When we got to the lobby of the new movie theatre, I told Jasmine I liked the way it was done up: the ceiling was gold and glittery and the carpet was still fire-truck red and not dingy burgundy like red carpet usually was. Jasmine said she thought the whole thing looked fake and tacky, and speaking of fake and tacky, look who was here. It was Cindy, in some tight jeans and a shirt that said BABY GIRL and showed off the rhinestone she had stuck to her belly button. Eddie was there, too, and Michael and a bunch of their friends, and they waved us over. When Cindy saw Jasmine she ran up and hugged her, and Jasmine hugged her back, like they hadn’t been calling each other skank-ass bitches five minutes ago. The boys all looked confused, because boys are stupid like that.
“Look what Eddie gave me,” said Cindy, all friendly. She pulled a pink teddy bear out of her purse and squeezed its belly. It sang You are my sunshine, in a vibrating robot voice. It scared me.
“That’s nice,” said Jasmine, her voice so high that she sounded almost like the teddy bear. Cindy smiled and walked off to go kiss on Eddie some more. She was swinging her hips back and forth like the pendulum our science teacher had showed us, as if anyone was really trying to look at her.
“Instigator,” I whispered to Jasmine as Cindy left. Jasmine ignored me.
“I don’t have a teddy bear, neither,” said Eddie’s friend Tre, putting an arm around Jasmine. Jasmine pushed his arm off.
“C’mon, Jasmine. I lost my teddy bear. Can I sleep with you tonight?”
All Eddie’s friends had been trying to push up on Jasmine since they found out she’d done it with him, but Jasmine wasn’t having it. She looked at Tre like he was some nasty-flavored gum on the bottom of her shoe. She’d told me next time she was waiting for the real thing, not some punk high school boy. Michael put an arm around each of our shoulders and kissed us both on the cheek, me first, then Jasmine.
“You know these are my girls,” he said to Tre. “Leave’em alone.”
He didn’t need to mention me, but I felt good that he had. His friends mostly left me alone already, because they knew I wasn’t good for anything but kissing you a little bit and running away. Michael nodded good-bye as he and his friends walked toward their movie. Eddie and Cindy stayed there, kissing, like that’s what they had paid admission for anyway. I grabbed Jasmine’s hand and pulled her in the other direction.
“That’s nasty,” I said. “She looks nasty all up on him in public like that.”
“No one ever bought me a singing teddy bear,” said Jasmine as we walked to the ticket counter. “Probably no one ever will buy me a singing teddy bear.”
“I’ll buy you a singing teddy bear, you silly bitch,” I said.
“Shut up,” she said. She had been sucking on her own bottom lip so hard she’d sucked the lipstick off it, and her lips were two different colors. “Don’t you ever want to matter to somebody?”
“I matter to you,” I said. “And Michael.”
Jasmine clicked her tongue. “Michael,” she said. “Say Michael had to shoot either you or that Italian chick who’s letting him hit it right now. Who do you think he would save?”
“Why does he have to shoot somebody?” I said.
“He just does.”
“Well, he’d save me, then. She’s just a girl who’s fucking him.”
“And you’re just a girl who isn’t,” Jasmine said. “You don’t understand anything, do you? Look...” She whirled me around and pointed at Cindy Jackson, who had her arms wrapped around Eddie and his hand scrunched in her hair. “When are we going to be that kind of girl?”
“What, the stupid kind? Everyone knows he’s messing with that girl who works at the earring place at the Galleria. Probably other girls too.”
“That’s not even the point, stupid. She’s the one he kisses in public.”
“Well, that’s her own dumb fault, I don’t see why you gotta be worried about it,” I said. “I wouldn’t kiss that idiot in public if you paid me. I wouldn’t kiss his fingernail in public.”
Jasmine kept watching them kiss for a minute, and she looked real sad, like she might cry or something. “That’s your problem, Erica, you don’t understand adult relationships,” she said.
“Where are there adults?” I asked, looking around. I put my hand to my forehead like I was a sea captain looking for dry land, and turned around in circles, but everywhere it was the same old people doing the same old things.
“You’re right,” Jasmine said. “I’m tired of these little boys. Next weekend we’re going to the city. We’re gonna find some real niggas who know how to treat us.”
That was not the idea I meant for Jasmine to have.
We had our cousins’ IDs, and we’d been clubbing a few times before, in Mount Vernon, but it wasn’t the same. It was usually just a bar with a DJ, and someone always knew us; we never stayed that long or got into any real trouble. Once we were inside, people would appear out of nowhere, all Ain’t you Miss Trellis’s daughter? or Didn’t you used to be friends with my little sister? If we flirted even a little bit, someone would show up to say, Yo, those are some little girls right there,and our guy would vanish. Sometimes a guy would get mad and report us to the bouncer, who would tell us it was time to go home. You had your fun girls, he’d say, and the thing was, usually we had. The point was getting in and saying we’d been there. Clubbing in the city was something else.
In a TV sitcom, one of our mothers would have called the other and busted us, but Jasmine’s mom worked nights at a diner in Yonkers, and my mom passed out around ten, two hours after she got home from working as a secretary in White Plains, and no one was making any TV show about the two of us so that was that. Her mom thought I was at her house and my mom thought she was at my house, and meanwhile we were standing on the platform of the MTA toward Manhattan.
Jasmine wouldn’t let me wear panty hose, because I’d borrowed her shoes that opened at the toe and laced up my leg from my ankles to just below my knee, and I felt naked: Her skirt was too short on me. The only thing Jasmine let me do right was bring Michael with us, and he was standing there in his brother’s shoes, since he only owned Tims and sneakers. He also had his brother’s ID, even though his brother didn’t look a damn thing like him. Michael was smaller and copper-colored and looked to me like he ought to wear glasses, even though he didn’t.
“Money earnin’ Mount Vernon’s not good enough for you two anymore?” he asked, his hands stuffed in his jeans’ pockets.
“Mount Vernon’s not good enough for anybody,” said Jasmine. “And this city needs a new damn motto. Do you know anybody here who earns any real money?”
“Mr. Thompson’s doing all right,” Michael said, and I thought to turn around and see if Mr. Thompson was standing on the platform watching me, because I knew if he was he’d be disappointed.
It hadn’t finished turning into night yet when we’d gotten on the train, but when we got off in the city my legs shivered. It was still early, so we got slices of pizza from Famous Ray’s, and sat in the window, watching people go by. Our reflections in the window glass looked watery, like we were melting at the edges.
“All right,” said Jasmine. “Who are we tonight?”
“Serene and Alexis, same as always,” I said, “And Michael, you’re Ron, I guess.” I was thinking of the names on our IDs.
“No, stupid. I mean, who are we when guys ask questions?” Jasmine said.
“Seniors?” I said.
“Nah, we’re in college,” said Jasmine.
“What college?” I said.
“You two? Clown College,” said Michael. Jasmine threw a dirty napkin at him.
“That’s you, Michael,” she said. “We in City College. I’m a fashion major, and I’ma get rich selling people nice clothes so girls don’t go around lookin’ like Cindy Jackson, lookin’ trifling all the time, and so you, Erica, can find some pants that actually fit your ass in them. I got a man, and he’s fine, and he plays ball, but I may have to kick him to the
curb because lately he’s jealous of me, so I’m at the club lookin’ for someone who can handle me.”
“What’s he jealous for?” I asked.
“He’s jealous of my success, dummy. Who are you?”
I thought about what I would be if I could be anything, but I didn’t really know.
“I’m at City College, too, I guess,” I said. “What do you major in to be a teacher?”
“Teaching,” said Jasmine.
“Ain’t no major in teaching,” said Michael.
“You ever been to college?” said Jasmine “Your brother ain’t even been to college.”
“I’m not stupid,” said Michael. “I’m gonna have a degree. I was over at Mr. Thompson’s today talking about books and stuff, while you two were putting a bunch of makeup on your faces.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Teaching. I’m majoring in teaching, then.”
“What about your man?” Jasmine said.
“He’s great,” I said. “He’s in college, too, and he’s gonna be a doctor, but he also writes me love poems. And paints pictures of me. He’s a painter too.”
“He so great, why you at the club?” said Michael.
“Umm . . . he’s dead?” I said.
“Dead?” said Jasmine.
“Dead.” I nodded. “I just finished grieving. I burned all his poems and now I wish I still had them.”
“Check this chick,” said Jasmine. “Even when she makes shit up, her life is fucked up.”
Michael gave me his jacket on the way from Ray’s to the club, and I wrapped it around me and felt warmer. He was talking about earlier, when he was over at Mr. Thompson’s.
“Did you know,” said Michael, “that the Ethiopians beat the Italian army?”
“Do I care?” Jasmine asked. “No wonder I never meet nobody, hanging out with you.”
Michael made a face at Jasmine behind her back, but we were quiet for the rest of the walk.
I didn’t know why Jasmine needed to meet people besides us anyway. Jasmine thought just because people were older, they were going to be more interesting. They didn’t look any more interesting, all lined up outside the club like we did on school picture day. At the door one of the bouncers checked Jasmine’s ID, then looked her up and down and waved her in. He barely looked at mine, just glanced at my chest and stamped my hand. But he didn’t even take Michael’s, just shook his head at him and laughed.
“Not tonight,” he said.
Michael didn’t look too surprised, but he reached for my wrist when he saw I was waiting there, like I would have left with him if he asked me.
“You be careful with yourself, all right?”
I nodded. The bouncer turned around like he might change his mind about letting me in. “Bye, Ron,” said Jasmine, and she took off.
I ran in after her. “You didn’t have to just leave him like that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whole room full of people and you’re worried about Michael. He can take care of himself.”
I knew Michael would be all right. It was me I was worried about. The dance floor was full, and the strobe light brought people in and out of focus like holograms. Up on the metal platforms girls were dancing in shorts and bikini tops. The one closest to me had her body bent in half, her hands on her ankles and her shiny-gold-short-covered butt in the air. I wondered how you got to be a girl like that. Did you care too much what other people thought, or did you stop caring?
Me and Jasmine did what we always did at a club, moved to the center of the dance floor and moved our hips to the music. By the end of the first song two men had come up behind us and started grinding. I looked up at Jasmine to make sure it wasn’t Godzilla behind me, and when she nodded and gave me a thumbs-up, I pressed into the guy harder, winding forward and backward. At school they got mad about dancing like that, but we never learned any other kind of dancing except the steps from music videos, and good luck finding a boy who could keep up with that.
After we’d been dancing for an hour and I was sweaty and my thighs were tired, we went to the bathroom to fix ourselves. Nothing could be done about your hair once it started to sweat out, and I was glad at least I had pinned most of it up so you couldn’t see the frizzy parts too well. I let Jasmine fix my makeup. I could feel her fingers on my face, fixing my eye shadow, smoothing on my lip gloss. I remembered a book we’d read in middle school and said, “It’s like I’m Helen Keller, and you’re Teacher.”
“You’re the teacher,” Jasmine said. “I’m Alexis, the fashion designer.”
“We’re not,” I said, because it seemed important all of a sudden, but Jasmine was already on her way out the door.
When we left the bathroom we stood by the bar awhile and waited for people to buy us drinks. I used to always drink Midori sours because they tasted just like Kool-Aid, but Jasmine told me I couldn’t keep drinking those because that was the easiest way to show you were underage. I tried different drinks on different guys. A lawyer from Brooklyn bought me something too strong when I told him to surprise me, and kept talking about the river view from his apartment while I tried to drink it in little tiny sips. A construction worker from Queens told me he’d been waiting all his life for me, which must’ve been a pretty long time because he was kind of old. A real college student, from Harlem, walked away from me when he kept asking me questions about City College and I couldn’t answer them right. Go home, sweetie, he said, but I couldn’t, so I tried other names and stories. I was Renee and Yolanda and Shameka. I was a record store clerk and a waitress and a newspaper photographer. It was easy to be somebody else when no one cared who you were in the first place.
I realized after a while that I didn’t see Jasmine anymore. I listened for her, but all I could hear was other people talking, and the boom of music from the speakers above me. Then I heard her laugh on the other side of the bar and start to sing along with Foxy Brown, Ain’t no nigga like the one I got. She was sitting on a silver bar chair, and there were guys all around her. One of them was telling her how pretty she sang, which was a lie: she had no voice to begin with, plus she was making it sound all stupid and breathy on purpose. When she saw me looking at her, she waved.
“Yo,” she said, smiling big like she had the only other time I’d seen her drunk. “Serene.” I’d forgotten which name I was answering to and looked at her funny for a minute. I walked closer and one of the men put his arm around me.
“She can come too,” he said, and Jasmine smiled, and when she got up for real, I wondered where everyone was going.
I followed Jasmine until I realized we were leaving the club. It was like my whole body blinked. The club had been hot and sticky and outside it was almost cold. The floodlights on the block were so bright that for a minute I thought the sun must have never gone down all the way; it was that light outside.
“The hell?” I said.
“We’re going to an after party,” she giggled. “In the Bronx. The valet is getting their car. I was just about to look for you.”
“No.” I shook my head.
“Yes,” she said, putting her arms around me and kissing me on the forehead. One of the guys whistled.
The valet pulled the car up, and I counted the men for the first time. There were four of them and two of us and one Mazda 626.
“There’s no room,” I said. “Let’s go.” I started to pull Jasmine’s hand, but the man by the far window patted his lap, and Jasmine crawled into the car and sat there and put her arms around him.
“Room now,” Jasmine said, and because I was out of excuses I got in the car, and five minutes later we were speeding up the West Side Highway. I remembered a story that had been on the news a few weeks ago. Some girl upstate had ended up in the hospital after she went home with five men she met on the bus. They didn’t say on the news exactly what they’d done to her, only that she was lucky to be alive. “What was that child thinking, going anyplace with all those strangers?” my mother had said. I wanted to call my mother right t
hen and say she wasn’t, Mama, she wasn’t thinking at all, one minute she was one place and the next she was another and it all happened before she could stop it.
Then I thought maybe I was overreacting. Lots of people went to other people’s houses and most of them didn’t end up dead. Jasmine’s new friends didn’t really look dangerous. They looked like they’d spent more time getting dressed than me and Jasmine had. The one Jasmine was sitting on had a sparkly diamond earring. The one next to me had on a beige linen shirt. They all smelled like cologne beneath sweat. I liked that smell. My sheets had smelled like that once after Michael took a nap in my bed, and I didn’t want to wash them until it went away. I felt better. If I was going to kill somebody, I thought, I would not get all dressed up first. I would not put on a lot of perfume. When I turned away from the window to look at the people in the car again, I saw that Jasmine was kissing the man with the earring. She was kissing him deep, and I could see half her tongue going in and out of his mouth. His hands were tracing the top of her shirt. He fingered the chain she always wore around her neck, and stopped kissing her to look at it.
“Princess,” he mumbled. “Are you a princess?”
Jasmine giggled. Her chain glittered like a dime at the bottom of a swimming pool.
“Are you a princess too?” the man next to me asked. He looked down at me, and I could see that his eyes were a pretty green, but bloodshot.
“No,” I said. I folded my arms across my chest.
“Man, look who we got here,” said the one in the passenger seat, turning around. “College girl with a attitude problem. How’d we end up with these girls again? Y’all are probably virgins, aren’t you?”
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self Page 2