Imani All Mine (3 page)

Sam-bo

He comes from A-la-

Bam-a

With a pickle on his nose and a cherry on his toes

That's why my story goes.

TWO

I'
M A NASTY GIRL
now. That's what Mama would say if she knew me and Peanut been doing it. I figure she helped make me a nasty girl, if that's what I really am. She the one put me on birth control pills after she found out Eboni was pregnant.

I ain't want to be on no pills. I ain't need them none, but what you going to tell Mama? When she say she already had done made a appointment for me at ECMC and my fast black ass was going to get on them goddamn pills before I got me another baby, wasn't nothing I could say. She say Eboni probably give me the idea to get pregnant from in the first place, because she ain't nothing but a stinking little ho. My back was to Mama when she was saying them things, because I was bathing Imani in the kitchen sink.

Mrs. Poole say that's the best place to bathe a baby so you can keep a good hold of it. Mrs. Poole say a baby can drown in less than a inch of water. It scared me when she say that. My mind left right from that classroom, and I could see Imani clear as day drowned in her little plastic yellow tub I been bathing her in. Mrs. Poole was standing over me, looking at my notebook. She could see I underlined that part about the drowning, that I was paying attention.

I was holding on to Imani real tight when Mama was talking at me that day. She was holding me real tight right back. Like she know there was some danger in the water, but she know I ain't never going to let nothing happen to her. I was glad I had my back to Mama, because no matter how hard I tried to fix my face right, it was telling the truth on me, and if I turned around I'd get a good smack for being so goddamn disrespectful. Mrs. Poole say you want respect from your child, give respect to your child.

That idea ain't go over real hot with the girls in our class. A lot of girls sucked they teeth and rolled they eyes at Mrs. Poole. This girl Bett-Bett, who always be sitting in the far back seat, say that was some bullshit. Now Mrs. Poole ain't like the rest of the teachers. She don't be writing you up for cussing or nothing, but she remind you cussing is for ignorant people with little minds. If you say sorry like you mean it, Mrs. Poole let it slide and let you say what you have to say like a lady would. Bett-Bett say she sorry and then she say to Mrs. Poole that things is the other way around. Children got to respect they elders. Bett-Bett say if her two kids want respect from her, they better show respect to her first.

Mrs. Poole ain't do nothing but ask a question. Don't I respect you? Bett-Bett ain't say nothing. We was all looking at Bett-Bett too, and some girls was saying yes. Mrs. Poole respect us. Mrs. Poole wave her hands for us to hush. She say she was asking Bett-Bett. You could tell Bett-Bett ain't want to admit it, because there was some kind of lecture coming, but she sunk down in her seat and say yes. Mrs. Poole walk right back to Bett-Bett and put both her hands on her shoulders.
I
respected
you
from the day you walked into my class, Mrs. Poole say. I set the example. Let me tell you, ladies, Mrs. Poole say. You must respect your children. It's they right to be respected. They birthright. You have to set the example and teach them what respect is by being respectful yourself.

I'm sure Bett-Bett was melting under Mrs. Poole stank breath, but she ain't show it. It seem like she was really listening to her. I think we all was, because sometime Mrs. Poole be making good sense, the kind of sense you know be right.

And what she say about respect was burning me up the day Mama told me about going on them pills. I kept washing Imani longer than I needed to, waiting for my face to get right. I mean, Eboni ain't no ho, no matter what Mama say. Mama don't even know her, not really. And I ain't even get no idea of having a baby from Eboni. Like Imani some idea. A baby ain't no idea somebody put in your head. Maybe Eboni be putting ideas in my head about a new style to braid my hair in or what new sneakers everybody wearing. But can't nobody put a baby in your head.

Imani was looking up at me like she knew I was thinking something. She start kicking the water out the sink. She ain't never been in the water so long. It was getting cold, so I rinsed her off and took her on upstairs. I ain't have to face Mama. She was watching TV.

I oiled up Imani real good until she was shining and put lots of powder on her butt. I swear that look funny. The oil with the powder over it. It look like when you flour and grease a cake pan. After I diapered and dressed her, we lay down on my bed and listened to the radio. I put on WBLK. My baby like that. She like rap. She shake her head to it. On time.

I ain't even come out the room until I had to give Imani her late feeding. We stayed the rest of the night on the couch and I ain't felt like getting up and going to no doctor the next morning.

While Imani was still sleeping, I took me a long shower. I scrubbed my private parts real good, because the doctor would probably be looking at them and poking them, and I ain't want to be stank. I can't stand no doctor looking in them places no way. It make me all embarrassed.

I dropped Imani off at her daycare before me and Mama went to the doctor's. I ain't had nothing to eat, but the whole while me and Mama was sitting in the waiting room, I felt this clenching like in my guts. I thought I was going to have to poop. When we was called in to see the doctor and I had to put on that paper gown, I felt even worse. This one nurse had me pee in a little jar. She took some blood and then weighed me. I had gained almost ten pounds since my six-week checkup, but she say my pressure was fine. The nurse left me and Mama to wait on the doctor. I was sitting on the examining table. My stomach was bubbling like a pot. Mama heard it. She ask what's wrong with me. I say I was nervous about the doctor looking at my private parts. She say I ain't care nothing about some boy fucking me, so what I care about some doctor taking a look. I was going to cry right then, but the doctor walked in.

For some reason, that made me calm. It was a black woman doctor and she pretty. Her hair was done real nice. She must have had one of them relaxers, where you can shake your hair like a white woman, and her hair was real long. Mama smiled at her real big. The doctor ask me why I wasn't in school that morning. Because I'm here, I say. That's obvious, she say in a real flat voice, not even looking up from my file. Your weight is up, she say. It's not healthy to weigh so much. Don't you exercise? I be tired, I say, which is the truth. You a young girl, she tell me. You shouldn't be tired. You tired because you overweight. She say she run five miles every day. All the while she say these things, she didn't even look at me. She didn't even look at me when she ask, Why you have a baby so young? I swear I felt like jumping off that table and smacking her. Ain't none of her business why I have a baby. Mama say, That's what I want to know. The doctor looked at her and they started talking about me like I wasn't even there.

She don't listen to me, Mama say. The doctor say she see it every day, babies having babies. It's getting to be more than she can take. Mama say she try to tell me what's right, but I be getting ideas from other girls. That your daughter? Mama ask, pointing at a picture on the doctor's desk. The doctor smiled. Mama show me the picture. The girl looked around my age, and was dressed in a prom dress. She real pretty, Mama say. The doctor thanked her for saying that. That's her debutante picture.

She turn to me and say, That's where your daughter comes out, gets presented to society. Talking to me like I was some natural-born fool. I know what a debutante is, but I ask her, Where she come out from? The doctor just look at me real strange, and Mama glared at me.

Then Mama say it's so good to see a black girl who's about something, doing something with they lives instead of having babies like that's some great thing. Because it ain't.

I had my face fixed real plain while they carried on talking. Like they was talking about something like the best place to get your hair fixed or what place sell the best Buffalo wings. But I was burning up. My thighs was sticking to that paper they be having on them examining tables, and my feet tingling from hanging up in the air. I ain't give a damn about that doctor or her stupid-ass daughter. I know Mrs. Poole would say I'm no lady for expressing myself that way, even if it was all inside my head. That my mind was real little. But I ain't even care. That girl ain't mean nothing to me. I ain't know why Mama was making over her like she's something special.

She look like a regular black girl to me. Her skin dark like mine. She ain't have no good hair or nothing. She's not fat like me, but she's not pretty like them black girls in
Seventeen
. If you seen her on the street, you would probably throw her all in together with other black girls. You would think she was probably a ho. Like mama think I am. You would think she was probably stupid. You would think she was nothing.

The doctor say too many of
our
girls throwing they lives away, giving up on they futures.

Mama say that ain't going to happen to me. That's why she brung me for the pills. Tasha a smart girl. Get all A's.

Really? the doctor ask. That's the first time she act like she was interested in me, like I was more than some fat-ass dumb ugly black girl.

The doctor smiled at me, this real phony fake plastic smile, and Mama carried on. Tasha came out of her middle school class with the second highest average. She won the science certificate and the reading certificate and was on the honor roll every term. Tasha been on the honor roll every marking period but one in high school. She back on it now, Mama say. Mama was smiling this real smile.

I swear Mama so pretty when she smile. Her skin so dark and smooth. She be looking young when she smile. Mama say she was protecting my future by putting me on the pills.

I couldn't keep my face flat no more. I was smiling back. Mama ain't one to brag on me much, but when she do, I be liking it. Sometimes I hear her talking on the phone to Aunt Mavis, telling her about my report card. It's like she really proud of me, and I'm that girl on the birthday card or one of them girls in
Seventeen
who got good self-esteem and one of them skinny bodies with neat little titties.

I swear, for the first time that doctor talked to me like I had some sense. What you want to be when you grow up? she ask me. I told her a nurse, a nurse who work with children, because I love children. She ask, You ever thought about being a pediatrician? I ask, A doctor? Then I felt like a fool, like I ain't know what a pediatrician is. I threw in right quick that I been thinking about being a
pediatric
nurse, because it take such a long time to be a doctor. Then she smiled a real smile at me and say time is one thing I got plenty of. But I got to take care of myself. Take care of my body. Not having no more babies was a way to start.

She explained how them pills worked and not to miss one day. I felt like telling her I ain't really need them because I wasn't doing it, like I was going to tell Mama. It seem like the doctor might have listened. Maybe Mama, too. But I ain't say nothing, and I'm glad I ain't, because I'm doing it now.

I met Peanut at school a few weeks later. This is the thing. I wasn't stutting him when I first seen him. He was put in my homeroom because his was too crowded. Miss Williams, our homeroom teacher, had him standing up in the front of the room when we come in one morning. He short and skinny. She say his name Clyde Baker Junior. She ask him if he want to say something.

He say, Yeah, don't call me Clyde. Call me Peanut. Why they call you Peanut? Reuben ask. Why you think? Kente say. He got a head shape just like a big old peanut.

We was all laughing. I felt bad about laughing when I seen Peanut looking like he was going to cry. Miss Williams say that was enough. She made Kente apologize to Peanut. She say she was calling him Clyde, and the rest of us could call him what we want. She give him a seat next to Reuben.

I only got lunch and gym with Peanut, because I take the Regents courses and he don't. Regents classes real hard. But they ain't as crowded as regular classes like health. There thirty-three of us in health, stuffed in a room with no window. I think the room used to be a closet. The desks so close together, your knees be just about touching the kid's butt in front of you. And it be so funky. A whole group of boys come in right after they gym period, and they underarms just about choke you to death. But in Latin, there's twelve. Pre-Algebra, twenty. Honors English, seventeen. Physical Science, twenty-five.

Even though the girls and boys have gym during the same period, we don't always be doing the same things. When Peanut first come, the boys was playing this stupid game called handball in the gym. The girls was doing double dutch outside. Most of the girls.

Some boys come out and jumped with us some of the time. But this one sissy boy, Franklin, jumped with us all the time. Franklin don't even be bothering with the other boys much. They beat him up and call him faggot and call him a girl. But the girls don't be doing that. Franklin don't be bothering nobody. He jump on a team and even been down to New York City jumping in tournaments. Them other boys jealous of him, I think.

About a week into our jumping, Peanut and Reuben and Kente come busting out the side door of the gym and tried to bogart our jump-rope game. The teacher wasn't nowhere around. Kente say, A bunch of girls and a faggot can jump, can't be nothing to it. We let him and the others try so we could see them look stupid.

These girls, Yvette and Coco, was turning them ropes so fast, they humming and kicking up dirt. Then they start singing: