“White boy, please! You ain’t said nothing that’ll make me blink. My daughter is built just as sturdy as I am. We ain’t frail, feeble, and trained to bow like the Sallys, Sues, and Beths you mingle with. We’re some muthafuckin’ brick houses,” I said confidently, leaning back in the seat and crossing my arms.
Something I said struck a nerve in the cop, because he leaped in my face and growled. Had we been on the streets, I would’ve gotten right back with his coward ass. Being that I was cuffed, I settled for using my tongue, which was sharp as a blade.
“I don’t care about that badge in ya pocket or that muthafuckin’ toy gun on ya hip. You better back up outta my face.” I spoke in a cool and collected tone, although firecrackers were spewing off inside of me. My fuse might’ve been short, but I knew when and how to play my position. I’d been practicing being in control since I sliced my dad’s neck.
My chilled demeanor was intentional, and I manipulated my moves to antagonize and piss them off. Cops hated when they couldn’t make a muthafucka shiver. They thrived off power, but they weren’t about to stroke their cocks off my weakness. They’d cuffed the wrong chick if they thought I was the type of bitch to bend and buckle at the knees.
“Ahhhhh! Let me go! Please, Travis! I swear I’m sorry for not having the food ready. It’s almost done. All it needs is a few more minutes,” my mother cried out.
“You didn’t do nothing all day but take care of these mismatched, funny-looking-ass kids you done trapped me with. Even if I was tired of dogging ya ugly ass out, Bee, I couldn’t leave ya, ’cause my whole check’ll still boomerang back to this miserable-ass house.”
“If you wanted to leave, Travis, I wouldn’t put you on child support,” my mother sobbed.
Wap!
Wap, wap!
“Ahhhhh! Travis! Noooo!”
“You better close that door like Momma told you to keep it,” Tanya said, sitting in the middle of the twin bunk she and I shared. She slept at the head, and I slept at the foot, although there wasn’t a headboard or footboard to denote which side was which.
“But Momma is crying. That nigga just slapped her in the face with his open palm, the same way he hits us on our bare asses,” I told my elder sissy like she wasn’t familiar with my dad’s attacks.
“You better quit worrying about Momma and hope Daddy ain’t heard you curse, let alone call him the N-word,” she warned, wrapping her arms around her knees while rocking back and forth. Tanya was scared. She was always timid, quiet, and obedient when Travis was home.
“I ain’t scared of him.” Making a muscle, I was the toughest li’l sprout around.
Tanya started giggling. When she hiccupped and snorted, it made me laugh too. These were like the silly moments all of us shared when my mean poppa wasn’t home. It was like he sucked the life out of the whole household when he finally dragged his feet through the front door. Not only was his face always twisted into a scowl, but he always smelled like sweet perfume that made my mom sob. Ruby, my eldest sister, said that was because the fragrance woke the sleeping fool up in her. The sad part about her comment was that I wasn’t far enough removed from the sad situation to not understand exactly what she meant.
Every time I heard my mom cry or saw her put makeup over bruises or practice in the mirror a lie she’d eventually tell us about a gash on some part of her body, a huge chunk of my innocence evaporated. I loved my mom but not enough to wanna be like her. Early on, I chose to break every rule she enforced because I figured her path could only lead to me marrying a mean man and living miserably.
In the meantime, Momma tried her best to give her five daughters a normal childhood. My dad had a well-paying job at the plant that could’ve had all of us spoiled, but he cheated with his check and spent it on the children of those home-wrecking hoes. Me, Trish, and Tiana shared clothes and shoes, while Mom, Ruby, and Tanya shared the same. We all did our best hustling up money doing odd jobs for our neighbors to help bring in the dividends my dad so easily withheld. With all of us working together as a team, I couldn’t understand why my momma didn’t leave the bastard who served as Lucifer in the household.
He always broke our spirits whenever he was home. I didn’t know how, but we’d even turn on each other when his presence lingered for too long. Travis brought out the worst in us. All of us acted differently, not like family but like strangers. The only reason this moment was unfolding between my sister and me was because it was going on behind a closed door. Had even my mother known about the joyous occasion while my dad was home, she would’ve whipped the smile off our faces herself. She’d rather beat us than have our callous, heavy-handed father do it.
The more Tanya and I laughed, the funnier laughing became, so the louder we got.
Then all that shit stopped because the devil himself barged into the room. I should’ve stopped thinking about his evil ass long ago and enjoyed the happy moment.
“Shut up in here! I don’t want to hear all that loud noise in my house! Do y’all think y’all outside? In a zoo? On a playground somewhere?”
Sweat was pouring from my father’s face as he yelled into our faces. When he pulled his thick leather belt from the loops of his pants, Tanya’s shrill cry filled the room like he’d already struck her. Seeing my sister completely terrified made me want to protect her.
Instead of hiding in a corner hoping my spanking wasn’t coming next, I tiptoed up on my father while he taunted Tanya with the belt, and I yanked it from his hand. I didn’t snatch it completely from his grip, but I did divert the attention from my sister.
With her hand covering her mouth and tears running from her eyes, she backed farther back on the bed, awaiting my dad’s reaction. I didn’t expect her to have my back and come to my rescue as I did for her. Tanya wasn’t cut like me, though we were cut from the same cloth. She acted more like my mom, and me, yeah, my mannerisms were more like my pop’s. That was why he and I were looking at one another like equals. That was why his nose flared and his reaction slowed. He knew there were more of his characteristics within me than he’d ever noticed or cared to stick around long enough to learn.
Knowing what was coming my way in spite of his epiphany, I took a deep breath and tightened my lips so a scream wouldn’t release from them when he struck me. Travis knew what I was doing because it was the same thing he would’ve done, so that was why he tried beating the spunk out of me.
On my father’s third swing, my mother burst into the room, begging for him to stop. On her heels were her other three daughters, who she pushed back out the room. She slammed the door so they wouldn’t see the madness.
My father’s attention shifted from me to his wife. And so did the attention of his belt. He whipped her mercilessly, slanging the belt wildly until damn near every exposed part of her body was welted. My sister and I hugged each other tightly, fearing what he’d do next. Her face was buried in my neck, but my eyes were glued to the horrific scene before us.
“Tra . . .” She tried speaking his name but couldn’t finish it. Her voice was soft and low. “Plea . . . st . . . go . . .”
The more she begged, the crazier he got. I blacked out for a lot of him whipping her. I might’ve been stronger than my sister, but seeing my mom almost lifeless made me cringe. I blacked out, and when I came to, my hands were bloody and my dad was dead.
Bang!
One of the cops slammed his fist down on the table, stirring me from the gruesome flashback of my childhood.
“Hey, you! You ain’t got all day. Either write something on that pad for my partner and me, or you can find comfort down in ya holding cell. It doesn’t make me shit ’cause I’ma walk up outta here and eat my fat ass a juicy-ass steak either way.” He continued being an arrogant asshole.
I took a deep breath and picked up the number two pencil. As I hit it on the table a few times, the sound of the taps triggered tears to stream from my eyes uncontrollably. I was pissed as fuck that I couldn’t stop myself from breaking down in f
ront of two pigs who were beaming at me crumbling in my seat, but I was making myself stronger with each sob and tear. These shit bags didn’t know my struggle, the grief I’d carried on my heart, or my evil intentions.
Without weed or alcohol, I was lacking the vices I’d been using to cope. I started hearing my daddy’s voice, who I heard haunting me every night, telling me he was going to get me for what I did. I always whispered back, for no one else to hear, that I’d meet him in hell with an even bigger piece of glass. That was why I could never sleep.
Slouched down, I slid the notebook closer to me and gripped the pencil to write my first word. I couldn’t go home unless I gave the cops what they wanted.
CHAPTER 26
PORSHA
On the outside looking in, this alternative home didn’t look as grim as it actually was. The green grass, full trees, and beautiful landscape of flowers were strategically placed to hide the gated windows, guard towers, and multiple fenced-in buildings that I was now learning all the girls were categorized and separated between. My eyes and ears were wide open and alert for every word spoken or look shared between cops, social workers, or anyone dressed casually. I wanted to know what their intentions were with all of us newbies dressed in what looked like pink nurse scrubs but were really prison getups.
Every hour on the hour, a cop or child protective service worker marched in here with an at-risk teen they swore needed a safe haven and around-the-clock therapeutic intervention. Kicking and screaming, like me, none of us wanted to be locked away within a baby jail that was dressed up as a place of healing. We all knew what this was. We all knew what we were in for. Pure hell.
The holding room was more like a sweat box. I ended up pulling my shirt off like many of the girls and was down to my bra. I decided not to do so, but I really wanted to strip down to my panties. Had I not spotted a few questionable chicks, I might’ve stripped naked altogether. I felt delirious, lightheaded, and woozy like I was about to pass out. Plain and simple, it was scorching in here. There was absolutely no ventilation or circulation of the hot air all of us were breathing. And though many of the girls complained, screamed, and pounded on the door for someone to have mercy on us, none of them did. We’d already been tagged as kids who would never amount to anything. The guards were completely numb to us, our issues, and our behavior.
When the backup guards came in to take me for the strip search, they were accompanied by a nurse who gave me some type of muscle relaxer shot. All I could do was blink. The whole time they undressed me, then clothed me back in the pink getup, I was alert but couldn’t move or cover myself up. This whole experience was one I’d never forget.
Finally, one of the guards called for me and a few other girls. Our small group was escorted out and to a different part of the building while they explained some of the rules they didn’t show leniency for when broken. It was a long fuckin’ list. I swore I heard the guard call off smiling as one of the things we weren’t allowed to do.
Whereas we’d been locked up in a stuffy cage that was hot as hell, we were now in a chilled room ventilated by an air conditioning unit. It wasn’t for us girls, though, but for the administrators present. This was our orientation into the alternative home, although we’d already been improperly introduced. The room had about ten folding chairs, a podium, and a long table that had papers spread across it. After being handed a packet each, we took our seats one by one and listened to the director of the home. We heard crap about how they’d make us better citizens of society and how to make better decisions that would better our future. They claimed that once we got transitioned and stopped fighting, the healing could begin. They meant brainwashing, but healing sounded better. Still, bullshit.
If I were coming here homeless, neglected, or abused, this alternative solution for teenage living might’ve been a miracle for me. This situation, however, was nothing but a downgrade from what I was accustomed to. Of the eight girls in the group I was in, three of them were genuinely happy about the services offered. Me, however, I wanted out of this dressed-up dungeon with a one-way ticket back to the trap.
Right out of orientation, we were led to our assigned counselors. My therapist was a middle-aged woman with skin the color of mine. I thought she was gonna be cool, maybe on that black power or sister-to-sister shit, but nope. It was like the melatonin in her skin made her meaner. She was short, blunt, and direct about what she expected and wasn’t going to tolerate from me. The whole intake process was grueling, and that was putting it lightly. Every time she twisted her face up at me, I wanted to spit in it to show her the type of cloth I was cut from.
After I refused to spill the beans about my upbringing, thoughts, and what brought me into the group home, she labeled me a problem. I didn’t give two shits about her label as long as she left me alone, so I didn’t fret or shrug. Even with my family already being broken up, ain’t nobody affiliated with the cops could manipulate me and use my therapy session as testimony against my father. I wasn’t stupid. These cock-sucking judges would never understand what it meant to grow up in the trap anyway, which meant them and me would never relate.
Calvin didn’t subject me to a crappy-ass lifestyle. In the hood, it was better to grow up with pushers instead of the poppers. The State might not have felt like Calvin made the best decision as the leader of his family, but he’d already schooled me that Blacks weren’t mighty or powerful enough to ship the shit overseas anyhow. They were charging my dad for the dope they wanted him to poison his community with.
Calvin didn’t just slang drugs, he slung knowledge, although he’d really been a puppet in all of this. I saw the way the cop’s eyes smiled as he held my father’s mouth shut and his head up to face his own demise. He’d been happy in his point of power and cheerful about our misery. Whenever my dad got out, though, I already knew the cop would get two untraceable bullets to the head. Hopefully he had kids who would get to witness him broken down as well. I hated seeing my daddy like that.
Once the grilling sessions were done, we were tossed into the general population of teens within the group home. I was assigned to building C. Building C came with hella restrictions and housed all the girls with deviant backgrounds. You had to be either serving out juvenile sentences, waiting to have your case heard as I was, or waiting to age out of the system to be transferred into a state prison. The latter was what I feared.
Sitting on the side of the bed they’d assigned to me, I bowed my head, trying to gather some mental strength. Tears were at the brim of my eyes, but I didn’t wanna let the other girls see me crying. I’d never been to a group home, but I knew enough to know that crying would get me tagged as a weak link then bullied every day after.
I was honest enough with myself to say I didn’t want beef because I was too inexperienced with fighting to survive. However, I’d also taken too many beatdowns from Trinity to not know how to handle myself. If a bitch came for me up in here, they’d get twirled on their head. For every time I couldn’t hit my momma back, I’d be laying a fist into their face. Fighting fair wasn’t an option.
Finally coming out of my temporary living quarters, I posted up in the recreation room. A lot of the girls were in here either watching the fuzzy-picture TV screen, playing a 1990s board game, or throwing some cards around the table either in a game of spades or tunk. I didn’t wanna partake in none of the so-called recreational activities but really didn’t have a choice since there was nothing else to do. We weren’t allowed to have cell phones or electronic devices. I was going crazy not being able to log into my social sites. And unlike when I’d been on one of Trinity’s punishments, I didn’t have the foolishness of the hood going on outside my bedroom window to entertain me. I’d have given anything to hear some scrappers stealing the pipes from the house next door right about now. I’d have given anything to serve a fiend up right quick for a hot ten-dollar bill to take Benzie to the corner store with. The thought of my brother almost made me buckle at the knees.
I we
nt the whole morning and part of the afternoon without getting anything but curious stares from the other girls. I didn’t know if it was because of my long but now sweated-out curls, all the bruises on my face from the police roughing me up, or the basic fact that I was one of the newest girls there. I expected them to want to know my story, yet I wasn’t up to making friends. To help pass the time, I found myself thinking about what I’d tell Imani when we finally talked. The more hours that passed by, the more miserable I became.
After walking down every hour of the depressing day to group therapy gatherings, counseling sessions, and even a visit from a State-appointed lawyer who was allegedly going to help me fight the charges of assaulting a cop, I skipped eating and retired to my bunk. I couldn’t wait to start the job they’d give me within a couple of days so I could have money to make a call. Shit was crazy! I’d helped my dad count up thousands made in one night by hand before, but I was on craps tonight without a measly dollar.
“So, what’s your name? You’ve been here all damn day and ain’t said shit to none of us,” a girl addressed me.
“That’s ’cause I don’t have much to say,” I responded, keeping it real. I’d gone the whole day sulking to myself and wanted to keep it that way.
“And why don’t you? Everybody up in here has a story to tell.” She pressed the issue.
“Okay, well, that’s the first lesson in learning I’m different from everyone else. I ain’t no damn Teddy Ruxpin bear. If you trying to get a bedtime story told, cuddle up to some other bitch.”
She burst out laughing like a deranged crazy person then ran up on me in an eye blink. “Naw, I’ve got the right bitch.”
Shorty Gotta Be Grown Page 18