Medusa Read online



  MEDUSA

  by

  Constance Burris

  Copyright 2014 by Constance Burris

  "A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life."

  ― Coco Chanel

  "Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all."

  ― James Brown

  Shemeya jumped out of the green pleather seat, ignoring the bus driver's grunt of annoyance as he pulled the lever and opened the doors. As soon as she could, she squeezed through the opened door and hopped off the crowded bus.

  While she walked through the maze of cracked concrete sidewalks, the hot Oklahoma wind thrashed her face and sweat prickled her skin.

  "What's wrong with you, girl?"

  Surprised, Shemeya stopped. The question had come from Ms. Jade. She stood in the open doorway of her apartment a few feet away. Shemeya's mom would have killed her if she'd done that - flies and air conditioning and money not growing on trees and all. Shemeya wanted to keep walking, but she didn't want to be rude. Jade was the only parent she babysat for who didn't pay with food stamps.

  "Why are you in such a hurry?" Jade asked. With her light skin and brown freckles, she didn't look anything like her dark-skinned son, Rashawn, who sat nearby on a patch of grass playing with a red ball.

  "I have homework to do," Shemeya lied, trying to focus her attention on Jade instead of the three girls walking from the bus stop. Latreece, Benita, and Aliyah were cousins and protected each other like sisters. If one hated you, all three hated you. And right now Shemeya was number one on Latreece's shit list.

  "Move, Medusa," Latreece said, hitting Shemeya's shoulder as she walked by. Then as if on cue, Benita and Aliyah followed suit, almost knocking Shemeya to the ground.

  "What's that about?" Jade stepped onto the sidewalk with Shemeya. "Why'd they call you Medusa?"

  Shemeya blinked the sun out of her eyes and pulled her shirt away from her sweaty armpits. "No reason. Just stupid girls saying stupid things." Medusa had been her nickname after she'd started growing dreads her freshman year. The constant teasing almost made her cut them out.

  "Are they the reason you've stopped smiling?"

  Shemeya arched an eyebrow. "Stopped smiling. . . What are you talking about?"

  "You've always been full of joy. That's why I like it when you watch Rashawn. He always comes back happy." Jade stepped closer. "But now your smile is gone."

  My smile? Who pays attention to someone's smile? "There's nothing wrong with me."

  Jade folded her arms across her chest. "I've been here for two years and I've never seen you sad. Let me help you."

  "There's nothing wrong with me and I don't need help." Shemeya paused and lowered her voice. "So is it true? Are you a voodoo priestess?"

  Jade laughed. Her eyes sparkled for a moment and seemed to turn from muddy brown to red. "I don't know nothing about voodoo, child," she said in a mocking, thick Cajun accent. "But I do admire their results."

  Shemeya twined a dread around her finger. "Anyways, I don't have any money."

  "I don't need your money. You are one of the only people in these apartments who dares to smile." Jade placed a hand on Shemeya's shoulder. "Let me help."

  She stepped away from Jade's touch. "This conversation is getting too weird, Ms. Jade. I have to go. Call me this weekend if you need a babysitter."

  Shaking her head, Shemeya turned to Rashawn. "Bye, Cutie." Good luck on having a normal life with that weird-ass mom of yours. She walked the rest of the way to her apartment and up the concrete stairs. She forced herself not to look down, but once she got to the door she couldn't help it. Jade stared at her from below. From this angle, Jade's eyes glowed red.

  ***

  Shemeya stood in the hallway eating a bowl of cereal. Alisha, her younger sister, squirmed as their mother, Mary, ran a comb through the girl's kinky hair; the medicated scent of Black Magic hair grease mingled oddly with the sweet smell of Frosted Flakes. The good thing about dreads: she never had to get another scalp burn from a relaxer and she never had to comb her hair.

  "Momma, since you don't work today can you take me to school? The bus has been late every day for the past three days." Shemeya had practiced how to ask so it sounded casual instead of like a desperate plea for help.

  "Hell, no." Mary pulled the comb roughly through Alisha's hair before she pointed it at Shemeya. "And if you miss that bus I'm gonna whoop your ass. I don't care if you are about to graduate. You ain't too old to get a beating."

  "You could have just said no," Shemeya muttered.

  "What did you say?" Mary worked as a health care worker and traveled from house to house, cleaning shit and cooking shit, as she put it. And so when she got home, she'd always tell them, 'I deal with too much shit at work to hear it from my kids.'

  "Nothing. Bye." Shemeya placed the empty bowl on the kitchen counter, grabbed her backpack, and raced out of the apartment before her mother could deliver any threats involving someone's ass getting beat.

  She had known the chances of her mother taking her to school were slim so she headed out of the apartments and walked three blocks to stand in line for the neighborhood bus. The apartment kids were not allowed to ride the neighborhood's bus, and the neighborhood kids were not allowed to ride the apartment's bus. Separating them had been the school's half-assed attempt at keeping the well-off bougie kids from the poorer apartment kids, but the bougie kids had moved out of this area years ago. Everyone in this part of town either received welfare benefits or they were one paycheck away from living on the streets.

  Once the bus arrived, she lowered her head and followed the other students. She chose a seat in the middle of the bus away from the driver's line of sight. While she removed her backpack, she noticed a few stares, but no one said anything.

  When the bus started moving, she closed her eyes and let out a sigh of relief.

  "What are you doing here?"

  She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked up. Jason, her chemistry partner, stood in the aisle. "It's a free world. I can ride this bus if I want to."

  He sat down, put his arm over the back of the seat, and leaned towards her. He was so close that she could see the flecks of dandruff in his box cut. "No, you can't. No Vista kids are allowed on this bus."

  Shemeya scowled. "You gonna tell on me?"

  Jason laughed. "No, I wouldn't do that to you. Anyway, our chemistry project is due soon. You want to meet up at my place today and work on it?"

  "Sure." She took a deep breath. "I thought you were gonna snitch. Then I was gonna have to cut you."

  He grabbed her arm and laughed, letting his hand linger. "You know I wouldn't do you like that. So why you on this bus?"

  She turned from him and slipped lower into the seat. "No reason. I just wanted to change it up."

  ***

  The twenty minute ride through the outskirts of Oklahoma City took Shemeya past farmland and oversized warehouses. According to her sophomore history teacher, the small school district was created in order to fight the desegregation of public schools in the 1950s. 40 years later, Blacks, Hispanics, and Vietnamese made up 30% of the school district as more minorities moved into the suburbs. As she entered the school, fliers requesting her vote for the next student president and posters daring her to say no to drugs littered the walls on her way to first hour.

  "Hey, Shemeya." Malik, a senior that hadn't talked to her since freshman year, walked beside her. He was smiling with a mouth full of gold caps. "You want to meet up later?"

  "No," she said. "Why would I want to do that? I hardly know you."

  "I heard you were pretty much down for anything."

  She stopped. "Who told you that?"

  "I heard about
what happened with you and Corey. So what's up, you want to hook up?" He grabbed his crotch and licked his lips.

  "Eww. No."

  Malik put a piece of paper in her hand. "Here is my number. Call me if you change your mind. I've always wondered what it would be like to pull on those dreads."

  Shemeya's mouth fell open and she threw the paper into his face. What the hell? Before she could cuss him out, someone pushed her from behind. Her hands broke her fall as she went crashing to the floor. Embarrassed and uncomfortably aware of everyone staring, she looked up.

  Latreece stood above her, lips pressed and shoulders back. "Watch where you're going, Medusa."

  "What's going on?" asked Mrs. Smith, the social studies teacher.

  "I'm sorry. That was an accident." Latreece sneered at Shemeya before she turned and blended back into the crowd.

  Mrs. Smith, with her forehead wrinkled and worry reflected in her blue eyes, bent down and helped Shemeya pick up her bag. "Are you okay? I can report her to the office. That didn't look like an accident."

  "I'm fine." Shemeya forced herself to stop trembling. She stood and hurriedly walked in the opposite direction of Latreece and her first hour class.

  She managed to avoid Latreece for the rest of the day, but she had been tripped, jabbed, and propositioned by half of the school. Through all of the taunting she'd kept her head high and her face blank, but the quiet walk through her apartment complex caused the flimsy barrier she'd built to crumble. Tears streamed down her face as she turned towards home. Jade stood in the same spot as yesterday, staring at Shemeya with her murky red-brown eyes.

  Shemeya stopped and wiped the tears with her sleeve. "How can you help me?"

  A slow grin crept across Jade's face.

  *** 

  She followed Jade through the living room, past Rashawn asleep on the couch, and into the master bedroom. All of the three-bedroom apartments were laid out the same. This would have been her mother's room but there was no bed. Plants were everywhere. Dozens of plants; potted plants, hanging plants, creeping plants. Even though she'd taken botany for two years, Shemeya couldn't name any of them.

  The moisture in the air clung to Shemeya's skin and sank into her chest, making it hard to breathe. Two windows were on the east side of the room but hundreds of vines had crept up the wall and, in their greed, had blocked most of the sunlight.

  "What is all of this?"

  "These are my other babies," Jade said in the same tone she used when she spoke about Rashawn. She walked through the labyrinth of plants and stopped at a table on the far side of the room, barely visible through the foliage. On it lay a pestle and mortar, and inside the mortar she saw something amazingly similar to...

  "Is that weed?" Shemeya asked. "You grow weed." She looked towards the door expecting to see the police. The last thing she needed was to get caught in a drug dealer's house.

  Jade laughed as she pulled a leaf from a funky plant with green and purple leaves sitting on the table. "This is much better than weed. This is from my homeland. And, most importantly, it's not illegal here."

  "Oh," Shemeya said, a little disappointed. She hadn't wanted to get caught with a drug dealer, but she wasn't opposed to smoking a little bit of weed.

  "Where are you from?" Shemeya asked, curious.

  "No place you've heard of."

  "I'm not stupid. I got an A in geography-- Ow." Jade had yanked one of Shemeya's locs.

  "Fuck." Shemeya rubbed her scalp. "You almost pulled out a dread."

  "For it to work for you, it needs a bit of you in it." Jade held the hair in front of her face. "These five strands should be enough." She placed the hair into the mortar and started grinding it into the marble bowl with the leaves.

  Shemeya watched, rubbing her throbbing scalp as her hair became indecipherable from the other ingredients. "Isn't that voodoo?"

  "No. This isn't voodoo." Jade ground the mixture faster, causing the pestle to clang loudly against the marble bowl.

  "Then what is it? My mom would kill me if she knew I was messing around with voodoo."

  "It's an herbal medicine. When you receive blood, the doctors have to make sure they match your blood type. Adding your hair makes the herb specific for you. Like recognizes like."

  "What does it do? Will it get me high?"

  "It will give you courage and confidence, but it will not get you high."

  Disappointed, Shemeya watched as Jade put the herbs in papers she'd grabbed from her pants pocket and rolled it. "It looks just like a joint to me."

  "It is not a joint," Jade said sharply, as she handed it to Shemeya. "Smoke it here so I know I haven't wasted my time."

  Shemeya studied the fake joint. She should have walked right past this place and left Crazy Jade to her craziness. But after the day she'd endured, she couldn't tolerate the thought of going back to school. Maybe, just maybe, smoking this would make it all go way. Besides, what would some herbs hurt?

  "Okay." Shemeya placed the tip of the faux joint into her mouth and Jade lit it.

  Shemeya inhaled. The smoke traveled from her mouth down her throat and settled in her stomach for a few intense moments before Shemeya exhaled. "Shit, that's nasty." But the taste didn't stop her from bringing it back to her lips and inhaling once again.

  ***

  Shemeya knocked on Jason's door. For the past two years, they'd ended up in the same chemistry course as lab partners. He'd asked her out a few times but she'd politely said no. He bored her. Turning him down made her feel like an idiot who only went out with thugs, but she wasn't stupid. She only wanted a little thug, not a full serving.

  When Jason opened the door, she pulled off her backpack and stepped into his house. "Is your mom home?"

  "No, she's with her new guy." He led her into his kitchen. "Want something to drink?"

  "You got some juice?" She desperately wanted to get rid of the dry, earthy taste that the herbs had left in her mouth. Water hadn't worked.

  "I got something better." He reached under one of the kitchen cabinets and pulled out a bottle of Hennessey.

  "Jason, really?"

  He smiled innocently.

  She rolled her eyes. "Sure. I need a drink after the day I've had." And liquor should kill the taste in my mouth.

  He poured the cognac into two yellow plastic cups before they walked into the living room and sat on his couch. The alcohol warmed her insides and seared away the taste of the herbs.

  "We should be talking about absorption, not sitting here getting drunk," Shemeya pointed out.

  "We always finish our projects tipsy. Why should this time be any different?"

  Shemeya laughed. "Anyways, let's get started: absorption vs. adsorption." She pulled her chemistry book from her backpack.

  "Stupid names. Why do they have to be so similar?" He sat back on the couch with a glazed look in his eyes.

  "Are you going to get your books?"

  He licked his lips and leaned forward. "I've heard stories about you and Latreece's boyfriend."

  "So?" The buzz she had from the liquor quickly dissipated while her heart rate increased. She dreaded where the conversation was headed.

  "I don't understand. I've been asking you out for months but you go out with him instead. He has a girlfriend."

  "I didn't fucking go out with him," she said through clenched teeth. She'd expected to be harassed at school; she hadn't expected it here. She had hoped her anger would shut him up, but no such luck.

  "I saw you go in the room with Corey last weekend at Serena's party."

  She threw her books on the table and stood. "Oh fuck, Jason. Really?"

  "I've treated you with nothing but respect since I've known you."

  "I've had a fucking horrible day with everyone teasing me at school. Now I get here and have to deal with it from you, too. Fuck you. I'm leaving." She turned from him and bent over to pick up her books.

  "Are you crying?" She bought her hand up to her face, it came back wet
. Why was she crying in front of him? Wasn't the fake weed supposed to give her courage? "Don't go. I'm sorry." She was so busy wiping away her tears that she didn't fight it when he grabbed her hand pulled her back onto the couch. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

  She let him hold her as she cried. Maybe it was the liquor, maybe it was the fake weed, or maybe it was her loneliness, but whatever the reason she didn't stop him when he brought his lips down onto hers.

  His sweaty hands on her breast brought her back to reality. He wasn't who she wanted. "No, Jason." She pulled back. "I have to go."

  "Don't go," he pleaded, with his hand still under her shirt. Somehow they'd ended up on the couch with him on top cradled between her legs.

  "No." She tried to move from under him.

  He loomed above her, flushed despite his dark skin. "Do you like it rough? Is that what it is?"

  "No. This isn't what I came here for." Shemeya tore at his chest, but Jason refused to budge.

  He kissed her neck. "I'm tired of being the nice guy," he murmured, pinning her further beneath his body.

  "Get off me!" she screamed. His erection rubbed against the crotch of her jeans. She punched and kicked, but it made him more excited. Her scalp itched as she fought. She wanted to scratch, but she needed both hands to fight Jason off. I'm getting raped but I can't fight the urge to scratch. The inconvenience of it almost made her laugh.

  Something above moved. She looked past Jason. Five snakes were hovering above his head.

  "I'm going crazy." This time she did laugh, and the snakes, which were the same rusty brown color as her dreads, smiled.

  Jason looked towards her. "Why are you laughing?" His eyes darted above her. The feel of his erection disappeared as he crept away, but she wrapped her legs around his waist.

  Her itching scalp had been replaced with pleasurable tingles that ran from her head down to her toes. "Where are you going?" she asked.

  "We need to leave," he said, trembling. "There are snakes in here. There are snakes in your hair." She pulled him closer while he fought to be released. "Let go. We need to get out of here."

  "No, stay," she whispered in his ear. "They won't hurt you."

  Shaking, he looked from Shemeya to the snakes. He tried to force himself from her legs. This time when she tried to pull him closer, he punched her. Pain exploded in her jaw, but she never let go.