How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch : The First Novel in the Morrow Girls Series (9780985751616) (25 page)

“Your baby killed my boy.”

“Ain’t nobody—it was an accident!”

“Let’s go in the back. Come on, we go on in the back and talk about this.”

Don’t know what I thought was gonna happen or how I thought it was gonna happen. Guess I ain’t think about it too hard, just about making him disappear forever. But when Ricky started moving toward me something in me said to move back, so I did. And kept moving until I was right in the middle of folks, all of them staring at me like I was gonna explode at any minute.

“Don’t…Don’t come no closer!”

“I ain’t gonna let you come up in here embarrassing me in front of my friends.”

“Your friends! Your friends know how you beat your kids?”

“Pecan—”

“How you beat me?”

“I don’t know what you talking about. You the one come up in here waving around a knife.”

“YOU BEAT ME!”

“I ain’t...”

“You...beat me. You know I ain’t have nobody...nowhere to go...you...”

Something heavy clanged against the floor and I turned to see. Was a weight falling to the floor, sounded like it weighed a ton. That was all Ricky needed. I only had one good hand and before I knew it he had that. Squeezing it high above my head until the knife fell from my fingers. Even with all those men standing around I still felt raw, exposed. If he wanted to and I knew he did, he could’ve killed me. Just would’ve taken one good hit, just one and I’d have fallen on something hard and heavy and that would’ve been the end of me.

“Ricky? Man, why don’t you back up a bit. Give the woman some space.”

I don’t even think he heard his friend trying to talk some sense into him. His eyes ain’t waver from mine.
 

“No! Let me go! Let me go. You ain’t no man! What kinda man gotta go beating up on little kids?”

He yanked me forward and I fell to my knees with him basically dragging me across the floor. A breeze blew in from outside and I thought maybe he was just gonna put me out the gym but then I heard a door slam shut. The back, as he’d put it, wasn’t nothing but some lockers and a row of benches.
 

“Woman, you done lost your mind.” The lockers were a dirty tan and one exploded with noise as Ricky’s fist slammed into it. “I been doing my best to be good to you but you don’t even care, do you? Huh? You see me trying? Huh? See me trying not to lose my temper with you? Now I could. After what you did...how stupid are you? Huh? All you had to do was be careful!”

“I w-w-was!”

“You think I wasn’t gonna find out how it happened? Nikki told me. And If I left it up to you that girl wouldn’t have no kind of punishment! And somebody gotta pay!”

From the look on his face I knew he believed that. I sometimes found myself wondering what made Ricky like that. Was his step daddy like that? He never talked about the man so I ain’t know and I ain’t really care enough to ask. I just wanted out.
 

“I’m done with you. You hear me? We done! You come near my kids again and I swear…it’ll be the last thing you do.”

I’
D
ALREADY
CRIED
SO
much I was running on empty but I felt like crying some more. Cry to celebrate that there wasn’t gonna be more tears. And when they ain’t come I just smiled and went about the business of being a mama.
 

I took Jackie to bed with me so I could watch her sleep. We laid there just looking at each other for the longest time before she drifted off. Mr. Silverman was real clear about the fact that Ricky couldn’t come around no more because of what he did to her. I wasn’t sure if I believed in what folks said about heaven but I’d made up my mind that divorce must be something designed by God. After so many years living in hell, we were finally getting what we deserved. Happy.

The next day I took them to school like Mr. Silverman told me. Explained things to the folks in the office and signed some papers so they’d know not to let Ricky get his hands on my girls. They were real sympathetic, looking at me with my arm in a sling and Nat hooked around my waist. Nat just pointed at them and whispered things in my ear. She thought they were weird. I wasn’t sure if she even realized what was going on. Soon enough, I figured she’d ask where Ricky was but so far she wasn’t interested. On the way out the school I had to stop by the sixth grade class. Just to look through the little square of a window to see what they were doing. Nikki wasn’t taking things so well. I thought it would’ve been Mya but it was Nikki. She was afraid of everything—of going outside, of staying in, afraid of her own damn shadow even. She was sitting in the back of the class, staring out the window. Wasn’t nothing to see but some weeds and a chain-link fence but she kept on staring.

“What wrong with Nikki, Mama?”

“Nothing, baby. She’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t that cold but spring didn’t always mean that the weather couldn’t go back to bitter shivering cold. Nat and me hurried down the street, trying to beat the wind that was reminding us of the weather that was supposed to be gone. But when we got to the last block before our house I had to stop cold. His car. It was parked right at the curb.

A man I’d never seen before walked out onto the porch with a box full of my clothes. I just stood there, a gaping hole where my mouth used to be, while he walked down the porch steps. Wasn’t long before two more men, one I recognized from Ricky’s gym, walked out onto the porch too. They were carrying my mattress.

“Hey!”

“Pecan,” a voice behind them said.

“What is this, Ricky? You can’t just...just take my stuff!”

“Your stuff?” He laughed. He was holding on to an old dusty box that held our china set. “When you pay for all this?”

“I...”

“This my stuff! Your ass is lucky I let you use it this long. And now I’m taking it back. Besides I like my mattress. It’s real good for my back.”

“You-You can’t just take my stuff.” I don’t know what was wrong with me to step to him like that. I grabbed Nat by the hand and ran into the house thinking I could stop the rest of my stuff from leaving. The two fellas strolled back in careful not to look me in the eye then asked Ricky what he wanted to do with the clothes upstairs.

“The ones in the big room. I’m taking those.” He grinned at me. “My girl might like some of them dresses.”

“My clothes? You gonna give her…You can’t do that!”
 

Ricky set the box of china gently on a chair then backed me into a corner without a word. “You mean to say my clothes. I paid for them. So they mine.”

“What you want with women’s clothes?” I snapped. The curtains swayed in the cold air that was blowing through the front door. They swayed up against my back. Telling me to get out the way, so I did, tripping over one of the side tables and dragging Nat with me. “Your friends know you come up in here to get some pretty dishes and women’s clothes? Huh? They know down at the gym how you taken such a strong liking to them?”

“Keep talking, here.”

“Maybe you funny like that.”
 

Ricky turned hot red, burning at me like a raging bull. If his friends hadn’t come down the stairs right then he would’ve came charging at me just like a bull too.
 

“Hey, man. Anything else?”

“N’all. That’s it. Gimme a minute.” They looked at him and ain’t even bother looking my way. I was the one wanted them to stay so of course they left. They were his friends, on his side. “You started this, Pecan. You wanna sick that Jew lawyer on me—well I got news for you! I got a lawyer too and he say a man like me got certain rights. I done provided for you and this family and now you wanna take my stuff and my kids? N’all. It ain’t even gone happen like that. My lawyer say that women like you always get they come up-ins.”

“LIKE ME? BUT I AIN’T DO NOTHIN’! WHAT I DO TO YOU? I AIN’T DO NOTHIN’!”

“You took what’s mine so I’m gone take what’s yours. Just you wait.”

I ain’t have to wait too long before they had everything they wanted piled up in their cars and trucks. And I couldn’t do nothing but stare from my porch. Folks were walking down the street just looking...looking at the stuff, probably thinking some of it was for sale, then looking at me. They’d wave at Ricky, a few of them even stopped to chat, talking him up about his next fight, just smiling away. But when they got around to looking at me, there was something else on their minds. I was an ungrateful wife, giving up all the nice things I had. And for what?

After Ricky left I still hadn’t seen my way through none of it. Couldn’t believe that he could just walk in my house and take what he wanted.
 

I sat at the kitchen table twirling the phone cord around my finger waiting for Paula to come to the phone. She’d never thought much of Ricky but once I told her what had just happened she got real quiet.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What? I hear you thinking.”

She sighed and asked me if what Ricky had said was true. Had he paid for everything?

“Don’t make it his. Paying for it don’t mean…it’s still mine. I’m the one picked it out. Cleaned it. All he did was lay his behind on it.”

“Okay Pecan.” But she wasn’t convinced.
 

“Mama, where the comfy?”
 

One of Ricky’s friends had a pick-up truck. They’d slid the sofa into it. Leaving the broken TV for us.

“We’re gonna sit on the floor from now on because...just because.”

Nat ran from one room to another, calling out what was missing, like it was a game. She never paid too much mind to me being on the phone. When she got upstairs she called down to tell me that her Mr. Fluffy was gone too. I figured it was just somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be like under her bed. What Ricky want with some old stuffed animal? It only had one eye to begin with. Wasn’t until we got hungry that I realized he’d taken stuff from the kitchen too. Wasn’t no food in the house. Fridge looked so empty it whistled when you opened it. Plates were gone. Forks and spoons too. And he ain’t stop there. Most of the towels were gone, only sheets that were left were the ones on our beds.

“Mr. Fluffy need me!”

“Paula, I gotta go.”

“Mama he need me. Gotta find him! He lost!” She whined and whined, making the headache grow bigger and wider across my forehead. “MAMA!”

“Okay baby.”

So, I put it on the list of things to get. List was so long I needed two sheets of paper. Most of the stuff I could get at work, and with my discount, I was thinking it might have been better that way, maybe Ricky did me a favor. He’d robbed me of plenty but maybe it was a blessing in disguise. I was about to buy my own stuff for the first time in my life. And wasn’t like there was anything else for him to take.

T
HAT
WAS
THE
NIGHT
my dreams about Ricky started. He’d come in from the windows, doors, outta my closet even. Sometimes I’d wake up and he’d be standing over me in the dark. Just standing there. Then came the part where I’d run outta my bedroom too scared to scream, run into one of the girls’ rooms but their beds would be empty. I’d run across the hall and that room would be empty too. Always took a few seconds before I realized it was a dream. I’d wake up all outta breath and sweating up the sheets something terrible. Course wasn’t anybody for me to tell about this. I had it in my head that it was some weakness in me that made Ricky have that affect on me. If folks knew, how was they gone love me? They’d just think I was stupid for staying with him long as I did. That I should’ve been stronger from the get-go. So, I kept quiet about it and made sure I always had some coffee and cigarettes on hand.

“Can I have some?” Jackie wiggled her way into my lap. “Can I, Mama? What is it?”

“It’s bitter. You ain’t gone like it.”

But she watched me sip at it, taking in the strong scent of my French roast. “Please. I’ll like it. I will.”

“N’all you won’t. Get some Kool-Aid out the ice box.”

“But I want what you got.”

“Fine. Take a little sip.” I held the cup for her but wasn’t long before I had to give it up. “Slow down now. Guess you like it, huh?”

“Mmhmm. But can I put more sugar in it?”