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Authors: Ni-Ni Simone

BOOK: No Boyz Allowed
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12
M
y stilettos clapped against the tile floor as I put one four-inch heel in front of the other, and did my all to ease to my locker. My intention was to keep a low profile and peep things out. Find out who was real, who was phony, and whose mouth was always in somebody’s business. This way I’d know when to keep my distance. It’s not that I was an angel. I mean, sometimes I liked to watch ish unfold—a little—I just didn’t like drama sneaking up on me. I preferred a warning.
Feel me?
Exactly. So I decided to creep to my locker while nobody noticed me.
“Geeeeeem!” Pop shrieked my name like a bolt of lightning. Everyone turned and looked dead in my face.
So much for incognito . . .
Pop carried on. “Over here, girl! Over here!” She blew a pink bubble and popped it while placing one hand on her hip and the other in the air. “That’s my girl right there!” she broadcasted to the crowd in the hallway. “Yup, that’s right! My best-bestie in the whole world. Okay!” She paused, took a breath, and continued, “Let me tell y’all something, you may think these lil freaks, and frenemies, and so called homies are your friends, but none of them are like this chick right here. ’Cause this chick is totally different. She knows the meaning of having her girl’s back fa’ sho.” Pop parked her hips one way and her neck another. “Now don’t hate, appreciate and get ya clap on for my homegirl, Gem!”
And as if that speech itself wasn’t embarrassing enough some folks really clapped their hands. I didn’t know if they were being anti-hatin’, sarcastic, or if Pop had enough popularity and pull to make me a rock star. But whatever it was I had to live up to my rep at the moment so I kicked things up to a red carpet notch and hit ’em with a Beyoncé strut down the runway.
I popped my hips from left to right, posed, turned, posed, and sauntered toward my friend, who I knew if nobody else in the world had my back, she did—no matter how long we’d been apart. We both giggled at my performance as we embraced.
“I missed you so much,” Pop squealed and squeezed me. “I’m so glad we go to the same school!”
“Me too,” I said.
“Girl,” Pop took a step back and snapped her fingers the way she always did when she was either mad or excited. “Boo-boo, this year . . .” Snap, snap. “Is ’bout. To. Be. Fiyah!”
“And there it is.”
“And just so you know, I wanted to call you this morning, so that we could’ve met in the parking lot somewhere. But just as I went to text G and tell him to have you call me I got an e-mail alert that read,
‘G-Bread has changed his relationship status.’
So I peeped out his Facebook page and don’t you know he changed his status from ‘Happily kicking it,’ to ‘It’s complicated.’ Can you believe that? ’Cause I couldn’t believe that! It’s the first day of school and now I’ma complication? Me? And you know I’m drama free. Always. So there is nothing complicated about me.” Snap. Snap. Deep breath.
I didn’t know what amazed me more: that she said all of that in one breath or that she thought Man-Man’s Facebook status was that deep. Heck, he’s not even that deep, and besides, I didn’t really wanna talk about him. “Pop, now you know you’re too cute to be sweatin’ anybody. Let him sweat you.”
“Oh girl, I know. I’m ca’yute. No doubt.” Snap. Snap. Sucked teeth. “Forget him. And besides, I did him one better and changed my status to single. Boom.
And
I blocked him
and
unfollowed him on Twitter. If he can say that I’m a complication then I can ban him from my page and stop following his tweets around.”
Oh... my ... God...
“But did he mention me this morning?” she spat out as if she couldn’t keep the question bottled up a moment longer.
Pause. Ummm . . .
“Yeah.”
“What he say, girl?” Her eyes burst with excitement. “Was he crying and mad, ’cause I’m single now or was he spittin’ fire ’cause I blocked him? Or was he really beat because I made his number of Twitter followers drop down.”
“I’m not sure about any of that. But I know he said something about you being wifey.”
I can’t believe I’m in the middle of this, again.
“I knew it.” Snap. Snap. Pop blew a pink bubble and popped it. “But it’s cool, ’cause I’ma make him wait it out at least four days, four hours, four and a half minutes, and a few seconds before I even think about taking him back. Hmph, I need some time to do me. And get my mind together. ’Cause obviously G got me twisted. “
Ummm hmmm. . . .
“Anywho girl,” Pop said, “enough of him. Let me tell you I was so worried that you wouldn’t know what door to come in. God forbid you got mixed up with the freaky freshmen.” She fanned her face. “You didn’t get mixed up with those creatures did you?”
“Creatures—?”
“Creatures, honey. Lil nasty eighth graders who just graduated elementary school. And the boys are the worst. Those lines they lay on you, oh my. I’m telling you they will make you understand why folks need the Holy Ghost. Now did you run into any of them this morning?”
“No.”
“Good. ’Cause the way you were standing here like a frozen Pop-Tart I was concerned.”
All I could do was laugh.
“Now let me look at you.” Pop took a step back and waved her index finger over me like a wand. “Check, check.”
“Check, check what?” I twisted my lip in confusion.
“Check, check you look cute,” she said and snapped her fingers.
“Rich Girl fly.”
“And you know this. That’s why I can’t wait ’til we get up on the court together and kill ’em!” She made an invisible three-point play. “Swoosh! The crowd goes wild and the opposing team goes down!”
We cracked up laughing at least until Kamani slammed the door to her locker and said, “Don’t get carried away. ’Cause first of all to be a true Rich Girl—”
“Means you’re a part of the b-ball team,” Janay said to us as she walked over and completed Kamani’s sentence.
“And last I checked,” Kamani continued, “you were the new chick on the block.”
“Who was not a part of the team,” Janay said.
Pop interjected, “Are you two even serious with this right now?”
“I know that’s your girl and all Pop,” Kamani said. “But rules are rules and she can’t be a Rich Girl just because she knows you.” She looked me over. “And that’s just how it is. I mean I heard you could ball and all—”
“The best who ever did it,” I said with one hundred percent confidence.
“But you’re not on the team. Now, tryouts are next week, which all adds up to this—you’re getting a little ahead of yourself.”
I couldn’t believe this chick. Trust, if I were on the street I would’ve molly-whopped this heifer by now. Dragged her over the concrete. “You seem confused, boo, because I’m the one who started the whole Rich Girl crew—” I said.
“You didn’t start nothing over here—!” Kamani spazzed.
“Yes, she did,” Pop said. “I shared the name with y’all, because we were a nameless clique. But the Rich Girlz started when Gem and I were twelve and Gem suggested it. We had a constitution and the whole nine. Matter fact Gem is the one who gave us our sole rule, ‘No Boyz allowed to come between our crew.’ She’s the one—”
“Who disappeared and you haven’t seen her in four years,” Kamani snapped. “Now it’s cool and cute if she’s who truly named the clique, but it’s been upgraded since she was last in it. And now you have to be a Brick City High baller to be a part of it. And since I’m the captain of the basketball team she has to come through me. Period. And right now I’m not sure how I’m feeling.”
“You know what,” I said disgusted. “This is just too much. Like, fa’ real-fa’ real, it’s not even that deep for me. My life is so much more than this silliness. So check it, the last thing on my mind is rolling with a group of chicks. And for the record I don’t eff with basketball anymore ’cause if I did you’d be benched, Captain.”
Kamani sucked her teeth and flicked her hand. “Girl, please.”
“Yeah, and that’s just how you’d spend your time: begging me.” I turned to Pop. “You’re my girl and all, but silly chicks and their tricks are for kids.”
“Gem, just chill,” Pop said and then turned to Kamani. “You need to fall back, Kamani. It’s the first day of school and nobody came here for fever.”
“Don’t try and blame me. I wasn’t trying to start anything,” Kamani said. “I was just making a statement and Gem got all twisted about it.”
“Girl, bye. I don’t have to deal with you.” Then as if on cue the bell rang, and mobs of teens scattered toward their homerooms.
“I guess we’ll get up,” Janay said, as she turned to follow behind Kamani who’d walked away and into our homeroom.
“Yeah, I guess we’ll get up,” Pop said somberly, like she was lost. And I guess in a way she was lost because I didn’t know what to say. I expected my day to go one way but it had totally flipped the script—so clearly, I wasn’t in charge.
My homeroom teacher stood in the doorway and said, “You ladies have two minutes to make it in here or you’ll have to go to the guidance counselor’s office and get a late pass.”
Pop and I didn’t say anything; we just walked into the classroom and an awkward silence followed behind us. I took my seat and as Pop sat next to me, she turned toward the back of the room and looked at Janay and Kamani. There was an empty desk between them, I guess that’s where Pop would’ve sat if I wasn’t here. “You don’t have to sit here if you don’t want to,” I said. The last thing I wanted was for her to feel obligated to me. “Psst, please. I’m good.”
“If I wanted to move I would,” Pop said.
I didn’t say anything more. The awkward silence resumed and consumed my entire time in homeroom. I guess that’s why I was so surprised and caught off guard when the bell rang again signaling that class had ended. Everybody rushed out of the room and Pop and I lagged behind. Once we stood in the hallway I turned to her and said, “Look, you don’t have to feel obligated to hang with me. You got your b-ball crew and obviously they’re not feeling me and I’m def not feeling them. So you know... I’m okay with us being reduced to just being cool. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“Oh, really?” Pop’s eyes looked as if they were turning red, but she shook it off and looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
I continued, “I’m just saying, it’s not written anywhere that we have to be homegirls.”
“We don’t have to anything actually,” she snapped.
I felt like she’d taken her hand and slapped me, so I said, “It’s not like we were much anyway, your grandmother died and after the funeral your family hurried to get rid of me. None of y’all ever looked for me or my brother. So, it’s whatever. ’Cause whether you continue to be my bestie or not won’t change a thing for me.”
Pop hesitated and then she said, “Why you trippin’ again?” And she must’ve been straight serious, ’cause not once did she snap her fingers or twist her neck. “Yeah, Janay and Kamani are my girls and all but neither one of them are my besties. So you can just cut the extra.”
“I’m not being extra.”
“Yeah right, if you’re not being extra then why would you say you don’t eff with ball anymore?”
And where did that come from?
“What? Why are you even on that?”
“’Cause I wanna know what’s really good with that? Like, that just seems to be some bull dot com, dot org, dot ridiculous.”
“What’s it to you? Ball just ain’t for me anymore. Now skip it.”
“You’re lyin’. You love ball more than anybody I know—”
“Well maybe you don’t know me!” I yelled and my voice boomed through the hallway, causing some of the students to look our way.
“I know you better than you know yourself!” Pop snapped. “And I know you’re not keepin’ it real with me. And whatever you’re running from doesn’t have a thing to do with ball or me for that matter. It has to do with you. So I don’t know why you’re taking it out on us! What you need to do is deal with yourself and stop thinking that everybody is out to get you—!”
“Don’t tell me what I need to do! And why you sweatin’ me so hard about basketball? What, does your team suck? Did your nice little college coach daddy tell you to step it up a notch so you can be recruited? Are you trying to be my friend or are you trying to get your team to win!”
“You can’t even be serious!”
“Dead serious!” I snapped. “As a matter of fact I’m cool on you and this bull!”
“Gem—!”
“Step off!” I said, and stormed down the hall, frustrated, pissed, and angry. I was sooooo over the nonsense. As a matter of fact I was over this day! And instead of hooking a left to math class, I clicked my heels down the tile runway—the same one I’d sauntered down an hour ago—and walked right out the exit door.
I had to blow this place or it was gon’ be a situation. Trust. ’Cause the next person who came at me crazy was gon’ catch it. Believe dat. So I walked to the corner bus stop and hopped on the first thing that came my way.
13
F
or two hours I rode the city bus from one end of Newark to the other and I was heated the whole ride. I just wanted to scream, or punch something, or just...I don’t know... all I knew is that I wanted to lose it on somebody somewhere for something. I just didn’t know who, what, or why... I just did.
And to keep it all the way one hundred, if I could ride this bus to the end of the Earth I would...but with five dollars in my pocket I knew I didn’t have enough money to get there. And the last time I tried to jet with five dollars. . . let’s just say it was a problem.
Outside of the bus’s aged plexiglass window the city passed by in snapshots of traffic, mobs of people, children playing in the park, and memories. Memories of my mother and how much we begged her to stay home because we believed that would magically make her clean. But it didn’t, because she always chose the streets...always...
I hadn’t seen her in almost two years and I wondered how she was. Did she think about me...or Malik...? About us being a family? Or was out of sight truly out of mind? As the bus continued to ride up Springfield Avenue I felt an urge to find my mother, and ask her if she planned on picking us up from hell or were we supposed to live there...
I pressed the buzzer. “Next stop, please,” I yelled to the driver. He pulled up to the littered curb and I stepped off. I walked a little ways down Springfield Avenue until I got to 21st Street. Once I was on 21st Street I walked past a few abandoned buildings until I got to the one my mother lived in. It was a two family shack with boarded up windows, glass everywhere, graffiti all over it, and no front door. There was a river of trash that flowed from the hallway and down the stairs.
It felt weird being here, knowing that once upon a time this block and this house was lit up with life and now it was dead—the people included. And I knew from the moment my heels splashed in a puddle of piss I had no business being here. But this was where my mother was and I needed to see her.
She was easy to spot, too. She sat on the crowded stoop with her legs crossed and her eyes staring off into the distance. She wore the same dingy jeans that she had on the last time we saw each other.
The oversized green T-shirt she had on hung off one shoulder and revealed her sunken collarbone.
Seeing my mother like this was like having an out of body experience. Like was this really my mother? Really? So I was really the kid of a chicken head... I hated that.
I started to walk, scratch that, I started to run back down the street, but quickly changed my mind. I was already here and I needed to deal with this . . . with her.
I walked closer to the stoop and stared at my mother. I could tell by the way she squinted that she didn’t recognize me.
“Ma,” I called out to her and everybody on the stoop looked toward me.
My mother squinted. Hesitated. But still no recognition.
“Ma, it’s me. Gem.” I did my all to smile but the corners of my lips barely lifted.
My mother pulled a cigarette from her jeans pocket and lit it. She took a long pull, titled her head toward the heavens, and let out a long string of smoke. Afterward she looked back to me and narrowed her eyes. “What is you doin’ here?” was her version of hello.
I paused, caught off guard. I took a step back and then two steps forward. “I umm . . . wanted to talk to you.”
She sucked her teeth and shook her head. “’Bout what?” She took a puff and snorted. “I ain’t got no money, matter fact I need you to give me some money.”
“Ain’t that right,” signified one of the women who sat next to my mother. “Sho’ need some money.”
“Ma,” I said, not knowing what else to say. “I don’t have any money.”
“Ain’t you grown?”
“Ma.” I swallowed. “I’m just sixteen.”
“That’s grown. Grown enough to go out there and make some money. Hmph.” She pointed to a greasy old man, who’d been watching me ever since I’d crossed the street. “Mr. John pay real good. And you pretty, too. Remind me of myself when I was your age.” She turned to a woman sitting next to her. “Ain’t she pretty? That’s why I named her Gem because she reminded me of a chocolate diamond. Now anybody that pretty,” she turned back to me, “should never have to walk the street with no money. And their mama shouldn’t be broke either.”
Silence.
“So where you staying?” she snorted. “Look like you staying some place nice?”
“It’s okay.” I shrugged.
“Well, you know they ain’t yo family, right?”
“Do I have a family? Last I checked I was doing this alone.” I knew I shouldn’t have said that, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t.
My mother stood up. “Don’t make me come over there and smack the crazy outta you.”
Whatever.
“So you better get it straight,” she said. “I’m ya mama.”
“So does that mean you’re going to get yourself together or is this it?”
My mother squinted, placed both hands on her hips and her burning cigarette dangled loosely from her mouth. “Who in the hell is you talking to? You don’t talk to me like that!”
“I’m just askin’.” I shrugged again. “I mean, it’s no big deal. I’ve been doin’ it this long.”
“Look, I did my best!”
“Really?”
“Hell, yeah I did. So don’t be trying to blame me for a damn thing! I did all I could to get y’all back home with me, but that social worker told me that I couldn’t.”
I twisted my lips. “And why would she tell you that?”
“Ask her. She got that answer. ’Cause I did my part. And who you really need to be questionin’ is your sister Kera with her fast behind. Lying and saying that I had men in my house touching her so I could buy crack.”
“She said that because that’s what you did! So it’s not her fault. It’s your fault ’cause now she’s in the nut house half crazy and can’t think straight. Saying people are calling her names and she’s the only one that can hear them!”
“Your sister lied, that’s why she’s crazy as hell! Now I don’t know what you came here for, but I can’t help you. I’m barely making it myself. So you better take your fresh behind back where you came from, ’cause I ain’t got nothin’ for you.”
Although I stood and faced her with my mouth twisted and a don’t care attitude on my face, inside I was stoned. Paralyzed. Gut punched. Goose bumps ran down my back as I realized that I had the answer I’d been looking for—my mother planned on leaving us in hell. She never planned on saving us.
Ever...
I sniffed. Fought back tears and rocked my game face. “It’s really not that serious. And you sure don’t have to worry about me coming around here ever again. ’Cause I got this and me and my brother gon’ be good without you!”
“Later,” my mother said unimpressed.
I swallowed. This was crazy. Absolutely crazy. Problem was if I knew this was crazy then why did it make me feel soooo messed up, like I was spinning out of control.
I did all I could to shake it off as I walked back to the bus stop and my mother disappeared into the distance behind me.
“I need to hollah at you for a minute,” Pop said with a serious attitude as she folded her arms across her breasts and tapped her foot.
I’d just stepped off the bus and had crossed the street when I spotted Pop sitting on the porch, obviously waiting for me.
I turned to her and just as I went to tell her that I wasn’t in the mood she said, “I’m not leaving until I say what I have to say. So we gon’ either do this out here or do this in your room. But either way you will hear me out today. Right now.”
“Whatever,” I said as I walked into the house and she followed me. I cut through the living room, which was empty. Thank God, because I didn’t have to deal with a million questions about where I’d been and why I’d cut school.
I walked up the stairs to my room. Pop shut the door behind me and instantly started going in, “That lil gabba-gabba-bustin’ off at me you did in school, when I didn’t even do anything to you, I didn’t appreciate. Now I don’t know what your problem is, but we need to deal with it!”
I shook my head and fought back the tears I felt beating against the back of my eyes like drums. A big part of me wanted to scream on Pop and tell her to just beat it, but I couldn’t. Tears had already started down my cheeks and I knew there was no way she would leave now. No matter what I said.
“Gem,” Pop said in a panic as she sat on the bed next to me. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”
Silence. I did all I could to suck back my tears, but they wouldn’t stop coming and instead it felt like behind my face a dam had broken.
Pop wiped my eyes with the back of her thumbs. “You gotta stop trying to be so tough all the time. You can’t do everything alone. Let somebody in. Yo, we’re best friends and after all these years we’ve found each other. We’re like family again. Don’t shut me out. What’s up? Tell me. ’Cause that’s what besties are for.”
Just tell her . . . ugg . . . just say it.
“I’ve been soooo pissed off.”
“Why?”
“’Cause...all of these years I really thought that one day my mother was gon’ get herself together.”
“Well maybe she will. You never know—”
“Pop,” I said, wiping my eyes. “It’s not gon’ happen.”
“How do you know that?”
“’Cause I went to see her when I left school.”
“And?”
“
And
she didn’t even know who I was. And once she found out, she didn’t even care. It didn’t even matter to her. She didn’t ask me how I was, how my brother was, nothing. Do you know what she asked me for?”
“What?”
“Money.” Pop gave a low gasp as I continued. “And when I told her I didn’t have any, she told me I was too pretty not to have any money. So she pointed to this dirty old man on the street and told me to go and see him ’cause he paid well.”
“What?”
“She was trying to sell me.” Tears raced from my eyes. “My mother is nothing. And if my mother is nothing then I have to be less than that.”
“Gem . . .” Pop paused and then hugged me. I cried until all I could see was a faded blur.
Don’t look now, but I’ve perfected pathetic. After a few minutes of giving in to feeling sorry for myself I held my head up from Pop’s shoulder and to my surprise we were both wiping tears. “Now look.” She fanned her face. “You gon’ have to chill with these tears ’cause I didn’t wear my waterproof mascara and G is downstairs. I can’t be looking all black-blue and crazy.”
Leave it to Pop.
“Now listen,” she continued as she reached for my hand and held it between hers. “You gon’ ruin yo insides by keeping all this mess, and anger, and ra-ra in there. You can’t keep everything all bottled up. It’s not good for your system to be walking around on ten all day, ready to get it crunked at any moment. That’s the kind of stuff that makes your make-up look crazy and your ballin’ all busted. You already know peeps be lookin’ at girls who play sports extra-sideways, waiting to see if we gon’ spin around and bust out into a double-breasted suit and gaiters. Okay.”
“Pop, this is soooo not about ball.”
“I know that. I’m just making a point that we are way too cute for tears. And you’re my girl, Gem, so if something hurts you then I’m ready to jump in two fist swingin’. Dig? But we can’t beat up ya mama because that will not make her change.”
“We could sneak her one good time.” I chuckled as tears continued to roll down my cheeks.
Pop laughed and wiped my face with the back of her right hand. “Look, your mother is who she is, but one thing she isn’t is you. So if you think that, you need to drop it.”
“But that’s my mother and I feel like when people see me, they see a foster kid with no family and a mother strung out in the streets.”
“No they don’t, Gem. They see you. Period. But you have to make up your mind what side of you that you want people to see and get to know. Do you want them to know the side of you that’s ready to slap folks for saying hello? Or the side of you who I know that’s fun to kick it with?”

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