No Place Safe

by Kim Reid

  *

  I’d thought about the doll-sized prostitute throughout the rest of my day, wondering if she was afraid of being in the streets since those two boys had died. Did it make it any more dangerous for her, or was her world scary enough that two dead boys she’d never met were the least of her problems?

  Ma was reading the paper that night after dinner while Bridgette and I watched TV. Normally, talking to Ma while she had the paper in hand was not a wise thing. She’d shush anyone who disturbed her while she watched the news or read the newspaper—my grandparents, houseguests, it didn’t matter. But thoughts of the girl in the hospital wouldn’t let go of me.

  “Ma, guess what happened today.” Right away, I knew I should have just told her, and the look she gave me over the newspaper confirmed it. It said, I know you don’t want me to play guessing games while I’m reading the paper. I pretended not to notice. “I had to take makeup off a prostitute’s face.”

  “Mmm.”

  “She was wearing fake eyelashes and said she’d slap me if I touched them. She just about jumped out of the bed when I tried to take them off.” I thought I should liven up the story a bit to get a better response.

  “You should’ve let the nurses take care of it,” she said from behind the paper.

  “The craziest part of it is that she had gonorrhea and is only ten years old.”

  Ma said nothing, just kept reading the paper like meeting a ten-year-old prostitute with the clap happened every day. I was getting mad, and wished I had the nerve to tear the paper from her hands. My story was every bit as interesting as whatever she was reading.

  “Don’t you think that’s something?” It was more a demand than a question.

  Ma just said, “You wouldn’t believe the things I see.” She didn’t look up from the paper when she said it.

  Chapter Two

  Sometimes, no matter where you live, how nice the neighborhood is, or how friendly the people are, you’re bound to hear your neighbors fight. Parents yelling at kids, lovers threatening to kill each other for the hundredth time, so you figure if they really were going to do it, it would have been done by now. Some people get up enough nerve to call the police and hope their neighbors never find out who called. Most folks just try to ignore it rather than get involved. That’s how it probably goes in most homes: just pretend the bad thing isn’t happening and hope it’ll end soon.

  Not at my house. On an August night when it wasn’t hot enough to justify turning on the air conditioning and running up the electric bill (which in Ma’s mind meant no one had fallen over from heat stroke yet), we had the windows open and could hear an argument building next door. Our neighbor was single, mostly kept to himself and rarely had visitors. Being these were often the traits of single men who ended up on the evening news for committing some shocking crime that surprised their neighbors, I’d already decided he was slightly suspect.

  But recently he’d gotten himself a girlfriend, and their relationship must have been based on the kind of passion created by antagonism, because they often made us an unintentional audience for their bickering. The houses on our street sat on half an acre each, some more than that, so it wasn’t as if we were right on top of each other, but still we could hear them clearly. It started out like a loud discussion, quickly turned into an argument, and soon enough, it sounded like our neighbor might be beating the hell out of his girlfriend.

  There was something about a man beating a woman that agitated Ma more than other crimes. It was the thing that made her talk angrily to the TV set when she heard mention of a husband killing his wife during the nightly run-down of all the bad things that happened in Atlanta that day. The other murders, the robberies and corruption, she’d let go by with only a disgusted sigh, but wife-beaters made my mother cuss without apology. Even though she’d told me a million times how a domestic dispute was the worst call for a cop to go on because tempers are high, passions are fired up, and people do things that don’t make a damn bit of sense, Ma headed over there anyway. When I asked her if I should call the police, she said, “I am the police.” She put her gun into her hip holster and clipped it on before she left the house, for which I didn’t know whether to be grateful or afraid.

  These were the times when it was hard for me not to blur the line between my mother and the other woman. When I tried to make the distinction, I could see only my mother going into a situation that might get her killed. It was difficult to see a cop with six years’ experience, one who could kick some ass when she wanted to, according to her police friends. Still, I didn’t see why she couldn’t just call some uniforms to come over and deal with it.

  Bridgette and I ran to her room to watch what would happen from the window. Both our bedrooms were on the side of the house that faced our neighbor’s, but our house sat farther back from the road so his front door was out of sight. We had to listen to it instead, which wasn’t difficult because the neighbor was loud and Ma was loud right back at him. The conversation went something like this:

  Ma: Stop beating on your girlfriend.

  Man: This is none of your business. (I remember him being very proper talking, and I think he said something like “This is none of your affair,” but probably not.)

  Ma: Everyone on the street can hear you, so you’re making it everybody’s business.

  Man: So call the police.

  Ma: I am the motherfucking po-lice. (Ma liked saying this, and she could curse like nobody’s business when provoked, probably something she had to learn to sound tough on the streets.)

  I don’t remember much else of the conversation, but the police never came and the couple stopped fighting, at least for that day. I don’t recall ever hearing them fight again, but I’m certain they didn’t stop. They probably just made sure to do it more quietly from then on. After Ma went Kojak on them, I went out of my way to avoid the man and his girlfriend, not certain why I was the one embarrassed when it should have been them.

  *

  One Friday, Ma was working while I took care of Bridgette. I didn’t have to work at the hospital on Fridays, which meant Bridgette didn’t have to go to the babysitter. When I was her age, I didn’t much have a babysitter, but Ma said me being the oldest made me more responsible. Bridgette wasn’t at all responsible; she didn’t have to be because doctors had diagnosed her when she was six as being hyperactive, a condition that made her a scary combination of aggressive and reckless, and required her to take little pills that Ma or I had to cut in half or else they turned her into a zombie. She was also the baby, so Ma had fewer expectations of her.

  We were watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island.

  “You’re sitting too close to the TV,” I told Bridgette. I liked to act as if I were her boss, mostly because Ma said I was completely in charge when she was at work. Sometimes I pushed it too far, like the time I tried to spank Bridgette with a wooden spoon like Ma used to do me before parents started getting into trouble for that. Bridgette nearly kicked my ass, and would have if I didn’t outweigh her, so I never tried that again.

  “Move back from the TV.” I had to repeat myself because she was ignoring me. “You don’t move back and I won’t put any cheese on your SpaghettiOs.”

  She moved back, but only by an inch or two. I didn’t ask for anymore. I wasn’t even worried about her eyes; I just wanted to make sure she knew who was running things. I kept all kinds of threats and bribes ready for those times she wanted to give me trouble, like when I had to comb her hair after lunch. To make sure she held still, I’d tell her she couldn’t go down the street with me to play basketball later. Of course, I’d never leave her alone in the house – Ma would’ve killed me – but Bridgette hadn’t figured that out yet.

  “Remember when Ma would be home most of the time, and not always be at work?”

  She turned down the volume, maybe so I could focus on the question, but I didn’t remember such a time because Ma was always at some job. I figured Bridgette was old enough to have only fou
r years of fully reliable memory, and Ma had been a cop for longer than that, so whatever days she was recalling, she’d made them up. But she must have taken my silence as agreement.

  “We used to watch the Carol Burnett Show in her room and crack pecans with that raggedy pair of pliers because you lost the nut cracker, and the next day she’d fuss about the shells in her bed.”

  The pliers and pecans were familiar. “I remember us watching that show. Is it still on?”

  “No, and I don’t know the last time we went to the farmers’ market for pecans. Nothing is like when I was little.”

  That was funny to me because she was still little in my book, but I didn’t laugh because she looked so serious about it. In that moment I wanted to call her Little Bit, which was my nickname for her until she was five and told me she hated that name. I’d always assumed it was better than Monkey, which everyone else called her because she could climb anything and went a long stretch where the only food she’d eat willingly was bananas. She told me she hated that name, too.

  “Next week I’ll buy some pecans from the market downtown.”

  Bridgette looked just about done with me. “Pecans aren’t in season until fall.”

  After I warmed the SpaghettiOs, I told her to go wash her hands before she came to the table.

  “You’re not Ma, stop trying to act like it,” she said, but she did it anyway.

  When Ma would get home from work, she’d make us tell her what we did all day, but only after she went around the house inspecting furniture and opening closets, making sure we did our chores, which included vacuuming, dusting, and laundry. She liked a neat house, but getting chores done was also Ma’s way of making sure we weren’t getting into any trouble while she was gone. If everything was done on the list—and it was always a long list—she figured we didn’t have time to do much else. She was usually right, but sometimes suspected us anyway.

  “You played basketball down the street?” she asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you have any company over here?”

  Ma always asked this, trying to find out if my boyfriend had come over. Kevin had been my boyfriend since the summer before, when he kissed me on a warm night while a bunch of us kids played a game of hide-and-go-seek, the night lit only by lightning bugs and the glow from some family’s porch light. He’d caught me hiding between a house and a thick forsythia bush growing against it. He was fourteen and experienced, given his reputation around the neighborhood. I was twelve and it was my first real kiss. It had come earlier than I’d expected which meant I hadn’t prepared for it, and my teeth were more involved than they should’ve been, but it was still exciting.

  Kevin was handsome, even as a boy, with the strength of a man’s face barely masked behind the softness of a boy’s. His eyes were brown like just about every black person I knew, but hinted at the possibility of something gold warming the brown. Or perhaps that was just my imagination. He opened up a world of conversation for me at school, allowing me to add descriptions of my first kiss to the popular girls in eighth grade, who allowed me close enough to listen, but never expected me to contribute. And when they doubted my veracity, the wallet-sized school picture Kevin had given me was produced as proof. An unattractive boy would have gotten an immediate laugh, then dismissal. When they gathered around to silently scrutinize his picture, I knew they were impressed. When they questioned where I’d gotten the picture, suggesting maybe it was a cousin instead of a boyfriend, I knew they were jealous. I wouldn’t respond, only returned the picture to my wallet, and let my silent smugness tell them exactly what I thought about their skepticism.

  Ma was always saying, “I’m not raising any babies that I didn’t bring into this world. Don’t have any babies while you’re in my house.” When I was six years old, she made sure I understood how that might happen, and later, lectured me on the availability of birth control many times, warning me that it was best to keep my legs shut until I no longer lived in her house. I understood that these warnings were well intended, and had much to do with the fact that she gotten pregnant with me when she was eighteen.

  Ma couldn’t stand the idea that I was only thirteen and had the same boyfriend for a year. Kevin lived one block over, and his father was a cop, too. Ma knew him from the Department. I think that’s why she never made me break up with him—she figured between her and his father, they’d catch us if we were doing anything. She preferred having that kind of surveillance over me, something she wouldn’t have if I was going with a boy whose father wasn’t a cop. She didn’t realize that Kevin and I were scared shitless of both of them, and wouldn’t get into any trouble—at least not with each other. (It wasn’t until later that I learned my first love’s reputation had been honestly earned.)

  “Kim didn’t have any friends over, did she?” Ma treated Bridgette and me like her suspects, waiting for one to turn over on the other, but we rarely did, even if there was something to hide. She’d catch us at the front door, immediately send one into another room, and question us separately on where we’d been, what we’d done, and who with. She caught us lying only a couple of times before we learned to get our stories straight before we reached the front door.

  I prayed Bridgette wouldn’t bust me, because on that very day my boyfriend had come by, though I didn’t let him in the house, which was Ma’s specific question. Instead, I led him around to the windowless side of the house, safe from Bridgette’s watch. There, we kissed until the prospect of being caught by the neighbors and the thrill of the kiss itself made it difficult for me to keep his hands from wandering.

  Bridgette said, “No boys came in,” and I knew I’d owe her something later.

  When Ma was satisfied that no boys had been in her house, she relaxed and stopped being a cop. I helped her make dinner, chopping vegetables for the salad and mixing up the corn bread, which were my regular dinner tasks anytime Ma was home early enough to cook. When she wasn’t, I cooked the whole dinner.

  “They’ve identified one of the Niskey Lake boys, the older one,” Ma said after sending Bridgette off to watch TV. When she sent Bridgette away so we could talk about her work, it always made me feel like I was a grown-up. And it was a chance to have Ma to myself. When she was home, it seemed to me most of her time went to Bridgette, because that’s how it works when you’re the youngest. Or maybe I was just jealous.

  “How do you know he was older if you don’t know who the other boy is yet?”

  “The medical examiner can approximate their ages.” Ma sounded too business-like about something so dark, until I considered figuring out the ages of unidentified dead was part of her business. “His name was Edward Hope Smith, and he was just a month shy of his fifteenth birthday. Last time anyone saw him was at that skating rink you go to. Used to go to.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I knew what it meant, but asked anyway.

  “Until they catch whoever did it, I want you to stay away from there.”

  Greenbriar skating rink on Campbellton Road had been a favorite hangout since I was eight or nine, when we still lived in Southwest. My girlfriends and I would loop yarn around two cardboard doughnuts, snip the yarn along the edges, and tie string between the doughnuts to create pompoms, which we tied onto our skates. I had pompoms to match every outfit. Ma or a friend’s mother would drop us off and leave for wherever they went to get a few hours’ relief from being mothers. I’d skate until I grew sweaty and tired, timing my strides to the beat of Chic’s “Good Times,” made dizzy by the squares of light reflected from the disco ball as they moved round and round across the floor, walls, and skaters. I wouldn’t leave the floor for an hour straight, except during Slow Skate when the DJ would play something meant for couples, and fake smoke would blow from the ceiling, which made me cough.

  And here Ma was trying to keep me from one of the few places a thirteen-year-old could go to have some fun. Since I didn’t have any skating plans in the near future, I let it go and decided to
cross that bridge when I got to it. By then, they’d have caught the killer.

  “What’s taking so long to identify the other boy?”

  “They’re working on it.”

  “But it’s been two weeks. No one’s called in about him?”

  “There’s a missing report on a boy named Alfred Evans who hasn’t been seen since he got on a bus heading downtown to watch a movie at the Coronet, but the police want to be as sure as they can before asking the family to identify the boy’s body. As it is, there wasn’t much left of him to identify when he was found.”

  That was a sad thing to me because it meant there was no one to cry over him, and somewhere in Atlanta there was a family wondering where their child was, hoping he wasn’t the boy lying in the morgue.

  “They still aren’t tying the two boys together yet,” Ma said, absentmindedly poking a spatula at ground beef that was long since cooked through. “But they’re wrong on that.”

  Sometimes, I was sure she missed the Department. She wouldn’t get involved in the investigation until the case was brought to the district attorney. By the time she got her hands on it, much of the early discovery was already done. Ma never wanted to see anyone hurt, especially not kids, but she did like to solve cases. I could tell she wished she could work on this one.

  “Do they have any suspects yet?” I asked. I always asked Ma about this stuff, although most folks would probably say this wasn’t the kind of thing to discuss with a thirteen-year-old. But who else was going to ask her? She had to let go of her work at the end of the day just like a professor did with her husband, or a businessman with his wife. Besides, I’d never been thirteen a day in my life.