The Disturbed Girl's Dictionary

by Nonieqa Ramos

  My mother: “Remember, I’m going to sell tin-foil bikinis. Wait up. Let me show you my latest creations.”

  She runs to the bedroom and changes. After a long time she walks out the bedroom kind of how you would expect someone to walk when they’re wearing tin foil. But I have to admit, she looks good.

  Looking at my mom in tin foil makes my dad look—more distracted.

  Looking at tin foil makes me think about baked potatoes. At school the baked potatoes have tin foil on them. I say, “Don’t they put the tin foil on the potato so the insides get hot?”

  My mother: “Shut up.”

  But she knows we’re now thinking about all these ladies’ breasts baking on the beach like hot potatoes, which is not a sexy thought. I laugh. I can’t help it.

  Laughing at my mother generally gets me a smack but I’m used to that. She can’t smack me that hard anyway wearing tin foil. It’s when my dad laughs at my mom standing there in that tin-foil bikini that all hell breaks loose.

  Tin-foil bikinis are not made to stand up against all hell breaking loose. My mother starts screaming and waving her arms around: “I want to go to California! What the fuck is in Canada?”

  Zane starts copycatting my mother, windmilling his arms around—then stops. “Your titty,” Zane says.

  There it is: my mother’s boOb hanging out.

  My dad says, “Hey now, save that for later,” and he hugs her and squeezes her ass. But she only gets madder and I know why. It’s not just because his hug broke her other breast out. It’s because deep down she didn’t really want him to think she was just sexy in that tin-foil bikini. She wanted him to think she was smart.

  I can’t say any of this, though. What do I know about what she thinks? my mother would say.

  She stomps off into the kitchen and rattles around in a cabinet. She throws tin foil everywhere like it’s a parade and Daddy follows her trail and her tail into the bedroom.

  I pick up the foil. It could come in handy at a later date. I follow the trail of it into the kitchen. Out of a cabinet spill dozens of tin-foil bikinis. All different kinds. I wonder two things.

  One: has anyone been checking tin foil inventory at the Super S? (See S for Super.) And two: how did my mother manage to make these things without anybody noticing? I look around for the black hole she had obviously disappeared herself into.

  The thing was, the beauty of ’em was that they weren’t meant to be worn. They looked like those statue-things you see in a museum. But not one for old people with paintings in it of people from a long time ago. I always think those people look hot and itchy and then I want to scratch. Once at a school trip to a museum in fifth grade, I took off everything but my panties I got so itchy.

  So I imagine a really cool museum. A cool museum that has things in it like my mom’s tin-foil bikinis. Tin-foil bikinis. Now mass produced at a Walmart near you. Even your couch-sitting ass could afford one. The bikinis keep in the heat where you need it most. You could even go to the beach in winter. In Canada.

  Circle

  Noun. Synonyms: my space—my zone—leave me alone.

  I stand in the bafroom and draw a imaginary circle around myself. I learned to do this in middle school. I remember the counselor’s words:

  “You are the center,” he says, walking around me. “You are in control.”

  He draws a circle around himself. “This is my circle. This is my space. That is yours. Think of yourself as a planet. Think of me as a planet. What would happen if our circles collided?”

  Some little kids walk into the bafroom and start playing in the sink, but I tell them to get out. I stand there in my circle. But I’m not just a planet. I’m a star. I’m the sun and I burn like hell. Everybody needs me to shine, but I don’t need them for nothing. I can look down on them but they can’t look me in the eye. I burn. I burn because I’m mad. I’m mad enough to shine for the next zillion years. And you need me too. Love don’t make this world go round. I do.

  I stand in my circle thinking of everybody revolving around me. My mother, Daddy, Alma, Zane, everyone. Daddy leaves, but somehow, I always know he’s coming back no matter how long it takes.

  I see Alma. Forget Saturn’s rings. She makes them look like cheap dollar-store bracelets. She’s the perfect beauty. The kind you can see but not get your sticky little fingers on.

  My mother sweet-times it slower than Neptune. You’d think that would give us more time to talk but it don’t. No matter how hard I try to talk to her, she’s always moving away from me. She don’t want to get burned.

  My brother Zane is Pluto. The planet that’s not even a planet—that looks dead to everyone except that one crazy-ass motherfoe who never stops believing there’s life out there. That crazy-ass motherfoe is me.

  I think of what would happen if gravity pulled us together for once. I see us all becoming one big-ass star. A supernova—

  Somebody flushes a toilet and I blink. It’s a little kid from the Child Development class. I’m not in outer space. This fucks up my intergalactic vision. I toss the girl out and the next two kids trying to use the potty.

  The door flings open.

  Teacher: “What is going on in here?”

  Me: “Has any kid since the beginning of fucking time ever answered that question?”

  Teacher: “What? Get out of here.”

  Me: “Apparently, you have not read my Behavior Intervention Plan. Ain’t no one telling me to get out of NOWHERE. Don’t make me step out of my circle. You not even a planet. You an assteroid.”

  The teacher: “What? What did you call me?”

  I can’t understand what the teacher says next because of all the screaming in the hall. Outside the bafroom kids in wet shoes sit in puddles of pee, pulling off their pants. Other kids are jumping in the puddles. What makes it even more epic is the teacher slip-and-sliding in pee trying to round them up.

  This gives me an instant flashback of my mother trying to hit Zane:

  Like a Tom and Jerry episode, my mom chases him under tables, over couches, and back again. Of course, I join in just for shits and giggles. This makes him laugh. This makes my mother mad. He’s bad so he’s not supposed to be laughing.

  Yasmin stops chasing him and goes after me. Her chancla whacks me in the neck before she catches up with me. It hurts a lot but it is also funny.

  If you look in our house you can see our circle—the exact place Zane’s foot went into the couch—the place where my mother’s chancla went through the window.

  Sometimes I run that circle chasing our shadows. If I run fast enough the screaming goes away and I can just hear the laughter.

  Clang

  Noun. Rhymes with BANG! you’re dead.

  Miss Black found out our ignorant asses ain’t never heard of this dude named Hans Christian Anderson. So today she brings in a fat book with pictures and reads out loud to us like we little kids. One story she reads is about a dude who packs a bag and seeks his fortune. Just like that. Like there’s no question that anyone who looks for a fortune is gonna find it.

  I make a decision. After I get home, I’m lacing up my sneaks. I’ma go for a walk. Being that a girl walking to JJs last week got raped and set on fire, I also decide to take protection.

  We have this machete that my great-grandmother used in the sugarcane fields. Daddy said it got passed down to him, and one day he was going to pass it on to me. One day happens in books—but in the real world? I decide today is that one day, bitches.

  After I get home from school, I make sure the coast is clear. I lift the mattress (COOTIE ALERT: CODE RED) and pull the machete out. I spray myself and the machete with Fabuloso (See F for Fabuloso) and do a cleansing dance I make up on the spot. I’m cootie-free and IT IS MINE!

  It is heavy, with a light wood handle darkened by sweat in the middle where your hand goes. The sweat stain is narrow, like an abuelita’s hand. I fit my hand there, and it is a perfect match. The blade is long and silver and sharp and has little chips in it,
like she was in a duel or something. Little spots of gold rust the blade. My abuelita kicked ass. I wish I could of known her. It kind of feels like I’m taking her with me. I pack my backpack with the machete and off we go!!!!!!!

  The sun is shining just like in them books. Theme music pops in my head. Some of my mother’s old-school music. I’m hearing Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day.”

  It don’t take long before I get hungry. Damn, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve walked past the Dollar General with only 99 cents. Or better yet, if I had a penny for every dude’s nasty thoughts as I’ve walked past the General . . .

  “Why don’t you smile?”

  “Oh, I could make you smile . . .” Insert obscene gestures.

  Dudes been saying this since ancient times. Picture Mary Mother of God walking down the street. “Oh baby, let me see that ankle . . .”

  All sudden “Mi Machete” is playing in my head. I take my abuelita’s secret weapon out my backpack. Check out what I look like in the reflection of the blade. Freshly shaved head. New eyebrow piercing. Million-dollar smile. That’s right. I’m still Be-oo-tee-full Bitches!

  “How do you like me now?”

  Nasty dudes ain’t smiling no more. One spits on the sidewalk. Another calls me a slut.

  I decide not to scalp their asses. But I picture doin it and hanging their skins on my backpack. I’m a warrior.

  I cross the street. Three dudes is playing football in the field. I pull my hat over my eyes and hunker down. I’m one of them. I make the winning touchdown. I’m MVP, man. I do a victory dance. Hold up my Heisman to the sky—WTF? Ash rains down like I’m under a damn volcano. I look up at the fire escapes. Whoever ashed disappears like the smoke from their nasty cigarettes.

  I dust off my head. It’s all good. I’m taking a walk.

  On to the junkyard. Dude comes out a abandoned limousine. Hangs off the inside of the fence, puffing clouds through chain-link diamonds.

  Shaking his head, he says to me, “Tetas like that ain’t meant to be in a sweatshirt.”

  I’m about to tell this motherfoe he should write for Cosmo. But I don’t speak. I let Abuelita speak for me. I raise up my machete like Agüeybaná II held up his macana in battle against Ponce de León. (What, your ignorant ass never heard of Agüeybaná? It ain’t my job to educate you.) Dude climbs into the limo like if he just wishes hard enough it’ll fill up with gas and GO!

  I walk off with my machete raised high to the sky and enjoy the silence . . . For about one milli-fucking-second.

  Till I see the cop car roll up.

  I freeze like a cockroach. No cops showed up for that girl who got set on fire until after she was burnt to a crisp. But apparently I am like Magneto when it comes to attracting the law.

  The cop car stops in front of me. One cop’s white, the other cop’s brown, but all that matters to me is both is blue. Cop in the passenger side squints at my face. Takes inventory. His eyes light up when he sees my chest. “Oh, it’s just a girl.”

  Just? Well she-it. For once in my life having big boobs has benefits.

  White cop on the passenger side steps out. “Young . . . lady,” Officer Po Po says, hands hooked on his belt, “you can put your hands down. Slow.”

  Whaat? So they can say I was trying to cut them? Hell to the no. If I’ma die today, I’ma do it right so Zane gets a paycheck tomorrow.

  “I thought you supposed to put your hands up. That’s what I’m doin.”

  The officer in the driver’s seat talks shit into his radio and steps out the car.

  Officer Brown nods at Officer White, then looks at me. “What do you need with a machete?”

  “Don’t know how I been living without it so far.”

  Officer Brown folds his arms on his belly. “Well, this is a problem.”

  Shit. I’m gonna be joining my great-grandmother. Names start flashing across my brain one after the other.

  RIP DeAunta Terrell Farrow, Trayvon Martin, Andy Lopez, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, Akai Gurley. Tamir Rice, Dontre Hamilton, Terence Crutcher, Rekia Boyd, Samuel DuBose, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Alfred Olango . . .

  Several things I got in common with the above:

  I ain’t white.

  I got issues.

  I exist.

  “Yeah.” That’s all my big fat mouth can say. If this was Yasmin, I’d have something to say. If this was the principal, I’d have something to say. If this was the president of the United States of America, I’d have something to say.

  “Lay it on the ground.”

  Lay it on the ground so he can take it. The only piece of my great-grandmother. The only piece of un-fucked-up history I got.

  “No.”

  Zoom away from us and out to Dollar General. Ladies and their bags of hair products and plastic Santas crowd the parking lot. Empty chain-link fence now has bunches of dudes hanging on it like dirty underfed tigers waiting for a scrap. What was only a handful of kids playing touch football is now enough to fill the field. Cop White’s got one eye planted on me, one on the yard.

  “Why don’t you leave that . . . girl . . . alone?” comes from a crowd of men at the Liquor Barn. They set their full bottles down and pick up empty bottles from the ground.

  “I’m only going to ask you one more time, young lady.”

  Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t move. I’m a statue. I got so many do’s and don’ts shooting off in my brain, I’m gonna get myself shot. Will my mother cry for me at my funeral? Will they let Daddy out to pay his respects? I could just see my coffin getting lowered into the ground, and Zane jumping in after it. My hand is sweating. My arm’s shaking with the strain of holding up this machete that my abuelita held up for a lifetime. I’m gonna drop it.

  Plastic bags flutter all over the ground of the Dollar General parking lot. Ladies drop their shopping bags and hold up their phones. The ghosts from the fire escapes have reappeared. Can’t see their faces. Just the smoke and their hands holding out phones. Football players are filing off the fields and onto the street. Some aiming phones from behind cars. Some from on top.

  Now, you’re thinking my walk was a one-way trip. You’re using your prior knowledge to assess that I won a instant vacation to the afterlife. You’re thinking this incident got hashtagged on Twitter, a million hits on YouTube.

  Or maybe you’re thinking all those phones finally made a difference. That instead of filming my death, they saved my life. Forget about all those other homies that died on candid camera, I was the lucky one.

  You’d be dead wrong. What saved me wasn’t all the brown and black sistas and brothers risking life and limb to bear witness.

  What saved me was the white ho.

  “You leave her alone! I’m live.”

  Velvet’s standing there in her knee-length pleather boots, furry short-shorts, and my sweatshirt, holding up her phone.

  Officer Brown lays his hand on his gun. “Lady, you need to back up.”

  “Hey, I know you.” Officer White mentally frisks her. “You’re dressed like you’re on the clock.”

  “Yeah.” Officer Brown nods at his partner. “Maybe it’s you we ought to be questioning.”

  Both officers turns their back on me and target Velvet.

  My cowardly self flees the scene. Other than the herd of dogs, there is no high-speed chase. Me, my hoodie, and my machete do end up on the news for five minutes before a shooting in our neighborhood bumps it off the agenda. A baby girl in her stroller killed by a stray bullet. In broad daylight. No suspects. May she rest in peace.

  Class

  Noun. What people think you got if you got money. What people think you don’t got if you poor.

  It’s five o’clock, and I know it’s time for my mother to be at her parenting class. The door busts open.

  Dude with the sunglasses says to the bald dude: “Put her on the couch!”

  My mother is giggling. She’s wearing a huge white boot over her left foot.

  I hop u
p. “Ma, what happened?”

  My mother: “I was at the hotel. Applying for a job. There was no Slippery When Wet sign.”

  Dude with the shiny head: “Should sue their asses.”

  Dude with the sunglasses: “Yeah. You could get some big money. My cousin is suing Apple. A selfie he took blinded him and he fell down the stairs.”

  Me: “Thank you for input. Get the fuck out.”

  Dude with sunglasses: “Damn!”

  Dude with shiny head: “Rude.”

  They leave.

  Me: “Ma, you got to get up. Your class.”

  My mother: “Like this?” She points at her foot. “I got a doctor’s note.”

  Me: “Ma. I read the paperwork. If you miss two you get kicked out. Doctor’s excuse or not. You lose Zane for good.”

  My mother: “What? That is bullshit.”

  Me: “Yeah, but that’s the rules, Ma. I can’t change them and neither can you. Ma, please. I will carry you there.”

  My mother: “I could have gotten a ride if you wasn’t so rude.”

  Me: “Oh shit. Ma, what do I do?”

  My mother reaches in her purse. “Give them this. Hurry up.”

  I run out the door with two joints. The dudes are about to pull out onto the street. “Hey! Hey!!!”

  Dude with the shiny head rolls down the window.

  “Please. Could you please help us?”

  He eyeballs the joints. “Oh, now she wants to be friends! Whatchu need, honey?”

  Me: “A ride.”

  Dude with the sunglasses: “I would’ve given Yasmin a ride for free, but if you offering . . .”

  I hold up the joints and lead them back to the house. Soon they’re carrying my mother to their car. I watch as they pull away. There’s no guarantee that my mother’s going to get where she’s supposed to go. But she’s headed in the right direction, and that’s more than I can normally say about her.

  I tried, Zane.

  Court

  Noun. Where even a kid can get a life sentence.

  Court looks just like it does on TV. There’s a American flag to make it all look official. A judge in a shiny robe sits on a throne above everybody else. I would like to sit in that chair. “Silence!” “Overruled!” I imagine myself in a Judge Macy TV show.