The Last Black Unicorn(15)

Mom: “Yeah you pulled your hair out. There was blood, you had my blood on your face and your hair was missing.”

At three, trying to make them stop fighting, I remember screaming until I pulled my hair out.

My dad is Eritrean. He abandoned me when I was three. I was reunited with my dad when I was twenty-seven. That’s when I got married. He even came to my wedding. He was part of my life for a little while.

But then he just abandoned me again. It happened as I was working on this book. He was supposed to stay at my house. I flew him out, paid for him to be out here in LA. When he got here, I bought him all these clothes. All this stuff he wanted. Everything he asked for, I got it. Got him an iPhone 7, even.

Then I woke up on Monday, and he was just gone. He decided to take the Greyhound home. I called him:

Tiffany: “You know you had a plane ticket to go back to wherever you came from.”

Dad: “No, I just decided to take the Greyhound, ’cause you made me feel like a pauper.”

Tiffany: “How did I make you feel like a pauper?”

Dad: “Because, you think you’re better than me!”

Tiffany: “When did I ever say I was better than you?”

Dad: “You walk around like you’re better than me.”

Tiffany: “What do you mean? Everything you asked for, I gave you. Anything you wanted, you had. How is that better than you?”

He hung up on me.

My friend told me that the answer to my question was right there, in his answers. He pointed out to me what he was trying to say, but couldn’t say. This is what my friend said:

“He’s ashamed of himself, because he left you when you were three, did nothing for you, and you ended up being very successful without him, and then you buy him stuff. You are not only a better person than he is, but you are kind and responsible where he is not, and you’re providing where he did not. Not just as his child, but as a woman, providing for him. Your goodness holds up a mirror to his ugliness, and that is too painful for him, so he has to project this onto you, by saying you make him feel less about himself. It’s nothing you did. It’s guilt.”

I don’t get it. I don’t get it, ’cause he’s my dad, and whatever he asks for, he can have it. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for your parents?

I don’t know. I just know that I was crying all day after he left. I was crying all day, because I just felt like that abandoned three-year-old girl again. I felt horrible.

All I wanted was for my father to be there with me. I didn’t care about none of that other stuff.





Watch Yo Back


When I was twenty-three, I was staying at one of my grandma’s properties. I told my grandma I’d take care of the property, so she’d let me stay there for free.

One day, I was getting ready to leave from the house to go to a party, and I had a cute little outfit on. All of a sudden, I heard this loud-ass knocking on the door.

It was my mama.

Mama: “Let me in the house. Let me in the house.”

Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in this house.”

Mama: “It’s my mama’s house. You let me in the goddam house!”

Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in this house, Mom. Like, you need to go somewhere. Go to Grandma’s house, but I’m not letting you in this house.”

Mama: “This is my mama’s house! She own it!”

Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in. I’m about to go. I gotta go to an event, anyways.”

I walked out the house with my short little skirt on.

Mama: “Where do you think you’re going with that short-ass skirt? You trying to get pregnant out here? You out here being a prostitute?”

Tiffany: “No Ma, I was just going to an event, so leave me alone. Just leave me alone.”

She had this long rearview mirror in her hand. Remember in the eighties, when they had them long, detachable rearview mirrors that had the smaller individual mirrors in it, which tilted to the sides? Somehow, she had found one of these mirrors. It was like two feet long. I could not understand why she had that in her hand.

I walked past her and said:

Tiffany: “I’m outta here, Mom. You need to leave, too. Get off the property.”

Mama: “Oh, so you just think you grown now? You think you fucking grown?”

She reared back and threw that rearview mirror at the back of my head. It hit me. It hit me so hard in the back of the head, I just fell to the ground. Collapsed.

Mama: “That’s right. You need to watch your back, bitch. Take that mirror with you and watch yo’ motherfucking back.”

I was looking so cute, I had on my little heels and everything, and it’s just, BAM!

Tiffany: “I cannot believe you did that. I should call the police on you right now. I should call the police.”

Mama: “Call the police, but just let them know that I got your back. I’m watching your back, bitch. Don’t go out there getting pregnant.”

Then, just as quick as she showed up, she left.

I had no idea what to do. So I just picked up the mirror and put it in my Geo Metro.

In my heart, I was so hurt and mad . . . but also I felt like that was so funny. Who throws a huge, broke-ass rearview mirror at people?

Sometimes I laugh so hard about it, but sometimes I just cry, because I know my mom is sick. She’s sick, and she’s trying to be a good parent, I think. In my mind, I like to think she was trying to be motherly, she was trying to tell me to be safe and not get pregnant. Trying to keep me out of trouble. You know?