Piecing Me Together(21)

I wonder if any of these boys ever sit in a room for boys’ talk night and discuss how to treat women. Who teaches them how to call out to a girl when she’s walking by, minding her own business? Who teaches them that girls are parts—butts, breasts, legs—not whole beings?

I was going to eat at Dairy Queen, but I don’t want to sit through the discussion of if I’m a five or not. I eat a few fries before I walk out.

“Hey, hold up. My boy wants to talk to you,” Green Hat says. He follows me, yelling into the dark night.

I keep walking. Don’t look back.

“Aw, so it’s like that? Forget you then. Don’t nobody want your fat ass anyway. Don’t know why you up in a Dairy Queen. Need to be on a diet.” He calls me every derogatory name a girl could ever be called.

I keep walking. Don’t look back.

When I get on the bus, it is fuller than I expected it to be. I want to eat, but I decide to wait. Who wants to see a big girl eating fries and a burger on a bus? By the time I am home, my fries are cold, but the burger is still good. I don’t throw the bag away. I’m going to use it tonight. Tear it up and make it into something. Maybe a dress for a girl more confident than I am, who doesn’t feel insecure about eating whatever she wants in public. Maybe I’ll morph it into a crown for the queen Dad says I am.





25


llamar

to name

The crown is in the center. It is not a princess crown. Not dainty and sweet. In the background, the names he could have called me emerge:

Hija

Amiga

Erudita

Artista

So?ador

. . .

Daughter

Friend

Scholar

Artist

Dreamer





26


el barrio

the neighborhood

“Okay, so tell me again: what stop do I get off at?” Sam asks.

I repeat the directions to her, part of me not believing she’s really coming. After the fuss her grandma gave, I never thought she’d go anywhere past Lombard and MLK.

“Can you meet me at the bus stop? I told my grandparents you’d meet me and walk me back.”

I want to say no. I want to say, If you don’t feel safe coming to my house, then don’t come. But instead I say, “Sure,” because I know Sam really wants to come and I know she wouldn’t be so scared if her grandma hadn’t polluted her mind with all those stories.

I time the ride and leave to meet Sam. I zip my jacket, pull my hood over my head. October is gone and November has settled in. Not a lot of rain this month, but cloudy, cold, and gray, always.

Sam is not on the first bus, and for one moment—just one—I think, What if something happened to her? The whole story plays out in my mind—she will be on the news every day because she is a white girl and white girls who go missing always make the news. I will volunteer and join the other searchers. We will search all the many places a body could be. Cathedral Park. Some hidden bush under the St. John’s bridge. For months people will tell girls and women to be careful and walk in pairs, but no one will tell boys and men not to rape women, not to kidnap us and toss us into rivers. And it will be a tragedy only because Sam died in a place she didn’t really belong to. No one will speak of the black and Latino girls who die here, who are from here.

A bus screeches to a stop. I swallow those thoughts, watch the passengers exit the bus, and then I see Sam getting off at the back, smiling her Sam-smile.

We walk to Frank’s. “Jade, my friend, where have you been?” Frank asks. He grabs the silver tongs and begins putting JoJos into a small white bag. I can tell he just made them. The potato wedges have that crisp, golden look that I like. He throws a few packets of ketchup in the bag.

“I’ve been busy with school,” I tell him. “By the time I come home, you’re closed.”

“That’s good, that’s good,” he says. He begins putting chicken wings into another white bag. “Four?”

“Yes, please.”

He nods and puts in a few extra.

Sam walks over to the aisle of chips.

Frank whispers, “How you liking it out there with all them white folks?”

“It’s all right,” I tell him.

“Good, good.”

Sam returns with a bag of Doritos. I hand them to Frank and give him money. He waves his hand in the air. “It’s on the house today,” he says. “Tell your mom I said hello. Haven’t seen her in a while either.”

“I will,” I say. “Thanks for this.” I take the food and walk away. As I’m going out the door, Lee Lee is coming in. “I just left your house. E.J. said you should be back soon,” she says. She reaches out to hug me. I hug her back and smell the hair grease and the fruity lotion she uses all in one. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever,” Lee Lee says.

“I know. I came by the other night, but you weren’t home,” I tell her.

“Don’t even try to put this on me. You’re the one who has to take a canoe, a plane, and a bus to school. If you would be regular, I’d be seeing you every day.” Lee Lee barely gets her joke out, she’s laughing so hard. Then she finally notices that I am not alone, and she pulls her laugh in.

“This is Sam,” I tell her.