After Tupac & D Foster (7 page)

“Oh,” I said. “So now we ‘little girls’ again. Back at the house, you were all grown and ready to go.”

“Not to nobody’s dark park I wasn’t.”

“Neeka,” D said. “It’s winter. It’s dark. It’s cold. How many other people trying to be in a park on a night like this?”

“The crazy ones,” Neeka said back. “And that’s who’s gonna come after us.”

“Ain’t no one up in this park but us—once we get in there,” D said. She started walking. Neeka looked at me and I shrugged and followed D. After another minute passed, I heard Neeka curse and run to catch up to us.

We walked down a whole lot of stairs and across a field. Then we came to a big stage.

“It’s called an amphitheater,” D said.

“We gonna get our behinds whipped for some broke-down stage?” Neeka said.

I turned and realized the stairs we’d just walked down were actually seats carved into the stone. They were covered with snow and moss. Behind the highest ones on one side, there were a whole bunch of trees—like a half ring. The moon was shooting through those bare trees and making all these shadows and light on the stage. Everything about the amphitheater looked older than anything or anybody. I hugged myself and smiled. It was like this place had always been here and always would be. I kept walking toward the stage, slowly. I wanted to walk in that moonlight. I wanted it on my back and head and face. Everywhere.

“Where you going?” Neeka yelled, and her voice echoed back over us.

I turned and smiled. “It’s crazy!
Stupid!
” I said. “D. It’s . . . beautiful!”

D smiled. “That’s why I brought my girls here.”

The stage wasn’t high but it was carved from the same stone as the seats. At the back of it was this huge stone wall that seemed to go on forever.

For a minute, all three of us just stood there staring. I shivered. Something strange happened. With all that beautiful stone around me and the moon shining through the trees and down on us like that . . . and us three just standing there staring up . . . I felt whole—like my two selves had come together—finally meeting for the first time. I closed my eyes and hugged myself harder. I wanted to hold on to this feeling. For always.

We climbed up on the stage and me and D threw our arms up and yelled our names. And our names echoed back over us—all shadowy and hushed. We did it again. Then again. Then Neeka did it and smiled.

“We’re here!” D yelled. And
We’re here
came slipping back over us.

And inside my head, I heard myself saying,
I’m here.

The stage was covered with snow and D was the first to lie down in it and make an angel. Then me and Neeka did it, shouting the whole time,
We’re here! (I’m here.) We’re here! (I’m here.)

And lying in that cold snow with that beautiful moon shining above us and our own names floating down over us—nobody could have told me that we wouldn’t always be here. That it wouldn’t be me and Neeka and D—for always.

We left D on the bus and got off at our stop—me and Neeka walking real quiet back to my house. When we got there, my moms wasn’t home yet and we peeled off our wet clothes and took turns taking hot showers. I stood under the water, wondering what situation D would go home to—wondering if Flo would ask her questions about her wet clothes and shoes. As the water poured over me, I couldn’t help smiling again about the three of us on that stage with all that light around us.

When we were all done showering, me and Neeka sat on my bed in our pajamas drinking hot chocolate. We didn’t say anything for a long time, just grinned whenever we made eye contact.

Neeka took a last sip of hot chocolate, set her cup on my dresser, then lay back on my bed, her head wrapped in one of Mama’s scarves to keep it from getting messy while she slept.

“I get it now,” she said.

I nodded.

“D’s cool. She’s like from another planet. The Planet of the Free.” Neeka sat up on one elbow and looked at me. “I’m gonna go to that planet one day.”

I shook my head and laughed. “We did, girl! We went tonight!”

Neeka held out her hand and I slapped it. And we laughed like we were losing our minds.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The morning I turned thirteen, Mama came into my room and handed me a small box wrapped up in flowered paper. She kissed me on the cheek and stared at me for a long time.

“I can’t believe I have a teenage daughter.”

It was still early. All night long my legs had been hurting. Mama said those were growing pains, and somewhere during the winter, I’d gotten way taller than her and D and Neeka. It felt strange to walk around feeling like I was all arms and legs and body. I turned the box around in my hand wondering if there’d ever come a point in my life when I’d fit into my body. Maybe that’s what was happening. Maybe the hurting was about those two selves—trying to come together—trying to fit into one body the way they had that night at the amphitheater. Only it hadn’t hurt back then.

I opened the box slowly. Inside was a small blue frame and inside the frame was a picture—me, Neeka and D sitting on the stoop, smiling at the camera. D’s half smile making her seem like she was asking the world,
Can I trust you?
Neeka’s crazy face all eyes and knowledge—something deep in her smile. Like she was old. Like a part of her was grown-up already. And me? I was sitting between my girls, looking away from the camera—off down the street somewhere. That day, when Mama took the picture, I’d been watching the little girls try to jump double Dutch. But that’s not what it looked like. In the picture I look like I’m looking to where I’m going to. Sitting on that stoop, but already gone from here.

I put the picture on the small shelf above my bed.

“It’s great, Ma. Thank you.”

“There’s twenty dollars behind the picture,” Mama said. She smiled, knowing I’d lose my mind with that much money.

But I didn’t. There could have been a quarter behind there—or a penny. Or nothing at all. The picture was enough. The picture was
always.

“You can treat your girls to lunch.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything for a long time.

“I hope it means that it’s a dollar for each year they’re gonna be my girls,” I said. “I hope it’s me and Neeka and D always.”

“Hush, girl,” Mama said. “You know it will be.”

That morning, the first morning of my teenage life, I believed her.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A summer storm passed over the night before we all took the bus up to see Tash on Saturday, hard rain and thunder all through the night. Hot winds blowing everywhere. I had spent the night over Neeka’s house and by the time we woke up, the rain had stopped and everything felt quiet and clean and cooler somehow. Neeka’s dad had to work and couldn’t go with us. The night before, I’d watched him press some bills inside Miss Irene’s hand and say softly,
You give that boy my love, you hear.

You know I will,
Miss Irene said. And they stood there, holding each other. Miss Irene was tall. She was too skinny but she was pretty anyway. Most people looked surprised when they found out how many kids she had, but she’d just laugh and say,
You know black don’t crack. I’m older than I look.

When they let go of each other, Miss Irene wiped her eyes and whispered,
Lord, give me just a little piece of strength more.

Me and Neeka were up before the sun even rose helping Miss Irene get the little ones dressed. Neeka’s twin sisters were almost four and acting like fools—screaming, spinning in circles and doing everything except what Neeka told them to do. I had to tell them to put on their shoes five times before Miss Irene came into the room, pulling her belt out from her pants and swearing she’d use it. After that, the twins jumped to it, crying like their mama had already beat their behinds.

“Y’all don’t ever want to listen to nobody,” Neeka said. She’d woke up in a bad mood and her pinched-up face stayed that way all through breakfast.

“I can’t stand oatmeal,” Neeka said, pushing the bowl away.

I didn’t like oatmeal either, but I knew it’d be hours before we ate again and I wasn’t trying to be hungry on a long bus ride. Miss Irene had made a ton of food, but we weren’t going to get to eat it until we were sitting down with Tash.

Neeka’s twin brothers, Albert and Emmett, were reading comic books and shoveling oatmeal into their mouths like someone was gonna steal it if they didn’t get it down their throats.

Neeka turned her evil mood on them.

“You two need to stop acting like there ain’t no food up in this house. I know you didn’t wake up that hungry.”

“I know I didn’t hear you say ‘ain’t,’ ” Miss Irene called from her bedroom.

Neeka’s face got so evil, she looked about ready to explode.

“Mind your business,” Emmett said. “You not the boss of nobody. If I feel like eating this stuff standing on my head, you can’t do anything about it.”

“Me too,” Albert said.

They were ten and close to being taller than Neeka. She made a face at them but didn’t say anything else.

The girls giggled and went back to feeding each other oatmeal and saying, “Good, baby. You such a good baby.”

Tash’s prison was a three-hour bus ride from where we lived. But to get to the bus that went there once a month, we had to take two trains. In the subway, I held the girls’ hands. Neeka was supposed to be keeping an eye on Albert and Emmett and Miss Irene and Jayjones carried the food and stuff we were taking up to Tash.

Once we got on the first subway, Neeka took a seat far away from everybody and pulled a book out of her bag. She stuck her face in it and didn’t look up again until our stop came and Miss Irene said, “Girl, you better get your behind up and help us get these kids off this train!”

While we waited for the next train, Miss Irene fussed with Neeka.

“You can wake up in a bad mood if you want to, but you better act like you’re part of this family.”

“Can’t
stand
this family,” Neeka mumbled, turning her head away from her moms to cut her eyes.

“Well, that’s too bad, because you’re stuck with us now,” her mama said.

“Nobody told you to have all these kids.”

I took a breath. Neeka was about to get slapped right out in public. But Miss Irene just smiled.

“I guess I should have stopped before I got to you, huh?”

The train came and Neeka pushed the boys ahead of her into it. It was an East Side train, which meant it was filled with white people. I watched them trying not to look at our loud, raggedy bunch, but they couldn’t seem to help themselves. Neeka glared at whoever she could make eye contact with until it was time to get off again.

“Why you so evil?” I asked when we were all settled on the bus and surrounded by mostly black people again.

Neeka had taken the window seat. I was in the aisle seat and the girls were across from us, losing their minds over not having to sit with any big kids. I knew before the end of the bus ride Miss Irene would be over that and have separated them. But for now, me and Neeka had some halfway private, halfway quiet time.

Neeka leaned her head against the window. The bus was a Trailways, so the seats were soft but it smelled like the blue liquid they put in the toilet bowls. I’d only been up with them to see Tash two times, and both times we’d sat in the front, away from the bathroom so it didn’t smell as bad.

“You can’t even find your Big Purpose up in this family. Can’t get your head straight.”

“Your head looks fine to me, Neek. You look nice today.”

She did. Her hair was greased and braided so that it looked clean and shiny. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt with a light brown jacket over it. She’d never even had one pimple and I looked at her skin, surprised all over again by how beautifully brown it was.

“Not my outside head. My
inside
head. D’s already close to knowing what her Big Purpose is—she’s up in her house with just Flo and got all that time to think and stuff. And you get to be just with your mama or by yourself or whatever. But I wake up and there’s kids and noise and my mama telling me to do this and do that. These ain’t even my kids!” She glared over at the twins. They were looking at us and both stuck their tongue out at her.

“There’s like no place where it could be empty and quiet. It’s all this noise. All the time.”

She leaned her head back against the window. The city was disappearing and outside I could see trees and patches of grass.

“You should come stay at my house more,” I said. But I didn’t really want that. I loved the noise and craziness of Neeka’s house. Most days, I wished we could switch places.

“It’s not the same,” Neeka said to the window. “Sometimes I think maybe I should just do something wrong—get sent to some juvie place where they lock you down alone in your room.”

“Yeah, but then no matter how much planning you did, you wouldn’t be able to do nothing about it. ’Cause you’d be on lockdown.”

“I know,” Neeka said, her voice so soft and sad, I didn’t even know what else to say.

She blew a breath on the window, then wrote a D in it. I watched her stare at the D for a few minutes until it faded. It was July and outside the sun was just beginning to come up. The sky was blue and pink and beautiful. The air-conditioning was on hard and I wished I’d brought a jacket for the bus.

“You ever wonder if people gonna remember your name?” Neeka said.

“Like how?”

“Like my name’s Daneeka L. Jones. But everybody calls me Neeka and most people don’t even know that my real name begins with a D. Or what the L is for.”

“Lucy,” I said. “Because your daddy used to watch Charlie Brown a lot and his favorite person was Lucy.”

I saw Neeka smile a bit. “Yeah.
You
know it. And some
teachers
know it. And the kids at school and some people on the block. And my family. But that’s it.”

“That’s kinda a lot, Neeka. I mean—that’s like fifty people already and you’re not even grown yet. You figure fifty people, say every couple of years, by the time you die, it’s gonna be in the thousands or something, right?”