Butterfly

by Sylvester Stephens

  Mr. Harry interrupted me while I was speaking, “Fifty-thousand dollars! You got that? Because that’s how much you owe me, fifty-thousand dollars.”

  “Mr. Harry you know I ain’t got no fifty-thousand dollars. And I don’t owe you no fifty-thousand dollars, either.”

  “But I said you do!”

  “How do I owe you that much money, Mr. Harry, for a hotel room and some clothes?”

  “Interest.”

  “Please, Mr. Harry, don’t do this to me. I don’t have that much money.”

  “There is another way.”

  “What other way?”

  Mr. Harry turned his chair to the side and rolled from behind his desk. He unzipped his pants and pulled out his stick.

  “Here you go, baby.”

  He grabbed his stick in his hand and started to pump it up. I could see it harden right before my eyes. Mr. Harry, himself, was disgusting to look at, but his shriveled-up, nasty, little prick was even more disgusting than his nasty fat body.

  “What you want me to do with that, Mr. Harry?”

  “Just come touch it.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “You wanna pay your debt, don’t you?”

  “Not like this, I don’t.”

  “Well, you gotta choice. Either you give me some ass, or I’m going to have Big Ant take my fifty-thousand dollars out on your ass! What’s it gon’ be?”

  I slowly walked over to Mr. Harry and he made me kneel down. “Please, Mr. Harry, I’ll give you all the money I got, but please don’t make me do this!”

  “Shut up!” Mr. Harry grabbed my head and started to lower it toward his stick. I closed my eyes as I got closer to it. I opened my mouth and then he screamed at the top of his lungs, “Oooooo shit!”

  Mr. Harry pushed me away from him and fell to the floor with his stick in his hand. Sparkle burst through the door and shouted, “What’s going on in here?”

  “She bit my shit!” Mr. Harry screamed.

  “She did what?” Sparkle was standing in the doorway when I ran past her. “Butterfly? What happened?”

  I kept running out of the club and into my car. Sparkle ran out of the club and knocked on my window. I backed up and zoomed off. By the time I got to the first traffic light, Sparkle was in my rearview mirror flashing her lights. I saw her, but I was not going to stop for her or anyone else. She pulled beside me and honked her horn.

  “Stop runnin’ from me, fool!”

  I was running scared like the sixteen-year-old child that I was. At that moment I did not want to be an adult! I did not want to be grown!

  “Butterfly? Shit! Shante? Will you pull your car over before somebody gets hurt?”

  That was the first time Sparkle had ever called me by my real name, and it had a calming effect on me. I pulled into a gas station and parked. I did not know what to do so I cried like a lost child. Sparkle parked her car and ran toward mine.

  “Baby, you okay?” Sparkle pulled me out of the car and hugged me. “I told you this business is not for you!”

  “That man tried to make me suck his...oh my goodness!” I became so overcome with emotion, I began to hyperventilate. Sparkle did her best to try to calm me but I was hysterical.

  “It’s okay! You’re okay! Calm down and breathe, Shante!”

  “I...I...I can’t!”

  “You’re safe now! You’re safe! Just calm down and breathe!”

  “That man...that man...”

  “Shante! Shante! You’re with me! I’m not going to let him hurt you, okay?”

  I put my head on Sparkle’s shoulder and cried. She held me until I stopped crying and then we went to her high-rise apartment in Buckhead. That apartment was so high I could almost see over the entire city.

  “Wow! This is nice.”

  “You like, huh?”

  “I thought I was making money at Emerald City, but you must really be making a lot of money to afford all of this.”

  “I do, okay.”

  “Wow! Thank you for letting me stay here.”

  “If you want to thank me, tell me your real age.”

  “Okay. But if I tell you, you have to promise you won’t be mad at me.”

  “I’m not promising shit! Now tell me.”

  “Okay, I’m sixteen.”

  “You’ve had a birthday since you’ve been working at the club, so that means you were only fifteen when you started working at Emerald City?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Girl, I need to take my belt off and whoop your tall, grown ass!”

  “I had to make some money, Sparkle.”

  “But you’re just a child, Shante.”

  “I’m not all the way grown but I’m not a child, either.”

  “Whatever! Being tall don’t make you grown,” Sparkle snapped. “I need to contact your relatives. I know they’re worried sick.”

  “The only relative I know of is my father. He’s locked up and I don’t even know how to get in contact with him. Oh yeah, I have a little sister and a little brother but I don’t know where they are, either.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “We have to find somebody in your family because my lifestyle is not role-model material for a sixteen-year-old.”

  “Why not? You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

  “I never said I wasn’t nice. I said I don’t live a role-model lifestyle.”

  “I don’t need a role model. I just need somebody to help take care of me.”

  “That’s what I’m saying, dear; I can’t take care of you like that.”

  “You look like you’re doing pretty damn good for yourself to me.”

  “I don’t mean financially, Shante. You need guidance. You need someone to put you on the right track so that you can have a successful life. I’m too screwed up for that.”

  “Can we try? Just for a little while?”

  “Don’t worry, dear. I would never put you out, or turn my back on you. And you’re welcome to stay as long as it takes for me to find you suitable living arrangements.”

  “Thank you, Sparkle.”

  “Call me Ida.”

  “Ida?”

  “Yes, that’s my real name.”

  “That’s an old person’s name.”

  “Well, not that it’s any of your business, but I was named after an old person that I loved very much, my grandmother. Is that okay with you, Shante?”

  “Hmm, I guess,” I said sarcastically.

  Chapter Two

  The very next morning Big Ant paid us a little visit on behalf of Mr. Harry. Sparkle was coming in from a night shift at a new strip club. She was going to bed to end her night as I was getting up to begin my day.

  “How was the club last night?”

  “It wasn’t that packed but a few of my regulars from Emerald City stopped through, so I made a little money.”

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  Sparkle stopped talking when someone banged on the door. She pulled her pistol from her purse and then gestured for me to go to the bedroom. I stood behind the bedroom door as Sparkle yelled to the person outside of her door.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Big Ant from the club!”

  “What do you want?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “We don’t need to talk about shit!”

  “Come on, Spark,” Big Ant yelled, “I know that girl is in there and Mr. Harry wants to talk to her.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way; it don’t make no difference to me.”

  “Okay, wait a minute.”

  Sparkle came into the bedroom to try to figure out what to do with me before Big Ant forced his way in.

  “Look, we have to get you out of here!”

  “How? You’re on the sixteenth f
loor!”

  “Damn!” Sparkle looked around the room over and over again. “Come here.”

  I followed Sparkle into her living room and hid in a closet. Sparkle took off all of her clothes and stripped down to her underwear. She put on a robe and then opened the door for Big Ant.

  “Damn, what you doing in here?” Big Ant cased the apartment as he walked in. “Where she at, Spark?”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Uh-huhn. What took you so long to open the door?”

  “I was about to get in the shower. How the hell I know you were going to be pounding on my door like a fool.”

  The door to the closet was opened barely enough where I could see parts of their bodies as they spoke. My heart was beating so fast I could hear it pounding.

  “Yeah, right.”

  Big Ant went into the bedroom and Sparkle gestured for me to run out of the closet. I tiptoed toward the front door as she went into the bedroom with Big Ant. On my way out of the door, I heard the sound of a loud crash so I ran back in. I rushed into the bedroom and Big Ant had his knee in Sparkle’s chest with both of his hands around her throat.

  “Get off of her!” I screamed.

  “Ru...!” Sparkle tried to speak but Big Ant’s grip was too tight around her neck.

  “You the one I’m looking for anyway!”

  Big Ant jumped off of Sparkle and started chasing me. I turned to run out of the door but he grabbed me and threw me on the couch. But by the time he reached me, Sparkle had reached her gun and she pointed it directly at the side of his head.

  “Get off her!”

  “Hey! Hey! Hey! You better think about what you doing!”

  “Naw, you better think about what you doing, niggah!” Sparkle yelled. “Get your ass up before I put a slug in your big-ass head!”

  “Sparkle?” Big Ant said nervously.

  “Sparkle, my ass! You think I’m playing with you, niggah?” Sparkle cocked the barrel of the gun and shoved it into Big Ant’s head. “Huh, niggah?”

  In the year that I had known Sparkle, I had never seen her that angry. Shoot, I had never seen her angry, period. I guess if you back anybody into a corner, they will either fight or flee. Sparkle did not feel like running that day.

  “Back up, Sparkle, and I’ll let her up!”

  “Naw, niggah! You let her up and then I’ll back up!”

  Big Ant slowly raised his hands in the air and climbed his big ass off of me. Sparkle kept the pistol pointed at him as he backed his way out of the apartment. She followed him into the hallway until he got on the elevator and went down. She ran back into the apartment and screamed at me to move quickly.

  “Let’s go! Now!”

  Sparkle snatched a bag that was already packed and ready to go. It was as if she knew someday she would have to make an emergency exit. I ran to the elevator and pushed the button, but Sparkle grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the stairs.

  “No! The stairs! Come on!”

  “That’s sixteen flights!”

  “COME ON!” Sparkle screamed.

  Sparkle was in great shape because she ran down all sixteen flights without stopping once. I had to take a couple of breathers around the eleventh and third floors. Sparkle cursed me every time I stopped.

  “Come on!” Sparkle yelled at me while she was standing at the bottom of the stair. “Get your ass down these stairs!”

  “I’m trying!” I yelled back as I leaned on the rail for support.

  “If you get us killed, I swear I’m gon’ kick your ass, girl!“

  When we reached the first floor, Sparkle pulled out her gun and slowly opened the door to the lobby area. We could see Big Ant and Mr. Harry standing near the elevator. Sparkle tapped me on the shoulder and I followed her through a rear door, which led to the parking lot. We slipped into her car quietly and unseen, but once she started the car, she put the pedal to the metal! She burned rubber speeding out of that driveway.

  “I got to find you a place to stay.”

  “I have money, Ida. We can go stay at a hotel.”

  “That’s not safe, baby. Mr. Harry and his goons will finds us in no time.”

  “Well, what we are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know, but we have to do something quick.”

  Sparkle pulled into the parking lot of a Waffle House restaurant and cut the car off. “I have to take you to DFACS!”

  “No! I’m not going back there. I’ll only end up in a foster home.”

  “I’m sorry, Shante, but what else can I do? I have to get out of town for a while, and I can’t leave you behind living on the streets.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “Like you’re okay now?” Sparkle looked at me sarcastically. “You’re sixteen years old trying to survive in a world where most adults can’t even make it.”

  “I have to do what I have to do.”

  “Stop saying that!” Sparkle screamed. “Living on the street is not what you have to do! There are people who can help you, but you have to want them to help you.”

  “Those people don’t care nothing about me!”

  “Well, you have no choice, baby.”

  “I’m sixteen now and I can make my own decisions on where I want to live.”

  “Okay, you’re sixteen. You think you’re grown, so where are you going to live?”

  I tried my best to think of an adult answer to Sparkle’s question before she hit me with her follow-up response, but I couldn’t.

  “That’s what I thought! So, this is what we’re going to do. I’m going to take you to some close friends of mine and they’ll take good care of you.”

  “Please, Ida, I know you’re trying to help me, but I don’t want to live with anybody else. I’m too big. They’re only going to kick me out.”

  “Not these people. They’re good people.”

  “That’s what they always say.”

  “I know these people and they will take good care of you. I promise.”

  “How do you know they will let me live with them?”

  “Because I just know, that’s how.”

  “Shoot,” I sighed, “I’m going to have to go through foster care all over again. I can’t stand that shit!”

  “Watch your mouth, girl!” Sparkle snapped. “You’re tough. You can handle it.”

  “I don’t mean to whine, but you just don’t know what it’s like to be in and out of foster care.”

  “I don’t know about foster care? Let me tell you something, Missy...”

  SPARKLE’S STORY:

  I was born in Saginaw, Michigan, the eighth child of a young mother of twenty-eight. She had my oldest sister, Tiffanie, her first child, when she was fifteen years old. She dated an older man who made her addicted to drugs and him. She pretty much stopped taking care of us. My sister Tiffanie fed me; cleaned me and dressed me so many times I had started to call her mama.

  Eventually the state took us away from my mother and split us up. In the state of Michigan, they had three different forms of custody for the children of the state, Relative Care, Child Receiving Home, and Foster Care.

  Relative Care was when a relative or close family friend assumed responsibility or guardianship of a child. I never had anyone close enough who wanted to take in my siblings, or myself. But I frequented the other two processes.

  Child Receiving Home was a place they took children when they had nowhere else to go. I was there often and it was rough. But it still beat living on them damn streets. They gave us three meals a day and even though they bathed us two children at a time, we still got the chance to wash our asses. We slept two to a twin bed, which was quite uncomfortable, but again, it beat sleeping on the ground with a box as a blanket.

  When we were in foster care, they would drop us off and pick us up early so that the other kids would not know that we were living at the Child Receiving Home. You know how children are; they were trying to prevent us from public humiliation.

  They would closely monitor
us during school hours to make sure we did not run away. They would also privately interview us about our mother’s past situation and our current foster care situation.

  On those rare occasions when my mother was allowed to see us, we would have to go to the Department of Human Services, or DHS for short. Those were the only times I saw my mother and my siblings. We would gather in this small room where the DHS staff would watch us through a glass window and they recorded our every move. I was happy to see my mother but it felt strange meeting in such a peculiar manner. At the age of eight, the visits stopped and I have not seen or heard from my mother or my siblings since.

  At nine, they gave me the responsibility of caring for three of the younger children in the home. I had to dress them, feed them and make sure they did not get into any danger as if they were my own children. If I did not handle my responsibility of taking care of the babies properly, I was severely disciplined. It is odd because as much as I hated taking care of those kids, I think I craved the attention and love they were giving me.

  I was twelve when I had my first menstrual cycle. I did not feel comfortable telling my foster mom, so I told a friend who had just started her first cycle as well. She took me to one of our teachers, Mrs. Glenn, who showed me how to use a pad. Mrs. Glenn was concerned and called my foster mom and told her about the situation. My foster mom was mad as hell because she felt I was telling our family business. When I got home, she whooped my ass. I ran away, and never went back. I ended up staying with a nice family for a while, but then they moved out West, and I ended up back in the Child Receiving Home.

  Around fourteen, I went to a foster home with a family who had three daughters and a boy. The girls were my age and younger, but the son was three years older than me. He was cute and I had a little crush on him. We would wrestle when there was no one else around and always end up with him grinding between my legs. One day, I came home early from school and he was the only one there. He was lying on the floor when I walked into the living room.

  “Hey, Ida.”

  “Hey, Andre.”

  I sat on the couch and started watching television. I eventually fell asleep and when I woke up, Andre was on top of me grinding. I was startled and wanted him to get the hell up. We had done this numerous times before, but I was always awake. Finding him on top of me made me feel as if I was being ambushed.