CHAPTER THREE:
The Ropes
Andrew parked at the end of my street and began driving me to school everyday. I had him believing that the reason he was dropping me off at the Junior High instead of the High School was because my first class was at the Junior High but that I actually went to the High School. In retrospect, I think he knew I was lying and didn’t care that I was barely 14 years old. We started seeing each other non-stop—before school, after school. At first I was doing okay with curfew, but I began coming home later and later, especially after we did “it.”
It happened the first night that he took me to the drive-in. It was me, Andrew and his cousin, Dee. On the way, we stopped on Hough Avenue to buy Andrew’s daily supply of “get high.” After he came out of the store, he always took some pills, a big swig of Boone’s Farm wine, and lit up a joint. We cruised through the city and finally ended up around the corner from the Miles Drive-In. Andrew got out of the car, opened the trunk, signaled to me and Dee, and instructed us:
“Y’all gotta hop in. I’ll pop the trunk when it’s time for y’all to come back to y’all seats.”
Me and Dee hopped in the trunk and in a few minutes, Andrew popped the trunk and we dashed into the car. The movie was Foxy Brown starring Pam Grier. I loved Pam Grier as Foxy Brown. She was one of the most beautiful women in the world and everything Andrew wanted in a woman. Foxy Brown wasn’t scared of nothing. She was superbadd, a super fighter. She went toe to toe with drug dealers in the hood and big time mafia criminals, from the streets to the suites. Foxy would pull a gun out from under her wig and cap a son of gun. Andrew was in total love with her. All through the movie,
“That’s a baad bitch right dere! That’s what every nigga in the world need, a baad bitch like dat ridin wit him.”
“Damn, you in love wit her or something?”
“Yeah, I do love me some Foxy Brown. You my Foxy Brown. How bout dat?”
Now that deserved a huge hug, which I gladly leaned over the arm rest and gave him. What he say that for. That’s all I needed to hear. Every time the camera showed Foxy doing her thang I was takin major notes, her stance, her sex appeal. I imagined myself looking like her.
Andrew loved him some Boone’s Farm wine, too. Dee only got one or two swigs. But the rest went straight down Andrew’s throat during the movie. The empty fifth bottle doubled as Andrew’s urinal. I’m telling you, he nearly filled the whole thing up! And he had the nerve to put that bottle on the floor of the back seat.
“Thass nasty!” I said.
“Well, whatchu want me to do? Piss on the ground or th’ow the bottle away when we get back down the way?”
“You coulda went to the bathroom.”
“Girl, please”
That was one thing about him. He was a direct and to the point brother—a quality that I still respect.
When we left the drive-in, we drove back to the projects to drop Dee off. As Dee was exiting Andrew’s car, one of his boys, Kirtland, jumped in the back seat beggin.
“Hey man, whatchu got?” he asked as he searched the ashtrays for weed and cigarette butts.
Before we knew anything, he reached down on the floor of the back seat and put the Boone’s Farm bottle to his mouth and drunk a big swig of Andrew’s urine. Me and Andrew started dying laughing. Kirtland flung open the backseat door and starting gaggin,
“Andrew you a dirty muthafucka. Got me in here drankin yo piss!”
“I ain’t have you drankin shit, you beggin-ass muthafucka. Teach yo beggin-ass a lesson. Buy yo own supply. Git yo broke-ass outta here” and we pulled off, burning rubber.
“See baby, a nigga like him is a bum. He ain’t neva had shit and ain’t gone neva have shit. You know why? Cause he ain’t got no game. He a lame-ass nigga. A nigga gotta have some hustle about hisself in nis world. You got some game about yo self, I know cause you like a nigga like me. You love yo man?”
“Uhm, hmm.”
Next thing I know we were pulling up into his driveway. We went upstairs into his room. Somehow, I knew we were gonna do “it” that night. We had done stuff before but we never went all the way.
We were both lying on the bed and he began to kiss me, and I kissed him back. We kissed each other. His lips were soft and yummy and he was gentle and nothing, I mean nothing, felt wrong. He unbuttoned my blouse first, slowly, button by button. We began breathing together. Our rhythm became one. I was already in total love with him. Afterall, he made me his “main woman.” He undid my bra. I wiggled out, as he lovingly kissed my nowhere near the size of Foxy Brown breasts; yet he made me feel like they were the biggest, best, breasts in this whole world. I unhooked and unzipped my jeans. He took off all of his clothes, as I pulled down mine.
I had never seen a boy totally neckit (naked) in real life. He was beautiful. I wanted to make him happy, so I let him do everything he was doing. Mama put me on birth control pills after the abortion. She stressed to me that I still wasn’t ready for sex until I was an adult; but that I should take the pills. At least I didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant, if he wanted me to go all the way with him. The problem came in when he began pushing my head down near his thing.
“Oh, Lord,” I said as I began to resist. I never did that and I didn’t want to.
“Look, if you gon’ be my woman, you gotta do everything. You love me don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, put it in yo mouf and lick it.”
I heard about sucking before and everything I ever heard about it was nasty. This was waay before Silk’s number one R&B song, “Let me lick you up and down til you say stop.” I had always heard that white people invented oral sex and that it was nasty, so I wasn’t feelin it.
He kept trying to lead my head down there.
“Nooooowoh, I don’t want to, thass nasty, “ I said as my eyes began to tear up.
“What you cryin fah. I thought you was a woman.”
“I am but thass nasty.”
“Look, ain’t nothing that Listerine can’t deal wit, plus, if you my woman we gotta do everything.”
Tears flowed down my cheeks as he led it into my mouth.
“Just do it real nice and soft,” he instructed.
I felt it grow erect. Then he took it out and told me to rub it in between my legs. I felt myself get wet but I didn’t know exactly where to rub it to make it feel good.
He told me to sit on it. It hurt a little.
“Damn girl, you sho is a woman down there. Yo last man musta had a log.”
“I had a abortion, I told you. I was almost 5 months pregnant and I only did it once befoe.”
“Girl please, you think I was born yesterday.”
For him to be so worldly, he didn’t understand anything that I had been through. I never got a chance to be honored as a virgin. Or, maybe I didn’t honor myself. I should have never hung out with girls who knew more than I did. I should have never gone into a room with a boy that was 19 years-old. I guess going into a room with a boy means that you want to be fucked. But I didn’t know that. I had had an abortion in the second trimester. The baby I would have had was developed. Whatever the size of my vagina, it was the way it was because I had had a dead baby. All he talked about was how huge I was down there. From that day on, one of his nicknames for me was Big Stuff.
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This piece was excerpted with permission from Po H# on Dope to Ph.D.: How Education Saved My Life
