Rachel and Her Children (10 page)

Erica: “When we hungry and don’t have no food we borrow from each other. Her mother [Raisin’s] give us food. Or else we go to Crisis. In the mornin’ when we wake up we have a banana or a cookie. If the bus ain’t late we have our breakfast in the school. What I say to President Reagan: Give someone a chance! I believe he be a selfish man. Can’t imagine how long he been president.”

Raisin: “Be too long.”

Angie: “Teacher tell us this be a democracy. I don’t know. I doubt it. Rich people, couldn’t they at least give us a refund?”

Raisin: “This man say his son be gettin’ on his nerves. He beat his little son ’bout two years old. A wooden bat. He beat him half to death. They took him to the hospital and at five-thirty he was dead. A little boy. [Interrupted.] Let me talk!”

Erica: “The little boy. He locked himself into the bathroom. He was scared. After he died police came and his father went to jail. His mother, she went to the store.”

Raisin, in a tiny voice: “People fight in here and I don’t like it. Why do they do it? ’Cause they’re sad. They fight over the world. I ain’t finished!”

Erica: “One time they was two cops in the hall. One cop pulled his gun and he was goin’ shoot me. He said did I live there? I said no. So I came home.”

Raisin: “I was in this lady room. She be cryin’ because her baby died. He had [mispronounced] pneumonia. He was unconscious and he died.” Soft voice: “Tomorrow is my birthday.”

The children are tended by a friend. In the other bedroom, Rachel, who is quieter now, paces about and finally sits down.

“Do you know why there’s no carpet in the hall? If
there was a carpet it would be on fire. Desperate people don’t have no control. You have to sleep with one eye open. Tell the truth, I do not sleep at night.

“Before we lived here we were at the Forbell shelter [barracks shelter on Forbell Street in Brooklyn]. People sleep together in one room. You sleep across. You have to dress in front of everybody. Men and women. When you wake, some man lookin’ at you puttin’ on your clothes. Lookin’ at your children too. Angelina, she be only twelve years old …

“There’s one thing. My children still are pure. They have a concept of life. Respect for life. But if you don’t get ’em out of here they won’t have anything for long. If you get ’em out right now. But if you don’t … My girls are innocent still. They are unspoiled. Will they be that way for long? Try to keep ’em in the room. But you can’t lock ’em up for long.

“When we moved here I was forced to sign a paper. Everybody has to do it. It’s a promise that you will not cook inside your room. So we lived on cold bologna. Can you feed a child on that? God forgive me but nobody shouldn’t have to live like this. I can’t even go downstairs and get back on the elevator. Half the time it doesn’t work. Since I came into this place my kids begun to get away from me.”

There’s a crucifix on the wall. I ask her: “Do you pray?”

“I don’t pray! Pray for what? I been prayin’ all my life and I’m still here. When I came to this hotel I still believed in God. I said: ‘Maybe God can help us to survive.’ I lost my faith. My hopes. And everything. Ain’t nobody—no God, no Jesus—gonna help us in no way.

“God forgive me. I’m emotional. I’m black. I’m in a blackness. Blackness is around me. In the night I’m scared to sleep. In the mornin’ I’m worn out. I don’t eat no breakfast.
I don’t drink no coffee. If I eat, I eat one meal a day. My stomach won’t allow me. I have ulcers. I stay in this room. I hide. This room is safe to me. I am afraid to go outside.

“If I go out, what do I do? People drink. Why do they drink? A person gets worn out. They usin’ drugs. Why they use drugs? They say: ‘Well, I won’t think about it now.’ Why not? You ain’t got nothin’ else to do, no place to go. ‘Where I’m gonna be tomorrow or the next day?’ They don’t know. All they know is that they don’t have nothin’. So they drink. And some of them would rather not wake up. Rather be dead. That’s right.

“Most of us are black. Some Puerto Rican. Some be white. They suffer too. Can you get the government to know that we exist? I know that my children have potential. They’re intelligent. They’re smart. They need a chance. There’s nothin’ wrong with them for now. But not for long. My daughter watches junkies usin’ needles. People smokin’ crack in front a them. Screwin’ in front a them. They see it all. They see it everywhere. What is a man and woman gonna do when they are all in the same room?

“I met a girl the other day. She’s twelve years old. Lives on the fourteenth floor. She got a baby the same age as mine. Her mother got five children of her own. I don’t want my daughter havin’ any baby. She’s a child. Innocent. Innocent. No violence. She isn’t bitter. But she’s scared. You understand? This is America. These children growin’ up too fast. We have no hope. And you know why? Because we all feel just the same way deep down in our hearts. Nowhere to go … I’m not a killer. My kids ain’t no killers. But if they don’t learn to kill they know they’re goin’ to die.

“They didn’t go to school last week. They didn’t have clean clothes. Why? Because the welfare messed my check. It’s supposed to come a week ago. It didn’t come. I get my check today. I want my kids to go to school. They shouldn’t
miss a day. How they gonna go to school if they don’t got some clothes? I couldn’t wash. I didn’t have the money to buy food.

“Twice the welfare closed my case. When they do it you are s’posed to go for a fair hearing. Take some papers, birth certificates. So I went out there in the snow. Welfare worker wasn’t there. They told me to come back. Mister, it ain’t easy to be beggin’. I went to the Crisis. And I asked her, I said, ‘Give me somethin’ for the kids to eat. Give me
somethin’!
Don’t turn me away when I am sittin’ here in front of you and askin’ for your help!’ She said she had nothin’. So my kids went out into the street. That’s right! Whole night long they was in Herald Square panhandlin’. Made five dollars. So we bought bologna. My kids is good to me. We had bread and bologna.

“Welfare, they are not polite. They’re personal. ‘Did you do this? Did you do that? Where your husband at?’ Understand me? ’Cause they sittin’ on the other side of this here desk, they think we’re stupid and we do not understand when we’re insulted. ‘Oh, you had another baby?’ Yeah! I had another baby! What about it? Are you goin’ to kill that baby? I don’t say it, but that’s what I feel like sayin’. You learn to be humble.

“I’m here five miserable months. So I wonder: Where I’m goin’? Can’t the mayor give us a house? A part-time job? I am capable of doin’
somethin’
.

“You go in the store with food stamps. You need Pampers. You’re not s’posed to use the stamps for Pampers. Stores will accept them. They don’t care about the law. What they do is make you pay a little extra. They know you don’t have no choice. So they let you buy the Pampers for two dollars extra.

“Plenty of children livin’ here on nothin’ but bread and bologna. Peanut butter. Jelly. Drinkin’ water. You buy milk. I bought one gallon yesterday. Got
this
much left.
They drink it fast. Orange juice, they drink it fast. End up drinkin’ Kool-Aid.

“Children that are poor are used like cattle. Cattle or horses. They are owned by welfare. They know they are bein’ used—for what? Don’t
use
them! Give ’em somethin’!

“In this bedroom I’m not sleepin’ on a bed. They won’t give me one. You can see I’m sleepin’ on a box spring. I said to the manager: ‘I need a bed instead of sleepin’ on a spring.’ Maid give me some blankets. Try to make it softer.”

The Bible by her bed is opened to the Twenty-third Psalm.

“I do believe. God forgive me. I believe He’s there. But when He sees us like this, I am wonderin’ where is He? I am askin’: Where the hell He gone?

“Before they shipped us here we lived for five years in a basement. Five years in a basement with no bathroom. One small room. You had to go upstairs two floors to use the toilet. No kitchen. It was fifteen people in five rooms. Sewer kept backing up into the place we slept. Every time it flooded I would have to pay one hundred dollars just to get the thing unstuck. There were all my children sleepin’ in the sewage. So you try to get them out and try to get them somethin’ better. But it didn’t get no better. I came from one bad place into another. But the difference is this is a place where I cannot get out.

“If I can’t get out of here I’ll give them up. I have asked them: ‘Do you want to go away?’ I love my kids and, if I did that, they would feel betrayed. They love me. They don’t want to go. If I did it, I would only do it to protect them. They’ll live anywhere with me. They’re innocent. Their minds are clean. They ain’t corrupt. They have a heart. All my kids love people. They love life. If they got a dime, a piece of bread, they’ll share it. Letting them panhandle made me cry. I had been to welfare, told the lady
that my baby ain’t got Pampers, ain’t got nothin’ left to eat. I got rude and noisy and it’s not my style to do that but you learn that patience and politeness get you nowhere.

“When they went out on the street I cried. I said: ‘I’m scared. What’s gonna happen to them?’ But if they’re hungry they are goin’ to do
something
. They are gonna find their food from somewhere. Where I came from I was fightin’ for my children. In this place here I am fightin’ for my children. I am tired of fightin’. I don’t want to fight. I want my kids to live in peace.

“I was thinkin’ about this. If there was a place where you could sell part of your body, where they buy an arm or somethin’ for a thousand dollars, I would do it. I would do it for my children. I would give my life if I could get a thousand dollars. What would I lose? I lived my life. I want to see my children grow up to live theirs.

“A lot of women do not want to sell their bodies. This is something that good women do not want to do. I will sell mine. I
will
. I will solicit. I will prostitute if it will feed them.”

I ask: “Would you do it?”

“Ain’t no ‘would I?’ I would do it.” Long pause … “Yes. I
did
.

“I had to do it when the check ain’t come. Wasn’t no one gonna buy my arm for any thousand dollars. But they’s plenty gonna pay me twenty dollars for my body. What was my choice? Leave them out there on the street, a child like Angelina, to panhandle? I would take my life if someone found her dead somewhere. I would go crazy. After she did it that one time I was ashamed. I cried that night. All night I cried and cried. So I decided I had one thing left. In the mornin’ I got up out of this bed. I told them I was goin’ out. Out in the street. Stand by the curb. It was a cold day. Freezin’! And my chest is bad. I’m
thirty-eight years old. Cop come by. He see me there. I’m standin’ out there cryin’. Tells me I should go inside. Gives me three dollars. ‘It’s too cold to be outside.’ Ain’t many cops like that. Not many people either …

“After he’s gone a man come by. Get in his car. Go with him where he want. Takin’ a chance he crazy and he kill me. Wishin’ somehow that he would.

“So he stop his car. And I get in. I say a price. That’s it. Go to a room. It’s some hotel. He had a lot of money so he rented a deluxe. Asked me would I stay with him all night. I tell him no I can’t ’cause I have kids. So, after he done … whatever he did … I told him that I had to leave. Took out a knife at me and held it at my face. He made me stay. When I woke up next day I was depressed. Feel so guilty what I did. I feel real scared. I can understand why prostitutes shoot drugs. They take the drugs so they don’t be afraid.

“When he put that knife up to my throat, I’m thinkin’ this: What is there left to lose? I’m not goin’ to do any better in this life. If I be dead at least my kids won’t ever have to say that I betrayed them. I don’t like to think like that. But when things pile up on you, you do. ‘I’m better if I’m dead.’

“So I got me twenty dollars and I go and buy the Pampers for the baby and three dollars of bologna and a loaf of bread and everyone is fed.

“That cross of Jesus on the wall I had for seven years. I don’t know if I believe or not. Bible say that Jesus was God’s son. He died for us to live here on this earth. See, I believe—Jesus was innocent. But, when He died, what was it for? He died for nothin’. Died in vain. He should a let us die like we be doin’—we be dyin’ all the time. We dyin’ every day.

“God forgive me. I don’t mean the things I say. God
had one son and He gave His son. He gave him up. I couldn’t do it. I got four. I could not give any one of them. I couldn’t do it. God could do it. Is it wrong to say it? I don’t know if Jesus died in vain.”

She holds the Bible in her hands. Crying softly. Sitting on the box spring in her tangled robe.

“They laid him in a manger. Right? Listen to me. I didn’t say that God forsaken us. I am confused about religion. I’m just sayin’ evil overrules the good. So many bad things goin’ on. Lot of bad things right here in this buildin’. It’s not easy to believe. I don’t read the Bible no more ’cause I don’t find no more hope in it. I don’t believe. But yet and still … I know these words.” She reads aloud: “‘Lie down in green pastures … leadeth me beside still waters … restores my soul … I shall not want.’

“All that I want is somethin’ that’s my own. I got four kids. I need four plates, four glasses, and four spoons. Is that a lot? I know I’m poor. Don’t have no bank account, no money, or no job. Don’t have no nothin’. No foundation. Then and yet my children have a shot in life. They’re innocent. They’re pure. They have a chance.” She reads: “‘I shall not fear …’ I fear! A long, long time ago I didn’t fear. Didn’t fear for nothin’. I said God’s protectin’ me and would protect my children. Did He do it?

“Yeah. I’m walkin’. I am walkin’ in the wilderness. That’s what it is. I’m walkin’. Did I tell you that I am an ex–drug addict? Yeah. My children know it. They know and they understand. I’m walkin’. Yeah!”

The room is like a chilled cathedral in which people who do not believe in God ask God’s forgiveness. “How I picture God is like an old man who speaks different languages. His beard is white and He has angels and the instruments they play are white and everything around is white and there is no more sickness, no more hunger for
nobody. No panhandlin’. No prostitutes. No drugs. I had a dream like that.