I Ain't Me No More (8 page)

After pulling off in our cars from Dub's house, my mother and I drove home because most of my classes were already over with. Ten minutes hadn't passed after we walked in the door when Dub came running down the street and began banging on our door.

“Helen! Let me in. Please let me talk to you. Don't leave me! Don't do this!” Dub hollered as he banged on the door. He was practically out of breath. I figured that was because he'd run all the way to our house. He had to have run, considering that his house was a good half hour walk from mine and he'd made it there in ten minutes.

“Call the police!” my mom told me as she scurried into her bedroom.

I picked up the cordless phone to dial 911. I could only half pay attention to the operator because of all the jingling noises coming from my mom's bedroom. This was not the time to be counting money, but that was exactly what it sounded like she was doing as I heard change clinking together. I stood outside her door, which was barely cracked open, on the phone.

“Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?” the operator asked.

“Someone's trying to break into the house.”

Dub was knocking, turning the knob, and throwing his body against the door, all the while yelling my name. “Helen!”

“Can you repeat that, ma'am?” the operator asked me.

“Someone is trying to break into the house,” I told her.

“Not
someone.
Tell her it's your boyfriend.”

It was the way my mother said it that reminded me why I hadn't told anyone what Dub was doing to me. She had said it so accusingly. She might as well have said, “It's your boyfriend, so this is your fault. None of this would be going down if you hadn't picked this nutcase.”

It was then that I wished I could recant my earlier statement and tell her instead that I'd been playing hooky from school to lay up under my boyfriend. She would have believed it. That had been her initial notion, anyway. Honesty had invited trouble to our doorstep. Why did I tell?

“My boyfriend is trying to break into our house.” I stood corrected.

The 911 operator asked me more questions than a registration nurse at the emergency room. After all was said and done, she told me that because I hadn't seen Dub with a weapon, it wasn't an emergency, so I needed to hang up and call the local police. By that time Dub could be through the door, slitting our throats.

I hung up the phone and searched for the white pages in order to find the number for the Columbus Police Department. That was when my mother came stalking out of her room and past me, heading straight to the front door. I looked down at her hand and realized why I'd heard all that jingling noise.

Before I could even find the number for the police, my mother had flung open the door and taken immediate aim at Dub. With a sweat sock full of coins, she commenced clocking him upside his head. Genie was not playing. With every hit she threw, an expletive was lobbed from her mouth, as well.

After about three swings, Dub found his bearings, and his instinct was to fight back. He balled his fists, and then he looked at me standing in the doorway. Was this man about to hit my mother? That was the question that lingered in my eyes. When Dub saw that look, he halted and backed away. Then, just as quickly as he had come up that street, he headed back down the street.

What his next move was, I had no idea.

 

 

“Helen, this is Ms. Daniels,” she said through the phone receiver.

Although over the phone I couldn't see the somber expression that probably plagued Dub's mother's face, I could tell by the tone of her voice that something was wrong. Something besides the fact that only hours ago my mother had practically had to do a prison break to get me away from her son.

“Dub tried to kill himself,” were the next words that came out of Ms. Daniels's mouth. “When I came home, I found him unconscious. He took every pill in the house, it seems.” Her voice cracked as she continued. “I called nine-one-one, and they came and took him to the emergency room, where they pumped his stomach.”

Ain't that a blimp?
When I tried to get 911 to come get his butt, they wouldn't.

“They took him to the Hilltop and admitted him there,” she told me, now crying.

The Hilltop was where the crazy hospital was. It was now certified. Dub was a bona fide crazy. It was no longer just my opinion, but a fact!

“He's going crazy, Helen. He said he can't live without you. They can't get him calmed down or anything. They have him restrained. He said as soon as they let him loose, he's just going to try to do it again.”

By now I could hardly understand what Ms. Daniels was saying because she was crying so hard. This was his first suicide attempt, to her knowledge, so I could tell she was in complete shock and disbelief. Neither Dub nor I had ever shared with her his hanging attempt. Maybe if we had, she could have gotten him the help he needed before he made this second attempt.

“I don't want to lose my baby.” She sniffed and got herself together. “I was thinking, maybe if you could just go see him, you know, to calm him down, that would help.”

“Ms. Daniels, I—”

“Who's that on the phone?” I heard my mother call from the dinner table, where we'd been sitting and eating before the phone rang. “Tell them you'll call them back. You're eating dinner. Your food is getting cold. You can gossip later,” my mother huffed.

“Look, Ms. Daniels, I have to go,” I told her, relieved that my mom had come to the rescue for the second time today.

“Dub told me everything that went on,” Ms. Daniels said, beginning her plea, “but I know you wouldn't want him to die, would you?” There was no way I could answer that question candidly. So I said nothing. “If you don't go see him, that's exactly what's going to happen. He's going to kill himself. So please, Helen, just go see him for a minute, will you please? Please, Helen. He's my son.”

“Ms. Daniels, I—”

“Please, Helen, you're the only one who can help him.”

“Helen, did you hear what your mother said?” my stepfather called out.

“I really have to go,” I told Ms. Daniels.

“Fine. I'll let you go,” she said, “but just tell me you'll do it.”

The pressure was on. My mom started yelling from the kitchen again, while Ms. Daniels cried in my ear.

A decision had to be made.

“So you're the one who's causing my baby all this pain,” the nurse said to me as I entered Dub's room at the Hilltop. She was standing over his hospital bed, rubbing his forehead in a comforting manner.

I just looked at the chubby little brown woman with gray hair and black-rimmed glasses. Had she really just said that to me, and in front of him?

I looked at Dub, and when his eyes locked with mine, he immediately broke down in tears.

The nurse shook her head and continued rubbing his forehead. “It's going to be all right, baby. Keep your head up. God's gonna keep you,” she told him.

God was keeping him, indeed, from the angel of death. He'd made his second attempt at taking his own life, and God had spared him yet again. Why? I just couldn't understand it. Dub was far from a saint. I mean, I wasn't a saint, either, but dang. What was so special about Dub? But then I recalled a scripture, something about God not being a respecter of man. What He did for the saved He'd do for the unsaved. If that was the case, I figured why bother trying to do good if God was going to bless a person, anyway, even in their sin?

“I'll leave you alone with her, because I know that's what you want,” the nurse said to Dub, giving me the evil eye. Evidently, it wasn't what she wanted to do, leave him alone with me. She acted like I was going to finish him off or something. I could see it in her eyes as she brushed past me. If she could have things her way, I'd be the one tied down somewhere.

“I'm so glad you came,” Dub cried. “I knew you would come. I knew you would.” He said it with somewhat of a sinister grin on his lips. As if he had no intentions of actually dying. He just knew that it would have to be practically over his dead body for me to ever be in the same room with him again. He had probably even timed everything just right, waiting to take all those pills at just the right time, when he knew his mother would come home from work. Trick of the enemy, and I had fallen for it.

Since I had already fallen for the hook, just minutes behind came the line and sinker when I promised him I would never leave him. I didn't say it because I loved him. I said it because I was afraid of what he'd do to himself. I didn't want his blood on my hands. Why did I keep sacrificing myself to save him when he kept making the same stupid decisions and getting the same results? Hmm, guess Jesus was probably shaking His head, saying the same thing about me.

Nonetheless, I went back to him. It was now official. I was a bona fide crazy too.

 

 

“The house looks good, baby,” Dub said as he sat on the couch, which was kitty-corner to the chair I was sitting in. Two-and-a-half-year-old Baby D was sitting on the floor in front of the television, which we were all watching. We sat around like a real family, the makeshift family that we were.

I looked around. The little duplex I'd managed to rent just two weeks after my eighteenth birthday wasn't much, but it was clean, just like my ride. Dub's sister had moved into one a couple houses down. I was most excited when she told me about a place that would charge me rent according to my income. It wasn't Section 8, but a place that received government grants in order to subsidize the rent of low-income families.

It was in the hood, but it was mine. Besides, for twenty-six dollars a month, I couldn't complain. Although Baby D and I were the only ones on the lease who were permitted to claim residence, like lots of boyfriends of women on Section 8 or living in low-income housing, Dub lived there too.

I felt good about myself. Yes, I'd ended up being a teenage mom just like my mother had, but unlike her, I had finished high school. Not only had I finished high school, but I was now going to college at Capital University as well. And on top of that, I had my own car and my own place. I'd achieved what some people never thought I would after I became a statistic.

“Thanks.” I had a proud smile on my face. I had to say that was one of the very few times in the three and some years I'd been with Dub that I was almost content. It had been over a month since he'd abused me last. Back then I thought that perhaps all those pleas to God had finally been heard. People say that God can change things in the blink of an eye. Had He finally shown me so much grace and mercy?

I got my answer in the blink of an eye, because it wasn't but a few minutes later when, out of nowhere, I felt a slap across my face. My hand rose to caress my throbbing cheek. I looked over at Dub with a perplexed expression on my face. What had I done to deserve it? I mean, he'd just complimented me on how good the house looked. Maybe it was the laundry I'd done earlier; perhaps I had used too much bleach, and holes had formed in his socks again. Maybe it was the snacks that we were nibbling on, which were spread across the coffee table. Had I put too much salt into the tuna fish salad? Or maybe the Kool-Aid wasn't sweet enough. After all, these had all been reasons why he'd abused me in the past.

It was as if Dub could see the wheels turning in my head and they were making him dizzy. “I hadn't hit you in a while,” he stated matter-of-factly, “but I'm sure you've done something that deserved a slap.” Then, just like that, he picked up his glass to take a sip of his Kool-Aid and turned his attention back to the television.

I wanted to smack him right back, but I knew better. Just trying to fight him off made things worse. I was afraid to see what would happen if I actually ever inflicted pain on him. Anger filled me so much so that I wanted to cry, but at first I just sucked it in. Then I realized that the best thing for me to do would be to let a tear trickle out of my eye just for show. After all, he'd just slugged me because I'd been sitting there looking way too happy. I wasn't supposed to be sitting around, feeling happy and smiling. I was supposed to remain trembling in fear. So I cried. Not just that day, but I cried a lot of days, always conscious of the fact that I could not get caught being happy ever again.

As I turned to watch television, I noticed that my son was no longer gazing at the TV screen. He was surveying me. I wanted to just crawl under a rock and die, but instead I wiped my tear away, held my head up high, and pretended that nothing had happened. Pretended that my son wasn't watching. But he was. And him watching shrank my soul even more. My son was the only person who had witnessed the torment and abuse firsthand. I hated that he had that knowledge. And his little brown eyes were asking me why I wasn't fighting back. Why hadn't I ever fought back?

I felt like a coward in my son's eyes. Powerless. I wanted so desperately for him to see me as strong and powerful. For now, though, he'd simply sit back with a muted voice while his father made our lives a living hell.

I used to wonder how Dub always seemed to know what was on my mind, how he'd answer a question that might have been lingering in my psyche before I ever voiced it. But then I realized it was because he had control of my mind. He'd watched me and studied me for the past four years now. He knew what I was going to say or do before I ever said or did it. He knew my thoughts before I even thought them, which was yet another reason why I never made a plan to try to leave Dub. If he sensed it, he would kill me for sure. He'd told me a million times that he would kill me if I ever tried to leave him. So eventually I blocked out the possibility of ever leaving Dub from my mind altogether. I'd made up my mind that I'd die being with Dub, even if he was the cause of my death.

“Thank you for driving me to the clinic,” Konnie stated as I sat next to her in the waiting room. Konnie was one of Dub's friend's girlfriends. Dub had known Konnie's boyfriend, Boyd, since high school, and Konnie and Boyd had been dating since high school. They were that couple that everyone just knew was going to make it beyond high school sweethearts, and they had thus far.

“Girl, don't worry about it.” I waved my hand. “I had to drop Baby D off at Dub's mama's house, anyway, so I was already out. Besides, I'ma go on and get a checkup while I'm here. I can't remember the last time I've been to the doctor.”

I must admit, I was never one to take really good care of my body health wise. At nineteen years old, I could count on one hand how many times I'd been to the dentist. The few times I had gone, the dentist always managed to find a spot that needed one of those silver fillings. After I had Baby D, my doctor told me to make sure I got annual Pap smear exams. Tuh! This would probably be my first one since I'd gone back to the doctors for my six-week follow-up appointment after having Baby D.

“Yeah, I don't blame you.” Konnie nodded. “Since you probably have to sit in this walk-in clinic all day with me, you might as well see a doctor for something. You got a health card, don't you?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. Then you ain't got nothing to lose.”

I really liked Konnie, and not just because she was the only friend Dub would sometimes allow me to hang around. My best friend from high school, Synthia, was way too pretty for Dub to let me hang with her outside of her visits to my place. She was a man magnet. Guys couldn't help but stare at Synthia and boldly approach her as well. That usually meant if the dude that approached Synthia had any of his boys with him, then more than likely they would try to holler at me. Dub wasn't having it, so the only friends I was allowed to roll with had to be average or unattractive in Dub's eyes.

Konnie wasn't ugly at all, but she was plus size. Mo'Nique hadn't shown the world yet just how sexy big women were, so Dub felt it was cool for me to be in the company of Konnie. Plus, she was the girlfriend of the guy he said he was “going into business with.”

Dub and Boyd had witnessed many of their old high school friends turn into hustlers, making quick come ups out of the hood. This was all thanks to the fairly new monkey, crack cocaine. So those two monkeys thought it would be a good idea to make a come up too. The two started spending a lot of time together on the grind, which left me and Konnie to keep each other company. I couldn't have been happier to have Dub busy out in the streets rather than in my face, raising hell.

“You think it's true what people be saying about those crackheads out there? That they'll do anything for a hit?” Konnie asked out of nowhere as we waited at the clinic.

“Everybody can't be making up the same lie,” was my reply. “Girl, I done looked out the window in my hood and seen some stuff going down in my back alley.”

“For real?” Konnie snapped her head toward me like she couldn't believe it.

I guess because Konnie lived in an apartment on what some coined the “good side” of Cleveland Avenue, she didn't have the opportunity that I did, living on the “bad side” of Cleveland Avenue, of course, to see how the drug game was really affecting people.

“Girl, yeah,” I confirmed. “I see it every time I look out the window. Baby D won't even go outside and ride his bike. He's just a little kid, and his instincts tell him it ain't safe.”

Konnie was silent for a brief moment before she spoke. “You think our men be out there trickin' with them crackhead girls? You know some of 'em are cute. Don't even be looking like crackheads.” To make her point, Konnie said, “You remember Alexis from high school? She on that stuff. And you know how cute she is. She was the captain of the cheerleading team and beautiful. You know guys will be trying to hit that, crackhead and all.”

“Is that what you're worried about?” I asked. “You worried about your dude out there cheating on you with some crackheads?” I chuckled and then busied myself with a magazine that was lying on the table in front of me.

“Well, ain't you?”

“Not at all,” I said with confidence. Besides, as much as Dub hounded me, fought me, and stole sex from me, I knew he wasn't getting it elsewhere. Otherwise, he would leave me alone. “Do you see the look in our men's eyes before they go hit them streets? Nothing but dollar signs. They just trying to make some money. So if I were you, I wouldn't even trip on that.”

“You think?” A bit of doubt laced her voice.

I wanted to reassure her once again, but before I could, the nurse called her name and mine, as well as the names of two other people waiting to be seen by one of the doctors on staff.

“Ms. Lannden, you can go to room five,” the nurse instructed me. “I or another nurse will be in shortly to ask you a few questions.”

I followed the nurse's instructions, and about ten minutes later a different nurse came into the room to ask me some general questions.

“Ms. Lannden, what are we seeing you for today?” the petite blonde asked.

“Just a checkup. I'm not really having any problems,” I said with certainty.

The nurse flipped through my chart. “Do you have a primary family doctor, or do you just come here?”

“Just here.”

She scanned a page of my chart. “I see we have past records for you, but we haven't seen you in about two years.”

“I only go to the doctor when something is wrong,” I fretfully acknowledged. “So the last time I was at the doctor was about two years ago.”

“Oh, then you definitely need your annual Pap smear,” she concluded. She flipped through a couple more pages of my chart before she jotted down some things. She then took my blood pressure and weighed me before setting up all the things the doctor would need to examine me. “I need you to take off all your clothes.” She handed me a paper gown.

“From the waist down?” I questioned.

“No, all your clothes. The doctor needs to do a breast examination as well.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Once the nurse left the room, closing the door behind her, I traded my jogging suit for the paper gown and hopped onto the examination table. “Dang, I forgot to put lotion on.” I shook my head at how ashy my skin was.

“Knock, knock,” I heard a voice say, along with some tapping on the door. “Is it okay to come in?”

“Yes,” I replied to the doctor, who peeked his head in as if he didn't want to catch me naked. It wasn't like he wasn't about to dang near have his entire face in my crotch and fondle my breasts.

After entering the room and closing the door behind him, the doctor made small talk and then proceeded to give me my checkup. I was slightly embarrassed by the odor that seemed to be coming from between my legs. But if I'd said it once, I'd say it twice, and now I was gonna say it one mo' 'gain; I had never been one to stay on top of my hygiene. My mother had never taught me about douches and all that stuff, and how important it was to keep my feminine parts clean.

Lynn used to have a fit and talk about me like I was a dog when it came to my personal hygiene.

“Did you take a shower today? Because your rag is still dry and is hanging in the same spot it was in yesterday, and you didn't even shower then,” Lynn would bark before spouting out the word
trifling
under her breath.

Now that I thought about it, I was always so depressed and miserable that I couldn't have cared less about whether I looked good or smelled good. Besides, the odor didn't seem to be affecting the doctor. I was sure he'd smelled worse.

“You can put your clothes back on, and I'll be back in shortly,” the doctor said as he removed the rubber gloves from his hands, pitched them in the trash, and then washed his hands.

After he exited the room, I got up and got dressed. I then sat and waited patiently for his return. Once again, he knocked before entering while he peeked his head in. With my chart in his hand, he entered the room and then closed the door behind him. He sat down on the stool and examined the chart, his eyes never once making contact with me. That was my first sign that everything wasn't kosher.

“Well, Ms. Lannden,” he began, still reading his notes, “it appears as though you have chlamydia.”

When those words fell out of the doctor's mouth, they had no effect on me at all. I had no idea what chlamydia was. Had the doctor looked up from his notes at my face, he would have determined that by my expression. But, no, he just kept his face buried in his notes, as if he was the one I had contracted chlamydia from.

“So what I'm going to do is give you a prescription that will take care of it,” the doctor continued. When he received no reaction from me whatsoever, he finally slightly raised his head and peered at me. After examining the blank look on my face the same way he had just examined my womanhood, he said, “You don't know what chlamydia is, do you?”

I shook my head.

My ignorance seemed to relax the doctor to the point where he laid the chart down, let out a deep sigh, and then looked directly at me. “Chlamydia is an STD, a sexually transmitted disease. It's like gonorrhea, only the physical symptoms aren't always as prevalent as those of gonorrhea. You might not be having the itching and burning and all that stuff.”

He was right, because I had none of those symptoms. No abnormal discharge or anything.

“But one of the signs can be a strong odor coming from your private area.” He cleared his throat, as if to say, “Hence that odor coming from you.” “It's only transmitted sexually, which means . . .”

The doctor's words, one by one, fell off the face of the earth, plummeting to their death. He was still speaking; I just wasn't hearing him. I couldn't get past the part about chlamydia being a sexually transmitted disease. I had had sex with only one person in my life. So there was only one source from which I could have caught the disease, Dub.

Before realizing how ignorant I was sure I sounded to the doctor, I cut him off and said, “But I've only been with one person in my entire life.”

The look on his face said, “Then that should make it easy to pinpoint who the dirty birdie is.”

“Are you sure there is no other way to catch this disease?” I asked, desperate. I even wished he would lie to me and make something up. I needed for him to see how determined I was to know that Dub hadn't brought home this mess to me. After everything Dub had put me through, now he wanted me to have to deal with a sexually transmitted disease as well?

“Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted disease. The only way to catch it is through sexual contact, be it intercourse or oral.”

“You mean like kissing?” I was getting excited now. There might be a chance that all Dub had done was kiss another girl. That I could live with.

“No, not kissing. Sex, which includes oral sex,” the doctor explained. “This means he's going to have to go get himself checked out too. Unlike gonorrhea, chlamydia doesn't reveal itself three days after contracting it with dripping and puss and stinging during urinating. He probably doesn't even know he has it, or else I hope he would have told you. So no telling how long you've had it. But guessing from the odor . . .” This time the doctor's words really did trail off, and he didn't say another word. He'd already stuck in the knife, so why rotate it and amplify the pain?

Intruding upon the silence of my mental self-loathing, the doctor stood and said, “I'm going to write you a prescription and leave it at the front desk with the receptionist. I'll need you to come back for a follow-up in a few weeks to make sure we've got this taken care of.” He smiled and was gone.

I was disgusted as I dragged myself out of the examination room and to the front desk to pick up my prescription and schedule a follow-up appointment. As I walked toward the door of the clinic, heading to the car, I felt as though all eyes were on me, the girl with the venereal disease. I knew it was all in my head, though. Still, I felt so dirty and disgusting. And I felt pissed off and couldn't wait to confront Dub.

“So were you just going to leave me?” I heard a voice ask.

I turned around to see Konnie walking up behind me.

“You walked right by me in the waiting room. I been done. I was just waiting on you.”

“Oh, my bad,” I told her as I proceeded to head on out the door.

“You okay?” Konnie asked as she walked beside me, sensing something was wrong.

“Yeah,” I lied.

She wasn't buying it. “You sure?”

We approached my car, and Konnie stood there and waited while I got inside and unlocked her door for her. All sounds were muffled after she got in given the roar of the engine. I'd stomped the gas pedal so hard, as if I was stomping on Dub's face.