Period/ Carrington

I got my period last night. 

Well, technically it was this morning. Like I do every night, I wake up needing to use the bathroom up, to which I would always make a trek downstairs to the kitchen the afterwards, raid the refrigerator quietly so I won’t wake up my grandparents. Well, technically my grandmother because my Poppy can’t hear a damn thing when he’s sleeping yet my granny hears the tiniest noise and will wake up just to investigate. I can’t count the many times we sat at the kitchen table and have deep discussions about how I like to eat up everything in the house and how that affects the entire family that lives there. Sometimes these conversations will last for an hour because once my grandmother starts her infamous rants, it was over for whatever plans you made. Yet I never made it downstairs. The discovery that I found in my underwear prevented me from doing anything else except to run downstairs to the second level where my Uncle Rickey and his wife, my Aunt Lisa along with their three children live. Bypassing the living room where their two boys were playing on their PlayStation like they didn’t have to go to school in a couple of hours, not to mention that their father, my uncle was crazy as hell and would have a fit if he saw his sons still up. Yet knowing that was none of my business and I had an emergency, I ignored them and headed straight to their parents door.

It took two knocks and a frantic Auntie Lisa, I need you, the door was opened and my five-foot three aunt, draped in one of the raggedy bathrobes my uncle complained about on a daily basis, holding her three week baby girl, Larissa in her arms. Ignoring the need to want to hold my newborn cousin, I blurt out to my favorite aunt that my period has now arrived, knocking on my front door much to my relief and I needed pads right away. The big smile that flashed across my aunt’s face along with the squeal that she let out before realizing she held my sleeping cousin wasn’t lost on me. Within minutes after placing her baby down in her basinet, chastised her boys for being up late, she happily supplied me with some pads, escorted me back to the third floor that I shared with my daddy and to my room where we had the “talk”. Not the birds and bees talk that my father swears I don’t need to have because I was never going to have sex. Ever. No, this talk consisted about me as a young woman, learning how to take care of my hygiene which was very important for so many reasons.

It lasted for an hour. Me being the nosey and inquisitive child that I am, I had a question for everything. Everything. I wanted to know what did PMS stand for, why do some women cycles last longer than other and so on and so on. The question and answer session would have kept going if my aunt hadn’t noticed that the sun would be rising soon, signaling the start of a new day. And in my case, the day of my eighth grade graduation. Yes, the day where I officially become a woman, my chapter of junior high was finally coming to an end. 

I glance over at the clock on my nightstand. It was after seven. That meant I needed to get up in about a hour or so. Not to get ready for school. That was officially over for me yesterday. No, I had to get ready for my day of pampering that included a stop at the hair salon for a wash and press, pedicure and manicure at the nail shop, ending with a lunch before the graduation. Yet as I looked across my room, the white jumpsuit that that I got from my shopping trip with my granny and aunties last week wasn’t looking so appealing right now. And my grandmother’s warning that wearing white wasn’t such a good idea especially since my graduation gown was the same color loudly ranged in more ears. The black high heels I picked up at Pay-Less, the jewelry that my cousin Kiana swore that I needed from Claire’s all coordinated with the outfit that I now knew I couldn’t wear. Having a period sucked already. I needed some advice. Now.

I sat up in my pink and white canopy bed, grabbed the cordless phone off it’s charger. I didn’t care that my cousin wasn’t exactly a morning person and would probably cuss me out but I didn’t care. I had a problem that we needed to fix. Before I could even dial the numbers that have become etched in my brain from the moment Kiana got her own line, the phone rung.

One look at the caller id screen brought an immediate smile on my face. Kiana.  It was like my cousin/sister/best friend just knew I needed to talk to her. 

“Kiana Patrice, I swear I-“

“It’s official, Carrington. My parents are idiots and I’m moving in with my grandparents after today.”

I roll my eyes. Hard. It was no secret in our family that Kiana’s parents, my Uncle Brent and Aunt Lucille were the epitome of drama king and queen, the definition of toxicity with a Bobby and Whitney-type love. I have heard my granny, my Aunt Evelyn, Kiana’s grandmother along with the other women in the family discuss how everyone saw the writing on the wall in the beginning that this marriage was doomed on day one for various reasons. One, being that some say my aunt trapped my uncle after she got pregnant with their second child. Yes, Kiana was born two years prior to her parents marriage, a fact that my Aunt Evelyn likes to point out because according to her, their relationship was brand spanking new and with the arrival of their first child introduced a whole set of problems that neither was ready to face. And by the time baby number two was getting ready to make its arrival, their marriage was DOA. Yet neither my aunt nor uncle didn’t have the balls to pull the plug.

“What were they arguing about this time?” I finally ask.

“Don’t ask stupid questions. You know what they were arguing about.”

I did. Just like it was a known fact that they had a dysfunctional marriage, the reason for their dysfunction had a little to do with my Uncle Brent’s infidelity. Okay, a lot to do with his infidelity. Hence, the reason why my aunt oppose their marriage in the first place. 

“Who is he sleeping with this time?”

“It looks like all the single women at Love and Faith at this point. Sometimes I think my daddy just does stupid shit like this just to see how far he can push my mama. The crazy thing is, she lets him!”

“She’s talking about divorce again?” I leave my bed, head to my window to pull my white curtains apart. The sunlight beaming in was the best news for today. My graduation would be ushered in with some rays of sun. Praise God.

“Of course, she is. She wouldn’t be my mama if she didn’t bring up divorce just to reel him back in. Of course he calls her bluff and that starts another argument which makes me want to run away to my grandparents house and BJ to his room to play video games.”

That wasn’t a surprise. BJ, short for Brent Jr, was the normal preteen boy who used his love of video games to escape his parents incessant arguing while Kiana prefer to head to the safest place on earth: her grandparents home.

“So, enough of my problems, what’s going on with you? You ready to graduate today?”

I flop backwards on my bed. “I got my period today, Kiana.”

Silence. Like actual silence. Then a loud squeal,penetrated through the phone which prompt me to immediately pull the phone away from ear because I knew it wasn’t going to end anytime soon. Kiana’s dramatic. Always. Been that way since the day she was born which was a dramatic event in itself. According to my grandmother, Aunt Lucille was five days overdue, prepare to deliver the natural way but her child try to come feet first which resulted in a c-section that she never lets her daughter forget. 

I put the phone back to my ear just as the squealing ended. “All that wasn’t even necessary, Kiana. “

“Girl, I’m so happy for you! Can you believe that three days ago, I got my period and now you got yours?”

Yes, I could. Besides clothes, shoes, jewelry and the occasional unsolicited advice that we give each other, we also share the same birthday, November 5th, born thirty minutes apart. That meant joint birthday parties which proved to be a headache and a blessing to our parents.

“Did you tell your daddy?”

“You can’t tell someone something when you haven’t seen them since yesterday before he left for work and I for school.”

“Oh, so he’s out being a ho again?”

“Did we or did we not agree that I’m the only person who can call my daddy a ho?”

“Okay, did you tell your granny? Aunt Lisa?”

“My Aunt Lisa knows which means that my granny and the rest of the village will before I head downstairs for breakfast.”

“You tell your-“

“You better not say her name, Kiana Patrice Ford.” The threatening tone I used in my voice should have been enough for my cousin to back off. 

It didn’t. “What? You’re going to see her at the graduation. I just thought-“

I didn’t wait to hear what she thought. I ended the call before my big mouth-well meaning cousin stuck her foot where it didn’t belong. I threw the phone near the end of bed, close my eyes. I knew it was pointless to try to go back to sleep, knowing that my granny would be yelling for me to come down soon but I needed to rest my eyes like the old folks say. 

I turn over on my side just the phone rung. Not even letting it get to the second ring, I grab the phone, hit the talk button. 

“Hello?”

“Niecy, you got your period, girl! You a woman now!”

I’m going to kill my Aunt Lisa.

                                           “I’m A Ho-Darnell

 A ho is going to do what a ho is going to do

I’m a ho.

This is something that I, Darnell Trevon Davis have known about myself since I was a teenager and I got caught fucking my girlfriend’s cousin by said girlfriend at my house one day after school because apparently she just had a feeling that something was going on between them. And that feeling led her to steal her mama’s car and drive over to my house where she proceeded to not only beat her cousin’s ass but cuss me out, screaming how I’m nothing but a ho and that nothing good will ever come to me as long as I live. Then there was the time I thought it would be a good idea to sleep  with not one, but three sisters who all once had a close bond with one another until I entered their lives, destroying said bond. Then when I was in my senior year in high school, I  thought I would change my hoing ways and settle down with the new girl who just moved from Memphis to live with her aunt and uncle. I mean she had all the criteria that any boy would want in a girlfriend: fine as hell, loved my dirty draws and all, catering to my every waking need yet my trifling ways( my mama’s words) once again reared it’s ugly head and I managed to destroy my relationship in one night. Graduation night, that is. We were suppose to be celebrating our huge accomplishment but instead I was celebrating with a girl I really didn’t give a damn about while my girlfriend was waiting for me with her family to celebrate our graduation. That night really sealed it for me that I had a problem. A big one.

Yet I didn’t stop. I continue my whorish ways( again, my mother’s words) all through college, my marriage, having my first child, getting a divorce and even when I had the good sense to use my brain and go get my MBA, I was still being me. A ho. In my defense though, being a ho was in a my DNA, beginning with my great-great grandfather who been married more times than Elizabeth Taylor, continued with his son, my great-grandfather, grandfather and finally my father, who unlike the men in his life before him, finally settled down with my mother, making her his one and only wife after years of doing her wrong. I strive to be that type of man my daddy is to my mama. I want to be that man:faithful and trustworthy, someone that a woman would want to come home to. Unfortunately, according to my mama and em, if I didn’t keep my dick in my pants, I would never be that type of man. Ever.

It’s not like I’m a bad dude. I’m not. I’m a hard worker with two jobs, actually, working as a human resource manager at a food distribution warehouse Monday through Friday and for the family construction business that my father started thirty years ago whenever my brothers wasn’t working my nerves, family-oriented, loyal friend, funny, can dress my ass off, show up anybody on the dance floor, love the lord even though my attendance at church was low and most importantly I was a damn good father to my one and only child. That should have at least counted for something. My only flaw is that I love women and that love has cost me greatly.

And now as I lie on a bed that doesn’t belong to me, staring up at the ceiling fan above, listening to the god-awful singing coming from the person I had no business being with as she took a shower, it was clear to me that I had a problem. A big problem. At thirty-six years old, I can’t keep going this way. As much as I love being a bachelor, with only one woman to answer to (my baby girl and occasionally my mother), the late-night booty calls, not having to buy gifts for birthdays, holidays, I missed being with one woman. And not just any woman, though. I want the one woman who I have been in love with since our senior year in high school. The one woman I actually gave my last name to. The one woman who- 

The pager that his mama swore that he didn’t need because she claims that they were only two types of people who should have one: drug dealers and doctors beeped from the nightstand. I sigh, roll my eyes. There were only two people who were bold enough to page me this early in the morning: my mama and my child. I sat up, grab the pager. It was my child. Setting the pager back on the nightstand, I grabbed the hotel’s phone, dial the number that has belong to my child for the past year.  

“This better be an emergency, little girl.”

“Daddy, where are you? I haven’t seen you since yesterday morning before I went to school.”

I close my eyes, massage my forehead. Carrington Aliyah Davis is a spoiled brat and I had no one to blame but myself, though. Being my one and only child, a girl at that, not to mention not having a relationship with her trifling ass mama( somehow, I take full responsibility for that) and not growing up in the same household with the one woman who had the ability to be a real mother to her(again my fault), I vowed to put her first at all times, no matter what. She was my first priority and even though one of my hobbies included running through as many women as I could, Carrington was the only one who got my undivided attention Monday-thru Friday, twenty-four seven. Since the time she could form words, she got whatever she want out of me: clothes, books( she reads every damn thing), shoes( she loved Jordans like I do), food( she’s picky as hell and don’t eat everybody’s cooking) and money( she wholeheartedly believes my money is hers). And as the years went by, progressing into her teenage years, her needs were getting bigger and bigger. And I was getting sick of it.

“I could have sworn that I was the parent and you’re the child in this relationship. What I tell you about questioning me?”

The heavy sigh, the sucking of the teeth follow by what I’m sure sounded like you get on my nerves came out of my child’s mouth. I smile because I know she rolled her eyes as well but since she knew I couldn’t physically reach through the phone and roll it back for her, she got brave and stupid.

“Now like I said before, this better be an emergency. What do you want?”

I wait for an answer. Nothing. I roll my eyes, sit up on the side of the bed. It wasn’t even nine yet and already my child was going to make me cuss her out before noon.

“Carrington Aliyah Davis, you got five seconds to answer me. One...”

More sucking of the teeth, then, “Never mind.” And then, she hangs up. Now I really wanted to cuss her little ass out.

“This girl is going to drive me crazy and give me gray hair all before I’m forty,” I mutter to myself. I hang the phone back up, immediately pick it back up, attempt to dial her number again. Graduation or not, she was going to get told about herself today. 

“As always, nothing has changed with that child of yours.”

My finger froze on the last number. I close my eyes, pray to God that the voice behind me would simply disappear but since this hotel room was under her name, I knew that wasn’t possible. I place the phone back on the receiver, ready for the bullshit that was about to come out her mouth. Because it was coming. Five...four...three....

“She’s getting worse as she gets older, Darnell and you just keep letting her do whatever the hell she wants.”

One. Just like I said, here she went with her bullshit. I should have ignored her page yesterday after I got off work but being a human resource manager of a huge food distribution center that require me to exercise the patience that my mother swore I didn’t have for ten hours, five days a week, I needed a distraction. A welcome one. I wanted to forget about how I had to deal with a number of employees whose questionable actions over the past few weeks, has landed them in my office, on the verge of losing their jobs, my supervisor breathing down my back for multiple of reasons that was my beyond my control and the stress of knowing that my little girl was growing up. I wanted to forget it all. And the moment I saw a familiar number scroll on my pager, I forgot about the promises I made to myself after the last time I answer her page: that I wouldn’t anymore. Yet a trip back to my office, a quick call to the one woman my mama wholeheartedly believes is the devil’s little sister, I found myself driving to the Holiday Inn in Bolingbrook where for the next ten hours, I found myself screwing in the bed that I now laid in with someone who didn’t mean me no good. My mama’s words, by the way.

“Darnell Trevon Davis, I know you hear me talking to you.”

I reopen my eyes, turn to face her. She stood in the bathroom doorway, leaning against the jamb, glaring at me like I physically hurt her in some sort of way. I glare back. Reign Foster is a pain in my ass. Been that way since the first day I met her at a party. A party that I had no business being since I was a newly, married man but anyways after a fight with my bride, I found myself attending a friend of a friend’s party, drinking way too much alcohol which led to me falling for the twenty year old, caramel, big booty beauty that didn’t care about the ring on my third finger. Apparently, I didn’t either.

“You’re treading on a thin ice, Ms. Foster.” I threw the covers off, stood up. The boxers that I slipped on about three hours ago thankfully covered up my big, family jewels that I was extremely proud of, not giving my bed partner a show. I grab my shirt and pants off the floor, more determine to get home and away from her.

“You and I both know that what I’m saying is the truth and.....”

I laugh. Hard. Reign and truth didn’t belong in the same sentence. She knew it, I knew it, along with her entire family, beginning with her parents. The fact that she like to toss that word around like she was the walking definition of it was pretty damn amusing.

“What the hell is so funny, Darnell?”

“You, that’s what.” I began to button up my shirt, slip into my brand new dress shoes. I sat back down on the bed, tied them up, glance around from the bed to the nightstand to the floor, making sure I didn’t forget a damn thing. 

I walk over to her, ignore the heavenly scent of whatever she was wearing as well as her curvy body in the hotel’s robe, lean down, close to her ear, “I know your ass ain’t wrap too tight, a fact that I discovered sixteen years ago but I’m only going to say this once and hopefully your ass will get it. Don’t you ever mention my child in any type of way, whether it’s good, bad or indifferent. You lost that right once you dropped her off at my house and never returned.”

                                       Dysfunctional Family

You can’t choose your family but you sholl can ignore their assess.....

I love my daddy but I hate the woman who gave birth to me. 

I know that’s strange to hear but given my non-existent relationship with the selfish woman who made it clear from day one that she doesn’t give a fuck about me(all because she can’t have my daddy) in general. Yes, that’s how evil she is. Anyway, unlike my cousins, friends, classmates and every young girl in America, I don’t have a relationship with my mother. Never have and probably never will. According to my granny, aunties, stepmother(yes, I have a stepmother despite her divorce from my father when I was five years old), my bio mother ain’t never been shit, will never be shit as long as she lived. Of course they didn’t say that directly to me. I overheard(okay, I was eavesdropping) one of their many gossiping sessions that they like to have whenever they they think us kids are outside. In their words, the woman had no business being anyone’s mother since she was a shepherd for the devil which was strange since  she already gave birth to not one, not two but three children before I was even thought about. Yes, I have siblings. Triplet siblings. Two sisters, one brother, five years older than me which meant their mother started young. Like seventeen years young.

Anyway, besides coming out of the same vagina, the only other thing I have in common with the trio is our light complexion(bright light according to my granny), sandy-brown hair and hazel eyes that everybody and their mama swear isn’t real. They’re in college, I’m heading to high school. They have an I’m better than you attitude courtesy of their father. I, on the other hand, have a no one is better than anyone, I don’t care how much money they have attitude courtesy of my own father. They have a close relationship with our mother. I hate the ground that she walks on. See, nothing in common. Now, don’t get me wrong, we speak whenever we see each other at family get-togethers which is rare because I never want to go. I say all of this to say: we love each from a distance and I’m cool with that.

Now my daddy on the other hand can do no wrong. Like at all. Okay, that’s totally not true because he just pissed me off ten minutes ago when I called to tell him my news. That’s the norm for us, though. He will get on my nerves which seem to be most of the time and I will get on his. I’m not going to lie, I can be an evil bitch sometimes. Something I inherited from my mother. 

Anyway, my daddy is the only biological parent that I can count on, trust with my life. From the moment I came into this world, almost fifteen years ago, he has never left my side? According to my granny, despite being married(my parents are cheaters) to my stepmother, he was the first person at the hospital, awaiting my birth. The countless pictures of him holding and kissing me, me falling asleep on his chest confirmed that on the first day of my life, I was truly loved. Not just by the affection, though. My granny said that after visiting hours were over, my daddy ran to all the stores and bought practically everything that I would need since my mother’s family didn’t think it was appropriate to throw a baby shower for a child born out of wedlock. They were a different type of Baptist. 

The lack of support from that other side should have left a negative impact on me but my daddy and “real family gave me everything I needed: love and wanted: expensive clothes, shoes and money.  Majority of the family believes that my daddy is to blame for me being a spoiled brat but the truth is, they are all guilty of making me this way. Starting with my grandparents, stepmother, uncles and aunts, they all played a part in my upbringing, good or bad. And I love them for that. 

Today, not so much. I stand in front of my window, watch as family member after family member get out of their cars, make their way into my grandparents home. And I’m pissed. I get it. I’m the first granddaughter, the first child from their eldest in the family and because technically, I don’t have a mother, they tend to give me extra attention for every major or minor event in my life. My first day of school? They all showed up with cameras like I was going to the Grammys or something. When I got my first perm? They all thought it would be a good idea to assemble here at my grandparents house just so they can offer their opinion on how it should go. And during my spelling bee in the fifth grade, they cheered like I was in the NBA finals. And today was no exception. It just takes for one phone call for everyone in the family to know what’s going on.  I’m certain that this is how it went: My Aunt Lisa called my Aunt Theresa, who probably started screaming(just like she did when called twenty minutes ago), they then started a three-way with my Aunt Jackie, closing out the sister-in-law trifecta. Technically, it’s four sisters-in-law but given that my Aunt Carissa is fairly new to the family, they tend to ice her out of their close bond from time to time. A fact that she brings up every time they’re all together. And she will again today. 

I turn away from the window, ready to go downstairs just as my phone rings. I pick it up on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Carrington Aliyah Davis, if you don’t get your behind downstairs , you better. We don’t have all day to be waiting for you!”

I raise my eyes heavenward, fights the urge to roll them.  Because despite being three floors up, tuck safely in my room, somehow, someway, my granny will know that I roll my eyes. All the the time.

“Granny, I’m coming. I just wanted to wait for my Daddy.” That was a lie. I was mad at him and I really didn’t care if he show up or not.

“Girl, your ugly ass daddy is down here already. We’re just waiting for you. Come on!”