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Authors: Marilynn Griffith
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guess.
Ron still came around, but his nose was wide open for Zeely, and I got sick of hearing about how much he loved her, how much he loved God. If he wasn’t gushing, he was preaching at me, and it all got too much to bear. Didn’t he see that I was dying? I saw it when it was him. I pressed my face to the window and watched for his mama, always came to get him after. Nobody was watching on the wall for me. Nobody until X. What I didn’t know then was that he was watching so that he could take me down, not pull me up.
Joyce was the one person who never changed, never preached, never asked any questions. She and Miss Thelma from across the street would come and cook for me and clean the house. Joyce would drill me on Latin conjugations she’d taught me years before and sniff my breath for alcohol. When she found the scent—and she often did—she said nothing. Only kissed my cheek and turned away. Like X, my life was split between day class at Wright State in Dayton and nights drowned in forty-ounce increments and card games I didn’t remember.
X had a younger sister too, half sister, I think. She always looked scared, like something was going to fall on her head. She looked like I felt. I tried to be nice to her, but the other guys treated her bad. His daddy treated her worse. That was when I started realizing that place probably wasn’t the best place to be. As usual, I thought too long and ended up in a mess. I often wonder how my life would be now if Joyce wasn’t there with her strong hands to save me from what would have happened.
Maybe God was still watching over me after all.
8
He called me a punk. That’s how it started. Went on about me and Ron and how I would always be soft no matter how high I got. Said I’d never have heart enough to do something big, be somebody real.
I got my jacket then, a gold silk that all of us wore with our names sewn on the back, and went for the door. I didn’t have to take this. Things were growing thin between us by then, fraying at the edges. I wiped the beer from my moustache and shook my head. They’d moved on from drinking in the past few months: weed, coke, crack.
They were getting crazier and crazier. They’d held me down one night when I was drunk and held my nose shut and put a pipe in my mouth. I thought I was going to die. I probably should have. At least I wouldn’t have been back here again.
“I’m going.” My hand was on the door. So close to escaping the whole mess.
X waved a hand at me. “Go ahead and go. Where you going? To your mama’s grave? Oh, that’s right! You don’t have no mama. No daddy either. Nobody wants your crazy—”
My fist crashed into him. Knocked him off the chair. He became all the prying eyes, the school reports that had landed me in Joyce’s class, all the labels tagged to me, weighing me down.
Distant.
Antisocial.
Deficient communication skills.
Withdrawn.
Angry.
Dangerous.
Mixed?
Mixed up.
For the first time, I became all of those words, all those things that people saw in me that made them turn away. The way they looked at me when I tried to get my real birth certificate, told me that the adoption was closed, that there were laws now and I had to have the birth mother’s permission to have the file opened. That made me laugh. Why would a woman who didn’t want me care whether I had my records.
She wouldn’t.
She didn’t.
Nobody wanted me, I thought as I slammed into X again and again.
He was laughing at me. “Go ahead. Finish me. It’ll be the end of you too. I already called the police.”
Fists in midair, I stopped, looked at his eyes, this boy-man who’d said he’d be my family, be my friend. “What?”
“Yeah. Somebody tipped on us selling over here. Pointed you out as coming and going. They’re supposed to do a sting tonight. When they come, I’m going to be the boy from across town caught up in addiction. The boy beat down by his vicious, crazy dealer. So come on. Keep it coming.
Ron still came around, but his nose was wide open for Zeely, and I got sick of hearing about how much he loved her, how much he loved God. If he wasn’t gushing, he was preaching at me, and it all got too much to bear. Didn’t he see that I was dying? I saw it when it was him. I pressed my face to the window and watched for his mama, always came to get him after. Nobody was watching on the wall for me. Nobody until X. What I didn’t know then was that he was watching so that he could take me down, not pull me up.
Joyce was the one person who never changed, never preached, never asked any questions. She and Miss Thelma from across the street would come and cook for me and clean the house. Joyce would drill me on Latin conjugations she’d taught me years before and sniff my breath for alcohol. When she found the scent—and she often did—she said nothing. Only kissed my cheek and turned away. Like X, my life was split between day class at Wright State in Dayton and nights drowned in forty-ounce increments and card games I didn’t remember.
X had a younger sister too, half sister, I think. She always looked scared, like something was going to fall on her head. She looked like I felt. I tried to be nice to her, but the other guys treated her bad. His daddy treated her worse. That was when I started realizing that place probably wasn’t the best place to be. As usual, I thought too long and ended up in a mess. I often wonder how my life would be now if Joyce wasn’t there with her strong hands to save me from what would have happened.
Maybe God was still watching over me after all.
8
He called me a punk. That’s how it started. Went on about me and Ron and how I would always be soft no matter how high I got. Said I’d never have heart enough to do something big, be somebody real.
I got my jacket then, a gold silk that all of us wore with our names sewn on the back, and went for the door. I didn’t have to take this. Things were growing thin between us by then, fraying at the edges. I wiped the beer from my moustache and shook my head. They’d moved on from drinking in the past few months: weed, coke, crack.
They were getting crazier and crazier. They’d held me down one night when I was drunk and held my nose shut and put a pipe in my mouth. I thought I was going to die. I probably should have. At least I wouldn’t have been back here again.
“I’m going.” My hand was on the door. So close to escaping the whole mess.
X waved a hand at me. “Go ahead and go. Where you going? To your mama’s grave? Oh, that’s right! You don’t have no mama. No daddy either. Nobody wants your crazy—”
My fist crashed into him. Knocked him off the chair. He became all the prying eyes, the school reports that had landed me in Joyce’s class, all the labels tagged to me, weighing me down.
Distant.
Antisocial.
Deficient communication skills.
Withdrawn.
Angry.
Dangerous.
Mixed?
Mixed up.
For the first time, I became all of those words, all those things that people saw in me that made them turn away. The way they looked at me when I tried to get my real birth certificate, told me that the adoption was closed, that there were laws now and I had to have the birth mother’s permission to have the file opened. That made me laugh. Why would a woman who didn’t want me care whether I had my records.
She wouldn’t.
She didn’t.
Nobody wanted me, I thought as I slammed into X again and again.
He was laughing at me. “Go ahead. Finish me. It’ll be the end of you too. I already called the police.”
Fists in midair, I stopped, looked at his eyes, this boy-man who’d said he’d be my family, be my friend. “What?”
“Yeah. Somebody tipped on us selling over here. Pointed you out as coming and going. They’re supposed to do a sting tonight. When they come, I’m going to be the boy from across town caught up in addiction. The boy beat down by his vicious, crazy dealer. So come on. Keep it coming.
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