Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in this house.”
Mama: “It’s my mama’s house. You let me in the goddam house!”
Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in this house, Mom. Like, you need to go somewhere. Go to Grandma’s house, but I’m not letting you in this house.”
Mama: “This is my mama’s house! She own it!”
Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in. I’m about to go. I gotta go to an event, anyways.”
I walked out the house with my short little skirt on.
Mama: “Where do you think you’re going with that short-ass skirt? You trying to get pregnant out here? You out here being a prostitute?”
Tiffany: “No Ma, I was just going to an event, so leave me alone. Just leave me alone.”
She had this long rearview mirror in her hand. Remember in the eighties, when they had them long, detachable rearview mirrors that had the smaller individual mirrors in it, which tilted to the sides? Somehow, she had found one of these mirrors. It was like two feet long. I could not understand why she had that in her hand.
I walked past her and said:
Tiffany: “I’m outta here, Mom. You need to leave, too. Get off the property.”
Mama: “Oh, so you just think you grown now? You think you fucking grown?”
She reared back and threw that rearview mirror at the back of my head. It hit me. It hit me so hard in the back of the head, I just fell to the ground. Collapsed.
Mama: “That’s right. You need to watch your back, bitch. Take that mirror with you and watch yo’ motherfucking back.”
I was looking so cute, I had on my little heels and everything, and it’s just, BAM!
Tiffany: “I cannot believe you did that. I should call the police on you right now. I should call the police.”
Mama: “Call the police, but just let them know that I got your back. I’m watching your back, bitch. Don’t go out there getting pregnant.”
Then, just as quick as she showed up, she left.
I had no idea what to do. So I just picked up the mirror and put it in my Geo Metro.
In my heart, I was so hurt and mad . . . but also I felt like that was so funny. Who throws a huge, broke-ass rearview mirror at people?
Sometimes I laugh so hard about it, but sometimes I just cry, because I know my mom is sick. She’s sick, and she’s trying to be a good parent, I think. In my mind, I like to think she was trying to be motherly, she was trying to tell me to be safe and not get pregnant. Trying to keep me out of trouble. You know?
But to this day, if I have words with somebody, I never walk past them. I never turn my back on them. Now I’m always watching people. I’ve never had that problem with somebody hitting me in the back of the head no more. Never again after that.
Mama
One time, when I was twenty-three, I got my tax return, and they gave me $4000 back. I told my mom:
Tiffany: “I’m going to spend a thousand dollars on you at the Walmart. I’m going to get you whatever you want at the Walmart.”
I was doing it partially because she was my mom, but also because her mental illness was not going well. She was basically becoming a bag lady, carrying trash around.
But it was weirder than that. She would collect the trash, and she’d mail it back to the companies that manufactured it. She would say that’s how she recycles and keeps the post office in business. That’s how she would spend her disability checks, mailing trash back to the companies that it came from.
When you’d go into her apartment, she had five kids’ car seats that she found. I don’t know where she found them. And five piggy banks of the same type. My favorite character was Wonder Woman, so she had five Wonder Woman piggy banks, five Hello Kitty piggy banks. Like, five of whatever our favorite characters was as kids, for each one of my brothers and sisters. Five of everything, for each one of her kids.
Everywhere she went, she wanted to carry one of these bags of trash with her.
Tiffany: “Well, I’m going to take you to the Walmart. We gonna shop. Leave your trash at home. Leave it at home.”
Mama: “It’s not trash. It’s not trash. This is recycling. I am helping the environment. I am removing my footprint. What are you doing for the environment?”
Tiffany: “I’m taking you to Walmart to buy you some stuff. That’s what I’m doing.”
We pulled up into the Walmart parking lot. She tried to take the bag of trash into the parking lot.
Tiffany: “Mom, you cannot take that into the Walmart. Leave it in the car.”
Mama: “I’m not leaving it in the car, somebody might steal it.”
Tiffany: “Mom, just leave this trash in the car. Just leave it here, and we’ll come back for it.”
Mama: “I’M NOT LEAVING IT IN THE CAR!”
She started yelling at me, and I don’t do well with that. I just don’t do well with people yelling at me.
I got mad and I snatched the trash and I tried to run to the dumpster. But before I could run to the dumpster, she snatched me by the back of my shirt and threw me up against the car and started punching me, repeatedly, in the chest and the stomach, in the mouth.
I started trying to fight her back, but she’s crazy strong. She’s five-foot-ten, two hundred and some pounds. Strong as shit. My little punches don’t do shit. There’s all these people walking by, and I started yelling, “Help! Help!” ’cause she is beating my ass and nobody is helping. They just looking.
She finally got tired of punching of me. I never did let go of that bag of trash, though. When she got tired, I just started jetting over to the dumpster, and I threw the bag of trash in the dumpster.
Once I got the trash in the dumpster, she tackled me and beat me up again by the dumpster.
Tiffany: “Mom, I just want to take you shopping with my money. This is crazy.”
Mama: “Fuck you. I hate you. I hate you, Renee.”
She started calling me Renee, which is the woman who my stepdad was cheating on her with.
Mama: “I hate you, Renee. I fucking hate you. I should kill you, but I’m not. I’m gonna let you suffer. I’m gonna let you fucking suffer.”
She just walked away and went towards the Walmart. Like nothing happened.
At the front of the Walmart, there was a man in a wheelchair, the greeter. He’s probably a veteran, and he’s missing legs, and he’s Mexican. He had one of those big mustaches and a Walmart shirt on, and he said, “Welcome to Walmart.”
My mom spat on him.
Mama: “Your people make me vomit. I hate your burritos and everything. You make me vomit.”
She hocked another loogie and spat in his face.
Once she spat on him, she continued to walk through the Walmart. Like nothing happened.
I was shocked. I tried to apologize to that man, but he was in shock, too.
Then and only then, did the police show up. They showed up immediately after that. Like, not even five minutes later.