by Nikki Turner
She didn’t know a Mabel Moon from the man on the moon. But like the orb in the darkest patches of the sky, in their own path of darkness, Calliope was so grateful that she existed. Now maybe they could get the family structure and the family love they deserved. Who knows? Maybe this bad situation was soon going to be turned into a good one.
5
“This place sucks, sister.” Compton’s noodle-thin arms were crossed over his little birdcage of a chest. “The food. The people. The beds. The smell. The rules. Everything…”
Calliope raked her fingers through her brother’s thick sandy brown hair, just as she’d always done when he was upset about something she couldn’t fix right then and there.
And this was one of those times.
After no one showed up at the Department of Social Services to pick them up—including Great-Grandma Mabel Moon—the machination of bureaucracy kicked in. Mrs. Daisy said she had no choice but to advocate that the siblings be sent to The Home. This was the only place where the two could stay together.
The Home was the official name of the place, but all the kids called it Cemetery Grayshell, a dreary place where unwanted children were sent until they turned eighteen, unless they died first.
Prepuberty prison is what it should’ve been tagged, a training school for the real prisons that awaited most of them. This place was almost a prerequisite.
“I know it’s bad,” said Calliope, trying not to show her emotion at all.
They’d just finished breakfast: oatmeal that was as hard as cement next to a small slot of runny eggs. Just when she was positive that no one’s eggs were worse than Shelly’s, The Home had her beat out. “We’re going to get through this, though, I promise.” Those were all the words that she could say to Compton, because if this didn’t kill them, they were destined for greatness.
They were out in the rec yard, a small piece of dirt not bigger than a small backyard in the heart of a major metropolitan city. They called it the backyard. Actually, the rec—a raggedy swing set with half of the swings missing, a sliding board, a basketball hoop, along with a few wooden benches—resided on about an acre and a half of flat red clay. But with nearly a thousand kids roaming around it felt a lot smaller and there was so much room for trouble with the idle time and no real supervised activities.
“Are you sure?” Compton questioned. They’d been at Grayshell for ten days, and Compton had already gotten into two scrapes with kids his age. Because he’d handled his business was probably why it had only been a couple.
Calliope wasn’t sure of anything right now. Things had gone to shit so fast she hadn’t even processed it all yet. Before the police raided their house, sometimes at night, lying in bed, she wished like hell that she and Compton lived somewhere else—anyplace but with their mother. Now she regretted wasting a wish. But if she was gonna believe in junk like wishes, then she also had to believe that they came in threes.
She looked Compton in the eyes and said, “Sure I’m sure.”
PR system: “Calliope and Compton Conley, come to the administration office ASAP.”
A horde of curious, mean, and lonely eyes flitted toward them. Why were they being summoned? Their eyes seemed to ask.
Calliope wondered the same thing. Sometimes if a kid didn’t do one of his chores, he was called. Then put on room restriction for a week. She and Compton weren’t allowed to share the same room; Grayshell was segregated by gender, no exceptions for siblings. So if either of them were put on restriction, they wouldn’t be able to see each other. Not good.
The pace to the head office was a slow one. The hallways were poorly lit with high ceilings. No walk in the park, but at least they were still together, for now.
ADMINISTRATION OFFICE was painted on the frosted glass half of the wooden door.
Better than a bull.
The secretary looked up from a book she’d been reading. She seemed upset that she was being disturbed. She said, “Mrs. Crabtree wants to see ya.” Then nodded toward another door.
Mrs. Crabtree was head mistress of Grayshell, the warden.
Compton looked to Calliope, wanting to know what she had made of all of this; Calliope shrugged her shoulders in response to the question marks in his eyes. At this point his guess was as good as hers.
There was only one way to find out what was going on, she thought.
Inside, the large office was lined with credenzas with lots of framed pictures of children with what she took to be their foster parents. And on the walls hung framed letters from kids who were successful and made it out of the Valley. Warden Crabtree sat nestled behind a chrome desk. Healthy green plants—all kinds—were carefully arranged throughout the space. The walls were painted bright yellow. The contrast, compared to the rest of the place, was as stark as heaven and hell.
Like Malibu Barbie dressed in a designer white blouse, black pencil skirt, and a touch too much makeup, Crabtree pushed a tuft of blond hair behind her ear, wearing a red-lipsticked, painted-on smile. “We have good news for you two,” she said in a jolly voice. When the siblings didn’t ask what it was but instead just sat there and waited for her to drop it on them, that wasn’t good enough for her. “I said, we have good news for you.” Calliope had no idea how Crabtree managed to squeeze the words through those thin, tightly pressed lips of hers.
The proclaimed good news came in the form of a gray-haired old lady sitting in the corner like Raggedy Ann.
“This is your great-grandma, Mabel Moon,” the headmistress ceremoniously announced. “She’s come to pick you up.”
Pin-drop silence filled the space awkwardly.
The sheer volume of Mabel’s dress—turned up red, pink, and green flower print—bitch-smacked the quiet clean out the room. And when she opened her mouth to say, “Is these my grandson’s chi’ren?” her words were just as loud as the outfit.
“Well,” Mrs. Crabtree reclined back in her chair and said, “why don’t you lovelies introduce yourselves.”
After getting a silent “okay” from Calliope, Compton offered his name and a hello. He was going to extend his hand but then changed his mind quickly before he had extended it.
“And I’m Calliope.”
Mabel just stared at them—her eyes were volleying from one to the other as if she were looking for a sign. Something that would confirm that they were hers.
A spark seemed to show. Then some of the coldness dissipated in Mabel’s glare. “You got Boo-dey Boy’s nose,” she said. She put her hand up to her chin as if she was thinking. Then she looked closer and nodded. “Mouth too. I guess you…” She studied them as if they were an exam, then came to the conclusion. “I guess you belongs to my grandson. Can’t be too careful.” This time Mabel gazed at the headmistress with no shame in her thoughts. “Mamma’s baby, Daddy’s maybe, and all.”
The headmistress nodded as if she understood.
They didn’t have much to pack; all of their things had been left at home. Well, where they used to live anyway, since they would have a new home now.
Mabel drove a nice late-model gold-colored brown Mercedes with whitewall tires. They hadn’t been inside the luxury car for more than five minutes before she laid down the law.
“Now, we gonna be clear about this. Y’all ain’t ask for me, I ain’t ask for y’all. And I done raised all the kids I ’tend to raise, ya heard me?”
There was complete silence in the car.
“I asked if ya heard me? Ain’t talking to myself, girl?”
“Then why did you come get us?” Calliope challenged, not wanting to be disrespectful but wanting to know what Mabel’s real ulterior motive was.
Mabel went ham. “Why I what?” she asked, but knew good and well that although Calliope didn’t know her from a man in the moon, she better not have responded to that part of her question. “Look, Ms. Growny Pants, I can turn this damn car around and take both you asses back if that’s your way of saying thank you. That what you want?”
Mabel waited for
an answer to her threat. Or promise. Calliope wasn’t sure which, but she promptly said, “No, ma’am.”
“No ma’am, what?”
This isn’t going to be easy, she thought. “No ma’am, we don’t want to go back,” Calliope said.
“We’d like to stay with you,” Compton spoke up.
“To answer yo question,” Mabel offered in return, “I came and got you because you’s family. I done helped or outright raised four damn generations of family, and neighborhood kids. More chi’ren that I can count. That’s why I moved to Florida, because I thought I was done. Then I go and get a call saying I got family that needs me. Less they gon’ spend they days in a kiddie jail.”
Mabel jumped onto 595 heading west. Calliope wondered how long she’d had this car. Mabel drove like a professional, weaving in and out of cars, like she was really in a rush, to go where Calliope had no idea. But all she was going to do was to sit back and enjoy the scenery.
“I thought about it,” Mabel continued once she’d navigated into the proper lane. “Wanted to say I could give a fuck about some damn kids that I don’t even know. But you’s family. Though it took me a few days to get here, that’s why I came. Hell, I almost ain’t come.”
Calliope wasn’t completely buying the family thing, but whatever it was, she didn’t care. Her and Compton had their freedom, and if it got too crazy, at least they had the option of running away.
“Now, look, I ain’t responsible for you and I’m not taking care of y’all. Y’all’s on your own,” she stated.
“Huh?” That part threw Calliope off. “Aren’t you going to get a check for keeping us?” she asked.
The cold eyes returned.
“Damn right,” shouted Mabel. “I’m getting a check. That’s right, me, Mabel Moon. And don’t think you gon’ get one copper penny of it either. I’ll supply the basics, but anything other than that is dead. And Compton is your responsibility. I got the roof, that’s it.”
“What about the food? They giving you food stamps?”
“You don’t get it, do you? They giving me food stamps … they are mine. Listen, I’m providing shelter and you will be able to go to the doctor if you need because I can’t do anything with the Medicaid. So y’all can have that,” Mabel added. “The nurturing is on you, ya heard me?”
Calliope, by this time, knew the drill. “Yeah,” she said. “I heard you.”
6
“Posh” … and “high saditty” … those were the words that Calliope used to describe the neighborhood when they first rolled up in the driveway of Mabel’s house. “Moving on up,” from the theme song from the television show The Jeffersons, is all that kept playing over and over in her head. It seemed like Great-Grandma Mabel was doing or had been doing big things in her day. The Mercedes she drove was as clean on the inside as it was on the outside. The house was a turquoise split-level piece of architectural eye candy—it was one of the nicest, if not the prettiest one, on the block. The well-manicured yard was as green as the golf course.
“I hope she don’t think I’m going to be doing all that yard work trying to keep this grass green,” Compton said under his breath to his sister. Calliope nudged him with her elbow, and then gave him the evil eye to be quiet.
When Mabel pulled into the driveway of 8666 Sussex Way Road, she told them that she preferred to be called G.G. or Two Gs. The kids wanted to bust out laughing, but Mabel wasn’t kidding about her sobriquet. Calliope quickly found out that she was as serious as cancer about most everything that came out of her mouth, regardless of how outlandish it sounded.
In Mabel’s world, providing the necessities meant: shelter, lights, and hot water, and honestly she didn’t want them to use too much of that. Food and clothing didn’t make it anywhere onto Mabel’s list. She had specific times that the kids could wash clothes and they had to take showers while it was light outside, so they didn’t have to use the light in the bathroom. Between the hot water and the electricity, it ran up her bill. They were only allowed to watch television when Mabel was not home, and that was providing that the house was spic-and-span.
After the police removed the yellow tape and right before the city boarded the place up, Calliope snuck into her former home and got what she could. Thankfully, out of the goodness of her heart, Mabel did give Calliope bus fare in the exact amount of change to go to the old house and return. “Go get what you can, and do the best you can to salvage y’all stuff because, I already told you, I’m not going to be responsible for clothing.” Calliope wanted to ask, how many times was Mabel going to tell them that?
Thank God that she was able to salvage a few of her and Compton’s things and some of the clothes from their old house. Luckily Big Jack had some things with tags still on them that she was able to sell to the neighborhood boys for a few bucks. It was only by the grace of God that money was still there in the jeans that she had on the day before all of the gunplay started.
Boy, were the two of them grateful. There was a God, and he was shining on them.
Now, living with Mabel was a hell of a lot better than The Home, but make no mistake about it, it was still quite a sandwich short of a picnic. Believe that. To hold up her end of the bargain Calliope had to pretty much quit school. She had no idea that making enough money to feed and clothe Compton and herself ate up a lot of time and trying to juggle the two were almost impossible, and so that they could eat, school had to go or be put on the back burner for now. At least that’s what she told herself anyway. Her hustle of choice or necessity depending on perspective was boosting … utilizing the five-finger discount.
Calliope had never really stolen anything before but proved to be pretty skilled at it, after losing her virginity to the supermarket. Her first: a few packs of lunchmeat from the local store. Then came toiletries, underclothes, and cosmetics. Once she got more experienced at reading the floor workers and concealing the merchandise, she upped her game. The malls were where the real money was at and the labels and designers were all that she ever really longed for. It was her first real sip of the good life and it was the well that she wished to drink from—and with her talent, her taste for it was an acquired one. Getting the highest fashion in her possession for her and her brother was not only an adrenaline rush but also definitely her drug. Once introduced to her new vice, it became less about survival and more about feeding her habit: love for the finer things in life.
Six months hands-on on-the-job training and Calliope was a budding pro perfecting her craft to get any and everything that she wanted or desired. She was now able to get in and out in no time. She had it down to a science, figuring out the best times to go, and after learning how to use her time wisely, she started back at the new school at the beginning of the school year. From day one, both she and Compton had a huge fan club. People couldn’t wait to see what they would wear. Of course neither Calliope nor Compton uttered a word of how they were able to afford such expensive clothes. So people, their peers and teachers, automatically assumed that their family was somehow involved in drugs.
Funny how with the fan club and popularity came not only lots of friends but foes, and most were haters hand over foot. Honestly Calliope loved every second of it. It all motivated her and she understood that rocking the flyest and freshest stuff to school would bring the haters and the stragglers and she welcomed it all. Compton was most appreciative of how his sister had him laced, and he loved the attention.
Calliope was sure that G.G. had noticed, especially the new huge posh towels and eight-hundred-thread-count sheets that she had brought into the house. But G.G. didn’t part her lips to ask any questions. And Calliope took a page from the army: don’t ask, don’t tell.
Calliope discovered that one of the trade tricks was to dress the part; she had to rock the flyest gear if she didn’t want to stand out stealing it. But being dipped in designer labels did get her noticed outside of the stores.
That’s how she cut into a chick named Mocha. Fresh recognized fresh … i
t always took one bona fide diva to recognize another. Mocha lived a few blocks down the street from Mabel’s house. The lady dressed like she should have been in the pages of a fashion magazine every single day. Her walk was something to catch anybody’s attention; her strut should’ve been on a runway, the way Mocha acted as if she owned wherever her footsteps went. Calliope loved how Mocha carried herself with a sense of seductiveness. Calliope would watch as she came and went and studied her mannerisms. From up the block, looking down it seemed like Mocha had two boyfriends, both who drove European engineering. She always looked like she stepped out of some fashion magazine when she left and more times than not she returned with a few high-end department store bags. The stores that Calliope had mastered were the same ones that Mocha frequented.
Mocha turned out to be her best customer. Actually, Mocha was her only paying customer. “What you got for a bitch like me?” Mocha asked eagerly from the edge of the sofa.
Calliope unveiled two Roberto Cavalli outfits and three dresses from Caché.
Mocha, twenty-four years old with a banging body and a cuter face, only wore top-shelf designers. And had a dude wrapped around her finger that would gift wrap the moon for her if he could.
Inside, Calliope smiled when she peeped the glow that shone in Mocha’s hazel contact lenses.
“I didn’t even know these were in the stores yet,” she gushed, grabbing for the YSL pumps. “These mofos are smoking hot. And this wine color is gonna go fab with that dress you got me the other day. How much?”
Calliope secretly envied Mocha. The girl had everything she wanted. And what she didn’t have, she got. If Mocha had any problems at all, money was not one of them. The items she was asking about originally had a retail price of over four grand. “Give two g’s.” Calliope bartered high.
Mocha didn’t bat not one fake eyelash. “I’m talking ’bout for everything, bitch—how much for it all?”