Authors: Laurie Jean Cannady
Put a Fork in It
Put a Fork in It
Watching Mary hand Sanford's letter to Momma made my stomach curl into knots. I tried to suppress my anxiety, but it escaped in sweat beads racing down my back. Momma's facial expression changed from curiosity, to shock, then anger. Up until her reading that letter, she'd believed Sanford and I ended the day I returned from the Richmond MEPS. Momma had grown too involved in the traumas of her own life to notice the change in me. Mary, on the other hand, saw everything.
When I lied about spending the night with Veeta and came home with a black eye, Mary knew Sanford was the guilty party. When I hid bruises on my arms with long shirts, she snuck into the bedroom as I undressed and saw my war wounds in their entirety. She woke in the morning to find hair that no longer belonged to me on my pillow and asked why I let him do that to me. I had no answer.
Mary came downstairs one day as Sanford pinned me to the chair, his hands around my neck. She ran into the kitchen, picked up a knife, and brandished it in front of him.
“You better leave or I'll cut you,” she said.
“Mary, we're just playing,” Sanford offered his signature smile.
“What game is this?” Mary asked. Sanford giggled and inched his way to the door.
“What are you going to do with a knife?” he shook his head and let out a hollow laugh.
Mary was not laughing, “You want to find out?” Sanford walked to the door. As he exited, he flashed a sullen look, one of a two-year-old, being scolded for inappropriate behavior. I knew he'd be back. One timeout couldn't keep him away.
“Why do you let him do this?” she asked.
“I love him” was all I could say. It was enough for her to keep our secret, but not enough for her to allow him in the house again.
“If he comes back here, I'm going to tell Momma.”
I dropped my chin to my chest in defeat. “Okay,” I said. I too felt like a child being scolded. Mary was thirteen and I was sixteen, but age didn't matter. She had earned the authoritative role when she became my protector.
Mary took her role seriously. Whenever I came home from school, she asked if he had touched me. When I told Momma I was spending the night with Veeta, she would remind Momma to call and make sure I was there. Her attempts offered relief, and I often used her as an excuse to stay away from Sanford. Those excuses made Sanford write the letter that Mary found on my bed and immediately gave to Momma.
She was not keeping my secret anymore. Momma stared at the letter, then looked at me with disbelief. “Why didn't you give this to me?” she asked. “I thought you were already over.”
“He's not serious, Momma. He was just mad because I told him we were over.”
“He's not serious?” She shook the letter in front of my face, as if its breeze could transmit the severity of Sanford's words to my brain.
“He writes things like that sometimes. He never really does anything.”
“What?” That was Mary's opportunity. “Look at her arms, Momma. He bites her.”
“Stop lying,” I screamed.
“Take off your shirt,” Momma ordered. Purple imprints of Sanford's bites covered my arms.
Momma gasped, “Get yourself together. We're going to his house.”
I walked up the stairs saying a prayer for my family. There was no way to get us out of this. Everything Sanford had said in that letter would happen. He would shoot me, Momma, my sister, and then himself. I wanted to tell her all of this before we went to his home, but I knew it would only make her angrier, and I couldn't allow things to get worse.
On the way to Sanford's house, I remembered the times he and I took the same walk, holding hands and looking at trees blowing
in the wind. I thought him so handsome, so gentle and loving then. How long ago had that been? The trees had no answer.
Momma didn't speak during the twenty-minute walk. When she looked at me, she shook her head and clenched her fists. I hoped Sanford wouldn't be home, that his family had moved or maybe his house had burned down. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I had a plan to get away. I was still going into the Army, even if I promised Sanford I wouldn't. I'd leave right after graduation and he'd never be able to find me. The letter had ruined everything. I'd be lucky if I made it to graduation.
We walked up the sidewalk that led to Sanford's door. His brother and cousin sat on the porch. They must have felt something was about to happen because they ran into the house to get Sanford. He came to the door flashing the smile that had always convinced Momma he was a good guy.
“Hi, Ms. Lois.”
Momma walked up to him and stared in his eyes. “I want to talk to your grandmother.” Sanford's expression immediately changed, but he worked to maintain his smile. He walked into the house and Momma followed. When she saw his grandmother, she pushed past Sanford.
“Look at what Sanford wrote to Laurie.”
Sanford's grandmother read the letter aloud for her husband to hear. The threats floated from her lips as if she were reading the morning paper.
I'll kill you if you leave. Your sister needs to stay out of our business before I shut her up forever. Your mother is asking for trouble if she doesn't let you come over here this weekend. I'll kill everybody if they keep pissing me off. I'll get my cousin's gun and shoot them, you, and me
.
After reciting Sanford's words so eloquently, she looked at Momma as if to ask, “Who wrote this?” Momma answered her look with force.
“Look at my daughter's arm.” I was standing near the chair closest to the door, praying I could melt out of existence. Momma pulled
my shirt up to the bruises on my arm, inadvertently revealing my bra. Sanford's grandmother was expressionless.
“Sanford,” she called. He walked into the room glaring at me. “You didn't do this? Did you?” she asked.
“Grandma, you know I would never hit Laurie.”
Momma stood in the middle of the floor surrounded by Sanford's suppressed rage, his grandmother's disbelief, and his brother and cousin's readiness to pounce. She glared at each of them. “You are all crazy,” she hissed.
“Crazy,” his grandmother raised her voice. “Your daughter is nothing but trouble, sneaking into my house.”
“You raised a woman beater,” Momma flung back at her.
As their argument continued, Sanford slipped out of the living room to the kitchen where he could get my attention and give me all of his. He stood in the doorjamb. His broad shoulders centered in the door. He pointed his finger at me as he scream-whispered, “I am going to get you.” He paced back and forth from the den to the kitchen. He banged his right fist into his open hand. He grabbed his head in between his hands. It was like watching a madman trying to stop his brain from exploding. In between his paced steps, he stopped, bent over with his hands covering his face, and silently screamed. We were both deaf to the exchange of words between Momma and his grandmother. It was me and him together again in our other world.
Momma's final words invaded, “Keep him away from my daughter or I'll have his ass put in jail.” She snatched the letter out of his grandmother's hand. “Come on, Laurie.” She stormed out of the door as I shrank away, feeling Sanford's eyes burning into my back. I was happy to get out of the stifling house filled with Sanford's rage. I rushed alongside Momma, trying to keep up with her infuriated steps. We made it to the corner when the commotion that had erupted in the house spilled onto the street. Momma and I looked back as Sanford, his brother, and cousin came barreling down the street after us. The cries I had bravely held in Sanford's house burst out of me in a wail. I grabbed Momma.
“Let's run,” I screamed. We could make it home if we ran all of the way there. Momma snatched her arm away from me. She bent and began to fumble with her shoe. “Momma, please fix your shoe later,” I cried. “We have to run.”
She grabbed my chin, looked into my eyes and said, “You are not running anymore.”
I didn't understand what she was saying. As far as I knew, she hadn't known what was happening with Sanford. It took me years to understand she wasn't just talking about me. I was shocked to see Momma rise holding a knife she had pulled from her sock. She stood up just in time for Sanford and his family to enclose us in a circle. She grabbed my arm and pulled me behind her. They attempted to reach over Momma to grab me.
“How are you going to come to our house?” his cousin hollered.
“You're not getting away from me,” Sanford kept saying.
“I'll gut all of you. You're never touching my daughter again,” Momma replied. The scene resembled one of those old gang fights seen on television. Our movements were so precise they looked choreographed. Sanford, his brother, and cousin moved around us, maintaining their semi-circle. Momma moved as they moved, keeping herself as a shield between them and me.
All of a sudden, Sanford stopped, realizing he had dropped his mask of the loving, sweet Sanford. Momma had finally seen firsthand what he was. He immediately called off his posse.
“Y'all, stop. Leave them alone. We can't do this.” His voice was so calm, it sounded like he was trying to seduce me, to seduce us. “Ms. Lois, I'm sorry. You can go home. We're not going to do anything. I'll stay away from Laurie. I'm sorry.” He put up his hands and allowed us to walk away. Momma quickly grabbed me, placing me in front of her, again using herself as a shield. She held me by my arm. If she had let me go, I would have run.
When we got home, she called the cops. Mary stood over her as she dialed the number. Her relief showed she believed that the saga of Sanford would soon be over. I knew the true violence had just begun. When the cops came, Momma gave them the letter
Sanford had written and Mary informed them of my bruises. They examined me, took pictures of my wounds, made me file a statement and assured Momma they would take care of everything. I could only sit and imagine the weight of Sanford's anger falling on my head. He was arrested that night, but I knew that wouldn't stop him. It would only make things worse.
All that night, his brother called the house saying we had ruined Sanford's life. Momma hung the phone up each time and threatened to get him arrested too. She needlessly told me to stay away from Sanford, not realizing “away” was what I had always wanted.
The police only held Sanford for a few days. In that time, Momma secured a restraining order that demanded he stay away from me, my school, and my house. On paper I was free. In reality, I was minutes away from my death.
On the fourth day, I walked into shop class to find Sanford sitting in the desk next to mine talking to Mr. Hinton, my teacher. When he saw me, his eyes lit up as if he were the boyfriend, surprising the girlfriend with a visit. I expected him to pull out a gun and shoot me right in front of Mr. Hinton. A whimper escaped my lips. Sanford asked Mr. Hinton if he could talk to me for a minute. I was barely able to move my feet. He guided me past the table saws to the outside. Again, I was under his control. He took my hand and began to whisper his pleas.
“I'm sorry about what happened the other day. Did you know I got arrested?”
When I didn't respond he continued, “It was horrible in there. I missed you so much. I know we can work this out. You know how much I love you. Please don't leave me.”
“I can't,” was all I could get out.
“I need you more now than ever. I just found out my momma is in the hospital. They say she could die.” Tears covered his face, as he pulled my hand to his eyes. “Don't you see my eyes are crying?” I slowly pulled my hand from his, wiping his tears on my pants.
I wanted to be there for him, to stop the pain, to dry the tears. Beneath the swears, punches, and bites resided a funny, sweet boy who loved Michael Jordan. I wondered many nights whether that boy had witnessed or experienced assaults similar to ones the adult Sanford inflicted upon me.
He had fed me, had bought me clothes and shoes when I had none. It didn't matter when I was with him that I'd starved more than I had been full. And the clothes he'd purchased no longer fit because I shrank inside them. And those baby-blue Filas I'd sniffed were wrought with holes and the soles had separated from the toecap, so they flapped when I walked. None of that had ever mattered, as forgiveness always prompted me to remain.
Other students were filing into class and I could hear Mr. Hinton assigning workstations.
“Laurie, you're at the sanding table today. I want that lamp finished by the end of the week.”
“I have to go, Sanford,” I whispered, as he grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. “I'm sorry about your mother, but I have to go.”
I turned away from him and walked toward my locker. I expected him to run behind me, grab my hair, and push my head onto one of the table saws. I fumbled with my combination lock and pulled out my unfinished lamp. I had barely sanded it, had barely glued the blocks of wood straight during the assembly stage. But I intended to finish my lamp, to scrape away the splinters, to smooth away its coarseness. As I made my way to the table, I didn't look back for Sanford. I listened and breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the classroom door close.
After Sanford, I found myself in books, spending hours dissecting Stephen King's masterpieces, examining the ways in which his dysfunction loomed less functional than my own. Machines that targeted people, planes that landed in dead worlds, and aliens unearthed in tiny towns provided evidence my kind of crazy wasn't the worst crazy in the world. During that period, there should have been time for healing, an understanding of Laurie without the pressure of being Sanford's girl, but that healing never came. There was just the knowing that without a man I was untethered, like a seatbelt flopping outside a car door. Flying in the wind, I looked free, but I was, in fact, trapped, unable to control my flickering. I, so fragile, so flimsy, proved easily caught by another man, Greg.
Having grown up in Cavalier Manor, Greg was what we considered an outsider, somebody who didn't live in the Park, didn't slang in the Park, wasn't dating in the Park, and still he cruised Deep Creek Boulevard daily. He and his best friend, Ricky, would park their Honda Preludes, Ricky's burgundy and Greg's gray, at the corner store and turn their radios to the same song at the highest decibel possible. They'd sit in their cars, bopping their heads, sipping a little something, watching us in Lincoln Park, like we were in concert, performing just for them. Once they'd had their fill, they'd disappear into their cars, speeding off to homes where quiet reigned once the shipyard sounded the nine o'clock bomb. For us, in Lincoln, the night had just begun.
I encountered Greg one day, walking to the store to get my favorite Cheese on Wheat crackers and orange soda. Since I was walking to be seen, I shook a little harder, stretched my legs longer when I saw him looking my way.
“Hey, young'un,” he called as I crossed the street. “What's yo name?”
“I'm Laurie,” I said shyly, barely looking into his steel eyes. He was a manila-colored man, with red hair, speckled with blond or gray strands throughout. With his hair thinning at the top, I eyed a shine glistening across his scalp. He had a goatee with those same blonde or gray strands and he wasn't
GQ
like New Edition's Ralph Tresvant, but he looked good enough with plaid shirt, stone washed jeans, and rugged boots, for me to answer. If I'd have been wearing heels, I'm certain I would have been taller than him, and he was chunkier than my normal type, but my standards had lowered exponentially after Sanford, so I didn't mind.
As he shrugged his shoulders, rubbed his hands together, and cooed, “Oh, you're a young'un. You're gonna be my sweet young thang,” I smiled. Not because of the bass in his car, the way his rims shined, or the fact that he looked at me as if he already owned me, but because he was right. It wouldn't be hard for me to be his sweet young thang. I wanted to be gotten.
“You need a ride?” he asked.
I tried not to laugh since he'd seen me walk from my house across the street to the store. He laughed himself, as he said, “Oh, you live right there.”
I knew not to talk to Greg too long. Momma might run out of the house and embarrass me if she saw me talking to somebody at least ten years older than me, so I acted quickly.
“Maybe later, you got a number?” I asked. He thrust his hands into his pocket and produced a pen and paper, prepared for what he might find in Lincoln Park.
“What's your number?” he asked.
Our phone had been disconnected and I was too embarrassed to say I didn't have a phone, so I told him my momma didn't allow guys to call my house. He nodded as if he'd dealt with mothers like that before. “You a pretty young thang. A real red bone. You gonna be mine,” he repeated as he handed me his number.
Our first night out, I settled into Greg's passenger seat, allowed its velvety skin to massage my spine. The smell of his cologne
pressed against the dash, the electric window, and the sunroof. The dashboard was lit in reds, greens, and whites that reflected off of his eyes and made them sparkle as he looked at me.
“Look at my pretty red young'un,” he slurred as if drunk off my presence. I could hear the saliva collecting in his mouth. “We're going to have a real good time.” And we did. He took me to the movies and not to Tower Mall, where most teenagers in Portsmouth went. He took me to Greenbrier Mall, all the way in Chesapeake, where the rich people who had cars and money went so they wouldn't have to sit next to people like us. We saw the movie
Juice
with Omar Epps and Tupac Shakur. He held my handâeven after I dug toward the bottom of the popcorn, even after it was wrapped around a cold cup of sodaâwhich I thoroughly appreciated. Afterward, we went through the McDonald's drive-thru, where I ordered a quarter pounder meal without worrying about how much it would cost and who'd pay for it. After we pulled into Greg's apartment complex, he threw our McDonald's trash in the dumpster parked next to his car.
“Oh shit, my keys,” he whispered as he fingered his pockets, patted his butt and his hips.
Greg said he'd thrown the keys in the dumpster, that he'd heard them clang against the steel bottom. “Can you climb in and get them for me?” he'd asked.
I did not want to climb in that dumpster. Even I knew only trash belonged there, but I was already his “sweet young thang” and he had bought me a quarter pounder. At the least, I owed him for that. So, I placed my foot in the cradle of his hands and allowed him to hoist me over the steel rim. Grime and slime crawled in between my fingers, as I gripped the edge. The gummed stench clung to my palm's lifeline. The smell of crabs left on a burning sidewalk wafted around me in a mini tornado fueled by my breathing. I smelled flies even though I couldn't hear them or feel the wind of their wings beating against my skin. The stench of feces, aged, like crumbled blue cheese, smacked, pungent against my pinched nostrils. With
my leg hurled over the lip, I felt the thick layer of sludge soaking through my jeans, the ones I'd slid on hours before, wondering if Greg would attempt to slide them off later that night.
I let go, flung myself into the darkness, plunked onto the steel floor, thankful he couldn't see my face.
“Are you okay?” his voice traveled from outside of the dank.
I did not reply, afraid something lurking would lodge itself in my opened mouth. I searched within the dumpster, surprised at how vacant it was.
Must have been emptied today
, I thought, thankful for gifts I wasn't sure I deserved. I wouldn't allow myself to wonder why I was there, couldn't think,
this shouldn't be
. Thinking and dumpster didn't go together. Nothing went together in that moment, so I searched the crevices, devoid of light. I wished the glow from the light pole could shine through the darkness, that it could help me find what I was searching for.
Through the steel cave in which I descended, I heard a noise, not a scurrying rat, as I'd expected or the squish of gunk sucking at the heel of my shoe. The noise was outside, jingling, a subtle clamoring in the form of metal against metal.
“Man, shit,” he swore from the other side of the steel wall, “You're going to be mad,” he said with a giggle. I was already dirty, swimming in grime, so I didn't think twice when I gripped the edge, peeked over to the other side, waiting to see what would offend me more than where I was and what I was doing. There he stood, keys in hand, swaying, attempting to hide the smile on his face. “I'm so sorry. They were in my pocket.” He spoke those words, but his smile said something else.
“You're a good girl to do that, though. Don't know anybody who would've gotten in a dumpster for me.”
Until I had done it myself, I hadn't known anyone who would have gotten into a dumpster either. Yet, I had. I had gone grimier than I'd ever imagined. I couldn't even remember who the clean me was. So, this new person, this me, to whom I had been introduced, clung to the side of the dumpster as Greg pulled her out, held his hand with her pinky because she didn't want her dirt on his clean,
walked alongside him to his home, washed her hands, the back of her thighs, her face, any exposed part of herself, and yet she could not be cleaned.
As I watched her hours later, under Greg, feigning passion, I counted his breaths, the amount of times his body rose and fell over her. I knew what she did not, what she could not reveal to herself. It was a test. She had done everything required, followed all instructions perfectly, which meant she had failed.
I watched her, waited to see if she would spy me, listened as his lips, pressed against her shoulder, mumbled, “You're my young red thang, ain't you?” She nodded, moved her face away from his and then our gazes locked, off in the darkness, connected with what she had once been. Eyes wide open, lips pulled tightly to her mouth, hiding teeth clamped together, she glared at me, the part of herself that had walked away. With her nose pulled as closely to her forehead as possible, I could tell she smelled me, that I still carried the stench of the dumpster. That my scent and my knowing was as offensive as the grime and the sludge we had trudged through.