by Chunichi
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are,” I sang.
For as long as I could remember I had sung that song. For some reason the song always seemed to ring out in my head. It was always a soft voice I heard singing it, but only in my head. Rhonda only yelled and cursed at me. She never sang.
“Shut up and lay on the bed!” she ordered sharply.
I did it quickly, shivering from the cold air.
She took some lotion out of her favorite bottle and rubbed my body down with it, so I smelled like her when she would leave daddy and me at night and not come back until the morning. Once she worked down to my feet, she told me to stand again.
“Them not mine,” I said, staring at her underwear in her hand.
She smacked me quickly. “Shut the fuck up and put these on! Ain’t asked you shit!”
I started crying because my face started hurting. But I was scared she would hit me again, so I let her push my feet into the pair of purple panties, whimpering all the while.
“I said, ‘Shut the fuck up!’”
I bit my lip and squirmed in the panties ’cause they stuck in my butt. Then she pulled my prettiest dress over my head. The one the church down the street gave me for Sunday school. Once she buttoned the back, she pulled my hair from my ponytail.
I sniffled, and she grabbed some tissue to wipe my snot away. Then she grabbed her purse and yanked me by my hand. “Come on, goddamit!”
I knew my daddy’s girlfriend hated me, so I was surprised she took all the time to get me pretty. I wondered where she was going to take me. I was hoping it was to the park so I could play.
She marched to the door and held it open. “Come on!”
I ran through the door. But we weren’t going far, just upstairs from our place. She gave me a shove so I would go up the stairs. She continued to shove me, so I went faster and ended up falling.
She yanked me to my feet. “Come the fuck on!”
“Mama.” I had slipped up and called her that again. Every time I did, I either got slammed against a wall, knocked in the mouth, or spat on.
“I’m not your mama, bitch!”
I followed after her down the corridor. We stopped in front of a closed door. My heart sped up in my chest as she knocked.
“Who the fuck is it?”
“Rhonda.”
“The door open.”
Rhonda turned the knob, pushed the door open, and shoved me inside.
When I stayed planted in the spot she shoved me in, she pushed me in the center of the room. Fearfully I watched the man seated on a suede couch across from where I stood. He was leaning over a table with something that looked like pieces of soap and a razor.
“Well, here she is.”
He took one look at me, shook his head and sliced the soap with the razor.
Why was he cutting his soap? I wondered.
“What the fuck you bring her over here for?”
She shoved me. “Go up to him,” she whispered in my ear.
I looked at her confused. When she punched me in my back, I screeched in pain and did as she requested.
“She pretty, ain’t she?”
He nodded without looking at me again.
“Well, have a go with her.”
He stopped what he was doing and looked at Rhonda. “What the fuck I supposed to do with her?”
“Whatever the fuck you want, D. You can have her for about thirty minutes. Just give me a five-dollar rock and we good.”
He studied me for a moment.
My left leg wouldn’t stop shaking, and my bottom lip was trembling.
“I’m not doing that shit. Get the fuck out my pad!”
Rhonda lips snarled, and she stomped. “Fuck you, muthafucka! Give me a hit!”
“Get out my place, bitch!” he said calmly, his focus still on the soap.
“What? You need some help?” She snatched me up and ripped the top of my dress.
I started crying.
“She ain’t too young. She already got titties and hair on her pussy.” She raised the skirt on my dress. “Look!”
I closed my eyes in shame, and I prayed he wasn’t looking.
He wasn’t. He jumped from the couch and, in a flash, had his hands around Rhonda’s throat. He slammed her head against the wall. “I’m gonna say this one more time, you sick bitch! Get out my house!”
She slid her body down the wall, and he released his hands from her neck. She rushed out the door and slammed it, yelling out, “Fuck you!” leaving me behind.
Once it slammed behind her, the man stared at me, and I stared back at him. Even offered him a smile through my sniffles.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, which I grabbed quickly, thinking of all the candy I could buy with it. Then he held his door open for me to slip out.
As soon as my feet hit the stairs, I ran for my life. My heart was thumping in my chest. But I didn’t stop running until I made it to my apartment. I went straight into my room and hid in the closet.
No sooner that I did, Rhonda storm into my room. “Diamond, where the fuck you at, you little bitch?”
I placed a hand over my mouth, fearful that if I came out she was going to beat me, even though I didn’t do anything wrong. I had did what she asked. I let her do my hair and bathe me. I even went into the house like she asked.
I crouched down and could hear her stomp around my room.
“I’m gonna fuck you up for making me look for you in this damn room, like I ain’t got better shit to go do!”
How much looking could she have done? All I had in my room was a box spring and a thinning out blanket. My daddy and Rhonda had the soft mattress in their room. My friend at school said her room had a canopy bed, plenty of drawers for her clothes, a desk and chair to do her homework, and a doll house so big, it had to sit on the floor. She said it was filled with dolls and furniture and looked like a real house. And everything in her room was pink, my favorite color. I’d always wondered what it would be like to have a room like that.
Oh no! My nose started itching, and I needed to sneeze. I was going to hold it in, but my teacher at school said to never hold a sneeze in. So I went ahead and sneezed. It was a loud one too.
That’s when Rhonda heard me and rushed toward the closet.
I grabbed the knob and held onto it.
“Let it go!” she yelled.
She had managed to twist it, but I used all the force of my body to keep it shut, begging her, “Please don’t whip me.” But she was way more powerful than me, and managed to get it open.
I stood to my feet quickly, and before I could run out of the closet, she punched me in my nose so hard, blood streamed from it. I screamed.
Then I got a punch in my stomach. “I can’t stand your muthafuckin’ ass!” She kicked me in my stomach, and I fell on the floor out of breath.
Chapter 2
Eight Years Later
It was Big Homie’s birthday, and he was having a party. Me and Danada were going. I really didn’t have anything special to wear but a pair of skinny jeans and a black wifebeater. But since my body was banging, I made anything, and I mean anything, look good.
I knew they were going to have some drinks, some bomb-ass weed, and some fine niggas there. Thinking of it made my pussy wet. I tossed my feet in some flip-flops and went in the bathroom to make sure I looked okay. I winked at myself in the mirror.
What I lacked in parents and family I made up in looks. I had caramel skin, light brown eyes, full lips, and a beauty mark that sat at the corner of my mouth. My body was bananas. I had bit titties and a big ass. My waist was tiny, and I had calves like I ran track. While my hair wasn’t all extra long, it sure as fuck wasn’t short as a lot of these bald-headed bitches me and Danada be clowning. Plus, it was thick.
I turned around in the mirror and eyed my behind. I popped it a couple times and left the bathroom.
As I walked up the hallway I could hear snoring. I knew it
was my father. When the rest of the world was up and working, his lazy punk ass was asleep. And his ho of a girl was working all right—on the fucking corner. I couldn’t stand that ugly bitch. But I wasn’t about to get upset over two fucking lowlifes. I had some fun to get into.
Danada was waiting for me outside my apartment. We were going to Eastside Crip territory at the Poly Apartments.
“Hey.” She eyed me up and down.
“H—”
“Girl, your ass is getting huge!”
I chuckled to myself ’cause I knew deep down Danada low-key hated me even though she was pretty too. She was high yellow with the kind of hair that all you had to do was put water in it and it got curly. And she had a cute shape like me too, but not as much ass. But that’s how it was. The prettiest girls were insecure.
But not me. If it’s one thing I knew for a fact, I had that good looks. And I was going to trick the fuck out of them.
“You know how I do it. The niggas like it nice and round.”
“Don’t get it twisted. Yeah, niggas like ass, but they go crazy over a redbone wit’ real long good hair.”
“True dat. But ain’t no nigga going to be focusing on your face with your feet looking the way they do.”
“Well, did you still want to do that?” she asked me.
“Shit, if you down then, you know I down.”
“Come on.”
We walked over to the nail shop next door to the Mark Twain Library and MacArthur Park. It was busy like we expected, which made it better for us.
“Hello?” the Korean lady said as soon as we walked in.
“Hi,” we both chimed at the same time.
“Wha u nee tuday?”
“Two full sets and two pedicures.”
“This vayyyy,” she sang.
We followed after her, and as soon as we sat down, I slipped off my flip-flops and passed them to Danada, who put mine along with hers in her backpack that she placed back on her back.
“Hi, whata size?” a lady said. She had the brownest teeth I had ever seen. She placed a plastic hand on the table I was sitting in front of.
I picked the longest nails they offered. I turned to Danada. “What are you getting?”
She pointed to the same size I was getting.
Two ladies wheeled their pedicure carts our way, and while we got our nails done, they worked on our feet.
I stared at the booth across from me and wondered what the girl sitting there was even doing there, ’cause if I had feet like hers, I would never show them. Them dogs would be in socks all year round. Even in the summer in one hundred-degree weather. In a heat wave! Her feet looked bigger than Shaq’s; my guess was, they were a size twelve, and her feet had corns the size of quarters on every damn toe.
I almost gagged at the bloody cut across her foot. Damn! The bitch got stabbed in the foot?
“Yen, make sure you sterilize that razor. I got a open wound, baby,” the lady informed her.
The manicurist smiled and mumbled something like, “Ji ral yhun byung,” to the lady doing my feet without looking up. And she scraped and scraped and scraped; it looked like the customer had psoriasis.
I turned my head and forced myself not to look her way again. When I looked Danada’s way, she had her hand over her mouth. “What’s wrong?” I whispered.
She gestured with her head toward the lady’s feet and whispered, “I just threw up in my fuckin’ mouth.”
I giggled to myself and made sure the fucked-up feet lady didn’t hear me.
When the lady finished my nails, she had a huge smile. “Design?”
“Yeah. What you got?” I asked, knowing she was gonna try to squeeze as much money out of me as she could.
Now I guess I couldn’t say all Koreans were bad. Only the ones that owned businesses in inner cities. To me, they exploited the fuck out of black people. A lot of mothers in the hood didn’t having cars, so when they ran out of milk or needed some eggs or a loaf of bread, they jacked up the fucking prices ’cause they know it was either, go to a big grocery store which was further away, or go down the street to them. You end up spending fucking eight dollars for a block of cheese!
Then when you spend money in their stores, they wanna treat you like you ain’t shit. Like we were so uncivilized. I lost count of how many times I went into their stores and ended up getting kicked out or banned because I cursed they ass out or threatened to burn their shit down. And I knew when they spoke in their native tongue, they were cursing our black asses out.
But what I didn’t understand was, if they hated us so much, then why the fuck did they move into our neighborhoods and open up shop? Why the fuck are their beauty supplies for black people? And why are they able to get away with that shit? Answer that for me, Mr. President.
I asked the lady doing my nails, “Which one you think?”
“Pink with diamonds. Dry fast too.”
“Okay.”
The one doing my feet said, “Same for feet too? Look pretty.”
“Okay.”
I watched the lady doing my hands place a shiny diamond on each on my fingers that were painted a pink French manicure. The lady doing my pedicure did the same to my toes. Meanwhile, Danada was over at the air brush table.
As the lady who did my pedicure placed a diamond on my last toe to be done, the lady doing my hands asked, “Facial?”
“Huh?”
“Facial.” She moved a hand over her face in a circular motion.
“Naw. Maybe next time. I don’t have time for that.” Money-hungry bitch! She probably didn’t know how to do a fucking facial anyway. Bitch was probably going to put some mud on my face and rinse it off. I could do that shit myself.
“Yeah, yeah, next time. Your feet and hands beatiful. Your face ugly.” Her eyes got wide when she said ugly.
My eyes got wide too. I know this bitch did not just call me ugly. I almost flipped a table over on her ass, but I thought better.
The pedicure lady placed the plastic sandals on my feet, and the manicurist placed the last coat of the clear polish on my pinky before saying, “Done. You sit here.”
“How long?”
“You wait five minutes.”
The pedicure lady wheeled her cart away.
I walked over to the table in the back, where you can place your feet at the bottom and your hands in the middle to dry.
Danada joined me. I was closest to the door. We eyed each other and then looked at the clock.
“Three ten,” she whispered.
I nodded.
As more people crowded into the salon, my eyes watched the clock. I kept my hands flat to make sure they dried properly and none of my nails smeared.
“Saw my corns some more, Yen,” the lady with the fucked-up feet said, her pedicure still not done.
“Dak chuh ra!” The Asian manicurist doing her toes stood and threw her nail file on the floor.
Which was the distraction me and Danada needed. I hopped up from my seat and ran out the salon, and Danada followed after me.
The owner ran out after us and was yelling, “Nigimi ship e dah! Bul sang han nyun!”
We just ran toward the park, all the way down, until we tired the lady out.
She stopped running and held a fist in the air. “Yumago. Bitch!”
Chapter 3
We kept going until we made it a few streets down. We busted up laughing once we got to Martin Luther King Street.
“Girl, did you hear her ass?”
“She said every word in Korean, except for the word bitch,” Danada said, doubled over in laughter.
“I know, girl.”
I looked at Danada’s toes. There were green and had a dollar sign on each one of her hands and feet.
“But it was worth it. We got the complete package,” she said.
“Let me get my shoes. Our feet are probably dry enough.”
She pulled off her backpack and slid out our shoes. We both put our flip-flops back on.
; “I hope it’s some cuties at Murder’s house,” I told Danada. “’Cause I need a boyfriend to take me out and buy me clothes and shit.”
See, when you a little kid in elementary school, you don’t care how you look, and mostly, name brands don’t mean shit to you. As long as you can go outside and play, you cool. But when you move on to junior high school and high school, it’s a whole new ball game, where image is everything. You can’t wear the same outfit every day and the same shoes my daddy purchased from fucking Salvation Army without getting made fun of. It was social suicide, and there was no way I was going to be a fucking laughingstock at school.
It was bad enough that I didn’t know who or where the fuck my crackhead mama was, and that my daddy was a fucking loser drunk. I refused to look tacky at school or in my neighborhood. No way. I made fun of people who wore shoes from Payless and secondhand clothes. And I talked about them so bad, they cried. So there way no way I was going to let somebody be able to talk about me in the same way.
I was a popular girl at school, and all the guys liked me, including those on the football and basketball team. But I didn’t care for them. I wanted a thug to take care of me, not some nigga running around with lunch money in his pocket. Let them other hoes date them.
I was considered one of the pretty girls, but I didn’t hang with them hating, sew-ditty bitches. In my opinion, bitches were trifling and would do you in a minute, no matter how close you were to them. My thing was, why bother with all of that? I didn’t need to be around a bunch of bitches anyway, having fucking slumber parties, painting each other’s nails and styling each other’s hair. To me, that was some lesbo shit.
I only hung wit’ Danada and, occasionally, her friend Tameka. And we did hood shit them Poly girls didn’t know nothing about. They were too busy cheerleading, chasing them dumb-ass jocks.
I was too busy hustling for the shit I needed. And I did a decent job at it too. I had a couple of ways of getting clothes. Once a week, I would go to this mom-and-pop store on Long Beach Boulevard, near the Metro station, and grab a bunch of clothes to try on. My trick was to always go in the store in a sweat suit. Then I would sneak on a pair of pants and put my sweats over them.