A Deeper Love Inside (11 page)

“‘Porsche,’ that’s a badass name,” Lil’ Man said to me afterwards.

“Thanks,” I replied, handing her my tribute candy packet.

“It’s not Porscha or Portia or nothing like that?” she asked me.

“Nope, it’s ‘Porsche,’ the name of the luxury vehicle.”

Lil’ Man smiled. “Hell yeah! Did your moms push a Porsche?” she asked me, as though she was imagining.

“No, my father pushed it. Momma rode beside him and made it look even sweeter than it already was.” I laughed a little now; I was remembering. “I heard you like cars. What did your pops push?” I asked Lil’ Man, knowing that all of the Diamond Needles come from families that had money, land, and power.

Her eyebrows connected. Her jaw dropped. Her half smile evaporated.

“My pops is pushing up daisies and dirt. He’s six feet under, where I put him.”

Angel, aka Lil’ Man, wasn’t born because of love. Her mother was violently raped by a stranger. Lil’ Man was the result.

Chapter 11

Art class only occurred once a week. The good classes and things are always rationed out to make sure we mostly feel bad. Art class was the only thing I favored that they provided, that I didn’t have to think of and do for myself. The teacher was so-so. But, there was a volunteer helper, a university student, who brought some feeling to life. She would say what none of the guards, teachers, staff, and especially not the warden would say. She kept smiling and saying, “Express yourself! Unlock your thoughts and emotions. If you’re unhappy or angry, excited or sad, let me see a reflection of you in your art work.”

Before, most of us girls used to sit there in art class and do nothing, or scribble or rip shit apart. Sometimes we would get so bored we’d plot on how to get at each other using the art supplies, but everything was guarded or nailed down.

The college girl been here a month and now she got girls competing on the low, not for some real prize or points, but just to see her smile or look surprised. First prize would be her bragging to everyone in the class about one of our works and then posting it up in the front. The art teacher seemed glad to let the university girl, named Niecey, who swore she was from Brooklyn but living up here at her college, take over. I knew the teacher was sitting and counting the seconds and minutes and hours until she collected her paycheck and got the fuck up out of here and away from us. She must of thought Niecey was stupid for volunteering to be here working with us.

Even though there was only one pair of scissors for twenty-two of us to use, even though the one pair of scissors was on an extra-short
chain bolted to our teacher’s desk and had to be used standing up in the front of the class after asking for and receiving permission to use them while supervised, I liked going to art class once a week and making things with my hands.

I had an idea for my dancers’ outfits for the festival performance. I expected my idea to be rejected by the authorities. However, I had learned from my father, as well as from my circumstances and from the Diamond Needles, to look at everything as an opportunity. So I was making the dress on the low, believing that once everyone saw how dope it was, they would let my girls rock it on stage for their six-minute performance. After they awed ’em and pulled first place, they could be right back in their jumpers.

Up until now, I wasn’t worried about any of the other girls in the festival competition finding out what I was working on and copying or sampling my style. Some shit is so well made that it can’t be copied, at least not without a long delay and study of the technique. Only Siri and me knew. Everybody else was about to see.

I got the idea for my project while thinking of Poppa. It was based on one of the gifts he once gave me. I was 100 percent sure that nobody that was living in here by force or by choice had ever received the kind of gifts that Poppa gave us. Nope, Poppa’s gifts were personal to each of his daughters. From his gift choices he showed us that he knew the difference between each of us. When I asked him for my diamond earrings and necklace, he told me, “Not now. It’s not time yet. Ask me for something that you want, not for something that you saw your sister receive. That would be better.” Something about poppa made any anger I ever felt inside disappear, after he came to my room, sat on the chair beside my bed, and spoke and listened for a few moments, only to me.

Over the past two weeks in art class, I had already made nineteen paper birds out of black construction paper. I kept them in my cubby drawer.

The paper birds were the spaghetti straps to a paper dress made of black and gold Nefertiti heads.

As I stood up front with my back to the girls and facing my teacher, Niecey walked up to my side.

“Porsche.” She said my real name nicely. We was used to the authorities calling us by our lockdown number, or last names. “Ms. Santiaga,” I would hear some authority say with angry curled-up lips.

“Are you cutting out snowflakes in the springtime?” Niecey asked me.

“No, I’m using the scissors the same way that you use them to cut out snowflakes, but I’m making something else,” I told her while I kept my fingers moving and the scissors cutting out the details of my dress design.

“Should I guess or is it a secret?” she asked me, smiling.

“It’s not really a secret, but a good designer doesn’t show her design before it’s finished.” I kept my eyes down on what I was doing.

“Well, it looks nice so far. I like the black and gold color combination,” Niecey said as she began to move away.

“You’re hogging it,” one girl said, sweating me as she stood behind me waiting to use the scissors.

“You better shut your mouth,” I told her without turning around.

“Ms. Santiaga, take it easy. That kind’ve talk will get you in trouble,” the teacher called out.

I didn’t say anything back.
Focus on the festival
, I told myself. I had agreed to Lina to do that, and to let all the other bullshit go.

“Porsche,” Niecey called me.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Are you done? Tyler would like to use the scissors and class is almost finished.”

“Oh,” was all I said as I finished up. Then I gathered up my stuff and went back to my seat.

Niecey brought me over the two pieces of yarn I had requested last week. I put nine birds on one string and nine birds on the other. One bird was left over just in case I made a mistake, but I didn’t so far.

With my fingernail, I punched a tiny hole and threaded the spaghetti straps onto the Nefertiti dress and tied four pretty little knots.

I was done.

“You are the best,” Siri whispered to me.

I whispered back, “We made it together. We are the best.” Siri smiled and her pretty white teeth sparkled.

Quietly, I stood up and dropped off my baby blue jumper.

“You’re naked!” one girl yelled out, and everyone turned around.

“So, bitch? We were all naked in the shower this morning, and the warden made girls get naked in the gym. What’s the big deal?” I said it with the Lina kind of calm and casual anger. Siri helped me to put the dress over my head carefully.

“I can see your nipples,” another girl called out laughing.

“I saw yours before, too,” I told her. We were all baby blues.

Ms. Aaronson and Niecey were both now standing on each side of where I was standing. After their tight disciplinary faces faded, their jaws just dropped. Ms. Aaronson said, “Ms. Santiaga, that dress is really quite lovely.” Then she turned towards all of the girls and said with suddenly tear-filled eyes, “You kids are so talented. What a waste, you all being locked up in here.” I wasn’t sure if she was happy or disgusted.

Niecey began slowly clapping for me. Some of the girls started clapping cause Niecey did. Niecey grabbed my little fingers and held my hand. I forgot about my paper dress. Hers was the first human touch I had felt since Momma and Winter. Not the same as someone slapping my face and me punching her lights out and choking her, I thought. But someone touching me like they cared for me, someone other than Siri.

As I walked with her to the front of the class to face everyone and receive “first prize,” which is Niecey’s bragging about me, the beat boxer from the dance class I was teaching gave me a random beat. I started moving my little body, excited to be the center of something good for a change. The girls went wild cheering for me. Even some of my rivals were giving it up. I felt moved by four forces: them, Niecey, the handmade dress, and the beat. Shockingly, Ms. Aaronson caught feelings. She had both her palms laid against her own face in amazement. Maybe that was what was missing from her life, music! As soon as the beat and my dancing began, Ms. Aaronson went from her dead self to being alive. Niecey got amped and started clapping even faster. Soon her hips started wiggling, which triggered the beat boxer to get even more live. Next thing I knew we were all dancing and having a party out of fucking nowhere!

The warden was like a high-powered vacuum cleaner. She sucked
the air out of the room, like she was doing right then. It was like she removed the air and the light and now we were all standing in the dark frozen like in freeze tag and unable to breathe.

A fake smile came to the warden’s face. We had never seen that before. Her smile was either nonexistent or crooked, like a villain in a cartoon. Standing behind her was some white adults. It was like she was the wicked wizard and they were her ghost goons.

Warden must’ve had gigantic ears the size of an elephant’s and eyes that could leap out of their sockets and scurry down the hall on their own. How could she see and hear everything? I thought to myself.

“Ms. Aaronson,” the warden said, the first two words spoken since the sudden frozen silence, “give me two minutes, please.” She called our art teacher out. The warden turned and walked out the door. Ms. Aaronson followed her.

One tall like a giraffe white man, with whiter skin than I had ever seen, pale with no pink or red or off-white tint, raised a camera over his eye, his lens aimed in my direction, and I counted twelve clicks.

“You’re not supposed to photograph the children,” Niecey said politely, as though she thought she was making the mistake and not him. “It’s against the law,” Niecey added quietly.

The warden returned swiftly. Ms. Aaronson looked like she had just gotten one of the tongue-whippings that was regular to us. The giraffe ghost had his camera in his hand and almost behind his back, not like he thought that he was the only one who knew that he had a camera, but more like he was pretending that he didn’t just use it.

I looked at Niecey. She didn’t squeal on him. I didn’t really know what to think.

“Little Miss Santiaga,” the warden said to me in an unfamiliar tone without the angry lip-curl thing going on. I didn’t answer back, just stared at her with my eyes widened. “Please follow me,” she said. She was pretending, speaking like it was an invitation that I could choose to accept or reject. I knew it was a command. I was filled with a sudden terror. I had heard stories of girls who got called or sent to the administrative offices who were never seen again. What did she mean,
follow me
? I was used to being escorted by guards
but not the warden
!
Where was she taking me? Why me, and why not any other girl in my art class? We were all partying together. Damn! It couldn’t’ve been even five minutes, not a real party at all.

Fuck the warden,
I thought suddenly.

What about the Diamond Needles? Would they think I crossed them, got myself into trouble and caused the festival to be canceled? Riot said the Diamond Needles don’t fight over boys. So, if she was planning to see some boy at the festival, would she throw me out of the Diamond Needles for getting it all canceled? If she said I was her son, shouldn’t I always be her son? And if the Diamond Needles put me out, did that mean I’d have to start back all the time fighting with Cha-Cha and now the Real Bitches, too? So, I’m unprotected now? Huh!

Then I started thinking greasy.
Fuck everybody.
I don’t need none of them. If I gotta fight, I fight. So what if I’m not her son no more. I’m not a son anyway, and I hate pretense. If Momma and Winter wasn’t checking on me the whole time I been locked down here, what difference did it make if Riot abandoned me, too?

“Don’t worry, don’t worry . . .,” Siri said softly in my ear.

“Get dressed,” a guard said, handing me a baby blue and pointing me into a private bathroom, which was the first and nicest I had seen or been in, on lockdown. It was a bathroom for one. I was used to group everything now, no privacy. I hesitated. The guard pushed my shoulder from behind. I stepped inside.

Back in my baby blue jumper, I didn’t know what to do with my paper dress. I didn’t want to ruin it or lay it down anywhere and get even one drop of water on it. It had taken me four weeks to design and complete. Four art classes added up to six hours worth of time.

“You got a hanger?” I asked the guard when I opened the door, stepping back into the office where I had been escorted. He laughed one
ha.
“Nobody wit good sense in all of America would hand you a hanger.” He gave me a stern stare. The giraffe who snapped my photos stepped out from behind a closed door.

“Water closet?” he asked with some funny-sounding English.

“Huh . . . what?” the guard asked him back. Then the giraffe
squinted his eyes like he was shitting or like when you want to shit, but you can’t squeeze it out.

“Oh, oh . . .,” the guard responded. Then, he pointed the tall white man to the bathroom I had just come out of.

I thought to myself
Funny how the guard was all tough when talking to a bunch of locked-up girls. Now he was talking to some guy who seemed like he could hardly speak English and the guard seemed to shrink down to my small size.
Then I watched and thought about how the photographer took his camera with him even to the bathroom. Niecey had said it was against the law for him to take photos of incarcerated minors. I wondered if that was true.

If it was, that meant he was a criminal just like us. Would they strip him out of his jeans and cashmere sweater and boots, force him in a freezing shower, give him a medical exam he didn’t want to take and almost touch his thing and pretend they didn’t, the way they did me, I mean us? Would they make him squat and bend or use both his hands to spread his butt cheeks open? Maybe he was in the bathroom inserting the film in his anus or underwear. What type of freak would he have to be to want photos of me that bad? And would the warden lock down the prison including her staff until the illegal film was found?