All Or Nothing (8 page)

Continuing, on her search through the apartment, she climbed up the stairs. There Shantell discovered it was the same story. Everything of value had been sold to feed her mother’s addiction. Her bedroom set was long gone; the only thing her mother had to sleep on was an air mattress. Nature called so she headed towards the bathroom. Shantell walked into the bathroom and was greeted by a toilet bowl full of feces. The stench was unbearable, she quickly retreated. Suddenly she realized she didn’t have to use the bathroom so badly after all.

Unable to find her mother at home, Shantell canvassed the neighborhood, going door to door, of all the known drug houses. She even knocked on few neighbors doors that she knew.

“Stand out there long enough and you’ll see her.” The elderly lady suggested.

Shantell did just that, she waited and waited till her mother appeared. Out of nowhere she spotted two frail looking women coming directly towards her. Shantell stared hard at them till, she was sure that the smaller woman was indeed her mother, Brenda. And the women had just copped some drugs and weren’t about to let each other out of their eyesight till they got what was due to them. Neither trusted the other as far as they could throw her.

“…Damn, the boys sure did bless us. You see the size of that rock. It was fat.” One woman announced.

“Us? They blessed me! They wouldn’t have even served you.” Brenda countered. “You burnt them boys so many times….. I’m given’ you ya five dollars worth and that’s it….”

The woman interrupted, “If it wasn’t fa me you couldn’t even got a twenty.”

“So.” Brenda flatly stated. “Anyway you, still owe me from that hit you bummed off me last week. Yeah, remember that?”

Back and forth the two crack fiends bickered over who should get the bigger percentage of the drug. Distracted by the argument they never once noticed Shantell standing in the yard.

“Ma!” She cried out.

The voice had caught them both off guard. Brenda and her junkie friend both looked in Shantell’s direction, since they both had children. But even in her drug induced haze, Brenda knew that voice from anywhere. She knew that this shadowy figure was a child of hers.

“Shantell?” She responded. “Is that you?”

Shantell walked over to her mother. Even in the darkness she could see that her mother was looking bad. To her Brenda looked like death in the face, her jaws were sunken in and her eyes seemed to bulge out of the socket. She was so boney, her over coat was bigger than her. Her body looked like it was wasting away.

Even in this condition Shantell felt like her mother would at least greet her, with a hug. After all she hadn’t seen her in almost a year. But it wasn’t to be, Brenda stood there emotionless, as if she saw her daughter everyday. Shantell was crushed, ‘Where was the love?” She wondered. After all it was love that brought her to Brenda’s door despite everything.

Shantell felt that if her mother wasn’t woman enough to show her some emotion, then she would be the bigger person in this situation. She reached out and pulled her mother, and held her tight as if her life depended on it.

Though Shantell was a young woman, in terms of her age, inside she still was a kid who needed her mother. And this was her way of showing it. Through something so simple yet affectionate as an embrace. Just to be in her mother’s arms meant the world to her. Brenda just didn’t know. Or maybe she was too high to even care.

“Excuse us!” Shantell barked. “Can you give us some privacy please?”

It took every bit of restraint for Shantell not to get ignorant with the stranger. She reminded herself she wasn’t here for that. She was just here to see her mother, nothing more.

Shantell continued, “How you doin’ Ma? How’s everything?”

“Oh, I’m ok.” Brenda pretended. “How’s everything with you and the baby?”

“We’re alright.” She stated. “Ya grand daughter getting’ big.”

“I’ll bet.” Brenda fired back. “Jordan always had a healthy appetite.”

This basic conversation was a start for the two women. When Shantell had lived in the house, she had gone for weeks without even speaking to her mother. There were so many things she wanted to say to her, but she decided against it. That would only open up old wounds that still were in the process of healing. Besides that this visit wasn’t about her, it was about Brenda. Shantell couldn’t bring herself to be selfish at a time like this.

Sure She could have chastised her mother for her living conditions or for her choice of lifestyle for that matter. But she didn’t. She pretended as if none of the events had transpired and she didn’t see her mother in her current state of despair. Though Shantell had the upper hand now, she decided not to treat Brenda less than a woman, less than her mother.

“Dis ain’t you Ma. When you gonna get off dat stuff ?” Shantell begged. “You can’t go on like dis forever you know? I’m scared for you. It’s dangerous out here.”

“Baby, I’ma go to rehab soon. I’m getting’ sick and tired of this shit myself. Believe me.”

Shantell looked her mother dead in the eye and saw no truth to what she was saying. Most of all she heard no signs of sincerity in her voice. To her without those two things her words were meaningless. Brenda was lying to herself because she sure wasn’t fooling Shantell.

Out the corner of her eye, Shantell could see her mother’s associate growing more and more impatient. She kept fidgeting around in her pockets, as if she was looking for something. Even her mother looked like she was ready to go, her eyes darted around the yard.

“Look Ma, I ain’t gonna hold you up any longer. I see y'all ready to go do whatever. But listen here go my cell number. When you get ya’self together give me a call.” Shantell told her.

“Alright, I will.” Brenda swore. “You’ll be the first person I call. I promise baby.”

With that Shantell walked off, comfortable in knowing that she did her part. Shantell extended a help hand to her mother. There was nothing more she could do but wait. The ball was in Brenda’s court it was up to her to make the next move.

Behind her Shantell heard the back door open and slam shut. She knew damn well that her mother was up to no good but she was powerless to stop her. Brenda was a grown woman, she had no authority over her. To Shantell Brenda was like a drowning person, if She tried to save her now, Brenda would bring them both down. And Shantell wasn’t about to allow that. She had her daughter Jordan to think about. Nothing came before her, not even her own mother.

The days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months without any call from Brenda. So Shantell pushed her mother out of her mind. Once again, she felt stupid for even extending and invitation to her...Brenda would never get off drugs. Shantell felt like her mother would meet her maker while getting high. Or she would die in some drug related incident, shot down like a dog in the street by some young drug dealer. Shantell feared that one of these two fates would befall her mother She was doing anything and everything to get high.

When Shantell did get the news she wasn’t the least bit surprised. Though it hadn’t happened like she thought, Brenda was arrested in a house raid. The police had kicked in her door due to the high level of drug traffic. Besides Brenda, a few drug dealers and crack fiends were arrested.

Shantell hoped that her arrest would be a blessing in disguise. She hoped that this brush with the law would scare Brenda straight, that her time in the Mecklenburg county jail would get her clean. She hoped that jail would save her mother’s life as it had done countless others in the hood.

While her mother was in jail the only thing that Shantell could do, was to pray. She prayed that god would lift the curse, known as crack from her mother’s soul. She prayed that one day they could be a family again.

A few months later…

When Shantell got the word, she didn’t believe it was true. She had heard the whispers for years now. Still she paid them no mind. She knew how people gossiped. So she chalked it up as that a rumor or just idle talk. This was until she began seeing reports of it on the news. It had taken her some time but Shantell eventually gotten around to investigating it herself. Now, here she was parked on the side of the road, with her daughter in tow, staring in disbelief.

If seeing is believing, then her eyes were bearing witness right now. Currently her vision was testifying to the finality of Piedmont Courts. This was the end of her childhood existence as she knew it.

“Well I’ll be damned!” She cursed. “Look at this shit here. They really are tearing this rotten bitch down.”

There it was dozens of two story brick, dilapidated buildings huddled close together with no signs of life. Piedmont Courts, the place she was raised, was abandoned, boarded up, fenced off and scheduled to be demolished by the city of Charlotte,. The place looked like a ghost town, even in its heyday Piedmont Courts was a graveyard for lost souls.

Dancing at Club Champagne had literally been the best thing that ever happened to Shantell, at least financially. Each and every day she proved she could not only survive, but thrive in a game with grown women five to ten years her senior. With the money she made dancing, Shantell was able to improve the living conditions of not only herself but her baby as well.. In six months she was able to stack enough paper to finally move out of Piedmont Courts.

Therefore she didn’t bear witness to the mass exodus of people from Piedmont Courts over the course of a few months. She thought it would always be around forever, to ruin generation after generation of young lives.

As Shantell sat in her car staring at the abandoned buildings her memories came alive. She could vividly see all the single black mothers, the fatherless children, the drug dealers, the drug addicts and prostitutes. She could see countless people being engulfed by negativity.

Shantell reflected on the adult like situations she was placed in at a young age. Suddenly she realized she never had a chance to be young.

Dozens of memories flashed across her mind. Shantell became angry. She began to cry. Her brother had taken more from her than she ever imaged.

For awhile, relocating had seemed to rejuvenate Shantell. When Shantell changed addresses she effectively changed her fortunes.

Her life in the projects seemed so long ago, but still Shantell hadn’t forgotten just what transpired there. But in a few days,

Piedmonts Courts would be a distant memory. The projects would be gone but her scars wouldn’t fade away so easily.

This reunion had been imminent. For Shantell there would be no sorrow in parting, there were no memorable moments for her to cherish. She put her car in gear and slowly pulled off. In the back of her mind she knew even with the destruction of Piedmont Courts that wasn’t enough to put an end to her questionable past.

From the outside of the apartment, Shantell could hear Dee-Dee raising her voice in harsh tones. She was cursing somebody out over the phone. This surprised her because it wasn’t even Dee-Dee’s style. Dee-Dee didn’t speak in the same vernacular as other females, so when she did get ghetto, her words carried more weight.

“Look, motherfucker stop calling’ me! I told you a thousand times I don’t wanna be bothered. It’s over! What part of that don’t you understand?” she shouted. “You need to build a bridge over it and move on.”

Upon hearing that, Shantell automatically knew who Dee-Dee was talking to,: her ex-boyfriend, Mario. Ever since the two women had moved in together he had steadily become a problem. Mario didn’t take rejection easily. He was persistent with his bullshit; he went from harassing Dee-Dee on the phone to even showing up at the club from time to time. Personally, Shantell was beginning to have bad vibes about the whole situation.

More and more these types of heated exchanges were becoming commonplace. At first Dee-Dee tried to hide her verbal disputes, but Shantell would catch her in the bathroom having secret conversations in hushed tones.

Shantell had told Dee-Dee over and over again to be careful. She warned her not to argue with Mario. She wished Dee-Dee would not even accept his phone calls; she saw no sense in it. Shantell thought that talking to him would only encourage him to keep doing what he was doing. Too bad DeeDee didn’t see it that way.

Mario was Dee-Dee’s first love, so there was some sort of bond or history that the two shared. Since Shantell had never been in love, it was impossible for her to understand it. Any explanation she came up with wasn’t good enough.

“Well, if you wanted to be with me so bad, you should have thought about that before you got that hoe pregnant,” Dee-Dee scolded. “What I told you? You have a baby with somebody else and it’s over... You did it to yo’self, Mario. You ain’t got nobody to blame except you!” Dee-Dee sat speechless on the phone, listening to Mario cop a plea. He apologized over and over again. He even denied being the baby’s father. Still, Dee-Dee didn’t believe one word. Mario’s words fell on deaf ears. Dee-Dee was so engrossed in her conversation she never even heard Shantell enter the apartment. Shantell entered the living room, carrying her sleeping daughter in her arms, shaking her head. Dee-Dee returned her friend’s disapproving look with a smile.

Shantell thought that Dee-Dee was playing a potentially dangerous game. She felt that her friend was sending Mario the wrong message. Shantell had voiced her opinion once before to Dee-Dee, which her friend didn’t take too well. After that, Shantell promised herself never to do it again. Who was she to tell Dee-Dee about her safety? Dee -Dee was her own woman. As long as Mario didn’t bring that mess around here, there was nothing more Shantell could say or do.

“Better leave that nigger the fuck alone,” Shantell commented.

Dee-Dee put one finger to her lip, giving Shantell the quiet sign.

“Look I gotta go,” Dee-Dee spoke into the phone. “Why? None of ya business! You not my man! I said I gotta go. Bye!”

Upon hanging up the phone Dee-Dee threw her hands in the air out of frustration. She was confused. She didn’t know whether or not she was going to break away completely from Mario, or give him one more chance. But if the truth be told, Dee-Dee wasn’t in love with Mario. She feared him. She thought Mario was crazy.