Teenie

by Christopher Grant

  “But there were none around, Mommy.”

  “No hitting. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Mommy.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more about this. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Mommy.”

  My parents stand up from the couch, and my mother walks into the kitchen. As soon as she leaves the room, my father pumps his fist and winks at me. I smile at some of the faces that he’s making, telling me good job for beating up the bully. He knows that my mother is waiting for him in the kitchen, so he pumps his fist one more time and leaves the room. I can hear him say, “What? I didn’t say anything.”

  My mother is mumbling something to him before my dad comes out of the kitchen holding a chicken leg. While he settles in on the couch, I jump at the chance to talk to my mother alone. I follow her up to her bedroom and say, “Mommy, I have to talk to you.”

  “Go ahead, sweetie.” She’s busy fixing herself in the mirror. When she doesn’t hear me saying anything, she puts down her comb and sits down next to me. She smiles and says, “What’s up?”

  I can’t do it. I thought I would just be able to walk in here and tell her, but the words won’t come out of my mouth.

  She looks down at me and says, “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “Well. I did something the other day that I am not proud of and it has been bothering me for a little while.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “Umm.”

  She strokes my hair and says, “Take a deep breath and let it out.” After I finish the deep breathing, she says, “I will try my best not to get upset.”

  I nod my head and start talking, but not about the thing that I really want to talk about. “Mommy. I … I dumped Beresforda’s ashes on Bakari.” Her eyes open wide, so I keep talking. “But they were really bothering me. They put shaving cream in my hand while I was sleeping and tickled my nose with a feather so I would smear the shaving cream all over my face. Then Bakari pretended he was sick and—”

  She puts her hand up to tell me to stop. “You dumped Beresforda’s ashes on Bakari?”

  I nod my head and feel ready to cry. “I know I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. I know that she was your firstborn and that’s the only memory that you—”

  “My firstborn?”

  “Beresforda was your first child, so I should have had more respect for her remains.”

  My mother starts laughing like I just told the world’s funniest joke. After she calms down, she goes back to the mirror and starts fixing her hair again. “Martine, who told you that Beresforda was my daughter? Never mind. I know one of your silly brothers said that.”

  “She wasn’t my sister? Then who was she?”

  “What was she is a better question.” My mother is still laughing. She stops when she sees the sad look on my face. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’t mean to make you feel worse.” She rubs my shoulder and says, “Honey, Beresforda was your father’s cat.”

  “A cat?”

  My mother starts laughing again. “Do you really think that I would have a child and not talk to you about it?”

  “The twins said that you didn’t like to talk about what happened to her and that I shouldn’t ask you about her.”

  All she can do is shake her head and smile. “Your brothers are something else. And you really think I would name a child Beresforda?”

  “I guess not.” I have a scowl on my face and murder on my mind. I don’t know how I’m going to get back at them but I am going to spend the next few months coming up with something. They are going to pay for this one.

  “Sweetheart, I don’t want you to feel bad.” She starts rubbing my shoulders but sees that it’s having no effect on me. “And, Martine, I don’t want you to do anything stupid.”

  She looks at me until I say, “I won’t, Mommy.”

  “It’s probably best if you don’t talk to your father about this, dear. He loved that stupid cat.”

  A freakin’ cat?

  “Between you and me, most of the stuff in that thing wasn’t even the cat’s ashes. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that those two mischievous brothers of yours broke the urn and then put the dirt from the vacuum cleaner in it. Last time I checked, it was still smelling like Carpet Fresh.” My mother starts laughing as she fixes the last button on her shirt.

  My brothers are so lucky that they left for school already. Beresford said revenge is a dish best served cold. Those two are in line for some frozen dinners with how bad I’m going to pay them back. I hear my dad lumbering up the stairs.

  “Ayy, wha goin on here?” He has his ear to the door of my room. “You got the TV on in there and you out here? I gonna start making you pay the electric bill.”

  “Martine, I thought I told you no TV?” My mother looks upset.

  “I must have sat on the remote when I came out of the room, Mommy. I wasn’t watching it.”

  She’s halfway down the stairs when she says, “Okay. Just make sure that doesn’t happen again. Unless you want your punishment extended …”

  “Okay, Mommy. Sorry, Daddy.” I walk back to the room and lean against the door. My dad looks at me funny when I kick it twice with my heel. When Cherise unlocks the door, I back in and say to my dad, “It gets stuck sometimes.”

  Chapter 29

  When Cherise decides to leave, she heads over to the window and starts to climb out. It’s dark, and the wind is whipping all over the place.

  “Umm, Cherise.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” she says before closing the window.

  “So how’re you gonna get you out of here?”

  She thinks for a few seconds and smiles. “I have an idea.”

  This is one of the few times in my life that I’m happy to be so skinny and lightweight. After we stand at the top of the stairs and listen for Beresford, Cherise puts me on her back and carries me down the stairs. When she first suggested it, I made her explain, because I didn’t understand what she wanted to do.

  “So there’ll only be one set of footsteps.”

  My dad has the TV blasting, and I tap Cherise, telling her to wait before stepping off the last step. We’re about to walk right through my dad’s field of view, so I want to be extra careful. I get off of her and peek out and see that Beresford is in the kitchen. Cherise should have no problem getting out. We already hugged at the top of the staircase so we wouldn’t risk making any unnecessary noises near the front door. Luckily my father hasn’t locked the door for the night. I watched my brothers a while back and learned how to open and close the doors without making any sound. It’s kind of tricky, because I have to open the front door and then the security door. This is my first time trying it, and as much as my hand is shaking, I’m able to open both of them without making a sound. Cherise ducks out and heads for the bus stop.

  “Martine!”

  Oh no. Beresford caught me. I’m going to get in so much trouble.

  “Martine!”

  “Yes, Daddy?”

  He has a puzzled look on his face, and my heart skips a beat when he asks, “Wha you doing by the door?”

  “I was about to lock it, but the security door wasn’t pulled in all the way.” I’m getting better and better at these little lies.

  “Oh. I thought you were upstairs. Come and read this.” He’s holding up his laptop and saying, “Cheese on bread” over and over. “Cheese on bread” is another one of his Beresisms. It can mean that he’s happy—like watching the Giants win the Super Bowl—annoyed, angry, or surprised. Judging by the look on his face, I’m guessing he’s somewhere between surprised and annoyed.

  He’s shaking his head, saying, “I can’t understand these young men nowadays. They got the whole world in front of them and they do bear foolishness. Why he can’t wait until the right time to take money? No kinda broughtupsy.”

  “Cheese on bread,” like “teefin’,” is one of the phrases that Beresford uses all the time, but in my book, neither
one of them is as creative as “broughtupsy.” It’s one of my favorites. I can think of a million other ways to say someone has no class. My mother says “no home training,” but “broughtupsy” is so much more fun.

  Beresford hands me his laptop and points to a breaking news exclusive he’s been looking at on the Daily News Web site. “It says here that this boy goes to your school. Do you know him?”

  “Yes!” I add, “Everyone knows him” when Beresford looks at me funny for the shock I show when I start to read.

  BASKETBALL STAR RULED INELIGIBLE FOR AMATEUR COMPETITION

  All-state forward Gregory Millons lost his amateur eligibility this afternoon after it was learned that he was receiving payments from an agent. Millons, a six-foot-four 18-year-old senior who led Brooklyn Tech to the quarterfinals of the PSAL play-offs, has been linked to “street agent” Willis “Stacks” Boykins. Boykins reportedly has ties to several NYC-born NBA players and is under investigation for a myriad of charges ranging from extortion to embezzlement. Receipts obtained by the News show several items purchased by Boykins have been found to be in Millons’ possession.

  So that’s where he was getting all that money! My brothers did say he was shady.

  Millons was set to attend Duke University in the fall on a full athletic scholarship. Calls to Duke University’s athletic department have gone unanswered, but a statement from the athletic department is expected tomorrow afternoon, when it is widely anticipated that Millons will have his scholarship offer rescinded. Sources call the revocation of the scholarship “a foregone conclusion.” Messages left at the Millons’ residence went unreturned.

  “That’s dee same boy that hit the game-winner the other day?”

  I nod my head, and my dad continues his rant.

  “Why he go and do dem things? He couldn’t wait?” My father is shaking his head. “Cheese on bread.”

  My heart is racing so fast that I have to sit down. This is it, the end, where the bad guy gets his. Everything worked out in the end, and on top of that, I might even get the YSSAP scholarship. I should feel better, shouldn’t I? Greg got arrested for what he did to Azalia and now he’s going to lose the one thing he loves most. Thinking about that should make me feel great, but I can feel myself forcing a smile. I should be jumping for joy right now. So why don’t I feel any better? Why do I want to cry? Why did I want to cry as soon as I read his name in the paper?

  The phone rings a few times, but it’s muffled. It takes my father a few seconds to realize he’s sitting on it.

  “Lashley residence. Hold a moment. It’s Cherise.”

  He goes to hand me the phone. There’s no way I’m putting that thing next to my face. “I’ll take it upstairs, Daddy.” I run up to my room and yell down, “Got it.” I wait to hear the click of the phone downstairs before I start talking. Since the Big Daddy fiasco, Beresford has been monitoring my communications like the CIA. “Hello.”

  “Hey.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on the bus. I’ll be home in a few minutes. Yo, your mom almost saw me.”

  “My mother? How? She should be at the hospital by now.”

  “Well, I don’t know where she should be, but she pulled up at the light and I had to hide behind a car so she wouldn’t see me. She turned onto your block just now. She should be walking in any minute.”

  Sure enough, I hear my mother keying into the house a few seconds later. She’s grumbling to herself as she runs into her bedroom. I hold the phone away from my ear while I listen to her rummage through the junk on top of her dresser. Cherise has been busy talking about how some guys were trying to talk to her at the bus stop. I cut her off and say, “I’m going to tell.”

  “What?”

  “I said I’m going to tell my mother what he did to me.”

  “No, Teenie. I’m telling you. Don’t say nothing. Trust me. I would never steer you wrong.”

  “Not this time, Cherise. I have to.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I have to. I don’t want to feel bad anymore.”

  “You’ll get over it. I’m telling you. You might get in trouble if you say something.”

  “Maybe. But if I don’t tell, I know I’ll be in real trouble.”

  “How?” I don’t bother to answer, because I know she won’t understand. After a few seconds she says, “Okay, your funeral.”

  “No, it is not my funeral. This is something I need to do for me and it’s what I’m going to do, so don’t go trying to convince me to do something else.”

  “Okay, okay. My bad. Take it easy. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  She pauses for a few seconds and says, “Okay. Love you, Teenie. My battery is about to d—” before her phone cuts off.

  My mother zips by my room and down the stairs toward the front door. God only knows why she came back home, but the fact is she’s here. If I wait another day, I know I’ll find some way to talk myself out of telling.

  I’m standing at the top of the staircase when I call her. “Mommy.”

  “Yes, Martine?” Her back is to me and she is stuffing her foot into her shoe while she reaches for the front door.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Can it wait? I’m really late for work.”

  “No. I need to talk to you right now.”

  “You’re just like your father, you know. Stubborn as a mule.” She turns around and glances at her watch. She puts her bag down, sighing. “Alright. I’m already late as it is.”

  Tears stream down my face as I say, “I think we’d better sit down.”

  Acknowledgments

  God, my wife (my rock), Mommy (thank you for all of your sacrifice), Alphonzo (thank you for being a trailblazer), Isis, Gibran, and Tiye Grant, Raymond and Maureen Gittens (thank you for allowing me to share your home while I found myself), Enrique, Kwayera, Uwingablye, Solwazi, and Bakari Cunningham, Daniel and Natasha Flores (I will never forget what you guys did for me), Chad Gittens, Lawrence and Violet Archer, Marcy Posner, Erin Clarke, Machel Smith, Tricia Smith, Aisha Havill, the Smith family, the Simmons/Brooks family, Stacey Barney, Larry and Judy Gutman, Ronnie Stolzenberg, Cecile Goyette, Joseph and Azalia Speight, Enrique and Safiya Simmons, Jackie Carter, Jumaane Ford, Allison Grant, Jovone Simmonds, Andrez Carberry, Kim Francis, Shawnda Bailey, Raelene Lazarus, Andre Mais, Tameka Lyons, Adrian and Nancy Florence, Richard “Skane” Ford, Kevin L. Phillips, Maisha Dang, Crystal White, John and Sahar Harris, Oshadi Kelly, Pat Spencer, Golan Shlomi, T3 Capital, Brian Carey, Ignacio and Ivy Tzoumas, Bruce Baskind (Best American Stud Teacher ever), Garson Grant, Lartif Thornton, Cesar Rivera, Anthony “PJ” Davis, Latia Holder, Aisha Saunders, Frank and Linda Gittens, Desiree Medas, the Grosvenor/Sisnett/Phillips/Buckmire family, Derek Gardner, Rumi Kitagawa, Jeff Cox, Ira Brustein, Heather Karaman, Gloria Zicht, Edgardo Lugo, Khalilah Gibbs-Harrington, Janelle Daniel, Joyal Mcneil, Lyshaan Hall, Maurice Malone, Nytaino Romulus, Jean-Marc and Edwidge Dejoie, Randy Gittens, Yolanda Sangweni, Colin Channer, Sabine Jovin-Tourenne, Jason and Danyale Robinson, Euken Gabriel, Jerreno Pope, Ogo Nwanyanwu, the Taitt family, Vinita Neves, Oscar Alcantara, Othniel Taitt, Roy Roberts, Sean Hannon, Shellane Semple, Edmire Saint-Pierre, Sam Kornhauser, Ryan Rabaglia, Curtis Charles, Lou Forte, Larry Sackler, Michael Streiker, Alex Mizan, Antonio and Anita Gholar, the George family, Chris Holko, Rashida Dorant, the St. Lawrence family, Edward Meertins-George, Toby Thompkins, Simone Thornhill, Solan James, Tamyka Clarke-Cox, Nicole Yarde, Matthew Kenny, Ayanna-Abena Cox, Vicki Haddow, Courtney Pierre, Martin Dixon, and all the people that let me borrow pens on the subway.

 

 

 
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