Grace After Midnight_ A Memoir - Felicia Pearson [14]
They weren’t lesbians. They had boyfriends. But in most cases they could kick their boyfriend’s ass if the nigga got out of line. We called ourselves LMP after three streets in our hood.
We’d go to the movies together and talk to the screen. We tripped on a picture called Juice with a rapper who just came out with his first record. He went by 2Pac then and he was something different. He had these eyes and he had this attitude. He had his own flow and burned up the movie screen. Nigga was on fire. Menace II Society was another story that spoke our language. Probably the freshest was New Jack City. We saw that one until we knew every line. Wesley Snipes chewed that up, Ice T was cold, and Chris Rock had us believing he was a fucked-up crackhead. We were seeing our lives up there.
Day by day, week by week, LMP’s little shit got bigger. We got bolder. We started out by mouthing off when other girls came through our territory. Then we got meaner. If a girl we didn’t know glanced in our direction, we’d say, “Who you staring at?” Then if she mouthed off, one of my girls would encourage me by saying, “Pop that bitch, Snoop. Pop her hard.” I’d smack her in the face or punch her in the jaw. My girls liked to see me fight ’cause I didn’t have any quit in me.
What did I have in me?
What the hell was I was so angry about?
I couldn’t tell you.
We’d go to a house party and see another girl crew, this one from the west side. They’d get to dancing. LL Cool J had “Mama Said Knock You Out.” Dre was rocking The Chronic. Or maybe the girls from across town were grinding with our boys to Janet’s “That’s the Way Loves Goes.” Everyone was grinding to that jam. But if the grinding got too sweaty, we’d jump in there and straight-up start throwing the west side bitches out on the street. There were some serious fights, and I don’t remember losing any of them.
Because I looked like a little nigga, not a girl, I was a novelty. Sometimes I felt like a mascot. And because I was the youngest and the smallest, I felt privileged to hang with the big girls. But I was always on the outside of the group. My size kept me on the outside, and so did my age, the way I dressed, even the way I walked.
“You a boy,” the girls liked to say, “who got born a girl by mistake.”
I didn’t mind hearing that, but it made me think I really do belong with the boys. So I went back and forth. I ran with both crowds. Both crowds accepted me but both crowds really didn’t.
I was in and I was out. I was here and I was there.
Whatever I was, I was hitting the streets hard because nothing was too crazy for me. I could handle it all.
At least I thought I could.
“YOU A GIRL”
Maybe I was always trying to prove what I wasn’t—maybe that was it.
Nigga come up to me and say, “You a girl.”
I wouldn’t say anything back.
He’d shove me real hard.
“You a girl who thinks she’s a goddamn boy, ain’t you?”
Then he’d shove me harder.
Still don’t say nothing.
“If you were really a boy, you wouldn’t take this shit off me.”
Then he shoved me so hard I nearly went down.
But I didn’t. I found my balance and coldcocked the motherfucker.
I heard that question many times—“You think you a boy?”—but never again from him.
Right around then—must have been twelve or thirteen—I got the news from some relative.
“Your mama’s dead,” she said.
I knew she was talking about my real mother, not the mama who cared for me. I wasn’t surprised because I’d seen it coming. Every time my real mother had come by, her eyes were already dead. I could see the life draining out of her. And there wasn’t a damn thing anybody could do about it. She was cracked out. It’s amazing she lived as long as she did. Finally, her body just couldn’t take no more. A kidney disease killed her.
I didn’t know how to mourn. Truth be told, I didn’t even know how to feel about