Charge It To The Game

To my beautiful children: Thank you for loving me unconditionally, for sacrificing ―our‖ time and understanding that to whom much is given, much is required. I am so blessed! Mommy (my northern star), even in your grief, you reached out to others, you still gave your love, you still managed to smile, and you continued to give God the glory. There is no other woman in the world like you, and I am so proud that you are my mother. To my siblings: Jermaine, Ronald ―Ronnie, Jr.,‖ and Jennifer: Y‘all complete my circle. I LOVE YOU!!!

I must thank the following people: James Smith, the Bradley, Baker, Wilson, Crisp, Cox, Young, Tranum, Welcome and Woodley families, Gwendolyn Thomas, Bolling, Richard at God!), Chavon Thompson, Vernon Harrison, Jr., Bettie
Watkins, Lonnie McKinstry, LisaRenae Johnson, and Denise Hanney.

Laboring and giving birth to this project was the most challenging yet. In less than five months, I suddenly lost three significant people in my life. Writing, the natural process that usually heals my soul was impossible to do. The words danced in my head, the characters spoke, but my heart was broken and I lost the passion to create. With that said, I give honor to the following

I hated Thursday nights. No matter what I did I wasn‘t ever able to convince Aunt Hope to take me along with her to Bingo. She knew I couldn‘t stand her stink-lazy-assdope fiend countrified boyfriend Smoke, but she acted like she didn‘t care and she would leave me with him anyway.

While Aunt Hope was gone I would usually try and keep myself occupied writing in my diary. I had been writing in it since I was six years old. Sometimes when I write in my diary I think of Momma, and then I get real sad. That was the only present under the tree for me in Christmas of 1984. In fact, that was the last thing my Momma gave me. Momma went to the store right after I opened up my gift, and she never came back. After the second day had passed by, and all the Ritz crackers were gone, my stomach was hurting real bad…it felt like an 18 wheeler truck had landed in there and broke down. I started vomiting all over the place. But no food came out— just some bubbly yellowish spit. I remember I was so scared. I thought I was gonna die right then and there.

I crawled out of the living room window and went down the fire escape to Miss Penny‘s house. She never locked her window. I think because she knew I came and ate some of her food once in a while. She never caught me, I was always careful and I would make sure to clean up my mess. But I could tell she knew I was there by the way she would look at me sometimes when we would pass each other in the hallway. She would give me that I-know-you-snuck-in-my-house-but-Iain‘t-gonna-tell-cause-I-fell-sorry-for-you look.

When I got inside of Miss Penny‘s house, I went in the kitchen, took a Twinkie and then I called Aunt Hope. About an hour later she came and got me. Now Aunt Hope wasn‘t really my aunt, she was my Momma‘s best friend, but she always acted like my aunt.

When I was too sad to write, I would start to crochet. I loved to crochet. Aunt Hope taught me how to do it. I used to like to make new things. But we didn‘t have a lot of money, so sometimes I had to take a loose some of the things I had made just so I could make something else. I hated it when I had to do that.

This night…I felt too sad to write, and too mad to crochet. So I decided to turn on the T.V. and started watching
Knots Landing
—one of my favorite shows. Now, I loved watching how rich white people lived. And I promised myself that one day I was gonna live just like them. I had it all planned out. By the time, I was 16, I was gonna pack up all of my diaries, Ashley— my baby doll, my crochet needle and I was gonna leave tired ass Bushwick and move to Manhattan where all the rich people lived. And I wasn‘t never ever gonna look back. Well, I thought about calling Aunt Hope once in a while—just to see if she heard from my Momma. But that was it.

I always dreamt big. I was gonna live in a tall building, right next to the Empire State Building, with a doorman, a red sports car—maybe a Honda Accord, twenty pairs of high heeled shoes, different panties for every day of the week, and a cute husband—with a lot of money. And he had to have a lot of his
own
money. I had watched Aunt Hope take care of dope fiend Smoke and I knew I wasn‘t hardly ‗bout to take care of no man.

Smoke always had a house full of company when Aunt Hope would leave the house. And all his friends were dope fiends just like him. The only good thing about them coming over was it would keep Smoke out my face while they were there. He was always ordering me around like he was my father.

This night was a little different…there was a man I had never seen before. He was high-yellow with ringlets of curly brown hair, freckles and green eyes--they were a little darker than mine. He didn‘t look so poor either. I didn‘t know what he was doing hanging out with those dope fiends though. I thought maybe he didn‘t know they were. On second thought, he had to know because they had been in there really cutting up...laughing, coughing and then laughing again. When they did that that always meant they were getting high.

I tried not to pay them no attention and kept on watching
Knots Landing--e
ven though it was a repeat. But all of the sudden it got real quiet. No laughing or coughing. Nothing. I thought I heard a little whispering but that was it. I turned down the volume on the T.V. to see if I could hear anything but I didn‘t. So, I tipped-toed all the way to the end of the hallway and peeped through the beads that were hanging from the archway, and I couldn‘t believe my eyes. Smoke was sitting on the couch holding this glass pipe with smoke coming out of it and was tongue kissing Skeet. Bill was taking his hand and was slowly going up and down on the highyellow man‘s dick. Then he stuck his tongue out and started licking the pink part—just like he was licking ice cream. Then the highyellow man pushed Bill‘s head toward his dick and Bill put the
whole
thing in his mouth. The whole thing. AllI saw was his hair. It wasn‘t pretty and curly like the hair on his head either. The hair that was wrapped around his dick was black and looked nappy.