Somebody's Someone Page 2

  I hated how Lula always had something to say ’bout me being “hot” or “fast.” I never understood why I always had to hear that kind of mess, when I hardly had nothin’ to do with boys, except for maybe Huck—and since he lived somewhere in Mississippi he didn’t count. So other than him, I wasn’t studying boys in no kinda way. Deep inside, I kinda figured out the reason I was called those names was ’cause of my mama and the reputation she’d made for herself by chasing after married men and leaving us for other folks to look after. I finally came to figure that where I come from, it wasn’t a matter of whether or not you yourself was guilty of what you was being accused of, but that what your mama did could hang over your head like heavy, dark clouds on a sunshiny day. I guessed when she left us my mama didn’t figure that Lula Mae was gonna be the one to look out for me and Sister, on account that Big Mama was getting old and was more concerned with having a spot in heaven than takin’ care of young girls.

  Seeing how low-down my mama maybe was, I tried real hard to make it easier for Lula by helping her with Ella. Most times, unless I was doing my schoolwork, or reading, Lula didn’t even have to ask me, ’cause I kinda figured that the less Lula had to take care of kids, the less right she’d have to be hateful. I started out by going to the baby if she cried out at night. The walls of the house were so thin you could almost hear everything throughout the entire property. I’d even change her diaper and warm a bottle for her if she was hungry. Since combing hair was one of my favorite things to do, I had no qualms ’bout caring for Ella’s. It was easy to comb her hair ’cause Ella and her sister Sherry had what black folks called “real good” hair, not like mine. Theirs was soft to the touch, and each curl would wrap itself round your finger like a Slinky round your wrist. I would just section her jet-black tiny curls into plaits rubbed with Alberto VO5, so she wouldn’t get tangles. I wanted baby Ella to be hardly any trouble a’tall to her mama. I guess I was hoping that somehow I could make what my mama did go away from Lula’s mind. But it made no difference to Lula if I was good or bad. She must’ve just looked at me and seen Ruby, and I figured it was reason ’nough to keep her plain old ornery and plumb full of hate. There was very few things that scared me, but Lula Mae’s nasty temper’mint and God was at the top of the list. The only thing that could top them was being beat with that Green Monster hose, and told not to cry when the whoopin’ was done.

  ’Cross the yard from where me and the baby was sitting, I seen Donna Janine, the nobodies’ child, standing on the curb talking to some high-yellow-skinned boy. I don’t know what she thought she was doing, ’cause she knowed that talking to boys was off-limits on account we already had ’nough mouths to feed. From far away, the boy looked like he could’ve been kin to her, but I knowed better: she had no peoples in these parts. According to the whispers, Donna Janine was a product of a inna’racial thing, and her white mama couldn’t take her home for fear that her own peoples would kill her for sleeping with a Negro and then bringing some half-breed baby round ’em. So, Donna Janine was left with the rest of us. For years, folks in Austin who didn’t want they kids could drop ’em off at Johnnie Jean Thornhill’s. And for a small price, she would take anybody in. I heard she even had insurance policies on ever’body she took care of just in case they was to drop dead. Again, it was ’cause of her Christian background that she couldn’t let folks go hungry or without. I know this to be true firsthand since she’d taken in my mama Ruby b’fore me. That’s right, I was living in the same foster home my mama’d lived in, which maybe shoulda made it feel more like home to me, but since my mama wasn’t with me, it didn’t feel much like a home a’tall.

  Big Mama’s motto was, “If you play, you should pay,” and that was that. A lot of folks must’ve agreed with her, ’cause over the years there sho’ was a lot of kids that came and went.

  Accordin’ to the grown folks, there was only one thing that Donna Janine’s mama forgot to tell Big Mama when she dropped her child off: the fact that she was crazier than a bedbug. Donna Janine had that look in her eyes like them folks who you ain’t s’posed to point and stare at ’cause they different than you—the kind that came to school early on them yellow buses. The only difference was, she could talk and walk like most other folks round her, and she didn’t have stringy spit runnin’ from her mouth. I’d heard that the way she became mentally off was ’cause she got jumped in the girls’ locker room at her school by a gang of heathen girls on account of her talkin’ trash. I heard tell that they cracked her skull open with a combination lock and watched some of her brain slip out. My sister told me that some folks had found Donna Janine in the back of a Laundromat, curled up in one of them baskets and returned her to her mama, then they told her ’bout Big Mama. However she got that way, Donna Janine turned out to be somebody not to mess with. There was something way off in her.

  Every now and again when she got overly upset or caught off guard, she would fall out wide on the floor and go wet on herself, while her eyes would turn so all you could see was the whites of ’em. A coupla times Big Mama’d yell at me to try and hold her tongue still with a Popsicle stick, to keep her from biting her ole tongue off. All you had to do is see that mess one time, and you knowed better than to bother Donna Janine.

  But that girl hurt more’n herself. Not only could she tell bald-faced lies longer than Lake Travis, but she could steal you blind faster than you could smell a roadrunner’s fart. All us kids learned quick not to say anything round her, ’cause if we did, she’d take what you’d say and turn it into the most outlandish concoction anybody’d ever heard. And since the grown folks was ’fraid she’d snap into one of them fits where somebody was gonna have to clean up her piss, they just believed whatever she told ’em.

  I’d found out the hard way ’bout Donna Janine’s thieving ways. One day, after spending the better part of my morning digging round the neighborhood for empty soda-water bottles, I decided to go and turn my findin’s in at the 7-Eleven corner store. I wanted some Little Debbie nickel cakes more than anything, and it was for certain that I’d make ’nough money for two cakes, being that they only cost a nickel. I wanted one oatmeal cake with white icing and the other would be vanilla with pink filling. I could already see myself nibbling round the thin smooth edges of the cookie first, then making my way to the thick center. I’d also figured there may be change left for a coupla pieces of banana taffy candy. After getting my bottles all bagged up in two old pillowcases, I headed for the dirt trail that led from our house directly to the front of the store. I don’t think I got four good steps down the driveway b’fore Donna Janine shows up out of nowhere and invited herself along. I guessed I didn’t mind, seeing how she was willing to help me carry the Coke and Pepsi bottles, as long as she didn’t think she was getting some of my money.

  Once we was in the store, I got my thirty cents and bought the nickel cakes and the other candy I wanted and still had change left over. I was ’bout to go outside and wait for Donna Janine until her whistle made me look up and see her. She was motioning with her hand for me to come on over to where she was standing—the too-expensive candy aisle.

  “Come here, Gina. Let me show you how to get any kind of candy you want wit’out having to spend your hard-found money,” Donna Janine whispered to me, while at the same time shoving a big ole candy bar down the front of my panties.

  “Ain’t what we doing s’posed to be against the Bible?” I asked.

  “Looka here girl, that’s why God created thieves. He made it so that all the li’l folks who was meant to have they share could get it. God wouldn’t want for some to have and others to not, so take this and walk out the door. I’ll meet cha on the other side.”

  “Wait a minute now.” I asked, real confused, “Won’t God punish me for stealing?”

  “Hell nah! My mama told me that as long as I was under twelve years old, then God didn’t bother keeping track of all the things I did. But, she said that after twelve that was a different story, ’cause then you was a grown-up. And since you is still eleven, and I’m sixteen, you have some time left to do good by those who don’t have.”

  Well by the way she put it, it did seem like I had heard something ’bout that “being twelve” thing b’fore. And since her mama had told her it was okay, I let her talk me into taking that Milky Way candy bar.

  I pushed the king-size thing deeper b’tween my legs and headed straight for the front door. As my feet turned in and almost tripped me up every step I took, you could hear the paper crackle. But I kept going. I could feel the candy seesaw against my thighs as it poked out, making me look like a boy with wet swim trunks on. When the store clerk looked up at me, I knowed I was caught, and I got scared, and as I waited for him to move round to my side of the counter, I peed all over the candy bar. He made me pay for it by turning in my other goodies and my spare change.

  “Don’t ever let me see you face round here no more,” he said. “If I do, I’ll tell you peoples.”

  I promised he’d never see me again; then I ran out that store for home like a hunted-down jackrabbit. Along the way I seen a Almond Joy wrapper that wasn’t there b’fore. I knowed that to be Donna Janine’s favorite candy, but Donna Janine was nowhere to be found. By the time I reached our house, Big Mama was waiting on me with a rosebush switch in her hand. No questions was asked—she whooped me like there was no tomorrow, and told me that every time she thought about my stealing, she’d beat me again. I learned that day to leave that crazy Donna Janine alone.

  Baby Ella must’ve been teething, ’cause she was rubbing her gums with the grass she kept pulling up. Seemed like the more I tried to take it from her, the more she fought to get it back. “Stop girl!” I whispered to her, hoping she could understand me. “Stop! ’Fore your mama think I fee
d you blades of grass. Heaven only knows what kinda trouble that would lead to.” After a small tug of war, the baby gave in and started sucking on her pacifier again.

  Sittin’ under the tree, all I could think on was what fun me and Big Mama was gonna have that night at the town carnival, which was in the grocery store parking lot. The carnival came every year, and since I was a tiny girl, I loved nothing more than hoping it was my turn to go. Big Mama only took one child to the carnival every year. This time it was my turn. Last year she took my older sister, and Donna Janine had had her turn the year b’fore that.

  Hallelujah! I had waited a long while for it to be my turn to go. I was gonna pretend that it was the county fair, like the one that Huckleberry and Tom would go to. Maybe the Widow Douglas would be there with all her pies and cakes and fixin’s. And maybe they would have a corn-on-the-cob eating contest or bobbin’ for apples. Maybe if I was lucky, I could enter and win a watermelon seed–spitting contest. Lord knowed I could already taste the shiny, red, hard, candy apple crunchin’ b’tween my teeth. While my mind was wanting to take me to the carnival, I sensed that Donna Janine wasn’t so glad about me going. She had come up to me after Big Mama’d told us that I’d be goin’ and called me a “titty sucker” and said that she hoped I’d choke b’fore I had a chance to go. I tried my best not to worry ’bout what that fool girl said.

  So I was sitting on the pallet, trying to put everything right in my thinking, when Donna Janine called to me.

  “Hey, Regina, bring the baby over so my friend can see her.” One thing ’bout Ella, besides her feet problem, is she was the prettiest black baby this side of the Rio Grande. The grown folks said that if the Gerber baby food folks ever needed a new face, Ella was the one for the job, with her good curly hair and dimpled cheeks. Folks always wanted to grind they first finger into the dimpled part of her cheek and pinch her fat face. I cain’t say that she liked that too much, but other’n that, she was a pretty smiley chile.

  Seeing nothing wrong with a simple look, I strolled over to where Donna Janine and the fella was standing. B’fore I could say a word, the high-yellow-skinned boy took Ella outta my hands and started throwing her up in the air, back and forth like she was some kinda rag doll or something. I could see that she liked that ’bout as much as having her cheeks pinched. So, after she started hollering bloody murder, I took her away from the boy and pulled her close to me like I’d seen Buffy do with Miss Beasley on Family Affair.

  “Sssh, it’s all right, hush up now,” I whispered in Ella’s ear as I rocked her from side to side.

  Just as I was ’bout to give Mr. Stupid a piece of my mind, the rain came pouring down. Oh how I loved it; I’d been waiting all day for God’s tears to come and cool us off! I could hear that ole Lula yelling through the open window, asking what the matter was with Ella. Not wanting to miss God’s tears, I just called out that she was fine. I was having such a good time, swaying the baby in my arms and playfully quieting her down, I never seen Donna Janine leave. Instead I was holding my mouth open, trying to get all the water in it I could. Within no time our hot bodies was cooler, and the baby was holding on to me real tight and she was finally quiet. We wasn’t having fun five minutes b’fore Donna Janine showed up out of nowhere, saying, “Lula Mae wants you right now. You’s gonna get it and get it good!” Then she snatched Ella outta my hands, hard and serious-like, scaring the daylights out the baby and making her cry again. I had no idea what that fool girl was talking ’bout, but I sure was going to find out.

  As I turned and headed for the house I could see that the screen door to Big Mama’s house was partly open, and that Lula was standing in the middle of it with her hands on her hips. My heartbeat got louder the closer I came to the porch. I didn’t know what the trouble could be. I hadn’t done nothing. But there was Lula, seeming like she was just waiting for me to get closer so she could pounce on me, like a rattlesnake waits on a rat. Making each step more important than the last, I minded the cracks—I wanted to be careful to protect my mama’s back. Somehow I figured if I tried to help her, she might be able to rescue me too someday.

  By the time I got to the porch I was moving at a snail’s pace. I tried to distract myself by snapping my fingers to the beat of my heart, but the wetness on my hands made ’em slide off each other, creating a dull thumping sound. When I looked up from my hands, there was Lula Mae, standing right in front of me, holding the door open with her big ugly foot. Her face was so twisted in knots she looked like one of them old dried-apple dolls. And her mouth was pinched up like the hind part of a polecat. Her hair was plaited so tight from the roots that it curled and flipped at the ends, making her look like a black Pippi Longstocking.

  “Where my baby at?” her lips asked me, ’cause her teeth never moved.

  “Ova there.” I pointed a palsied finger, aiming towards the curb of the street, where Donna Janine stood holdin’ Ella.

  “Come a l’il closer; I cain’t hear ya, heifah,” Lula told me.

  With all the strength I had, I lifted my foot to the next step. The sound of my heart was drowning out all else, even my eyesight somehow.

  “Donna Janine said you was playing in the street wit’ my baby.”

  “Nah! That’s a lie,” I screamed. “She’s lying again. I cain’t stand her.” I shoulda knowed better than to keep tryin’ to talk Lula Mae down. It only meant that she’d pitch a bigger fit and I’d be hit harder. But I couldn’t stop screaming, “She’s lying again!” I could feel it in my belly that I was in for a whoopin’. But this time it was gonna be different.

  The last time Lula beat on me I made a pact with God. I told him that the next time she hit me for no reason it meant that she was wanting to kill me, and that I would take it as his way of letting me know I should run away. I promised him, and unlike my mama, I’d planned on keeping my word.

  “Didn’t you hear me the first time I told you to come closer, heifah? Don’t make me have to tell you twice and snatch your smart-mouth self up them steps.”

  I was scared. She was gonna get me. I could tell by the way her eyes moved tightly together, pullin’ her forehead towards her nose. And when her nostrils grew wide ’nough to see her brains, I knowed I was in for it.

  But this time, I wasn’t gonna pay no mind to her. Something came over my mind, and I turned to run. I put all I had into that first pump, but b’fore my other foot hit the ground, Lula was on me like white on rice. Her fingers was buried deep in the rubber bands that held my ponytails together. As she drug me into the house, I swear b’fore God that I heard and felt my hair pull away from the scalp—it reminded me of what weeds being pulled out the ground sounded like. B’fore I could try and say or do anything else, she had yanked me into the bathroom and locked the door. I slammed my face against the commode as I tried to break loose. I was tossing and turning, trying hard to get free of her grip.

  “Let me go!” I screamed. “I didn’t do nothing; Donna Janine is lying!” I was only making the situation worse, but I didn’t care anymore. Lula’s hold on me tightened.

  “Shut yo’ stupid ass up,” she yelled at me. Out of nowhere, the Green Monster appeared, ready to do Lula’s business.

  Lula raised that rubber monster above her head, holding on to the little gold nozzle to make sure she had her grip. Just as I reached for the door, I could hear the water hose gaining speed as it whistled through the air and slammed onto my skin, like a snake whip. Whoosh, whoosh, thwack. “You little bitch, you ain’t shit!” Thwack-whoosh-thwack.

  “How you gonna stand in the middle of the street wit’ my baby?” WhooshWhoosh Thwack. “You just like you whorish-ass mama.” Thwack thwack thwack.

  “You ain’t good for shit!”

  “Please stop....I didn’t do nothing to you, why you hittin’ on me?” Snap! “Please! Don’t hit me no more.” Whoosh-thwack.