Somebody's Someone (27 page)

When I wasn’t sneaking off and sleeping either in Marlena’s or Anica’s room, I would go to Glenn and Nadine’s house and make my bed in they living room. The only real reason I came back to they house was so that I could use the phone. Almost every day I’d sneak and call Ruby to see if she’d come and get me. I don’t know what Nadine was complaining to me for; she called Los Angeles every day, and I knowed that was long-distance too. I called Ruby ’cause I wanted her to know that the so-called daddy she sent me to be with was nowhere to be found most of the time.

“Now, Gina, you got to give yo’ daddy a try. Folks do have to work, ya know,” she’d say to me. I got to hate that word
daddy.
I tried to ask Ruby ’bout the trick Glenn played on Nadine ’bout me living with her for just a month, and she said for me to get my ass outta grown folks’ way. And that whatever happened, it was none of my business. “If you’d just let the adults run your life, I bet you’d just shrivel up and die with nothing to do.” I stopped calling Ruby so much, and I tried saving the calls up for a while, till I thought I couldn’t hold the beggin’ in me no more; then I’d call and beg longer. Ruby always said the same thing. “Girl, ya gotta give yo’ daddy a chance.” After a while I stopped asking her to come and get me. But I just kept on callin’.

Nadine was madder than a rattlesnake who’d been stepped on when she found out ’bout how bad my callin’ had got. She stomped into the room I was in and threw the phone bill papers on the table.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“What is the meaning of this?” I yelled back at her as my eyes rolled in the back of my head. I knowed by now that Nadine wouldn’t hit me, so I let myself get mean to her.

“I can’t stand this anymore! And another thing, I will not allow my husband’s ill-mannered child to talk back to me, so you had better watch yourself, young lady!”

“And if I don’t watch myself, what you gonna do, white lady?”

“I’ll show you what!” Nadine came towards me real quick like she was gonna hit me. Without even knowing it I was kicking her trying to get her off me.

Nadine grabbed her stomach and tried to scream, but nothin’ came out her mouth. She backed away from me. I watched as Nadine’s face turned all shades of red and her mouth started trembling. “Oooh!” She left the room with her arms wrapped round herself. I was real sorry. I didn’t mean to hit her. I was just scared she was gonna hit me.

“Your dad will deal with you when he gets here,” was all she had the nerve to say to me.

“Fine then,” I said to her. That’s if he ever gets here, I thought to myself. I heard Nadine cryin’ in her bedroom, and since I didn’t wanna know that I prob’ly was the cause of it, I ran off and stayed with Marlena a few days.

One morning, when I was back sleeping at Nadine and Glenn’s, I heard the front door open real slow-like.

“Hello, Regina,” the voice called out to me. “Shouldn’t you be up and getting ready for school?”

I narrowed my eyes to focus on who was talking. It didn’t take me long to see that it was Glenn.

A mumbled “Hi” was ’bout all I got out. B’fore another word could be said, two screaming children came running for the tall man with the big forehead. Nadine went towards the kitchen, playing like she never saw him. I watched as Glenn hugged the two girls.

“Candace, Delia.”

“Daddy!” they both screamed, sounding like li’l sissy girls on one of them TV shows. I mocked they faces under my breath without saying they words. In all my natural-born days I ain’t never wanted to call nobody Daddy other than Daddy Lent, and since he was always home, I never had to worry ’bout running up to him and saying nothing.

I guess I just didn’t have them feelings that was s’posed to be down there, deep inside of you. The stuff that made you wanna holler out a name of the one you love, like “Daddy” or “Mama,” and make you run and drop inside they arms. Nah, I didn’t have that. I would’ve wanted to die first than to call Ruby or Glenn by Mama or Daddy. I guess I didn’t like them like that. Nobody was gonna make me use them names—nobody.

I watched as them girls climbed in his arms, and he scooped ’em up like they was his favorite sherbert ice cream that he couldn’t wait to lick. They didn’t seem to wanna let Glenn go. And I hoped they wouldn’t. The longer they kept him busy, the less time I had to be with him b’fore I’d be leavin’ for school. I didn’t bother to look at Glenn when he said hi to me and placed his hand on my shoulder. I don’t know why he had to touch me. I went to the bathroom and wiped my shoulder off with my washcloth.

Usually I’d leave right after Nadine walked her girls to school, to keep her from seeing me while I was on my way to Marlena’s. That way she wouldn’t know where Marlena lived. But this morning, Mr. Glenn wanted to drive me to school. I was hell-bent on finding my own way. Not only did I not wanna be seen with him, but I sho’ didn’t wanna be caught dead in that car he drove. All my other friends’ families had station wagons or trucks, just like the ones I used to ride in out at south Austin. But Glenn, he had to go and buy a big, green, wide car that could sit ’bout twelve people. It was named after the bus— Continental—and I could see why! Glenn came round to my side of the car and opened the door for me. Careful not to let none of his body touch me, I scooted up against the car and slid into the front seat. Glenn pushed in the button to lock the door, then shut it. I was happy I didn’t get none of his cooties on me.

I rode with Glenn to the school that day in quiet. I didn’t wanna talk to him a’tall. I had nothing to say. Far as I could see, he was as much a stranger to me as the ones Big Mama and Ruby told me not to talk to. What difference did it make that he was s’posed to be my daddy? A stranger is a stranger.

Folks had already claimed that I was gonna be like Ruby, fast and quick with the mens. I wondered that he might’ve been thinkin’ the same and mistake me for her. For all I knowed he could be just like Mr. Benny, and wanna touch my titties. And for all I knowed he might wanna do it with li’l girls. Any fool with a mind could see that he had kids by so many folks it seemed to me it didn’t make no difference to him who he laid down with. So from the second we got in his car I didn’t let his hands outta my sight. And to make sure he couldn’t touch me, I kept stuffin’ my body deep, deep inside the crack between the door and the car seat. Lord knows I would’ve rather been dead than to let any part of him touch me.

All the way to my school I could only wonder on why Ruby wanted to have me with this man. I wanted to know what Ruby thought was so good-looking ’bout him. I looked hard at Glenn, and I tried to find what she seen. I couldn’t. I really wanted to like this man that my mama was so stupid for at one time, and for the life of me I was having one hell of a time bringing myself to it.

When I was on that plane flyin’ to see “my daddy” I thought it would be the same for me as it was for her with Glenn. I figured that Glenn would hurry to see me every day from his job. And that we would go for walks and laugh at anything that suited our fancies. Or maybe he’d give me piggyback rides or a flower. I thought that’s how it’d be for me. But it wasn’t. I hardly knowed how to spell his last name that didn’t even have nothing to do with me. If he was really wanting to claim me, Glenn would’ve had my name changed right off, just so that he could do right by me and my mama. But then again, Ruby and her boys, and Glenn, Nadine, and them li’l sausages, all had the same last names too. Maybe he really wasn’t my real daddy after all—maybe my being kin to him was a rumor, just like everything else was.

While he drove, Glenn just kept his hands on the steering wheel and stared off into the yonder. I thought for sho’ that he would try and say something since he hadn’t seen me for so long, but no, he was quiet as darkness. We drove in quiet. By the time we pulled up to my school, I was more than ready to get out the car. And that’s when my so-called daddy decides he wanna talk to my back when I turn to leave.

“Regina, Nadine said that you have been calling Ruby, even after she has asked you not to. I’m telling you now: do not call your mother for at least the next month. You need to give yourself a chance to adjust. Do you understand me?”

I placed my hand on the handle of the car door and pushed it open. I could feel my blood turn. “Yeah. I heard you,” I mumbled under my breath. Mad as hell that he thought he could tell me what to do after only ten minutes of being with me in months, I slammed his ugly car door shut and turned to walk away. I heard him again.

“Make sure you come right home after school.”

I didn’t say a word as I walked off.

I could see it in the way he held his head. I ain’t sure what it was, but I knowed it was coming. Maybe it was the way he never looked at me straight on. Or the way I never called him by his first name, or any other name for that matter. When I wanted anything from him, I’d just call out
“Hey.”
And he would tell me hay was for horses, and I’d think he was stupider than anybody. When he didn’t come after I called him, I would throw things at him, and he’d play like I wasn’t there. Or he’d turn round and throw ’em back at me: pink sponge rollers, rolled socks, house shoes. It took a long while b’fore he did that.

I knowed without a doubt that it was coming after I kicked and hit Nadine. I knowed again when I didn’t come back home after school one day. Two days. Three days, deciding that it would only be a matter of time b’fore he was gonna get rid of me, so I might as well stop being round him and his family. After all, I was gonna be leavin’ ’em anyway. When he’d asked me where I’d been, I told him that I was sleepin’ in a Laundromat next to a dryer. And when I got hungry, I ate li’l donut holes from the garbage cans in the back of the donut store. He didn’t say one word.

I thought for certain it was comin’ the time I got sent home from school for taking on the Garcia twins. One of the boys tried to cut me in line in the cafeteria, and I tripped him. When he got up and hit me, I snatched somebody’s tray out they hand and smashed what was left on the plate in his face. I didn’t know the boy had a twin, who told me that blood was thicker than water right b’fore he punched me in the nose and they both dragged me up and down that cafeteria. I got sent home for a day. But that still didn’t do it. It still didn’t make Glenn pay me no mind.

That Christmas I could see that my so-called daddy had nothing for me. He gave me a jar of “tightly packed in vinegar” pickled pigs’ feet that had been wrapped in a too-small elf’s stocking. He didn’t even bother to wrap the jar first. There was no tree. No decorations like all the folks on TV and my friends Anica’s and Marlena’s families had. Nothin’ but them pigs’ feet. Glenn didn’t even have the nerve to come and give me the gift hisself; instead, he shacked up in his room and sent Nadine out to do his dirty work. That was it! I called Ruby.

“Hi, Ruby.” I couldn’t get the words out my mouth b’fore I was crying like a baby. “I don’t wanna be here no more.”

“What happened now, Regina? What did ya do?”

“Glenn gave me pickled pigs’ feet for Christmas.” Ruby told me that I was being silly and to stop telling stories. I hung up the phone on her, and she didn’t call me back. Bigmouth Nadine must’ve heard me and ran and told Glenn. Next thing I knowed, he had his belt.

“Lie down ’cross the chair, Regina.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearin’.

“Don’t make me ask you twice. Now lie down!” I didn’t move. I just looked Glenn right in his eyes and dared him to hit me. He did. Each blow he took left me hating him that much more. And by the time he was through, I had nothing left for Glenn or his family.

“You cut my skin.” I pointed to the mark that Glenn had left on me. “You cut my skin!” I screamed at him again, this time spitting fire in his face as I waited for him to say something, anything. But he didn’t. Glenn walked away from me and tossed the belt in a corner. I hated him, and I knowed that I would feel that way for the rest of my days.

I didn’t cry not one single tear. I tried at first, but nothing would come out. Deep inside, something still wanted him to like me and want me more than anything in the world. I needed him to look in my eyes and know that I was his special girl, his first child. I wanted him to see that I was Ruby’s girl. The li’l baby that they’d made when they really liked each other— b’fore Nadine. I needed him to show me how to call him “daddy” and let me feel what that felt like. But he was no betta’ than any of those folks who wasn’t even kin to me. I’d wanted to like him, to make myself believe that I came from a daddy. I wanted to have the same time with him everybody else had with they daddies. I wanted all that. But I didn’t have none of it, and it was clear I never would. I left Glenn and Nadine’s house and walked to the all-night Laundromat, where I spent the night sitting in one of them baskets next to my favorite dryer.

“Regina, I have to talk with you.” I’d come back to Glenn and Nadine’s to get a change of clothes, and Glenn cut me off at the door. “Nadine and I feel as if we are not able to reach you. We feel that all of our efforts have failed and you aren’t happy with us anymore. This leads me to my only option. You have to leave. I’ve looked into a couple of places for you to stay—a possible boarding school. Or, if you like, you can try and go back to Ruby. I’m waiting to hear from her about this. What do you think of what I’ve just said?”

I didn’t think shit ’bout what he just said. I’d knowed right ’way that he was gonna be saying something like this, so I already had a plan. I had tried begging Ruby to let me go on back with her, but I could see that she was just too busy to be bothered with me. So I tried to see if I could stay with Marlena’s family. I told my friend the whole story of what was going on, and never once did she offer to have her family adopt me; so I figured they didn’t have a way to make that happen. The only person left was Anica Bushfield. I knowed her mama was all tied up in the church, and knowing how church folks loved helping kids, I asked Anica to ask her mama if I could come stay with them, and she said she would.

CHAPTER TEN

NO ROOM IN THE END

WHEN ANICA’S MAMA
said yes, I could come and live with ’em, I was so surprised I didn’t say a thing. Anica jumped up and down and screamed ’nough for the both of us. I was glad I wouldn’t have to see Nadine and her precious, perfect, light-bright children anymore and that she didn’t have to feel like I was just dumped off on her—even if I really was. Glenn let me move in with ole Miss Bushfield, the Bible-toting Jesus freak, without blinkin’ twice.