by Noire
India couldn’t even imagine how much of her situation Eva understood. Eva knew how it felt to be alone with nobody to depend on but herself. To be cold on the streets and jonesing for a fix. To have her young body sexually battered by grown men, and to leave the most precious part of herself behind in the midst of all that trauma.
“You just don’t know, Eva,” India moaned.
But she was wrong.
“I do so know,” Eva began in a shaky voice. “I know what it’s like to feel trapped by a situation,” she said, and then, because Eva really loved India and she wanted her girl to see that it was possible to overcome anything in life if you truly wanted to, she told India about her baby.
It was hard going back to that last painful night that she’d spent in Brooklyn, but Eva did it. She told India everything, and she didn’t leave none of it out. Not even the parts that she was ashamed of and that made her look bad.
“Me and Fiyah used to steal anything that wasn’t nailed down,” Eva admitted miserably. “We didn’t have no kinda parental supervision and nobody gave a damn about feeding us neither. Even back then, as young as we was, Fiyah decided he was never gonna have a real job. He was into making music and looking good on the streets, so he was willing to steal in order to finance all that. He swore he was gonna be down with the ballers and the shot callers who flossed the platinum chains, mixtape CDs, and all the latest gear. But I never cared about that kinda stuff. I went along on all them grimy capers mostly so I could eat, but I got real good at my criminal activities, and by the time Fiyah left Brooklyn and Jahden turned me out, my ass was a pro.
“I used to dip on ballers, get up in the bed with them and wear them out, then sneak out the room with their doe in my pockets while they was sleeping. I was so strung out that it seemed natural for me to be hoeing and sucking dick at the age of thirteen just to get a fix. I would fuck all day and all night to get high. When my pussy got too sore I would give head to playas in the projects for five dollars a pop. I’d let ’em do me on the dirty stairs, up on the roof, in the back of abandoned cars, wherever…It didn’t matter. I learned to do anything I had to do in order to get high, Indy. I was only thirteen years old and already I was a ho and a fiend. I hadn’t even gotten my first period yet, but I was out there fuckin’ like a grown woman.”
India looked crushed when Eva was done. She was full of sympathy for her friend.
“Eva…I’m so sorry you had to go through all that. Nobody would ever be able to look at you and tell you’d done all that. I can’t even imagine you sticking yourself with a needle.”
Eva shrugged. “I had to. Jahden started me off mainlining. Smoking heroin off a piece of foil with a stem didn’t really get me high. I needed that direct hit just to feel right.”
“Why the fuck would he wanna get a little girl high off smack?”
“So he could fuck me any way he wanted to. He was a freak, Indy. A funky-nuts fuckin’ freak. He dealt the brown, so he had plenty of it to spare. The first time he shot me up I thought I was gonna die. He caught me in the middle of the night and Rasheena helped him hold me down. He hit me in the neck and I flipped out. I was terrified. The high was horrible to me. I felt like bugs and shit was crawling all on me and my whole body got dragged down in slow motion. I was in school then, so at first he only did it to me on the weekends if he wanted to fuck me without a fight. After a while he didn’t care about me having to go to school. He stopped shooting me in my neck and started injecting me in my groin, and that way nobody could see that I had track marks. By the time Rasheena started getting jealous they didn’t have to hold me down no more. I was strung out with a monkey on my back so I just gave the pussy up. Before long my moms didn’t want him fuckin’ me for drugs no more so she made me get out on the streets and earn my own money. I would turn tricks half the damn night and bring my money home to Rasheena. Then she’d let Jahden sell me the dope he had gotten me strung out on in the first damn place.”
India shuddered. “Girl please tell me that muthafucka is in jail right now!”
“Nope. His ass is still right there in Brooklyn. With Rasheena.”
“But what about the baby, Eva? You somebody’s moms, girl. You got a son!”
Eva smiled slightly. “Yeah, I do. I have a son.”
Then India’s face changed. “You ain’t just leave him in that laundrymat alone, did you, Eva? Where’s your baby at now?”
“I did leave him, but he’s doing fine. He’s still in Brooklyn. I send him money and go down there and try to see him whenever I can. I was so weak and scared after delivering him that it was hard for me to think straight. I knew the old man who ran the laundry would be there when the sun came up, so I stayed with my baby boy as long as I could. As soon as it got light outside I put him in one of them cloth laundry carts. You know the ones you use to carry your clothes from the washer over to the dryer?”
India nodded.
“Well I put him in one of those and pushed it right inside the doorway. I took an empty bleach bottle out the garbage and used it to prop the door open, then I walked back up the ramp and sat on a bench to wait for Drunk Mister James.”
“What did he do when he came to work and found the baby there?”
Eva shook her head. “He didn’t find him. I don’t even know if his drunk ass ever showed up. God musta been watching over me and my baby because a lady named Mrs. Threet got there first. I was in the second grade with one of her foster daughters named Jocelyn, and that little girl used to sit with me at lunch and share all her food. One winter we was in the middle of a bad snowstorm and all I wore to school was a little red pleather jacket with no buttons. Miss Threet was dropping her kids off, and when she saw me she asked where my hat was. I told her I didn’t have one and she looked at me like I was crazy. That afternoon she was waiting for me when school let out. She had brought me a long down coat, some gloves, and two hats. She was just nice like that.
“Anyway, I saw Miss Threet pulling two shopping carts full of clothes toward the laundry and Drunk Mister James hadn’t showed up yet. Miss Threet took in a lot of foster kids back then, so she would always have two and three shopping carts’ worth of dirty clothes to wash. I can remember when I used to do laundry for me and Rasheena and I was too small to reach the quarter slot on the dryers. There would be all kinds of grown folks sitting right there watching me struggle on my tippy toes, but Miss Threet would always come over with a kind word and help me put my money in. She’d touch my face and tell me, ‘Smile, baby. Life only hurts until it starts feelin’ good,’ and that’s why as soon as I saw her I knew my baby was gonna be all right. Like I said, I believe God sent that lady down to the laundry early that Saturday morning. I stayed long enough to watch her go inside, and when she came right back out again holding my baby in that raggedy towel, I took off running and never looked back. I didn’t have to. My baby was with Miss Threet, and that meant he was gone be straight. I felt like God was telling me that this was the right thing for me to do. I got outta Brooklyn right after that. I called my aunt Milena and she told me to sneak under the turnstile and take the train to Harlem, and I been here ever since.”
India had tears running down her face. She put her arm around Eva and kissed her on the cheek. “You been through a lot, Eva,” she sniffled. “I didn’t even know you had all that hurt inside you. You can’t even see it from the outside.”
Eva shrugged. “Everybody has pain, I guess. Like Miss Threet said, life can only hurt until it starts feeling good. Well, I’m feeling good now and I feel pretty lucky too. I got away from my mother and I know where my son is. He turned four this year, and every now and then I take the train down to Brooklyn. Sometimes I’m lucky and I can spot him playing with the rest of Miss Threet’s foster kids right outside of building 420. You should see him, Indy. He is so cute. He has the same kind of birthmark under his chin that I have under mine, and he looks just like me.”
India shuddered. “I feel bad for you and your son, Eva. Somebo
dy shoulda kicked your mother’s fuckin’ ass. Letting her niggah do all that crazy shit to you. Foul bitch!”
India was right, but a part of Eva still had a hard time separating herself completely from Rasheena. “She had a lot of pain in her life too,” Eva defended her mother. “I think it fucked her up real bad when my father got killed. It seems like she just lost hope after that.”
By the time they were finished talking about life, the streets, drugs, and misery, both of them were exhausted and they still had their drug-lord problem.
“That’s why I hated it when you started fuckin’ with Saint, India. I would come up here and take Rosa downstairs a lot because I can’t stand drugs, or drug dealers. Anybody who’s ever around them, even a little bit, is bound to get fucked up. And that’s another reason you gotta leave too. India, you gotta get outta here before you get fucked up too.”
“You really think I can get outta Harlem without Saint and his boys getting hold of me?”
Eva nodded. “Yeah. I do. Saint is gone be out handling business tonight, right?”
“Uh-huh. He’s supposed to be meeting his man at a joint near Taft at two a.m. That’s what I heard him telling his boy Hassan this morning.”
“Good. He’s probably on his way over there now. All we gotta do is call a cab and get you outta Harlem before he gets back. I try to save all the money I can get my hands on, you know, so I can send it to Mrs. Threet for my son, but this is an emergency, India. I don’t have a whole lot to offer, but whatever I have you can get it. Every dime I’ve got in the world is yours.”
India got a look on her face that was full of hope and gratitude. She was young and beautiful, and she really wanted to believe that she could get away from Saint without being killed. Eva helped her pack a few clothes in a white Donna Karan tote bag. She took a few pictures of her dead mother and Rosa off her mirror and stuck them down in her pocketbook, and Eva frowned when she saw what else her girl was packin’ in there.
“You holding heat now too?” Eva said incredulously. She musta really been sleeping on India’s game because suddenly her girl was into shit that Eva didn’t know nothing about.
She shrugged. “I was out there riding dirty. I’d be scared outta my mind on those upstate runs. You never can tell what you might run into on the road.”
“Um,” Eva said sarcastically. “How about you might run into the goddamn state police? Don’t you know it’s a mandatory one-year sentence for a gun charge in New York? Where’d you get that shit from anyway? I know Saint didn’t give you no tool that you might turn around and use to cap his ass with.”
India shook her head. “Nah. I bought it off a dude I know over on Saint Nick. I heard he was the best person to buy from in Harlem because all his tools are clean.”
India slung her pocketbook and her tote over her shoulder and they prepared to sky up. Then she walked into the living room and leaned over the wheelchair and kissed her father’s cheek.
“Bye, Daddy,” she said softly. “Eva’s gonna take care of you and Rosa. I promise, I’ll be back soon.”
Mr. Jackson came out of his fog long enough to whisper something and pat his daughter lovingly on the hand, and when India turned back toward Eva there were tears on her cheeks.
“Let’s go,” she muttered, and Eva knew how hard her friend was fighting to be strong. India didn’t wanna leave her family, but she didn’t wanna leave her family either, ya know?
Eva was walking just ahead of India and their heels were click-clacking down the stairs when they got bum-rushed. That big niggah Saint was a huge blur as he ran up the steps toward them, knocking Eva down and catching India about halfway down the flight.
“You lost my shit?” he menaced, but before India could answer him that maniac started swinging.
India screamed. She held her hands out and went into a squat. Saint swung her by the hair and slammed her face into his knee. India’s nose busted. Blood squirted out in an arc. Her bag and purse rolled down the stairs and she went tumbling after them.
Eva’s body went into survival mode. After years of abuse back in Brooklyn it was second nature for her to try to save her own ass. Cursing and screaming, Saint followed India down the stairs, and Eva followed Saint. He stopped at the bottom to continue fucking her up, and Eva ran past both of them as fast as she could. By the time she realized that she had abandoned her girl, Eva was already on the second floor.
Breathing hard, she forced herself to turn around. India was screaming and crying at the top of her lungs and Eva wanted to go back and help her girl, but…she had gone halfway up to the third floor, and she was begging her feet to go up the rest of the way when a loud cap! rang out.
Instantly, India went silent.
Survival was a motherfucker!
Eva turned back around and started running back down the stairs again.
Saint cursed and she knew he was coming after her.
There was no time to dig in her purse for her apartment key, and if she managed to make it out the building he’d shoot her down like a dog in the streets. Without hesitating, Eva dove into the incinerator room and wormed her way under a whole slew of plastic bags overflowing with rotting garbage.
She could hear Saint’s footsteps. He was looking for her, and he was gonna give her some of the same damn thing he had just given India. Eva was breathing hard and her heart felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. She was suffocating under heavy bags of stank, putrid garbage, and the foul smell was making her choke and gag.
Eva squeezed her eyes closed and made herself go limp. It was a trick she used to use when she lived with Rasheena. It was almost like going into a nod without being high. It was Eva’s self-protection. It calmed her down and helped her escape the insanity of everything outside of her control.
Saint stormed up and down the hall. He was looking for her. Eva heard his footsteps fading, like he was going back up the stairs, and then they got louder again. Closer. Like he was coming back down. She lay there quietly in her self-protected world as his footsteps got even closer. And then they stopped.
He was standing outside the incinerator room.
Eva heard him breathing hard as he stepped inside. He grunted and kicked at a few bags. He picked one up from the top of the pile and Eva felt a rat run across her thigh. She was terrified. Frozen. But she was protected in her own mind. He couldn’t get to her. She was limp, so he couldn’t even see her.
He stood there for hours it seemed like.
Eva heard an apartment door open somewhere upstairs and a woman laughed in a high-pitched voice. Saint moved then. His footsteps were fast and heavy. They retreated toward the stairs and got fainter and fainter, until she couldn’t hear them anymore.
The high-pitched laughter turned into a scream, and Eva fought her way up from the mounds of garbage and staggered out of the dirty room. She ran up the steps as fast as she could, and what she saw hit her in the stomach and boggled her mind.
India lay crumpled on her side. Eva knew it was her, but it didn’t look like her. She was unrecognizable. Her face had been kicked all the way in. Her eyes were open and a pool of blood was fanning out under her head.
“Indy…” Eva moaned. She sank down to her knees beside her girl. Eva was scared to touch her because she didn’t want to hurt her, but in her heart she knew India was already way beyond pain.
A sob came from the top of the stairs and Eva looked up.
“Call an ambulance!” she shouted at the old Mexican prostitute who lived next door to India. The old lady covered her mouth and fled toward her apartment. Eva turned back to India, soft cries escaping her lips. The smell of blood sickened her. It gave her flashbacks.
“You poor baby,” Eva whispered and cried. “You poor, poor baby…”
She bent over to kiss her friend good-bye, but there was no part of India’s beautiful face that wasn’t covered in blood. Eva took her arm and settled for a spot just above her elbow instead, then rose to her feet, grabbing India’s pocketboo
k as she stood.
“I’ma handle that mothafucka!” Eva vowed, slinging India’s purse over her shoulder. She took one last look at the lifeless body of her best friend, then ran back down the stairs as fast as she could. Pausing outside her apartment door, Eva heard the faint sound of police sirens in the distance. She took out her key, said a quick prayer for Indy, then went inside and called the 28th Precinct, and dropped a big fat dime on that black-hearted sinner they called Saint.
India’s murder marked one of many turning points in Eva’s life.
She had always held on to her dream of having a legitimate career and doing something positive with her life because she wanted to reclaim her son someday. But now, after India’s death, everything was different. It seemed like time wasn’t on her side anymore. Eva truly understood the old saying “Life is short.” Suddenly she was in a rush to do everything and to do it all immediately.
The first thing Eva needed to do was get a job. Money was real tight in their house and picking up a temp job here and there wasn’t getting it. Aunt Milena had agreed to take Rosa in with them, but in reality the little girl was just one more mouth to feed. The only thing Fiyah cared about was scribbling in his songbook and rapping into the mirror like somebody important was about to discover his ass, and it pissed Eva’s aunt the hell off that he wasn’t out there earning money on a job instead of wasting time talking shit into a microphone.
Eva loved her auntie and she knew Milena loved her too, but she was a real bitter woman who carried too much of a load. She’d gotten off drugs and had taken care of both Eva and Fiyah, but Milena had expectations of her son that he just wasn’t ready or willing to meet.