The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir (21 page)

T
he daffodil-printed one-piece bathing suit is a little baggy in the crotch, but my body looks good in it. It is hard to believe the girl in the mirror is me. I wish I had long straight hair so I could let it all out and shake it like the women on TV. I settle for adjusting the yellow straps and tucking in the stray pubic hairs poking out from the sides.

“How me look, Elisha? It make me skin look darker, don’t it?”

“Lawd, Stacey, it look sooo nice. Me can’t believe is you that look so boasty in a French-cut bath-suit!”

“Elisha, I know it look nice, but it make me skin look any darker too, eh?”

“Not really. You still look white to me. But what you want to look Black for? You don’t know that Black people don’t really get ahead in life.”

“Elisha, stop that old naygar talk! I think all that Black people and white people foolishness is just mouth talk! And Natasha say it is good for you to look like you have a tan. Rich people go to the beach to get a tan.”

“You can think anything you want think, Stacey. Me don’t know nutten ’bout no tan. But me know what me know. Why you think Auntie don’t like you?”

“Because me back-talk her too much. And because me mother not sending no money come from Canada.”

“No, I don’t think is just that! I think is because she and the rest of we not white like you and your friends and your brother!”

“Elisha, how much time I must tell you? I am not white! I am
half
-Chinese!”

“White, Chinese, Syrian—is the same thing! You not Black like we.
You can get ahead in life. The rest of we just have to stay right here till we dead.”

I look away to avoid Elisha’s gaze. From the small wood frame the loops glow golden against my naked shoulders. I untie the bows and make them tighter. I can see my nipples pushing at the stretchy fabric.

“Elisha, the bosom part good, eh? Not too loose, not too tight, like them did measure me for it.”

The bath-suit is truly the prettiest thing I have ever owned. I carefully retie the strings in long loopy bows on top of my shoulders.

The body is a cool dark blue. Bright yellow daffodils hold hands in a ring around my waist. Matching yellow piping traces the scooped neckline to become the straps. The legs are cut higher than anything I have ever worn before.

“So, you don’t think it make my breast them look funny?”

“No, man, you look just like a model in a magazine. Like you rich and have nuff white people friend. Everybody go think you look good at Porto Seco Beach.”

“Yes. Is true. My breast them look smooth and sexy fi true. You think Troy will like it?”

“Yes, man. Him will really like it, especially how the breast part look nice and smooth!”

I usually dislike the feel of the fleshy stones of my bosoms brushing up against my loose T-shirt, but in the vise of the spandex glove, both of them sit upright and immobile. I feel like the bath-suit is holding every part of me together.

But the biggest problem with breasts is men. Men liked to pinch breasts. And it seems like every man in Paradise wants to pinch mine: Andy, Shappy, Pastor Gentles—no matter how I cover them, no matter how I position my body, some man finds a way to pinch a nipple when I walk by. And having breasts this big makes me feel bigger than thirteen years old. But in this bath-suit, in this mirror, the breasts on my chest look sort of normal. Not like breasts that everybody feels they have the right to touch.

I can only see the top half of me in the dresser mirror. To see my lower half I have to climb up on the bed and then stoop down. Cross-eyed and crouching, I can barely see the tops of my thighs, but my stomach is flat and my bottom looks nice and round.

“So when you going to tell Mama that you get a new bath-suit?”

“Elisha, the bath-suit isn’t really new. It used to belong to Natalia. She was very sad to part with it too. It was her favorite one. But she say it would be wrong to keep it when it don’t even cover her breasts anymore. Personally, I think she shame that I was swimming in her pool in my PE shorts every week. She was very nice about it, though. She says she won’t tell anybody that is she who give it to me.”

I know Auntie would not like it if she knew I was taking things from other people like I was in the almshouse. I was just going to use it at Natalia’s, but the youth group at church is going to Porto Seco Beach next Saturday, and all the young people have real bath-suits—not sports shorts or cut-off pants or dresses tied up around the waist.

I wish I could just hide it and wear it on the trip, but Auntie might hear that I was in a fancy bath-suit and kill me for wearing it without her permission. If I show it to her she might make me throw it away. I can’t lose this bath-suit. It is the nicest piece of clothing I own.

“Elisha, can you check to make sure me bottom cover up good?”

“Yes, man, everything look good. All of your bottom is inside it. Just go on and show it to her. It fit you so good, she must bound fi like it!”

“Okay. All right, then.” I take a deep breath and step out onto the veranda.

“Auntie, look at me!”

“But Jesus Chr—is what that you have on?”

“Is a bath-suit, Auntie! You don’t like it?”

“That color don’t fit your complexion. You skin too white fi wear flowers. And why the bottom so tight-up under you crotches?”

“Is so the style go, Auntie! But I can fix it.”

I hook my fingers under the elastic and pull hard until the tops of my thighs are covered. The straps bite into my shoulders and my breasts strain against the blue spandex.

“That suit look like the dressmaker run out of cloth before them finish. You too big for it and your breast pushing out like you is a old Jezebel whore! Is where you get it from, poorhouse?”

“No, ma’am, is Natalia give it to me. It cannot fit her anymore.”

Auntie’s face hardens into an unreadable mask. She pushes her right foot back and forth across the shiny red floor.

Without expression, she asks, “Stacey, is beg you go up to Mango Walk to beg that girl for her clothes?”

“No, ma’am, is she just give it to me. I never ask her anything.”

Auntie finishes her cup of fever-grass tea and puts the cup on the rail. “Uh-huh. Go inside and get the belt.”

“But, Auntie, I swear to God in heaven that I never ask her—”

“Stacey, stop taking the Lord’s name in vain and go get the belt.”

“Auntie, you never listen to anything I tell you. Is better if I did tell you a lie! No matter what I tell you, you always think is a lie!”

“Stacey, stop the talking and go and get the belt. Because not even God above can hold me responsible fi anything that happen to you if I have to go get it meself.”

I bite my lips and fold my arms across my chest.

“You hear what I just say to you, little girl?”

“Yes, Auntie. Can I go take off this first?”

“No! Is you did want to wear it. Keep it on. Just bring the belt and come.”

I enter the darkness of Auntie’s room and wait for my eyes to adjust. The sheets on the bed are the same color as the bath-suit. I walk around the barrel of canned food and move Auntie’s black handbag out of the way. The coins in the bottom jingle. The belt hangs ominously from a nail by the window. I reach up, unhook it, rub the smooth length with my thumb, and inhale the slightly greasy sheen.

I walk back to the veranda. Auntie takes the leather strap and wraps one end like a bandage around her palm.

Leather and skin meet and my skin tightens around my whole body.

Whack!

“How many times I must tell you?”

Whack!

“Little girls should not beg anybody for anything!”

I tell myself,
I will not cry
. Whack! But the tears come anyway. Whack!

“You is not a leggo beast in a pasture!”

Whack!

“You are not living inside no poorhouse!”

Whack!

“We are not beggars under this roof!”

Whack!

I will not give her the satisfaction of screaming.
Whack!

“What is wrong with you, eh, Stacey? Why you so bloody stubborn?”

A rumble begins in my belly.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

“Why when you leave here you must go and beg people things?”

It pushes up from my insides and toward my throat.

“You want me tie you up like that dirty dog under the house?”

Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!

“No! Please. No! Jesus Christ! Help me, God! Murder! Help! Father God! Jesus, no!”

I am not aware that the sounds are coming out of me. I only start to make sense of them when I hear them circling above me.

“Stop, Auntie! Stop now! I’m going to give her back the bath-suit! Just stop now. Please, I beg you, stop hitting me now.”

Whack! Whack! Whack!

“Now you only have mouth fi bawl out, eh?”

Whack!

“Me tired fi tell you!” Whack! “You is not a big woman!” Whack! “You is a child!”

Whack!

“No! No, Auntie, no! Stop! Please, please, please don’t hit me anymore…”

I am curled into myself on the floor. There is no other sound in the room but my sobbing. The shiny new bath-suit is covered with red floor polish and dust.

Auntie winds the belt into a tight leather roll and hands it to me.

“Get up from that floor and go put this back where you find it. And go and take off that thing. Girl children not supposed to wear bikini bath-suit.”

“Auntie, is not a bikini!”

“What you saying to me?”

“A bikini has two parts. This bath-suit is a one-piece, so is not a bikini.”

“That mouth of yours is what go lead you straight into hell. Mark this day as the day I tell you that! Now get out me sight before I change my mind and give you something to talk about! And make sure you put that thing in the garbage!”

“But, Auntie, me don’t have another bath-suit and the beach trip is tomorrow.”

“I couldn’t give a dyam ’bout that. Wear the pants that you get from Diana.”

I replace the belt on its hook and brush past Auntie on my way back to our room. When I am well outside of her reach I mutter under my breath, “Well, I just won’t go, then.”

“What you say? Don’t make me come in that room after you! If you know what is good for you, you would keep your stinking mouth shut!”

I peel the spandex off my bruised skin, fold the bath-suit into the tightest ball I can manage, and stuff it back into my clothes bag.

“Stacey, you throw away that thing yet?”

“Yes, ma’am. I throw it in the garbage heap over the fence.”

“Good. Now get up and go find something to do.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Elisha says, “Stacey, if you wear the bathing suit on at Porto Seco tomorrow, I won’t say anything to anybody.”

“I know, Elisha. But is not you one will see me. And Auntie might do worse to me if she hear that me wear the thing anyway.”

“So what you going to wear, then?”

“I going wear what I always wear when me go to the beach. It don’t matter what other people say. If them don’t like me because of some stupid bath-suit, then them shouldn’t be me friend anyway.”

“Stacey, me really sorry you not going get fi wear it tomorrow. It really did look nice ’pon you.”

“Elisha, you don’t remember how it did make my breast look funny? As a matter of fact, I like the shorts better than that tight-up bath-suit. I probably woulda never wear it, make everybody see me on decent Porto Seco Beach looking like a Jezebel whore!”

I go to close the chicken coops. It is night already and all the fowls are inside their cages. I shut each cage and wonder why the stupid chickens come back to the coops every night.

I
am fourteen years old and Auntie still spends every waking hour telling me what to do: when to sit, when to eat, when to read, when to speak. And even when I do as she says, it is never good enough to please her. I am tired of trying to stay out of her way. She is like a scratched record. And because my life at home is such a big secret, I have to pretend that I am not going crazy living under her roof.

For the first project in the ninth grade, our English teacher, Miss Ritgard, gives us the choice between keeping a private journal and summarizing the journal of someone significant in history. I choose to write down my own thoughts. What appeals to me most about the journal is that no one is allowed to read what we write, and we won’t be penalized for anything we write, no matter how offensive or controversial. I use a brand-new notebook as my journal.

In my first entry, I write just basic information, my mother’s name, my father’s name, and what I know about them. In the second, I scribble a two-page rant about Auntie. I write down how much I hate her and how much I hope she will die. Every day I write something. After a few days I begin to write down things I would never say out loud to anyone. I confess how much I hate kissing Troy. As soon as I get home in the evenings I reread the journal from cover to cover and add more.

At night I sleep with it under my pillow. During the day I wrap it in my sheet and stuff it under the bed. By the middle of the notebook I am writing how I feel about everything and everybody, but most of the journal is about Natalia.

On Friday, the thirtieth, I come home and the journal is missing. I hope with all my heart that Shappy or Elisha or Glen has taken it. But my stomach sinks when Auntie tells me to change out of my uniform and come to her on the veranda. It takes me forever to unbutton the white tunic and put on my house clothes. She already has the belt in her hand when I get there.

“So you want a baby, eh?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Shut up your mouth and stop tell lie! I read what you write with me own two eyes. You can mind baby?”

I hang my head and button my lips.

“Answer me when I talk to you! You know how to mind baby? You know how much money it take to look after a baby? Me think you did have more sense than that! You don’t even have the good sense God give the fowl out a door. You can hardly take care of yourself. That sheet you
have under the bed stink like the dog under the house. What you going to do with a baby? Answer me! What you was going to do with a baby? Live here?”

My mouth opens of its own accord. “Auntie, I never write that I want a baby! I wrote down what conditions I would have to have before I would
consider
having a baby! That is very different from actually wanting a baby. If you just read the thing closely you would see the difference!”

Auntie gets up from her chair and grabs me by the front of my dress.

“As God is my witness, I cannot take any more!”

She raises the belt and the blows begin. I do not utter a sound. I stand completely still until she is finished.

“Now go inside and get that dirty sheet and wash it!”

“Auntie, could you please give me my journal? I need it for English class at school.”

“You will have to write another one. That is not fit to give to any teacher!”

“So what you do with it?”

“Get out of me face and don’t question me! If I was you, I would start making up a new one so you don’t get into trouble at school. And please to bring it to me so me can see what you write.”

“That is not a journal if you read it. It supposed to be private. Miss Ritgard says that nobody is supposed to read it.”

“Stacey, if you want another beating, just stay right there and keep working you mouth.”

I head to the bedroom to get another notebook. I do not have a new one, so I tear the used leaves from my Spanish book and write three new entries. I know the handwriting is sloppy, but I don’t care.

Auntie reads the entries and tosses the book back to me. “That is much better than the foolishness you write before. The writing look like crab toe, but is your business that, not mine.”

I do not add any entries before Miss Ritgard collects the journals. She takes one look at the first entry and tells me my handwriting is trash. She tells the whole class that my penmanship is not even worth the grade for effort.

“Staceyann Chin, I wonder if you even try when you write anything down. Your answers are always correct and the grammar is good, but all of that is of no consequence if no one can read it! Come and take it and write the entries again. And this time make sure the words are legible.”

“Miss Ritgard, I thought we would get a grade just for doing it. I did it. It doesn’t matter how the writing is if you weren’t going to read it!”

“Bring the journal to me! Bring it here this instant!”

When I bring it to her she tears out the entries, folds the pages into halves, and throws them in the garbage.

I walk up to her desk and snatch my book from her. “Miss Ritgard, you have no right to throw my things away like that!”

I am so angry I want to hit her. But I don’t want to be expelled, so I pick up her folder, rip out five pages, and throw them on top of the pile of papers that used to be my homework. She tells me to sit at the back of the class until the end of the session. Then she walks me to the office and reports the incident to Sister Joan Claire. Sister Joan Claire pokes her head out of her office and invites me in.

“Sit down on that chair, young lady.”

I sit and look at the small round face in front of mine. Very quietly, she asks me why I have destroyed Miss Ritgard’s property. I tell her everything about the journal, including the fact that I had written it once before. “Miss Ritgard said that no one was supposed to read it. She said that we could write anything we wanted. But my auntie found it, took it, and then beat me because of what I wrote.”

I am crying so hard Sister Joan Claire gets up from her chair and
brings me some tissue to wipe my face. The tissue is in shreds by the time I am finished.

“…and my mother run gone leave me, Sister, and my father don’t want to have anything to do with me! And my brother goes to school right across the street and I never see him unless I go to look for him—and everything I do is wrong and everybody just want to take advantage of me!”

I am hanging off the side of the chair and weeping.

“Come on, Staceyann! It cannot be all that bad. You are in school and doing very well. It is only a matter of time before you get out of the situation you are in.”

She leaves her side of the desk to come and hug me.

“Child! Child! God is not sleeping. He makes a way for all his creatures. You just have to have a plan of action and some faith.”

When I am quiet she tells me to go into her private bathroom to wash my face. When I get back she tells me to go back to class.

“But you must pass by the staff-room and apologize to Miss Ritgard. Whatever the problems you may be experiencing, that is not the way to solve them. And when you are finished saying your regrets, please ask her to come and see me when she has a moment.”

Miss Ritgard is nicer to me after that. But she writes a bad comment on my report card at the end of that term:
Staceyann is a student with unimaginable potential, but she is rude and has little concept of boundaries. She has miles to go with reference to good manners.

Auntie reads the comment and is livid. She asks me to explain. I stand there, lips buttoned and arms folded across my chest.

“Stacey, I am talking to you! Please to answer me when I ask you a question! Why the teacher write that you don’t have any manners?”

I sigh and shift the position of my feet. I do not care anymore. Everything I say is rude and everything I do is wrong. I stare back at her and wait for her to finish.

Auntie shakes her head and points a finger at me. “You know, Stacey, you really getting too big for your bloomers! I don’t know what else to do with you. What you need is a strong man-voice. A man could make you listen! And if you still refuse to behave, well, he would have the strength to cut you ass for you!”

I roll my eyes and sigh again.

“Stop blowing down yourself when I talk to you!”

“Auntie, I am not blowing down myself on you! I am just breathing. Just like every normal person in the world!” I sigh again.

“Stacey, I am warning you. Do not blow down when I talk to you!”

“Auntie, what you want me to do? Stop breathing? You want me to just stop breathing and just dead? Is that what you want?”

I am waving my arms at her and shouting. “Everybody just want me to drop down and dead! If I was born dead it would be better for my mother and my father and everybody in this house and you!”

Her arm snakes out and her palm lands smack across my cheek.

The sting is sudden and surprising. My arm shoots up to prevent the next blow and the back of my arm hits hers. I am as shocked as she is.

“No! No! No! No!” she screams as she drags me forward by the collar and then slams me against the wall. “Is either me go kill you in this house or you go kill me. I will put you out before I let you raise your hand to me!”

“But, Auntie, it was an accident! I never mean—”

She slams me into the wall and grabs me by the throat. “Not another word! Not one single word! Something have to change before I make you cause me to commit murder in me own house. You have the Devil living inside you! I don’t know what I have to do, but whatever it is, it will have to do something soon.”

After school the next evening she informs me, “Your grandfather is coming over here tonight to have a talk with you. And you can form the fool and don’t show him the appropriate respect! He would take off his belt right here and strip you naked and put you in you place!”

As I wait for him to come, I am a little afraid. But I vow to myself that I will kill him first before I let that man hit me. After how he treated Grandma, he has no right to come and say anything to me about my behavior. I put a sharp rock in my pocket and sit on the veranda, caressing the jagged edges.

I
t is almost dark before my grandfather arrives. The tall skinny figure opens the gate and my jaw nearly drops off my face to see how frail he is. I am sure this is not the man in my grandmother’s stories. He carefully
closes the gate and coughs a muffled howdy-do. I am disappointed in this slow carcass, bent and shuffling toward me. Then I am angry. I feel cheated. I want somebody I can fight.

His face has the tissue wrinkles of a kindly old gentleman. He takes Elisha’s hands into his wrinkled gigantic palms, kisses her on her cheek, and I recall that Grandma once told me he liked to kiss women on the cheek and “accidentally” kiss them on the mouth. He sips the glass of water that Auntie makes me get for him. He nods at Glen and tells him he had better study hard and to take his book-learning seriously. “Otherwise you won’t be able to get a wife and children.”

I want to ask if when he was a gambling drunk it prevented him from having a woman and children at home.

His lanky frame is neatly clad in cream-colored serge pants. The lines are creased so sharp the legs seem to be standing up on their own. Beneath the whispering cloth I see his pointy knees wobbling as he walks toward me. His careful gait is comic. I press my lips together to keep from laughing.

The scent of him is equally unexpected. I had expected him to smell like liquor and cigarettes. He smells like cheap cologne. His red-and-white-striped shirt might have been the rage once, but the collar is now a mass of threads that stick out when he hangs his head. It is buttoned up to the last button, exposing silver strands at the base of his throat. His head is covered with a dusting of fine hairs that look almost blond in their whiteness.

He sits beside me and looks through the open window for about five minutes before he says anything.

“Stacey, you auntie tell me you getting on bad, man. You getting too big now! You must stop that foolishness! Is time for you to settle down and stop all of that now.”