8

DIVORCING DAD

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"I’m back in high-school now, feeling a little more mature, ready and focused.

I enjoyed my summer, because along with all the fun and experiences that came with it-it was the summer that I seemed to have grown up overnight. 

Life was great and everything seemed right, in line, and as planned and mapped out.

The only eye sore, well, no…more like a heart scar, was the Saturday afternoon big blow up that my dad and I had shortly before school started back up.  

Kenya and I had been playing around on her mom’s vanity and makeup case while Kenya sat there imitating each and every move I made. I was looking all too experienced in how to apply the makeup and she loved it; having no idea about how sometimes at school during the day, my friends and I would be in the restroom applying makeup only to be worn around school because we had to wash it off before we got home. 

Everything that I had learned in art class about the color wheel, primary, secondary, tertiary colors and how to blend from dark to light; I wanted to try on mine and Kenya’s face.  

I was so happy with my finished product on Kenya’s and my own face that I couldn’t wait to go home and show my mom, despite the fact that she insisted I not wear makeup. 

As far as her eye-lined eyes and mascara lashes could see, I wasn’t high-school enough to wear makeup just yet, but I just wanted her to see it (and in the back of my mind) hoped that she would like it enough to allow me to wear it this upcoming school year (so that I wouldn’t have to sneak and apply it during school and have the daunting task of washing it off before I got home). 

I knew that she would not have been angry at me when I walked in with it on, but whether she liked it or not (most probably by way of some idiom of hers) she would sarcastically ask me to wash it off.  

Before I could even make it down to my house from Kenya’s, my dad beat her to it-no, he beat me for it. He completely blew his lid in an instant. He practically chased me like a crazy man back up that hill. When he caught me, he tossed me around like a ragdoll so badly, that all I knew was that when I opened my eyes, I ended up against the banister at the same exact spot where my twin brother had Cable Boy wrapped around the rail across-right above where my TGGF’s dad’s dungeon of a basement apartment was.  

Remembering the distance I had observed that day, I panicked.

Like déjà vu and I guess from hearing me scream like a banshee; my TGGF’s father swung his door open-preparing to talk someone else into unwrapping another human being from over the top of his humble abode (that was starting to look more like a coincidental attraction for the scene of the next homicide).

Only this time, my TGGF’s dad was met by an extremely good-looking, long-legged, talk, slim, grown man; man-handling his tiny, baby-faced daughter-whose face was painted with electric blue mascara, dark blue eyeliner and bright red lipstick-looking as if she had been playing in her mommy’s makeup case.  

With a John Witherspoon-like demeanor mixed with a George Jefferson walk, after my TGGF’s dad took one look at my colorful face and obviously put himself in my daddy’s place [and obviously] understood-unlike the way he saved Cable-Boy’s life (the day that Twin had him wrapped around that same railing that I was now being bent backwards on with his hands mashed into my tiny face); John-George walked right back down the steps to his basement apartment’s cement floor and stood under the railing and watched my dad hover over my badly shaken and near lifeless body while I cried out like a stray cat. 

My daddy may as well had killed me right then and there, because as far as I was concerned, from the moment he would remove his hands from me; I was officially dead to him as he was to me the moment he began chasing me up the street like some crazy man-in front of all of my peers. He could never imagine how much he blew it with me after that performance. It was a bright sunny Saturday and a sad surprise right in front of everyone’s watchful eyes-they all witnessed it: My TGGF, Big Jasmine, T-Rubble and Collar Girl, Big Basketball Lena, Nina and all my umbrella friends, Rita and Charlene, the boy from swimming who had a crush on me, the older teenage girls who I would sing for, my friend’s parents-even Leroy stepped out of the store and stood at the bottom of the hill to see what was going on. They were all there-startled; probably wondering what happened that caused my mature persona to be handled like some bitch in the street, slash, abused child. Confusion was on everybody’s face. 

If Male Model was near, I did not see him. Oh-wait a minute…

I was hearing birds chirp and seeing stars. I believe his mirage was twirling in the circles of the vertigo I was experiencing at that moment, for he had to have been there. No one missed this sideshow because it went on for a long while.  

I was worn out and all too confused. 

In all my life, I had never seen him like that-ever. It was almost like some stranger had run up on me-not my dad. He had never even raised his voice at me yet, yet he went from 0 to 60. No, not 0 to 60; 0 to 120 in a matter of some long unforgivable minutes that day. 

Regardless how close we had always been all my life, and no matter the: Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica’s, Superman sequels, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus,’ shopping together, long drives and conversation, short rides on the back of his motorcycle, dinners, movies, and surprise bags of clothes from him being my personal shopper that he gave to me-none of that mattered anymore to me. That Super Saturday that he embarrassed me in front of my entire street of friends was the day that he exchanged everything we ever had. We no longer fit.

Because of that one Super Saturday, any closeness that we ever shared (as far as I could register) had now been exchanged for a permanent marquee emanating from my throbbing head that read:

“ALL SALES FINAL. SORRY, NO RETURNS…”

I made my way down the hill-tired and winded-with red lipstick, electric blue mascara and dark blue eyeliner outlining my tears. Standing on the top step, I pointed to my mother sitting there looking startled at the sight of my face. She didn’t pay any attention to the makeup on it, but rather, the look on it. She had the same look on her face the day that Cable Boy, Tom-Tom, Bay-Bay, Day-Day, Ray-Ray and Kay-Kay attacked me. And just like that day, I placed both my hands to my knees as if I was in the middle of playing a rough game of football. I was wheezing, huffing and puffing like a toddler while trying to catch my breath. I was feeling a type of frustration that I had never felt, mixed with a sudden onset of an asthma attack and some conditions that I never even had. That was the feeling.

I closed my eyes tightly and clutched my rapidly pounding broken heart; fighting to assist my lungs in pulling any amount of air through that it could. While wheezing, some air came through and I said to my mother: “Daddy. Do not open that door for him if he rings the bell and from this day forward-I never want to see him in life again-ever…”

In that instant, I could see her face turn from empathy and concern for me, to some longing damsel in distress: sitting there waiting on that prince charming (who was once hers) to bring her some fucking glass slippers so that she could stand on her two feet to walk and breathe again-herself. Well after her heart was shattered like glass after him leaving her and given someone else a ring that once upon a time was hers, as well. I was livid from watching the expression on her face:

“Bull crap! Don’t look at me like that. I never want to see him again and he’d better not ever come near me again-for nothing. And it’s your duty to make sure of it!” I yelled at her as if she was the child.

“He doesn’t have any babies in this house! I’ve got two brothers almost twenty-one and Twin is my age! So there are no babies here! What do we need him for anyway? We are all almost grown! You don’t need him! How much longer is this fantasy going to keep going on in your head? The “babies” y’all had together are grown! The only reason he comes around you is because of me-and I don’t ever want to see him again! Can’t you see that he’s moved on and started his life and started a business with somebody else anyway. You’re sitting over here crossing your fingers and toes, waiting for the day that he comes back to you! He’s coming over here dangling you like a puppet on a string-just in case…and you’ve got the nerve to be looking at me like you are caught between a rock and a hard place!” I asserted-sounding like I got my mouth from her.

She paused and folded her lips-wanting to curse me out and spew a bad mamma jamma of an idiom from that mouth of hers to put me in my place. But she knew I was hurting, while at the same time-everything I said to her made the kind of sense that she needed to hear-a long time ago.

It was perfect timing because we were already about to start packing to move to a new apartment.

I made my mother promise me that she would not let my dad know where we were living-until I felt ready; when or if ever that day would ever come back around. I saw that happening next to never.

She digressed and agreed, but that mouth of hers was filling up with the kind sputum to moisten her lips that resembled mine-in preparation for forming an idiom to smack me with for talking to her sideways in my moment of my temporary insanity.

The expression on my face was like that of Larry Fishburne-frowning up at Ms. Sophia and begging her not to, before punching the mayor: (“Ah no, Ms. Sophia, Ms. Sophia No!”). My mother just couldn’t hold it back: “You let me tell you something LITTLE GIRL! You are not grown! And if you ever talk to me like that in your life-again, I will turn your grown ass upside down and spit in your butt!”