Something Like Hope (15 page)

       
“W
hat about your father, Shavonne?” Delpopolo is grim.

“What about him?” I’ve learned Delpopolo’s trick of answering a question with a question.

“Is he alive?”

“No. And I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think about him. So why should I talk about him? Just because you want me to?”

“Did he hurt you?”

“He wasn’t around enough to hurt me. He was never around. Never. Not ever.”

I wait for the next question, but Mr. D sits there like a stone, looking at me, hands in his lap. I get the idea. He wants me to talk about how it all makes me feel. Shrink bullshit. I go mute and we sit, each refusing to speak. It is
uncomfortable. I want to stop playing games. I am tired of games, even my own.

After a few minutes I talk. I just don’t give a shit anymore. He wants me to talk, I’ll talk.

“He was in jail when I was born. Drugs, I think. Other stuff too, I’m sure. But nobody tells me.”

Delpopolo nods and plays with his fountain pen. It’s a nice one: real silver with delicate filigree. He offers it to me and I take it. I’ve never held one before, and the ink flows out smoothly as I sketch how I think my father would look if he were alive. The eyes come out hard and mean-looking, which doesn’t fit with my memory. I keep talking. The words spill out and I listen to them as though they belong to someone else.

“He used to write me letters from prison. They were nice letters too. He called me Princess and Sweet Pea. It made me feel good at the time, because I was living in a foster home. I had this fantasy that my daddy would come and rescue me. Every night I imagined him kicking the living shit out of my foster mother’s boyfriend. Then he’d take me away and we’d live happily ever after.”

“Didn’t happen?”

“No. He got sick in prison and died before he ever got paroled. Liver disease or something. He never rescued me.”

I scratch out the picture of my father and move on to a profile of Mary with her bulging belly. I’m talking easily now. I am telling my story, the story of how I came to be this way: a messed-up, ungrateful person. A taker. A person without feelings. I tell Delpopolo this is how I feel.

Delpopolo says, “It’s not so. You’re numb, and that’s different from having no feelings. Kids your age only go numb because they have to—when that’s the only thing that makes sense.

“When a life becomes unlivable,” he says, “you
have
to go numb.”

“Then how do I get better? How do I change?”

“By talking and feeling. And thinking. You’re doing a fine job of that right now. Please, go on.”

But I’ve run out of words, and images. I give him back his fountain pen.

       
M
s. Choi glares at me with evil crazy eyes. She’s made a half-assed attempt to put herself together, but the effect is grotesque: lipstick and mascara applied in thick uneven strokes. Maybe her hand is unsteady from drinking or not sleeping. I don’t know. But she’s staring at me, smiling. It’s a predator’s smile, like a hyena’s. I saw a hyena at the zoo once. It had gone insane. Its pen was too small and it paced endlessly. Ms. Choi isn’t doing anything like that. She sits perfectly still, but the grin is the same as the crazy hyena’s.

She points to a desk chair in front of her and says, “Sit.” I do as I’m told. Ms. Choi stands up, maybe expecting some kind of fight. She turns to the rest of the girls and addresses them.

“All of yous turn in and mind your own business. You all gonna get sore necks rubberneckin’ like that!”

The girls roll their eyes and open their paperbacks from library class. They disappear into their romances, horror books, street stories. Ms. Choi leans over and whispers, “I got your number, Shavonne. You can expect it any day now. It’s a fact.”

       
M
eal call is serious. Everybody is hungry and so we don’t fuck around. Instead of teasing each other and complaining, we line up and wait to move. When the cue comes over the radio “Unit cleared to move to cafeteria,” a guard says, “Go on, move!” and we all start walking.

In the Center, you always have a specific place in line. I’m number eleven, so I fall in behind number ten, Kiki. Mary is number twelve, so she stands behind me. Only, today, Ms. Choi puts her hand on Mary’s shoulder and says, “You’re going to be number fifteen today, dear.”

Number fifteen, Edna, is a chubby girl with a wild Afro that sticks straight up in the air. Edna is strange. She talks so fast that no one can understand her. She moves near Mary and starts dancing in place, snapping her fingers, waiting for Mary to move.

None of this is unusual. Guards switch us around all the time if we’re arguing or talking. Edna knows this and
is simply entertaining herself while waiting. She doesn’t see or notice the scared look on Mary’s face, but I do. I know that she is having trouble doing the math of the switch, subtracting twelve from fifteen, then counting off by that number from her present position. So she just stands there, immobile, looking like a statue of a fourteen-year-old pregnant retarded girl who is confused and scared.

Ms. Choi is staring at me. I see now what’s going on, how she’s working on Mary, my new roommate, thinking it will get to me. I twitch, trying to keep the rage inside me, but Choi breathes in my anxiety like a snake tasting the air. She’s set this whole thing up perfectly. It’s her disgusting masterpiece.

She takes a few steps back. Her eyes stay fixed on me because she’s not taking any chances. A couple of guards, big boys with thumbs looped in their thick black leather belts, lurk down the hallway. They’ve got Choi’s back.

“Mary, honey.” She is being oh so sweet! “What’s the problem? You have to change places in line with Edna so we can all go to dinner. Now move!”

Mary starts moving, then stops. She looks over at me for help, but I look away. All she has to do to break the spell is talk. She can say “I don’t know where to go,” or “I don’t know how to subtract and then add,” or “I’m confused.” She can move back in line and slide in where number fourteen, Jovanna, and number sixteen, Christie, have already made space.

But the spell is strong and she continues to stand there. Choi’s plan is a clever one. In a girl like Mary, confusion
and embarrassment get manufactured into defiance. And defiance is all the fuel Ms. Choi needs to take this further.

“All right, Mary.” The tone is different. There’s an edge to it. No longer is it sugary sweet. “You’re holdin’ us up! Why? ’Cause you won’t follow simple instructions. We’ll just have to move you, then.”

Choi nods to Ms. Swain, a short dumpy-looking white woman with a puckered face and bleached hair. Female guards are supposed to do the restraining whenever possible—too many lawsuits with the men. That’s why Choi motions for Swain instead of one of the big boys, who I see moving closer. They’re free to jump in if the women have any trouble.

Swain moves to grab one of Mary’s arms. But as soon as she touches Mary, the spell breaks and the girl screams, “Don’t touch me! Don’t you touch me! Leave me alone!”

She’s screaming and crying and completely out of control. It looks like her nightmares, only she’s awake. She covers her face with her hands; her T-shirt rides up, showing her ripe belly. It’s pathetic and we all know it. These guards are committing a terrible sin and they’re making us all watch. No, it’s worse than pathetic, because they’re making us play a part.

The other girls are starting to get anxious. Some blame Mary and mutter things like “Dang, she mad stupid. Why don’t she just do what she say and move?” Others side with Mary and say, “Jesus! Just leave her alone!” At this point, Choi pulls me out of line and turns me around to face the wall.

“You just stand there, girl! Don’t look behind and don’t say nothin’.” I look at the wall and try hard to control my breathing. The spot on my upper arm where she touched me is burning. I want to smash her skull so badly, but I know she’s counting on that. That’s her plan: to get me pissed enough to attack. And she’s just standing there, waiting, daring me to do it.

I try hard to picture my daughter’s face smiling at me, but I can’t. All I see is the face of Connie saying, “That’s okay, Shavonne. Jasmine is fine with me. We love each other, right, Jasmine? She wants to stay with me, so you go ahead and beat this woman’s ass. She deserves it. It’s okay.”

Now I can’t see anything but the wall. I can hear Mary, though, cursing and struggling. What’s happening? There are a couple of dull thuds. Are they really taking down a pregnant retarded girl?

“Mary!” I scream. I start to turn my head to see what’s happening. The other girls are agitated too. Some are breathing quickly; others are crying and getting angry themselves. That’s how it is: fear, helplessness, and rage all mix together until the whole thing blows, until the hearts and souls of these girls break apart into tiny pieces.

My body turns to follow my head. I get a glimpse of a pile of people on the floor. I see Mary, Swain, and the big boys. But where’s Choi? I move closer to the struggling screaming mess of bodies on the floor. I can’t see Mary. I hear her muffled screams, but I can’t find her. Something heavy hits me in the back of my head and I black out.

       
I
n room confinement again, my head is pounding. Two nurses are there and they tell me I’ve got a concussion. “You need to take it easy, young lady.”

The nurses are from a temp agency. The Center can’t get any nurses to stay, so they hire whoever’s available short-term. This means there’s a steady stream of new nurses who really don’t know us kids or even how things are supposed to be done. Which in a way means they’re nice.

“Where’s Mary?” I try to sit up but my head explodes with pain.

Rather than answer me, the two nurses give each other a look. It’s not a good look, and the older one only answers when I try to get up again.

“She’s at the emergency room. They just want to make sure her baby’s okay. There was a lot of excitement today.”

A lot of excitement? Is that what you call it? Excitement?

But I say nothing because it’s all clear now. There’s payback for everything, and I just got mine. Mary got hers, too, except she wasn’t guilty of anything. They couldn’t hurt me anymore, so they tied this other girl to me … made me feel the slightest bit responsible for her and then they hurt her. I tried my best to stay clear of Mary, but in the end, it didn’t matter.

I cover my face with my hands and lie there for the rest of the day. I try not to think about Mary and her baby. She’s got to be so scared. She won’t understand what’s happening or know what to do about it.