Somebody's Someone (22 page)

Within the first day of camp I learned that I was a forward. I had no idea what that was. But quick enough, I understood that my job was to snatch the ball in rebound from the backboard, the air, or the other team and get it to the first person on my team that I could see. I liked playing basketball, but I wasn’t as good at it as I tended to be at crab ball. Plus my PE teacher didn’t come to the camp with me, and I guessed that’s why I wasn’t betta’. I always seemed to do mighty well when somebody I liked was rooting me on. But even though I was by myself, I took a liking to being at the college with all the counselors and kids. We was all happy and had a lot of fun.

One thing I noticed quickly was that nobody tattletaled on each other. And you didn’t have to worry ’bout no pesky li’l boys having to hang out with you all the time. We got along fine, just like the folks on the TV shows. Plus, we could have anything we wanted at camp without havin’ to feel shame for asking. Not like at Big Mama’s, where I’d ask for somethin’ as small as a nickel and have to hear ’bout how ain’t nobody was paying for her to take care of me and my sister and if I wanted anything then I should find my mama and ask her for it. At camp I loved the pizza and soda pops. I was told that
soda water
was a word used by folks from the sticks and made folks see that I wasn’t from North Carolina. And if I wanted to be cool, I should say “soda pop.” So soda pop it was.

At camp there was always ’nough food to feed everybody. We could eat as many times a day as we wanted, and nobody yelled at us for taking the last of anything. I never even had to worry that somebody had put they name on a piece of chicken with an invisible marker like at home, when Mr. Benny would cuss at me ’cause I ate it without knowing he’d put tabs on it. One of my favorite times at the university was when we had a talent show and I sang a song called “Doctor’s Orders.” The counselors helped me make myself up like a real singer, with a feather scarf to go round my neck and high-heeled shoes to match. Since the song started out with a clock ringing, someone gave me a clock so I could mimic the singing right to the tee! I came in first place, and I got to have a pizza of my choice. I picked pepperoni and shared it with my roommates. I woulda done it for nothing, I had that much fun, but if I could win food to eat with my singing, then maybe one day I could stand up in front of folks and sing for my food all the time.

Aside from singing, eating, and goofing off, we learned games that taught us how to trust each other. There was this one game that I forgot the name of, but really liked. The counselors told us the object of it was to fall backwards and believe that the person in the back of you was gonna ketch you. And when they did, you knowed you could trust ’em for always. I got to be good at that game. At first I was betta’ at ketchin’ the folks, but by the end I was also good at trusting I’d be caught.

I could say from deep in my heart that being at this camp with all them rich kids and counselors made me think that maybe I could go to college too one day. When I listened to the other girls talking, I overheard some saying how they parents had already told ’em that they was gonna go to the same schools they parents had gone to. One girl said that at least four people in her family—her brother, cousins, and daddy—had already been to the very university that we was standing on. I couldn’t believe that. Right then and there, I promised myself that I would do all I could to come back to a place like that.

On the last day of camp, we had play-off games. We was to bring our families to watch, so that they could see how good we’d got, and cheer us through our last game. All the other girls at the camp was white kids except me and one other black girl. I’d watched and listened to all of ’em line up behind the pay phones and call they families to make the arrangements. I didn’t bother to feel bad; I just started running round the phones making stupid noises while the girls was trying to talk. That is until the counselor told me to cut it out and act like a lady. I made it seem like I didn’t care that they was calling folks. Anyway, I’d already spent most of my life without nobody coming to anything I did—whether it was running or playing basketball, nobody I knowed had ever showed up to watch me. I figured that the only reason Ruby really sent me was ’cause my so-called daddy gave her the money and she needed me out her face for a while.

Even though there’d be nobody in the bleachers rootin’ for me, I didn’t let it bother me too much. Instead of getting bent up ’bout it, I just told myself that it didn’t matter anyway, and that’s just the way that some folks’ lives was. Anyhow, I imagined that Ms. Peterson, my PE teacher, was gonna be there for me, shoutin’ my name out all over the place like she did when I played crab ball. “Go, Regina! Go, number fifteen!” It was all I needed.

During the first ten minutes of our play-off game I was fouled, which meant that I got to go to the free throw line. Oh, Lordy, did I feel scared having to stand all by myself in front of them people, trying to make a basket. I stood there, at that free throw line, like I was told, dribblin’ the ball in front of me the way I’d learned all week. I prayed to heaven that the ball would go straight in and that everybody would jump out they seats and shout, “Yay Gina!” Yet at the same time I was happy as hell that nobody was there to watch me, in case I didn’t make it. As I held the ball above my head, resting it back in my hand, r’membering what the coach had taught us ’bout flicking the wrists and aiming, I talked to God. I made a deal with him that if the ball made it inside the basket, that meant I was ’sposed to go to a university one day.

Being at the camp all week, I could see that I could get away from folks that made me scared. At college I met girls who talked ’bout they families and how much they loved ’em and the plans they had for the future. I never knowed that the future was something I could really plan for. I’d only thought that if you wished on something hard ’nough, then it would one day come true. These same girls didn’t seem to be holding secrets ’bout they mamas’ boyfriends and worrying whether or not they should close they eyes at night. I wanted to go to college so I could be free.

I dribbled again, aimed at the backboard just above the net, bent my knees, and jumped in the air as I let go of the ball.
Swoosh!
I made it in! I couldn’t believe it. I figured God must’ve been talking to me. I could hear folks was cheering for me—I was going to college. On the second ball, I asked God if my PE teacher could tell I liked her and if maybe she would want to take me home with her so I could be her child. Dribble. Aim. Shoot. The ball flew over the backboard, never coming close to the net.

The way I saw it, I was glad that Ruby never came. If she had’ve, I might’ve tried to make the shots for her, and I would’ve never found out that I should go to college.

Back home, things with me and Mr. Benny wasn’t getting no betta’. At first I thought that him and Ruby spending so much time together would make him wanna forget all ’bout me, but it wasn’t too soon that I come to learn different. Whenever Ruby would leave for work, Mr. Benny’d lay in bed till he heard the sound of her car start and roll out the driveway. We’d both learned to listen for the same thing; we just had different reasons for listening. It started out where he would call me in and ask me to walk on his back. He said that I was prob’ly good with my balance and heavier than the boys, but not as heavy as Ruby, so I should be a pro at back walking. When he put it that way—that I could be good at it—I decided it might be all right to do it for a while. I cain’t say why I wanted to help him out other than the fact that he wasn’t being real nasty for once and that he’d let me take his blackjack weapon to school for show-and-tell, where I became a instant hit with all the tough boys who wanted to join up with the army one day and b’come military policemen. And if that wasn’t all, out of nowhere he started giving me money for no good reason.

I think I must’ve walked miles on that man’s back. And for some reason I never told Ruby that I walked on his back and he gave me money. Something inside me said she’d never believe me anyway.

“You’re ’bout the best back walker I ever had,” Mr. Benny told me one morning as he asked me to step off so that he could turn over and face me. “Lean down here closer so I can see your eyes. What color are they anyway?”

What was this crazy man talking ’bout now? He knowed damn well what color my eyes was. I started feeling nervous in my belly. I turned myself towards the edge of the bed slowly. “I gotta go to the bathroom,” I told him. Mr. Benny grabbed ahold of my hand, and my skin went colder than a Sno-Kone.

“Ooh, look at how them nipples are perking up now! Lord have mercy, child. I know you want me to touch ’em, don’t you? How’d you like it if I told you I wanted to fuck you too?”

I pulled my arms closer to my body and stepped back from him. “You black-ass bitch!” I howled at him, not knowing where the word came from. “Do you say that to your own child? Do your li’l girl walk on your stupid back too?”

I quickly dropped to the side of the bed and slid off.

“What! What’d you just say to me?” He reached and grabbed me by my arm, swinging me round.

“Let go of me!” I yanked free and grabbed his wrist and twisted his skin, trying to give him a rug burn. I had learned that at camp. It never fazed him.

“I’ll show you something. Don’t you go talking back to me with your little cocky ass. That shit might be cute with your mammy, but it ain’t working here.”

He tried to put one hand round my neck, but I moved out his reach b’fore he could. I did the only thing I knowed to do; I ran. Since the back door was never locked I blasted through it and didn’t care that all I was wearing was my night slip. Out the corner of my eye, I could see Mr. Benny coming for me.
“Help!”
I screamed.
“Somebody help me!”
I didn’t care that the rocky driveway was hurtin’ my bare feet, I just kept on moving. I got right good to the end of our yard, and damn me! There he was.

“Let me go!”
I screamed.
“Help me!”
He got me by the tail end of my slip. After he’d picked me up, he tried puttin’ his hand over my mouth while dragging me back inside. I kicked and hollered the whole way.

“Sit yo’ ass down and shut the hell up,” he said all quiet-like as he threw me on the couch. I started kicking him and fighting back with all I had. I caught sight of the boys looking on. Dwayne was rocking back and forth in the hallway, and Dennis sat right beside him.

Mr. Benny threatened to slap me with the same blackjack he’d let me take for show-and-tell if I didn’t shut up. The boys watched everything.

“I’m gonna tell Ruby on you, Benny. I hate yo’ ass!”
I screamed, and scratched at him. I’d seen him beat my sister up and tell lies, and I was not gonna put up with no more of him and this crazy shit!
Goddamn it! Why was I having to go through this everywhere I went!

“You just wait and see. Ruby’s gonna put yo’ ass out!” I screamed at him.

“Oh, yeah? Well, that’s what you think. We’ll just see about that!” Mr. Benny yelled back at me.

Ruby showed up just as Mr. Benny was backing out the driveway to leave. I later found out that it was Miss Ida who’d called Ruby down at the hospital and told her what was going on. From the minute Ruby walked through the door, she started yelling at me and asking me why come I was dressed like I was, and what the hell had I gone and done this time. Mr. Benny had already called her and told her that I hadn’t listened to him when he asked me to clean up, that instead of doing the dishes like he’d asked I flat-out refused and got sassy on top of that. He said that therefore, he was left with no option but to kick my ass.

“I cain’t believe that I leave the goddamned house and everything falls apart. I ain’t at work a whole fucking hour before the nosey-assed bitch next-door neighbor has to call me and tell me you running down the street hollering. What did you do to piss Benny off? And why didn’t you mind him? I gave him permission to treat you like you was his own! I’m the mother in this here house, not you!”

I didn’t know what to say to her, but I tried for the one thing I knowed she’d hear. “Why don’t you ask the boys what happened?”

“They’re babies, for heaven’s sake. How they gonna know what was going on?”

“Just ask ’em and see! Just ask ’em.”

“I ain’t got to ask them a goddamned thing!”

“Fine, then! Mr. Benny tried to do this to me!” I held up my middle finger and showed her the sign.

“He’s been making me walk on his back and giving me money. He also said he wanted to pinch my titties.” I told her everything all at one time, hoping and praying that she would believe me.

“Is that so?” Ruby said, standin’ in front of me with both hands on her hips and now a cigarette stick stuck b’tween her teeth. The white nurse dress she was wearin’ and her hair all crazy made her look like she had just finished workin’ on bringin’ Frankenstein back to life.

“Well, you don’t say? If I know you, and yo’ fast ass, you prob’ly brung it all on yourself, trying to be grown and all. Now get that crazy-talking shit outta my face.”

Staring at her mouth as those mean things came falling out was more than I was gonna take. I gathered up all my strength, and in a hot second, I let her know what was on my mind.

“I don’t know why you had me anyway! Everybody knows you didn’t want me or Doretha either! I hate I was even born!”
I screamed at the top of my lungs and didn’t give a good god-damn what she thought. I’d come a long way, for a long time, to be with a mama that just didn’t have no mama feelings for me. I was tired and mad for wanting somebody who didn’t want me!

“I hate you!”
I couldn’t believe I’d said it. I’d gone and told Ruby what was laying at the bottom of my throat for so long. No matter what happened now, I’d said it—no taking it back.

I think I can recall the hard of her fists slamming into the left side of my face, knocking the wind clear out me, and all my sense right along with it! And even though I don’t recollect pickin’ myself off the floor, I do know I fell to it. I also don’t ever r’member Ruby ever askin’ ’bout the story of Mr. Benny wanting to do what the middle finger stood for to me. All she said was she’d heard all she needed to hear, and it was clearly a misunderstanding on my part.