The Knife and the Butterfly

by Ashley Hope Pérez

  But Theo is dead, and Shauna is a shitty mom who doesn’t even care about me.

  I opened the Bible to the back and read what Meemaw put there. She said I was a good person with a good heart even though I’ve been going with the wrong people. She wrote about how when she got pregnant with Shauna at fifteen her aunt helped her out and told her that God cares about everybody. She wrote that He loves us enough to go look for a lost sheep no matter how far it wanders off. And she said that just because you got lost doesn’t mean you’ll never get found.

  It’d be nice to believe her.

  I just got done being bored off my ass in group therapy. The guy in charge is pathetic. He’s also what Meemaw would call ugly as sin.

  Now they’re saying I’m going to go to another one-on-one meeting. I already know it’s a waste of my time, but I’ve got time to waste, so what the hell? I’ll have to see how long it takes the lesbo to give up on me.

  I feel like getting in somebody’s face, talking some shit. But they’ve got it set up so that the hour I get my rec in the TV room, everybody else is down in the courtyard for exercise. And when I get to go out there, everybody is inside except the other “special status” offenders like me.

  I hate sitting in here, all this thinking. Today Gray Suit said I should start getting materials through the mail from the Houston school district so that I can keep up with my schoolwork. That makes me laugh. I ought to be a junior but I still don’t even got the credits to be a sophomore. That’s my stupid ass for you.

  A girl in another unit killed herself. I don’t know how she did it or anything. Everybody is in lockdown for Christ knows how long. Not much of a change for me since I barely see anyone else, anyway. But no group session. What a tragedy.

  I can’t get how anybody could off herself. Yeah, life is lame as hell, but I still like it. Since what happened with Theo and the other thing, though, sometimes I’m sitting here feeling so guilty and bad that it makes me want to disappear. I guess that when people kill themselves they’re really just trying to disappear.

  I had this crazy-real dream this morning. It was like from the time before we moved to the Montrose duplex, but even though I’m my right age in it, Theo is just a little puppy like he was when Kevin first bought him. In the dream I come through the door after taking him outside to do his business, and there are these piles of U-Haul boxes scattered everywhere in the living room. Shauna is singing Ella Fitzgerald and taping them together.

  I ask her why the boxes are out, but she plays dumb. I tell her she’d better not tell me that we’re moving again, and then I unclip Theo’s leash and watch him go crazy sniffing around the boxes, smelling all the houses we’ve lived in before.

  She tells me that she found this great duplex on the other side of town, but I’m not having any of it. I go off on her. “Christ, Shauna! Why do you do this to me? You have no idea what it’s like. All you do is think up ways to make my life suck worse!” I start ripping apart boxes. In real life she’d be on me, scratching at me and screaming for me to stop, but in the dream she just picks up the torn boxes and tapes them back together.

  She acts all calm, talking fresh starts and new friends. She tells me the place is in the Montrose and acts like I should be all happy to go to Lamar High.

  I tell her to screw Lamar, and I mean it. Lamar is all rich white kids. How the hell am I going to fit with them? I tell her I wish I was black or even Mexican instead of white trash like her.

  She stops taping boxes together and just stares at me like if she could make me disappear by looking at me, she would.

  I tell her I like the friends I have, and I like the North Side. I tell her if she thinks that I’m going to turn into some faggy schoolgirl just because we move, she’s whacked off her ass.

  She tells me to stop, says she’s warning me. And when she says that, I know this is the last time we’re going to move for a long time. In the dream, I know something bad is going to happen, but I’m not going to tell her. I’m not going to tell her shit about the bad feeling I have, because I want her to see what will happen. And to know it’s all her fault. So I just stare at her hard.

  She grabs my wrists with her bony hands and talks right in my face, asks me, did I ever think for a second that I might like the change?

  That sets me off, and I tell her what I should’ve told her lots of other times. That every time we move she says the same bullshit. But moving won’t change anything for us. That I’m still gonna be fucked-up me, and she’s still gonna be fucked-up her.

  Red splotches pop up on her too-skinny face, and she looks like she wants to kill me. She lets go of my arms and starts throwing empty boxes at me. She says, “Sorry, princess, but you’re stuck with me. So shut up and start packing!”

  I woke up from the dream screaming how much I hate Shauna right into my pillow like I’m seven. The bitch in the cell next to me was pounding the wall telling me where to shove my temper tantrum.

  It wasn’t always like this with Shauna. When I was little, she had this boyfriend, Kevin. The only one I ever liked. He even bought this cool house in the suburbs. We all lived there together. It had a yard with a stone bunny statue in it. Theo loved that bunny, humped it all the time. He loved digging holes in the perfect lawn, too. But Shauna and Kevin split up over some stupid shit, and there went my normal life.

  I just counted it up, and we’ve moved 19 times in the last 10 years. 19 times. How messed up is that? All the apartments have the same shitty tan carpet, the same white walls we can’t paint. The same tiny kitchen with an empty fridge because Shauna’s so paranoid about getting fat she won’t keep food in the house.

  We move so much that we don’t even bother to break down the boxes anymore. They just get piled up in the garage or in a closet. Shauna used to sneak Theo in so we wouldn’t have to pay the pet deposit. Then we’d throw our shit in the closets, and that was it. It was supposed to be home even though Shauna never put anything up on the walls, never tried to make it feel personal. Even my homeboys who are way poorer than us have moms that put up a crucifix or two, the Virgin of Guadalupe, posters, whatever they have. Something to show that people live in the place, at least.

  No matter where we move, there are always liquor stores and alleys that smell like old sex. Shauna gets a different job, but it’s always a crap one. She still comes home complaining about filing papers all day, how she got so bored she fell asleep, how the boss chewed her out for it. Or it’ll be that waiting tables sucks, guys grab her ass, the cook gives her shit when she turns in special orders, the manager cheats her on tips. She’ll still stay out late on her payday and bring home some sleazy guy with a comb-over.

  It’s amazing just how dumb she is. If moving could fix everything, everybody would do it. But she refuses to see that stupid “fresh start” idea for what it is— complete bullshit. Once we move, I lose everything I had in the old place. It’s a bitch.

  I try to stay in with my old friends. I mean, I have a cell phone. Even when I’m grounded, I just take Theo out for a walk and call somebody to pick me up. But things aren’t the same when you live far away from your homies—you’re not there to know when things go down, you don’t know the talk on the street, you slip out of their minds. That’s why when Shauna dumps me in a new school I have to find a place to fit in fast. Because I can only take being on my own for so long.

  When the cell doors slide open for rec, I barely believe it. I think maybe this is the most I’ve read in my whole life. I shove the notebook under the mattress and shuffle out to line up with everybody else. I fall in line behind the tall, fat guy who took Baby Tiger’s cell. It’s times like this that I really miss Tigs, but no way am I going to risk talking to anybody. Maybe that’s what got Tigs in trouble. I’m real good at getting people into trouble.

  CHAPTER 28: THEN

  “Listen, Eddie, thirteen seconds don’t sound like long, but when your ass is getting pounded by twenty strong-asfuck dudes and you can’t fight back, it’s gonna
feel like fuckin’ forever, okay?”

  Eddie jogged a little in place. “You underestimate me, carnalito.” He cracked his knuckles and then nodded at the door. “Let’s do this.”

  I kicked open the door to the vacant apartment, grabbed Eddie by the arm, and pushed him inside. Before I even slammed the door behind us, the count started and the homies were yelling and beating on him. Mono locked eyes with me just as his fist smashed into Eddie’s gut. I knew what he was waiting for.

  “Can you take it, bro? Can you fuckin’ take it?” I screamed as I pounded him from behind. “Think you’re Mara material, ése?”

  By Poco’s call of cinco, Eddie was crumpled on the floor taking kicks to his sides and back. I couldn’t see his face. Because even though this was the right thing, a hardship he had to go through, I didn’t want Eddie to see me hit him. Me getting clicked in, whatever, that was pain to the body. Watching Eddie get jumped hurt me in a different way, a soul-pounding.

  Some of the guys from the back pushed forward when Mono called out ocho, and I let Doble shove me out of reach of Eddie. As soon as Doble made his first contact with Eddie, I knew giving up my spot was a mistake. Now Doble was pounding him twice as hard. Nobody was supposed to hit your face, but when Poco called out once, Doble punched Eddie above the ear. On doce he kicked his chin, and on the final count of trece he yanked Eddie’s head back by the hair and smashed his face forward into the dirty carpet.

  “That’s it!” Mono shouted a split second too late to save Eddie a broken nose.

  Doble yanked Eddie up off the ground and slapped his back. “Bienvenido, homie,” he said, shoving him too hard.

  Eddie wobbled, blood streaming out of his nose. One of his eyes was swollen all the way shut.

  “Way to take it, brother,” I told him.

  “La Eme Ese controla,” Eddie said. His voice was strong, but something looked loose in his expression. And I had a moment of, oh shit, what’d I do? But then we busted out the Dos Equis and Coronas, plus a rag to clean up his face a little, and the party started.

  CHAPTER 29: NOW

  Lunch comes early. Gabe slides a tray of neon-orange macaroni and cheese over to me. He’s already walking away when he says, “No observation today,” so I don’t have a chance to ask him how come. Maybe he remembers me telling him what a dummy I am, how long it takes me to read shit. I shovel in the mac and cheese, rinse it down with some weak grape juice, and get back down to business. I’m tired of sitting with the covers over my head, so I slide down under my cot and let the blanket fall down over the edge.

  Today group was stupid as hell, but funny. The word we were supposed to talk about was “peace” and it took some of the bitches half the session to figure out he wasn’t talking about a gun. Group Guy is a moron, and his teeth make me laugh.

  So I was sitting by the fence during my outdoor rec, trying to stay away from the freaks. Except for a couple of Mexican girls by the stairs, it looks like special ed recess. A midget, a kid in a wheelchair, a girl missing an arm, another chick with an eye patch. Not what I want to see during my one hour out of the unit.

  I turned my back to the weirdos and looked out past the fence. There’s this abandoned stretch of land, and I watched the wind make faded plastic bags dance through the weeds. Then I saw something moving on its own. It was a teeny white and orange cat. It chased a grasshopper for a minute or two, then started crying all pitiful when it couldn’t catch it. Dogs are way better than cats, but I still felt sorry for it. Animals aren’t bad the way people are. People do wrong and need punishing, but animals don’t know any better. They do what they know how to do. I don’t see how anybody could hurt an animal.

  The cat walked toward the fence, and then it started to climb the chain links about ten feet away from me. I tried to tell it not to come in, that it was better off free, but really I was hoping it would come over so I could pet it. When it got to the barbed wire at the top, the stupid thing stuck its paw right onto the sharp part and yowled. It jumped back to the ground and ran away.

  Janet didn’t show up for three days in a row, so I was almost glad to see her today. I still acted pissed, but it was good just to get out of the cell. It even seemed like the hour went by faster. I like it best when she has a game for us to play.

  I haven’t heard shit from anyone in the crew. It’s like my homeboys already forgot about me. I wrote two letters to Cartoon, plus one to Slots. And I know my letters make it out. When I write to Meemaw, she always writes back. I can feel myself getting pissed. I’d do anything for them, and they can’t send me a fuckin’ postcard? Cartoon would say some shit about how I’m just a girl and I can’t claim Crazy Crew, so they got no obligation to me. But loyalty goes deeper than rules, and I’m loyal. They should know that by now.

  For like the first time since third grade, I’m actually doing my schoolwork. I was a good student when I was little as long as my teachers were cool. I remember my second grade teacher, Ms. Riggins. She was this real tall black lady, and she was always nice to me. Sometimes I’d ask her why couldn’t she be my mom? When I came to school she’d say, “Lexi Lou, how are you?” Then she’d laugh, and her pretty white teeth showed.

  Third grade was whatever, then in fourth grade shit hit the fan. Mrs. Montes hated me. I was already getting my period and I had boobs and everything. She’d just stare at me like it was my fault I looked like I did. Like I wanted to have boys popping my bra strap and trying to pinch my nipples or girls laughing when I came out of the class bathroom with a dirty pad all wrapped up in toilet paper because there wasn’t a trash can in there. I started messing up my work just because it pissed Mrs. Montes off; then before I knew it, they were holding me back. And everything in school sucked after that.

  But when the big fat envelope from Lamar High School came last week, I didn’t throw it away like I planned. They won’t let me have my music or anything in here. I can only stand scribbling in this notebook for so many hours a day. I might as well do something. I bet this is how they get even the stubbornest shits to finish their GED in alternative schools. Just bore the hell out of them until they do something.

  All the assignments come with real clear directions, and I’m supposed to get a new package every week. There’s even a letter saying that I can request a tutor if I’m having any trouble. Kiss-asses.

  Those preppy jerks in the Lamar office didn’t give a shit about me when I went in to register in April. But Gray Suit says a lot of people on the outside are blaming Lamar for not doing more to stop what happened. They’re just trying to cover themselves, I guess. Whenever the security guards at Lamar heard that something was going down, they just made sure to chase everybody off campus so that we didn’t fight on school property.

  The school I was in before was the opposite. There were stairwells and certain halls where people got jumped all the time. Nobody cared. There was even a corner of the courtyard that the security cameras didn’t reach.

  When I transferred to Lamar, I just drifted at first. Then I started to hang at the convenience store where the non-preps and apartment kids smoked after school. That’s where I met Cartoon. I saw him from where I was standing by this broke-ass pay phone. I was passing the time drawing designs on my arm in Sharpie, spirals and lines and squiggles to spell out LIFE IS SHIT in my own secret language. I saw him go into the store. Cartoon is skinny but his arms are all built, and that day he had on a wife beater and baggy brown pants slung way low on his hips like he wanted you to think about what would happen if you loosened that red belt even a little.

  When he walked back out with his pack of smokes, he came over my way, looking me up and down with this sly smile. He said, “Damn, girl, you look hot in those shorts.”

  I just gave him my best go-to-hell look and told him to shut up. But when I felt his eyes slide over my tank top I pushed my elbows against the wall a little to make my boobs stick out more. Then I said, “Watch out ’fore I beat your ass.”

  “You new?” he asked. He sma
cked his pack of reds against his palm.

  “I ain’t new, bitch. I’m Lexi,” I said, giving him this half smile. And when he offered me one of his smokes, I asked him, “Don’t you got anything better?”

  He lit up and leaned forward. After a sec, he asked, “What you got in mind?”

  By the end of the day, I had my hook-up for handle-bars, plus somebody to hang with. Cartoon introduced me around to his homeboys. And my boys are down. They always make sure I’m okay.

  This Cartoon fool, I know him. I mean, I know his type. Strutting around like he’s the shit, wearing the colors of his lame-ass gang like he’s going to star in some Disney special. Fool doesn’t know anything about battling for real. Guys like him, they’ve got no style, neither. Sure, what dude ain’t looking to a score a piece of ass, but have a little style is all I’m saying.

  No matter how much you lay it on, though, I guess when it comes to girls it always boils down to: how fast can I get your clothes off? Now that I’ve got the time to think it over, I feel kind of bad about that. Looking at a female’s tits and liking her from there when I don’t even know a name. Even with Becca. I got to admit I was thinking “pussy” before I fell in love with her sad smile and that long straight hair begging me to wrap my fingers up in it.

  But this Lexi chick is easier than a game of tic-tac-toe. Sticking her tits in everybody’s face. Just asking that fool to give her trouble. And wanting the trouble, too, for all I can tell. Like she’s saying, “Hey you, got nothing but screwing on your mind? Sweet, so long as you toss some Xanax my way.” She’s no Becca, that’s for sure.