Dime

by E. R. Frank

  “Oh,” L.A. added. “Also. Your Uncle Ray? He ain’t never coming back.”

  I saw it in a flicker when she glanced at me and Brandy. We had nothing different to tell her, and she could see that we didn’t, so she looked back at L.A., who was smirking. That was when I saw Lollipop’s real face. Anguish is what I saw. Then she went wall again and stepped back into her room.

  * * *

  That was Friday. I went to the track that night, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, which was Labor Day. We all stayed as far away from Whippet as we could. We didn’t know what the beef was between him and Daddy, but we were scared he might try to cut us, too. I heard him call my name a few times, but I was far enough down the block to pretend I couldn’t hear.

  Hello, I said to that gray brick. It’s been a while. How have you been? It didn’t answer me back. While the dates did what they did to me, I would sneak a tap on it, just in case it would open up into Narnia. Or Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Welcome, Aslan would say. Or Professor Dumbledore. We have been waiting for you.

  Eagle watched us. It was different to have another man under a Daddy instead of just having the Bottom Bitch handle things. But I guessed Daddy didn’t trust L.A. Also he needed Eagle for taking calls for live, customized shows from Lollipop when L.A. was out working, which was most of the time. From what I could tell, passwords were constantly changing, and Eagle had to type different things into her computer and into his iPad every few days, setting up different pages or sites or whatever he had to do to make sure Daddy didn’t get busted.

  I never saw a sign of him going into Daddy’s room. I think he mostly sat on the couch watching TV, tapping his iPad, and answering the phone when he was inside our apartment. He watched us on the track, too. I caught glimpses of the Lincoln town car, cruising, of him leaning against it. We handed our money to L.A., and I saw L.A. hand it over to Eagle.

  Tuesday morning L.A. was still out from an overnight. Even though I didn’t have my school ID, even though Eagle was sitting on the couch, I had to try. I dressed in school clothes and went to the first day of ninth grade. In the front office I filled out paperwork with lies for a new ID, and I ended up in the same homeroom as Dawn and Trevor. Trevor had grown about three inches and looked like some kind of basketball player now. Dawn had extensions and a boyfriend also in our homeroom.

  Trevor looked down at me. “What the hell?” he clucked. “You look like you haven’t slept or ate all summer.”

  I shrugged. “I’m good.”

  “This is Brian,” Dawn told me. She gave me a hug. “You lost weight. Where have you been?”

  “Down south.” Her hug made me feel more ashamed. “Carolinas.”

  “My aunt lives in Greenville,” Brian told me.

  “Were you in Greenville?” Dawn asked.

  I shook my head, got quiet again, and stayed quiet for the rest of the day.

  When I got home, my chest was pounding above the heat in my gut. Eagle wasn’t there, but L.A. was. I thought she might kill me for having gone to school, but she didn’t touch me. I guess she knew now was not the time to piss off Daddy. Also, if I got marked up or hurt now, she would have to earn more money to make up for what I would lose.

  “Get your funky ass dressed and go make Daddy’s coins,” she hissed instead. “You wasn’t supposed to go to no school.”

  “I’m not like Lollipop.” I made myself speak up, loudly. “I’m in the system and until I’m sixteen, they’re going to come looking for me, and we both know Daddy doesn’t want that.”

  “Daddy had a plan for you, and now you messed it up.”

  What plan? What had he told her?

  “He was going to send you down south.” L.A. stuck her tongue in her gap. “You was supposed to go tomorrow.”

  “What for?” He couldn’t have told her I was supposed to be the Bottom Bitch down there for Russian girls. I didn’t think L.A. even knew about the Russian girls.

  “You was going to work for Eagle’s brother down there. Dude called Bird. Daddy was going to sell you to Bird, since if you in school up here you can’t make enough and if you up here, you got to go to school. But if you down south, Bird can make you disappear, just like Lollipop. Then nobody come looking. Daddy make some money off you, finally.”

  What L.A. was saying might be true. Daddy had me believe he was going to make me the Bottom to those Russian girls down south, but maybe he was lying. Maybe he was just going to sell me to Bird, and believing Daddy’s lies, I would go quietly until it was too late.

  I couldn’t back down now. I had to keep going to school. It was hours and hours I wouldn’t have to turn tricks. “Well, he never told me that and you never told me that,” I said. “And now they have a record of me in school just like I’m supposed to be. So Daddy’s going to have to change his plans.”

  “You a little nothing skinny bitch,” L.A. said. “Now get your ass moving.” Her cell rang. She picked it up. “Password?” I heard her say, as I went to my alcove. “All right. Second password?” She listened. “Yeah. You good. What you want?” Another pause. “All right. She going to start in five minutes.” There was a silence, and then I heard her call into Lollipop’s room. “You got a show!”

  There was no answer. I had to come back out for panties from under the coffee table. “Answer me when I’m talking to you!” Still nothing. I watched L.A. open up Lollipop’s door. Lollipop was fast asleep on her bed, belly down, with her head to the side and her thumb in her mouth. She was naked, except for little-girl panties, pink with purple hearts on them. And purple ribbons in her hair. L.A. didn’t walk in. She threw a tissue box instead. It hit Lollipop on her shoulder. She barely moved. “What?”

  “You got a show in two minutes,” L.A. whispered, from the doorway. “Get your shit together.”

  “I’m so tired.” Lollipop yawned.

  “Get the fuck up,” L.A. whispered fiercely. Then she slammed the door.

  * * *

  Room eleven was hotter than outside, hot like summer, even though it was already an autumn sixty degrees most days. You got to room eleven by walking through the house entrance and down a short, dark hallway with a sticky tile floor. It had no door, and the bed was just a platform with a mattress. The floor was uneven since some of the tiles were torn or gone. There were hooks all over the walls. Colorful balls of glass at the end of curved metal. Who put those beautiful hooks on these old walls? was what I thought about when I was working in there. They were blue and red and orange and green and yellow. The dust covered any brightness, but they were still so cheerful to look at. Who bought them and hammered them in? Who was trying to make it pretty in here? Sometimes there was a towel or two hanging on the hooks and a fresh sheet on the mattress, and I would feel better about working in there. But then they would disappear. It was cleaner out in the open air in the alley or between two parked cars. It was cleaner inside the dates’ cars. But when someone asked to go inside, Daddy said we had to take them into room eleven.

  This time, after I finished my date and followed him out into the cooler air, Eagle took my elbow.

  “Hospital,” he told me.

  “But I have to give the coins to L.A.”

  He held out his hand. L.A. would be mad. She had said all the money had to be given to her so she could personally hand it to Daddy. But I’d seen her give cash to Eagle, too. I hesitated. He pulled the coins out of my fingers, then pushed at my back to guide me toward the Lincoln town car. I saw L.A. up the street negotiating with a date. She glanced at us and didn’t seem surprised. That reassured me. Maybe it was okay. Maybe he really was taking me to the hospital. On the other hand, if he was taking me to Daddy, what for? Was this good-bye before I went down south? Was Daddy furious with me for going to school?

  He was sitting up in a bed. There were three other people in the same room, but two were lying down, sleeping, and one had the curtains closed. I could hear that one murmuring in that tone people use when they’re on the phone. Daddy was wearing a hosp
ital gown and had an IV in each arm. There was a bandage on his chest peeking behind the ties of his gown. He looked smaller than I’d ever seen him, which was surprising. But other than that, he seemed the same.

  A nurse was doing something with one of his IVs when Eagle and I walked in.

  “Hi,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to call him Daddy in front of squares, so I didn’t. He flashed his D at me.

  “Hi, Beautiful,” he said. There was a rolling tray over his lap. His cell phone was on it, along with a pitcher of water and a cup of ice and the remote control for the TV attached over our heads on the wall.

  “This is your other niece?” the nurse asked.

  “This her,” Daddy said, winking at me.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. I knew L.A. visited Daddy almost every day. I guess the nurse thought she was his niece too. Who did she think Eagle was, then? But she walked away without saying anything else, so maybe she wasn’t all that interested.

  “You earning my money?” Daddy asked. The man on the phone behind the curtain had gotten loud enough that Daddy didn’t need to be too quiet.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Eagle handed Daddy the cash I’d earned so far that day and then stepped out. Daddy counted the bills. “Not bad,” he said. “But not good, neither.”

  The volume behind the curtain increased. It sounded like the man was arguing with somebody, but it was a language I didn’t know, so I couldn’t understand the actual words.

  “You miss me?” Daddy asked.

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “Well I’m a come home in two days, they promising.”

  I tried to make my face look happy or shy or something he would like.

  “I ain’t had time to plan out school with you.” Daddy glanced around, but the other two weren’t moving in their beds. “L.A. say you went ahead and went.”

  “Yes.” I tried to sound sincere. “You always tell me how it makes you proud that I’m smart, so I thought that was the right thing to do.” I tried to look lovestruck. “That was the right thing, right, Daddy?”

  He frowned. “You going down south soon, anyhow,” he said.

  I could tell he hadn’t wanted me to go back to school. I knew it. Maybe I could read his mind a little now. The idea cooled my belly just the tiniest bit.

  “Now it going to make some things more complicated.”

  I waited, trying to think over the sound of the man behind the curtain shouting the same phrase over and over.

  “But it ain’t the worst. Keep people from poking they nosy heads all up in our business.”

  He took a sip of water from the ice cup. Then he shook ice into his mouth and chewed.

  “Your wifeys behaving?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “L.A. beating on any a you?”

  “No.”

  “How you like being back on the track?”

  “Wherever you need me, Daddy.”

  It was silent all of a sudden, and I realized the man behind the curtain must have ended his call. Daddy lowered his voice again.

  “You go home after school, you change, you get out working by three thirty every day. You don’t come home until you got quota. Understand?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “You don’t got quota, you don’t come home. Understand?”

  I nodded again. How was I going to stay awake in class if I worked the whole night? Because it would take the whole night to earn my quota. When was I supposed to sleep?

  “You going to be busy, Beautiful,” Daddy said. He crunched on his ice. “But it ain’t for long, since you going down south soon.” He spit back into his cup. “And life down south slower.”

  * * *

  The next day they announced the school library caught bedbugs and was closed until further notice.

  “How does that happen?” Dawn asked. “There aren’t any beds in libraries.”

  “Guess we don’t have to read any more this year,” Brian said.

  Dawn rolled her eyes.

  Trevor looked down at me. “You’re going to the one by the hospital, right?”

  I nodded my head, but it was a lie. I met that librarian I liked at the other branch, the one near the store we used, over on Bergen. I would tell Daddy the school said I had to. That if I couldn’t go to the library to study the books I needed to keep up my grades, official people would definitely notice and come poking their noses up in our business.

  I doubted that was true. I doubted Daddy would think it was true. He was planning to send me down south so soon that I doubted he would care. But I had to try.

  Chapter Thirty

  WE SAW IT the same day Eagle was bringing Daddy home from the hospital.

  Lollipop came to breakfast naked, except for her panties. Black with orange glitter pumpkins for Halloween, even though Halloween wasn’t for another month. But nobody was looking at her panties.

  “Jesus,” Brandy said. “Sweet Jesus.”

  L.A. and I just stared. What? I thought. Even though I could see. Even though I knew. What?

  Lollipop looked up from her Special K. “What? I was hot, and I have to go back in for a show anyway. It’s okay to eat without all your clothes on, you know.”

  L.A. and me and Brandy all looked at each other. Then we looked back at Lollipop. What?

  “You had your period already?” Brandy asked.

  “My who?”

  “Your bleeding,” L.A. said. “Your period.”

  Lollipop didn’t understand.

  “You know what a period is?” Brandy asked.

  Lollipop shook her head. The rest of us looked at each other again.

  “She didn’t have no boobies when we picked her up,” L.A. said. That was less than a month ago. “Now look.”

  Lollipop looked down at herself. “I’m getting fat. Is Daddy going to be mad?”

  “How many times you bled from your stuff?” Brandy asked.

  Lollipop shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Try to know,” L.A. said.

  “Maybe two or three times? From the dates, I think.”

  “How long ago was the last time?”

  Lollipop thought about it. “A couple of months before I came here. It was just getting real hot. June maybe? Uncle Ray didn’t like it. He said I couldn’t give full service if I was bleeding.” What?

  “Oh. My. God,” L.A. said. “Little girl. You is pregnant.”

  * * *

  At first it didn’t seem possible or real, and I wanted to laugh, even though nothing was funny. But in about five seconds wanting to laugh stopped. Lollipop looked down at her body and grinned and began talking about what clothes she would ask Daddy to buy for the baby. L.A. seemed more than happy to explain the birds and the bees, immediately lecturing on everything she knew. Except she got some things wrong, like when she said men had a bone in their penis that made it get hard. She used the word Lollipop used for penis, wiener, and that word used to amuse me, but now nothing was amusing even though a few minutes ago I’d wanted to laugh. Brandy sat still for a long time with her spoon balancing in her hand. I guess I was sitting still too, but my mind was busy with questions. Is the body of an eleven-year-old big enough to birth a baby? Is it against the law to get pregnant when you’re eleven? Will the hospital arrest Lollipop? Will Daddy be glad to have a baby or will he be mad because of how much babies cost? Will Daddy know to buy diapers and powder and formula and wipes and booties? Will he send L.A. to do it? What if Lollipop dies while she’s trying to give birth?

  “Then the sperm swim all up through your tubes and hit a egg right where your belly button at and then you pregnant and that baby growing get all its food from your umbiblical cord,” L.A. was saying.

  Brandy unstilled herself to cross her arms and tuck fingertips under her armpits. She wasn’t making a sound, so it took me a few seconds to see that she was crying. Her eyes were shiny and blinking. There were three wet tear tracks lining her cheeks.

  Wha
t?

  I was terrified.

  * * *

  Daddy was like the devil. A weak devil, but the devil. He threw things at us constantly. He didn’t lift his arm all the way, and his throws were feeble and he winced every time. But he hurled whatever he could reach: forties not even empty, plates, the remote control, boxes of gauze pads, a comb, a vanilla-scented candle. He stayed on the couch because it was hard for him to get off it, and he wanted to watch us. L.A. and Brandy got his bedroom, and I stayed in the alcove and waited on him.

  What? It was all I could think. I did what I had to do each day, and everyone saw the same Dime they always saw, but inside I wasn’t me. I was just, what?

  Daddy didn’t eat much at once but a little bit all day long. He held his gun in his hand all the time. Before, he used to keep it hidden inside his pants somewhere.

  “I’m a kill that motherfucker,” he kept saying that first week. He was talking about Uncle Ray. “I’m a blow up his ass.”

  Then he got a visit from George, who talked sense to him. My body was right there, bringing chips and salsa and taking away their empties, but my brain was lost.

  “Dudes out there paying mad money for a look at that?” George asked, tilting his head toward Lollipop’s room.

  Daddy nodded from where he was lying down on the couch. “Bunch of perverts out there.”

  “Perverts going to travel for it too,” George added.

  What?

  “Travel to get some of that in person. You got you some months. But you best get rid of the little bitch before any baby come. What you going to do with her?”

  “I’m a make my money first,” Daddy said. “And then I’m a send her back down south.”

  What?

  “You giving up a boy?” George asked. “You giving up a son?”

  “Ain’t mine.” Daddy shook his head. “I never hit that.”

  George looked surprised. “Baby ain’t yours?”

  Daddy shook his head. “Lollipop a little girl,” he said. “Damn. I ain’t no pervert.”

  What?

  He shook his head again. “She came pregnant.”

  “Huh,” George said. “She might be having a bitch, anyway.”