When you got tooken, Poppa, it was the darkest, coldest night ever. My plan was to give that money from the tree to Momma so she could help you. Then Momma got tooken. Then I got tooken. Mercedes and Lexus got tooken. I did one thing that might make you proud. Before I got tooken I thought ahead like you used to try and teach me to do. I took each folded bill out of the beak of my stuffed bird named Pretty. I buried the cash from my money tree in our backyard somewhere near where I had first planted the tree in the ground.
Tomorrow we ride. If anything bad happens to me, capture, murder, suicide, I want Momma to have that money, and to give it to you. I want your commissary to be endless. I don’t want you to even have to lift a finger, or to do what anyone else says for you to do, just to earn. I’m familiar with the cage, Daddy. Your middle daughter loves you more than you may ever know. Early tomorrow morning, I’ll bury this journal. I already set it up, so that if I don’t make it, this journal will be dug up and given to Momma so she can collect the money. I already know that anything I give to Momma is the same as I gave it to you. I am your middle daughter. If you receive this diary journal, this is my true voice and true feelings.
The end of Porsche L. Santiaga’s on the reservation journal.
Chapter 23
We met Honey at 10:00 a.m. in the additional parking area on the side wall of a local boutique. She was sitting in a rented white Volvo. Riot and I both did an eye search of the vehicle before we got up close. We had already done the same of the surrounding area. As promised, I had smoked the clothes I had worn for forty days, except for the one cheap outfit I had on. Tossing those items into the big blazing campfire the Natives had going the night before was easy. Wrapped in a couple of brown paper bags, the forty days turned to ashes in less than five minutes.
My memories, however, are permanent. Leaving NanaAnna, the land, the sky above, the reservation, and the people was only outweighed by returning to Momma and my family. I couldn’t explain how a total of forty-two days had turned into real feelings. The fresh air, the stream, the lake, the organic gardens, and fruit fields caressed me. More than that, the first-time incidents were situations that flipped me over from young child to young woman. So many things that I could never possibly imagine happened. Having four Native girls from age ten to twenty-four celebrating my womanhood the same as if it was their own was awkward for me but it moved my heart some. So much so, I became uncomfortable in the cheap boy outfits I had been wearing. Onatah’s big sister, taking the time to explain the meaning of it all, how to keep myself super clean, and in what ways women are special, made womanhood desirable to me. I used to hate pretense. Now I hated it even more. I was liking being a young woman, falling into the feeling of my growing body and swirling emotions. It was already impossible to conceal the curves of my hips and backside in the first place. Now I had no desire to wear a too-big tee to make my small waist and young breasts disappear from sight. I didn’t want to flaunt it, seriously. My friend Ebony hated girls who only thought about their looks, kept messing with themselves and couldn’t stay out of the mirror. She hated them as much as she hated the “robots.” She believed that all dumb girls, no matter how good or ugly they looked, were exactly the same, worthless. So I tried not to be that and never wanted to be associated with being dumb or inferior even before I met her.
I buried my journal as I promised Poppa. I dropped it inside an empty cornflakes cereal box along with Momma’s address and a special thank-you note to NanaAnna. I buried it under the soil closest to the eleventh tree on the straight path from the ivy leaf—covered, wooden, bush-blocked door of NanaAnna’s brickhouse house, simple.
In my hand I held my recipe journal that contained almost fifty recipes for lunches and dinners and desserts that I had made myself. It saved me from my “eating disorder.” The recipe journal also contained thirty-one days of learning from NanaAnna, which turned out to be better than any school on the planet. Inside I had cool things like pieces of sage and oregano, rosemary, bay leaves, cilantro, lemongrass, aloe vera, thyme, and peppermint. Also, I had a tiny bag of repellent, which I renamed “Back the fuck up.” It was a concoction of cayenne and other secret things that when blown in someone’s eyes or nose caused them to not see or balance themselves long enough for me to get away. All the ingredients were legal. If I got searched and found I’d shrug my shoulders and say, “Seasonings for our Labor Day holiday barbeque.” My recipe journal was the first book I ever wrote, the first book I ever read from cover to cover, and the first book I ever loved.
I would miss Onatah after all, although I would miss her horse more than her. Her horse was the first one I ever got to ride without some adult holding the reins. Her horse was the first one that actually galloped with me alone riding its back, instead of walking in small ovals or circles at the zoo or in the blocked-off street at a block party or carnival. I only got to ride like that once, right before my time on the reservation was over.
I liked Onatah’s father. He owned a construction company. His company had built many of the places on the reservation, even part of the casino. He was tall, heavy but not fat. The best thing about him was his voice. It was an instrument. I imagined if he wasn’t a construction guy, he’d be a singer, the type of singer who the whole audience turns completely silent for in anticipation of his voice coming from his gut and pouring out into the room so powerfully it shook the walls. One afternoon after my learning lesson with NanaAnna, he was out watching Onatah ride. As I waited for my turn, he sang and Siri hummed some. I think his voice made her feel safe, and her voice moved him to tears. I had never seen any man cry before. Not even my strong poppa when he got cuffed and tooken. When I looked at this tall big Native mountain of a man, his tears didn’t seem like a weakness. He didn’t feel nothing like a sucker or bitch-ass nigga. That same afternoon, he walked out his house with me and Siri. He walked us to NanaAnna’s pickup truck. It was his first time ever doing that. We all stood there silently facing NanaAnna until me and Siri climbed in and NanaAnna pulled off. The next day Onatah was so happy that she promoted me to being her best-best friend.
My drummer was not the first man who ever rescued me. But he was the first man who drummed a beat only for me. He tapped in precision with the movements of my young body. He was the first one to ask me what my body was saying while and when it was moving. My drummer was the first person I ever met who lived in a tree. He was the first one to place me in a box and slide me on a zip cord across the forest, giving me that first-time flying feeling, a rush so nice and tingly. My last day seeing him he said, “Now go and grow up, then come back to see me, before . . .”
All my little mind was thinking was, before what? Before what? Before what?
They say a person’s first time at anything good is the best feeling in the world, a strong high, a feeling a girl or guy would chase forever. I wasn’t sure if that’s the truth, but I know all of the first-time good feelings I had in those forty days made me feel good enough to stay alive, become strong, and smile for more than a few quick seconds.
• • •
In the parking lot, we were leaning over and looking inside the Volvo right before the automatic lock opened. Me and Riot got in.
“Honey, you got everything?” Riot asked.
“Yep, right from the dollar store,” she answered.
“Pop the trunk,” Riot told her. Me and Riot both got back out.
“Baseball bats?” was the first thing out of my mouth.
“Just in case, you never know. We might have to knock somebody out. I’m not holding. Bats are legal,” Riot said in complete seriousness.
“A beachball, a baseball, a water cooler, a flashlight, a jump rope, a grill for two . . .,” I laughed. “A box of matches, charcoal, and a bunch of boxes of pampers. Pampers!” I said, pointing.
When I looked inside one of the pamper boxes, there were neatly packed and stacked cartons of cigarettes from the reservation and not diapers.
“You remembered.” I clapped fo
r Riot. I liked that she listened to what I suggested even though I was younger. Riot didn’t smile. She was serious like how she is on any mission. Before closing the trunk she showed me a small shopping bag, which held a sack which held a clay pot. “A gift for you from NanaAnna,” Riot said. My eyes welled up with tears.
Inside the car Riot checked under both seats in back, then in front under the driver’s seat. Honey lifted her legs for her.
“Damn, don’t you trust me?” Honey asked her.
“Let’s go,” was all that Riot replied. I understood.
I thought to myself, Poppa would say, “Always be good to a good worker and a good customer.”
But Momma would say, “Never trust a fucking dope fiend crack head!” Now the Volvo was moving down the road.
Chapter 24
Almost seven hours. Of course, I slept some. Funny thing, it was only when the car stopped that I would wake up. When we stopped at the gas station, me and Siri stayed laying down on the back seat on purpose. Riot stayed seated in the car while Honey raced around pumping gas, going inside paying and coming out with a coffee cup bigger than her head and a few chips and sweets.
Riot and I was camera shy. Or should I say we were camera smart. Same as she never stepped foot inside the casino because of cameras, and wouldn’t take me to the nearest mall because of cameras. She also wouldn’t let us enter the service stations or the rest stops heading home. I’ll tell you one thing, we were definitely going shopping at Macy’s on Thirty-Fourth Street in Manhattan across the street from Madison Garden, a place that was crystal clear in my memories. I chose the place. We figured they had cameras also, but Riot said she agreed to it because “New York got ten million people and nobody gives a fuck about anything except money. So, as long as we’re not stealing (and we are not stealing) nobody will look twice at two white girls shopping with their pretty black daughter. I had switched from being her son to becoming their daughter. A cokehead blonde, with a blonde-head girl dressed as a boy, posing as the cokehead’s husband and their pretty black daughter, whatever. Me and Siri were already unbraiding my Allen Iverson, long front-to-back braided boy hairstyle. I was lying in the back turning from a caterpillar to a butterfly. We had agreed I would blossom soon as we seen the city lights.
• • •
We parked at an extra expensive pay lot down the block from Macy’s. I could’ve copped a pair of kicks for the amount of that rip off parking fee. We had to park there. It was Friday night. Cars of every make were circling Madison Square Garden looking for parking. Every other nearby lot was filled. All the streets surrounding the famous Macy store said no parking, no standing, and no stopping with threats of seizing vehicles. Cops were stationed here and there, sitting and reclining and snacking in their cruisers. Tow trucks were laying and waiting for victims.
“Give me your handbag,” Riot said to Honey.
“Why? Okay . . .” Honey handed it over. “There’s no money in it.” Honey laughed like, gotcha.
“I know. I have all the money,” Riot checked her.
“You promised . . .,” Honey said in a teasing voice.
Riot gave her 150 dollars—one one-hundred and one fifty-dollar bill. I couldn’t believe the high price Honey had obviously demanded for driving us down, and driving her and Riot back upstate. That was three days on our knees picking strawberries for eighteen hours!
I began to hope Riot wouldn’t blow the five-thousand dollars I was investing on this “money chick”!
“Stay by my side while we shop. Don’t go nowhere,” Riot told Honey.
“I won’t. I’m so excited. This is my first New York visit. We’re close to the famous Forty-second Street. We gotta go there!” Honey said.
“We gotta get the kid some clothes. I told you that already.”
We weren’t shopping thirty minutes before Honey disappeared.
“I gotta pee . . .” was all I heard her say.
Riot stayed by the rack where I was flipping through dresses instead of following Honey to the restroom. She didn’t even glance at her as she left.
“You better follow her,” Siri whispered. Riot didn’t budge.
An hour later we were done with our Macy’s shopping. Even Riot had picked out a few items.
“What about Honey?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about her,” Riot said casually.
In a nearby Foot Locker I chose some kicks, and got an overpriced pair of tennis socks with a fuzzy white ball on the back of my ankle.
“Do you mind if I change in there,” I pointed, asking the Foot Locker salesman, a young dude. “We got a birthday party to go to.” I smiled. He agreed.
• • •
Riot smiled. “You look nice, like a different person.”
She was right. Fashion makes a pretty face and figure go from gray to fluorescent. In my new neon green Airmax, my feet lit up. My denim Guess dress stitched to my young shape. I was feeling nice about myself.
• • •
In McDonald’s I stood at the register ordering our food. Riot went to the bathroom. One side of my mind was asking me, What if she doesn’t come back? I felt a little panic easing into me. I kept my eyes on the bathroom door and turned away from the register and cashier, waiting.
“That’s $8.25,” the cashier said with an attitude as though she was repeating the price for the tenth time.
“One minute,” I told her, reaching into my side pouch. I counted the money, my eyes checking the amount, bouncing back to the door. I couldn’t let Riot slip past me.
“Here go your change, take it,” the cashier based. She turned around, grabbed my white bag off of the back stainless steel counter, and turned back towards me, plopping it down. As I walked towards the bathroom with the bag in one hand, orange juice in the other, Riot came out wearing a dress like mine, and some pink ACG kicks. She was a girl. I could tell she had wet her hair and combed it down into a short bob.
“I can blow-dry it some more with the McDonald’s hand dryer. Check me out. How am I looking?” She smiled a free and soft and pretty smile, like she had finally taken a brief break from her constant calculations.
My green-eyed Diamond Needle was a pretty butterfly. As we walked back to the parking lot where the car was, I thought of Lina. I always wanted to walk down the street with twelve Diamond Needles in a row fluttering. But I especially wanted to walk besides Riot and Lina and Rose Marie.
“What about Lina?” I asked Riot as we walked. There was silence for a long while.
“She didn’t escape like us,” Riot said. “She had already served out the majority of her time. She’ll be home before Christmas.”
Riot handed the man the ticket. We stood to the side while he pulled our Volvo out. I didn’t say anything. I know Riot was the queen of plans. I figured Honey would roll right up, on time.
“Get in,” Riot said to me.
I climbed in the back. Riot got in on the driver’s seat, pulled the gear into drive and pulled out towards the down-ramp that led to the street. We waited there. I was looking left and right for Honey. Riot opened Honey’s handbag, opened her wallet, then laid it on the seat. She pulled out a napkin and Honey’s lipgloss. She used the napkin to clean off a layer of the gloss, then stuck one finger in and spread it on her lips. She took out a case of colored powder and dabbed on some eye shadow. She then lined her eye with heavy black eye liner. A car honked behind us, as she was finishing up. She pulled out into the crowded New York streets.
“A promise is a promise,” she said. “Let’s go.” She turned on the music.
At the red light she opened the map. We were on our way to my house. It was 7:15 p.m.
• • •
The Dix Hill, Long Island, nights were dark. I remember Winter lying on our palace roof facing the sky, puffing a blunt. As we weaved around the jigsaw curved corners, one ways, dead ends, and alcoves, all of the street signs said no parking after 6:00 p.m. It’s an exclusive neighborhood. Every resident owned luxury vehicle
s and had long winding, gated driveways to park themselves, their relatives, and guests easily. Any car lurking on the main streets instead of parking on the private properties would raise suspicion.
“It’s there!” I said, excited. “That’s my house! Stop the car!”
“I see but . . . I can’t just let you off. I gotta park and make sure you’re alright,” Riot said, moving slowly on past my house.
“I’ll jump out,” I said, with my hand on the handle.
“Please don’t! Give me two minutes,” Riot said.
Around a couple of neighborhood corners, she found a house that was obviously under renovation. Where there was supposed to be grass, there was dirt. A Porta-Potty was plopped down to the side.
“There’s a sign,” Riot said laughing. “You know we gotta trust the Porta-Potty!” She pulled in and parked the car on what seemed like an empty property. We both got out.
“We’ll walk,” she said. “Don’t forget nothing in the backseat.”
“I got everything,” I assured her.
She unlocked the trunk, grabbed the flashlight, and dropped it into her side pouch. She was also clutching Honey’s handbag.
With each step closer to Momma, I felt my heart pound. It felt like what a heart attack should feel like, I thought. And I felt like I had to pee. Instead of being a beautiful butterly, I felt like the butterflies were in my empty stomach. My stomach rumbled. We both laughed lightly, nervously. Neither one of us had touched the McDonald’s. Guess we bought it for show.