Damaged (20 page)

When I was done, he turned over and slid his dick up inside me like he always did. I let him do what he wanted. He knew I
ain’t have no feelings for him.

“Can you move your hips or something? Damn.”

I rolled my eyes and rocked up and down. I moaned like it felt good and then he came. He was sweating all over the place.
I watched him wipe his forehead with my sheets and then get up. Nut had two bullet scars—one on his arm and the other on his
leg, from the day Chu was killed.

I reached out to touch the one on his arm, not even thinking. I saw other old scars on his body, too, but I had no clue where
they came from.

He smiled. “War wounds, baby girl. I’m a killer!”

I cut my eyes and got up to take a shower. Why would he say something like that? He was such a jerk. I was relieved that he
had disappeared by the time I came out the bathroom. I turned my radio up sky high since Raheem DeVaughn was singing “Guess
Who Loves You More,” and then I sat on the edge of my bed to roll a J. I got the bag of weed from one of my regulars a couple
of nights ago, as a cherry on top. After I rolled up, I went back to the bathroom to smoke it before any of those Hoovers
smelled it. I knew Shakira’s geeking ass would be the first to come running across the hall, sniffing herb in the air like
a hound dog. Nah, I wanted this all to myself.

Chu had been creeping in my mind a lot lately. Maybe it was cuz the holidays was right around the corner. But then again,
it had only been a few months. I was supposed to be missing him. I inhaled and blew the smoke out. Tears filled my eyes and
ran down my cheeks. I let them fall. I cried until I couldn’t breathe with all the smoke in the tiny space. I put the J out
and opened the bathroom door and then I went to my room and lied across the bed.

I thought about Rob. Peaches had mentioned that after the funeral he went straight back to Greensboro. I knew he had a basketball
scholarship and was busy doing his own thing, but I wondered if he ever thought about me. He never tried to call me. Did he
care that I was by myself? Or that Chu left me, too? I wondered if Rob knew what Nut was into all this time. As much as I
tried to understand it, I just couldn’t see it. But how could he not know? They lived together long before I came around.
But then again, Rob ain’t seem like the type to keep that away from Chu. They had been too tight.

I stared at the ceiling and wondered what would Rob think if he got a phone call or a letter from me? Word must’ve traveled
back to him, some kind of way, probably through Nut’s ass. Rob had to know that I was working for him by now.

I shook my head and rolled over. I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t. I stayed up listening to the sounds
of Trina Boo and Nut coming from her apartment downstairs, until sleep finally took my mind away.

W
hen Wynika was released from jail, she came straight home with two of her brothers and a U-Haul van. She ain’t say nothing
to none of us. They packed up her stuff and moved her out. Just like that. She ain’t even tell us bye. I watched them load
the truck up from my window, trying to figure out why she was mad at us.

“She probably mad at herself,” Shakira said, leaning beside me. “I know she blame herself for that shit.”

I bit my lip and went back to the table to get rid of my ashes in the tray. Peaches told us Wynika’s kids was still with Child
Protective Services and that her trial date wasn’t for a few more months.

“I guess she don’t want nothing else to do with us,” Trina Boo said, sipping her wine cooler. “Well, anyway, whatever. Two
tears in a bucket, muthafuck it.”

“Damn, that’s cruddy. I hope you don’t treat me like that when I leave,” Shakira said.

“Bitch, I’m leaving first. I told you I’m getting a modeling contract,” she teased.

“Over Nut’s dead body,” I said.

“I’m fine with that,” Shakira said. She finished the rest of her cooler and then said, “I need to do some laundry. Trina Boo,
can you run me around the corner?”

“I ain’t doing nothing else.”

“Let me grab some of my stuff, too,” I said.

“All right, y’all be ready in like thirty minutes, okay?” she said, heading out the door.

“Okay.” I went to separate my small pile of dirty clothes. Just as I started stuffing my bag, my cell phone rang. “Hello?”

“Camille, you busy?” Peaches whispered.

“Not really, what’s up?”

“Tep just called here collect for you.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“Tep. Chu’s brother? He just called for you, but I ain’t accept it. Nut right in the other room.”

“Oh, my God.” I started pacing the room. I thought about how Chu wanted me to get in touch with him, but I ain’t know how,
besides going through his mother, which I ain’t wanna do. “Shit.”

“I think he called a couple of times before, cuz the same number has been on the caller ID, but I was never here when he called,
or maybe Nut answered it first.”

“Try to give him my number.”

“I’ll try, but—”

“Please, Peaches, some kind of way.”

“I said I’ll try.”

The phone got quiet for a few seconds, and then I said, “I heard Nut wants you to get rid of the baby. Is it true?”

She ain’t say nothing for a long time, and then she said, “Yeah.”

“What you wanna do?”

“You know what I wanna do.”

The phone was so quiet, I checked to see if I dropped the call, but there was still bars there. “Hello?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Oh?”

“Look, Camille, what you doing later?”

“I was about to go with them to the Laundromat, but I’m not in no desperate need. Why?”

“I’m ’bout to come around there. I have to tell you something.”

I raised my eyebrows up, puzzled, and then said, “Okay.”

T
he sun was setting by the time Peaches finally showed up. I was getting angry, cuz I had wasted my whole day waiting around
for her to show up. She had a big duffle bag on her shoulder when she finally knocked on the door. I guess she was gonna get
dressed for the night over here.

“I caught a cab. Nut don’t know where I’m at. You know he’s gonna kirk out any minute,” Peaches said, sounding nervous. She
even had a little bit of sweat on her forehead. “I left when he went meet up with some contractors about something.”

“What’s wrong? You want something to drink?” I asked, already heading to the kitchen.

She nodded and sat down.

“I’m about to leave his ass,” she said.

“Huh? Oh, shit!” I said, spilling fruit punch on the counter.

I wiped it up and then walked over to hand Peaches the glass.

“I’m having this baby!”

“Oh?” I said and then sat down beside her.

“I’m not gonna let him fuck this up for me,” she said and then drank the whole glass.

“Where you gonna go?” I asked.

Peaches shook her head and then stood up to walk around the living room. “You was right, Camille. I should’ve stayed my ass
in hair school. At least that would’ve been something I could do to take care of my baby without his ass.”

I nodded, but I thought she wanted the house with Nut. I don’t know what she wanted to hear me say. I couldn’t believe she
was still having sex for money, knowing she was pregnant. I saw other women on the street doing it, but it just ain’t seem
right. “Do you even know what you’re having yet?”

She smiled and sat back down on my couch. “It’s a boy.”

“Hmmm…”

“I thought about getting rid of it for one split second, but when I seen that sonogram, there wasn’t no way I could kill my
baby. I’m sorry.”

“Hmmm…”

“I love Nut, and I’d do anything for him, but not this. I just can’t do it, and I’m already in my second trimester, too,”
she said, shaking her head. “No.”

“Hmmm…” I mumbled again.

“What? Why you keep saying that?”

I shook my head and stared at the floor. How was I gonna tell her that she was making a mistake by keeping it? No child should
grow up with a prostitute for a mama and a nut for a father.

“Say what’s on your mind, Camille. Shit,” Peaches said, rolling her neck like she had a problem.

“It’s just, I don’t understand why you want to have Nut’s baby for. He’s crazy! That nigga got a fuckin’ dried-up monkey head
dangling from his car mirror, for God’s sake. Don’t you think your son might be born crazy, too?”

Peaches looked at me like I hurt her feelings. She shook her head and said, “You don’t understand nothing.”

“What you mean?” I asked, truly annoyed.

“Sometimes I swear I forget how old you are,” she said, standing up. “It’s easy to forget that shit sometimes.”

“Huh?” I said, crossing my arms. She was only two years older than me.

“Just cuz you dress like a grown-up and fuck grown-ass men don’t mean you know a damn thing about life!”

“And I guess you a genius, huh?”

“No, I ain’t say that, but what you don’t get is that me and Nut… we get each other,” she said, jabbing her finger on the
palm of her hand. “He understands me, and I understand him. You have no clue what he been through. Life ain’t been easy for
him.”

“But, Peaches, it’s been hard for all of us, ain’t it? I sure as hell don’t think I had it easy!”

Peaches shook her head again and said, “You don’t know. You have no idea what he had to see when he was little, Camille.”

She paced back and forth, shaking her head, and then she stopped in front of me. “Yeah, you and me, we been fucked and fucked
over, but what we been through ain’t nothing like him, trust me.”

She pulled out some gum, popped it in her mouth, and then sat back down. “I wish I had a fucking cigarette—a blunt or something.”

I smirked and rolled my eyes. She must’ve forgot who she was talking to.
Now
she cared about what she was doing to the baby, even though she was having sex with anybody who had enough paper to hit it.
And she was smoking and drinking long after she learned she was pregnant. I shook my head.

“The police found Nut when he was three years old in a house on East Capitol Street. You know
why
the police found him?” Peaches asked, looking me over. “His neighbors had kept complaining that they smelled something rotten
coming from his house. When they went to check what it was, Nut was in there sitting on the bed beside his dead mother. She
was tied up to the bed, naked.”

I covered my mouth with my hand.

“Her throat was slit from one ear to the other, and his father was dead in the basement. His head blown off cuz his father
had pulled the trigger.”

“Damn,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s so fucked up.”

“My baby was in that house for nine days, all by hisself. Starving, scared, confused,” Peaches said, shaking her head. “He
was drinking water from the toilet, eating out the trash can. Living off of ketchup and relish in a house filled with maggots
and flies! And on top of all that, they found out his mother was three months pregnant, too.”

“That’s terrible” was the only thing I could say. I had never heard of anything so unbelievable.

“Nut ended up living with Rob’s mother, but she ended up moving in with her mother, Nut’s grandmother, for a little while.
But it was so crowded over there that Nut ended up moving in with his uncle around Paradise,” Peaches said, shaking her head.
She wiped a tear that had started running down her cheek. “That’s the same place I grew up. And if that neighborhood don’t
have enough trouble, he was living with a dude who ain’t give a fuck about him!”

“Why? What you mean?” I asked, needing to know more.

Peaches shook her head and stayed quiet for a minute. “I shouldn’t even be telling his business like this.”

“What?” I asked, anxious.

“It’s just”—she took a deep breath—“his uncle used to smoke boat and shit.”

Boat was just like dippers, except sometimes the weed was laced with PCP instead of embalming fluid. That made people go crazy
and get all violent. Sometimes I thought Nut smoked them from the way he acted.

“The shit Nut told me he used to do to him,” Peaches said, staring at the floor, “was just so horrible. I don’t even want
to talk about it.”

“He used to beat him?” I asked.

“Sometimes, but it wasn’t even just that. It was the mind games. He told me once his uncle tried to make him jump off the
roof of their building.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah. His uncle told Nut that he knew Nut could fly and that he wanted him to show him how to do it.”

“What?” I asked, shaking my head. “What you mean fly?”

“Girl, don’t even try to get me to explain what he meant. It’s exactly as crazy as the shit sounds.”

I frowned and then shook my head.

“Nut told me he was so scared he thought he was gonna die that day. His uncle told him the only way he could come down from
the roof was by flying. He ended up breaking his arm and his leg when he went flying off the roof,” Peaches said, resting
her hand on her small pouch.

“Damn.”

“Sometimes, when you see people who you think are monsters, or you hear bad things about them, you really expect them to look
like these big, ugly or evil-looking people, but when you really see them, like see them inside, and learn what they’re about,
you see that they’re just like regular people. Just some bad things happened to them somewhere that made them change a little
bit. Nut ain’t a monster. He just got stuff going on that is hard for him to get over.”

I bit my lip and thought about what she said for a minute. “Well, where you gonna go?”

“I found this women’s shelter in Northwest, over on D Street. I’ma go there until my son’s born and then maybe I’ll go back
to hair school.”

“But what about Nut?”

“I don’t know. I can’t even think about that right now. I might get in touch with him later, but right now all I can think
about is making sure he don’t do something to try to hurt me or the baby.”

Peaches gained a small bit of respect from me when she walked out of the apartment, her duffle bag on her shoulder and her
head slightly up. I was surprised she had the courage to leave Nut after all the other things he did to her. She was even
giving up having a house. Maybe she really just couldn’t do it and Nut had finally crossed a line. I was glad she thought
about me, before she decided to disappear.