I was one of the dark children in the projects, born to a teenage mother and father who loved each other but not enough to put my father's name on my birth certificate. I was a girl child, girl children didn't carry on the family name so what did it matter? It mattered to me.
I was one of the FEW children in the projects who had a father; in the sense that I could escape to a real house with a backyard on the weekends my dad wasn't working at the greeting card plant or studying at the big university on the hill. I learned to fish at the local dam out of need. Dad was a broke ass college student so fish and grilled government cheese sandwiches were what was for dinner. Daddy thought I was beautiful and he and my uncle Robert told me I would break hearts someday...even at five years old I thought they were full of shit, but damn if they weren't right. :-)
We lived in low income housing with other poor happy black and hispanic kids. I remember being care free, but I always feared my mother. I was my father's child and my mother let me know he wasn't shit, so by association I wasn't shit either.
My moms wanted better for me and my older sis and she worked like a dog at the plastic plant we NEVER went hungry and the lights were always on. My moms was a hustler from a long line of hustlers and we were the best dressed kids in the projects. My mother was respected. She was beautiful. I always felt safe until I was five years old.
He lived next door with his sister and her kids. They called her Big Girl although she wasn't all that big, and they called him Big Boy and I remember he was tall and dark, he was always really funny. They were from the deep south and in our small town the rumors ran rampant. I was five but I was always listening to the grown ups during the card parties. Seems that Big Boy and Big Girl were on husband and wifey terms.
I used to play with Big Girls son and daughter they were nice kids and didn't seem to care that I was only five. All the other kids stayed clear of them. But they lived right next door and I wasn't allowed to stray far from home so next door was just my speed. I remember my moms was having a party and Big Girl was there, but her kids had stayed at home. I was bothering my mom something fierce which is something I rarely did because she usually didn't take much shit from us, she told me to go next door and play with the kids. I didn't question and skipped next door. The kids next door were crying and the house was dark except for the TV, the kind with the stereo built into the top and the speakers built in on the sides. Big Boy let me in and even at five I remember thinking why isn't he at the party? Leann, the little girl looked relieved to see me, her brother never looked at me just stared at the TV. I sat down and watched TV with him. Big Boy called Leann into the kitchen she started crying harder but she only stayed in the kitchen for a few minutes. She came out of the kitchen crying and told me Big Boy wanted me to come talk to him. I walked around the corner to the kitchen and stopped. He was standing against the wall with his manhood out. I didn't move. He smiled at me and told me to touch him. I didn't move. He just kept smiling. He grabbed my hand and made me touch him...I knew it wasn't right but shit I was 5. After I touched him he roughly shoved it down my five year old throat, he seemed to be really enjoying his sick self...and I did what 5 yr olds do best, I threw up. He didn't say a word just cleaned himself up and took me next door. I was scared as hell he was going to tell my Mama. I didn't want her wrath to rain down on me. He told her I wasn't feeling well. My mama looked at my dirty shirt and rolled her eyes. I had fucked up her high with ill timed illness. She took my shirt off and told me get into my night clothes. I didn't say a word just brushed my teeth to get the taste of Big Boy out of my mouth and I went to bed. I thought he had done me favor by not telling my moms, but that night as I lay in my bunk bed I could hear Leann crying through the project walls...Big Boy wasn't doing her any favors. I listened though those walls for the next year or so until Mama moved us into a small house.
Big Boy died some years ago. Died of AIDS related complications. I can't think of anyone who deserved it more.
Sophia from the
Color Purple said it best " a girl child ain't safe in a world full of men"
Men look at you different when they know these things about you, but it's 1 in 4 women who are abused in some way. We are taught to keep silent to be shameful, but I stopped being shameful decades ago. It was not my cross to bear. I stopped giving it power to change me. I found the silence hurt me so I have always talked a lot, I think just hoping someone would stop and listen and read between the lines and know I was wronged and wounded. But people couldn't read my mind and couldn't read between the lines, so I began to write just a few year later, I think I was about 8 or 9. I was finally able to get the taste of him out of my mouth and the feel of his hands on me off of my body. I got lost in books because these things didn't happen to the people in the books I read. I wanted to give people that escape so I write... I can escape any bad day and I can bring along as many people who wish to join me...That is how my flow began...
Holla
