Imani All Mine Read online

I don’t know, I say. I’m all right. I’m going to be all right.

  I can’t say I love Peanut. He don’t never say he love me, and I don’t never say I love him. I don’t know. Love is something bigger. I do know I love Imani and Mama. I even love Eboni. Peanut. I don’t know. He don’t hurt me. And who know, maybe that’s some kind of love.

  THREE

  My Mama, Your Mama

  I BEEN INSIDE ME to the place I ain’t never wanted to know. That’s what I was thinking to tell Bett-Bett when she asked me why I wasn’t in school this past week. I say to her I been sick. Which is good enough for her to know about my business. I don’t need her digging up some bone and passing it around. Last thing she need to know is the truth. That I missed school because of him.

  I ain’t saying his name. I ain’t never, ever going to say it. I won’t ever put it in my mouth. I don’t even want it in my mind, because it’s all connected to his face. And the day I seen his face in the cafeteria three weeks ago, I thought I was going to die right there, holding a tray of tacos and fruit cocktail. I seen him coming right at me from the snack line where you pay with money, not lunch tickets. He had a whole tray of fries and he ain’t even see me. But I seen him and dropped my tray on the floor and run out the cafeteria. I ain’t stop running until I got to the lavatory, even though this security guard started chasing me, screaming, Where you think you going? What you done did?

  But he couldn’t come in the lavatory. Wasn’t nothing but these girls in there combing they heads and looking at theyselves in the mirror. I went in a stall and locked the door and I had to shit real bad. I usually can’t go in a public place, but I couldn’t hold it and I even sat down on the seat. Then this lady security guard come banging on the door of the stall I was in. Who in there? she ask.

  I say, I’m sick. Can you just leave me alone? I ain’t done nothing. I’m sick, is all.

  She sick, I hear one them girls say. Hell, she smell like she dying. Then they laughed and I heard them leave. I was so embarrassed.

  The security say, What you was running for? You know you ain’t supposed to be running in the building.

  And I’m thinking, Why she standing out there smelling my shit and asking me stupid questions? But I just say, I had to go.

  She say, All right. I’ll let you off this time. Next time you getting detention.

  Then she left, too, and it was just me there with that boy name inside my head. With that boy name inside my mouth so nasty-tasting that I hocked and spit right on the floor. My knees was shaking like before. Like then. That night. I wished Eboni was with me but she ain’t even in school now. She having two twins and her doctor say she need to be home in bed. She already know they girls, and she done picked out names. Asia and Aisha. I wanted to cry but it seem like my tears is all dried up in me and they left some craziness behind like salt. I could taste it in my mouth when I spit.

  All I could think to do was get out of school, and I went right straight to the nurse to get me a excuse. The nurse a white man here at Lincoln. Who ever heard of a man a nurse? He act like he ain’t want to let me go home.

  I’m sick, I say.

  Is that so? he say. He was reading a book and snapping gum like a girl. Then he ask, What time does your soap opera come on, girl? One or two?

  I say, Excuse me. I’m for real. It’s my stomach. I got my period and I got some bad cramps. I done bled through three straight pads this morning.

  He looked at me like he done heard that excuse a thousand times before and say, I don’t care if you go home or not. It’s no skin off my nose, hon.

  Static. Static. Static. That’s the thing be getting to me about school. Elementary school. Middle school. High school. Ain’t no difference. It’s all the time some teacher nem act like they know you. Act like they can shine a light inside your head and see what you thinking.

  I ain’t say nothing to that nurse. I let him think that my head was so empty that all I want to do was fill it watching some stupid-ass soaps about a bunch of skinny white women wearing expensive clothes and living in fancy houses even if they supposed to be poor and having a bunch of make-believe problems. Black women too. They lives be just like the white women’s. Fake. I got real problems. So I kept my mouth all shut up and got my excuse.

  Then I got Imani from the nursery. She was sleeping, looking just like me. Even though I can’t say I know what I really look like when I sleep, because I be sleeping and can’t see myself. But it’s got to be just like Imani. My eyes shut real tight like I’m studying on something. Like there be something in my dreams I especially want to see.

  Mrs. Poole say babies dream. She say don’t nobody know what they dream about. Sometime Imani be laughing in her sleep. If it’s night, she be waking me up. I jump up thinking that girl wake. But she ain’t, and I stand over her crib looking at her. I know Imani got to be dreaming about something. I be hoping it’s me. Wishing there was a way I could climb down inside her dream and shine a light on me holding her in my arms. Seeing me rocking her in my arms strong like the branches of the tree outside my bedroom window. And her laughing because I’m rocking her higher and higher, past all the soft leaves and into the dark where the moon rising over us and she know she safe because I’m holding her and won’t never ever let her fall.

  When I was little, sometime I would wake up laughing. I never could remember exactly about what. I like to think it was Mama and me I was laughing about. That she was holding me with love all in her arms.

  There wasn’t no way I was going home that time of day. Mama would just have some more static for me, so I went over to Eboni. Miss Lovey wasn’t there. Eboni was, and she wasn’t even in bed like she was supposed to be. She was in the kitchen, making Buffalo wings. Her school tutor was already gone for the day. She ask me, Girl, what’s the matter?

  I was wondering if I looked so bad. If I looked so crazy. If that boy name was wrote right across my face. I say, I had to cut out early because I wasn’t feeling good. Eboni know me real good. I know she could tell that wasn’t all. But she say, Have lunch with me.

  Imani was still sleep and I put her down in Eboni room and finished up making the chicken while Eboni sat down. I told her, You know you shouldn’t even be on your feet.

  Eboni say, Shoot, I’m hungry and I’m eating for three people.

  I say, You should have wait until your mama come home. Miss Lovey a good cook.

  Eboni say, She don’t cook like I want. The doctor got me off salt and I ain’t supposed to be eating fried foods. I done gained seventy-five pounds.

  I ain’t say nothing to Eboni about her weight. Because it wouldn’t be nothing but the pot calling the kettle black. I’d already dumped almost a half block of some government butter in the skillet to melt over the wings. I got the hot sauce and had poured on a half of a big bottle, and Eboni say, Put on more.

  You crazy, I say. They hot enough and that sauce full of salt.

  She say, Then add some cayenne.

  I put in a whole heap and Eboni took the plate of wings I fixed up for her with blue cheese and celery. She was eating them wings and slinging bones like she was starving. I sat there all quiet like, just watching the pile of empty bones grow on her plate.

  She say, I know something really wrong with you if you ain’t eating nothing. What happened at school?

  I seen him, I say with my voice as flat as I could make it, trying to sound like I was feeling real normal and had some sense. Like the craziness ain’t take me all over.

  Who? Peanut? she ask.

  I say, Not no Peanut. I don’t care nothing about no Peanut. I seen him. You know who I mean. For a few seconds I think Eboni didn’t know who I was talking about until she looked at me real hard in the face and I just know she seen that boy name wrote there.

  Oooh, she say, sucking grease off her fingers. No, you ain’t even seen him.

  I did, I say. Right in the cafeteria. I guess he been there all the time. Ain’t no way I would’ve ever come to Lincoln if I know
that’s where he go.

  Eboni say, You should transfer. When I have the twins, I ain’t coming back to Lincoln. I’m going to East. It’s closer. Come with me.

  Soon as Eboni say that, I got a pain right in my stomach like I needed to go to the bathroom again. I was thinking, How I’m going to tell Mama I want to switch schools? If I ain’t want to after the shooting last month, ain’t no way she was going to believe I want to do it now.

  Lincoln ain’t that kind of school where there be shootings and stabbings like it’s a regular way of life. It ain’t locked down like a prison and you got to be passing through metal detectors and getting patted down. Wasn’t never even no shooting there until that day.

  We was just being dismissed. I had got Imani from the nursery and had her in her stroller. We was in the main hall, where there was like two hundred to three hundred kids, when all these other kids come busting back in the main doors, running and screaming. They shooting. They shooting outside, they was screaming. And they kept on running right up the hall, pushing past people. Teachers. Kids. They even knocked down a security guard. Then all the kids already in the hall started running. I swear my heart wasn’t even beating I was so scared. I thought they was going to run right over me and Imani. I snatched my baby out her stroller. Her leg got caught in the strap. I jerked her hard and got her loose just as I got smashed into some lockers. But I bounced off. I ain’t have to think about where to go. The crowd carried me into the front office, where the principal and secretaries nem be. I got pushed behind the main desk where the secretaries was already on the floor. Everybody kept on pushing and screaming and I almost fell. Then I heard the principal, Mr. Diaz, yelling for us to all lay down. Get down, he say. Get down. Stay down!

  I fell right where I was and landed on some girl who ain’t say nothing. Then this boy landed right on top of me and Imani. And Imani started screaming. My baby, I say. You squashing my baby. Get off!

  He was crying. Big old boy too, with hair on his face. I wasn’t crying. But I could feel my heart then going like crazy. Imani wasn’t hurt. She was scared. Her eyes was all big like she want me to tell her what was going on. But I ain’t know. I just held her tight to me.

  Mr. Diaz jumped over the main desk like he was Superman or something. One of the secretaries was screaming, Mr. Diaz don’t go out there. But he kept right on going. I could hear him in the halls telling kids to get down.

  I ain’t hear no gunshots. But all I could think was somebody was dead right outside the school and if I’d stepped out them doors a few minutes earlier it could’ve been me or Imani. Or whoever was shooting could run right on in the building and kill us where we was laying. I started shaking then. Thinking, Who would ever want to die like this? On some regular old schoolday. At some regular old school laying under a desk too scared to move. I wanted to go home.

  Mr. Diaz come back in a few minutes and say for us all to return to homeroom. Don’t go out the building until I say to. After the police come. Then he got on the intercom. Saying for everybody to stay calm and if they was hurt, to come to the nurse office.

  I was still shaking when I left the office. The halls was packed and some kids was crying and others was laughing. These boys was saying that some dude got shot in the butt, that was all. They was laughing and other kids was laughing. Even some who was crying started laughing. Books and papers and backpacks everywhere. There was sneakers laying right where kids had run out of them. Half of the lockers open. I seen my stroller. It wasn’t bad off. It was real dirty where it got stepped on, and one of the arms was bent, but I could still push it.

  Me and Mama and Miss Odetta watched the news that night, and the shooting was on every channel. The boy was really only shot in the butt and they didn’t keep him at the hospital. They say his wound was superficial. Mr. Diaz come on the news, looking all smooth. Like nothing happened. He say our school a good school and they ain’t never had no problem like this. The boy that was shot didn’t go to our school. It’s outside agitators. All the while he saying this, some kids was jumping up and down in the background and making faces, laughing. Then they interviewed this girl and boy who say they seen a jeep. It started going slow and pulled up in front of a bus. Then pow pow pow pow pow. Like it’s the Wild Wild West. That’s all they seen, because they ran back inside. The newsman say it’s a miracle nobody else got hurt or killed.

  Miss Odetta say, They ain’t going to catch nobody. You wait and see.

  Mama say, Ain’t this some shit? In front a school. They could’ve killed a bunch of kids. Them the kind of niggers don’t care about nobody. I’m telling you. You ain’t safe no goddamn place no more.

  I say, They was probably all some drug dealers coming by our school messing things up.

  Miss Odetta say, That ain’t got to be true. Why it got to be about drugs? She pulled a cigarette out her bra and lighted it. Then she say, Shit. Niggers was getting shot before there ever was drug dealers.

  Mama give me a look and smile behind Miss Odetta back. Me and her knew not to say nothing else. We know Miss Odetta just say that because of June Bug. Miss Odetta know we know that June Bug dealing. Miss Odetta the one act like what he do is all right. Living on the down low in her basement. You can’t say nothing having to do with drugs without Miss Odetta throwing her two cent in. And what I really want to be doing when she do is throw her back a penny in change.

  Mama say, They need to catch them and throw they asses under the jail.

  Miss Odetta say, Don’t hold your breath.

  Mama asked if I want to go to another school. I told her I didn’t. I got my daycare and everything all set up at Lincoln.

  Mr. Diaz had a assembly the next day to tell us everything was safe. Even though I was thinking he can’t stop some fool from shooting. I mean, damn, if he can do that, he need to come around my way. Because they still be shooting around here. If there’s some shooting when me and Imani is up late, she don’t look at me like she done the first time she heard it. Like she got a question. Seem like she done already figured out the answer.

  So things just settled back down to regular at Lincoln. The only trouble was that mess girls keep going. There some jealous girls go to our school. A group of bitches who roam in packs. They don’t like you if you pretty, so I don’t have no problems with them. They don’t even see me. They hunt girls like Coco. Two of them bitches beat Coco up in a lavatory. Ain’t no way skinny little Coco stand a chance against no two girls. They ripped five extensions out her head right from the root. Tore her shirt and bra right off her. Scratched up her face. Coco say they told her she wasn’t nothing. She wasn’t shit. Coco ain’t tell who it was. She too scared.

  I know how she feel about not telling. Even though she know who them girls is. She got to see them every day. But she keep right on going like they ain’t even there. With a secret. Ever since she was jumped, Coco carry a knife. Not no little one neither. She showed it to me. It’s a butcher knife like your mama keep in the kitchen drawer and be chopping on meat with. She have it right in her backpack inside one of her notebooks. She keep the pack half zipped so she can get to it easy.

  He say he had a knife. That night. He ain’t never show it to me. He say if he had to show it to me, he was going to have to use it on me. So he kept it like a secret.

  When I was talking to Eboni that day after I seen him at school, I was thinking maybe that was what I need. A secret to keep me safe. Maybe I could sneak a knife out the house without Mama knowing, or go down to the Woolworth and buy one down in they basement. I’d be like Coco, have it where I could get to it easy. If he was to say something to me, he’d know all about it. I’d stab his ass right in the broad daylight in the cafeteria. But that was just that dried-up craziness in me. There ain’t no way I could do something like that. Not having Imani. I don’t know what she’d do if I was took from her or she was took from me.

  Greasing on her chicken wings Eboni say to me, You should do like you should of done in the first place, Tasha. Tell
your mama.

  I got me another pain in my stomach. I say, My mama ain’t your mama. If Miss Lovey was my mama, I would’ve told her straight off.

  Eboni say, My mother. Your mother. Live across the way. Fifteen. Sixteen. East Broadway. It was a song we’d sing when we was picking sides for kickball. We’d be lining ourselves up so we could end up on the same side. Eboni knew I’d give her the next lines of the song. Every night they have a fight and this is what they say. Icka Bicka Backa Soda Cracker. Out. Go. She. We finished up together.

  But I say to her, I’m for real, Eboni. You know I can’t tell my mama. And don’t you be even telling Miss Lovey. Eboni was sucking on a bone and making no promises to me.

  When Imani woke up, I took her on home. It was still light out. Before I unlocked the front door, I stood on the porch and erased my face. I closed my eyes and wrote on it that I just come from another boring day of school, because I knew the first thing I would see was Mama sitting on the couch looking me dead in the mouth when I walked in. But she wasn’t sitting there. The house ain’t had no smell like some dinner had been cooking, neither. It smelled like perfume. I knew right then Mama was going out.

  She done met some man I ain’t even seen yet. He call sometime. All he say is can he speak to Earlene. Then she take the call up in her room. The thing is, he been calling for over a month and ain’t never been to our house. Mama meet him of if somewhere. That make me think he ain’t got no car. Or she don’t want me meeting him.

  I went upstairs with Imani and peeked in Mama room. It was a mess. Her dresser top was covered with all kinds of makeup and brushes and sponges. Her shoes was all in a heap on the floor, and it looked like she throwed all her outfits across her bed. All it seem she decided on to wear was her nice bra and drawers. The kind men be liking. All black and made from lace.

  Mama was sitting on the end of the bed with her face all made up, looking all pretty and soft, putting lotion on her legs. Her body all skinny like she ain’t never had a baby. Even her stomach flat. It got only a few thin stretch marks that circle her belly button like the petals on a flower. They so tiny you can’t hardly even see them. It’s like I was in her but barely left no sign I was there.