Flyy Girl (37 page)

Tracy felt Mercedes had a lot of explaining to do. It was a quarter to five. Patti was not expected home until five-thirty.

Mercedes shook her head. Her baggy eyes were bloodshot under the black hat's brim. “Look at me now. A year ago I thought I was the
toughest
thing walkin'. And I thought I could get out of taking drugs, but I had more and more problems, so I needed more shit.”

She wiped her nose and continued. “Yup, Tracy, I had some good men that wanted to be with me, even marry me, but I turned them all down. I don't know why, and shit. I guess I thought I was too much for these motherfuckin' niggas out here.” She looked at Tracy and shrugged. “It might be over with for me, but I figured I could turn you around. It's the least thing a sorry bitch like me can do now.”

Tracy interjected, “Naw, it ain't gonna happen to me. And your life ain't over with yet. You're only twenty years old.”

Mercedes stood up to get her point across. “LOOK, GIRL . . . it ain't that easy to say!”

Tracy backed down nervously, thinking that “junkies” were violent. She didn't want to alarm her.

Mercedes calmed down and continued. “Every time you turn one nigga down, you gon' go for another who's more ruthless than the last. And they just gon' dog you out and waste your damn time. It's not the
right way to go, but you put yourself in that boat when you're young. And you're never fuckin' happy, because eventually you get bored with every one of them niggas. They don't really like you and you don't really like them. Y'all just buying time. He gives you some money and some clothes, while you're giving him the pussy. And that shit ain't changed in a hundred fucking years.”

“Have you talked to your sister?” Tracy asked, holding back her tears. Mercedes sounded as if she had given up on life.

“No. I haven't seen her,” she answered. “How is she though?”

“She got acne all up and down her face. She needs some attention,” Tracy assumed.

Mercedes shook her head and sat back down. “See, all women got the same problem. I think we were better off in the caveman days when the men just took and fucked us . . . So what about that boyfriend of yours? The drug dealer?”

Tracy frowned. “Who, Cash? Oh, I'm gettin' out of that, because I'm tired of that drug shit.”

Mercedes nodded. “That's good, because once you get in it too deep, it's hard to get back out. And all you'll do is go run to the next one. But shit, at least I ain't have no damn babies. That's all I needed to drive me crazy.”

“But what about you? Are you gonna get help or something?” Tracy asked, concerned about her.

“Yeah, I'm going to this rehabilitation place tomorrow. And I guess I gotta be goin' now.” She looked outside to see if her mother or Raheema might have been walking in. She then turned and faced Tracy. “Watch after my sister for me, all right? You're stronger than she is.”

Tracy nodded. She shook in her stance as she closed the door.
That
could never happen to me,
she told herself.
I don't even smoke.
But Tracy would watch after Raheema. She felt that
Raheema
needed guidance, not her, and just like old times, she decided to call next door and make up.

•    •    •

Tracy answered her phone on the first ring, expecting it to be Cash. Patti still allowed her to have phone calls; she just could not leave the house.

“Where was you at today?” he demanded.

“I had a detention. And you don't have to ask me like that.”

“A detention, for what?”

“You know what, Cash? I think you better call me back when you calm down.”

“Naw, fuck that! We gon' talk right now!” Cash was paranoid again that Tracy was trying to play him. He suspected that she had evaded him on purpose.

Tracy smirked. “Cash, you gots to chill with all that hollering.”

Cash was annoyed. He figured he would try to scare her into submission. “Aw'ight young-girl. I'm gon' break you up when I see you. Watch.”

Tracy retorted, “No you're not.”

Cash slammed the phone on her ear.

Tracy sat on her bed, worried about tomorrow and unable to focus on her homework. She was too busy thinking about her situation. Cash was from a rough neighborhood, and most likely, she figured that he meant what he said.

“Did your father call you yet?” her mother stopped in to ask.

Tracy shook her head. “No.”

“Mmm, hmm,” Patti grunted. “All right then. Go on back to your homework.”

Tracy took longer than usual to put her clothing on that next morning. Before and after school, she watched her back for her safety, looking out for Cash. And after her second detention, Cash was nowhere in sight, so Tracy rushed home with her key in hand.

A voice roared, “HAAH!”

“AAAHHH!” Tracy screamed, throwing her hands to her chest. She then noticed that it was only Raheema. “Girl, what's wrong with you?” she snapped.

Raheema laughed. “You're lucky, girl, because Cash was up here looking for you in his jeep.”

“He was?”

Raheema followed Tracy into her house. “You should have seen this rabbit-fur coat that he had on,” she commented. “It had like five different colors, and a hood.”

Tracy sucked her teeth disdainfully. “Yeah, he can buy anything that he wants with his drug money.”

Raheema watched Tracy take off the long black leather. “Didn't he buy that coat you're wearing?”

“He got me a lot of stuff, but ta' hell with him though,” Tracy insisted. She walked into the kitchen.

Raheema followed her. “You're a trip, Tracy. You just go from one guy to the next, and you don't even care,” she said, wishing that she could do the same. In a way, Raheema was beginning to admire Tracy's free spirit.

“You can't care, 'cause then they try to get
new
on you, and start acting all differently, like they got you in check or something.”

Raheema sighed. “Why can't boys just like you and be with you for who you are?”

Tracy washed the dishes, glad that her mother was picking up Jason after a field trip his kindergarten class was having. She would not have to worry about seeing Cash for at least another day.

“Here you go talking that trash. You probably got boys who like you, but you don't like them,” Tracy assumed. It was the same with most girls.
If you look even half decent, somebody is gonna like you,
she told herself. And in her opinion, light-skinned, long-haired and virtuous Raheema still had a lot going for her.

“Yeah, that's true,” Raheema responded with a smile. “But when do you get the guy that you
really
want?”

“I guess when you get married. But some girls don't even get him then.”

Raheema said, “Yeah, like my mother.”

“Everybody ain't meant to play the same role in life, Raheema.”

“You right, but my role is stupid.”

“No it ain't, Ra-Ra. You might get that ‘Mr. Right' before I do. And men love to marry virgins.”

Raheema was caught off guard. Neither of them knew how to react after it had been said.

Tracy decided to laugh it off. “Why do people get all upset when you call them a virgin? That ain't nothin' negative.”

“It's because of the way that people say it, like it's something to be ashamed of.”

“Well, it don't make no difference, as long as the guy knows what
he's
doing.”

“Why can't
he
be a virgin?” Raheema asked with a smile.

“Because, girl, you don't want no guy who don't know what he's doin'. And if he's still a virgin by the time he gets married, then most girls must didn't like him anyway.”

Raheema suggested, “Maybe he was saving himself.”

Tracy cracked up at that one. “Oh my God! You really
don't
know anything about guys, do you? Because I guarantee you, any man who's still a virgin by the time he's like twenty-one has a serious social problem.”

Dave had finally gotten over his inhibitions about moving back in with Patti and his children, but he wasn't prepared to take the dive overnight. He took his sweet time about it. And with his work schedule as it was, he still did not seem to be home much. He and Patti had to get used to sharing the same bed and bathroom again, and it was no cake walk for either of them. They had both gotten used to having extra space.

I hope that this shit wasn't a mistake,
Dave would routinely tell himself. It felt weird being away from home for so long and then suddenly coming back for good. For nine years, he could leave in and out whenever he wanted to, and that liberty was gone.

This shit seems more stressful than him not being here,
Patti thought, apprehensive herself. She was not sure if she could cuddle or hold him at night without scaring him away. Dave coming back home was nothing like being newlyweds. They were more like a couple coming home
after a marriage-counseling session, and every move between them was tentative.

Tracy was confused as well.
I wonder how things are gonna change
with my father moving back home for good?
she pondered. She was not quite sure how to take it. What if Dave became restrictive about who she went out with, where she went, and how long she stayed. Yet Dave was not as pressed about it as she thought he would be. He knew that he had been absent, so he planned to walk his way through a new understanding with Tracy, and that understanding did not include stepping in and controlling her life. He simply wanted to guide her from a man's perspective.

For Jason, having both mom and dad home more often was heaven. He even wanted to stay up longer just to see the two of them in bed together. His reaction to the move in eased all of their doubts, making the new transition they were going through a hell of a lot more hopeful.

Tracy had moved on from Cash and began to date “respectable” guys, to impress upon her parents that she too had matured.

Keith Branch was a popular basketball player at Cheltenham High School, outside of Philadelphia. He was the talk of the school, tall, brown-skinned, well-dressed and well-spoken. He was exactly the type of young man that Tracy could introduce to her parents. Yet he had a problem with correcting her speech and making her feel illiterate. She could stand that, but his pretentious attitude was unacceptable. She had been around too many sociably astute guys to settle for a phony who pretended to be better-than. So Tracy dropped him in a heartbeat.

Her next friend, Charles Webster, was from Chestnut Hill, west of Germantown. Tracy had met him downtown inside of The Gallery while out boy-shopping with Raheema. He was half-white, or “mixed,” and he had never met the white side of his family. His German-born mother had been shunned, so Charles only knew his black kin, from down south.

Charles had a yellowish-tan complexion and floppy light-brown curls. The only boy who could match him for sheer prettiness was Bob. In fact, Tracy only talked to Charles because of his looks. She never listened to anything he had to say. “Light-brown curls, with pretty,
smooth skin” was all that she talked about. And she took him with her wherever she went, protecting him possessively, as if
he
was the girl.

After they talked on the phone for a couple of days, Charles began to meet Tracy at her house nearly every day after school, and they would sit around and innocently do homework. Soon though, his eager peers began to pressure him into asking her for their first sexual encounter. Tracy was only sporting him, and did not consider herself in the sexual market anymore.
Those days are over for me,
she told herself.

Less concerned about her own wardrobe, Tracy began buy and pick out things for Charles to wear. She felt that his gear was not flashy enough for her taste, and in no time at all Tracy had him wearing clothing that quickly boosted his young image. She even paid for his haircuts, getting his curls cut the way
she
wanted them to look.

Tracy had reversed the roles, but unfortunately Charles' new status attracted girls who
were
still in the sexual market. A Chestnut Hill girl, three years older than Charles and four years older than Tracy, made a strong move for him. Charles went over to her house to help lift a new television set into her bedroom when no one was home to help her. According to Charles, she then closed her door and locked him inside with her, where she proceeded to take off all of her clothes and supposedly lick him from head to toe before forcing him to have sex with her.

Tracy was furious after he told her. She didn't believe one word of it. She felt as if he could not control himself, and that he knew what the girl was up to when she had invited him over to her house. “And if he thinks that his story is gonna make me wanna give him some, he can forget about it,” she had huffed to Jantel after telling her Charles' story. They had become good friends again, and Jantel was by then one of the most popular track stars in the city.

Tracy could not believe that Charles had played her after she had bought him clothing and taken him places with
her
money to
make
him who he was. Girls were only attracted to him sexually after Tracy had schooled him. He was nothing but a slow-wit suburban boy before she had met him, but after Tracy, Charles ran free like a teenaged stud, getting all of the girls.

•    •    •

“That's it, Ra-Ra. I hate all guys!” Tracy snapped after school.

“Why you say that?” Raheema wanted to know.

It was April. Raheema was turning sixteen in another month. Tracy's birthday was not until September.

“That pussy-ass Charles is actin' like he's all that now,” Tracy hissed. She took a seat on her steps, with the April sun shining through the breeze. She winced, looking up at it.