Chapter 9

      9 What the Hell

      Because of You

      Because of you, my heart is full of love so true.

      Because of you, my days are rarely blue.

      Because of you, my dark times are few.

      Because of you, I see my future with a better view.

      Your hugs so tight, your words so sweet.

      Relationship between Daddy and daughter is an amazing treat.

      Because of you, I face each day with a glow.

      How much I love you, Daddy knows.

      Because of you, my happiness always show.

      My spirits are hardly low.

      Because of you, my hatred of men now grows.

      Where did you go?

      Because of you, my mommy is doing this by herself

      because you just up and left.

      Because of you, my mommy on crack.

      Because of you, we live in this shack.

      My life was altered, and I have no idea what to do.

      Thank you, Daddy, this bullshit is all because of you.

      It was early Saturday morning. I remember because we weren’t at school that day. It was always so hot in California. At this point, we were living with my daddy’s people. I was in the fourth grade, and at that age, you never know why shit was the way it was. You just roll with the fucked-up flow. His people didn’t really like us. We were accepted, but there was always that vibe. I take that back, he did have one sister that loved on us. It still wasn’t enough to distract the rest of the family. My mommy had awakened, and Daddy was gone as usual. He often stayed out all night now. I just figured he had a night job. Mommy was sad all the time. She would cry for hours every day. I hadn’t seen her laugh or smile in weeks. She had just had my baby brother. He was only a few months old. I couldn’t understand what was going on with my family, I just knew shit had changed, and it was not a good thing.

      I was lying on the floor with my siblings. That’s where our pallet on the floor was in Grandmother’s apartment. It was a small apartment around the corner from where we used to live. Grandmother was a nurse. She always had this mean look on her face. I hated living there, and she knew it. Grandfather, her husband, had died years earlier of cancer. I don’t know if that’s why she always walked around with that stank look on her face or what, but it never left no matter what. I believed she loved us, but who knows. I didn’t care, I just wanted to know why in the fuck were we living here. My mommy had asked her where my daddy was. She said she didn’t know in a smug ass manner. That was always her answer to anything my mommy asked her. My mommy was too sad to care about her attitude. Mommy was far from a punk, but because she knew her kids needed a place to stay, so she didn’t say much of anything to their bad attitudes. We were just being sat down for breakfast when the events that lead to us leaving California had begun.

      Grandmother’s building was made just like most all apartment buildings were made in Los Angeles. There were in a circle around the pool and decorated with the most beautiful greenery and palm trees. The setting was amazing. That was what I had to focus on when shit went bad. There was a loud scream outside. It was a scream that instantly put fear in the heart. Mommy walked to the door first, and my little nosey ass walked closely behind. When she got to the door, she froze. It was like she couldn’t move. As we both walked on the balcony, that’s when we saw it. It was my daddy. He was yelling and screaming that he was on fire. I didn’t see any fire. He was trying to get out of his clothes and running in circles. He was downstairs with this one married couple who lived in the building, and whatever they were down there doing, they must have been doing it together because they were standing down there with this dumb ass look on their faces and their eyes were bugged outside their heads. They were watching in pure fright trying to calm him down. He had already woken up everybody in the building, so now there was a crowd. People were standing outside and looking out their windows to see what the commotion was. You could see the embarrassment in mommy’s face.

      Mommy started crying her eyes out. Grandmother didn’t even come out of her room. Her oldest daughter was over that morning. She was another mean ass bitty. She didn’t come outside either. She just sat on the couch shaking her head whispering how that’s a damn shame. Never took her eyes off the television. This was some bullshit. My mommy’s life was literally falling the fuck apart because of this dude, and that was the best his family had. Like I said, they didn’t like us. Daddy was now down to his undies and still running in circles screaming about the fire. He finally jumped in the pool to “put the fire out,” but he was still screaming it’s burning him. My daddy was one of the best swimmers I knew. This day, he was wailing around in that pool like he had never touched the water. Someone must have called 911 because the police, ambulance, and the people from the crazy house showed up. My daddy was about six feet one and a big fat ass dude. He was about three hundred twenty pounds easy. It took about six cops to jump in that pool and drag his big ass out that water. The crazy house people gave him a shot as soon as they got him on the ground at the edge of the pool, and he instantly started to fall asleep. I thought they had killed him. I later found out they didn’t. That was the last time I saw my daddy for years. A few days later, we were on the Greyhound back to East St. Louis, Illinois. I was happy to be going back to my granny and granddaddy.

      They say a girl picks a man that resembles the way her daddy teaches her to be treated. If that’s the case, I was in a world of fucking trouble, and that truly proved to be. I’m not going to blame all my choices in men on him, but he had a whole lot to do with it. My image of men began there and ended there.