Before, After, and Somebody In Between (8 page)

“Get—out!” she screams at me.

Jerome shoves me toward the window as the coat hanger whizzes. “Go, Martha. Go, go,
go!
” I’m barely over the sill before Aunt Gloria slams the window hard enough to crack the glass, and I land in my own room with my skull still vibrating.

I sink to my knees and stick my fingers in my ears, trying to block out the sound of Bubby’s screams. Is she hitting him, too? I don’t want to know! Hell, all the times Momma smacked me around in the past, at least she never used a freaking weapon on me.

Something has to be done about that bitch! But what can
I
do? Momma will tell me to mind my own business, and Wayne doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Lindseys.

God, I wish we were back in our old house. I don’t mean that last slum we lived in, or the one before that, or before that. I mean our real house down in Spencer, way out in the country where we used to live before Daddy gambled everything away. Big house, big rooms, and a big backyard. And best of all? We didn’t share any of it with anyone, and especially not with some crazy person who beats her kids with a wooden hanger.

…

In the morning, I scribble a note for Miss Fuchs—
Please excuse Martha for her absence yesterday. She was
very
ill!!!
—then dress quickly and grab a stale donut. Outside, the bump on Jerome’s cheek gleams like a lavender golf ball.

All he mumbles is, “She was high again. She didn’t mean it.”

“You oughta report her to someone! Can’t your grandma do something?”

“She’s scared.”

“She doesn’t act scared to me,” I argue, remembering how Grandma Daisy almost mowed Aunt Gloria down with the car.

“Well, she is. Everybody’s scared. Well, not Anthony,” he adds truthfully. “He ain’t scared of nothin’. And he knows his mom’s crazy.”

Yeah, ‘cause he has a gun, I almost say—but then I’d have to explain what I was doing in Jerome’s room.

I sigh. “Well, I guess we all have crazy moms. Maybe we oughta start a club.”

“Mine’s not crazy,” Jerome says testily. “She’s an addict, okay?”

“Sor-ry.” What the hell’s the difference?

“She used to take me places, you know, like to the park, to the pool. Man, I wish she’d come back,” he adds fiercely, “and kick Aunt Gloria’s ass. She never did drugs till Aunt Gloria got her started. And she never once hit me, not one single time.”

We’re almost to school when, like an omen, a bus rumbles by with a sign on the side: Report Child Abuse. Call 1-800-4-A-CHILD. I look Jerome straight in the eye, but he doesn’t say a word. He really doesn’t have to. That silence of his is a whole lot worse.

14

Good news: Momma did get that nurse’s aide job, so now she works till midnight every night and goes to her AA meetings every morning. For the whole month of October, there’s no word from Wayne, not even a phone call warning us to get our butts offa his land. What do they call people like us? Oh, yeah—squatters.

Momma’s mad because Aunt Gloria refuses to hand over the rent check. And when Momma’s mad, I’m the one who suffers.

“I ain’t shelling out another dime for that thing!” is what I get one morning when I mention, quite nicely, that my cello contract expires in twenty-two days.

“Momma, I can’t just quit. Can’t you make it, you know, kinda like an early Christmas present for me?”

“Early, late, it don’t make no difference, I ain’t got the money, and I sure ain’t thinking about Christmas. Now I don’t want to hear another word about it!”

“Fine!”

…

At lunch, Shavonne and Kenyatta and Monique exchange class pictures, and I have nothing to give them because Momma didn’t
buy mine. Even Aunt Gloria paid for Jerome’s, and she’s not even his mother.

“Jerome gave you his picture?” Shavonne whips the wallet-sized photo away before I barely have it out of my backpack. “Damn, that is one fine-lookin’ dude when he take off them ugly glasses.” She flips the picture over and scribbles XOXO on the back.

“Hey!” I grab it back. “Not funny, Shavonne!”

The whole table cracks up, and Kenyatta insists, “Oh, c’mon, we all know he likes you. You bringing him to the party tonight?” Her Halloween party, she means.

“That is so not true,” I argue, my face growing hot. “And no, I’m not bringing him.” Jerome can’t come anyway. Friday nights are Aunt Gloria’s binge nights. He can’t trust her around Bubby, not even with Grandma Daisy in the house.

After school, Jerome dumps me for Chem Club again, and I must look like a bag lady tromping down the sidewalk, lugging my cello case and grumbling out loud. I didn’t even
want
my class picture, but that’s not the point. Shavonne’s mom, I bet, spends every nickel she makes on Shavonne. All those clothes? All that art stuff? I’m lucky to get lunch money. Momma ought to be glad I’m playing the cello, and not screwing around with guys or jabbing dirty needles into my veins.

The air is crisp and smells of burning leaves, and for once this shabby old neighborhood doesn’t seem quite as shabby, or even as old. Afternoon sunshine glints on each house, bathing every witch and every pumpkin in a splash of gold. I love Halloween, and man, do I need this party tonight!

Anthony’s hanging out on the front porch when I make it home. He squints at my cello case. “Yo, girlfriend. Whatcha got there?”

I am so-o not in the mood. “Excuse me. I’d like to get into my house.”

He spreads his legs, blocking my way. Patiently, I wait. Why should I have to go around back?

“C’mon, Anthony. I got a ton of homework to do.” At his puzzled look, I add, “You know—
homework?
That’s the stuff you do when you go to school. You, like, get graded on it and everything.” Blabber, blabber. God, what am I saying?

“Smart girl. Betcha make straight A’s.” He grapples for a cigarette and nods at my cello. “How much that cost you?”

Losing patience, I try to push past him. Unfortunately, he gets right in my face.

“Hey, don’t you go shoving on me. All I done is ax you a question, so why you gotta act all ugly and shit?” Smoke curling into his nostrils, he pushes a twenty-dollar bill into my chest. “Give you twenty for it.”

I say nothing.

“Okay. Forty.”

“It’s not for sale. I’m only renting it.”

“What? You think ‘cause I ain’t no white-bread smart-ass like you, I can’t appreciate good music? Dang. And you a stone fox, too.” He reaches out, but his hand stops in midair as his gaze locks into mine. Too late I remember that when you meet a mad dog, the last thing you want to do is make threatening eye contact. “Now why you gotta act like such a cold-hearted bitch for? You gonna hurt my feelings.”

I gauge the distance between myself and the door. Three feet, maybe four…

“Double or nothin’.” He whips out more bills and dangles them under my nose.

“Are you deaf? I said it’s not even my freakin’ cello. Now get out of my way and let me into my house!”

With a knowing smile, he steps aside in a leisurely way. “Ain’t
your fuckin’ house no way,” he reminds me as I squeeze past, accidentally thunking him with my case. With a piglike grunt, he jerks on my ponytail. “Better watch yourself, girlfriend—and keep your skeezy ass out of my brother’s room.”

Does he know I saw the money? That I know about the gun? Where is it, anyway? Does he have it on him right now?

Ripping my hair away, I scramble into the house, smash down the deadbolt, and then scream with shock when his face pops up in the window. After a slow, significant smile, he dissolves out of sight.

15

Momma’s working tonight, so I scarf down a pizza pocket and race through my homework so I won’t be stuck with it over the weekend. I grab my stuff and head over to Shavonne’s who, by the way, came up with the most spectacular idea for our costumes—we’re going as each other!

I make it there before dark, and we have the place to ourselves because her mom’s at work, helping to cater some big fancy dinner. Shavonne spends two full hours twisting my hair into long braids and slathering me with pitch-black mascara. Her cousin Rodney/Rashonda, the ultimate drag queen, generously donated a few tubes of professional greasepaint, guaranteed not to melt under the hottest of stage lights. I paint her a peachy-pink, and she paints me a chocolate-pudding brown.

“I can’t believe I’m gonna wear this thing in public,” she complains, pulling my
South Park
T-shirt down over one of Rodney/Rashonda’s curly wigs and tucking it into her jeans.

Me, I’m in a low-cut sweater and skimpy skirt, the best things I’ve found in that Goodwill box so far, topped off with
Shavonne’s black, lace-up, high-heeled dominatrix boots. I gloss up my lips for good measure, and gape at myself in the mirror.

“You need to accessorize,” she informs me critically. “Hey, let’s pierce your ears! Lemme go grab some ice—”

“Do I look like an idiot?” I duck as she throws me a pile of colored Mardi Gras beads followed by a bracelet, a leather choker, and a tarnished silver ring with a big black stone. “Wow. This is, um, pretty ugly.”

“Hey, it’s a mood ring. I found it in a junk store.”

I slip it on my finger and wait. The stone stays black. “Well, you got ripped off.”

“Naw, black just means you in a real shitty mood. Let’s booze you up and then see what color it turns.”

“I don’t drink,” I say quickly, knowing Momma would kill me if she knew I was even thinking about it.

Shavonne flips a pair of her mom’s glasses, minus the lenses, onto her newly-pink nose. “Yeah, you do,” she insists, shoving me toward the door.

…

Kenyatta lives in a huge, crumbling stone house a few blocks away. Her folks, if they exist, are nowhere in sight. Made up like an exotic African princess, she waves a bottle of vodka in my face. “Help yourselves, sluts,” she offers, and grins at my plunging neckline. “Dang, you got titties! I never woulda guessed.”

I spy a keg of beer on the kitchen table, surrounded by liquor bottles. “Um, you got any pop? I took an antihistamine.”

Shavonne glares. “Bullshit. This is a party, okay? Not some Girl Scout meeting.”

“Yeah, c’mon,” Kenyatta argues. “Live it up for once!”

Monique, in skintight gold spandex and a bone-chilling blond
Afro, cheerfully swats my back. “Yeah, get down! I’m five drinks ahead of y’all!”

Boy, all that peer pressure stuff they warn you about. Just say no, Martha. Be your own person, Martha. Well, I am my own person, but I still want to try it. Believe it or not, I’ve never even tasted a beer. Besides,
I
am not Momma. I, at least, know how to exercise self-control. I came here to have fun, dammit. Who wants to drink Pepsi?

So, armed with two vodka and orange juices, I follow Shavonne down to the crowded basement where we’re greeted by deafening music and wall-to-wall bodies. It’s dark as hell, not that I can see much anyway. I left my glasses at Shavonne’s so I wouldn’t destroy the illusion.

Shavonne immediately jumps into a dance with TyShawn, one of our homeroom homeboys, so I gulp my first drink down and then stand there alone, wobbling in my boots, sipping daintily on the second.

A vampire materializes, spits out his fangs, and tucks them secretively under his black vinyl cape. “Wanna dance?”

I’d rather not touch the hand he just spit into, but luckily this is a fast dance. I swallow the rest of my second drink as he pulls me over, and I rock and shake and really get into it. Dizzy or not—wow, I feel great!

The music switches to a slower song, and I find my nose smooshed into the vampire’s sweaty chest. “What’s your name, baby girl? I’m Maurice.”

Trying to avoid his onion-dip breath, I scream over the music,
“Martha!
”

“Martha, yeah baby, you look swe-e-et to-o-night!” He strokes my long braids, then drops his hand down to grab hold of my butt.

Whoa! I shove my plastic cup under his nose. “Do you mind getting me another screwdriver?” Maybe I can hide while he’s gone.

With a stupid grin, he dashes off. Tugging my pantyhose out of my butt, I wonder what the chances are of stealing TyShawn away from Shavonne. He’s way cuter than Maurice—square-jawed, puppy-dog eyes, big, sexy lips to die for—and I bet he has nicer breath.

Too late. Maurice is back, dragging me into another dance. As I hold my plastic cup high, I can feel him rubbing against my skirt, and—holy shit, tell me I’m imagining something hard and strange knocking into my hip bone.

Do I panic? Do I scream? Do I slam him with my knee? Nope, and here’s why: because the liquor kicks in, and suddenly I don’t care.

Don’t care that Maurice is blowing onions into my nose.

Don’t care that his woody’s whacking my thigh.

Don’t care about anything except dancing my butt off. I gulp the last of my drink, flip the cup over my head, and grab Maurice’s skinny shoulders—and the next thing I know, I’m down on a couch with an extra tongue in my mouth, and omigod, I am so—not—
that
drunk! I hammer his head and pull at his ears, and a second later I’m on the floor with no idea how I got there.

“You sneaky bitch! What you doin’ with my babydaddy?”

Music rips to a stop. Lights shoot on. I’m still not sure who threw me on the floor, but I think it’s very likely my tailbone’s busted. Towering over me is one wildly irate Chardonnay. Maurice, right on cue, babbles like a lunatic. “You got it all wrong, baby, this ho come on to
me!
”

“Why, you lying little shit!” I yell up from the concrete.

Confused, Chardonnay freezes. “What the fuck?”

Should’ve kept my mouth shut.

“Girl, I
know
that ain’t your honky self under all that shit,” she growls, squinting down into my face.

“Hey,” Kenyatta interrupts. Bravely, she gives Chardonnay one teeny-tiny push. “Ain’t nobody invited
you
here, bitch!”

Well, that sets her off, and she starts F-ing this, F-ing that, saying stuff like, How dare I mess with her baby’s daddy, huh? Astonished, I stay glued to the floor, trying to absorb this, till Chardonnay grabs my braids and hauls me to my feet. Outraged, and strangely unafraid, I snatch a handful of her own ratty weave, and let go in horror when I feel it tear away from her scalp.