She stomped into the kitchen, grabbed her dentures off the counter, and stormed out of the house. “You ain’t gonna play me for a fool, you Gary Coleman little-dick-having somabitch!” she yelled. “Think you know me? I’ma show you.” She kept up her hollering as the screen door slammed behind her: “I’MA SHOW YOU!!!”
Dre, Sweetie, and I ran to the front window to see where she was headed. Curtis was right behind us. Outside we could see Mama, dressed in her faded pink housecoat and no shoes, marching through the yard toward the Pink Panther. We all watched as she bent down and put her dentures on the road, right by the front tire of her car.
“Jesus!” yelled Curtis as he ran out of the house after her. “Mildred, you done lost your damn mind!”
Mama looked over at Curtis running toward her and stepped into the car. She revved the engine just as he reached out to grab the door handle. But he was too late. The Pink Panther lurched forward and rolled right over those fake teeth. Mama leaned out her window and screamed, “Fuck you!” before she backed up and drove over her teeth again.
“Daaaaaaaamn!” said Dre, as we watched from the living room window. “Mama’s cold-blooded.” He sounded impressed. But I couldn’t take my eyes off Curtis.
Outside on the curb, he put his hands on top of his head like he was trying to keep it from exploding off his body. Then he turned his back on Mama, and walked slowly toward the house.
He left us after that. He said, “I can’t take this shit no more,” packed up his work boots, his oil-stained jeans, all his tools, and moved out. Mama must have known it was her own crazy ass that ran him off, but she still seemed surprised to see him go. “Why?” she wailed, as he walked out the door. “How you gonna leave me with all these damn kids?” Nothing she said made a difference. Curtis was done.
Things got real bad after that. Mama went from being a regular alcoholic to one of those drunks who didn’t do anything but cry. She’d cry and drink her gin and cry and whoop us kids. She’d sit at the kitchen table all night long howling about how nobody loved her. Sometimes Mama got so in her feelings about Curtis being gone that she’d put me and Sweetie in the back of the Pink Panther, drive over to the Grey and White, and raise Cain in front of all his friends.
“You got company, Shorty,” his boys would say when they saw her coming. They’d lean back on their cars, pull their hats down low, and watch the show. Mama would yell and scream like a banshee, demanding Curtis bring his midget ass home. One time she knocked out his car windows with a tire iron; another time she tried to slash his tires with a cooking knife. “I’ma kill you, you muthafucka!” she’d yell. “They gon’ bury your tiny ass in a baby casket.”
Every time she showed up at the Grey and White, Curtis would hold up his hands and try to calm her down. “C’mon, Mildred,” he’d say. “You don’t need to be acting like this. Simmer down, now.” He’d promised to come by the house later. He’d tell her they’d work it out. Then she’d sit at the kitchen table waiting on him all night long, but he’d never show up. “Don’t nobody love me,” I’d hear her sob. “Nobody at all.”
I don’t know what made Mama act so crazy, or how love and anger got so mixed up in her head. All I know is by the time I met Derrick, when I was twelve years old, everything I knew about relationships was what I’d learned from her.
Chapter 8
Age of Consent
Sweetie stood on the porch steps with her hands on her hips and a Newport dangling from her mouth. “So,” she said, looking down at me sitting on the step beside her. “You givin’ that nigga some pussy?”
Derrick and I had been dating three months and this was Sweetie’s way of asking me how things were going. I leaned my head against the railing and ignored her. Sweetie and I were sisters, not friends. I wasn’t trying to tell her my business.
I had more important things to think about, like the outfit I was wearing. Derrick was on his way to pick me up to take me to Jellybean skating rink and I needed to look fresh. I had on my pink oversized T-shirt that hung off one shoulder Flashdance style and some dark blue Jordache jeans that my brother Dre stole off somebody’s clothesline. Sweetie said I could have the jeans because they didn’t fit her in that skintight way she liked. I took my banana clip out of my back pocket, gathered up my hair in a side pony, and tried to slick down my edges with my hands.
“Gotta give him that cooch,” insisted Peaches, who was sitting beside me on the porch step. She had a giant tube of strawberry Lip Smacker she kept rubbing over her lips, like she was trying to get them extra glossy. But she wasn’t fooling me. I knew for a fact that she would lick the shit out of that Lip Smacker when she was hungry. “He ain’t gonna stay with you if you don’t give him some pussy.”
The two of them were talking at me like I cared what they thought. They didn’t know I didn’t give a shit about their opinions anymore. I had a boyfriend, and he was the only one who mattered.
Derrick and I went everywhere together. In the mornings he would pick me up in his Chevy Nova and drive me to Dean Rusk Elementary, where I was the only girl in seventh grade whose boyfriend had a car. In the afternoons I’d walk over to Fish Supreme, where Derrick had a job as a fish fryer, and sit at a little plastic table and wait on him to be done. On the weekends we’d go to Jellybean. I loved how he’d take me by the hand and introduce me to his boys: “This is my lady.” Or, “This my girl.”
The first few times we went to the rink, he tried to teach me how to skate. But mostly, I just stood on the side and watched him whiz by. He moved like those wheels were part of his body, like he was flying through space.
On the porch, Sweetie exhaled her cigarette smoke. “So did you give it up?” she asked again. “’Cause Peaches is right, he ain’t gonna stay with you if you don’t give up the bootie.” I rolled my eyes. Sweetie didn’t know shit about my life.
Sometimes Derrick and I would just sit in his car and talk—just talk!—for hours. He’d ask me about school and how my day was, and we’d talk about Mama. I told him how she called me all kinds of names, like bitch and ho, and said I was ugly. He put his arm around me and cooed, “Don’t listen to her. She don’t know what she’s talking about. You look good to me.”