They held my hands. I was squeezing so tightly my fingers went numb. My heart raced. It’s too soon to have another baby, I thought, nervously shifting in my seat.
“Miss McSpadden?” A nurse peeking out of the door leading to the surgical area called out. My heart suddenly stopped, and I slowly rose.
As the nurse walked me back, my eyes welled up with tears. I looked back at my girls one last time. I didn’t want to go through with the abortion, but I wasn’t ready for no other baby. I was still trying to learn how to be a mama with Mike Mike. I felt bad as the anesthesia took me under. Then just like that, as if nothing had ever happened, I opened my eyes. I thought I was dreaming and shot up.
“Lay down, Lezley. You’re not ready to get up.” The nurse rushed over, trying to calm me down.
I felt a knot in my gut. The room started spinning and my feet felt like they were filled with water. My mouth was dry, but I began to salivate, and suddenly it was as if everything I had eaten over the past week bubbled up and shot out of my mouth, splattering on the floor and all over the nurse.
“Nette, get your ass up and come on ’cause laying here you didn’t gonna feel no better,” Nina said.
She was right; it didn’t get any better. I just felt fucked up and vacant inside.
God forgive me, but I just couldn’t afford any more kids.
• • • •
By the time Mike Mike was getting close to one year old, I decided that regardless of what Big Mike was doing or not doing for himself, I was determined to get an income so that I could take care of Mike Mike and me. I didn’t want to live at the Brown’s forever. So every morning I got up and left the house on a mission to find me a job. Mike Mike was my reminder I had somebody who needed me and I couldn’t mess up out there.
I didn’t have a car at first so Nina helped me out a lot.
Honk! Honk!
She was outside in the driveway laying on her horn. I swung Mike Mike onto my hip.
“We comin’!” I yelled, peeking out the front door.
Nina and me hit the streets, on a job hunt. Nina always had a car, usually a rental. She fucked with dudes with money. You know what they say about them kind of dudes, sometimes they call them D-boys, they have the money, the good credit, and that was like a ticket out of the hood.
She pulled in front of an office building. I gave Mike Mike a kiss on the forehead before dashing out the car. Within a few minutes I was back.
“What happened, Nette?” Nina asked, giving me back Mike Mike.
“I got the application, but I dunno, girl, you gotta have a high school diploma or your GED. I ain’t going to get discouraged, though,” I said, looking Mike Mike in his eyes. Just then I got a call from my girl April. Her boyfriend worked at the airport and said they had an opening.
In no time, I landed a job at the St. Louis Lambert airport working for IPS, the airport’s passenger transportation department. The pay wasn’t so great, but I met a lot of interesting people and celebrities who came to town, and made good tips. Plus, I like that I had to wear a uniform. That made me feel important as I was transporting passengers in wheelchairs to and from, but I was still on the hunt. I was excited because Mike Mike was going to be turning one and it looked like I was going to be able to start saving a little money to get a car at least.
Over the next several months I hustled at the airport and eventually quit when I landed a job at a nursing home where my cousins Key Key and Tonya worked. It gave me an opportunity to check into a possible career in health care that could open up some big doors. The job Key Key and Tonya hooked me up with was good money and flexible hours. I was doing janitorial work, mopping floors and doing patients’ laundry. We had to wear nursing scrubs even though we weren’t working directly with the patients. I felt proud wearing them scrubs. To me it was the best way to show the world I could do something and amount to something. You would never know if I was scrubbing toilets or taking temperatures.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HE LOVES ME NOT
How does that saying go? “Mama’s baby, daddy’s maybe”? Yeah, that’s how I was feeling. Mike Mike was about to turn one, and he was full of energy and a character. Sometimes I’d just turn on the radio and Mike Mike would get to dancing to the beat, doing a squat in place and smiling. My baby loved music early in life. I suddenly started to feel sad and then kind of angry, because there was so much to see as Mike Mike was growing, but Big Mike wasn’t around. That was a shame too ’cause we were in the same household. One day, Big Mike wasn’t around and I got tired of just being in the damn basement. I was missing my friends and itching to kick it.
“Girl, I’m comin’ to get you and we goin’ to the park!” Nina sounded hyped over the phone.
“The park? You mean the park on West Florissant?” I asked.
Fairground Park was one of the biggest parks in St. Louis, next to Forest Park, and it was in the heart of North St. Louis. It’s funny, black people didn’t used to even be allowed there, but now that the North Side is mainly black we have taken it over. I always had fun there growing up, especially every May for the Annie Malone May Day Parade. That’s one of the biggest events in North St. Louis, a parade to support the old Annie Malone Children’s home, an all black orphanage. People would be packed on the streets for miles, to see their favorite local dance troupes and the bands marching would be throwing down. You’d be out there looking cute, hanging with your family, and seeing all your friends. But I had no idea it would be jumping like that on just a regular Sunday.
My hair was already done, I had lost some weight after Mike Mike (even though Big Mike had called me fat on more than a few occasions), and I was feeling cute for the first time in a long time. I jumped into a blue jean minidress with the quickness.
Nina and some friends rolled up, and I kissed Mike Mike bye and thanked Mrs. Brown. Then I jumped in the backseat and we were gone. I was excited to see what all the hype was about.
The park was straight-up popping as we inched along, hanging out the windows. I saw crowds of people having a good time. Music was blasting, fancy cars lined the street and they were driven by guys with nice jewelry, wearing Girbaud jeans. I thought to myself, Damn this is how people do it in the park? Shoot, I might be coming to the park a little more often. This was a whole new world to me, and I got plenty of attention that day. I had never seen so many black people in one place. Everybody was just chilling, getting along. Nobody was fighting today. The police was just casually coasting up and down. I saw a couple black cops do a slow roll past us, and they gave a whassup nod to the guys standing near us. Today was a good day.
I got back to Mike Mike and returned to being a mommy for the night. When Big Mike came home, I wasn’t even mad because I was too busy laughing at Mike Mike, making funny noises. Plus, that day out in the park had got me to thinking more and more about how big the rest of the world was.
• • • •
It was finally Mike Mike’s first birthday. I was more excited than anybody; we had made it to one year. He was a baby and didn’t know what was really going on. He just knew I was making a big fuss over him. I had gotten Mike Mike all dressed in a fresh Nike outfit, with new little Nike sneakers to match, and his hair was too funny. He hadn’t had his first haircut yet, so he was sporting his own version of a mohawk. I was his proud mama, looking cute myself. I had a new hairstyle, blond on the top and long in the back. I called it my Dolly Parton hair. Nina came over to pick me up, but then this boy started crying and having a fit. I did not want him to get snot on his clothes or fall out on the floor and get dirty. I was so done with how he was acting, I was about to cancel his party. Nina just shook her head and laughed at me.
“Naw, girl we gotta got through with it. You gotta have a party for his first birthday!”
We had all Mike Mike’s favorite Mickey Mouse characters on party hats, plates, napkins, the works. You would’ve thought I bought out the party store. Family and friends all met up at Showbiz Pizza
and by the time we got there Mike Mike was laughing and ready to play. Showbiz was known for their stage and the life-sized stuffed animal band that played. A big old gorilla was the drummer. As soon as the stage lights came on Mike Mike’s eyes lit up, and the band was jamming. Mike Mike was dancing and having the time of his life. I sat back and smiled.
It was after his big party, but Mike Mike was finally getting his one-year-old haircut. He was my big boy. Not just figuratively but literally. Mike Mike was stocky and solid, and my hip and back would be hurting if I carried him too long. A boy’s first haircut is a big moment—one that, if you got a daddy and you know him, he should be with you for. Big Mike had said he was going to cut Mike Mike’s hair, but he never seemed to get around to it. His little ’fro was growing so much it looked like a soft cotton ball. I wasn’t going to keep waiting on Big Mike, and Bernard was on the spot with his clippers.
Me, Mama, and Brittanie were anxiously waiting for Bernard to get everything ready in the kitchen. He pulled a chair in the middle of the floor and put a stack of phone books on the seat. Mike Mike was moving like a wiggly worm.
“Boy, if you don’t stop movin’ around . . .” I ordered.
“No, Mama!” That was Mike Mike’s new favorite thing to say, and it was driving me crazy.
“C’mon, Nette Pooh, hand him to me!” Bernard said, in between laughing.
He sat Mike Mike down and draped a big towel around his shoulders, like the real barbershop.
Bernard switched those clippers on, and Mama and me held our breath. Brittanie was like Mike Mike’s own personal cheerleader, giving up fist pumps and dancing around. Then just as Bernard was about to touch down with the blade, Mike Mike wiggled free and jumped down on his feet.
“I tired!” Mike Mike proclaimed, snatching off the towel, letting out a big yawn.
We all busted out laughing, couldn’t help it. We were able to convince him to get back in the chair, and Bernard moved fast, before Mike Mike quit again.
After that Mr. Brown found Mike Mike a regular barber, and he made going to the barbershop their Saturday ritual. I just wish it had been with his father and not his grandfather. But I saw that Mr. Brown was once again taking up the slack for Mike.
• • • •
It was Fourth of July, and my relationship with Big Mike took a turn that shamed me to my core. It was the first time, but not the last that Mike would put his hands on me.
I was so happy to be working, because I was able to get my hair done and buy an outfit for the holiday. I was looking too cute sporting a silky weave ponytail, a brand-new Nautica shorts set, my pom-pom tennis socks, and a fresh pair of K-Swiss. Mike had invited a bunch of his friends over for the Fourth. We were all outside, and him and his friends were shooting fireworks back and forth at each other.
“Don’t get into a fireworks fight with your friends, Mike, and you see me and Mike Mike is sitting right out here on this porch,” I said.
Then, one of his silly friends barely missed me and Mike Mike with a bottle rocket. I was done and got up and went into the kitchen.
A few minutes he came in and we exchanged words.
All of a sudden Mike got quiet and kicked me with all his might in my leg.
“Ouch! Did you just fuckin’ kick me?” I winced, stumbled, then kicked him right back. His fist immediately barreled into my back. I punched him in return. Next thing you know, we were swinging at each other. He was way bigger than me, but I was trying to hold my own.
“Hey, y’all cut that out!” Mrs. Brown shouted.
He chilled after that. I stormed out the room, not really sure what had happened. I was stunned; he had never been physical with me before.
Not long after that, he came in the house one day and I was downstairs on his phone line, talking with some old friends from school. The other line clicked.
“Mike, you got a call,” I said, handing him the phone. He walked out and walked back into the room, clicking back over to my conversation, but before he handed me the phone, he heard a guy’s voice.
“Who the fuck is this?” he shouted into the phone. “You on the phone wit a nigga in my house, Nette?” He was so angry the veins bulged in his neck.
“Mike, stop trippin’! That’s just my friend Deron and my girl KiKi. We were just kickin’ it, catchin’ . . .”
Before I could finish my sentence, his hands were around my neck. Mike yanked me by my neck and lifted me into the air and threw me across the room. I fell, then instantly jumped back up, confused and dazed.
“Mike, they was just my friends,” I said weakly, between sobs.
He bent down and gently touched me on my arm. I jumped with fear. “I’m sorry, Nette, I ain’t gon’ do that no more. I just love you.” He put his arms around me and held me close, but I started to see him differently.
• • • •
Mike Mike just kept thriving and growing and learning, and regardless of the emotional strain I had on me from Mike, I had to make sure my child didn’t see what I knew in my heart was becoming an abusive pattern with Big Mike. But I was definitely feeling restless like things were going to get worse before they were better.
• • • •
Money was tight for me, but I still wanted Mike Mike to have the best. So I got him started in preschool. I put him in a Christian private preschool in the nearby township of Florissant. But within a short period I withdrew him because it was too pricey at $180 every two weeks, and I didn’t have any public assistance. I settled on a program that I had heard about at the YWCA in Pine Lawn.
I was coming up on three years at the Browns. Mike Mike was in a stable preschool and I was ready to go back home to my mama’s house for good. She had been living around the corner from Mr. and Mrs. Brown, on Edmond Street. I didn’t tell Big Mike I wanted to break up, but I let my actions speak for me by leaving.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BROKEN PROMISES
I was driving a peach Pontiac Grand Am by now. It was used but it was mine with no car payments, and sometimes I’d put Mike Mike in and and we’d just roll out go to the zoo, go to the park, or go visit Granny. We would just leave Pine Lawn. Other times I’d get him dressed, because putting him in cute little outfits was my favorite thing to do, and we’d just walk around in the neighborhood.
The best part of being on Edmond was that he could be with my mama and Brittanie all the time now, and Mike Mike had a lot of space to play. He started really showing that he had a love for animals when I got him his first dog. It looked like the Taco Bell Chihuahua dog. We named him Spike, but Mike Mike couldn’t say that so he called him Pike.
One day, I found myself looking all over the house for Mike Mike. Brittanie and Mama were in a tizzy too.
“You think Mike Mike got out the house, Mama?” I asked, opening up the front door.
“Naw, that boy might be hiding under the bed,” she said, walking off to check her bedroom.
“Shhhh! Come back, Mama,” Brittanie said, turning down the television, motioning for us to all be still and listen.
I could hear the faint sound of Spike yapping and Mike Mike’s little hearty laugh.
“It’s coming from my bedroom,” Brittanie whispered.
We tiptoed over to the bedroom door, and on “three” my mama opened it. We thought we was ’bout to surprise Mike Mike, but instead we was the ones being surprised.
“Gun-gun!” Mike Mike shouted with glee. “Look, Pike!”
Mike Mike had gotten hold of the baby powder and thrown it all over the room. It looked like a small blizzard had hit. The room was white. The dog was white. Mike Mike was white.
We couldn’t help but bust out laughing. We laughed so hard we couldn’t even talk.
• • • •
I was going to the Browns’ with Mike Mike almost daily. But Big Mike and me were a ticking bomb. There was still a powerful connection between us—there was an attraction there, and Mike Mike had bonded us together, like it or not, but I was ready to m
ove on.
I had brought Mike Mike over to visit and me and Mike got into it. I just wanted to leave, but he had it in his mind that he was going to force me to stay. I broke free from his grip and ran out of Mrs. Brown’s house and jumped in my car, quickly starting the engine. Mike was hot on my heels. Before I could shift the car in reverse. Mike was pounding his hand on the driver’s window.
“Let me in! Get out the car, Nette!”
“No, Mike! Move, get back!”
He got so angry he slammed his fist against the windshield. I screamed, closed my eyes. When I reopened them the windshield look like a giant spider web.
I was pissed. My hard earned money bought this car. Suddenly, I didn’t have a drop of fear in me.
“Really, Mike!” I shouted.
“Well, I ain’t try to do it, Nette!”
I was furious. I put the car in reverse and peeled out of his driveway. I priced getting a new windshield, but Mike didn’t have any money. I didn’t have any money. So I just drove around like that, until I could save up enough to get a new one.
Then just as I was one foot out the door I found myself staring down at two pink lines again.
I had a new job at the Venture department store. I was so happy to be working. I was in charge of the cotton candy counter. As I watched the pink sugary confection whirl inside the large metal bin and swirl around and around from tiny sugar beads into a fluffy mound of pink cotton, thoughts about what to do with another baby went around and around in my head.
I handed a fresh cone of pink fluffiness to a little girl and smiled.
I was nineteen now, and I didn’t want to go through an abortion again. But I didn’t hardly have my shit together to take care of Mike Mike, and making cotton candy wasn’t going to feed two kids. Plus, this was going to keep me tied to Big Mike.
I walked into the house and dropped my bag of baby goodies from my doctor’s appointment on the table. “Mama, look at what they gave me today at the doctor’s office.”
“You pregnant?” Mama was happy. I was surprised. I was feeling panicked and confused.
Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil Page 11