—
Crystal blew through the door along with the cold air, and the house tightened up. Church had taken a lot out of her, and “her stomach was touching her back,” as the saying went. She poured herself a bowl of Cap’n Crunch and planted herself on the love seat. She was wearing a black-and-gold silk blouse, a calf-length skirt, and a red headwrap. Crystal was aware of Arleen’s situation, having returned Sherrena’s call on her bus ride home. Sherrena had given some ground. Arleen could stay until Thursday if Crystal agreed to move into one of Sherrena’s other properties. If Crystal said no, Arleen had to be out the next day.
Her cereal gone, Crystal was still hungry. She put some of Arleen’s biscuits in the oven. “You want some of these, baby?” she asked Jafaris.
“He don’t want none of that,” Arleen snapped.
“You can’t get mad at me. You can take it out on Sherrena.”
“I’m pissed off at you, and I’m pissed off at Sherrena!”
“I have no control over what my landlord say!” Crystal interrupted, pleading. “I told y’all you can stay until February, because that’s what you paid me for. But Sherrena…said that you got to go. I have no say-so over that because I’m not fitting to be out on the street because somebody gave me a hundred and fifty dollars.” Crystal breathed in deep and continued. “I’m not fittin’ to get irritated. I’m not fittin’ to get agitated. I’m not fittin’ to get frustrated. I’m not fittin’ to call Momma and tell her I ain’t got no peace, ’cause I got peace right now. And I’m keeping it. I’m keeping it. I’m keeping it.”
“You got peace, and me and my kids got to go.”
Crystal bit her lip and looked to the ceiling.
“I can be out tomorrow. It don’t matter! You can put my biscuits back in the refrigerator where you got ’em from.” Arleen was yelling now.
Crystal shook her head and called Sherrena. “Which day did you say you want Arleen out?…Monday? You said Monday?”
Arleen began pacing around, talking to the room. “I really truly hate that I got into this situation….That’s bogus, that is bogus as ever. I swear to God! That is bogus!”
“I called the police,” Crystal was telling Sherrena. “Chris and them was making a lot of noise upstairs, and he was up there beating on that girl.”
Arleen asked for the phone and Crystal ignored her.
Arleen began to shake. “Now look! Now my kids homeless! Nowhere to go and ain’t got no money!…Fuck me and my kids. Just fuck it! Fuck it!”
Crystal had never seen Arleen like this, so unraveled. She handed her the phone.
“I mean,” Arleen said to Sherrena, “they just throw me and my kids out on the street! After I got my money, after we ain’t got nothing no more!…It was okay that we was here up until last time when the police got called….All I can say is thank you for what you done for me and my kids. Before Thursday, me and my kids will be gone. That’s my promise. I can’t give you nothing else!”
Arleen listened for a few seconds before shutting the phone while Sherrena was midsentence. “I feel that we getting used. Me and my kids getting used!” She looked at Crystal, who that morning carried an old and calm spirit. “I’m frustrated,” she apologized. “If I took my anger out on you, I’m pissed….Arrangements was made.” She slapped her palm with the back of her hand.
“But the reason I know what you feel is that my family did this to me….The issues you got? Can’t nobody fix ’em but God.”
“I don’t have nothing but a trust issue, and I’ma always have a trust issue.” Arleen sat down.
“But you shouldn’t speak that over yourself, ’cause everybody’s not out to get you.”
“Everybody they is, though….You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what I been through. You don’t know what it’s like to have your father molest you and your mother not care about it!” It was her stepfather, the minister. She was ten when it started and sixteen when it stopped.
“Oh, yes I do,” Crystal said. “Yes, I do! I know exactly what that’s like ’cause my stepfather molested me when I was just a little girl, and that’s why they sent me to the foster care. I swear to God I know exactly what you been through! I swear to God.”
Arleen took it in. Jori had led Jafaris into their bedroom and turned on some music, which drifted into the living room as the women let a moment of shared comprehension pass in silence. Each knew something of the other’s pain. The boys were sitting on a mattress, playing with Little. Arleen dropped her head, saying, “I’m sick of getting hurt.”
“Okay, you know what?” Crystal said. “I remember this like it was yesterday. I had been going to church for a month or so, and the spirit moved on me, and I told God: ‘I’m tired of hurting. I’m tired of crying. I’m tired of suffering. I’m tired of people hurting me.’…But it’s just to build and make you. Because me being hurt, me being lied on, me being talked about, me being abused. Everything. Me being in foster care, me not having no momma, me not having no daddy, siblings don’t care, aunties don’t care, uncles don’t care—made me….If you want me to love you, how can I love you if you don’t trust me? How can I comfort you?…Can’t nobody help you unless you allow them to do it. You’ve been molested? I’ve been molested too….At ten, I had a flashback, and I was five years old. I looked at my mother, and my mother was still doing drugs. My mother stayed with this man….My mom did the crack pipe. She was pregnant with me. My dad beat my mom, and my mom got stabbed in her back eleven times. So, I know God got a calling on my life, but if I don’t allow him to use me to do that calling, how can he do it?…Church was awesome. I could see the Spirit of God. I can feel the Spirit of God. I know when the Spirit moving in church because it be real smoky. And people might think I’m crazy for believing like that, but, I mean, that’s how I believe….My pastor treats me more like a daughter than my mother. I can say that much. And once again I can’t say how you feel because you don’t have a mother, but once again I can….Everybody goes through stuff in life. And you’re going to continue to go through. Your situation, it’s to make you. It’s to build you….I went through it all summer. All summer. Felt like I didn’t have nobody. Was ready to do crack this summer. But I prayed a prayer that my pastor prayed over me two years ago, and I firmly stand on that word and believe in it. I didn’t even tell my pastor that my momma did crack at this time, and my pastor walked in the aisles, laid her hands on me and said, ‘Momma did crack. You ain’t gonna do crack.’ All I could do was cry.”
Crystal’s last word lingered in the air until it dissolved in the chattering of the television. Arleen sat there, stunned. Her phone rang and snapped her back. A friend had a lead on an apartment. “Does he do background checks and stuff?”
“Come here,” Crystal said once Arleen was off the phone. Arleen obeyed and Crystal held her. “What’s the rent at that place?”
“You know what, I didn’t even ask him.” Arleen called back, learned it was $600 a month, and hung up. “Nope.”
Crystal left to inspect Sherrena’s other apartment. “It’s gonna be all right,” she told Arleen. “If I can’t promise you nothing else, it’ll be all right. That much I can say.”
16.
ASHES ON SNOW