“Girl, stop lying.” I didn’t want to believe what I was hearing.
“I’m not—” Toya’s voice cracked from all of the emotional energy she was trying to contain.
“I’ll talk to you later,” she said as she picked up Junior and walked across the hall to her apartment.
* * *
It was getting late, and my mother hadn’t arrived home yet. When she left earlier that day, she only told me that she was going to take care of some business and would be back. I was hungry, so I pulled out the black skillet from the cupboard along with the rest of the bologna and cheese and fried myself up a sandwich. I loved fried bologna and cheese. I pulled down my mother’s Murphy bed and turned on the television before I sat down. I flipped through the channels and finally stopped to watch a rerun of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
“Why can’t I live like Hillary Banks?” I said aloud. “Have a rich daddy, a goody-two-shoes brother and a crazy cousin who’s always doing something that he doesn’t have any business doing.” The lifestyle that the characters were living seemed so phony and unrealistic to me, but I still enjoyed watching it. During a commercial break, I heard the key enter the lock in the door. A moment later my mom walked into the room. She opened the refrigerator and noticed that the bologna was gone.
“I know you didn’t eat all of the damn bologna,” she started snapping out on me. Her voice was loud and confrontational, which made me edgy and confrontational, as well.
“I was hungry. What was I supposed to do? Slit my wrists and suck my own blood for food?”
“If it fills you up, that’s what you need to do,” she shot back sneeringly.
“Whatever,” I said, sucking air through my teeth and rolling my eyes at her.
“You better stop rolling your eyes at me before I knock them out of your head.” I ignored her violent comment for the moment. She then moved in front of the dresser where the television was and began removing some of her clothes from the top drawer.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Out to a club,” she answered.
“You know I register for school tomorrow and I still need supplies,” I reminded her.
“And?” she replied as if my needs were not her priority.
“I need those school supplies,” I answered her back loudly. I hated it when she acted as if I was unimportant.
“Borrow some supplies from a classmate. I don’t have any extra money.” She slammed the top dresser drawer closed and then opened up another one.
“But you have money to go to a club,” I said, hoping to make her feel guilty about her judgment. She turned and pointed her finger at me.
“Hey, what I do with the money I bring up in this house is my business. I don’t have to answer to you for anything! If you want school supplies go get them yourself. I don’t have time to deal with you. You’re just dead weight on my shoulders, and you’re slowing me down. As grown as you are you should be out on your own.” Her attitude toward me really hurt, but I wasn’t going to let her know. I wasn’t about to allow her to get under my skin.
“So you don’t care whether I drop out of school or stay in?” I barked at her. I really hated her as a person. At times Justine could be cold, like a pail of ice, and other times she acted as if we were the best of friends. That day, her mood was icy.
“You’re only going to drop out and get on public assistance anyway. You didn’t get pregnant this time but the next time you will,” she said, referring to the time I thought I was pregnant by Ronnie. Thankfully it was a false alarm. “Pregnancy may not be the worst thing for you. At least you’ll be able to bring a government check home.” Deep inside I was yelling at her and wishing that horrible things would happen to her. Deep inside I wanted the power to strike her down with a bolt of lightning so her feelings would hurt as much as mine. The fact that I didn’t have that type of power bothered me. Someday, I’d make her regret the way she treated me. My only wish was for that day to be today.
three
When I woke up the next morning, my mother hadn’t come home from her night at the club. I swear, sometimes I fear that the police are going to knock on the door and tell me she has been killed or something, I thought to myself. I knew a long time ago that to a certain degree I’d have to take care of myself early on in life, but at times I really just wanted to be a kid with a normal life. I tossed aside my blanket, placed my feet on the cold floor and then stood up and took a long stretch to begin my day. I went inside the bathroom, took a shower, got dressed and gathered up my school paperwork before heading out the door. When I exited the building, I ran into Toya, who was sitting on the stoop shuffling a deck of cards.
“Where are you headed to?” she asked, glancing at me. Her face still looked pretty bad. Overnight a bruise had formed on her cheek.
“I’m going to register for school. Aren’t you coming?” I knew that she wasn’t but I thought I’d ask anyway.
“No, I don’t have anyone to watch Junior. My grandmother is tripping. She told me to take him with me to registration.”
“Why not? I mean, today is only the first day of registration,” I reminded her.
“Girl, I have bigger things to deal with than registration and school. I’m trying to figure out when my man had time to have a baby with another girl. Plus my face and hair are jacked-up right now.” Toya was quiet for a moment and I didn’t say anything. “I mean, she’s not even good-looking, Keysha. Her hair isn’t as long as mine, her skin looks bad and she has a big gap between her upper front teeth. She pulled out my hair, Keysha. I swear, when I see that girl again, I’m going to cut her with this.” Toya reached into her front pants pocket and pulled out a barber’s straight razor. “Once I cut her in the face, I’ll bet she’ll think twice before messing with me.”
I wanted to ask the obvious question, which was, “Why isn’t she mad with her man for cheating on her?”, but Toya didn’t think like that. It was never her man’s fault. It was always the other woman’s fault.
“You’ll have to tell me all of the details when I come back,” I said, not wanting to listen to her issue at that moment.
“Why are you rushing off? You don’t have time for me now? I listened to you yesterday when you talked about breaking up with Ronnie,” Toya said, raising her voice at me. I felt guilty for a brief moment and was about to give her a little of my time, but then I glanced up the street and noticed my mother approaching with some guy. He appeared to be some stray man she’d picked up at the club to keep her company.
“Toya, I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you about this later.” I wanted to leave before my mother made me greet her new friend.
“What the hell, Keysha? I thought you were my girl. I thought you cared about what I’m going through.”
“I do, Toya, but I’ve got to get to school. Do you have your enrollment forms? If not I could pick them up for you.”
“I told you, I’ve got better things to do. Why do you care about school, anyway? You’re not an A student. You know that you don’t want to be there listening to some boring-ass teacher. You’ll have more fun sitting here with me all day playing cards. After that we could watch that television program where people get on it and start fighting. I love that show.”
“I’m going to have to pass on that today. I don’t want to go to late registration. Besides, this is a chance for me to get out of the house. My mother is coming with some weird-looking man.” I nodded my head in the direction of my mother. “I’ll catch you later,” I said and moved past her. I crossed the street to walk down the other side so that I could just wave to my mother and keep on going, but she made me stop and cross