by Ni-Ni Simone
“Your cousin? Didn’t you just tell me the other day when I picked you up that your cousin was doggin’ you? Tellin’ your homegirls that you was actin’ funny?”
I sucked my teeth. “Why you gotta throw that in my face? She was upset, that’s all. But that’s my cousin and I miss her and the baby. Plus, I have all this stuff that I really want to give her for Kamari. And I wanna drop it off to her tonight.”
“I’ll take you to drop it off.”
“I don’t need you to take me. ’Cause after I see Yvette, I wanna go and chill with my homegirls for a while. And I might come back to your place tonight and I might not.”
Fresh’s eyes was bloodshot and the veins in his neck bulged, but, surprisingly, he was calm as he said, “If you wanna go, go. You’re right, you been staying with me for over a month, and maybe that was too long. So, if you wanna bounce, then step ’cause my hustle damn sure ain’t kidnapping. I’m up here taking you out, taking you shopping, showing you a nice time, but you wanna disrespect me and chase some broke hos and they kids around.”
“You’re going too far and I don’t appreciate that!”
“And I don’t appreciate you tryna play me for stupid.”
“Play you? Ain’t nobody tryna play you. If anything I been played by all the chicks who keep calling you and showing up at your door. But did I sweat you about that? What, you think I didn’t notice or I didn’t know? What, you think I’m some young and stupid broad? You got me messed up.”
“You better calm down and lower your voice!”
“And if I don’t? Yo, for real, dig, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but you not about to run me. Nah, that’s not how I get down and I ain’t having that. So, if you got a problem wit’ me going to see my crew and my family, then I suggest you deal with that. ’Cause I’m out!” I flipped him the middle finger and, without thinking twice or looking back, I stormed into the subway and quickly hopped on the PATH train.
27
Rebel without a pause
Eight p.m.
At first when I got here, I didn’t think that much had changed. I mean, maybe the month on the wall calendar had flipped. The plastic on the sofa was a little more ripped than I remembered. Maybe there was more grease spots and stains on the banana-colored kitchen walls. Maybe even more floor tile was missin’ than before.
But so what? There was a lot that was still the same.
Like the aged Crisco can, with the lumpy chicken grease, that sat in the middle of the stove.
The potato plants on the rusty fire escape.
Nana and Mr. Bill’s Saturday night groove.
And my crackhead auntie, drunk uncle, and they friends piled up in here.
So never did I expect to walk into my bedroom and find something outright different: Kamari playing with my little cousins and Yvette nowhere to be seen.
Ten p.m.
Almost all the kids who lived here was asleep. Except Kamari, who walked around with a pissy Pamper and screamed about how she was hungry. I gave her a pack of crackers, but I couldn’t change her Pamper, because she didn’t have any.
Eleven p.m.
I couldn’t take Kamari screaming and crying anymore, so I put clothes on her and we walked across the street to the Chinese store for fried chicken wings and a quart of fried rice. Then we headed to the bodega for a pack of Pampers.
Midnight.
I hadn’t watched the clock like this since the night Schooly was killed.
Kamari was dry, fed, and asleep in my arms.
Still no Yvette.
Two a.m.
I was on edge with worry but fightin’ to keep my eyes open.
Four a.m.
My neck kept jerking from me dozing in and out of sleep, but I was too scared to give up waiting.
Eight a.m.
“And what is you doing here?” Scared me out of my sleep.
My eyes popped open and immediately my gaze sank into Yvette’s face. Her mouth dry, creased, and holding a fish frown. Her lips cracked. Ashy. Her head suddenly seemin’ too big for her frail frame. She looked to be at least twenty pounds thinner since my birthday. Her clothes, which she prided on being fitted, were too big.
“I know you heard me,” Yvette carried on. “What you doin’ here?”
I curled the left corner of my upper lip. “Whatchu mean, what I’m doin’ here? I live here. The question is where you been and why you ain’t come home last night?”
“For the same reasons you don’t come home.”
“Listen, I came here to give you some clothes for Kamari and then I wanted to hang out wit’ Munch and Cali. But since you ain’t come home I ended up having to stay inside all night and watch Kamari.”
“What?” She sucked her teeth and flicked a wrist dismissively. “Don’t be acting like I needed you to watch my baby. Mph, Nana was here. And another thing, I don’t need you to get my baby no clothes and I most def don’t need you checkin’ up on me.”
“Excuse you?”
“You heard me. I don’t know why you all in B.I. anyway. Am I sweatin’ you about what you out there doin’ with Fresh? No. I’m. Not. I mind my business, which is what you need to do.”
“Fresh? Fresh don’t have nothin’ to do with this. This is about my family. Yes, he’s my boyfriend and I spend time with him because I’m gettin’ to know him, but you’re my cousin—”
“Not really. Actually, I’m just a family friend.”
I hesitated. For a moment I felt like I’d been sideswiped. “What?” I said, only because, momentarily, I had no other follow-up. I paused again and then continued with, “You straight buggin’. Now I asked you a question: where you been?”
“I don’t have to answer to you!” Yvette turned around and stormed out and into the living room. I hopped off the bed and flew behind her, practically stepping on the heels of her sneakers. That’s when I spotted Flip standing in the middle of the floor, wearing the same get-up he had on the other day: dirty and too-big jeans and an oversized orange and faded Sunkist tee with the neck stretched from round to oval. And some busted white Chucks.
A million things raced through my mind, including picking up the glass lamp off the end table and pealing Flip’s scalp back with it. “Now I know why you ain’t come home!” I said to Yvette. “’Cause you was out wit’ this nothin’! I can’t believe this! Yo’ baby here pissy and hungry, but you out chasin’ this crackhead—”
“Correct yourself. My man is not a crackhead, first of all—”
“First of all, you don’t have a man, you got a junkie!”
“You don’t disrespect Flip like that! Ain’t nobody talkin’ about Fresh!”
“Like I said before, this don’t have nothin’ to do with Fresh. Right now I’m worried about Kamari—”
“Since when? And why? I pushed her out, not you! So you go back to runnin’ the streets wit’ yo’ notorious drug dealer!”
“What the—wait, you the one told me to go out with him!”
“And when you start listening to everything I tell you to do? You don’t have your own mind?”
“You sounding real stupid right now. And I think I know why, ’cause you must be high and you ain’t high off weed!”
“Trick, beat it! You don’t come at me like that! Ain’t nobody high up in here.”
“Then why are you lookin’ like that? Eyes all bugged out. Lips all ashy.”
“Not that I need to explain anything to you, but for your information, I haven’t had any sleep since yesterday afternoon!”
“Yeah, I bet. ’Cause you been hittin’ that pipe all night!”
“Yo, I ain’t gotta keep listening to you. Come on, Flip!”
“Come on, Flip?! Where you runnin’ back to? The crack house? You got a daughter in the other room!”
“You need to mind your business. I’m talkin’ to my man—”
“Yeah, he’s your man now, but in a minute he gon’ be your pimp!”
Whap!
Y
vette’s hand burned across my face so fast that I didn’t have a chance to catch my balance, and I hit the floor. Her fist felt like iron as it landed full speed ahead dead in my mouth, and before I could even process what was happening, I’d already jumped up, yanked Yvette into a tussle, and now had her on the floor, doing my best to stomp through her rib cage.
“Get offa her!” Flip snatched me by my hair, placed an arm around my neck, and started choking me.
Wham! Crack! Crack! Crack! Wham! “Let her go!” Nana screamed, beating Flip in the head with a metal broom handle. Once Nana forced Flip to let me go, she stood in between us. “What in the devil is going on here?! I swear for God, y’all not about to tear up my apartment!” She looked over at me. “Yo’ sleazy behind been gone for over a month, and this is the hell you come back in here with?!”
“I didn’t do anything! Your granddaughter, Yvette, is runnin’ around here smokin’ crack, don’t you see that?!”
“You lyin’ on me!” Yvette screamed.
“SHUT UP!” Nana yelled. “She ain’t smokin’ no crack! If anybody out in the street doing God knows what, it’s you! Runnin’ in and outta here like you grown, like I ain’t responsible for you!”
“Responsible for me? Really? Since when you start caring about me or anything that got to do with me?”
“I took you in when your mama and your daddy didn’t want you!”
“And I probably would’ve been better off had you just sent me to a foster home! ’Cause living here ain’t nothin’ but hell. You ain’t never did nothin’ for me but cuss me out. All my clothes I had to beg, borrow, and wait for Yvette to steal ’em! All you ever done for me was give me a bunch of grief! So you can save all that, ’cause the last thing you did for me was a favor.”
“You better shut yo’ mouth!”
“No, I won’t. You need to stop talkin’ to me. And you need to focus on the newest crackhead livin’ up in your house, ’cause soon as he finish turnin’ her out, she’ll be walkin’ out and leavin’ the baby behind for good.”
“The devil is a liar and your wicked behind just came here to steal, kill, and destroy! You just an ingrate. A nothin’! A unruly spirit up! And I ain’t gon’ have you in my house, talking trash to me! Now get out! Go back to whatever gutter you crawled out from ’cause you are no longer welcomed in this here!”
“I don’t care! What you think I need you or I need to stay here? Screw you! I’m good and, Yvette, when he turn you out and have you beatin’ that concrete don’t even look for me! ’Cause I’m through witchu!”
28
Black steel in a moment of chaos
“Isis,” Queenie called my name, as she leaned against my door frame.
“Yeah.” I sat in my wicker throne chair and stared at my Whodini poster. “What?”
“Don’t what me. I gotta run out. And I want you to go downstairs to your nana’s for a while.”
“Why I gotta go down there? I don’t like it down there.”
“Don’t question me! You do what I tell ya to do!”
“I’ll wait for you in my room. They didn’t even come to Schooly’s funeral and you want me to chill wit’ ’em? I’ll pass.”
“What did I just say?!”
“No, I’m not goin’!”
Whap! “Who are you talkin’ to like that? Huh? I’m tired of telling you to do something and you telling me what you is and ain’t gon’ do! Now I said get your behind downstairs!” She snatched me out of the chair. “And before you even ask, no you can’t come with me! I need a minute to think, so I’m goin’ to get me a Pepsi and hang out for a little while. . . .”
“When you comin’ back?”
“Icy? Wassup? You a’ight?”
I sat in the courtyard, on the park bench, my knees pulled into my chest, with my eyes closed, lost in a memory.
“Wassup? What’s wrong?”
I opened my eyes and tears slid out from the corners and rolled down my cheeks. K-Rock, who stood in front of me, wiped my tears away and said, “Wassup? What happened to you?”
Despite the left side of my face aching, somehow I managed to smile. “I’m a’ight. I’m good.” I sniffed. “Wassup with you?”
He sat down beside me, dropping his gym bag on the ground. “You lyin’ to me now? I thought we were better than that? And evidently, if you out here crying with your lip swollen and busted, then the last thing you are, is a’ight.”
I swallowed, did my best to shake my thoughts and let ’em go. I could feel tears knocking at the backs of my eyes again. “I’m straight. I promise you.”
“You makin’ false promises now?” K-Rock looked around the half-empty courtyard, filled only with old junkies, new dealers, and a few dudes sprinkled on the basketball court. “Did somebody out here say somethin’ or do somethin’ to you?”
I shook my head. The tears were now making their way back to the corners of my eyes and then without warning they fell along the sides of my nose and over my lips.
“Ya man?” K-Rock said, extra hyped. “Yo, what he do? He put his hands on you? Where he at? And you better tell me, ’cause I promise you, he won’t touch you again.”
“No. He didn’t do nothin’ to me.”
“Then tell me! ’Cause I swear to God, seeing you like this is making me mad as hell!”
“It’s a lot.” I shrugged. “That’s it.”
“What you mean, it’s a lot?”
“It just seems like the more time goes on, the worse things get for me.”
“Like what?”
“Like my grandmother threw me out! Told me I had to go and don’t ever come back.”
“She threw you out? What? Are you serious?”
“What you think I’ma joke about something like that? Yeah, I’m serious.”
“Why would she do that? You’re only sixteen, where does she think you s’pose to go? She didn’t mean that. She couldn’t’ve.”
“You think she cares?” I wrinkled my brow. “All that old, fat, and nasty broad cares about is Mr. Bill and Jesus.”
“So this is about Mr. Bill?” He looked taken aback. “Or Jesus?”
“No. This is about Nana never giving a damn. Never talkin’ to us. Always talkin’ at us. Cussin’ us out. Never buyin’ us nothin’. Me and Yvette looked like straight dirty girls until Yvette figured out how to boost and not get caught.” I flung the tears that continued to flow down my face.
“Listen.” He draped his arm over my shoulders, pulling me along the side of his chest. “Maybe you should chill with me for a minute and perhaps by the end of the day, your grandmother will have cooled off and you two can talk about it. ’Cause real rap, ain’t nothin’ out here in these streets and you know that. So you need to make amends and go home.”
“So what you sayin’ is that I should beg? I’ll sleep outside on this bench first.” I took his arm from around me and sat up straight. “Never. I ain’t never speakin’ to her again. And she better not ever need nothin’ from me! I wouldn’t care if she was on fire ’cause I wouldn’t even spit on her. And Yvette, I promise you, I’ma kill her. And I put that on everything.”
“Yo, what? Yvette? Wassup with that? That’s your girl. Your cousin. Why you trippin’ like that? Cousins fight all the time. Y’all need to squash that beef.”
“Psst. Please. She did this to my face and I tried to stomp her until her crackhead lungs collapsed.”
“Crackhead? Yvette?”
“Yeah, Yvette. Dirty-ass Flip been messin’ wit’ her since we was little. Kamari is his baby and everything.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Believe it. And in a minute she gon’ be a straight alleyway broad, turning tricks for a hit. I already see it. And Nana wanna play dumb, ’cause Flip probably stealing and paying her so he and Yvette can get high there and Kamari—” I stopped mid-sentence, my words suddenly caught up in the grip of the iron fist wedged into my throat.
I looked around and the courtyard was filled with more peop
le. Some folks headed to work and a few more dealers taking their place on the concrete.
K-Rock kissed me on my forehead and said, “Look, you can’t sit here like this and plus you need some ice on your face. So why don’t you come over to my crib?”
I squinted, surprised at his suggestion.
“Don’t be looking at me like that. What, you can’t hang out with me on my side of town for a while? What else you got to do? Or you tryna stay here and make yourself comfortable on this park bench?”
I chuckled. “You already know the answer to that.”
“Then let’s go. And no dissin’ the Batmobile, either,” he said, as we walked up on a dark brown Rabbit hatchback, with a black passenger door, and purple tinted windows. If my mouth wasn’t so sore I would’ve fallen out in laughter. Instead my eyes danced in delight.
K-Rock placed the key in the ignition and then looked at me like he could read my thoughts. “Knock it off.” He laughed, as he took off up the street. “I don’t have that hustle dough anymore. I’ma college boy and right about now that means I’m—”
“Broke.”
“Saving my money.” He gave me a playful frown. “You tryna play me?”
“Never.”
“I’m just checkin’, ’cause see the difference in the money I had then and the money I have now isn’t really the amount—it’s the risk associated with it. I don’t have to wake up in prison, somebody tryna put a gun to my head, or worse, dead.”
“Boy, that’s life.”
“It don’t have to be. It’s a whole world out here and er’body ain’t tryna get drug money or be a stick-up artist.”
“Everybody got a hustle. It’s just a matter of the one you choose. You trying to go to school, for what? To hustle for somebody else? To take the dough they think you should have? I mean, I’m not exactly knocking this college thing. I’m just saying that if you make more money on the block, then I don’t see the need to leave.”