Somebody's Someone (20 page)

“You sure are looking real perky these days,” Mr. Benny would say as he chewed and popped that stupid gum. At first I had no idea what he was talking ’bout. I’d been a li’l down in the spirit ever since Mr. Benny moved in. So what was this perky mess all ’bout? He sounded like a damned fool.

“Won’t you come on over here and let me touch them li’l tit-ties of yours?”

“What you mean by touch ’em?” I asked that black-asmidnight dog, until it b’come clear to me what he was on ’bout. Then I couldn’t think of ’nough bad words to call him. One good thing ’bout hanging with Ruby was that she never ran out of bad words to say. There was many a day that she called Mr. Benny out his name, and now I see why. He was nastier than a dog full of mange. I knowed good and well what Mr. Nasty wanted.

“Come on over here, girl, and let me pull on them nipples. I know you’d like it if you let me.” He moved his thumb and second finger together to look like one of them crawfish the boys got out the creek.

I don’t know who he thought he was talking to, but I wasn’t gonna give him a chance to think on it twice. I turned right round and hauled ass out that house as fast as I could. I pretended I was back at Big Mama’s and one of her oldest gran’sons was teaching me how to run by throwing bricks at the back of my feet. He claimed it would help me move quicker if I thought I was gonna get hit by a piece of concrete. I wasn’t for sho’ if Mr. Benny was after me, ’cause I didn’t look back. And I didn’t stop till I came to Miss Ida’s yard. I knowed he wouldn’t come over there on account that Mr. Benny was well aware that Miss Ida wasn’t gonna take no stuff from any mens. I didn’t know if Miss Ida was home or not, but I didn’t care. I ran up to her screen door, yanked it open, and acted like I was gonna go straight inside. Mr. Benny never bothered to chase after me past the backyard. But I could see him standing in the carport looking through the trees that our two yards shared. He was tucking his undershirt into them ugly green pants he had to wear to work. Finally he turned and went back towards the house. I listened for that gum-popping sound to get farther and farther away. When it was nowhere in earshot, I felt all right.

I sat down on Miss Ida’s porch swing and waited. I ain’t for sure how long I was out there, but I’d say an hour or so later, I seen Ruby’s headlights as they turned into our driveway. The lights shined right in my eyes as they woke me up. Once I heard her car door open and shut, and the sound of her slippers slapping and dragging on the concrete, I made my way back home. I decided right then and there that I wasn’t planning on telling Ruby nothing.

I cain’t rightly r’member if I was dreamin’ or if it was real, but I r’member feeling like I was in both places at one time, but nowhere long ’nough to know for sho’. I was sittin’ in a car with a man. He was wearin’ a tan-colored suit with green bar pins on his shoulders that had li’l tiny gold stars on ’em. It was only me and him in the car, and we was just riding. There was no talking going on b’tween us. The road we drove down had rows and rows of trees on each side, and if you looked out straight ahead, you’d think you was riding into the tip of a arrow that you could never reach. All of a sudden I was real antsy being with this fella. The longer we drove, the more fitful I become. I can hear a man’s voice with no face saying to me, “Have you ever touched one before?” I try to think what “one” means. Again, the voice says, “Have you ever seen one?”

My heart is telling me that it ain’t right what this fella wants to know. Slowly, I start raising from the seat like I’m on one a them magic carpets. I’m real light, and I cain’t feel nothing. I wanna open the car door and jump out. I heard once that my mama had done such a thing before when she was fighting with Big Lawrence, and she came out all right. They say she landed on her feet. I tell myself that since me and her have the same feet that maybe that’ll help me land on the ground like she did. The voice says, “Come on, who’re you kidding? A cutie pie like you gets hit on all the time, don’t you?”

Now he wants to start hitting me? I’ll hit him back! I swear ’fore God! I’ll hit him back! I ain’t afraid no more, not of him. It’s like I’m moving in slow motion and I cain’t lift my arms or hands, and nobody can hear me saying, “Let me outta here!”

“Give me your hand.” I cain’t lift my hand. He takes my fingers and pulls me down while he puts ’em on the bump right below his belt. He’s got one hand on the steering wheel, and the other is holding my hand down on the bump.
That don’t matter,
my mind says to me.
That hand don’t belong to you no more.
I don’t care what it does ’cause it ain’t mine. My mind is telling me how things is gonna be. It says,
It’s all right now; don’t worry ’bout nothing.
I go along with it. The longer the fingers stay on the bump, the bigger it gets; it goes from nothing to a big ole hard something in no time a’tall. My mind says to me,
Don’t think on it; it ain’t really there.
I think ’bout Ruby’s feet. And wonder ’bout how they got on the dogs that is now chasing me. I’m running and looking back, and the dogs with thered-painted Ruby toenails are gaining on me. I wonder if this is what it was like for all li’l girls. My mind comes back to me. I’m no longer in a car driving down a long road. And the dogs stop in the middle of the road as I go higher and higher in the sky. Now I’m in my bed, and my panties and pajama bottoms is ’cross the room on the floor by the door.

My sister had been trying to tell Ruby something for a while ’bout Mr. Benny, but Ruby wasn’t hearing her. “You need to keep a betta’ watch on your children and stop paying so much attention to that man!” When I’d ask her what she was meaning, she’d just say, “You’re too young to understand.” The fights between him and Doretha got so bad that he would chase her down the street and grab ahold of her while nearly beating the mess outta her with anything he could get his hands on. Sometimes it would be a plastic bat that we’d use to play stickball with or one of Dwayne Edward’s fake bowlin’ pins. After he caught Doretha and whooped her, he’d drag her back in the house, where she’d end up doing whatever he wanted her to do in the first place. I would watch from a distance and made sure the boys or me was never caught in the middle.

Ruby never quite heard Doretha till the day that white woman from the county came over. Doretha had told the folks at school what was going on in our house. She told ’em everything there was to tell. About how Ruby left us kids in the company of Mr. Benny, and how he would make us work for him, and then he’d beat her and sometimes me, if we didn’t do it his way. She had bruises on her skin and pain in her voice, and they believed her.

Ruby stood and listened while the woman brought the counts against her and Mr. Benny. There was something said ’bout child endanger and this and that. I couldn’t understand all that was said for all the screamin’ and hollerin’ Sister and Mr. Benny was doing in the background. But I could see that Ruby wasn’t gonna have it for too much longer by the way her face stretched itself out. When Ruby had all she was gonna take, she just went off and cussed the county lady and Doretha out like they was dirt. She called Sister all kinda lies and told her she was a good-for-nothing ingrate. Ruby yelled that after all she’d done to bring Sister here so that we could all be a family, if her only repayment was to be accused of neglect it would be best for Sister to get to steppin’. Ruby said, “If you thank it ain’t easy to leave now, it sho’ ain’t gonna be any easier with your ass loaded with lead. Now get the fuck up out of my house, before I have to use my pistol. I brought you in this world, and I can take your ass straight on out.” I didn’t know if what Ruby said was true, but on the other hand, I thought that maybe God did give mamas a special power to send us back to where we came from.

When Ruby was done with Sister, she turned her mouth on the county lady and told her that she thought it to be in her best interest to get fire in her ass and move on out her yard, otherwise she wasn’t gonna be responsible for what happened. That was all she had to say; that white lady bolted outta that front door quicker than a matchstick could catch fire, with Sister bringing up the rear.

A coupla weeks after the gun-threatening act, Doretha come and moved her stuff out. Ruby had made Mr. Benny put up the canopy bed by that time, and I saw how it was all the more reason for my sister to go and lose the rest of her mind. Right b’fore she left the house Doretha pulled a steak knife out the kitchen drawer and put it to my throat. “I fucking hate you! How come she likes you more? If it wasn’t for you I’d be special to her. She’s got you and all your cutesy-ness. She don’t need me. Why? Why come she didn’t choose me?” Doretha held the knife right against my throat while she screamed and cried real hard.

It was so bad that I started crying back. “I’m sorry, Doretha. I didn’t mean to do nothing!” I shouted back at her, making sure not to move too much. I could feel the knife digging in my skin, and I didn’t care what happened. “Go on and kill me, I don’t care!” And right then, I really didn’t care.

After crying and screaming and telling me how much less than shit I really was, Doretha grabbed my bedspread and wiped black eyelash stuff all over it. And if that wasn’t ’nough to satisfy her, she blowed her nose in as many places as she could. Then she dared me to say a word. The last thing she said to me b’fore she tore outta the door was, “Watch out for that motherfucker Mr. Benny.”

Doretha leaving was kinda good. I mean if you had a mama like Ruby, that is. Ruby was nicer to me and would give me more of what I asked for. But I still had to deal with Mr. Benny. At least when Sister was round, he’d get to her first. And only after he wore her down did he turn to me. I don’t r’member him fooling with them boys too much. Plus, I think if he had, Ruby would’ve blown his cotton-picking brains out.

I guess I hadn’t noticed so much when Sister was round, but now that she was gone and it was a li’l quieter, seemed to me like ever since Mr. “Nasty” Benny moved in, Ruby spent more time in her room with him than she did with me.

Anytime Ruby came home from working, she would get us kids all cared for with food like Kentucky Fried Chicken and then set us up in front of the TV, then she would take their plates into the bedroom. From the corner of my eyes I could see her getting his stuff ready and carrying it to him all pretty-like. I hated Benny and wanted to know how come I couldn’t eat in her room with her. I told my mind that when I got older I would make a man do all for me what they made a woman do for ’em.

For what seemed like hours, I could hear Ruby and Benny making crazy noises that sounded like cats being choked. I came to understand ’xactly what was going on; they was doing it. One time when I was s’posed to be watching the boys, I heard them cat sounds and wanted to go and listen more up close. The boys really didn’t need no watching ’cause they was sound asleep on the couch. I threw a cover on ’em just so they wouldn’t wanna wake up from the cold and come looking for me. I waited till the sounds was good and loud; then I tippytoed to Ruby’s door. It was open a li’l bit.

There was a smell. I’d never smelled nothing like it b’fore. It brought to my mind what cigarettes, alcohol, sweat, and perfume might stink of if they was all put together and shook up, then spread round a dark room. It made me scared. I could see my mama. She was spread out all wide, and her sheets was hanging on for dear life at the edges of her bed. She made small sounds like she was hurting, and her arms was holding on to her headboard. Where pretty had shined ’cross her face, ugly now took its place as I seen her eyes and mouth all drawed up. I don’t think she was liking whatever was being done to her. I could see a black spot moving round on top of her while the sound of gum popping was mixed in with the baby cat moans. I froze in place for a second but closed my eyes and scrunched up my nose ’cause I didn’t wanna know anymore. Not the smell nor the sight. I wanted to wash it offa me, but somehow I knowed that was a scent I would never clean from my mind.

What was they doing? Why did she let him do that to her? Was these the things Lula Mae was accusing Ruby of? Was my mama really a woman who’d just lay down with some ole nasty man? Did that make her a ho’? It couldn’t be true. Ruby would never let nobody do nothing to her that she didn’t want ’em to do. I thought to myself that it was Mr. Nasty who was forcing hisself on her. He was no betta’ than Big Mama’s ole nasty gran’sons, who tried to force themselves inside of me. Was he hurtin’ her? My mind was going haywire trying to figure them two out. All I had to say was, if that’s what Ruby did to get me and Doretha, then doing it was out. There was no way I was gonna let no man climb on me and pop gum and make my room smelly and ugly. I was never gonna do it! I wanted to know if all pretty folks had to do this with mens, and if so, did they get less pretty each time they did it? ’Cause from the looks of Ruby’s face, it had to be true. And then I figured that’s why Ruby hated her girls. Maybe she hated us ’cause folks called us pretty, and she was scared that mens would want to do those things to us and not her b’cause she’d used all her pretty up. I opened my eyes and placed my hand on the doorknob and turned it slow as I pulled the door closed.

After that night it was hard for me to look at Ruby. I didn’t want her to know that I’d learned the secrets of what her and Mr. Benny did at night in her room. The truth is she’d prob’ly hit me and say that I was too fast for my own good and that I should take my “wanna-be-grown ass” out her face. Lately, that seemed to be all that she had to say to me.

From that day on, I played like I didn’t care that Ruby would rather be doing the ugly with Mr. Benny and not be with me. It was coming easier for me to ’magine that Ruby really wasn’t my mama anyway. I’d told myself that I was more than likely somebody she’d borrowed from a neighbor, like a cup of sugar. I figured that maybe one day she’d have the good mind to give me back to my rightful owner. In the meantime, I’d made a way to be with the part of my mama that I liked the most. It wasn’t ’xactly the same as being with her directly, but it made me feel betta’ all the same. I would wait right good for Ruby to leave the house; then I’d sneak into her room and start to play with her wigs. I’d pretend like the wigs was on Ruby’s head and she wanted me and only me to comb ’em up nice for her. It was here that my mama told me that I was her favorite li’l girl and that nobody could ever take my place. In this time I’d have with her there’d be nobody else to bother us, and I could take care of all her necessaries, and she would smile out at me. For a few hours I’d get my time with my mama like this, in my own way. The more I ’magined I was with her, the longer it would last me when I wasn’t, ’cause she’d be in the room with him, forgettin’ ’bout me. I figured I was lucky, though, to have her in my imaginin’s, and I’d come to see that nobody could take her away from me when we was there. Also, Ruby got to stay pretty when she was in my mind. There she’d never have to do what she didn’t want to, and she could be the way I wanted her to be: all mine and nobody else’s.