The Heart of Revenge (12 page)

“Ice cream can't hold mi, that little toops
of ice-cream would’ve just drop one-side in one well in mi belly.”
She began to turn her head of false hair towards me. “If mi did
ever walk through your cream lastnight you would’ve stay anywhere
you at and feel it, ’cause is the whole box of cream mi would’ve
brush off clean and lick out the plastic bag.” She looked right in
my eyes and blinked once and the whole demeanour on her face
changed to a jovial one. “You can stay there, is a empty box you
would’ve come see lock up back well neat in the fridge like it
don’t touch yet.” She spanned the wiry smirk on her face. “You must
thank God mi never go in the freezer, hsst ...you lucky yaah.” I
was just standing at her open door, glaring at her in disgust, she
fanned me off and said, “Go bathe your skin and move from mi door
with your dirty hands them...” The pupil of her eyes went to the
brown mud spots on her white door, mi never want she spot them
enuh. “Look how you dirty up mi door ... You going to shine it off
back with piece of wet cloth, you know that.”

I didn’t move. She continued to run me from
infront her doorway,

“Think is school this that you always don't
want go. Is your sister wedding. Go bathe and make sure you wash
out your arm pit them good.” I still didn’t move. She longed out
her neck towards me and asked “Is what? Stop act like a mawma-man
and a murmur-murmur over the little drop of cream and ...” Then her
voice deepened into a base tone, lips visibly pronounced every
word, eyebrows went to the top of her forehead as she bawled out
"GO BATHEEE!”

“You talking like is mi never want go
school.”

“Stop take me for bighead bird, mi head might
big yes but mi not fool-fool, mi know is plenty time you use your
heart make excuse to don't go no school.”

Pinky turned her back to me. I slowly
released the squeeze of my hands, a flake of mud crust fell from my
hand to Pinky’s burgundy carpet, I simmered my words in a gravy of
thoughts before parting my teeth,

“Maybe ... Its ...” I added more thought,
“Maybe I was depressed. Depression. Sometimes mi heart, mi mean,
like inside is just ... I can’t describe it. But I know when I wake
up to my heart’s beating and it feels like a bad thing...” I looked
to the fluffy carpet and the brown flakes of mud that fell there,
“Mi not happy. I don’t want to hear my heart beating.” I quietly
bent and picked the flake of mud from the carpet, held it in my
muddy hand, gazed at it. “Well maybe scared, maybe mi scared, you
know.”

“Scared of what?”

“Dying.”

Pinky turned to face me, the scent of her
room was clearer now; it was a chemical, the raw acidic scent of
her yellow bleaching cream. She rubbed up with it every morning as
she wake up. My body lost its anger and so too, lost its
liveliness. The same feeling began to wrap me that I had most
mornings, the mornings when I told Mom I didn’t want to go to
school. The feeling to be alive but dead. Inside had no life.
Inside has an overgrown red hearse. I hated to feel it pumping
blood.

I wanted to block out all I had heard. I
hated that Dr. Reid played God, telling me when I would die. How
much longer mi have to live. Mi wish mi never know anything, let mi
live without this worry ’bout dying haunting me, menacing me and
killing me before I go. I wake up every morning thinking of it. And
with all the expensive drugs I took, I was getting worse and worse
and worse. What Dr. Reid predicted as age thirty-six was now age
twenty one, months away, six months away, just in time for Merry
Christmas. I wished Christmas never comes, but everyday it’ was
racing closer, the distance of my death getting shorter, driving up
closer to me, getting bigger and realer as the distance shortened
and came up closer to me, it’s bigger in my vision of reality and I
could see its face pulling closer as the days went by, it’s ugly.
It’s scary. It’s death.

Leelia getting forty thousand U.S. out of
Qwan in itself was a next issue. Even though mi don’t really agree
to Mom sending Leelia at fourteen and courting Lee over the years
into seducing a big old twenty-one year old Qwan. The truth was, if
she never do it, mi would’ve been dead from three years ago. Qwan
was twenty-three and Leelia, the unconsented age of seventeen, when
he yielded to Leelia’s being a little temptress with grown
seductions. Mr. Micheal Douglas’ interference hindered it from
happening much sooner. He didn’t want his son to be with Leelia
from the vibes I saw him giving off. Maybe he hated Leelia or
something.

My sister was underage when Qwan had sex with
her. I hated him with all my heart for that. Later that year, he
gave Leelia two thousand dollars to buy a year’s worth of the
medication I needed to live, and the year after that four thousand.
I wanted to bow and kiss Qwan’s feet for that.

Qwan had been giving Leelia the money for my
medication for three years now. The last amount was four thousand
but now I needed ten times that, forty thousand and I knew that
wasn’t the easiest thing for Leelia to do, plus I knew the reason
why he wouldn’t. I didn't even really want him to do it, if it
wasn’t for her. For her. So now I prayed to God that he did. For
her.

For the feeling I had, depressed was the
wrong word I used before. Scared was wrong too. Hopeless and
helpless nailed it closer to home. Hopeless. And helpless. That’s
what you become. That was how I felt.

There was this dark hollowness I felt, laying
all alone in bed, in the quietest times of dawn, listening to the
haunting beats of my heart. I would wake up to a death drum
beating, the reminder of my death. To fight this feeling of
helplessness, I helped all I could with my hours. It’s the only
medication that truly helped, me helping others. It made me feel
helpful instead of helpless, purposeful instead of no purpose,
worthwhile on this earth instead of worthless. And that’s all I
desired, all that mattered, not fucking one million beautiful
women, no expensive food, no driving around in fast and expensive
cars. I just wanted to help others. That’s all I wanted. That
sedated me.

And I didn't want anybody being sorry for me.
I was not a pity case. Everyone has to die someday. I didn’t need
to burden anyone with mine. I didn’t want Qwan’s money to feel like
a parasite pesting him and his father’s bank account. But if I
should open my heart and speak, I did need his money, not for me,
but because staying alive was being there to father my child, the
person that will need me the most, needed my support, needed a
father, needed me to be alive and be here, my baby, not Mom, nor
any family, my baby. I wanted to stand by my baby in the hardest
times, I want to take my child to school. I didn’t want to die, I
was scared, not for me, for my child.

My shoulders slouched low. I lumbered over to
Pinky’s bed, my mind still in thought, sat beside her on her floral
sheet, some of it dragged off the bed, the slanted end hung
untidily, swaying slightly back and forth right above the furry
fluff of the carpet.

“You not going to dead, stop talking like Dr.
Reid is God. Him can blow breath and shine sun? Him can make big
stone? Him can make mango tree? Him don’t know when you or nobody
gone dead, him trying to do God’s work,” I wanted to believe what
Pinky said, I thought the same thing, but Dr. Reid studied medicine
and heart for years. Pinky studied weed. And if we talking about
God, Pinky didn’t go to church in God’s know how long. And the only
Bible she owned was the one Mom bought from her booklist in grade
seven. Mi doubt Pinky know it’s Genesis start the bible not Psalms.
But Pinky never stopped. She went on to knowledgeably preach about
the Bible and Christianity, “Anything God planned for you, that’s
what going to happen. God won’t let you die. You a good youth. You
is a bigger virgin than Mary. Just trust in father God.”

Looking in outer-space, eyes too focused to
blink, I replied,

“Is not miself mi worrying ’bout.” Pinky went
ahead of me and wrongly assumed it was Mom I was worried about.

“Aubrea live her life already, stop worry
’bout the old foot.”

I stretched my hand to turn on the fan, but
my hands were depressingly muddy, somehow to me it looked like
doctors placed my hands in casts made from mud. My hand fell back
to my side without an ounce of life in it, and from my very low
tone you could tell my mind was still far away as I replied,

“Not Aubrea .... My baby.”

“What?” Pinky clapped her hands together and
bowed forward “Watch here now! You have woman?”

My eyes swung up at Pinky. My mind morphed
back to earth, and I crash-landed back into reality. I said too
much. I should cover this up. But ... You could hear my deep exhale
through my nose, I answered without any urgency,

“Yeah.”

“How mi never see you with her yet? What she
name? Which part she live? Talk the things.”

“Just chill nuh.” I realised she took my baby
to mean a girlfriend I had and not my child. I wiggled my ass on
the mattress to find a more comfortable sit on the bed. “Don’t
worry ’bout that,” You could hear my puffy exhale again and almost
see the puff of wind that jetted through my nose. “Mi just feel it
for her and mi feel it for —-“

Pinky broke off a piece of my sentence when
she gently wrapped my muddy wrist with her clean hands. I stopped
talking, looked down at her hand holding mine. Her fingers firmed
into the underside of my wrist as she got ready to say what she was
thinking,

“Mi can imagine how bad that feel bro. Jah
know. All she must have it hard when you tell her that things gone
to less than a year.”

My mind was dazing off back into thoughts,
outer-space.

“Mi don't tell her yet.”

“Jeesam!” her hand jerked and fingers clamped
tighter into my wrist, “So she don't know yet? ... You must tell
her man. Is what? You ’fraid?” She had sincerity in her voice,
mix-up and vulgarity was absent from her soft tone, just a kind
concern as she advised, “Oh God! You must tell her. Mi would prefer
to know if mi was your girlfriend.” Her hand tugged mine closer to
hers, “Big man thing Vance, tell her.”

I lifted her hand off mine.

“You nastying up your hand.” She grabbed on
back to my wrist, and with her feisty attitude her words pounced
out her quiet demeanour at me,

“Water take off mud!” Her voice descended
back or more like transcended to being angelic soft, she leaned her
head down and to me, trying to look into the eyes of my bowed
head,

“You gone tell her right?” Her index finger
hooked under my chin and pulled it up into her stare, “Vance. Tell
her ... She deserve to know if you care about the girl.”

“Mi don’t want it burden her down especially
with the baby.”

“Which baby?” Her hands flew off mine, tilted
her entire body away from me, her eyelids crumpled.

Inside me felt different, more than panicky,
there was an inner body effect happening in me. It wasn’t good. My
heart was racing, needles sticking, twitches in my heart, my heart
tightening and every thud my heart made jerked my chest outside my
body. Heart Attack. Stiffness. Heart wringing on needles. Heart
slowly failing. Fighting. My muddy hand grabbed my brown naked
chest, wishing I could shove my hand through my chest and squeeze
my heart to stop the ache, squeeze it to stop the stabs, the
twitches. I utter a soft,

“Uh.” The beat slowed down,

‘Bo-dum ... Bo-dum.’

‘Bo-dum.’

I glanced up at Pinky, the skin of my face
contorted in a twist of agony. Her hand dashed around my shoulder,
she pulled me closer, her hands were not steady, shaking,
trembling.

“Vance is what? You alright?” My heart was
returning to normal heartbeats,

‘Bo-dum, bo-dum, bo-dum.’

I swallowed, looked up, spoke cheerily,

“Yeah man, mi good, is not nothing.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah man. Mi gone bathe and go get ready
now.”

Mi get up from the bed and walked to the
door. This strange, the mud splashes on the door looked a lot more
now than when I was standing there. The scent of the yellow-green
bleaching cream was always in the room but now its returning to my
consciousness. My heart still a little tight and sticking,
sticking, sticking me. Pins. Needles. Chest pain. I was use to the
feeling. Hated it.

“Vance you can breed nobody though?” I
stopped walking; my belly squirmed. I remembered all I ate since
morning was the Julie mango and June plum Ms. Merl gave me. The
Julie mango was so sweet, mi eat the seed till it turn white,
white, white before mi throw it away. I still hadn’t ate my
breakfast yet,

“She pregnant?” My hearted jumped. Pinky’s
question was adding more tension to the tight strings in my heart.
I increased the pace of my walk to the door, answering Pinky with
nothing but silence.

“Vance! Little boy, answer mi nuh. She
pregnant?”

I kept walking, my head spinning like a CD on
repeat, dizzy. I replied,

“Mi gone get ready. Mi late.” I exited
through the door, closed her mud-splashed door and turned down the
long baby blue corridor, no shirt and muddy hands. I heard Pinky’s
shout,

“Is pregnant she pregnant Vance? ... Who you
breed?”

by: Leelia Lexings

The sky was a wide sea of blue, sprinkled
with swirling strips of white cotton candy. The wooden door to
enter the church must have been made that big to let through a Mack
truck. Both sides of the door were wide open welcomingly, letting
in the bright afternoon light. The gigantic windows were letting in
square packages of sunlight into the church. I have this beautiful,
clean, serene feeling when I am in a church. And today I felt like
a filthy gutter.

The wooden cross above the window reminded me
that God is here with me, I could feel his presence in the cool
breeze blowing. The wind seeped through the huge willow tree
outside with a hollow ‘wooooeee’ sound into the church.