Who’s my daddy, who’s not my daddy. Who gives a shit. Family is what you make of it. I live and breathe my siblings. I know who they are. I get jealous of the father-daughter relationships I see sometimes, but you can’t miss what you never had. I still had questions but I didn’t ask because the subject always upset my mommy. After my mommy died, I went to the man they said was my daddy and got a DNA test done. He is not my father. I did a gene test with my daddy’s sisters. There was no genetic connection their either. I still have more questions than answers.
Chapter 20
20 All Love Ain’t Good Love
It’s a Thin Line between Being in Love and Being a Fool
Love is crazy thing;
it could make you scream or make you sing.
Compromise, confusion, and insecurity—
are you thinking with your heart or our mind? Not sure I see.
You’re doing the things you said you would never do,
finding out you are not the person you thought you knew.
Hurt or happy? It doesn’t matter; it’s out of control.
It’s got a grip and won’t let go.
Crossing that line is an easy thing to do
because it’s a thin line between being in love and being a fool.
It started off like any other day. It was the Fourth of July weekend. Baby Girl was about six months at the time. I was living in Compton, California, with Man Of The House and his wife. They weren’t my real aunt and uncle, but they were longtime family friends from when I lived in California as a child. Boyfriend and I had been married for about ten months when I moved to California to be with him. It was not a happy ten months, but I signed up for this dumb shit, so I was going to try to see it through. We had got into it a lot before he was reassigned to Barstow, California. I believe he was trying to leave me, but I wasn’t smart enough to read the signals. I followed like a dumb ass. The first two months we spent in East St. Louis, Illinois, in two separate homes. Then he was shipped to basic training for two months. He came home after basic and was immediately sent off to Germany for six months. After the Germany tour, he came back rude and disrespectful and a pain in my ass. Not to mention, cheating his ass off with all the little chickens that didn’t pay his ass no mind in high school. He thought he was the shit. I still saw that stale ass little nerd I fell in love with my senior year of high school.
My daddy and his people lived in Pomona, California. It wasn’t that far from Compton where I was staying, but my people didn’t have enough room in their house for me and my baby. We had to wait on housing from the military, and so I went to California for that wait so I could immediately move in when the papers were signed. Needless to say, I didn’t last long enough to even get that far. As I said, it started off like any other day. He was in Compton with me for the holiday weekend. He came with one of his white Army buddies from the base. It was a four-day weekend because of the holiday. He would come visit the baby as often as he could while we were there. It was a little bit of a drive, but he made the trip faithfully. We had decided to start this weekend at the beach. Being from the Midwest made visiting the beach a big deal. We had gone to the Santa Monica Beach because it had the pier. It was a great day until once again, he got into one of his moods.
The beach was disgusting. It wasn’t like it used to be when I was a child. There was trash everywhere and needles all in the sand. The water was beautiful, but with every wave, you could see the debris of what washed up on the sea. With all this being quite evident, Boyfriend still felt it was okay to put Baby Girl’s feet in the water. I was not having it. When he first made the suggestion, I thought he was kidding, so I kind of blew it off. He started walking toward the water, and I panicked. Not only was the beach a cesspool of disease, but also the Baby Girl hadn’t had any immunizations at this point because of the moving and my lack of handling my responsibilities. I warned him of this, but Boyfriend, being the asshole he was, put her in the water. I went crazy on his ass. We were creating a whole scene on the beach, and in the commotion, Baby Girl’s binky fell out her mouth and was washed away in the ocean. This was a big deal because she was a binky baby. She did nothing without that damn binky. It was a terrible habit that I had created for her, but at this point, it was too late to stop. We had already lost the two other binkies she had. This was our last one. I was irritated as fuck now and wanted to smash his mothafuckin’ head in. When Baby Girl realized the binky was gone, she immediately started to scream her head off. It was time to go.
On the way home, she finally cried herself to sleep. I was calm by the time we made it home. I took her into the house and put her to bed. When I came out of the room, everyone was drinking and laughing and having a good time, so I decided to join. I told Boyfriend that at some point, we would have to go and get her a binky. He said something slick, so of course, I responded twice as slick. Everybody began to laugh vigorously. I was pretty funny when I wanted to be. He didn’t think I was, at least, not at that moment. He was embarrassed and pissed because he knew some of what I was dishing was because of earlier that day. We sat for a few hours, but I knew Baby Girl would be up looking for that damn binky soon, so I had to go to the store. It was also getting dark, and we were a block over from the Piru Bloods, and you didn’t want to get caught after dark accidentally going into any of their territory. No one was allowed on Piru Street without their permission, and if you miss your turn and end up on that block, shit could be bad.
As I rose to go to the store, he told me to sit my ass down. I laughed because he had never talked to me like that before and I figured this nigga had got to be jokin’. He snatched me down, and I was still laughing. I thought we were playing, so I playfully got of his hold and stood up again. He told me to sit my ass down again. I giggled and headed to the door. He jumped up and asked me had I heard what the fuck he said. I politely rolled my eyes and walked out the door. What I didn’t know was during his visits, he had had a few man talks with the Man of the House where I was staying. Though he was a kind man, he did beat his wife. Apparently, he had schooled Boyfriend and his friend on how to control your woman. I guess Boyfriend had enough classes on this dumb shit and was ready to test it. I was in the midst of this newfound education and didn’t figure it out until it was too late.
He stood up to show me he meant business, and I giggled and ran out the door. I was running and laughing as I saw him coming fast behind me. I knew I couldn’t outrun him, but we were just playing, so I thought, so I didn’t care. I was wrong on a whole other level. He caught up with me and grabbed me with such force, my body froze in shock. He spun me around so fast I stumbled a little. I was still in shock, so I didn’t say a word. He’s yelling, but I couldn’t really hear him because I was in complete disbelief and had stepped clean outside my body. I was thrown by the pain he’s delivering to my body. Next thing I knew he was choking the shit out of me. I couldn’t breathe. I was scared. I saw the people I was staying with just watching, and no one was helping me. He stopped and grabbed me by the arm and dragged me back in the house. No one said a word as he dragged me to the bedroom. I couldn’t believe this shit. After about an hour of arguing, I gave up. I was too embarrassed to let anyone see me, so I just lay down next to my baby, and I went to sleep. This shit ain’t over. He got me fucked up.
The next morning, I was still shitty. He’s talking to me, but I was not answering. Yes, the infamous silent treatment was in full effect. I could tell he felt bad, but I didn’t give a shit. I wanted to fight. I’ve never been in this situation. How could someone who claimed to love you fuck with you like that? He didn’t say he’s sorry, just passed me the new binky he bought Baby Girl. I walked away. He stood up and told me not to walk away from him when he’s talking to me. I’m ready this time, mothafucka.
