Another girl with swole junkie hands, sores, and shit say, "Put your bags in bed with you."
I'm bress feeding Abdul. He cry. He wet. He seem like little rat or cat. I know some things to do for him but I get scared when he cough throw up. He is only seven days old. He could die.
Woman, big woman, bigger than me and old—
she around forty, come up 'n snatch blanket off my cot. Remind me of Mama, the red light in her eye, the way her hair stick up. What I'm spozed to do; my pussy feel torn apart in pieces, my lower back pain me, my bresses is leaking milk, my bra wet and not smell nice, and maniac done snatched my blanket.
"Give the kid back her blanket," lady wif junkie sores on her arm say.
"Fuck you," maniac say, "I ain' giving back shit."
I jus' take off sheet that's on top the plastic-covered mattress and wrap it around Abdul, then I wrap myself around Abdul and hunker down on that cold plastic. I wish they would turn the lights out. But they don't. I go to sleep anyway. When I wake up bags with my stuff gone, one of my shoes the laces is untied. Maybe that's what wake me up, them trying to get the shoes off my feet. How many days I lay up in Mama's house thinking nothing could be worse than that. I get up, tie my shoes. These bitches here crazy. I feed Abdul. My body is his breakfast. I gotta get something to eat myself.
I'm at armory not far from hospital. This shit ain'
gonna work. What time is it? Six a.m. Miz West!
Live down the hall from us, stop Mama from kicking me to death when Mongo being born.
She like me. I always did go to the store for her since I was little.
"Precious, bring me back a pack of Winstons and a big bag of pork rinds."
"Yes Miz West."
"Keep the change Precious."
One time she tell me, You ever wanna talk about anything you could come to me.
But I never did. And I don't know her phone number now. How would she get in Mama's house to get my stuff out anyway?
"Breakfast?" dope addict girl say.
"Yeah," I say. Lots of the girlz, womens, is moving toward a door. Some just sit on the bed cots like they in shock or some shit. Dope addict girl point at people moving, say follow them. I do.
Coffee out a steel pitcher, a little box of cornflakes, and a banana. I don't drink coffee. It's almost 7 o'clock.
Fuck it, I go wait for Ms Rain in lobby. Maybe it be one of those days she come in early. I wait there till 8:45 a.m. She is shock when she walk through door and see me sitting on floor of lobby in Hotel Theresa wif Abdul in my arms. I almost forgit about me for a minute, I feel so sorry for her. She just ABC teacher, not no social worker or shit. But where else can I go?
I can tell by Ms Rain's face I'm not gonna be homeless no more. She mumbling cursing about what damn safety net, most basic needs, a newborn child, A NEWBORN CHILD! She going OFF now. Rhonda come in behind her. No class, all of Each One Teach One is on the phone! They calling everybody from Mama to the mayor's office to TV stations! Before this day is up, Ms Rain say, you gonna be living somewhere, as god is my witness. As GOD is my witness!
Thas when Queens shit come up. They wanna send me to 2way house in Queens, immediate opening! NO! What I know about Queens?! They got Arabs, Koreans, Jews, and Jamaicans—all kinda shit me and Abdul don't need to be bothered with. Here, I stay here in Harlem.
Harlem house say they couldn't take me for two weeks. Ms Rain's boss git on phone. She is West Indian woman, don't take no shit. Boyfriend sit on some council. She hang up phone, say, They can take her tomorrow. So they just have to find me a place for tonight. Everyone says I can stay over their house. But you know where I stay? Ms Rain got friend who is caretaker or something at Langston Hughes' house which is not but around the corner, it's city landmark. I SPEND ONE
NIGHT IN LANGSTON HUGHES' HOUSE HE
USED TO LIVE IN. Me and Abdul in the Dream Keeper's house! Day after that, we come here, where I been ever since. Here, at Advancement House, main good thing is they got somebody we can trust to take care of our babies while we go to school for four hours a day, three times a week. Queens, no Ms Rain, no school.
I like my room here. Better than home, Mama's house, I mean. I got bed for me, crib for Abdul.
Dresser drawers, desk, chair, bookcase for my books and Abdul's books. Some of my books is: The Life of Lucy Fern 1 and 2 (it's two books) by Moira Crone
Pat King's Family by Karen McFall
Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad by Ann Petry
Wanted Dead or Alive: The True Story of Harriet Tubman by Ann McGovern
(got two Harriet books!)
Malcolm X by Arnold Adoff
A Piece of Mine by J. California Cooper The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Selected Poems by Langston Hughes
some books Abdul got:
The Black BC's by Lucille Clifton
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
The Story of a Little Mouse Trapped in a Book by Monique Felix
The Boy Who Didn *t Believe in Spring by Lucille Clifton
Hi, Cat! by Ezra Jack Keats
Most of what we got Ms Rain give us. I would like a job, a paycheck—be able to buy what I want when I want it.
We reading The Color Purple in school. Which is really hard for me. Ms Rain try to break it down but most of it I can't read myself. But the rest of the class kinda can, 'cept Rita. But how Ms Rain hook it up I am getting something out the story. I cry cry cry you hear me, it sound in a way so much like myself except I ain' no butch like Celie.
But just when I go to break on that shit, go to tell class what Five Percenters 'n Farrakhan got to say about butches, Ms Rain tell me I don't like homosexuals she guess I don't like her 'cause she one. I was shocked as shit. Then I jus' shut up. Too bad about Farrakhan. I still believe allah and stuff. I guess I still believe everything. Ms Rain say homos not who rape me, not homos who let me sit up not learn for sixteen years, not homos who sell crack fuck Harlem. It's true. Ms Rain the one who put the chalk in my hand, make me queen of the ABCs.
Oh, I not tell you that! Every year mayor's office give awards to outstanding students in literacy programs. Well, this year, 1988, it was me. After I get in 2way house (which turn out to be only way cool 'cause some of the bitches there is Sick with a capital S (capital letter is how you start off sentence or say something with deep shit meaning like Fuck with capital F you mad or some shit like that!). But like I said the good thing, the real good thing, about 2way house is it in Harlem so I could keep going to school easy.
So anyway by February I'm pretty settled in Advancement House. So I work all spring, memorizing letter sounds, writing in journal, reading books. I have read Pat King's Family
'bout white woman whose husband abuse 'n abandon her. I have read Ain Nobodi Gon' Turn Me 'Round 'bout civil rights. I ain' know black people in this country went through shit like that.
But thas the deal here in cracker jack city as Farrakhan say. So anyway I made so much progress I won award. Literacy Award. I get it September of 1988. Ms Rain wanted to give it to me even before then. She say she had wanted to give it to me after I come back from Abdul being born and homeless 'n stuff. But director say, Well, we got other students who deserve it, let's see if Precious got staying power.
So I get award from mayor's office, money ($75) from Each One Teach One, and class have a party for me.
Things going good in my life, almost like The Color Purple. Abdul nine months old, walkingl Smart smart. He smart. I been reading to him since day he was born damn near. I love The Color Purple, that book give me so much strength. Ms Rain say a group of black men wanted to stop movie from the book. Say unfair picture of nigger men. She ax me what do J
think. Unfair picture? Unfortunately it a picture I know, except of course Farrakhan who is real man. But I never seen him 'cept on videos! He say problem is not crack but the cracker! I go for that shit.
Ms Rain say one of the critcizsm of The Color Purple is it have fairy tale ending. I would say, well shit like that can be true. Life can work out for the best sometimes. Ms Rain love Color Purple too but say realism has its virtues too.
Izm, smizm! Sometimes I wanna tell Ms Rain shut up with all the IZM stuff. But she my teacher so I don't tell her shut up. I don't know what
"realism" mean but I do know what REALITY is and it's a mutherfucker, lemme tell you.
Mama come to 2way house. (What is J4way house? I thought I already told you. But anyway I tell you from book I read about battered woman.
In a way I was a battered woman but I was not a woman—actually I was a chile. And it wasn't my husband. I don't have a husband. It was my muver.) But anyway, I never readed no book about a place for children, jus' for grown-up women (in a way I am that too) and babies. But this book I was reading was about a woman who got beat up by her husband. And she escape to
#way house. She asks people at the place just what 2way house is. They tell her, You is busy between the life you had and the life you want to have. Ain't that nice. You should read that book if you have a chance.
So I'm in 2way house, I been there, oh, not quite a year; like in book I read—I'm on threshold of stepping out into my new life, an apartment for me, Abdul, and maybe Little Mongo, we see on that one, mo' education, new friends. I done left Mama, Daddy, Ms Lichenstein, I.S. 146 behind.
So I'm wondering what hoe want wif me. Can't get no money. I went see about Little Mongo back when I first get in Advancement House.
They put her in institution, say she severely (mean real) retarded, and Toosie hadn't been doing things that would help her—like colors on the wall and books 'n shit, so she really in bad shape. They say even if she could be help, take a lot more than me to help, and ain't I got full load with Abdul.
Anyway live-in social worker at Advancement House call me into office, say, Precious, your mother is here to see you. Ax me do I want to see her. I say OK. (It's not like I want to see her but since she corned all this way here I will see her. She know better, I think, than to fuck wif me now.)
I walk in dayroom. Mama quiet. Mama look bad, don't have to get close to know she smell bad.
But then I look Mama and see my face, my body, my color—we bofe big, dark. Am I ugly? Is Mama ugly? I'm not sure. I know she got pussy odor and ugly brogan shoes like people make fun of and giant green dress that her legs come out of like black jelly elephant legs. I'm ashamed, this is my Mama. No matter how fly my braids is, how I grease my skin, scalp, no matter how many jew'ries, this is my mother.
Mama don't look me in eye. She never did 'less she was shouting on me or telling me what to do
—cook her something or go to store. She look down say, "Your daddy dead." She come out the house to tell me that! So what! I'm glad the nigger's dead. No, I don't mean that, but so what.
Mama quiet. Mama say, "Carl had the AIDS
virus.''
You know, so what, why you telling me. Then oh!
No! Oh no, I get all squozen inside. Carl fuckes me. I could be done have it. Abdul could be—oh no, I can't even say nuffin'.
A long time I don't say nuffin', jus' look at Mama.
This what I come out of? Like Abdul and Little Mongo come out of me. If she ever said a kind word to me I don't remember it. Sixteen years I live in her house without knowing how to read.
Since I was little her husband fuck me beat me.
My daddy. I want to hate him— but it's funny I, he, give me the only good thing in my life aside from Ms Rain, ABCs, and girls at school; Abdul come from him, my son, my brother. But Mama give me to him. This my mother. Carl come in the night, take food, what money they is, fuck us bofe. Something cross my mind now. Man rape Celie turn out not to be her daddy.
"Mama?"
She look over where I'm at.
ʻYo' huzbn, Carl, my real daddy?" I ask.
"What chu mean?"
"Carl, was he my real daddy? Was you married to him for real?"
"He your daddy, couldn't no one else be your daddy. I was with him since since I was sixteen. I never been with nobody else. We not married though, he got a wife though, a real wife, purty light-skin woman he got two kids by."
Hmmm, they got special kinda AIDS for yellow bitches? Mama! Thought jus' now hit me, don't know why, it the most obvious—do Mama got it?
"You got it?" I ask.
"No."
"How you know?"
"We never did, you know—"
I look at Mama like she fucking crazy! What she talking about?
"You know," she repeat. "What you got to do to get it."
"He never fuck you," I say shock.
"Oh yeah," she say. "But not like faggots, in the ass and all, so I know—"
Her voice trail off, stupid bitch. I'm jus' staring at her. I wanna kill her. I remember what I know from AIDS Awareness Day at school. Look at Mama, say, "You better get tested."
That's all really I got to say. Mama look at me like she wanna say something.
"You welcome back home," she say.
"I home here," I say. Silence. "Well I guess I better go see 'bout Abdul 'n do homework."
Mama don't move. So, you know, I jus' get up and leave.
Song playing in my head now, not rap. Not TV
colors flashing funny noise pictures in on me, scratching and itching in my brain at the same time. I see a color I don't know the name for, maybe one like only another kind of animal thas not human can see. Like butterflies? I ask Ms Rain tomorrow do butterflies see colors. Song caught on me like how plastic bags on tree branches. I sit on my bed. New picture on wall now. I got Alice Walker up there with Harriet Tubman 'n Farrakhan. But she can't help me now. Where my Color Purple} Where my god most high? Where my king? Where my black love? Where my man love? Woman love? Any kinda love? Why me? I don't deserve this. I not crack addict. Why I get Mama for a mama? Why I not born a light-skin dream? Why? Why? It's a movie, splashing like swimming pool at Y, in my head. I see Abdul running away from me, he is like little animal running toward a cliff, I am running running too, all over is clowns with evil eyes laffing at me I can't run fast enuff, the music is playing louder now I going off cliff myself now, maybe I don't come back. Don't see Abdul. A huh! A Huh! I can't breathe! Song loud now real loud. I stop running. It's grass green all aroun'. I listen to song, I can hear it now. It's Aretha. I always did wish she was my mother or Miss Rain or Tina Turner; a mother I be proud of, love me. I breathe in, lay down on my bed. Bed, I remember, I finded for myself when Mama go off on me that last time. Aretha singing, "Gotta find me an angel gotta find me an angel in my liifffe."