Jump

by Terra Little

  “What did they do to her?” Everyone from my time in prison is relegated to the ambiguous category of theyness. The guards, the other inmates, the violators and the victims. They are all they and Aaron helps me keep them there.

  “I don’t know, but even if I did, you wouldn’t want to know the specifics. In some ways women are ten times more vicious than men.”

  “You think so?”

  I recognize his tone. It is the one he uses when he wants me to elaborate. The one he uses when he thinks he is being covert about prying. He doesn’t know what bag I will come out of, so he reverts to the tone. “I know so,” I say, deciding to indulge him because I need to indulge myself. “Men aren’t evolved enough to give a shit about weaknesses that they can’t taste, touch and feel. They get caught up in surface shit like money and physical strength, whose dick is bigger. Women go deeper. You think I care if another woman’s tits are bigger than mine are if the goal is to bring her to her knees? I’m looking for the core of her, what makes her thinks she is who she is. That’s where I want to start attacking. Nobody can tear a woman up like another woman. It’s instinctive.”

  “Sounds like you know from experience.”

  “Experience is the best teacher, Aaron. I’m a woman, or at least I was before I went inside, and I’m telling you what I know. I don’t know what I am now.”

  “Go deep with me, Lena. Tell me who you think you are now.”

  I take a deep breath and shake my head. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “I think I have pretty good idea.” He nudges my head from one side to the other, collecting my locks in his fist and making a ponytail at the top of my head. “I don’t think you know what I’m asking though. Don’t think you know who you are.”

  “Now you’re just trying to piss me off.”

  “Am I lying?”

  “How are you going to ask me something like that? Who do I think I am? What kind of question is that?”

  “It’s a simple question. Who are you?”

  “No,” I blurt out, spinning on my butt until I am looking up into his face. “That’s not what you said. You said who do I think I am.”

  “Same thing.”

  “No it’s not.”

  “It isn’t?” He cocks his head to one side and stares me down, knows he’s talking about two different things and wants to see if I am mentally flexible enough to keep up with him.

  “You know damn well it’s not. Don’t play with me, Aaron. Don’t patronize me, okay?”

  “Is that what I’m doing? Playing with you?”

  “Hell yeah. If I know you, you’ve got my hair sticking straight up in the air, looking silly as hell. Sitting here asking me questions and acting like you don’t know what you’re asking. You think I’m a joke or something, like I don’t know about your psychology shit?”

  “I think you haven’t answered my question.”

  “It’s a stupid question. Who am I? Who do you see? What you see is who I am.”

  “That’s your answer? What I see is what I get? Like Coronet?”

  “I don’t owe you anything.”

  “You owe yourself something though.”

  “Go where I’ve gone and then come back and tell me that. Live with animals like I’ve lived with them and then tell me that.”

  “They are animals now?”

  “They have always been animals. Guess that makes me one too, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Okay, well then that’s what I’m saying.” He spreads his knees to make room for me to hop to my feet, and I use them as leverage. I call out, “I’m an animal,” on my way to the kitchen. “You ever seen a caged animal in action?” I don’t hear a response, but I’m not really expecting one. I nod my head as I stick it inside the refrigerator and push things around on the shelf. Come out with a bottle of water that is half gone in one gulp. “I didn’t think so.”

  Aaron materializes in front of me as I back out of the refrigerator and stand. “What does a caged animal do?” He takes my water bottle and puts it to his mouth without dropping my eyes.

  “Kill, steal and destroy.” He offers me the water and I take it, put it to my own mouth.

  “You did that?”

  “What if I did?”

  “What if you did? Did you have to do it?”

  “I thought I did at the time. I had to survive. Kill or be killed.”

  “So rather than be killed, you did the killing.”

  “Still ended up dead though.”

  We stare and then his lips open in slow motion. “What are we talking about here?”

  “Survival of the fittest.”

  “No, I mean right here and now. What are we talking about, Lena?”

  “I don’t understand the question, Aaron.”

  “I think you do. Are we talking about you hearing another woman’s screams or your own?”

  I suck in a sharp breath and open my eyes wide to glare at him. “That’s a fucked-up question.”

  He shrugs nonchalantly and hisses through perfect teeth. “Open your mouth and tell me you never screamed. Nobody ever made you scream. Tell me.”

  I don’t open my mouth and tell him what he dares me to tell him because I can’t. My heart is beating too fast, throat too dry. What I tell him is this: “Get out.”

  “Coward.”

  “Fuck you. Get out.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You still owe me, so you need to keep your word and oil my scalp like you promised.”

  I look at his low ’fro and roll my eyes. “That nappy shit. Oil it yourself.”

  “And you can get a comb through yours?”

  “Fuck you,” I say again because it feels good coming out of my mouth. It sounds vulgar, but it hits the tip of my tongue just right. Gives me power.

  “I dare you.”

  It stops me, what he says. Makes me pull up short and reevaluate my stance. Makes my eyes fall into his like a ball into a mitt. I push past him and flop down on the futon, spread my knees and point to the floor. “Sit down, boy. I swear I can’t stand your ass.”

  A few minutes later, he snatches the comb from my hand and does a one-eighty to stare at me. “Are you trying to pull my hair out by the roots?”

  “I’m trying to comb the nappy shit. Turn around so I can get through.”

  “Whatever. Do me some of those braids. I think I might go for the hug-a-thug look this week.”

  “It’s too short to braid, and you’re too old for that shit anyway. What you need is a haircut.”

  “How many times will you say shit before you find another curse word to throw around?”

  “It won’t be fuck, I know that much.”

  He stalls my progress and lays his head back in my lap and cracks up. Makes me laugh with him and pop him on the shoulder with the comb at the same time. It takes me almost an hour to get through oiling his scalp because he insists on thin parts and meticulous application. Not too heavy but not too light. Doesn’t want to jeopardize the fluffiness of the ’fro he is too old to be sporting anyway. I talk about him bad as I lift the pick through his hair and shape it into a perfect halo around his head. When I am done he destroys my hard work and rests the side of his face against my thigh, finds my toes on the floor with his fingers.

  He takes my feet with him as he stretches his legs out in front of him and fits his head between my thighs. The soles of my feet find balance on the tops of his thighs and we relax together. This is new, this closeness we are sharing, but it doesn’t feel threatening, so I let it be. I try to recall if anything about Aaron feels threatening and I can’t.

  “Hey,” I say, gently squeezing my thighs together on his neck. “I’m not your woman. You’re getting a little too comfortable. Go home.”

  “Somebody’s got jokes,” he says, looking at me upside down.

  “No, somebody’s got work tonight and somebody needs sleep.”

  He doe
sn’t raise his head from my thighs and leave for another hour, and I don’t have the heart or the desire to make him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lack of sleep is to blame, I think. It is the reason I can’t keep up with the assembly line tonight, the reason I have neglected an entire tray of fake Twinkies and sent them down to Stella, missing goo. She thinks I am on my job and doesn’t check behind me before switching on the machine she controls and sealing the defective goods in cellophane. Some unsuspecting consumer somewhere will be disappointed with their purchase, but I will be long gone by then.

  I forget to put on gloves before I pick up a tray of cupcakes, and the metal singes my palms. I scream and drop the tray on the floor. I stand there and watch the night manager inspect the damage and decide that over half of the cupcakes can be salvaged. I shake my head and squeeze goo into contaminated snack cakes, send them down the line to be sealed and tell myself I should call somebody to report what is happening.

  I do that twice, drop trays, and then I take a break. I come back to my station ready to work, and my hands won’t stop shaking. They are in cahoots with my overactive hearing, working together to wreak havoc on me, and slowly succeeding. I can’t stop the screams from ricocheting through my head and deafening me. They are the same screams I have told Aaron about, but they are different. They aren’t hers anymore, that other woman’s. They are mine, and I almost hate him for reminding me that I screamed for help and that when help came, it was too late.

  Stella hears my screams. She can see them flying around inside my head despite my best efforts to keep myself in check and make it through the shift in one piece. I keep forgetting that she has something like second sight. That she is just as much of an animal as I am. I can’t hide from her for long. She is on me the minute we break for lunch, hovering outside the stall door as I empty my bladder and peering over my shoulder as I wash my hands. Dogging my heels, with her fingers poking me in the small of my back, making sure I don’t veer off course as we make our way outside.

  “I know you got a new job and everything, but you keep fucking around with those machines and you won’t have any hands to fool with them computers,” she says the minute the door closes behind us. “Ain’t no reason to start showing your ass.”

  I sit on a makeshift chair that is really a milk crate turned bottom side up with an old plastic cushion on it, and lace my fingers on the back of my neck. “My head’s kind of messed up tonight, Stella.”

  “Look at me.” She waits until I do. “Who you think you talking to? You think I don’t know?” She digs around in her mammoth purse and pulls out a flask, passes it to me like it is the Holy Grail. “Take yourself a sip and calm your nerves.”

  As soon as the vodka lights the tip of my tongue I start choking. The hairs in my nose catch fire, and heat spreads through my nasal passages. I cough and suck in long pulls of fresh air. “I’m already in violation of my parole by virtue of hanging out with you, Stella,” I find my voice and croak. After a few more seconds of coughing, I wipe tears from my eyes and look at her. “The last thing I need is Isolde showing up and smelling liquor on my breath.”

  “That bitch ain’t leaving her comfy bed to come and check up on your ass. Them sons-of-bitches don’t know shit about violation.” She takes her flask back and tips it to her lips. “You come out of the joint all rehabilitated and shit, all taught up how to act right, and they still treat you like shit every chance they get. How is that giving us a second chance?” The flask makes a wide arc in the air as she spreads her arms and looks around. “Look around you, Lucky. We still ain’t got our forty acres and a mule.”

  The liquor makes me giggle. I have seen her like this many times before, and now I know why. “There is no such thing as second chances, Stella. You know that.”

  “You use that card I gave you?”

  “Hell no. I don’t need a shrink to tell me that my life is out of order. I need my old life back. The one I had before I fell down the rabbit hole and woke up.”

  “Take your ass back to sleep and see if you can find it then.” I burst out laughing, and she finishes what is in her flask and joins me. “That’s what I thought. You had some emancipation dick, yet?” I laugh even harder and damn near choke. “Okay . . . well, what about some pussy? You flow like that?”

  “You are out of control, Stella. Just put the flask down, walk away slowly, and don’t look back. Don’t be like Lot’s wife.”

  “Shit, I’m putting this sucker in my purse until next break. Here, I think it’s one more swig left. Take it.”

  I push it away and shake my head. “I don’t drink.”

  “If you don’t get some help, Lucky, you will.” She hikes her purse higher on her shoulder and uses her fingers to tick off her points. “This is what you gotta do. First, get some emancipation dick or pussy, however you flow, because that’ll help keep your skin clear. Then you gotta find you somebody you feel comfortable talking to and talk. Get the poison out so some other shit can get in. Like busting a boil. And then”—she pauses as I groan loudly—“and then you gotta get on with your life, Lucky. Don’t waste your time trying to figure out how I know what I’m saying, just do it.”

  “How many times have you pulled that flask out tonight, Stella? I think you might be drunk. Let me get up so you can sit down.” I think I see her wobble on her feet and I pull her arm. “Sit your old, drunk ass down before you fall down.”

  “In Africa they listens to the old folks,” she tells me, settling herself on the cushion. “Think they wise.”

  “This ain’t Africa,” I say.

  “You goddamn right it ain’t Africa, but if this ain’t a jungle just the same, I’ll eat you. And I don’t flow that way, you hear me?”

  “Stella . . . please.” I try not to laugh but she makes it hard. “Just sit here and chill out for a minute. Get some fresh air.”

  “I’m telling you, Lucky. I seen some of them come out and turn to drugs and sex, or else they turn right around and go back inside. Like they can’t survive without some kind of crutch to lean on. Now you, I got you pegged for a drinker. Can’t see you shooting no shit in your arms or sniffing nothing, but I can see you taking a sip or two. That’s what’ll make your hands stop shaking, make you sleep easy at night.”

  The image she creates disturbs me in ways that I am not ready to explore. I touch her shoulder with one hand and push the other one through my locks. “Stop, okay?”

  “You ain’t hearing me, girl. You ain’t.”

  “I am. But I need you to stop now.”

  “You didn’t know I had a daughter, did you?”

  She won’t stop, so I sit on the ground next to her and wrap my arms around my knees. “I can’t handle this shit right now, Stella.” She is drunk, I know that now. Not getting there, but already there and riding it out. Coming down and wanting to talk, requiring me to listen. She knows I am not going back inside without her. Knows I won’t let her go back inside until I think she is okay.

  “I said had because I don’t know where the hell she is, right to this day, Lucky. I been in and out of lockdown so many times I lost count, and this last time, when I decided I wasn’t going back, I couldn’t find her.” Stella slaps her hands on her knees and rocks herself, looks somewhere in the air in front of her face at something that I cannot see. That I know I don’t want to see. “She got herself pregnant six times, which means I got six grandbabies out there somewhere and I don’t even know where they at. Can’t even begin to tell you. But you know what I do know?”

  I open my mouth to ask her what she knows, but she isn’t expecting an answer and she doesn’t wait for one.

  “You reminds me of her a little bit. Something about the eyes, I think. I don’t want you to end up like her though. Last I heard she was shooting that shit in her veins and living in a fantasy world from sunup to sundown. She ain’t had nobody to talk to and tell her right from wrong, ’cause I was too busy ripping and running. But you, you can be talking your as
s off, getting that shit out of you before it eats you up.”

  “I’m all right, Stella,” I say and squeeze her arm.

  “I’ll see your ass this time next year and you’ll have a handy dandy little flask, just like mine. Might be gold instead of silver, though, ’cause you strikes me as a gold flask kind of person. Don’t do that, Lucky. Get some help for your demons.”

  “There’s no such thing as demons. The Boogeyman either.”

  “Shit, girl, you need more help than I first thought. That’s when you know you really in trouble—when you can’t see the demons riding on your back. Them motherfuckers sneaky like that.”

  “Did you get rid of yours by talking to somebody?”

  “Lucky.” Stella says my name like she is tired. Her shoulders sag as she digs through her purse and presents me with her flask. “My demons is at the bottom of this thing. I drank ’em up. Now . . . I’ma ask you again. Do you want to be like me?”

  I stare at the flask and say nothing.

  Nothing about it is intimidating, Vicky tells me. She shares her first impressions of what she sees in her professional nursing voice, which I think is strange, but I don’t comment. She describes the landscaping around the building like she is talking about blood pressure levels and the associated dangers of letting them go unchecked. She judges the staff coming and going in the same voice that she uses to explain the side effects of medication. I listen to her voice clip itself off at the end of each word, feel it emphasizing periods after every couple of syllables, and wonder exactly when the transformation from woman to automaton occurred.

  Before coming here, we spent part of the afternoon sitting around a car dealership lobby, cackling like old hens and sipping bargain store coffee, while her car was being serviced. Then we roamed around in a high-end shoe store, trying on shoes that we didn’t need and wishing there was a clearance rack in sight. In Target, she bought a battery for her cordless phone and I bought a cordless phone, a Tom Jones CD, and a bag of Cracker Jacks. She was fine, relaxed and loose, smiling and laughing embarrassingly loud.