August 10, 1990
Antonio,
Antonio, I really love your essay. You wrote that all by yourself? I don’t believe it. See, I knew you could do a lot better in school than you was doing. And baby, don’t worry, you will never be like those other dudes in there with you cause I won’t ever let you get that hopeless. You gonna be just like Holden when you get out, able to walk around and go anywhere you want and explore the whole city. Only the difference is you gonna have somebody waiting for you soon as you get out. That somebody is me! You never told me that you cry when you think about me. I cry when I think about you too because I miss you, but hopefully, that will all be over soon.
Antonio, you’ve asked me to keep a lot of secrets, so now I have to ask you to keep one. You can’t tell nobody this, not Black, not even your mother, cause right now we don’t know what we gonna do. But Laneice is pregnant. She had told me last week that she skipped her period, and Laneice got her period when she was only nine and she ain’t never skipped it in almost 8 years so she said she knew something was up. So, we went to the store to get that EPT test, and we did it here while Roy and my mother was at work. And it came out positive. You know, that little pink line had appeared. She started crying and breathing real hard and shaking real bad and I had to just tell her to get it together, that this wasn’t the time for her to lose control.
We gonna go to that adolescent clinic that’s on 96th Street on the East Side just to make sure, and then see what we could do about it. But she said she don’t want nobody to know cause she don’t want it getting back to Black just in case she wanna get an abortion. I told that girl this was gonna happen if she wasn’t careful. Don’t you remember I told you that I had warned her? She told me to not even tell you, so Antonio I’m trusting you with this information. Don’t even tell none of your friends in jail cause you never know who knows who, and it could get back to whoever. She ain’t telling her big brother or her little sister. She said she don’t wanna tell her little sister cause she feel like she gotta set an example for her, and if her big sis get knocked up, then she might think it’s okay to get knocked up too. And she said her big brother might come up from Rutgers and kill Black. Plus Laneice real scared cause you know her mother and father don’t play that. I mean, they give that girl everything. They live in that nice brownstone and Laneice got that big room all to herself. She got all the fresh gear and Mrs. Clark pay for her to get her hair done every week. They all go to church together every Sunday, and then they go out to lunch or brunch or something like that so they can have the family outings like her mother say. I done been out with them myself, and her parents seem real cool. Always telling her to sit up straight and keep her elbows off the table and act like a lady. Well, they won’t be too happy if they find out little Miss Perfect bout to be a single mother. They gonna be real mad, they probably gonna kill her. Mrs. Clark one of them uppity black ladies, wear the white gloves and shit. They might force her to get an abortion or send her far away from Harlem and she said she can’t stand to be away from Black. Well, I don’t know what she gonna do. She ain’t got no money. Laneice ain’t never had to work, so she don’t have money saved up like I do. And Black ain’t got NO MONEY. Matter fact he owe me ten dollars now cause I fronted his way to the movies so many times. I told Laneice that if she really really needed an abortion, that I would give her the money. I mean, she my girl. We been friends for a real long time, since we was in second grade. I got about 500 dollars saved up, the money I was gonna use for France, but I told her I would let her have it and she could pay me back if she really needed it. We would have to figure out how to get to Jersey though, where we could do it without NOBODY finding out. I mean, this is serious. Well, I’m gonna let you know what happens. What we figure out. But remember. Don’t tell nobody.
Love,
Natasha
August 14, 1990
Natasha
First of all, I ain’t got no friends in here. Just cause I see these cats every day and eat with em and shower with em don’t make em my friends. That’s the first thing Mookie and MGD told me. If you get sent up, you ain’t got no friends in there. Your life is on the outside and you just deal with who you gotta deal with in the joint, maintain til you can get back to it. Don’t trust nobody. Don’t confide in nobody. Folks always looking for information from the streets and they’ll use you to get it. Keep shit to yourself. And watch your ass, and they mean really watch your ass. So you ain’t gotta worry about me talking to nobody. Far as I’m concerned, I don’t need to associate with nobody but Mohammed and Benito, and that’s just cause I see them every day. And I think they really do like me. They cool. Really don’t bother me that much, I go my way they go theirs. We don’t hang out together in the yard or nothin, we just kinda nod and smile at each other. I mean, I know if something was to happen to me, that they would have my back. Same way I would have theirs. That go without saying. It’s just kind of an unspoken rule that we have between us.
Well, this might come as a surprise to you, but I already knew about Laneice. Black told me. He wrote me this big old note said MAN I’M BOUT TO HAVE A SHORTY REAL SOON!!!!! So it’s some things your girl ain’t telling you. She done already told her man and they making plans and shit about living together. So she pulling your leg with this abortion shit. You might wanna check her on it. Just FYI, CYA like Mohammed always been saying. Write me back soon, baby girl. I gotta go now cause Ms. Harris hooked me up to maybe get a job a lot earlier than I’m eligible. So I got a interview and shit to work with Housekeeping. Just cleaning up and mopping shit, but least I can get out of this room sometime. Oh, and that peach fuzz you used to love to kiss is turning into a real goatee. Pretty soon I won’t look like the youngun. When you come out here soon, you’ll see. I’m gonna look like a real man.
Love,
Antonio
August 16, 1990
Antonio, can you believe what Laneice did to me and we supposed to be friends? Can you believe what she would do to me and we been friends now for almost ten years? She lied to me Antonio. She told me that she needed to get an abortion but she couldn’t ask her parents for the money, of course. So, me being the nice person that I am and the good friend that I am, I told her that I would loan her the money. Now, all I got in the bank from working at Macy’s is about $500, and I told her that was my money for France but that I would give it to her cause she was my girl and I know she would do the same for me. Well, come to find out, this bitch used my money not for an abortion but to run away from home. Her mother came over our house at 3:00 in the morning crying and screaming and wondering where Laneice was. I didn’t have no idea. I had just talked to the girl that morning. So Mr. and Mrs. Clark and my mother and me was driving around Harlem and the Bronx looking for her. Funny thing was, Black wasn’t at home either but his parents used to him disappearing when he wanna. I mean, boys can get away with anything. That’s just the way it is.
But the next day, Laneice come calling me whispering and shit from a pay phone, talking about her and Black was in Baltimore and they had took the bus down there and they was about to stay with some of his cousins and find a job. Now they ain’t had no money so guess where they got the money for the bus tickets and food and stuff? You guessed it—me! I was like, “No y’all ain’t bitch! Not with my money.” She said, “Natasha, please don’t be mad at me I’m gonna pay it back but I wanna keep my baby and I didn’t want my mother to kill me.” Can you believe her? Can you believe Black? They supposed to be my homies, I mean both of them almost like my own fam and I trusted them with my loot and this is what they do? I’m through with her Antonio. I mean that. We are NOT friends anymore. She supposed to be coming back, cause her mother and father gonna drive down MD and get her. But when she get back, we not gonna be girlz no more Antonio and I mean that. I’m leaving for France on Saturday and I ain’t got NO MONEY cause I felt sorry for her. Now, my money is spent and that bitch is still pregnant, so they ain’t did shit but waste my money on
some hot dogs and chips and soda and bus tickets. And she not even staying down there so NOTHING is resolved. And this how she repay a true friend? Well, fuck her. With friends like that, I can roll by myself. I got Tamika and Valencia to be my girlz if she don’t want the job. Matter of fact the program took us to the Hall of Science in Queens and we all took this picture together that I put in a frame that says “Friends Forever.” So Laniece better just get ready to pick a new godmother for her baby cause it ain’t gonna be me. Not after this. We’re finished. I told my mother about what she did. Mommy went into the vase that she keep on top of the armoire in her room, where Roy just see incense sticking out and don’t know nothing in the bottom. She gave me all the money that was in there for my trip, about seventy dollars and even five Susan B. Anthony dollars she said she had been holding on to cause she was hoping they would be worth something one day. Write me back soon, and tell Black when you write him that I’m through with his woman!
Love,
Natasha
August 20, 1990
Well Natasha, I know you in France right now, that you flew above the world and looked down on it. Did you imagine you could see me? Did you believe that I was looking up at you at the same time you was looking down? I know you made it safe cause I called your mother house to find out if you had called. She told me Natasha so happy she was talking a mile a minute and I couldn’t understand a word she was saying and then she just got up off the phone cause she said her phone card was running out. I actually kicked it with your mom for a few minutes. I didn’t even think she would accept the charges, but she did and she even talked to me for a while. She told me the ring I gave you was pretty, and she asked me how I was doing in there and did I miss home and good food and stuff. She said that the next time you came to visit, she was gonna send me a plate—some ribs and mac and cheese and my favorite banana pudding if she could freeze it for me. Then she had to jump, but I was glad I had a chance to talk to your moms for a minute.
But to tell you the truth, Natasha, I’m a little bit upset thinking about you so far away from me. It’s different when I know you at home, when I can picture you in your room sitting on the bed with all those teddy bears around you, in your blue pajamas with the curvy moons on them. But I can’t imagine you anywhere but Harlem. I can’t picture Paris, don’t know what it look like and how you look in it. For the first time since all this shit started, I feel like you could slip away from me. Like you could get so far away from me, not just your body, but your heart and your mind, and I could be all alone again. I know you think I’m not alone now but really I am even though it’s people around me all the time. I’m alone because it’s nobody around who truly understands me and who I am on the inside, what I look like when I’m just myself and ain’t putting on no airs cause I don’t have to be tough or something I’m not.
See, in here, I’m #007624, the young nigger who would snuff his own daddy so he don’t give a fuck about snuffing you. That’s cool cause that mean I gets my respect and nobody bother me, but that’s not who I am. You know the real me. The real me who like to chase down Mister Softee for those cherry bombs, the real me who like impersonating characters off TV, the real me who still wear baby lotion cause I like the way it smell. You know me and you know all that. I mean, Trevon and Black know me too and I can let my guard down around them, but I still can’t get all soft with them. So it’s hard for me to think about you so far away, meeting new people and different guys and stuff that might make you forget about the real me and focus on the me that fucked up and got put in here. But I hope you having fun in France, getting to see that Mona Lisa painting and shit. I wouldn’t mind seeing all that myself. Maybe when I get out you can teach me some French and me and you can go to Paris together. What do you think?
Love,
Antonio
August 21, 1990
Bonjour Bonjour Monsieur,
Antonio, do you see this big building on the front of this card? It’s call The Eiffel Tower and me, Valencia, and Tamika standing right in front of it right now and it really is as tall as what it looks like. Just like the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. See New York ain’t the only spot with buildings so tall you feel like you can touch the sky. I miss you and I’m having so much fun and I will tell you all about it when I get back.
Au revoir,
Natasha
PS. You know that real famous picture called the Mona Lisa where the lady is sitting smiling real funny? Well, I saw that picture yesterday can you believe it!?!
August 25, 1990
Natasha baby, I can’t write much and I don’t even know if you gonna be able to see this letter but hopefully you will. The whole place here is on lockdown. We have to eat in our rooms, we have to go to the showers five at a time, no gym, no yard, no basketball, no rec. I was supposed to start my GED classes today but when I asked about it the c.o. just hissed at me and told me to shut the fuck up. So I just sit quiet and wait for a guard to call my name: #007624.
There was a fight yesterday, between these two cats who had beef dating back three years or something like that, when they was on the outside and they brought it here. I don’t know em, but they call one Fat Albert cause he look like the cartoon and the other one just named Joe. But that’s not why we on lockdown. When they started fighting, the cracker guards took it too far and got out of control. It took five of them to hold down Fat Albert but they didn’t stop there. By the time they got finished, niggaz was slipping on his blood and a few guards faces was red as blood from the chokeholds they had em in. Then everybody else got delirious and started banging they trays on the table and one crazy white boy with pimples all over his face—we call him Tiny—started screaming so loud it made my eardrums vibrate. Spit was coming down from his mouth and he was saying over and over and over again Lets do this and be out, let’s do this and be out. It took twenty minutes to get enough guards to control everybody. They beat em down and dragged them away. Fat Albert in the infirm and I heard he ain’t gonna make it.
But I knew it was coming, I knew something was going to give. Yesterday I felt something in the air, something was teasing the back of my neck like static electricity, I felt the sad in the air like you can smell rain before it fall. Benito been whispering that woman’s name and I finally figured out it’s Gloria. Mohammed been silent leaning against the wall all day, with his eyes closed and his mouth moving. Today the sun passed by our tiny window.
Love,
Antonio
August 26, 1990
Antonio,
I’m sorry I can’t write much, but I just got back and I’m writing this now while I’m on the A train coming from Kennedy. I have to tell you something, sweetheart, and you have to promise not to get mad at me. I’m not gonna drag it out, I’m just gonna go ahead and say it. I lost the ring, baby. I think I lost some weight from working so much, and maybe my finger shrunk or something cause we was walking down this long bridge to look at this river called the Seine and I leaned over to take a picture and the ring just slipped off and fell in the water. And I swear to God I wanted to jump in and find it, but then I remembered I couldn’t swim and we was about twenty feet in the air. Antonio, I cried and cried all day and I didn’t have no fun the rest of the trip. I got a long ways to go before I get uptown, but I’m supposed to write an essay totally in French about my trip and what I learned. Which I promise I’m going to tell you all about it—the food, the TV channels with naked people on them in the daytime, all the Africans over there that look like models. But all in all Paris looked a little like New York, but a lot cleaner with a lot more churches. I mean, you had the people everywhere packed in so tight on the sidewalks we could barely move. There was a street called the Champs Elysées with shops and stores just like 5th Ave. There was this place called the Latin Quarter that looked kind of like the Village with all these little shops in the basement and people drinking coffee and wine at tables outside. I saw people of all different races and everybody spoke Engli
sh. We couldn’t even practice our French because everybody knew we were American and wanted to practice English with us. It was so pretty over there, Antonio. The statues and sculpture and painting everywhere. Even the buildings looked like art because pictures were painted on the sides. Not dirty graffiti pictures but art that looked like it belonged in the museum. I was walking around the whole time like I was in outer space, with my mouth open and my eyes all wide. I know they could tell I was a tourist! Remember when we would go to Times Square and play “trip the tourist”? Well, I know I should have been tripped a few times cause I was soaking up everything and staring like I didn’t know what a big city was. It was way better than New York, Antonio. A lot better. I didn’t even want to come back. I wanted to stay at least another week, but I guess all good things have to come to an end.
But I need to take a little nap while I’m on this train. I’ve already missed a few days of school so I’m gonna to have to make that up, plus Mommy say Laneice been calling me cause she wanna talk and I decided I’m gonna go ahead and be her girl again. Least til she have the baby cause she gonna need somebody, cause her parents don’t support her at all. But I’m gonna try to come and see you the next time your mother take the bus up there. It’s been too long since we saw each other and maybe my punishment for that was losing the ring. Antonio, I’m trying not to say that I really lost it because it’s floating out there in the world, a sign that no matter where we are our love is forever. My grandmother used to take me and Drew to Riverside Park so we could watch the Hudson. She told us that rivers connect everybody in the whole world to one God like veins in the body that pump blood from one heart. So maybe now that my ring is somewhere out there in the world, it means we’re even more connected than before. I’m sorry I lost your ring, but I’ll get another one and buy you one too. I promise that on all I love.
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