Hey Homegirl. Lashell Rivers

      Introduction

      As an adult woman now in my early forties, I have a few vague memories to dwell on.

      Sometimes I just think…

      While my mother attended gourmet school and set an example of what a strong woman should be, and you need some income with a broke man and three kids (shrug). My father was addicted to doing nothing but lying on his ass, watching TV all day, drinking, and smoking weed; but he loved us very deeply. His only job was watching me in between the jobs he didn’t hold on to. My big brother was older than me by 11 years, and my big sister was older than me by 8. We all had different fathers, so that didn’t make them great babysitters for me that is. I would always sit around and listen to them talk about dad like a dog, and he became their father before I was even thought of. But they talked shit about him as though a 4-year-old was never there, and all I would do was pet my cat or dog while they did it. I’d look up at my brother with a sad face as my sister continued, he saw. Bill’s father denied him when he was born even though it was obvious that he was his son, but he later died before they even got to know each other. My sister’s dad used to abuse and hurt Mom, so I guess that’s why she settled and fell in love with dad. He never struck her, he made her laugh, and he took her away from all of her pain, loving her with the two children that were not his.

      Mom gave birth to Bill when she was 14 years old and, while pregnant, was shamed by strangers and her own mother as well, when she wasn’t taught about sex. She just listened to the boy that she liked and had no idea what sperm was and how babies were produced. Back then, my grandmother never had that young woman talk with her; she was mentally abused during the pregnancy by other family members as well. So that’s why my grandmother claimed my brother as her child. Hell, she wouldn’t look like a mother that made a mistake by not teaching her only daughter. But what only hurt more for Bill was calling his grandmother “Mom,” and my mother had to fight depression by listening to her son call someone else that. He looked at her as an auntie. She had my sister when she was eighteen, I guess as a teenager. We so much want father figures in our lives that we used boyfriends to take their place, for that was a different boyfriend. My grandfather was an alcoholic, and my grandmother threw him out on a cold night. He froze to death while sleeping in his truck. I was told about Grandma working so hard to pay the rent and bills while being a single parent of 5. They all moved around a lot, so much so that moving around became a part of my mother’s life.

      She and my dad would go to places together with my brother and sister. He would always lose his job by either stealing from other apartments as a janitor or smoking drugs and getting drunk. He was holding on to jobs for only so long that it was pitiful. It was so pitiful that after they married and I was born, we lost an empty apartment and moved in with my grandmother—my mom’s mother that is. My father had five brothers and one sister, so Lord knows that there was no room for us at his mom’s crib, which simply gave my other grandmother more shit to talk about as far as the men my mother had chosen. I was told that Mom had to buy the damn wedding rings, for he was that broke. My goodness, to be born in 1978, for she carried before she had me but my father wasn’t ready. And Mom wanted to keep the baby. They weren’t married yet, and he just wasn’t ready (or not in love yet, shrug). So there came the abortion. She was looking so nice and skinny when she became pregnant with me that she was ready for another abortion, but my dad begged her to keep me.

      I think I was about two years old when we finally got our own place. The first one was empty with barely any furniture, and while staying with my grandmother for that little bit of time, I have vague memories of running down the hallway and seeing the burial grounds across the fence, knowing that’s where all the dead people lay. A couple of my uncles were still living there along with my mom, her husband, three kids, and my beer-drinking grandma. Yeah, my grandmother could drink and let all the words out flying. My mother had a stern talk with my dad because she put in all her work and money into getting an apartment on Fifth Street NW and getting us out of the ghetto part of DC (aka the Ghetto Government Housing) to a nicer version of it lol. “You’re either going to be a man and husband. Work with me on this or hit the road.” And we moved in. She tells me that the first thing I did was draw on the walls while we were moving in. Of course she took the crayon and slapped my hand; however, that was simply the beginning of a true artist. God had plans for me. Too many other things were happening for other people to