1“I Made It.”
April 15, 1981 Brooklyn, NY
I wish they’d all go to hell. Carmen felt the throbbing bass of her brother’s stereo vibrate the steel fire door as she shoved her key in the last of four locks.
“How you gon’ throw that card down? You’s about a dumb mother—”
“Shut ya ass and pass the cheeba.”
She knew Z and some of the fools he hung with were in there, playing pinochle or dirty hearts, eating greasy egg rolls and pork fried rice. That’s why she went to the library every day after school, stayed there studying until it closed. She was never in a hurry to get home.
Carmen slipped into the dark hall, eased the door shut. Her stomach did its usual flip-flop, bracing for the crap that would greet her. A cloud of menthol and marijuana smoke hung in the air, stung her nose and eyes. She ducked into her room, eased the overstuffed backpack onto her beat-up desk and rubbed her shoulders. She hauled a big load of books, especially for someone her size. From the first day her parents brought her home her father called her Li’l Bit. At seventeen she still shopped for jeans and shirts in the children’s department, and sometimes had to speak twice as loud to keep from getting stepped on.
Carmen’s stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since the jelly doughnut and bottle of orange-flavored quarter water she grabbed for lunch. If I can just get the mail and some Spaghetti-O’s it’ll be fine.
Well, not exactly fine. Carmen Webb’s life hadn’t been fine for as long as she could remember. Two weeks before she started kindergarten her dad bought her that pine desk and painted it glossy white, so she’d have a place to study, he said. So she could get good grades and go to college. “You get to college Li’l Bit, you got it made,” he said. Two weeks later police found Zachariah Webb Sr. near Lincoln Terrace Park, slumped over the steering wheel of his gypsy cab, killed for defending a grand total of twenty-three dollars in fares. Her mother, Geraldine, took to her bed, Z, a teenager by then, declared himself man of the house and Carmen learned to fend for herself.
And by the time she was ten, her mother was gone too. Carmen was ready for school that May morning. She came into the kitchen and found that Geraldine had pulled every jar, can and box out of the kitchen cabinets. Leopard-print nightgown stuffed into awning-striped bell bottoms, Geraldine balanced, one foot on the windowsill, the other on the edge of the sink, and scrubbed the shelves to the rhythm of a song she sang to herself.
“You’re gonna fall,” Carmen had said.
“Am not.” Geraldine hopped down, light as a cat. “Can I get a hug from my Love Bug?” she’d asked and Carmen gave her a big one, even though she felt a little old for the “Love Bug” stuff. “I love you, Mommy.” Then she was out the door, glad to see Geraldine so full of energy. Sometimes she sat in the dark, staring at the TV like a zombie for days, even weeks.
Geraldine wasn’t around when Carmen got home, but she was glad her mother had gone out. That really meant she was in a good mood, one that might last for a while, except she didn’t make it home that night, or the next. By the end of the week the rash that always broke out on Carmen’s neck when she was worried itched like fire. She tried not to scratch, and to convince herself it would be all right; Geraldine had wandered off before. Sooner or later she’d show up wearing strange clothes and talking like she’d seen you just yesterday. The first time it happened Z had called the police, but then a social worker came and took Carmen away. Geraldine was back in a few days, but there was a court hearing and a lot of trouble before Carmen could come home. So they stopped calling when Geraldine disappeared on one of her walks, but this time six weeks passed without a sighting.
Carmen did her best to act normal in school, but she was scared. Her mother was flighty and confusing, but Carmen missed her chirpy voice, her good-night kisses, even her bad cooking. Besides, her father was gone; Geraldine was all she had.
One night Z appeared in her doorway, caught her sobbing into her pillow. “Look, I ain’t your mama or your daddy. You need to stop that cryin’ shit or I’ma call that social worker and have her carry your ass outta here.” Z’s tone turned Carmen’s tears to dust—she knew he meant it. Once, when she was four and he was twelve, she drew a duck in yellow crayon on his basketball. He shook her until she got dizzy and threw up, and from that moment Carmen understood that her presence was not part of his program. And if he was blood, she figured strangers had to be worse, so she learned to keep out of his way.
After a year Geraldine still hadn’t returned, and little by little Carmen gave up expecting her to unlock the door.
For the last six years Z had taken the Social Security check Carmen received every month toward her share of the rent. He drove a truck part time for a meat packing plant, and on the side he fenced hot steaks, or worked one of his other hustles—driving carloads of untaxed cigarettes up from North Carolina, stripping copper and aluminum from abandoned buildings—Carmen didn’t stick her nose into the details. He managed to keep the lights on most of the time and gave her an allowance for food, toothpaste, personal stuff.
And since Carmen had no intention of following in her brother’s footsteps, she concentrated on her grades. As far as her schools were concerned, Geraldine Webb still lived on Montgomery Street, so Carmen signed her mother’s name on report cards and other official documents. She wasn’t a problem kid, so nobody questioned it. Carmen kept classmates and teachers at a distance—less to explain that way. She excelled at her studies, always guided by her father’s dream of college for her. He had died trying to make it come true.
It must have come today. Carmen peeled out of her peacoat. If I just ask him for the mail and go about my business what can he say? Most of the time Z got to the box before she did and usually it didn’t matter. Nobody sent her birthday greetings or postcards from their vacations, but there was one letter she was waiting for.
“Oooh-wee! I’ma have to take you sucker’s money again!”
“Nigga act like he can play some cards ’cause he got lucky.”
By the end of a night with Z’s posse in the house, Carmen always felt beat down and bruised, but they weren’t going anywhere so she adopted her battle-ready stance and marched to the living room. “Hey.”
At first they didn’t hear her over the music, then Z saw her. “Whatchu lookin’ at?” He was taller than Carmen, but just as slight, wiry. They were both the brown of spicy mustard, but where Carmen’s big eyes looked sad behind the hard-edge she put on, Z’s pierced you like a street-corner challenge.
“Nothin’.” She crossed her arms over her chest, looked past him sitting at the card table in the middle of the room and let her gaze rest on the broken console TV stacked with stereo equipment. “Where’s the mail?” She tried to sound like it didn’t matter, tried not to scratch her neck.
“Shit, what difference it make?” Z’s hair was already thin, and what was left he slicked back with the stocking cap he slept in. “You gon pay the bills?” His buddies laughed.
“I’m waitin’ for somethin’, all right?”
“Damn, ain’t you heard all that college shit? You can’t go to but one.” Arm slung over the chair back, Z slouched in her direction, picked his tooth with a matchbook corner. “Look on top of the refrigerator.”
That wasn’t too bad. Carmen flipped on the kitchen light and held her breath as roaches scurried from counters, the stove and the sink full of dishes. She pulled one of the dingy yellow vinyl chairs from under the table and dragged it to the refrigerator, but before she could step up she heard the swish-swish of a nylon track suit and Randy was behind her.
“Can’t reach that high Li’l Bit?” Grease from Randy’s Jheri Curl had turned the collar of his jacket from red to a murky maroon.
Copyright © 2004 by Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant
