Silently Vanessa got up and retrieved a bowl and spoon and then got the milk out of the refrigerator. She put it in front of Jalissa who poured Sugar Corn Puffs into her bowl along with a large amount of milk. The younger girl always used too much milk because she said what was left in the bowl was dessert.
Looking at her cousin caused the anger to turn into rage. It was one thing to pick on her. But to hurt her family was crossing a line that Vanessa hadn’t even known she had drawn. She decided that just like her mother had to do what she felt she had to do, now it was time that she made the same decision. No one was ever going to touch either of them again and get away with it.
Leelah went upstairs to call in sick for work at the telephone company and allowed the girls to finish breakfast.
“So aunt Callista never told you about my mother?” Vanessa whispered, sure that her aunt should have known about her mother’s side job.
“No.” Jalissa leaned forward to whisper, her eyes wide with surprise—even the one that was black and blue. “Your mother does…that for real?”
Vanessa nodded. “You can say the words. It won’t bother me. She’s a prostitute and my Daddy is a pimp…” She sighed. “And Scotty Tremont is my brother.”
Jalissa jumped up. “What did you say?!” Her voice was no longer quiet and Vanessa hushed her, fighting back tears. She recounted the story that her mother had told her. “That means Tino is your brother...” Jalissa said thoughtfully. Who cared about Tino, Vanessa thought! Scotty was her brother! Jalissa looked at her and smirked. “Nobody’s ever going to mess with us again.”
Vanessa jumped up. “Jalissa no! I don’t want everybody knowing this!” She hissed.
“But we could rule the projects if everybody thought Tino would-“
Vanessa shook her head. “No! And I mean it.”
“Grrrr!” Jalissa growled but relented. “Fine, but you’re being stupid.” Vanessa placed her hands on hips about to go off. “Okay, okay. We can get the gang together to back us up-“
“The gang?” Vanessa sat back down miserably. “When they find out about my mama they won’t want to be my friend.” She glared at Jalissa. “And no! I still don’t want anyone knowing about Tino.”
“Van,” Jalissa frowned, “the gang will have our back. We are true blue friends even that heffa Sal.”
Vanessa didn’t want to hold out any hope for that. Right now she was preparing for the possibility that the only ally she had out on the streets was Jalissa…and Scotty.
When Leelah returned downstairs the girls had finished breakfast and had already formed a plan of action. However, Leelah’s ‘real talk’ gave them an even better idea.
They gathered in the living room with Leelah pacing in front of the girls that sat seated on the couch. Leelah made them recount every single word that was said against her and by whom. Vanessa began with the fight that had broke out three weeks ago.
“Marcella kept calling me white girl and a trick baby and then Kaneeja started doing it. But Marcella said it first. She said that her mama said you…” she blushed.
“Go ahead. This is real talk.”
“She said you’d have men coming in and out of the apartment and would send me over to the Tremonts while you…did what you did.”
“Bullshit!” Leelah lit a cigarette. “I don’t turn tricks out of my own home. Where does Marcella live? Who is her mother?”
Vanessa shrugged but Jalissa knew and told her.
“You mean where the cookie lady lives?”
Jalissa nodded. “Her mother is the cookie lady.”
Leelah threw her head back and laughed mirthlessly. “That silly bitch wants to play? Let me tell you this, the cookie lady sells more than cookies. That bitch sells dope.” Leelah began to pace.
“They want to mess with me and mine?! Then I’m about to show them that I ain’t got nothing on the dirt they do!”
Jalissa leaned forward with gleaming eyes at the juicy tidbit while Vanessa was more concerned that her mother was cursing worse than the kids in the big building at school.
“First of all she peddles junk to kids. Kids are always going in and out of her house because they mama and daddy send them over to her house with an ace but they come out with a bag holding more than cookies! And she’s going to say that I trick out of my house?! She’ll sell a joint to a kid if they got a dime!” Leelah slapped her knee. “And the bitch sends her own kids out to deliver her junk! Yes, indeed I’m about to tell it all. Who’s next?”
Jalissa told her about Kaneeja scratching her in the face and saying that her family was dirty.
When Leelah found out where she lived she said, “Her Daddy’s name is Jimmy and he’s been in jail for child molestation. Next.” Every name and address that Jalissa gave, Leelah knew some dirt; “Her mother likes women and the way she used to sniff after me--if I swung that way she would be one of my biggest customers. Let that little girl know that her mother has been screwing the lady that lives next door to Mr. Joe since before I moved. Who’s next?”
That night as the girls lay in bed, Jalissa was chuckling at all the gossip she had. “Let those heffas mess with us again. I hope they mess with us because I’m going to shock everybody!”
Vanessa stared at the ceiling. “No. We’re not going to wait for them to come after us. We’re going after them.”
~***~
The next day at school, Vanessa scoped her friends to see if they were still her friends. Apparently the news hadn’t made it to them yet, which meant she would be in charge of the knowledge they received. At recess the girls gathered in their meeting spot under an abandoned trailer, huddling together but too young to really care about the cold.
Jalissa played her role perfectly; the outrage of her and her cousin being jumped and then the horrendous declarations of Marcella when her mother was a drug peddler--not to mention Kaneeja whose Daddy probably used to hide in bushes attacking little kids, quickly sparked a fire in the other girls.
The plan of attack was in place. The girls would walk as a group home from school each day and if they saw Marcella or Kaneeja they were going to let them have it.
Theresa, the self-proclaimed leader of the gang stated that they would trail the cousins, hoping that if they appeared to be alone it would draw out their assailants. They were instructed to wait for someone to say something—at which point it would all go down. This made Jalissa excited but Vanessa was nervous. She had never been in a gang fight. The only fight she’d been in had resulted in her being bombarded with snowballs by a bunch of girls who shouted vile things at her. However with the presence of her gang she felt confident for the first time in nearly a month.
As they headed home, more than a few kids looked at them and either laughed, pointed or whispered, but they were easy to ignore. Marcella finally just jumped into their path, seemingly from nowhere.
“Where you been hiding white girl? Your mama take you to work with her, huh?” she said. She had three girls with her, one of them was Kaneeja and they eyed Jalissa while popping their gum, waiting for her to make a move.
Vanessa’s heart quickly sped up, but the sudden fear retreated at Marcella’s nasty insinuation.
“Shut-up,” Vanessa said sharply. “Nobody cares what you have to say!”
Marcella laughed and Vanessa resisted the urge to check if her gang was still backing her up. Maybe they had set them up. Maybe this was a trick. Nervous beads of sweat began to form across her brow at that thought but she couldn’t back down because then she would always back down.
Despite Vanessa’s assurance that no one cared what she had to say, a crowd of kids began to surround them. But from the corner of her eyes Vanessa saw the evil smile that appeared on her cousin’s face. Jalissa was waiting patiently just for this very moment; a crowd.
“Listen here,” Jalissa said merrily. “You ain’t got room to talk about nobody’s mama. Everybody knows your mama sells drugs along with those burnt assed cookies she makes!” Marcella rolled her eyes even as t
he crowd of onlookers began to guffaw at her.
Then Vanessa took over the capping game. “Your mama is a junky AND we know she send you and your brothers and sisters out into the streets selling her stuff so she can buy more drugs for herself!” Vanessa hollered sounding just like any of the other girls born and raised in Winton Terrace. “So while you’re speculating about me and mine—EVERYBODY here already knows about you and yours!”
The resounding laughter nearly drowned out Marcella’s weak response. So the bigger girl swung wildly—but because of the wild swing, she broadcast her movements with crystal clarity allowing Vanessa to jump back and then push her hard. Marcella back-peddled in shock and one of her friends took her place; Kaneeja.
Kaneeja started yelling bitch this and bitch that until Vanessa and Jalissa slapped hands, covered their mouths and honestly laughed at her.
Jalissa cupped her hand around her mouth and began yelling out in a falsetto, “Yo, Jimmy?! How many kids have you molested…oh wait your daddy can’t hear me because he’s in jail for molesting you! Bwahahaha!” Jalissa roared out in laughter.
Kaneeja blinked in shock at those words. She glanced at the kids surrounding her as they laughed and pointed and slapped their knees at her expense. It was at that point that she might have realized that the crowd that had gathered was a double-edged sword. They were there to witness anyone’s pain—including hers.
“Liar!” She yelled while launching herself at the girls.
At that moment Vanessa and Jalissa’s gang took their places alongside of their friends.
Theresa took off her gloves and threw them on the ground. “We about to kick your asses now-“
But before that could happen Jalissa smacked Kaneeja hard. “That’s for scratching my face!” Vanessa saw the look of pain, both physical as well as mental on the girl’s face. She scooped up some snow and after quickly packing it she threw it hard, right into her face. Kaneeja flinched and covered her face.
Two of the friends helped Kaneeja while Marcella stood their indecisively looking at Theresa…who happened to be just as tall as her, and perhaps a bit tougher even if she was obviously younger. The calculation was easy. Marcella and her three friends were outnumbered.
But Jalissa wasn’t finished. She sang like a canary; telling the personal business of people that had laughed at her and her cousin, sending kids home crying or causing kids to curse and want to fight—only the sight of the gang of girls prevented them from the attack.
Jalissa joyfully taunted the children, “Your mother is a ho—and she still lives in the ghetto! She sells it on discount!” and, “2-4-1-Kids came to get you because your Daddy bust your head open! Bwahahaha!” or, “Your mother is drunk all the time—she falls asleep on the ground outside of the bar!”, “You can shut up Kenya, because you ain’t even got a mother because she O.D’d!”, “Your mother smells like the fish bar—and that’s why you’re an only child!”
But Vanessa got the parting shot. “If my mother sold her coochie—If she did that then she sure as hell wouldn’t be dumb enough to still be living in the projects. That’s the difference between a fierce woman and a simple ho. Now let’s get out of here y’all!”
The crowd slowly dispersed, laughing and discussing the things that Jalissa had revealed. Small scuffles began as someone with hurt feelings jumped on someone else that was laughing. Insults were hurled back and forth and kids ran about wanting to share the gossip that they had just learned.
Vanessa was laughing and cracking jokes with her friends when she nearly stumbled at the sight of Scotty watching her. He had evidently just gotten off the bus and was heading home. But now he was just staring at her as if he had never seen her before. After another moment he went into his apartment without saying a word.
Vanessa swallowed back the feeling of shame as she continued to walk with her friends, pretending to laugh, pretending not to care what anyone thought about her. She had to live in this world the best way that she could. And that meant that sometimes you had to learn how to play the game.
Chapter 14
No one messed with the cousins after that incident; no one wanted to take the chance that the girl’s might have some dirt to tell about them…and truth be known, every kid in the ghetto held some secret or other that they didn’t want their peers to know.
School let out for winter break and the cousins spent most of it down in Winton Terrace with little fear of retaliation from Marcella or Kaneeja. They seemed to have more friends than ever, but they also had a type of respect born of fear. Knowledge is power and Vanessa thought often about the power that her mother had laid on her and Jalissa. It didn’t end just because she now had more people sucking up to her than gunning for her. She and Jalissa kept a tight reign on what they knew in a very adult decision not to use it to just gossip idly about their peers, but only to use it as a weapon if the wrong person said the wrong thing.
In the mean time Leelah lessened her restraints on her daughter and gave her a house key. She’d earned it. It was decided that when school resumed it would be Vanessa who would decide if her mother would pick her up and take her up the hill or if she would stay with Jalissa.
But Vanessa decided that she didn’t need to walk up the hill after school anymore. She was popular and had friends again. More importantly she couldn’t face Scotty even though she missed him terribly. She had not yet sorted out her feelings for him although she knew that she could no longer like him that way. Could she ever just walk up to him and say, ‘Hey big brother, how’s it going?’ No! She didn’t see that ever happening. Why did her mother have to sleep with Scotty’s father?! Vanessa decided that she wasn’t truly angry at her mother. She was just brokenhearted.
~***~
It was New Years Eve and the streetlights had just gone out. Aunt Callista had given them strict instructions to be back in the apartment five minutes after or there would be hell to pay. She said fools started drinking early and anything was liable to happen to them. It was cold and they had been out playing or at friends houses all day so there was no reason not to do as instructed.
“Did you ask Aunt Leelah why your Daddy is in jail?” Jalissa asked.
Vanessa scowled. “No. I don’t care why he’s in jail. Probably got caught pimping.” Vanessa never brought up her mother’s other occupation, or Juan Carlos or the other Tremonts. But she did wonder. Only her imagination was pretty vivid and she didn’t think she could handle much more information. She should have never had to know even the bit she did know.
Sensing her cousin’s bad mood Jalissa changed the subject. “My mama said we can have some wine at midnight. She left it in the refrigerator for us.”
Vanessa smiled at that. “Is she going out with Mr. Johnny?”
Jalissa shrugged. “I don’t know. She said that if Johnny’s trifling ass doesn’t show up tonight then she’s through with him.”
“She always says that,” Vanessa said.
“I know.”
“I saw…his thing once.” Vanessa whispered.
The information didn’t seem to phase Jalissa. “I see it all the time.”
“Ugh!”
“I know girl, it’s ugly but we girls are going to have to get used to it some time or other, right?” Jalissa stated matter-of-factly.
“Yeah. But when we’re older!”
Jalissa just shook her head. “I should have been the oldest!” She used her key to unlock the door and they tossed their coats on the closet floor, too lazy to hang them.
“You girls home? I’m leaving in an hour and I want this house just as neat as it is now! You hear me Jalissa?!”
“Ye ma’am.” Vanessa called when Jalissa failed to answer.
Jalissa scowled and went into the kitchen for a snack. “I can’t wait for her to leave. Then we’re opening that wine. We ain’t waiting for midnight, either!”
“Why do you treat her so mean?” Vanessa whispered. When Jalissa got into arguments with her mother then they both start
ed screaming and it caused her nerves to unravel. Jalissa should just learn to say yes ma’am like she did.
Ignoring her question Jalissa put a foil wrapped package directly on the stove’s burner and then lit the flame beneath it.
Vanessa grabbed two cups and poured them Kool-Aide. It was grape, yay! Her mama always mixed grape and lemon but just plain grape was fine.
Jalissa shook the jiffy pop waiting for the first explosion of the popcorn, then the girls would get as close as they dared to watch the foil puff and grow with the popping of the corn.
It was one of those rare moments when Vanessa felt completely comfortable. Marvin Gaye’s Make Me Want to Holler was drifting from the radio, and the kitchen smelled of the pigs feet and black eyed peas that aunt Callista had cooked earlier, although the buttery fresh popcorn smell had overcome much of that stench. Still the smells were comforting.
“In just a few days I’m going to be your same age.” Jalissa stated. The girl poked at her chest. “I’m getting boobs. My mama’s about to buy me a bra.”
Vanessa gave her chest a critical look. That was the same baby fat that she’d had for the last five years, but Vanessa didn’t comment. She herself was ashamed of the little buds that had developed on her chest within the last year. She would probably need to start wearing bras by the summer when it would be impossible to layer up in sweaters and shirts to hide them.
She wasn’t sure why she was ashamed of the way her body was beginning to transform but she was so tall that having boobs was going to make her look way older…and the boys were definitely going to be looking at her differently. Maybe by summer she would be okay with that but not right now when thinking about boys also made her remember what her mother was probably doing right now with some strange man.
Aunt Callista left—alone, and grumbling. Vanessa would be spending the night which wasn’t uncommon during the winter break. Jalissa immediately opened the bottle of wine and the girls ate popcorn, watched the pre-countdown shows, sang and danced all while getting drunk. And when the guns began to go off at midnight, they turned off the lights and watched television from the floor where they were safe from stray bullets.
Scandalous Heroes Box Set Page 44