Butterfly

by Sylvester Stephens

  While they were having fun, I was being told to sit like this, sit like that, walk faster, walk slower, smile, don’t smile, stick your ass out, stick your ass in. What bothered me the most was when I kept hearing, “Nibble on this for right now, and you can eat when we are finished.”

  Around seven o’clock, they gave me a break. I sat in a high chair and reached for a bottle of water.

  “Here.” Ms. Alicia handed me a sandwich.

  “Oh my goodness, thank you, Mom!” I bit into that sandwich like a starved savage. “I am so hungry I could eat a bear!”

  “Not so fast, girl, you’re going to choke.”

  “I don’t care. I’m hungry.”

  “So how do you feel?”

  “I’m sleepy.”

  “Is this too much for you?”

  “Are you kidding me? This is nothing. I’m ready for some more.” I finished my sandwich and then jumped out of my chair.

  “Look at you.” Ms. Alicia smiled. “That’s my tiger! But save some of that energy for tomorrow, sweetheart.”

  “Oh thank goodness, I’m about to pass out!” I slumped down in the chair and kicked my legs out.

  “Get your butt up.” Ms. Alicia laughed.

  “I can’t!”

  “Let’s go, your carriage awaits.” Ms. Alicia pulled me out of the chair.

  I grabbed my duffle bag and stumbled outside to the limo. I stretched out on one of the seats and put my head in Ms. Alicia’s lap. When I woke up, we were in front of our hotel. I hobbled to my room and lay across my bed.

  “Don’t you want to catch up with our posse?” Ms. Alicia joked.

  “No ma’am.” I mumbled with my face stuffed in my pillow. “And please, could you not use the word posse ever again in that context?”

  “Girl, go to sleep!” Ms. Alicia laughed and went into her room.

  Bri came in later, wanting to know what I had done all day. She also wanted to tell me how she had spent her day. I turned over and faced her, but I kept dozing off. She was so excited, I don’t think she even noticed that I was unconscious. I paid attention as much as I could, but I dozed off on her one time and the next thing I knew, it was six-thirty in the morning and Ms. Alicia was shaking me.

  “Get up! Get up! We’re late!”

  “Huh?”

  “Get up, girl! It’s six-thirty! We overslept!”

  “Oh my goodness!” I jumped out of bed and ran to the shower.

  I threw on a warm-up suit and some shades and waited on Ms. Alicia, who was not going outside without her makeup under any circumstances. She did a rush job, but you could not tell by looking at her. She was still gorgeous! When the limo pulled up, we were standing outside and ready to go.

  I took more pictures later that morning. During the afternoon, I was zoomed away to read in a commercial. Somehow, Ms. Erin got the gig for me. It was only a small part, but I got paid for it. And it was going to be seen nationally. Once we finished the commercial, I had another meeting with Ms. Erin.

  “So what do you think so far?” Ms. Erin asked.

  “I love it.”

  “Great!” Ms. Erin opened up a folder and pulled out a stack of paper. “I want to offer you a contract to represent you exclusively for the next three years. I can go on and on about telling you all the things I can do for you, Butterfly. But that’s not how I do things. That’s why I brought you and your family here this weekend to show you what I can do for you. When you board that plane tonight, you will have a complete portfolio filled with beautiful pictures. You will have a commercial where you are a principal actress. And you will be a contestant on one of the most popular reality shows on television. If I can do all of this for you in just one weekend, imagine what I could do for you in three years.”

  Ms. Erin handed me the contract, and Ms. Alicia made me read every single word, line by line. She explained to me what each item meant. She was used to handling entertainment contracts with her PR firm. It took a while, but we finally finished it.

  “Wow! I don’t know what to say.” I was speechless. I turned to Ms. Alicia for guidance. “What do you think, Mom?”

  “This is your decision, baby.”

  “Can I ask why you are doing all of this for me, Ms. Erin?”

  “Because I love what I do. I love molding new talent and turning it into something beautiful. I believe in you, Butterfly, and now I ask you to believe in me.”

  “Okay, I want to sign the contract.”

  “You sure, baby?” Ms. Alicia asked.

  “I’m positive.”

  Ms. Erin handed me an ink pen. “Young lady, you’re on your way to being a star!”

  Ms. Alicia smiled and watched as I signed my contract. Ms. Erin sent a limo to pick up the rest of our party, including Ma Powell, Sparkle, Stanley, Natalie and Alan to celebrate. We had a ball! And no matter how I tried to make it a family event, everybody made sure I was the center of the attraction.

  Our flight left at ten o’clock Pacific Standard Time, and we arrived in Atlanta at six in the morning. We caught the train back to the Doraville MARTA station where Dr. Forrester, Brit and Uncle Mike were waiting for us. Auntie Cynthia and Bri rode home with Uncle Mike, and we dropped off Auntie Pam on our way home.

  • • •

  I had two weeks before I had to fly back to Los Angeles and I wanted to make the most of my remaining time in Atlanta. I felt like I had been neglecting Brit over the past month, so I took her for a drive to get some ice cream. We were only a mile or two from our house when Brit told me she was going to miss me when I left.

  “I’m going to miss you, Butterfly.”

  “I’m going to miss you, too, little girl.”

  “Are you coming back?”

  “Of course, why do you ask that?”

  “My other mommy left and she never came back.”

  “That’s because she went to heaven.”

  “I know. That’s what my new mommy said.”

  “But I’m only going to California. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Can I take a picture with before you leave? I want to hang it up on my wall by my bed, so I can see you every day when I...”

  Slam!!!

  As Brit was talking, a speeding car went through a red light and smashed into my driver’s side door. I recall the initial impact, and then I was immediately knocked unconscious. I remember waking up to medics asking me questions that I could not answer and then I blacked out again.

  SHANTE’S STORY:

  I do not remember a lot about my mother, but I know that she took care of me very well. I remember, even at that young age, a life of stability and security. After my mother died, my father had to take care of me all by himself and at that time, he simply was not mentally equipped for the task.

  My father thought we needed a change, so we moved from Raleigh, North Carolina to Atlanta, Georgia. My father was from the streets, so when he moved to Atlanta on the West End, he went back to familiar surroundings, the streets!

  I was my father’s pride and joy, and as a single father, he did all he could to provide for me. But as far back as I can remember, he never had a real job. He sold drugs or had multiple part-time jobs that paid next to nothing. I was not ashamed or anything, that was all I knew. I thought everybody’s father sold drugs for a living. I didn’t know any better.

  When DFACS found out, I was frequently being left at home alone. They started snooping around our apartment. My father tried to slow down after that. He tried to find a real job and stop hustling. He was barely making minimum wage working real jobs. But in the streets, he could have made thousands of dollars a week. So what do you think he did? He went back to the streets.

  He met this lady named Joyce when I was six. She was from Los Angeles. She was kind of like from a rich family. She was not rich, but her parents were, and she expected my father to provide the same luxuries as her parents. He had two kids by her: my little sis
ter, Natalie; and my little brother, Alan. Natalie was two years older than Alan.

  After they were born, my father left the streets alone and found some pretty decent jobs. He and Ms. Joyce got along fine until her spoiled ass started to put pressure on him to make more money. No matter how hard my father tried, he could not please her. Eventually, they broke up and went their separate ways.

  When my sister, Natalie, was four, she told my father that Ms. Joyce’s boyfriend had showed her a burn mark near his genitals. My father tried to talk to Ms. Joyce about it, but she got mad at him and stopped him from seeing Natalie and Alan altogether. My father was mad, too, but he did not retaliate.

  In the State of Georgia, if the father is not married to the mother when the child is born, he has no legal rights to the child. Ms. Joyce took advantage of that stupid law and used it against my father. She placed a restraining order against him to stop him from seeing the kids. And because she had the restraining order against my dad, he could not have a paternity test to legitimize my brother and sister. He was caught between a rock and a hard place.

  After a year of not seeing Natalie and Alan, he woke me up in the middle of the night to put an end to it. He put on my clothes and told me we were going to see my little brother and sister. He couldn’t take it anymore. He had to see them.

  I was still kind of sleepy when we pulled into their yard, but I could hear him and Ms. Joyce fussing. When I sat up, I could see my father on top of Ms. Joyce’s boyfriend, whose name was Jamie. My dad was holding him down and they were screaming at each other.

  “You ain’t got nothing to do with this, man!” Dad yelled. “I want to see my kids!”

  “She said you can’t see yo’ kids, now what, niggah?” Jamie yelled back.

  Ms. Joyce ran out of the apartment with a bat and hit my father in the back. He fell over and Jamie ran to his car. He snatched open his car door and reached into his glove compartment. He pulled out a gun and held it in the air. He pointed at my dad and walked toward him.

  “Let’s see how bad you are now, niggah.”

  My dad was lying on his back. He crawled backward as the man walked on top of him with the gun in his hand. I jumped out of the car and ran to my dad. He pushed me out of the way and stood up. Ms. Joyce swung the bat at my dad again, but it slipped out of her hand. Dad picked it up and held it in his hand. I stood between my dad and Jamie.

  “Shoot his ass!” Ms. Joyce screamed.

  “Naw, I want him to beg before I blast his ass.”

  My dad put me behind him. “I don’t beg to no niggah!”

  “Shoot him, Jamie!”

  Jamie took his eyes off my dad to look at Ms. Joyce and my dad charged him. He knocked Jamie to the ground and the gun fell out of his hand. Ms. Joyce ran for the bat and I ran for the gun. My dad and Jamie were tussling on the ground. Ms. Joyce raised the bat in the air and was about to come down on my dad’s head and I fired!

  Dad and Jamie released each other. Jamie saw Joyce lying on the ground and rushed me. I still had the gun in the firing position and when I saw him coming toward me, I fired at him. And then I fired again! And again! And again!

  “Baby, no!” Dad screamed. He ran toward me while I was firing at Jamie and tackled me. By that time, I had emptied the gun. “What have you done, baby? Oh God! What have you done?”

  I collapsed in my dad’s arms and when I woke up, Ms. Joyce and Jamie were dead. My dad was in the backseat of a police car. They would not let me talk to him. They asked me questions about what happened, but I could not remember anything. I was taken to a shelter that night and turned over to the State the next morning.”

  END MY STORY:

  • • •

  The next time I woke up, I was lying in a hospital. My dad, Ms. Alicia and Dr. Forrester were standing by my bedside. I screamed loudly and reached for my dad.

  “Daddy!” I grabbed my dad and hugged him.

  “You okay?” Dad asked.

  “Thank God, you’re all right.” Ms. Alicia held my hand.

  “Please.” I could barely breathe. “I need to talk to my father!”

  “You’ve been in an accident, sweetheart. The doctor needs to check you out first before you engage in...,” Dr. Forrester said.

  “No! I need to talk my dad!”

  “Honey?” Ms. Alicia tried to rub my hand and I snatched away.

  “I have to talk to my father!” I screamed. “Now!”

  “Okay, just calm down!” Ms. Alicia said softly.

  “We’ll get a doctor, Stone.” Dr. Forrester and Ms. Alicia left the room.

  “Daddy? I killed those people!” I hyperventilated as I was talking. “I...I...I...killed those people!”

  “Butterfly!” Dad tried to make me relax. “Calm down, baby! You didn’t kill anybody! You’re confused, baby! It wasn’t you; it was me! Remember?”

  “No! No! No! It was me! I remember! It was me! I shot those people!” I sat up and tried to get out of the bed.

  “Baby! Baby!” Dad gently grabbed me and held me down. “Shut up! Baby, please, shut up!”

  “I killed those people, Daddy!”

  My dad ran to the door and called Dr. Forrester into my room while Ms. Alicia went to get a nurse. I was still yelling and screaming incoherently about Ms. Joyce and her boyfriend. The nurse gave me a sedative that knocked my ass right back out. I was out for a few hours and when I regained consciousness, I was in a much calmer state. I opened my eyes and my dad was staring right at me. He was the only person in the room.

  “What are you looking at?” I joked.

  “You.”

  “How come you never told me, Dad?”

  “Why would I tell you something like that, Butterfly?”

  “Because I cost you eight years of your life.”

  “No, you saved my life. I was a man with no direction. I was just surviving out there on them streets like I was an animal. I did what I had to do to protect my child. That’s what a father does.”

  “You knew that’s what I’ve been blocking in my mind all of this time, didn’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t know for sure. Maybe I did and I just didn’t want you to remember.”

  “Dad, why can’t I have a normal life? I just want to be a normal teenage girl. But we both know that can never happen, don’t we?”

  “What’s normal, baby? Look at everybody around you. The doc, me, Alicia, Pam, you may not know what we’re going through, but every last one of us is going through something that makes us ask that question: why me?”

  “But none of you are like me. None of you have two different...”

  “Butterfly! You are who say you are! That’s all that matters.”

  “But I don’t know who I am, or don’t even know what I am.”

  “You’re a beautiful young woman; that’s who you are.”

  “Thank you, Daddy.”

  My dad grabbed my hand in his and then squeezed lightly.

  “You ready for me to send in the clowns?” Dad joked.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Like always, my father unselfishly stepped to the side to share me with other people that I loved. Dad walked out and Ms. Alicia walked in. But on that day, he was all that I wanted, and needed. But Ms. Alicia was not a bad alternative.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Hey, baby.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “I uh, I spoke to Pam and she told me why your father took you away from her.”

  “She told you everything?”

  “It took some urging and physical threats, but yes, she told me everything.”

  “So now you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you still want to be my mom?”

  “Even more so.” Ms. Alicia started to cry.

  “Can’t we have just one conversation without us crying?”

  “I don’t think so.” Ms. Alicia hugged me tightly, and kissed me on the cheek several times.

  “Me either.” I joked while I w
iped my eyes.

  “Hey! If you’re up to it, I have something for you.” Ms. Alicia was hiding something behind her back.

  “You know I’m just like you.” I chuckled. “I gotta know what’s behind door number three. What are you hiding?”

  “Lookie at what I got.” Ms. Alicia opened a padded envelope and pulled out some photographs. They were pictures from my Los Angeles photo shoots.

  “Wow! Is that me?” I went through them one by one.

  “Yeah, that’s you.”

  “How did they get the camera to lie like that?”

  “That’s the real you, sweetie. The camera just captured pure beauty in motion.”

  “Wow! These pictures are amazing.”

  “Art imitating life.”

  “More like a fantastic photographer turning an ugly duckling into a swan.”

  Ms. Alicia found a small sitting mirror and put it in front of me. “I want you to repeat after me, all right?”

  “All right.”

  “I am beautiful.”

  “I am beautiful,” I repeated.

  “Beauty is not just a pretty face, or a slim body; it’s a state of being. If you feel beautiful, then you are beautiful. Now I want you to keep those words, ‘I am beautiful,’ inside of you, and remember this precious face that is in front of you.”

  “All right.” I smiled.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  • • •

  I recovered from the accident without any physical scars or damage. Two days later, I was on an airplane, heading back to Los Angeles all by lonesome. I was terrified, but I manage to compose myself. I read my Bible from takeoff to touchdown. If I could not tell you “what Jesus would do” before I boarded that plane, I certainly could by the time we landed. I did not sleep one wink.