Somebody's Someone (3 page)

I promised he’d never see me again; then I ran out that store for home like a hunted-down jackrabbit. Along the way I seen a Almond Joy wrapper that wasn’t there b’fore. I knowed that to be Donna Janine’s favorite candy, but Donna Janine was nowhere to be found. By the time I reached our house, Big Mama was waiting on me with a rosebush switch in her hand. No questions was asked—she whooped me like there was no tomorrow, and told me that every time she thought about my stealing, she’d beat me again. I learned that day to leave that crazy Donna Janine alone.

Baby Ella must’ve been teething, ’cause she was rubbing her gums with the grass she kept pulling up. Seemed like the more I tried to take it from her, the more she fought to get it back. “Stop girl!” I whispered to her, hoping she could understand me. “Stop! ’Fore your mama think I feed you blades of grass. Heaven only knows what kinda trouble that would lead to.” After a small tug of war, the baby gave in and started sucking on her pacifier again.

Sittin’ under the tree, all I could think on was what fun me and Big Mama was gonna have that night at the town carnival, which was in the grocery store parking lot. The carnival came every year, and since I was a tiny girl, I loved nothing more than hoping it was my turn to go. Big Mama only took one child to the carnival every year. This time it was my turn. Last year she took my older sister, and Donna Janine had had her turn the year b’fore that.

Hallelujah! I had waited a long while for it to be my turn to go. I was gonna pretend that it was the county fair, like the one that Huckleberry and Tom would go to. Maybe the Widow Douglas would be there with all her pies and cakes and fixin’s. And maybe they would have a corn-on-the-cob eating contest or bobbin’ for apples. Maybe if I was lucky, I could enter and win a watermelon seed–spitting contest. Lord knowed I could already taste the shiny, red, hard, candy apple crunchin’ b’tween my teeth. While my mind was wanting to take me to the carnival, I sensed that Donna Janine wasn’t so glad about me going. She had come up to me after Big Mama’d told us that I’d be goin’ and called me a “titty sucker” and said that she hoped I’d choke b’fore I had a chance to go. I tried my best not to worry ’bout what that fool girl said.

So I was sitting on the pallet, trying to put everything right in my thinking, when Donna Janine called to me.

“Hey, Regina, bring the baby over so my friend can see her.” One thing ’bout Ella, besides her feet problem, is she was the prettiest black baby this side of the Rio Grande. The grown folks said that if the Gerber baby food folks ever needed a new face, Ella was the one for the job, with her good curly hair and dimpled cheeks. Folks always wanted to grind they first finger into the dimpled part of her cheek and pinch her fat face. I cain’t say that she liked that too much, but other’n that, she was a pretty smiley chile.

Seeing nothing wrong with a simple look, I strolled over to where Donna Janine and the fella was standing. B’fore I could say a word, the high-yellow-skinned boy took Ella outta my hands and started throwing her up in the air, back and forth like she was some kinda rag doll or something. I could see that she liked that ’bout as much as having her cheeks pinched. So, after she started hollering bloody murder, I took her away from the boy and pulled her close to me like I’d seen Buffy do with Miss Beasley on
Family Affair
.

“Sssh, it’s all right, hush up now,” I whispered in Ella’s ear as I rocked her from side to side.

Just as I was ’bout to give Mr. Stupid a piece of my mind, the rain came pouring down. Oh how I loved it; I’d been waiting all day for God’s tears to come and cool us off! I could hear that ole Lula yelling through the open window, asking what the matter was with Ella. Not wanting to miss God’s tears, I just called out that she was fine. I was having such a good time, swaying the baby in my arms and playfully quieting her down, I never seen Donna Janine leave. Instead I was holding my mouth open, trying to get all the water in it I could. Within no time our hot bodies was cooler, and the baby was holding on to me real tight and she was finally quiet. We wasn’t having fun five minutes b’fore Donna Janine showed up out of nowhere, saying, “Lula Mae wants you right now. You’s gonna get it and get it good!” Then she snatched Ella outta my hands, hard and serious-like, scaring the daylights out the baby and making her cry again. I had no idea what that fool girl was talking ’bout, but I sure was going to find out.

As I turned and headed for the house I could see that the screen door to Big Mama’s house was partly open, and that Lula was standing in the middle of it with her hands on her hips. My heartbeat got louder the closer I came to the porch. I didn’t know what the trouble could be. I hadn’t done nothing. But there was Lula, seeming like she was just waiting for me to get closer so she could pounce on me, like a rattlesnake waits on a rat. Making each step more important than the last, I minded the cracks—I wanted to be careful to protect my mama’s back. Somehow I figured if I tried to help her, she might be able to rescue me too someday.

By the time I got to the porch I was moving at a snail’s pace. I tried to distract myself by snapping my fingers to the beat of my heart, but the wetness on my hands made ’em slide off each other, creating a dull thumping sound. When I looked up from my hands, there was Lula Mae, standing right in front of me, holding the door open with her big ugly foot. Her face was so twisted in knots she looked like one of them old dried-apple dolls. And her mouth was pinched up like the hind part of a polecat. Her hair was plaited so tight from the roots that it curled and flipped at the ends, making her look like a black Pippi Longstocking.

“Where my baby at?” her lips asked me, ’cause her teeth never moved.

“Ova there.” I pointed a palsied finger, aiming towards the curb of the street, where Donna Janine stood holdin’ Ella.

“Come a l’il closer; I cain’t hear ya, heifah,” Lula told me.

With all the strength I had, I lifted my foot to the next step. The sound of my heart was drowning out all else, even my eyesight somehow.

“Donna Janine said you was playing in the street wit’ my baby.”

“Nah! That’s a lie,” I screamed. “She’s lying again. I cain’t stand her.” I shoulda knowed better than to keep tryin’ to talk Lula Mae down. It only meant that she’d pitch a bigger fit and I’d be hit harder. But I couldn’t stop screaming, “She’s lying again!” I could feel it in my belly that I was in for a whoopin’. But this time it was gonna be different.

The last time Lula beat on me I made a pact with God. I told him that the next time she hit me for no reason it meant that she was wanting to kill me, and that I would take it as his way of letting me know I should run away. I promised him, and unlike my mama, I’d planned on keeping my word.

“Didn’t you hear me the first time I told you to come closer, heifah? Don’t make me have to tell you twice and snatch your smart-mouth self up them steps.”

I was scared. She was gonna get me. I could tell by the way her eyes moved tightly together, pullin’ her forehead towards her nose. And when her nostrils grew wide ’nough to see her brains, I knowed I was in for it.

But this time, I wasn’t gonna pay no mind to her. Something came over my mind, and I turned to run. I put all I had into that first pump, but b’fore my other foot hit the ground, Lula was on me like white on rice. Her fingers was buried deep in the rubber bands that held my ponytails together. As she drug me into the house, I swear b’fore God that I heard and felt my hair pull away from the scalp—it reminded me of what weeds being pulled out the ground sounded like. B’fore I could try and say or do anything else, she had yanked me into the bathroom and locked the door. I slammed my face against the commode as I tried to break loose. I was tossing and turning, trying hard to get free of her grip.

“Let me go!” I screamed. “I didn’t do nothing; Donna Janine is lying!” I was only making the situation worse, but I didn’t care anymore. Lula’s hold on me tightened.

“Shut yo’ stupid ass up,” she yelled at me. Out of nowhere, the Green Monster appeared, ready to do Lula’s business.

Lula raised that rubber monster above her head, holding on to the little gold nozzle to make sure she had her grip. Just as I reached for the door, I could hear the water hose gaining speed as it whistled through the air and slammed onto my skin, like a snake whip.
Whoosh, whoosh, thwack. “You little bitch, you ain’t shit!” Thwack-whoosh-thwack.

“How you gonna stand in the middle of the street wit’ my baby?” WhooshWhoosh Thwack. “You just like you whorish-ass mama.” Thwack thwack thwack.

“You ain’t good for shit!”

“Please stop....I didn’t do nothing to you, why you hittin’ on me?”
Snap!
“Please! Don’t hit me no more.”
Whoosh-thwack.

“I’m tired of fuckin’ looking at you.” Thwack . . .

“Even if yo mama don’t want yo’ ass, that don’t mean I don’t want my baby.”

I tried to grab hold of the water hose....I felt Lula was gonna kill me, but I couldn’t get away. I was grabbing for the hose to try to stop her.

“Oh, you bad now, you gonna grab it from me.” SlamSlam!
She kept on hitting me. I knew for sure that was a sign from God....Iknew it was time for me to go.
“All’s you good for is to ask too many goddamned questions and get yo’ ass whooped.” Slam! “I wish Big Mama had left you where she found you, right in that ho’ bag motel where yo’ triflin’ mama left you!”

She was lyin’ ’bout my mama now. Her words hurt pretty bad, but not as bad as the Green Monster.

“Lula! Pleeeasse don’t hit me no more!”

“Who you talking to? You talkin’ to me?”

The look in her eyes told me she had no plans to stop hittin’ on me. That garden hose kept flying through the air to bite my flesh.
Thwack!
I could see the hate running through her veins. Somewhere in the distance, I heard Big Mama coming. She was yelling at Lula to stop!

“Lula Mae Bledsoe, you let that chile go, you hear. That’s ’nough.... She cain’t take no mo’.”

There was a loud knocking on the door. “Leave her be!” More banging, then Lula got another lick offa me.

“You ain’t shit now, and you ain’t never gonna be shit either! And just like yo’ mama, you gonna have kids by the time you thirteen! All you ever gonna know is how to lay up with some man and have babies you don’t want!” Whack!

Lula got her last lick, sealing in her wicked spell of evil sayin’s and hateful doin’s. The door flew open as Big Mama pushed it in. She fell on top of Lula. I took the first chance I got, gathered myself up, jumped over their bodies, and ran. I ran like hell! Past Big Mama, through the screen door, and over them juniper bushes lining the front porch! All the while asking the question, “Now that I gotta live up to my word, God, where do I go?” I didn’t care. I kept on runnin’.

I kept on running ’cause my life depended on it. My body was so numb I couldn’t feel the gashes in my arms and legs where the Green Monster had left its bite, or the stinging in my body from the skin being gone—pieces of me was left stuck to the hose, but I didn’t feel nothing. Lula wouldn’t have to worry ’bout ever seeing me again. ’Cause as God was my witness I wasn’t never going back there!

Over my back, I could hear Big Mama’s voice. She was screaming at me, “Gina, Gina, where’s you going—is you coming back in time for the carnival tonight?”

I didn’t know where I was going. I hated the carnival and never wanted to go again. I couldn’t stop to answer her. All I knowed was I had to keep moving. I looked over my shoulder and waved her on.

“When you coming on back?” I heard her asking me again. “When you coming back, Gina?”

There wasn’t no words to answer her with. I kept telling myself to run. Just keep on running. It was all I could do.

CHAPTER TWO

MY DADDY’S MAMA

I RAN FROM MY HOUSE
like the wind was a special friend looking out for just me. It pushed me as if I had wings. And I soared all the way to the closest house I could think of—the Perezes’. Theresa Perez was my buddy, and sometimes we’d walk to school together. She’d tell me all ’bout why she was Cath’lic and I wasn’t, and how she and her folks had some kinda special tie to God. I never let her nonsense bother me too much on account I was able to make pacts with God, and I bet myself Theresa didn’t know nothing ’bout that. Usually I’d go to her house early in the mornings and eat whatever her mama’d cook b’fore making our way to school—so her folks knowed me pretty good. Plus, they’d seen this sort of thing b’fore with me. Not too long ago, Lula had tore me up good, but not as badly as now. That time, I’d gone to the Perezes’ to be with Theresa, and Mrs. Perez had cleaned me up pretty good, shaking her head and cryin’ all the while. Today I looked way worse—the traces of Lula Mae’s hate was clearer than witch hazel; and if she hadn’t stopped when Big Mama’d said, I’d maybe been beat to death. I didn’t wanna make Mrs. Perez cry again, but I didn’t see that I had anywhere else to go.

By the time I reached the Perezes’ front yard, I could barely breathe. I had run the whole way without stopping once. I sat down on a tree stump at the edge of they yard and tried to catch some air. My chest was so tight I used the butt of my hand to rub back and forth ’cross the place that hurt. I was real thirsty and wanted a drink, but more than that, I wanted to have Ruby, my mama, come and see what that mean hussy of a woman had done to me. I knowed Ruby would take up for me if she’d seen how I looked right then. Plus she would be madder than hell if she’d heard all them mean and nasty things Lula’d said ’bout her. Whoever heard of a mama leaving her child in a motel by themselves. Anybody could see that those hateful sayings she was telling me ’bout my mama was all nothing but works of evil. And what ’bout her calling me a whore; Lula was just mad that she wasn’t high-spirited with pretty eyes with a man to dote on her.

All lies, that’s what they was. All lies. I couldn’t wait to the day that I’d see Ruby to tell her ’bout all that wickedness ole Lula said. Anyway, it wasn’t my fault, what my mama did. I sho’ felt sorry for Lula Mae and her kids, but Lula had no call to take out on me what was done b’tween grown folks. I had nothing to do with they problems. I’d get back at that Lula Mae some day, when I got grown.