Black Beauty Read online

  "That's not what I heard," Andre said, thinking of lines that might work on Latreece.

  Andre finished the last of the sandwich and drank his glass of water in one gulp.

  "You coming to the basketball court?"

  "No, I got stuff to take care of," Sean said.

  "Since when do you do anything on Saturdays except play ball?"

  He lifted his shoulders and ignored the question.

  "Your loss." Andre picked up his ball from the floor, opened the front door but stopped abruptly. A woman with long hair and a voluptuous ass headed towards the parking lot. Her hair flowed past her shoulders in a black cascade. She wore a leather jacket and tight stonewashed jeans. "Damn, Sean, is that Ashley? My brother's ex is looking good." It must be her. Ashley was the only light-skinned chick with class around here. But she usually wore a ponytail to hide her nappy hair.

  Sean ran to the door in less than a second, looking at Ashley's ass right next Andre. But then she turned, and they both jumped back.

  "Damn." Andre's stomach twisted with fear and shock. He'd been correct. It was Ashley. She looked good from the back, but when she turned, her face was a different story. Her eyes were sunken into her face, and they were surrounded by black-blue circles that contrasted sharply with her pale skin.

  "Has she been doing crack?" Andre asked, half-joking and half-serious.

  Andre looked at Sean. His eyes were unreadable.

  Ashley turned back towards the parking lot and walked away. As she disappeared, the twisting in his belly began to unwind. "I'm about to go play ball. You coming?"

  Sean sighed and looked from the spot Ashley had been. "No. Like I said. I'm staying in today."

  How the hell did someone go from fine-as-hell to crack-head so fast? Andre wondered. She must've been doing that for years without anyone knowing. He shook his head in pity while he dribbled his ball past the swimming pool to the basketball court.

  A silver boom box sat on the grass and belted out Tupac's "Brenda's Got A Baby" while Andre surveyed his competition. There were six guys on the court playing 3 on 3 with no one on the sidelines waiting to get tagged in. While he waited, he noticed two girls sitting near the playground. They sat on the picnic tables watching a kid in red overalls climbing on the jungle gym. They must have been new because he'd never seen them before. One of the girls had pale blotchy skin and strawberry-blonde hair. The other was a blond with smooth tanned skin.

  "You playing or what?" Raymond asked, sweat clung to his dark skin and glistened off the bald spot on the top of his head.

  "Take your old ass home." Andre placed his ball on the grass and stepped onto the court.

  "You can talk noise now, but I'll kick your ass when I get back," Raymond said with a labored breath.

  "Whatever," Andre said.

  During the game, the girls smiled, giggled, and turned away every time he looked over. He wondered if they were from the neighborhood or new to the apartments. The longer he played, the more curious he became. He was relieved when he saw Benita, Latreece's cousin, talking to them. She gave him an excuse to walk over.

  "You're up," Andre said to Raymond, who had been drinking grape Kool-Aid and talking noise from the sidelines.

  "You scared? Why you leaving?" Raymond asked, setting his drink on the grass.

  "Man, I'll be back." Andre dismissed the insult with the wave of his hand.

  As he approached, the two girls laughed and looked away; trying to pretend they didn't see him coming, but Benita eyed him coldly, scowling as he approached.

  "What's up, Benita?" he asked.

  "What's up, Andre?"

  "Who are your friends?"

  "None of your damn business," Benita said.

  He turned from her, still feeling her gaze on the side of his face. "Where y'all from?" he asked the shorter girl with the tan.

  "We just moved in," she replied.

  She was even prettier up close, Andre realized. "What's your name?" he asked, deepening his voice.

  She glanced away for a moment, but then she looked at him and smiled. "I'm Julia."

  He couldn't remember the last time a girl made him feel this good just by smiling. "I'm Dre. Like Doctor Dre." His heart pounded, but he kept his face straight.

  "It's Andre," Benita said, "not Dre. Why are you over here anyway? They don't care what your name is." She sneered and looked him up and down as if to say she knew exactly why he was here, and she wasn't going to make it easy for him. Benita was dark but pretty. She usually wore her hair down, but she'd gotten it braided a few weeks ago, and it hung down her back making her look like Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice.

  "Man, I'm just trying to be friendly." Damn. He should have come over when Benita had left. He had forgotten the girl tried to get with him when Sean and Latreece first hooked up. He had turned her down. She was nice and all, but he hadn't been interested.

  "Take your skinny, slanky ass back to the basketball court 'cause nobody wants you over here," Benita said, her braids swinging as she rolled her neck.

  From the corner of his vision, he saw Julia and the other girl giggle.

  "You're just jealous cause nobody wants your ass," he said, acting fast to save face.

  "Forget you. Why is it whenever the white girls come our here your fake ass be all over 'em?" Rage flashed in Benita's eyes.

  "Cause y'all black girls is loud and look like cockroaches," Andre said, matching Benita's anger with his own.

  Her mouth fell open, and she turned gray. She looked as if she'd just swallowed a fly.

  Andre looked around. It seemed like the entire apartment complex had gone quiet as he realized what he'd just said.

  He hadn't noticed before, but Crazy Jade and her son were a few feet away. Her son sat on the swing uselessly kicking his legs. Jade mother held the metal chain preventing him from moving while she stared at Andre.

  "I'm telling your momma," Benita said, jabbing her finger into his chest, her moment of speechlessness gone. The entire complex came alive again with the squeaking sneakers on the basketball court and grunts from the ballers. Crazy Jade to push her son again, but she still stared at Andre.

  "I was just kidding," he said to Benita, but she had already stalked away, anger rolling off her in waves.

  The other girls had left, too. They knew better than to get in between an argument with two black folks. He should have ran after Benita to try to get her to stay quiet, but he knew a lost battle when he saw one. But he could salvage his conversation with Julia. He started after her, but something, someone, grabbed his arm.

  He looked down to see Crazy Jade. She'd just been at the swings. How did she get here so quickly?

  He tried to pull his arm away, but her grip was as strong as a vice. "Excuse me," he said, pulling his arm away and attempting to be polite. He was in enough trouble already. The last thing he needed was for his mother to find out he was rude to an adult, also.

  She held on, refusing to loosen her grip. "All black woman look like cockroaches?" she asked.

  "No, I was . . ."

  "Isn't your mother black?"

  "I'm sorry, Miss Jade," Andre laughed nervously. "I was just talking noise. I didn't mean it."

  "If all black girls look like cockroaches, and your mother is black, then that makes you a cockroach." Her face was twisted like she was trying to do a difficult math problem in her head.

  "I was just kidding," he said. "Benita was talking smack to me first."

  She narrowed her eyes and said something in a language he couldn't understand.

  But he knew enough to be scared. He tried again to pull his arm away, but her grip was too strong. Panic bubbled in his belly. Just as he was about to scream, she let go. He fell to the ground, landing hard on his butt.

  Jade's copper eyes glared down at him before she turned to her son, who still sat on the swing pumping his legs up and down.

  "Come on, baby," she said. "Let's get inside. There are one too many cockroaches out here."


  Andre's heart pounded as he sat on his ass and watched Crazy Jade and her son walk away. What the hell just happened?

  He closed his eyes and willed himself to relax. Had she cursed him? Everyone said she was a witch, but witches don't exist. She was only trying to scare him. Why would an evil witch walk around the hood with a kid? If she was a witch, why was she broke just like everyone else? A real witch would have enough power to have money. If she lived here, there must not be anything magical or special about her.

  Raymond walked over with a grin on his face and a cup in his hand. The smell of the liquor reached Andre before Raymond did.

  "What did Crazy Jade do to you?" Raymond asked laughing.

  "Man, she crazy." Andre stood and patted the dirt and grass from the back of his shorts. "You see where those girls went?"

  Raymond shook his head and grimaced. "Them white girls?

  "Yeah."

  "Them girls are gonna get your ass in some serious trouble one day."

  "It ain't the 1950s. Lots of black dudes in school got white girls and ain't nobody been lynched." Andre remembered the hurt on Benita's face and the crazy way Jade spoke to him. He shook his head, deciding to concentrate on more important issues. "Whatever. Did you see where they went?"

  "I saw them hanging around there yesterday." Raymond pointed to the far end of the complex, past the playground.

  Without another word, Andre ran in the direction Raymond had pointed. He rounded the corner and slowed when he found who he was looking for. Julia sat alone on the stairs, almost like she was waiting for him.

  He walked towards her and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "What's up?" he asked. "I thought I'd lost you."

  She smiled with perfectly straight, white teeth. "I thought you would be getting your butt whooped by your momma."

  He laughed. "No. My mom is cool. She knows I like to talk noise." Andre lied. His momma was gonna kick his ass when she found out what he'd said. But Julia didn't need to know that.

  "Do you really think black girls look like cockroaches?" she asked incredulously. "That's harsh."

  "No. I was just trying to rag on Benita. I didn't think before I spoke." He grinned. "I talk too much sometimes."

  She nodded, looking as if she was giving his answer serious thought. He couldn't tell if she was happy to hear he didn't think black girls looked like cockroaches or disappointed.

  "There isn't anything wrong with them," he explained. "Benita liked me, but I wasn't interested. That's why she was talking all that noise."

  Julia nodded. This time, she looked more bored than anything.

  He sat beside her on the stairs. The sun had heated the step, and it was almost too hot to sit on. "Why haven't I seen you before?"

  "I just moved in last week."

  After thirty minutes, Andre learned Julia was a sophomore, one year below him, her first day at school would be Monday, and he'd left with her phone number.

  It was near ten and dark outside before Andre started the trek to his apartment. He'd thought about spending the night with Sean instead of going home. But he had a feeling his mother would track him down and beat him in front of the entire apartment complex.

  He stood outside the door, took a deep breath and turned the knob. He peered inside, hoping his mom would be already in bed. The lights and the TV were off. He couldn't remember the last time he'd stepped into the house before midnight without a television show or videos blaring in the background. The laundry from earlier was gone. He winced when he saw his mother sitting on the couch in the darkness.

  "Sit down, boy," she ordered.

  Wordlessly, he closed the door, switched on the lamp in the living room, and sat next to her.

  "I'm s. . ." he began, ready to defend himself.

  "Shut up," Pam Jackson ordered. "Is what Benita said true?" She must have just taken a shower because she wore a red bathrobe, and she smelled of cocoa butter lotion. A thick, see-through plastic shower cap covered the large pink foam rollers she had in her hair.

  "Momma, she was talking smack all up in my face." His voice sounded too loud and defensive even to him.

  "Did you tell Benita that black girls look like cockroaches?" Her voice was steady and sounded as if she hoped he would deny it.

  He clenched his jaw and focused his gaze on where he imagined the worsesome twins had wasted their sugary cereal, debating rather he should tell the truth or not.

  "Did you!" she shouted, startling him out of his thoughts.

  "Yes," he muttered, condemning himself. "But I didn't mean it."

  "You fixed your mouth to say it. You must think there is some truth to it." She turned to him. Her eyes were hard and glistening with tears. "Every time I go to the grocery store, people look at me like I'm a parasite because I use food stamps to feed my family. When I go out in public with four kids and no man in sight, I'm treated like a welfare queen. Outside of this house, I'm nothing but a cockroach to people who don't know me. To come home and learn that my son has said those words to another black woman." She wiped the tears from her face. "This is a hundred times worse than being treated like crap by everyone outside of my house. They don't matter to me, but you did." She stood and began walking to the back of the house.

  "But, Momma."

  She stopped. "I know I'm not perfect. I know we don't have nothin'. But I didn't raise you to disrespect women, especially black women."

  "But, Momma!" his voice cracked while tears fell onto his face.

  "Shut up!" she shouted. "I don't want to hear or see you anymore tonight. You're lucky I don't throw you out onto the streets."

  He closed his mouth and watched his mother walk into her room.

  Left alone, he longed for an ass whooping with a switch while she cursed him out. Because he knew the next day, she'd be herself again. She'd still be his mother. But as he watched her leave, the reassurance she would still love him was no longer there.

  His mother didn't say a word to him for the rest of the weekend. Whenever she looked his way, she scowled and rolled her eyes. To pile guilt on top of trouble, the worsesome twins, after hearing what he'd said to Benita, had asked if he thought they looked like cockroaches. His automatic response was to say yes and brush them off, but he hesitated.

  "Don't y'all already know you're pretty?" They were always showing off their new hairstyles and prancing around in identical outfits, looking for compliments from anybody who believed they were twins. How could they not know?

  "Yeah, but do you think we look like cockroaches?" one of them asked. "We're black girls. And you said black girls look like cockroaches." They stared at him with a steady, hard gaze like they already knew they wouldn't like his answer.

  He bent to one knee. For the first time since they were babies, he studied them, taking in their dark brown skin. Koko had a tooth missing in the front, and Kali had no front teeth on the top or bottom. Both had their mother's wide nose and large eyes. But even with missing teeth, they were beautiful.

  "Koko and Kali," he said. "You're the most beautiful girls I've ever seen. Y'all hair is always on point. And your clothes be styling more than anyone else in these apartments, even mine. Nah, y'all don't look like no damn cockroaches."

  They narrowed their eyes and pulled away from him. Then Kali, slightly taller than Koko, rolled her neck, and said, "Yeah, I know I'm fine."

  "Me too." Koko imitated Kali's head roll and snapped her fingers three times. They both sauntered away like two supermodels on a catwalk.

  Andre leaned against the wall next to the trophy case at the entrance of Gene Autry High School. He had never been so excited for school to start. His mother hadn't said a word to him for the entire weekend, and Malik teased him every time they saw each other. The weekend hadn't been a total let down, though.

  Saturday night, he hid in his room and talked to Julia until 1 A.M. Since his mother hadn't officially grounded him, the next day, he met up with Julia, and they walked around the surrounding neighborhood. It took a wh
ile and a lot of sweet-talking, but she let him kiss her on the jungle gym at an elementary school. She'd been chewing Big Chew bubble gum, and if he concentrated, he could still taste the cherry-flavored gum on his lips.

  "Hey, Andre," Sean said.

  "What's up?" Andre said, hoping he'd say what he wanted to say and go away. He was waiting for Julia. He was supposed to be on the bus, but he'd missed it trying to starch and crease his jeans. His brother had to take him to school instead. Because the buses were slow as hell, he'd still made it to school first. Andre wasn't jealous of Sean or anything, but girls always stared at him like he was L.L. Cool J.

  "I heard you got into it with Crazy Jade," Sean said.

  Andre straightened, steeling himself against the upcoming jokes. "You come to clown me too?"

  "Nah. I just want to know what she said to you."

  Andre studied Sean, trying to tell if he was lying. "Why?"

  "She's been doing some seriously crazy crap, and I'm curious."

  Suddenly Andre was curious, too. Why did he care about Crazy Jade? "She said something about if black girls are cockroaches, then I'm a cockroach too." Andre leaned back against the wall.

  "Is that it?" Sean asked.

  "She mumbled something I couldn't understand. I think she was pretending like she was cursing me. I didn't fall for it. You don't believe in that crap, do you?"

  "I don't know, man. How do you feel?"

  Andre shrugged. "I feel fine."

  "Then, you're probably okay. Just stay away from her, and if anything changes, or you start feeling weird, let me know."

  "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah." Andre stepped away from Sean. He had spotted Julia in the crowd of bus kids. Julia made him forget about Crazy Jade, his mother, and cockroaches. She made all of his problems go away.

  Clothes. Check. Andre had to tighten the belt on a pair of his brother's old Calvin Klein jeans an extra loop, but they still looked good. He made a mental note to eat more. His mom had gone shopping yesterday, and he planned to spend the next few days eating everything he could get away with.

  Hair. Check.

  He breathed into his hand to check his breath and cringed. It smelled like rotting meat. Andre quickly put twice as much toothpaste onto his toothbrush and brushed again.