The Knowing: Awake in the Dark (16 page)

“Really? What’s he do? I asked blowing smoke.

“Oh, he’s just on my ass, day and night. I work with him on the boat. Bout the only thing I can say is, he works hard, he ain’t no slouch. But that’s it. That’s all he’s good for.” He chuckled then and glanced at me and smiled, lighting his handsome face and said, “Otherwise he’s an asshole.”

“Wow, that’s too bad,” I replied. I’m not sure why, but hearing that about my father, surprised and disturbed me.

I liked Della’Rae, who was easy-going and kind. She helped me with Raine, and genuinely enjoyed having him there. That first day, she’d reached out her arms and wiggled her fingers cooing, “Can I take ‘im? Oh he’s so precious, aren’t you, sweet boy.”

She snuggled in close breathing in the scent of my son, placed him on her hip and said, “You wanna come with Della’Rae and see sumthin fun? C’mon. I’ll show you sumthin.” And she sashayed down the hall disappearing into her bedroom.

I turned eighteen the month after I’d arrived, the legal drinking age so, I got a job as a cocktail waitress. I didn’t consume alcohol - I hated it – but serving it was lucrative. My father knew the owners of an upscale restaurant in town and arranged an interview for me. I was hired and started working most nights.

Della’Rae babysat temporarily, but my father pressured me to make other permanent childcare arrangements. It was tense between us. He didn’t know how to be a father and I didn’t know how to be a daughter.

I didn’t cook or clean what I considered to be a “shit hole.” I rarely made my bed on the fold- out couch and I only added to Della’Rae’s laundry. I never offered to help and I was oblivious to anyone’s needs except my own.

I had a bad attitude and no respect. I didn’t know that I should wrap soiled diapers in a plastic bag, before discarding them. I simply threw them in the trash, which I didn’t empty. No one said a word to me about my habits until my father got fed up and exploded one morning out of nowhere.

“This house smells like baby shit!” He screamed. “It’s a stinking outhouse in here! You just throw them dirty diapers in the trash for all of us to smell! Are you a goddamned pig?”

“What do you want me to do with the fucking diapers?!” I screamed back.

He slapped me across my face, knocking me backwards and jumped on me pinning me to the unmade bed of the fold-out couch.

“You better clean up your filthy mouth, little girl. You don’t swear in my house, you hear me?”

“Fuck you!” I yelled, “This house is a pigsty, a shit hole. How can I possibly make it worse?”

He held me down and we struggled until Della’Rae yelled, “Stop it, Dell, that’s enough now. Get off her!”

“You better pack your shit and find somewhere else to go! We have had enough of your ungrateful attitude!” he roared.

My father watched me gather our few meager belongings, pushed a wad of cash in my hands and dropped Raine and I in the back of the restaurant where I worked. It wasn’t even noon, as I stood defiant and full of anger, flipping my father the bird, as he drove off leaving us in an empty parking lot with nowhere to go.

We moved in that afternoon with Lana, a waitress who worked with me. She’d lost her mother only months before, leaving her alone with two siblings. I never found out where her father was. The three siblings lived together in the family home but their lives were in turmoil. Lana’s younger brother was in middle school, her older sister, in her first year of college and Lana, had just graduated from high school. The house was only two blocks from the restaurant so we could walk to and from work.

I felt their mother’s presence in the house constantly and occasionally, she talked to me. I heard her in the same manner that I heard the voice.

“Things are a struggle for them, I know. I know they’re sad and lonely. Lana is the strong one though, and she’ll see to her brother and sister, she was always the most level headed.” she told me.

Lana told me her mom died of breast cancer and I felt the struggle of their lives before her death.

A picture in my mind showed me a woman, frail and bony lying in bed. I could smell her death as she lay helpless, slipping away. Sadness and disbelief floated in the air between her children as they waited for the inevitable.

I would catch glimpses of her standing in the kitchen, watching, or walking through a room. It seemed she was everywhere.

I knew Lana’s older sister would drop out of college and her little brother would lose his way too, drowning in grief with nowhere to turn. Loss was a living thing in their house, which weighed heavily on me. I had no idea what to do when I heard or saw their mother, so I told myself I was imagining things and stayed silent.

Out of the blue, my father called me at work a month later. “I got y’all a trailer down on the Bayou across from the Les Bonton Roulet. It has furniture and some food to get y’all started. The keys for it are at the bar. Ask for Annie, she’ll give um to ya. You can pay me the rent next month.”

“Ok, Dad, thanks.” I said surprised. “I’ll check it out after work.”

Neither of us apologized or mentioned our fight.

Though I was grateful for Lana’s kindness, I couldn’t breathe in a house filled with so much pain. I moved into the trailer alone with Raine. My father and I had little contact except at the end of the month when I paid him my rent. We never engaged in conversation.

I was lonely and isolated with no phone, TV or neighbors. Across the street from our trailer was a bar and literally nothing else for miles. Harry was my only visitor, but being sixteen, he had little time to come and see me. We’d become friends and allies and genuinely liked one another.

“When you go back to California, I’m comin too. Soon as I turn eighteen, we’ll go together. We can share an apartment. I always wanted to see California,” Harry said.

“Okay,” I agreed. “When you turn eighteen. The girls will love you there. You look like a surfer boy.”

After a few months, plagued with loneliness, I moved again, this time into a small apartment in town. I spent two years in Louisiana spiraling out of control. I didn’t know how to take care of myself let alone my son.

I quickly discovered that I could earn more money bartending than cocktailing. Although I had no experience, I was determined to secure a bartending job. I lied about my past experience and landed a job at Pat O’ Brien’s, in New Orleans, a popular nightspot and home of the famous, “Hurricane.” The head bartender knew in minutes that I had no experience but instead of ratting me out, she took me under her wing and trained me.

New Orleans was an hour and half from the town where I lived, so I’d pack up Raine and searched for a sitter and a place to stay almost nightly. We would sleep on floors or couches or anywhere I could find. It didn’t take long to realize the situation was untenable, so I quit my job and looked for one in the town where I lived.

A giant black and gold sign that read “Gold Rush” flashed in front of a standalone building that occupied a gravel lot on the corner of a busy thoroughfare.  At 10:30 a.m. the bar was closed but I pulled the heavy wooden door open balancing Raine on my hip, in hopes someone was hiring inside. Stale cigarette smoke clung to the walls and mixed with the soured smell of spilled beer and stinking urine. As my eyes adjusted to the darkened room, I saw two pool tables side by side to my left and scattered tables and chairs to my right. A long bar  made of battered wood stretched out in front of me. Behind the bar, counting money from an open cash register was a tall man in a black t-shit and skin-tight jeans. Beside him was a woman who looked half dead and years older. Her skin was pasty white and swollen, reminding me of a dead reptile bloating in the sun. She was nearly bald and I could see her hands shake badly.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m looking for the person who hires people. I’m looking for a job.”

“Is that right? What kind of job you lookin for, hon?” the man asked.

“A bartending job,” I replied.

“Well, hon, I’m Ronnie and this is Dora, she owns the place. I just help out, right, baby?”  And he kissed her forehead, tenderly. “We ain’t lookin’ for no nighttime bartender but we need someone to clean the bar in the mornin’, that means floors, bathrooms and tables and get the bar set up for the night. We do a little lunch business too. You’d have to start day shift first; then we’ll see what comes.”

“Okay.” I said, “I’ll take it. I’m looking for childcare too, do you know anyone?”

The woman spoke for the first time. “My cousin lives just off Grand Caillou road and she has a daycare. Ronnie I'll give you her number.”

I started two days later at nine thirty a.m. cleaning the bar from the night before and tending bar all day. The smell of the Gold Dust in the morning was like licking the bottom of an ashtray, rinsing with urine, and washing it down with stale beer. I tried everything to block the offending odor from rubbing Vicks Vapo Rub under my nose to holding my breath and running outside gasping for air, but nothing worked.

Fortunately, I moved to the night shift after a couple of months where I made so much money, I didn’t know what to do with it. I hid one hundred dollar bills inside my socks and stuffed them deep in my dresser drawers.

I met a crowd who partied and I quickly fell back into the drug scene, leaving Raine night after night at childcare. Dora’s cousin who’d babysat during the day was willing to keep Raine overnight. In the beginning, I’d pick him up at 3a.m. after work but it wasn’t long before I didn’t pick him up for a couple of days. I don’t know why the woman never reported me to child services, but she didn’t.

I thought running from Aaron would change things for me and Raine, but it turned out, I was the same frightened, insecure girl with no self-esteem. I quickly returned to destructive behavior becoming a danger to my precious Raine.

I had no contact at this point with my father and seldom spoke to anyone in my family, including Maggie.

Months later Maggie came to visit our dad, and to see me, but I avoided her. I didn’t want her to see my life although, at the time, my excuses of “being too busy” seemed valid. Finally, after Maggie’s persistent nagging, we spent the last couple of nights together. Maggie began to plead with me, to come home.

“Nita,” she said, “come back with me, come home. You need help with Raine and you party too much.”

I looked at her sideways as I drove. “No, way. I’m not going. Raine is fine, don’t worry about it.”

“You party every night, Nita. You look like shit and so does Raine. You need to stop.”

“Don’t get all high and mighty, Maggie. Like you don’t party too.”

“I don’t have a kid.”

“Whatever.” I fired back. But Maggie did not let up instead she changed her tactic saying,

“Just let me take Raine back with me. Just for a while.”

“No, fucking way, Maggie!” I said angrily. “I’m his mother and he needs me. He stays here.” “He needs someone to take care of him.” Maggie said.

“Forget it.” I finished.

We pulled up in front of a lone trailer that had rust stains dripping like paint from its roof.

“Wait here,” I said to Maggie, “I’ll be right back.” Cicadas sang their nighttime songs and air thick with moisture saturated my skin. I went inside eager to get my fix quickly but after several minutes passed, Maggie became impatient and surprised me, throwing open the trailer door and coming inside.

“Hey, hey, now. Who’s this here? You just walk into someone’s home, baby?” said Hollywood.

Hollywood was my contact for everything intravenous and was willing to shoot me up. I still couldn’t do it myself. He was tall and blond with delicate features that belonged on a woman. His face was clean shaven, dimpled and his chin had a deep cleft. You would think that women would swoon over him but he was more feminine than masculine. We all thought he looked like a movie star which is how he earned his name.

My arm lay across Hollywood’s lap. I held the end of a belt, black and cracked with age, tight over my bicep. Its worn buckle was a dingy grey. The hard metal square bit into my arm squeezing doughy flesh through tiny openings. Hollywood had stuck the needle into my vein emptying the syringe just as Maggie barged in.

“Oh- my- god, Nita! What the hell are you doing?!” Maggie screamed. “Oh, my, god, you are totally fucked up. Take me back to the hotel. You are disgusting!”

Neither of us spoke on the way to the hotel where Maggie was staying. Maggie’s visceral disapproval and disgust radiated from her body and bounced in the car. It consumed anything that was ever good between us.

“I can’t believe how fucked up you are, Nita. Please, let me take Raine with me.” Maggie pleaded.