Shattered (6 page)

“Come on. Let’s go inside. You can get your bags in a minute.”

Dizzle walked up the two stairs, opened the screen door, and then he unlocked the other door that wasn’t that thick and seemed like somebody could kick it in if they really wanted to.

“Are we gonna be safe?” I asked.

“What you mean, girl?” Dizzle said with an attitude. His jaw locked tight. He ain’t never have no attitude with me before. I ain’t know what to say next. I looked down and waited for Nausy to go up the steps. The inside was smaller than I thought it was. The kitchen sink was the first thing you saw, then the long counter that had two wooden chairs underneath it. There was some little cabinets on top of the stove and a microwave. A beat-up gray couch was on one end of the trailer facing a little TV. Behind me was the bathroom and a short hallway that led to a room with one bed the size of the one me and Dizzle slept on back at the motel. We already tried sleeping three in a bed that big, and it was too tight.

“Where we all gonna sleep?” I asked. And just like that Dizzle slapped me across my mouth. He did it so fast that I had to blink away the hurt. I heard Nausy suck in air cuz she was shocked, too.

“Shut the fuck up! I ain’t bring you all the way out here for you to think you can start disrespecting me. I don’t see you paying for shit.”

I sucked my lips, hoping the sting of his words and my mouth would stop hurting. A tear rolled down my cheek.

“Get in there and lay the fuck down until I tell you to come out,” he said, like he was trying to calm hisself down. “I’m so fucking pissed off at you right now. Questioning me and shit.”

More tears fell from my eyes. I couldn’t believe he hit me. Him and Nausy both walked out of the trailer, the weak door snatching shut behind them. I heard the car start up outside, so I jumped up to peek out the window where I saw Dizzle backing out of the parking space.
Where was they going?
Tears kept coming, so many I couldn’t even see his car when it turned off the road.

W
here was I? I waited in the quiet tin house by myself wondering if Dizzle left me out here for making a stupid mistake. In next to no time, the trailer got dark as the sun went down. I was scared. Way too scared to leave the room. Even when I had to use the bathroom, I stayed on the bed. I could hear the crunchy sound of cars driving over rocks on the road, but none of them stopped at the house.
What was I gonna do if he left me out here for good?
I ain’t even know where I was. I could still hear Dizzle telling me to “shut the fuck up” in my head. Soon I fell asleep waiting for him and Nausy to come back.

The next morning when I woke up, nobody was in here with me. I ain’t even have my bag cuz it was still in Dizzle’s car. I felt the tears coming again. What was I gonna do? Why did I get smart with him? Nausy ain’t even stand up for me. I shouldn’t have never run away in the first place. I cried and cried until my throat felt raw. I ain’t care if somebody heard me. I laid on the bed and thought about all the stuff that happened over the past two months. I started thinking about all my old foster homes, the Moodys and the Garys and all the bad stuff that happened to me there. I thought about my mother and how she used to make my brother Ryan or my sister Toya read to me and Yodi. How Mommy taught us some sign language with books she got from the library. I missed her. I missed the funny way she used to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to Yodi. It was the same way she used to sing it to me. I was six when I found out the real way she was supposed to sing it, but cuz she was deaf she had been mispronouncing most of the words.

The fourth birthday without my family was coming up, and I was gonna be twelve. Yodi had to be the same age I was when we split up, eight. I wondered what she looked like now. Ryan was fourteen, and Toya was about to be sixteen soon. I thought about them all the time. I wondered where they could be and if they had been going from one foster care house to another like I had. Did Toya ever do what I did with Dizzle or Nausy with somebody? Did she know about that feeling?

I stared at the ceiling for a while, and then I practiced signing the lyrics to “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star,” and then I signed all the letters of the alphabet and all the words I could remember. I signed what I would say to Mommy if I ever saw her again—that I loved her and I missed her and that I wanted to come home.

I was wiping away tears when I finally heard the door unlock. I sat up. Nausynika walked in with a white carton of food and both of our stuff from Dizzle’s car. I could smell pancakes. She threw the food on the long counter with the two chairs, dropped the bags by the door, then went to the couch to take off her shoes. I ran to the window and saw Dizzle driving down the road. She stretched out and fell asleep, though it was morning. Where was she last night, and where was Dizzle going now? Was he still mad at me?

I opened up the carton and cut off a piece of her pancakes and some of her sausage. I chewed two more bites and then closed it. I hoped she wasn’t gonna be mad, but I ain’t eat since lunch yesterday.
Why Dizzle ain’t buy me no food?
I sat in the chair and waited for her to wake up, my stomach growling loud. Nausynika needed to wake up and tell me if he was still mad at me. I leaned over and tapped her shoulder. “Nausynika?” I said, but when she ain’t move, I pushed her shoulder again. “Nausy!”

“What…?” she groaned.

“Wake up. Tell me what happened when y’all left.”

She looked up at me and rolled her eyes. “Just leave me alone.”

I turned my lips to the side. Dag, what was I supposed to do while she was sleeping. “Can I have your food?”

“No,” she mumbled.

“But I’m hungry.”

“Good.”

“Why you so mad at me?”

“Cuz of you, I ain’t get no sleep last night!” she screamed angrily.

I winced at her loud voice. “Where was y’all?”

She sat up and stared at me so hard I thought my head might explode or something. “Don’t even worry about it. Your turn coming,” she said, lying back down.

What was she talking about? I chewed the inside of my cheek for a moment, then went to get my bag from the door. I washed up in the bathroom and put some clean clothes on. I was starving like Marvin when I came out. I still ain’t believe Dizzle ain’t get me nothing to eat. Her food was smelling so good, but the last thing I needed was for Nausy to go off on me next. I pulled a chair up in front of the TV and cut it on. Wasn’t no remote control nowhere. I had to push the buttons on the TV. I flipped through until I stopped on
Good Morning America
. Nothing else was on. I watched
Live with
Regis and Kathie Lee
next. Kathie Lee was talking about how even though she was gonna miss being on the show, she couldn’t wait to spend more time with her family in a few weeks. I bet Mommy wanted us to be together, too, wherever she was. When Nausynika finally woke up, she went straight to the bathroom without saying a word. After she got dressed, she put her carton in the microwave.

“You ate some?” she asked with an attitude.

“Nausy, I was starving, okay?”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about.”

I sucked my teeth and turned back toward the TV. When the news came on at twelve, Dizzle came in the door with some older dude behind him. Maybe it was his father or something.

“Hey, y’all. This Clayton. He’s my friend. Say what’s up.”

I said hi to the man with a stomach shaped like a basketball and a head that was balding, but I couldn’t get over the fact that Dizzle ain’t bring me nothing to eat. Clayton nodded and sat on the couch.

Nausy said hi, too.

“Dizzle, I’m starving,” I said.

“You are? Okay, I’ll go out and get you something to eat. But first I want you to do something for me.”

My forehead got tight. “What?”

“Come here real quick. Clayton, give me a second.” Dizzle pulled me down the hall to the room. He shut the door, then sat me on the bed. “I need you to do me a huge favor. You trust me?”

I nodded.

“My friend’s wife is in the hospital. She dying. Ovarian cancer and shit.”

I covered my mouth. I ain’t know what
ovarian
meant, but I knew the word
cancer
.

“He’s good folks. You understand?”

I nodded.

“He looked out for me when I was young. Made sure I had food when my father wasn’t around. It hurt me to see him hurting, you dig?”

I nodded again.

“KiKi, all I want you to do for me is let him lay with you.”

I looked at him, confused. “Lay with me?”

Dizzle nodded. “Clayton said he miss sleeping beside his wife. See, I figured since you kinda look like her a little bit—red bone and cat eyes—that maybe he could imagine he was with her.”

I shook my head. Heck no. I couldn’t believe Dizzle would even ask me to do that.

“Look, KiKi, damn it. I need you to do this favor for me,” Dizzle said with a harsh voice. “He gon’ pay us. You can’t do that for me? For
me
?”

I bit my lip and crossed my arms over my chest. “He just gon’ hold me and sleep beside me?” I asked, scared to say no.

“Yeah. That’s it. I’ma run out and get you something to eat, and by the time I get back, Clayton should be ready to go. Okay?”

I took in a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Here, take this. It’ll help you block everything out.”

I looked down at the yellow pill stamped with a star. I ain’t never seen it before, but as much as I wanted to know what it was, I ain’t dare question Dizzle again. I popped the pill in my mouth and tried to swallow it dry.

“Good girl,” Dizzle said, smiling, and then he kissed me on my forehead. “I’ma send Clayton in here, then run out to get you something to eat. You want some McDonald’s or Burger King?”

“It don’t matter,” I said.

“Okay, I got you. You gon’ let him lay with you?”

I nodded, even though I ain’t wanna do it, especially if Dizzle wasn’t gonna be here, too. A few seconds after Dizzle closed the door, the bedroom door opened again. Dizzle’s older friend was standing there smiling, smelling like he had on too much deodorant. I heard Dizzle leave the house cuz the flimsy door snatched shut, and then I heard his car start up as soon as Clayton said, “You are so goddamn fine.” The crunchy sound of Dizzle’s tires riding over the gravel outside ain’t mask the sound of Clayton’s voice when he said, “Take your shirt off, baby girl, and let me look at you.”

E
ver since that first week in the trailer park, Nasty Nausy was what all the men kept calling her when they showed up at our door. I was still just KiKi. Dizzle ain’t never sleep by our house no more, he just came and went. Each time with a new face behind him. Fat men, skinny men. White men, Spanish men, black men. Clean men, smelly men. Happy men, angry men. Dizzle kept our refrigerator stocked with food and beer and made sure the cable was on. He also gave us plenty of condoms, soap, and toilet paper. We wasn’t supposed to ever leave the trailer in the daytime, not before three anyway. He said if he found out we was outside that he’d hurt us so bad that nobody would ever recognize us again. After how he had tricked us into moving all the way out to no-man’s-land and into doing trifling stuff with all kinds of men, I was scared of what else he might do to us.

Dizzle wasn’t the same person we met in the beginning of the summer. He kept his distance it seemed like as much as possible. Nausynika and me had picked up a gross habit of smoking cigarettes, which Dizzle also made sure we had enough of. As disgusting as they tasted, I liked how the cotton feeling in my mouth after I smoked blocked out all the different tastes of the men. Sometimes we opened the door in the morning and opened all the windows just to get some fresh air. The trailer was so small and cramped, the odor of the men that came in and out seemed like it was soaking into the wallpaper. Dizzle took us to the Laundromat to wash sheets and clothes every Thursday night. He hardly even touched me or Nausy anymore, either. Sometimes she went down on him, and a couple times he made me open my legs for him, but he never stayed long and never kissed me no more. I felt hurt. He was the one who made all those men do horrible things to me, touch me and drip inside me, and now he seemed like he ain’t really like me no more. When Nausy had her period that’s when he told those men they couldn’t drip in her no more. She felt lucky, but me…he ain’t say nothing about me. I couldn’t wait for my period to come, too.

A couple months after we had been living there, me and Nausy sat in the plastic chairs in front of our house to stretch our legs and get some air. Dizzle had just left from dropping off some groceries. Indian summer made the trailer muskier than usual, and all we had was fans inside. Nausy had lost a lot of weight since we first moved in. She wasn’t my size, but she was getting close quick. I handed her my bag of sunflower seeds so she could share some with me. She poured herself a handful, then passed it back over.

“You ever think about school?” she asked while she cracked open some shells.

“Sometimes.”

“You know, we’d be going to Mrs. Tobias class this year?”

I cracked open some more shells and spit them out. “Yeah, I know.”

We sat spitting shells for a while, watching cars drive up and down the gravel road. Some of the little kids in the neighborhood screamed and laughed as they played in the street with their bikes and wagons. A dingy, straggly dog ran behind them with its leash dragging through the gravel.

“I get jealous when I see them catching the school bus in the morning.”

I looked at Nausynika and wondered what she was really thinking but not saying. I missed school but not as much as I missed my family. I couldn’t believe all that we had been doing. Was this how life was for everybody? Now I know why Mommy always complained about bills. The way Dizzle complained about how expensive it was to take care of us, I felt guilty. I did what he said so he wouldn’t be disappointed. If all I had to do was let those men touch me so we could have food and clothes, then I guess it was worth it. I just closed my eyes and counted the whole time in my head. Sometimes I practiced all the short and long vowel sounds like I heard Nausy doing when it was her turn. “Auu, auu, auu, ehh, ehh, ehh,” I’d go until I got bored. Other times I hummed. If they ain’t want me to hum, then I thought about Brianna dancing in her white skirt. Or I thought about the sign language alphabets. Anything to forget what was happening and to erase the sweaty, funky stench that was in the room. I knew this wasn’t supposed to be my life, but I felt like I had done too much to ever erase it totally from my head.

Every now and then, Dizzle wanted me and Nausy to do it with the same man at the same time. Those was times I hated the most, but I tried not to complain, especially not after the time he beat Nausy up for saying she ain’t wanna do two men at the same time. I was so afraid that he was gonna have to take her to the hospital when he was done whipping her. Nausy screamed and hollered so bad, I cried in a ball by the bedroom door. Dizzle stormed out the trailer, and I ran to the window to see him drive the two men away.

“Let me get some more,” Nausy said, reaching for the bag.

I gave it to her.

“I think I’ma run away again.”

I looked at her, my eyes bigger than before. “And go where?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t keep doing this.” Nausy spit out more seeds. I knew how she felt, but what else was she gon’ do for money? Live out of her book bag and eat out of trash cans? I’m sorry, I ain’t wanna do that, either. I thought about all the things she had taught me over the past few months, like how to talk pig latin, how to make grits just right, and how to stitch on a button. I had taught her a little bit of sign language and how to neatly paint her nails using her left hand. Even though we learned a lot from each other, as much as I hated to admit it, I knew we both needed to be in school somewhere learning real stuff like dividing fractions or something. We sat outside for another hour finishing the bag of seeds, hoping and praying Dizzle ain’t come back that night with more strange men.

About a week later in the middle of the day, there was a knock at the door. Me and Nausy froze and looked at each other. I got up and turned the TV down. We wasn’t supposed to have nobody by the house unless Dizzle brought them by, and it was too early for company. Whoever it was knocked again. Loud and hard, and then a woman’s feeble voice said, “I know you in there. Open the door. I live across the street.”

Nausy looked at me, and I looked back just as worried.

“What should we do?” I whispered.

“Nothing. Just be quiet.”

“It’s two of y’all in there. One light one and one dark one. If you don’t open up, I’m calling truancy. You supposed to be in school!”

“Oh my God,” Nausy said, standing up. She tried to peep through the curtain covering the front window. “Shit, what we gon’ do?”

I stood up and started walking around, rubbing my hands together. Then I said, “Open the door. We can just tell her we sick and we got the chicken pox or something.”

Nausy thought for a second, and then she nodded and cracked open the door. “Hi,” she said to the old white lady.

“You and the other one home alone, ain’t you?” she asked.

“We both sick.”

“You don’t look sick to me. Where the other one?”

“In the bathroom.”

“I’ve been watching you. Where are your parents? The two of you don’t never leave this house like the other kids do in the morning. I’ve been watching you for a while now. So sick or not, you ain’t supposed to be here by yourself all day.”

“Well, I ain’t supposed to be talking to no strangers now, either, but I am. Plus, it ain’t none of your business anyhow,” Nausy said before she slammed the door shut.

My hand flew up to my mouth. I couldn’t believe she slammed the door in that old lady’s face like that. “Oh my God. What we gonna do now?” I asked, a little scared.

Everything was about to unravel. Nausy took a deep breath, and then she said, “We gotta call Dizzle to come get us, that’s what!”

We waited for the old lady to go back inside her house before the two of us snuck outside. We had to use a pay phone cuz we ain’t have no phone in the trailer house. Dizzle said he ain’t think we needed one since he was the only one who we needed to be talking to on the phone anyway. Me and Nausy walked as fast as we could to the gas station at the end of the road before we bummed change from a man pumping gas. He gave us just enough to use the pay phone. A second later I listened as Nausy told Dizzle what had happened, and then she told me Dizzle said he was on his way, that we was supposed to pack up all our things and be ready to leave when he got here.

“He said we going to a motel until he can figure it out,” Nausy said as we walked fast back to the house.

“Dag. All because of her?”

“Dizzle said if she been watching us, no telling what else she done seen.”

“True.”

Me and Nausy threw clothes in plastic bags and emptied out the refrigerator. When I took the sheets off the bed, I heard a lot of commotion outside and cars driving over the gravel up to the house.

“Dang,” Nausy said, looking up.

“Oh no.” I froze, then rushed to look out the window. There was two police cars and the old white lady who had knocked on the door. They was all marching straight across the street toward our trailer like a mini-army. Before I could even tell Nausy, somebody knocked on the door. One lie led to another, and then next thing I know, me and Nausy was sitting in the police car waiting to pull out of Crestwood. I saw Dizzle’s white Lincoln slowly driving down the road. I couldn’t see his face cuz of the tinted windows, but I knew it was him, and of course he ain’t stop.

After a long night at the hospital where the nurses and doctors took my blood, made me pee in a clear cup, checked inside my coochie with odd-shaped plastic things, and gave me a shot in my butt, I finally saw Nausy again. We walked past each other in the hall as some counselors led her one way and me another. “Ont daga ell taga em thaga othing naga,” she said in pig latin. I knew I wasn’t gonna tell them nothing even before she said that. Who knew if they was gonna try and split us up again?

As soon as the short counselor with microbraids and the white one with long brown hair got me alone in a tiny room with three cushy chairs, they asked me if I was okay and if I wanted something to eat or drink. I nodded. The white one left the room. As soon as the door closed, the short one started asking all the questions. “So how long was you in that trailer anyway?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t remember.”

“Well, how did you get there in the first place, then?”

“I swear I don’t remember,” I said.

“Well, who brought you out there?” she asked.

“I really can’t remember nothing.”

Just when the short counselor tucked her lips back, like I was getting on her nerves, the white one came in with a cheeseburger and a Sprite.

“Eat up,” she said.

I took a bite and thought about why I didn’t wanna tell on Dizzle. For a strange reason, I ain’t want nothing bad to happen to him. The counselors watched me chew for a couple minutes before they started asking me more questions. They was being so strict and nothing like no counselors I had ever seen before at school. Seemed like they ain’t believe me when I said I couldn’t remember nothing about who we had been staying with. When the short counselor described Dizzle to a tee, I told her they was totally wrong. I don’t know why I was protecting him.

“Well, at least tell us where you met him at, Shakira? Was it in D.C.? Your neighbor gave us the tag number to his white Lincoln. I know you remember that much,” said the short lady with microbraids.

I bit my lip and looked away. If they had all that info, then they definitely ain’t need me. I ain’t have nothing to lose if I told them how we was stranded out there and how he made us do things I wished I could forget, but I just couldn’t do it. Why hand Dizzle over to them when he was the only one who had took care of us? He ain’t never try to split me and Nausy up like Ms. Val. Dizzle said we was family, and as far as I was concerned, family ain’t turn their backs on each other.

Once the short counselor and the white one finally realized I wasn’t gonna say nothing else, they left me alone for a while. Soon the short lady introduced me to a nun named Sister Melanie.

“I’m gonna take you and your friend home with me if that’s okay?” She smiled a weird way, not showing her teeth.

“Nausy’s coming with me?” I asked.

She smiled again and nodded, and then I smiled, feeling relieved for the first time since we got to the hospital.

Life with Sister Melanie was simple. She prayed for us, clothed and fed us. All we had to do was small chores like wash the dishes and keep our rooms clean. Sister Melanie asked lots of questions about our families. I guess she seemed nice, but whenever she looked at me, it was like she felt sorry for me. I already felt ashamed of what I had been doing, and the look she gave me ain’t help the situation. Even though deep down, I knew she really wanted to help, I hated her sad eyes. Then one day Nausy told her that she’d rather go back to school instead of seeing the tutor.

“Oh. I just didn’t think you girls were ready,” she said. “But I guess I can enroll you in St. Francis Middle School tomorrow morning.”

I was nervous about going back. Everything had changed so quickly. One minute we was doing whatever disgusting thing the men wanted. Now, all we did was whatever our teacher wanted us to do. It was hard keeping up with homework and paying attention in class. The other kids ain’t seem to have none of the same problems I was having staying focused. They was moving past me so fast. Nobody wanted me to be in their group whenever it was group time cuz they said they would end up doing all the work. It’s not that I ain’t understand what I was doing, it was just hard to finish it when the teacher said we was supposed to be done. I couldn’t concentrate with all them in my face, rushing me.

Kids from Severn, Maryland, was so different from my old classmates in D.C. All kinda color kids went to St. Francis. White, black, Chinese, Spanish, and even some Indian. They talked about stupid stuff like
Jackass
on MTV or
Malcolm in the Middle
during lunchtime. Me and Nausy just couldn’t relate to them, so we stayed to ourselves mostly. Me and her ain’t talk about the trailer or the motel, either. Sometimes we wondered where Dizzle was, but we never talked about him at Sister Melanie’s house. It was January, three and a half months after we last saw Dizzle, when Sister Melanie told me Mommy was looking for me.