A Deeper Love Inside (39 page)

I made a truce with the superintendent in Mr. Sharp’s building that fattened my pockets some more.

“I don’t want to see you get into any uncomfortable situation,” I told him. “So, if I see a spill, broken glass, piss, or globs of dirty chewing gum, whatever, I’ll clean it up for a fee. Then I’ll assure Mr. Sharp that everything’s good over here.” I had only one hand on my hip when I told him.

“How much?” he asked.

“Five dollars each time I cover for you,” I told him.

“Damn, that’s too high,” he said.

“It’s a lot,” I explained, “but on days when you be out and don’t get back on time, when you really supposed to be working here at the building and on twenty-four-hour call, I’m making things convenient for you.” I smiled sweetly. He agreed.

The superintendent was only one person out of the eighty-two apartments in the building who I earned money from for various services, even agreeing to walk one lady’s two dogs at sunrise on weekdays. I was awake anyway, just finishing up at Big Johnnie’s.

I made a clay pot filled with chicken soup for a woman who I could hear coughing through her apartment door each day. She was
so grateful once she got better she tried to give me some of her real jewelry. I wouldn’t accept that cause I knew jewels were personal memories. I was waiting on my diamond set from Poppa. Until then, I wouldn’t wear none. Since I rejected her jewelry, the lady tried to give me other stuff. I told her just pay me for those expensive organic ingredients and we even. She tried to get me to cook more food for her, but the cooking hustle would’ve tied up too much of my time. Time is money, and she couldn’t afford me.

I emptied trash for seniors who didn’t feel like it, supplied cigarettes, too, and received other perks and valuable gifts from people in the building who just seemed to like me, my work, and my manners.

After asking Mr. Sharp about the unmarked store on the block of businesses he owned, “the one filled with junk,” I said.

“Those are antiques, not junk. I’m a collector,” he confided.

“A collector?” I repeated. “Of what?” I asked.

“The most valuable things that the untrained eye either can’t see or don’t understand.”

“If it’s so valuable, why is the store always closed and empty?” I pushed.

“That’s what I want people to think. I open it once a month for a night auction in the back room,” he said.

“Auction?” I repeated.

“Yeah, that’s when a small group of people who know the real worth of things come and bid big bucks for that ‘junk’ in my store.” He laughed out two quick, cool sounds. “A pretty big player bought a music box from one of them auctions. He spent a small fortune getting one of my guys to get the box to play his favorite song instead of the tune it was already playing.”

Then I knew why Mr. Sharp even bothered telling me about his private antique auction business. He was telling me a story about Poppa, without saying it was about Poppa. When Poppa gave Momma that music box that played an old Earth, Wind & Fire song, we all were amazed. Of course we had seen jewelry boxes before that played corny jingles. But, we had never seen a jewelry box that when you opened it up, played a badass song while a black ballerina spun round on one pretty black toe shoe!

Ignoring admitting out loud that Poppa was
my
poppa, I used Mr. Sharp’s little story as an opportunity. “Your antique shop, let me clean it up for you, organize it, make it presentable. We’ll hang a pretty curtain like the one you have here in The Golden Needle. Except, since we don’t want everybody to know, we’ll hang a black curtain.”

“Whatever you want to do, my little moneymaking machine,” Mr. Sharp said. But he was obviously the one with the real money pile, and he did an incredible job of not making it seem that way.

Mr. Sharp’s lessons, plus my experience at hustling from being locked down, raked me in $1,100 a week on the average.

It was Elisha who taught me how to average numbers out and round ’em off. He didn’t know about my hustles. He only saw me after school on Fridays. He taught me because he was nice like that, and besides, I had the habit of flipping through his books and asking questions so I could learn, catch up, keep up, compete, and out-distance the school kids.

I led Elisha to believe that I decided and registered at a junior high school in Manhattan because they specialized in fashion. It wasn’t hard to convince him. I had original fly styles that Siri and I made up.

When I’d walk up to meet him at the market on Fridays, he would forever be surprised by my style, decorated denim, hand-designed T-shirts, all mixed in with the high fashions that Sharp got me in that one-day spree. Elisha was most amazed at a design I made in my hair out of one hundred red bobby pins. I wore my long ends loose at the bottom.

“You look Indian,” Elisha said, touching the pins with his fingers.

“You mean Native?” I asked him.

“Not the dot Indian,” he said. “Woo-woo, the ones with the feathers.” He hopped around like he was doing a whacked-out Native dance. I hit him on his shoulder. “You’re so ignorant, and you go to the best private school!”

“I’m just joking,” he said, smiling.

When I was with Elisha for five or six hours only on Fridays was the only time I actually forgot about the hole in my heart.

My mind returned back to Momma. On the blackboard I wrote a list so she could keep track of time. Also I wanted her to see when she did good. I’d make the check mark to show our plan was really working. That’s what I needed when I was locked up. I needed to know what I had to do to keep the authorities out my face. I needed to know in advance what the punishments were for things. I needed to be able to see an ending to hurt, even if it was way, way down the road.

1. Clean the drugs out of Momma’s pretty body.

2. Keep the drugs out of Momma’s pretty body.

3. Write letters to Poppa and Winter.

4. Find Mercedes and Lexus.

5. Get a new apartment with windows, a telephone, and computer.

6. Bring home Mercedes and Lexus.

7. Get Momma a new driver’s license.

8. Buy Momma a new car.

9. Go see Poppa and Winter.

After I made the list, I felt panic reading it. I worried that the list was in the wrong order. Mercedes and Lexus should be at the top. No, writing Winter and Poppa was easiest. No, nothing could be done without healing Momma first. I knew that. I had erased and rearranged the list, until I decided that the order didn’t matter. We would do it all as swiftly as possible, with healing Momma at the top.

Momma was sweating and shaking. I stayed calm. It didn’t matter how bad it got, as long as she was here with me and unable to trick or abandon me again. Filling a large bowl with cool to warm water, I got a washcloth and began cleaning Momma’s face first. Slowly, I wiped and sometimes scrubbed every inch of her skin, even the soles of her feet. Removing her filthy clothes with a scissor was easy. They were not clothes designed for Momma. They were not nearly good enough. I put ’em in the trash. I rubbed shea butter on Momma’s cleaned, ashy, and bruised skin, everywhere. I cleaned my hands, and then put shea butter on Momma’s chapped lips, same as lipstick. When I gave Momma some spring water to drink, she spit it back at me. I wrapped
Momma in a blanket and put a new pair of socks in her mouth. “It’s 3:00 a.m. I have to run up to Big Johnnie’s to work,” I said to her.

At Big Johnnie’s you would expect that since I cleaned up each day, there might be nothing much to do besides make the sandwiches. Not true. It never failed that a full day of customers moving up and down each aisle led to many things being out of place. I imagined that he had three or four customers who came every day, didn’t buy nothing, but went about touching every item purposely pushing it out of place. In my mind, one of ’em was a thief who sometimes would almost get away, but then lost confidence when he caught himself in a deadlock stare with Big Johnnie and his big and small guns.

Big Johnnie was licensed to carry weapons because he was a business owner. Or at least, that’s what he once told me. In that same conversation, which was rare cause I hardly ever saw him, I told him he should get a lottery machine in his store. Then it would stay packed morning, noon, and night. He said that to get one of those machines, “the government wants to stick a microscope up my ass then shove a microphone down my throat. All of that and you only get a few cents on every ticket sold.”

I said, “Not if you sell the winning ticket. Then, I bet you get a percentage!”

He smiled and said, “You’re smarter than any of these knucklehead kids in this neighborhood.” I ignored that comment and told him that I already had a winning number. “Oh really?” he said. “What is it, your birthdate?”

“No, it’s just my lucky number but I’m not old enough to play it yet.”

“There’s all kinds of ways to play numbers, not only Lotto.”

“Okay, you want to play it for me?” I asked him.

“Sure, why not. I’ll play it and just subtract it from your pay.”

“I know that, but will you pay me when I win?” I asked him.

“What kind of fella would I be to cheat a young girl who works so hard and cooks better than my ex-wife?” he asked. I told him my number: 1111. He promised to play it for me, put it in, and leave it in.

“Okay straight, box, and combinate it,” I said. I didn’t know what all that meant either, but I heard it enough before, so I said it to increase my luck.

When I returned downstairs, Momma had peed on the floor. I wasn’t bothered by it. I had peed in many forbidden places when I was a captive. I cleaned it, changed her blanket, and gave her some water, still worried about her getting too dehydrated. She spitted it at me again and said she had to shit. I sat thinking for some seconds. Next I pulled out the heavy chain and lock I got from Riot and added it on so Momma could move around into the bathroom. The whites of Momma’s eyes turned blood red with anger as she sat staring at the chain. “Sorry, Momma, I can’t release you. I want to, but I can’t.”

Since she wouldn’t drink water, I soaked a washcloth with spring water and put it in her mouth hoping that the moisture would ease down her throat. It was 6:06 a.m. now. So, Big Johnnie would be opening up his store. Momma’s mouth had to be stuffed so she couldn’t use her voice to alert anyone upstairs.

“Let’s sleep now, Momma, for a little while.” I sat down beside her in a way I wasn’t able to since we had arrived here. Already I was enjoying her body warmth and leaning on her. Already I felt relaxed in ways that I never did when I was alone, or even when I was down here with Siri. Without dancing in Momma’s empty closet until my body collapsed, without playing music that I loved, without R. Kelly singing me into sweet slumber, or Siri massaging and humming me into a reluctant rest, I slept in seconds, leaning comfortably on Momma. It was morning. Everyone else in the world may be awakening. However, in the space below the floor there were no windows. The sun never rose or set down here.

A foul smell snatched me from my dreams and nightmares. I awoke covered in chunks of mush. Momma had vomited on me. It was still slimy, leading me to believe that it had just happened.

“You crazy bitch. Whose daughter are you? Take these cuffs off me right now, or I’ll start screaming. As much as I hate police,
somebody better come pull your ass up out of here before I kill you,” Momma said.

I didn’t want to, but it was time for the duct tape. I taped Momma’s mouth shut. I was teary-eyed. At least now she was sort of recognizing me as her daughter. At the same time she was threatening to kill me. I acted like I was searching for the keys to the cuffs, “Hold on, Momma, wait a minute, Momma,” I said. Then, “Where did I put those cuff keys!” I came up behind her where she could not turn, move, or see, and it was done. Her mouth was sealed shut.

After cleaning Momma and cleaning the floor and packing up the dirty blankets and clothes and showering myself and dressing for the day, I realized I shouldn’t leave Momma, but it was Friday. Time to meet up with Elisha, the only real joy in my young life.

Chapter 36

Siri said, “I’ll go and meet Elisha for you.” I stood thinking for some seconds. I started feeling maybe it was okay for her to go, maybe not. I love Siri. She has never left my side through prison, the reservation, my return to Brooklyn, and up until this moment.

“What will you wear?” I asked her.

“Give me something super pretty,” she said.

“Why?” I asked her.

“I like to feel good sometimes, too,” she said.

I listened to her and considered her words. Usually she is doing my hair and choosing my clothes and rubbing moisturizers on my skin and singing to me. I looked at the dresses I had not worn yet. They were dresses Mr. Sharp said “make ladies look like ladies, beautiful flowers.” I chose one for Siri to wear.

“Okay, you can go. Please tell Elisha I’m really busy today. So, I can’t make it.”

“I’ll tell him,” she said softly.

“But Siri, take the shopping cart and this laundry bag with you pretty please, and wash these things for Momma. I really need them. And don’t come home late!” I insisted.

“I’ll do the laundry, but Momma doesn’t like me. I know because you never even introduced us after all of this time,” Siri said.

“She’s not the real Momma, Siri, not until we get the drugs out of her. Then I’ll introduce you to a lady you will love, who will also love you back.”

“Okay.” She giggled. “I won’t be late or do anything wrong. Remember you like him. But I like you best of all, more than anyone.”

Soon as Siri left, I thought about how I had given her the bag of laundry to mess up her meeting with Elisha a little bit. Maybe he would spend time wondering about the stinky smell in her bag instead of seeing how really pretty Siri is. Then, if he asked her out to any place new, she would have to say no, she couldn’t go out with him, because she had to go to the Laundromat with her shopping
cart and dirty things. This way, I would have let him know that Ivory didn’t mean to leave him standing there waiting for me, which I had never done to him. I would have accomplished keeping him and Siri from going out on a real date. Third, I would have Momma’s laundry all clean and folded, in case it got cold on this late October night.