Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon

1990
Antonio,
    Â 
    Well, Antonio, I am a little bit upset you didn’t take the money. That was something I wanted to do for you as a present. People give each other presents all the time. That’s all it was. But if you feel like I’m disrespecting on your manhood then I can’t do nothing but respect that. But I’m telling you, if you need it, don’t be afraid to ask.
    One person I ain’t giving no money to is Roy. Now lemme tell you what this nigga did. He gonna ask me to go to the corner store right and pick him up some stuff. He was smoking the joe and got the munchies, plus he wanted some cigarettes and you remember Sanchez who own the store? Well, he always let me buy cigarettes for Mommy and Roy cause he know us. So I went and got just what Roy asked for: some Newports, OJ, cheese popcorn, 7Up, and we needed some more dish soap. So I’m thinking he gonna give me the money before I left, but he claimed he was gonna give it to me when I got back. Well, when I came back he gonna talk about “Well if you had the money anyway it’s no use in me giving it back to you.” So I started screaming that I wasn’t giving him his shit and he was like, “Girl you better quit playing with me. I ain’t yo mama.” And I wasn’t gonna give it to him Antonio, I meant it. But then my mother came out her room cause she was in there under the hood dryer wrapping her hair, and usually she don’t take my side so
I just threw the bag on the floor and stomped to my room to turned on Queen Latifah just like I always have to. On the way back there though my mother said, “Roy, that’s Natasha’s money. If I don’t ask her for it then neither should you.” And Roy screamed “Denise, she need to contribute to this house. She grown and old enough to open her legs and hit the streets when she wanna so she shouldn’t be hollering about no damn ten dollars.” Now, Antonio that made me so mad cause compared with most kids my age, I’m doing good with myself. I don’t even go out that much, only to the movies or parties or Times Square and that’s only on the weekend. So my mother said, “Natasha do her part with the chores and she pay for almost everything she want, so I don’t ask her for no money and she my own daughter.” Then Roy was like, “Oh she my daughter too when the rent need to be paid to keep a roof over her head, but she your daughter when it’s time to correct her?” Then Mommy said “You ain’t correcting her—you just keeping up mess.” Then I just heard Roy stomping around and opening the front door and he said something out in the hall like, “This whole house ain’t nothing but a mess. Drew had some sense getting the hell out.”
    Well he was gone for a while before my mother came in the room with a towel wrapped around her head and she sat on my bed I guess expecting me to say something, but I just looked at her like, “What?” And she said, “Natasha, can’t you just try to stop fighting with Roy? Y’all driving me up the wall, I swear.” And I didn’t
even feel like talking about it, so I just sighed real loud and then she kept looking at me and I was like “What?” again. And she said, “Well, girl answer me,” and I said, “I didn’t know there was a question,” and she just said, “Watch your mouth.” I just told her, Antonio, that I didn’t like him, matter of fact I hated him and I couldn’t wait to leave and I was going to France and not coming back. Then I told her about Laneice’s mother and father, about how they didn’t scream and fight and holler all the time and that was why I liked to go over there so much. I expected my mother to say something to that, but she didn’t for a while and when I finally looked up she had her head down and she was crying. I didn’t know what to