Lipstick Diaries

by Anthony Whyte

  Mother was still being a whore even after I graduated. I wanted to leave home. She didn’t want me to. I must have wanted to stay. I spent the summer after graduation thinking about leaving.

  It happened late Friday night. Mother was on her way out. She was getting ready.

  “Amila do not stay up all night. Keep the door shut.”

  “Okay, I know.” I answered watching her carefully putting on mascara.

  “Mommy, why do you have to go out?”

  She stared at me and smiled. Mother was pretty and had a smile that could melt any heart. She had mine. I returned her kiss.

  “No more questions,” she ordered and wiggled into her tight red dress. A wave and she was gone. The slammed door echoed like the teasing of the neighborhood kids. Your mother is a whore. I heard the ringing in my head and adjusted the volume of the television trying hard to drown their shouts.

  I still could hear them playfully giggling from my room. Six in the morning and mother and her companion had returned from being out all night. The sound of sucking lips followed and then heavy breathing. It was then I’d shut out the heavy sounds, hard breathing and animal grunts. Followed by mother’s blood curdling screams. The sexual romp would continue through the morning.

  Saturday morning cartoon was my escape and I often took it with cold cereal. Later mother and I would go buy the best in a shopping spree. She was sporting a spanking red M6 and I loved when the neighbors stared at us. I hated how mother made a living but I enjoyed the fruits of her labor. I wallowed in the conflict and had huge emotional outbursts with anyone around. This Saturday it was mother’s turn.

  “Now you know you didn’t have to scream at the store clerk.”

  “She shouldn’t speak about things she’s not sure of.” I insisted and flung my backfield with my stride.

  “She made a mistake, she didn’t have your size and she apologized,” mother said catching up.

  “Yeah, but did you see the face she made when she was apologizing. The bitch acted like we wuz after her man or sump’n. She was acting like we some high class hos!”

  Mother gave me the evilest stare. Then I felt the sting of her slap. Tears stung my eyes but I bit my lips so hard, I tasted the blood. I faced mother with cold eyes.

  “Are you happy now?”

  “You deserved worse than a damn slap…”

  “Oh yeah, and what do you deserve mother? Aren’t you more than a high class ho’?”

  This time mother shook her Manolo’s off and charged at me. I met her with rights and lefts. We truly had a drag-out fight right there. Mall security came to her aid. I wanted to kill the woman. Then we cried together nursing our bruises. It was a weird day. That night mother couldn’t duck out at her usual nine pm time. She sat on the sofa with me drinking hot chocolate and I tended to the shiner I’d given her. I didn’t need the alcohol or nicotine tonight, mother was home.

  “Where did you get all the anger from, Amil?” she asked looking at the black and blue mark under her eye.

  “I don’t know mommy. I guess from you,” I said applying ice to my shiner and nursing my busted lips.

  We sat around watching television. Mother sipped her favorite drinks and smoked cigarette after cigarette, then her cell phone started blowing up.

  “I’m not doing anything tonight,” she told the caller. She threw the cell phone on the nightstand but it didn’t make it. I rushed to pick it up.

  “Leave it alone. Throw that damn thing away.”

  The words had hardly escaped her lips when the phone started ringing again. I gave the phone to her, but she refused to take it.

  “Turn it off,” she ordered.

  I did and we went back to watching television. Mother enjoyed Sex in the City. It happened at the end of the episode in the midst of us laughing, the doorbell rang. I went to answer the door. One of the neighbors hurried by me and grabbed mother’s hand pulling her towards the window.

  “Look, Jen, two men putting a licking on your car.”

  The woman pointed out the window and mother peeked out as if she was in a nightmare. She pushed the window open.

  “Hey, what the fuck y’all doing?”

  She ran to her bedroom and came back stomping mad. It wasn’t until mother went to the window and started firing that I noticed she had a gun. She kept firing at the street below while the neighbor ran.

  “Mother don’t you think you should call the police?” I asked nervous but feeling excitement in me building.

  “Fuck the police! They ain’t gonna do shit for me…”

  She kept on busting shots until her gun was empty. There was a knock on the door when mother ran to get another clip. She answered the door and two men walked in. I felt better as I recognized one of them. I was glad they weren’t the police. Then everything went crazy.

  “Who da fuck told you you could turn your phone off?”

  It was mother’s friend who always picked her up. He smacked the gun from her hand. I was gonna pick it up but he pushed me away.

  “Go to your room, Amil and don’t come out no matter what.” Mother ordered me. “I can handle this.”

  I watched her twisted smile, like a drunk. Reluctantly I walked to the room, closed the door and listened.

  The argument was loud.

  “I own you bitch. You’re my property and I want you to work, you work. No questions. You my ho and a ho ain’t got no life but the one I give you…”

  I heard him yelling. There was silence followed by a loud thud. I waited then heard the door slam. I opened the door and walked out to see mother lying on the floor.

  “Ma,” I screamed.

  She didn’t move. As I got closer I saw the scarf around her neck. It had been pulled so tight that it left marks around her neck. I loosened it. Mother rolled over her eyes bugged out and her body cold.

  “Someone help me please…” I ran off to get the phone.

  As a cop I discovered the connection and who ordered the hit. I had to make a decision to betray my badge or continue to help those who had killed my parents.

  Watch out for Gangsta Bitch the most compelling story of its time.

  two mothers

  Vanessa Martir

  Butch

  “Her mother’s a butch, yo,” said the fat girl wearing thick glasses.

  “Get outta here! I didn’t know that! Her mom’s a lesbo? Ain’t that sump’n?”

  “Butch doesn’t mean lesbian!” I shouted. Perplexed, I turned and look at them.

  “Yes it does, stupid. What’d you think it meant?” The fat chick retorted sneering.

  I stared at the cold cafeteria food. It was just seconds earlier that the pepperoni pizza looked really appetizing. Suddenly, it didn’t look so good. I was in the fifth grade sitting in the lunchroom when my friends made me realize I was growing up in a gay relationship. I recalled the many times I’d heard my mom and Aunt Millie arguing. Mom would call Aunt Millie out of her name.

  “I’m not a fucking maricona, puñeta! I’m a butch!” My Aunt Millie would yell.

  After the name-calling incident at school, I viewed those words and moments entirely different when I heard my two moms arguing.

  I started seeing them for who they were. Like when I witnessed the first erotic moment involving my two mothers. Mom, my birth mother, was leaning on the washing machine smoking a cigarette. She casually parted her lips and inhaled while she watched Aunt Millie walking towards her. I saw her through a cloud of smoke simpering seductively as Aunt Millie leaned the weight of her body on my Mom’s, opened her mouth and swallowed her tongue.

  I never gave a second thought to my home situation. In my mind it had become normal despite reality. You’d think that I’d consider it odd since on TV all you saw were heterosexual couples. I don’t even recall the moment when Millie became an aunt. All I remember was growing up creating Father’s Day cards for Millie and Mother’s Day cards for my mom.

  What I distinctly recall is that it was turning to Aunt M
illie for comfort and understanding. When I wanted something so bad, it hurt, I’d go to her. That’s how I got my rainbow bike.

  Yes Guy

  Poverty is hardest on children. They don’t understand when their parents can’t buy them the things they desire and have yet to grasp the concept of a budget. Aunt Millie tried her best to shield me from the disappointments of impoverishment. I’d turn to her whenever I wanted something. She’d always say yes.

  I became obsessed with bikes when I was eleven. Resentfully I’d watch the neighborhood children riding up and down the block. I daydreamed of having one. I didn’t fantasize about an expensive Barbie bike like the one owned by Melissa, my nemesis of the block. She had a gorgeous, shiny pink bike with white tassels hanging from the handlebars.

  It didn’t have to be one like that, just a bike. If I asked my mom, she’d scream on me. She’d remind me of how selfish I was and that we could spend the little money we had on more important things. Then she’d recount one of her horror stories, growing up in abject poverty in Honduras. There it was considered a blessed day if one went to bed with a full belly. Of course everyone in my mother’s immediate surroundings in Honduras was dirt poor. It was easier to deal with, I thought. The commercial world we lived in made it worse for me.

  We’re first generation American children. We’ve got televisions advertising all the toys and games that cost money, which my mom didn’t have. This became quite a challenge for my mom. As a parent who endured growing up in an underdeveloped country, she wanted to give us what she never had and more.

  Realistically, however, she could not do so. My mom had a difficult time coping with this. When I asked her for anything, she became angry and defensive then would lash out. She felt guilty about her inability to grant me my wishes. Her way of dealing with it was to make me feel bad. I caught on to her scheme at a young age. Then I learned that I was Millie’s weakness. She’d do anything to see a smile on my face and hear a shriek of glee echo from my lungs. It was to Aunt Millie I’d turn to at my moments of need.

  I’d go to her whether it was a pack of Now-N-Later candy, or a pair of sneakers. Aunt Millie would go out of her way to please me. Knowing this, I would always hesitate to ask for expensive items. Despite her weakness, I didn’t take advantage. When I could no longer bear Melissa’s smug smirk, I broke down and told Aunt Millie I wanted a bike.

  Rainbow Bike

  It was a hot summer day. The kind where the heat rises from the asphalt and your Mr. Softee cone melts before you can take the first lick. Melissa was riding up and down the block with a snide grin on her face. I watched covetously. It didn’t matter that her bike was pretty. I wasn’t like the rest of the little girls on the block who touched the bike tenderly with eyes gleaming with jealousy, and pleaded with their parents to buy them the same one. I was green-eyed at the fact that she had a bike. That’s all I wanted. Finally, I decided to approach Aunt Millie.

  She was sitting on the front stoop eating a piragua, a ghetto treat. Aunt Millie was wearing her usual pair of old jeans. Her key ring hanging from one of the belt loops seemed to contain a trillion keys to my eyes. I heard them jingling when she exited the building. I stood anxiously at the door waiting like a pup awaiting its owner.

  Aunt Millie smiled when she saw me. My lips tightly pursed as I conjured the courage to make my request. She often surprised me with how well she knew me. Together we sat sharing her tamarindo piragua. She watched me as I gazed at Melissa riding up and down the block. Aunt Millie scolded when I stuck my tongue out at her.

  “¿Que te pasa? Ese huevo quiere sal.”

  “Millie, I wanna bike.” I whined.

  “What kind of bike do you want, one like Melissa has?”

  My face beamed when the question popped. Millie laughed when I wrinkled my forehead and shook my head in disgust.

  “No! I want a different bike. I want one just for me.”

  She said nothing and sipped her shaved ice, savoring the sweetness. I pouted and walked away with my head down. She’s not gonna get it for me, I mulled disappointedly. For some strange reason, I’d rush home everyday after school, expecting to find a bike waiting for me. I daydreamed about one day coming home, finding a bike with a huge red bow around the handlebars and a license plate with my name engraved.

  Weeks of disappointment and crying myself silently to sleep rolled by. I gave up on the idea. I even stopped staring at Melissa’s bike. I simply didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing that I was sweating her bike.

  Shortly after the school year ended, I noticed Aunt Millie working in the backyard. The last time I’d seen her working so diligently with her tool kit, she’d nailed a bike rim to a slab of wood and improvised a basketball rim. This make-shift net allowed me to play with the Spalding basketball she had splurged on. I excitedly climbed out the window and sat next to her. My eyes bulged and my young heart raced relentlessly.

  Aunt Millie was putting the finishing touches on a bike. The body was a dazzling purple color. One wheel was yellow, the other red, the seat was black and the grips, which were peeling away, were a pretty aqua color. Aunt Millie didn’t even look up at me.

  “This is for you negra,” she said with a chuckle. I could feel the sweat on her upper lips when I kissed her. I hugged her so tight she almost lost her footing.

  “Ho, ho, ho,” she laughed heartily like Santa. Aunt Millie stared at my beaming face with satisfaction. Several minutes later she helped me carry the bike through the window and out onto the street. She watched as I clumsily coasted down the block with joy.

  I found out later that she had gone around to her friends and neighborhood junkyards collecting bike pieces, and slowly but surely gathered enough to put my bike together. Several days after she gave it to me. I awoke to find rainbow tassels on the ends of the handlebars. That was all she could afford to buy, plastic strings in various colors which she put together to create tassels for the bike.

  The minute I rolled down the street on my bike, Melissa started laughing and insulting me. The boys began to call me Rainbow Bike and created a song to the tune of Rainbow Bright, the Saturday morning cartoon show. I brushed off their teasing and rode my bike with such pride that you’d think I was riding a royal chariot. Soon, all the kids on the block fell in love with my bike.

  I’d race and beat anyone who challenged me, except of course the boys with their ten speeds. Friends wanted a ride and when I was preoccupied with playing handball, tag, double-dutch, tag football or any other game, I’d lend it. It was the greatest moment.

  Slap

  Melissa was angry that no one was envying her little Barbie bike. She hated me before I had my bike. Her revulsion intensified. All the attention and admiration of the neighborhood kids fell on my Rainbow bike. I was riding up and down the block when she appeared out of nowhere and maliciously rammed into my bike.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I screamed.

  She laughed and sped off. Melissa knew that if I caught her I’d beat her to a pulp. I’d done it to her more than once. Normally, that’s exactly what I’d have done. On this particular day, retribution was farthest from my mind.

  I stood in shock and horror. My mom had put me in Bible study classes several months before. Unfortunately, the God I’d been taught about was not a merciful, loving God, but a vengeful, unforgiving God. I feared Him more than I feared the Devil himself. I even had nightmares about the world being destroyed by the wrath of God and me sizzling like a roasted chicken in the infernos of hell.

  My fear of God made me obsessively cautious about the way I behaved and even the things I said. My impressionable mind was convinced that God would sear me if I offended Him in the slightest manner. That day when I uttered those words to Melissa, I became petrified that God would send me hurtling to the bowels of Hades. I was unsure if what I’d said was a sin and wondered if God would understand since I’d said it out of shock not malice. I cried until my body shook and prayed until my little hands
were blue from being tightly clenched together. I decided to consult my mother. I was sure she would advise me properly as to what God would do and think.

  That night, my cousins came to visit from Long Island. This was always a fun time for us kids. The women would get together and cook while the men and Aunt Millie played dominoes. The children were left to tend to themselves and do what we were all notorious for; causing mischief.

  We lived in a tiny railroad style apartment so the succulent fragrance of sofrito in beans and meats and the crisp smell of white rice boiling, wafted easily throughout the apartment. The aromas were accented by the sound of the dominoes being shuffled and slammed on the table.

  “Capicú!” shouted a player.

  My cousins were playing with the Atari and tousling around but I was distracted. I kept staring at my mother in her yellow stained apron, wondering what she would say when I told her. I was hoping she’d comfort me and ease my fears. I felt I had sinned and needed my mom to tell me it was okay. I had not done so out of spite and was not a bad girl. God wasn’t going to banish me to el infierno.

  Finally, the nerve to talk to her came. I slowly walked to the kitchen and sat beside her.

  “¿Que quieres?” she asked in frustration. Busy preparing the meal, mom hated to be disturbed.

  “Ma something happened today I want to talk to you about …”

  “¡Avánza! ¿No ves que estoy cocinando?”

  “W-w-w-well,” I began stuttering. “I was riding down the block and Melissa came and bumped me on purpose. Look.” I said pulling up my pants leg and showing her the black and blue of my swollen shin. “I yelled at her, W-w-w-w-what the h-h-h-hell is wrong with you?’”

  In a split second my mother’s face changed to every color in the spectrum.