Butterfly (16 page)

“I want you to...”

“Excuse me,” I cleared my throat. “Y'all don't see me sitting here?”

“Oh, what's up, Butterfly?” Janae gave me a fist pound. “Yo, when my baby around, I can't see nothing but her and that's some real shit right there.”

“Wait a minute. You two are together as a couple?”

“Yes.” Jacqua smiled and blew another kiss to Janae.

“How come y'all didn't tell me?”

“How come you ain't ask, niggah?” Janae chuckled and put her arms around Jacqua. “Damn, I almost forgot, I can't do that up in here.”

“When did you two become a couple, Jacqua?”

“It just happened over time.”

“Sheeeeeeeit! I had her ass from the very first time she kissed me up in Keisha's room,” Janae said.

“No she didn't.” Jacqua smiled and rubbed Janae on the back like she was a boy. “It took us a long time before we actually did anything.”

“What? A week?”

“It took you longer than a week, Jay.”

“Jay? Who the hell is Jay?” I asked.

“That's what I call my baby.” Jacqua kissed Janae on the cheek.

“You can't do that up in here, baby.” Janae gently pushed Jacqua away.

“Oh my God, you two are tripping hard.” I laughed so hard I could not stop. “Do Toya and Keisha know?”

“Keisha don't, but Toya does. That's why Jay won't let me go around Toya.”

“Why can't she go around Toya, Jay?” I asked sarcastically.

“Because she tried to push up on my baby and she knew we were kicking it.”

“This is crazy, man!”

Janae and Jacqua secretly held hands underneath the table. Jacqua could not take her eyes off of Janae while she was talking.

“Now, we need to get back down to business!” I asked.

“What business?”

“The business of you going behind our backs and turning yourself in, man.”

“Look, it's like this; it didn't make sense for everybody to go down, if we all don't have to go down. This is like church up in here compared to the other juvey I was in. I get three hot meals and a cot. That's all I need.”

“Oh, you don't need me?” Jacqua playfully pulled away from Janae.

“Come on now, baby, you that shit.”

“Oh God! Y'all about to make me throw up.”

“Butterfly, we need to talk, baby.”

“What's up, Janae?”

“Hey, look, Keisha is on the real, but you got to stay away from my cousin, man. She ain't shit. I love her to death, but my cousin ain't shit.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Man, Toya keep trying to go behind my back and push up on my girl, and I done told her ass to back the hell up. But she keep trying that backstabbing shit.”

“Yeah, girl, it's like she always trying to talk shit about Jay behind her back, but when Jay step to her, she like, don't have shit to say then.”

“Is that it? That's between y'all, man. I ain't got nothin' to do with that.”

“Oh, okay, so I guess you ain't got nothin' to do with Toya trying to get me to snitch on you and your cousin, either?”

“What?”

“Yeah, that's what I thought.” Janae sat back and put her arm around the back of Jacqua's chair. “Your girl wanted to go to the cops and snitch on you and your little cousin to keep her ass out of trouble.”

“For real?”

“For real, for real, man! Look, I may be a lot of bad things, but I ain't no gotdamn snitch! And that's on the real!”

“Toya was going to let us go down so she could get out of trouble?”

“Hell yeah! Turning myself in, and coming to juvie was the only way she would not go to cop and snitch on y'all.”

“Damn, that's dirty!” I could not believe Toya had been smiling in my face all that time and trying to play me behind my back. “I oughta kick her ass.”

“For what? So you can end up in here, like me? Don't let that chick bring you down, Butterfly.”

“Yeah, but she trying to play me.”

“Man, forget that bitch and just do you.”

“She better not say nothin' to me when we leave here.”

“What you gon' do? Kick her ass? Look, I didn't come here to protect y'all for y'all stupid asses to act a fool and end up in here with me anyway. You got a bright future. You can be somebody, but in order to be somebody, you gotta stop acting like nobody.”

“Where you get that from, baby? That was clever as hell.” Jacqua hugged Janae quickly and backed off.

“I been writing since I been up in here.”

“Writing what? You only been in here a week,” I joked.

I was joking, but Janae made a lot of sense. If I wanted to be seen as
somebody, I had to stop acting like I was nobody with no responsibilities and no respect for myself. She was essentially saying the same thing Ms. Alicia had just told me the day before.

“They call me Langston Hughes up in here.”

“Oh really? So when are you getting out, Langston?” I asked.

“In about six months, if I can make it through without having to whoop somebody ass up in here.”

I was surprised that Janae had to do so much time because everybody had always told me she would do no more than three months.

“Six months? That's a long time.”

“Yeah, but I need some time to get my head right. I been doing some crazy shit, man. Shit y'all don't even know about. And it's getting out of control. I gotta get back in control of all this shit.”

“You like that word don't you, Janae?”

“What word?”

“
S-h-i-t
.” I spelled out the word because I did not want to use profanity.

“Shit yeah, I like to use the word
shit
.” Janae chuckled. “Don't you?”

“I mean, I'm trying to stop using profanity so much.”

“Profanity? When you start calling cussing, profanity?”

“Since none of your business.”

“Forget that, I'm cussing.”

“I don't cuss that much anymore, either,” Jacqua joked.

“Baby,” Janae looked at Jacqua through the side of her eyes, “Don't sit up here and lie in front of Butterfly 'cause she trying to get all religious on us.”

“I'm not lying; you haven't noticed?”

“Hell naw, 'cause you still cuss just as much as me.”

“Y'all crazy!”

I am not into the lesbian thing, nor can I say I believe that it is
right, but Janae and Jacqua seemed to be happy and that was all that mattered.

Our time was up and we were saying our good-byes so that Toya and Keisha could have their time. I hugged Janae good-bye and stood to the side for Jacqua to say her good-bye. Jacqua and Janae hugged, and then rocked back and forth with their eyes closed.

“Uh, we better be leaving, y'all.”

Janae and Jacqua continued to rock back and forth in their strong hug. I cleared my throat a couple of times to get their attention, but they ignored me.

“All right! All right! Let's break this up!” I put my arms between them to push them apart. “Let's go, Jacqua!”

I grabbed Jacqua's hand and pulled her away from Janae. She blew Janae a kiss and whispered that she loved her as I practically dragged her out. We passed Toya and Keisha as were going out and they were coming in.

“Can you take me to the mall when we leave here, Butterfly?” Toya asked.

I looked at Toya, and then I looked at Jacqua and we laughed out loud. I did not want to make a scene so all that I said was, “I don't think so, Toya.”

Toya looked at us laughing and then followed Keisha into the visiting room. Jacqua and I walked outside and went to the car.

“I can't believe that chick asked me to take her to the mall, Jacqua.”

“Don't forget what Janae told you, though.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She told you not to react to what she told you about Toya. Despite all that shit she was saying about her, she still loves that girl and don't want you to kick her ass.”

“I'm not thinking about putting my hands on that girl. I'm just not going to let her use me anymore.”

“I hear you on that.”

“All that I'm thinking about is graduating and going to college.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“What's up?”

“Why do they call you Butterfly? You don't look like no damn butterfly to me,” Jacqua joked.

“My father nicknamed me that because he said one day, I would grow up to be a butterfly and fly far, far away to anywhere I want to go, and be anything I want to be.”

“That's some deep shit.”

“Actually, it's not deep at all to me. It's like I believed him. I know he was speaking metaphorically, but I believed him, and I still do.”

“I can't believe we're having this conversation, but if you were a real butterfly, and you could fly anywhere you want to go, where would it be?” Jacqua asked.

“That's a good question.” I thought about it and I knew where I would want to be. “If I could fly anywhere, it would be to wherever my mother is.”

“Um, your mother is dead, right?”

“Not the woman I knew to be my mother, but my biological mother. I would want to know why she gave me up. I would ask her why she didn't love me enough to try and stick it out with me and my dad.”

“Of all the places you could go, you would want to go to a sad place like that?”

“That wouldn't be a sad place. That would be a place of resolution. I have a family now. I have people who love me, so I don't really need her love. I need answers.”

“But what if she wanted to give you her love anyway?”

“That's another good question.”

“Well, what would you do?”

“Well, that's a good question that I just don't have an answer to right now.”

“We're at opposite ends of the spectrum, girl. You can't wait to find your mama and I can't wait to get the hell away from mine.”

•   •   •

Keisha's parents had a huge fight the day before Thanksgiving and decided not to spend the holiday together. That left Keisha in the middle. Her mother suggested she go to her biological father's house because he had smaller children and she could spend the holiday with family. Keisha wanted to go to Tennessee with her stepfather, but her mother would not let her. Her mother also would not let her go to Florida with her.

I told the Forresters what was going on with her and asked if she could spend the holiday with us. They were such kind-hearted people that they invited her to stay the entire weekend. Thanksgiving eve, Keisha and I stayed up talking almost all night. Everyone else had gone to bed. Keisha and I were the only ones awake. Brit was in the bed sleeping between us so we had total privacy. I found out things about her family that she had been keeping a secret and she found out secrets about mine.

“I can't believe my mother is doing this to our family, Butterfly.”

“Doing what?”

“She reconnected with one of her high school boyfriends on Facebook, and at first, she was telling my stepdad that they were just friends, and he believed her. But then he found emails they wrote to each other about still being in love, and how it's going to feel when they get together.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“My room is right next to theirs. I can hear everything. And I mean ev-er-y-thing! My stepdad is talking about moving out.”

“Wow! It's that bad?”

“Yeah, it's that bad. He is hurt. He really trusted my mom.”

“You think he's going to leave?”

“I hope not. I don't want him to go. As far as I'm concerned, he's my real dad.”

“Maybe they'll work it out.”

“I hope so. If my mother and stepdad split up and my mother makes me go stay with my dad, I'm running away.”

“Why would you run away? What's up with you and your dad?”

“I don't like him.”

“Why not? Is he mean to you or something?”

“It's worse than that.”

“How is it worse?” I knew where Keisha was going with her story, but I wanted her to tell me on her own. “What happened?”

“Just stuff. Stuff a father should not do to his daughter.”

“Wait! Wait! Wait! So what are you saying, Keisha?”

“Man, this is so hard.” Keisha started to cry. “I ain't never told nobody this before.”

“It's okay, Keisha, just say it. Maybe you'll feel better.”

“You have to promise me that you will never ever tell anybody else.”

“I promise.”

“Okay...”

KEISHA'S STORY:

My father is a big fat man. His belly sticks out and he breathes hard. He wears a lot of jewelry and thinks he is a baller because he owns a nightclub. But he looks like an overweight pimp to me! He is very light-skinned. His hair is almost gone on top and he has an itty-bitty ponytail in the back.

When I was young, he lived out of state and he was always in and
out of my life for long periods of time until I turned twelve. When I was twelve, he moved back to Atlanta and wanted to build a father-daughter relationship. My mother was excited because he freed up a lot of time for her to do her own things.

I am grateful because she met my stepdad while she was out doing her thing. He wanted children, and did not have any at the time. We were instantly drawn to each other. He stepped in and took over our household. He brought stability, discipline and God.

I used to be so wild. I was out of control. I did not listen to my mother. I did not listen to anybody. My dad thought that by yelling and screaming at me, I would straighten up, but that only made me afraid of him. My stepdad, on the other hand, sat me down when I did something wrong and explained to me what I did wrong. And then he explained to me why he was about to whoop my ass. He had faith in me and his faith in me made me have faith in myself.