Who Am I Without Him? (9 page)

When Marimba gets to the door, I open it without anybody telling me to. D'Little says I'm pathetic. Heavenly asks how come I didn't hold it open for her. “'Cause I ain't no butler,” I say.

Everybody's teasing me. Calling me “Mr. Manners.” Asking how come I'm waiting on Marimba hand and foot. I tell 'em it ain't something I wanna do. I gotta do it for class. Only it ain't as bad as I thought, opening doors for girls, pulling their chairs out. Besides, the more I do it, the more girls be coming up to me and talking to me. Girls that never paid me no attention are giving me a little play now. This girl Elizabeth made me stop and talk to her. She was all up in my face. Kenya saw it and deducted fifty points. I'm starting to wonder about that girl.

Jacobs walks through the aisles collecting our final papers. “Recorders come to the front, please.”

Ten students go up front. It's funny, I never realized that half the recorders were boys and half were girls. And they are the cutest, or best dressed, or most popular kids in school, too. When Jacobs joins them up front, he explains why those kids got picked in the first place.

“In relationships, there are lots of distractions. The pretty girl,” he says, standing next to Kenya. “The jock,” he says, pretending to throw a left hook to Kevin, who heads the football team. “People with a big chest, pretty eyes, or nice hair.”

Jacobs says the recorders were placed in our groups to distract us from our mission. He asks the recorders to raise their hands if they were able to make one or both people pay more attention to them than their fiancés. Eight hands go up.

“Kenya,” Jacobs says. “Explain.”

Kenya tells all my business. How I tried to hit on her. How I paid her more attention than Marimba. “And when I didn't show up for the movies like you told me, Jacobs, he didn't even talk to Marimba.”

Marimba raises her hand. She called Kenya that night, she says, 'cause she was hurt I didn't say one word to her during the movies. “I know he doesn't like me, but he coulda at least treated me decent.”

I'm pissed. This whole thing was a setup from the start. “Wasn't no way I could be a good fiancé, Jacobs. Everything you did made it so I'd mess up.”

Jacobs settles me down. Then D'Little's recorder gives a report. Another pretty girl saying almost the same thing Kenya said about me. “Listen, Jacobs,” D'Little says. “A boy's gonna try and talk to a looker. That's just how it is.”

The girls get mad at that, but the boys clap— 'cause they know it's true.

Jacobs hits the board again. ALL BOYS ARE DOGS THEN, RIGHT?

I'm expecting Kenya, Marimba, and the rest of the girls to say, Yep! But Kenya's singing a different tune. Telling Jacobs under the right circumstances anyone could cheat—be a dog.

Jonathan's fiancée raises her hand. She says she didn't have one bit of trouble out of him. “He's a gentleman.”

“A nerd,” I say.

Kenya speaks up again. “Maybe people cheat or look around when they know better's out there for them.”

Marimba ain't buying that. She says couples have to learn to work out their problems. Not sniff after someone else when things get rough.

I wanna tell the whole class that this was a project, an experiment, not no real relationship. But Marimba's got a point. So does Kenya. When you ain't happy, it's easy to go sniffing. But do that make it right?

Jacobs picks on the girls, too. A lot of 'em tried to hit on
their
recorders. It was different for them, though. They called the boys day and night. Spread rumors about 'em when they didn't give 'em no play.

“Brandon,” Jacobs says, pointing my way. “Learn anything, buddy?”

“No,” I say at first. But once everyone's done laughing, I tell him what he wants to hear. “I learned that relationships are hard work.”

He's smiling. I'm not. I'm thinking about Kenya.

How she played me—used me, even. But then it hits me; I used Marimba. When class is over and everybody is gone, I ask Jacobs why he made us do all of this in the first place. “Everybody used everybody else in our group.”

“Did you like being used?”

“Naw, man.”

“Remember that,” he says, wiping chalk off the board, “when you hook up with a girl next time.”

I slap him five and head for the door. Before I'm halfway up the hall, Elizabeth is hunting me down to give me her phone number. I take it. But I don't know if I'll call her. Not just yet, anyhow.

WILLIE GREENTEA'S GONNA hurt me bad one day. I told that to my daddy, Mable Lee, and that rich lawyer woman from way 'cross town. Ain't nobody do nothing to stop him, though. But I ain't surprised. They never cared about me nohow. It was my baby they all wanted. He's fine now. But me, I'm here suffocating. Watching my life pass right in front of me just like in the movies. Dying ain't so bad, I guess, but it is kind of lonely. And your mind don't stay put neither. All I keep thinking 'bout is God, and what He thinks about me—a sixteen-year-old single mother who tried to sell her baby for hardly nothing.

Truth is, girls 'round my way get pregnant all the time. Heck, I'm old compared to most. But in my daddy's house, a pregnant girl is like a roach crawling 'cross the kitchen table—something you best get rid of 'fore the neighbors spot it. So soon as Daddy found out about me, he tossed me out. I ain't have no place to sleep for two weeks. Then Momma talked him into letting me back in the house. A month later, when my belly was still flat as notebook paper, my father sat me down and said something good was gonna come outta this here mess I stirred up. That's when he stuck a little card in my hand. Said a white woman was handing 'em out at the check-cashing store on Eighth Avenue.

“Twelve thousand dollars for brand-new babies,” he said.

Momma and me tried to interrupt, but Daddy kept talking. “This lawyer uses the Internet, and gets people from all over the world to bid on babies.” He stared in his hands like the money was already there. “Seems fair enough,” he said. “A couple gets a baby, and we get paid.”

I didn't want to give up my baby. But when I told my boyfriend, Oscar, about Daddy's plan, he was all for it. “Too many babies 'round our way now,” he wrote me from jail. “Ain't never enough dough.”

Anyhow, that's how I got to Mable Lee's, where gals like me end up selling their babies like lettuce from the back of a pickup truck.

The first day that lawyer woman brought me to Mable Lee's place, Willie Greentea was standing on the front porch picking his nose. I know a stupid boy when I see one, and I could tell right off that Willie didn't have much upstairs. You could see it in his eyes. They was as empty as the hallway at school soon after the last bell rings. But I was nice to him right off. I introduced myself. Stood so close he could smell the ginger spice perfume I had rubbed all over me and see the purple specks in my pretty green eyes. Shoot, even boys with all their marbles can't resist looking at my eyes for longer than they should. Willie wasn't no different. He stared at me so long that first day, it scared me. But I moved closer to him anyhow. Asked if he liked how I smelled.

He nodded his jug head. “Yeah.”

“How 'bout my eyes. You like them too?” I said, knowing full well that boys is crazy 'bout light-skinned gals with eyes like mine.

He almost poked me in the left one. “They yours?”

I smacked his dirty hand. “How else I'm gonna get 'em? Buy 'em at the corner store like candy?”

Dumb boys ask a whole lot of stupid questions. Ten minutes later, Willie was still asking 'bout my eyes. Cuss words started flying out my mouth 'fore I thought about it good. Next thing I knew, Mable Lee was dragging me in the house by the arm. Telling me that kinda language ain't got no place 'round here. I was glad she took me away from Willie Greentea that day. Wish she'd-a snatched me off that front porch long before I ever met him.

I could tell right off that Mable Lee wasn't like the other women 'round here that have to do day's work to make ends meet. First off, she got porch furniture, not no broke-down couch sitting out front her place like most folks. And she got new windows and pretty, white-laced curtains hanging up everywhere.

I put my suitcase down and rubbed my hand over the cool, hard plastic covering the green sofa.

“I'm-a do like you when I grow up,” I said, looking 'round the room.

“How's that?” she said, picking up the used blue suitcase that lawyer woman gave me and heading up the stairs.

“I'm gonna make money off kids too, so I ain't gotta work and my bills get paid on time.”

Mable Lee stopped on the eighteenth step. She turned her big hips around and laid me out. Didn't use not one cuss word, neither. But I tell you this, I ain't never been told off like
that
before. When she started up the steps again, she let me know that she took in girls like me 'cause the Lord closed up her private parts, not 'cause she wanted money to pay off her house. Then she walked up the rest of the stairs in silence, went into the bedroom, and sat on the bed to catch her breath. “Would do it for free, if I had to.”

“But you don't,” I said, sitting down next to her. Counting all the knobs on the dressers in the room.

Mable Lee ain't talk to me for a while after that. She just showed me around the upstairs. Then told me I was responsible for washing my own clothes and doing the dishes every night after supper. When she mentioned something 'bout a curfew, I laughed.

“What a pregnant gal need a curfew for? Ain't nothing she can do that she ain't already done,” I said, trying to keep my lips still while I counted the hairs on her chin.

Mable Lee shook her head, then opened the closet and handed me a present—a smooth, white box with pink ribbon tied around it. “Welcome,” she said, sitting it on my lap.

I ain't even say thanks. I pulled off the ribbon. Dumped the clothes on the bed. Counted every piece. “I don't need no pregnant clothes,” I said, getting mad. “I got too many now.” I threw the box way 'cross the room. “I need other stuff, too, you know.”

Mable Lee's voice got as small and tight as the gold ring on her baby finger. “It's just a little something to say welcome.”

I walked over to the window and stared at Willie Greentea sitting on his back porch rocking. I thought, He'll buy me stuff. Pretty, tight things.

Mable Lee came over and shook me good. “He a good boy. You stay away from him.”

I stared at Willie Greentea with his long skinny head and droopy eyes. I like boys like him, I wanted to tell Mable Lee. Slow, stupid boys. They give you anything you want, and you ain't hardly gotta do nothing to get it, neither. I smiled. “I can't help it if boys like me.”

She shook her head. Pulled up the corner of her wig and scratched. “Slick slides on its own grease,” she said, taking her own good time walking over to the door. “Watch you don't
bust your head
on your way down.”

Mable Lee is like that. Always talking in riddles. Saying stuff that don't make much sense. That's why I didn't tell her for the longest time that Willie Greentea was after me. Anyhow, if I woulda told her, I woulda had to tell her he was buying me stuff too. Stealing it when he ain't have no money. And wasn't no way I was gonna tell Mable Lee nothing like that. She go to church every now and then—and stealing is something she just can't abide.

It wasn't no time 'fore I had Willie Greentea wrapped 'round my finger like a good-luck string. “I sure could use me something to drink,” I said one day.

He looked at me. Squeezed his big hands down in his pants pockets and pulled out some bills. I left the store with two cream sodas, three bags of chips, and ten one-dollar bills. I barely had to ask Willie for that money. I kissed him on the cheek after I got it. Boys like Willie don't get kissed by nobody 'cept their mommas, so they'll do just 'bout anything if you give 'em a peck every now and then. Might even hurt somebody, if you ask.

Mable Lee asked more than once where I got some new ring or the few extra dollars she saw in the bottom of my drawer. I always lied. Told her Oscar sent me things. Never did say he was in jail. Never said he was white, neither. It wasn't none of her business. So I kept on taking from that other boy. Kept asking him for more and more. Momma says that poor women don't have nothing but a bunch of babies and blistered fingers by the time you lay 'em in the grave. “So if you can get some extras, get 'em, 'cause God knows I ain't never had nothing more than hard times and empty hands,” she told me.

My momma's white. So that means this here baby's gonna be extra light. “Close to white,” the lawyer woman said. “Couples pay more for babies like that. Two thousand more than the rest.”

Daddy liked that. “Finally, a little good luck.”

I wondered 'bout the other babies. The ones that was one hundred percent black. Do they get good homes, too, or do they get gypped twice— worth less money right from the start, then put in second-rate homes to boot?

I was thinking on this the day Willie's daddy came to Mable Lee's place hunting me down like a crook who stole his last dollar. Saying for me to stay away from Willie. I told him that it wasn't me who couldn't stay away from Willie, but Willie who couldn't get enough of me.

His father kept talking. Telling me that Willie wasn't stupid, just slow. Willie was seven, he said, when the sense got knocked outta him. “He jumped in the shallow end of the lake, and hit his head on the bottom.”

I laughed. I don't know why, but I did.

Mr. Greentea's voice got as rough and hard as the bunions on the bottom of Mable Lee's feet. “'Cause you near white, you think you can treat people like you want; act any way you like, huh?”

I gave him the finger.

His fingers curled like fatback in hot grease, then loosened and took hold of my neck.

For a minute I stopped breathing—I swear I did. 'Cause I could see that he would really hurt me if he had to. That he would make me disappear like dirty, wet snow after a hard rain if I didn't stay clear of his boy.

* * *

I did just like Willie's daddy said. I stayed away from Willie. But Willie likes my eyes and the white in my skin, and he came looking for me. At first I told him to get. He took off like a cat sprayed with a hose. The next two times he left right away, but snuck back later and left me a little something by the door. I liked that. So when he came back the fourth time I told him we had to keep our friendship secret. He understood. So we started meeting in the park, after dark.

Willie Greentea likes it dark. So dark you can't see nothing, not even the whites in somebody else's eyes. I didn't know that at first. So when he said we should walk to the park, I was all for it. I stopped cold, right before we went in, though. “I don't know, Willie. How we gonna see anything with no lights on?”

Willie pulled out a flashlight. Said he liked the dark better than the daylight. “'Cause you can't hardly see people staring and pointing at ya.”

He took my hand and we went in. Found us a bench and just sat still for a while. And you know it wasn't long 'fore my eyes could tell what was what. So I didn't mind, not at first, us sneaking off to the park at night. It was fun—him hiding greasy brown paper bags under park benches, behind trees, or right by the creek and making me find 'em. Knowing just what a girl like me wants: a Timex watch that ticks under water, perfume, gold earrings, red lipstick, and money—always money. But then one night, when I went to kiss his cheek for the pretty silk scarf he gave me, he turned his face around. Pushed his lips out as far as he could and said, “Kiss me here.”

I took too long, I guess. So Willie just bent over and kissed me. Right on my mouth. Right where Oscar kisses me—where nobody else is supposed to touch me. I went crazy for a minute. Pulling at my lips like I could take 'em off and throw 'em in the creek for cleaning. Smacking Willie upside the head and punching his arms and ignoring my baby kicking me—reminding me, I guess, that I was five months pregnant.

I threw the watch, perfume, and the clip-on earrings in the creek, making sure to keep the money and the lipstick tight in my left hand. Then I started walking—running, really. Next thing I know, Willie's chasing me, grabbing hold of my neck.

Willie's hands are as strong and tight as the twine they twist 'round the fish they gut and wrap in funny papers so you can take 'em home. His fingers closed around my neck and made it so I couldn't hardly breathe.

I whispered. “Don't . . .” and pulled at his long stringy fingers.

“Those my mother's earrings,” he said. “She gonna be mad when she know they lost in the water.”

I pulled back my arm and slammed my elbow in his belly. He turned me loose and walked into the creek in his shoes and dug in the mud till he found the earrings. “They wasn't gonna be yours for keeps,” he said, wiping 'em on his pants. “Just for a little while, till Momma missed 'em too much.”

I left Willie in the park holding mud in his hands. He told me to wait up, 'cause he wanted to find the perfume too. But I kept walking. Kept feeling my neck and wondering what made Willie do what he done to me. They was just some plain old earrings—cheap ones, really. Just like all the other things he stole off his mother and said was mine for keeps.

I told Mable Lee what happened. Willie's daddy too. They both said for me to hush my lies.

“Girls like you always trying to take advantage of boys like Willie. Guess every now and then they just get mad, is all.”

I thought about what Mable Lee said. Figured maybe it was me that made him do what he did. So I ain't stay away from him, I just didn't ask him for much. Then a month or so later, I went knocking on his door. Him and me ended up in the park after dark. And just like before, his hands ended up on my neck. He was mad all over again 'bout something else this time. I don't even remember what. I ran straight to his daddy. I forgot I still had on Willie's momma's new pearl earrings. They got snatched off my ears, that's for sure.

“Willie gonna hurt me bad one day,” I said while his daddy pulled me down the front steps. “Y'all just watch and see.”

His father dragged me to Mable Lee's place and told her he was gonna call the state on her if she didn't keep no-good trash like me from hangin' 'round his son. “They use him. Then lie on him when it suits 'em.”