new start somewhere else. A fresh start. It would probably do them all good. But Colleen would never go; she considered this her home.

  Naomi supposed the girl was right; it was home to all of them.

  Mama had lived and died here. Perhaps they all would as well.

  Time went by slowly in the projects. Most of the time, it seemed to stop completely.

  No money.

  No job.

  No hope for the future; no reason for time.

  Naomi worked her job at the phone company. Colleen—aka Chocolate—worked her corner. But most importantly, her job was to find her next fix. Malaya had just turned sixteen and had a longing to go to college. Naomi actually thought she could make it on a scholarship with her 3.8 GPA.

  She was proud. She wanted Malaya to have more than she had. She wanted her to become more than just a junky like Colleen. Or a phone rep, like her.

  “You really think I can?” Malaya asked one night, sitting at the table finishing her homework.

  “Of course you can,” Naomi said. “I’ve told you that.”

  Malaya twirled around, hands held high in the air, almost lost in thought. “Maybe I’ll be a doctor. Get an office on the South Side here. Help some of us without insurance and money. What ya think? I could, right?”

  “Yeah.” Naomi smiled.

  “But . . .” She drifted off as if she heard a voice in the back of her head telling her not to say any more.

  “But what?”

  “Colleen said that ain’t nobody in this family never been to college and neither would I.”

  “She said that?”

  “Yeah.” The girl paused and Naomi saw the hurt in her eyes. “You know she ain’t been home in two days?”

  Naomi nodded. “I know.”

  “You gonna go get her? Can I come too?”

  “No. I’ll do this alone.” Naomi allowed a single tear to fall down her sullen face.

  “Mama used to cry, too,” Malaya whispered.

  Naomi didn’t hear.

  She found Colleen in the park again. She wasn’t surprised. The surprise was that she was alone.

  “Let’s go home, Co.”

  “Did you bring your gun this time, Officer?” Colleen asked.

  “I never know what I’m gonna find you with. Mama told me that. She told me to take care of you. Who is it nowadays? Anyone who pays, right? You’ll fuck anyone who pays.”

  “Right!” Colleen screamed. She wobbled forward, and fell to the ground.

  Naomi could tell she was high. Crack. “So you can buy that shit. Why?”

  “Because . . .” She stood and brushed an invisible stench from her knees, like a pro.

  “Because what, Colleen?”

  “It’s Chocolate to you. To everyone! My name’s Chocolate.”

  “Let’s go home now.” Naomi reached out to her sister.

  Colleen slapped her hand away. “I am home. Don’t you see?” She twirled in a circle, her arms outstretched. She fell again, stood up. “Home. This is Chocolate Park. My park. My home.”

  Looking at her sister, Naomi began to cry. She knew that Colleen had been doing drugs for a long time. She even knew about the prostitution, despite her desire to deny it happened. But she had never seen Colleen like this.

  Maybe, she realized, she had never allowed herself to see it. She loved her sister, damn it.

  Colleen had taken it hard when she found out that their mother had cancer. She felt responsible, as if she hadn’t been there for their mother when Mama had needed her the most. And of course she hadn’t been, because of the drugs. Then when she died, Colleen had been stuck with all the responsibilities of two younger sisters. Motherhood.

  But hell, so had Naomi. The difference was that Naomi was good at it.

  “Do you want to join me?” Chocolate said. Naomi did not see her as Colleen any longer; her sister had died. “I can help you. You know, show you the ropes. Even help you find johns. What ya think?” She raised her hands high. “I’m my sister’s keeper, right?”

  Naomi wiped her eyes. “Malaya ran into Torch today. He said he wants his money or his stuff. He said he’d kill you to get it. He said he’d kill her, too. Do you care?”

  Chocolate didn’t answer.

  The drugs wouldn’t let her care.

  The day Torch raped Malaya, she had been walking home from school and he’d grabbed her and pulled her into his car.

  He drove her to his apartment, and one by one, he and his buddies had their way with her.

  When he sent her to walk home, he told her, “Tell Chocolate, I want my money. Or next time I’ll kill you, bitch.” And then: “You even think about goin’ to the cops and my boys will kill all three of you.”

  How do you choose one sister over the other?

  Naomi got the call at work. Her sister was hurt. Malaya had gone to Lady Black’s apartment; their phone had been long disconnected.

  When Naomi walked in, s
he saw her. Malaya’s eyes were swollen shut and had a deep cut on one lid. Torch had knocked out one of her teeth and it had lodged in her lip, so the girl could barely speak. The entire right side of her face was bruised and she had small circular burn marks on her face and body—from a cigarette. Torch’s.

  Naomi could tell that Malaya had been crying, but now she put on a brave, strong face for her.

  Naomi couldn’t do the same; she cried. “Oh, my God. What did he do to you?”

  Malaya sat up on the couch. “He didn’t do this.” The pain from her embedded tooth was obvious.

  “You mean, Torch didn’t . . .”

  “Oh yeah, he did it with his buddies.” She covered her mouth as blood ran from her lips. “But Co, she let it happen. She’s been hurting us for a long time. This is just another way.”

  How do you choose one sister over the other? Naomi looked at Lady Black, whose eyes once again told her everything she needed to know. Louder than words they shouted . . .

  “Pack your stuff, we’re leavin’. Now!”

  Naomi found Colleen in Chocolate Park with her john. “Get up and leave. Now!” she told the man.

  He looked at her strangely, but didn’t argue. He stood up, zipped his pants, and ran off.

  Chocolate just lay there, naked.

  “Torch wants his money,” Naomi said.

  “I’ll pay. I’ll pay, okay?”

  “When?”

  “When I can.”

  “He raped Malaya. Him and his fucking friends. They raped her.”

  “What?” To Naomi’s surprise, she looked concerned. “He what?”

  “Beat her up too. Bad.”

  Chocolate covered her face. She cried; Naomi could see her tears glisten in the moonlight. But Naomi felt no remorse.

  “How much stuff is worth him raping Malaya? Huh, Chocolate? How much?”

  She sobbed. “I stole some of his stash. I was gonna pay it back, I swear.”

  “When?”

  “When did I take it? A couple of weeks ago. I didn’t even think he’d notice. I . . . I was gonna pay him back.”

  Naomi shook her head. “You fuckin’ junky. What you gonna do about it?”

  “Do? What can I do?”

  “I don’t know. Do something to keep him from hurting Malaya again.”

  “He’ll kill me!” she cried.

  “He raped your sister. Isn’t that enough? And I know that’s why you haven’t been home, so he couldn’t find you. You’ve been hiding out. But maybe if you go to him, tell him to leave Malaya alone . . .”

  “I . . . I can’t.”

  “He said he’d kill her next time. He said he’d kill her, Chocolate!”

  “I can’t.”

  Naomi shook her head. “I knew it. You’re a coward. You won’t even do it to help Malaya.” She sighed. “I love you, Co.” She held out her hand to the girl. “We’re leaving tonight. I’m taking her and getting outta this stinkin’ shit hole. Come with us, Co. Come with u—”

  The shot came from behind Naomi. The echo bounced from tree to tree. Instinctively, Naomi ducked and fell to the ground.

  When she looked up, the second shot pierced Chocolate’s chest. The first had hit her in the stomach.

  Naomi looked at the shooter.

  It was Malaya.

  The girl cried and dropped the gun. “We don’t need her, Nay. Mama used to cry. Did you know that? I would hear her through the walls. She would cry. She’d cry for her—now she’s made you cry, too. And me.” She wiped her eyes. “But we don’t have to cry for her anymore. We can forget her. She’s with Mama now.”

  In the end, the choice was easy—choosing one sister over the other.

  The hard part was burying Colleen in her Chocolate Park.

  The Wasp

  Robert Fleming

  “Beware of the wasp’s stinger . . . darn thing hurts.”

  —Willie Best (1934)

  Before I got in here, my family had me locked up, in a psychiatric ward, for my safety. At least, that was what they said. Three times in Bellevue. How they caught me was when I went over to a girlfriend’s apartment and she ratted on me, called my sister and told her that I was here. When I arrived there, I had no idea that she would snitch on me like that. I was telling her that I was sleeping in all-night theaters, in hallways, in the bus terminal, on subways, anywhere but home.

  He was there, my husband. I was tired of being alone and hungry, but I was scared of him. He had beaten my ass so badly the last time that he put me in the hospital. I was tired of being his doormat. I told her that. I was afraid for my life. He told me he would kill me.

  And he meant it. I got a protection order from the police, but it didn’t do any good. My mother, before she died, told me that I should have left him a long time ago, but I was too afraid to do it. Also, he kept telling me that I wouldn’t have made it without him. I was nothing without him. If I started a new life, he would find me and I would be sorry that I left him. He would make me pay.

  “He’s going to kill me,” I told the cop when I was in the police station to get the protection order. “He means it. He was choking me under the water in the tub last night. I thought I was going to die. I don’t want to die. I’m only twenty, I haven’t lived yet.”

  “What were you arguing over?” the cop asked. “Some man you were flirting with? I know how you young girls are. You see something you want and you go after it.”

  I knew he was just saying that because he had an audience. The other guys chuckled. See, I knew men stick together. A lot of them think all women are sluts and whores. I’m not like that.

  “Yeah, what were you arguing over?” another cop asked me.

  “I don’t want a baby and he does,” I said. “I don’t want to have a baby. I want to go back to school. I want to make something of myself. He’s in a rush to have a kid and I don’t want to do it.”

  “Why not?” the first cop asked me. “Every woman wants to be a mother.”

  “Well, I don’t want to be a mother,” I said. “My mother had nine.”

  “Different fathers?” the cop asked with a smirk. If it was a black woman, she had to have multiple fathers, not one, but several.

  “By three fathers. But that is not it. I’m just not ready.”

  The cop laughed with the other men. He was white and so was the other guy, but there were three black guys around the desk. It was a man thing. A woman should have babies and that was that. You were put here on earth to be a breeder. I knew that I was not put here to be a breeder. And I knew how hard my mother had it when all the men left. She was left to be a mother and father to these kids and it killed her.

  “Is it about childbirth?” the first cop asked. He was trying to be nice, at least nicer than the other guys. “It hurts but then you forget it. The pain goes away. My wife had five kids. You know, we’re Irish. We like big families.”

  “And you’re Catholic,” the other guy teased. “The pope doesn’t like birth control.”

  “I’m not ready,” I said. “I should have control over my body.”

  “Then you should not have gotten married,” one of the black guys said.

  “Are you a dyke?” another black cop said. “You like women?”

  “Hell no,” I replied coldly. “I just don’t want kids.” I thought about other young women who pushed their baby carriages, proud to be a mother, female superior, proud to be a breeder. They made you walk around them.

  The first cop tried to lecture me about motherhood. “One day, you’ll regret that you didn’t have children. You’ll be alone. Home, family, and the domestic life are all that matters, especially when you get old. You don’t want to get old and miss out.”

  I heard about the biological clock, the fertile time running out and menopause setting in. Tick, tick, tick. I didn’t think it was a disgrace. I tried to make them understand.

  “Do you like cats?” the second cop teased. He was smirking and the guys laughed.

  “I hat
e cats,” I answered. I didn’t get it.

  “But if your husband wants children, you should give him children,” the first cop said. “Being a mother is a part of marriage. Also, your parents would want to become grandparents. That’s part of the cycle of life. Grandchildren continue the cycle of life, but you know that.”

  “My mother is dead,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” the first cop said. “You’re not a feminist, are you?”

  “No. I just don’t want to have any kids.”

  The second cop laughed sullenly. “You want to be a whole woman, right?”

  “What is a whole woman?” I asked, like he would know.

  “Like biologically what you want to be, a woman and a mother,” the cop said. “A whole woman. Normal. It isn’t normal to be childless. It just isn’t.”

  “It should be my choice, not his,” I said firmly. “Can I get the protection order? If you don’t give it to me, he says he will kill me.”

  The cops gave me the order, but with conditions. I knew what they meant. I had to submit to him. I moved out and tried to find a place to stay. The rents were outrageous. I spent a couple of nights with a coworker but I had to move. She tried to feel me up. I didn’t even know she was lesbian. She had never tried anything before.

  I rode the trains the following nights. I would wash up in the restrooms, change clothes from the two shopping bags I carried, and go to work. The coworker tried to whisper to me, telling that she wouldn’t do that again if I came back. No way. I was scared being on the streets. But I had no choice.

  One afternoon, I walked into my boss’s office. He was a computer nerd who loved science. There were other nerds standing around, talking about some astronomers saying they had detected water at the most distant point from Earth in a galaxy two hundred million light years away.

  I waved to the boss to get his attention. He waved me away. He was holding court and loving it. When I tried to approach him in the hall, he chided me for being brazen in barging into his office. I just wanted to ask for a raise. Maybe my timing was off. Maybe just a couple of dollars an hour would have made finding a room in an SRO hotel a bit easier. All because I didn’t want to be a mother.