The Disturbed Girl's Dictionary

by Nonieqa Ramos

  Beside the judge there is a box where the witness gets to talk. Like the penalty box in hockey. A guard stands by it, so serious I want to tickle him.

  The audience is full of suits, ties, and stockings mixed in with T-shirts that say things like Ghetto Word of the Day: Cologne. Hey bro do you think you cologne me fitty bucks?

  My mother is not in the audience. She had a visit with Daddy and what with her foot in a boot still, she could only hobble to one place and not two.

  I’m the witness. I will be sitting in the box. I will be speaking into the microphone. Witness to what? Robbery? Murder? Yes, but that’s not why I’m here today. The crime today is being me.

  I’m sitting down with my lawyer. Having a lawyer made me feel fancy at first. Zane has a lawyer too. His lawyer argued to take him away. Mine is arguing to keep me home.

  I met my lawyer when she came to pick me up:

  “They’re not allowed to yell at me, right? Cuz I yell back.”

  “No. No one will yell. Mr. Katz will just ask you questions.”

  “He’s CPS’s lawyer. They want to take me away.”

  “Well, that’s one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is you’ll be with your brother.”

  I hated her for saying that. I mean what did she have to choose today? Her lipstick? Her fucking shoes? Soon I’m asked to go up to the box. To swear on the Bible to tell the truth, just like on TV.

  Me: “Uh. ’xcse me. But what if I don’t believe in the Bible?”

  Mr. Katz: “Do you believe in truth?”

  Me: “Uh. Yeah.”

  Mr. Katz: “Can you swear on that Bible to tell it now? Pretend the Bible is whatever you like.”

  What would I swear on to tell the truth? I take a minute and think. What truth do I have in my life? Who haven’t I lied to? Alma. She is the only thing about my world that is TRUE. I pretend to hold her hand and I repeat the oath.

  Mr. Katz asks a bunch of questions about my age and my school and my friends. He thinks I don’t know what he’s doing. Warming me up. Making me comfortable. Making me think he’s on my side. (See A for All About You.) Then he gets down to business.

  Mr. Katz: “Does your mother go out a lot?”

  Me: “She’s old enough to go out. I’m old enough to stay at home.”

  Mr. Katz: “Unless you correct me, I will assume that is a yes.”

  Tricky motherfoe.

  Mr. Katz: “Tell me about family time.”

  Me: “Oh. We’re together a lot.”

  Mr. Katz: “Would you say you fight a lot?”

  Me: “You never fight with your mom?”

  Mr. Katz chuckles. “All right. Tell me about your bedroom. Do you have privacy? Wouldn’t you like privacy?”

  Me: “You can’t take me away because we’re poor.”

  Mr. Katz: “No, of course not. What about Zane? Do you think he would like to live with his sister?”

  Mr. Katz is the devil in a navy suit.

  Me to Me Myself & I: Yeah. What about Zane. I overheard my lawyer talking on the phone. She said Zane was living in a big-ass house. With his own room and bafroom. Would I like to be with Zane? Shit, I taught him how to tie his shoes. I know his favorite everything. Yes I want to be with him. But then what happens to my mother? What would she have to come home to? Who would hold her back? And if I gave up my mother, would I have to give up my daddy too?

  Me to Katz: “You all told me yourself Zane is better off. You made him go, but you’ll never ever make me do nothin, so go fu—”

  Judge Lady: “Young lady!”

  I get to stay with my mother. My lawyer says I’m old enough to have a voice and that Mr. Katz knows that and that he was trying to get me to volunteer to go with Zane. CPS will be checking up on me, she says. Same old same old.

  On the ride home I picture my mother waiting. Is she smoking and nail-biting? Or just smoking and doing her nails? We pull up to the house. Her bedroom light is on.

  My lawyer: “All right, young lady. I will be seeing you soon. Here’s my card. Keep in touch.”

  Me: “Yeah. I’ll be sure to do that.” I walk in and throw the card on the floor.

  My mother, coming out of her bedroom: “You’re home.”

  “Good observation, Ma.”

  “Your dad is okay. He said if they took you he’d bust out of jail. Crack skulls.”

  “And what about you, Mom?”

  “What about me what?”

  Me: “Yeah. What?”

  My mother: “Okay. Be like that.”

  She stomps to her bedroom and slams the door. I punch it. She punches it back. We keep going like that that until my hands are bloody and I can’t breathe. I lean against the wall and close my eyes. Catch my breaf. And the door opens. Nobody is there. I feel a breeze coming from the bedroom window. How long has my mother been gone? I start to wonder if she was ever really there. If I am. If any one of us is.

  Cute

  Adjective. AKA Dawg Daze.

  Miss Black gave us Hatchet. Hatchet is a book. I sit on my couch and open my assignment notebook mainly because I can’t find the remote to the TV. So—I got to find one unexpected use for a object just like the main character does in the book. AND write about it. I have a lightbulb. I will use Hatchet to turn on the TV and kill two birds with one stone. I aim the book at the power button.

  The TV don’t turn on. But the book lands face up and me and the main character, Brian Robinson, face off. “You think you have it bad because of some wolves?” I ask his loozah face. “I mean, at least you had a damn hatchet.” After my walk, I put the machete back under the mattress exactly where I thought I found it—but my mother’s spidey sense must have told her something was up. When I went back for the machete, it was gone.

  Let me tell you something, okay? I don’t want to hear about Brian Robinson whining about a pack of wolves. I’ll be impressed when there’s a book about a kid using a box of pencils against a pack of chihuahuas.

  A chihuahua may be cute when it’s a puppy, but not so much when it’s missing a eyeball and thirteen of its half-breed cousins are surrounding you to get at your peanut butter and jelly sangwich.

  Just call me Agüeybaná. Fuácata!

  So hello. The next time you see that cute little puppy and you’re holding it in your arms, and you’re thinking he’s so warm, think of this: so is pee. The next time you’re thinking of how fun it would be to feed it, think of the day you’re so broke from buying dog food you’re checking ingredients on the back of FiFi’s food can and saying to yourself, That don’t sound so bad. (This is Macy Cashmere, and I approve this message.)

  And think of this:

  I’m home. I’m sitting on the floor. My mother is preoccupied with some shit in her room. A nice warm breeze is coming from a hole in the floor. A commercial for I don’t know what comes on. There’s a lot of sexy people in it and I’m supposed to buy I’m not sure what but whatever it is it will make me sexier.

  Pitbull pokes its head through the hole.

  And I don’t mean a bald-headed, blue-eyed Cuban dude telling me to get my ass on da flo. Mr. Worldwide got nothing to do with the mangy body trying to follow its head into my space.

  I jump three feet in the air.

  Pitbull’s chomping on the wood of the floorboard. I run, jump, and grab the Hatchet book and start beating it on the head. It eats the book. Whole. WTF?! I beat it with the remote control. The battery cover comes off and it eats the batteries. Noooooo! Them things are expensive!

  Now I’m mad. So is the dog. Maybe he prefers triple As? I don’t know but he looks like one of those Hungry Hungry Hippos lunging forward for marbles and every time he does, more of his scabby body pulls through.

  “Ma!” I scream, booking for her bedroom. I fling open the door, but she’s not in there, even though she was a minute ago. I hate it when she slips past me like the ninja.

  I run to the kitchen. All I can find is a plastic butter knife. I stop. Is the dog laughing? No. That is
God.

  Damn it! What would Brian Robinson do? If only I had read more than the back cover!

  He’d get the machete, stupit ass.

  I step into my mother’s bedroom. What could be scarier than her mattress? A chill shimmies up my spine because I know the answer.

  Her panty drawer. That’s where my mother must have stuck the machete after she suspected I took it from under the mattress.

  Attention: This is a broadcast of the Emergency Cootie Alert System.

  If my great-grandma could spend ten hours a day seven days a week cutting down cane, I can do this, man! I close my eyes. 1-2-3! I feel all sort of things that ain’t panties!!! Ahhh!!! But I pull it out, improv a speedy cleansing dance to counteract the cooties, and head back to THE HOLE.

  This is going to be messy.

  Pitbull’s gums look like moldy ham. Teeth stand right up to my machete. I don’t want to die. But I don’t want to swing this knife.

  His torso is through the hole. I could count his ribs he’s so close.

  I raise the machete. But I can’t bring myself to do it. Not because I’m a pus—ball? (See A for Afraid.) I mean, the idea of steel slicing through skin and bone does turn my stomach. That’s not even it, though.

  It’s that I get him. I don’t blame him. But . . . it’s him or me.

  Chah! Chah! Chah! Splat! Splat!

  Dog sinks down. I drop the machete and sink into the couch. Another warm breeze comes through the hole. And a whisper . . . It’s yours now.

  Abuelita? Is that you? What’s mine? The dog? That’s nasty!

  No, stupit ass. The machete.

  Oh yeah! The machete.

  I grab the Fabuloso and some rags. Shine up the machete. Do another cleansing ritual complete with my best moves. I have found my weapon. I have danced. I have killed. I have survived.

  I hold my machete up to the sky. And yes, in our living room, you can actually see sky after that time Daddy accidentally shot a hole through the ceiling trying to get that woodpecker. Did Brian Robinson watch the sun glint off his blade and say How do you like me now, bitch? I don’t know but 195 pages is too much to find out. Plus, this whole situation brings new meaning to that shit: the dog ate my homework.

  I spray some Fabuloso down the hole, stick a cushion on it, and sit down on what’s left of the couch. (The rats will take care of the rest.) For a minute, I consider using the machete to change the channel, but think better of it. I stash the machete in my backpack and actually turn on the tube with my bare hands. A commercial with a dog riding a vacuum comes on.

  It’s cute.

  Daddy

  Preposition, which is time, location, direction. (Wherever I am, he’s with me.)

  Today is a school fundraiser. You can buy barbecue plates at lunch. Your family can come, assuming your family ain’t too busy smoking joints on the couch.

  I’m waiting for Alma. She is buying barbecue that she isn’t going to eat. I have to keep myself from drooling on the table. A teacher’s kid is standing across from me. If I used the word cute, that’s what he is, with his shiny parted black hair and clean nose, but I don’t use the word cute and neither should you, you ignorant-ass motherfoe. (See C for Cute.) The less attention I pay to him, the more he keeps paying to me.

  His coleslaw slides off the side of his plate, that’s how little attention he’s paying, his hot dog falling sideways, the ketchup all mixing together with the mustard. So I turn to him and say: “Don’t you got something better to do, Daddy?”

  He laughs, and if I was to use the word cute—which I wouldn’t, you ignorant-ass motherfoe—I would say his laugh was the cutest thing I ever heard. He picks up a French fry and says, “I’m not your daddy, silly! Want one?”

  “Want one what?”

  “Come here, sweetheart,” Teacher Lady says, smiling so hard I think she chips a damn tooth. She leads him to another table.

  Sweetheart.

  “Macy, I got you pickles.” Alma sits down.

  Me: “My parents used to call my brother Zane daddy.”

  She pushes her tray toward me. Crunches on some celery sticks and leaves the rest. “My mother calls my brothers daddy. She always called me mami when I was little. Till the boys started calling me that. Now she calls me Alma.”

  Me: “Damn! My daddy still calls me mami.”

  Alma: “Your daddy. You had a visit with him, right?”

  Me: “Yeah. No. But I saw Zane. Sort of.”

  Alma: “Okay . . . Well, when I was real little I had visits with my dad. My mother would put ribbons in my hair. I’d wait and wait until my braids were loose. I’d chew the ribbons to shreds.”

  Me: “I’m starting to forget what he smells like. What his cheek feels like.”

  Alma: “Macy! You can’t let that happen. It happened to me. Get your dictionary out. Write it down.”

  So I do. Alma reads over my shoulder as I go.

  We were at the Super S (See S for Super). Zane was staring at a blonde on the cover of a Hustler. She wore a belt, but she didn’t have no pants to be holding up—or anything else either. Some fool had framed the magazine between a box of Captain Crunch and Fruity Pebbles. I snatched it from Zane’s sticky fingers and smacked him with it on the back of the neck.

  My mother came up behind me like she do and smacked me on the back on the neck. I smacked Zane again because I couldn’t smack her. She smacked me again and pushed me face first into the popcorn.

  “Come here, Daddy,” my mother said in the baby voice Zane and my daddy liked. (ICK.) Then she opened her arms and pushed him against her ginormous breastices. (Double ICK.)

  “Can anyone say cooties?” I said to Zane. He flipped me the finger, then went back to sucking his thumb.

  “What’s going on?” Daddy said.

  “Look, Daddy.” I waved the nudie mag at him. I did a double take. “I didn’t even know private parts had all those parts. I mean, what is that?” I was going to have to investigate. I pulled out my pants at the elastic waistband to take a peek.

  Daddy was not down with my compare-contrast. “Don’t be doing that!” he said. He snatched the magazine away like I was touching the lid of a toilet seat and smacked my hand away from my pants.

  “Why not, Daddy?” I pointed to Monsterbaby buried in my mom’s chest. “Zane had it first anyway!”

  “You had this, Daddy?” Daddy said. He held up the magazine, flipped a few pages, and cracked a smile.

  “He’s a bad boy,” my mom cooed, rubbing his hair.

  “Hey,” Daddy said to my mother, “whatchu think of this page, baby?” I tried to look and Daddy waved me off.

  I rolled my eyes and walked to the chip aisle to look at all the flavors of Doritos that I couldn’t have. I smashed pork rinds to dust inside their bags. Then I heard my dad say to my mother, “What, you want him to be a faggot?” To my brother: “You like that, Daddy? Yeah? But you gotta wait, okay? She’s too old for you anyway. I’ll save it for you.”

  “Stupit,” my mother said, and then there was a clunk. From under the aisle, I could see Zane’s poopy butt on the floor.

  “What?” Daddy said to my mother. “I only look at her because she reminds me of you.”

  I peeked over to the other aisle. Daddy was kissing my mother. My mother’s eyes were angry and open at first, but as soon as they shut, Daddy shoved Hustler under his shirt.

  Thirty seconds later . . .

  “Put THAT back,” my mother barked, yanking Zane out of the candy aisle. “I don’t have enough for it!”

  THAT was a pack of Bubble Yum. My mother looked at me and nodded her head in the direction of the gum. Take it, she mouthed. I looked away like I didn’t know what she meant. But I knew.

  Cursing under her breaf, she turned away and dragged Zane, kicking and biting, to the counter. “Marlboros, please,” she said with Zane in a headlock.

  “That’ll be six seventy nine.”

  (Alma: “Seven bucks with tax? Do you know what you can get with that? T
wo gallons of milk, a bag of rice and beans . . .” I know!)

  “Six seventy nine?” I shrieked. “FU—”

  Daddy slapped his hand over my CK and we all walked to the car. Not that we had anywhere to go. We’d been parked outside the Super S for weeks. I sat in the backseat with the hole. It was like sitting with your ass sinking in a toilet. Zane was next to me hugging his knees and rocking.

  My mother looked in the rear-view mirror and said to Zane, “Come here, Daddy. You know Mommy got your back.”

  Zane climbed over the seat of the car and sat on her lap. She handed him the gum she managed to take when she pretended to put it back.

  In a split second Zane proclaimed: “THIS AIN’T BUBBLE YUM! AND YOU ATE SOME OF IT ALREADY!”

  My mother shot me the evil eye— (Alma: “Because you didn’t steal the gum.” Me: “Yup.”)

  Zane started kicking like a donkey. In national taste tests, blindfolded, Zane preferred Bubble Yum to Big Red ten to none.

  After he kicked out the windshield we all slept together in a park tunnel. For a while after everybody fell asleep, I was awake. Listening to everybody breathe at the same time. We was a heartbeat family.

  But not anymore.

  When I’m done writing, Alma looks at me. “God. This is going to sound totally messed up.” She twirls her hair. “But I wish I could remember things like you do. No matter how bad the memory.”

  I know she’s trying to picture her dad. Long pause, then she frowns and blinks. “So, hold up. Did you say you saw Zane at the prison visit or not? I’m confused.”

  Me: “Uh. Yeah. I saw him. But not my him. Somebody else’s him. CPS says he’s better off now. Meaning he has a better family. That’s some bullshit. I’d rather have my fucked-up family than someone else’s. Zane didn’t have a choice because he’s so little, but I do.”

  Silence. Alma is twirling her hair again. Alma has left the building.

  I wave my hand in front of her face. “Here’s where you’re supposed to say you feel me.”