narcissism. for the lover in u

why am i the bitch when...

u bit the same hand that fed you ain't that something that a dog would do?

to the water i led u

the same womb that bled 4u

2 kids no kamu sutra

no french kiss too busy learning the art of war

blocking hits u dealt with closed fists trying my luck on your well wishes

never thought i'd be confronting chics while you plotting w/tricks up sleeves & ducking in whips

the cards u dealt u couldn't even play with not a magician...

just a re-niggah how could u threaten to pull the trigger on a life giver?

but i'm bitter?

so i figure all things done in the dark are brought to light but I'm quicker I felt it coming in the air of the night so I was slicker already knew their names and addresses...

before they even saw my profile picture while they fell for the bait,

i was fixin' to shaaaaave mister...

dodging child support cases been so long since u seen em'...can't even remember their faces?

now u want mementos searching for yourself within their photos

so maybe u can walk around and get props and kudos?

or even bragging rights i suppose

I finally found peace so I doze while you froze up...

like the ice you shouldn't have hoe'd up...

should've posted up and took the challenge but your ego had you blown up...

that same shyt you say I'm on I guess

I'm wrong for finally giving you the dial tone

but God blesses the child whose got his or her own...

School of Hard Knocks [part three]

Photographed, fingerprinted...everything I'd heard about the inside of a jail cell was true...the discomfort, the ice cold temperature, the police officers nonchalant attitude and sarcasm, mocking my freedom on the other side of the bars...

"If someone doesn't come and get you sooner or later, we're going to have to take you to the county jail," the officers taunted.

I contacted "Colletti" who I'm sure had contacted my mother and by now, I wasn't sure how or when I was ever getting out of jail. It was getting late, very late. I was loosing my resolve, hoping that once I got "inside" I could use the "name game" and perhaps make a few friends based off of the associations I made thanks to my mother's many moves around the city. I was wondering what it would be like being the new chic on the block amongst real criminals.

"What you in for?"

"Ummm...failure to complete community service..."

Ain't this a bitch...I mumbled to myself.

No, this wasn't like the time I got caught shoplifting in the 5th grade at Walgreen's for stealing a pencil sharpener, a hair barrette and bubble gum...to which my mother somehow beat me senseless while I sat in the backseat as she drove at the same time.

No, this wasn't like that time when I had the bright idea a few years prior that me and 2 of my friends should go into the department store and steal underwear. We were lucky that one of the security guards knew my girls older cousin. We laughed as the security guard spoke with him over the phone about how I had stolen "goofy draws". Yes, underwear with "Goofy" printed on them. After that, I vowed to never get caught and had gotten so good at stealing that I used to walk into a store with their brand of an empty shopping bag and walk right out of the front door with it full of items I had just picked off of the shelf.

I weighed 117 lbs and at the time, had painted acrylic nails with my weave done up extra nice...definitely not county jail material. I was horrified and now wishing I had completed the stupid community service.

I pulled my Washington Redskins jersey over my knees and curled up into a ball while laying on the cold, steel, bench until I got word that someone had finally sprung me loose. But who was it? Maybe "Kent" had gotten out before me and gathered the money together with "Colletti".

The "paperwork" took forever and finally when it was all said and done, I was released into the care of "Aunt Shug" and "Uncle Black". "Aunt Shug" and "Uncle Black" were old school, they lived by the book, (the good book) and held no punches. They weren't really my aunt and uncle but more or less took on that title because of their long lasting friendship with my mother, they practically all grew up together. They were a jazzy couple, most importantly, a jazzy, married, Black couple with 2 young boys, something I wasn't used to seeing...a Black family intact.

How much time had I done?

An excruciating 8 hours.

"What type of birds can't fly?"

"Huh?"

"What type of birds can't fly?" My aunt repeated smiling at me.

"I don't know." I was confused.

"Jailbirds." They laughed.

I received a long lecture about how I needed to make changes in my life and how my mother didn't need the extra stress since she was so ill. But the final blow was how they had spoken with the "Colletti's" and they now refused to take me back in. We were on our way to gather my things and I was to now move in with "Aunt Shug" and "Uncle Black" much further North and even further away from "Kent".

----------------------------------------------------

That was the first time I ever rode in a Benz. I was amazed to hear "Uncle Black" talk so highly of me to the "Colletti's". I sat and watched him and my aunt sit at the table with them as I walked in and out of the house, loading my things into the car, they reminded me of The Huxtables.

Transitioning into my new home was difficult. There were more rules, of course, my motto remained: rules are meant to be broken. However, "Uncle Black" and "Aunt Shug" were a different breed. Before leaving the house every day, everyone would stand at the door and pray. I was instructed for the first time on how a lady was to carry herself and by a man who referred to his wife as the prototype.

"When my wife was your age, she kept a job, kept money in her pocket, kept her hair done, you want to have you own things so you can take care of yourself how you want to." He sounded fair.

Uncle Black took me up to a local McDonald's where one of his friends who privately owned it, gave me a job. He helped me open my first bank account and when it was time to introduce him to "Kent" he was livid.

"That White boy is not allowed in my house."

"What?" I was horrified.

"Kent" made a way out of no way and we began sneaking off together once I was settled, driving his old Cutlass to see me until it practically overheated.

"He looks like trash, probably only coming around because he thinks you come from money."

My uncles words hurt. He didn't know him. But I bit my tongue, perhaps I was a coward, or maybe I was gathering my defense for a better battle.

I was finally finishing my community service, taking The Autobiography of Malcolm X with me for reading during my breaks. I turned 18 in a matter of months and my curfew got extended to 12 midnight, I was making money, able to smoke cigarettes in the house (both aunt and uncle were smokers) and the best part of it all was that "Kent's" best friend "Joe" and his girlfriend "Kristy" were attending college not far from where I lived and had their own apartments off campus.

I was getting comfortable. I soon figured out a way to hustle money from my job. While working the drive-thru, if a customer gave me exact change, I wouldn't enter their order. The other workers would hear it on their headsets, bag it up and send it out the window and I would pocket the money. I was making what I made in my 2 weeks paycheck within 2 or 3 days. "Kent" and I were passionate, young and practically made love wherever, whenever and as frequently as possible. Instead of doing my community service, I began showing up, signing in, walking around for an hour or so and then disappearing during the hustle and bustle of the large Veteran's Hospital. After leaving the hospital, I'd hop on a bus and somehow find myself falling asleep on "Kristy's" couch, overwhelmed with fatigue, sleeping for hours and that's when it hit me...

I was pregnant...

and the shit was only beginning to hit the fan.

School of Hard Knocks [part two]

School of Hard Knocks [part one]

"You want me to do what?" I was confused, almost pissed.

"I want you to clean the floors as your punishment for coming in late."

I thought I had heard incorrectly, but "Colletti's" mother was standing in the kitchen looking at me firm, and deep into my eyes enunciating her words so I could understand.

I chuckled.

"Okay, where's the mop?"

"Oh, we don't use a mop. We get down on our hands and knees and scrub the floors by hand," she said matter-of-factly.

"Say what? Wait. You guys have a maid who comes and cleans up every week. I have never seen her scrubbing the floors by hand. Hell, I've never even seen you scrubbing the floors by hand." I was finally pissed.

All I had to do was scrub the floors, but for me, it was a direct stab at the heart of my huge amount of pride and disrespect for authority. Not to mention she was a White woman and I was a young Black girl who was directed to scrub her floors.

"Colletti" would drop me off with "Kent" or he would pick me up and she would cover for me if it had ever gotten too late by picking me up and going in the house with me. But finally, her mother had had enough. With my mother hundreds of miles away, my friend's parents were trying their best to make sure I didn't get into any trouble.

I began ditching school and spending more and more time with "Kent". Although he was in college, he shared an apartment with 2 other guys and lived off of campus. There were constant parties going on at his place, mostly filled with High School seniors (such as myself) and other college folks. Everyone around me seemed to be independent and free to come and go as they pleased. "Colletti" had her GED, a car and a job. I had made up my mind without informing anyone else: I was done with school and unbeknownst to me, I was becoming a nuisance for a family who had taken on more than they'd realized.

There was something about a car filled with young White and Black people together that always triggered a weird reaction from the police. "Kent" was always getting pulled over:

"Music is too loud"

"Okay officer."

"You can't have that hanging from your rear view"

"Okay officer."

"Are you in possession of any illegal substances?"

"No officer."

However, "Kent" did have one very bad habit. He liked to speed and kept many speeding tickets on the books, many unpaid and resulting in having his license revoked. One afternoon, we went for a ride with one of his roommates and his Aunt in the back seat. "Kent" saw the police notice him and make a U-turn in his direction.

"Those police are turning around, I know they are going to pull me over. Aunt "Jackie" I need you to come up here and drive. I have a suspended license." Kent stared into the rear view mirror before finding a place to pull over before the police saw him and returned.

The police officer turned on his lights after "Aunt Jackie" made it to the end of the street. She pulled over to the right as "Kent" and his roommate whispered to one another about how they were both most likely going to jail. We waited as the officer approached the car.

"Why did you get in the driver's seat?" The police officer was standing over "Aunt Jackie's" window peering inside at all of our faces.

"I'm sorry officer, we just came from seeing a friend, been driving a while and he decided he didn't want to drive anymore," said "Aunt Jackie".

The officer asked for her driver's license as well as "Kent's" and he had to admit to not having any license or identification on him. When the officer returned to the car, he handed "Aunt Jackie" her license and asked "Kent" to step out and of course, he explained what we already suspected: there was a warrant out for his arrest. The police officer slapped the cuffs on him and walked him to the back of his vehicle and at that moment another squad car pulled up. The officer walked over to the car and asked me and "Kent's" roommates for our names and dates of birth.

"I know I'm going to jail, I know I'm going to jail...shit!" his roommate chanted in the back seat.

"Shut up, you're not going to jail. You're tripping," I laughed. I didn't have a license, didn't have anything to be worried about. I waited patiently for the officer to return, give us information to where we would be able to bail "Kent" out so we could be on our way.

"Ms. Hall" said the officer.

"Yes..."

"I need you to step out of the car please." The officer stood over the passenger door glaring down at me.

"What? For what?" I shot up in my seat.

"Just step out of the car, now. There is a warrant out for your arrest."

"Oh my God. Why?" I was shocked. I looked into the car where "Kent" was sitting, watching and shaking his head. His lips were moving but no one could hear a sound.

"Failure to complete community service."

I didn't even know that I could get a warrant for failure to complete community service. After crashing my mother's car a second time and taking a traffic light down with me, all I knew was that working in a resale shop with a bunch of boring old folks was blown and I didn't want to do it anymore, so I didn't.

Now my ass was off to jail, with my boyfriend in the next car and my mother in another state.

School of Hard Knocks... [part one]

My mother came through the door after seeing her psychic-medium, clairvoyant friend Harold. He was the one who informed her about the freak nasty boy who wanted to "get in my pants" when I was 12 years old and saved me from losing my virginity for another 2 years.

"What did he say this time mama?" I smirked.

The couches we had were some weird artists attempt at modern surrealism, turquoise, pink and black paint splatters over white fabric. Our living room walls were painted a nice ocean turquoise blue. Some random Rap or R&B video was playing from BET and I starred at her hoping to get some juice. Did he mention me this time? Would she tell me? By now, the year was 1996. We had evolved through the stages of rebellion, my sneaking in early in the morning to awaken to her on top of me in my bed slapping me around, my stealing her car again...crashing it into a pole and having community service (that I didn't finish), my vomiting all over myself in my sleep, and getting thrown out of 2 different schools only to beg my way back in, into a smooth progression of "That girl does whatever the hell she wants to do, I'll be glad when she turns 18 and gets out of my house..." I had 2 years to go.

"Well, he said that next year I was going to get really sick, but I would recover." Mama had a serious look on her face.

"Oh..."

She walked toward her bedroom, stopped in her tracks and turned facing me. She had a habit of wearing these weird leopard print hats, her blond hair neatly tucked underneath, chestnut contact lenses sparkling and said, "Oh, and he said an old man is going to be all over you one day and when he comes around, I am going to be surprised he's coming around for you. He said you were going to be a brickhouse and...well, you just need to get yourself together..."

She was holding back and for whatever reason, I didn't press her. I became immediately ashamed for whatever it was hidden within my future that he had revealed. I was however, excited about becoming a "brickhouse". I was always a skinny 120 lb. twig, drinking milk-shakes thinking it would make me "thicker". That was the last time my mother saw Harold. He passed away shortly after, but looking back I realized he must've jumped over a vast time span with the information he had given her. I wasn't interested in older men, not yet. Older to me back then was maybe 3 years. Maybe he knew he had little time left.

The following year, was the beginning of my senior year in High School. During the end of my Junior year, I fell in love with a cocky, suave, handsome and popular White boy who was now attending college more than 45 miles away. He was the 3rd White boy who started to come around and my mother had gotten worried.

"You need to be careful with those White boys. I don't know whatchu' doing with them. But, if one of them hears that you are down with em' the rest of em' may be getting curious and that's all it is..."

Truth be told, 2 out of 3 were really crazy about me and only 1 of them was just experimenting. I could always tell, they (the serious ones) brought me home to their mothers despite my "ethnic" hairdo's and bright orange acrylic nails and perhaps I was doing some experimenting of my own. They were never really my real boyfriends, not until I met "Kent". Everyone called him "Clark Kent" because he wore contact lenses, but occasionally he would put on his glasses around friends and they were thick like bottle caps. He was the all-American White boy who was good at every sport in High School, captain of the Football team, passed the basketball right along to the brothas who were dunking on other schools, brothas who were now his college roommates. He used to panic if he lost a contact lens and had to wear his glasses out for a few hours. But, when he took them off, it was like an amazing transformation on one of those makeover shows. Deep in my mothers heart she knew "Kent" was different from the rest of them.

My mother became sick, so sick she needed to move to another state so that my sister could care for her. I was devastated. I had just began to soften a little bit. I was adding more dresses and dress shoes to my wardrobe, abandoning the baggy pants and Jordans eventhough my look could still have used some extra feminine flare, I was working on it. I was settling in a little, and as always, the moment I began to get comfortable, devastation and change would always hit me like a ton of bricks.

"But Mama, I don't want to leave. Can't I just stay here and finish my senior year?"

I had an Italian friend whose parents said it would be cool to let me stay with them for the remainder of the year. "Colletti" was already out of school, 18 years old, working and loved to party. What I didn't understand was that, since I would be living with "Colletti" I would have to follow her parents rules. Rules were always meant to be broken in my opinion and who would tell me what to do now that my mother was hundreds of miles away from Chicago, in Virginia?

"Take care of my baby." My mother looked into "Kent's" eyes as we watched her begin boarding her plane for Norfolk, Virginia.

He tried.

That next year I discovered The Autobiography of Malcolm X, jail, the taste of homelessness, my pregnancy with our daughter...and his racist family...

School of Hard Knocks [part two]

A Mother's Nightmare

It's 5:56 am Eastern Standard Time and I've been awake for maybe 20 minutes. I've never been awaken by a dream like this before, not that I can remember. However, I understand if I may have pushed something like this into the back of my mind to erase it. I had to get out of bed and release this energy, push it out through my fingertips.

So many of my dreams (about 70%) have been prophetic and that's what scares me the most. Many of the details of a dream will play out differently, but I'll always be able to make a connection. If the events of a dream do not take place in my life, I may find that I'll turn on the news and see them occurring somewhere.

-------------------------------------

I dreamed that for a while, I was somehow in church. This right away was odd because, I haven't been in anyone's church in several years. To the left of me women were singing. It was the typical church setting: women and men dressed to the "nines" and folks praying under their breath, others shouting. When service was over, people began mingling. I can't remember who I was with, but I know my 4 year old son was with me. He ran off to explore his surroundings and I lost sight of him behind someone's body, then he reappeared and I grabbed his hand and brought him close to me.

Suddenly, my son and I are at a familiar strip mall back home in Chicago. Only this time there was a hair salon. For whatever reason, I feel as though I visited this strip mall to do some shopping and I let time get away from me. It began to get dark. After leaving one shop and heading to the salon, I noticed a male friend of mine from back home (my son's former barber) getting into his car. I then realized that in the dream, I had no transportation, no car and obviously there were no buses to take me home...wherever that was. The barber was speaking with a male and female who were entering an SUV and for some reason I felt that it would be better to go inside the salon and call him instead of giving these friends of his the wrong idea by asking him for a ride in front of them. I was concerned that he had a girlfriend and they would start some type of rumor or he would say no just to save face.

This is where the dream becomes difficult.

I don't remember taking my son into a public bathroom.

But somehow, I did.

The public bathroom was somehow adjacent to the stores on the strip and were accessible from the outside, almost the same as a washroom at a gas station.

In my haste, I ran into the beauty salon, asked the lady who worked there for her phone and suddenly, I couldn't remember the barbers phone number. I tried several numbers, watching through the window as the barber jumped into his car and drove away. I kept trying to remember the number and I couldn't. The worst thing that I could have done was occurring, not only did I leave my son in a bathroom unattended, I forgot about it.

There were women talking to one another. Beauticians were still doing hair late into the night. I asked if I would be able to get something done and the beautician pointed to another lady who was waiting patiently and informed me that she had another client that would be ahead of me. If I was willing to wait, she would take me after her. I may have waited for another 10 minutes or so, maybe longer. Long enough to debate with myself about whether I should actually wait until this woman got her hair done before me. It was already late as is and I had to call a relative who was probably uninterested in picking me up to do so. I decided against it.

Then, I got this feeling in the bottom of my stomach that something wasn't right. I walked outside and I could hear my sons screams from the bathroom. The horror. The screams were gut wrenching. I immediately thought, he may be locked in...I'll never forget the feeling I had rushing over to that door. There were so many emotions; shame, guilt, fear, worry.

When I pushed the door opened, there was my son screaming and crying and a grown man raping him in the bathroom stall.

He was dark skinned, maybe in his forties, 5 '9 and about 175 lbs. He was sweating and looking directly into my eyes. I will NEVER forget his face, real or imagined. My son whimpering, no longer screaming. Seeing my son like that made me feel a human emotion that I cannot even describe in words, there are none. I felt close to death, ready to die for him. I ran up to this man and my first instinct was to wrap both of my hands around his throat, squeezing as tight as I could. I was shaking and the man was breathing heavily through his grimacing teeth and still had a firm grip on my son who was positioned in front of him, now watching me. I could feel the adrenaline rushing through my body with my hands still around his neck, we were incredibly close as I uttered, "I am going to kill you...you son of a bitch!"

And just like that, I woke up.

I sat directly up in my bed, my son asleep at my feet and daughter to my right. I grabbed him and pulled him up beside me and whispered, "I love you" in his ear and he uttered a light, "I love you too" back, which must have taken so much out of him to do, he was half asleep. I wanted to re-enter the dream state, hoping for a chance to return to that bathroom and find just us two, only this time I would come back with weapons to beat the living shit out of him but instead, I held my son, and kissed his forehead squeezing him tight. I must have whispered "I love you" in his ear a dozen more times, only this time, no response. I just wanted the energy and sincerity of my words to flow into the universe. I tried to think back to the rare times when he had been away from me, briefly considered never going back to work, having a sketch drawn of the perpetrators face, then purchasing a gun all in a matter of seconds.

For the first time, in a long time, I spoke directly to God. Holding my son as he slept, crying, I asked for protection for my son and for Him to allow me--and help me, to protect him myself.

The Joyride [the conclusion]

The Joyride [part one]

I woke up and sat in the dining room chair. By now my mother had awaken and discovered that I wasn't home asleep in my bed. She probably didn't panic until she got up to go to work and realized that her keys were missing. But, I'm sure when she saw that her car was gone, she almost had a heart attack. I began trying to devise a story and every time I thought of one, it fell flat. Blood was on my hands and there was no getting out of it. That morning, "the coochie monster's" mother woke up, again she poured her alcoholic beverage and lastly, she made me breakfast. It was evident that no matter what situation had occurred, she wasn't breaking her routine. My nerves were bad and my throat was dry.

"So what you gon' do? You gon' drive that car home or what baby?" She stirred her drink with a silver spoon. Her eyes were glossy and her voice was scratchy.

"I guess I have to." I didn't want to go home ever. Maybe I could just move in there, get a job, help around the--

"Cause it can't stay out there. I don't want no trouble. You and my son are getting too serious and too damn crazy for me."

While I was out of town months earlier. They moved out of the "hole" into the one bedroom motel style apartments a block up the street. So, it was two near grown men and a grown woman living in a one bedroom apartment together. I never understood how she put up with it. "The coochie monster" and his brother always had women spending the night. I guess she was too high or drunk to even care much. But one thing was for sure, she knew that her son and I being together was a bad idea.

Ironically, they were now the one's without a home phone. I had to walk to a payphone to call my mother, who was too distraught and pissed off to converse with me, that she had to call her friend on three way. Her best friend drove over to get me, looked at the car and the people I was with, then me and I could tell what she was thinking.

My friends daughter is a mess...

My mother had been through so much that past year and was growing more and more tired and weak. Instead of beating me down she would scream, holler and break her own things. To me, the screaming was worse than getting beat. I would often wish she would just beat the hell out of me instead of cursing me out. For days, I listened to her slam doors, scream into the phone when friends tried calling, and making dinner for herself and leaving me in charge of my own meals. I couldn't cook worth jack.

The time came around when I had to appear in court. I remember the trip downtown, my mother prepping me, telling me what to say.

"You better act like you have some damn sense! Tell those people you are sorry or they will lock your ass away and send you to the Audi Home!"

No one wanted to go to the "Audi Home". This was a place where all of the bad ass kids went when they got in trouble with the law. My mother was a beautiful woman. She waited until she was 30 to have me. I know she wondered how I turned out to be the way I was, afterall, I was the planned baby out of all my siblings. She was slowly gaining weight due to depression and yet to be discovered health illnesses, but her beauty was there. I felt bad, but I also felt as if I was spiraling out of control do to a force that I couldn't stop or pinpoint.

I stood before the judge wearing a white suit, cream colored pumps with my hair down and straightened. The judge was an old White man, with gray hair and a mean disposition. He frowned at me while asking questions. I explained how sorry I was and how it would never happen again.

"Well, how do I know that? You may decide to do this again the next time one of your boyfriends does something you do not like. What should I do with you?"

I looked off at the wall behind him.

"Well?!" His voice got louder and I realized he wanted me to answer.

"You should let me go your honor." I thought I was going to piss my pants right there.

"What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you like to do?" He shuffled papers in front of him acting uninterested in my answer.

"I don't know."

"Your honor. She likes to write poetry. She's always writing something." My mother butted in. I could sense the nervousness in her tone, the salvation in her voice. I never in life ever wanted to be a writer.

"Young lady. Do you like to write?" The judge looked me in the eyes.

"Yes."

"Okay, I want you to write an essay. One thousand words, as to why I should let you go. I expect to see that next week."

The judge motioned us to get out of his courtroom after having a few words with my mother. The following week I returned with my essay. The judge was impressed, gave me a few compliments and needless to say, I never stepped foot in the "Audi Home".

However, I did take my mother's car again after it was repaired and crashed it into a pole...





*I saw "the coochie monster" one last time after that incident. We went our separate ways without looking back. Last year I was contacted by "Brother" on Myspace. "The coochie monster" is a full fledged alcoholic and refuses to get help, while "Brother" is living a successful life with his girlfriend and children in Minnesota.*

The Joyride [part three]

The Joyride [Part one]

I was beginning to realize how bad of a decision I made when I saw the man running behind me as I was speeding away from the scene. The light ahead of me had just turned red and was less than 15 feet away. Instead of stopping, I made a right, a quick left at the first busy street, another left and hit my original destination in a matter of minutes. The "hole" was the name of the apartment complex that all of the gangsters hung out in. We called it the "hole" because there was only one way to get in and out. I drove up, staring out of the window, looking for "the coochie monster" but I didn't see him. I didn't see Sherita either, just a bunch of neighborhood teenagers either smoking blunts or drinking some form of malt liquor while listening to music that was flowing from a radio propped up in someone's bedroom window.

Man, I did all this for a bunk ass mission!

Some of the people were looking and pointing into the car, so I decided to turn and leave. I was embarrassed and didn't want to talk to anyone or have to explain what happened. Just then, a college freshman named Ron ran over to the car. Ron was super cool and everyone looked up to him because he could play basketball, didn't get caught up in the gang-banging and was in love with a high school senior who he had just asked to marry him.

"Chay-Chay! What are you doing driving this car! Did you hit something?" He was tall, so I leaned my head out of the window while he did his mock examination of the damage.

"Yeah...I fucked up. My mother is going to kick...my...ass..."

"Why did you take her car if you knew you couldn't drive?" He held his hands out in front of him as if pleading with me to turn back around and make this whole thing go away.

"Because..."

"Because? Because what?"

"Because I'm sick of "the coochie monster's" shit and I wanted to catch him."

He walked over to the passenger side and pulled the door open, brushed some glass out of the seat and sat down.

"Run me up the street to pick up Robin real quick. She's about to get off work. I was supposed to meet her up there so we could walk home together. I need to talk to you any way."

"Okay..."

As I began to pull off he noticed I was still a little shaky. When we got to our first stop sign and I slammed on the breaks, he made me get out so he could drive.

"Girl, you have no business driving this car. So, you let this little punk ass n**ga convince you to take yo' mama's car so you can come out here, tear it up and make a fool of yourself? Don't you know that you deserve better than that? He..."

I began tuning him out. My mind was racing. Besides, he was making too much sense and I was feeling dumber and dumber in the process.

We pulled up to the McDonald's which was on the same busy street I drove down to make my fast getaway. His girlfriend Robin was standing outside of the restaurant which was now closed and dark inside. The look on her face when we piled out of the car was one of confusion. When I turned around and actually saw the damage for myself, I began to cry hysterically. The car was a wreck on the right side. The mirror was missing, half of the door was crushed and scratched and out of no where, a skinny, older dark skinned man appeared.

"Who the fuck was driving this car?" He was clearly out of breath.

Ron looked at me and Robin, we were both standing silent and shook and he said, "I don't know."

"One of ya'll was driving this car and hit my car! Now who was it?" He screamed getting closer to the three of us.

"First of all, I'm gon' need you to back the hell up and get the hell out of here. I just told you we don't know who was driving the car. We just got here."

"Oh, so you didn't see a little girl with a bandana on driving this car?" He said sarcastically.

The man started cursing a mile a minute and went off on a tangent kicking the car and putting dents on the drivers side. I remember watching him kick and the car moving like a small boat sitting in shifty water.

"Oh my God..." was all I could utter. I couldn't believe this was happening.

"Just chill, be cool. He'll leave in a minute," Ron mumbled under his breath. "He's not gon' touch you."

After a few more minutes of cursing and the pissed off man memorizing the license plate, he walked off just as Ron said. After he disappeared around the corner, we hurried into the car and got back to the "hole" where "the coochie monster" was now outside waiting. The word had spread, I had taken my mother's car and crashed it like a jackass. When I saw him, all I could think about was the anger I felt. I was now even more pissed. I jumped out of the car and started screaming at him, and he stood there silent, not answering my questions, making my rant and bunk ass mission look even more pathetic. So, just to make myself clear, I balled my hands up into the tightest fists and hit him right in the mouth.

"Oooooooooooooh!"

"Damn she just hit him G!"

"Shawty crazy folks..."

Onlookers began instigating and others laughed. I saw Ron in the distance who was now just shaking his head and walking away with his girlfriend. "The coochie monster" barely flinched, held out his hand, asked me where my mother's car keys were and when I handed them to him, he began walking to the car. I followed behind him and we both got in. As he drove down the street to his mother's apartment, we both sat quietly. My chest was moving up and down and tears filled my eyes. He parked the car and turned it off and jumped over into the passenger seat with his hands around my throat choking me so tight that I coughed and couldn't scream. We must've fought in that car for at least 10 minutes before getting out of the car and then fighting outside some more, until his brother heard all of the noise and came out side to break it up.

We sat inside on the couch explaining what happened to "Brother" and their mother. I explained why I took my mother's car and came over there, recieved a lecture from his half sober mother and when I told her I was too scared to go home, she layed a blanket on the living room floor.

So I spent the night out, again with a busted lip and black eye and my mother's car a wreck outside.

The Joyride [the conclusion]

The Joyride [part two]

The Joyride [part one]

I must've paced my bedroom over a hundred times pondering whether or not I would actually take my mother's car keys and go on my amateur investigation. The buses stopped running after 8pm and I knew that if I were to catch "the coochie monster" in the act, I had better go when it was dark. My plan had to work and I had to go through with it. My curfew was 9pm and I decided to throw all caution to the wind and simply sneak out after my mother went to sleep. I sat on my twin sized bed replaying the events of the night before over and over again...

I must be a fool...

He kept me in this house while he...Ooooh! That dusty bitch!

Nah, maybe "Wisdom" had it twisted...maybe what she thought she saw...wasn't really what she saw...

I didn't love "the coochie monster" but I hated Sherita. That was definitely an emotion I could put my finger on and locate if I ever really wanted to figure out a reason why I was so angry. He betrayed me but Sherita was always the other chic, always somebody's "sideline ho". We bumped heads a few times. She always made sure she had a group of girls following her where ever she went and loved to bump her gums because no one would ever catch her by herself. But the most hurtful blow was that Sherita was pretty. She was slender and tall with sandy brown hair and hazel eyes. The type of girl that most people thought would "fit" the pretty boys I dated. This was personal.

My stomach turned and tightened. After peeking in my mother's bedroom several times, I had the keys and was making my way out of the apartment and down three flights of stairs to her car. I climbed into the used, dark blue, Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, (a farely nice car in excellent condition) and placed the key in the ignition. My sophmore yeah of High School hadn't begun yet, this was usually the year when students in the Chicago area began to take drivers ed so I had no knowledge of what I was doing. I closed my eyes and tried to remember what I'd seen other people doing when operating a vehicle...

Okay...the left one is the gas...no, the left one is to stop...the break...yeah...and the other one is to go...

R is for reverse...D is for drive...Okay...lemme turn the radio on...okay...got it...

I jammed the car into reverse without stepping on the break, punched the gas and smashed into the car parked behind me. I thought someone was going to run out of their apartment and beat me down. I hurried and put the car back into drive, looked around quickly and immediately went back into reverse and this time I turned the wheel a little. Again, I smashed into the car that was parked next to the other one I had just hit.

Shit, shit, shit...

I began to panic. This time it was a mustang convertible and I set off the alarm. Not knowing which direction to turn the steering wheel to go the way I wanted to, I was just happy the car turned. I had to move fast. The final time I went into reverse, I broke the headlight on the mustang but was able to get out of the parking spot, and from there...I took off rolling...

I didn't know what the speed limit was and that I should probably pay attention to it. I didn't know how to use my mirrors so I cut off many people and heard horns blarring in my direction. Not until I would look in my rearview mirror afterwards, did I realize how close I was to other vehicles and what all the fuss was about. My music was blasting and I'm sure people were wondering if I was too drunk or too young to drive. I was wearing a blue bandana and sitting so close on the steering wheel, that I had to have given myself away.

I quickly noticed how different it was navigating the streets on my own, so I ditched my last minute plan to pick up my best friend "Kitten" to come along for backup. The city streets of Chicago are narrow with parked cars on both sides and I became extremely nervous while driving around in circles. Twenty minutes later I finally found myself on a familiar street that would take me to the corner where "the coochie monster" hung out. With about 1/3 of a mile left, I was feeling comfortable. When adrenaline started to rush through my veins imagining what I would see when I arrived, I got cocky...

I'm gonna hit him with this car, make his ass have a seizure...

Then I'm gonna kick Sherita's ass...

Suddenly, I felt the car shift slightly to the right, and then a loud BANG! The sound of metal crushing seemed to pop my earlobs. The passenger window shattered and my heart sank into my stomach as I jumped in my seat and let out a scream. I stepped on the break and brought the car to a slow roll while examining the glass in the seat, mouth opened wide, eyes bugging out of their sockets...

"Oh shit! I smashed into a car! Oh my God...Oh my God...Oh my God..." I had no idea what to do.

"Hey!" I heard the voice of a man yelling in my direction. "Hey! Stop...somebody stop that car!"

My first instinct was to stop, but instead, I took off driving and the man who was yelling took off running behind me like a bat out of hell...ahead of me, a red light.

The Joyride [part three]

The Joyride [part one]

I had only been gone for 2 months and "the coochie monster" was still on my radar when I returned home from burying my father, turning the tender age of 15, visiting Brooklyn for the first time, and realizing my mother had upped and moved without letting me know until I arrived. I was traumatized but no one knew, neither did I.

Now instead of 3 blocks separating me from my so called boyfriend, there were 3 miles. So, I quickly learned how the buses operated in my area.

I found myself sitting alone in his apartment while "the coochie monster" went outside to do "security".

"I'm not gonna be doing nothing but standing around, and it's "hot" out there. Niggas is crazy, they been shooting since you been gone."

He convinced me to stay in the house watching TV for hours. He was gang affiliated and security was basically another name for watching out for the police, protecting territory, and reporting back to a bigger gangster who did all of the more important work. Throughout the day he would check in, giving me kisses, quickies and bags of candy, potato chips and fast food. Somewhere in my young, gullible mind, I thought I was in an imaginary castle where I was queen and I got to do whatever I pleased.

So there I was, back on my old stomping grounds, layed out on the floor having sex on a blanket that "the coochie monster's" mother placed on the living room floor for us earlier that night. She was known around the neighborhood as the light skinned, crazy woman who dressed like a "hoe". She wore these colorful spandex pants and we would see her in passing always walking somewhere really quick. A woman of few words, she had pretty wavy hair that fell into an asymmetrical cut style and even though she seemed to be aging, she had a nice figure with a big, plump Derry-aire.

That morning, I woke up to his mother pouring herself a glass of gin and juice while explaining to me what medication her son needed to take when he woke up.

"Here baby, you know he has them seizures, make sure he takes these pills before he leaves the house today. You hungry?"

"Yes, a little bit..."

"I'll make you something to eat..."

Up close she had a slight mustache, but she was still beautiful. She made me a plate of scrambled eggs and toast and sped out of the door without question. Never did I once think about my mother or whether or not I was going to die when I returned home and neither did she.

It was a little after 9am when I made my way to the nearest bus stop when an eighteen year old, slick talking, always fresh to death, new gym shoe forever having, already single mother of 2 toting, thick booty chic (who I will call "Wisdom") saw me walking by.

"Chay-Chay...where you coming from? I know you're not coming from "the coochie monster's" house." She looked confused.

"Hey girl, yeah, I spent the night over there last night. I gotta get home."

"Wait...you were up there last night?" She smirked.

"Yeah, why you say it like that?"

"Well, I didn't know you and him was still together. He was out here all over Sherita last night. They were hugged up and kissing and errthang..."

"What!" I couldn't move. I was so pissed. I knew she wasn't lying. She was always a good source of information and was ready to scrap with anyone who would ever think she would lie about anything.

"I'm just looking out for you boo."

"Oh...I got a trick for his ass. I'll be back out here tonight."

I could have turned around and gone back to confront him but I knew that would turn into hours of debating and I didn't have the time. I needed to get home to make things right with my mother and then I would come back when the coast was clear. I had a plan. I was going to pop up on him late in the evening to see if I could see the same thing "Wisdom" had told me was going on for myself...only...part of the plan consisted of stealing my mothers car to do it...

There was only one problem...

I didn't know how to drive.

The Joyride [part two]

Change.

is good.

but it can also be...

beautiful.