Love,
Natasha
March 14, 1991
Natasha baby, I take back everything I ever said about us breaking up. I take back everything I ever said about not wanting us to be together. The truth is right now I feel like I’m going crazy. I feel like I’m losing my mind thinking about you all the time. I can’t take it. I don’t want to do nothing but walk around my room and hit the walls cause I get so mad I can’t stop thinking about not being with you. I remember the first time I saw you. You was coming up from the 2 train on 135th, with your long braids in a big ponytail on top of your head coming down over your face. You had on that pink baby doll top with your little white Pumas on to match, these tight yellow leggings on showing off them Coke-bottle hips. Your face was shining cause of sweat but to me your face looked liked the world’s only black sun. I remember I had sucked in my breath and I think I stopped breathing for a minute cause I thought you was so cute. That was about five, six years ago, and I thought I wouldn’t never see you again then we wind up at the same high school. That mean something. That must be fate and mean we need to be together.
Check this out. I will do anything I can to be with you, even break out of here if I have to. And I don’t care who seeing this or reading this cause I just want to show you how much I love you and how much I need you and care about you. I’ll do anything for you, Natasha. Anything. Just please don’t leave me, don’t break up with me now. I will kill myself. Believe me when I say I will do that shit and it’ll be all your fault. Don’t do this baby. Don’t do this to me. I’ll call you later. I love you baby.
Antonio
March 16, 1991
I don’t know where you been, but I been calling your house and you ain’t been answering so I don’t know what’s going on. I’ll just wait on your letter. I know it’s coming. I know you just handling your biz right now. Life goes on on the outside. I ain’t stupid. I know me being in here don’t stop the world. So you go ahead and do everything you gotta do. I’ll just wait for you to be home when I call. Write me back as soon as you get this.
Antonio
March 21, 1991
Okay, so now I know something wrong. You ain’t bothering to take none of my calls and I know what time you be at home. I know that somebody been picking up the phone and saying they don’t want to accept the charges. You trying to avoid me now. Is that it? You don’t love me no more? Don’t know how to be a woman and tell me woman to man? What’s next? You gonna put your moms or Roy on the phone to tell me the truth? Well I’m not having this shit, Natasha. I’m not gonna take this bullshit from you. I’m not gonna let you get away from me. You can forget about that. Don’t you hear me at night in your dreams, calling out your name in the dark? I know you can hear me. I know you can feel what I feel. Don’t leave me. Don’t do this to me. Don’t pretend like you don’t hear me whispering your name.
Your man forever,
Antonio
March 26, 1991
I hope you hear the bang when I blow my brains out over you. Don’t think I can’t get a piece up in here cause I can. There are ways. Believe me, there are ways. So I hope you hear it while you all curled up, warm in your bed, without a care in the world, hugging one of your stuffed bears or maybe even another nigga for all I know cause obviously I don’t know you like I think I did. I hope you happy and I hope you can taste my blood in your mouth and feel it splattered all over your face bitch.
March 28, 1991
Look Antonio, it’s over. I thought I was strong enough to deal with this, but I’m not. I can’t take it no more. You told me you didn’t care if I saw other guys, but there is no way I can do that to you because I care about you too much. No matter what you say, I know that would hurt and the last thing I want to do is hurt you more than you’ve already been hurt. Baby, it’s not you I promise it’s not. It’s just been almost a year and a half since you been locked up and I want a life. I want a real normal life like other girls my age. Stop calling here twenty times a day. Stop sending me so many letters cause I don’t have time to write back. Stop lying to your mother and telling her all these lies about me. She hates me now.
Do you know she came over here? Do you know she barged up into our house demanding to know what I did to you? I told her, “I ain’t do nothing to Antonio. I just told him I wanted to break up, that’s all.” Then she said, “You little heifer, it’s cause of you that he lost his mind and started screaming and tearing up things and had to be put away all by hisself and alone. It’s because of you.” So luckily my mother was home cause it seemed like your moms wanted to hit me or kill me or something. My mother came out from the back, curlers all in her hair and everything, like “Hold on, what’s going on out here?” When your moms tried to explain, Mommy didn’t even let her finish. She just said, “Look, you don’t got a right coming up in here blaming Natasha for Antonio’s problems.” Your mother said something like, “I’m not blaming Natasha for nothing. I just wish she would quit playing games with my son. This shit ain’t a game and she needs to understand that if she don’t want nothing to do with him then she needs to leave him the fuck alone.” So my mother got all big and bad up in her face and said, “Now wait a minute, honey, you wait just a minute. You in my house and I will not allow you to come up in here disrespecting me or my daughter. If you wanna be out of line you better do it outside the door.” I mean, I thought they was about to brawl. But it didn’t happen like that. I don’t know what happened, your mother just started crying. Right there in front of us, she just started screaming real loud and wouldn’t stop and she said something like, “At least you got your baby right here with you. Don’t nobody love me. Don’t nobody think about what I been through.” Then my mother hugged her, hugged her real tight like everybody did for her when Grandma died. She hugged her until I thought they both was gonna fall over. Then my mother sent me out of the room. She told me to go to the back or go outside so they could talk.
I went back to my room, but I still heard them a little bit. I heard my mother trying to tell her that this thing was hard on everybody, not just her, and that she heard me sometimes crying in the middle of the night over this whole thing. I didn’t know she knew about that. I didn’t think nobody knew how I felt about things, not even you. I probably should have told you how I felt sooner. I probably shouldn’t have let things go on as long as they did. That’s my bad and I’ll go ahead and accept that responsibility. Maybe I did lead you on too far. And maybe that was wrong. But I did—no, I still do—love you. And it’s hard to let go of somebody you love. Believe me, it ain’t been as easy as you think. I promise that I still love you, and that we’ll be friends forever and ever and ever. And who knows, maybe we will get married one day. I don’t know, Antonio. I just don’t know. But I can’t keep on living a lie cause I’m scared you gonna try to kill yourself. I can’t lie to you and tell you I want to be with you now, but I can’t feel like I’m in a prison either. And nobody, not you or your mother or my friends or nobody else, gonna make me feel guilty about my decision. You not being fair lying to your mother and telling her I’m the reason you snapped. Antonio, if you kill yourself, that’s on you. That’s gonna be your mistake. Don’t try to make me feel like it’s mine.
Natasha
April 11, 1991
Hi Antonio. I know I told you I didn’t want to be hooked up no more, but I just want to make sure we’re still friends, still cool. Antonio, I do care about you. Well anyway, Laneice had her baby as I’m sure you heard. A little girl she named Sharon Angelique Clark. I think that’s a real pretty name. Sharon. You don’t hear names like that no more. Well, here’s a picture of her if you care. She’s pretty, ain’t she, even though her eyes is shut? She a redbone just like Black. How did he ever get the name Black anyway, with his high yellow ass? He didn’t come to the hospital when the baby was born. He was somewhere drunk and high with his boys. When he did finally show up at the hospital, Mr. and Mrs. Clark didn’t even speak to him. But back to Laneice. She s
eem like she gonna be a real good mom. I mean, she keep herself busy with that baby, don’t put it off on her mother or nothing, not that Mr. Clark would be having that anyway. She seem happy about it, I guess. I even asked her one day if she was happy. We was sitting in her room. I was helping her put baby lotion and powder all over Sharon, then we wrapped her up in this real cute pink and white striped onesy from the Gap. It was really sunny outside and the Softee truck was out and the bikers was out and you could hear all the music from the cars going by. I felt like I could taste summer and I couldn’t wait to get out. But Laneice ain’t gonna be able to get out too much with that baby. She was like, “Yeah girl, I love Sharon. Now that she here, I wouldn’t give her back for the world. I don’t care what happen between me and Black. I’m never gonna wish her back.” I think she kind of know that Black might not stick around. I mean, he only about seventeen or eighteen. Look at us. We thought we was gonna be together and look what happened. So she don’t have her head in the clouds about that. It’s good she know she might have to do it with or without him. I just said, “Wow, that’s sweet to give up so much for somebody else.” Then she told me, “No, it ain’t sweet. It just is what it is. I don’t even think about it like I’m giving up nothing. Things just gotta change a little bit, that’s all.” She said that she still gonna try to finish high school. I told her she might as well since this our last year and all. That girl always hated school, so she probably just gonna get her GED.
But Black seem like he gonna try to stick around. He over there so much Mr. Clark had to tell him to go home one day. Mr. Clark said he might be able to get Black a job with his car service, or in Madison Square Garden cause he got a brother who a supervisor over there. I might as well tell you my plans. I’m gonna go away to college. I got into some really good schools, Antonio. I got into Rutgers and City College and this school in Boston and one way out in Chicago, Illinois. All the schools gave me financial aid and everything. I mean, I’m gonna have to have some loans, but they gave me a lot of scholarship too. I told Mr. Cook and I swear I ain’t never seen that man smile the way he did when I told him my good news. He asked about you. I told him you was doing alright. I didn’t tell him we broke up though.
Tamika want me to go to this junior college in Jersey so I can be her roommate cause that’s where she going, and Valencia pulling my arm to go to Stony Brook out on Long Island so I can be her roommate there. She got into this fancy school, Brown, but she don’t want to go too far from her family and her man Pito, which I can understand. One school called the University of Chicago is kinda related to the program I been doing, so I think that’s how I was able to get in there. They got this summer program for kids like me, I guess kids who didn’t come from great schools and who gonna need a little help before college. But if I went there and did this program, I would have to leave in June and be there for the whole summer. I never been to Chicago or anywhere that far so I decided that I think I want to go there. I think I’m ready for an adventure. I need a change. Maybe it’ll help me clear my mind. Mommy been crying and making me feel all guilty. She been talking about, “I don’t want you going all the way to no Chicago leaving me all by myself.” I told her, “Mommy, this is my decision and I’m gonna do it. We’ll just have to talk on the phone a lot, and if I don’t like it I’ll come home.” But I told her I wanted to go and at least try. She don’t say nothing, just keep on crying saying, “I don’t care. I don’t like it, I don’t like it.” Well, I like the idea of me doing something I want to do. Something on my own. Something … something for Natasha.
Love always,
Natasha
PS. I will try to come up and see you before I leave. I don’t know when cause I’m going to be working a lot to save up money. But I promise, I’ll try.
May 16, 1991
Natasha,
So you really going, huh? I guess I didn’t really believe you at first, but when I saw you last weekend you looked so different I knew it had to be something to make that big of a change in you. I mean, you just looked more mature, I guess, with your new Halle Berry haircut and your nice sweater. You looked good in that corny schoolteacher gear, so I guess you gonna fit right in in college. Guess you just getting better with time, which is the way it’s supposed to be. Benito and Mohammed been calling me old man lately, say I done changed and got all quiet and they even showed me some lines around my eyes that wasn’t there before. I guess that’s the way it is when you see everything slipping away. I still been going to my job. It’s cool. Me and Ms. Harris been looking into some correspondence courses that I might be eligible for. She told me that it was certain things I probably wouldn’t do cause of my background she call it. Like anything in education or working with animals or whatever would be hard for me to do cause I been convicted of a violent crime. I’m a felon for life, baby. I won’t be able to shake that shit. When I get out of here, I’m gonna tell you the truth about what happened that night and why I’m really here. Everybody thinks they know the truth about me, but they really don’t. Including you. I’ll just ask you again what I asked you before: Do you really believe I killed my father? Do you really believe it went down the way it did?
I guess it doesn’t matter at this point. But I’m just glad you feel good about yourself and things you got ahead of you. Natasha, you don’t ever wanna feel like this. You wanna always keep them bright eyes and that bushy tail like MGD used to say about me. You don’t ever wanna go through what I been through, feel like I feel every day when I wake up. You feel like faded graffiti on a building they bout to tear down—something a man worked hard on to try to make the world a more beautiful place, and nobody appreciated it. Or cracked glass in the street that used to be something pretty, but the cars keep driving over it like it never really mattered or was never anything whole and real. But I guess you wouldn’t know nothing about that. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you would.
Don’t forget me,
Antonio
PART FOUR
November 26, 1991
Antonio,
I’m home on my Thanksgiving break and I come back to find out your moms and mine is like best friends and shit now. They be going shopping and to the beauty shop and to the movies together. I thought I would give this letter to your mother to send. I couldn’t come to New York and not go by and say hi to your mother. She got your GED on the wall and in a real nice frame, right next to that picture we took the first time we came to visit you upstate. She’s looking really good, Antonio. Lost a little bit of weight, had her hair fixed up real nice. She said she’s been going to the Y to work out. She said she’s about to start working at this day care center in the mornings. I can’t believe somebody broke in your spot. Your mother told me all about it. They took Tyler’s Nintendo, the TV, the VCR, some of the leather out the closet.
But I guess you know about all that. I mean she is your mother and this is still your house. I guess you wanna hear about me and mine. Drew is all right, getting ready to go to high school. Mommy’s cool. She been spoiling me since I got home. I swear I never ate so much macaroni and cheese in my life, she keep stuffing it down my throat cause she know it’s my favorite. I eat at the cafeteria at school, and I swear to God them people need to learn a thing or two about cooking. I lost so much weight cause I don’t eat at that place, except for cereal and salad. I mean, one time, they had fried chicken covered in corn meal. C’mon now. Called it “Southern baked” or some shit. Them white and Chinese folks was tearing it up though.
So you wanna know about college? It’s cool. I got four classes: French, this class called Humanities where basically you read a lot of old books, precalculus, and physical sciences. That’s a lot of weird shit, huh? My roommate is this white chick from Oregon named Sarah. I didn’t even know where Oregon was until I met her. She a real cool punk-rocker type, just kinda messy and hooked up with a scraggly-looking white boy who wanna rap. He got dreadlocks with yarn twisted in em. They look real nasty but I guess she likes it cause ever
y night I come home she got a sock on the door—her way of telling me they doing it and I gotta go hang somewhere else for a minute. One night they gonna try to do it while I was in the room, cause I heard the bed squeaking a little bit and all their punk-rocker chains jingling and whatnot. I checked them on that shit real fast. I was like, “I don’t get down like that, keep your business behind closed doors and we gonna get along real good.” That’s the only beef we ever had and now we kinda friends, if you can believe that. We stay up late at night talking, her telling me about the ocean and me telling her about New York. We stay up late studying a lot too.
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