The People vs. Cashmere

by Karen P. Williams

  I hoped Daddy wouldn’t leave the house upset, and maybe he didn’t, but he sure left tired as hell. ’Cause I stayed up with him and, despite my nursing, he wouldn’t fall asleep. Daddy was like that when he was awakened out of his sleep. It took him a while to fall back. So we stayed up and watched reruns of Martin’s crazy ass. It was the episode where Martin’s stereo was missing. Me and my dad were busting up when Brotha Man came through the window of Martin’s house. By the time the episode went off, he was dozing.

  Then Mama came with his lunch and uniform. “Baby here!”

  Daddy’s eyes fluttered open quickly.

  “Remember you signed up for that overtime?”

  “Mama, maybe Daddy should—”

  She pierced me with a look telling me to shut up.

  Daddy groaned and rose to go in the bathroom with his uniform.

  “Cash money, you know it’s only one income coming up through this house. And, plus, Christmas is coming up. Girl, you betta let Daddy make that extra money.”

  My jawline twitched, ’cause I itched to suck my teeth. Instead, I shook my head and got up from the couch to go in my bedroom to go back to sleep, wishing Daddy would just tell Mama no and go to sleep too. He needed some rest after everything that had just went down.

  When I got there, Desiree was sitting on her bed, her knees curled up to her chest. “Is Daddy mad, Cash?”

  “Naw. Just don’t do that stupid shit no more,” I snapped, lying in my bed and pulling the covers over myself.

  “You enjoying this shit, ain’t you? You want him to hate me and think I ain’t shit except a ho, so you can be his favorite.”

  I ignored her, but she continued with her silly ass. I saved her, and she still was talking shit. What’s wrong with this girl? God, strike her down next time we go to church, please.

  “Yeah, well, you damn sure ain’t no betta than me, bitch. Your inner ho just ain’t came out yet. But, mark my words, it will, and you gonna do worse shit than what I eva done. I’m going to make sure of that. Make sure Daddy look at you and have the same expression in his eyes that he has when he looks at me. Not like you no damn angel, but a slut.”

  The only reply I gave her was my middle finger.

  Chapter 4

  A loud crash woke me out of my sleep. Lord, what is it now? First, I thought I was dreaming. Then I heard the sound of glass shattering, so I didn’t have time to try to figure it out. I needed to be up and ready for whatever was going down, or about to go down. I pressed the button on my alarm clock, which sounded in that moment, and jumped from my bed to see where the noise was coming from. I heard the scream again. My heart pounding, I picked up the flat iron on our dresser, just in case someone was hurting Mama. Since Daddy wasn’t here to defend her, I would have to.

  I couldn’t wait for Desiree, but still I quickly tried to wake her. “Desiree, get up,” I whispered as I slipped out the door and charged into the living room, yelling as I ran, “Muthafucka!”

  But there was no one hurting Mama. She was the only one in the room. I paused my run and looked at the broken glass scattered all over the floor near her feet. Her shoulders were shaking, and her back was to me. She had the phone to her ear.

  A weird pain came into my chest. “Mama,” I said quietly. I sidestepped some of the glass and tapped her gently on her shoulder.

  She didn’t budge. “I’ll be there!” she yelled into the phone. Then she turned around to face me, her face streaked with tears and snot. She was breathing hard and sniffing. She looked at me and slammed the phone into the wall.

  “Mama! What is it?”

  “Cashmere, Desmond was in an accident, and he’s in the hospital. And it’s serious.”

  Mama’s crying was fucking driving me crazy and putting my nerves on edge as we drove to the hospital. I was crying too, but not like her. My crying was silent. And it was pissing me off too. So each time I felt a tear drop, I scratched it off my face. My sister pissed me off too, ’cause she was way too calm about the situation. She wasn’t doing shit, except snoring on the back seat. The nerve of that bitch.

  But then again I think I was just trying to make myself angry, just build up anger so there was no room anywhere in me for pain, ’cause, truth be told, we didn’t know what to expect as we made our way to the Kaiser Hospital.

  “Cashmere,” Mama said in a hoarse voice and parked the car. “Wake your sister up.”

  “Desiree, get up.” When she didn’t budge, I reached over and punched her in the arm. “Wake up!”

  She woke with a start. “Bitch!”

  I ignored her and jumped out the front seat and closed the door behind me. I glanced at Mama. Her hands were shaking as she puffed on a cigarette. She ground it out with her shoe.

  Desiree hopped out of the backseat and followed behind us as we walked to the hospital entrance and went directly to the lobby to the reception area. The farther we walked in the hospital, the more fearful I got. I was biting on my lip so hard, it started bleeding.

  We stood at the reception booth waiting for the receptionist to acknowledge us. When she didn’t, Mama said quietly, “I’m here to see my husband.”

  She looked at Mama before staring at a list. “Well, let’s see. There’s no husband on my list of patients on the pop sheet,” she replied sarcastically.

  “Bitch!” I fired, “you betta check yourself, talking to my mom like that!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My sister said bitch, ’cause that’s what you are,” Desiree said, calmly rolling her neck in a half-circle. “Now read that chart, fat ass, and tell us what fucking room he’s in or get fucked up!”

  We stepped to her, both our fists were balled up.

  She turned red and took a step back.

  Mama grabbed our shirts gently and pulled us back. “Move, girls. His name is Desmond Pierce,” she said softly.

  “Room 113,” the receptionist said stiffly, as Desiree and I continued to glare at her.

  “You lucky my husband is sick, else I’d mop this muthafucka with your shiny-ass face. Come on, girls.”

  Wasn’t shit could prepare us for what we saw, or that shit the doctor told us about Daddy when we stepped into his room.

  He shook Mama’s hand. “I’m Doctor Polanski. Ma’am, there’s really no easy way to say this. Desmond fell asleep at the wheel of his truck, and it flipped over on the ramp. Right now all I can say is, your husband is paralyzed in every sense of the word. He can’t move or talk, ma’am. I believe he is also in shock.”

  “Oh dear Lord, no!”

  My hands went numb, a sob stuck in my throat, and my head was clammy and sweaty. I had no strength in me to cry when he said that shit. Mama couldn’t stop moaning, and Desiree couldn’t stop cursing. With each step to Daddy’s room, my heart was slowing down. I thought I was going to pass out.

  Then suddenly Mama did, and me and Desiree had to catch her before she hit the floor.

  “Mama, wake up,” I sobbed. “Wake up!”

  Desiree had a cold washcloth on Mama’s head. Her eyelids fluttered the way Daddy’s did earlier when Mama woke him up on the couch. Then they came into focus, and she started crying again, as did me and Desiree.

  I cleared my throat. “Ma, we gotta go see him. We got to go see Daddy.”

  Desiree reached for her mother’s arm and helped her to her feet in the lobby just outside Desmond’s room.

  “I can’t see him like that.”

  Desiree snapped, “Come on, Mama, we have to. And he might not be as fucking bad as they saying.”

  I rubbed Mama’s back and suppressed a new sob that wanted to break loose.

  Daddy looked like a vegetable, plain and simple, like he was on somebody’s damn plate. It was hard as hell to look at him like that in that bed, attached to all those damn tubes. Yeah, it was hard to stomach. Was he better off this way or dead?

  Mama took steps back and covered her face with her hand, shouting in a muffled voice, “Dear Lord, no! No!”


  I wrapped my arms around her, and we both cried again. I tried to reach out to Desiree, but she shrugged my hand off her shoulders, ran to a corner, and bawled. Then my anger got the best of me. Mama’s hug wasn’t helping, so I pulled myself away, ran to the window, and punched out the glass till my hand was cut and wouldn’t stop bleeding. Yep, this was the start of the end of things.

  Daddy never made any progress. Oh, he could see us hear us, but he couldn’t do shit else. No talking, moving, responding, nothing. Just seeing and hearing. Poor Daddy. Poor Daddy. Of all people, why did this shit have to happen to him?

  Despite all the visits nurses made to our home to show us how to work the equipment, Mama had a hard-ass time when he finally came home. Her cigarette intake had increased from half a pack a day to one and a half packs a day. Every time you turned around, she had a cigarette in her fucking hand. Shit, we’d probably all die of cancer, thanks to her.

  A lot of things changed after Daddy’s accident. For starters, Mama stopped wearing makeup, and getting her nails and feet done. She wore house robes all day and looked sleepy all of the time. She stopped doing the house chores, leaving me to do them, since Desiree’s lazy punk ass, sure as hell, wasn’t going to do any of them. All she did was run the street.

  Mama stopped cooking the meals that made Daddy fall in love with her and stay his ass home all the time. Instead of pot roast, red potatoes, string beans, lasagna, salad, grilled salmon and rice pilaf, it was now frozen burritos, cup of noodles and shit. Or I broke down and cooked something. But that was usually a waste of food and time, because Mama didn’t bother eating, and Desiree would get home late and crash.

  Sometimes I had to stay home from school to care for Daddy because mama wouldn’t make it out their bed. Before I left for school, I always checked with her to see if she was gonna get up and tend to him. Usually, she wouldn’t budge, making me throw my backpack down and tend to Daddy.

  Today was no different. She was lying across her bed in the same gown she’d worn the day before. I cleared my throat as I stood in the doorway, but she didn’t respond. I knocked softly on the door. Nothing.

  “Mama.”

  “Humph?” She rolled over and squinted her eyes at me.

  “Do you need me to stay home with Daddy, or do you got it?”

  “Ahh. Shit.” She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and gave me a sad smile.

  I twisted my lips to the side and waited.

  “Every time I go to sleep, I wake up just knowing this shit is a nightmare. Then it takes something like what you just said to remind me that it ain’t.”

  I sat down next to her on the bed and glanced at Daddy, whose eyes were closed.

  “We are gonna get through this, Mama, if we can’t get through anything.”

  She gave me a weird look. “Shit! Cash, ain’t nothing to get through. This is it. This is our life now, baby.”

  “Naw, the doctor said there is always a chance that Daddy will fully recover.”

  She chuckled. “You sweet. But I ain’t gonna waste time in hope. Such a hopeless, bottomless thought. But you go ahead, sweetheart. Hold on to your hope, since I’m taking all your strength from you.”

  I massaged the inside of my right hand with my thumb. “Daddy gonna . . .” I stopped myself, before she could say more, and her negative thoughts rub off on me.

  “Thank you for all your help, Cashmere. Why the fuck can’t Desiree be like you? Huh? Why? Damn! The Lord can be so cruel.” Mama stood up and scratched her dry, flaky scalp.

  “But I’ll tell you what—If that bitch think she’s gonna sleep all gotdamn day just ’cause she was doing the devil knows what, she got me fucked up.”

  I rose from the bed too. “All right, Mama, I’ll see you later this afternoon.”

  I stopped by me and Desiree’s room on my way to school to check on her. She was snoring loudly, her mouth open. She didn’t bother to change her clothes or wipe the makeup off her face.

  “Desiree.” I raised my voice and kicked at her leg. “Wake up!”

  “What? Damn?” She rolled her body the other way.

  “School, dumb ass. Whatchu think?”

  “Fuck school. They can’t school a boss like me.”

  I pierced her with a look. “Dig a hole.”

  “What?”

  “Bury yourself. Mama gonna get in that ass, best believe.”

  She sucked her teeth at me, and I shook my head and headed out for school.

  I heard the shouting even before I made it to my front door. I rushed up the steps to my house and entered it quickly to find Mama and Desiree going at it, arguing. I watched silently.

  “You don’t run me. I do what I want to do.”

  “Really, muthafucka? I run everything in this bitch, got it?”

  “Shit. All you ever ran was Daddy.”

  Mama rushed up to Desiree so their faces were inches apart. “What the fuck you say, little girl?”

  Desiree swallowed like she was forcing herself to shut up.

  Mama smirked. “Yeah, bitch, you bad, but you ain’t bad like me. And you think ’cause you passing your pussy around that you a big girl. Shiiit! You ain’t. And don’t bring up shit about your father, unless you ready for the truth.”

  Desiree’s cheeks popped out with air. First she turned to walk away, which made me sigh with relief, but then she stopped and faced Mama again. “And what’s the truth, Mama?”

  “Mama, don’t—”

  Mama tossed her hand to me. “Shut up, Cash.”

  “Just say what you gotta say, Mama,” Desiree whispered, her eyes narrowed.

  I held my face in my hands, and Mama said nothing.

  “The truth is, Mama, if Daddy ain’t had to make that extra dough to buy all that dumb shit for you, this shit wouldn’t have happened.”

  Mama’s eyes watered. “Bitch!” She tapped Desiree in the forehead. “If it’s anybody’s fault, then know that it’s yours. He was stressed about finding out his princess ain’t shit but a ho that can take it up the pussy and mouth at the same time, so if it’s anybody’s fault—”

  “Move your fingers, Ma—”

  “It’s yours.”

  I yelled, “Desiree! Don’t do it.”

  Before I could step between them Desiree swung at Mama and struck her in the face, snapping her head back.

  “Oh, hell no.” Mama said.

  Then they went toe to toe. While Desiree could scrap for sure, Mama was fucking her ass up, drilling her in the face with her fist. Mama dragged her by her hair and slammed her into the wall. When Desiree fell to the floor, Mama was on her again.

  I rushed over and tried to pull her off.

  “Get off of me, Cash. I’m your mother and you do as I say.”

  I obeyed and stepped back.

  Mama rose to her feet and told Desiree, who was moaning, as she lay on the floor. “Next time, step up or step off. I ain’t one of these bitches in the street—I’m your Mama and I’ll fuck your shit all up! Now that we got that understood, clean up this mess.”

  Damn shit was really falling apart by the seams. I tried to help Desiree up. Mama had whipped her ass, for real.

  “Don’t touch me, shit!”

  I pulled my hands back and walked away toward my parents’ room to see my daddy.

  “Hey, Daddy.” I leaned over and kissed him. His skin felt so cold and lifeless against my lips. “Man, Daddy, I wish you would get your butt out of this bed so you can come in here and watch the game with me. You know what teams are playing tonight? I’ll give you a little hint—I hope Kobe’s behind passes that ball, but he probably won’t. Guess who the Lakers playing, Daddy? The Heat. I know it’s crazy, huh? After the way Kobe burnt up Shaq’s spot, now he playing against him. I’ll bet Shaq gonna let him have it. And Dwayne Wade playing too. Sound like a dream team to me.”

  Daddy blinked.

  “Awww, don’t get mad at me ’cause your boys might not make it to the championship and get that ring. There’s always n
ext year.”

  I heard the toilet flush. Mama opened the door and yelled out, “Don’t bother. He can’t, and he ain’t gonna say shit!”

  I rolled my eyes and ignored her. “Yeah, so, Daddy, don’t get mad when they lose.” I used my hand to rub his legs and arms while I talked.

  The doctor had said to give him constant stimulation. I placed a small ball in one of his hands, hoping he would grip it. I knew Mama wasn’t doing this with him, and Desiree wouldn’t spend more than five minutes with him. But I chalked it up to her hating seeing him this way. But, then again, I didn’t like seeing him this way either. But we had to do what we had to do. It shouldn’t be no different for her ass. But I was done arguing with her dumb ass.

  Thirty minutes later Mama emerged from the bathroom all dressed up in a tight-fitting black top, a short white skirt that, if she bent over, all her ass would fall out, and a tight-fitted belt around her waist. She completed her outfit with the skinny stilettos. She made up her face and, for once, styled her hair.

  “Where you going?” I demanded.

  She gave a curt, “Out.”

  Chapter 5

  The next day wasn’t no different, only a little worse. When I came home from school, I noted that the kitchen was dirty. Fuck, the whole house was. I puffed out air impatiently. The laundry hadn’t been done, and all the meat in the freezer was going bad.

  After throwing down my backpack, I washed the dishes and waited for the load of clothes in the washer to finish, while I cooked pork chops in one pan, and chicken and hot links in two other pans, so they wouldn’t go bad. At least we’d have some cooked food.

  Desiree was missing in gotdamn action, and I hadn’t caught a peek of Mama.

  Once I had got the house together, I went in Mama’s room. She was guzzling down some Grey Goose, her eyes glued to the TV screen. The longer I stood in the doorway, the more I started to notice something wasn’t right. The room didn’t smell like the cinnamon potpourri she kept in there, it smelled like shit. And it could only be for one reason.