Somebody's Someone (4 page)

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Authors: Regina Louise

BOOK: Somebody's Someone
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As my breathin’ calmed, I got to studyin’ my body. Lula had whooped me like she was beating down the gates of hell. My arms and legs had dried blood all over ’em; it must’ve dripped when I was running. In some places I saw the pink and white of my inside flesh, and in others there was swollen welts. It reminded me of the time my stupid sister Doretha went and teased a German shepherd dog, and it damn near bit her thigh off. That dog’s teeth dug so deep in her skin that she had to go and have ’em sew her leg meat back together. And since nobody knowed if the stray animal had the rabies or not, she had to take a hundred shots in her belly so that she wouldn’t foam at the mouth. I kinda wondered if Lula Mae had rabies and if so, would I need to get them rabies shots too.

“Oh no, not again.
¿Niña, niña, qué pasa?”

Mrs. Perez must’ve seen me sittin’ on the tree stump through her kitchen window. She came hurrying towards me yelling,
¿Niña, niña, qué pasa?”
I only knowed a li’l Mes’can, but I understood what she was asking me. She wanted to know what the matter was. I tried to tell her, but I choked on the tears as I spoke.

¿Niña, qui ente hizo esto?
Who make this happen?” Mrs. Perez asked me again.

“Donna Janine lied and told Lula that I was trying to kill her baby, so Lula beat me with a water hose.” As I ’tempted to let her know my side I couldn’t help but think how crazy it all was. Lord knows I loved that baby like she was my own kin. I took care of her best I could, and I’d never try and hurt her. The place behind my eyes started to puff up with water again, and I didn’t try and stop ’em from coming in no way; I just let the tears fall as they pleased and listened while my heart moaned in quiet.

After shaking her head, and swearing words of
“puta”
and
“cabrona,”
Mrs. Perez led me into her kitchen, where she handed me a wet paper towel and kept one for herself. Most of the welts was real swollen and too painful to the touch, so Mrs. Perez tried to be as gentle as she could. Goodness gracious, the more I looked at me, the more my mind couldn’t make sense of the whole thing. All I could see was that one minute I was home and now I wasn’t. I didn’t even know what I’d done wrong. The tears kept sliding.

“Shh,
mija.
It’s okay. Shh,” Mrs. Perez whispered to me. She took my head and leaned it on her chest and petted me like a baby. It made me cry harder and want for a mama I didn’t have. I felt the wind take my breath and draw it in real deep as Ruby’s name echoed in my mind. It sounded like somebody inside me was screaming from a far-off place. I don’t know why, but something inside me always called her name whenever I cried.

It seemed like Mrs. Perez was home alone, ’cause Theresa was nowhere in sight. Secretly, I was happy. I didn’t need my friend to see me all torn up like this. I figured it would sho’ ’nough scare her half to death.

“Whatchu gonna do,
mija
?” Mrs. Perez asked me, the skin above her eyes raised high. “Ju cain’t go back dare.”

Again, the water hose welts started to sting and remind me of where I had just come from. I wanted real bad to stay with the Perezes, but I didn’t know how to ask if I could. Anyway I didn’t wanna stay too long just in case Lula decided to come looking for me so she could finish me off. I just knowed that nothing in the world could make me wanna go back home. I realized for the first time that when I left Big Mama’s I never thought past getting to the Perezes’. And now that I was here, I had to worry ’bout what to do next. As I let Mrs. Perez’s question sink into my mind, I quickly started to go through all the folks I knowed that might be interested in me. There was only one other grown folk who I could think of that didn’t live out in south Austin, but I was scareder than the dickens to call her up.

As I thought ’bout it, ever so slowly, I began recollectin’ the face of the nice ole lady who’d come out to the Thornhills’ to tell me she was my real peoples and she wanted to get to know me. The first time I met her I was playing “Ole Mary Mack” with one of my play cousins, and she rode up our driveway in a big brown car. I’d never seen a car that big b’fore. I tried not to pay much mind to her ’cause I didn’t wanna mess up my game, but I couldn’t help but take notice that she had the largest, shiniest forehead I’d seen in all my life. The way she wore her hair, all pushed back off her face, brought to my mind the man who sits on the front of a dollar bill—except she was black. Even while she got out her car, I never stopped playing “Ole Mary Mack,” I just kept a lazy eye on her. My game was gettin’ good.

“Hey, Gina, I was eavesdropping and heard Big Mama talking to the lady who came in that nice car. The lady say she yo’ gran’mama.” Carl, Big Mama’s youngest gran’son, came running towards me with a mouth full of other people’s business.

“You a damned lie,” I hollered at him—mad for making me mess up my game.

“No I ain’t, neither. I did hear ’em say that. You just wait,” he insisted, then licked his tongue out at me and ran off. I’d later learned that Carl was tellin’ the truth.

“Odetta Fontaine.” I surprised myself by speakin’ aloud.

Not waiting for me to answer her question, Mrs. Perez had picked up a ball of cornmeal from a bowl. She looked over at me as she started smashing pieces of the dough between her hands.

“My so-called daddy’s mama,” I explained, hoping Mrs. Perez could understand me. I say so-called ’cause if you ask me, anybody that did what my daddy did wasn’t fit to be knowed. I had a hard time believing that I had a real daddy, so when Miss Odetta called on me I thought it was even odder he’d sent her instead of coming hisself. I never did understand that. I’d thought on Odetta every now and again since the first time I met her. On account we didn’t see one another on a regular basis, she slipped past my everyday knowing, just like my unpracticed multiplication tables. But now she might be the only one I could call.

Mrs. Perez was pulling stuff out of cabinets and was making what I s’posed was dinner—after all, it was getting dark outside. The truth be told, the last thing I wanted to think ’bout was food. That Odetta woman was sitting on the edge of my mind.

Even though I’d swore to the heavens I’d never go all the way back to them mem’ries of the one time me and Doretha visited with Ruby the summer I s’posedly met my daddy, Glenn, I couldn’t stop the thoughts from having they way. I didn’t try and fight it. I just laid the wet paper towel Mrs. Perez gave me ’cross my stinging welts on my arms and closed my eyes.

I could still hear the spitefulness in Sister’s voice as she’s yelling and telling us how she didn’t wanna go and see Ruby. Me and Big Mama just stood by and watched as Daddy Lent dragged her to the car and tried to fold her into it. “I hate her. She ain’t no kin to me.” I couldn’t believe Sister. “If she’d really wanted us, she would’ve came for us herself. Cain’t y’all see that! It’s ’cause she hates us, that’s why she didn’t come! She prob’ly won’t even be there anyway!” We drove off from 2520 South Fifth Street, with Doretha having a full-blown conniption in the backseat. She was ’hooping and hollering ’bout how she hated everybody and damn sho’ didn’t want nothing to do with no mama named Ruby. Big Mama didn’t say nothing, or try and hit her for acting fool—instead she just kept right on know what to do for my sister. From what I can r’member Sister was round nine or ten, which would’ve made me five or near to it. And I thought she knowed more ’bout everything than I did. But when it came to our mama, Ruby, Sister didn’t know her like I imagined I did—as our
mama,
the woman who’d hug us an’ hold us and make us feel wanted. I just sat back and let Doretha scream in my ear and kick and scratch me if she wanted to. I didn’t care ’bout what she was sayin’. I was just glad to be going to see my mama.

I ’magined the reason we was able to go was ’cause Ruby had convinced Big Mama that she was done chasing them mens and dranking liquor and was ready to give me and my sister a try. I couldn’t wait.

When we arrived at Ruby’s she seemed kinda glad to see me and Sister, but I couldn’t really tell on account I didn’t r’member her ways firsthand. She was wearing what I figured to be her go-to-work uniform—a white nurse dress and shoes—and didn’t seem to have a lot of time to sit and let us know how happy she was to see us.

“Here, Doretha Ann.” Ruby handed Sister an empty Swanson’s chicken potpie box. “There’s some chicken potpies in the oven—turn ’em off in a li’l while.” Ruby then showed us to the room that we would share. We had twin beds and a dresser meant for two. The room seemed fine ’nough, but I was all balled up in knots, so I couldn’t say a whole lot. More than anything, though, I wanted to cry—on account that Ruby wasn’t gonna be round that night—but I didn’t know how to let them tears out. Instead I just held my breath for as long as I could and let the wanting pass.

At the time, Ruby was working the eleven-to-seven night shift at the hospital—which wasn’t so good ’cause we was left by ourselves a whole lot. Big Mama didn’t know all that when she agreed to give Ruby a chance with us. I believe Ruby even got me into a school to show just how serious she was ’bout tryin’ to keep us—I just don’t r’member ever going. As I thought back to that time, I see me, Sister, and Ruby’s two sons by her then-husband, Big Lawrence. Them boys was so small I don’t hardly even r’member them.

I did r’member Big Lawrence. He was blacker than tar, and he didn’t really live with us. He only came round when he had too much liquor on his breath and lipstick on his collar. Even then it seemed like he only came when he was looking for a fight—and that, he was sho’ guaranteed to get! Somehow, nobody ever told him, but he found out soon ’nough that Ruby wasn’t a woman to be messing with when it came to her mens being up to no good. I could recollect this one time when Big Lawrence came over to see Ruby, and they was carrying on ’bout him not coming over after his shift at the car dealership. Ruby only asked Big Lawrence once where he’d been all night. But by the time he was finished stuttering, talking nonsense, and wipin’ the lipstick offa the side of his mouth, she’d swung a wallop right upside his head. They’d fight for what seemed like hours, leaving me feeling like my body was shaking all the way through long after they was done. And by the time they was all used up, there’d be no windows left in the front or back of his Eldorado. There’d be bricks sticking up in the hood, and his tires looked like bald hubcaps with shredded-up rubber hanging from ’em. I don’t know, but I think Big Lawrence must’ve had a lot of money, ’cause the next time I seen him after that, he came with a new car and started all over again with Ruby.

Whenever the fights was going on, it was usually in the late night, and us kids would all be sleeping. That is until somebody called the police, and they’d come and say they was gonna take us kids away if the craziness didn’t quiet down. Deep down I kinda thought that maybe Ruby really didn’t want us to live with her and that’s why she always fought with Big Lawrence. Maybe she wanted the police to take us from her.

I opened my eyes and looked round the kitchen, Mrs. Perez’d got quiet, and I wanted to make sure she was still there. For a minute, I watched her tear up green stuff that looked like three-leaf clovers and throw it in a bowl made of concrete. She threw in salt and little bits and pieces of onions and red peppers, then grabbed a rock shaped like a stretched-out egg and mashed it all into a pasty-like mixture. I could see the stuff inside the bowl by the way she was holding it in her arms; it was cocked the way you would hold a baby if you was feeding it. I shut my eyes again, and my mind picked up where it left off.

Sometimes I wished I could’ve been more like Sister, and hate Ruby, but I couldn’t. I always felt like my mama was on the brim of giving me something, but right when it came time for her to hand it over, she’d change her mind and run off with it. So I always wanted to stay round her just in case there was a time when I’d get lucky. Doretha, on the other hand, was usually nowhere to be found. She was real good at finding somebody else’s house to be at. From sunup to sundown, you couldn’t see a hair of her. Usually, round the time for us to eat, Ruby would have to tell me to go and hunt Doretha down, mainly on account of she didn’t want the neighbor folks talking ’bout her as a neglectful mama. I could hear Ruby’s voice shoutin’, “Go on outside and find ya’ sistah, and don’t come back wit’out her or I’ll kick the both of yo’ asses!”

When I asked Sister why come it seemed like she didn’t like being round our mama, she told me, “It’s not that I don’t like Ruby; it’s that she don’t like me, or you either. Cain’t you see that she would much rather have a man or her boys up under her, than us, any a day?” I’d never looked at it that way, even though I could see some truth in what Doretha said. Sister went on to tell me how she hated Big Lawrence, mainly ’cause she could tell that he hated her. I agreed with her ’cause I sho’ didn’t have much for him myself, and deep down inside, from the way he’d look at me through one of his bloodred eyes, I knowed that he hated me too.

I was happy for the little bit of time Sister was round, though, ’cause she sho’ was good at figuring stuff out.

“You know,” she would say, “he hates us ’cause we ain’t his kids. And he specially don’t like you ’cause you so much lighter than him, and that’s a reminder to him that you couldn’t be his. And when it comes to me, it’s ’cause I’m quiet and he thinks I’m sneaky. That’s why he likes to whoop our asses and lock you in the closet.”

Every now and again, Big Lawrence would come over in the daytime. This was not good for me and Sister. Anytime I did or said something he didn’t agree with, like tell him to stop hittin’ my mama, he’d haul off and punch me in the face and stomach. Then he’d tell me I’d betta’ not cry. And when I did, he’d beat me up with the buckle of his belt or whatever he could find; then he’d throw me in the closet and push a dresser up to it and say, “If you squeak a sound, I swear that big roaches and even bigger rats are gonna come and eat your little mouthy ass up.”

Ruby never did wanna know the truth. Most times when Big Lawrence acted fool with me or Sister, Ruby was at work or maybe even standing right behind him—with her back turned. And luckily for them, the boys would always seem to be nowhere in sight. Even when I tried to tell Ruby my side she’d say, “Shet that sissy-ass whining shit up! Cain’t you see he’s trying to be a daddy to you? Now shet up, I said!” I learned to hate daddies right there on the spot.

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