Before Derrick came along, I had big plans to wait until marriage. But with Derrick on top of me and Sweetie’s ho advice ringing in my ears, me and my plans didn’t stand a chance.
It had been early fall when Sweetie and Peaches stood on Mama’s porch and schooled me on sex. By that winter, both of them were pregnant. A few months later I turned thirteen. Then I got pregnant, too.
Chapter 9
Love and Options
“No way,” said Mama. “I don’t believe in killing no babies.”
“But Patricia is so young . . .”
“I already told you, no.”
Miss Munroe, our caseworker from the Fulton County Department of Family and Child Services was standing in the middle of the living room, with her clipboard in hand, trying to get Mama to listen. But Mama wasn’t having it. She just sat on the edge of the ratty brown sofa with her neck muscles popping out like thick cords of rope, and kept saying no.
“No,” she said again. “I ain’t doing it.”
Miss Munroe cleared her throat: “But Miss Williams, if we could just discuss Patricia’s condition . . .”
“I said, no.”
Miss Munroe was short and plump, with a little-girl face and freckles running across her nose. Watching her and Mama, it was obvious she didn’t know the first thing about how to fight. She wasn’t yelling or cursing or promising to cut a bitch. Her titties were so little she probably couldn’t even hide a thin single-edge razor blade in her bra, much less a big wooden-handled kitchen knife like I saw one of Granddaddy’s customers whip out during a fight. Instead Miss Munroe just stood there stiff as a board, trying to get Mama to do what she wanted by glaring at her and clearing her throat.
The first time Miss Munroe came to check on us was when we were living on Oliver Street, not long after Curtis left. I guess somebody—a teacher, maybe a neighbor—reported us kids to DFACS for being so dirty that it looked like nobody was taking care of us. After that, every place we moved Miss Munroe would magically show up in her white Buick, knocking on the front door and calling out to Mama, “Hello, Miss Williams!” in a singsong voice like the two of them were friends. Even back then I knew that was a situation that would never happen in a million fucking years. Mama didn’t mix and mingle with white folks and Miss Munroe didn’t look the type to have a friend with no front teeth.
The first year Miss Munroe started seeing us was right before Christmas. And the very first thing she did was sign us up for the Empty Stocking Fund, a charity that gives poor kids Christmas presents for free. Before Miss Munroe came into our lives, Mama’s idea of celebrating Baby Jesus’s birthday was throwing James Brown singing “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” on her little record player. But thanks to Miss Munroe, we started getting actual toys, which Mama handed us on Christmas Day in crumpled brown paper bags from the Super Saver.
When I was eight, I got a plastic tea set. The next year I got a baby doll with eyes that opened and closed. The Christmas before I met Derrick, when I was eleven, I got a red and white book bag that said coca-cola on it and a knockoff Barbie doll in a pink princess dress. I tried to make Fake Barbie ride on top of one of Mama’s empty Schlitz Malt Liquor cans like it was a horse. But the can was too big and one of Fake Barbie’s legs popped off and flew right across the room.
It wasn’t just Christmas presents that Miss Munroe got us, either. She had all kinds of hookups. She told Mama about Free Vaccinations at the Health Department; Free After-School at the YMCA; and the Free Dentist who came around every summer in a big white truck that made me think he probably drummed up extra business by running a side hustle as the ice cream man. Miss Munroe gave Mama vouchers for Free School Shoes at the Buster Brown store and Free Winter Coats at the Kmart. And now she was trying to give Mama Free Advice about what to do about my pregnant ass. I stood in the corner of the living room and listened to them talk about me like I wasn’t even there.
“We should think about the impact this pregnancy will have on Patricia’s education,” continued Miss Munroe, tapping her clipboard. “There are options you may not have considered . . .”
“What kind of options you talkin’ about?” asked Mama.
“Well, adoption is one possibility. There are so many families willing to provide a loving home . . .”
Wait . . . what did she just say? It sounded like Miss Munroe was trying to get Mama to give my baby away. But that couldn’t be right. The baby was mine. It was already inside me. Giving my baby to somebody else would be like letting me have a doll for Christmas, then snatching it away.
Mama didn’t like what she was hearing, either, because she looked Miss Munroe dead in the eye and told her again, “No.”
I never understood the relationship between Mama and our caseworker. Miss Munroe looked like she was genuinely trying to make Mama’s life easier with her vouchers for Free Shit. But every time she came by, she always pulled me to the side for a private conversation, asking me a million questions—“You doing okay, Patricia? You getting enough to eat?”—like her real mission was to get me to snitch on my own mother.
Maybe that’s why Mama couldn’t stand her. “Stale-ass cracker,” she’d say the minute Miss Munroe was gone. “Coming in here tryna tell me how to raise my own gotdamn kids. That bitch can go straight to hell.”
If Miss Munroe knew how much Mama hated her, she never let on. She just kept showing up at our door with a handful of vouchers and a bunch of crazy ideas, which she always described to Mama as “great opportunities!” Like the summer before I met Derrick, when Miss Munroe got it in her head that I should go to Free Sleep-away Camp.
“This will be a wonderful opportunity,” Miss Munroe had gushed to Mama, standing in the living room with a camp brochure in her hand. “There will be all kinds of fun activities, like swimming and hayrides.”
“I can’t afford all that,” Mama told her.
“Not to worry,” said Miss Munroe with a smile. “The camp is subsidized. It won’t cost you a thing.”
All Mama said was “hmmph,” which I guess Miss Munroe took as a yes. Because before she left, she cheerily handed Mama a typed-up list of everything I would need for camp: a sleeping bag, pillow, bathing suit, beach towel, tennis shoes, five pairs of shorts, eight T-shirts, flip-flops, and a flashlight. Then she gave Mama a Kmart voucher to pay for it all.
Mama took the voucher from Miss Munroe and stuck it in her wallet. She put the list on top of her TV, under an ashtray, where it stayed, untouched, until the Saturday morning two weeks later when Miss Munroe came back to pick me up for camp.
“Patricia, honey,” she said in her singsong voice as she walked into the living room, “are you all packed up and ready to go?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered.
“What do you mean?” Miss Munroe asked, sounding confused.