Dysfunctional (The Root of Betrayal)

by Tameka Hicks

  going to be upset at me, {like I really give a damn.} but I don’t think I can make it.”

  “If you’re sick there’s nothing that can be done about that. Drink plenty of fluids and stay in the bed. After the funeral, I’ll nurse you back to health.”

  She said sickly, “Okay. My stomach hurts.” She smiled. Maybe a career as an actress wouldn’t be too farfetched because I’m good. She was unable to go back to sleep because of her nightmare. It was obviously her conscience playing a major part of why she dreamed something crazy like that. “I know what I can do…….

  Dear Diary,

  I’d just experienced one of the craziest dreams ever. I went to Lasha’s funeral and Jeanette got mad and slapped me because I had on a red pants suit. They tried to make me sing at the funeral in front of everyone. You know I hate crowds especially singing in front of them. Once they closed the casket, Jeanette tried to shoot herself in the head, but she shot me instead, right over my heart and then laughed about it. Uncle Charles told her what, she had done to me, and she called me a murderer and the word “murderer” echoed. Everything moved in slow motion after I got shot. I guess this is something that I’m going to have to deal with forever. I asked and pleaded with Jeanette to take Lasha over to her other grandma’s house sometimes, but she refused to listen to me. I must feel some type of guilt because I’m having dreams like this. Sometimes I care about what I’ve done, but most of the time I don’t. I heard grandma mention that we should repent for our wrong doings. I think this qualifies as a bad sin, if any. I didn’t want to go to the funeral in the first place, but after this dream, I’m definitely not going. I’m kind of glad that I dreamed that because it sparked a new plan for me. I can spend tomorrow on the phone talking to my new friend, Tyrese. Yes, it’s the same boy that Nia’s talking to. Don’t judge me. We went to the show the other day, and I enjoyed myself for the first time in months. He doesn’t know that I’m Nia’s friend. I don’t know what I am to her. She’s in love with this fool. I have to admit that he’s cute, but I’m going to play this buster for whatever I can get out of him without putting it out, but there’s a bonus to all this; Nia’s going to hurt just like I did when she told the entire fifth grade class that I had a crush on Charles, and they teased me about it. Betrayal hurts worse than any wound you could get. It’s been years and she’s going to feel the sting from me. No matter how long it takes me to figure out your punishment.

  You cross me; there are no rules, no exceptions and no time limit.

  Tamara…

  20 MONTHS LATER

  It’s a beautiful morning and I'd better enjoy it because this afternoon Jeanette will be home from the mental hospital. She did as well as what was expected of her at the funeral, so I’ve heard, but two weeks later something snapped, causing her to have a nervous breakdown. She would talk to you one minute, throwing things at you the next for no apparent reason. You never knew what kind of mood she was going to be in, so when Damarcus’ mother, Charisse, decided to file a missing person's report on him; she lost whatever little sense she had left.

  Her disdain for me began to show more and more. She told me a dozen times that she hated me and wished that I had died instead of Lasha. Grandma couldn’t have moved in with us, but she asked me if I would be willing to stay home and keep an eye on her. I’m just a teenager, so what do I look like watching her? That’s retarded? Nevertheless, I did it. Once she hid in the basement with a knife waiting to stab me that was my last straw. If I hadn’t used my tray as a shield, she would’ve gutted me like a fish. I wasn’t going to have to sleep with one eye-open or have to place a chair behind my door, so I moved back in with grandma.

  The family visited her while she was in the hospital, but I wasn’t thinking about her. Jeanette was convinced that I did something to her precious baby girl, and whenever she mentioned it, I would ask her to prove it. Whatever small talk we used to have was all gone now. She didn’t speak to me, and I have no feelings or words to share with her. I HATE to even write about her in my diary let alone SPEAK to her, so to another topic.

  I have a new male friend, but I can’t tell you who he is, he made me swear not to write about the things that we did at Jeanette’s house. Charles hasn’t talked to me because I didn’t want him to be my boyfriend, that's when he looked for a new love. Two months later, the poor girl was pregnant. I barely escaped that sinking boat.

  Tyrese; Nia’s old boyfriend and my new boyfriend well, (that’s what he thinks) is taking me shopping today. She’s not speaking to me either, because one of her nosey girlfriends went back and told her that she had seen me with her boyfriend. I had spotted her from the beginning and purposely went into her direction so that she would see us. We argued about it of course, but like I told her, “I didn’t know that they were dating.” I’m a stinker. I know. She couldn’t prove that I had seen him when he picked her up from school that day. I’m far sighted. Maybe she will seriously think about it next time before she embarrasses someone who she claimed to be her best friend. That incident haunted me for years, so maybe now I can put it all behind me.

  "THE FIGHT”

  The family gathered at Barbara’s house anxiously waiting for Diane to arrive with Jeanette. Barbara spent the entire morning in the kitchen cooking, as her brothers worked on the yard. Alexis and Lynette were responsible for the house chores, and she put her sisters on the grill. Tamara wasn’t anywhere around like always.

  It was hot as hell, but they were used to this kind of weather. They were from Alabama. They had two reasons to celebrate: Jeanette was being released from the hospital and Diane and Marion’s wedding was scheduled for next week. Diane wanted to share her final decisions with the family about the type of flowers she had chosen, and the picture of the cake.

  About an hour later, a horn sounded. Everyone stopped what they were doing and ran to the car. Barbara instantly realized a change-a good change-in her sick daughter. She had gained weight and actually for the first time in months looked like the old Jeanette. The one before Lasha and Damarcus came into her life, heck the one before Tamara (the one that she had gotten along with) the innocent one. Barbara patiently waited her turn; which was last, to hug Jeanette but she didn’t mind. They stood there in a tight embrace, silently crying and laughing for at least a minute.

  Diane said, “Mama you are going to-.” She quickly caught the word suffocate, choosing to say. “Let her go,” she laughed, making everyone laugh.

  While they were glad for her to be home, they walked on eggshells waiting for the “Crazy Jeanette” to appear.

  They removed pictures of Lasha and Ashley, anything that could have sent them rushing her back to Northwest Mental Hospital.

  Jeanette relaxed in the living room laughing and having a good time with her sisters talking about the good old days.

  The two dust filled fans that rotated in the middle of the floor hadn’t supplied enough breeze for her, so she excused herself and went outside. The sisters exchanged concerned stares of worry with each other, telepathically thinking, “Is it starting?”

  “It is cooler out here y’all, let’s sit on the porch,” she told them.

  They exhaled collectively.

  “Okay,” replied Diane. “Come on.”

  Outside provided a little more comfort than the house. The oven had been kicking out heat since seven thirty this morning, not to mention the house full of people roaming around. Jeanette felt the tension in the air, but her doctor told her to expect that. It was an adjustment that the family had to endure. She was proud of the progress that she had made, even though she was aware that she had a long road to travel. But for the first time in sixteen months, without supervision of a doctor, she felt in total control of her thoughts and actions. She wasn’t angry or sad and had enjoyed being with her family.

  The eighty nine degree, late evening weather brought about a group of kids who played in the middle of the street with the fire hydrant on full blast. They ran around loudmouthed, and o
ut of control like they owned the street. People who drove past blew their horns numerous times before they would let them pass. Sixty-five percent of the Glenfield residents were outside shooting the breeze. The Kelly’s were having a Sweet 16 birthday party for Shantanique, and there were no parking spaces available on the whole block. When Mr. Johnson’s niece came to visit, she had to park around the corner. She fussed all the way to his house because she could never park in front of her uncle’s house. Cynthia Parker sat on the porch watching her two daughters as they played tag. Betty Harris and her husband washed their cars in the backyard. Pookey; who did a little bit of everything, posed on the porch drinking and staring at neighbors, and polluting the air with their special kind of cigarettes. Music was always blasting from the house.

  The new neighbor Tiffany, who lived directly across the street, relaxed on the side of her house. She enjoyed the shade while avoiding her neighbors, so she wouldn’t have to speak to them. Tiffany fussed at her children, as they played in their pool in the front yard, splashing each other.

  “Rumor has it is that she doesn’t like black people. Mr. Love told Mrs. Brooks, who told Mr. Daniels, who told Angel Oliver, Mr. Love swore it to be true because she’d confided this bit of information to him as they were shopping last month at the grocery store. Although he didn’t consider himself gossipy, most (if not all) of the gossip that circulated on the street originated from him.

  Jeanette laughed at her mother. “Ma, you know that you can’t trust anything that Mr. Love says. You can tell him, “The sky is blue today,” and it would get back that you said, “Some girl named Sky died yesterday.”

  “He can’t hear,” said a laughing Alexis.

  “Perhaps he can’t,” Barbara said. "Or maybe he likes to keep shit started?"

  “He’s too old for that,” Diane said.

  “Well, if she did say that, it doesn’t matter because she’s no better than the rest of us, living in the same neighborhood, shopping at the same stores and every six months having an appointment at the ADC Office,” Barbara explained.

  Diane asked, “When are people going to stop being ignorant?”

  “About a second before the world ends,” Lynette answered. “So mama, if she was in trouble, and you were the only one around, would you help her?”

  “Good question,” Diane said.

  "I bet it is,” Jeanette laughed. “Sounds like A Diane Question.”

  “Leave me alone,” Diane retorted.

  Barbara paused for a minute thinking carefully before she had answered her question. “Yes, I would because I don’t have to be ignorant because she is. I couldn’t stand around and watch anyone die because of ignorance.”

  The Real reason why Tiffany had never spoken to any of them because she heard from Kim, who said that Mr. Harris told her that Mr. Love had said, that the Brown's didn’t like her kind because her mother was a maid and had gotten killed by white folks, and she had better keep her distance from them if she knew what was good for her. I guess it never dawned on Tiffany as to how ridiculous that sounded, being that a white guy cut her grass every other week, and some white kids always visited her house to sell her candy. A prejudice person would not voluntarily give their money away to someone that they didn’t like, and the fact that her mother was still alive made the rumor utterly absurd. But they were not excused from the ignorant bug. Tiffany had dated and shared two of the four of her children with a black man. Even if she didn’t share African American features, her great grandfather was as black as charcoal. If the people from the block had minded to their own affairs, they probably would have gotten along, or at least had spoken.

  “I heard that she was a drunk, and she beats the hell out of her children for nothing.”

  “Mama, do you see how they act? I would beat their asses too, and I would become a drunk also,” Lynette said. “I would hit the bottle hard---those four boys are terrible?”

  “Y’all better get back in there and play before I make you take that pool back in the damn house. I’m not going to tell you again!” Tiffany felt their eyes piercing from across the street at her. “Look at them prejudice bastards?” she thought.

  “Look at her abusive ass,” Alexis said.

  Jeanette sat on the bottom step checking out the scenery. Lynette had gone downstairs to get ready for work. She didn’t want to go in and miss out, but she couldn’t afford to call-off. Barbara decided to take a shower to cool off.

  “I’ll be back.”

  “Okay,” Jeanette said.

  Jeanette watched the two little boys who lived directly next door make an ant farm. They had filled the empty pickle jar with the dirt. “Put the ants in here!”

  One of the boys looked up and waved to Jeanette. “Hi Alexis,” Little Michael grinned.

  Jeanette smiled and waved back. “I’m not Alexis. I’m her sister Jeanette.”

  “I’m Alexis.” Alexis corrected.

  “I thought that was Alexis,” whispered Michael to his nephew.

  He hit Michael with the stick. “You are stupid. Put the ants in here! She doesn’t like you!"

  “Told you that wasn’t Alexis,” said Daurel.

  They argued back and forth without taking their eyes off the ants because they didn’t want to get distracted from their project.

  “They’re making an ant farm,” Alexis mumbled. I remembered doing that when I was younger, she thought to herself.

  “Daurel, what are you about to do with those ants?” asked Diane.

  Little Michael came from the back with a gasoline container in his hand. “We are about to pour this in the glass and burn them all.”

  “He’s about to do what?” Barbara asked Jeanette, walking back onto the porch.

  “Burn the ants up,” Lexis answered chuckling.

  “Little Michael and Daurel, you better not burn those ants up! And if I catch either one of you playing with gasoline or matches, I’m going to whip your asses AND then tell your mama! Do you two understand me?”

  They nodded.

  Daurel said, “Man you talk too much. You should've stayed back there so we could’ve burned them. Stupid.” he hit him upside his head.

  “Don’t call me stupid! You are stupid. You better stop hitting me!"

  “You two have no business doing that to those ants. That’s not right. Let them out,” said Barbara.

  “Aw man,” said Daurel. He poured the ants out of the jar.

  “She is not my mama,” whispered Michael.

  “You tell her that then,” he mumbled.

  “No!”

  “So how are you feeling Jeanette?” Barbara asked.

  She smiled. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes ma, I was thinking about going back to school for nursing.”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” asked Lynette.

  “I think I’m too old.”

  “You’re thirty four. It’s never too late to learn,” Diane replied.

  “I know.”

  A Silver Honda wildly pulled up in front of the house with N.W.A. booming from the speakers. “Who in the world is th-?” wondered Barbara.

  “That’s Tamara mama,” explained Lexis.

  “That’s her,” she whispered to Tyrese. He checked her out over his glasses. “Your mama is kind of cute.”

  “Whatever,” she jumped out of the car with her hands full of bags.

  All eyes were glued on her. She smacked her lips and thought. Here’s the crazy lady. “Hey grandma,” Tamara said.

  “You don’t see anyone else out here?” asked Diane.

  “I see you went shopping girlie,” said Barbara. She looked over her sunglasses at them. “No one that I like much,” she replied.

  “Who was that?” asked Jeanette.

  “Hello to you too Jeanette,” she said sarcastically.

  “Hello, who was that?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Tamara,” her grandmother yelled out.

  Dia
ne shook her head. Lynette thought, “Great, just what we need Tamara.”

  “What grandma? I merely asked a simple question.” She stood with her hands on her hip.

  “What do you think I’m going to try and steal your boyfriend?” Jeanette playfully said. Tamara obviously wasn’t in a joking mood because she swung her bags knocking her mother to her knees in the grass. Jeanette jumped to her feet and they started fighting like cats and dogs.

  They were actually fighting like strangers, and it took all of them to pry them apart. It happened so fast no one was prepared even though they were standing right there. Neighbors observed “The Crazy Fighting Family.” Individuals pulled their vehicles over to the side to watch the ruckus. Barbara fought with Jeanette to free Tamara’s neck from her hands as Diane had the hard task of getting Jeanette’s hair untangled from Tamara’s hands. Alexis tried to get Tamara’s legs from being wrapped around Jeanette. It definitely was a family effort. William’s car was parked in the backyard with the stereo blasting, so they were unaware of "The Fight." Once they had gotten them apart, Tamara wasn’t done, attacking Jeanette again. Diane and Lynette had to drag Tamara’s wild acting ass into the house.

  Tamara tried to break loose. “They should’ve kept her in that crazy house a little while longer! “Get your hands off of me!”

  Barbara and Alexis stood outside talking to Jeanette. She seemed calm.

  She even started to laugh. “I guess I can’t play with her anymore? She’s still mad at me.”

  Barbara laughed, as she tried to catch her breath. “I guess so.”

  Jeanette noticed blood dripping on her shirt. Her nose started to sting. “She busted my nose.”

  “Pick those things up and take them in the house,” Barbara told Alexis.

  William finally came to the front. “Whose clothes are those on the ground?”

  “Don’t bring your ass up here now asking us damn questions!” Barbara exploded.

  Diane and, (a now calm) Tamara came from the backyard as Jeanette went into the house to clean her nose.