Deliver Me From Evil (8 page)

I
dreamed about Wade that night, lying naked on his back in a field of roses, beckoning me with his dick. I woke up with my face glazed with sweat, a pillow clamped between my thighs, and a wicked smile on my lips. I couldn't wait to see him again.

I didn't care if we had sex again or not. The more I thought about that, it wasn't such a big deal, anyway. I had more fun with a pillow between my legs. But pillows couldn't talk or do other things to a girl that a boy could do. I liked lying in Wade's arms and talking to him. He was one of the few people who actually listened to what I had to say. I knew boys who liked to feel me up and down for hours on end, and a minute later they couldn't remember a single thing I'd said.

I went to Wade's house three times after school the following week. But the only person I'd been able to see was his mother. Each time she told me that Wade was out with his friends. On the third day, I got bold enough to ask her exactly where he was with his friends. Miss Louise was a mean old woman, at least to most of the kids in the neighborhood. When she caught kids stealing oranges off the tree in her front yard, she chased them with a broom.

She had gray eyes like Wade, and she had a pretty face for a woman her age. But she wore a wig that was so fake looking, it looked like it belonged on a rag doll. She wore clothes that looked like they belonged on a female my age, so not too many people took her seriously. I sure didn't, but I treated her with respect because she had something I wanted: her son. And, I had something she wanted: money. Not much. Sometimes less than a dollar. But Miss Louise was the kind of moocher who would take candy from a baby. My parents always broke her off a twenty or a fifty loan at least four or five times a month, so she was fairly nice to me.

“Christine, you are going to worry me to death over that boy of mine. Now if he wanted to see you, don't you think he'd let you know that?” Miss Louise told me, giving her wig a strong tug. “What do you want with him, anyway?”

“Uh, I just wanted to talk to him. He told me about his plans to go to Hollywood,” I said in a cheerful voice.

“Oh?” Miss Louise said, fanning her hand out like she wanted to make sure I saw she'd just gotten her nails done. She stepped out onto the lopsided wraparound porch hugging the front of her house like an ill-fitted bra.

“He's going to be a real big star one day. I told him so to his face,” I added, pleased to see that she was feeling more cordial. A smile from her, even to me, went a long way.

“He sure enough is, baby. And I know my boy. He won't forget the folks who was there for him on his way up. I am sure he appreciates your encouragement and support.” Miss Louise sniffed, patting her chest.

Miss Louise was a strange woman. She had a lot of relatives in the area, but the way she talked about Wade, you would have thought that he was the only one she had left. I didn't know much about Wade's father other than Miss Louise's claim that he was a “low-down, funky black dog.” Miss Louise was a waitress, and she had a few men friends here and there, but she still couldn't make ends meet without borrowing money. But even though she struggled to make ends meet, she had some expensive habits. She liked designer clothes and fancy restaurants, not to mention the extravagant things that filled her shabby house. Like a big-screen television set, state-of-the-art computer equipment, and leather furniture, which she liked to replace ever other year.

“Baby, can you break me off a few dollars? I had some unexpected expenses this week, and I'm a little short,” she cooed.

“Yes, ma'am,” I said eagerly, removing the five-dollar bill and three ones that I had in my Windbreaker pocket. The woman who lived in the apartment below ours had paid me ten dollars to do her laundry and bathe her dog two days ago. “How much do you need?”

“How much you got?”

“I can let you have five,” I told her in a sheepish voice.

“Is five all you can spare?” she asked, looking at the three remaining dollars I was clutching in my hand.

“Uh, I was going to buy me some magazines and some gum,” I replied.

“All right then,” she said, then sniffed. “The boy's over on Shattuck, at the Eye-talian restaurant all you kids like to go to. Gobbling up one of them spicy-ass pizzas they sell over there. Damn them dagos,” Miss Louise said, with a smirk, snatching the five out of my hand so fast, she almost pulled my arm out of the socket. The money disappeared into her apron pocket as she mumbled a thank-you under her breath. Then she folded her arms and gave me a pensive look. “When my boy makes it big in Hollywood, he's going to buy me a house, a new car, some new frocks … everything but a mockingbird. And guess what I …”

I didn't even hear the rest of Miss Louise's sentence, even though she followed me off her front porch out onto the sidewalk, still talking. As soon as I got to the corner, I took off running toward Shattuck Street, almost dashing in front of a bus.

When I got to nearby Giovanni's, where Wade was supposed to be, I was glad to see him sitting with some white boy that I'd never seen before in a booth in the back. Wade had on a black leather jacket and a baseball cap turned sideways, looking straight-up awesome. I had to close my eyes, hold my breath, and blink. The space between my thighs started itching and sweating, and for a minute, I thought I was going to cream all over myself right there in the middle of the restaurant floor.

I waved and ran over to Wade's table, almost knocking a waiter to the ground. The boy with him had on a sweater that had a snowman on the front with crossed eyes and a joint sticking out of his mouth.

“Hi, Wade! Your mama told me you was here,” I squealed, waiting for him to invite me to join the party.

First, he looked from me to the white boy and back. “Do I know you?” he asked me, with a shrug and an annoyed look on his face.

I swallowed hard and blinked at him. “It's me,” I said sharply, pointing to my face.

“Me who?” Wade demanded. The white boy covered his mouth with his hand and snickered so hard, the snowman on his sweater moved in a way that made it look like he was puffing on the joint hanging off his lip.

“I … I was at your house day after Thanksgiving,” I stammered, hoping I would not have to explain any more than that. “My mama had borrowed a roasting pan from your mama to cook our turkey in, and I brought some money that your mama wanted to borrow.” At this point, I leaned over the table and lowered my voice. “You, uh,
showed
me your room …,” I said, with a nod.

“Oh. That was
you
?” he gasped, looking embarrassed, then amused.

“That was me,” I mumbled, my face burning with anger. Who the hell did this nigger think he was? I had heard that some boys treated girls like shit after they'd fucked them. But I never thought that it would happen to me.

“Well, what do you want me to
show
you now?” he sneered. That motherfucker! I didn't know if he was being for real or if he was just trying to entertain and amuse the boy across from him at the table.

“I just wanted to say hi,” I said. I didn't give him the chance to make me feel any worse. I slunk out of the restaurant and ran all the way back home, with tears streaming down the sides of my face, wondering if anybody would ever really care about me.

I had no cigarettes or alcohol to ease my pain. And, because Miss Louise had talked me out of most of my money, I didn't even have enough to buy any from some of the older kids I knew.

Mama and Daddy still occupied the same spots that I'd left them in. They didn't even look up when I stumbled across the living room floor to my room. I could not have felt more insignificant if I'd tried.

C
hristmas was the one thing that made my family seem normal. Well, almost normal. But that wasn't saying much.

What was different about Christmas was the fact that Mama cooked a big meal, Daddy put up a tree, and we even exchanged gifts. Each year I gave Daddy either a pair of socks or some Old Spice aftershave, which he used as a breath freshener. I always gave Mama something practical, like a new frying pan. Me, I never knew what I was going to get from them. One year all I got was a pair of boots with a note that had both Mama's and Daddy's names scribbled on it.

When I was twelve, I received two dolls, some clothes with the tags from Kmart still attached, and a Monopoly game. I hadn't played with dolls since I was five, the clothes were three sizes too large, and I knew as much about Monopoly as I did about rocket science. But I played with the dolls, anyway, sold the clothes to a fat girl and used the money to buy some similar outfits in my size, and traded the Monopoly game for a carton of Newports and two cans of Coors Light.

I had to kick Denise's butt when she came to my house and tried to sneak out with half of my Newports and a pair of my new jeans in her backpack. There was quite a ruckus in my room as we rolled around on the floor, pulling each other's hair and cussing. When Daddy knocked on the door and told us to, “turn off that damn rap music,” Denise and I laughed so hard we couldn't fight anymore. Even though we laughed, I could tell from the look on Denise's face that she was not happy I'd won the fight, but I assumed we'd make up and still be friends. I had fought with other girls before and still stayed friends with them but Denise never came around me again after our fight.

Denise had scratched my face and I still had some of the scars by the time New Year's Day rolled around. I coated my face with a lot of makeup to hide the fact that I'd been fighting. But I got drunk at a New Year's Eve party at Maria's house and told everybody about the fight anyway. I had a good time dancing with Maria's brothers and some of their friends, but the only boy I really wanted to be with was Wade.

I was in love for the first time. Ever since I'd fucked Wade in his mama's house, I'd been on cloud nine, and I assumed that he was, too. I had gotten over that little stunt he'd pulled on me at Giovanni's. Somehow I managed to convince myself that that white boy I'd seen him with had something on him. Something that kept him from admitting that he was my man. I refused to believe that a boy who had fucked the daylights out of me had lost interest in me that fast.

I began to think otherwise because I hadn't seen or heard from Wade since I'd cornered him at Giovanni's. “I ought to go to his house and smash his windows!” I told Maria. “I ought to steal that mangy dog of his and drop him off in East Oakland somehere.”

“Then you won't hear from him again for sure and you might get arrested,” she replied.

“He could at least call me up and tell me he don't like me no more.” I pouted. “What am I supposed to think or do? I don't like this shit! He can't fuck with me like this and just forget about me!”

“I think he already did,” Maria said with a nod. “Give the boy another chance. There might even be a good reason why he hasn't called you up.”

I gave Maria a thoughtful look and then I rushed home.

We didn't have an answering machine, so I didn't know if he'd tried to call me during the day, when nobody was home at my house. But he didn't call in the evening or at night when I was home, either. And the evenings and nights that I was out lollygagging, there were never any messages left for me with my parents when I got home. But I always asked, anyway.

“Did a boy call for me?” I asked Mama. I had just come home from a party at a skating rink a few blocks from my house. I had had a few beers and a little tequila, and had taken a few hits off a joint, so I was a little tipsy. I didn't know if my parents knew about me drinking and getting high, because I never did it in front of them. I never looked or acted drunk or high, so they never knew when I was. I was the kind of girl who could get drunk as a skunk and as high as a flying monkey and still not stagger or slur my words. I had that much control over myself. That was one of the reasons I had such a hard time believing that I'd been played by Wade.

Even though I missed him, and would have jumped at the chance to marry him and have his babies, his absence was beginning to get on my nerves. But I still wanted to see him again. If he didn't like me anymore and wanted nothing more to do with me, I wanted him to tell me so, to my face. “This boy that I'm expecting a call from, he's a good friend,” I said, more to myself than to Mama. I wasn't convinced that that was true.

“A lot of boys call you,” Mama told me, not even looking up from the television. Daddy was stretched out on the sofa, snoozing like a cat. He was on his back, with his arms folded across his chest. He was already a dull and lackluster man. When he slept, he looked like a dead man. The only reason I knew he was still alive was because he snored like a freight train.

“Did any of them leave any messages?” I had to talk loud so that Mama could hear me over Daddy's racket.

“Naw,” Mama said, with a grunt.

There was a rolled-up
Enquirer
in Mama's hand that she had been reading off and on for over a month. She glanced in my direction as she swatted a fly the size of a nickel on the arm of her chair with the old
Enquirer
. Then she unrolled it and started reading stuff that was so old by now, it no longer mattered. Like the two stars on the cover celebrating their lavish wedding. They'd already gotten divorced. But that didn't matter to Mama. She had magazines that were older than me that she was still reading and using to swat flies.

I dragged my feet to my room, hoping that I would never have to introduce Wade to my parents. It was bad enough that he had a strange mama to deal with, too. Just thinking about Miss Louise, with her greedy self, made me smile as I flung myself across my unmade bed. I always stuffed a few spare dollars into my sock every time I left the house because I never knew when I was going to run into Wade's mama. She had paid back the hundred dollars that she'd borrowed from Mama three days after I'd delivered it to her house, leaving it with Wade. But she'd come to borrow it back two days later.

I was so confused about my relationship with Wade that I could hardly think about anything else. Even though almost every girl I knew had told me at least one story about some boy fucking her, then disappearing. I never thought that one day it would be my story, too. But that's just what it turned out to be. Wade had disappeared so completely from my life that it was like he had never existed. There were even a few times that I found myself wondering if I'd imagined the whole thing. I even went so far as to kick off my panties, straddle a mirror on the floor in my room, and stick my finger inside myself, checking to see if my cherry was still in place. But my innocence was gone. Just like Wade.