four hours later. We were sitting down to dinner. Somebody started banging on the door. This was not a regular knock. This was what was known as the “police knock.” It’s when somebody is knocking on your door so hard, it sounds like they are about to come through it. My daddy, who had a terrible temper, was pissed. He jumped up from the table, stormed across the living room, and pulled the door open with a force and a look of anger that let you know you had life fucked up knocking on his door like that. It was that dude, our neighbor, drunk off his ass. He started yelling about how my daddy must have thought he was a punk and don’t nobody fuck up his shit and he doesn’t do anything about it. He invited my daddy downstairs to settle this shit. My daddy knew dude was packin’, and my daddy was far from a soft ass nigga. You did not fuck with my daddy. My daddy went and got his piece and met dude downstairs.
My daddy had his gun tucked in the front of his pants under his shirt. I saw him put it there as he was walking out the door. He always wore these walking suits that were really loose, and you would never know he was concealing as he was coming toward you. He stood about six feet one and weighed, I know, three hundred twenty pounds easy. Dude was already standing downstairs by the three feet end of the pool. He had a cheering section coming from his apartment. They were all drunk and screaming obscenities. You can tell who got his dumb ass hyped up to do this stupid shit. Daddy wasn’t moved. Dude was yelling something about what my daddy wasn’t gonna do. My daddy just stood there silent. You can tell he was pissed and completely irritated on a whole other level. Dude pulled a gun and tried to shoot, but the gun jammed. That was fucked up for him because my daddy was just as fast and his didn’t jam. He went down like sack of potatoes, and blood was leaking from under him spilling onto the concrete. My mommy started whispering under her breath, “Oh my God. Oh my God.” My daddy was walking around the body cussing and calling him a stupid mothafucka. He was angrier after he shot him than he was before he shot him. He kept saying it didn’t have to go down like this. My mommy dragged me in the house when the police showed up. She didn’t want me to see them arrest my daddy. Dude’s people were on the porch crying and screaming, “This mothafucka shot him,” like he wasn’t the one who pulled the gun first.
They allowed my daddy to come upstairs to say goodbye to my mommy. When he got upstairs, my mommy was in a silent cry. He hugged my mommy so hard and whispered something in her ear. They were so in love with each other. They showed that kind of affection between each another all the time. I actually remember what they were like before the drugs. The police told him it was time to go. I was in the hallway crying my eyes out. They were taking my daddy away, and it wasn’t even his fault. After they shut the door, my mommy cried so hard. I couldn’t sleep that night. The fire coming out of the gun and dude dropping would play in my head over and over again. I missed my daddy already. I must have finally dozed off because I was awakened by a knock at our door. My mommy was still up listening to sad music. I could hear her yell “Who is it” from the living room. “Always and Forever” by Heatwave was playing when she opened to door to let my daddy in. I ran to the hallway to peek around the corner to see what the commotion was. They had released my daddy. They considered the murder self-defense, so they had to let him go. Mommy and Daddy held each other and slow danced. I just sat there and watched with so much joy. Little did I know, that joy I was feeling would not be one I would often feel in my lifetime.
My daddy did the honorable thing, and that didn’t mean shit. He told the truth. He owned up to his mistake. He offered to make what he did wrong right. It doesn’t matter how good you are, people are going to be who they are, and you just have to handle the shit as it comes your way. That’s just what my daddy did.
Chapter 19
19 My Firstborn
Chocolate Doll
Skin tone’s a deep dark brown;
don’t be shame you are the cutest thing around,
chocolate doll.
You’re the reason I give my all.
Brown and silky fine as wine,
shining just as bright from noon till nine.
Chocolate girl,
more precious than any pearl,
they always say the darker skin is skin so pure.
In our case, that is so true.
You are my baby girl, and I’ll give you my all
because you will forever and always be my chocolate doll.
I went into labor at 7:00 a.m., January 14, 1992. I didn’t go right to the hospital because the pain wasn’t that bad at first. I also wanted to eat. I was told I wouldn’t be able to eat until I was done. I was nineteen years old, married, and didn’t have a fuckin’ clue as to what I was doing or how my life was truly about to change. My husband was in the army and was stationed in Germany at the time, so I was living at home with my mommy who was a full-blown crack addict at this time and my four sisters and brothers. I was supposed to be in Germany, but by the time they found housing, I was too far along for the plane ride out of the country.
When I went into labor, my mommy wasn’t there. My sisters and brothers were there taking care of me. She was off on another one of her smoke sessions that lasted days at a time. There is no telling where she was. It was dead of winter and cold as fuck, and there was no tellin’ which crack shack in East St. Louis she was in, but my sister went looking for her for me. I love my siblings to life. They mean the world to me. They have always taken care of me like that. My brother went to get me donuts. I had a little money that I had hid in case of emergencies, and this was definitely an emergency. That left me at home with my youngest brother and sister. They would get me water and hold my hand. I had called my aunt who lived in Centerville to let her know that I was in labor. She had warned me to call the ambulance because it was going to get worse and I didn’t want to be at home when shit got real. I was talking big shit. I told her I had this and, if this was labor, I could have five more kids. She simply said okay and said, “Yo ass gone learn today,” and hung up.
By 7:00 p.m., I was in the most ridiculous fuckin’ pain I could have ever imagined. I thought she was trying to bust out of my whole body. I wanted to die. I didn’t know if I wanted to stand up or sit down. I didn’t know if my back or my stomach was hurting. The pain was everywhere, and I had no control. I was crying and screaming as I rolled from side to side on the floor. It was horrible. All four of my siblings were rubbing my back, belly, and head telling me it was going to be okay when my mommy finally burst through the door. One of the crack shacks my sister had knocked at early had told my mommy that she had come by and I was about to have the baby. There was one thing about my mommy. I don’t care how much she smoked; her ass would jump into mommy mode in a heartbeat. I believe that is why it was so hard for me to believe she was as bad as people had told me. She had made some fucked up decisions on that shit and did some fucked up things, but she was on her shit when she did show up. On top of that, she never allowed the state to take us no matter how bad shit got.
There I was, at 1263 Kansas, on my hands and knees feeling like this baby was kicking the shit out my insides trying to get out. The hospital was on Scott Air Force Base in Belleville a cool thirty minutes away. Favorite Uncle had showed up to take me to the hospital. You have to remember, there were no beepers or cell phones back then, so all communication was delayed. I literally was not on my way to the hospital until almost 9:30 p.m. No one should have to endure that kind of pain for that long. Favorite Uncle was more excited than any of us. We piled into his little Mazda 626 and hit it. My uncle was driving like a bat out of hell, and he loved it. He drove like an idiot when there was no emergency, so he was really having a ball this time. Once we got to the military
