Baloney Sandwiches

I was getting sick and tired of all the white men saying that my butt was too big and the Hispanic men thinking I was Hispanic and then getting mad whenever they spoke Spanish to me and I couldn’t return the favor or when they asked me what country I was from and I proudly announced that I was half black and half white and from Columbus, Ohio and was not Hispanic.  Many of the Hispanic men thought I was lying and would further insist that my parents must have been Hispanic and then would ask me where my parents were from.  It was a very annoying situation because none of it really mattered did it?  I mean did it really make a difference where my parents were from or where I was from – especially since I was standing there in a thong with a pair of six-inch heels and a garter full of ones around my right thigh.

I sat down in the Vegas style dressing room and wondered if I was going to be able to do this or not and if so how I was going to handle it.  Velvet came over to and asked me if I was all right.  I explained to her how I was sick and tired of hearing that my butt was too big or being spoken Spanish to when I wasn’t Hispanic.  Velvet was a very pretty, petite, dark skinned stripper who wore long wavy weave all the way down to the crack of her ass.  She was about 4 feet 9 inches tall without heels and couldn’t have weighed more than 100 pounds soak and wet.  The white men loved her and would stand and watch her on stage with their mouths hanging open as if they were watching a UFO land right in front of them.

This was my first stripper gig.  I was working in at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute as a medical transcriptionist who helped coordinate a study for AIDS patients during the day, going to college part-time and working as a cocktail waitress at a local club on Friday and Saturday night prior to this and still couldn’t seem to make ends meet.  I would joke with my mother about how I needed to save up in order to buy a toothbrush.

My stripper name was Ginger and the club was DejaVu on South Beach.  Velvet said, “Girl I told you, you would make a lot of money at the black club with that booty and the way you dance”.  This wasn’t the first time Velvet told me about stripping in the black clubs or about the money I could make.

To be continued……

When I met Marielito I had just turned 16 years old and had recently moved back in with my mother because I couldn’t handle my stepfathers idea of rules and guidelines.  I was used to running wild and doing whatever I wished because my mother was more interested in her weird relationships with her various and assorted ex-convict/drug addict boyfriends.

At the time Mom was with her boyfriend who called himself Monte Carlo.   Monte Carlo was only about 29 years old, very slim with Hershey chocolate brown skin, a Geri curl, never worked, stayed high and tried various times to feel me up.  Why any child would move back into that type of situation was baffling.  I missed my mother even though she had no clue as to how to be a mother and I wanted to protect my younger sister so that she wouldn’t become Monte’s next victim.  I was never scared of Monte and for some reason I wasn’t even mad at him for what he tried to do to me.  I was madder at my mother for not protecting me.  I mean, that’s what mothers are supposed to do, right?

I met Marielito while walking to the local “quickie-mart type” store.  That day I had on my silky, lime green and white stripped short shorts and a pink tube top.  I loved wearing loud colors.  When I was nearly halfway to the store I noticed a man standing just outside of one of the three-story, brick apartment buildings in my apartment complex (Greenbriar East).  He was very slim, only five feet six inches tall with long, straight Indian like hair, olive skin, and a large nose that turned down like the beak of a Toucan.  He was wearing a white Karate Ghee and with a black belt tightly wrapped around his tiny waist and was practicing his Karate moves.

I grew up watching Bruce Lee and Kung Fu Theatre with my cousins and stepfather and always thought it looked like it might be a lot of fun to learn.  As I stood on the sidewalk watching Marielito practice his Karate moves, he looked towards me and stopped doing what he was doing to say hello.  He then asked me my name and we began to converse.  He told me he was a Karate instructor and that he taught women self defense.  The conversation was really amusing because he could barely speak English.

He asked my name and then told me his (Lazaro).  He told me he was 32 years old and then asked me how old I was.  I lied and told him I was going to be 18 soon.  I told him I had just moved in right around the corner from him.  He gave me his phone number and asked me to call him.  His face looked very familiar and after I walked away I realized that I had seen him during a school field trip to his Karate studio a few years ago.  I was intrigued by his accent and his look.  He had told me he was a Marielito from Cuba.  At the time I didn’t even know where Cuba was and I certainly had no idea what a Marielito was.

The following day when walking to the store again I spotted Lazaro outside practicing Karate again.  This time he was training a young boy.  I stopped to watch for a minute and thought that he seemed to be really good with children, which led me to believe that he was a good person.  When he noticed me watching he stopped to come over to speak with me and then decided to show me a couple of self-defense moves.  We spoke for a little while and then I asked him what he meant when he said he was a Marielito.  He told me that he came over to the United States during the Mariel boat-lift from Cuba when Castro sent thousands of Cubans over to the United States.  I was still confused about what a Marielito was and later found out that “the Mariel boat-lift was a mass emigration of Cubans who departed from Cuba’s Mariel Harbor for the United States between April 15 and October 31, 1980”.  (Wikipedia, 2011) Many of those exiles had been released from Cuban jails and mental hospitals and were referred to as Marielitos.

Lazaro and I began seeing each other off and on.  Monte, my mother’s child-molester boyfriend, found out that I was seeing Lazaro and proceeded to tell him that I was only 16 years old.  Lazaro then informed me that he could no longer see me because he didn’t want to get into any trouble with the law.  We had just come back from him taking me to dinner when he told me.  I cried and pleaded with him not to break up with me.  At the time, I felt like he was the only person in the world who really cared about me.  Somehow he was my escape and comfort.

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Writing my book hasn’t been easy.  Sometimes I didn’t even know why I was doing it.  I felt like I was doing it for the children – especially the little girls that might be going through what I went through.   Maybe it was for the women who had been through what I had been through.  One thing I was sure of was that I didn’t want to leave out the men or little boys – too often men and little boys were left out and when they were left out, we all suffered.

I often thought to myself, “Why didn’t anyone have the intelligence to put it all together”?  We could put a man on the moon, destroy entire nations and speak to dolphins, but still couldn’t figure out that we were all connected and that everything that affects one of us affects us all.

Was I wrong?  Why did a half-breed, high school drop out, ex-rapper/stripper, who grew up in the ghetto manage to figure this out or why did she care?  Could it be that everyone else was aware of what was going on but simply did not care.  Are we all helpless or selfish?  Was I some type of freak for believing that there was more to life than being born, working, marrying, having children, retiring and then dying?  Could our lives and existence be this cut and dried?

Perhaps when I finish my book I will have some understanding of why things are the way they are and I will be able to relax mentally and enjoy at least some of my physical existence.  Better yet, perhaps I will be able to bring about a better understanding of our spiritual connectedness and how all of our actions affect one another.  I’m not even sure if I know where to begin.  But I do know that without trying there will never be change.

It was Saturday morning during the summer and I had just finished putting the rubber bands around all of the newspapers I had to deliver on my paper-route.  I shoved the newspapers into my big canvas pouch that read “Columbus Dispatch” in big neon orange colors and headed out the door.  My dogs, Lady and Muttly stood right by the door dancing and prancing around.  They loved accompanying me on my paper-route and couldn’t wait to get out the door.

This was our daily routine.  And they both knew when I was wrapping up my papers that we would soon be headed on our long walk to deliver our papers.

Lady was always the first one to dash out the door and Muttly was always right behind her.  You had to be really careful when you opened the door with Lady around, because if you didn’t she would run you right over.  She was pretty big and very strong.  Lady was a Doberman Pinscher mixed with what some call “working Dobe” working Dobes were a little thicker and more muscular than your typical Doberman Pinscher.  Muttly was an old stray my aunt Judy had rescued from the streets.

My aunt had taken Muttly in and found out he was somewhat of a trouble starter.  Julie already had two small dogs, one Yorkshire terrier named Alphie and a small, black miniature poodle name Sara after me.  Muttly looked like he had some pit-bull in him and a couple of other things.  He was black with two grayish white paws and a white chest.  His right ear and his tongue were chipped, he had cataracts and he walked a little sideways – he also suffered from epileptic seizures.

Julie couldn’t keep him because of the conflict with her dogs and feared she might have to turn him over to the humane society.  She called my mother and told her about Muttly and my mother decided to take him in.  Muttly did not get along with other male dogs and although he was falling apart and old he was still very feisty, mean and horny.

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I left the house bundled up like an Eskimo and headed to school. It was freezing cold outside. I had on my new, rabbit-fur lined boots. I loved those boots. They were fluffy outside and knee high. Mom tried to get me practical boots that were big, ugly and waterproof but I wasn’t having that. I protested until I got what I wanted.

Life was alright. I have to admit it was scary walking to school all alone with snow up to your knees at five years old. The snow seemed like it was as tall as me in some areas. We had just moved into an area called Bexley on the east side of Columbus. Our townhouse was really nice. Mom was working for the post office. It was just two of us and we were doing pretty damn good.

We had new furniture, new TV’s, and beautiful paintings. Mom had a new car and even my bedroom set was beautiful. It was something like you’d never seen before and it was imported all the way from Mexico. It had neon yellow and tangerine colored flowers surrounding antique brass handles with lime green leaves on the stems of the flowers. It was a huge set and had a lot of pieces: two big bookcases with storage under them, a desk with drawers on the side, two nightstands, and a headboard. I loved it – my mother had exquisite taste and always managed to find beautiful things that were often overlooked by others.
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When I was growing up, my mother was pretty damn broke and we ate a lot of baloney sandwiches.  I was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio in an all African American, poor neighborhood.  My sister and I were what they called back in the day “high-Yellow”.

During the summer, the local swimming pool served as “free” summer camp for my sister and I.  We took swimming lessons, joined the swim team and spent our entire day at Maryland pool from 7am until sunset.  Maryland Pool was huge with 3 sections.  One section had shallow water for small children and people who didn’t know how to swim.  Then came the middle section, which included the 50 meter “lap swim” section and finally the deep end which had 2 low dives and one high dive.  On really hot days,  the pool would become so crowded that they had to stop letting people in.  Racist individuals referred to Maryland Pool as “The Ink Well” because there were so many African American children in the water at one time that you could barely see the water in the pool – I never knew what they meant when they used the term “Ink Well” until I became an adult.

Since my sister and I spent the entire day swimming we became very hungry.

The recreation center affiliated with Maryland Pool provided all the kids with free lunch.  Most of the time, “free lunch” consisted of a banana, fruit punch (in a small, cardboard, triangular container), a piece of cake, and the main staple a “baloney sandwich”.

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Approximately 9 years ago in April of 2000, my friend, we will call her Glo, and I were headed to South Beach to go see a friend of mines open up for the rap group Mobb Deep.  Anthony asked me to be there early so that I could go on stage with them and help hype up the crowd.  I knew I would be moving around a lot so I wore my hip hop gear, which then consisted of black Dickie boots, loose Dickie overalls and a leather jacket.  I know it sounds weird but it was really cute at the time.

Glo and I were running late so I decided to speed all the way there.  I was driving a 2000 gold, Dodge Mini-van that a producer friend of mines we will call him Mr. Producer, let me borrow because my car was broken down at the time.  Mr. Producer was always in an out of town and always had several cars around. When he saw that I had no car he told me that he had an extra van that was a rental that he wasn’t using and that I could borrow that until I got my car fixed.  It had been two weeks since he loaned me the mini-van and by then I had my two-years car seat in it, my fishing rods, mail and anything else I could fit in it.  It desperately needed cleaning, but I was too busy working on my so-called music career and working to have time to clean it out.

Back to the story…..here we are riding over the I-195 expressway eastbound connecting Midtown Miami with Miami Beach.  I am driving and Glo is in the front passenger seat.  The speed limit on this section of the road is 55mph and here I am doing at least 70mph.  All of a sudden I hear the sound of a cop car signaling for me to pull over.  Glo and I both turned around and looked out the back window of the van and saw Florida Highway Patrol behind me.

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This Fourth of July I decided to do something I rarely do.  My close neighbors, a very nice, older Jamaican couple always ask me come by and join them whenever they have a cookout or family get-together, so I decided to take them up on their offer.

I usually don’t join them because I’m not what you would consider a very social person and their events usually consist of a 10 to 1 ratio of men to women (much more men).  Most of the men who visit them are family and they are visiting from Jamaica.  In addition most of them are married, yet they still try to see if they can sleep with you.

I left my daughters grandmothers house and it was about 9:00pm.  When I walked into the house I could hear my neighbors laughing really loud.  It sounded like they were having a lot of fun so I decided to go on over.  When I walked up everyone was still laughing.  The older couple I knew and their daughter and her husband were there.  There were also six males.  Everyone was drinking and having a good time.  I said hello to everyone and my neighbor’s wife (we will call her Vee) asked me to have a seat.  I was wearing big grey sweatpants and a brown tee-shirt and flip flops.  I probably looked like I was wearing pajamas.

Vee asked me to sit down and offered me some Jamaican Rum.  For some reason, Rum makes me horribly ill, so I declined and instead asked if they had any beer.  I like beer and it doesn’t make me sick.  Vee asked me if I liked Red Stripe beer and I told her, “yes”.  She asked her husband to hand me a beer because he was closest to the refrigerator, which was outside.  Vee then asked me if I wanted something to eat.  She was a great cook and brought me plates of food on several occasions.  I accepted and got up and followed her into the house.  She cooked roast pork, jerk chicken, rice and peas, and potato salad.  Potato salad was one of my favorites and she made some of the best.

Vee was a very good hostess and she liked seeing people eat.  She piled my plate up full enough for 3 people with roast pork and rice and peas.  Then she handed me the plate and told me to help myself to the salad and potato salad.  There was no room on my plate for anything else, but I managed to slide it all around and find a small space for the potato salad.

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After Grandma  died, everybody in the family went haywire.  I never realized that Mom wasn’t really around that much, because I loved Grandma so much that it didn’t matter to me one way or another.  Aunt Gretchen started drinking really bad.  Aunt Mary started shooting Heroine.   My favorite cousin became a pimp.  And me, well I guess I was left to the wolves.

Mom got heavily involved in the church.  I hated the church.  This had to be the most corrupt place with the meanest people in the world in it.  All everybody did was talk bad about each other and put each other down.  The kids at church were more prejudiced than the ones at school.  The pastors were all screwing all the women in the congregation and damn that shit lasted all day long.  I thought if there was a hell, this had to be it.   The only good thing about it was the bake sale down in the basement afterward.  Well, after you starved to death for 8 hours.  We would get there at 8am and get out at 3:00pm.  And all everybody did was try to see who was wearing the best hat.  Then sometimes we would be there all damn day and come right back that same night.  Night service was when they cast out the demons.  Well at least that was interesting to a little kid.  It was like an exorcist show – the lights going on and off and people howling and screaming and shit.  I was never scared.  I just thought they were all nuts and faking it.

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I went on MySpace to maintain my page as I typically do on any given Monday or Tuesday evening.  I go to my “friend’s request” link and I proceed to click on the “select all” button at the bottom of the page.  This day was not unlike any other Monday or Tuesday and I probably had perhaps 7 to 8 pages of friend requests.  When I state this fact, I am by no means implying that I am special.  I would tend to believe most people probably have this many friend requests if not more, especially if they are half-way decent looking or even if they appear to be under 35 years of age.  I believe that’s all it takes.

Anyway……………

I select all and “BAM”, like an instant “friend magnet” I have about 50 or 60 more friends (if that’s what you want to call them).  I flop off of MySpace and get back to the real reason I’m on the Internet in the first place and that was what?  Oh yeah, to do my homework.

The following day, we will call that Tuesday; I receive a few emails from some of the friends I accepted the previous day.  Most of them were thanking me for my acceptance of their friend request – most of the time I try to respond to them with a “you’re welcome” email. One particular email stood out for me because the guy in the picture was wearing a suit and holding a book in his hand.  He looked very professional.  And “professional” is not something you see too much of on MySpace.  I looked at his email a little more and noticed he was the author of a book on relationships.  I thought I might be humorous and comment on his book, so I sent him back an email saying something like, “I could tell you a few things about relationships, but it sure won’t sell any books”.

A couple of days later, he responded back with something funny and then asked me to check out his book.  I responded back asking him what it was all about and he responded back again telling me to purchase it to find out.  I then proceeded to tell him that I was also an author and working on my book.  I also told him I have a couple of other friends who are authors and was looking to network with other up-and-coming authors.  I then ordered his book and asked him if he would give me his opinion of an excerpt from my book since his book was doing quite well and he was self-published, as I was planning to self-publish as well.

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