Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil Read online

  Pinky was one of the older women on the block I had become cool with, and these big girls didn’t seem to mess with the older ladies around our hood. Pinky was in her early twenties and had already had a daughter and two sons.

  I could see all the action at her house right from our porch.

  “C’mon over, Nette!” Pinky called out again. The music was blasting.

  My girl Stacey was already there in the backyard. The weather was warm but not too hot, and with no humidity. It just felt good to be outside. Another friend of Stacey’s showed up just as Pinky was walking inside. It was on!

  “Oh, that’s my song!” I screeched when my favorite summer jam came on, but the best part was when 69 Boyz sang, “Look at them girls with them Daisy Dukes on.” We put our best moves together to make a dance routine. By the time the song ended we had worked up a sweat, and as our laughing died, the deejay on the radio mixed in H-Town’s slow jam “Knockin’ Da Boots.” I started popping my fingers, bopping my head. “Nette, have you ever gone down on a boy?” Stacey whispered, leaning into me.

  “Gone where?” I asked, with a confused look on my face. Stacey and her friend bugged up.

  “Naw, Nette, she mean slob a dude down!” Stacey’s friend could hardly stop laughing. She made her jaw bulge out with her tongue, then raised her hand and motioned up and down.

  “Girl, hell naw!” I looked around nervously, making sure nobody else had heard her.

  “Look, when you do it, you gotta make sure it’s clean first before you put your mouth on it, then . . .”

  “Uh-uh, that’s nasty!” I said, shushing her.

  “Stop playin’, Stacey!” Stacey’s friend said, cracking up.

  “I’m just sayin’, it’s somethin’ you gonna have to do one day, Nette,” Stacey teased.

  “Girl, I ain’t gonna be doin’ nothin’ like that!” I said, folding my arms across my chest.

  Just then Pinky came back out with a few more of her friends. I was glad she had broke that conversation up. The music got to pumping again, and we got to laughing and kicking it, and then somebody fired up a joint.

  “Y’all know Nette too young and don’t smoke no weed,” Stacey called out.

  I wasn’t smoking, drinking, or having sex. Hell, I never even smoked weed until I was about twenty-two years old. But I won’t lie, I was a little curious, in a setting where everybody was either talking about or doing all those things, and I didn’t. I was getting uncomfortable.

  “I’mma ’bout to be out, y’all,” I said.

  But just as I was about to leave the party, everything came to a screeching halt.

  “Them mothafuckas done come in my house and they stole my goddamn food stamps!” Pinky was fired up, going off.

  Pinky was paranoid as hell. Like clockwork, every month she would flip out and accuse somebody, or all of us, of stealing her food stamps. It scared me the first time she had one of these outbursts, but I was used to them by now. We all played it off, but one by one folks was yawning or suddenly checking they watch or saying they had to get home. The party was officially over.

  I never saw Pinky actually smoke crack. To me, it was just a rumor until one day I got proof when the little pipe fell out of her pocket, and she was quick to put that mug right back, thinking nobody saw it.

  I wasn’t mad at her, though, because she handled her business. She had her own house, was clean-looking, took care of her kids, kept them clean, too, cooked every day, all that.

  One day she yelled over to me from her porch, “Nette Pooh, can you do me a favor?”

  I did my regular and ran right over.

  “Can you keep an eye on my kids? Just make sure they don’t run out in the street or anything. I gotta go next door and get some barbecue.”

  She must’ve had to get to that barbecue fast because she didn’t waste no time going next door. It must’ve been code for “I’m ’bout to go get this hit real quick!” But, I was too naive to know it then.

  A few minutes later, her youngest son, who was about seven, came running up, crying, and said, “That boy next door hit me, Nette.” He sniffed between broken breaths, snot running out his nose.

  “Okay, yo’ mama at the neighbor’s. You betta go tell her,” I said, pushing him along. It had just been a couple of days since my last run-in with them three sisters, and I could see them coming directly toward me. They had a little old dusty boy about the same age as Pinky’s son with them.

  Within seconds you could hear Pinky yelling from the neighbor’s front door, “What the fuck is goin’ on?” She wanted answers from anybody on the block who would give them to her. “Why the fuck you hit my son?” she said, coming outside, yelling at the little boy.

  Now Pinky didn’t have any railing on her porch, and it wasn’t that high off the ground, only a couple of feet. So them four walked right up on me.

  “That bitch Nette lyin’ on me, Pinky!” the little boy cursed.

  “Bitch? Who you callin’ a bitch?” I said to the little boy.

  “He callin’ you a bitch, bitch!” I felt the heat from the biggest of the sisters’ breath on my face.

  Everything happened in a flash. The youngest sister straight stole on me. I was blindsided with a right hook, but I shook it off and swung back. I started punching wildly. But with every swing I made and lick I got in, each of them sisters got one in on me. I was still standing on the porch, trying to hold my own, but I was overpowered and outnumbered, too small to fight them off.

  Just then I see their older brother out the corner of my eye step out onto their porch. He picked up a folding chair and threw it at me. Craaack! That chair knocked me upside my head so hard I was out cold.

  When I came to, a crowd had gathered. My mama was standing over me, shaking my arm. “Nette Pooh, get up! Baby, you OK? Get up!”

  I jumped up and must’ve been in shock, because I took off running like a racehorse out the Kentucky Derby gate. All I could think of was getting to my granny’s house, where it was safe.

  I ran past Mimika, past Era, past Troy, past Goodfellow, and when I got to the fifth block, Acme, I knew I was in the clear. My granny’s house was just a few feet away, but I damn near collided with one of my brother’s friends.

  “What’s wrong, Nette? What happened?” He grabbed me and tried to calm me down.

  My nose was bleeding, my eye was swollen, and my shirt was ripped, dirty, and bloody. Between breaths I got out, “Them people down the block from us jumped me. Where Bernard?” I barely got it out before he took off running in the direction I was running from.

  I knew if I could get to Bernard he could help me. I burst through Granny’s front door.

  Bernard rushed toward me. “Nette Pooh, who did this to you?”

  “That family next door!” I shouted hysterically.

  I didn’t need to say nothing else. My big brother was on the phone, and all I could hear was, “Hell naw, somebody done beat up Nette Pooh!” He pulled me out to his truck and we jumped in. Bernard revved the engine on his little put-put pickup truck, smashed his foot on the gas pedal, and we burned out.

  The truck’s tires screeched to a halt. I could see my auntie Evelyn, in the distance with an iron car jack in her hand. My uncle Carl was on the scene, running after them girls’ daddy. A full-fledged neighborhood fight had popped off, and all hell had broken loose.

  Everybody was fucking that family up. I didn’t feel any remorse, neither. I didn’t want anybody to die or nothing, but them folks was bad news, and maybe they needed to be taught a lesson so they’d stop bullying people.

  I knew people was serious about looking out for me and my family when I saw some of the local gangbangers had got the word and was on the scene. Mimika and Emma was Crips gang territory, and there was a small sea of Crips, aka the Rollin’ 60s, dressed in blue and gold, who had just rolled up when we did. They gave us a nod, then rushed in with pipes in hand just as three more women and two more men came running out that shack of a house swinging bat
s.

  The whole scene had my head spinning. Just then I saw a flash of the mama in the street fighting off two women. The daddy was running and jumped up on their porch, but all the kids had beaten him inside, slammed the door, and locked him out.

  Buddy, one of the Crips who was in a wheelchair, had rolled himself up to the people’s house and started throwing bricks and bottles through that family’s windows. My brother and somebody else who I couldn’t even make out broke a stick on the daddy’s back.

  The mama helped the daddy get inside, when out of nowhere, my uncle Carl leaped up on them people’s porch, jumped up in the air, and kicked their door in with both feet. Within minutes we heard a car engine start in the back of the house. The entire family had piled into a long, green Buick, and all we heard was the sound of tires squealing.

  When it was all over, my mama took me to the hospital, where they treated me for cuts and bruises. Funny thing is the cops never came that day. I guess when you in the hood things like a fight or even gunshots happen like the sun coming up in the morning.

  The next day the neighborhood was pretty much back to normal. The city was doing construction on our street, folks were back at work, and I was headed back home when suddenly I heard click click. It was the sound of somebody cocking a gun. I froze in place. My heart stopped. I looked up and saw the daddy of the family who had jumped me standing on their porch with a shotgun aimed right at me.

  But just like that, this dude named Stretch from around the way swooped in, grabbed me, and pulled out a Smith and Wesson. Stretch started shooting at the man, and the man started running from those bullets.

  I never had another problem out of them girls or none of them, because they never came back after that night, and I never saw them people no more.

  That day taught me a lesson that I’ll carry with me the rest of my life, and that was, simply, whether you’re ready or not, bullshit is going to come for you. The question is, how are you going to deal with it? One thing for sure, I’m not going to back down no matter what you throw at me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LADUE

  “C’mon, y’all, get up!” Mama called out. “Get your butts up ’fo you miss that bus!”

  It was almost 5:00 a.m. and still dark outside. I was barely awake, slowly brushing my teeth. I’d been doing this since kindergarten. I ought to been used to this crack-of-dawn trek from the city to the county. Me, Brittanie, and my brother, Bernard, all grew up going to the schools in Ladue. It’s one of the wealthiest, and whitest, areas in St. Louis County.

  We were in the deseg program, short for desegregation program, where the government pays to bus you to a school in another neighborhood so they’ll have some racial diversity.

  We moved a lot, but since Granny’s address was never going to change, my mama used the 6335 Albertine address for us to go to school out there. No matter where we were living, Mama would get Brittanie and me up and drive us to our bus stop, where that yellow deseg school bus picked us up at 6:00 a.m.

  I saw Nina on the corner waiting at her stop that was next to mine. In the mornings we’d always catch up on the latest action and gossip in the hood until our buses came.

  “Hi, Miss Harris!” Nina waved to Mama. “Whassup, Nette Pooh!” she said, pulling her coat over her ears.

  “Hey, girl!” I rubbed my hands together.

  It was cold this morning, and the wind was howling. Nina and me danced in place to keep warm while Mama looked on from the car. Rain, shine, sleet, or snow, Mama would get us to our stop, fire up her cigarette, and wait on Brittanie and me to get off to school.

  Our buses picked us both up on the corner of Lena and Goodfellow. Nina was in the deseg program too, but was in the Parkway District. That area was a little farther out in the county than Ladue, and it was mostly white too, but them white people weren’t as rich as the Ladue ones.

  A tall, brown-skinned girl walking fast, like she was trying to outrun the cold, waved at us. She was on her way to meet up with a small crew of girls at the end of the block.

  “You remember that girl, don’t you, Nette Pooh?” Nina whispered.

  “Naw, not really. I was ’bout to ask who that was.” The girl looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her face. “She live over here?” I asked, shaking off a shiver.

  “Yeah, ’round the corner on Acme. She that one girl that had that fight a few years ago and got her head busted with a lock. Some girl just took it right off her locker and stole on her with it!”

  “Dang, what school was that?” I asked, cringing.

  “Girl, Cook Middle School.” Nina sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes.

  I was horrified. But that’s how it is in the hood. You might get beat down, but after you get your stitches out or your bruises heal, you just go on about your business and hope the fight ended the beef.

  My bus was first, slowing to a stop, followed by Brittanie’s, which took her to Ladue Junior High. Then Nina’s brought up the rear. I waved to Mama and Brittanie, then disappeared behind the folding doors.

  “Hey, Lezley!” April screeched as I slid into the seat next to her. She was my ace boon and BFF at school. April was petite and wiry but would fight anybody, always full of energy and popping off at the mouth.

  “Heeeeey!” I said, giving her a hug. I carefully removed my hat so I didn’t mess my hair up. “What you think?” I said, twirling around, showing off the blond color my big cousin Tracey had sprayed in my hair. She could do color and the dookie braids that everyone was wearing in their hair, and weave ponytails. I was happy that I had graduated from getting my hair done at Aunt Bobbie’s. Me and April settled in for the long ride and the bus got quiet.

  Staring out the window made me drowsy, and in between dozing off I watched as we passed old black ladies on the bus line and dudes who might’ve still been hustling from the night before, hanging on the corner.

  I had been making this bus ride for so many years that even though I knew I was on my way to where rich people—doctors, lawyers, and business owners—sent they kids, it didn’t really faze me. Sometimes, the kids I went to school with had daddies who were rich because their daddy’s daddy and his daddy before that were rich. Hell, these were some white people who probably never worked a day in their lives. Their kids weren’t about this life.

  When I was in elementary school and junior high going to school out here, I didn’t realize that my atmosphere was changing. Part of that was because my granny always lived in a big house. In the hood some folks looked at us as privileged, and in some ways we were. But now that I was in high school, I knew what my surroundings were.

  Truth be told, St. Louis is really two cities in one town: one black, one white. Over here is the black side, and what they refer to as South Side or South City is the white part. You got a lot of people who live in the city who have never been out to the county or hardly ever go. It’s like some unspoken rule that if you aren’t white with some money, don’t be hanging around in the county too long. The good shopping malls were always in the county, so you might catch us there on payday. It goes if you one of them white people with money; you’re not going to feel comfortable coming down to the hood.

  Each day my bus would chug its way onto the first of three highways. Life in the hood faded away, as we connected to the second highway, Interstate 170. Better and better neighborhoods started springing up in the distance. Then by the time we connected to Highway 40 the air got clearer, cleaner, fresher.

  When the bus exited the highway and passed that WELCOME TO LADUE sign, you couldn’t see the mansions that were hidden behind large tree-filled areas, but I would see some of them same-looking black ladies who stood on that bus line back in North St. Louis, exiting the Bi-State bus, to go clean them big houses that the rich white people owned.

  The light turned red as we were passing Reed Elementary School, my old stomping grounds. A little black girl caught my eye. She was getting off her bus and started running toward the school. Fifth grade h
ad been my favorite year at Reed, and it was all because of Miss Zimmer. She was patient when she worked with me, like she saw something in me that maybe nobody else could see.

  “Good morning, Lezley!” She would greet me each day with a smile. Miss Zimmer was younger than most of the other teachers. Every day she wore a long, blue jean skirt, button-down shirt, and a sweater tied around her shoulders. She wasn’t done up with a bunch of makeup either.

  “I have good news, Lezley. I’m picking you to hang the flag on the flagpole today.”

  “For real, Miss Zimmer?” My eyes went wide. That was a big responsibility, and I was going to make sure I was the best flagpole hanger Reed Elementary had ever seen. I was, too. Then she hugged me afterward and gave me a gold star.

  When my mama got home from work I was still amped up, “Mama, Mama, I got to put the flag on the pole!” I knew my mama was probably tired, but I was wearing her ear out anyway. If it wasn’t the flagpole, it was me joining the band or auditioning for a play. She was happy I was involved in activities, but hated that every time I signed up for something that meant she had to drive me all the way out to school and pick me up. Mama wasn’t trying to hear about me and no flagpole right about then, that’s for sure.

  “Uh-huh, that’s good, Nette Pooh.” She went on into the other room.

  Shoot, all that signing up I did got me all the top awards at the fifth-grade ceremony at the end of the year. My big smile started to suddenly fade, and for the first time I felt sad standing next to Miss Zimmer. I broke out crying, tears pouring out of my eyes like a water faucet.

  “I don’t wanna leave you, Miss Zimmer,” I stuttered.

  “Lezley, you’re going to meet lots of new friends there,” she said, wrapping her arms around me.

  “Nobody else is going to care about me like you, Miss Zimmer.”

  “Lezley, you’ll be fine, and there are other teachers that will care just like me at the junior high.”