The Corner II (8 page)

“I got friends but no one special.”  He was turning into the lot of the corner store. His left shoulder leaned on the door and he worked the wheel with his right hand. He looked so cool to the girls. Low wavy hair, copper skin tone and jet-black goatee that was just filling out on his young face. “You think you could be that special someone?”

“I don’t know,” was all LaTanza could think to say. She had been caught off guard but made up for it by asking, “So are you going in with me or what? Maybe you can get to know more about me?” She walked off switching.

Jasmine was so excited that she almost peed in her Capris when she heard her girl step her game up. She also wanted to stay in the truck to bump music and front and was happy when Carlos tossed the remote to the six-disc changer to her.

Carlos and LaTanza came out of the store laughing and he was so close to her that he might as well had put his arm around her. They got in the truck and Carlos headed back to the street where he had met the girls. He let them out. He drove a little further and one of the boys who Carlos had given a package to was still on the corner—still patting his braids. The other was sitting in a car with a female.

Carlos asked the braided boy, “He get the shit?”

“We all good,” the young thug answered.

“My nigga.” Carlos drove off, turning into the Chicago rush hour traffic.

LaTanza giggled to her friend,” I got his number.”

“Let me see, you lying!” Jasmine said excitedly.

LaTanza showed her the piece of paper with the phone number on it then showed her where Carlos had written the number on the palm of her hand telling her that way she’d have it if she lost the paper. She also showed her one hundred dollars and gave Jasmine fifty. Carlos had given her a c-note and told her to buy herself a new outfit, that they were going to the movies on the weekend. A hundred dollars was more than enough to get a summer outfit so she shared the cash with her friend. That’s the way they were—two peas in a pod. They walked back to LaTanza’s house eating Lemon Heads, Chico sticks and Jay’s barbecue potato chips. For the first time she didn’t mind running an errand for Jack for she and Carlos have been seeing each other ever since and it has been a year.

There was a forceful knock on the bedroom door and it broke LaTanza from her dreaming. “You eating or what?” LaDonna asked as she entered the room.

The girls caught an attitude thinking it was Jack, but when they heard LaDonna’s voice as she entered the room, they were relieved.

“Jasmine, are you staying?” LaDonna asked nicely as she leaned inside of her sister’s room.

Jasmine rose from the bed and collected her things. She would stay sometimes just to keep LaTanza company, but since her sister was there she decided to use the time to go see her boyfriend for awhile before going home. Seeing as how her mother thought she was going to be at LaTanza’s most of the night. LaTanza told her sister that she’d be down after she helped Jasmine collect her things.

Jasmine packed her magazines and books in her backpack. She called her boyfriend and told him that she was on her way. She hung up the phone then slung the pack over her shoulder. They headed for the bedroom door when Jasmine stopped.

“Hey, I almost forgot. You got any condoms?” she asked her friend.

“You know I don’t keep none here. What, for
him
to find them when he’s rambling through my stuff?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. I hate that you gotta put up with his shit! He ain’t even your real daddy!”

Nervously, LaTanza told her, “Don’t say that too loud. You know you the only one that knows that.”

“My bad. Let me get outta here. Now I gotta stop by the store.”

“Why Brian don’t never have any condoms?”

“He say he don’t like the way they feel. I think he wants to get me pregnant thinking that shit is going to keep me on lock while his ass goes off to the Marines, huh.”

“Yeah, he’s trippin’.”

Once downstairs they passed by the dining room and Jasmine said her goodbyes to everyone. Jack just waved and LaDonna spoke telling her to tell her family hi. Jasmine told her that she would and left the house in a hurry to meet her man. LaTanza sat down at the table to join her sister and stepfather for dinner. She hated when they ate at the dining room table. The seat her father made her sit in was the seat where her mother sat whenever they had dinner. Her sister didn’t think anything of it, just figured that LaTanza missed her mom like she does. It had been five years since her mother’s untimely death. Five long years for LaTanza who wished she could have left with her sister when she moved shortly afterward. And that’s when her personal hell broke out.

The dinner actually went well. LaDonna had put her thing down, macaroni and cheese, greens, fried chicken, hot water cornbread and sweet potato pie for dessert. She had even made enough for LaTanza and Jack to have leftovers for a couple of days and for that, LaTanza was grateful. That meant that she didn’t have to cook tomorrow. LaDonna even stayed to help do the dishes and to talk to her younger sister. She was twenty-seven and LaTanza seventeen so she assumed that her sister was sexually active or thinking about it and figured she’d have that big sister to little sister talk. LaDonna took a beer to her father who was in the living room already drinking on some E&J and LaDonna hated that because her father was okay when drinking beer but sometimes acted a fool when he sucked down too much hard liquor.

LaDonna walked back into the kitchen with the beer in her hand but made a u-turn when her father yelled for her to bring it back. She did and when she brought it to him he asked her to sit. He was nowhere near drunk—yet.

He talked to her about her job and told her how proud he was of her and that he’d always known that
she
would amount to something. He went on about how he remembered the times when she came home with straight As and Bs and whenever she ended up with a C she was upset and vowed to come home with an A next grading period. He told her how he was glad that she’d decided to stay in the city and not move elsewhere—that he needed her. When she told him that he had LaTanza he let out a grunt and wrapped his thick lips around the bottle.

LaTanza was ear hustling the entire time and felt pain and anger. She knew how her stepfather felt about her. How he hated her for having to play the role that she was his daughter even though no one asked him to do that. He and her mother just wanted to save face and the embarrassment of hearing the gossip in the neighborhood if everyone knew that her mom had conceived a child by another man while her husband was spending time in Cook County jail. A many nights LaTanza cried herself to sleep asking God why hadn’t he let someone kill Jack while he sat in the notorious county jail.

LaTanza listened as the two talked. Once she got sick of hearing her stepfather dog her, she decided to get back to the dishes. She washed most of them then slammed a plate to the ground. When her sister came into the kitchen to see what happened LaTanza told her she dropped it by accident even though she did it to get her sister back in the kitchen so they could spend more time together before she left.

It was a little past midnight when the hairs on LaTanza neck stood up like a Porcupine that was sent into defense mode. She was in her bedroom curled up and had been sleeping for only a couple of hours. When she cracked open her eyes a bit she didn’t see the curtains flapping from the breeze that had been blowing into her room—the window had been closed.

She wanted to yell out.

She wanted to scream.

But knew what the consequences were.

“Take your clothes off,” the voice from the devil penetrated her ears.

LaTanza tried to play sleep then felt the covers being yanked from over her body.

In a drunken slur, Jack repeated, “I’m not going to tell you again. Take your clothes off!”

He stood at the side of the bed as LaTanza slowly took off the t-shirt and shorts she slept in. Jack sipped his brandy on the rocks and watched.

LaTanza pulled the t-shirt over her head. Usually she would take her time hoping that her stepfather would change his mind and leave or pass out drunk. But she was to the point that she was too tired and beat down to hope and pray like she usually did when he started molesting her. It all started years ago when she was ten. He would make her touch him and he would touch her. As she got older and filled out more he told her that she was a woman and started penetrating her at the age of fourteen. He did this six times a year for the past three years and lately he had been forcing her to perform oral sex. His primary hold on her was fear but some was mental. For years he hammered in her head that if she ever told anyone that he would kill either her, her sister or her grandmother. She believed him and also didn’t tell because she felt as if no one would believe her and if they did, they would somehow blame her so she just put up with it but now she was tired, mentally gone and used to the abuse.

When Jack noticed that she wasn’t shaking and tears weren’t streaming down her face he became pissed. “So what? You and that Spanish fucker I done heard about doing it? You’re a fucking slut just like your mother.”  He dropped his drink on the carpeted floor. He wasn’t worried about a stain. His Cinderella would clean it up. He started to unbuckle his jeans and within seconds they were on the floor.

LaTanza tried to picture Carlos as Jack pounded ferociously. But she couldn’t because he talked through the entire ordeal. Told her how he did it to her six times a year because that’s how many times her mother rationed the sex to him after she was born. He told her that she was a whore just like her mother. That she deserved what he was doing to her. That she wasn’t his child and that he hated taking care of some other man from across town child. How she wasn’t shit and how she would never leave him. That she owed him and this was how she was going to pay. He flipped her over on her stomach then forced himself inside her. She wanted to scream. It hurt so badly but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he was hurting her. She buried her face in her pillow until he was finished and at that very moment the chemical imbalance in her body took form—and without medication her mind and emotions would never be the same.

When Jack left her room, in a calm demeanor, she went down the hall to the shower. She locked the door even though his rule was not to lock any doors in his house. She took a hot shower for almost an hour only stopping because the water had turned cold. She dried herself off and lotioned her body as she smiled and hummed a tune. She could still feel a little of the pain but blocked it out. A switch had been triggered. She vowed that she would never again let anyone treat her the way she had been treated for years.

She slipped on a fresh pair of shorts and a t-shirt. She put her hair in a ponytail and looked in the mirror and smiled. Her stepfather had finally hit that switch. She walked past his room and saw him sprawled across his bed asleep. He was still clutching his jeans in his hand. LaTanza continued humming a tune as she walked to the kitchen and grabbed a carving knife. She smiled wickedly as she looked over the sharp blade as she headed to Jack’s room ready to slit his throat. She was almost there ready to commit the murder when she stopped. Her switch was still on and it told her to use this as an opportunity. Not to go to jail for killing her stepfather but to let someone who claimed to love her with all his heart take care of the situation—that same someone who vowed to kill anyone who brought harm to her. She returned the knife to its place in the kitchen and went upstairs to pack but then thought that that wouldn’t be a good idea. She then picked up her phone, dialed Carlos, and told him that she was on her way over.

*     *     *

“What’s the matter, mama?” Carlos asked, softly. He and LaTanza were lying on his bed in his north side condo. When she arrived she was smiling and looking sexy in her jean shorts and mid-drift top. She smelled so good. A new body wash, but he couldn’t figure out what fragrance. He assumed she was horny and wanted to do it. He thought about the first time they had made love. She seemed as if she was in another place but he figured it was because she was a virgin. He did all the work and over the past six months he taught her a lot of things about sex. Now she would wear sexy lingerie, was more aggressive and willing to please him. He would massage her and take his time with foreplay. To sum it up, their sex life was great.

She rolled over on her stomach as she answered. “If I tell you something will you promise that you will love me the same?”

Carlos told her to sit up. He gently cupped her face with his strong yet well-manicured hand. A hand that only got dirty when it needed to. A young man of his status rarely had to put his hands in the mix.

His brown eyes showed his seriousness when he said, “I’ll always love you. What’s up?”

She turned her head.

“Lil’ mama, what’s up? It ain’t another dude, is it?” he asked. Now she was able to read nervousness and anger in his eyes. She knew that he would flip if she was seeing another man but little did he know he had nothing to worry about when it came to that. She loved him dearly and he had taught her so much, things that a father should teach a growing girl and the things that a lover should also. He was her rock and she knew he would take care of any problem that she had. So she let it out.

Tears streamed down her face as she told Carlos, “I was raped tonight.”

He jumped from the bed and yelled, “What the fuck! By who?”