Isabel left Temper sitting there with a lot to think over. The anger made her want to scream, “Fuck you, bitch. Don’t come back.” Though, for the oddest reason, the words wouldn’t come out of her mouth. By Wednesday, Temper had grown impatient waiting for Isabel’s return visit.
“Thank you,” Temper shot out before Isabel was seated in her visitor’s chair.
“Don’t thank me yet. I need to know everything. Are you ready to trust me?”
With six months of Saturday afternoon visits, Temper was ready to defend herself in court.
“You’re smiling. That’s normally a sign that court went well, or you could have thought of something funny and I caught you in that moment. If you don’t mind, I’d like to know which it is.”
Still in shackles, Washington was placed next to Temper outside the courtroom with a large manila envelope stuck to her chest under the chains. She hadn’t said much to anyone while serving her time, yet here she was, ready to talk to Temper.
“Um, court went good. I got what I wanted.”
“Court went well, and that’s not true. You wanted your freedom, but you received the next best option.”
“No, I actually didn’t want my freedom. At first I did, but the truth is I’m not ready for it.”
“Wow.” Washington turned in the chains the best she could to get a look at Temper’s face. “That was beautiful. You’ve accepted your wrongs and considered what it would take to not only make them right but to ensure you make better decisions in your future. Freedom isn’t free. At times, it costs us a piece of our time to grow. I knew you were different from the other girls here, but I didn’t think you knew it. I mean, there aren’t a lot of Asian girls in the juvenile disciplinary system to begin with.”
“Why does me being half Asian matter to you muthafuckas so much?”
“I’ve never fucked anyone’s mother, so please don’t label me, and you’re so much more than your nationality.”
Temper laughed. “My bad, didn’t mean to label you, but everybody always brings the shit up like it means that I’m special. I’m not special. I’m black.”
“We’ve been brainwashed to think higher of Asians than we do ourselves. Excuse my warped way of thinking. I’m foul for that, and I thank you for waking me up. But again, you’re greater than what’s flowing in your blood.”
“Yeah, and how do you figure that?”
“The same way I figure everything. I deduced it using reason and logic like my uncle taught me. He’s a biochemist, which means absolutely nothing, but it opens the door for me to say he’s well-read. He has relationships with all sorts of people. Race and money don’t matter. He taught me never to judge a book by its cover completely, but make sure to include the cover to add accuracy to my findings. Please pay no attention to the additional facts I always seem to shoot off after giving answers. In other words, I tend to rattle off unnecessary information at times. I’m correcting that flaw now.”
“So what are you, a genius?”
“I wish. I know a lot but use only half of it by choice. My strengths are that I’m a good listener and loyal, but those are my weaknesses, too. My other weaknesses are spelling and that I tend to use science and logic in place of feelings, making me a bad friend or easily used and abused by bad people pretending to be nice. I tend to be loyal to those types of people too.”
“Girl, you are—”
“Crazy,” Washington said, interrupting. “I know. I hear it half a dozen times a day. I prefer to think I’m just misunderstood.”
“I wasn’t about to call you crazy. I was going to say you are special, and those half a dozen people who are calling you crazy are dumbass losers who are jealous of your mind. I hate haters.”
“That is very nice of you to say, Temper Chey, but I’m sure you heard the rumors of me hitting my public defender. That alone made me crazy to everybody, including the courts. They even sent me to therapy afterward, but I wasn’t allowed to explain my reasoning. I was misunderstood.” She nodded at the envelope strapped to her as she said, “I got what I wanted in court today too.”
“What’s that?”
“Suitable placement while I go through an emancipation program.”
“No, I meant your reasoning. What was your reason for hitting your public defender?”
“Ultimately, I hit him for my freedom.”
“No, hitting him should have gotten you more time.”
“Exactly.”
Temper, lost by the victory smile Washington wore on her face, had to know more.
“Can you please explain? I’m not smart at all. You might want to tell me everything like how you even got arrested to be able to hit a public defender in the first place. You don’t seem like you should be in here with us.”
The smile was wiped off her face at Temper’s request for her to tell her story, and a new look crossed her face. Temper knew that look. It was anger.
“You shouldn’t be in here either, but it took you to get here to know that and make a change. My story, well, it’s a very long story to tell. I don’t want to bore you.”
“Then it’s a good thing that I have time to listen.”
Tyger wasn’t planning on ever telling her story to anyone. It wasn’t in her plan. She didn’t know who Temper was, but it didn’t matter. She decided, at that moment, that she liked her and would answer.
“My uncle is my favorite person on this earth, and I’ve always wanted to be just like him. Not the biochemist part. In my opinion, he aimed too low, but everything else. I played basketball like him and—”
“You play basketball?” Temper inquired with her eyes locked on Washington’s stomach.
“Yes, chubby people play basketball, and so do short people. Any more stereotypical questions before I continue?”
“Nah, go ahead. You play basketball and . . .”
“And I joined as many educational groups as my school and neighborhood offered. It’s what my uncle did at my age. I was always busy with extracurricular activities, and my mama worked a full-time job. She reserved her weekends for me, but my mama found other things to do with her time as my schedule grew. She never made it a priority to be at my basketball games or school events, so I was shocked to look out into the audience and see her cheering me on as I was inducted into the Black Honors Union. I ran to her when it was over, and she hugged me tighter than she ever had before. As she released me, I noticed she was wearing a wedding ring set, and that’s when she stepped to the side and introduced me to Marvin, her husband. I was beyond surprised, but that was my mama, and despite everything we had been through, which is another long story, I was glad she found love and was happy. Anyway, a month had gone by, and all my events, clubs, and group meetings had slowed down except for basketball, so I was home more. The first red flag I saw waving was that my mama started dodging me. I could finally be at home with her alone while her husband hunted for a job, and we could spend time together. I wanted us to sip tea and watch a movie like we used to do, yet she refused to come out of her room.”
“Why?” Temper asked, finding it to be weird with the little information she’d given.
“At the time, I didn’t know, but the next morning, the Marshals kicked in our door to arrest him for violating his parole. It took my mama all day to tell me why he was originally arrested because it would force her to confess how they met. Come to find out she was his prison prayer pen pal while he was serving the last three years of a ten-year manslaughter sentence. Marvin had killed his wife, and I don’t know the story behind that. She told me he got off with manslaughter for doing it.”
“What the fuck? Your mama married a convicted murderer?”
“Yes, but please don’t interrupt. It’s kinda a long story. To speed it up, Marvin goes back to jail for less than a year and has his parole switched from Florida to California since his new wife lived here, and when he got out, I became his number one priority. He wanted my mama to himself, so he had to find a way to get me gone. E
verything I did was wrong. He said I spent too much time with my uncle so I could hang around boys and that I used the clubs and groups so I wouldn’t have to do chores. My mama knew better, although, for reasons I’ll never understand, she started agreeing with him. I wanted to run away and live with my daddy, but that meant I’d have to tell my daddy about Marvin, which wasn’t an option, so I cut out everything except for basketball. My mama’s new favorite game of ducking and dodging me got worse. I finally caught her one morning in the kitchen and reminded her I had my championship game that night and would be home late, which she okayed, of course. We won, and I called home to tell her I was getting a ride home. She told me to invite the team over, and she’d cook for us like she used to do. We were partying, and my mama had everyone’s stomachs full, and then Marvin came home.”
“Oh, shit. Marvin didn’t like coming home to a houseful of kids, did he?” Temper asked.
“No, he didn’t, to answer your question after I already asked you not to interrupt.”
“Damn, my bad!” Temper snapped.
“Yes, it was,” Washington snapped back. “Anyway, Marvin didn’t like coming home to a houseful of boys and seeing his wife serve them food. He kicked everybody out and cursed them out as he did. My mama ran to her room, and I heard them arguing but didn’t think anything of it. The house was a mess, and I didn’t want that to be the next issue to piss him off. I started cleaning up. After about twenty minutes, I thought I heard my mama in the kitchen. I shot in there to ask if she was okay. Her right eye swollen shut and her busted nose said that she wasn’t. She was trying to hide behind the open freezer door as she grabbed more ice, but I saw it. I won’t lie to you, Temper, and I didn’t lie to the judge, either. When I saw my mama’s face, I saw red.
“All my life, I was told I was just like my daddy, and for the first time, I hoped I was. I ran up in his face, and we yelled and screamed at each other until we reached the staircase that led to our front door. Marvin called himself kicking me out. His bad, because I didn’t have plans to go anywhere. My mama jumped in between us and told me to leave until I calmed down, and then I could come back. Marvin must’ve taken it as if she were overshadowing his words. He cocked back and punched my mama in the mouth. I ran behind the door that separated the house from the steps and grabbed my baseball bat. He thought I would crack him with it, and I wanted to, but that wasn’t the plan. I needed to scare him into thinking I would, and I did. Marvin fell down all twenty-two steps, and his big ass landed on his neck. He didn’t move. He just lay there with his eyes open, and we couldn’t tell if he was breathing. I was scared, and so was my mama. I didn’t know what to do next, and leaving felt mandatory. I grabbed my backpack, filled it with books, and grabbed my camera so I could run away.”
“What in the hell did you think you could do with a backpack full of books and a camera in the damn streets?” Temper was livid with her hand raised.
“I don’t know what I planned to do with the camera, but I wasn’t going to let being a fugitive stop me from educating myself, just like you’re not going to let my words stop you from interrupting me.”
“Exactly. So you might have committed murder, and the first thing you think about is educating yourself? But you can finish telling me what happened next.”
“Next, I had to climb over him to run away. I felt like I was crossing a graveyard on Halloween as my mama watched me go. When I made it to the door handle, his hand shot up, and he grabbed my backpack to keep me from running. We played tug of war until I began unzipping it. I started lying about having a weapon inside of it that would make him let go. I thought my protractor had a sharp point on the end of it and I could stab his hand with it, but when the police drew their guns on me when I went to the police station for help a week later, I learned that Marvin turned my protractor into a large black gun.”
“Don’t get me wrong, this story is better than anything I’ve seen on TV, but where does hitting the public defender fall in?”
“If you’ll listen and stop talking long enough, I can finish,” she said, rolling her eyes, and Temper placed her hand over her mouth. “I was arrested with a protractor, books, a camera, and two pairs of panties in my personals, and my story seemed to be fitting together like a puzzle as Marvin’s crumbled. When they asked him what happened that night, he said I was high on drugs and had attacked my mother. He told the courts he tried to stop me to no avail, and I attacked him with a baseball bat, pushed him down the stairs, and put a gun to his head to rob him for his money. When it was my turn, I told the same story that I just finished telling you. Since our stories were day and night, it went to trial, and my mama was the key witness. She took the stand and said she didn’t remember which one of us hit her. If she had to guess, she’d have to say it was me because I was high. Her words didn’t sit right with the judge, especially since they didn’t find any drugs in my system. He was about to send me home with them on probation with court-ordered family counseling because he wasn’t sure if I had truly committed a crime. I guess I had a moment when I used feelings over logic and asked my mama who hit her again, and she looked me dead in my eyes and repeated what she said. ‘I don’t know which one of you gave me the black eye and busted my nose and lip. I was knocked out.’ My heart broke, and I asked the judge if I could stay in jail instead of going home with a woman I’d never trust again, and he said no. He said they didn’t have enough evidence to prove that I had committed the crime. They couldn’t keep me.”
“And that’s when you punched your public defender.”
Washington nodded. “I punched my public defender with everything in me. They charged me with assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious bodily injury for breaking his nose once the judge found out that I spent every summer in the boxing club at the recreation center my uncle worked at while in college. That’s a felony. My plan somewhat backfired on me. After the therapist spoke to my judge on my behalf—I had no priors, straight A’s since daycare, and was set to graduate high school two years ahead of my class—the judge sentenced me to an emancipation program inside a suitable placement.”
“Why couldn’t you just go live with your uncle or your father?”
“My uncle is a single man, and I didn’t want him to be the middleman between his sister and her daughter, and my daddy is . . .”
“Your daddy is what?” Temper quizzed, and Washington didn’t answer.
Washington had her eyes locked on the three older girls walking their way. The way the girls had Washington’s attention made Temper pay closer attention. Temper knew the girls, but not well enough for them to stop to speak with her. They lived not too far from her grandmother’s house in the adjacent Bloods’ hood. They weren’t friends. Everyone Temper hung around was affiliated with the Crips.
“Say, Blood, are you that bitch Temper I keep hearing foul shit about?” the tallest and darkest-skinned girl questioned as she stood securely in her spot between the other two girls, who were both bigger than her when it came to waist size.
“Depends on who’s asking and why?”
“A simple yes or no will do.”
“That’s not necessarily true. She has the right to screen who she shares her identity with,” Washington said as she gave a smile to the sheriffs down the hallway with their eyes locked on the gathering.
“She wasn’t talking to you, was she?” the girl on the right said and then jumped at Washington, who didn’t jump nor blink at the action.
“I’m asking because,” she said, making sure to emphasize the letter B, “if you’re the bitch who got my nigga K-Mack that statutory rape charge by pinning that baby on him, I’m stomping a mudhole in your ass.”
Temper had wondered how the neighborhood was taking the news of her hiding her pregnancy, forcing his mama to deliver the baby and then getting slammed with a statutory rape charge that landed him his third strike. Not to mention she also named him as the person who stashed the drugs in her bag as an added “fuck you” for that
shit he pulled with Kei-Kei. With time, the thoughts had faded away, more so after she realized she’d never have to see nor deal with any of those people again. Isabel told her Lena planned to sell her house and move away, too, so her grandson would never have to hear about the tragedy surrounding his birth. She had pushed her past out of her mind, and now it was standing in her face, threatening her.
“Please shut up!” Washington got out the words through her exaggerated yawn. “If you’re going to whoop Temper’s ass, just do it and get the shit over with,” she urged as she looked at the girl’s left wrist to read her jail name badge. “Theresa Stockton, all that fly-ass talking isn’t necessary.”
“Ay, Resa, do you want me to go ahead and shut this bitch up for you?” the girl on her right asked.
“Nah, that’s just Washington. You see they got her tied up. That ho crazy.”
“No, I’m not crazy, ho. After meeting Temper, I think I’m special. My daddy does too.” Washington cleared her throat by letting off a broken, dry cough, and when she spoke again, her voice tone and vocabulary changed. “Y’all bitches must’ve forgotten that warning your big homies sent you about there being a chick in here you’re not supposed to fuck with, huh? Heard me shoot a little vocabulary your way, throw on a crazy act, and thought I was the bitch you could fuck with, huh, ho? You little bitches never learn, do you?”
Temper froze in her stance at Washington’s split personality. However, she didn’t miss the fancy finger work she flashed at the girls from under the shackles, nor did she miss the fearful looks on the girl’s faces when they saw it.
“We don’t want no problems with you, big homie. We got orders from up top to handle Temper.”
“Fuck those orders, and tell whoever sent them that Temper has my blessings. She’s off-limits!”
“What about us? Are we good?” Theresa asked as she stepped back to get out of Washington’s face.
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