by Meta Smith
present can of Colt 45 Malt Liquor and stagger on his weak, drunken legs.
“Stupid cunt,” he muttered as he bent down to recover the can that was frothing and
foaming all over the scuffed hardwood floor.
“If you touch me again, I’ll kill you!” She glared at him before slamming her bedroom door and locking it. Desiree pulled out the butcher knife she kept beneath her frilly pink bed skirt as protection from prowlers.
“I swear I will kill you if you ever touch me again,” she vowed aloud as she inspected the shiny blade of the knife before slipping it under her pillow. Then she kneeled beside the makeshift tabernacle on top of her nightstand. She lit a Blessed Mother candle, a red Jesus candle, and a yellow St. Lazarus candle like she did every night. Then she grabbed the rosary beads her father had given her for her first communion and made novenas. After her prayers she crossed herself and kissed the picture she kept of her father that she also kept on the nightstand. That always made her feel better.
Desiree had faith that God would look out for her and that her father was her guardian angel who’d protect her. After all, when she was a little girl, he told her that he would always protect her, that she could always count on him, and that nothing, not even death, would change that. And the Bible told her that she could always count on Jesus. She had to believe that. It was the only thing that gave her hope.
That night and the night after, Ernesto didn’t try anything. Desiree assumed her prayers had been answered. But she still got a nervous feeling when she walked in from school and saw her mother getting ready to leave for work two nights later. Ernesto was parked in front of the television, drinking beer and scratching his crotch. He looked up at Desiree and blew her a kiss. She shuddered with disgust. Desiree didn’t know who disgusted her more: Ernesto for being so foul or her mother for acting like he wasn’t doing shit.
“Mami, do you have to work the third shift?” Desiree whined as her mother raced about the apartment making sure she had all her belongings. She did this anytime she left the house. If she would have cut down on the blow, Desiree was sure she could have kept her wits about her, but instead she always looked like a geekmonster. Cocaine had her on ninety-miles-an-hour cruise control, 24/7.
“Desi, not now, okay? We’ve already talked about this so many times. We need the money, and unless I work at night, I can’t finish college. You do want me to be a nurse, don’t you? You want me to keep making monkey money forever?” Mami replied. She had managed to get herself in community college. Desiree thought for a second that maybe her mother was just using Ernesto until she got her shit together, but then it occurred to her that Ernesto didn’t have shit.
“I’ll get a job, Mami, since the so-called man of the house won’t get one,” Desiree offered.
“Desiree, your job is to get a proper education so you don’t have to struggle like me.
Get a good job with benefits so you won’t have to count on a husband or some other man.
The good ones never stick around, and, well, the other ones . . .” Mami looked over at the unkempt Ernesto and rolled her eyes. She used those exact words practically every day. Desiree didn’t know why her mother didn’t practice what she preached.
“I can get a job and still be a doctor when I grow up,” Desiree asserted. She needed to stash some money so that as soon as she was old enough to leave home, she’d never have to come back.
“You ain’t smart enough to be no doctor,” Nesto interjected, slurring. “You’ll be lucky if you get knocked up by a doctor!” he belched, and then laughed heartily at his own ignorance.
“You are such a pig! Nobody was even talking to your broke ass anyway!” Desiree sneered. Why did he have to talk to her like that? Why didn’t her mother check him?
“Watch how you talk to your father!” Mami snapped. “Show him some respect!”
Desiree cringed. She hated when Mami referred to Ernesto as her father. Her father was gone, and no deadbeat like Ernesto would ever take his place. Her father had been a real man. Having a fucked-up stepfather was worse than having no father at all.
“How you gonna say that, Mami? You not gonna check him? He’s not my father! He’ll never be half the man my father was!” Desiree yelled. Here her mother was, acting like her real dad had never existed.
“No argument there,” Mami remarked dryly. She looked at Ernesto and frowned up in disgust, then grabbed her keys and pocket-book and walked out the door.
She doesn’t care, Desiree thought. She doesn’t care what happens to me. All she cares about is herself and that punk-ass Ernesto. It was obvious to Desiree that for whatever reasons–love, fear, or loyalty, Mami had made her choice. And it wasn’t her sangre, her blood; it was the man who mooched off of her and tried to violate her daughter.
At about 3 a. m. Desiree was awakened by a scratching sound at her bedroom door. Not moving, she squinted, attempting to see through the darkness. The scratching grew louder, and then there was the click of the tumblers in the lock and the turning of the door knob. Desiree reached for the butcher’s knife, found it, and waited in a heightened sense of awareness.
Nesto was clad in only boxer shorts, his flabby chest and back covered by a disgusting layer of hair. His erection poked through the flimsy material of his skid- mark-stained shorts. He crept silently toward Desiree. She appeared to be fast asleep and unsuspecting. He stopped a foot or so away from the bed and bent over to remove his underwear. Desiree took a peek to see him fondling his tiny penis as he approached the bed. When he bent over to remove the comforter from her body with his free hand, Desiree, seized the opportunity, springing to life, asking no questions, saying nothing, only plunging the blade of the knife deep into his flabby gut.
She was scared shitless. She gasped for breath as she waited for the body to drop. But it didn’t. It wasn’t like in the movies when you shot someone or stabbed someone
and they died instantly. It was like one of those horror flicks where the killer keeps on coming and coming no matter what you do. Nesto was wounded, but more than that, he was angry. He pimp-slapped Desiree, causing her to fall back on the bed. Ernesto was nude, his overabundant body hair slick with blood and matted to his tanned skin. It was a sight almost too ghastly for her to behold, but there was no way she was going to let this pathetic excuse for a man take her virginity.
Ernesto lunged at her, overcoming her with his body weight. He ripped her underwear off and roughly began to fondle Desiree’s privates. All she kept thinking to herself was, Not like this. Her first time was supposed to be with someone that she loved. She even thought she would wait until she was married or at least engaged.
“I’m gonna get you, you little bitch!” he gurgled, blood spewing from his mouth. Desiree was horrified but determined to escape. She squirmed and kicked to no avail. Ernestowrappedbothofhishands around herneck and begantosqueeze as he attempted to enter her. She struggled to break free. She felt piercing pain and then light-headedness. She gasped and struggled for breath as Ernesto heaved on top of her.
This can’t be happening! Desiree thought. She said Hail Marys and silently begged the Lord to deliver her. She was ready to die, because she really couldn’t imagine living through something this awful. Besides, she believed that Jesus wouldn’t let her suffer like that. He would take her up to heaven, and that would be the end of her pain. Her mother would be free to start her life again. Then Ernesto began choking. He tried to breathe, but his breaths were shallow and forced. He stopped moving and slid from Desiree’s body onto the floor.
Gasping, she ran out of the room, not stopping until she was out of the door and down a flight of steps, where she banged on the door of the building supervisor, Mr. Lopez.
“Coño! Quién es?” Mr. Lopez muttered as he stomped to the door. There was the sound of what seemed like a million locks being opened.
“Mr. Lopez! Soy yo, Desiree! Ayudame! Oh God, please help me!” she screamed hysterically while banging on the door.
By this time Desiree was hiccupping and sobbing uncontrollably. Mr. Lopez led her to his prized La-Z-Boy recliner and made her sit down. No one ever sat in his recliner, whose seat cushion was practically molded to the shape of his ass. At first she refused.
“Don’t worry about the blood, Desi,” he told her. He sat her down and flipped the lever to lift her feet before going into the kitchen, where he dialed the police; then he called Desiree’s mami at the hospital.
Mr. Lopez poured Desiree a tiny glass of sangria and handed it to her. “Here. Tómalo. It’s the sangria you like to sneak and sip at my domino games when you think we aren’t looking. It’ll calm your nerves.” She took the glass and gulped down the sweet wine through her sobs.
“What happened, Desiree? Who did this to you? Was it Ernesto?” Mr. Lopez observed the hand prints around her neck. The mention of that pervert’s name made Desiree cry even harder. She shook her head as if to say yes, then grimaced in pain, holding her midsection and rocking back and forth.
Mr. Lopez needed no further explanation. He knew Ernesto was a loser, but he had no idea he would stoop so low as to violate a child. Mr. Lopez took the steps two at a time. He walked through the open door and called out to Ernesto.
“Where are you, cabrón?” Lopez demanded. Then he screamed, “Oh my God!” Almost immediately, he was back in the apartment, his normally gleaming tan skin looking gray and dull. He went into the kitchen again and grabbed the bottle of sangria. He poured Desiree another glass, then downed the rest of the bottle himself.
“Please tell me you got to him before he got to you,” he pleaded, his eyes full of tears. Desiree just looked down at the floor. Mr. Lopez crossed himself and began to pray reverently, crying the whole time.
Desiree’s mami finally arrived at the tiny apartment, which was swarming with detectives and paramedics. She saw the blood covering her daughter and a sheet being pulled over Ernesto’s cold, lifeless body. She snapped. She screamed like a banshee, cried uncontrollably, and tried to climb on top of the body on the floor. A cop pried her away from the corpse.
“Your daughter needs you,” he told her, leading her toward Desiree. Her mami hugged her, holding her so tightly she thought her ribs would crack.
“I’m sorry, Mami. But he ... he raped me. He tried to choke me,” she sobbed in her mother’s arms.
Abruptly, her mami held Desiree at arm’s length from her body. “This is all your fault!” she told Desiree as she shook her by the shoulders. “You killed both my husbands! You little bitch, I hate you!” Mami spat in her daughter’s face, then slapped her hard. A homicide detective stepped between them.
“How can you blame me? Ernesto was the pervert. He raped me!” Desiree cried. “You were always walking around in skimpy little clothes taunting him. You
wanted it. You didn’t want me to have any happiness. It’s bad enough you killed your father, now you’ve killed Ernesto!” She spat again, trying to hit Desiree. The homicide detective’s ears tweaked at the accusations.
“What do you mean I killed Papi? Mami, a drunk driver killed Papi! Remember?
He got hit by a car,” Desiree raged. “How the hell can you stand there and blame me? I loved my father more than anything. Papi’s death was an accident.”
“No! He was out getting ice cream for your little spoiled ass. You just had to have chocolate ice cream. Don’t you remember? He couldn’t tell your ass no, and both of you acted like the sun rose and set on your ass. If you would have eaten what we had in the freezer, he wouldn’t have been hit by that car. He would have stayed home. He would be alive!” Desiree’s mami screamed. The police, paramedics, and coroner’s assistant stood mutely, staring in disbelief.
Desiree felt like all the blood was draining from her body. “No! I was just a little girl, and it was an accident. It’s not my fault,” she cried.
“That’s enough, ma’am. Your daughter has been through a great deal tonight.” The detective who’d separated them tried to neutralize the situation.
“It was an accident. I didn’t do anything wrong!” Desiree cried, defending herself. “Oh, and this isn’t your fault either, is it?” Mami stated bitterly, pointing at
Ernesto’s body.
“Calm down, ma’am,” the detective told her.
“I don’t have to do shit!” she screamed on him. “Fuck you! This is my house!” she continued, rolling her neck.
“You’re crazy! He raped me! Hewas always trying to touch me, and I told you. And you never did anything! All you ever gave a fuck about was him, and I know why. You might think I don’t know, but I do. It’s cuz he keeps you fucked-up off that shit. I don’t know how you kept your job, because you’re high all the time. You think I didn’t hear y’all in there sniffing? You never did anything to help me, you worthless bitch. What kind of mother are you?” Desiree couldn’t hold her feelings in anymore.
“I hate you, you little murderous bitch! You’ve fucked up everything, you dumb little cunt!”
At that moment Desiree stopped loving her mother. It was obvious to her that her mother had stopped loving her long before then, but she’d held on to a tiny shred of hope that if they could just escape the poverty, if they could just get away from the grime of New York and go somewhere nice and clean where they didn’t have to worry about bills, everything would be okay. But her mother had crossed a line. Desiree lunged at her. It was useless; there were too many cops there, but her mother got the point. She was out of her daughter’s life forever.
“I’m not your mother anymore! I don’t want you anymore! Get out! You killed my husbands! It’s all your fault!”
DESIREE AWAKENED WITH A START. SHE’D SWEATED SO MUCH
that her hair was wet and her sheets felt clammy. What the hell was going
on inside of her head? The Ecstasy must have brought things to the surface that she had been determined to forget. As far as she was concerned, it was all just some drug-induced nightmare and not a repressed memory. The whole scenario with her mother and Ernesto was a hallucination. But lying to herself didn’t make her feel any better. Her head was throbbing, and her mouth felt so dry that she just held her mouth under the cold water in the bathroom sink until her belly felt filled to capacity.
“The dead has arisen!” Ginger joked when Desiree appeared in the kitchen, her hair skewed all over her head. Desiree only grunted.
“Oh, wait! Let me ‘smite my tongue’ as you told me so many times last night, Reverend Goodbody! You might think I was blaspheming the resurrection,” Ginger hooted.
Desiree winced from the noise. It felt like someone was playing a tom- tom in her head. “I’m never doing X again,” she moaned as Ginger brewed some Cuban coffee. Desiree felt the pungent aroma alert her senses as it wafted through the room. “That shit fucks with your head!”
“I’m never letting you do X again. You cannot handle your roll!” Ginger
admonished her.
“What did I do?” Desiree tried to recollect the events of the previous night but drew a blank. This must be what a black-out is, she thought.
“It wasn’t what you did, it was what you said!” Ginger told her. “You were like a preacher, girl. You were quoting scripture and everything. It was wild. It kind of freaked me out, though. You said that God was talking to you, and you talked about angels and stuff. It was deep, like a movie or something. I can’t
explain it, and don’t ask me to repeat it, because I was high myself. But I do remember you saying that you were a direct descendant of Mary Magdalene. And, oh yeah, you talked a lot about the saints, a whole lot. You said you were some saint named Christina the Astonishing who floated so she couldn’t smell the sin emanating from people. Is that real, or did you make that up? Oh yeah, and you talked about how the saints were, like, willing to die before defiling their bodies with sexual sin and how many of the female saints were victims of rape and attempted rape. It was like the catechism class that wouldn’t end!” Ginger shook her head and handed Desiree a tiny demitasse cup filled with dark, thick coffee.
“You’re kidding, right?” Desiree gulped the cup’s contents like a shot and placed it in front of her for a refill.