I was so glad that Miss Rocky didn’t take her kids to that lady’s funeral that she had to go to. I was real sad about that lady dying, but in a way I was glad. With me having to babysit for Miss Rocky while she was at the funeral, I had a reason to get away from Mama and Daddy.
As soon as Miss Rocky called me up that morning and asked me to come over, I dropped the telephone while she was still talking. I took off running out the door, wearing mismatched shoes and a blouse with all of the buttons undone. But there was nothing strange about the way I was looking. I left my house looking like a slob to go to Miss Rocky’s all the time.
I was just that happy about having a reason to get out of the house. And I know Mama and Daddy was just as happy about me having to babysit as I was. Old people like them had a real hard time dealing with me. It was one thing for me to be “limited,” as they said I was. I’d never been anything but that. But Mama and Daddy both sometimes acted just as limited as me! They were so forgetful that they would go out somewhere and come home in a cab because they couldn’t remember where they’d parked our car. They’d hide money somewhere in the house and couldn’t remember where until weeks later. My daddy left our house one time without his false teeth. He didn’t realize that until he got all the way to his doctor’s office. When I watched television with Mama and Daddy, I was the only one who could keep up with who was who on the screen. Now who couldn’t tell Bernie Mac from Chris Rock?
Now, my parents’ limits were not always bad. At least not to me. Mama would give me my allowance in the morning and by noon, she would have forgotten. She’d give me another allowance. Sometimes more than she gave me the first time. Sometimes she misplaced clothes I never wanted to wear in the first place. Daddy was even worse. Two days after he gave me my new computer, he came home with another one for me. I loved my parents, and I felt sorry for them, but in a way, I was glad that they got to see what it had always been like for me. They were glad we had Miss Rocky right next door. I knew that because I heard them say so a lot.
Just the other day I overheard my daddy say to somebody he was talking to on the telephone, “Rockelle Harper moving next door was just what we needed to help us cope with Helen. Maybe Helen can learn more about life in general from Rockelle. And those children of Rockelle’s are a double blessing. The more Helen spends time at Rockelle’s house, the more contented she seems.” Boy did Daddy get it right for a change. This particular day, I was babysitting for Miss Rocky for free.
Things had become so bad for Miss Rocky that she had been paying me to babysit on credit anyway. And lots of times, she just plain forgot to pay me at all. So, I told her before she even asked that I’d look after the kids for her today for free. If a funeral wasn’t reason enough to do somebody a favor, I didn’t know what was.
Before I told Miss Rocky not to pay me the night before last when she had to go out, she was like, “Helen, I had some unexpected expenses this week. Can I pay you later on in the month?” I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t think Miss Rocky was trying to be funny. She didn’t crack a smile. When she was serious, her face got so straight and spooky it looked like she’d strapped on a mask. And it was something you wouldn’t want to see if you went walking all by yourself down a dark alley. But “unexpected expenses” was the same excuse she used every single time. The reason I wanted to laugh was because her latest unexpected expenses included a new DVD player and a three hundred dollar hair weave (on top of being fat, Miss Rocky’s real hair was so scandalous, you could almost see her skull). I had almost forgot about that time Miss Rocky told me she couldn’t pay me because she’d had a out-of-town emergency that she had to take care of right away. It must have been a doozy of an emergency because all three of her kids came over to my house to brag about how they were all getting ready to go to Disneyland that weekend.
Well, for one thing, my family was not poor. I didn’t even need money from Miss Rocky. I didn’t think she needed to know, but I never needed any of the money that I made from babysitting. My mama, my daddy, and even my pain-in-the-jaw big brother, David, and his pig-faced wife—they all gave me money, and all kinds of other good stuff.
I told Miss Rocky, “You really don’t have to pay me at all today.” That’s when I pulled this big ole handful of money out of the red brassiere I had bought. The one my men friends liked so much. If I didn’t do nothing else right, I always made sure I was looking good when I had to deal with men. Yeah, I sometimes left my house wearing mismatched shoes, and my blouse unbuttoned or buttoned up wrong, but that was only when I went to Miss Rocky’s or to the corner store. When Mama let me go shopping at the mall on the bus by myself, I never went there without my makeup looking perfect and my clothes looking like I’d just removed them off a rack.
I had a good reason not to give myself too good of a makeover when I went to Miss Rocky’s house. I didn’t want to make her feel bad standing next to a pretty girl like me. I figured that out after something Mama told me: “That Rockelle would be so much more attractive if she’d lose about forty pounds and get rid of that fake hair. I wonder what goes through her head when she’s with those other beautiful women she hangs out with. I bet Rockelle feels like Moms Mabley standing next to slim women like Ester, Lula, and Rosalee. And she wonders why her husband ran off. Hmmph!”
Miss Rocky had enough problems. I didn’t want her to feel bad about her weight or anything else on account of me. Sometimes I went to her house looking like a bag lady on purpose, just so she could say something like, “Helen, you would be a real pretty girl if you’d fix yourself up better. Comb your hair, put on a little lipstick. And don’t walk around wearing mismatched shoes.”
Miss Rocky’s words had hurt my feelings, but to make myself feel better, all I had to do was remind myself what Mama had said about Miss Rocky looking like Moms Mabley. That would always make me feel sorry for Miss Rocky. One thing my limitations didn’t screw with was my feelings. I could care as much about another person as a normal girl.
Miss Rocky’s eyes got real real big, and she gave me this look that made me tremble. Like I said, this woman could screw her face up like a mask. My face got real hot as Miss Rocky stared at me and all that money in my hand. I got nervous because I didn’t know what she was thinking. Not only did I have on makeup that day and a tight blouse covering up my red brassiere, but I had on a pair of brand-new pumps. I couldn’t have Miss Rocky thinking I couldn’t look like nothing but a frump all the time. This particular day I looked like I was going out on a date, and I was hoping I was. All I had to do was wait for Miss Rocky to leave the house so I could send her kids to their rooms to watch television.
“Helen, where did you get all that money?” Miss Rocky snatched it out of my hand and looked at it some more. I bet she was thinking it was fake. She flipped through it, counting it out loud, her eyes getting even bigger. “Girl, there’s more than two thousand dollars here!”
“And it’s all mine,” I said, real proud of myself. As I should have been. Sarah Freeman, a girl my age who lived two houses down from me, worked at Burger King. Every time I saw her, she complained about the measly paycheck she got. I didn’t have to complain about nothing. And that heifer was always making fun of me, calling me a retard. I wish her friends could have seen the look on her face the other day when I told her to kiss my rich retarded ass.
“But where did you get it?” Miss Rocky’s voice was lower. She started glancing around, like to make sure nobody was listening. “You didn’t do something you shouldn’t be doing to get all this money, did you?” Miss Rocky’s eyes looked me up and down, but she still didn’t say nothing about how good I was looking today.
“Like…what?”
Miss Rocky cocked her head to the side. She looked at me real hard some more out of the corner of her eye, which by the way, had too much mascara and eyeliner. “Like, stealing? You haven’t been in your mama’s…or anybody else’s purse, have you?” Right after Miss Rocky said that last part, she looked at her purse on the couch.
I shook my head so hard my ponytail slapped my face. “I would never steal from nobody.” I nodded toward her purse and added, “Especially you. I heard my mama say what a low-down, funky, deadbeat your husband was. I know it takes a lot of money for you to keep this house and pay for your three kids. And to go to that beauty parlor you go to on Ocean Street so they can sew up some hair on your head.” My eyes rolled up to look at Miss Rocky’s fresh new hairdo. She said all the time she didn’t like bangs, but she had them. She’d been wearing bangs ever since I told her they would hide the lines on her forehead. “I like them bangs, Miss Rocky,” I said, knowing a compliment would make her feel good and maybe forget about trying to get up in my business.
“Thanks, Helen,” Miss Rocky said, patting her hair, like she wanted to make sure all of it was still on her head. She let out a deep breath and rubbed the side of her face, closing her eyes so tight they almost disappeared into all the meat on her face. When she opened her eyes, she leaned closer to me and looked me in the eyes, like she was trying to see what I was thinking.
“What’s wrong, Miss Rocky?”
“Helen, where did you get all this money?”
My stomach started doing weird stuff, like moving and hurting like somebody had hit me in it. I rubbed my stomach and turned my back to Miss Rocky. But that didn’t do me no good. She grabbed me by my shoulders and spun me back around so we were eyeball to eyeball. “Uh, I made it doing stuff,” I managed, my chest getting so tight I couldn’t hardly breathe no more. I was hoping I wouldn’t pass out or die in front of Miss Rocky. That would have made me look real bad. She already had one funeral to go to.
“Your folks know you got all this money on you?” Miss Rocky shook me but I pulled away from her, shaking my head. “You sure you didn’t steal this money? Tell me the truth now.”
“I didn’t steal it, Miss Rocky. Honest to God. I got it from doing stuff.”
“Stuff like what?” Miss Rocky’s mouth stayed opened, and I could see red stuff on her teeth. I hoped it was lipstick, not blood.
“Miss Rocky, remember that time you told me to mind my own business when I asked you about that pile of money I seen in your refrigerator locked up tight in that Tupperware bowl?” Miss Rocky’s eyes got real narrow, like a snake’s. She half turned her head and looked at me. I didn’t even give her a chance to say nothing else about my money. “Well, I’m telling you the same thing you told me. ‘My money is my business.’”
“All right now. I just don’t want you to be getting yourself into any kind of trouble.” Miss Rocky turned around and walked like a penguin out of the living room where we’d been standing and talking, next to the sixty-inch screen television she had bought for her kids. That big boxy thing was one of last month’s unexpected expenses. The back of Miss Rocky’s tight black blouse was still half unzipped. She looked like a great big sausage to me.
Miss Rocky was always trying to lose weight, but it never worked. She had Slim-Fast in her refrigerator, diet books on her bookshelf, a thing she was supposed to run in place on, and even some tapes that she was suppose to dance to. Every time she tried to exercise when I was around, she ended up falling out on the floor and I’d have to help her up.
“Miss Rocky, you are just like Oprah. She’s still a great big fat woman, and she’s been trying to lose weight ever since she got on television. Maybe you and her were meant to be great big fat women. That’s what my daddy says about you and her both.”
“If you insult me again, I’m sending your smart ass home, girl,” Miss Rocky told me, tossing some chips into her mouth. “I’d be fine if I could lose some of this meat off my bottom.”
“But you got just as much meat at the top,” I reminded.
I didn’t get sent home, but I got a dirty look from Miss Rocky that day.
Most of Miss Rocky’s clothes were too small for her, but that didn’t stop her from squeezing into them and then prancing out of her house to go take care of that sick old man. His name was Mr. Roy and he lived in Oakland, but that’s all Miss Rocky ever told anybody about him. Oh, she said that he paid her real good money.
And another thing, I never could figure out why Miss Rocky always dressed up real nice just to go take care of a sick old man. I didn’t have enough nerve to ask her, but I figured my mama would know.
“Mama, why do Miss Rocky dress up to go nurse an old man?” Miss Rocky had been going to nurse this mysterious old man since right after her husband took off. I couldn’t figure out how she did that, and run around with that Clyde and those other three women, too.
“If he’s straight, it doesn’t matter how old and sick he is, he’ll appreciate looking at a well-groomed woman. Even one as stout as Rockelle. Men are like dogs. Their eyes never stop roving,” Mama told me, looking me up and down as she talked, brushing my hair back off my face. She wiped a smudge off my jaw. I never knew what my mama thought about me being the way I was. All I had to go on was what I could eavesdrop. I did know from hearing bits and pieces of conversations she had with folks over the telephone, that she still worried about me getting in trouble with men again. “Well, at least there won’t be any more babies for Helen for us to worry about no matter how many more men take advantage of her. But a baby would be a picnic compared to her catching something that could kill her,” Mama said into the telephone. I didn’t like the fact that I was such a popular subject with my mama and her friends, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I wasn’t sure what it was I could catch from a man that could kill me. I had a feeling it had something to do with Mama taking me to doctors all the time for them to draw blood out of my arm. Sometimes it seemed like my biggest worry was my mama. Daddy was too busy watching ball games and sleeping, so he wasn’t too much of a problem to me. I don’t know what would have become of me if it wasn’t for Miss Rocky and her kids living next door.
Miss Rocky’s phone that the nasty men called up on was always ringing off the hook. Every time she left me alone with the kids, I’d put the kids in the living room, and I’d go to Miss Rocky’s bedroom where the fun phone was. I’d sit on the side of her bed and wait for the answering machine to click when those men called. They would leave messages left and right.
One night last week a woman called! And let me tell you, she was hella mad. As soon as I heard her going on and on about finding the telephone number in her husband’s pocket, I snapped off the answering machine and picked up the telephone. “Uh, hello,” I said in a real soft voice.
“Who am I speaking with?” It must have been a White woman because she had the same voice that the mother on The Brady Bunch reruns had.
“Me,” I told her.
I couldn’t picture the Brady mother’s husband calling for a date with a Black woman. I couldn’t even remember ever seeing a Black person on their show.
“Me who?”
“Just me, lady.”
“Shit! Don’t fucking play games with me! I just want to know one thing! Are you a working girl, bitch?” the woman asked, sounding real, real mean.
It was a real letdown to find out that a woman who sounded like Mrs. Brady knew cuss words and used them.
“Huh?”
“Is my husband paying you for your services?”
“Not if he’s the one who lost his wallet? See, I—”
“You little tramp! I don’t have time for games. I want to know if Joel McKlanski is one of your clients!”
“Hmmm,” I said, scratching the top of my head like a monkey. “I don’t know nobody named Joel. What he look like?”
“Look, you trash, I told you not to play games with me!” the woman screamed. “I’ll find you, and I’ll kick your fucking ass!”
I gasped and held the telephone away from my face and stared at it. I knew right then and there that I would never look at The Brady Bunch the same way again.
“Uh, lady, I have to go now.” I hung up before the mad-woman could get any madder and throw a real hissy fit.
At least I didn’t lie to her. None of the men I’d talked to, or been with was named Joel. He was probably one of the ones I’d missed because Miss Rocky had got to him first.
Like I said, Miss Rocky’s date phone rang left and right. She had more than enough men to keep her busy. I didn’t feel bad about stealing a few. The strange thing was, some of the ones that I’d let into Miss Rocky’s house changed their minds once they got inside. One man flat out asked me if I was “mentally challenged.”
“Hell no!” I told him, reminding myself that if the Brady Bunch–sounding woman could cuss, so could I. “I’m just retarded,” I told that sucker. He all but ran out the door, and I didn’t really care. He had shown me right off the bat that he wasn’t a nice man. To the nice men, me being retarded was no big deal. Some even said it was cute. Besides, as one told me, I had the same parts a normal woman had, and I knew how to work them just as good.
The good news was, I didn’t have to worry about none of the men I got with telling Miss Rocky anything about me. Once I told them how fat she was, and about the gray hair shooting up out of her skull, they were glad it was me who picked up the telephone and not Miss Rocky.
The best man I ever stole from Miss Rocky was that White man named Arthur. I guess he was special because he was the first one I took a call from and made a date with. Poor Mr. Arthur. Sometimes he had to pay me on credit, too. Like that time he got robbed by some Black dudes on his way over to Miss Rocky’s house. I couldn’t figure out why some Black folks couldn’t behave themselves! Instead of robbing folks and breaking into houses to steal other folks’ stuff, them creeps should have been doing something nice to get money. Like I did.
Mr. Arthur said he really liked me because I’d sneak him into Miss Rocky’s house all the time, and I liked having dates with him in the house. I felt like a wife. Since I would never be one, I decided to pretend that I was a wife as many times as I could. Mr. Arthur didn’t know that I didn’t live there, too. He honest to God believed that me and Miss Rocky were roommates. He was the one who gave me most of the money I had stuffed inside my brassiere. Besides him, there were only five other men I fooled around with in Miss Rocky’s house. I didn’t like them, though. The men who didn’t want to come to the house had me take cabs to wherever it was they happened to be. Hotels mostly. One man had me take a cab to his house in Daly City, way out there toward the airport. Only bad thing about me having to go to the men was I couldn’t sneak out until Miss Rocky’s kids were asleep. Once I put them to bed, they always slept all the way through the night. So it didn’t matter that I would be gone for a few hours. One night I went to visit a man at his hotel right when America’s Most Wanted was coming on. The same show was still on when I got back, so sometimes I didn’t even have to be gone for a whole hour.
It made my head hurt when I thought about some of the mean things some of the men said to me. Like this snaggle-toothed, bug-eyed, flat-headed, shiny Black ballplayer from Miami. “Girl, you know you ain’t mentally fit to be doin’ this kind of shit. You get your tail up out of this hotel.” That was just like a Black man. Talking about me like I was a dog. My own brother behaved the same way that ball playing nigger did, so it didn’t surprise me. I expected this kind of foolishness from him.
Mama was always telling me that boys and men were nothing but naked apes. She started telling me that right after that little accident I had when I was younger—getting pregnant, I mean. She’d been telling me that ever since, hoping it would help keep me out of trouble with men. Every time I went out on a date now, I wondered what my mama and my daddy would say if they knew. I didn’t spend much time wondering about that, though. Trying to keep my dates straight and thinking about a hiding place—other than my brassiere—for the money they gave me, was enough for me to worry about.
The Black ballplayer had been one of the fussy ones I couldn’t get to come to Miss Rocky’s house. He’d called from some hotel room. I could tell there was something strange about him by the way he talked. He had come to town to go to somebody’s wedding, or so he said. And that tale he told me about owning a nightclub, I bet that was a lie. Who would have time to play ball and run a nightclub? He didn’t look much older than me and if you ask me, he wasn’t much smarter than me. But, even after he told me to get out of his hotel room, before I left, he did stretch out on the bed with me and we fooled around a little bit.
Why men liked to get their things licked was beyond me, but they all seemed to like it. I figured they didn’t get weaned when they were babies or something. The two hundred dollars that the ballplayer was supposed to pay me, well like I said, he wasn’t much smarter than me. He had lost his wallet. I had to pay for a cab back home, with my own money. But that still didn’t make me feel bad enough to get mad at Miss Rocky for not paying me to babysit while she went to that funeral. Me not getting paid wasn’t no big deal. I had plenty of money, and I knew how to get plenty more when I needed it.
Anyway, Miss Rocky had finally left to go to that funeral with those other women she ran around with. Looking after Miss Rocky’s kids at night was better than looking after them in the daytime. At night, they watched television then I put them to bed. I couldn’t have no fun until I got them out of my way. But it was a whole different story during the day. Them kids were worse than mice. They ran all over the place, squealing, and acting wild.
The two little boys were not that bad, but that girl Juliet could be a real pit bull. She didn’t want to do this, she didn’t want to do that. She was going to tell her mama I was mean to her, she told me.
“I don’t have to listen to no retarded girl like you,” she’d tell me when she didn’t want to go to bed.
She knew how to get at me real good and that was by calling me retarded. I didn’t ask to turn out the way I did, but I tried to live like a normal girl. One thing I didn’t need was people reminding me what I was. That was the one thing that made me cry the quickest. Especially coming from a child almost half my age. One of the good things about being slow like me was I could bounce back from being sad to being glad real fast.
One thing I learned from Miss Rocky was you had to treat Juliet the way she wanted to be treated if you wanted her to behave herself. Which meant, letting the girl do whatever she wanted to do. Since that little sister thought she was grown, I let her act grown. It was my idea for her to keep an eye on the two little boys while I went to visit this man who called right after Miss Rocky left the house to go that funeral. It sounded like the same punk-ass man who said he was a ballplayer! And a nightclub owner. I guess he changed his mind about me. I had started to tell Mr. Ball-Playing Nightclub Owner that I was not available to come to his hotel room no more. But then I got to thinking: why not prove to him he that was wrong about me that other time that he had me come to his hotel?
“Now, Juliet, you know how to use the telephone. So if anything hap-pens before I get back, you call nine…uh nine…uh…nine…one…one.” I was only really good with numbers when it had to do with money. “And you can always run next door to get my mama or daddy if the house catches on fire or if some maniac breaks in,” I told the girl, coating my lips with some of Miss Rocky’s lipstick in her bedroom mirror. The house had a smoke detector, and maniacs didn’t know where we lived, so I wasn’t worried about nothing bad happening while I was gone.
Juliet stood next to me, looking me up and down. Her eyes, which were already too big for her face, were bulging out of the top of her head like a frog’s. With her pretzel-thin arms folded across her flat chest, she started talking, fast and loud.
“Where you going?” Juliet’s voice sounded more like a woman’s than mine.
Now, the girl was pretty, but I guess she had trouble believing it. She was always in the mirror, worried about her baby fat and sucking in her stomach and jaws trying to make herself look real trim like me and Janet Jackson. She was scared to death she was going to grow up and be a great big fat woman like her mama. Her turning into Miss Rocky scared poor Juliet more than the threat of a whupping. I felt the girl. That was why I spent so much of my free time at Miss Rocky’s house trying to help out. But I still had my own self to help out first.
I didn’t know much, but I knew enough about my situation to know I’d never have me a husband and some kids. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me once my mama and my daddy died. And the way they were looking and acting lately, one of them might be the next funeral. Knowing that busybody big brother of mine and his pissy-poo wife, they’d make me come live with them. And guess what, I just found out last week that the pissy-poo wife had a baby on the way. Which meant, they’d use me as a built-in babysitter when I had to go live with them. I wouldn’t have no choice. So I had to have as much fun as I could while I could. Once I had to go live with my brother and his wife, my fun would be over. Because when they came around, they watched me a like a mama hawk.
“Uh, I’m just going out for a little while to see somebody. Now, now, uh, be a big girl and keep the boys out of trouble.” I didn’t even have to tell Juliet that. Keeping the boys out of trouble was the easiest part of babysitting for Miss Rocky. Them little dudes were the easiest kids I’d ever seen. They didn’t clown in public like other spoiled brats I seen kicking and screaming in stores. And them little dudes of Miss Rocky’s did everything I told them to do. But that Juliet was another story. The girl had everything she wanted and then some. The only thing she didn’t have, but needed more than anything, was a whupping! I swear to God, Miss Rocky had to be scared to death of that little bitch. I don’t like to use cuss words, so I only did it when I had to. But most of the time, that Juliet was nothing but a bold-faced bitch! If I didn’t know no better, and if I was bat-blind and could hear Juliet and Miss Rocky conversing, I’d swear that Juliet was the mama instead of Miss Rocky. Because, like I said, the girl sounded like a grown woman when she talked.
“Helen, how come you talk to me like that? I’m not no baby,” Juliet said, her face screwed up like she was sucking lemons.
That’s what I meant. That was the kind of smart-mouth crap I was talking about.
“Juliet, I know you are a big little girl. I didn’t mean it like it sounded. Now, you go on in the living room with the boys. I have to finish my makeover,” I said, waving her away.
Juliet just looked upside my head.
“Did you hear what I just said, Miss Girl?” I hollered, shaking my finger at her.
“Why you fixing yourself up like that? You look like those nasty girls in those rap videos. And, I can see them Raisenettes you got for nipples,” Juliet said in a real low voice. “Men are going to jump all over you if you go outside wearing all that makeup and that tight, low-cut blouse.” Juliet laughed, cackling like a witch.
I couldn’t hold back the smile that slid across my face.
“You think so?”
Juliet nodded. “When Mama takes me to the mall with her face made up and her clothes real tight, men stare at her and some of them even whistle.”
“Mmmm huh.” A real warm feeling covered my face, hot tears filled up my eyes. It took a lot of hard work for me to get attention and keep it long enough for it to matter, but it was worth it.
As soon as Juliet sashayed her grown, busy body out the bedroom, I sprayed myself between my thighs and up and down my crack with some of Miss Rocky’s butt spray. Then I sprayed some of her Red Door perfume between my titties like I seen Miss Rocky do before she went out. After Juliet’s comments about my makeup and clothes and how things like that got guys’ attention, I couldn’t wait to get to my date.
If men stared and whistled at Miss Rocky when they seen her in makeup and sexy clothes, fat as she was, there was just no telling what my date was going to do when he seen me this time.