I"d never seen that evil b.i.t.c.h smile a day in my life. Old Man Reaper reached to take my chubby hand. I shook my head and left the office in front of him, headed out on Joubert Avenue.
He put me inside of a black and dirty Lincoln and drove away.
I sat back and shook my head.
He asked, "What"s the problem, little girl?"
"Will you be this way long, Mr. Reaper?"
"Not long, Mrs. Smith."
"It"s Miss, not Mrs."
"I stand corrected."
"Well, if you need anything, feel free to contact me."
"Anything?"
"Anything. No matter what the time. I would love to be able to be there for you . . . and your daughter . . . as you go through that which G.o.d has put in front of you."
"In that case, you should give me a number to reach you."
He was frozen. "How do you do that?"
"You should"ve just had Bible study in her office."
"Answer me. How do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"You sounded just like her. You sounded Southern and country, then you sounded Bajan."
"I sounded like you. You sound weird and I sounded like you."
"Is that what I sound like to you?"
"I can imitate almost anybody. I spend my time alone, watching television, so I get bored and imitate everybody on the television, the commercials, the cartoons, the people, everybody."
"How can you do that?"
"Just can."
"That was amazing."
I said, "So, okay, again, why do I have to leave school with a stranger?"
"I"m your father."
"Like I said, why do I have to leave school with a stranger?"
"It"s an emergency."
"Something happened to Momma. You kept using the word "was" when she is an "is.""
"Preacher your mother was seeing . . ."
"Was."
"Did you know him?"
"Reverend Doright. He was over last night."
"His wife went up to your momma"s job this morning."
"Okay. Mrs. Doright."
"The woman started an argument."
"Okay."
"She stabbed your momma in her chest."
"The preacher"s wife went down to the post office on Third Street?"
"People said the woman went berserk, showed up in her pajamas, hair in rollers."
"Okay."
"She was stabbed to death."
"Okay."
"I said "stabbed to death.""
"Okay."
"Your momma is gone to be with G.o.d."
"Okay."
"All you can say is "okay"?"
"How am I supposed to get inside the house?"
"What?"
"She never gave me a key to the house."
"I tell you that your mother was murdered, and that"s your concern?"
I had been mistreated and ridiculed and rejected from my first breath.
By the time Old Man Reaper reappeared, I was already numb.
By twelve I was already aloof, a cold fish, an unfeeling person, a vulgar iceberg.
I was a fat kid, at least forty pounds overweight, so that added to my angst.
Food had been my friend. My mother was tall and slim.
Old Man Reaper asked, "You knew about what she was doing?"
"Her boyfriend came by time-to-time, had Bible study when he thought I was sleeping. He"d come by and pray, then take her into the bedroom for some more intense Bible study. Her bed creaks and she would start to curse, say "Jesus f.u.c.king Christ" over and over, and then about five minutes later it would get quiet, and she would walk to my room and check on me, but I would pretend to be asleep."
She was half-crazy. She hated me and blamed me for her being half-crazy. Maybe that was why I felt like I was half-crazy most of the time. My drop-dead-gorgeous mother hated me because Old Man Reaper accused her of cheating and left. My egg donor hated me and in return I hated her, cursed her every chance I got. Giving me lashes didn"t matter. She would beat me. I wouldn"t shed a tear. Would look at her and scowl. She was dead and I didn"t care. And I didn"t care that I didn"t care.
While we sat in KFC and ate, I asked, "Where are you going to dump me?"
"Nowhere for you to go except for foster care, so they called me to come to get you."
"You got here that fast from California? In a car. I"ve seen it on a map. That"s a long way."
"I"m here. That"s all that matters."
"Touch me anywhere near my private parts or ask me to do what this other girl in my cla.s.s does for her stepdad I will scream and cut your throat with a butcher knife while you sleep."
"Jesus. Did somebody do something to you?"
"No."
"Somebody tried?"
I shifted in my seat. "What"s your name?"
"Reaper."
"You have a first name?"
"You can call me Daddy. Or Poppa. Up to you."
"So, you show up out of nowhere and expect me to call you Daddy and I"ve never heard of you before."
"Well, if you haven"t heard of me it"s because your momma didn"t want you to."
"Momma"s dead."
"You want to cry?"
"Where are you taking me?"
"Well, we have to claim her body, pay for them to send the body back to her home so they can bury her there, pack up your things, and either fly or drive to where I am staying in California."
"California?"
"I"m not that far from Disneyland."
"So, what kind of work do you do?"
"I work for a company called Retail Consumer Services, Incorporated."
"What do you do there?"
"I work in collections."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I encourage people who are delinquent to pay their bills."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I"m the last motherf.u.c.ker you want knocking at your door."
"What were you doing that had you so close to Memphis today?"
"Collecting. I was out collecting."
"Can I have another piece of chicken?"
Two years later we were still living in a two-bedroom at the Californian Fountain Apartments in Huntington Beach off Warner Avenue. It wasn"t far from the cold Pacific Ocean and had almost nine miles of sandy beach, palm trees lining the streets. I had been forced to trade Beale Street, Overton Square, and the Pink Palace for a chance to drive from our crummy apartment and see Venice Beach, Santa Monica, and Beverly Hills. Before Memphis, I had only seen palm trees on television. Within a month after I landed on the West Coast, Old Man Reaper would stock the fridge with healthy food, leave me a few hundred dollars, then vanish for two or three days at a time, sometimes for a week-always had to go on a business trip for the company called RCSI. The weeks he was home, he made me breakfast, dropped me at school if I asked, but every evening he picked me up, did homework with me, then took me to a gymnasium. Made me work out between two and three hours every day he was home.
Daddy barked, "Last time telling you, start your kicks with your left side."
"I"m right-handed. I don"t kick with my left leg."
"That"s why we start with your left. I always start with my right side. That is why I do twice as much with my right side. That"s why I am able to switch sides. We always start with the weak side. We will always do more with our weak side. That"s how you become stronger. That is how you will d.a.m.n near have equal power on both sides. You don"t get stronger by working your strong side while your weak side rests. You ever see a man push weights with just one arm? He uses both. You don"t make yourself better than the rest of the world by doing what you can already do. You will be able to push out three kicks in one second. You will be able to use your legs like you use your hands, throwing the equivalent of hooks and jabs by using sidekicks, roundhouse kicks, front kicks, spinning back kicks, crescent kicks-"
"Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
"Twenty push-ups and twenty burpees for that."
"Can we just get started with this bulls.h.i.t before you talk me to death."
"Now it"s forty and forty."
"Why not make it fifty and fifty?"
"Now it"s sixty each."