Somebody's Someone (29 page)

But I wasn’t gonna give up on wanting to see if there was somebody out there for me. Deep inside me I heard a voice saying to me that there was somebody and that I just hadn’t come up on ’em yet. I told myself to believe what I heard, until the Lord hisself was to tell me different, and somehow I knowed that if he was to tell me, I’d know. And like Huckleberry or Nancy Drew, it was time to take the matter of “me” into my own hands. Just like Huck, I knew when it was time to leave, and like Nancy, I knew when it was time to call the police. I figured that they could do a much better job than any of my peoples had so far. I also decided that no matter what, or how, I was never gonna let another grown folk get close to my heart—and that included my mama. Not even if she really begged for a long, long time.

The police building was made outta red bricks, and it sat in the middle of a green lawn. I didn’t notice any trees or flowers, just grass trying to grow. As I entered through the big double doors, I stood and looked for somebody who could help me. I saw a man sitting at a li’l stand, talking to folks as they come in. I watched him for a spell, wantin’ to see if I could see his mouth moving b’fore I walked over, thinking he was telling people what to do.

“Hi. I just called down here and talked with somebody ’bout turning myself in.”

“What seems to be the problem, miss?” the man with red hair crawling all over his face asked me. He also had red freckles that matched his hair. When he talked, the hair that was laying ’cross his lip moved at the sides.

“I ain’t got no place else to go,” I told him, with my eyes stinging. For the life of me, I wasn’t gonna let Glenn and his stupid-ass wife make me cry, or the crazy old Bible-toting Jesus freak neither. I put my hand to the li’l patch on the side of my head and started twistin’ again. I could see Big Mama, in my mind’s eye, talkin’ to me ’bout going bald for messin’ with that patch of hair, but I made her go away fast. I knew if I let myself think on her, I’d be sho’ to break right there on the spot.

The redhead came from behind his li’l desk and showed me to the main lobby. He told me to wait right there and that somebody would help me shortly. I watched as people came and went. Mostly the ones that came was wearin’ handcuffs, and looked like they hadn’t seen the betta’ part of day. There was always a policeman pushing ’em forward to make sure they wasn’t gonna try and get away. I watched and waited, all the while thinking on how I should just run out this place. Not only was folks screaming to be let out them rooms wit’ the metal bars on ’em, but all I saw was mens—nowhere in there did I see any girls turning theyselves over to policemen.

Even though I wanted to run from that ugly redbrick building somethin’ awful and never stop, I just couldn’t let myself go. It was like I was under a spell that was turning everything in my body to lead. So I let the thought of runnin’ pass right through me and I plain ole sat there. Plus I knowed the police to be all right—on TV they always helped folks out—so I sat and watched the goings-on.

A short time later a man come up to me and asked if I was waiting for somebody. I told him I had just spoke to somebody on the phone and that I wanted to turn myself in. He asked if I had done anything wrong that I wanted to tell him ’bout, and I said no. I figured more wrong had been done to me than me to others, so it really wasn’t a lie. He pulled out a piece of paper hooked on a board with a metal clip. The board had a pen on a string hanging alongside it. He asked me my name and a hundred million other dumb questions. I told him my name and where I had come from. I was tired of messing with grown folks who was no good, so I decided to make up whatever I wanted, just like they did. I told the man that all my folks had moved and left me for dead. I explained how I came home from school and all that was left was my tennis shoes, which had been sat on the side of the curb. I didn’t even bother mentioning Miss Bushfield and her low-down dirty self. I sure as hell didn’t wanna go back to her ugly ole house.

When he finished asking me questions, I asked him if they was gonna lock me up in one of them rooms with the gates on ’em. He said no and promised that those rooms was not for kids, but for me to settle down and everything would work out fine. I told him I wasn’t too good with somebody putting me in a room and closing the door, that it was hard for me to breathe when that happened. He told me to just hang on and let him ask the questions and again, that everything was gonna be fine.

Fine! Everything was not fine! I should’ve knowed that nobody could keep they word for all the gold in the world. For as sure as I was gonna stay a girl and die, them no-good, low-down, lying-like-a-dog police people locked me right on up! That’s right! They went and got this woman, dressed just like the men, and had her put her hand on my back and lead me dead smack in the middle of that iron metal cell with the metal bed and cement floor. They called it the holding tank, and said I’d be where I could see what was going on round me. And that since I was a minor, it was the only way I could be safe from harm’s way. I guessed I should’ve run while I still had the chance.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

WHAT CHILD IS THIS?

THE NEXT MORNING
, I woke up in the same holding tank I’d gone to sleep in the night b’fore. I couldn’t believe that these folks had lied to me ’bout not locking kids up behind bars. These was the police—they wasn’t s’posed to lie. It was like I did something wrong in trying to do right. All I r’membered from the night b’fore is having a long slow cry that just pushed me off into sleep. Now that I was awake, my body and eyes was empty, and my head hurt so bad I could’ve hollered some more just so I didn’t have to feel it. But I didn’t. I sat and waited and hoped for somebody to come and get me.

I wondered if God was still paying attention to me or if he was too busy with all the other people in the world. I ’magined him to be sitting up in his big chair watching over all of us and thinking to himself how dumb I was for coming to stay with a daddy that didn’t want a thing to do with me. And for wanting a mama who seemed to be telling me she didn’t want me. Or even for turning myself in to police folks who lied right through they dingy teeth. I sho’ hoped God wasn’t pointing at me and laughing.

Sitting on the edge of the hard, gray metal cot, I waited in the quiet of the morning. Inside this place, there was no birds singing or blue skies. No trees bending as the wind hollered through ’em. No, in this place there was just white bars and gray beds. There was also hallways that had sounds that repeated themselves while you walked down ’em. I heard the keys coming before I saw anybody and prayed that they was coming for me. When the man showed his face, I didn’t bother to look at him where he could see me; instead, I barely cut him a look out the side of one eye. I wanted him to know I was mad.

“Come on; it’s morning. Let’s get you out of here.” He acted like he was telling me something special. I’d already spent the night on his lie, and now he wanted to try and do right by me. I hated his fat ass. The more I tried to believe the things that grown folks told me, the more I felt like a window closing tight against a storm. I wasn’t never gonna listen to or believe nobody again!

Waitin’, waitin’, and more waitin’. I waited while the sergeant-man said he was getting my paperwork together. I watched as they all seemed to not know what was going on. After a spell, a policeman who was helping the one who helped me said it wouldn’t be much longer; I was already in they system, and a record was already started for me. I looked at that man like he was stone crazy.

“What’s that mean, I’m already in yo’ system?” I asked, my insides going tighter by the minute.

“Your name was logged into the system about two months ago. Have you ever been in any trouble before?” the officer said to me, and closed his one eye at me real fast. He had a sly grin trying to run ’cross his face at the same time.

“Nah, I ain’t done nothing to nobody. Never!” So this is why they kept me overnight! I almost peed on myself. I couldn’t for the life in me figure on what he was talking ’bout. Could it’ve been the folks at the church knowed who I was and called the police and told ’em? No! That was just the other day. They couldn’t’ve got word that fast. I went round and round with myself, trying to know who called on me. Nothing I could think of made sense to me, ’cause if somebody had told on me that long ago, why didn’t I get in trouble for it then?

“We tried to reach one Glenn Hathaway, but we can’t locate him,” the officer explained. “We got his number from our data, and after reaching his wife, Mrs. Nadine Hathaway, we have learned that Mr. Hathaway is out of the area and unavailable at this time. And Mrs. Hathaway is unable to supply care at this time. Therefore, we will be transporting you to Martinez, to the Edgar Children’s Shelter. It is a place where children can be safe.”

I couldn’t hardly get from one breath of air to the next, with what was happening to me. It was like the world was gone and I was the only one left. There was nobody to call and tell what ole Miss Bushfield, Glenn, and all the others had done. And there was nobody to come and pick me up. All I could see was mouths movin’ in circles, then flattenin’ out to smiles with no meaning behind ’em. Just words falling on themselves.

There was one person I could call to let know where I was, and where I was going.

“Can I call my friend Marlena please, Mr. Policeman?” With everybody actin’ so crazy, I just wanted to talk to somebody I knowed. I let the phone ring a coupla times, but figurin’ Marlena had already gone to school, I hung up and followed the officers to their car.

I got into the backseat of the police car. When I asked the woman and man why I had to sit in the back like a robber or somebody in trouble, they both said it was to protect me. I knew they was lying, but I didn’t fight ’em. I sat back and fixed my eyes on the station that I had spent the night in and told myself I would never wind up in a place like that again.

We drove mostly in quiet. The only talking that did happen was b’tween the two police people. I didn’t pay them much mind, though; I was busy wonderin’ where they was taking me for real. For all I knowed they could’ve been taking me out to kill me and then dump my body someplace. And if they did, who would care? I tried to think on betta’ things. Would the Martinez shelter be someplace like where Oliver Twist lived? Would I have food to eat? Or maybe I was gonna be like the li’l happy white girl Annie who after all the troubles she had, ended up with some nice folks who wanted her for real.

As we drove down the road, I could see the sun struggling to break free from the clouds that was bullying her, tryin’ to keep her from shinin’. Everywhere I looked there was large and small humps and bumps, looking like mountains, covered with grass. We rode through places called Hercules and Rodeo to get to Martinez. I imagined that Rodeo was a town where cowboys lived and learned to rope bulls and cows. As we drove through, I tried looking for barns and farms. I saw a few farm animals spread out here and there, but no corrals or barns. I later learned that Rodeo was a town like any other, with a name that wasn’t even said the way it looked. I never understood how the one word
rodeo
could also be a town where folks lived called “Row-day-o.” I guessed that it was sort of like the words
kernel
and
colonel.
Me and my sixth-grade teacher had a knock-down, drag-out fight when I flat-out refused to believe that a colonel in the army wasn’t the same as a kernel of corn. Or that cents wasn’t the same as sense. And what really made me mad was when I couldn’t switch the words round so that a kernel in the army could also be a colonel of corn. I never worked that one right in my mind; I just learned to see that sometimes that’s just the way things went, confusing with no hope of ever making sense. The situation I was in now sure didn’t make sense, but I tried not to let them tears in my eyes spill out as the car pulled to a stop.

The sign read 100 GLACIER DRIVE, and underneath the numbers there was the words THE EDGAR CHILDREN’S SHELTER. The road we was on split off in two directions. The one on the left took you to somethin’ called the Juvenile Detention Services; the one to the right led us to the shelter. We parked the car in a place that was marked for visitors, making me think that I wasn’t gonna be stayin’ here, only visiting these people. We walked into the gray building with white trimming, and I was told to sit down on a chair in front of a desk that had a li’l white card saying INTAKE.

On the other side of the desk was a man who was bald right down the middle of his head, leavin’ what looked like two bushes on each side of his ears. After handing the bald-headed man a big ole gold envelope, the police people told me goodbye, and that they hoped everything worked out for me. It was real strange to me to be watching the police folks leave. I didn’t know ’em at all, but somethin’ inside me kinda wanted them to stay with me a li’l longer—at least till I knowed for certain what was going on. They’d lied before, but they was still police after all.

When the police people left, Mr. Porter, the man behind the desk, opened the envelope, pulled out what was inside, and read what it said. I watched as he thumbed through the few pages, and caught him as he looked me over. Finally, his face caught my eyes and stared right at me.

“It says right here that you have an enlarged protrusion on your forehead.” He looked up over a pair of glasses I hadn’t seen a few minutes ago.

What the hell was he talkin’ ’bout? I didn’t know what no pro-true-zhun was.

“See here.” He showed me as he pointed to a piece of paper that had what looked like a body with no insides to it. The arms, legs, head was all there, and two li’l beady eyes poked out from the face. That’s where I seen the
X
he was pointin’ to. It was right on top of the left eyebrow.

I didn’t remember saying nothing to nobody ’bout no protru-zhun. I didn’t even know I had one. I put my hand to my forehead and there it was, sho’ as day, a knot the size of a big marble, stuck right there under my skin. I must have been so busy make-believing that I plumb didn’t even feel the thing growing on my head. For a second I couldn’t recall how a marble came to be there. Then outta nowhere, I r’membered that ole Miss Bushfield and how she’d punched me upside my head with her balled fist, with a ring on it. That must’ve been how I got the knot. I decided not to tell what really happened, ’cause I didn’t want him to think I was some kinda sissy, so I said, “Yeah, I bumped into the corner of the ’frigerator and knocked myself.” I hadn’t even told the police ’bout how the Biblequotin’ Jesus freak had punched me in the face. From here on out my mouth was gonna be zipped, and the key was where nobody could find it.