“You first,” Mercedes said.
I cuffed my hand and put it towards my mouth, spilling the powder on purpose. But I knew she couldn’t see the tiny crystals in the dark.
“Okay, your turn,” I told Mercedes, wiping the extra powder stuck in my palms onto my pants. “Stick out your tongue,” I said, still softly.
“Let me see yours first,” Mercedes demanded. So, I stuck out my tongue knowing she couldn’t tell in the dark space.
“Stick out your tongue,” I commanded her with a stern whisper. I pulled out a capsule and sprinkled it on her four-year-old tongue.
“I knew it was nasty,” she complained, spitting. “Lexy was right.”
“Now suck your lolly,” I told her, unwrapping the wrapper quickly and pushing it into her mouth. But I missed her mouth in the darkness. It dropped.
“Where is it?” Mercedes asked. We both felt around the small floor for the lolly.
“You dropped it,” I said reversing it on her.
“You dropped it,” Mercedes said. “I want water, I don’t wanna play no more.” Mercedes reached over me to tug at Lexus, who was fast asleep.
That’s all I was tryna do, make my two busy twins sleep and stay still while the takers were coming in our house. Asleep they would be safe. Awake, they would give us all away by accident.
I had already buried my best things in our backyard yesterday. I had told myself, if any more strangers showed up the way the cops had, they could come and take anything else except the things I had already buried and the twins who, no matter what, I couldn’t replace.
As they both laid on my lap after sucking the powder from Momma’s sleeping medicine, I tried keeping my heart from racing and then bursting out of my chest. I tried to think happy thoughts, but I kept getting flooded with worries.
Hot. I had just began to notice how hard it was to breathe in here. It was like summer in the secret hiding space, even though it was winter outside, real winter in the dead of January the 31st, three days after my sister Winter’s seventeenth birthday.
I pulled out the square, tilting it to let some air in but not wanting to pull too hard causing it to cave in and show us if someone was searching. Even with the small opening, I couldn’t hear nothing. Should I crawl out and see what was happening? Maybe it was a trick Magdalena was pulling, being extra quiet to lure me out. My mind went back and forth. Then I put my ear down towards each twin’s mouth, to listen for their breathing. Now I was sweating like crazy. I shook ’em a little and finally heard something, but both their bodies were heavy and still.
I heard a noise. I removed the square completely and went to crawl out. My legs felt extra heavy. I felt like I was working too hard to lift even one of them up so I could move. The noises I heard stopped. Maybe the stranger left already. Did Magdalena go with her? Did the stranger come to take Magdalena in the first place? Now there was no one left except me and the twins?
My head felt heavy. I didn’t really take the medicine, I had pretended to make sure Mercedes would take hers. I couldn’t sleep. I was in charge, their only protector, their big sister. But a little bit of the powder did touch my tongue as I spilled the rest out onto my shoulder. I had tasted the nasty taste that Lexus complained about.
“Police.”
I saw a white head, a red face, a bright, bright light. My eyes closed on me, tears squeezing out both sides. I felt him drag my sister’s weight off of my legs. My own body felt like a bag of rocks. “My sisters, my sisters, the twins, Mercedes, Lexus,” I was saying. But I couldn’t even feel my lips moving. Lifting my eyelids were like lifting heavy curtains with my little hands. They opened into half-moon slits. I saw some type of lady cop, a woman, and ugly-ass Magdalena staring down at me.
When I woke up, I was in a hospital. Ms. Griswaldi, the lady who said she was my “caseworker,” was there, coming in and out of the room staring down on me and checking her watch. I looked left, no Lexus; right, no Mercedes. Turning sideways, my tears squeezed out, and I was angry at myself for falling asleep. In fact, I was furious with myself for the following two years and five months, up to this exact second, for not protecting the twins and being their best big sister.
My temper is seven layers above my anger at myself. I hoped in my heart that even though my young sisters and I were separated for what now felt like forever, that they knew my true feeling and understood my real reasons for hiding them that cold winter day.
I didn’t know what exactly was in that thick file that my psychiatrist, the warden, and counselor, and lawyer had. They might try to tell my story a different way. But not one of them bitches was there. I don’t know. I don’t care.
• • •
I was surprised that I never got punished for that day with the paper dress and the dancing, although I got questioned a few times about who told me to write a letter to the New York Daily News. I didn’t tell them shit. I was insulted by their doubt. For some reason, they couldn’t believe that writing the letter was my idea. I hated how they always played us like we were fucking dumb. When they questioned me about who mailed the letter to the NY Daily News and so on, I played dumb like they thought I was anyway. I played super-duper stupid like Magdalena, but I didn’t dime no one out, unlike Magdalena. I stayed true to my clique.
Of course, my paper dress idea got turned down and no one bothered giving me back the one I had already made. Now the dancers I trained was as good as they was gonna get, but it’s bullshit dancing in a jail jumper. Everybody knows a real performance is never complete without the right fashion. Especially for a dancer, clothes have to sit softly on the skin and ride her curves so the audience can see the beauty and skill of her body movement.
I didn’t know if they would cancel my festival participation. I didn’t give a fuck. I was waiting for Poppa to write me back after I sent him a seven-page letter so personal the envelope seemed to contain a piece of my heart, one eye, and one of my fingers.
Chapter 13
The night before the festival, instead of finally getting a letter from Poppa, I got a kite from Riot. It was delivered to me by Diamond Needle number 4, a sixteen-year-old slim, but really strong, Asian girl named Ting-Tong. She worked the laundry detail. All of us got fresh baby blues for the festival. Riot had written the letter in the secret language that Siri and I made up, which I had taught to her little by little on our days on the yard. As girls in my dorm braided each other’s hair, showered and re-showered, lotioned and creamed up their little bodies, rehearsed routines in complete excitement for the big family day, it took me all night to break down my own code and language. Once I could read Riot’s note, I was shocked into silence, so silent I didn’t say nothing, not even to Siri.
• • •
Early morning, everybody was noisy and busy, more noisy than ever. Girls were showering again. The lotions and creams they put on the night before were rinsed away and rubbed back on again. Girls were sharing hair grease with girls they never usually shared nothing with. Everybody was on their best behavior.
Sound check was happening on the yard. We could hear the loud buzzing from the system as they tried to get it right. One chick was singing and re-singing a song she was gonna perform for the talent show. I heard it so many times, I wanted to punch her in the mouth. Gail swore she could smell the meat cooking outside on the grill.
“It might rain,” I said to Gail, Shaleka, Brianna, Siri, and them.
“Don’t say that!” they all said, like a chorus.
We came to attention for the count. They counted. We counted. The heavy doors opened up, and we went pouring into the sunlight. Way across the yard were people’s families, the authorities, the stage, the huge speakers, and the rows of food tables.
Barbeque and barbed wire, does that even go together? Then suddenly, “Woo ooh ooh, woo ooh ooh, ooh ooh ooh, woo ooh ooh . . .” It was the melodic voice of Lauryn Hill. She was that pretty, dark fudge brown Fugee girl. It had to be a new joint cause I had never heard it before. Her voice
sounded pure and was pushing through the sound system and filling up the air and floating towards the sky. Her voice held me standing in place in the grass as though my feet were glued to the ground.
“The best-smelling food ever cooked and served in this lockdown institution was being cooked today. To give people’s families and state officials the false impression that they feed us right and don’t abuse,” Riot said. “And of course the robots are all cleaned up and grinning, so their families will believe that nothing is wrong with this place,” she continued. But, I was listening to Nas jump on the track. That nigga was weaving his words together so perfectly, spitting so nice, my body started moving. Brooklyn’s Notorius B.I.G. was the best, but on the low a Queens dude had put all our hoods on the map painting authentic scenarios with words rhymed more better than Shakespeare.
“I gotta take a dump,” Riot said and walked away.
Listening, it wasn’t too hard to figure out that the title of the new magnetic track was, “If I Ruled the World.” And whoever thought of pushing Nas and Lauryn Hill together was a musical genius, I thought.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Siri said to me as I watched each girl matching up with her “peoples”—grandmothers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, boyfriends. My eyes teared up. Something about that one Nas and Lauryn Hill hip-hop song was doubling—tripling my already exploding emotions.
I imagined Winter walking across the yard to see me. She didn’t give a fuck that it was a long trip from our home. She came because of love, her love for me, her sister. Winter was so beautiful, high heels sinking into the soft earth, dressed so stunning the crowd divided to let her walk through while they watched. Even though I had tears, I smiled some at what I imagined.
My nerves stirred like someone was inside of me twisting my intestines.
I walked to an available Porta-Potty and stepped in, closing the door behind me. With both hands, I lifted the metal square with the big hole in the middle and looked in. Nervous about wasting time, I stepped in and curled my body into the green toilet water and lowered the metal lid over my head until I heard it click. I could smell piss, but not shit. Chemically stinky smells raced up my nose holes. I squirmed a bit to settle into the space. I held my head a few inches below the metal lid and a few inches above the water level so I could breathe. I was used to being closed in and uncomfortable.
When I heard the Porta-Potty door open, I was excited that it was swift. Then I realized it wasn’t. Ass cheeks were being lowered over the hole and rested there. In the wet darkness, I was losing air, same as I lost air when me and the twins were stuffed in the closet space and also while dancing at the bottom when I was locked in isolation.
“Don’t sleep, don’t faint, don’t sleep, don’t faint . . .” Siri’s voice said softly in my ear. A slight trickle of pee came down, then a small shit dropped into the green water. Then a burst of gas exploded and loose shit splattered.
“DJ Jazzy Joyce on the turntables . . .” I heard coming in from outside. Then the hole was uncovered and tissue dropped down onto me. The stench thickened. The Porta-Potty door opened, letting some of the stink escape. The door closed. Whoever it was didn’t wash her hands.
“You bitches must’ve been born in the gutter,” a guard once yelled down on us in the C-dorm. Now, I was lying in the sewage curled tightly like a baby inside of its mother. But I think the inside of the mother is clean. I was soaking in filth.
The Porta-Potty rocked. It was being lifted. I could hear the machinery drowning the sound of anything else. The metal box raised up, shifted some, then eased down and was dropped gently onto something. No more rocking. Steady now. We were moving.
“Keep moving, keep moving . . .,” Siri whispered. It worked for a while. Then shortly and suddenly we stopped.
“ID,” I heard the familiar forceful voice of a guard say.
“We have a pass,” another male voice answered.
“What’s in your load?” the guard asked, but it sounded more like a command.
“We got four Porta-Potties. That’s it.”
“The festival just got started,” the guard replied.
“We called ahead and put in an order to pick these up. We gave you guys too many, and these are the more expensive luxury models. Gotta get these back, or the boss will have my head.”
“Let me see the order form,” the guard demanded.
“Right here. Small mix-up.”
Then I heard the walkie-talkie sound but not the exact words coming through it.
Even though I was lying in the water, I wasn’t cold no more. The water had turned warm, and my face and neck was sweating.
“Open up. Let’s check it,” I heard the guard call out as though to another guard. Fear froze me even though I was sweating. I began to pee in my wet jumper into the pissy-doo-doo water. I heard other doors opening, creaked, unlocked. But the door to my Porta-Potty was still closed.
“Fucking stinks,” I overheard the guard’s voice say.
Then I felt the slight wind from my Porta-Potty door being opened. The lighting was altered from how it had been when the door was still shut. My right leg caught a cramp. “Shh . . . it’s okay, it’s okay,” Siri said. It wasn’t okay, though. It hurted. My face was stuck in the screaming sound position, but no noise was coming out. My tears were spilling. My hair was soaked with perspiration. My own muscles were attacking me.
Four Porta-Potty doors were now slammed shut.
“All clear!”
“All clear!”
“All clear!”
A creaky, heavy metal door slammed down hard. We were moving again. The pain of the cramp was punishing me. I was afraid to pass out as I had done many times before when shit was too fucked up for me to bear. If I passed out in here, I knew I would drown.
Ten-year-old girl with six days left till she turns eleven, found drowned in the portable toilet. No one came to claim her body. The state, her legal guardian, threw her in an empty field where thousands of forgotten, abandoned children are dumped in unmarked graves.
“Come on out,” Riot said softly as she held the metal lid and stuck her head in only a little bit.
“She can’t move,” Siri said.
“Do you like it down there?” I heard Tiny’s tiny voice asking me.
“I can’t move, cramp.” I moaned my words out.
Tiny and Lil’ Man grabbed my legs and shoulders and lifted me out and laid me on the truck floor. Forcefully, I swallowed my own screams. They were stretching me out.
“Oh shit, she needs water,” Riot said.
“We’re all soaked,” Tiny said.
“No, she needs water to drink. She’s dehydrated,” Riot explained.
Lil’ Man was just quiet, watching me. I imagined she was thinking I wasn’t tough enough. She must’ve been saying something like, “Take it like a man.” But I’m not a man. I’m a young, young girl.
“Which leg?” Riot asked me. I looked at my right leg.
Riot began to push both sets of my toes towards my head while my heels were pressed against the floor. She was pressing, then moving, my toes around, massaging my feet. “Point your toes toward your face,” Riot said softly. I liked that, even though I was painful and panicked, Riot was not panicked. Tiny was wiping away my sweat with her small, soft fingers. Suddenly the pain disappeared as swiftly as it came in the first place. They each stopped and stepped back as they felt and saw my legs and body relaxing. Slowly I got up.
“You okay?” Lil’ Man asked.
“I’m good,” I said.
“Walk back and forth. Hurry up,” Riot told me.
“For what?” I asked.
“Just do it. Pace!” Riot said, pointing her finger in a back-and-forth motion.
“You look like you got born in that toilet. Or like you gave birth down there,” Tiny said, giggling nervously.
“We all look wrecked,” Lil’ Man said.
“And we all stink,” I said, walking back and forth. Riot was s
quatting in the corner rocking with the movement of the moving truck, her jumper dripping. She was thinking.
“Six minutes,” Riot mumbled. Tiny and Lil’ Man took off their jumpers and began wringing the dirty water out.
“Don’t look at me,” Tiny said.
“Naked don’t mater. We all girls,” I said.
“It matters to me,” Lil’ Man said.
“See, I knew you was looking,” Tiny said in her baby voice and jumped back into her damp dirty jumper. As they did, the truck stopped suddenly, jerked once. We all tried to balance ourselves from falling. Two seconds later the heavy creaking metal back door was lifted.
“Seventeen minutes. I made it,” a young-faced, blue-eyed guy said. He was a worker I figured from his filthy boots, blue khakis, and dark blue shirt. He’s in the “doo-doo” business, I guessed. Looked like he worked hard and owned nothing. His plastic wristband on his cheap watch was a second away from snapping.
We were all jumping down now, jogging in a line behind Riot. We were used to staying and moving in a line formation. We were inside of an empty building—no, in a factory or some type of warehouse with no windows. We jogged into a room with walls made of cinder blocks.
The blue-eyed guy turned a knob, pulled a long hose off the wall and sprayed us with some type of foam even though we had our jumpers on. Tiny laughed nervously; Lil’ Man didn’t laugh at all. Riot began pulling up her sleeves and pants and rubbing herself with foam. We did the same.
The guy switched hoses and sprayed us with a second hose, all water. Riot took it from his hand and began spraying us instead. We spun around to get all the foam soap off. Then she used the hose to clean herself. Next Riot brought the hose close to my lips and said, “Sip some water. You might not get the chance until later tonight.” I held the hose, placing my hand next to hers, and gulped some down, maybe three glasses full, I thought.
The guy left and returned in seconds. He tossed a plastic bag to Riot.
“Turn around,” she told him. He did. She signaled us to undress. She threw us each a T-shirt and a cheap, thin no-name denim skirt from out the plastic bag. The kicks she tossed out were “skips,” the type you get your ass whipped for wearing back in Brooklyn. If it was all you had, you wouldn’t even dare come out to play. No double-Dutch, or hopscotch, or anything that would bring more attention to your feet.