Bronx Masquerade (4 page)

I shoulda made a shopping list before I left the house this morning, but I barely got out as it is. Angel spit up on my shirt right when I was headed out the door. It’s like he
picks
the time to do it. Like he doesn’t want me to leave. It took me ten minutes to clean him up and find myself another shirt. If Mami hadn’t done the laundry for me yesterday, I wouldn’t even have a clean one to wear.

I was stupid to think I could do this on my own. Even with Mami’s help, I hardly have time to study or do my homework. Last week, Lupe asked if I could hang out with her after school and I just about laughed in her face.
“Chica,”
I wanted to say, “them days are over for me.” I go straight home now, except for maybe stopping at the grocery. It’s no more
Gloria Loca,
party girl. Fun ain’t even in my vocabulary anymore.

Once you have a kid, everything changes.

If I could go back, do things over ... but I can’t. No sense dreaming about it.

I love my Angel, and that’s no lie. But I wish he didn’t cry so much. He always wants something—his bottle, a new diaper, the teddy he dropped on the floor for the sixteenth time in a row. Or else he wants me to hold him, like I can rock a baby and write a paper at the same time! And forget about sleep. He wakes me up in the middle of the night so much, I practically wake up on my own now.

Two weeks ago, he wakes up crying with a fever. I don’t know what to do. I rub him with cold wash-cloths, and then I take his temperature. I give him baby Tylenol, walk him up and down, and I take his temperature. I sing to him, I rock him, I give him a bottle of water, and take his temperature. I must’ve taken his temperature ten times before his fever finally broke. Then I put him in bed with me so I can watch him. By the time I close my eyes, the clock radio says 3:16 A.M. The next day, I have a math test. Which I flunk, of course. I keep nodding off between reading the problems and working out the solutions. I was a mess. Lucky for me, when I explained what happened, the teacher let me take the test over.

I still got two years to go before I graduate. But I’ve got to make it, and I’ve got to go to college. Period. Angel’s father already told me straight-up he ain’t having nothing to do with this baby, so it’s on me. Mami says she’ll help, but it’s me who has to make a good life for Angel. It’s like she says, my life ain’t about just me anymore. It’s about my son.

Lupe has no idea how lucky she is.

How can I get through to her?

OPEN MIKE

BY GLORIA MARTINEZ

 

 

That girl in the mirror,
daughter of San Juan
made of sunshine and sugarcane,
looks like me.
She used to run, weightless,
Time a perfumed bottle
hanging from her neck,
mañana
a song
she made up the words to
while she skipped
—
until the day she stopped,
caught the toothless, squirming bundle
heaven dropped into her arms
and gravity kicked in.
Her life took a new spin.
This screaming gift did not
lead her to dream places
or fill all her empty spaces
like she thought.
Silly chica. She bought into
Hollywood’s lie,

Girl’s got a lot of heart, coming back to school after havin’ a baby. I saw her around here last year. Man, did she get big! She shrunk right back down, though. She’s fine, so I can see why a guy would want to give her a child. Not like any other guy will get the chance, the way she steers clear and keeps to herself.

Fine as she is, the girl ain’t no dummy. Not writing poetry like that.

She should put it up on the wall. If you ask me, it belongs there.

“Janelle Hope. Mrs. Janelle Hope. Mrs. Devon Hope.” Dream on, fool. You can stand here in the girls’ room and practice saying that name ’til your tongue falls out, or the change bell rings, whichever comes first, and it still won’t ever be true. Face it. Devon is Denzel Washington, and you are Thighs “R” Us.

I can hear Lupe now. “Stop putting yourself down. You have a very pretty face. Besides, you have a lot more going for you.” Yeah, well, I guess that’s true. I mean, I am smart and funny, and I know I’m a good person. But this is high school, and nobody seems to care about that. Why couldn’t I be tall and elegant like Diondra, or have Judianne’s perfect complexion, all smooth, super-rich fudge? Better yet, why couldn’t I look like Tanisha, or Gloria? Then I might have a chance with somebody like Devon. But I don’t, so forget it.

Devon is different from the other jocks, though. How many guys you know read Claude McKay for fun? Seems like every time I go to the library, I catch him squeezed into a corner like he’s got something to hide. He smiled at me last time I saw him there. That’s something, isn’t it? He didn’t have to smile, even if I did smile and wave first. And he seemed to like the poem I read at the last Open Mike Friday.

I can’t believe I’m getting up in front of people and talking about personal stuff, and liking it. I’m saying things that I would never tell anybody, usually. But, I don’t know. There’s something about reading poetry. It’s almost like acting. The room is kind of set up like a stage, anyway. Mr. Ward turns most of the lights out, and we stand in a spot in front of the video camera. Once he switches it on, it’s like you become somebody else, and you can say anything, as long as it’s in a poem. Then, when you’re finished, you just disappear into the dark and sit down, and you’re back to being your own self. Gloria says it’s the same for her.

“Hey, Janelle.”

Oh, no. It’s Miss Big Mouth Fifth Avenue in another one of her original getups. Where’d she come from?

“Hey, Judianne.” I thought the bathroom was empty. How long was she there? I hope she didn’t hear me talking to the mirror. That’s all I need, to have the whole school laughing about me having a crush on Devon. Lord, please don’t let that happen. It’s bad enough they call me Battle of the Bulge behind my back.

I wish, I wish, I wish. God, I wish people could see me on the inside. I know I’m beautiful there.

OPEN MIKE

BY JANELLE BATTLE

 

 

You never think other folks got feelings. Like Janelle. I must’ve cracked wise a hundred times about her weight. Never even thought about it. It was just something I did for a laugh. Listening to her now, it don’t seem all that funny.

I’m starting to feel like I know Janelle, at least a little. And Lupe. And Gloria. And Raynard. Before Open Mike Fridays, I hardly knew anybody in this school at all. Big surprise.

What could I possibly have in common with these kids? I must’ve asked myself that question a million times a day when I moved here. I’m white, they’re Black and Hispanic. I grew up in Westchester County. They grew up in New York City. I like Sheryl Crow, they like Lauryn Hill. Except for Raynard and Devon, who are into jazz. It’s like we come from two different planets. But hey, it’s not my fault. I didn’t choose to be here. If it weren’t for Mom up and dying on me, I’d still be back in Ossining with my friends.

I miss my friends. That’s mostly why I hated moving here. I knew I wouldn’t have anybody to talk to when it hurts, and it hurts all the time. Missing Mom, I mean. I was full up with loneliness for her a few weeks ago. It was one of those moments that come from outta nowhere, when you all of a sudden feel something reach inside your chest, grab your heart, and squeeze ’til you can hardly breathe. I was in the girls’ locker room at the time, and for a minute, I wheeled around like Uncle Donny does when he’s drunk. That’s when I bumped into Parscha Johnsan.

Porscha Johnson has the reputation for being a little touched in the head. In freshman year, she’d beaten the snot out of a girl who’d pushed her too far. They say it took four people to pull her off of the other girl. Everybody had pretty much steered clear of her since then. This is who I bump into.

“Hey! Watch it,” she said.

“Sorry,” I told her.

“You got that right. Why don’t you sorry yourself on outta here?” Usually, this would be the cue for me to make myself invisible, but I was hurting too bad, and I was not in the mood. I flung my locker door open and spoke between my teeth.

“I said I was sorry. Now why don’t you just leave me alone?”

“Leave you alone? Look, if you wanted to be left alone, why the hell did you invade
my
space?”

By space, I thought she meant neighborhood. That’s when I felt my head spin off. “My mom died, all right? And I was sent to live with my grandmother, who lives in this neighborhood, and I had no choice. Not that it’s any of your business.”

The split second those last words flew out, I wanted to take them back, but I couldn’t. I swallowed hard and waited for Porscha to shove me against the lockers, or to punch me in the stomach, or to whip out a knife like I’d seen kids do on TV. Instead, she stepped back, lowered herself to the bench, and said, “Sorry about your mom. My mom died too.”

Turns out we both live with our grandmothers. For a long time, she put off telling me what her mom died from. My mom died of cancer, which was no big secret, but hers died from a drug overdose. Porscha thought that would make a difference, but when I found out, I told her it made no difference at all. Dead is dead, and lonely is lonely, and they both stink. All that matters, I told her, is that we’re friends. And we are.

I’m lucky. I was on my way to being like Amy Moscowitz, the one girl in class almost nobody knows anything about. She cuts herself off, hardly ever speaks, or lets anyone in. She seems to be happy by herself, but I need to hear somebody’s voice besides my own. I’m not as strong as she is, and now I don’t have to pretend that I am.

Open Mike Fridays help. We kind of have our own little clique now. The whole school knows who we are, that we’re “the poets.” It’s weird. For the first time in my life, I’m part of a group that’s cool. Who would believe it?

Last month, Mr. Ward gave our class an assignment to write a poem about what frightens us most, in honor of Halloween. A year ago, I might have written about something silly, like ghosts, which I don’t even believe in, and even if I did, ghosts would not be at the top of my list. The scariest thing I can think of now is being all alone in the world.

OPEN MIKE

BY LESLIE LUCAS

 

 

Man, that little white girl be getting pretty deep. I figured her for something lame like “Roses are red, violets are blue.” Glad I didn’t have a bet on that action.

More than half the class wanted to read today, but most of them were girls. I wish a few more of the brothas would step up to the mike, even this thing out a little. Know what I’m saying?

Good thing Leslie’s cough woke me in class this morning. I nodded off three times. Once more and Mr. Ward said he’d be bringing me a pillow. That’s what I get for staying up late. Again.

What choice did I have? Open Mike Friday is today and I am not about to stand in front of the class in some funky old outfit. I didn’t realize it would take me half the night to finish something new. I hope I can stay awake long enough to read my poem when my turn comes.

Me, writing poetry! What a scream. I’m not smart enough to be writing poetry in the first place, though Mr. Ward says I’m smarter than I know. Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have bothered trying to write anything except that Open Mike Friday is one time I know I can get Tyrone Bitting’s attention, and I’ve got a thing for Tyrone. Of course, he’s got a thing for Tanisha Scott—like every other boy in school.

Too bad we can’t all have good hair and light skin.

Who am I kidding? She’s more than that. She’s pretty. Which I’m not, as my stepfather reminds me ten times a day. Like I don’t know that from looking in the mirror, or from having kids tease me about my blue-black skin all the way through school. But my body’s good. Nothing wrong with me in that department. That’s why I got to show it off, wear clothes that accentuate the positive. The shorter, the better. And I don’t even have to buy them. I can make them myself. It ain’t much, but that’s one thing I learned from my mother. How to sew.