mood, and the living room with the threadbare rug
where Daddy sat and watched television alone so
many nights. Why would I cry over and long for a
return to the life I used to hate? Why would I want to
be back in that two-by-four room of mine where I
could hear pipes groaning at night like someone with
a bellyache, and people in other apartments yelling at
each other and clawing the walls the way prisoners
going mad might?
I wasn't in a good place to grow up. Even as a
little girl. I knew bad things happened in our building.
Someone I only knew as Mr. Ratter died of a drug
overdose in the apartment directly below ours. It was the first time I saw a dead person. I stood on the stairway and watched them taking him out an a stretcher, the sheet over his whole body. The police said the apartment stank. He had been dead for nearly a week, but he had no relatives in Atlanta. Only in his
mid-thirties, he was already dead.
That was when I first understood what Daddy
meant when he said we were living in a cemetery. The
doors of the apartments should look more like
tombstones and read their names and born in 19__,
died 20__. Rest its peace because that's the only
peace you'll have.
No wonder I didn't want to come home nights
or stay there on weekends. No wonder I took
advantage of Mama being at work and staying out to
all hours and Daddy being on the road, away from
home. I shouldn't have been blamed for that. Anyone
living like I was living, seeing the things I saw, would
have done the same thing.
The only excitement and happiness I had were
what I had with my friends. So we smoked and
shoplifted and drank at parties. So what? We didn't