Bad Blood (14 page)

Chapter 26

Seth

I
T HAD BEEN ONLY TWO WEEKS SINCE
I'
D MET
R
ACHEL.
T
HE MORE
I got to know her, the more she impressed me. She was a great cook and loved to pamper me, so I didn't have to scramble around to borrow money to take her to a bunch of fancy restaurants like I did with the women I usually dated.

Having a woman who saved me money was good enough, but having one who eagerly prepared my favorite meals two or three times a week, did my laundry, and took care of me in bed was just what I needed. Compared to the other women I'd been involved with, Rachel was the Holy Grail. I already knew that she was the one. So did Mother. Rachel had joined us for dinner several times already, and she had even taken Mother to lunch and shopping a few times. However, Mother still had some concerns.

“Rachel is not exactly what I had in mind for you. I can't believe she didn't go to college and has never even been to Europe, doesn't like to play bridge, and doesn't even drink tea. What is the world coming to? But she is a hard worker, and she's good-looking for a black girl and is respectful of her elders,” Mother said.

This particular Sunday afternoon, my two older brothers, Damon and Josh, and their snooty wives, Helene and Faith, had come to have dinner with me and our parents. The way they were all wolfing down the lamb stew that our cook had prepared, you would have thought they had not eaten in days. I had begun to hate family get-togethers like this. I always left the table feeling like I'd been pepper sprayed and dragged through the mud.

Josh and I were very close, even though he was eight years my senior. I enjoyed spending time with him. He always had my back, no matter what I did. When I got arrested for drunk driving last year, he bailed me out of jail and paid my fine, and he didn't tell anybody. A week after that, I got caught with a hooker during a sting operation. Being a very successful attorney, Josh had enough connections to get me out of that mess, too, without any publicity.

My brother Damon was only two years older than Josh, but he and I had never really gotten along that well. He made it no secret that he thought of me as the “family fool,” who had very little hope of changing. He and his prim and proper wife, Helene, an ex-model who thought her piss didn't stink, had a ten-year-old son named Anthony, who was spending the night with one of his friends. Josh and Faith were expecting their first child in two months. Both of my brothers practiced law, just as Father had before he retired three years ago.

My brothers' wives had both stopped working as soon as they got married, which was something Mother didn't appreciate. She believed that women needed to pull their load in a marriage. That included contributing to the household income. Mother had worked as a registered nurse until her weak heart forced her to retire two years ago. She tolerated my brothers' wives, but in private she complained about how much she couldn't stand either one. So far, she had not said one negative thing about Rachel. As a matter of fact, she praised that girl so much, it got on my nerves. Well, not really. I was glad that my mother, who had always been my favorite girl, approved of Rachel. And so did her fussy, busybody friends.

I promptly lost interest in church and had been back only a few times since the day I met Rachel. But I was in the company of what Mother called our “church family” on a regular basis. These individuals were meddlesome old farts, if you asked me. There was bald-headed, mole-faced Reverend Mays and his plump, bug-eyed wife, Pearline. They came to my parents' house for dinner every other Sunday. They usually arrived late, after everybody had been seated and served. But they made up for it. This Sunday was no different. Nobody paid much attention to their tardiness. As usual, I was the center of attention. This time I felt like a goose about to be shoved into an oven. Not only were Mother and Damon saying all kinds of shit that made me want to holler, but the preacher and his wife joined in right away.

“Son, you've got to get yourself together. Life is too short, and God will give a person only so many chances to redeem himself. I hope things are working out for you with that nice young woman you met at church a couple of weeks ago,” the reverend began. He sniffed and adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses and looked at me with a suspicious look on his homely face.

He was so anxious to dive into the feast on the table, he didn't even bother to wait for his wife. Sister Mays had a bowel disorder, which she made sure everyone knew about, so she spent a lot of time sitting on a commode. She had made a beeline to the restroom as soon as she entered our house. By the time she waddled back into the living room, with a pinched look on her face, and sat down at the table, Reverend Mays had already started shoveling food into his mouth. He glanced across the table at Josh and Damon and then back at me, shaking his head and chewing like a camel at the same time. After he swallowed the lump of food in his jaws, he started up again.

“I know you want to be as successful as your brothers in everything you do, hmmm?”

“He'll have to slow down first,” Faith said. For an ordinary-looking, heavyset woman who had a mother who worked for Goodwill and a father who drove the snow-cone truck in their low-rent neighborhood during the summer and cabs the rest of the year, she certainly had a highfalutin' opinion of herself. “And I hope he's being careful with this one. The last thing Seth needs is another baby.”

“Or AIDS or some worse nasty sex disease,” Sister Mays threw in.

“What could be worse than AIDS?” Damon asked with a raised eyebrow and an exasperated look on his narrow face. Josh and I had inherited Mother's good looks and bronze complexion. Damon had Father's light skin, shifty eyes, and thin lips. But the difference was, Father had a jovial demeanor and he smiled a lot. With a perennial scowl that appeared as if it had been painted on, Damon usually looked angry enough to cuss out the world. “Seth, you just take care of yourself with this new girl. You don't know how many men she's been with.”

Mother gave me a thoughtful look, and I knew she had something to add to Damon's last comment. “I like Rachel, but she's got a thing or two about her that concern me. I have heard from more than one person that she used to be quite close to Paulette's shady, woman-crazy brother Skirt. If that's true, there's just no telling where else she's laid her . . . uh . . . head,” Mother said.

“She seemed like a nice enough young lady when I met her, so let's give her some leeway,” Reverend Mays said, giving me a sympathetic look.

“I enjoyed Rachel's company when she joined us for dinner a couple of nights ago,” Father said, turning to me. “How come she didn't come with you today, son?”

“She wasn't feeling well,” I replied. “Cramps.”

“She told you
that?
” Mother asked with a gasp.

“Most women don't discuss female-related issues with men,” Sister Mays said with an embarrassed look on her moon face.

“Especially something as personal as cramps. You better be careful with a girl who is that loosey-goosey,” Mother added.

I was tired of being talked to and treated like a child. From some of the comments I had to listen to on a regular basis, you would have thought that I was just as irresponsible and impulsive as I had been in my early teens. I had had a few encounters with the cops for doing stupid, petty shit with my buddies, such as egging people's cars on Halloween night and knocking over mailboxes. I had never done drugs, not even weed, and everybody knew that. However, as far as my family members were concerned, I had a long way to go to live up to their standards. I still needed my family, so I didn't want to piss them off. That was why I always remained cool and calm when they got on my case. But I was itching to finish my meal and bolt so I could go be with Rachel, a woman who appreciated and respected me. I made a promise to myself that I would skip the next few dinners if they included such a large audience. I was glad that Damon was in the process of moving his family to Sacramento. He didn't come around that often, anyway, but the less I saw of him and Helene, the better. And from some of the things Mother had shared with me, she felt the same way.

“As I was saying a few minutes ago, before the conversation took a slight detour . . .” Reverend Mays paused and turned to face me again. “I hope things work out for you and that young woman.”

“Yes, sir,” I muttered, shifting in my seat. I usually enjoyed spending time with my family, even when they roasted me. And the only reason Rachel had not accompanied me today was that she was spending the weekend in Reno with those crazy-ass heifers she called her friends. Me telling everybody she had cramps had stirred up enough mess, but there was no telling what they would have said if I had told them she was in Reno, gambling and drinking. “Things are really looking up for me.” I coughed and cleared my throat. “Rachel is the kind of woman I've been looking for all my life. I'm glad I met her. If things continue to go as well between us as they have so far, I'll do whatever I have to do to take our relationship to the next level.”

“And it's about time,” Sister Mays snapped, waving a fork in my face. I hated that she'd chosen the seat right next to me. Even though she always looked neat and well preserved, she always smelled like Vicks VapoRub to me. The curly black wig on her head, the false eyelashes she wore—other than the hookers I used to hook up with from time to time, I didn't know any women who wore those damn things these days—and her orange lipstick made her look like a clown. “After that mess you got yourself into that time with that shameless hussy from the projects, you should walk a chalk line when it comes to females from now on.”

Sister Mays's comment made me recall a very unpleasant time in my life.

The incident with “that shameless hussy from the projects” had happened more than ten years ago, and some people were still talking about it as if had happened last week.

Chapter 27

Seth

Y
ES
, I
HAD HOOKED UP WITH
C
AROLINE
M
ITCHELL, A GIRL WHOM
almost every boy I knew had already been with. Not only was she cute, but she was also the first girl who spread her legs for me. I was fourteen at the time and she was fifteen, and it was my first time having sex. Well, my first time with a partner. I'd started masturbating when I was around twelve. The older I got, the more I needed to release myself. The times I couldn't jack off, I dry-humped any girl who'd let me. The girls my Mother would have approved of were interested only in the boys who wanted to commit. All Caroline wanted was some dick.

When she smiled and winked at me in the cafeteria the day we returned from Christmas vacation that year, I gave her my undivided attention. Being from a low-income family, she usually brought her lunch to school in a greasy brown paper bag that contained Spam or bologna sandwiches and a bruised piece of fruit. That day, I offered her the rest of the lunch on my tray—half of a chicken breast and some salad. She was so grateful, she asked me to escort her home after our last class so we could “listen to some new Prince tunes.” I eagerly accepted her invitation. I had second thoughts when some of my buddies teased me about her. But when I met up with her after school, I forgot all about the mean things my friends had said about her.

We had to take a bus and transfer twice to get to her run-down neighborhood on the south side. After we got off the last bus, we had to walk three blocks through a war zone to get to the place Caroline called home. I was stunned, to say the least, because her building looked like it had been condemned. Almost every window on the ground floor had been boarded up with plywood.

“Is this where you live?” I asked with a gulp.

“Yeah. I live on the second floor, where it's safer and looks better.”

We took the creaky stairs to the second floor, which didn't look any better than the first floor to me. The hallway smelled like stale cigarettes, and the lighting was so dim, I could barely see in front of me. A few feet from the unit Caroline lived in, a disheveled man in a rumpled trench coat and mismatched shoes lay on the floor, snoring like a moose. There was a large gray cat standing over him, licking his face.

“That's Clyde, the neighborhood wino. He don't bother nobody,” Caroline explained. “I don't know whose cat that is.”

Caroline's mother, Mrs. Mitchell, a former stripper, wore a filthy flannel housecoat and pink sponge rollers all over her head. She was on the living room couch, passed out drunk. Empty beer cans and wine bottles were scattered all over the scarred coffee table, on top of the TV, and across the floor. Flies and huge roaches were everywhere, even on the ceiling. Caroline took my hand and led me to the small, cluttered bedroom she shared with her four siblings. Other than a dresser drawer and a metal chair, two lumpy mattresses with no sheets were the only “furniture” in the room. But I didn't let any of that bother me. I wanted my first piece of pussy, and I didn't care what I had to go through to get it. I had decided a long time ago that I wanted to know what the other boys were making all the fuss about.

When I pulled from my pocket a package of condoms, which Josh had told me to keep with me at all times, Caroline slapped my hand. “I don't like the slippery way them damn things feel,” she told me. “Besides, I'm on the pill.”

Since I had never had intercourse, I had no idea how it would feel to stick my dick inside a girl, with or without a condom, so I didn't protest.

From that day on, I escorted Caroline home almost every day for the next three months. Her mother was always drunk and her siblings were always outside, roaming the streets, when I visited, so we had all the privacy we needed. No matter how disgusting it was to fuck her on that urine-stained mattress, I kept going over there.

There were only a few other kids I knew in that neighborhood, because most of them went to different schools. The only way Caroline got to attend Berkeley High, which was better in every way compared to the schools in the low-income neighborhoods, was by her mother claiming that they lived at the address of the rich white woman she cleaned house for when she was sober. A lot of the parents who lived in sleazy neighborhoods did that for their kids, so it was no big deal as long as nobody ratted them out. Caroline's excuse for attending a better school was that she wanted a better education, but I believed then, and even now, that it was so she could meet a better class of potential “baby daddies” for the kids she was destined to have. Not only would it elevate her status among her peers to get pregnant by a boy from a prominent family, but it would also secure her future. Almost every other teenage girl in her hood had at least one baby. It never occurred to me that she had set me up to get her pregnant, but that was exactly what she did.

She called me one evening and told me she was pregnant, and I almost fainted.

“Pregnant? By who?” I asked. I was glad I had answered the extension in my bedroom. I glanced at my door, glad I had locked it so Mother wouldn't barge in before I could end this hellish conversation. My heart had already begun to race.

“By you, that's who,” she barked.

“Oh, hell no!”

“Oh, hell yeah!”

“But . . . but I thought you were taking those birth control pills!” I had just finished dinner and couldn't wait to play one of my new video games. But now my stomach was churning, and the last thing I wanted to do was play a video game.

“I was!” she hollered. “But them things don't always work.”

“Well, don't worry,” I whispered. “We can skip school one day, and I'll go with you to that clinic where they, uh, you know. . . .”

“The abortion clinic? You think I'm going to kill my baby?”

My mouth dropped open. With quivering lips, I hollered, “Do you mean to tell me you want to have it?”

“Why not?”

“What about school? What about your future? What about . . .
my
future?” I had big plans for my future, and they didn't include a baby, especially one with a skank like Caroline for a mother. I had already disappointed my family one time too many with my antics. But me skipping school and pulling a few pranks was nothing compared to me getting a girl pregnant! The last thing I wanted to be at my age was a daddy!

“Fuck the future. You can do whatever else you want to do with yours, but you are going to take care of this baby.”

“Oh, shit,” I mouthed. “Uh, let me think about this.”

“What do you need to think about?”

“Everything! How do I even know it's mine? I wasn't the only boy. . . .”

“I ain't been with nobody since I got with you.”

“Uh . . . uh . . . let me have some time to think about this. I . . . I hear my mother calling me, so I have to hang up. We'll talk at school tomorrow.” I couldn't get off that telephone fast enough.

I didn't sleep at all that night. I was tempted to play sick so I could stay home from school the next morning, but I knew that I had to face the situation, and the sooner I did, the better. I got to school half an hour ahead of time that day. I cringed every time I saw a girl who looked like Caroline. By third period math class, the only class she and I had together, I still had not seen her.

Caroline was always in some kind of trouble for one reason or another. She had spent time in juvie for shoplifting and fighting, and she skipped a lot of school, anyway. She didn't show up at all that day, and I didn't think much about it. When I got home that evening, she was sitting on our living room couch with her mother. This woman had a face like a mule and the demeanor of a pit bull.

“Seth, I know what you done to my baby! You . . . you . . . you sex maniac, you! You horny bastard!” she roared. I couldn't believe these words had come from an ex-stripper.

“Huh?” was all I could say.

My mother was pacing the floor, crying, waving her arms, and massaging her chest. I prayed she was not about to have another heart attack. My father stood in the middle of the floor, with his arms folded. He shot me a hot look.

“What the . . . What's going on?” I asked as I dropped my backpack to the floor.

“Get over here, boy!” Father yelled.

I shuddered and remained standing in the same spot. I looked from Caroline to her mother and then to my mother. The moment my eyes met Mother's, she flopped onto the love seat facing the couch, crying even harder. I had no idea what was going on, and before I could ask, Caroline looked at me and pointed.

“You raped me, and now I'm pregnant!” she yelled. “You better marry me, or I'm going to the cops!”

I felt like I'd just fallen into a bottomless pit. And I wished I had. “I didn't rape nobody!” I yelled, looking from one face to another. By now Mother was wailing like a dying animal. “Mother, she's lying!”

“Everybody at school knows how you followed me home all them times and threatened to hurt me if I didn't have sex with you! You even said if I told on you, you'd beat my butt. Well, I'm tired of you controlling my life!” Caroline leaped up and shook her finger in my direction. “You even been bragging to all your friends about what you been doing to me!”

I looked to Caroline's mother, hoping to see some sympathy on her face. I had no idea what made me think that. She was just as much of a skank as her daughter. She looked as angry as Caroline. “I ain't going to let you get away with what you done to my baby!” Mrs. Mitchell screeched. Her voice was so shrill, it made me shudder some more. And even though I was several feet away from her, I could still smell the alcohol on her breath.

“Mother, I didn't rape this girl! If anything, she raped me!” I insisted.

“Yes you did! My girl don't lie! If I wasn't such a lady, I'd beat the dog shit out of you with my bare hands!” Mrs. Mitchell hollered. “You can stand your uppity self on your head and deny what you done all you want. We can let a jury decide if we have to.” I could not believe the smug look on this woman's face. They had me by the balls, and they knew it.

“Mother, Father, I'm so sorry. But you have to help me out of this mess, please,” I whimpered, still standing in the same spot like a lamppost.

My parents assured Caroline and her vicious mother that the baby would be well taken care of. As a gesture of good faith, and to prevent them from making a bigger fuss, Father whipped out his checkbook and wrote them a check for three thousand dollars. That sent them on their merry way, with big smiles on their conniving faces, but my parents looked like somebody had sucked some of the life out of them.

“Seth, I'm so disappointed in you,” Mother managed to say. She was still massaging her chest with one hand and fanning her face with the other.

“So am I,” I mumbled.

I would never forget that day and how hopeless I'd felt. Just thinking about it now almost made me sick.