Authors: Peggy Kern
Little Peach (12 page)
“Step back,” he repeats.
Then I see the blood. A dark spot between Kat’s legs.
“Kat,” I say softly.
“Get her off!” she screams.
“Back up!” the man yells.
“Kat. Wait.” My hand on her shoulder.
Baby’s cage teeters at the top of the wheel, slowly makes its way back down to earth. The man opens the door, Baby bolts right to us, her face wet and twisted. I open my arms, but she pushes me away.
“I don’t like it,” she cries. “It’s too high.” Then, to Kat, “Why’d you bring us here? Why’d you make me go on there?”
“I’m sorry! I thought you’d have fun.”
“You wanted me to get scared. I know it!”
“Kat,” I whisper. “You’re bleeding.”
A crowd has formed around us. The freckled woman carries her son past us, hurries away like we’re crazy.
Kat looks down.
Baby screams.
I take their hands, through the crowd, to the street. “Baby, go home,” I command.
“I want my fish. I want Nemo! Where is he?”
She won’t let go of my hand. I push her. “Go home. Right now.”
“You can’t just leave him like that!”
Kat and I lock eyes. Clench hands.
And run.
Coney Island, New York
And then you are there. Your brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, your white coat like a doctor, a plastic card clipped to the pocket.
Daniela Cespedes, CSW.
They put us in the back, away from everyone else. Because I was screaming when we got here, because we busted through the emergency room doors and Kat fell to the floor, cursing and crying and bleeding.
She’s quiet now, curled in a ball on the bed. Her
hands shake in silence. Her bloody pants are crumpled on the floor.
She sobs.
Her whole body shakes.
I am too scared to touch her.
A doctor comes in and sits down next to Kat.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
Because the baby is dead.
“Get the fuck away from me.” Her new voice is gone now, replaced by another. Her words flop to the ground, limp and wasted.
He nods, his lips pressed together like he understands, his eyes resting on Kat before he stands to leave. “You can rest here for a while. If you need anything, Daniela will take care of you.”
And then he’s gone—the heavy door shut behind him.
Kat’s tattoo leaks like a stain from the top of her thin hospital gown.
“You’ve had that for a while, huh?” you say.
“What?”
“The tattoo. It’s fading already.” You look at me. “You have one too?”
“Don’t answer her, Peach,” Kat says. “Don’t tell her shit.”
You smile at her, pull the blanket up around her quaking body.
“How come she’s shakin’ like that?” I whisper.
“She’s in withdrawal,” you answer. “That’s my guess. Right?”
Kat shrugs, curls herself up tighter.
“You try to quit by yourself when you got pregnant?”
Silence.
“Okay. Listen. There are three men outside, waiting for you. One of them says he’s your cousin. But judging from the star on his shoulder, my guess is he’s your pimp. He’s definitely Blood. And you’re gonna be in a lot of trouble for coming here. So how ’bout we talk?”
Silence.
“C’mon, kiddo. You’ve made it this far. Take a chance. Trust me. Maybe I can help.”
Kat groans, a deep, hollow sound that sucks the air from the room. Then she starts to shake again. The tears fall down, crash on the bed, and disappear.
“Shut up,” she whimpers. “Please. Just shut the hell up.”
You sigh gently, then turn your eyes on me.
“How ’bout you? Is he your pimp too?”
“Don’t tell her shit, Peach.”
The baby is dead. Kat is broken. I open my mouth to speak. I want to talk to you.
I don’t know why. I know I shouldn’t. I don’t know what you’ll do to me. But there’s something about the way you look at us, like we’re not in trouble at all. Like we’re nice girls.
And then I hear another voice, reaching out from a faraway place. From somewhere I’d forgotten, or tried to escape.
Punky
, it says.
Punky
.
Talk to her. Remember? What do you do if you’re in trouble?
“He’s not a pimp.” My voice is small. Tiny. “He takes care of us.”
“He sell you for sex?”
I don’t answer. A pimp is a guy in a music video, with a tricked-out car and gold chains. That’s not Devon.
You keep looking at me. “Is someone selling you?”
I don’t answer.
“Okay. Let me put it a different way. Someone
is
selling you—and that person is a pimp. And I know he’s a Blood because all those boys waiting for you two are flagging red.”
Pimp. If he’s a pimp, what does that make me? I feel like I might be sick. “What’s withdrawal?” I ask you.
“That’s what happens when you stop taking drugs. You feel very, very ill.”
“We don’t do drugs.”
“Okay.”
“We take medicine. So we don’t feel scared.”
“Okay. Do you want to go with them? With the guys out there?”
Through the small window in the door, I can see Daddy. Boost and Fuse, too, the little guy I don’t like. Where’s Baby? She must be so scared, seeing Kat bleeding. We ran away from her. We left her there, alone.
No. I don’t think I want to go with them. But I can’t leave Kat. I can’t leave Baby. They need me.
I don’t have anyone else.
“Can Kat stay here? Till she’s better? I could stay with her.”
“I wish she could, but the doctors need the bed for other people.”
“Like who?”
“People who are hurt worse than she is. Physically, at least. If you tell me those guys are related to you, I have to let you go. I have no choice. But if you girls want help, let’s talk. . . .”
Kat pulls herself up, wipes her face. “C’mon, Peach. We out.”
“But maybe we should—”
“Maybe you should shut up like I told you to. This woman can’t do shit for us.” Then she turns her eyes on you. “They’re our cousins. They came to get us, a’ight? I said it. So now you can leave.”
“Okay,” you say. “Well, at least take this.”
Your hand reaches out.
A card. A small white card.
Daniela Cespedes, CSW.
I take it tight into my fist.
“You know where I am. If you change your mind, I’m here.”
And then you’re gone too—lost in the noisy chaos of the world outside our door. Doctors rushing past.
Nurses in a hurry. Families waiting for people they’re worried about. People who are hurt worse than Kat. People who get to stay here, with you—the lady with the soft eyes who didn’t yell at us at all.
Kat shoves her feet into her sneakers, yanks her T-shirt over her hospital gown. She kicks her bloody pants across the floor.
“Kat,” I say. “Maybe we should talk to her. Maybe—”
“My name ain’t Kat, it’s Keisha.” Her eyes are puffy and wet, the color of a bruise. “And nobody’s gonna help us. She ain’t gonna do shit but send us to a group home. So let’s just go. Lemme tell you somethin’, Peach. You wanna survive? You want a life? Then you better start thinkin’ for yourself. Don’t be listenin’ to no lady in a hospital. She ain’t magic. Nobody is.”
In the waiting room, the boys surround us.
“What the fuck,” Devon growls, gripping Kat’s arm so hard her skin squeezes through his fingers. “You better tell me right now you didn’t say a goddamn word to these people.”
Kat looks right at him. “You scared, D? Maybe I did. Maybe I told them everything.”
Then Devon’s eyes light up. Like a fire. He grips
my arm, too, Boost right beside him, Fuse making fists with his hands, and they lead us out into the hot August streets.
Home.
Kat paces like a creature, her face wet and shaky. She looks crazy. Boost and Fuse stand by the door with their giant stiff bodies and watch Devon, who watches Kat. His face is hard and still. His eyes flame like gasoline, his hands balled up.
The air crackles.
“You fucking crazy bitch,” he says to her. “You tryin’ to get us all locked up? Goin’ to a hospital? What the fuck you say to them, huh?”
I clench my eyes shut, and then I see her: the girl from the hotel, the one who was screaming, the one that Boost put down on the balcony. The girl we never saw again, and Devon’s words to me that night.
She would’ve gotten us all locked up
.
“You did this to me,” Kat hisses, her eyes wobbling in her head. Her face is drenched, sweat dripping down to her shoulders. “You told Queen Bee to kill it. I know you did. She gave me a pill. She said it was a vitamin.”
“What you say to them, Kat?” Devon’s voice rises, rumbling like a storm. I cover my ears. I don’t want to hear this.
Kat gets up in his face, her head twisting on her long neck. “Maybe I told them the truth. That you killed my baby. Maybe I told ’em I been doin’ this shit for five years, makin’ you money, believin’ all the shit you talk. You been talkin’ shit at me since you picked my ass up at that group home. We gonna make money, Kat. We gonna get up outta here, Kat. We gonna have a baby. We gonna get a house. You talk and talk but we ain’t got shit. You gonna work me till I’m dead. Till I end up like those girls on the track, all strung out and used up and starvin’.”
The words shoot from her mouth like bullets. But they bounce right off him.
“I ain’t doin’ this no more. I’m done. You hear me? You had no right. You had no fuckin’ right! You promised me, D! You promised! You said!”
Boost takes a step toward Kat, then backs away when Devon raises his hand. I wait for the slap, for Kat to crumple on the floor, but Devon pulls her in. She struggles, squirms, then pushes her head into his chest. I
don’t know what she’s doing.
“I didn’t kill nothin’, Kat. You talkin’ crazy. You need to calm the hell down.”
Kat pulls away from him, falls on the couch in a pile. “That was my baby. It was mine. I woulda raised it. I woulda loved it.”
Devon shakes his head, a thin laugh slipping from his lips. “Look at you. What the hell you gonna do with a baby, Kat?”
“I woulda loved it,” she says. “You got no idea what I am.”
“Get dressed, Peach,” Devon barks. “Get Baby dressed too. We’ll talk about your little trip this morning later. Kat’ll stay with me tonight.”
I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave her. But Boost grips my arm, pushes me into the bedroom where Baby’s buried underneath her blanket.
“You heard him. Get dressed. Now.”
And so I do.
So does Baby. Her hair in pigtails and barrettes. Dressed in her costume: a stupid pink dress with ruffles.
And we leave Kat behind.
She is still crying, crumpled on the couch in her
hospital gown, her hands on her empty stomach, when we step into the hall. She does not look at us.
Boost and Fuse drive us to the Litehouse.
Up the metal stairs.
Me in Room 4.
Baby in Room 3.
Kat’s room is empty.
Baby’s face is hard—as hard as Devon’s.
“I told you we shouldn’t have gone,” she says, with eyes that I don’t recognize, and shuts the door behind her.
Two a.m.
The trick takes long pulls from his glass pipe, the small white pebble melting in the heat. Watery smoke spills from his nose. His eyes sag, and soon he starts to snore.
I take his phone and lock the bathroom door.
I can only think of one person to call.
Information.
“What city and state, please?”
Philadelphia. Pennsylvania.
“What listing?”
Boo’s Lounge.
“Please hold a moment.”
Ring ring
.
Music and voices.
“This Boo’s!” says a man.
My heart throbs in my throat.
“Is Chuck there?”
“Chuck?”
“Yeah. Chuck. Out front.”
“Hold on a sec.”
Music and voices and noise. I wait and wait and wait until I hear him.
“Hello? Who this?”
“It’s me,” I whisper. “It’s Michelle.”
“I can’t hear shit. Hold up. Yo, Boo! Turn the damn music down!”
Please. Please hear me
.
“Hello?”
“Chuck! It’s Michelle!”
“Michelle? Is that you?” His words slide into each other, slow and messy. He’s drunk.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“I . . . I don’t . . . Where are you?”
“I’m in New York. Can you come get me?”
“What?”
“I’m in New York.”
“New York?! Your mama said . . . I don’t understand. Michelle? Is it really you?” He’s shouting now.
“Yeah. It’s me. Please. Listen. I think—” I swallow hard. “I think I’m in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
I don’t know. “I just need help. Can you come get me?”
“Oh, ’Chelle.”
He’s crying now. Something shatters in the background. “Goddamn it!” he hollers. “Michelle? You still there?”
“Yeah.” My head falls in my hands. I sit on the toilet, the phone pressed to my ear, and pretend I’m sitting outside of Boo’s with him, like I did when I was little, waiting for Grandpa to get home.
“Your mama, she gone, ’Chelle. I think she got locked up. I asked her where you went, but she kept givin’ me stories like you was with a friend or you went to stay with family, but I know you ain’t got no family. The house all empty now, ’Chelle. The lights ain’t on. I been thinkin’
about you so much. I miss you. Your grandpa, he asked me to look out for you, and I tried to, I swear, but . . .”
Chuck keeps talking, the words crashing into one another, breaking up when he starts to cry again.
He can’t help me. He can’t even talk right.
“I met a lady,” I say. “She said she can help me out. But I don’t know, Chuck. I need . . . I need somebody to tell me what to do. Can you tell me?” My voice breaks, and I wait for him to say something.
I’m on my way
. Or,
Stay right there. I will find you
.
For a moment, he’s quiet, the sounds of Boo’s in the background. Music. Voices. Someone laughing.
“Oh, God,” he says in a low, weak voice I can barely hear. “I’m sorry, ’Chelle. I’m sorry I ain’t like your grandpa want me to be.”
