Vengeance (3 page)

“Pick up on what?”

Hannah sighed. “Rose Cleveland was the first lady of the United States for two years during her brother, Grover’s, first term.”

“Oh.” I felt like such a dummy. Studying was not my strong point, due to all the stress, and I definitely was lacking in my knowledge of history. “Okay.”

“Grover Cleveland was the twenty-second president. He served two terms and got married halfway through the first one. So Rose resigned and started a lesbian relationship with a chick named Evangeline who was married to a bishop.”

Even though I felt horrible, I had to giggle a little. “Wow, they were getting it on back then.”

“And then some. Freakiness was not invented in the twenty-first century.” She paused and picked at one of her manicured nails, dislodging something from it. “After he died, Rose and Evangeline moved to Italy to shack up and she ended up dying during the 1918 flu pandemic.”

I wanted to ask what a “pandemic” was but opted out of that. “This is fascinating and all, but can we get back to you sneaking me out of here? If you let me go with you, you can teach me anything you want.”

Watching a lot of crime shows on TV kicked in. I was a
Miami Vice
addict. Pain or not, I started getting up out of the bed.

“What are you doing?” Hannah’s reflexes had her assisting me instead of letting me struggle. “Let me go get the nurse.”

“No, that’s not happening. I just realized that once they realize that I’m awake, the next thing will be a sex crimes detective in my face asking a bunch of questions.”

“They called the police when we arrived in the ambulance, but I told them the truth. That I didn’t know anything. I said that we were here on vacation and that you were a mess when you met me at the Greyhound station to head back.”

“You’re good at mixing fiction with fact.” I managed to get up but I only had on the hospital gown. I noticed Hannah’s coat strewn across a chair in the corner and confiscated it. “We have to get out of here.”

Hannah helped me put the coat on, again so I wouldn’t hurt myself, but I could tell she was conflicted about it. “Where are we going?”

“Auntie Hannah, where we both were going in the first place. New York. I promise you that once we get there, I’ll get out of your way. I won’t even sit beside you on the bus if you don’t want me to, but please help me.” I fought back tears again. “I’m begging you. I’ll do anything you want.”

“How old are you?” she inquired. “And don’t lie.”

I glanced down at the floor and back up into her blues eyes. “I’m fifteen, but I’ve lived three of your lifetimes.”

She stared at me. “Somehow, I believe you. But what about your parents? You’re a minor. I can’t just—”

“My mother’s locked up in an asylum—she’s fucking nuts—and my father is dead.”

She appeared stunned. “And you’re sure you don’t want to tell the police what happened?”

“No, I can’t deal with that right now. Please. I’ll do anything.”

“Stop saying you’ll do anything. Some of these predators out here will only take you up on that. I speak from vast experience.”

I walked over to the door and peeked out. The nurses’ station was on the other end of the hallway. Good! “The coast is clear. Let’s go.”

Hannah seemed frozen in place at first but then jumped into action. “This is
not
a good idea, but I guess that I’m in. Goodness knows that I’ve done worse.” She paused. “I hope you’re being honest about your parents. I don’t want to end up facing a kidnapping charge.
That
would be a new one for me.”

“You’re not kidnapping me. And they’re not going to come to New York looking for me anyway. They don’t even know my name.”

“Neither do I.”

I hated telling people my name because of the meaning behind it. I blurted it out. “Caprice. My name is Caprice.”

Hannah grinned. “What a pretty name. Much better than Rose.”

I didn’t respond. My name was all part of the generational curse.

We snuck out the room, out the exit door at the stairwell, and then caught a cab to the bus station. New York City, I was on my way.

Thursday, November 26, 1987

Thanksgiving Day

The Bronx

“Every day, I want you to look into this mirror and say to yourself, ‘I’m that chick.’ ”

I frowned as Hannah stood behind me, holding my shoulders as we made eye contact in the floor-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door.

“But how can I say that when I have this hideous scar on my face?” I asked, not convinced at all by the constant empowerment speeches she had been laying on me since we had arrived in New York a month earlier.

“Baby girl, fuck anyone who thinks they’re better than you.” She turned me around to face her. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”

I shrugged. “An unattractive, anorexic-looking teenager?”

Hannah guided me to her whitewashed, wooden, king-size bed and we sat down. “Listen, Caprice, we’ve talked about your life and all the things people did to you, but the past is the past.” She ran her fingers through my hair. “I mean, look at me. All the shit I’ve endured within thirty-six years. And all I have to show for it is this dump that we live in and a hundred and eighty-two dollars hidden under this old-ass mattress.”

“I like this place. It has character.”

That it did. Not that I had been anywhere outside Atlanta in my life, and I rarely was in anyone else’s residence, but Hannah’s one-bedroom apartment in The Bronx had the most interesting decor that I had ever seen. She was a collector of novelty items and was seemingly addicted to loud, vibrant colors. She had her lamps covered with red, green, and purple lace throughout the cramped place and had these huge, flowery floor pillows in various colors in the living room, for guests. She often had company and she was expecting a few friends over for Thanksgiving that day.

We had spent the morning stuffing a turkey, snapping the ends off string beans, and
attempting
to make an apple pie from scratch. It was currently in the oven for another half hour or so and we were keeping our fingers crossed on that one. Neither one of us counted cooking as one of our best traits; we had that in common.

Hannah had a closet overflowing with fancy outfits, but most were stolen. Hannah was a “booster,” a fancy term for an organized shoplifter. She left several times a week and came back with items crammed into her big purses and hidden all over her body as well. She had a tool that she used to remove alarm sensors off items and told me that she had been doing it for over a decade. She would keep what she liked and then sell the rest to other people in the neighborhood.

The Bronx was an interesting place, but it was also scary——especially at night. They were still rebuilding the area after all the fires from times past. Hannah was born and raised there, a fourth-generation member of a Jewish family that had migrated to New York in the 1930s, when the majority of The Bronx was composed of Jews. She said that after rent control was established, landlords stopped taking care of their properties because there was no incentive for them to do otherwise. What resulted was a lot of poor minorities moving in, gangs being created, landlords burning down their own buildings to get the insurance money. Rumor had it that there were so many fires daily that the trucks rarely got a chance to return to the fire stations. Rumor also had it that a lot of tenants were committing the arsons because they could get some money from HUD, no questions asked, for their belongings.

Even though the area was like something out of a World War II movie in some spots, I still enjoyed a lot of the people. The Bronx, specifically 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, an apartment building in Morris Heights, was credited with being the birthplace of hip-hop. DJ Kool Herc referred to the building as “the Bethlehem of hip-hop culture.” All throughout the project building where we lived, you could hear “Paid in Full” by Eric B. and Rakim, “The Bridge Is Over” by BDP from their
Criminal Minded
album, and “Rock the House” by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. I had always loved music, but listening to it all day and night blasting out of windows and in the courtyard gave me a new appreciation of it.

When Hannah’s friends came over, we used to have dance competitions and she would dress me older and sneak me into some of the clubs she frequented. No one really cared about my being underage when we were together. She was so popular and cool. The blond, confident, transgender male-to-female booster with the hot clothing items and shoes on deck that everyone craved but couldn’t afford to get from a store.

As it turned out, Hannah’s “other issue” in the hospital that day was that everyone was clued in to the fact that she had been born a man except for naïve, sedated, and too-traumatized-to-realize-it me. That was why she had told them that she was my aunt and not my mother, even though the race was another dilemma. She had been completely transparent with me on the bus ride to NYC. I was fascinated with the entire story.

Hannah had been born Amram, after the father of Moses, the leader of the Jewish people in the generation preceding the exodus from Egypt. She knew early on that she did not identify with her assigned sex. Inside, she was a girl, and therefore loved little girl things. Her father, Chanan, was wrought with guilt that he had done something wrong, and up until his death, in a car accident when Hannah was twelve, he could never accept the fact that she wanted to wear dresses and heels and play with makeup.

Upon Chanan’s death, her mother, Nava, allowed Hannah to do as she wished. The rest of their extended family shamed and ridiculed her until she left home at eighteen to make it on her own. Nava still lived in The Bronx, but they did not speak. I asked Hannah often why she was shunning her mother when she had been supportive of her desires. Hannah would express that she didn’t want to bring her mother any more pain by being around and allowing other family members to badger her with nasty comments. She hoped that being out of their sight would also mean being out of their minds. I could relate to that, because I was hoping the same for my own grandmother. I had burdened her enough, and my mother’s mental instability had destroyed any chance of a normal existence.

“This place doesn’t have character,” Hannah replied, snapping me back from my thoughts. “I need to get rid of some of this junk around here.”

“Just don’t get rid of your Cabbage Patch dolls, the Snoopy Sno-Cones machine, or those Moxi roller skates.”

She laughed. “Sometimes I forget how young you are.” She sighed. “Speaking of which, I’m still trying to figure out a way to get you registered for school in the spring.”

“Who needs school? I can get a job and help out around here.”

“A job doing what? I can’t even get a decent-ass job and I have my high school diploma. I started boosting to make ends meet, and now I’m all caught up.”

“You get a rush from it, don’t you?” I asked, recalling the enthusiasm she always seemed to have when she unloaded her “take” for the day on the worn sofa.

“It’s partly that, but it is also mostly because I don’t have to deal with the bullshit that would come about from a regular job. Sure, I could get some fast-food work or maybe even get into a call center, but people are so judgmental about my choices. I don’t have the tolerance to have to defend myself from ridicule day after day. Being a booster allows me to stay off the radar.” She smirked. “But I am good. I haven’t been arrested in going on three years, and that’s a record.”

“What happens when they arrest you?”

“A bunch of nonsense, purely for show, then I post a little bail, and walk. They have serious crimes to worry about here. Up until about five years ago, The Bronx was the murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and arson capital of America.”

I was stunned. “Really? I mean, I can see that it’s rough here, but everyone I’ve met seems so nice.”

“Most people around here are nice, but that has nothing to do with the crazies who had a total disregard for human life. That’s why you need to get your ass back in school. So you can make something of yourself.”

I looked down at the floor. “I can’t go back to school. Not yet. Are you forgetting what my classmates in Georgia did to me the night we met?”

Hannah grabbed my shoulders and forced me to make eye contact. “Listen to me, nature has a way of weeding out the thorns. Let karma take care of them, and I understand how you feel, but they are more than a thousand miles away and can’t hurt you now.”

“That doesn’t mean kids here won’t make fun of my scar.” I was on the brink of tears. “It’s not like I can cover up my face. My mother should’ve just killed me that day and gotten it over with.”

Hannah pulled me close to her and hugged me tightly. “You’re special. Believe me when I say that. You are going to turn your test into your testimony and your mess into your message one day. Don’t give up on life, and fuck anyone who thinks they’re better than you. They’re not. There are not any Big I’s and Little U’s in this world. We are all unique in our own way.”

I continued to fight back the tears. “I want to believe you, I do. It’s just that . . .”

“Just that nothing.” Hannah let me go and got up off the bed. “Now go get ready for dinner. All those clothes I’ve jacked for you and you’re sporting sweat pants and my old Beatles T-shirt. Go put on a nice dress.”

“Who all is coming?” I asked.

“Sebastian, Crispin, Nigel, and Shayne.”

“Oh boy,” I said, thinking of the individuals she had just named. “It’s going to be a long night.”

Hannah chuckled. “Yeah, but a fun one. Bet you’ve never had a Thanksgiving like the one you’re about to have.”

“That’s for damn sure.”

Less than four hours later, we were all sprawled across the living room with stuffed stomachs and chilling to “Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House. Sebastian started belting out the words, and the next thing you know, everyone else had joined in, including me.

I was a bit tipsy because Hannah had allowed me a little bit of wine at dinner. I ended up getting up off the sofa and started doing an impromptu dance to the slow song before breaking out into the second verse. It took a few seconds before I realized that everyone else had stopped singing. They were all staring at me.