Finda was leaving Providence. She was moving back to Delaware to live with her father. Her grandmother had suffered a stroke. Her grandmother was in a bad shape and could barely control the saliva that dribbled down the corner of her mouth to her chin. Her grandmother cried every day. She would say, “Look at me, Finda. My God in heaven, why do you leave me to become like dis. My God, why you lef me for pipu to laugh at me? Take ma life, le’me come and be with you an’ res’.”
Finda loved her grandmother and even in her present condition she did all she could to make her comfortable. She cleaned her with a warm towel and sat by her, helping her to clean the spittle with a clean white wash cloth.
This was despite the fact that grandmother had told her that when it was time for God to destroy the earth, as he promised that he would in the Bible, the first people he was going to destroy were the le’bians.
“You Finda ma chil’, you come to America and you see all the fine fine things and profession in America. You don’t say you want to be a nurse or doctor or school teacher. The only thing you say you want to be is this thing they call le’bian in this America. You are lucky, if we were back in our Lofa County back home in Liberia, they would have given you to a chief or king to be his junior wife, who knows maybe wife number eight.”
“Grandma, I don’t like men,” she would tell her grandma when she was in the mood to argue.
“You think me I like men?” her grandmother asked her.
“Nobody like men. All men do is take, take, take. They take your beauty, they take your body, they take your money and when they take everything from you and they have nothing else to take they take another woman as they wife or girlfriend.”
“So if you don’t like men why did you marry, grandma?”
“You this chil’ you make me laugh. So if don’t like something, does that mean you don’t do it? Look at me, I don’t like the cold in this Providence. Rhode Island too cold for me, but what do I do? I stay here and manage myself. I wear many clothes for winter and look like masquerade and people laugh at me but I don’t mind them. I even tell them, if you have more coat to give me, I’ll take it and add it to mine.”
“Yo, grandma.”
“Don’t tell me yo. You keep going yo yo yo like the African American kids. All the time I tell you not African American, you African from Lofa county in Liberia. We all come here because of the war, if not for Charles Taylor, Prince Yormie Johnson and all the strong men who fight the war in Liberia you will be in Liberia and maybe by now you would have more than two children that I can carry.”
“OK, grandma, but you mean there are no people like me in Liberia?”
“What you mean people like you? You are jus’ confused. If you were back in Liberia and you tell your family you le’bian, you know what they gonna do? All your uncle gonna gather together and tie you up and invite some strong and powerful young men to lie with you after which they pack all your stuff and give you to a king or chief to marry. By the time you get to your husband house you forget all the foolishness and you think of your children. You think there are not many women who don’t like men in Liberia? But you know what the women do? They work so hard and they become rich like the men. They build they own house and they have many stalls in the Waterside Market so the men come to respect them and the men cannot be able to kick them around like football.”
“Wow, grandma, that’s cool.”
“Grandma don’t care if it cool or hot. All grandma want is for you to finish school become LPN nurse or CNA nurse and work hard and take care of your grandma before I return to my Maker. Look at me, how many years you think I got here on earth? This Rhode Island cold is not good for me. At least I know when I get to heaven there is no cold there.”
Now her grandma was so sick she could barely talk. She was barely able to hold down her oatmeal at breakfast and looked at the television without much comprehension. Her grandma who used to be a huge fan of the Maury Show and would call her to come and see the people disgracing themselves on the show.
“Tell me, Finda, these people on Maury Show, how much are they paying them to be on the show? I’m sure they getting thousands of dollars. You think dem have family? If dem have family why dem family let them come on Maury and disgrace dem family name like this on the Maury Show?”
“It’s a free country, grandma,” she would say to her grandma.
“Don’t tell me it is a free country. Nothing free here in America. You pay for everything. You pay for light. You pay for gas, you pay sewage bill, you pay the pipu that pick up the trash, you pay for water, even now senior citizen pay on the RIPTA bus, but everybody say free country, free country and yet nothing free.”
“Grandma, you too funny.”
“I’m not funny. I jus’ saying the truth.”
But she was leaving Providence and she had to see Shay. Her father was coming with a U-Haul to take her back to Delaware with her grandmother. Her dad’s wife would take care of her grandmother until she got better.
She knew she needed money to see Shay. She would need to buy a dub sack of good weed from D’licious and not the shitty half dime shwag ditchweed they usually smoked. She knew that once she told Shay that the weed was from D’licious, Shay would come running. She just wanted them to have that last smoke together and take sips from that small bottle of Henny and talk about the future. When she got to Delaware, after her high school equivalency exam she would train to become a CNA. Her grandma was right. She would work hard and get a job and buy a car and have her own house and she could be with Shay and they’d be a couple. Shay needed some convincing sometimes, but she would convince her.
“I ain’t no lesbian anything. I’m just a freak and I like you, though you ugly,” Shay would say to her.
Shay would often say stuff like this to her and laugh. Shay would touch her face when she said this and take a drag of the weed and hold the smoke down and hold it down some more until her sclera began to glow a dull red, slowly shifting from their preternatural whiteness.
“If I’m ugly why you with me tho?” she’d ask Shay.
“Because I love you and you treat me nice and you ready to go to bat for me at the doff of a hat.”
“But you ain’t no lesbian?”
“No. I’m your girl. I ain’t ever gonna be nobody else’s bitch but yours. I don’t go with no other women except you.”
“Whatevs, kid, as long as you are with me and not hanging out with your so-called cousin.”
“Jamil is really my cousin. I swear to Gad.”
“If he’s your cousin, how come you go on dates?”
“Dates?”
“Smoking weed together, ain’t that a date?”
“You too funny, G,” Shay said.
Finda knew she had to earn some good money to make that final party with Shay happen. They had both met at the Upward program, a kind of fake school that you could attend to get a high school equivalency diploma. The state of Rhode Island gave them vouchers to buy stuff if they attended classes for a month without any absences. They provided free books and backpacks and winter clothes and beanies and even Baby Phat fur collar coats.
“Ah, only in America they pay you people to go to school and yet some people will not go. In Liberia, school children pay school fees. God will really bless America,” her grandma would exclaim.
She needed to earn some money. Shay deserved to be given that last good treat. She was going to give her something to remember so that when she was not here to keep an eye on her she would remember that she had her mans and her mans always treated her right.
She texted Kim Dior.
Kim Dior was that kid at the alternative high school program that wore genuine Timbs and carried a real Michael Kors bag, not the knock offs they sold on Manton Ave. She wore some expensive Chanel perfume that lasted all day and trailed her everywhere she went. Half an hour after she’d been in the bathroom, the aroma of her perfume still lingered; anyone who walked in after her would know that Kim Dior had been there. They were friends, sort of, and she smoked so they bonded at that level. Most people at the program said she went with men for money, but they never called her a thot like they called the other girls who went with the boys at the alternative high school.
Once she had gone to smoke with Kim Dior. It was some good shit and it left her feeling really mellow. Kim Dior had turned to her and asked her if she wanted to earn some money.
“Hey, Kimmy you know that’s not how I roll,” she had said.
“Yo ain’t even gonna hear me out?
“OK, tell me what’s up?”
“So there’s this older Guat guy that really likes me. He’s a sweet older guy. He has a landscaping business and all. He lives in Central Falls. Sometimes he gets a hotel room and he invites me over.”
“I don’t go with guys, Kim Dior.”
“I know that, but see this old Guat guy is way too old to do anything. I just take of my clothes and he looks at my body and then I put my dress back on and he gives me a couple of hundreds.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, he’s a sweet guy. He doesn’t speak much English, he’s from Guatemala.”
“That’s kinda cool, but I don’t do no shit with men,” Finda said.
“Nobody is asking you to do shit. You just come with me, take off our clothes, and chill with this sweet Guat guy for a bit, then we put our clothes back on and pick up our benjamins and we dip!”
Finda knew men. She knew how they loved to talk all sweet and then before you knew it—bang, you down and they kicking you.
She remembered the boys back in Wilmington. They had invited her to the party. She had been excited. She was in middle school and these were high school kids. They were kids she knew from way back and their families knew each other. She had been shocked when she got to the party and she had been the only one except for the boys.
“Yo, you know what’s up. We can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. Take off your dress and we can all party and have fun or we can make you do it. That’s what’s up,” one of them said to her.
She didn’t want anything to do with no men. They start all sweet and stuff, but it never ended sweet. Men tasted like vinegar or more like the castor oil her grandmother gave her to drink whenever she had cramps or said her belly hurt.
But she wanted to have that last party with Shay, which was why she had texted Kim Dior and asked if her proposal was still open.
Kim Dior had texted right back and said her offer was still open.
Let’s do it, she had texted Kim Dior.
Her idea of a hotel was a place that was fancy and had clean linen and uniformed people who worked there, but the hotel they went to meet the old Guat guy looked like a strip mall and had no name to boast of.
Kim Dior came in an Uber and she had jumped in hoping they’d be in and out within half an hour, but when they got to the hotel they had to wait for the guy. Kim Dior was obviously used to this and played Candy Crush on her phone while she smoked.
“He be here soon. I told you he runs his own business. You gonna like him. He is cute.”
“I don’t really care about him that much, Kim Dior. Let’s just do this quickly. I need the dough.”
“Yeah, me too. But don’t act like you don’t care. He don’t like girls acting weird around him. He can be a little paranoid, too, so you have to act really chill around him. Sometimes he does this thing where he looks into your purse and asks if you’re are a cop.”
“He smokes?”
“I wish. No, he don’t smoke weed,” Kim Dior said.
The Guat man soon arrived in a truck. A Ford F150 black truck that was shiny and glistened as if it had only been bought yesterday.
They went into the room. A tiny room with a bed and a super tiny bathroom. There was no TV in the room. What kind of hotel does not have a freaking TV, Finda wondered?
“You brought a fren’ huh?” the Guat man said and smiled, taking off his hat and rubbing his bald pate.
“Yeah, I know what you like,” Kim Dior said.
“Is she eighteen, your fren’?”
“Yeah, she’s a big girl, wait till you see her titties, then you know if she’s eighteen or not,” Kim Dior said and laughed.
The Guat man laughed and seemed to relax.
They both began to take off their clothes.
“Take it off slow,” the Guat man said.
They began to take their clothes off slowly and methodically.
His eyes swept over their bodies—up and down, up and down, over and over and side to side.
The Guat man nodded at Kim Dior. Kim Dior went and sat on his legs and he whispered something to her.
“Hey, G, he wants some extra,” she said to Finda.
“Some extra what?”
“You just lay with him on the bed so he can finish. He’s gonna tip well.”
“I don’t do that shit. I don’t care if he finish or not.”
“Your fren’ got temper,” the Guat man said.
“Kim Dior, you said we only need to take off our clothes. You didn’t tell me nothing about finishing.”
“Don’t worry, honey, I take care of you real good,” Kim Dior said, and joined the Guat man in bed.
Finda picked up her clothes and went to dress in the tiny bathroom. She was tempted to shower but glimpsed the filthy towel and changed her mind.
When she came out of the bathroom, the Guat man and Kim Dior were fully dressed.
The Guat man brought out a husky wallet and peeled off four fifties.
“No tip?” Kim Dior asked.
“Your fren’ not nice to me,” the Guat man said.
“You too cute,” Kim Dior said and pulled the Guat man’s bulbous nose.
The Guat man opened his husky wallet again and peeled out two twenties. Kim Dior snatched them up.
“Give one to your fren’. I’m really nice guy. I don’ bite,” he said.
Kim Dior blew him four air kisses, two for each cheek, and went into the bathroom. She sloshed Listerine around her mouth, spat it out, applied fresh makeup to her face, and they left.
In the Uber, Kim Dior told her that she was feeling this way because it was her first time.
“Is he not cute? He’s so nice,” she said of the Guat man.
Finda only nodded. The only two things on her mind were Shay and the money.
“I have some extremely cool clients, wait until you meet them, you gonna like them. We’ll be rich together,” she said.
She didn’t feel like arguing. She didn’t want to tell Kim Dior that this was her last day in Providence. She did not see any need to do that. Kim Dior was not really her friend like that.
Kim Dior gave her two fifties and a twenty and smiled.
“See how much you made in less than an hour of work? Stick with me we gonna be rich, girlfriend.”
Finda’s mind was elsewhere.
She needed to call Shay and tell her that she’d be swinging by with some good shit from D’licious. She need to pick up a mini-bottle of Henny from the sip store down her street. Then she’d shower and dress up in her black jeans and her Chance hoodie and tie her do-rag and she’d roll. She’d spend many hours with Shay and they’d talk and make plans and roll and smoke and sip, then she’d head back to join her dad in the U-Haul back to Delaware. They were going to drive through the night and the next day they’d be back in Delaware. She didn’t want to worry about what life was going to be like for her after that.
She messaged Shay on Facebook and told her she was headed her way with some good shit.
Shay was not reading her messages. Shay had this trick she did on Facebook Messenger where her read messages appeared as unread.
She began texting her telling her she was heading to the South side and would see her soon.
She did not want to see Shay’s mom. The woman did not like her. She said Shay was a good girl and had made just one mistake. She said Finda was a negative influence on her daughter. Finda laughed at this. What a fine example she was to her daughter after three marriages. The only reason why she had a job was so she could keep her current boyfriend and herself in Newport smokes and E&J and have money to go to Twin River casino every weekend.
Even though Finda called her Mrs Jackson like she was some respectable person, she barely acknowledged Finda.
When D’licious handed her the bag of weed she opened the bag and smelled it and inhaled deeply and then gave him three tens.
“Ain’t no need to do that, y’ know what I’m sayin’, this is good shit. Y’all know I’m legit,” D’licious said.
“Just checkin’” Finda said and handed him the money. She watched him zoom off in his tomato-red Audi.
She decided to walk to the South side so that she could call Shay and tell her to get ready.
She called Shay over half a dozen times, but Shay’s phone was obviously switched off.
Shay’s Tracfone was always ringing and the battery drained fast. She sent her another message but there was no response. She decided to walk faster and then broke into a trot.
When she rang the doorbell it was Mrs Jackson that opened the door.
Mrs Jackson looked her up and down and told her Shay was out.
“Shay not here,” Mrs Jackson said.
“Where she at, Mrs Jackson?”
“She a grown woman now, she doesn’t need to tell me where she goin’.”
“Please, Mrs Jackson, I really need to see her tonight,” she said.
“Someone dead or someone dying soon?” Mrs Jackson asked—a wry smile appearing on her face.
“It is just that …” Finda said and trailed off.
“Jus’ what?” Mrs Jackson asked.
“Oh, never mind, Mrs Jackson.”
“Well, if you are not gonna tell me, I don’t see how I can help ya’ll,” Mrs Jackson said.
“I am moving back to Delaware,”
Finda said. “Ah see,” Mrs Jackson said.
“My grandma is sick and my dad taking us back to Delaware,” Finda said.
“Your daddy?” Mrs Jackson asked.
“Yes, my daddy is here already. He’s getting a U-Haul and we leaving tonight, Mrs Jackson.”
“Ah see. Well the thing is Shay went out with Jamil. They goin’ out if you know what I mean. But see when Shay comes back I’m gon’ tell her you called and I’ll be sure to give her your message,” Mrs Jackson said.
“Thank you, Mrs Jackson,” Finda said and turned and began to walk back home.
She decided to bypass Olney and go through the back streets in the cut. She soon got to a small bridge. It was the bridge over the Woonasquatucket River. She looked behind her. There was no one following her. She brought the small Hennessey bottle out of the pocket of her black Chance hoodie and hurled the bottle over the bridge into the creek. She waited for the sound of the bottle hitting the water or hitting a rock, but it didn’t come. She cocked her right ear waiting for the sound of the drop, but it never came.
She switched off her phone and began walking back home.