Mama's Girl

by Daybreak Jones

  “Whatcha care about what I do?”

  Looking in his face, I see the sagging bags under his eyes along with cracked, dry lips and old scars on his forehead and cheeks. He’s about seven years older than me, but he looks twenty years older.

  “I care about your mama like everybody else on the block. I don’t want you to hurt her. If you come up dead or get arrested and sent to prison that will hurt her.”

  He hacks up a ball of spit that splashes against the side of my house. Bastard.

  “My mama ain’t cha business. Go get my pistols.”

  I remember when Carlos, Edith, and I thought Mooky was the coolest person alive. He wore Jordans, had a flip cell phone, freestyle rapped at the park, and was invited downtown to Taste of Chicago to perform his raps. He was the man on our block, even if he didn’t graduate from high school. He didn’t have to graduate. We all knew that other things were going to happen for him. He was bigger than our normal life. Our rules didn’t apply to him. We had to go to school; Mooky didn’t. He was going to get rich and famous, and we all knew it, and he did too.

  “I’ll tell you what. I’ll buy the guns from you for sixty dollars.”

  He opens his mouth to say something but doesn’t. His shoulders slump, and he puts his knife in his army fatigues coat pocket. “I am tired of begging and hustling around here. I don’t need your or anybody else’s charity. I will get my own money, and the guns ain’t fo’ sale. May, go get my guns, or I’m going to drag you into the house with my knife to your neck and make yo’ mama give me my pistols.”

  I take a step back from his threat and hold the razor up in case his dumb butt didn’t see it. “I’ll slice your ugly face, and my mama will shoot you dead.”

  If he didn’t see the razor before, he sees it now. “So?” he says. “Dead ain’t all bad.”

  “You can only help people who want to be helped,” was what Papa said. For Mooky’s mama, Ms. Holden, I say, “I’ll give you a hundred for the guns.”

  “I don’t want nothing from you but what’s mine.”

  “Fine, hold on.”

  Inside the house, I walk straight through the kitchen, dining room, and living room to Mama’s room. Her door is open, but I don’t barge in because she and Uncle Doug are talking.

  “Yeah, I’ll go with you. I only finished the tenth grade myself. If I get me a high school diploma then I can get into the butcher’s apprentice program. I finish that up, Gloria, and I will be making real money, be doing the same job but I’ll be licensed, so they got to pay me more. Fo’ sho’ I’ll go back to school with you. And you say the class is at night?”

  “Yep, at the library up there on Ninety-fifth and Halsted. The class starts at seven. Gives you time to come home shower and eat, and then we go up there and get this done before May finishes high school. I promised her I would get my high school diploma before her.”

  And she did. I thought she forgot about that.

  I step into the room. “Hey, Mama, Uncle Doug. Mooky is outside asking for his guns. I told him I would give them to him.”

  Mama asks, “How long you been standing there, May?”

  “I just walked up. I didn’t hear a thing about you and Uncle Doug going to get your GEDs!” I jump up and down and go over to the bed and hug them both. “I’m so happy for you, Mama.”

  “You make me sick spoiling my surprises,” she says as if she’s angry, and tries to push me away.

  I hug her tighter. “I’m proud of your decision, Mama.”

  “Okay, okay, get the boy’s guns off the floor of my closet and get out of here. And close my door behind you, and stop eavesdropping around here.”

  Walking away from her closed door, I hear Uncle Doug say, “I’ll probably have to find a new job after I finish the program. Those people hired me because I can do the job of a certified butcher without the certification. They ain’t gonna want to pay me the proper rate.”

  “We will worry about that bridge when we get to it. Let’s get the GEDs first.”

  Standing at the open back door, I see Walter has joined Mooky on the steps. I push the door open without saying a word, making both of them jump up. I hand Mooky his guns. He takes them and limps from our yard without a good-bye or a thank-you. Walter and I both watch him walk into the blackness of the alley.

  “May, it hurts too much to be your friend.” His voice is barely above a whisper. He sounds strange, far away.

  “Did you get the job?”

  “Yeah, she hired me and Carlos but not Michelle or Edith. She needs busboys and dishwashers. We will be both.”

  The light of the kitchen is shining on Walter’s face. I can see the salty tracks of tears. He’s been crying.

  “What happened? Why have you been crying?”

  “I lost my best friend in the world.”

  “Who? Who died?”

  “We did.”

  And he too walks into the dark alley.

  * * *

  After I shower, I warm up my chicken and eat. I collapse across my bed and reach for the phone. I have to call Carlos and tell him about Walter tripping.

  He answers on the third ring. “Turn on channel nine, right now!”

  I pull the remote from my nightstand and turn on the tiny television on top of the dresser. “Dang.” It’s Walter in handcuffs. The police are shoving him into the back of a squad car. “What happened?”

  “He tried to rob a jewelry store with Mooky’s crazy ass. Mooky got shot five times in the chest. He’s dead. Thankfully, Walter dropped his gun.”

  “Will they take him to juvie?”

  “Walter is seventeen. I don’t know. He tried to rob a store, so maybe he’s going to the county.”

  “Dang.”

  * * *

  I call the juvenile court Tuesday morning hoping they have his name, but they don’t. Uncle Doug is up with me and dressed in his butcher’s apron and khaki pants and a shirt. He is making coffee at the stove. I hang up the phone and wonder if Carlos has Walter’s mama’s phone number.

  “How you like your new school?”

  “Oh, it’s fine, Uncle Doug. Hey, do you know how to find out if someone is in the county jail?”

  “Yep, just go on their Web site and do a prisoner search. Who got locked up?”

  “I think Walter.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to wonder about that. Me and your mama saw him on the news last night. He is definitely at the county. A shame, too. I kinda liked the boy. A little funny lookin’ but a nice kid.” He hasn’t looked up once from making his coffee. He dumps teaspoons of instant coffee into a thermos and pours in hot water from a saucepan. “Ya mama said the boy who got killed was one of the ones who tried to rob us. Some people just don’t learn.”

  “Mooky wasn’t a bad guy, Uncle Doug. He just got caught up, sorta.”

  He looks at me now, and he has the typical Uncle Doug smile on his face. “He tried to rob us, May. That’s what bad guys do. Time for me to hit the road.” He screws the silver thermos closed, puts on a big quilted green coat from the back of the chair, and comes over to me by the phone and hugs my shoulders.

  “If it quacks like a duck, and it waddles like a duck, it’s a duck, baby. See ya later.”

  Mama walks into the kitchen as the door closes. Being up this early is not part of her routine. “So, you got a job, huh?” She yawns. “That’s good, baby. Mr. Pickens called, and he needs you to bring your social security card with you to work this afternoon. They need to make a copy. I am proud of you. Working there will help with applying for acting schools, I’m sure. Okay, I’m going back to bed.”

  And she turns and stumbles back to her bedroom.

  * * *

  When I get to computer lab, Michelle is in the bathroom on her knees worshipping the porcelain god. She is emptying everything from her stomach into the toilet. I fight the impulse to ask if she is okay. Obviously, she’s not okay.

  I pull about ten paper towels from the box and wet them slightly with warm wate
r. I wait for her to rise up from the toilet. When she does, I go to her with the wet towels and wipe around her mouth and neck. Michelle is a mess.

  “Every freaking morning for six days in a row now, this is my routine. I am so very tired of this shit.”

  Wait a minute. This does not sound like the preppy, prim, and proper Michelle I have grown to know.

  “It’s all just too much. My parents, both of them, are fuckin’ annoying, and your friend Carlos calls me every two freaking hours to talk about absolutely fucking nothing. He constantly asks how the baby is doing as if I am some sort of expert. All I know about this damn baby is that it makes me puke every freaking morning, and it’s turning my entire world upside down. Things were going good in my life until it showed up.

  “I had a cool boyfriend. I got accepted into the school I wanted. My dad was getting rich. I was popular at school. Everything was close to perfect. Then ‘baby it’ showed up and changed every-fucking-thing. Yesterday, Carlos and I sneaked to a hotel for some alone time. I stripped and got buck-naked. He said, ‘No, it might hurt the baby,’ and he was serious. All he wanted to do was watch television and talk about going to Ohio State.

  “I tried to explain that sex couldn’t hurt an embryo, but the dumb jock your friend is kept saying, ‘I might knock the baby loose if we do it.’ Knock the baby loose? What the fuck does that mean? The best part of our relationship was the sex. He is not a witty conversationalist or an in-depth reader of literature. All the man is good for is fucking. God, he excites every part of my body. Yesterday was our first day alone in an eon, and he wouldn’t screw me. Bastard! I hate him and this freaking ‘baby it’ growing inside of me. I don’t want it. Damn, I said it. I don’t want it. I don’t want this baby!”

  She pulls, almost snatches, the rest of the moist paper towels from my hand and she walks to the mirror. I am standing here with my mouth open. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know her well enough to comment on whether she should abort a baby, dang. I look down at my feet then back up to her looking at herself in the mirror.

  “I don’t have to have it. If I’m not ready to be a mother, no one can make me be one.”

  Against my better judgment, I ask, “Have you talked about this with Carlos?”

  “Carlos is not being rational. For God’s sake, he was talking about going to the Army instead of college. Who thinks that? I mean, I knew he was a jock, but I thought he was smart, intelligent. You know?”

  Wait, am I hearing this heifer right?

  “Boys. You know what I mean, May? They are so busy hoping we believe their lies that they don’t see ours. Why on earth would I go to a state school? Princeton is on the table. I was accepted at Princeton, and he thinks I am going to throw that out the window for Ohio State and a baby. I mean, damn. I like the dick, but let’s not be stupid. Carlos is not going to be a lifelong thing. After I get rid of ‘baby it,’ Carlos is gone next.”

  I really don’t remember when the female security guard came into the bathroom, or exactly how Michelle’s face got into the vomit-filled toilet bowl, or how I ended up sitting on her shoulders with her face in the toilet and her screaming for help. It is all a blur, but I am taking deep, cleansing breaths while the guard and a teacher are helping Michelle from the toilet stall and the bathroom.

  * * *

  We are both sitting across the desk from the principal in her office. Dr. Lee seldom speaks to students unless she is praising them. The Buddha on her desk is holding four silver pens and three yellow pencils.

  “I don’t know what transpired, but I have two straight A, honor roll seniors before me and neither one wants to tell me what happened.” She opens the folder on her desk. “The teacher says he heard a young woman yelling for her life. The security guard said she witnessed one student attempting to drown another in the toilet. However, both students are silent.” She looks up from the folder to us. “You two have been in the class all year with no incident.” She takes off her black plastic-frame glasses shaking her head in the affirmative. “This will be the one and only incident, and this is not a guess; it is an order. No more trouble from you two. Okay, go home for today. I called both parents. You two report to school tomorrow. Good-bye.”

  I don’t hesitate to stand and leave because I thought for sure I was about to be expelled from school. In the hallway, Michelle is steps behind me. I turn to tell her, “If you don’t tell Carlos by five o’clock that you want to abort his child, and that you are going to Princeton, I will. And, bitch, if you ever even breathe in my direction I will beat your ass. I love Carlos like a brother, and if you didn’t know that, now you know.”

  Mama is parked in front of the school, and Mr. Pickens is parked behind her in a big black Mercedes. He waves at me, and I wave back. I hope I still have a job. I get in Mama’s car and close the door.

  “So, you are jumping on pregnant girls, now?” She is smiling, almost laughing, as she pulls away from the curb. “What happened? Let me guess. It’s not Carlos’s baby?”

  “Well, I don’t know if it’s his or not, but she doesn’t want it either way.”

  “I knew she did something concerning Carlos. I knew that much. Tell me what happened.”

  “She’s lying to him. She doesn’t want the baby, and she doesn’t want to go to Ohio State. She was accepted into Princeton, and she doesn’t love Carlos. It was only sex for her, and she made him think it was something more. She played him, and she pissed me off.”

  “Yeah, I think even Clarence Carter could see that. She got you riled up pretty good, but no suspension, your principal said when she called. That was good news. Okay, then, I got two bags of string beans that need picking and snapping for tonight’s dinner. I guess that will do for punishment. What time do you have to be at work?”

  “At three-thirty.”

  “Oh, good, you have plenty of time.”

  * * *

  Mr. Pickens doesn’t fire me, but he has me aside from the actors in the theater talking to me. “You can’t get involved in it, May. There is no getting between lovers. Whatever happens between them, let it be their doing, and that’s all I have to say about the situation. Get to work.”

  He stands and leaves, and I go to find Marcus. I find him with Edith and her one-on-one. They are doing voice pitch drills. My phone vibrates in my hip pocket.

  I see WTF! from Carlos.

  Michelle made her deadline.

  “Hey, babe.”

  I turn and see Samuel.

  “We are rehearsing in here directly after you guys.” He is smiling, and dang he looks good to me.

  I decide to be bad. “Do you have to?”

  “To rehearse? Yeah.”

  There is no way I can sneak off with him. My mama is picking me up, and my one-on-one needs me. But teasing him is fun.

  “I do have to rehearse, but I have a private place in here.”

  “In here?” I’m getting a little tingly. It sounds exciting. “Give me a minute,” I say.

  I go back to Edith and the ten-year-olds. She is doing vowel drills. I tell Marcus, “Louder.”

  His voice carries well in the theater, especially for a child. Edith and I smile at each other. Marcus is a natural, which is probably why Mr. Pickens gave him a lead.

  I call Marcus from the stage and go over his act one, scene one lines with him. We work until the end of the session.

  Kids are leaving the theater, and I ask Edith, “Do you want a ride? My mama is picking me up.”

  “Oh, yeah, thank you.” She’s pulling her book bag from beneath one of the theater seats.

  “Could you stand at the door and text me when she pulls up?”

  Samuel is standing next me. I can feel him without seeing him.

  Edith looks at me then him, and shakes her head in the negative but walks from the theater toward the doors.

  “Come on,” Samuel says.

  I follow him through the stage left exit. It’s dark back here, but I am right behind him. He reaches ba
ck to grab my hand, because he makes a sharp right then goes down the sudden steps. There is a door that he pushes open. There is a light hanging from a wire, and a little cot. A very little cot.

  Samuel just unzips his pants and pulls his ding-a-ling out. He tells me, “Pull those down and lie on the cot.”

  By “those,” he means my sweatpants. When I went home early, I changed. His ding-a-ling is bobbing and throbbing. I slide out of my sweats and lie down on the cot. Samuel is not so smooth this time. He is like a high school boy, breathing frantically and rushing. He hardly kisses me and, in true high school boy fashion, he pops off as soon as he gets it in. I am disappointed to say the least.

  I am really uncomfortable riding in my mama’s car. Not having time to do the necessary clean-up, I can feel some of Samuel’s stuff leaking down in my panties. I pray it stops there and doesn’t show through my sweatpants. When I get out of the car, I will drop my book bag low across my hips and butt.

  “So, Edith, how is school, and how is your mother?”

  “School is fine. I will graduate with a CNA certificate. My mama is okay.”

  “Are you going to nursing school?”

  “No, ma’am, not right now. I just want a job so I can move out on my own. Maybe later, I will work for a company that will pay my tuition.”

  “What’s the rush to move out?”

  “I need a better, a more Christian environment than my mother’s home. We are not spiritually yoked.”

  “Oh, I see.” And my mama says nothing else until she drops Edith off.

  “Good-bye, baby. Give your mother my best.”

  “I will, ma’am. Thank you for the ride.”

  Edith doesn’t tell me to call her later, and she didn’t say one word to me on the ride home. I will worry about her later. Right now, I need the bathroom.

  * * *

  Cleaned up and relaxing across my bed, I see Carlos has called me seven times, and I have three texts from him. I call him back.

  “She broke up with me.”