Chapter 5
Sleeping with the Enemy
Ginger arose at three o’clock a.m. on a Wednesday morning, choking and coughing uncontrollably. Ronald was asleep with his back to her. Ginger got out of bed and hurried into the kitchen for a glass of water. The lukewarm liquid was soothing to her throat. She set the glass in the sink and went back to bed. No sooner than her head made contact with the pillow Ginger started to cough again.
Ronald sat up, exhaled loudly, and frowned at her. “Take that noise out of here.”
While trying to suppress her coughs, Ginger got up and left her bedroom and went into the guest bedroom and lay across the queen-sized bed. Within twenty minutes her coughs subsided and she was able to drift off to sleep.
At approximately 5:05 a.m., Ginger lazily turned from her side and lay on her back. She opened her eyes and was startled to see Ronald’s silhouette standing over her. Though it was still dark outside, the light shining from the hallway helped Ginger to see that he was completely naked. She anxiously sat up but Ronald’s fist came full force and sent her flying back onto the pillow. Ginger felt her chest cave in and she screamed out in pain.
Ronald placed his palm over her mouth. “Shut up and be still,” he ordered.
Tears welled up in Ginger’s eyes as she watched Ronald climb on top of her and spread her legs with his own. He removed his hand from her mouth and raised her gown to her waist. He was breathing heavy and Ginger’s nostrils inhaled stale alcohol mixed with morning breath. It was nauseating. The smell made her sick to her stomach.
“Ron, please don’t do this.”
A slap across the left side of her face took Ginger’s breath away. Immediately, Ronald kissed where his opened palm made contact. “Did that hurt, baby? Huh? Did I hurt you?”
Ginger closed her eyes and prayed that God would help her out of that situation. Ronald grabbed her chin and turned her face toward his own. Tears were streaming from Ginger’s eyes down to her ears.
He licked her tears with his tongue. He ran it from the corner of her right eye to her ear. “Mmm, your tears taste good. You ought to cry more often.”
At the smell of his breath Ginger’s stomach began to rumble. Telling Ronald that his breath was foul would only guarantee another blow to her face but Ginger had to do something to get his mouth away from her nose. “Ron, you’re heavy. Please get up.”
“You wanna know what I found in the kitchen sink when I got up this morning, Ginger?”
Ginger knew she was in trouble. He was talking about the glass she drank water from two hours ago.
“Do you remember what I said the last time I told you about leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight?”
“Ron, I was sick this morning. Didn’t you hear me coughing? I just had a glass of water.”
“You left a dirty glass in the sink overnight,” he reminded her.
Ginger sobbed. “No, it was this morning.”
He grabbed Ginger’s chin and turned her face toward the window. “Look outside. Is the sun up?”
She moaned. “No.”
“Is the sky light blue?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Lord, where are you? There was no way out of a butt whipping that was surely coming her way. Ronald kissed her lips softly and asked the last question again. “Is the sky light blue, Ginger?”
She cried out again. “No.”
“Well, if the sun is not up and if the sky is not light blue then it must be nighttime, right?”
The stench coming from Ronald’s mouth caused Ginger’s dinner, from the night before, to move around in her stomach. Lord, please help me.
Ronald kissed her lips softly again. “Answer me, baby. Is it nighttime or daytime?”
“It’s nighttime.”
“So, you left a dirty glass in the sink overnight?”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“Do you know what the penalty is for leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight?”
Ginger’s dinner had made its way up to the bottom of her throat. She swallowed repeatedly trying to keep it down.
Ronald used his thighs to spread her legs wider.
More tears ran from Ginger’s eyes to her ears. “Ron, please. I’m sorry.”
He rose up and plunged himself into her. Ginger hollered out when he tore into her flesh.
Again, Ronald slapped the right side of her face. “Shut up!”
He withdrew himself and plunged into Ginger again and again. She tried her best to keep quiet but couldn’t do it. Each time he entered her, she yelled.
Ronald placed his hand over mouth and spoke directly into her nostrils. “I like this early morning lovin’.”
Within one minute Ginger felt Ronald’s body stiffen; then he relaxed and fell down on top of her. “Was it as good for you as it was for me, baby?”
He didn’t wait for a response. Ronald got up and left the bedroom. On his way out, he spoke to her. “I want that glass washed before you go to work.”
Ginger leaned over the side of the bed and vomited on the hardwood floor.
* * *
The water in the shower was scalding hot. Ginger stood under the shower head trying to get Ronald’s scent off of her. She lathered her soap sponge and scrubbed her face, arms, and legs as hard as she could. When she rotated her private area with the soapy sponge, she felt intense burning. Ginger removed the sponge and saw blood then noticed streams of blood going down the drain. She rinsed her left hand free of soap and felt between her inner thighs. The slightest touch caused a shriek to escape Ginger’s throat. She removed her hand and saw it completely covered in red. More and more blood ran down the shower drain. Ginger stared at it in disbelief. She began to experience what felt like lightning bolts piercing her abdomen. The pain was so severe that it sent Ginger to her knees. “Jesus, help me,” was all she could say.
Suddenly clots of blood flowed down her legs to her ankles on their way to the drain. “Not again, Jesus,” she moaned. “Please don’t take another baby from me.”
Ginger stayed on her knees in the running shower crying until her uterus emptied itself and the pains subsided. When she felt strong enough, Ginger stood and washed her body.
After the shower Ginger got a maxi pad from beneath the vanity in her bathroom, pressed the adhesive to the center of her panties and pulled them up to her waist. She dressed in a quilted nightgown covering her from head to toe then went into the kitchen to wash the glass.
Ginger’s private area was so swollen and sore she had to walk back to her bedroom gap-legged. She started to apply cocoa butter lotion to her legs when her eyes were drawn to a photograph of her and Ronald smiling into each other’s eyes in the early weeks of their relationship.
Ronald came into the bedroom carrying his jacket and keys. He walked to Ginger and kissed her cheek. “I got to make a run. Hit me on my cell if you need me.”
Ginger closed her eyes and exhaled. Just the thought of Ronald touching any part of her body was repulsive to her. In her twenty-seven years on earth Ginger has been pregnant twice and not one child was evident to show for it.
She sat on the side of the bed and thought about calling her doctor. After her first miscarriage at the mercy of Ronald’s hands, Ginger had begged her doctor to tie her tubes. Her doctor explained to her that a procedure that extreme couldn’t be done on a woman who didn’t have any children or on a married woman without her husband’s consent.
It took Ginger eight years to shed the weight birth control pills put on her petite frame since she started swallowing them in her early twenties. She’d been birth control pill free for two years and she refused to travel down that road again. Condoms were out of the question according to Ronald. He told Ginger that taking the time to put on a condom puts a damper on lovemaking.
“Birth control is the woman’s responsibility,” Ronald said to Ginger. “Since men can’t get pregnant, why should we be held accountable for what could happen?”
That question to Ginger was asked after her first miscarriage. From then on, Ginger relied on an ovulation predictor to tell her when she and Ronald could have sex. Considering the fact that Ginger had gotten pregnant again after she started using the ovulation predictor told her it wasn’t predictable at all.
Ginger picked up the photograph of her and Ronald from the nightstand, and carefully sat down on the bed wincing at the pain in between her legs. She reminisced about the time she told Celeste and Portia that she’d met someone with potential. It was back in the days when if one of them had a date, all three of them had a date.
Four years ago on a Friday night in February, Ginger rang Portia’s telephone with excitement in her voice. “Girl, I’ve got something to tell you.”
“I already know. You’re pregnant,” Portia stated.
Ginger’s heart leapt in her chest. She was twenty-three years old and single but she wasn’t celibate. Every month Ginger looked forward to getting her period. To every other woman, what seemed like the worst days of her life were days of joy for Ginger.
It was normal for her to count the days of the week on a calendar to make sure her menstrual cycle was right on time. If Ginger’s period didn’t flow on the first day it was supposed to, she would sit on the toilet and push like she was constipated or trying to deliver a baby. There were times when Ginger had pushed so hard, she’d made herself dizzy. One episode of pushing resulted in a case of flaming hemorrhoids. When the pushing didn’t work, Ginger would get on her knees and cry out loud, “I ain’t gonna do it no more, Lord. I promise, I promise, I promise. Please bring my period, Jesus. No more sex, Lord. I’m begging you, Jesus. Please have mercy on me.”
And when God showed a little mercy on Ginger, she would double her tithes the following Sunday morning. Ginger would walk to the front of the church and drop her envelope in the basket while displaying the biggest grin on her face. And if cramps were making their presence known, Ginger would pat her lower abdomen, smile, look up toward heaven and say, “Thank you, Lord.”
There was a time when Ginger’s period was three days late. But on the fourth day her prayers were answered. Ginger felt so good; she bought her favorite foods and invited Portia and Celeste over for a Period Party.
Celeste gave her a gift-wrapped box of tampons. Ginger opened a card that read:
Congratulations on getting your period. I hope you get many more.
Portia’s gift was a box of Midol. Ginger gave the box back to Portia. “You can keep those. I love my cramps. They let me know that my friend Flo ain’t too far behind.”
Portia looked at Ginger. “You know you’re stupid, right? If you didn’t know, now you know.”
That night was the first of many Period Parties yet to come.
“Don’t play like that, Portia. Ain’t nobody pregnant,” Ginger said. Portia was taking the telephone conversation a different way. Ginger was calling to share the news that she had met a guy.
“Somebody is because I dreamed of fish last night.”
“Well, it ain’t me. So it must be either you or Celeste.”
“It’s gotta be Celeste then because it sure isn’t me. You know she and Tony have been trying to get pregnant since forever.”
“Hold on a minute, Portia. I’m gonna get her on the three-way.” Ginger clicked over and dialed Celeste’s number then reconnected Portia to the line.
The telephone rang four times; then Portia and Ginger heard Celeste say, “Harper residence.”
Portia was the first to speak. “Are you pregnant?”
Celeste frowned at no one in particular. “What?”
Ginger joined their conversation. “She asked if you were pregnant.”
“And before you answer you should know that I dreamed of fish last night,” Portia said.
“Nope, I’m not pregnant. As a matter of fact, I’m bleeding right this moment.”
Ginger frowned. “That’s TMIH, Celeste.”
“And what does TMIH mean?”
Ginger and Portia chanted in unison, “Too much information, honey.”
“Well, if y’all don’t wanna know the details, don’t ask the question. And why are you two on my line tonight anyway?”
Ginger spoke. “I’m calling to let my soul sisters know that I met this guy today and I think I’m gonna go out with him.”
“What does he look like?” Celeste asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him yet.”
Portia didn’t get that. “What do you mean you don’t know? You said you met him today.”
“I did meet him today,” Ginger confirmed.
“That doesn’t make any sense, Ginger. I wanna know how you can meet a guy and not know what he looks like.”
“Okay, Celeste, I’ll say where I met him but I don’t want y’all to trip. Especially you, Portia.”
Since Ginger made that comment to her, Portia knew Ginger was getting into something that she shouldn’t. “Ginger, I will reach through this telephone line and choke you if you don’t tell us where you met this guy. And I can tell by the way you’re stalling that something ain’t right with him.”
“That’s not true, Portia. You see how you’re already jumping to conclusions?”
“If you don’t want me jumping to conclusions, come on out with it.”
“I will in my own time, stop rushing me.”
Portia was fed up. “Ginger, stop beating around the bush and tell us when he’s getting out of jail.”
Celeste and Portia laughed but Ginger didn’t think it was funny at all. “Okay, just for that, I ain’t telling y’all nothing.”
Portia could hear in Ginger’s voice that she was hurt. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean it. Go ahead and tell us where you met him.”
Ginger took a deep breath and held it for three seconds, exhaled, and spoke extremely fast. “I met him online in the chat room this afternoon. His name is Ronald Bailey and he lives in New Orleans. He mentioned that he grew up in the Ninth Ward.”
Celeste yelled into the telephone. “The Ninth Ward? Do you know what the Ninth Ward is, Ginger?”
“I guess it’s a specific neighborhood.”
“Okay. Why don’t you do the honors, Portia? Because if I tell her, she’ll think I’m blocking.”
Portia cleared her throat. “Ginger, honey, baby, sugar bear, cutie pie, you are so precious. Gangbangers and thugs make up the Ninth Ward in New Orleans.”
The man Ginger had met online gave her the impression that he was an upstanding citizen. “What are y’all talking about and how do you know?”
“We just do,” Celeste answered.
“Well, be that as it may, Ronald is flying here on Friday afternoon and we’re meeting at the Shark Bar at eight o’clock. Can you two be at your posts?”
“Of course. We would never break our pact, Ginger,” Celeste said.
“Celeste is right,” Portia added. “This is your first date with Mr. New Orleans. And whenever one of us has a first date with someone, we all go.”
“Portia and I will try to get a table close by. Relax, everything will be cool.”
That conversation among the three best friends was four years ago. And as Ginger stared into Ronald’s eyes in the photograph, she wished she had listened to Celeste and Portia when they warned her about men from the Ninth Ward because Ronald Bailey was a thug in every sense of the word. Ginger didn’t know anything about him being a gangbanger but she could surely testify about him being a Ginger banger because he banged her head against the wall every chance he got. Ginger should have known Ronald was a few ribs short of a full slab when, only after ten minutes of meeting her, he said, “Girl, you’re so fine I would put hot sauce on my ears and fight Mike Tyson for you.”
Ginger set the photograph on the nightstand and dressed for work. She let out a loud sigh as she thought about what the forthcoming hours would bring. It was parent-teacher conference day and after the morning she had, Ginger wasn’t looking forward to “You must be mistaken, my child would never behave in that way,” or “I raised my son better than that, he isn’t capable of saying that,” or “My daughter’s grades didn’t start to slip until she got to your class.”
Ginger drove into the school parking lot and put the gear in park. At eight-fifty a.m. parents were lined up outside of the door waiting for the school to open. Ginger lowered her head and closed her eyes. “Father, in the name of Jesus, I don’t wanna have to cuss anyone out today. So, I’m asking you to write on my tongue as I deal with these ghetto parents.”
The first mother to approach Ginger introduced herself as twenty-year-old Tequila Tangeray-Cristal Daniels. Ginger couldn’t help but to wonder if Tequila’s father’s first name was Jack. Somehow it went with the flow. Ginger taught third grade, which meant the young mother was only twelve when she conceived.
Miss Daniels’s complaint threw Ginger for a loop. She wasn’t there to find out why her son was failing social studies, mathematics, and English, though she should have been. She had a more pressing issue with her son’s teacher. “My son says you make all of the kids pray, one by one, before class starts and I don’t think that’s fair.”
It may or may not have been fair but Ginger knew she was breaking the law by bringing religion into her classroom but she didn’t care. It was prayer that had stopped Ginger from strangling the eight-year-olds when they got in her face and challenged her.
Oh Lord, here we go. “And why is that, Courvoisier?”
Ginger watched as this barely legal female placed her right hand on an underdeveloped, almost nonexistent hip, and rotate her neck. “First of all, it’s Tequila. T-e-q-u-i-l-a. Tequila. And my parents didn’t force me to pray and go to church.”
I can tell, Ginger thought.
“They let me make up my own mind. So, I don’t force my son to go to church either. It’s up to him whether he wants to pray or not.”
Of course Ginger could’ve easily “gone there” with the unwed mother but she remembered the talk she had with God. Having an eight-year-old child at the age of twenty was the result of being brought up in a churchless and prayer-free home.
Ginger felt pity for Tequila. She was only a baby when she had a baby. Ginger would be willing to bet her paycheck that Tequila’s mother was no more than fifteen years her senior. Probably a generational curse.
“Look, Miss Daniels. This school sits in the heart of the west side of Chicago. There are dope dealers on every corner. Don’t you read the Sun-Times or watch the news? Every week a young girl in this neighborhood is raped or assaulted. A young black boy is murdered every month and that’s the norm. It’s rare that a teenager in this neighborhood graduates high school without some type of criminal record under his or her belt. Our young black men are becoming extinct. The only things we have to hold on to are our prayers. I don’t have control over what goes on in your household and I can’t dictate how to raise your son but from nine to three-thirty, Monday through Friday, these are my kids. And as for me and my classroom, we will pray. Now, if you have a problem with that, I suggest you talk with the principal. But you should know that she’s saved too.”
* * *
The way Ginger’s day at school started was pretty much how it ended. She had to defend the power of prayer nine times. One father had the nerve to flirt with Ginger in the presence of his wife. Ginger never liked parent-teacher conferences. She’d rather have a normal day of yelling at unruly, hardheaded kids than counseling their ignorant parents.
That evening she pulled into the garage and parked next to Ronald’s car. He was lying on the sofa watching television. Ginger said her hellos and went straight to her bedroom. She changed into her quilted nightgown covering her from head to toe, then paid a visit to the bathroom and she made sure to raise the toilet seat.
In the kitchen, Ginger searched the refrigerator for something to prepare for dinner. I bet that fool has been lying on the couch all day. The least he could do is have dinner ready when I get home but I guess that’s too much work, right?
She saw a pound of ground beef and thought she better use it before it spoiled. It had been sitting in the refrigerator for two days. Spaghetti would be quick and easy. Ginger set a pot of water on top of the stove and heated a cast iron skillet. She put the ground beef in the skillet. From the spice cabinet, Ginger withdrew bottles of seasoned salt, oregano, lemon pepper seasoning, ground pepper, garlic powder, and olive oil, then set them all on the counter next to the skillet.
She opened the utensil drawer and was astonished. Everything was missing. Gone were the spatulas, can opener, and measuring spoons. Only one fork, one spoon, one butter knife, and a wooden rolling pin remained in the drawer. Ginger opened the cabinet over the stove and saw one plate, one cereal bowl, and one glass.
What the heck?
The ground beef was beginning to brown and, not having anything to stir it with, Ginger removed the skillet from the heat and placed it on another burner. She went and stood at the archway to the living room. She dared not enter it. “Where are all of the dishes?”
Ronald kept his eyes on the television as he answered her. “I threw them away.”
Ginger knew there was no way she could’ve heard him right. “What?”
“Since you insist on leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight, this is what it comes down to.”
Is he crazy? “My grandmother left me those dishes, Ronald. They were antiques and can’t be replaced.”
He met Ginger’s eyes. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
Ginger couldn’t believe him. She saw two empty forty-ounce bottles of beer on the cocktail table. “Why bother saving one plate, one glass, a knife, fork and spoon?”
“Those are for me,” Ronald said. “I want them cleaned at all times and you better not use them.”
Ginger’s blood began to boil. “So, the heck with me, huh?”
Ronald looked at Ginger. “I guess so.”
“What am I supposed to eat with?” she asked.
“There are paper plates, cups, and forks in the pantry.”
“Ron, you can’t be serious.”
He looked at her again. “Ginger, I’m through with it.”
When Ronald said that he was done with a conversation, he meant it. If Ginger said anything else to him on the matter, it would be an invitation for a technical knockout.
With tears in her eyes, Ginger went into the bathroom and locked the door. She ran the water in the sink so Ronald wouldn’t hear what she was doing. She sat on the ledge of the tub and cried. It was time to get Ronald out of her house and out of her life.
But how? Portia and Celeste would know what to do but where were they? “I need my girls. Where y’all at?”