American Street

Never in my life have I been suspended. And never in my life have I fought in or near school. My mother would beat me herself, then would have the mother of whoever I fought beat me, too. Then she would call my aunt so she can beat me with her words. So when we leave the school after I’m suspended for three days and we climb into Chantal’s car, I ask my cousins, “Is Matant Jo going to beat me?”


“What?” Pri asks. “Beat you? Girl, ain’t nobody getting abused at home for getting abused at school.”

“You have amnesia now, Pri?” Donna asks. “Second grade after you beat that girl up for taking your Dora the Explorer book bag, you almost got suspended. Ma tore that ass up!”

“Oh, yeah.”

“She stopped doing that at some point, though,” Donna says.

“Just like you think Dray will stop?” I ask. I didn’t mean to say that. But it just rolled out of my sore mouth.

“You know what? Maybe it’s a good thing that you just got fucked up,” Donna says. “And I know for a fact that Kasim isn’t cheating on you. Those girls were testing you.”

“And she passed the test, actually. Fab beat the shit outta those girls,” Pri says. “You were throwing punches like Mayweather, and going in on both of them . . . at the same time!”

“For real, Fab?” Chantal asks. “I think you’ve just been initiated. This just proves that you could hold your own. We’ve all been suspended for one reason or another. Welcome to the club, cuzz.”

“You were suspended, Chantal?” I ask.

“Bunch of stupid girls messing with me all the time. I couldn’t throw a solid punch, but I could sure swing my arms like the Tasmanian devil.”

Pri swings her arms around all crazy and it makes the car shake. They laugh except for me. I’m still in pain, but I swallow it.

“Were they hurt?” I ask. “Tonesha and Raquel?”

“Damn, Fabulous. Don’t you know the rules by now? Keep their name out your mouth. From now on, they’re known as Bitch Numero Uno and Bitch Numero Dos,” Pri says.

“No, I got one,” Donna adds. “Ugly Bitch and Uglier Bitch.”

They all laugh, including Chantal.

Donna is laughing so hard that she rolls down the passenger window to get some air.

“Fab, don’t think Ma is gonna let you off easy,” Chantal says. “When I got suspended, she made me clean every corner of the house. But as for school, I’m just gonna talk to Ms. Stanley so it doesn’t go on your record. She’s good with that, as long as you keep your grades up.”

“I don’t want to go to that school anymore. I want to use that tuition money to help my mother instead,” I say, quiet, quiet. “And I think you all can use that money, too.”

No one says anything, but Donna pulls out her compact mirror and she turns it so that she sees me in the reflection. I see her, too. Our eyes meet in that little mirror and all I can think of is my duty to her—Ezili-Danto, the vengeful one. But I will fight Donna, too, if she gets in my way, and if she gets in her own way.

“D? You feeling better? Enough to hit up this party next weekend?” Chantal asks.

Donna puts away the compact mirror. “Hell yeah,” she says. The swelling in her cheek has gone down and she’s mastered the art of hiding bruises on her face with makeup and extra hair extensions.

“What’s she gonna roll up in there with?” Pri says.

My ears are wide open now.

“I already got a plan,” Chantal says.

She pulls up to a curb in front of an abandoned building. The signs say that it used to be a church, then a liquor store. Or maybe the other way around. I’m not sure which came or ended first, the God or the sin. Chantal turns to me.

“What?” I ask.

“You know you’re the Fourth Bee now, right?” Chantal asks me.

“Okay,” I say. “What does that mean?”

“You’re in too deep,” Pri says. “Plus, you beat up a girl, and you got suspended. Not to mention you’re all up in our shit now. So you’re a Fourth Bee. You’re fam, for real.”

Pri holds out a fist to me. I don’t know what to do with it, so I just slap it.

“No, Fabulous. You’re supposed to give me a fist bump.”

So I give her the fist bump she asks for, then ask, “What party?”

“Them white kids over at the Park will pay for anything. . . . I was thinking, with all those pills Ma got . . . ,” Chantal begins.

“What park?” I interrupt. I want to know and understand everything if they want me to be the Fourth Bee.

“Grosse Pointe Park. Fabiola, just . . . just listen for now, okay? Anyway, I don’t want Q hanging this money we owe him over our heads. We’ve made that much before, and we can do it again with our eyes closed.”

“You’ve made twenty . . . ,” I start to ask, but Chantal sends knives at me with her eyes.

“But on one night, though?” Pri asks.

“No. It’s just something to do so that he can see we’re out here putting our asses on the line to get him his money back. Even if it’s not all of it, it’ll be something.”

I try to wrap my mind around how much twenty thousand dollars really is. It’s over a million dollars in Haitian gourdes, and my mother and I received that much and more from Matant Jo within a year for my tuition and living expenses. So I believe them when my cousins say they’ve made twenty thousand dollars already.

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