Hey Homegirl. Lashell Rivers
I would never see my cousins or grandma again, which wasn’t true; I just felt the pain of leaving. I thought about a lot on that ride as my mother spoke, seeing a few nice houses and trailers. She pointed out the mall as though it would catch my interest. I’d never been to one nor knew what it was. “I hear that mall is so big, they’re still building a second one to it.” But I didn’t care. In fact, it wasn’t until we made a turn by the firehouse and headed down a hill that she said, “Look, you can go swimming to that pool now,” being a member at YWCA instead of Dunbar High School like before. There were no corner stores, and there was a junior high school in the bearings, walking distance. At the bottom of the hill were the houses, and we were moving into one. Briarcliff Court was the name of them, and I actually felt happiness because we were moving into a house that looked Caucasian.
Yeah, I thought that because the only time I’d ever been in a nice townhome while young was when it belonged to a white girl in my classroom. She was the only white girl in my DC elementary school, and she was talented and cool. And this was low-income housing, however they looked according to the area without any such thing as a liquor store, and there was little public transit. I was more so around different races of people, but there were still black families in my neighborhood. And starting fifth grade there wasn’t easy. The school level in that state was way above the district’s school level; however, being that I was in the gifted and talented class, they took that chance with me, along with mom telling them I caught on fast. Therefore, holding me back a grade wasn’t necessary. And I started this elementary with the shoe on the other foot, being the only black girl in the class, then being reminded by a few students quite a bit (shrug).
“You know you’re the only black person in the class, right?”
“There are three of you in this grade.” And so on…
It was not a good feeling, but neither was being from DC at that time, for it was known as the capital of deaths and crack. With the entire drug war happening in what was then 1987, the playgrounds at this school didn’t have the containers and needles. Teachers would look out for drug trash every morning at the DC school and take it from us young kids that didn’t know better. If we found something, we played with it. We filled needles with water and wrapped foil around sticks. But now I was waking up and coming out to fresh air in Virginia without seeing the bums sleeping on our wooden playgrounds and benches.
Some teachers looked at me funny, as though waiting for me to do something wrong. Sometimes I heard, “You know it’s not like that here,” while they looked down at me, having conversations among themselves. I would stare out of the window as I sat alone on the school bus. A bus I’d only rode once in my life before became a daily routine. If I only had my cat Cindy to come home to still. We couldn’t have pets in those houses, and I lived with a lonely mother who couldn’t get back with Dad, even though they still fucked around. But he couldn’t get past that. And I could tell they were officially through on the day Mom pulled me to the side and said, “Shell, I know it’s just me and you here, but how would you feel about Tyrone moving in?” And I just looked around, thinking of being in a townhouse and so happy to run up and down the steps that only she and I walked, in a three-bedroom house with only us. I wasn’t enough, so saying okay while staring down was all I could say. Then just like that, he jumped from around the corner, yelling, “Hey.”
When we were still in the city, she walked in on him smoking crack. Her feelings for him had already began to grow, and trying to save her marriage didn’t work because Dad made her his side chick. So she said, “Fuck it.” I guess Tyrone was either clean or she was so pressed for love that she chose a crackhead with a job and dick (shrug).
Her frown turned upside down after that, for he was a man that drove a big rig truck and they would travel by driving. Even if he was not on the job, he liked to go on long rides. To Mom, that was new and adventurous. I of course felt like a third wheel whenever they took me with them, either way I no longer received much attention from her. She was thirty-five now and with a new man in her life. Both would smoke cigarettes, choking me on the long rides and at home. Hell, at least Dad didn’t smoke cigarettes and hit his weed on the balcony, away from me. That turned to sometimes sticking my head out of the window like a dog. I slowly became invisible, but once again my brother came to save me.
Bill migrated from hustling to robbing and moved to Virginia too, only further out; so I saw him more, which was cool but confusingly crazy. He married at a young age to a different girl named Lori, and I saw her as a big sister. Actually, all the woman he and Uncle Ron had were my big sisters (shrug). But Bill became a player with dough, attracting a lot of hoes while married to Lori, and she did give birth to his first child, whom I only saw once as a ten-year-old. I was an aunt. Lori’s father was a pastor, so I guess my brother was that wild side of her whom she eventually grew out of. And he did give diapers and cash, but that wasn’t enough, especially when making threats to get my niece from her. Yet at the same time, he was fucking a set of twin sisters and chose their big sister to become serious about. They were Dominican, and not only did she become his thing but so was upgrading from selling crack to taking on restaurants and banks with his homies.
But why would I give a damn at that age? I honestly felt he was all I had, and I knew a few of the stories.
There was a seafood restaurant not far from the house I moved to. He and one of his boys went to eat, ordering lobster, shrimp, you name it, with wine. They were looking professional as few black men looked then. The time for the bill to be paid came, and he asked for the manager on duty to speak to, as they reached in their coats to pay it.
“Hey, fellas, hope everything was good. Is there anything else we can provide you with?” said the Caucasian fellow.
And my brother’s response was, “You sure can…take us to the back” while opening the side of their coat at the same time. They were sitting and showing the guns on the inside.
With the “fake me out” stare, trying not to panic, the manager said, “Sure, fellas, come right this way.” And that was a full meal with eight grand in their pockets leaving through the back.
He had a thing for money. I remembered him also dating this older woman named Linda who recently lost her husband, and he was sweet-talking her out of ten grand. But she fell for it and fell for him. So much to the point they remained distant friends. I’ll never know what he was using all that money toward. I mean, it couldn’t have been a car because Mom had to cosign for him to have one, and he didn’t pay for it (hand to face). He was fucking up her credit and causing mother-son arguments, but at the same time, he was keeping me out the house. In my opinion, that brought her pleasure, for that was alone time with her man. Instead of traveling to the mountains, being that third wheel, and watching the trees turn to fall colors, I’d be at the house where he and his one of boys were renting with his girl Viv. This time, he had boa constrictors you fed rabbits to and a cat he kept from them. I saw his guns but paid them no mind for some reason; it just didn’t bother me. I’d rather be surrounded by that than a man getting my mom drunk and playing music in the room that was at one time going to be my sister’s. But praise God I wasn’t dealing with her shit too.
I remember, when I was getting ready to turn ten years old that I felt so happy. For it was just me and mom in the house, and I walked in her room with both of my hands up, saying, “I’m two digits now :D,” as she was lay back in the bed, looking as though it didn’t mean much to her. Tyrone was out of town on one of his work routes, and that was when I truly began to feel it deep. But I wouldn’t let her see me cry. I’d just draw a picture of it instead.
And I began to handle a lot of feelings that way. I couldn’t express my true feelings to her, so I’d sketch. Even in school the teachers were actually beginning to take me more seriously. No more assumptions of me being a bad ghetto kid; instead I became the smart kid and began doing all the science fairs on the human body, as I did before leaving my last school. I actually read and studied so much on the body that I was predicted to becoming a doctor. With my drawings of different parts and with me beating the other kids winning first place, it made me feel…something. If anyone showed me true joy, it was my brother.
Back then we still had encyclopedias, and Tyrone bought me what was the Britannica, which