Page 52

“…And what did you do when she’d abuse you like that?” This time, his voice was deep. Dark. Cold.

“I’d cry and she’d yell out, ‘Poet stubbed her toe again! This silly child is so clumsy’ —things like that.

Just lying her ass off. Then, she started playin’ with my mind.

She’d act real nice to me all of a sudden.

Like, give me one of my favorite cookies.

Tell me how pretty my hair was, things like that.

She liked to play with my hair a lot—treat it like I was some attraction at the zoo.

Told me that my hair wasn’t as nappy as that of some of the other black kids she’d seen…

and she wondered if my uncle was really my father, and maybe that’s how I got this hair.

None of that shit was true, either, obviously.

She was just bein’ cruel. I didn’t notice that she was only doing nice stuff when she was in front of other folks though.

I didn’t put two and two together until I was older. Then, she even upped the ante.

“She started callin’ Aunt Huni and tellin’ her that I had been acting up, but she loved me so much, she made sure I could stay at the daycare.

She brought up my dead mama, sayin’ maybe that’s why I’ve suddenly started lying a lot, ’cause the other kids had their real mama, and I didn’t.

She put all these things out in the air so that if I ever got the courage to speak, it would look like I was lyin’, or out of my mind.

Mind games and control. You ever have someone do that to you? ”

“Oh, yeah. My grandpa told my mama that I was doing things I wasn’t.

Lied and said the mental hospital called him to let him know I was caught smoking meth I had obtained from some visitor of another patient.

He even said that I was havin’ sex with one of the mental patients there, too.

Things to get my mama all upset and worried.

None of that happened, but he’d built a damn good case all the same.

Gaslighting. Manipulation. I’ve seen it all. ”

“Yes, that’s exactly right. I used to wonder why this teacher, this woman, hated me so much, Kage.

I knew I was Black, and some folks didn’t like that—my Aunt had prepared me for the real world, but for the most part I hadn’t experienced a lot of racism.

Even now, at age thirty-seven, I still haven’t had a lot of situations where I can say without a doubt that I was racially profiled or discriminated against. Sure, things have happened to me, and I knew that was what it was, but this was my first time dealing with such a thing, and it was so, so, ugly…

so strange, too. My little brain couldn’t wrap itself around the fact that this beautiful, tall woman that everyone loved, who spoke softly and appeared kind and good-hearted, could hate me for something I had no control over.

We don’t choose our race, and even if we could, so what?

What’s to hate? I find it so evil. It just didn’t make any sense.

“So, a year passed, and by then, I was emotionally bankrupt. I was cussin’ at people, Kage.

Hitting my aunt. Talkin’ back to her. Tearing up toys and my room.

Crying all the time. Runnin’ around acting like a devil.

” She shook her head. “My aunt couldn’t figure out for the life of her what was going on.

Then, the teacher started puttin’ me in this backroom as punishment when I wouldn’t do as I was told.

Other kids had to go in this little room, too.

It was like a big closet where they kept the mops, board games, tablecloths, and things like that.

One day though, she came in that closet with me.

She started… she started takin’ videos and pictures of me.

“…That’s why I was hesitant about putting security cameras on my property, Kage.

I want the added security, but the ideal of being videoed 24/7, even if it’s just the outside perimeter, makes me uneasy, and it all stems from this .

Something about the cameras being in my home seems like a violation.

It’s illogical, not rational, I know that.

I just have to get over it. Don’t worry though, I’m going to let you do it.

Anyway, this particular day, she grabbed me, covered my mouth with tape, and started to beat the living daylights outta me.

” A wave of anger swelled within her chest. “She pulled my little skirt down, made me stand there in just my panties, and she took a big red belt from around her waist, raised it high in the air, and beat me until my arms, legs and back were on fire! I had welts all over ’em.

” She outstretched her arms. “She laughed the whole time she did it, Kage!”

Poet found herself trapped between insanity and despair. A crazy chuckle burgeoned from her throat, then she was fighting tears. “The more I struggled and tried to get away, the more pleasure she seemed to get from it. When she was finished, she was breathin’ heavy.”

“The teacher is dead now, right?”

She cocked her head to the side and peered at Kage.

What a peculiar thing to say… His words sent chills up her spine.

He must’ve sensed her uneasiness, for he cracked a slight smile.

“I’m just hoping your aunt or somebody put a stop to this.

Go on. Don’t mind me. What happened after she physically abused you? ”

“She put her camera away, got me all dressed and cleaned up. Ordered me a pizza, and set me aside in a room where I could watch cartoons and eat, with an orange Coke. I remember the flavor of the drink ’cause orange was my favorite.

To this day, I don’t drink orange Fanta anymore…

Anyway, I kept sniffling. Cryin’. My little legs hurt so bad.

I tried to eat the pizza, but because I kept cryin’, I threw up.

She made me get on the floor and eat my vomit. ”

Kage turned away. His head practically snapped. Even through his beard, she could see his jaw tightening. He started rubbing his hands over each other, like one would if one had a tick.

“Kage, you okay?”

“…I’m tryna breathe.” His voice was broken in half.

Sawed off in the middle. “I got this heat flowin’ through me, like a fire.

It started in my head, see, moved down my neck, into my chest, arms, torso, legs, and now my feet.

” He turned to face her, his eyes glossy like drops of blue rain.

“It’s like a bruised rage growin’. Spreadin’.

A nuclear fungus. I…I…I can’t understand how some folks can be so evil towards children,” he stuttered.

“I was done wrong in that hospital, but I was older than you. I could take it.”

“…But you were still a child.”

“I don’t want to trauma bond with you.” Her shoulders slumped.

A feeling of unadulterated mortification consumed her, and she turned away.

“I wanna trauma heal, with you.” He leaned in and kissed her, and the panic that had formed in her throat melted away.

“Thank you for trustin’ me with this information, Poet.

I know it’s hard for you to talk about.”

“Not hard to talk about… hard to discuss with someone I care about. That I’m fallin’ in love with. Why is that, you may wonder?” She threw up her hands in frustration. “Hard to explain. You make it so much easier though.”

“Glad to hear that. When did your aunt find out about what was really going on?” he asked. Anxiety tinged his tone, as if he needed a good ending or he’d explode.

“Later that same day. I was picked up and we went home. I didn’t say anything.

Huni screamed when she took my clothes off to give me a bath that night.

My aunt got on that phone and was cussin’ everybody.

The teacher pretended to not know what happened, and then tried to blame it on another child, sayin’ he and I had been fightin’, and that must’ve been what led to it.

The messed up part about this was me and that boy had been fightin’ earlier that same day.

It was over a ball I believe, but he never took no belt to me, and even if he did, no little kid could have done the same damage she’d done.

My aunt told her basically to go to hell, and that she was callin’ the police.

She said she was a nurse, and she knows a beating when she sees one.

She did just that. The police were called, and she filed a report, but nothing happened. Not from a legal standpoint.”

Kage seemed to be grinding his teeth now. They’d be powder if he wasn’t careful.

“Police said it was my aunt’s word against the teacher’s, and I wouldn’t cooperate because I was still scared to speak.

I know now that it was more than that, though.

This was an attractive White lady who was well respected in the community.

She was being accused of an evil act against a little Black girl.

She was worth a dollar, I was worth a penny.

My mama was dead, I had no daddy, and this Asian lady, my sweet Huni, who sometimes forgot what English word she wanted to use when she was riled up, was trying to go up against a machine.

A machine that wasn’t built for folks like us in mind.

” Her eyes sheened over. She blinked the emotions away.

“My uncle told Huni that we could file a lawsuit against the daycare center. He’d heard about such things from another trucker.