Girls from da Hood 13

by Ms. Michel Moore

  “See? Look what you have done. How could you sit there and let your daughter cry? You are really just going to leave us like this?” my mother yelled at my father.

  “I have to go. You act like you don’t get it, but I explained all of this to you, Theresa. What don’t you understand? Sorry, Renee, but I just have to go,” my father said, getting off the ground.

  I hated this, and it felt like someone was stealing my most precious gift in the world right out of my hands. It was hard even thinking of my parents not being together.

  My dad walked out the door without even looking back, and this was why I felt like my father did not have even an inch of care for me. After that day I never saw him. He never called or came over like he said he would. Everything that my dad said about coming to see me on the weekends and coming to visit was all a lie. And this did not help with me thinking that my dad did not care about me. He missed my birthday and Christmas, Thanksgivings, Halloween. He basically missed my whole life. Even though I hated him for this, I still missed him deep down in my heart. I loved him. But I could not help but think that if he were still with my mother, the things I had dealt with in my life would probably have not happened. Still, to this day, I thought of the day my dad left and how that changed me, and how that was another part in my life that made me who I was today.

  Chapter Five

  I never went to the meeting with Mrs. Sims. I could not take seeing her backstabbing face anymore. A guard came to my room to ask me why I was not at the meeting. I lied and told him that I could not go because I wasn’t feeling well.

  The nurse still always came in my room every day to bring me my daily medication. I never knew the nurse’s name, which was sad because I saw her every day since I’d been here. I always acted like I took the medicine that the nurse would bring to me every day. However, when she would leave my room, I would take the pills out of my mouth, wrap them up in a piece of paper, and put them under my bed in my room.

  The pills really started to add up. First, there were about ten pills under my bed, but after a while, it seemed like a couple hundred. I only took the medicine once, and it was the first night I stayed in here. But I never took the pills again. When I took them my first day I felt sleepy and like I had no control over myself. It kind of felt like I was in a dream world and could not wake up. I had more control of my anger issues when I took those pills, but I didn’t have control over anything else in my life.

  I stayed in my room for a week straight. The only time I left my room was when I needed to shower, use the restroom, or eat. I did not do any extra activities that week. Shondra always stayed in our room as well. So we saw a lot of each other that week, more than usual. Shondra was looking at that picture on the wall again, counting the people over and over again in a low voice.

  “Shondra,” I shouted to see her response. But she just ignored me and continued to count. “Shut the fuck up,” I screamed. Of course, she didn’t listen and continued to count. “Why the only time I ever hear you talk is when you are counting those fucking people in that picture?”

  I’d spent about a week and a half listening to this mumbo-jumbo bullshit, and I was fed the fuck up. This was enough time to drive someone crazy if they weren’t already. She did not reply. She just continued to count, and when she was done counting the people in the picture, she would just start right back over and count the people again.

  I marched over to Shondra’s bed. Wanting her to stop driving me nuts, I grabbed her shoulders and started to shake her hard. While I repeatedly called out her name, she still ignored me and kept at it

  “Three, four, five, and six,” Shondra mumbled in a trance.

  I stopped shaking her, got up, and knocked the picture off the wall. I held each end of the picture, and I broke it against my knee. Shondra stopped counting because there was no longer a picture there to look at. I walked over and put the broken picture underneath my bed. If one of the workers here saw it, they would probably start asking us questions.

  Then Shondra started to look at me since the picture was not on the wall anymore. “What do you wannna do, Shondra? What you want?” I bossed up as I sat on my bed. “You did not want to talk two minutes ago.”

  “Want? Huh,” Shondra said. “There’s nothing you could give me that I would possibly want.”

  I was stunned to hear her speak. You could see that I was shocked by looking at my face. My mouth dropped, my eyes became wide, and my eyebrows were lifted. After a moment of being silent, I spoke. “Shondra, I’m sorry for breaking that picture, but you don’t understand how much I hate this place! You really don’t.”

  “If we can agree on one thing it’s our hatred for this place,” Shondra agreed.

  “Why do you barely speak, Shondra?” I asked, glancing over at the door as if we were doing something against the rules.

  “I never want to make friends here or become comfortable with this place or these people.” Shondra paused for a second then continued. “I wanted to talk to you, Renee, but I needed to know I could trust you.”

  Surprisingly I was not bothered by her calling me Renee. I actually enjoyed it a lot. Shondra reminded me of what was once home, being with my mother. Shondra’s voice sounded a lot like my mother’s voice.

  “I stay quiet, and I listened to a lot. I know a lot more than most of these employees here, and when I’m not listening I’m counting,” Shondra said. “I know what happened to you with Mrs. Sims.”

  “How do you know what happened?”

  “Oh see, Renee, I was in the hall when you were at Mrs. Sims’s door listening to their conversation. I’m everywhere but nowhere. Most people think I stay in this room all day, but I don’t. If I did, I would have killed myself by now.” Shondra took a breath then continued. “I see images in my head of places I’ve never been before, but I know exactly how the place is set up. I know this place from top to bottom, and I’ve never even been through this whole building. I know you are wondering why I count the people in the picture. I count the people in the picture to keep my mind off of thinking about how lonely I am and what I have seen here since I’ve been here.”

  This was the most I’d ever heard Shondra speak, and she spoke a lot, I tell you, a lot.

  “How do you know if you never looked through this place to see?” I asked, and I had a million more questions in my head I wanted to ask her.

  “Follow me, girl. I’ll show you.” She motioned as we left the room.

  We were standing at the bottom of some stairs in the hallway. Shondra kept quiet until the hallway was fully cleared. I could tell she didn’t want anyone to hear us talking as the hall was finally cleared.

  Shondra spoke very quietly. “Upstairs is a big room with blue walls, and three windows on each one of the four walls up there. Glitter on the wooden floor. How odd is that? Wait! I can see something else. Come on!”

  We went through the door, which was unlocked. Everything looked as she’d explained. We made a right and kept walking straight until we got in front of the first window on the nearest wall. “This is what I saw, Renee. There’s a map underneath that piece of wood in the floor. Underneath,” Shondra repeated.

  I picked up the piece of wood. “All I see is an empty bag.” I picked up the bag, and in there was a very small map of this entire place.

  Later that night we were in our room. I had the map underneath my pillow.

  “Why are you here? What did you do?” I finally asked Shondra.

  “I see things, like I said earlier. One time I was watching the news in my classroom at school. The teacher and a cop were explaining how you need to be safe. The news showed a picture of a man they were looking for. He was last seen at a park taking two kids and putting them in the back of his car. Out of nowhere, I could see his face in my head. ‘There he is,’ I yelled out loud. ‘There he is.’ I couldn’t control myself. Everyone started to stare at me. I knew they all thought I was crazy. He killed the little boy, and I could see the room he and the lit
tle girl were in. They were in a basement, an empty basement. And three months later I’m here. They made me come here, but I wanted to help. I’m only fifteen, and I’m stuck in this place. After they found the kids in a basement, just like I told them, I got locked up in this mental house, so I stopped talking. What was the point of helping them if they weren’t helping me? All they were doing was hurting me by making me come here.”

  “Girl, that’s messed up. Where is all your family?”

  “I don’t know. At first, they were coming to see me here. But I wasn’t talking to anyone, so I guess they stopped coming to see me. In reality, I just wish they had fought harder to keep me out of this place. My family did not even try at all.” Shondra answered my question with a disappointed voice.

  * * *

  A few days passed. It was time for me to go to Mrs. Sims again. Of course, I didn’t want to go, but they forced me.

  “You were doing so well for a while. Why did you stop coming?” Mrs. Sims asked.

  “Bullshit!” I rolled my eyes.

  “What?” Mrs. Sims responded in a surprised voice.

  “I know exactly what you did. I trusted you not to tell my business,” I said with anger in my voice.

  “I didn’t. I didn’t, Miss Turner,” Mrs. Sims argued.

  “I heard you with my own ears. I hate you! You’re going to lie to my face, too?” Mrs. Sims was quiet for a while. “Is there anyone I can trust?” I frowned, but she did not respond. “Ha, that is exactly what I thought.” I smirked as I walked out of her office.

  I went back to my room and lay in my bed. “I want to leave, Shondra. Get all my stuff and leave,” I said, even though I knew I didn’t have much. I’d been there a long time, and I thought I would never like it there, let alone get comfortable. “You wanna come with me?”

  “No, I can’t. But I will help you use the map to escape,” Shondra said.

  I never knew why she said she couldn’t come, but I never thought to ask and find out. It took us a week to plan my escape. I was thin, but the basement window was a little too small, so for that whole week at lunch, Shondra would eat my food at lunch time. This was the only way we could try to make me lose a little weight in order to fit through that basement window.

  I would put my food in a napkin then hand it to her under the table. One time we almost got caught. “What are you doing, ladies?” a lady in a black suit asked us.

  “Nothing,” I responded as I slowly dropped the napkin on the floor, the cornbread muffin wrapped inside of it.

  “Well, do not keep your hands under the table. Leave them on top of the table,” the lady told me.

  I put my hand on top of the table. She looked at them then walked off.

  The next day it was time for me to go through with this escape. This day felt like it took forever to come. Shondra had the gate outside already cracked open for me from the day before. All I had to do was make it outside without getting caught.

  I picked the lock on our room door with my bobby pin I had in my hair. It was ten o’clock and dark outside. The big male security guard in the hallway was asleep in his chair. I stole the keys to the basement, which were on the floor right next to him.

  I stared off at the walls again but for a while this time. Flowers were everywhere. I could feel the emotions behind these flowers again. They were so intense, even more intense than usual. Why did it take me so long to find out what these flowers and emotions represented? Well, I knew now. All these flowers represented the people in here, including me.

  “Are you coming?” Shondra said very quietly from down the hall, standing in front of the basement door.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” I snapped out of my thoughts about these flowers. I walked down the stairs. “Bye, girl. I promise this will not be the last time I see you.”

  “You promise, Renee?” Shondra asked me.

  “I swear on my life.”

  I walked down the basement stairs. It was pretty dark. I took my time walking down the stairs so I would not make a lot of noise and so I would not fall. I could hardly see. The only light was from the open door at the top of the stairs where Shondra was standing.

  I walked over to the window and opened it. I looked back for the last time, then I left. It was the spring, so the weather was pretty nice, but still, the night air hit me with a chill. Lights were flashing on the entire building. The lights flashed my way. I hit the ground so fast. I lay in the grass for a quick second while my heart was beating as fast as lightning. Once the light moved, I got up and stayed as low and close to the ground as possible. I quickly walked through the gate, closing it behind me and not looking back.

  Overall, I had spent a few months of my life at Calming Meadows. I kept running. Starting to feel dizzy from not eating this entire week, I still continued to run. The air was hitting my body as I ran and ran. The air made me feel so free and happy even though my body was ready to give out.

  Chapter Six

  I would say hiding out for so long was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. I had been away from the hospital for some months now, I thought. I hadn’t really been able to keep up with time. It was weird not having anyone to talk to but myself. I never thought I needed the medication from the hospital until now. I was starting to actually feel a little crazy.

  I had been living in an abandoned building behind the subway. I ate from garbage cans, I had not taken a bath, and I accompanied the rats. I did not even know what part of Cleveland I was in. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had a good meal. Even when I was at the hospital, they served food that tasted like garbage. But I had to say the hospitals meals sure sounded good to me right now. I craved that dry roast beef and mashed potatoes with a side of garlic bread.

  The place was dark and deserted. It had nothing but me and the rats and roaches living in the walls. I was scared of rats and roaches when I was a little kid, but at this point in my life, I did not believe I was scared of anything anymore. I was going crazy just sitting in the dark with no one to talk to. I started to have conversations with myself, and it sounded crazy, but finally, someone was listening to me.

  It was in the evening, I guessed around 8:00 p.m., and I knew this because it started to get dark outside. Every day at this time a little mouse would come from a little hole in the wall. He would nibble around for food as I watched out of boredom. He never did notice I was right behind him every time. If he had, he would have run away. He ran out of the hole in the wall fast, looking for food to eat, blinded by the huge human figure behind it. The mouse stopped at a small piece of meat I had from the trashcan earlier. I never knew if the mouse was a boy or a girl, so I just called the mouse a boy all the time.

  The mouse stayed there on top of the meat, nibbling around it. I got up as quiet as I could to sneak up and grab it. I got close, and just before he could run, I grabbed his tail and held it upside down. I let the mouse go, and the mouse ran back into the hole in the wall.

  “I guess I scared it,” I said to myself.

  I was alone and was losing my mind just sitting in the dark with no food to eat and no one to talk to. I left the empty house and went to the nearby store. I didn’t know what day it was and what exact time it was. I hadn’t been around a clock or calendar in a very long time. I entered the store and saw the clock on the wall. It was 9:05 p.m. I felt like everyone in the store was looking at me.

  “What the fuck are you guys looking at? I’m not an alien,” I said loudly.

  “Brazen-ass crackheads these days,” I heard this lady say under her breath.

  I just ignored her and went up to the man who worked at the store. “What year is it?” I asked.

  “It’s 2018, miss,” the store clerk responded.

  “2018? There’s no way two years passed that fast,” I said louder than I thought.

  “Excuse me?” the store clerk asked as everyone in the store looked at me.

  “Nothing. Thanks a lot, sir.”

  I started walking
to the door of the store. “I’m pretty hungry. I wonder what has been thrown out in the trash,” I said to myself.

  I couldn’t believe that it was 2018. I’d spent two whole years hiding out, two whole birthdays that I wasn’t aware of. I must have been going crazy, but I didn’t care too much because I was so hungry. I checked to see if anyone was around before going outside to dig in the trash. Even though I wanted food, it was kind of embarrassing to dig in trash. I found a half-eaten sandwich, and I ate it as if I had not eaten for days. My feet stuck out from the black trashcan because I had failed attempting to grab the rest of the sandwich.

  All of a sudden I heard two deep male voices behind me. “Excuse me, young lady. Please get out of the trash and come here,” one of the men said.

  I got out of the trashcan, and I saw two male officers. One was very tall, kind of heavyset, and had a long brown beard. The other had a very nice defined face with green eyes. He was pretty muscular with dark short hair. The heavyset white officer pointed the flashlight at me to see my face.

  “Step forward, miss, and take your hands out of your pockets,” the heavyset officer said.

  To be truthful, I was kind of scared. I thought they would take me to jail because they might have known who I was. Hell, eventually they would return me to the mental hospital. I had seen both of their name tags when I walked up. The heavyset officer was Tanner Braylock, and the cute officer was Keithon James.

  “How old are you, miss?” Officer James asked me.

  “I’m eighteen,” I said. If two years had gone by, I’d be close enough.

  “Why are you out in this kind of neighborhood digging through garbage? You don’t have a home?” Officer Braylock quizzed, looking at my filthy appearance.

  “No, I don’t. I’m homeless, sir,” I told the officer.

  “Where are your mother and your father? We can’t just leave you here. You are too young to be out here in these streets,” said James.