In My Shoes Read online

  Mama was adamant about us not talking to strangers, and as far as I was concerned, Daddy or not, he was a stranger. Jesse and I never knew what Daddy looked like, but Rita did. When she was a little girl, he was always around. That was until him and Mama got divorced. It was finalized a year after I was born.

  That night, we stayed up until Mama came home and couldn’t wait to tell her about the man in the van, claiming to be our father. Like always, she looked tired and yawned as she made her way down the long hallway to her bedroom. We followed closely behind, while Rita was asleep. She didn’t see it as a big deal, but said she was anxious to see Daddy again. I wasn’t.

  “Mama,” I said, plopping down next to her on a full-sized mattress without a fitted sheet. The mattress was pushed against the lime green painted wall, as green was one of Mama’s favorite colors. “A man followed Jesse and me home today. We were kind of scared.”

  Mama squinted and removed her shoes to rub her aching feet. “Scared for what, Brenda? Who was he and what did he say? I told y’all about talking to strangers and—”

  “He said he was our daddy,” Jesse blurted out. “We didn’t know whether to believe him or not.”

  Silence fell over the room. Mama’s lips were clipped tight. She changed into her nightgown, and made us go into our room to go to bed. Before we did, we told Mama that we were afraid, and that we didn’t want to see him again. She nodded, so we thought she understood.

  Within the next few weeks, Daddy showed up time and time again. Simply put…I hated him. Mama was trying to make everything okay between us, and she seemed perky when he was around. She was always a pretty woman, but it seemed as if she jazzed herself up to look even prettier for him. Her long pressed hair was feathered and it lay on her shoulders. Her face was round like mine, and even though her flawless skin didn’t need any make-up, she wore plum lipstick and blush to brighten up her high cheekbones. Her brown eyes shone for Daddy, and as happy as Mama appeared to be, I was crushed. The only thing I could think about was where in the fuck had he been for all these years? Did she forget how he’d left us? What was wrong with her for allowing him to come back into our lives? At this point, I was beginning to despise her, too.

  Rita was also enthused about Daddy being around, and even though he’d abandoned us, their previous relationship allowed her to develop love for him. As for Jesse, she often kept her thoughts to herself. Still, I knew she felt the same way I did. I could see the hurtful look in her eyes, and she was the only one who hadn’t said much to Daddy at all.

  Less than a few months after being introduced to Daddy, he managed to move in with us. We started to connect with him, and that’s when we discovered another family we didn’t know existed. We met my grandparents, who we often referred to as Mu and Granddaddy. We also met a bunch of cousins, aunts and uncles. Daddy seemed so proud to have us around his family, it made me wonder…if he was so proud, why did he leave us to begin with?

  I remember how sharp he used to look on holidays with his white, black and brown leather suits, wide-brim hats to match, and Stacy Adams. He stood about six-two, and made me think of Billy Dee Williams every time I’d see him. He had swagger in his walk and was granted respect when he came into a room. Frankly, after two months of being around him, he’d earned my respect. I had high hopes of marrying a man like him, and to say he was fine would be an understatement.

  There did, however, become a time when I noticed Daddy drinking excessively. He would always stop by the liquor store and come out with a bottle of something wrapped in a brown paper bag. He’d often hide his bottle of liquor underneath the seat of his silver Deuce-And-A-Quarter so Mama wouldn’t see it. I didn’t quite understand his reasoning for hiding it, because you could smell the liquor on his breath a mile away.

  At first, Mama and Daddy seemed to get along well. So well, that I wondered why they ever got divorced. I began to think our family was finally coming together. And even though Mama and Rita seemed enthused about Daddy’s presence, there was still a little doubt in me that this would all work out. You see, Rita was Daddy’s favorite. It was so obvious that Jesse and I started to develop a little coldness towards Daddy because of it. If anything, I felt that since he didn’t know Jesse and me that well, his connection with us should have been greater. I’d guessed since Rita was his first child, that could have been his reasoning for showing favoritism. Still, it wasn’t a good feeling, but we all tried to make the best of it.

  As Mama and Daddy managed to work through their differences, Mama and Rita weren’t getting along at all. Rita was being the typical teenager, staying out late, sometimes, because she had to work at Happy Joe’s Pizza. But Mama wasn’t down with late hours, no matter what. When she set the rules, it was smart to follow them. She was known for being very strict and not following her rules always meant trouble.

  “Rita, you can get your shit and get the hell out of here,” Mama yelled, while smoking a Kool cigarette, pacing the hallway.

  Rita yelled from inside of her bedroom. “I hate this house! You don’t let me do nothing, and I can’t help it if I got off work late! I can’t wait to go away to college!”

  From our bedroom, Jesse and I listened to the bickering with tears welled in our eyes. We hated to hear Mama and Rita yell at each other, but staying out of it was the best we could do. They were going at it, and for the first time, Daddy intervened, adding his two cents.

  “Don’t talk to yo mama like that,” he shouted. “If you don’t like the rules, then maybe you should pack yo shit up and go.”

  “Maybe I should!” Rita yelled back. “I’m sick of being in this house and I’m tired of Mama always trying to tell me what I can and can’t do! I buy my own clothes, my own food…what else in the hell does she want!”

  After that, all Jesse and me heard was tussling, then a bunch of name calling. Mama and Rita were known for going to blows with each other, and pulling each other’s hair was nothing new. This time, however, we heard a loud thud, and Rita’s voice screeched so loudly that we jumped up from our beds. We rushed to see what had happened, only to find Rita crouched down on the floor with her hands covering her face. Daddy stood over her with a tightened fist and a mean mug on his face.

  “I told you to shut yo mouth, didn’t I?” he spat. “And don’t you ever put your hands on yo mama in front of me again!”

  I stood in disbelief about what had just happened. My mouth hung open and my body felt as if cement had been poured over it—I couldn’t move. Mama had turned to walk away, and Daddy bumped my shoulder as he went into Mama’s bedroom and slammed the door. Rita slowly got off the floor, face dripping wet with tears and her right eye closed shut. My stomach tightened in knots, and without saying a word, Rita also returned to her bedroom, closing the door.

  I didn’t know what to say or what to think about Daddy, but when I returned to my bedroom, I picked up a spiral notebook on my dresser and started to scribble. Hateful words were being written about Daddy and Mama, too: Why must I have the worst parents in the world! Poor Rita didn’t deserve this and why did Mama let Daddy go there? I am so disappointed in her and none of this mess ever happened before Daddy got here. He hadn’t been around to teach none of us wrong from right. A spanking may have done Rita just fine, but to blacken her eye was a bunch of bullshit. He lucky it wasn’t me, because I would have blackened his eye right back. Mama’s too, if she tried to jump in it. Yep, Mama too, because she deserved it for letting him get away with this stuff…

  As Daddy’s true colors had started to show, that same week, he stood tall and shameful for what he had done. He continuously apologized to everyone in the family, and Rita was rewarded a fancy white wicker bedroom set with a round mirror.

  “Every teenage girl’s room should look like this,” Mama said, obviously feeling guilty. She proudly stood next to Daddy, as he, too, agreed with Mama.

  “I hope this makes you feel better, baby. I’m sorry about what happened and yo mama and me picked out the bedroom s
et for you.”

  Daddy embraced Rita, and needless to say, she was ecstatic. She seemed pleased to put this incident behind her. I wasn’t pleased, and yet again, Jesse and I felt left out. Did we have to get a black-eye in order for somebody to do something for us? Our bedroom was crappy as fuck! We had twin beds that were made of wood, with slats underneath the bottom to hold up the springy mattress. Mama said that when she was a little girl, her daddy would take the slats off the beds and whip their asses. The dresser was old as dirt, too, and two of the drawers were missing. As a newborn baby, I used to sleep in the top drawer because I didn’t have a baby bed. So, no, I wasn’t being ungrateful about the situation. We were just being left the hell out. I was kind of glad that we weren’t allowed to have visitors. I was sure they’d make fun of the place Jesse and I called a bedroom.

  After that one incident, it took less than three months for our home to turn into a hellhole. There was so much arguing, I could hardly stand it. All I knew was, before my daddy moved in, all this mess wasn’t happening. Most of the time he was drunk and he and Mama were arguing just as much as Mama and Rita. I wished that Rita would just listen to Mama and come in at a decent time. But night after night, the fighting continued.

  Mama really didn’t have a beef with Jesse and me, but she stayed on us about the housework. Considering the fact that Daddy sat around all day doing nothing, I didn’t understand why he wasn’t asked to do anything? He was getting away with murder, coming and going as he pleased, and I was in disbelief that Mama had allowed this to go on. Basically, he had it made, but we weren’t even allowed to go outside and play with the other kids. If we did go outside, we had to sneak out, making sure we got home before Mama got off work.

  As for visitors, no one was allowed to step one foot on our property. If anybody called for us or stopped by, they were cursed out by Mama, who yelled profanities at them through the door. It was the most embarrassing thing ever, and as soon as we’d go to school, the neighborhood kids had something else to tease us about. “Y’all’s Mama is out of control!” Yes, she was, but it was her way of protecting us.

  At fourteen, I was glad to leave Kirby Junior High School, where the bullying had continued. Riding the school bus was horrible and some of the boys, particularly a pudgy boy named, Timmy, who obviously had his own insecurities, he didn’t know when to cut it off. He and another boy who were best friends, used to stand up in the back of the bus, yelling, “Who in the neighborhood ain’t got no car, they poor as hell, get free lunch and wear the same clothes every day!” Some of the other students would fall out laughing and point to me. I would just sit there, looking out the window to ignore them, and feeling humiliated with tears at the brim of my eyes. The “Who” game was played every single day. From a simple pimple on my face, to my tiny breasts, I was laughed at. I used to repeat to myself, “Mama said ignore them, Mama said ignore them…,” but a person could only ignore so much. I started to say insulting things back to them, but that prompted their eagerness to fight. I definitely didn’t want to go there with boys, but by high school, that shit changed. Boys were fair game and so were girls.

  I spent the summer getting ready to start my freshman year at Hazelwood East High School and Jesse was going to be a sophomore. Rita was on her way to college and couldn’t wait to leave home. I was sad to see Rita go, but I was also glad that all the fighting, at least between her and Mama, would be over.

  A few weeks before Rita was set to leave, Mama had finally gotten a car. She didn’t know how to drive, and Rita and Daddy were the only drivers in the house. Using his car wasn’t an option. Mama said that he couldn’t be relied upon to get her back and forth to work, so therefore, Jesse or I had to quickly learn how to drive. The car was an old blue beat-up Ford Pinto. It got us from point A to B, and with limited time, Rita did her best to teach me the basics. I wasn’t supposed to be driving at all, but learning how to was imperative.

  Certainly, having a car had benefits, and Mama working nights enabled us to hit the streets. Along with some girls from the neighborhood, Jesse and I hung out at the Halls Ferry Cinema and chilled out with gangs of teenagers on the White Castles’ parking lot. We returned home at almost midnight one night, shocked to see nearly every light on inside. Daddy wasn’t there, but Mama was.

  “You know we about to get in hella trouble,” I said to Jesse, putting the car in park as it sat in the driveway. My heart raced. Mama had eased up on letting us leave the house, but our 8:00 p.m. curfew was set in stone. Midnight was a no-no.

  “What we gon’ say?” Jesse whispered, as she got out of the car and followed behind me. I shrugged, figuring that we were about to catch a beat-down from Mama, or get cussed out and thrown out of the house. Afraid to go inside, Jesse and I tip-toed through the squeaking front door that was cracked open, only to find Mama curled up behind it. Her face was beet red and tears poured from her eyes. She could barely speak any words.

  “Mama, what’s wrong!” I yelled in a panic, dropping down beside her to see how badly she was hurt.

  “Ya…y’all Daddy jumped on me,” she stuttered. The harder she cried, the madder I got.

  I smacked away a tear that had rolled down my cheek and stood up. Jesse had already gone to call the police, and once the dispatcher said the police were on the way, I called my grandparents’ house, looking for Daddy so I could tell him what I really thought of him. How any man could treat a woman this way, I didn’t understand. I wanted some answers, and if he ever came back here again, he’d have to fight all of us. My grandmother answered the phone, and the sound of her soft, sweet voice calmed me.

  “What’s the matter, Brenda?” she asked.

  I sighed and pouted with fury in my eyes. “Please tell my daddy to call us. It’s important that I speak to him right away.”

  I hung up, not knowing if my grandmother knew what her own son was capable of doing. I mean, damn! First Rita and now this. It was time for Mama to stand up. The police came, questioned Mama and issued a warrant for Daddy’s arrest. That night, all I remembered thinking was…I hoped that when they caught up with him, they beat his ass like he did Mama’s.

  For the next few weeks, things were quiet around the house. Daddy was gone and Rita was gathering her belongings to take to college. We were all so miserable; she was moving away to Nashville, Tennessee. We didn’t know if we would ever see her again. The day Rita left, I felt empty. She seemed delighted to go, but at the same time, I knew she was going to miss us too. With Mama and Jesse in the car, I drove Rita to her friend Micky’s house because she was attending TSU as well. And after a bunch of hugs and kisses were exchanged, Rita moved on to experience a new way of life, and Jesse and I were stuck with the same ole, same ole shit!

  Chapter Two

  Mama started giving Jesse and me some breathing room. We didn’t understand why, until we came home from a friend’s house one day and Daddy was resting comfortably on the long green tweed couch in the living room with his legs propped up on the table.

  “Hello, girls,” he said, blowing smoke into the air from the cigarette he was smoking.

  I rolled my eyes at him, and so did Jesse. We stormed toward Mama’s bedroom and stood in the doorway, watching as she looked in the mirror and brushed her long hair.

  “What is he doing here?” I hissed in a vicious tone. “Did you let him in here?”

  “She had to,” Jesse said, folding her arms.

  Mama ignored us, but as we began to walk away from the door, she called our names. We turned, only to see her point the hairbrush in our direction. “Mind your business and stay the hell out of mine. This is my house, and there will be no explanation given for who I decide to have in it!”

  Case closed. Nothing else needed to be said. Hurt by her actions, I went to our bedroom and lay across my bed. Jesse laid on hers.

  “Is she stupid or something?” I asked Jesse in a whisper. “How could she let him beat her ass, and then let him come back over here? I ain’t gon’ never let n
obody treat me like that, and I’ll bust a mofo upside his head if he ever put his hands on me. Mama must be crazy.”

  “She got to be crazy and it don’t make no sense to me either.” Jesse removed the rubber-band from her thick ponytail. She sat up against the headboard, placing a pillow on top of her lap. “Tell me an imaginary dream, Brenda,” she said. “I need to go to sleep and your stories be sooo good.”

  I laughed, because there were times that I would read Jesse some of the entries I’d written in my spiral notebooks. She would eventually fall asleep, either from boredom or from being tired. I reached underneath my mattress where I kept most of my notebooks and sat Indian style on my bed. I smiled at the first sentence I’d written, knowing that I had no business doing so much cursing. Instead of reading what I’d written, I dropped the notebook on my lap and used my imagination to create a story that I felt would put Jesse to sleep. It was a story about a Black girl who experienced her first kiss. Jesse giggled as I described it, but once I was almost finished with my story, I could hear her snoring. I fell back on the bed, held the notebook up high and turned it in half circles. I spoke softly to myself, as I looked at my name, Brenda Hampton, that I’d sketched with an eraser on front of the notebook.

  “If I keep writing and telling stories like this, maybe one day I’ll be a writer. Do you think I can be a writer, Jesse? Huh?”

  I thought Jesse was asleep, but in a whisper I heard her say, “I think you can be whatever you want to be. Now, go to bed.”

  I smiled at the thought, and then closed my eyes. I went into deep thought, making up a fairytale story in my head about the way I wished our lives were. No matter what, I remained hopeful that things would get better.

  ***

  Eventually, there became a plus side to Daddy being around. Mama became less overprotective of us, and Jesse and I took advantage of her sudden kindness. One night, we stayed out past midnight, again, thinking that Mama wouldn’t mind. Maybe, not even notice, since she was so occupied with Daddy. We knocked on the door, and it flew wide open. “Where in the hell have y’all heifers been?!” she yelled, looking like a madwoman.