She looked off into space, seeing nothing but dark tones and torn pigments. “Angelique then pulled out a box and showed me these old medical records. Pages and pages of my terrible health as a baby and toddler. I struggled… I had to go through all of these therapies. They paid for ‘em… all of them. My biological mother had named me Lila. That was quickly changed. Obviously. I had withdrawals … seizures. My mother showed me an old videotape of me vomiting and bawling, folding up in pain after I was born.” Her face burned as anguish kept ripping her into shreds. “I was shrieking! My cry sounded as if I had been lit on fire! My skin was thin, and you could see my ribs and the outline of my heart beating! She hadn’t been eating, only drugging herself. It was in the paperwork, I read it myself.
“So, my mother stood tall, Jack… with that box in her hand. Chin held high. She said she’d done wrong, but it was out of selfishness, and love. Who else would risk it all, do something illegal to steal a baby, huh? A sick, drug addicted Black baby girl that nobody wanted, right, if love wasn’t the motivation? My mother said she looked at me, drug addicted and all, and fell in love. She stood there crying, holding my father’s obituary. Her tear stains all over it. Sobbing. Told me, right to my face, that God told her I was going to live, and be healthy. Be given half a chance! My mother had been an atheist most of her life, but now, here she was, talking to me about God! A God she admitted she didn’t even think existed earlier in her life. She told me she’d never apologize to me because it would be yet another lie. She wasn’t sorry for saving my life… Keeping secrets… ruining me, in her own special way…”
“This isn’t that important, but uh, I’m just curious. What drugs were in your system when you were born?”
Kim looked him in the eye, and grinned. Her face felt tight. Her heartbeat slowed. A rage ignited inside of her. She burned alive. She danced in the heat, her peace and serenity set ablaze.
“My birth mother had been taking a mixture of heroin, coke, and PCP. Frozen black apple pie some call it. I was called the ‘Black Ice’ baby, Jack. That’s what they wrote in the paperwork!” She jammed her finger against her leg, driving her point home. “BLACK. ICE. BLACK. ICE. BLACK ICE ran through my little veins! And now, everyone knew! Everybody in the whole damn city, and the thespian community knew. I was a rising star! I was doing interviews, red carpet walks, and performing with big companies, alongside big-name celebrities! My ship was finally coming in! … And then it was gone. I no longer had a name or good reputation. I trusted no one. I became paranoid. My entire life was crushed from a lie, after another lie, after another lie!”
“And then, I got the starring role of a lifetime! It was the theatrical play with no credits, that was performed in front of the whole fucking world, and I was the star of the show, honey, and didn’t even know it! COME ON AND BUY YA TICKETS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Get front row, center stage seats! Come see this Black crack baby on the platform, tonight!”
She jumped to her feet, screaming and waving her arms, losing her damn mind, but she couldn’t reel herself in. This was the first time the words left her mouth—the first time she stopped running and allowed herself to simply FEEL. Jack just sat there, looking at her with a cool expression on his face.
“Come see this child stolen by these rich, liberal, silly ass snowflake White folks, who tossed their influence around, along with a few measly thousand dollars at some poor, uneducated, inner-city Black girl who needed rehab, not to be ripped off, and instead ran away with her child! Tonight, we got a toe-tapper and a knee slapper for you, people. One to keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s called, ‘Black Ice Baby!’ And the best part, this drugged-up, confused child is calling herself Kim. She runs away from things that don’t suit her just like her birth mama. DNA is strong, isn’t it? Chip off the old basehead block! Silly woman doesn’t even know her real name! Deathbed Betty blew her world out of the water when she called that news station and made her speech. She was going to get her revenge, make it all right with God. The hell with how she’d popped me out, all doped up and half dead! Two selfish ass mothers, one Black, one White, only thinking of themselves and their own needs. The hell with the baby! The child with no name! I was bought for less than the price of a car. What a steal! ENCORE! Dance! Dance! Dance!”