Flyy Girl (36 page)

Cash continued to add something to her overabundant wardrobe each week, like the long leather coat she had received after Thanksgiving. He picked her up from school every day, watching her every move to see if she would try to play him, or in other words, treat him with disrespect. It was inevitable. Cash was giving her everything she wanted, and he was starting to bore her.

“So what happened in school today?” he asked, driving her home in cold December weather. Tracy wore her green leather bomber that Patti had helped her buy.

Tracy answered, “The usual.” She then looked away as if she had no conversation for him.

Cash frowned at her. “What 'chew think, you're special now or somethin'?”

Tracy smiled, realizing that she was getting under his skin with her better-than-thou attitude. “No,” she answered him.

Cash wasn't satisfied with just that. “I'on know about you, girl.” He kept his eyes on the road, listening to a Boogie Down Productions tape.

Tracy responded too boldly, “You got other girls anyway. You don't need me.”

Cash pulled over and stopped the jeep. He sat and stared out of the window before speaking. “Now what are you tryin' to say?” he asked her.

“I ain't sayin' nothin'.”

“Naw, you actin' like you wanna call it quits.”

“Did I say that?”

“Look, I'm gon' pick you up to talk about this later on, 'cause I got some runs to make.”

Tracy sat contentedly, deciding not to comment.

Cash let her off around the corner from her house. Tracy walked to her steps and spotted Raheema, staring out of her window. They still had not been speaking to each other. Tracy ignored her. She walked into her house to clean up the kitchen like Patti had asked her. The
kitchen was extra messy after Patti had had a get-together party with friends. Pots, glasses and plates were everywhere. Tracy had not washed a dish load like that in years. She was not too pleased about it either.

“We need to get this damn dishwasher fixed!” she screamed. “Where's a good father when you need him?”

After she finished with the dishes and had returned home with Jason, who had started kindergarten, they sat on the living-room couch watching
The Transformers.
Tracy could not help thinking about a few dishes she had accidentally shattered in her hasty rage.

Jason said, “Tracy, help me get some cereal.”

“No, Jason. Mom's about to come home and fix you some leftovers from last night.”

“I don't want that,” he told her on his way to the kitchen. “Come on, Tracy,” he insisted, pulling at her arm for her to go with him.

He gave up on her and went to the kitchen to try and get the cereal by himself. Patti entered the door hearing a big crash. She ran to the kitchen behind her daughter and found Jason curled up into a ball on the floor, crying while holding his head, with spilled cereal surrounding him.

Patti asked, “What the hell is going on, Tracy?” Jason had a lump on the left side of his forehead. “Now what happened, boy? What were you trying to do?”

“I asked her to help me, and she ain't do it.”

Patti looked at her daughter with evil dark eyes.

Tracy looked away.

“I asked you to watch him, girl, and I'm a little tired of your irresponsibility around this damn house. Look at this big knot on his head.”

Tracy smiled helplessly at her brother's knotted forehead.

“You think this is a damn joke, don't you?” Patti asked. She smacked her daughter in the mouth as Tracy tried to back away.

“See, mom, all that wasn't even called for,” she responded, grabbing her lip.

Patti challenged her, “When you wanna try me, you just let me know.”

Tracy thought about her mother's challenge. She decided it was too risky.

Tracy sat in her room doing homework with a swollen lip.

Patti walked in with a bag of broken dishes that she had found hidden inside of the trash. “Tracy, umm, what the hell you trying to pull here?”

Tracy knew she was caught. There was no way out.

Patti said, “Girl, I'm about to rip your damn neck off.” She reached across to smack her daughter again. Tracy was quick enough to duck. That only made Patti angrier. She rushed her daughter to the bed.

“I'm tired of you, Tracy. You're about ready to get on my last damn nerve. You think you're cute with this hair and this expensive shit you got on?” she asked, while strangling her daughter by the collar.

“No,” Tracy whimpered. “Mom, you're choking me.”

“Why should I let you up?”

“It was an accident.”

“It ain't no accident that you think everything is a damn joke around here. And the
next
time something happens, I'm gon' be all over you.”

Tracy was not as afraid of Patti as she was the first time.

Later that evening, through her front window Tracy noticed Cash pulling up in his jeep. She grabbed her coat to go with him.

Patti shouted, hearing the door slam, “TRA-CY!”

“Hurry up and get outta here!” Tracy told Cash.

Patti arrived at the door too late. She would be waiting for Tracy when she got back home, with a can of ass-whipping.

“Damn, what happened to your lip?” Cash asked, laughing.

Tracy looked in the vanity mirror. “My mom hit me.”

Cash giggled. “I remember when my mom used to beat up my sisters.” he told her.

“So where we goin'?” Tracy asked, ignoring him.

“Oh, we got one stop to make before we go to my crib.” Tracy wanted to ask why they would be going to his “crib,” because she was not planning on giving him
any.
But she decided to hold her tongue for a while. She was happy she had some money in her pocket though, just in case he didn't want to take her back home.

Once they had arrived at their destination, Tracy hopped out of the Bronco. “I'm comin' with you this time.”

“For what?” Cash snapped. He didn't like the idea.

“Because, I'm not gon' be sitting out here in the cold, looking stupid.”

“Well, I thought you didn't like these drug houses.”

“I don't,” she responded, following.

Cash knocked. Sam looked out of the window before letting them in. “Well looka' here. She's a beautiful thing, ain't she?”

Tracy felt disgusted that he was even close to her. She quickly moved away from him. Sam may have been an old pervert.

“I ain't gon' hurt 'cha,” he responded to her. “What 'chew think I'm the ‘Big Bad Wolf' or somethin'?”

Tracy sneered at him as she walked farther away, inside of the half-empty living room.

Cash asked, “So where's my stuff at, man?” He pulled out a roll of bills.

Sam said, “Oh, Lou got it. But he got a trick upstairs with him right now. Just wait a few minutes. He should be almost finish with that hoe by now.” Sam smiled at Tracy and said, “Excuse me, young and beautiful, but if you're gonna be around the game, then you might as well know how it is.”

Tracy sat on a couch. She thought about what low-life of a woman would fall to the point of giving up her body for cocaine. She played with her nails, taking peeks up at the steps. Cash and Sam continued to joke around, but Tracy was more interested in the “trick” they were referring to. She could hear the footsteps upstairs.

Cash roared, “AY LOU, HURRY UP, MAN! I ain't got all day!”

“SHET UP, YOUNG-BOAH'!” Lou shouted back down.

Tracy loosened up, still watching the steps. She could see and hear the woman coming down. She stopped to have last words at the top of the staircase. Her voice was deep and raspy, like an older woman's. Tracy could see her legs on the steps. They then met each other's stare, as Cash and Sam noticed the unspoken communication between them.

Tracy could not believe her eyes. She blinked at the nightmare. The young woman that she had known had lost at least fifteen pounds. She was frail and crooked in her stance. Her long hair looked damaged and oily, and her smooth walnut-brown skin had lost its shine. She walked from the stairs, wearing a dingy white leather jacket and turned her head from Tracy.

Tracy was embarrassed beyond words. She looked at the floor, and then at the walls and back at the floor again, avoiding further eye contact, while holding back her tears of empathy. Finally she cried, covering up her face to hide her watery eyes. Her expectations had been shattered. Tracy wanted to run home and slam her head into her pillow and wake from the nightmare. But it was not a dream. It was real.

“It's my God-damn life, Tracy. I don't have to answer to
nobody.”
She wiped her stuffed-up nose and staggered to the door, staring back at Tracy. But Tracy refused to look at her.

“Oh, you won't even look at me now, hunh? Well, life is hard, girl, and I fucked mine up, so get off my got'damn back.” She began to cry herself as she walked out, ashamed to have been discovered by her young friend.

A tear dropped from Tracy's right eye and slid through her hands. She wished that she could keep her eyes closed forever. She realized her road had to change.

All of the lights were out at her home when Tracy had gotten back in. She opened the door and nearly tripped over four trash bags. She curiously looked inside of them and found much of her clothing. She then looked over to the living-room couch and noticed her mother stretched out as if she had fallen asleep while waiting for her. Too upset to think about the message her mother was sending, Tracy headed up the stairs to her room. Once she had made the journey up the steps, she crawled into her bed, which felt extra-soft after the shock she had been through. She ran her fingers over her face and through her honey-blonde-topped hair. If she had heeded her mother and stayed in the house, maybe she would have never experienced the nightmare.

Patti clicked on the light. “Get up, girl, 'cause you're getting
out
of
this
house!”

Tracy buried her face in the pillow. “Please, mom, I don't feel so good.”

“Why, are you pregnant?”

“No, but I seen something that's making me sick.”

Patti was still fuming, but she calmed down after seeing how distressed her daughter was. “You should have stayed in this damnhouse,” she huffed, as she walked over and sat on Tracy's bed, tending to her. “So what happened?”

Tracy sat up and said, “Mercedes is messed up on drugs.”

Patti shook her head and pondered. “Well, how do you know this?”

Tears rushed down Tracy's face. “I saw her. And she spoke to me.”

“What did she say to you?”

“She said that it was her life and that she didn't care what I thought about it.”

Patti muttered, “Mmm, mmm, mmm. What is this world coming to? Where were you at when you saw her?”

“I saw her on the street, and I went to go talk to her.”

Patti frowned, knowing better. “You think I'm really stupid, don't you? I know that damn boy you been sneaking around with is probably mixed in with them damn drugs. And you probably seen her in one of those crack houses. Didn't you, Tracy?”

Tracy sat silently.

“See, girl, you think that your father and I don't know anything, and that
you
somehow got all of the answers. But I've been there myself, Tracy, and times don't change, they just
look
different.

“When I was growing up, it was the gang-war era, where you didn't date a guy unless he had a jacket. People were using heroin back then.”

Patti got up to leave and said, “I hope that you learned something from this, because I don't know what else to say to you. This is
your
battle. I don't have the time nor the energy to be out here chasing you around in these streets. I have my
own
damn life to live, Tracy.”

Patti walked to the door and added,” Oh, by the way. I paged your father. He's going to be here any minute after work. I told him that I was ready to throw your ass out.”

Tracy looked up at her mother from the pillow and remembered that her clothes were stuffed inside of trash bags and setting at the door.

“Do you think I should let you stay in this house, Tracy?” her mother asked. Patti figured that her hard-headed daughter may have learned a big enough lesson to stay.

“I'm sorry, mom,” Tracy pleaded.

“Answer the damn question, girl,” Patti snapped at her.

“Yes,” Tracy answered meekly.

“Why?”

Tracy thought of a good answer and came up empty. “I don't have no place else to go,” she mumbled.

“You
act
like you got somewhere else to go. Do you wanna move in with that boy you've been running around with?” Patti had a lot of assumptions about her daughter's whereabouts. All she needed was the proof.

“No,” Tracy answered.

Patti nodded, pensively, deciding that she would let her stay.
She
ain't ready for them damn streets anyway,
she told herself.
She's been
spoiled all of her life. Philadelphia would eat her alive, just like it did
Mercedes.
“You know that you're back on punishment, right?” Patti was telling her more than asking her.

Tracy nodded, conceding to it.

“And I want them earrings,
and
the chains,” her mother added.

“Hunh?” Tracy uttered, confused.

“You heard me. Take them off and give them here.” Patti walked back over to the bed and reached out her hand.

Tracy was still reluctant. “What are you gonna do with it?”

“Tracy, give me the damn jewelry! I'm gonna put it up, until I
feel
like giving it back to you.”

Tracy took off her jewelry and handed it over.

Patti held the relatively weightless gold in the cup of her hands. “Mmm,” she grunted. “Cheap. If you tried to pawn this stuff downtown, they'd barely give you fifty dollars for it.” She then put the seized items away in her room and went back downstairs to wait for Dave.

Dave unlocked the front door with his key as soon as Patti had gotten comfortable on the couch. It was close to eleven o'clock.

“So what's this about?” he asked her, stumbling over the trash bags of clothing, just as Tracy had done earlier.

Hearing the front door creak open and close, Tracy snuck into the
hallway bathroom, which was right by the stairway, to eavesdrop on her parent's conversation.

“I'm kicking Tracy out,” Patti lied to him. She was ready for an argument. She wanted one.
I'm ready to kick his ass in here, too,
she thought to herself. She had done a lot of maturing in the nine years that they had been apart.

“For what?” Dave asked her.

“Because she's grown.”

He walked over and joined his wife on the couch. “Let me speak to her.”

“She's asleep.”

“Well, let's go wake her up.”

“For what?” Patti snapped at him.

“So I can see what's going on here.”

Patti looked at him crossly. “I just fucking told you what's going on here. Tracy thinks that she's grown, so she's moving out.”

Tracy stood inside of the bathroom door enjoying it, especially since she knew that she wasn't going anywhere. “Get him, mom,” she whispered to herself. Dave had not been a good daddy.

“Patti, the girl is barely fifteen years old,” he argued.

“And?”

“She's nowhere near grown.”

“Well, since she's
not
grown, then maybe she needs a damn father around here!”

Dave fell silent. He wanted to come back home, he just didn't know how. He had gotten used to his freedom, and it had become destructively addictive. “So what are you saying, Patti?” he asked her, wanting her to cut to the chase. They had not discussed the topic in a while.

Patti took a deep breath. She had been thinking about this moment practically for all of the nine years of their unofficial separation. “Either you're going to stay here, or you're not. You can't have it both ways. Not anymore. So either we're gonna get a divorce, so you can marry this bitch, or whoever the hell you've been staying with, so I can move on with my life, or . . .”

She stopped herself, not wanting to believe that she actually still wanted him back.
We're not divorced yet,
she told herself.

Tracy had stopped breathing after hearing the word “divorce.” “Oh my God!” she mumbled. “I can't believe she said that.” She was listening for her father's response before she could continue breathing.

“I've never been staying with any woman. You know where I stay,” Dave commented to his wife, avoiding her ultimatum.

“Well, I've never seen the place,” Patti responded to him. “But that's beside the point, Dave. The point is: why are you there in the first place?”

Dave grimaced. “Look, Patti, what do you want me to do? I mean, we can't even have a conversation anymore.”

“Is that my fault? Oh, go ahead, blame everything on me.”

Dave was speechless. Patti was finally backing him up against a wall. “How do you think we can do this, Patti?” he asked her.

Patti was confused. “What the hell, Dave? Is there some kind of a process with you moving back in?” She had been saving up to move into her own place if he failed to agree.
Life goes on,
she told herself. And she was no longer willing to remain captive in his house.

Dave sighed. “It's not as easy as you think it is,” he told her. He realized that Patti had matured, but with that maturity, she was also more demanding.

“You don't have much longer to think about it, Dave. You told me, or
us,
rather, that you were moving back in years ago, after I had had Jason. What happened to that?”

Dave wanted to run away again to think it over. He knew he did not want a divorce. The only
right
thing to do was to start over. He had been dating on and off like Patti had, yet no woman could take her place either. She was the mother of his kids, still his wife and still living inside of his house.

“All right, I'll think it over,” he told her.

Patti got up and walked over to the steps, unsatisfied with his answer. “You can let yourself out. And by the way, I decided to let Tracy stay before you came.”

“Well, you still haven't told me what she's done.”

“You ask her.”

Tracy eased into her room before her mother reached the top of the steps.

Dave sat for a while and thought things over. “Well, I guess this is it,” he said to himself. He was as nervous about moving back in as he had been when he first told Patti “I do.” But he had had his way long enough. The stability of his family depended on his presence.

That next day of school was like a funeral for Tracy. She did not want to be in school. There were too many things on her mind. She wore no glamorous outfits on her back that day. No earrings, and gold chains.

“Hey Tracy, you hear about Mark?” Jantel asked glumly.

“What Mark?” Tracy responded, absent-minded.

“You know, the one that hangs out with Victor and them.”

“Oh, Mark Bates. Yeah, what about him?”

“He dead,” Jantel told her.

Tracy stopped what she was doing at her locker. “How? What happened to him?”

“Some guys were after Victor for some money, and they shot Mark when they couldn't find him.”

Tracy shook her head. “They always get the ones that really ain't into it, 'cause Mark never knew what he was doin'.”

“I know, and he had started goin' to night school and all to better himself, too.”

“He should have never dropped out,” Tracy commented. They parted ways for class, and Tracy arrived late.

“Is there any reason why you're late, Ms. Ellison?”

“No, I just lost track of time.”

“Well, make sure that you keep track of it while in detention today.”

Tracy was appalled. “Oh, so I get a detention for being late
one
time?”

“Yes you do, and just for your outrage, you've earned yourself another one.”

Mr. Roberts was a no-nonsense English instructor, and Tracy hated him.

Bald-headed fool. That's why he ain't got no wife,
she snapped to herself.
Nobody wants his behind.

The detention ended faster than Tracy thought it would. She headed home after school with a girlfriend. A fast-running crook snatched her girlfriend's earrings right off of her ears. Both girls screamed, but he was long gone before any help arrived. The pull had ripped the corner of one ear. Tracy's companion bled while crying hysterically.

A concerned citizen summoned a policeman, and Tracy explained to the officer what had happened. The girl was then escorted to Germantown Hospital, with Tracy comforting her until they had arrived.
Dag,
I'm glad my mom took my earrings, s
he thought.

Afterward, Tracy rode the bus back home, bewildered by all of the unfortunate occurrences. She dropped her book-bag inside of the house and rushed to pick up Jason. While on her way past the playground, she noticed Victor and his friends loading up into cars. She suspected that they were heading to get revenge for Mark.

Jason was the last child to be picked up, and on the way back home Tracy could have sworn that she saw Mercedes in a long brown coat and wearing a black baseball hat. She turned away, hoping it wasn't Mercedes who was walking toward them. Tracy still had not gotten over the shock of her desperate drug addiction.

“Tracy, let me talk with you. I feel a need to express myself,” the figure in the long brown coat said from behind. She was wearing a pink sweat suit with brand-new Reebok tennis shoes.

“I don't want to talk to you out here,” Tracy responded to her. She looked around to see who saw them.

“Well, I'll walk you home, so we can talk in your house like we used to.”

Tracy asked, “Have you spoken to your mother?”

“No, I haven't, and don't plan to, either.”

“Well, what if they see you?”

“It don't matter. I have nothin' to say to them,” Mercedes said out of spite.

But won't you be ashamed of them seeing you like this?
Tracy wished she had the courage to ask.

Mercedes sniffed and followed Tracy and her brother. She then took out a Newport.

Tracy sped up her pace to get inside quickly, nervous about Raheema spotting them.

Once they had made it inside, Mercedes sat on the couch. She began to shake and rub her hands together as if she were still cold and decided to keep her coat on.

Jason asked, “What's wrong with her?”

“Nothin', boy. Go on upstairs and watch TV in my room.”

Jason peeked at Mercedes disgustedly before he ran upstairs.

Mercedes looked at Tracy harshly. “Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but it can happen to
you,
too. It can happen to
any
and
everybody.”