by Sapphire
The center is big.
When I git in meeting I don’t say nothing. It’s people sitting in a circle. I’m spozed to talk. I will never talk here! lb talk I have to tell how I feel in my body. The war. My body my head I can’t say it right. How cum I’m so young and feel so old. So young like I don’t know nuffin’, so old like I know everything. A girl have her father’s dick in her mouth know things the other girls don’t know but it’s not what you want to know.
It’s all kinda girls here! They sitting in circle faces like clocks, no bombs. Bombs with hair and titties and dresses. After I sit here five minutes I know I am a bomb too. Only sitting here doing whatever they gonna do will keep me from blowing up.
Thank you Rita for git me here on time.
“Hello.” She look like a movie star! Slim, long hair, eyes like stars, red lips. “My name is Irene. I am an incest survivor.”
My mouth fall open. Someone like that.
“It started when I was, oh, about four or five years old with him fondling me” (feeling her up).
“By the time I was twelve he was having intercourse with me three or four times a week.”
Everything is floating around me now. Like geeses from the lake. I see the wings beating beating hear geeses. It’s more birds than geeses. Where so many birds come from. I see flying. Feel flying. Am flying. Far up, but my body down in circle. Precious is bird.
Someone is holding my hand. It’s Rita. She is massage my hand. I come back from being a bird to hear beautiful girl crying. Smell Mama.
Carl, the way his knees on either side of my neck.
Girl say, “Thank you for letting me share.” She say, ‘This is a Tuesday night beginner’s meeting, to share raise your hand.” I raise my hand. My hand is going up through the smell of Mama, my hand is pushing Daddy’s dick out my face.
“I was rape by my father. And beat.” No one is talking except me. “Mama push my head down in her …” I can’t talk no more. Beautiful girl whisper to me, “Are you through?” I say yes. She say,
“Pick the next person.” I look up from my shoes, Nikes; girls got they hand up. I pick girl in overalls with blue eyes. Grab Rita’s hand, listen.
Listen to girl rape by brother, listen to old woman rape by her father; don’t remember till he die when she is 65 years old. Girls, old women, white women, lotta white women. Girl’s younger sister murdered by the cult? Jewish girl, we had money on Long Island (like Westchester), my father was a prominent child psychiatrist. It started when I was about nine years old. Girls like Jermaine is, I am a proud lesbian. But it’s the only thing I’m proud of; I was confine to a mental institution for fourteen years, diagnosed as a schizophrenia—
What am I hearing!
One hour and a half women talk. Can this be done happen to so many people? I know I am not lying! But is they? I thought cult was in movie.
What kinda world this babies raped. A father break a girl’s arm. Sweet talk you suck his dick.
All kinda women here. Princess girls, some fat girls, old women, young women. One thing we got in common, no the thing, is we was rape.
Afterwards we go out for coffee. I have never been “out for coffee” before. Rita put her arm around my shoulder, I order hot chocolate ‘cause that’s what I like. Blond girl who is airline stewardess say, “Precious! That’s a beautiful name!”
I’m alive inside. A bird is my heart. Mama and Daddy is not win. I’m winning. I’m drinking hot chocolate in the Village wif girls—all kind who love me. How that is so I don’t know. How Mama and Daddy know me sixteen years and hate me, how a stranger meet me and love me. Must be what they already had in they pocket.
It’s a black girl across the table from me with long pretty hair in dreadlocks like Ms Rain. But not wild like Ms Rain. I surprise myself. “How you get your hair like that?” I say.
“Oh,” she say, “you like it? I do yours one day you want. That’s what I do—fix people’s hair and makeup.” She give me a card!
Rita ask me do I want another hot chocolate. I do but don’t want to be greedy. Even if boyfriend do give her money she got better things to spend it on then Precious Jones. She hug me and ask waitress, “Could I have another hot chocolate and cappuccino.” I like how Rita is, she know the world, how to act and stuff. Sometimes I don’t have a clue!
Well, today counseling session wif Mama. She call here, call here, call here, asking social worker to see we. I tell Ms Weiss no. Then Ms Weiss tell me I should see her. Why I should? I ask. For your own good, for yourself, to see what she has to say. Spozed to meet today 4 p.m.
Watch say one minute to four. Down one two three four five six seven eight steps, then a little landing then eight more steps. I walk through door, one minute past four. What she want now?
Mama sitting on big green couch. Ms Weiss looking at me waiting for me to sit down. I sit down. Ms Weiss say to Mama, “Well Mrs Johnston, may I call you Mary?”
“I don’t care.” Mama look down at her shoes which is big men’s loafers. Room smell all funny.
Mama stink. Got on big orange-color sleeveless dress, torn under the arms. Hair fucked up. Eyes look stupid wifout red evil light on to hit you.
I think Ms Weiss jus’ freak mind. Lie to Mama, bull-corn me. Probably Mama think coming here talking to Ms Weiss in counselin’ session gonna git me back, me ‘n Abdul. So why do that? I don’t git what Ms Weiss doin’. I need house for me ‘n Abdul. Advancement House is for womens and girls with newborn and young babies. I gotta be out of this mutherfucker soon. I wanna finish at Each One Teach One ‘n gone get my G.E.D. I want maybe git Lil Mongo out retard house where she lay on floor in pee clothes but Ms Weiss wanna know my earliest memory of Mama? I open my notebook and look in it.
whut is my erliest mcmry memory of my mother?
a room that’s small fillt up wif my parents, it smell, can of mackerel left open in kitchen on hot day that’s what make me remember, that smell, he put his ball in my face, years like wash machine aroun and around, mama jaw open like evil wolf, the smell deeper than toilet, her fingers pick apart my pussy, night, poisoned rat. don’t have dreams.
I close my book.
“Well Mary, you want to begin by talking a little bit about the abuse?” Ms Weiss say to Mama.
“What ‘buse?”
“Well according to Precious’ files she has had two children by your boyfriend, the late Carl Kenwood Jones, who is also her father} You’ve been calling here saying you want to be reunited with your daughter and grandson, that you want them to come home. Well I think you’d better explain just what happened in that home.”
Oh Mama, please don’t go for this!
“Well, I, Precious, b’long at home.”
Mama please be quiet.
“When did the abuse happen, how often, where?
When were you first aware of what was going on Ms Johnston?”
“I guess, he come over you know. I wake up at night, morning he not wif me, I know he in there wif her. When it first start? I don’ know. I’m a good mother. She had everything. I done tole her that. Pink ‘n white baby carriage, little pink bootie socks, dresses; everything I put on her pink.
Precious, she, so smiling and healthy. A day don’t go by I don’t take her out wheeling in the air.
Even when it’s cold I take her out, to church, to somewhere, me ‘n Carl—my husband, I call him
—loves Precious. I loves him. I dream of day we gonna you know, git married, git house wif grass, color TVs in all the rooms. Precious she born about the same time as Miz West son that got kilt. You remember him don’t you Precious?”
What is she talkin’ about!
“He born summertime ‘bout same time as you.”
“I born November,” I say. Least that what I always thought.
“Yeah yeah thas right. My little Scorpio chile!
Scorpio’s crafty. I ain’ sayin’ they lie, jus’ you cain’t always trust ‘em. But anyway Precious
‘bout the same ag
e as Gary, Miz West son got kilt, give or take a few months! But ooh wheee!
Precious fast! She walkin’ talkin’— everything
‘fore Miz West son. Her teef, everything. Teef growing like Bugs Bunny or something! She can do little dance steps and he hardly walking. I put on Kool and the Gang, remember Precious, you remember? I put on Kool and the Gang and you disco to that? She had a happy childhood all ‘n all, Carl jus’ a high-natured man …”
I don’t believe Mama! Why don’t she jus’ shut up with this diarrhea shit!
“When? I don’t know when it start. When I remember it? She still little. Yeah, around three maybe. I give her a bottle. I still got milk in my bresses but not for her but from Carl sucking. I give him tittie, Precious bottle. Hygiene, you know?”
“Huh?” Ms Weiss go.
“Huh?” go Mama back.
“You mentioned something about hygiene in connection with … with …” Ms Weiss can’t finish.
“I bottle her, tittie him. Bottle more better for kidz.
Sanitary. But I never git dried up ‘cause Carl always on me. It’s like that you know. Chile, man
—a woman got bofe. What you gonna do? So we in bed. I put her on one side of me on pillow, Carl on other side me.”
Ms Weiss look like she done stopped breathing.
“Carl got my tittie in his mouf. Nuffin’ wrong wif that, it’s natural. But I think thas the day IT start. I don’t never remember nothing before that. I hot.
He sucking my tittie. My eyes closed. I know he getting hard I can see wifout my eyes, I love him so much.”
Umm hmm, I was raised by a psycho maniac fool.
“He climb on me, you know. You unnerstand?”
No, tell us some more stupid bitch.
“So he on me. Then he reach over to Precious!
Start wif his finger between her legs. I say Carl what you doing! He say shut your big ass up!
This is good for her. Then he git off me, take off her Pampers and try to stick his thing in Precious. You know what trip me out is it almost can go in Precious! I think she some kin da freak baby then. I say stop Carl stop! I want him on me! I never wanted him to hurt her. I didn’t want him doing anything to her. I wanted my man for myself. Sex me up, not my chile. So you cain’t blame all that shit happen to Precious on me. I love Carl, I love him. He her daddy, but he was my man!”
Ms Weiss look at me now. “Precious, you’ve been writing in your journal about this.”
“This and other stuff.”
“She write poems too, lady at Each One Teach One say.” This from Mama. Mama one hundred, not ninety nine, percent crazy.
“Would you like to share some of that in this session?” Ms Weiss ask.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Ms Rain say journal completely confidential.
Share if you want. If you don’t want to, don’t. I don’t want to.”
I’m gone. It’s 4:45 p.m. Up! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight steps. I hate Mama, she ain’ shit. I feel like nothing around her, like minus nothing. I gotta get outta here.
I go down to kitchen where house mother is. “Miz Mom!”
“Stop screaming!” she say. “What’s wrong with you?” “You could get Abdul from nursery, feed him, and keep a eye on him till I get back so I could go to Body Positive meeting?”
“Tonight’s not your night—”
“Pleeezzze I gotta get outta here!”
“What happened with your mama?”
” ‘You cain’t blame all what happened to Precious on me. I wanted my man for myself? ” I imitate Mama.
“I wanted my man for myself! Now ain’ that one to go down in the history books. Yeah, Til keep that little oP bad boy! You got a lot of time before six-thirty, why don’t you git you some dinner before you run out of here?”
“I was gonna take my journal book and write on the bus, ‘steadda taking the train.”
She go in her pocket get out that oP blue change purse, so oP it look like somebody blue grandmother and hand me three dollars.
Something tear inside me. I wanna cry but I can’t. It’s like something inside me keeps ripping but I can’t cry. I think how alive I am, every part of me that is cells, proteens, nutrons, hairs, pussy, eyeballs, nervus sistem, brain. I got poems, a son, friends. I want to live so bad. Mama remind me I might not. I got this virus in my body like cloud over sun. Don’t know when, don’t know how, maybe hold it back a long long time, but one day it’s gonna rain.
I start to cry but it’s ‘cuz I’m mad. Miz Mom wipe my face give me two more dollars!
“Umm, I should cry more often!”
“Ain’ you about a mess! Git outta here!”
I git my jacket ‘n my shades. Everybody in this house go to meetings, in “recovery.” What I’m in recovery for? I ain’ no crack addict. I git so mad sometimes. Mama jus’ pour my life down the drain like it’s nothing. I got all this shit to deal wif.
“Don’t forget your notebook,” Miz Mom.
Everybody know I write poems. People respect me. I get outside. It’s raining. Good.
The meeting is good, it’s for HIV positive girls 16-21. Ms Rain say people who help you most (sometimes) is ones in the same boat. I started putting my story in the big book at school. I want to get it done before I graduate out to G.E.D.
Last week we went to the museum. A whole whale is hanging from the ceiling. Bigger than big! OK, have you ever seen a Volkswagen car that’s like a bug? Um huh, you know what I’m talking about. That’s how big the heart of a blue whale is. I know it’s not possible, but if that heart was in me could I love more? Ms Rain, Rita, Abdul?
I would like to.
Abdul get tested. He is not HTV positive.
Something like that make me feel what Rhonda, what Farrakhan, say—there is a god. But me when I think of it I’m more inclined to go wid Shug in The Color Purple. God ain’ white, he ain’
no Jew or Muslim, maybe he ain’ even black, maybe he ain’ even a “he.” Even now I go downtown and seen the rich shit they got, I see what we got too. I see those men in vacant lot share one hot dog and they homeless, that’s good as Jesus with his fish. I remember when I had my daughter, nurse nice to me— all that is god. Shug in Color Purple say it’s the “wonder” of purple flowers. I feel that, even though I never seen or had no flowers like what she talk about.
I’m not happy to be HIV positive. I don’t understand why some kids git a good school and mother and father and some don’t. But Rita say forgit the WHY ME shit and git on to what’s next.
I don’t know what’s next. I took the TABE test again, this time it’s 7.8. Ms Rain say quantum leap! Like I was one place and instead of step up, it’s a leap! What does that score actually mean? I read according to the test around 7th or 8th grade level now. Before on test I score 2.0
then 2.8. The 2.0 days was really low days because I could not read at all (test just give you 2.0 even if you don’t fill in nothing). I got to get up to the level of high school kids, then college kids.
I know I can do this. Ms Rain tell me don’t worry it’s gonna work out. I still got time.
It’s Sunday, no school, meetings. I’m in dayroom at Advancement House, sitting on a big leather stool holdin’ Abdul. The sun is coming through the window splashing down on him, on the pages of his book. It’s called The Black BC’s. I love to hold him on my lap, open up the world to him.
When the sun shine on him like this, he is an angel child. Brown sunshine. And my heart fill.
Hurt One year? Five? Ten years? Maybe more if I take care of myself. Maybe a cure. Who knows, who is working on shit like that? Look his nose is so shiny, his eyes shiny. He my shiny brown boy.
In his beauty I see my own. He pulling on my earring, want me to stop daydreaming and read him a story before nap time. I do.
LIFE STORIES Our Class Book
Reading 1 MWF 9-12 a.m.
Higher Education Alternative / Each One Teac
h One
Blue Rain, Instructor
everi mornin by Precious j .
Everi mornin
i write
a poem
before I go to
school
marY Had a little lamb
but I got a kid
an HIV
that folow me
to school
one day.
mornm by Precious Jones
Mornin is a rooteen up at 6 a.m. wash teef, dress wash Abdul teef, face, booty
dress him Breakfast for kids
we go to kitchen
fix him something
good from what’s there
what’s there for baby
is good oatmeal cream wheat rice cream appul sauc
or egg toast
bacon I don’t let Abdul eat bacon Put Abdul wif a kiss
in nother woman arms
rootine b r e a k i run get dress
fix tea (don’t like coffee) grab books walk mornin wet the streets amung the vakent trees is secrit plots of green diamonds call grass.
MY LIFE by Rita Romero
Our house, which was an apartment, was full of beautiful stuff—velvet couch, lace curtain, virgin statues, candles, and chandeliers. My mother was like a medium. Not santeria—throw shells, yellow flowers for Oshun and all that but more the gypsy trip—cards and crystal ball. Always people in and out our house; nice people, give me a caramel or sourball, pat on the head. My mother was dark, moreno? Like we got 1 million words for color, Puerto Ricans. But to me, everyone, she was beautiful. She look like, you ever seen that movie star from way back, Dorothy Dandridge—that’ s what Mami look like, only Mami’s hair is like a black river, thick long down her back. Eyes, I always think Mami’s eyes is olives. Black things that could see but so rich you could eat. Maybe, I giggle, if you could eat Mami’s eyes you could see in the crystal ball too.
