We scrambled over the cheap sneakers, all try’na get the right fit. We weren’t dumb, though. We knew whatever it was we had to make it work, make it fit, quickly!
As Riot collected our dirty jumpers and put them all in the one plastic bag that we had just emptied, the rest of us started looking around at one another. Nothing was funnier than seeing Lil’ Man in a cheap micromini that revealed her bowleggedness. She was pulling at her tight tee, which wasn’t long enough to conceal her belly button, which was the only dark part on her extra-light skin.
When I checked myself, I got red cause my T-shirt had touch me written on it in tall, thin script. I was taking a snapshot of all of us in my mind. I never wanted to forget. Once I get back all my riches, I’ll be able to look back and laugh it off. Right now, I couldn’t even recognize myself as Porsche L. Santiaga, daughter of Ricky and Lana Santiaga.
A rhythmic knock came from the one closed metal door, like a break beat, and the sound bounced off the bricks. The guy who was still turned away from us went to open it. We all fell completely silent and scattered to the side-wall corner, like rats trying not to be seen or captured.
The blue-eyed guy opened the door but guarded the entrance with his body. A stuffed envelope was handed off through the small opening. The guy pulled it in and put his foot against the door while he counted the contents. Stacks—it had been almost three years since I had seen real money like that, especially not a stack or pile like what he was flipping through in the fat envelope. He pushed it in his back pocket and nodded his head to the left. Riot caught his signal and stepped right over, standing in front of him. I could tell by the way he looked at her, different from the way he didn’t look at the rest of us, that he liked Riot a lot. Was he the boy she was planning to hook up with all along on festival day? Was he the reason she was crawling and barking like a dog on all fours with no resistance that day in the gym?
“I’ll see you soon, right?” he asked her.
“Depends. If you keep your word,” she said, giving him a serious look with no flirting mixed in it.
“So far, I’m doing alright,” he said.
“Yeah, because if you tell on us, you tell on yourself,” Riot said, looking into his eyes. He didn’t say nothing back. “It’s true what they say about us, you know,” Riot told him.
Then they were interrupted by another intense rap on the door. Riot ignored it.
“That we’re violent—a gang of girls who will attack without warning and murder our enemies if we don’t get our way.” She stared him down.
I didn’t know if she was trying to shut him down, the blue-eyed boy, or slow him down or turn him off or threaten him, but after she said that, he seemed to like her even more.
One by one, he let each of us out through a too-small opening of the door where he still held guard, as though he didn’t want to see what was going on, on the other side.
On the other side of the door and outside of the huge warehouse, a car was backed up to the door. The trunk was wide open so we couldn’t see what model of year, or type of car it was, or who was sitting inside.
“Climb in,” Riot said, nodding towards the trunk. We got in without hesitation.
“Don’t worry, you can breathe through that hole.” Riot pointed. We shifted around until we were lying side-by-side, fitting ourselves together like mismatched puzzle pieces. Riot reached and when she pulled her hand back, she was holding a gun. It was small, like Momma’s piece, the one Poppa brought her, with the pearl handle. Our eyes followed the burner. She handed it to Lil’ Man. They looked at one another like they both already knew what was up. As Riot lowered the trunk I realized she wasn’t jumping in with us. When her face disappeared, slowly I felt the seriousness of what was happening and a little uneasy about not really knowing nothing about the details of this move we were making. She pushed the trunk closed.
The car sped. I could hear the wind pushing in and sucking out and swirling around our “breathing hole.” We were in a dark, closed-in, cramped space again. Unlike before, I was not laying in water. Our bodies were on top of a warm blanket with a fleece texture. It would’ve been perfect for the fall breeze, but we were speeding through the summer heat.
“Porsche, are you scared?” Tiny’s voice asked.
“No,” I said.
“In twenty-six minutes it will be one o’clock,” Tiny said.
“I know,” me, Lil’ Man, and Siri all said at the same time. We counted seconds and minutes. The top of the hour always meant something to us and for us. At one o’clock the festival would have been on for a full hour. There would be three hours, fifteen minutes, remaining—and then, of course, the head count. I could feel Siri’s heart beating heavy. I was lying between Siri and Tiny.
“Tiny, how long did you know about all of this?” I asked.
“About a month. Why you askin’?” she said.
“How ’bout you Lil’ Man?” I asked.
“Since last year around this time,” Lil Man said. “What difference do it make?” she added.
“How bout you, Porsche?” Tiny asked me.
“Late night, I just found out last night,” I told them truthfully.
“Don’t be mad,” Siri said to me.
“That’s cause you the baby,” Tiny said.
“Plus you a little crazy,” Lil’ Man laughed. “We had to be sure nothing slipped out, or the Diamond Needles would’ve of been fucked.” Lil’ Man disrespected.
Then the ride got silent.
I’m a “little crazy”! I repeated Lil’ Man’s words in my mind. “Who’s crazier than her?” I thought to myself. I mean, I understand the killing part, that someone hurt her mother real bad, so she sent him to the cemetery. I didn’t understand the rest, like how come she acted like a man, looked like a man, made everyone call her Lil’ Man. I didn’t understand why I once saw her holding her crotch like she had balls, diddy-boppin’ so hard she looked like she might fall sideways. Why was she acting like she all about church, while she was getting sauced up in the bullshit sermon? I understood why she might not like men or want them for boyfriends after what her rapist father did to her mom. But if she hated men, why did she act just like ’em? Why did she become one?
I’m a little crazy. Her insult repeated in my mind once more, and I laughed out loud.
“What’s funny?” Tiny asked.
“Nuphin,” I mumbled. I didn’t forget Lil’ Man had the gun.
“You acting like this shit was some little schoolyard secret that nobody told you. This shit is serious. Me, Rose Marie, Hamesha, Tiny-Tong, we were all about to get shipped out of juvy to do real time. You know what that’s like, waiting for the warden and them to snatch us up anytime she felt like it and send us into a worser hell, where we had to start all over again with bitches that’s madder and meaner than us?” Lil’ Man said.
I didn’t answer back.
“I’m serving out premeditated murder. You know what that means? Did you know that some killing is considered worse than other killing? Premeditated murder means I knew all along I was gonna kill somebody. I thought about it, planned it out, set it up, and then made it happen. It wasn’t an accident or incident or self-defense. I am considered the worse kind of murderer: murder one. I was to serve out the maximum,” Lil’ Man explained, but to me she was just bigging herself up, which wasn’t necessary. Then she started up again. What could I do? We were stuffed in a locked trunk together.
“Yesterday, July 19th, was Riot’s birthday. Did you know that? Today she would’ve become eligible to get transferred out of juvy. Once you become eligible for transfer, you got to serve your time on pins and needles, kiss the warden’s ass even more. That shit is stressful. So we bounced. And you lucky you got to ride with us,” Lil’ Man said. But I wasn’t lucky. I’m Diamond Needle number 11, and I was down with whatever we had jumping off, from the moment I agreed to be down.
“Porsche,” Tiny said, softly changing the tone of our talk. “Me and Lil’ Man bout t
o jump out. Hope you not scared to ride alone.”
“I’m not scared of shit,” I told her, still red at the way Lil’ Man was putting her words together.
“Alright, big girl, I’m just checking,” Tiny said in a light joking voice.
“Tiny! I thought you said it was safer on lockdown than in the real world,” I challenged her.
“I changed my mind,” was all she said.
I didn’t push any further. I figured the warden made Tiny make that decision when she forced her to strip in front of everyone.
“Where are you and Tiny going? Are you two staying together?” I asked.
“You digging too deep young-young,” Lil’ Man said. “Our drop-off is coming up. We flashing out. That’s all you need to know.”
“I’ll stay with her until I don’t want to no more,” Tiny said. “Right, Lil’ Man?”
“That’s right. Ain’t nobody forcing nobody to do nothing. But after you see how good I’m a treat you, you gonna wanna stay with me, watch,” Lil’ Man said. Tiny giggled.
“Is that love?” I asked Tiny.
“Damn, why you ask that?” Tiny said after a long pause.
“Cause I thought we could talk about anything,” I said softly.
“We could,” Tiny said swiftly, but she still didn’t answer if it was love.
“I don’t know too much about that, Porsche,” she said in an even softer voice than her normally soft way of speaking.
“Porsche don’t know shit about love either,” Lil’ Man said. “If someone loved any of us, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.” Her words were like bricks.
“Porsche, keep your mouth shut, that’s rule number one. Don’t repeat nothing you seen, or nothing you heard. Keep it in your chest,” Lil’ Man warned.
The car came to a stop. In seconds, someone knocked on the trunk. It popped open, no one was standing there, and Tiny and Lil’ Man leaped out. Swiftly, Lil’ Man slammed it shut. She wasn’t playing. She was in a worried hurry.
“Porsche, it was nice knowing you. You’re so pretty and a real cool little girl. Don’t let nobody ruin you. It’s nice that you still believe in love,” Tiny said through the breathing hole.
“C’mon,” I heard Lil’ Man bossing her. The car sped away.
“It’s better when it’s only you and me,” Siri said. But now I was thinking of Lina. Did she get out? I loved her most of all the Diamond Needles.
• • •
We rode for two hours, or a bit more. I hoped it was long enough for me to reach close to New York City. I didn’t have no money. I didn’t know where I was, who was driving the car, who was riding in the seats, or whether the car was moving south, north, east, or west. I didn’t know the details of the plan, but I knew if I could get close to our Long Island mansion address where Momma was, nothing else would matter. If I could see her, hug her, spend only one week with her, if the authorities hunted me down and shot me through the back of my head, it would be okay, cause I’ll have had seven more days with Momma than I ever expected to have.
The car was pulling over now. The speed dropped, and we went from a smooth highway type of ride to driving over what felt like rocks or pebbles. Then we came to a complete stop.
There was a too-long pause, say three and a half minutes. Inside that time, terror gripped me. What if Riot was gone, and I was left alone with some stranger? What if it was more than one of them, and they tried to do me like Choo-Choo? What if they kidnapped me like how they done Tiny, marked my skin up, and slashed me a few times? I didn’t have no weapons. I began feeling around, telling Siri, “Let’s look for something, a knife, a screwdriver or wrench or even a spray can, so I could squeeze the nozzle and blind ’em.”
The trunk popped opened as I was crawling in the limited space, lifting up the rug below the blanket, bout to grab the black iron tool that was pressed inside of a small wheel.
“Santiaga!” Riot said. “Put the jack down. It’s alright.”
I was relieved to see her standing there. I was relieved to be breathing better now that the trunk was wide open.
“Everything good?” a male voice asked from a short distance.
“Porsche, pull your skirt down, your butt is showing.” Riot laughed. “Hurry up, jump out!” She turned back to business.
Soon as I was standing on my two feet, I peeped a green-eyed white boy in a hoodie with the drawstring pulled tight and a bandanna running across his forehead. Less than a half second later, Riot was tightening a blindfold around my eyes. “This is to protect you,” Riot said.
“If anything goes wrong, just blame me. I give you my permission. Tell the police and the authorities that I forced you out. You don’t know nothing. You couldn’t see nothing. This way you won’t be lying either,” she said.
“I’m not no snitch,” I told her. “You should know that by now.” I was red, but I wouldn’t fight Riot. I loved her, too.
“I know you’re not. But you are my son. If you knew too much, the authorities would target you to snatch up all the Needles. You don’t have enough experience to deal with them head up,” she said as she put what felt like a knapsack on my back, and one hand on my shoulder. She pushed a little, and we began walking.
She trusted me. I could tell. She didn’t tie my wrist, and I could’ve easily yanked off the blindfold. She didn’t tie my ankles to prevent me from running. If I wanted to I could’ve bolted easily. As we walked I listened to hear the car that we arrived in pull off, but I didn’t hear nothing but what Riot had once described as “country quiet.”
We weren’t walking on level ground. It felt more like a dirt path. I could feel one or two sticks cracking beneath my cheap shoes, and an occasional rock pressing too hard against my soles. Riot moved me with her hands as a guide, pulling my shoulder left or right when she needed me to move even slightly in one direction or another.
“Step over,” she would say when a boulder was in our path, or “duck down,” when I was about to walk into some dangling branches. I didn’t have to be too smart to know we were walking in some woods. I had never been deep into the woods before in my little life. I’m a city girl other than the big back yard at my Long Island, New York, palace.
Fuck it, we were hiking. It couldn’t have been a little cut-through. We had been walking almost a half hour. Riot was quiet. I could hear the birds singing their songs and Siri had been humming the whole way, her pretty voice calming me down some. I was sweating. The bandanna was soaking it up.
Forty-five minutes in, Riot said, “Stop.” She began untying my bandanna.
“Water,” I said.
“It’s in your knapsack. Sip it slow,” she warned.
When I stopped gulping instead of sipping, I looked around.
“It’s an orchard,” Siri said. “It’s so pretty. Let’s play.”
We was surrounded by beautiful, tall trees. A powerful sunbeam slid through an opening and spread light. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a gang of white butterflies, birds diving, squirrels dashing, and little small creatures scurrying.
“Chipmunks,” Riot said when she saw my eyes following one of them as he moved about. In the distance I saw a deer. All my breath left me. The long-necked animal had the biggest, darkest eyes and a stare that captured me. I did not feel any fear. I don’t know why I started crying. I was mad at myself because of it.
“I’ll be back,” I told Riot. “I gotta pee.”
“Don’t go too far. You can pee anywhere,” she called out. Then she said, “I’m a pee, too.”
Peeing out here in the wilderness felt different than peeing as a prisoner. It didn’t feel like my vagina muscles were fighting me dropping out only a few droplets or splashing out uncontrollably. Now a steady stream of warm piss was coming out and taking its time. It kept coming, till finally it finished.
Why were my tears still streaming? I asked myself. Siri said, “You’re crying because we are so lost. You’re crying because we are hungry and we have been hungry for years. You a
re crying because we have left nothing behind and we have nothing to look forward to.”
“I have Momma, and Winter and Lexy and Mercedes,” I murmured.
“You know better. We promised not to ever expect to see them. It hurts you too much when we do. We promised to only believe it when they were standing right beside you and even then, only after you reach out your hand and felt their skin to be sure they were really there. We gotta keep that promise because that’s the only way we made it this far.”
“I remember, you’re right, Siri,” I said, wiping away my tears with a piece of my thin T-shirt.
When we skipped back to where we had parted with Riot, I didn’t see her. I stood still, spinning only my eyes over each leaf and space looking for her. Next I spun my whole body around in a complete circle checking for her. Then I heard her laughter. “C’mon, we’ll follow the sound,” Siri said.
The trail led us to a wooden dollhouse with no glass where the windows were supposed to be. Riot was there inside, leaning on the wooden frame looking out at us.
“Come on in,” she welcomed us.
“I like it out here,” I told her truthfully. I was definitely curious about the dollhouse. I wish I had asked Poppa to build me one of these in our backyard at home. But I never got the chance.
“This house has a roof. If the hell-copters come, they won’t see me,” Riot said, convincing me and Siri to dart inside.
Inside she had her knapsack open. In it were a couple of bags of chips, and chocolate bars, some nuts, raisins, a banana, and her bottle of water, a flashlight, a candle, and a jar of something like Vaseline but not Vaseline. She also had a pocketknife and two books of matches.
“Somebody hooked you up,” I said, seeing all she had now that she didn’t have before. As I really checked it all out, Riot was wearing green cargo pants and a green T-shirt. Her hair was unbraided and yanked back into a long flowing ponytail. Each strand was crinkled like hair does when you unbraid it after it’s been braided for a long time. The two tied-together black bandannas that she had used to blindfold me were now wrapped around her forehead, headband-style. She definitely had been wearing the same fucked-up cheap miniskirt outfit that we were all wearing a few hours ago. Now, not only was she chilling, she even had a Timex on her wrist.