I stretched my neck some. Even moving my eyeballs was work. I saw a man’s naked body moving. I watched. His legs were strong looking and his ass cheeks were moving in and out. Most of all his skin was tight and nice. It was tan, like the inside of a Milky Way with a teaspoon of chocolate mixed in it. I liked his muscles moving. There was a body below him. Her legs were open. Her feet were flat against the bed at first. She pulled ’em up some, and then wrapped and locked em around his butt. I couldn’t see his or her face, but the dancer in me knew they were moving in a rhythm together, not like a fight or a rape. My fear evaporated.
So this is sex, I thought to myself. Those sounds, after a while I closed my eyes and I made them music in my mind. Meanwhile, I tried to imagine the feeling they both felt. I couldn’t. She looked like she was feeling so good in those moments, like if she had one worry before he touched her, she didn’t have it now and wouldn’t until he separated his body from hers.
I drifted into sleep cause I was running real fast while I was knocked out on the wooden tabletop. I was chasing a feeling I just couldn’t capture.
• • •
THE GUY I MET.
Dear Momma,
You already know, today is my eleventh birthday. You would be surprised to see what I would only show to you: my little titties, which are mostly only big swollen nipples. I know there is so much more to come.
And I have hair down there, not a lot. It’s like the light fur on a peach. I know it will only stay like that for a little while. Soon it will become a bush. I’ve been told that I had my womanhood. Seems too soon to me. I wanted you to be the one telling me all that. Then you and I would keep it a secret from Poppa.
Momma, listen to this. A few days ago, I woke up in a tree, a tree house in the wilderness, closer to the sky than usual, with unusual neighbors if you know what I mean. When I first looked out of the door I saw a beautiful but nervous blue jay and a red robin. When I saw the ground it was way, way below where I was standing, I got dizzy. No one was home. I didn’t see a way out besides jumping and breaking my little legs. I didn’t know who put me up here, if they were joking or trying to kidnap me. I was getting used to being kidnapped, but this wasn’t the authorities’ doing, I knew.
It turned out a handsome drummer lived in this tree. I know you wouldn’t say he’s more handsome than Poppa. But he’s damn sure fine. He’s Native with a Caesar cut and a tomahawk tattooed on his neck. He has dark eyes and dark brown lips and a strong body. He holds his drum between his knees and touches up those skins with his magical, musical moving hands.
When I saw all the heads and hair in his tree house I thought he was some type of murderer or, worse, a rapist serial killer. Turned out, he’s a hair hustler. He’s a real hustler from the top to the bottom and from the beginning to the end. Charming like Poppa, with a real pretty smile, he travels to neighborhoods and talks girls into giving up their hair. He pulls out a stack of paper (Momma, the kind of money stack that we’re used to) and he pays them a price they agreed on. He cuts their hair off and bags each head separately. On one block, some girls lined up soon as they saw him coming. I get excited over him but mostly for his style. I like that he lives in a tree, owns his own business, makes his own money, and looks good while doing it. I got fascinated with his zip cord and how he glides from another tree to reach his own tree house. He seemed sure that he wanted to live his own way in his own space in a hidden and unpredictable location. I like that he found me when I blacked out beside my bike, but didn’t take me to no hospital (long story, Momma, I hate doctors and hospitals) and healed me. He didn’t touch me in any of my private spaces as far as I could tell. At first I thought he did because of the smell between my legs, then I remembered that I had my womanhood and that made things different. Besides, he has a girlfriend and she’s really crazy over him, I could tell. She said she’s the one who washed my body clean and changed my clothes. She was cool at first. Now she wants me to get out.
Last night I danced for him, but not really for him but for his drumbeats. His drumming is more than music and coming from me, Momma, that’s saying a whole lot. It’s like his beat is driving me or pulling me like a puppet. She wants to be his only puppet. I understand, but sex and dancing are not the same things, right Momma? And the drummer and her are grown, like seventeen and eighteen, and I’m just eleven. So there shouldn’t be no problem, true? She says that if I had my womanhood, I can have a baby and that’s too grown to be staying with her man in a tree house. I been here for like six days but I couldn’t tell him where I live because I promised Riot I wouldn’t tell people where we are staying.
For three days I was sick. For two days I was enjoying watching them.
She was making wigs—not cheap ones, incredible ones, that you might see on the head of some type of rich and glamorous movie star. I helped her wash the hair he collected. I combed and blow-dried it, too. She paid me a fair price for my help. For the last two days I was rolling with him, checking his hustle. His haircut was clean and sharp but he showed me a photo of himself with long, straight, black, beautiful hair lying on his back and flowing all the way to his bottom. I gasped and asked him was it his real hair growed from his scalp? He smirked and said, “Of course, I chopped it off and sold it.” I asked him why would he cut something so lovely. He said he sold it to the father of a young girl who had cancer. He sold the hair that he cherished, to replace the lovely hair that the little girl once had but lost to the horrible illness. It was his most special human hair wig.
Don’t get angry, Momma. I asked him how much he would pay if I chopped my hair off and sold it to him. He told me it was too beautiful and I should keep it. He said the same thing you used to say! “Never cut it.”
On my last night staying with them, he was drumming in the clearing in the woods, and I was dancing. These Natives up here seem to always have a reason why they are dancing, something they are trying to say, or someone they are trying to talk to, or something they believe that I don’t understand. So I was doing a wicked dance. My reason was for him to never forget me.
I’m going back to NanaAnna’s house today. Now I’m confident riding across the forest on the zip cord. Once I saw how fearlessly the girlfriend did it, I had to be brave also. I’m leaving at sunup and I’m going alone. But he promised me that I could come back if my mother says so! My dance last night must’ve worked because he also asked me if I would dance in the Autumn Festival to his drumbeat. I told him I would.
He doesn’t have a million dollars to pay me for moving and shaking my hips like you used to suggest. But please don’t worry, Momma, I’m just killing time. I learned how to do that in prison. I’m killing time until I get to you, in sixteen days.
• • •
To my Twins, Mercedes and Lexus,
Should I write each of you a separate letter with a separate topic? I thought about that for a couple of days before I actually began writing this one to the both of you. I thought about how now you two are both seven years old, so amazing. I tried to guess how your little faces may have changed. More than that, I tried to imagine your personalities. People don’t realize that seven year olds have their own personalities. I had one when I was seven so I’m sure both of you do, too. How are they different from one another? I miss getting to see those changes happening to each of you. A friend of mine got a puppy today. She said it was a late birthday present to herself. It’s not one of those small ones that can fit into Momma’s pocketbook. It’s a Rottweiler that will grow big and rough. I think my friend wants someone who is completely loyal to her and on her side. She already said that her and the dog are breathing in the same rhythm. She takes him outside and trains him for a few hours every day. I think she wants him to be more ferocious than a real wolf or a mountain lion. She’s really smart so she might get her way. The Rottweiler’s name is Blood. You two would be surprised. I made my first birthday cake from scratch. That means I had to get all the ingredients, measure them out carefully, and blend the
m the right way. My friend chose one of the most difficult cakes for me to make. It sounded like it was gonna be real nasty at first, but it turned out to be delicious. It’s a carrot cake with buttercream frosting. Don’t worry, I know you girls don’t want no vegetables. You know I use to be the same way. But a carrot cake doesn’t taste like a raw carrot. Besides I learned a lot here in summer camp. Vegetables are only nasty tasting when a farmer sprays them with poisons called pesticides. I know that sounds like a crazy thing for a farmer to do, but most of them do it. They want the bugs to stay away so they could have a bunch of good-looking vegetables. This way they make more money. The poison they spray on it, kills people. It makes little kids like my two pretty sisters hate vegetables because of the nasty poison taste. When I come home, I’m going to cook for our family. First month or so, I’ll cook all by myself to spoil Momma to make her think I’m her best daughter! After the first month, I’ll teach both of you how to cook, too. Guess what? I can even make homemade ice cream. So far I only made strawberry ice cream, but it’s sweet and good. I love you, Lexus. I love you, Mercedes. I love you better than food, candy, and even ice cream. I hope you love me back.
• • •
AUTUMN FESTIVAL
Dear Momma,
Dancing at gunpoint. That’s what I would’ve been doing if I had agreed to perform in the prison family festival or at least that’s what it would have felt like. The festival with the Natives was the opposite of prison. I was young and completely free. I didn’t have to get permission to make a costume. The Natives believed in costumes and had all types of leather work, beaded clothes, embroidery, wooden masks, and shoe skills. Everything they handmade and built on their own got me thinking.
Momma, Siri is my close friend. I hope you don’t mind when I bring her home with me. She has nowhere else to go. Anyway I hope you’ll love her. She’s warm and fashionable like you. She can sing but her best skill is humming. Some say when Siri hums it gives them goose-pimples or “the chills.” Many nights when I was missing you, Siri sang to me, and caressed me. Always when I was in danger or trouble or deep sadness, Siri comforted me. She’s so quiet. She sits for hours watching me when I’m dancing and sometimes when I’m asleep. She thinks she loves me best but I tell her Momma loves me best and of course Poppa, too.
Siri made me a meanass minidress made of feathers. I didn’t wear shoes because I wanted to show the beauty and power of my feet, calves, and thighs while they were moving. My arms were bare and my neck and back open. Instead of the wooden masks that some Natives wore, Siri painted a cosmetic facemask over my eyes that concealed my identity, or at least confused it. I wore a feather cap as my hairstyle. We made it out of a bathing cap so it would hug the shape of my head and lay gently against my pretty skin, which I got from you. The cap was badass, please believe me, Momma. I probably can save it and wear it one day in a superstar video.
When “my drummer” began tapping, touching, and pounding the skins of his drums, I took flight like a pretty, proud peacock. It was only me and him surrounded by hundreds. He had told me I was doing a “salute to the Sun.” Remember, the Natives need a reason to dance. I don’t, but I ripped that place down. Believe me, Momma, I danced my ass off. I wish you could’ve seen me. There weren’t any cameras though. The Natives said it was a “spiritual moment.” Their moment lasted all day and into the night. My performance lasted eleven minutes. (Momma, 11 is becoming a lucky number for me. If you need four digits to play the numbers like back in Brooklyn, you should play 1111.)
When my dance was complete the crowd closed in on me. It was hard to shake the crowd of followers who wanted to know me, meet me, touch or pluck one or two feathers off my skirt, but eventually I shook them all.
Running back to NanaAnna’s in the feather-wear, even the deer and birds were checking me out like I was a new breed of animal moving through their territory.
Tomorrow, NanaAnna’s giving us a going-home party. Everyone believes we are campers going back home because August is coming to a close. Onatah, a Native girl who I met, will be one of the many kids who NanaAnna invited. She believes she is my best friend. Somehow me and Onatah keep getting connected back together. It turned out that my drummer is one of her brothers. He’s the rebellious one who didn’t want to live with his family in their mansion. I don’t know why. So he made his home and ran his business in the trees. The whole time I was in his tree house worrying if NanaAnna and Riot was worrying over me, she already knew exactly where I was. Momma, Onatah chills like how we used to chill before Poppa got tooken. She even has her own horse. Up here people go horseback riding like how we play cards or dominoes. I know you didn’t want me to get a pony or a puppy. Poppa told me so. He said you couldn’t stand even imagining the piles of poop. But I learned that sometimes to get to something really beautiful, you gotta stand in, lay in, or inhale a little poop! I’ll see you, Momma, in three days!
• • •
Dear Poppa,
Tense, that’s how I’m feeling. How about you, Poppa? Are you tense? I know, you are more tense than me. I always know and understand even the slightest difference in things. (You and Momma helped me with that.) So you are still in a cage? I have been out of my cage for forty days. I’m tense because now that I’ve been out for what seems like a long time to me, if I get captured, it will be much harder for me to cope and deal. I’m sure of that. So I am planning to not get caught to the best of my ability. I have been thinking, Poppa, of pretty heavy things for the past twenty-four hours straight. For example, how serious am I about not getting caught? Am I so serious that I would kill to defend my freedom? I have been fighting a lot for three years now, Poppa. I know some murderers but I don’t think I’m one of them. I hope the authorities never push me so hard and so far that I have to kill. And if I can’t kill anyone else no matter who they are, I can and am willing to hurt them enough to stop them from coming after me.
The toughest question is, could I kill myself as a means to not getting captured ever again? It’s hard to measure suicide. How does a person know if it’s better to be dead or alive, when life can switch up in a heartbeat and become so scary and painful? And if I get captured, I can still get released one day after time served. I can still then see you and Momma, Winter, Lexus, and Mercedes. If I kill myself, I won’t be able to see any of you unless there’s really a place called heaven. Heaven or hell, if I kill myself, I’ll be waiting there alone till any one of my loved ones passes away and arrives to join me. The problem is, I have already been alone for too long. Poppa, tomorrow we ride. You said you have a tight team. Me and my girl call ourselves Ivory and Ebony. We are definitely tight. If you knew Ebony, even you might want her to become one of your soldiers. She got a nineteen-year-old girl to ride with us. We call her Honey. That’s not her government, but that’s the name she wanted to be called. She’s driving, got a license, and a Social Security number, a credit card, and she’s renting a vehicle. She’s not doing us any favors. My girl met her outside a casino. Honey had a black eye and a habit! We have been using her habit against her. My girl Ebony says she been training Honey the same way she trains her Rottweiler. She makes her do tricks for treats. She starves her at the right time; “feeds” her at the right time. At first Honey thought Ebony was a man. She was used to having a pimp so she followed orders nicely and expected to get punched when she didn’t. Afterwhile, she got used to Ebony. When my girl showed Honey that she was actually a girl, Honey laughed a lot and says she knew she was too good to be true. “No man is so good,” Honey said about Ebony. By that time she was hooked on her trainer. I met her once. I don’t trust her, but I trust my girl. When I saw how nice my girl was treating her that one day, I thought the chick should have been named Money instead of Honey cause she ate and drank too much, plus she got a habit to feed. Honey said that Honey is her stage name. She caught it cause the men can’t leave her alone. Once they meet her once, they stick. That’s what she said. Now she say’s she tired of men. (Nineteen and tired
of men. How does that happen, Poppa?) She wants to go to Hollywood and “Young,” that’s what she calls Ebony, is her manager. Poppa, Honey used to get beat up a lot. We don’t beat her, though. We treat her good even though it’s not good to feed her habit. I’ve learned, Poppa. Some people gotta get used. The weaker you are, the easier it is to use you. I hope Momma doesn’t get startled when we ride up to our Long Island home. I wouldn’t want her to start busting shots at us. Since she’s definitely not expecting them or me.
Poppa, remember that time I fought with cousin Stacey over Aunt Sheila’s house? Remember Aunt Sheila spanked me and yelled, “Money don’t grow on trees?” I know you remember it well. Momma was so mad that Aunt Sheila had the nerve to spank me. I remember after Momma told you the story, you didn’t really react or bring it up again to me or none of us. Then on a late Saturday night, you walked into my bedroom with a money tree. When I woke up early the next morning I didn’t believe I had a real potted small tree at my bedside. Each thin brown branch had leaves made of real cash folded and dangling like birds. The lowest branches had ones, then fives, tens, twenties, then hundreds close to the top. The top branch had a new pair of gold earrings for me. I wasn’t sure what I was most excited about, the fact that you thought about me and took the time to do something so special to make me feel better, or the money, or the way my money was folded into the shapes of birds and other animals. Yes, the 24-karat-gold earrings were really pretty, but I’ll admit I thought about Winter. She would’ve gotten diamond earrings from you. But if you had put diamonds on the top branches of that money tree, I probably would’ve blacked out from an overdose of happiness.
I wanted to tell the whole world about my poppa. How could people not know how real you are? How big your heart is? You told me, “Sometimes when you have a good thing that no one else has, and everybody wants, you gotta keep it a secret. Hold it in your chest,” you said. “Keep it for a rainy day.” So I planted the tree out back. I listened to your instructions. Poppa, I know I pressed you to teach me how to fold the paper like you folded the cash, and wasn’t satisfied until you taught me the origami. It took so long for you to teach me, I figured you had to go find out and learn it for yourself first! But you did, Poppa, cause you always came through. Now I can make those origami birds and shapes easily. Poppa, to this day you are my only hero.