Upstate (14 page)

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Authors: Kalisha Buckhanon

BOOK: Upstate
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Things is going well though at the house. Drew moved back with us so I ain't got my own room no more. Space is kinda tight, but he been real cool though, not bothering none of my posters or other shit I got on the wall. We gonna start moving Grandma and Granddaddy stuff out real soon. Mommy said she gonna sell the house. It'll be too much money to fix up—the sewage be
backing up all the time, the roof leaks, the cabinets all old and rusted. She said she gonna sell it and keep the money for me, to buy me a car when I graduate high school or pay my tuition for college. I told her she needed to keep that money cause she was gonna need it to buy her big pretty house one day. Mommy said she was just fine where she was and right now her only concern is us, her kids. She finally decided to go back to work, and Roy actually been nice for a change. He been cooking and cleaning up and renting movies at Blockbuster. Maybe he really do love her, but just got a funny way of showing it.
Love,
Natasha
 
 
 
December 8, 1990
 
I'm back in class AND I got my J-O-B back! Ms. Harris convinced them to let me work again, so I got some income coming in. Video Soul on the TV. Sun shining outside. I benched 180 today. We had tacos for lunch. Shit is all good. Pretty soon, it's gonna be Christmas and almost one year I been in here. That's how I gotta live now—I don't count days, I count years. I know you did good on your test. You the smartest girl in the world. Shit, I don't know what I would have done all them times without you helping me with my homework. Hearing your voice the other night
gave me a hard-on that wouldn't go away for hours. I had to count sheep so I could stop thinking about you.
Baby, we really ought to think about getting married right now and shit. I mean, why wait? You do love me, don't you? That way, we could see each other at least with them conjugal visits. I mean, it ain't much and it wouldn't be like living together, but we could go ahead and at least spend some time together. Matter of fact, we could even go ahead and get that family started. I mean, why wait? We can go ahead and have our shorties now so we can still be young when they growin up. Why don't we think about doing it this summer? It could be nice. I know what you thinking—that a wedding in jail is ghetto but really it's not. I asked Ms. Harris about this and she say you get a preacher, and you can wear a dress and I can take off my jumpsuit and put on a real suit so we can take a nice picture on our wedding day. I think we can even invite some people for witness, and I believe you get a cake. I mean, it's not the big old wedding on Long Island that we had talked about, but we could do that later. Think about it, baby. I need you and I don't want to wait anymore.
Love,
Antonio
 
 
 
December 16, 1990
 
Baby look, I ain't trying to bust your bubble or crumble your cookies, but you must be buggin if you think I'm
about to get married in a jail. Antonio baby, I'm sorry and you know I love you and everything and I'm sticking by you til the end, but that's just plain crazy. What we gonna tell our kids? What I'm gonna tell my family? Oh yeah, I'm getting married upstate but not how you think? C'mon now. And you think I'm about to let you knock me up while you still locked up? Who gonna get up with them kids at night? While you all laid out and slobbin and snorin like you do, it ain't gonna be nobody but me and my mother and you know that shit is real. Who gonna put clothes on the baby back and buy diapers and milk? You? Antonio, you ain't even making minimum wage at your job, so once again it's all gonna be on me. Being a single mother ain't no joke. Believe me, Laneice about to learn cause she done already called me crying talking about Black fucked Sherry Thompson last week. I'm not going through that. I see now it's a whole big world out there just a plane ride away and I'm gonna see it. I don't even know if I want to have kids in New York. I want them to see something different, something better than what I've seen. Like my kids ain't getting on no subway, Michael Antonio Lawrence II. You can forget it. You better have a good job so we can have us a car. I see all these girls, walking around Harlem without a man, waiting for somebody to stop and help them get they baby stroller up and down the train steps. That shit ain't cute. All them germs and homeless people shitting on themselves and people coughing and shit down there. Fuck that—my baby'll be dead in a few
months going down there. And I ain't taking NONE of my kids to no jail to see they daddy. That gotta be the worst thing in the world, to get to know your daddy behind bars, and I got too much love for any black baby in this world to see them go through that shit. Antonio, I got goals and dreams. I'm going to college and I ain't having no babies before I finish! That's it, end of story. You can forget it. You thinking with your dick and not your head. So you better just exercise your hands or hope for early release cause I'm not walking down the aisle in no jail. That's not how it's gonna be.
 
 
 
December 24, 1990
 
Natasha yo, why you gotta go and ruin a brother's Christmas and shit cause he trying to make plans with you, cause he trying to tell you how he feels and what's been on his mind? Why you gotta go and insult my manhood like that? You taking things way too serious kid, and that's on the real. You think I was being for real and that I don't know I can't provide for you or no shorties right now? You think I ain't aware of that? Damn Natasha, sometimes a brother wanna have some dreams, something to think about that I can share with you and shit, but you gotta be all smart and trifling. You done made me so mad I don't even wanna tell you I passed my GED. Yeah, that's right, I got an 85. But I guess that's not good enough in your book. It
should have been 100. Merry Christmas with your trifling ass,
Antonio
 
 
 
December 26, 1990
 
Well Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and FUCK YOU TOO! Damn, I was just playing, you need to learn how to take a joke. God, it ain't that serious. Anyway, thank you for my card although you could have wrote something nasty or nice in it, but I guess you still mad so whatever. Did you get my Christmas card and the Adidas windpants I sent you? I hope the pigs let you have it, but I don't know how strict they are about the uniform. I mean, ain't no pockets or nuthin, so I don't see why they wouldn't let you wear em (at least to bed so you can get a woody in them when you smell the raspberry mist perfume I sprayed on em!). I thought the card I gave you was cute, with the little monkeys on the front dressed up like Santa Claus. I thought it might make you laugh. This Christmas was actually better than a lot of Christmases we had, even though Grandma was missing. I got a lot of stuff—clothes mostly. My biggest presents was some Guess jeans and a Starter coat. It's the L.A. Lakers even though I'm a New York girl, but Mommy know I like to wear bright colors—purple and yellow, my favorites. Drew got one too. I guess Mommy think that
shit is cute for her kids to match, but she keep forgetting Drew is just a pitiful little seventh-grader and I on the other hand am a grand senior.
I used my discount to buy Mommy a lot of stuff we needed for the house—a knife set, a blender so we could make some Slim-Fast shakes cause we getting big, and a wok. I don't know what we gonna cook in the wok cause the only Chinese food I eat is shrimp fried rice, but it just seem fancy to say you got one. Roy bought her a gold necklace that had Grandma's initials on it:
E.P.
Earline Preston. It wasn't no herringbone but I guess it was cute. I took your mother present over last night. Remember I asked you if she would like some vanilla candles? Well, she loved em. She acted like they was some diamond earrings or something. That's cause I don't think nobody else got her nothing. Tyler gave her some Christmas ornaments he made in school, Styrofoam snowmen with pipe cleaners. They was hanging on the tree that was sitting on the television. She said her and her sisters don't never exchange gifts cause they too old for all that. She said she ain't seen Trevon in days. He probably got him a girlfriend or something somewhere. I mean he do got a little hair on his chest now and you know how y'all start acting with that hair on your chest. I think this year gonna be good, Antonio. For both of us, I hope.
Merry Christmas,
Natasha
PS. Congratulations boy on your GED. I KNEW YOU COULD!!!!!!
January 4, 1991
 
Okay Antonio, I don't know what's up with you, but you ain't wrote me back yet. Maybe you busy. Demands of the job? Got you working late, honey? Ha ha ha, I'm just joking trying to make you laugh. Anyway, when you get a minute hit me back. You can call me too cause for the next two weeks I'm bout to be at home all night working on all my applications. I got a one thousand on the SAT, that's a good enough job considering where I started. I'm gonna apply to ten schools cause I don't got to pay because of our income, which basically we ain't got. I'm even gonna apply to Columbia, although I know I ain't got a chance in hell of getting in that bitch. I don't know nobody from our school ever went there and it's damn near up the Hill. Well, gotta wrap this up cause I gotta make pork chops for dinner and I wanna do one application a night cause they all due this month. I might ask you to look over my essay—they call it a Personal Statement. Oh, and I think I'm gonna have to start talking proper and shit. Me and Tamika and Valencia been practicing cause if we go to college we gotta get that educated dialect together.
Love,
Natasha
PS. Your mother told me that Trevon been smoking up on the regular now, so you might wanna rap to him about his behavior. Oh, I mean Trevon has been smoking
marijuana on a regular basis as of late, so you might want to confer with him about his mannerisms. That sounded good baby, didn't it?!?! Peace out!
 
 
 
January 11, 1991
Dear Antonio,
 
I'm having a really hard time writing my Personal Statement for college. Mr. Lombard said he would proofread it for me, but I don't know if I want him to see it. I mean, it is really, really personal. I really don't know what to say about what I want to do with my life. I feel like these people expect me to have all these great plans like wanting to be a doctor or a lawyer or something else, but all I'm really trying to do right now is survive. You get what I'm saying? I know you feel me. If anybody knows a thing or two about surviving, it's you. But here is what I think I'm gonna say. Lemme know what you think, if you like it or not.
Personal Statement
Natasha Riley
 
I don't know anybody who has ever been to college, so I haven't had anybody to tell me to go or talk to me about what it's like. My mother has always called me independent, headstrong, and even stubborn.
So I believe my decision to want to go to college is an example of that in my personality. I realize that I might not have had the best education in the world. My school is very crowded, we don't even have books for half our classes, and most of the time the teacher doesn't even finish (or start) a lesson because the class is so rowdy. I used to be one of those rowdy kids who didn't care about school. When I lost my father about six years ago, I didn't think anything mattered anymore. But something came over me in the last few years that made me want to get serious about my future. I lost my grandmother who I had always been able to depend on, and my best friend in the whole world also went away. A light clicked in my head and I realized that in the end, I had to take care of myself. I decided that going to college is the first step for me to take in order to make sure I will be able to do that. To make up for not going to the best school, I read a lot on my own and I started studying every chance I got. I was also accepted into a special program that allowed me to visit France and leave America for the first time in my life. This program has been really demanding, with meetings on the weekend and after school, plus extra homework and studying. But I have done it and I feel very proud of that. I feel like my participation in this program and surviving some of the things I've had to go through means I can accomplish anything I
set my mind to—including college. I know it won't be easy, but I believe in the end I have the potential to be one of the best students in your university.
January 15, 1991
 
Okay Antonio, I don't know what the hell is going on, what's wrong with you or what your problem is, but it's been three weeks since you wrote me back. What's wrong? Baby, talk to me. I hope you not still mad about what I said about us getting married in jail. Okay baby, fine if it's that serious and if it'll make you happy then we can go on ahead and get married in jail. I was just playing really I was. I would do anything for you. Anything.
Write back soon,
N

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