Read Online Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina by Misty Copeland - Free Book Online
Authors: Misty Copeland
Ads: Link
infamous gangs. The men wore blue do-rags to pledge their allegiance to one violent faction or the other and scrawled their graffiti on fences and stop signs.
The Kansas City Chiefs decal Mommy sported in her car window seemed to agitate some of the gang members. The L.A. Raiders were a big deal in the city, unsurprisingly, but besides the tension football could cause among gang members, the Chief’s color was a bright Bloods red. All I really know is that they would give us hard looks as we rode by, and we worried about a bullet piercing the windshield every time Mommy drove us home from school.
We were right to. One evening we were in the living room watching television. There was the pop, pop of gunfire, then footsteps, and a heavy thud on Uncle Charles and Auntie Monique’s front porch.
We ran outside. A man, probably in his early twenties, was writhing in pain, blood spreading like an inkblot on his blue jeans.
“I’m hit,” he sputtered weakly.
Auntie Monique ran inside to call 911 while Uncle Charles shouted orders.
“Get some water,” he yelled. I ran inside, shoved a pot under the kitchen faucet, then ran back to the porch, water spilling onto the carpet along with my tears.
“What’s that?” Uncle Charles asked incredulously, cradling the wounded stranger’s head and looking at me as if I was crazy not to understand what the victim of a drive-by shooting needed as he waited for an ambulance. “The man is thirsty! He needs some water to drink.” I ran back in the house and grabbed a glass, feeling shaken and helpless.
I can’t remember what happened to that man, if he lived or died. We stayed with Auntie Monique and Uncle Charles for several weeks more, and when Mommy told us we were leaving, I was glad for once to be moving on. But my relief was shortlived.
It turned out that we were moving in with Ray, Mommy’s new boyfriend, whom none of us kids could stand. He was a nerd who tried entirely too hard to be cool, blasting Ice Cube and EPMD from morning till night.
“Yo, Doug! Erica! Pete Rock and CL Smooth just dropped a new jam,” he’d say. “Come hear it.”
Erica would roll her eyes and go back to reading a magazine. Doug would get a look on his face like he was ready to explode and go outside to practice his dribbling.
Mommy also started to change in a way that unnerved us all. Instead of being our stern, if exuberant, mother, she seemed to revert to some version of her teenage self. She and Ray got matching tattoos of each other’s name swirled in black ink ontheir shoulders. And Mommy would kiss Ray passionately in front of us, something she had never done with Harold or Robert. It made us sick.
My older siblings had begun to grow bitter toward Mommy when we lived with Robert, and now I started to get the same sour taste in my mouth. We wanted a mother who was responsible, who either stayed married or stayed single, and who put her children before some random man. In our sports-obsessed family we couldn’t understand how many marriages she had to fumble, how many relationships she had to lose, before she got out of the game. We couldn’t understand why she needed a man at all—why we children were never enough.
Ray worked at the office products company with Mommy, but didn’t seem to earn much. Mommy worked in sales, but her commissions ebbed and flowed. Robert had been the real breadwinner. So now money was tight. We subsisted on Top Ramen noodles, potato chips, and soda pop, with an occasional can of vegetables thrown in. Mommy had never been much of a cook, rarely touching the stove. And again, she seemed content to shirk her responsibilities, giving Doug or Erica a few dollars culled from her paycheck or Ray’s to go grocery shopping. Then Chris—who had been Robert’s best student in the kitchen but was barely fifteen—would prepare the family meals, whipping up tacos or spaghetti from a couple of pounds of ground beef that he stretched as far as he could.
We
The Kansas City Chiefs decal Mommy sported in her car window seemed to agitate some of the gang members. The L.A. Raiders were a big deal in the city, unsurprisingly, but besides the tension football could cause among gang members, the Chief’s color was a bright Bloods red. All I really know is that they would give us hard looks as we rode by, and we worried about a bullet piercing the windshield every time Mommy drove us home from school.
We were right to. One evening we were in the living room watching television. There was the pop, pop of gunfire, then footsteps, and a heavy thud on Uncle Charles and Auntie Monique’s front porch.
We ran outside. A man, probably in his early twenties, was writhing in pain, blood spreading like an inkblot on his blue jeans.
“I’m hit,” he sputtered weakly.
Auntie Monique ran inside to call 911 while Uncle Charles shouted orders.
“Get some water,” he yelled. I ran inside, shoved a pot under the kitchen faucet, then ran back to the porch, water spilling onto the carpet along with my tears.
“What’s that?” Uncle Charles asked incredulously, cradling the wounded stranger’s head and looking at me as if I was crazy not to understand what the victim of a drive-by shooting needed as he waited for an ambulance. “The man is thirsty! He needs some water to drink.” I ran back in the house and grabbed a glass, feeling shaken and helpless.
I can’t remember what happened to that man, if he lived or died. We stayed with Auntie Monique and Uncle Charles for several weeks more, and when Mommy told us we were leaving, I was glad for once to be moving on. But my relief was shortlived.
It turned out that we were moving in with Ray, Mommy’s new boyfriend, whom none of us kids could stand. He was a nerd who tried entirely too hard to be cool, blasting Ice Cube and EPMD from morning till night.
“Yo, Doug! Erica! Pete Rock and CL Smooth just dropped a new jam,” he’d say. “Come hear it.”
Erica would roll her eyes and go back to reading a magazine. Doug would get a look on his face like he was ready to explode and go outside to practice his dribbling.
Mommy also started to change in a way that unnerved us all. Instead of being our stern, if exuberant, mother, she seemed to revert to some version of her teenage self. She and Ray got matching tattoos of each other’s name swirled in black ink ontheir shoulders. And Mommy would kiss Ray passionately in front of us, something she had never done with Harold or Robert. It made us sick.
My older siblings had begun to grow bitter toward Mommy when we lived with Robert, and now I started to get the same sour taste in my mouth. We wanted a mother who was responsible, who either stayed married or stayed single, and who put her children before some random man. In our sports-obsessed family we couldn’t understand how many marriages she had to fumble, how many relationships she had to lose, before she got out of the game. We couldn’t understand why she needed a man at all—why we children were never enough.
Ray worked at the office products company with Mommy, but didn’t seem to earn much. Mommy worked in sales, but her commissions ebbed and flowed. Robert had been the real breadwinner. So now money was tight. We subsisted on Top Ramen noodles, potato chips, and soda pop, with an occasional can of vegetables thrown in. Mommy had never been much of a cook, rarely touching the stove. And again, she seemed content to shirk her responsibilities, giving Doug or Erica a few dollars culled from her paycheck or Ray’s to go grocery shopping. Then Chris—who had been Robert’s best student in the kitchen but was barely fifteen—would prepare the family meals, whipping up tacos or spaghetti from a couple of pounds of ground beef that he stretched as far as he could.
We
Similar Books
It's Always Darkest Before the Fridge Door Opens: Enjoying the Fruits of Middle Age
Phil Callaway, Martha O. Bolton
