The Last Black Unicorn(10)

Grandma: “I’m proud of you. Look at all you did, you’re a good daughter.”

She could see what I was doing for the family. She and my great-granny saw it. My mom would cuss me out in front of them:

Mom: “Get that ugly-ass girl out of here. Why you don’t comb your hair? Ugh, you’re so ugly.”

Tiffany: “I’ll try. I’ll try to comb my hair.”

Grandma: “Come here, I’ll comb your hair. You are not ugly. Your mom is just tired. She’s bad when she’s tired.”

They would make excuses for her, but they didn’t need to, ’cause I loved her. As bad as she was to me, I still couldn’t help but love her.

Then she started beating me. By the time I was nine, she got her motor skills back. She couldn’t get all her words out, so she’d just punch me. Just full on. Because of her, I can take a punch like nobody’s business.

I feel like I’m so strong in the chest area, mainly from her punches. I have always thought that’s why my titties never grew. My sisters, all of them got titties. She punched mine down. Every day, I knew I was getting punched in the chest, slapped in the back of the head.

She liked to whip me with the bath brush, that you wash your back with. That’s why I don’t have one in my house now, because she liked to beat my ass with that wooden thing. She liked to get you right out of the tub, too. Soon as you got out:

Mom: “Didn’t I tell you to wash the dishes?”

Tiffany: “I did wash the dishes.”

Mom: “No, you didn’t. You didn’t wash nothing.”

Tiffany: “Yes, I did. Yes I did.”

It’d be like two dirty dishes that my sister had put in the sink after I’d washed the dishes. She’d just light my ass up.

When I was like ten or eleven, she would send me to school with all kinds of problems, like a busted lip or cuts or whatever. They’d call her up to school to get me, and the teacher’s like:

Teacher: “Why’s Tiffany’s lip busted? What’s going on with Tiffany? Did she have a fight or something?”

I didn’t say anything. When the teacher asked me, I just didn’t say shit.

Mom: “She’s fine. She’s fine. You know kids is clumsy. She just clumsy.”

Then my mom started beating me on the bottom of my feet. I don’t know if you ever been hit on the bottom of your feet, but you feel that through your whole body. You always pee on yourself, when somebody beats you on the bottom of your feet. Nobody should do that.

Then she became a super-crazy Jehovah’s Witness, where she would talk about sex and then she’d be like, “We got to read the Bible now.” One minute she’d be reading Bible scriptures, and you’d be feeling good and comfortable. And the next thing you know, she’s snatching you by your hair, yelling, “Go wash these goddam dishes!” Go do this or that. You just never knew. “We have to go to church right now!” She’d drag your ass right off the bed at 4 a.m. to go to church, even though it was closed.

It was like living with a mean teenaged girl, who was hormonal and boy crazy. She used to talk to me about the weirdest things. I didn’t understand it, but she would always talk about sex and stuff, like I was her friend. I guess because she didn’t have any friends. After that accident all her friends fell off. She would talk crazy to everybody, because of the brain injury, and no one wanted to be around her.

She was boy crazy, but just for my stepfather. My mom was still having more kids. My baby brother Justin had just been born. She still was hooking up with my stepdad because she still said that’s her husband, even though they were divorced now. She was fucking him in a Volkswagen.

At the time, I had no idea why he didn’t come back to the house after the accident.

Then I found out, maybe.

For my twenty-first birthday, StepFather took me out for drinks. I was real depressed then. Around this time I had a breakdown and I was physically ill. This was also the first time I got drunk. He had certainly had more than a few too.

Tiffany: “I don’t know if I’m going to make it, man. I don’t know if I’m going to live any longer. I know I’m twenty-one and everything, but I just don’t feel like I’m going to make it, you know.”

StepFather: “Look, you are fine. You’re going to make it. You’re supposed to be here on Earth. God has a purpose for you.”

Tiffany: “Man, God ain’t got no purpose with me. I’m just God’s punching bag. I feel like I’m a punching bag.”

StepFather: “Nope, you got a purpose, ’cause you’re supposed to be dead. I’ll tell you that right now. You and all your brothers and sisters. Y’all was supposed to be dead. Justin’s not even supposed to be born. None of y’all supposed to be here.”

Tiffany: “What do you mean?”

StepFather: “Remember that car accident? You all was supposed to be in the car. I had a life insurance policy on all of y’all. I’m supposed to be a multimillionaire now, and y’all supposed to be gone.”

He told me this whole story. That he took out all the insurance policies. Then he cut the line in her brakes. He said he knew that she drove too fast, and we was all supposed to be in the car that day. We was supposed to be dead.

That was the day that my mom left us all home, because I told her I could take care of the little ones. He said he hadn’t planned for that, and that was the only reason it was just my mom.