Imani All Mine (16 page)

Mama waved her hand. She say, You need to quit, Odetta. Acting like I'm Whoopi Goldberg and shit. Like I never met a white man I ain't like. Let me tell you something; if I'd been setting out to meet one in the first place, Mitch ain't even the kind I would've went after. I'd a gone for one of them dark Italians look like they part nigger anyway kind of white men.

Miss Odetta say, I ain't mean nothing by it. I'm just saying, is all. I just ain't ready to be no grandma. I'm too young.

Mama laughed and so did Miss Odetta. Mama say, You older than me.

I don't think that was what Miss Odetta was worrying about. I don't think she could come right out and say she miss June Bug.

Sitting on the couch, June Bug told me he lived on the real west side. Not in the Puerto Rican west side, which is just like the east side, broke-down and raggedy. He say, I live right on the lake. You can see Canada.

I say, So? Ain't nothing special about looking in on Canada and living on funky Lake Erie.

June Bug say, Girl, you ain't got a view of nothing from here. Not a damn thing.

I say, I can see plenty from here.

June Bug laughed. He say, That's what they want you to think. Not me. They don't even want no niggers where I moved. But I'm there. Right where they don't want me.

Imani was squirming to get down, so I let her. I say, I don't want to be nowhere where people don't want me.

June Bug waved his hand at me. He say, You done changed.

I told him he was the one who changed, and he say it's true. He say but he still think like he always done. Big.

Maybe Miss Odetta got him thinking big. She always seen to it that June Bug had the best of everything. The best skates, bike, sneakers, video games, headsets, haircuts, sweats, jackets. He probably had the best drawers, too. And I know where she got some of the money for it. From Mama.

Mama used to all the time sell her some of our food stamps. I ain't like it. Mama sold them fifty cent on a dollar. I can't say Mama ain't make out. She got money in her hand, but Miss Odetta made out better. Going to the grocery store getting food half price put even more money in her hand to spend on June Bug. Mama stopped selling them when Miss Odetta found somebody to give her a better price. Thirty cents on a dollar. I ain't even want to see what woman was desperate enough for money she'd sell her stamps that cheap.

The thing is, I ain't even stop liking June Bug when some of Mama money was going right on his back. I got to say he always looked good. He would be running around with a hundred dollars' worth of clothes on. Even in the summer. He'd wear sport jerseys. Real ones. Official ones, with the tags, while we wasn't doing nothing but playing kickball and dodgeball and hide the stick and pop the whip and football in the street. June Bug always looked like he was dressed up to go somewhere.

Like this boy called Long Legs who used to live up the block. He would be all clean every Friday during the summer. That was the day his daddy come to pick him up for the weekend. To take him over to his house on the north side. Long Legs would take a shower after lunch, dress up, and sit on his porch. He used to make us all sick, because he'd come off the porch to play and make a big deal out of it. All afternoon Long Legs would say, I can't get my clothes dirty because I'm going to my dad's. I can't go bike riding because I'm waiting on my dad. Hey, don't step on my sneakers because my daddy coming to get me.

His daddy did come get him and I think we was all jealous of him for that. Lots of kids claimed to have a daddy, but his was the only one that showed up. Regular. His was the only daddy I ever seen.

Long Legs' daddy drove a pretty car. A burgundy deuce and a quarter. It was always clean clean and shining like it was brand new. We would all gather around it like it was some spaceship that had just landed. Like Long Legs' tall daddy was some kind of alien. He would reach down and touch all our heads and smile. Like he was happy to see all of us. Sometimes he'd give us each a dollar before he left with Long Legs. Then me and June Bug and the other kids would sit on the curb where the car had been and talk about Long Legs like a dog. His daddy too.

That's a old car Long Legs' daddy drive. My daddy drive a better car than that. He drive a Lincoln. That ain't really none of Long Legs' daddy nohow. My mama told me. She pinned Long Legs on him. Long Legs think he something. Wait until next week, I'm going to scuff up his sneakers before he go. I would always stick to the same line. My daddy dead, I'd say. June Bug would always say, When I grow up, I'm going to have me a better car than that. Way better, and I ain't going to live on the east side neither. I only remember saying once that I wanted to move on the north side. Even though I'd never really been there.

June Bug reminded me I had said it. He say, You ain't planning on spending the rest of your life here, is you?

I say, Don't even be cracking on the east side. You lived here up until last week.

June Bug say he never coming back to live here. Which was fine with me.

He say, What you should do is let me take you out. Show you some things. Take you some places.

I say, You asking me out for a date?

He say he was.

That's when I had to bust him and tell him I knew he had a girlfriend. I reached over and swatted him upside his head. I say, I told you Miss Odetta done told your business.

Imani seen me swat June Bug and she started laughing.

He say, Don't you be laughing at me, you crumb crusher.

I say, You leave my baby alone. Don't you be calling her names.

June Bug say, I ain't stutting your baby. She cute, though, like you.

I rolled my eyes. I mean really, he was rapping so weak.

He told me he did live with a woman and he had other women. He could get a woman whenever he wanted one. He say he could get them like that, and he snapped his fingers. Not just them female hypes that would do anything for a hit. He say they would even do it for kibbles and bits.

I say, Get out of here. They do it to you for some dog food?

He say kibbles and bits was little pieces of broke-up crack. Crumbs. He say he respected them. People think they hos. But they ain't. He say they some of the most honest women he done ever met. They all about business. You got something they want, and they willing to pay for it. He say them other women he know is hos. Even the one he living with, because all they want is your money.

June Bug say, I know she living with me because I'm living where I'm living. Because I got me a Trooper.

He say, I want to take you out because you for real, Tasha. You honest.

I nodded. I say, I see, I'm honest. Like them hos who ain't hos.

June Bug shook his head. He say, You for real, Tasha. Like that time when we kissed.

I say, I never kissed you! Lying. Lying like a dog. When I know good and well he kissed me in between our houses one night.

I was only eleven and that would've made June Bug fourteen. It was the Fourth of July, and Miss Odetta had took him up in Canada somewhere and got fireworks. Legal. All we had before they showed up was some caps we was popping with bricks, some firecrackers that was mostly duds, and some corny sparklers. June Bug had all kinds of bottle rockets, cherry bombs, and some big big firecrackers about as thick as your thumb. He had threw one of them big firecrackers between our houses. He thought it would sound louder going off there. But it ain't go off.

I raced to get it, and he came right behind me. I can't even say what we thinking. How we thought we was going to find it in the grass in the dark. We didn't. It found us. That thing boomed like a cannon. I ain't have time to scream. I grabbed hold of June Bug and he kissed me. Right on the mouth. Maybe he seen it in a movie or something. But I done been to the movies, too. So I slapped him. I say, Let me go. I just peed on myself.

When June Bug reminded me of what I'd told him, I had to laugh. I pulled a pillow up over my face and say, I never say that.

He say, Stop lying, Tasha. I liked that you say it. I can tell you, ain't no other girl ever say nothing like that to me. He ask, You that honest with Peanut?

My heart started bamming all hard. I wanted to know what he knew about me and Peanut, but I wasn't about to ask. I threw the pillow at him and say, Your time up, June Bug. Its four-thirty.

He say, All right. Cool. I say I was going to leave, and I am. You must still be some little girl if you messing with him, Tasha. Because he ain't nothing but a boy.

I stood up, trying to give him a signal. But he sat there.

I say, You don't know what Peanut is.

June Bug stood up then. He say, I do. I don't even know him and I know what he is. Me and my partners got boys like him working for us. We buy and sell little niggers like him.

I sucked my teeth. Yeah, right, I say. Peanut too smart for something like that.

June Bug picked up the bag off the floor. Laughing. He say, Who got the money, girl? And, oh, by the way. June Bug opened the bag. This ain't nothing but a prescription for my mama. Some allergy medicine. I ain't want to leave it out. The hypes, you know.

I looked at the bottle. It was sealed. I say, You could've told me what was in it in the first place.

He say, You could've asked. You know you can trust me, girl. With your life. At the door, he say, Tell your mama hello for me.

I locked both doors behind him, knowing right then I wasn't going to tell Mama he say nothing. She was off with Mitch. Mama be with him all the time now, and I don't like it. But I don't say nothing to Mama with my two lips about her and Mitch. If I do, she might slap me.

 

Mama sometimes say she going to slap me clear into the middle of next week, but most of the time she just be talking. Even when she beat me the day I had Imani. I didn't go traveling through time. I stayed right there in the room with her.

The last time she slapped me was the week before she went to Toronto, and I can't say I ain't deserve it. I was running off at the mouth and showing her no respect. But Mama know she was wrong for what she had done. I found out she took Imani down to the welfare office. Miss Odetta the one slipped up and told it with her drunk self. It was late, and I wasn't hardly paying neither one of them no mind. I was down on the floor, reading to Imani, when Miss Odetta ask Mama how it had went at the welfare office. Mama shushed her. But Miss Odetta was too drunk, or she just ain't care. Maybe it was her way of making sure I knew. Miss Odetta ask, What your caseworker say? They going to keep you on because of Imani?

I was too through with Mama right then. I snatched up Imani and stomped up the steps. Mama had kept Imani two days that week. One day when it snowed bad and another when I was running late and Imani wasn't helping things because she ain't do nothing but cry from the time I got her up. Mama was all sweet to me. Had sugar all in her mouth. She say, Tasha, go on to school. Leave Imani here. She'll be all right.

So I went on to school with no diaper bag, no stroller, no baby. Just my backpack. Anybody seeing me could think I was just some ordinary girl doing nothing but keeping one eye out for the bus and one eye out for the dealers. I was thinking that Mama was trying to help me, but she was really all the time planning. All the time using my baby.

Mama come up to my room soon as Miss Odetta left, and I accused her soon as she walked in the door. I screamed at her, You make me sick. Using my baby so you can keep on getting a check. What? You done told them welfare people Imani your child?

That's when Mama slapped me. A pain shot through my teeth. She say, I don't know who the hell you think you talking to. I brung you into this world. Don't make me take you out of it.

It took all I had to make my voice regular, but I say real calm, Mama, what did you do? Mama sat down on the foot of my bed. I sat up at the head. I felt safer there, out of close reach of Mama.

She picked Imani up and say, In the first place, you should know better than to believe what Miss Odetta say. And in the second place, you ain't got to put up with them welfare people. You ain't got to look at them when they act like they don't want to give you a check. When they act like you taking money out they own pocket.

I say, Mama, you should get a job then. I ain't say it to be smart. And Mama ain't take it like I was.

She ask, Doing what?

I told her I ain't know what. I told her maybe she should go back to school. Get her G.E.D.

Mama say, Tasha, please. She was stroking Imani hair. She had combed it nice in neat cornrows. Mama looked off in the empty space between us and say, Tasha, I can't even read.

I say, You can too read, Mama.

I know Mama don't like to read. Whenever we get something like a microwave or VCR, she don't never read the instructions. Only when she screw something up. Like when Mama put tin foil in the microwave Aunt Mavis give us for Christmas a few years back. Sparks was flying around in it like a science experiment gone crazy. Mama was screaming and I was screaming and we run out the kitchen as the glass in the door shattered. Mama rambled around in the junk drawer in the kitchen after that, and I read where it say in the instructions not to put foil in it.

Mama say, Goddamn it! Wouldn't you think them motherfuckers would put something that important on the box it come in? We could've been killed.

Mama say, I can read like a little child. Like a retard.

I say, Don't say that, Mama.

Mama started talking quiet. In a voice that was so sharp and so soft, it was cutting me and loving me all at the same time. She say, I never told you why I dropped out of school. Shame. Do you know what it's like to feel shame like that? So much you can't tell nobody? Not your mama. Not your sister. Not your friend. Nobody. What was I going to tell them? I was sick and tired of feeling stupid every goddamn day of my life. Feeling like I failed. Then I had you, and I ain't feel like that no more. Finally, I had did something right.