16 Years Old
When Grace was Princess, the Johnstontines had demolished every corner of her foundation: Southtown, the Jamaican Spot, the library, and her family. The Johnstontines still wanted to destroy Princess, and didn’t care if, in the process, they had to destroy what good and warm existed in Grace. Once it became clear that whoever had raised the child had sharpened her weakest instincts—willfulness, disrespect for authority, lack of discipline, wild imagination, liberality, diminished ego, and meekness, among others--the Johnstontines began to loose interest. Grace had picked up the rules of etiquette with great facility, but her disdain for the Johnstontine’s associates was clear in her refusal to contribute to luncheon banter or dinner table debate. The Johnstontines couldn’t see where she was particularly socially adept. Thus, bright or not, she was more or less useless. She made a better table topic than dinner guest, and before long the torture of forced camaraderie ended. Grace was left to mischief making with Karin at Huntley.Karin played like the boys only she included Grace. Karin would sneak off from Huntley every weekend for a new club, exclusive party, hot show or just a fresh scene. Grace, being a resourceful delinquent, became Karin’s dependable partner in crime. No attempt to lock them in, or up, could prevent Karin and Grace from hitting the street. They’d hitchhike anywhere a cute boy drove them.
The first time the girls went out, they attended a house party in the mansion of a Northtown playboy. His house had a wall-sized television, a jacuzzi, three or four fully stocked bars, Internet, a wine cellar and five bedrooms. Each boudoir had a different theme. Grace’s favorite was the Me Room. Mirrors covered every wall, and she felt like it was the coolest, freakiest place in the world. Karin whispered to Grace when they entered, “imagine the shows you could put on in this motherfucker.”Maybe Grace couldn’t completely appreciate the sexual implications of the Me Room, but after blazing a couple blunts, the room started to put on some shows for her. It revealed secrets about everyone. She could see the bald tops of tall men’s heads. She could see the socks pushing up buxom breasts. She could see fingers slipping inside waistbands, and she could see and dodge hands nearing her own neck, thighs, or breasts. Before long, people relented to sly touches and began lovemaking. Men desired Karin, and three now shared license to kiss her palms, coo in her ear, and stroke her private places. Grace watched, too shy to participate, self-conscious about refusing, but Karin guarded Grace’s innocence staunchly and bought Grace exclusion from the ensuing orgy with her promise to satisfy anyone who Grace would not.
Sex parties at Young Dangerfield’s were frequent, but every party in Karin’s circle culminated in an orgy. Grace didn’t know if she necessarily saw anything wrong with a train, but she didn’t want her first time to be like that, for sure. The entire thesis made her nauseous with worry. So, she occupied herself by smoking lots of weed and carrying on deep, philosophical conversations with other stoners. Many were shocked to hear such practical and valid revolutionary commentary come from the lips of a Johnstontine, and Grace became popular.
Grace matured a decade in her half year with Karin at Huntley. In a way, she was who she always wanted to be; she wondered now, what was she meant to do. How would she change the world?“Grace, wake up. One of those guys from the band is outside. He’s calling out your other name.”
“Shit. Let me just go down there.” Grace roused herself and unwrapped her hair. She tied the blue satin robe tight around her matching pajamas and slipped into her fluffy feather toe slipper pumps. She crept silently past Mother Sidney’s open room and tricked the security alarm on the front door. She walked out into the brisk night hoping to confront Lieu, again. Who should stand before her but IM? Her mouth fell open.
“What the fuck happened to your hair?!”
“It’s pressed. What the fuck happened to you? Where the hell did you come from? What are you doing here? You trying to get me kicked the fuck out?”
“I’m taking you home.”
“Home? Home? To the bus? So you can what? Leave me again? Who the fuck are you? Who do you think you are?” She walked aggressively towards him. Though furious, she whispered, “you knew. You knew. Who I was, you knew.” She pushed him, hard. “You knew!”“Woa. You must have lost your mind putting your hands on me. I’m a grown ass man, Princesa.”
“You knew!”
“It’s not like you think. Whatever it is, it is not what you think, because you are wilding.”
“Fuck you.”“Watch your mouth. You want Huntley? You seen what this means for us, and your heart,” he pointed hard into her chest, “your mind,” he tapped hard against her skull, “your soul,” he reached for his sister’s arms, “would allow you to remain with these Northtown snob niggers?”
“I got a mom, now. I don’t need you. I don’t need Drum always on me. I don’t need Lieu, Eights and hoes this, hoes that.”
“They can change.”
“Never change!”
“Suave.”
“Suave don’t need ya’ll either. You not even there. I’m so sick of you and Wisdom with your duties for Princess. I don’t have to care. I’m not Princess. I’m Grace. Grace Johnstontine, and I don’t have to do shit but stay rich and die!” With that Grace turned sharply to see Mother Sidney facing her and beaming a shotgun on IM.
“That’s right, Grace. Come here.”
“Mother Sidney. Hold on. It’s not what you think. This is my brother.”
“He’s not your brother, Grace. Don’t let him brainwash you, again. He’s a filthy kidnapper, and in about two minutes your real father’s police force will be here to make him pay for those years in hell that you have already served.”
“Princess, you gon let her talk about us that way?”
Grace turned and pleaded with her eyes, ‘run, IM, run.’ Even her voice betrayed her concern when she said, “you heard her. The jump off are on the way.”
“I’m not leaving here without my little sister.”
“IM, go!”
“Come here, Grace;” Mother Sidney fumbled with the gun.
“Princess,” out of the shadows Drum appeared. The distant flickering of color in the sky signaled the approach of the beast. “Prince…Grace. Grace, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not listening.”
“Drum,” tears sprang into Grace’s eyes, and she remembered how he had cried out for her the night she’d lost her brothers. She ran seven footsteps towards him before the click of the cock of Mother Sidney’s gun stopped her in her tracks.
“Come on, Princ…Come on Grace. Please.”
Grace turned and looked at Mother Sidney with the barrel trained on Drum’s earnest and pleading face. Grace reviled in disgust. Here, this woman of some god stood ready to kill this righteous and pitiful man. How to be shocked at Mother Sidney without shame reflecting on Grace herself? She looked down at her satin pajamas that had surely come at the expense of some person’s pride. She looked at the feather fluff of her shoes and knew that each feather had been plucked from the carcass of some disappearing class of ambulatory bird.
She felt the swing of her hair blowing against her neck and remembered how she had wanted this more than anything. She realized that she’d never do what she was meant to do if beauty and leisure were what she wanted most out of life. If those were her priorities, she set them at the sacrifice of her integrity.
Grace thought to kneel and pray. The red and green lights grew larger and larger against the night sky, and now the whoop of sirens accompanied them bringing a terrible urgency to the last throes of this tribal dance, but before she fully bent to beg clemency of Mother Sidney, Karin appeared, full book bags hanging from her chest and her back, on the top step behind Mother Sidney.
Grace kicked up her ostrich shoe, caught it in her hand and launched it at Mother Sidney. Simultaneously, Karin leapt from the top step and with a howl and a flying assault, kicked the nun square in the back and brought the old woman down in a fall of habit and white hair. The shotgun fell to the floor, sending a shot into the direction of red and green lights and sirens. Immediately, the lights fired back. The report of gunfire filled the air for miles. Girls woke, shrieked. IM yanked Princess, Drum grabbed Karin, and all made a fast break for the bus.
“A dog?” Even after the group had traveled far enough away to feel safe, and had camped out in an even stretch of wood, and most had turned in to complete what had been a harrowing night, IM, Drum and Grace sat up late and talked. Grace stroked her new puppy.
“Rottweiler. Pete been breeding them. You don’t want her? Who knew that you had turned into a lady on us, Lady Grace?”
Grace frowned away a simper. “It was bound to happen. A dog? In exchange for my stolen childhood a dog? Yes, I want the dog. I’d rather a mom, but the mom I got was a bitch anyway, so I guess it’s six on one hand, half a dozen on the other.”
“Wisdom didn’t steal you. He found you. I remember when he brought you home. He found you where he found me, in the alley between Davis, Jr. and Powell. He wouldn’t have given anything to the Johnstontines to raise, especially not perfect you.” IM reached out for Grace’s hair. “You met the Johnstontines.”
“I lived with them motherfuckers. We don’t look alike now, but if you ever saw pictures of her when she was younger, we look just alike. Only she had hair like this not nappy like mine.”
“Mrs. Johnstontine fine, no doubt. I never really saw it before now, but you do look like her. I miss your nappy hair, though. Look at her hair, now. She got the low afro going. She fine. She fine.”
“Ugh. Stop, IM. That’s my, ma--well, don’t worry. This shit will have gone back after a good weekend in the elements, and it will be invisible Princess, again.”
“Why you say that?”
“Whatever.”
“‘Whatever?’ That’s some Huntley shit you done brought home. I know you getting to that age, Princess. You gonna get your monthly soon or might already got it.”
“Corduroy.”
“I know the boys, we, I, we treat you like a kid, but we kids. You got an old soul. It’s going to be hard for somebody like you to find a man.”
“Thank you for the support. Can you not help?”
“You sound so different. Without you we like some motherless childs.”
“Motherless childs?”
“I know it’s wrong, but I had to give Ghostface his due.”
Grace smiled. IM tipped her chin to his face and kissed her on the forehead. “Wisdom said to kiss you, tell you he loved you, and tell you ain’t no sunshine when you gone.”
“How long you staying this time?”
“Depends.”
“Two nights ago I dreamed about this, about us in this woods, you and me talking and this dog. Drum!” Grace summoned. “Have any crazy dreams lately, Drum?”
“I told you I been having déjà vu like a motherfucker. Didn’t I, nigger?”
“Yeah, you did.”
“How long before we get to be still,” asked Grace?
Drum smiled, squinted, and asked, “Now, why ever would you want a thing like that, Princess Grace?”
Karin talked to her mom . Mrs. Whitley acted like Karin was on a field trip. Karin knew that her mother lived vicariously through the thrills, but Doc dubbed it a “purposeful transference,” in order to accept Karin’s new lifestyle.
“Suave.”
“Suave don’t need ya’ll either. You not even there. I’m so sick of you and Wisdom with your duties for Princess. I don’t have to care. I’m not Princess. I’m Grace. Grace Johnstontine, and I don’t have to do shit but stay rich and die!” With that Grace turned sharply to see Mother Sidney facing her and beaming a shotgun on IM.
“That’s right, Grace. Come here.”“Mother Sidney. Hold on. It’s not what you think. This is my brother.”
“He’s not your brother, Grace. Don’t let him brainwash you, again. He’s a filthy kidnapper, and in about two minutes your real father’s police force will be here to make him pay for those years in hell that you have already served.”
“Princess, you gon let her talk about us that way?”
Grace turned and pleaded with her eyes, ‘run, IM, run.’ Even her voice betrayed her concern when she said, “you heard her. The jump off are on the way.”
“I’m not leaving here without my little sister.”
“IM, go!”
“Come here, Grace;” Mother Sidney fumbled with the gun.
“Princess,” out of the shadows Drum appeared. The distant flickering of color in the sky signaled the approach of the beast. “Prince…Grace. Grace, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not listening.”
“Drum,” tears sprang into Grace’s eyes, and she remembered how he had cried out for her the night she’d lost her brothers. She ran seven footsteps towards him before the click of the cock of Mother Sidney’s gun stopped her in her tracks.“Come on, Princ…Come on Grace. Please.”
Grace turned and looked at Mother Sidney with the barrel trained on Drum’s earnest and pleading face. Grace reviled in disgust. Here, this woman of some god stood ready to kill this righteous and pitiful man. How to be shocked at Mother Sidney without shame reflecting on Grace herself? She looked down at her satin pajamas that had surely come at the expense of some person’s pride. She looked at the feather fluff of her shoes and knew that each feather had been plucked from the carcass of some disappearing class of ambulatory bird.
She felt the swing of her hair blowing against her neck and remembered how she had wanted this more than anything. She realized that she’d never do what she was meant to do if beauty and leisure were what she wanted most out of life. If those were her priorities, she set them at the sacrifice of her integrity.
Grace thought to kneel and pray. The red and green lights grew larger and larger against the night sky, and now the whoop of sirens accompanied them bringing a terrible urgency to the last throes of this tribal dance, but before she fully bent to beg clemency of Mother Sidney, Karin appeared, full book bags hanging from her chest and her back, on the top step behind Mother Sidney.
Grace kicked up her ostrich shoe, caught it in her hand and launched it at Mother Sidney. Simultaneously, Karin leapt from the top step and with a howl and a flying assault, kicked the nun square in the back and brought the old woman down in a fall of habit and white hair. The shotgun fell to the floor, sending a shot into the direction of red and green lights and sirens. Immediately, the lights fired back. The report of gunfire filled the air for miles. Girls woke, shrieked. IM yanked Princess, Drum grabbed Karin, and all made a fast break for the bus.
“A dog?” Even after the group had traveled far enough away to feel safe, and had camped out in an even stretch of wood, and most had turned in to complete what had been a harrowing night, IM, Drum and Grace sat up late and talked. Grace stroked her new puppy.
“Rottweiler. Pete been breeding them. You don’t want her? Who knew that you had turned into a lady on us, Lady Grace?”Grace frowned away a simper. “It was bound to happen. A dog? In exchange for my stolen childhood a dog? Yes, I want the dog. I’d rather a mom, but the mom I got was a bitch anyway, so I guess it’s six on one hand, half a dozen on the other.”
“Wisdom didn’t steal you. He found you. I remember when he brought you home. He found you where he found me, in the alley between Davis, Jr. and Powell. He wouldn’t have given anything to the Johnstontines to raise, especially not perfect you.” IM reached out for Grace’s hair. “You met the Johnstontines.”
“I lived with them motherfuckers. We don’t look alike now, but if you ever saw pictures of her when she was younger, we look just alike. Only she had hair like this not nappy like mine.”
“Mrs. Johnstontine fine, no doubt. I never really saw it before now, but you do look like her. I miss your nappy hair, though. Look at her hair, now. She got the low afro going. She fine. She fine.”
“Ugh. Stop, IM. That’s my, ma--well, don’t worry. This shit will have gone back after a good weekend in the elements, and it will be invisible Princess, again.”
“Why you say that?”
“Whatever.”
“‘Whatever?’ That’s some Huntley shit you done brought home. I know you getting to that age, Princess. You gonna get your monthly soon or might already got it.”
“Corduroy.”
“I know the boys, we, I, we treat you like a kid, but we kids. You got an old soul. It’s going to be hard for somebody like you to find a man.”
“Thank you for the support. Can you not help?”
“You sound so different. Without you we like some motherless childs.”
“Motherless childs?”
“I know it’s wrong, but I had to give Ghostface his due.”
Grace smiled. IM tipped her chin to his face and kissed her on the forehead. “Wisdom said to kiss you, tell you he loved you, and tell you ain’t no sunshine when you gone.”
“How long you staying this time?”“Depends.”
“Two nights ago I dreamed about this, about us in this woods, you and me talking and this dog. Drum!” Grace summoned. “Have any crazy dreams lately, Drum?”
“I told you I been having déjà vu like a motherfucker. Didn’t I, nigger?”
“Yeah, you did.”
“How long before we get to be still,” asked Grace?
Drum smiled, squinted, and asked, “Now, why ever would you want a thing like that, Princess Grace?”
Karin talked to her mom . Mrs. Whitley acted like Karin was on a field trip. Karin knew that her mother lived vicariously through the thrills, but Doc dubbed it a “purposeful transference,” in order to accept Karin’s new lifestyle.
0 comments:
Post a Comment