“Walk me to the bathroom,” I said to Chantel.
We walked into the bathroom to check my hair. It was black with a part in the middle. My skin was cocoa-brown, I was 5?7?, and super slim. My black hair stopped at my jawline. I really think I’m way too skinny. People think being skinny is the best thing. Being skinny is not cool. I don’t have any breasts and I’ve been called everything from Itty-bitty Committee to Piper, but I know I look good, so it doesn’t even matter.
“Well, I have to get to work. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said as I gathered my belongings and walked out of the bathroom.
“You need a ride?” Chantel asked as we walked through the steel-green double doors and out of the building.
“You driving?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeah, my mom bought me a car,” she said, smiling.
“That is so nice. I’m getting a car too!”
“When?” she asked like she didn’t believe me.
“Probably in like two months. I have been saving my money and my brother is going to take me to get my license.”
“How much you have saved?”
“A couple hundred,” I said.
“I don’t think you can buy a car for a couple hundred,” she said like she knew everything.
“You can. My brother John got his car for cheap. He knows all the places to go. He knows about all that type of stuff.”
“Oh, okay,” she said twisting her lips to the side as if she still didn’t believe me. I really did have four hundred saved for my car.
Chantel was the kind of person who wanted to be the only one who had. She liked to be the center of attention. I only hung out with her at school because she is so some-timey. We’d been cool since ninth-grade homeroom. We walked up to her four-door Chevy Celebrity. It was black with burgundy interior. It was nice. She had a peach air freshener hanging from the mirror and red and black dice. I liked it but I didn’t let her know. When she asked, I said it was okay. Chantel dropped me off in front of my job. I thanked her and walked into Newman Pharmacy. Instantly, I was depressed. I had been working there for three months and hated every moment of it. It was a family-owned pharmacy. I had the most boring job ever. Our school was in this mentoring program that partnered with businesses in the city. I wanted to work at a radio station, a dance studio, or even a law office. Something fun or interesting. But instead they put me here in a boring-ass pharmacy where the bell rings every time someone enters and old men complain about losing their prescription cards. I help grannies buy Ensure and find the cheapest diapers for new moms. Price-checking deodorant and soap powder is my specialty.
Like I said, it was boring except for every now and then I saw someone from my school. I seen this girl, Carla, from my school buying a pregnancy test. And another time this boy named Simon, who ran track at my school, bought some crab medicine. When he saw me he looked down at the box and said his sister had head lice. I knew he was lying.
The only other good thing about this job is we got three credits for a work roster, so I got out of school at one-thirty. Plus I got paid and had access to all the good magazines. I loved to look through the pages of all the glossy ones. I liked the rap magazines—they told me what was cool—and the National Enquirer tabloid types, they were funny—two-headed babies and aliens. I imagined myself one day being on the cover of a hip-hop magazine and being rich and famous.
Mr. Newman would come out from the back every once in a while and have me call people to tell them their prescriptions were ready. He was about seventy-two with a shaky hand and voice. He was always complaining that big pharmacies were stealing his customers and putting him out of business. I would act like I was listening, but really I wasn’t.
After I got off work I caught the 17 bus to City Hall then the 13 trolley home. It was cold outside and the trolley let me off four long blocks from my house. In my neighborhood, people were still outside walking around, standing on the corner in front of the Chinese takeout at seven at night. It had snowed the other day and the snow had turned to ice. I was trying not to slip while walking in the street.
I lived with my mother, two brothers, and two sisters. My sister Alanna was eighteen—we are exactly ten months apart. I’m seventeen and she is eighteen. Her birthday is in February and mine is in December. My brother John is twenty, and my baby sister—her name is Amira, but we call her Bubbles—is ten. My baby brother, Bilal, is nine. My parents divorced about five years ago. My dad keeps in contact, but not that much since he remarried and had another son. We don’t even consider that little boy, Jonathan, our brother; at least I don’t. The lady, Charlotte, already had three kids and she had a fourth by my dad.
We lived in a big two-story, four-bedroom row home in southwest Philly. My mom had her own room, me and Alanna shared a room, and Bubbles and Bilal shared a room. John got his own because he was the oldest. He was never home; he always stayed with his friend Marcus.
I walked down the street toward my house. I saw all the lights on in my house. I knew my mom was going to go off; she must not be home. Most nights I beat her home. She usually made a stop at the Pearl Lounge on Woodland Avenue and had a drink after work. She always used to drink a beer or two, but when my dad left she started drinking more. I unlocked the door and walked into the house. The warmth greeted me at the door. It was nice and cozy. I rubbed my hands together, took off my coat, and hung it up in the closet. Bubbles’s and Bilal’s book bags and schoolwork were scattered everywhere.
“It is warm in here. What do you have this heat on?” I asked. Instead of waiting for an answer, I went to check the thermostat. It was up to ninety.
Bubbles came out of the kitchen with a wet stain on her shirt and said, “I thought you were Mommy.”
“Bubbles, why y’all got this heat up this high?” I asked.
“It was real cold when we came home from school.” Bubbles was short and chunky. She was already in women’s size-six pants. She had a little gut, and her breasts were coming in.
“Next time just turn it to seventy. It is baking in here. What are you doing?” I asked as I followed her into the kitchen. I looked around. I smelled food but didn’t see any.
“We was hungry. So I was making us something to eat,” she said as she tried to clean up the mess she had made. There were crumbles of Oodles of Noodles, water, and frozen hot dogs in a bowl in the microwave. Bilal was sitting at the table there with an empty bowl in front of him, waiting to eat.
“I put it in the microwave like Lana told us. But it’s not cooking right.”
“You know you not allowed to cook when no one is here.”
“I know. Lana is here.”
“Where is Alanna?”
“Upstairs,” Bilal said.
“Lana here and she wouldn’t cook y’all anything?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, she said she tired and have to study for a test,” Bilal said.
“Clean up this mess y’all made. Y’all know Mommy’s going to go off if she see this. I’ll cook y’all something.” I reached under the cabinet and grabbed a deep medium-size silver pot. I rinsed it out and then filled it with water. I let the water boil a little and added the pack of noodles and hot dogs. I told them to watch the pot as I ran up the steps to figure out why my sister couldn’t feed her brother and sister. I walked down the hall and pushed the door open. I looked in the room and there was prissy-ass Alanna with her hair pushed back with a yellow headband and wearing a yellow sweater. She was sitting on a pink comforter. Her shoes were off and her legs were crossed Indian style. She was talking on the phone while eating a Burger King Whopper. She looked at me as I entered the room, rolled her eyes, and continued with her conversation. I hated sharing a room with Alanna.
“When did you get this food?” I asked, standing over her. She took another bite of her sandwich and ignored me until I asked her again. She looked up at me and told whoever she was talking to that she was going to call them back.
“I bought it before I came in
the house,” she said as she dipped a fry in ketchup off her plate.
“Really? You bought food and my little brother and sister downstairs are hungry?”
“I told Bubbles to make noodles. I have to study. They ain’t my kids.”
“You couldn’t make them anything to eat?” I asked.
“I didn’t feel like it. Mommy should have left them something to eat.”
“Oh, really? If you can’t make sure they eat, you not going to eat either, bitch,” I said as I smacked her burger out of her hand. The salt packets and ketchup splattered on her sweater. She jumped up and tried to swing on me, but I grabbed her by her hair and began punching her in her face. She pulled on my hair and began biting me on my chest. She was trying to scratch and punch me back.
“You fucking bitch, get off me,” I yelled.
“No, you get off me,” she shouted back.
“No, you get off me,” I said as I punched her one good time in the mouth. The kids ran up the steps.
“I think the noodles are ready,” Bubbles said.
“Why y’all fighting?” Bilal asked as he turned his head to the side to see who was winning.
She finally let me go. So I let her go.
“Stupid bitch,” I murmured.
“Your mother,” she said.
“Yours too!” I said as I went downstairs to feed the kids. I started straightening up the living room, and a few minutes later my brother John came in the house. He usually just came past to check his mail. He had moved in with Marcus when my mom said his girlfriend, Nitra, couldn’t spend the night.
“Where you been at? I tried to call you at Marcus’s house. You never there,” I said.
“I be between Nitra’s and Marcus’s. Nitra’s mom don’t really want me staying there, but Nitra don’t like it too much at Marcus’s. We trying to save up for our own place. Where Mommy at?” he asked.
“She didn’t get in here yet?” Alanna came from upstairs and walked out the door, slamming it behind her.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing. We was just fighting ’cause she was sittin’ up there eating and didn’t feed the kids.”
“Y’all need to grow up.”
“Whatever. She started with me.”
“Man, y’all got to cut that dumb mess out.”
Bilal ran down the steps and screamed, “John!”
They started play boxing.
“Can I have your room since you’re never here?” Bilal asked.
“No, you can’t have my room. Man, where I’m going to sleep?”
“What about your PlayStation?”
“You can play with it, but you got to make sure you take care of it. Okay, man,” John said as he flipped him upside down and knuckled him in the head. Bilal laughed and kept trying to fight him. He was punching him and kicking. Then he started coughing real hard and gasping for air.
“You know you can’t play too rough with him,” I said. “Bubbles, go get his asthma medicine.” She ran up the steps, then came back down with his inhaler. We sat him down and I pumped once.
“You need to calm down,” I scolded him. “John, you shouldn’t have got him all worked up.” As soon as I said that, Bilal jumped back up and punched John real hard in the stomach.
John bowed over and said, “All right, you won, Bilal. You got me. I’m leaving. I’m out of here,” he said playfully.
“Okay, see you,” I said as he walked toward the door.
“Tell Mommy to call me.”
“I will.”
Bubbles and Bilal ate and cleaned the table off. I did the dishes and then began doing my math homework. Math was my worst subject. Most days I would look the answers up in the back of the book and copy off somebody else’s before class. I got Cs, and I called them good enoughs. Instead of doing my schoolwork, I wrote songs in class. I didn’t need school. All I needed to know was how to add, subtract, and read—so I could read my contracts and count my money when I become a big famous singer. My name was going to be in big, bright lights—KENDRA LIVE IN CONCERT—and it’s going to be a banner that goes across that reads SOLD OUT. People are going to be singing along with me to my songs, and I’m going to be on the Grammys accepting my awards. One day that’s going to be me. I fell asleep on the sofa with my math book on my lap. My mother came in the house around 1 a.m. smelling like someone had poured a case of beer on her. I guess she was drinking like this to get over my dad, but it didn’t seem to be working. When I was about thirteen, my dad just didn’t come home, and by the third day my mom sat us all down and said me and your dad are getting a divorce and he is moving out. I could tell then that it wasn’t my mother’s decision, even though she said it was mutual. He moved in with his sister, Joanie, after he left us. He would come and get Bubbles and Bilal sometimes to take them out. Then he met Charlotte, some young bitch at his job with three kids. My mother said she was a fat, racoon-eye, old-lookin’, yellow young girl. From the day he moved in with her he disowned us. My Aunt Joanie started calling and telling my mom what he was doing for his new woman. She was trying to warn my mom, so my mom would never go back to him, but instead she made matters worse and my mom more depressed. So things ain’t never been the same. My mom doesn’t have any family in Philly. Her family is from Arkansas; she never talks about them. All she told us was that she left home at eighteen, met and married my dad, and never looked back. We try to tell my mom to date, because she still looks good. She is thin and has beautiful mocha brown skin, and she wears her thick chin-length hair in a wrap. But she only meets people who hang out at her spot, the Pearl Lounge, and all the men there are drunk bums.
“What you still doing up?” she asked as she took her coat off.
“I wasn’t. I had fell asleep doing my homework,” I said.
“The kids ate?”
“Yes.”
“Did they do their homework?”
“Yeah, and I had to beat up your daughter this evening,” I said as I sat up momentarily.
“What she do?”
“Running her mouth and not feeding your kids.”
“I told y’all about fighting. Where she at now?”
“Bruce picked her up.”
“I told her she couldn’t stay out with him on a school night. I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” she said as she started going up the steps.
Lana’s boyfriend, Bruce, was too old for her. He was twenty-six and in the army. My mom told him to leave her alone or she was going to make trouble for him at his job, but that hadn’t stopped him, because Lana was eighteen and legally could date whomever she wanted.
“Night, Mom.”
“You staying down here?” she asked.
“No. I’ll be up in a little bit. I’m going to finish my homework.” I tried a few more problems. I finally gave up. Math was dumb and I was tired.
It was morning by the time a loud knock startled me out of my sleep. I jumped up off the sofa and looked around to see where the noise was coming from. I finally realized it was the door. It probably was Lana; she always forgot her key. I shouldn’t let her in, I thought. Lucky her, it was time to get up anyway. I peeked out the curtains to make sure it was her and I saw a man with a blue collared shirt and navy blue work pants and hat. He had a work badge hanging around his neck with a big PGW on the front of it. “Yes, can I help you?” I said.
“Are your parents home?”
“Who wants them?” I asked.
“Tell them the Philadelphia Gas Works.”
“One moment,” I said as I flashed my index finger up and ran upstairs to get my mom. She was stretched out across the bed with her uniform still on from the night before.
“Mom! Mom! Mom, wake up. The gas company is at the door.” She shot up and ran downstairs. I followed her. She opened the door while I stood behind her.
“Can I help you?” she asked, trying to act calm.
“Yes, Miss, we’re about to dig up the street and shut services off at this address.”
&
nbsp; “What’s going on? Why? I don’t understand,” she said.
“Miss, we are about to turn your gas off for nonpayment.”
“No, there has been a mistake. I paid my bill,” she said.
“No mistake, Miss. Here is a copy of the bill. I was going to give you a few minutes if you need to take a shower or do anything before we shut it off.”
“No, you can’t do this. I have children—it is the middle of the winter,” my mom yelled as she read the yellow paper the man had handed her. The man walked away toward a big white truck.
“Please don’t do this. I have children. Please! Who’s your supervisor? Let me call them,” she said as she tried to catch up with him. I saw my neighbor across the street, Ms. Arlene, standing in her door and looking at my mom. She was holding her robe together and had a scarf on her head. She came across the street and asked, “Joanne, is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. These people just made a mistake,” my mom said, embarrassed.
Ms. Arlene worked at the state representative office. She was the lady everybody in the neighborhood went to if they had an issue.
“Just let me know if you need any help. I might can make some phone calls for you,” she said. Ms. Arlene walked over and talked to the man. She came back and said, “He gave me his supervisor’s number. Let’s call him and see what we can do.”
All I Want is Everything Page 2
