1

Gabby

I got off the B54 bus that runs from downtown Brooklyn along Myrtle Avenue, the weight of my backpack slowing me down. The crowd had changed dramatically since I got on at Jay Street on the other side of the socioeconomic divide. There were only a handful of white people left and within a few stops the passengers would all be some shade of brown. I walked past a group of older teenagers in saggy pants leaned up against a wall smoking blunts. They shifted all their focus on me, their prey.

“Yo, mama, wanna play school with me?” One of them leered, slapping palms with his friends.

“Let me see what you got under that uniform,” a second added.

“What, you go to Hogwarts?” The first one used that corny-ass Harry Potter reference to make fun of my burgundy plaid skirt, white blouse, burgundy vest, and knee socks.

“Baby, I can teach you more than them ABC’s.” Another, shorter one with busted teeth winked, but I shifted my eyes away and pretended not to notice them.

I decided then and there to ignore any and all the elements of this place that bothered me; and, believe me, there were plenty. Maybe I was a snob. I just didn’t understand a neighborhood of people that could have or should have been motivated to climb the economic ladder, but instead they were content hanging outside doing nothing but shooting the shit. And this was during the nine-to-five workday. Yeah, this was the polar opposite of the upwardly mobile neighborhood where I had been raised. I knew I was sounding judgmental, like my mother. She had grown up here and made it her life’s mission to never return, but unfortunately there were some things that even she couldn’t control. Like me winding up living her nightmare.

Within a few blocks each way, gentrification, fancy wine bars, and Starbucks had sprung up and taken hold; but the aura of poverty within the Cumberland housing projects remained unchallenged and unchangeable.

This wasn’t the first time I’d stepped off the bus on Myrtle Avenue to get to my Aunt Kim’s tenement apartment, but everything about this trip was different. I was no longer a visitor counting down the minutes until I could escape to the safety and sanity of my own neighborhood. The Cumberland housing projects had become my home whether I liked it or not, and I would have to make the best of it for the time being. Aunt Kim was my mother’s younger, wilder sister and my only living relative, unless you counted my father, and I certainly didn’t especially since I’d never met him. He and my mother had been high school boyfriend and girlfriend. She had run into him on a trip home a couple of years later and one thing led to another and there she was knocked up. She said his life was already too big to include us, whatever that meant. I assumed it meant that he had another girlfriend in college and had rejected her, wanting more. He hadn’t stepped up because my mother raised me on her own until four months ago when she got sick. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and her health deteriorated quickly. In the two weeks since she died I’d been walking around nearly catatonic. My aunt had allowed me to stay home from school but yesterday she reminded me that my mother would not appreciate me neglecting the good fortune I had in getting a scholarship to St. Agnes, a pricey private school in toney Brooklyn Heights.

I was a senior and I’d been at St. Agnes since seventh grade and was on track to be the second member of my family to attend a four-year college. My advisor thought I’d be an ideal candidate for the Ivies, so before my mother passed I had applied for five of the eight. Instead of being anxious about admissions letters I no longer cared. Going to Harvard was our dream and without her to hold it up it had already begun to wither. The admissions letters had just been mailed out. I just cared less and less every day about my future and what college I attended, or if I even went to college at all.

“Watch where you going, bitch!” hollered an attractive brown-skinned sister about my age wearing a nasty scowl and a fresh weave. Her clique of three girls surrounded her.

“I’m sorry,” I sputtered nervously. I’d been so busy in my own world I hadn’t even seen them.

“You better be! What the fuck, you some retard Catholic schoolgirl?” She laughed in my face.

“No, it’s not a Catholic School it’s a prep school,” I answered flatly. All I wanted was to get upstairs and throw myself onto my bed and weep. All day I’d been holding back the urge to fall apart, but I knew my mother would expect more from me so I held it together. And now this?

“No, it’s not a Catholic school,” a light-skinned girl with bad skin and a tank top two sizes too small mocked me. “Bitch, we don’t care about you or your bullshit edumacation. What you need to care about is staying out of Mika’s way.” She shouted the words at me. I nodded in agreement, just wanting to get out of there. I tried to step past them but they formed a barrier and blocked me from moving. Suddenly a couple of them grabbed my backpack and purse and flung them to the ground.

“Maybe next time that’ll help you remember to watch where the fuck you going.” Mika pushed up in my face before walking away. This was clearly her way of letting me know that she meant real business. Message received.

I bent down and started picking up the contents of my backpack, shoving them inside the bag. By the time I gathered all my things and stood up the group had moved off to the side, watching my humiliation. As I turned toward the building a tall caramel-colored guy with short, curly hair shot out from around the corner and raced straight at me. Before I could stop him he flung a package into my already overloaded arms. A finger rose to his lips as he caught my eye. He was halfway down the block before I had a chance to react. Next thing, a series of police cars raced past me. The police cars cut him off. Cops jumped out and threw him up against the chain-link fence. Mika and her girls glared at me from their bench across the yard. They had seen everything and it seemed to piss them off more, if that was possible. I hurried into the building before anything else could happen.

I still hadn’t gotten used to the overpowering stench of urine that greeted me as I entered the stairwell and raced up six flights of stairs before hurrying into the corridor and the safety of my aunt’s apartment. I knew she wouldn’t be home when I got here. She worked a nine-to-five on Wall Street and then she usually went to her twelve-step meetings. Although lately she’d been skipping meetings to hang out with her new boyfriend.

My hands were shaking as I let myself into the apartment. I tossed my things down on the floor and flung myself across my bed. I didn’t know how long I lay there crying when I heard a banging at the door. It could have been any one of my aunt’s neighbors. If I refused to answer the door maybe they would get the hint and go away. But after a full five minutes of relentless banging I dragged myself off the bed and went to answer the door.