Push (3 page)

I'm twelve, no I was twelve, when that shit happen. I'm sixteen now. For past couple of weeks or so, ever since white bitch Lichenstein kick me outta school shit, 1983 and 1987, twelve years old and sixteen years old, first baby and this one coming, all been getting mixed up in my head. Mama jus' hit me wif fry in' pan? Baby, brand-new and wrapped in white blankets, or fat and dead-eyed lying in crib at my grandmother's house. Everything seem like clothes in washing machine at laundry mat—round 'n round, up 'n down. One minute Mama's foot smashing into side of my head, next I'm jumping over desk on Mrs Lichenstein's ass.

But now, right now, I'm standing at the sink finishing the dishes. Mama sleep on couch. It's Friday, October 16, 1987. I got to get through Saturday and Sunday 'fore I get to Monday—the alternative.

"School?" Mama say. "Go down to welfare, school can't help you none, now." Lady at Lane Bryant on one-two-five call these leggings YELLOW NEON. I'm wearing them and my X

sweat shirt. Put some Vaseline on my face, nuffin' I can do about my hair till I git some money to git my braids put back in. I look at my poster of Farrakhan on the wall. Amen Allah!

Radio clock glowing red 8:30 a.m. Time to go!

Mama sleep. I be back before she wake up, back in time to clean up and fix breakfast for Mama.

Why Mama never do anything? One time I ax her, when I get up from her knocking me down, she say, That's what you here for.

I is goin' down to the nineteenth floor of the Hotel Teresa to the all-tur-nah-TIVE! Reeboks, white!

Better than Nikes? No, next shits I get be Nikes!

Green leather jacket, keys. I is going, got my hand on the doorknob.

"Where you going?" Mama holler from her room.

Why ain' her fat ass sleep? I don't say nuffin'.

Fuck her!

"You hear me talking to you!" I start undoing locks on the front door. It's four of 'em.

"Precious!" Fuck you bitch. Ize gone! The staircase so skinny both sides of me touch some part of building when I'm going down the stairs.

Maybe after I have baby I lose some weight.

Maybe I get my own place.

When I step out in morning Lenox is jumping with cars, gypsy cabs, and buses. Delivery trucks is parked in front the supermarket and the McDonald's on corner of 132nd. Men, women, and kids waiting at bus stop to go to school and downtown to work. Wonder where they go to work? Where I gonna go to work, how I'm gonna get out HER house? I hate her. Come to 126th Street, across the street Sylvia's. I ain't got no money. African vendors out on street wif they stuff—leather purses and African clothes and earrings from cow shells, stuff like that.

I'm walking slow slow now. No one say nuffin' to me now my belly big. No "Yo Big Mama" 'n "all dat meat and no potatoes" shit. I'm safe. Yeah, safe from dese fools on the street but am I safe from Carl Kenwood Jones? This is my second baby for my daddy, it gonna be retarded too?

This time I know Mama know. Umm hmmm, she know. She bring him to me. I ain' cfazy, that stinky hoe give me to him. Probably thas' what he require to fuck her, some of me. Got to where he jus' come in my room any ole time, not jus'

night. He climb on me. Shut up! he say. He slap my ass, You wide as the Mississippi, don't tell me a little bit of dick hurt you heifer. Git usta it, he laff, you is usta it. I fall back on bed, he fall right on top of me. Then I change stations, change bodies, I be dancing in videos! In movies! I be breaking, fly, jus' a dancing! Umm hmm heating up the stage at the Apollo for Doug E. Fresh or Al B. Shure. They love me! Say I'm one of the best dancers ain' no doubt of or about that!

"I'm gonna marry you," he be saying. Hurry up, nigger, shut up! He mess up dream talkin' 'n gruntin'. First he mess up my life fucking me, then he mess up the fucking talkin'. I wanna scream. Oh shut up! Nigger, how you gonna marry me and you is my daddy! I'm your daughter, fucking me illegal. But I keep my mouf shut so's the fucking don't turn into a beating. I start to feel good; stop being a video dancer and start coming. I try to go back to video but coming now, rocking under Carl now, my twat jumping juicy, it feel good. I feel ashamed. "See, see," he slap my thigh like cowboys do horses on TV, then he squeeze my nipple, bite down on it. I come some more. "See, you LIKE it! You jus' like your mama—you die for it!" He pull his dick out, the white cum stuff pour out my hole wet up the sheets.

"Are you getting on the bus, young lady?" I blink at bus driver staring down at me. He shake his head, bus door close. I'm leaning against glass panel of bus stop. I stare at 101 bus disappearing down 125th Street. How I git here?

What I'm doing on one-two-five at this time of morning? I look down at my feet, my eyes catch on my leggings, NEON YELLOW, of course!

Alternative! I'm on my way, was on my way, walking down Lenox when bad thoughts hit me 'n I space out.

"You OK?" guy in a uniform for like working in a garage ax me.

"I'm OK, I'm OK." People done started to gather

'round me.

"That bitch crazy man!" a skinny dude in baggies say real loud to tall boy next to him.

"Fuck you narrow behind mutherfucker! Mind your bizness!" I break out from them, cross 125th Street, and head for Hotel Theresa. I done passed it a hunnert times but never been in it. I walk through the doors, past man at desk, he don't say nuffin' to me, I don't say nuffin' to him.

It's a elevator wif black doors. I step inside, stand there. Don't go nowhere. Push the button, stupid, I tell myself. I push the button; I'm not stupid, I tell myself.

I step out the elevator and see this lady with cornrow hair sitting at desk. White sign black letters on the desk.

"This the alternative?" I ax.

"The what?" She lift eyebrows.

"This the alternative?" That bitch heard me the first time!

"What exactly are you looking for?" woman nice talk.

"Well, what is this here?"

"This is Higher Education Alternative/Each One Teach One."

"I'm looking for alternative school."

"Well," woman look at me some more, "this is an alternative school."

I never seen anybody wif braids that don't hang down. Why git 'em put in if you not gonna get extensions?

"What alternative is?" May est wellst gone ask the bitch, fine out now what kinda school this gonna be.

"I don't know if I understand what you're asking me."

"Alternative—lady from my other school tell me to come here to Hotel Theresa, nineteenth floor, it's

'alternative' school."

"OK, OK," she say, "Each One Teach One is an alternative school and an alternative is like a choice, a different way to do something."

"Oh."

"What school did you come from?"

"From I.S. 146."

"That's a junior high school, isn't it?"

"I'm sixteen."

"You need discharge papers from your old school saying they have formally discharged you or we can't allow you in the program."

"I got kicked out 'cause I was pregnant—"

"Yes, yes, I understand but you still need formal discharge papers or we can't let you in. It's the law."

"Mrs Lichenstein ain' say all that."

"Oh you're the one Mrs Lichenstein called about."

"What she say?"

She answer like she talking to herself, "Said to be on the lookout for you, you might be coming our way." She fumble with some papers on her desk, "Are you Claireece P. Jones?"

"Thas' me." So they was really on the lookout for me? Thas' kinda nice.

"Well the principal at I.S. 146 already sent your discharge papers and stuff over."

"What stuff?"

"Your academic record—" The woman stop stare at me. "Are you all right?"

"They done sent my file!" I almost spit it, it make me so mad.

"Well, we had to have ahh certain information before we could accept you into the program.

Our students have to meet certain income, residential, and academic requirements before we can let them in the program. So really their sending your records over was just a way of speeding things up for you."

I wonder what exactly do file say. I know it say I got a baby. Do it say who daddy? What kind a baby? Do it say how pages the same for me, how much I weigh, fights I done had? I don't know what file say. I do know every time they wants to fuck wif me or decide something in my life, here they come wif the muther-fucking file.

Well, OK, they got file, know every mutherfucking thing. So what's the big deal, let's get it on.

"Can I start today?"

Ol' Cornrow's eyebrows go up. "Well of course,"

she say, "I mean we have an entry procedure but most of that has actually been completed for you.

The only thing we really need is income verification. Are you currently receiving AFDC?"

"No."

Eyebrows up again, she look down nose over glasses.

"My muver get AFDC for me and my daughter."

"Oh you've had amniocentesis?" She looking at my belly now.

"Huh?"

"You said your mother was receiving a check for you and your daughter?" She nod her head to my stomach.

"Not this baby! I got another one 'sides this one coming."

"Oh, I see, so your mother has custody of you and your daughter, in other words you're on her

'budget.' "

"Umm hmm." This bitch ain' no dummy.

"OK, well I need a copy of your mother's budget, a current phone or utilities bill, OK?"

"OK." I stare at her hard. "I got to go get all that now?"

"No, no relax, we're gonna give you a few tests; test your reading and math level, see whether to put you in pre-G.E.D. or G.E.D."

"What's the difference?"

"Well G.E.D. classes are for students whose basic skills are up to par and they're ready to just go into a class and start working on their G.E.D.

Pre-G.E.D. is when the student needs some work to get to the level of the G.E.D. class."

"What level that?"

"Well, to enter G.E.D. classes a student should be able to read on an eighth-grade level. They should score 8.0 or better on the TABE reading test."

"I was in the ninfe grade at I.S. 146."

"Then," Cornrows smile at me, "you should have no problem."

"What's the problem?" I axes the fat dark-skin woman who is looking over my shoulder at my answer sheet. She got leggings like mine 'cept hers black. She got on blue blouse, look nice, like silk. She look OK I guess. I like light-skin people, they nice. I likes slim people too. Mama fat black, if I weigh two hundred she weigh three.

The fat lady is looking at me. I looks back, she ain' answered my question.

"What's the problem?" I axes again.

"Well I think maybe you may need to take the test again—"

"You the teacher?"

"One of them."

"What you teach?"

"I teach the G.E.D. class."

"Who the other teacher?"

"Ms Rain."

"What she teach?"

"Ms Rain teaches the pre-G.E.D. reading class."

I know thas where I b'long, "Thas where I b'long,"

I tell her.

"Hmmm," go fat black heifer and look at me. I don't believe this bitch no teacher.

"Do you want to take the test again?"

"No."

For me this nuffin' new. There has always been something wrong wif the tesses. The tesses paint a picture of me wif no brain. The tesses paint a picture of me an' my muver—my whole family, we more than dumb, we invisible. One time I seen us on TV. It was a show of spooky shit, an'

castles, you know shit be all haunted. And the peoples, well some of them was peoples and some of them was vampire peoples. But the real peoples did not know it till it was party time. You know crackers eating roast turkey and champagne and shit. So it's five of 'em sitting on the couch; and one of 'em git up and take a picture. Got it? When picture develop (it's instamatic) only one person on the couch. The other peoples did not exist. They vampires. They eats, drinks, wear clothes, talks, fucks, and stuff but when you git right down to it they don't exist.

I big, I talk, I eats, I cooks, I laugh, I watch TV, do what my muver say. But I can see when the picture come back I don't exist. Don't nobody want me. Don't nobody need me. I know who I am. I know who they say I am—vampire sucking the system's blood. Ugly black grease to be wipe away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for.

I wanna say I am somebody. I wanna say it on subway, TV, movie, LOUD. I see the pink faces in suits look over top of my head. I watch myself disappear in their eyes, their tesses, I talk loud but still I don't exist.

I see it over and over, the real people, the people who show up when the picture come back; and they are pritty people, girls with little titties like buttons and legs like long white straws. Do all white people look like pictures? No, 'cause the white people at school is fat and cruel like evil witches from fairy tales but they exist. Is it because they white? If Mrs Lichenstein who have elephant stomach and garbage smell from her pussy exist, why don't I? Why can't I see myself, feel where I end and begin. I sometimes look in the pink people in suits eyes, the men from bizness, and they look way above me, put me out of their eyes. My fahver don't see me really. If he did he would know I was like a white girl, a real person, inside. He would not climb on me from forever and stick his dick in me 'n get me inside on fire, bleed, I bleed then he slap me.

Can't he see I am a girl for flowers and thin straw legs and a place in the picture. I been out the picture so long I am used to it. But that don't mean it don't hurt. Sometimes I pass by store window and somebody fat dark skin, old looking, someone look like my muver look back at me.

But I know it can't be my muver 'cause my muver is at home. She have not left home since Little Mongo was born. Who I see? I stand in tub sometime, look my body, it stretch marks, ripples.

I try to hide myself, then I try to show myself. I ax my muver for money to git my hair done, clothes.

I know the money she got for me—from my baby.

She usta give me money; now every time I ax for money she say I took her husband, her man. Her man? Please! Thas my mutherfuckin' fahver! I hear her tell someone on phone I am heifer, take her husband, I'm fast. What it take for my muver to see me? Sometimes I wish I was not alive. But I don't know how to die. Ain' no plug to pull out.