Crave

by Laurie Jean Cannady

  I followed Angela as she walked to the middle of the sea of clothes. We stopped in front of some miniskirts. They weren’t like the balloon skirts that obscured my body, which hung in my closet at home. Bradlees’s skirts were a tight but stretchy denim, and they came in a myriad of colors. Some were teal green, and some were neon yellow, but the one I set my sights on was hot pink. I ran my hand across the front of it, admired the crisp newness of the material, and looked at the tag, which read $19.99. I let out a long sigh as my shoulders deflated around my frame.

  “You want it?” Angela asked. All I could do was nod, paralyzed by the immense longing within me. “Then, let’s take it.”

  I gasped. Momma had taught me never to steal and that God would get me if I ever took anything that wasn’t mine. I’d always believed her because when she caught me stealing, she beat me for God. But, as Angela stood there looking at me, my new best friend with such an encouraging smile, I wanted that skirt more than I feared Momma’s words.

  I asked, “How are we going to take it without getting caught?” With that question, she grinned, pulled one of the teal skirts off of the hanger and stuffed it under her shirt, patted it flat, and pulled her shirt back down. She continued grinning, continued looking at me as if power exerted between both of us somehow made her invisible. Then she nodded her head at me, “Your turn.”

  I grabbed the skirt, pressed it close to me, stuffed it into the waist of my pants and smoothed it against my torso. The cold skirt stuck to my skin and sopped up the sweat that was running from the elastic of my bra. I looked around, waiting to see someone jump from behind one of the racks and yell, “Gotcha.”

  “Come on,” Angela said, and I quickly followed. I walked so closely to her I almost stepped on the back of her shoes. We rushed out the front of the store. My body jumped once the doors slid sharply open, ushering us out of the bright store into the bright day. I looked behind me, waiting to see two or three white men chasing us, yelling, “Stop,” but no one came. We kept walking as I looked back, until Angela said, “We’re out. If they haven’t come yet, they won’t come.”

  I looked as she, with satisfaction in her eyes, pulled her skirt from under her shirt, unfolded it and began ironing out the wrinkles with her hands. “I’m gonna wear this with that flower shirt I got,” she said. I pulled my skirt out, too.

  I’d gotten new clothes before, but that was usually at the beginning of the school year after Momma got her welfare check. After that, we’d visit the Salvation Army or I’d wait until a friend or older cousin passed some of their old clothes down to me. But I’d never had anything new I’d gotten for myself.

  Part of me was embarrassed, ashamed for stealing from an invisible victim. I felt like a criminal, running from the law, but excitement commingled with my shame. I felt a hint of pride, a level of power I hadn’t felt before. I had a skirt I wanted, one I would have gone into the store, taken up to the counter, and paid for if I’d had the money to do so. But my reality was I did not have that money. Looking at Momma as an example, there was no guarantee I would ever have that type of money, that I would ever be able to do that for myself. What I knew then was I could take what I wanted, have what I wanted, without any real consequences. That dulled the shame I’d initially felt.

  After our day at Bradlees, Angela and I became inseparable. We both got boyfriends. I dated thirteen-year-old Kenny, a handsome boy with thick eyebrows and luscious lips who lived in Lee Hall. Angela began dating Charlie. Charlie was older than both of us. At thirteen, sixteen and seventeen year olds were real men; Angela had been the first of us to catch one. I secretly crushed on Charlie, wishing he would choose me over Angela. It wasn’t that he was attractive or that he had the El DeBarge look I’d always adored. I wanted him because he didn’t live in Lincoln Park. He lived on Frederick Boulevard in a real house that I often passed when I rolled our dirty clothes in a wagon to the Laundromat behind Charles Peete field.

  He was black like we were, but he wasn’t poor, two characteristics in my mind that had become synonymous. I often imagined lounging the days away in Charlie’s home instead of on my porch looking out onto the grassless yard in front of my house. But Charlie loved Angela and he loved her harder than I’d ever seen a man or boy love a girl. She began sneaking out of the house in order to be with him. Miss Betty’s tirades grew louder and longer when she’d catch Angela sneaking in or out of the house.

  It was then my knocks went unanswered and I’d wait, wondering what she was doing on the other side of the cinderblock. When I spoke with Angela, she always had some adventure, some excitement to relay to me—whether it was Charlie pressuring her to have sex or the fact that they were arguing because there was another girl that liked him. Angela seemed more like an adult to me than my own mother, so I began learning from her what it meant to be a woman.

  And then the day came when she described, in detail, the loss of her virginity. Angela had proclaimed her love for Charlie as he had for her, and that meant he should have all of her. “It hurt,” she said, “But, it felt good too.” I couldn’t imagine those two descriptions residing in the same experience, but I listened, sitting on my side of the porch as she explained the night she shared with Charlie. “He pushed in hard and there was a little blood, but I didn’t cry.”

  I was proud of her even though I hadn’t been there to witness her accomplishment. “I think I’m gonna be with him forever,” she said. Because of the fortitude in her eyes, I had no reason to believe she wouldn’t. I wanted the adult love Angela had with Charlie and not the kiddy love, the grinding, the shy kisses, and the heavy petting I shared with Kenny. But Kenny and I didn’t have the same opportunities. Kenny lived too far away. Whatever intimacy we shared was limited to hugs in the gym or “feeling” sessions in the back of the classroom. Angela was getting real kisses, real embraces. I envied most the escape Charlie’s home had become for Angela. She was away from home, which was what I wanted to be.

  Soon after Angela lost her virginity, her relationship with Charlie changed. She began to change too. She was faster, always having somewhere to go, someone to see, and that someone wasn’t always Charlie. They often argued and at times came to blows. Angela found new boys and some men to occupy her time. Charlie would find his way from his two story home, with flowers in the front, to my dirt yard, inquiring about Angela, trying to find where she was and whom she was with. I remained tight-lipped, whether I knew where she was or not, whether it was her mother or Charlie asking.

  I vicariously lived through Angela’s adventures, imagining the glamorous life she was living outside the confines of Lincoln Park. Sometimes she came home, found her way to Miss Betty, tired and weathered, but her stays grew shorter and shorter. As soon as I heard Miss Betty’s screams on the other side of the cinderblock, I knew I wouldn’t see Angela for a day or two and sometimes as long as a week. The cops came just as Angela came and went. She made a habit of running away, so much so Miss Betty grew tired with the chasing. Some days, Miss Betty would be on her porch, staring out into her yard, one which had been able to grow grass, screaming at Lincoln Park’s occupants, asking what we were looking at, demanding we reveal Angela’s whereabouts.

  With cigarette and beer in hand, flushed, with sweat trickling down the side of her face, Miss Betty was on the outside swearing, screaming, but all I saw was her pleading, begging for the Park to release its hold on her daughter. It’s then I grew afraid for Angela and even though I admired her ability to keep running in complete abandon, I wanted her to come home. I wanted her to go back to school and finish out her time just as I intended to. It wasn’t fun watching Angela’s family dismantle itself with each day she was lost. And the days in which she was found weren’t better. They screamed so much I feared screams were sharp enough to cut her.

  When she came home, it wasn’t always a joyous occasion for her family, but it was joy for me. I got my fill of stories of the fears Angela had conquered, the men she had been with and her ability to own th
em. She was different from the girl I’d first known, but there were still parts of her that clung to the child she once was. Those parts held the darkness of her life up to me, opened them wide for my inspection, as if she were a little girl comparing her Christmas doll with that of a friend’s.

  On one of her longest and last stays at home, Miss Betty was able to get Angela back into school. She went for a day or two, but quickly grew tired of the slow pace of classroom instruction and afternoon lunches. By then, Angela had met one of my older cousins, Darrell. Darrell was the only son of my Uncle Junie, and I was closer to him than any of my other male cousins. He sometimes came to my house, picked me up in his gray Honda, and drove me to his home in Ahoy Acres in Chesapeake. In my eyes, Darrell was my personal god, so when he showed an interest in Angela, it seemed right my personal god be with my personal goddess.

  Initially, Angela and Darrell talked about sexual things that could happen between the two of them. I observed their love play, even studying it in order to see who I was supposed to be in my relationships.

  One day while riding the bus to school, Angela sat next to me and said, “I want to go and see your cousin today. Call him and see if he can pick us up.” I was game for that, especially since I wasn’t looking forward to classes. Once we got to school, I rushed to the pay phone and called Darrell. I hoped my Aunt Chris didn’t answer the phone because I knew she’d be wondering why I was not in class. Thankfully, Darrell answered.

  “Hey, cousin,” I said.

  “What up, girl? How ya’ living?” he replied.

  “Angela’s here. She wants you to come get us from school.”

  Darrell responded with a quick laugh and continued, “Cousin, my man has my car, so I can’t pick y’all up, but if you get here, I can take you back.”

  “All right,” I replied and resigned myself to the classroom for the day. Angela then took the phone from me, turned her back and began talking to Darrell. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but at the end of their conversation, she turned to me and said, “We’re gonna walk over there.”

  I didn’t know my way from Wilson to Ahoy Acres, but Angela said she did. Since she was committed to that journey, I was too.

  After walking for what seemed like hours, we finally arrived at Darrell’s house. After Uncle Junie died, Aunt Chris had done well for herself. As a family, we Boones prided ourselves on the fact she hadn’t had another man since Uncle Junie had passed. I always liked going to Aunt Chris’s, seeing pictures of Uncle Junie there, catching the scent of him that hung tightly to his clothes even though years had long ago removed him from this earth. Uncle Junie had been my favorite uncle up until the day he died. He used to sit me on his lap and tickle me until my stomach hurt. One evening, I sat with him, looking up at his golden face framed by an afro, and pointed at a dark spot on his face. “What’s that,” I asked.

  “It’s a mole,” he replied, “and you have one too.” He pointed at the side of my lip. His statement disturbed me. What Uncle Junie had called a mole looked like an all-black ladybug. I didn’t want to believe one of those things was on my face.

  “I don’t have one of those,” I said. “It’s ugly.” He laughed and held me close to him, so I laughed too. I’d always loved Uncle Junie’s laugh. When I listened closely, I could hear the same deep, gruffness in Darrell’s chortle.

  So, there I stood in Uncle Junie’s living room, on the same floor he had once stood, inhaling the same air that had traveled through his lungs, handing Angela over to his son as if she were my gift to give. Darrell and I used to laugh about my ability, as a good girl cousin, to deliver “booty” to him, but now there is no reason to laugh. There is a part of me that always cries for each step I took leading to Darrell’s house.

  Darrell and Angela quickly went into the bedroom soon after we arrived. He’d instructed me to eat what I wanted and to watch television while they were in the room. I lay on the couch, turned on the television, and drifted in and out of sleep. I wished I’d had my own guy there, someone I could go into a room with and do secret things. Every so often, I heard a gasp, a pant, a moan, but their actions on the other side of that wall were unknown to me.

  We spent the whole school day at Darrell’s. By 1:30, I was knocking on his bedroom door, letting them both know we needed to get back to school if we were going to catch the bus home and remain undetected. I waited impatiently for Angela and Darrell to come out of the room. One of the main reasons I had been able to skip school for so long was my ability to catch the bus with everybody else. Angela had just started back to school and I knew Miss Betty would be waiting at home for her.

  Despite my pleas for Angela and Darrell to hurry, they took their time getting ready and heading out to the car. Once in the car, I beckoned Darrell to drive fast, hopeful we would catch the bus before it pulled off from the school. We had no such luck. As soon as we pulled onto Willett Drive, I saw my bus turning onto High Street. A chase ensued. Both Angela and Darrell were telling me not to worry. Darrell said he’d just stay behind our bus and we could jump out of the car and act as if we were getting off with everyone else. That sounded like a good idea, but something in my bones didn’t feel right, like I was driving toward a storm and needed to decide whether to quickly drive through or to turn around. Turn is what I felt in my gut, but it soon began to feel as if the storm was driving toward us instead of us toward it.

  Darrell was a skilled driver. No matter how many wide turns or abrupt stops the bus made, he was able to stay right behind it. When we pulled onto Deep Creek Boulevard, when I saw my brother, Champ, and others getting off the bus, I believed we had made it, that my bones had been wrong and we had averted potential disaster. That was until Angela and I walked around the bus and saw Miss Betty standing on the sidewalk, tapping her foot, arms folded in front of her chest, cigarette hanging dangerously between fingers, ready to pounce. And pounce she did.

  She jumped on Angela, pulled at her clothes, her hair, anything she could get her hands on. They fought, Angela to get away and Miss Betty to keep a hold of her, but they fought as if they were two Lincoln Park girls fighting over their man or over some “he-said-she-said” stuff. They fought and I watched, waiting to get sucked into the hurricane of their conflict. Angela finally got away and ran down Deep Creek Boulevard. Miss Betty, panting, cursing, screaming, made her way to Lexington Drive. I prayed she wouldn’t tell Momma, that she wouldn’t know I too had been with Angela, but by the time I got home, Miss Betty was on my porch with Momma, pointing with one hand, lips curled into a snarl, the other hand on her hip.

  “Where you been?” Momma asked as Miss Betty stomped away.

  “At school,” I whispered, staring down at my shoes.

  “Don’t lie to me, Laurie.” My name sat heavily on Momma’s tongue. I knew she wasn’t playing. “Betty told me she called the school this morning to see if Angela was there and she checked to see if you were there too. Now, I’m going to ask you one more time, where were you? And you better tell the truth.” I wanted to run into the house, to take my beating like a young lady in the confines of my home. I didn’t want Momma dragging me in my front yard for the whole of Lincoln Park to see. I certainly didn’t want to try to fight her back because I knew all of my family—aunts, uncles, and cousins—would take turns beating me afterward. I also didn’t want to tell on Darrell. He was my favorite cousin, and if I snitched on him he might not pick me up any more. I wanted and didn’t want so many things, but my wants didn’t matter right then. What mattered was what Momma wanted: the truth.

  “We walked to Darrell’s, Momma,” I began. “But I wasn’t with no boy. I swear.”

  Momma opened the front door and pointed, ordering me into the house, but I knew that trick. As I walked past her, she would surely slap me in the back of my neck with the full force of her power. I walked up to the door, gauging how quickly I’d have to get past in order for Momma to miss. She’d never really missed before, so I then had to gauge what point of entry
would limit the sting of the blow. If I stayed close to the door, I’d get the full force of the slap, as Momma would have leverage and I’d be sandwiched between her and the door. If I stayed close to her, she wouldn’t be able to get a full swing in, but she might assume I was being confrontational, which would yield a longer whipping upstairs. I resigned myself to the middle, a position that would sting then, but might make for less of a beating later. “Get past me,” Momma said and that was my cue to run as fast as I could. She hit me square in the back of my neck, sending vibrations down my shoulders and back. She chased me upstairs, stopping only long enough to get the leather fly out of her bedroom.

  Once upstairs, Momma commenced to whipping me out of my clothes. The leather belt wrapped around my legs, my arms, and from my back to my stomach. I hopped around the room, rubbing the pain out of each welt in preparation for the next barrage of swings. Even as I danced around the room with Momma, I worried about Angela, wondered where she was, where she would go, and with whom she would end up.

  Momma put me under punishment for three months after that, and I was in no way supposed to communicate with Angela. I peered out of the window as the cops took a statement from Miss Betty about her now missing daughter.

  The police didn’t find Angela until the next day. By way of Shameka to Mary to me I learned Miss Betty was sending her to Texas to live with her father. I wasn’t able to talk to Angela much after that, but right before she left, we found ourselves hanging out of the window again, talking, laughing, as we once had before our futures became dark pasts.

  “I’m sorry about what happened, Angela,” I said.