by Sapphire
The bell go ring. I press listen. “Claireece I am so sorry about Thursday. I had only wanted to help you. I…’ Mr Wicher says you’re one of his best students, that you have an aptitude for math.”
She pause like she thinking what to say next, then she say, “I’ve called a Ms McKnight at Higher Education Alternative/Each One Teach One. It’s an alternative school.” She pause again, say, “Claireece, are you listening?” I press talk.
“Yeah,” I say. “OK, as I was saying I’ve called Ms McKnight at Each One Teach One. It’s located on the nineteenth floor of the Hotel Theresa on 125th Street That’s not too far from here.” I press talk. “I know where the Hotel Theresa is,” I say to her, Bitch, I say to myself. I press listen again, these crackers think you don’t know nothin’. She say, “The phone number is 555-0831.1 told them about you.” Mrs Lichenstein stop. “Call or just drop in, the nineteenth floor—” I press talk tell her I heard her the first time. My heart is all warm
— half of it at least—thinking about Mr Wicher say I’m a good student The other half could jus’
jump out my chest and kick Mrs Lichenstein’s ass. No more rings—so I guess that mean she got the message.
I go to sleep thinking nineteenth floor Hotel Theresa, an alternative. I don’t know what an alternative is but I feel I want to know. Nineteenth floor, that’s the last words I think before I go to sleep. I dream I’m in an elevator that’s going up up up so far I think I’m dying. The elevator open and it’s the coffee-cream-colored man from Spanish talk land. I recognize him from when I was having my baby bleeding on the kitchen floor. He put his hand on my forehead again and whisper, “Push, Precious, you gonna hafta push.”
I wake up remembering the last time I pushed. It was two whole days before they brought the baby to me, ‘n I git to see what “a little trouble breathing” mean. I try to hold out my arms but I’m tired, more tired than I ever been in my life.
Nurse Butter and this little black nurse is standing there by my bed. The black nurse holding the baby. Nurse Butter reach under the covers and take my hands. I ball ‘em in fist. She rub her hands over my fist till I open them. Nurse Butter look other nurse in eye and the dark-skinned nurse go to hand me my baby but Butter jump up and take it from her.
“Something is wrong with your baby,” Nurse Butter make talk like how pigeons talk, real soft, coo coo, “but she’s alive. And she’s yours.” ‘N
she hand me baby. Baby’s face is smashed flat like pancake, eyes is all slanted up like Koreans, tongue goin’ in ‘n out like some kinda snake.
“Mongoloid,” other nurse say. Nurse Butter look hard at her.
“What happen?” I ax.
“Well, a lot of things,” she say. “The doctor will talk in more depth with you, Ms Jones. It looks like your baby may have Down’s syndrome and have suffered some oxygen deprivation at birth.
Plus you’re so young, things happen more to the very young—” She ax me, “Did you see a doctor at all while you were pregnant?”
I don’t answer her nuffin’, jus’ hold out baby for her to take. Nurse Butter nod to little black nurse who take baby away. Nurse Butter hike herself up on side of the bed. She tryin’ to hole me in her arms. I don’t want that. She touch side of my face. “I’m so sorry Ms Jones, so so sorry.” I try to turn away from her Mississippi self but she in the bed now pulling my chest and shoulders into her arms. I can smell her lotion smell and Juicy Fruit gum breath. I feel warm kindness from her I never feel from Mama and I start to cry. A little at first, then on and on, everything hurt—between my legs, the black-blue on the side of my head where Mama kick me, but Butter don’t see it and she squeezing me there. I crying for ugly baby, then I forget about ugly baby, I crying for me who no one never hold before. Daddy put his pee-pee smelling thing in my mouth, my pussy, but never hold me. I see me, first grade, pink dress dirty sperm stuffs on it. No one comb my hair. Second grade, third grade, fourth grade seem like one dark night. Carl is the night and I disappear in it.
And the daytimes don’t make no sense. Don’t make sense talking, bouncing balls, filling in between dotted lines. Shape? Color? Who care whether purple shit a square or a circle, whether it purple or blue? What difference it make whether gingerbread house on top or bottom of the page? I disappears from the day, I jus’ put it all down—book, doll, jump rope, my head, myself. I don’t think I look up again till EMS find me on floor, and now this little nurse telling me,
“Look at me, sweetie, you gonna get through this. You really are gonna get through this.”
I look at her but see Mama’s shoe coming at the side of my head like a bullet, Carl’s dick dangle dangle in my face and now the flat-face baby with eyes like Koreans.
“How,” I ax her, “how?”
After I come home from hospital baby go live over on 150th and St Nicholas Avenue with my grandmother, even though Mama tell welfare the baby live with us and she care of it while I’m in school. About three months after baby born, I’m still twelve when all this happen, Mama slap me.
HARD. Then she pick up cast-iron skillet, thank god it was no hot grease in it, and she hit me so hard on back I fall on floor. Then she kick me in ribs. Then she say, “Thank you Miz Claireece Precious Jones for fucking my husband you nasty little slut!” I feel like I’m gonna die, can’t breathe, from where I have baby start to hurt.
“Fat cunt bucket slut! Nigger pig bitch! He done quit me! He done left me ‘cause of you. What you tell them mutherfuckers at the damn hospital? I should KILL you!” she screaming at me.
I’m lying on the floor shaking, crying, scared she gonna kill me. “Get up Miss Hot-to-Trot,” Mama say. “Git your Jezebel ass up and fix some dinner
‘fore I give you something to cry about.” So I get up from floor and fix dinner. I fix collard greens and ham hocks, corn bread, fried apple pies, and macaroni ‘n cheese. I’m in the kitchen two hours, I know that, even though I don’t tell time so good,
‘cause man on the radio say four o’clock, tell some news, play music, and by the time I’m fixing Mama’s plate man say six o’clock. My neck, shoulder, and back feel like cars is riding over them. I carry Mama a plate, set it in front her on TV tray.
“Where’s yours?” Mama shout.
“I’m not hongry,” I tell her.
Devil red sparks flashes in Mama’s eyes, big crease in her forehead git deeper. I’m scared.
“I… my shoulder hurt… I wanna lay down.”
“Ain’ nothin’ wrong with your shoulder, I barely touched you! Go get a plate and stop acting stupid ‘fore I do hurt your shoulder.”
I go back to the kitchen and fix myself a plate.
Mama holler, “Margarine! Bring me some margarine and hot sauce.” So I bring her the margarine and the hot sauce. Then I go git my plate and sit down with her. Greens, corn bread, ham hocks, macaroni ‘n cheese; I eat ‘cause she say eat. I don’t taste nothin’. The pain in my shoulder is throbbing me, shooting up my neck.
Some white people is smiling and kissing on television. “Oh ain’t he cute!” Mama going ape over black guy in beer commercial. I don’t like beer. “Git me some more,” Mama push her plate toward me. ” ‘N git you some more—”
“I don’t want no more.”
“Did you hear me?”
So I get up, take her and my plate to the kitchen.
I’m so full I could bust. I look at Mama. Scare me to look at her. She take up half the couch, her arms seem like giant arms, her legs which she always got cocked open seem like ugly tree logs.
I bring her plate back. “Ain’ no more pies?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Bring me a few when you bring your plate back and hurry up ‘fore I kick your stupid ass!”
So back to the kitchen, git her pies, pile my own plate higher than the first time, know if I don’t she just gonna make me go back again. I sit her pies down on the tray. Try not to look at her. Try to watch the white people on TV running on the beach sand. Try not t
o see grease running down Mama’s chin, try not to see her grab whole ham hock wif her hand, try not to see myself doing the same thing. Eating, first ‘cause she make me, beat me if I don’t, then eating hoping pain in my neck back go away. I keep eating till the pain, the gray TV light, and Mama is a blur; and I just fall back on the couch so full it like I’m dyin’ and I go to sleep, like I always do; almost. Almost, go to sleep; it’s the pain in my shoulder keep me from totally conking out this time. I feel Mama’s hand between my legs, moving up my thigh. Her hand stop, she getting ready to pinch me if I move. I just lay still still, keep my eyes close. I can tell Mama’s other hand between her legs now ‘cause the smell fill the room. Mama can’t fit into bathtub no more. Go sleep, go sleep, go to sleep, I tells myself. Mama’s hand creepy spider, up my legs, in my pussy. God please! Thank you god I say as I fall asleep.
I’m twelve, no I was twelve, when that shit happen. I’m sixteen now. For past couple of weeks or so, ever since white bitch Lichenstein kick me outta school shit, 1983 and 1987, twelve years old and sixteen years old, first baby and this one coming, all been getting mixed up in my head. Mama jus’ hit me wif fry in’ pan? Baby, brand-new and wrapped in white blankets, or fat and dead-eyed lying in crib at my grandmother’s house. Everything seem like clothes in washing machine at laundry mat—round ‘n round, up ‘n down. One minute Mama’s foot smashing into side of my head, next I’m jumping over desk on Mrs Lichenstein’s ass.
But now, right now, I’m standing at the sink finishing the dishes. Mama sleep on couch. It’s Friday, October 16, 1987. I got to get through Saturday and Sunday ‘fore I get to Monday—the alternative.
“School?” Mama say. “Go down to welfare, school can’t help you none, now.” Lady at Lane Bryant on one-two-five call these leggings YELLOW NEON. I’m wearing them and my X
sweat shirt. Put some Vaseline on my face, nuffin’ I can do about my hair till I git some money to git my braids put back in. I look at my poster of Farrakhan on the wall. Amen Allah!
Radio clock glowing red 8:30 a.m. Time to go!
Mama sleep. I be back before she wake up, back in time to clean up and fix breakfast for Mama.
Why Mama never do anything? One time I ax her, when I get up from her knocking me down, she say, That’s what you here for.
I is goin’ down to the nineteenth floor of the Hotel Teresa to the all-tur-nah-TIVE! Reeboks, white!
Better than Nikes? No, next shits I get be Nikes!
Green leather jacket, keys. I is going, got my hand on the doorknob.
“Where you going?” Mama holler from her room.
Why ain’ her fat ass sleep? I don’t say nuffin’.
Fuck her!
“You hear me talking to you!” I start undoing locks on the front door. It’s four of ‘em.
“Precious!” Fuck you bitch. Ize gone! The staircase so skinny both sides of me touch some part of building when I’m going down the stairs.
Maybe after I have baby I lose some weight.
Maybe I get my own place.
When I step out in morning Lenox is jumping with cars, gypsy cabs, and buses. Delivery trucks is parked in front the supermarket and the McDonald’s on corner of 132nd. Men, women, and kids waiting at bus stop to go to school and downtown to work. Wonder where they go to work? Where I gonna go to work, how I’m gonna get out HER house? I hate her. Come to 126th Street, across the street Sylvia’s. I ain’t got no money. African vendors out on street wif they stuff—leather purses and African clothes and earrings from cow shells, stuff like that.
I’m walking slow slow now. No one say nuffin’ to me now my belly big. No “Yo Big Mama” ‘n “all dat meat and no potatoes” shit. I’m safe. Yeah, safe from dese fools on the street but am I safe from Carl Kenwood Jones? This is my second baby for my daddy, it gonna be retarded too?
This time I know Mama know. Umm hmmm, she know. She bring him to me. I ain’ cfazy, that stinky hoe give me to him. Probably thas’ what he require to fuck her, some of me. Got to where he jus’ come in my room any ole time, not jus’
night. He climb on me. Shut up! he say. He slap my ass, You wide as the Mississippi, don’t tell me a little bit of dick hurt you heifer. Git usta it, he laff, you is usta it. I fall back on bed, he fall right on top of me. Then I change stations, change bodies, I be dancing in videos! In movies! I be breaking, fly, jus’ a dancing! Umm hmm heating up the stage at the Apollo for Doug E. Fresh or Al B. Shure. They love me! Say I’m one of the best dancers ain’ no doubt of or about that!
“I’m gonna marry you,” he be saying. Hurry up, nigger, shut up! He mess up dream talkin’ ‘n gruntin’. First he mess up my life fucking me, then he mess up the fucking talkin’. I wanna scream. Oh shut up! Nigger, how you gonna marry me and you is my daddy! I’m your daughter, fucking me illegal. But I keep my mouf shut so’s the fucking don’t turn into a beating. I start to feel good; stop being a video dancer and start coming. I try to go back to video but coming now, rocking under Carl now, my twat jumping juicy, it feel good. I feel ashamed. “See, see,” he slap my thigh like cowboys do horses on TV, then he squeeze my nipple, bite down on it. I come some more. “See, you LIKE it! You jus’ like your mama—you die for it!” He pull his dick out, the white cum stuff pour out my hole wet up the sheets.
“Are you getting on the bus, young lady?” I blink at bus driver staring down at me. He shake his head, bus door close. I’m leaning against glass panel of bus stop. I stare at 101 bus disappearing down 125th Street. How I git here?
What I’m doing on one-two-five at this time of morning? I look down at my feet, my eyes catch on my leggings, NEON YELLOW, of course!
Alternative! I’m on my way, was on my way, walking down Lenox when bad thoughts hit me ‘n I space out.
“You OK?” guy in a uniform for like working in a garage ax me.
“I’m OK, I’m OK.” People done started to gather
‘round me.
“That bitch crazy man!” a skinny dude in baggies say real loud to tall boy next to him.
“Fuck you narrow behind mutherfucker! Mind your bizness!” I break out from them, cross 125th Street, and head for Hotel Theresa. I done passed it a hunnert times but never been in it. I walk through the doors, past man at desk, he don’t say nuffin’ to me, I don’t say nuffin’ to him.
It’s a elevator wif black doors. I step inside, stand there. Don’t go nowhere. Push the button, stupid, I tell myself. I push the button; I’m not stupid, I tell myself.
I step out the elevator and see this lady with cornrow hair sitting at desk. White sign black letters on the desk.
“This the alternative?” I ax.
“The what?” She lift eyebrows.
“This the alternative?” That bitch heard me the first time!
“What exactly are you looking for?” woman nice talk.
“Well, what is this here?”
“This is Higher Education Alternative/Each One Teach One.”
“I’m looking for alternative school.”
“Well,” woman look at me some more, “this is an alternative school.”
I never seen anybody wif braids that don’t hang down. Why git ‘em put in if you not gonna get extensions?
“What alternative is?” May est wellst gone ask the bitch, fine out now what kinda school this gonna be.
“I don’t know if I understand what you’re asking me.”
“Alternative—lady from my other school tell me to come here to Hotel Theresa, nineteenth floor, it’s
‘alternative’ school.”
“OK, OK,” she say, “Each One Teach One is an alternative school and an alternative is like a choice, a different way to do something.”
“Oh.”
“What school did you come from?”
“From I.S. 146.”
“That’s a junior high school, isn’t it?”
“I’m sixteen.”
“You need discharge papers from your old school saying they have formally discharged you or
we can’t allow you in the program.”
“I got kicked out ‘cause I was pregnant—”
“Yes, yes, I understand but you still need formal discharge papers or we can’t let you in. It’s the law.”
“Mrs Lichenstein ain’ say all that.”
“Oh you’re the one Mrs Lichenstein called about.”
“What she say?”
She answer like she talking to herself, “Said to be on the lookout for you, you might be coming our way.” She fumble with some papers on her desk, “Are you Claireece P. Jones?”
“Thas’ me.” So they was really on the lookout for me? Thas’ kinda nice.
“Well the principal at I.S. 146 already sent your discharge papers and stuff over.”
“What stuff?”
“Your academic record—” The woman stop stare at me. “Are you all right?”
“They done sent my file!” I almost spit it, it make me so mad.
“Well, we had to have ahh certain information before we could accept you into the program.
Our students have to meet certain income, residential, and academic requirements before we can let them in the program. So really their sending your records over was just a way of speeding things up for you.”
I wonder what exactly do file say. I know it say I got a baby. Do it say who daddy? What kind a baby? Do it say how pages the same for me, how much I weigh, fights I done had? I don’t know what file say. I do know every time they wants to fuck wif me or decide something in my life, here they come wif the muther-fucking file.
Well, OK, they got file, know every mutherfucking thing. So what’s the big deal, let’s get it on.
“Can I start today?”
Ol’ Cornrow’s eyebrows go up. “Well of course,”
