Authors: Liz Murray
My time in that group home—nearly a whole season—comes back to me now only in flashes of smells, images, and sounds. I was, for that period of time, a witness more than a participant in my life. And even if I try hard, I can only remember certain pieces.
I can see the day I was sent there, those two looming male caseworkers walking me in, sandwiching me between them. The way they pressed their picture IDs to the receptionist’s window to get us buzzed in. The automated unlock-then-lock click of the doors, like the sound I’d heard in Ma’s psychiatric ward. The heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach when I wondered, did these people think I was crazy? If I was sent to a place like this and no one would talk to me like a human being, did that mean that something was wrong with me? There
must
be something wrong with me.
A thick, bald troll of a woman nodded acknowledgment at my escorts, and they turned back to the door. When it clicked open, a gush of city sounds filled the otherwise noiseless entryway, sounds made by people who enjoyed freedom. In that moment, I could feel the shift in rank; I was no longer one of them.
This wasn’t okay. I shouldn’t be here, and Daddy was too fragile to be alone. I was sure I knew the subway system well enough to find my way back to him, if only I could get away from these people. But when I looked, I saw that attempts to escape were anticipated, and precautions had been taken accordingly. Each window was covered by gates the shape of fly-screens, and they were rock-hard. Everything was so sterile and bare that hiding was impossible.
“Call me ‘Auntie,’ ” the woman said. “I’m in charge. You gonna stay on the third flo’. Stay outta trouble and you’ll be a’ight. . . . Do you hear me, girl?” Tears caught in my throat. I nodded.
Upstairs, melancholy girls walked while being supervised through corridors lined with rooms, two or three beds in each. “This’ll be your room, with Reina and Sasha. We don’t tolerate no disrespect! Lights out at nine, breakfast at seven, and no missin’ class. No fuss. Anything else, ask them.” She indicated the girls with her nose.
Reina was dry and dark, with a narrow face and lanky body, and her head was topped with fuzzy braids. She spent all her time talking about girls who “run they mouth and get what’s comin’ to them . . . know what I’m sayin’?” She often paused for confirmation.
“Yup” is all I ever said back to her incessant talking.
Sasha, my second roommate, was extremely quiet, especially around Reina, and she had every reason to be. Whenever Sasha left for the bathroom, Reina immediately started in on her, going on about how “ugly” or “full-o-herse’f” she was. “Now me, I was a model befo’ this place, and my clothes was bangin’, before the home messed ’em up, but you ain’t see me akin’ like I am betta’ then all-yall! Let her keep it up, I
will
smack that bitch.”
It was true that style was not an option in St. Anne’s, because everything valuable was inevitably stolen, and all clothing was washed together in scorching, color-draining water. But Reina was no model, and Sasha’s silence was more strategic than egotistical.
Reina looked at me like she was trying to decide what to do with me. “I like you, white girl, we could be tight, watch each other’s backs, know what I’m sayin’?”
“Sure,” I told her.
The first night, as I sat at the dinner table, quietly delighting in a single moment’s pleasure of eating a warm meal, a sudden liquid heat erupted in my lap, scorching my abdomen. It burned like fire and I screamed in pain. Reddish soup had soaked through, leaving only a few carrots and rice grains clinging to my shirt and jeans. A group of girls gave themselves away, departing backs hunched over with laughter. But they were not alone; one of the girls at my table muttered, “white bitch,” under her breath.
The end of the day was marked by standing in a long line, waiting to join a row of girls brushing their teeth before white, sterile sinks that sat under hanging fluorescent lights in the bathroom. The windows were guarded in there, too. I could already tell which girls were dominant by the way they took slightly longer washing up, exaggerating their movements, leisurely fixing their hair while we all waited for our turn. Everyone else quickly splashed water over their faces, grazing their toothbrushes over their teeth in mechanical motions.
The smells of toothpaste, shampoo, and Tone soap were strongest; the butter-colored bars were distributed to us in the shower line. One by one, we waited, barefoot on the tiles, holding our towels, for the night watch to call out our names off the clipboard and count on their stopwatches the minutes we were to shower. The distinct cocoa-butter scent of Tone filled the space between all the stalls, emanating from behind the plastic curtains that separated us, thickening the foggy steam.
No one loitered because Auntie’s omniscience made it seem as if she was right behind you, ready to speed you up with a threat at any time. So the main hallway remained totally empty, pyramids of light shining out of each open bedroom door.
“Raguìa-Lauryn-Elizabeth, this ain’t yo’ personal bathroom. Now hurry up befo’ Auntie lose her temper! You ain’t no snails.” It was the first time my hygiene and bedtime were ever enforced; it felt strange to know that people showered every day, and to be one of them. But I loved the feeling of being clean and the brush of laundered clothing on my skin. Auntie made sure everyone’s lights were off promptly at nine; as a backup, a staff member sat in the hallway for a night shift.
One of the hardest things to deal with, it turned out, besides the confinement, the half hour a week of phone time, and the minute-by-minute routine, was the thunderous call of Auntie’s voice from morning till night, accompanied by the jingle of keys that clicked on the waist of her one, permanent house dress. Each morning all twelve of us woke no later than six thirty,
or else
, to the sound of our doors flying open, the flicker of fluorescent lights over us, and, of course, Auntie screaming.
“Besta get up now,
girls
! Get up, get up, get uuup!”
Occasionally came the sounds of a girl (usually new) who refused to leave her bed and was consequentially dragged, kicking and screaming, out of it.
“Don’t test Auntie, ’cause Auntie don’t play. You try this on Auntie, you see what Auntie going to do.”
“Why don’t you start by telling me how you feel about being here.”
“Stuck,” I replied, ignoring the disappointment on her face as moments dragged on and I stayed silent. The long hand on the Prozac clock ticked patiently; instead of the 12, there was a picture of a bright green-and-white pill.
Dr. Eva Morales drank her coffee from a Cornell University mug, which never traveled anywhere in her small, windowless office except to her mouth and back onto her coaster, a doily the same exact shade as her bright pink lipstick. Our sessions, like every other girl’s sessions, ran for forty minutes, three times each week, for the entire time I remained at St. Anne’s Residence.
“Consistency brings progress and progress is marked by consistency,” Dr. Morales would chirp, nodding her head to each syllable on an angle determined by the seriousness of our current topic—which was usually my “discipline problem.” However, sometimes she took the opportunity to explore other things: “Doesn’t that hair in your face bother your mother?” And, “If you stay this shy, you’ll never make any friends.”
Her expression had only two variations: the sympathetic frown (one hand cupping her cheek) and the pensive look (biting her lip and steepling her hands). I wished for anything other than the pensive one, for an irritating affirmation never failed to follow it: “Life is about taking charge, and being responsible for oneself.”
As though I hadn’t been responsible for myself almost my whole life.
She was so disconnected from anything she was saying that I sometimes felt the entire session might just be
for
Dr. Morales, a forum for her to practice phrases she learned in her training. As a result, I spent half my time in her office appeasing her, nodding unwavering agreement and faking my own connection to her insights.
“I want to help you, but everyone knows, you can’t help someone who won’t help
you
help them.” Her eyebrows perked up; she was trying to draw me out of a long silence.
“I understand,” I constantly told her.
I practiced my best attentive face so that I wouldn’t have to suffer through her repeating herself. That’s what Dr. Morales and I did for our forty minutes—“understand” each other for the sake of progress. I understood her because if I did, I’d be closer to getting home. If she was my ticket back to my family, then I would show her that I didn’t deserve to be at St. Anne’s Residence another minute.
So I burned our time together making responsive faces and nodding endlessly, as though I was moved and enlightened by her affirmations. Yes, I did think that it was time to start caring about my future. Yes, now that you mention it, I did want to be an educated young lady and to take advantage of my potential. Yes, you are effective at your job and I am changing because of you, Dr. Morales.
One afternoon later that week I found out what Reina had meant by having me “watch her back,” when Auntie slammed open our door fuming, dragging Sasha behind her, soaking wet and sobbing, her eyes bloodshot.
“Don’t neither of you girls try playing no tricks on Auntie!” Her beady eyes darted from me to Reina. With that bald head and pushed-up nose, she looked like a bulldog with its ears clipped. “Which one of you put bleach in Sasha’s shampoo bottle? Don’t make Auntie guess!” Reina insisted that it wasn’t her, in a way that was so convincing, for a moment I doubted myself.
“Elizabeth did it! I told her we don’t ak like that here, but Auntie, she just don’t listen.” With an exasperated shake of her head, she added, “She told me to leave her alone if I didn’t want no trouble fo’ myself, but I’ll be damned if I am going to take blame! Auntie, cross my heart and swear to die, I didn’t do it.” At that, Auntie was convinced.
“I would nev—” I began.
“I don’t care where you came from, but ain’t no way that mess goes down here—you ain’t gettin’ away with none a dat on Auntie’s watch. You come with me!” I followed her shiny bald head out of the room, past Reina’s smug smile.
I ended up in the “quiet room,” a six-by-ten space with bad light and itchy carpeting, where girls were dragged and locked in when they misbehaved.
There was one small window, barred like the rest, through which an eerie light came in. It faced the brick siding of the neighboring building, and only if I strained could I see a slice of sky. The room smelled of dried sweat and urine, and I rationed my breathing as I sat, furious, crying in the miserable room. “I hate this place,” I said aloud to myself. “I hate it.”
After Reina’s bleach prank, I was moved away from her and Sasha, to a room with only one girl. Her name was Talesha; she was fifteen, two years older than me. She had small, down-turned eyes, coffee-colored skin, and a six-month-old son. Because of her age, Auntie figured I “wouldn’t try none a dat sass” on her.
As I brought a garbage bag of my stuff to the new room, Talesha held the door open, smiling. Long, slender braids cascaded behind her shoulders. She had full hips and inch-long metallic purple nails.
The minute the door shut behind us, she bounced onto her bed and exclaimed, “Reina’s got issues out da ass! Girl, I know you ain’t do that bleach trick . . . especially being the only white girl here, you’d have to be crazy to pull somethin’ like that. You don’t look crazy.” Her eyes were soft.
“I didn’t do that to Sasha,” I said.
“So why are you here?” she asked. “Where’s your family?”
I didn’t know how I wanted to answer her, and I didn’t want to tell her about Daddy or even to think of him alone on University Avenue, because of me. So I just shrugged my shoulders and unpacked my things.
Talesha had been in foster care for over a year now. This was her second time back at St. Anne’s, and she knew everything about everyone. Living with her, I was privy to the former lives of many of the girls, and even Auntie. It turned out Reina’s mother was a crackhead, who showed up broke at her dealer’s apartment and traded Reina for some rocks.
“Her mother was like, ‘Reina can clean your house for you.’ Yo, they was like, a’ight, let her fix up the house, that’s worth something. But girl, Reina’s mother never came back, she just bounced with the rocks and thass it!”
Listening to Reina’s story, I felt lucky to have Ma. She would never do something like that.
Talesha went on, “And another thing! Did you know that Auntie useta have thick, long dreadlocks, but then she got sick and they fell out. She put them in a big plastic bag, and till this day keeps them behind the couch in her office!”
“No! Serious?” I said.
This I refused to believe, until a few months later when I actually saw Auntie proudly showing them to other staff. She pulled the long, raggedy things out of that plastic bag, like toy snakes popped out of a fake can, and she declared, “There’s Indian in my family. My father’s Cherokee, so I can grow ’em back whenever. They looked good on me, too!”
But more than anything, Talesha talked about her baby son, Malik. Often we would lie awake hours after lights-out as I eagerly listened to what it was like to have a boyfriend and become pregnant. “It’s nice. When you start showing, people get up out they seat on the bus and treat you real respectable. And there’s always someone to love you when you have a baby, and always somebody you could love, too.”
Many nights, I’d lie awake and listen to Talesha cry softly, telling me how much she missed her son. And about how she hated her mother for forcing her into the home and keeping the baby herself. Sometimes we’d stay awake and she’d tell me about how good life was going to be when she got out and got Malik back. They’d get a house somewhere upstate, near Peekskill, where Malik could play in a beautiful yard. Sometimes, long after Talesha had gone to sleep, in the total silence of the pitch black room, I cried, thinking of my family. Daddy alone in that big apartment, Lisa drifting so far away from me, and the
AIDS
virus making its way through Ma’s body minute by minute, with nothing I could do to stop it.