Girls Like Us Read online

  Table of Contents

  Biddy

  Quincy

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My name is Biddy.

  Some call me other names.

  Granny call me Retard.

  Quincy call me White Trash sometimes and Fool most of the time.

  Most kids call me Speddie. That’s short for Special Education.

  I can’t write or read. A little bit, but not good enough to matter.

  There’s a lots of stuff I don’t know. If I could write, I could make a long list. List might reach all the way through Texas to someplace like Chicago. I don’t know where Chicago is. That’s another thing for the list.

  But there’s some things I do know. And once I know a thing, I hold it tight and don’t let it stray off.

  Granny shouldn’t call me Retard. I know that. It ain’t nice. It hurts my feelings.

  I know it’s a wrong thing to hurt somebody’s feelings. I know that I ain’t White Trash. Trash is something you throw away. You don’t throw nobody away. That’s wrong. Even if my mama done it to me.

  Most folk call me Quincy. I ain’t pretty but I got me a pretty name. My whole name be Sequencia.

  The one thing all us Speddies can tell you is what kind of retard we are. Ms. Evans get wadded in a knot if anybody say retarded. We be “differently abled.” We be “mentally challenged,” she say. I got challenged when my mama’s boyfriend hit my head with a brick.

  I was six and I remember being smarter. My mama and her boyfriend was fighting, and I turnt the TV up so I could hear my show. The door was helt open to let air in with an ole brick that had cement stuck on it. Mama’s boyfriend pick up that brick and hit me. Kinda over my eye and the side of my head.

  They’s still a big ole dent in my head, and one of my eyes is push down. My face look like somebody put both hands on it and push up on one side and pull down on the other.

  I got took away from my mama, and the doctor say that I got brain damage from that brick. I don’t know. My mama was a crack ho, so I wasn’t gonna be too smart no how.

  People think when you in Special Ed that you s’posed to be sitting ’round drooling so they can pick you right out the crowd. That just shows they be dumber than they think we are. There’s folks in Special Ed get driver’s licenses. They go to school, hand you change at the store, take your order at the drive-through, and sack your groceries. We talk just like other folk. We — well, not me, but most — look just like other folk. We understand stuff. We just learn it slow. And most of what we understand is that people what ain’t Speddies think we too stupid to get out our own way. And that makes me mad.

  I don’t know my mama’s name. Granny says she don’t want to hear that no-count name in her ears, much less let it walk on her tongue. All she’ll say is that my mama showed up one day, dirty and stinking and toting me. She told Granny she wanted to spend the night. When Granny woke up the next morning, Mama flown the coop. And I was roosting.

  She said she knew something was wrong when I was a year old. I hadn’t turned over by myself. A visiting nurse took me to a hospital. Doctor said I had moderate retardation. Two big words, but I know them. I thought they was my last name. “This is Biddy,” Granny would say. “She’s moderate retardation.”

  The doctor said that not enough oxygen got to my brain when I was being borned. And that’s why I’m slow. And that means I couldn’t give it to my baby. That’s why Granny could give her away. If she been a stupid child, I maybe could have kept her.

  I guess I love Granny. She took me in and fed me. She tells me about it all the time. But she calls me mean names. Maybe I know why my mama left Granny’s place. What I can’t get hold of is why, knowing what she did, my mama didn’t take me with her.

  Graduation is coming up. Part of me is glad. I won’t have to get on the school bus no more. I won’t have to walk past boys that laugh that dirty laugh. Throw candy wrappers at me. But I been scaredy feeling. Granny said I can’t live with her after graduation. She said the state don’t send no more checks now. I’m past eighteen and graduating. Said I been roosting too long in her nest.

  Where would I be if I wasn’t at Granny’s? I don’t know how to be nowhere else. My stomach hurt for a whole bunch of days worrying about it.

  Well, if I ain’t lower than a snake’s butt. I was feeling fine ’bout graduation coming up. Thinking to myself, Won’t that show my ole mama? Here I am, with a dented head and still manage to graduate. Then Ms. Evans call me and that fool Biddy in her office.

  “I’ve got terrific news for you,” Ms. Evans say, all smiling and proud.

  Then she slap me upside the head with news almost hard as that brick. She tole me that since I’m eighteen and graduating, I cain’t stay with my foster fambly no more. Then she say that everything was fine. Since me and another girl was wards of the state, we would be took care of. I was going to live with the other girl and have a job. I had me a bad feeling then. Why ole fat Biddy in the office too?

  “You and Biddy are going to be roommates,” Ms. Evans say, like she’d just hand me chocolate cake with a money filling.

  I look over at Biddy and she smiling so big I can practally see the inside her toes, but I cain’t believe what I’m hearin’.

  Biddy in my Living Skills class. That stupid cow cain’t read or write
. I can. I’m in Special Education like her, but I take regular reading and math classes.

  One day in Living Skills, I tole Ms. Evans that in my reading class we had to keep us a journal. Write in it every day. I have myself a hard time writing, and it tire me out sumpin’ awful. Ms. Evans say she can fix me right up. She go to the closet and brung out this little tape recorder and a pile of tapes.

  “Ask your teacher if it’s OK if you use this. Instead of writing, you can keep an oral journal.”

  I give her a “What that mean?” look.

  She smile. I love the way that woman smile. She got the whitest, straightest teeth, and they shine out her dark face.

  “‘Oral’ means spoken. You might tell your story out loud instead of writing it down.”

  Biddy, she got ears ’bout big as her buffalo butt.

  “What’s a journal?”

  Ms. Evans turnt around and talk to that ole tub and forget clean about me. “A journal is like a diary. You write, or tell, your thoughts every day. It’s a story about yourself.”

  I swear, Biddy don’t know how to hide a thing. Everything she think just hop up and sit on that ashy white face for anybody to see. Her face brighten up like somebody turnt on a lamp in front of a mirror. “Could I do that? Tell my story to the tape?”

  And there she go. Elbow her way into sumpin’ of mine. Now she doin’ it again with this livin’ together thing.

  Then Ms. Evans tell Biddy she gonna take her to buy a dress for graduation. For a present. Biddy’s face look like — I don’t know — a full moon rising over a corn patch.

  I don’t need me no charity dresses. I got me a new pink lacy one.

  But Biddy. Woo, that girl need some dressing. Seem like in middle school she dress poor, but not . . . well, not like she do now. She start that ugly thing after what happen in seventh grade. Since then, shoot-a-goose, that girl a pure mess. She got this pair of navy-blue stretch pants done stretch way too far. I swear she wear ’em every day. She got three T-shirts, huge ones, maybe cover up a king-size bed. I got to say, the girl don’t stink, so she must wash those things right often.

  But the big deal is that coat. It’s a long tan coat, and Biddy wear it all the time. All the time. We live in Texas, right on the Gulf, and it’s hot, but Biddy wearing that coat summer and winter, in class and out. I never seen that girl without her coat.

  One day, I found out why. Rosie DeVries is a mean ole stick that make fun of folk. She trailer trash and not much count herself, but she think ’cause she white and not a Speddie that she somebody important. Anyway, she find out a few months ago that she can make Biddy go crazy if she tease her long enough. One day, Rosie must have been in a real bad mood, ’cause she start in hard on ole Rhino Hino. Call her names — well, Rhino Hino one of them — I didn’t think that up my ownself. And she axt Biddy if she had any other pants and did her Granny feed her slops to get so fat. Biddy start to wailing and crying. Lord, snot and tears running like a garden hose.

  Then Biddy got mad enough to say something back. “You leave me alone, you bitch!”

  Nobody ever heard Biddy say a cuss word. Everybody watching drop they mouth open, until we looked like a bunch of gasper-goos flung up on the bank.

  That light a flame under Rosie. She reach out and grab Biddy’s arm and yank hard. It swing Biddy around and pop the buttons on that raggedy tan coat and it fly open.

  Pin to the inside of her coat was candy bars, bags of chips, packages of peanut-butter crackers, little sacks of cookies, and all kinds of stuff. The girl a vending machine with feets.

  Rosie laugh so hard that she forget she was mad. “This ho’s got a sto’ in her coat.” She laugh again. “The ho with the sto.” Most everybody laugh. Biddy pull her coat up over her face and run off to the bathroom.

  I didn’t laugh. I know what it’s like for folk to call you names.

  But I didn’t help neither. Besides, everybody know Biddy be a ho.

  Graduation was good. I wore my new dress. I combed my hair real nice. I didn’t mind looking nice at my graduation, in the light. With all those peoples watching. With Ms. Evans there — I didn’t think nothing bad could happen.

  Ms. Evans said that me and Quincy are the only Speddies graduating this year. I feel extra special about graduating. Like I done something good. We got in an adult program. We’ll live in a little house. Maybe we will even end up being friends together. And a counselor will check us. That makes me feel all safe and good. We even got jobs! I’m gonna clean house and do for an old lady. Our house is on top of her garage. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.

  Another teacher, the one across the hall from our Living Skills room, give me a watch. We lined up to walk on the football field. Ms. Evans come and handed me a rose.

  I hadn’t even seen that all the other girls got roses to carry. Maybe they parents give ’em to ’em. That was real nice of Ms. Evans. But it made me lonely. I don’t know why.

  We marched on the field, and peoples in the stands clapped. It made me smile. When my name was called, I marched right up to the stand. I got my diploma. I was so excited. I shook everybody hand. I started back down. I got a little confused. Ms. Evans came and got me back to my seat. It was OK again.

  Granny didn’t come. She said my paper ain’t nothin’ but a joke. She says that I didn’t have no real classes. It ain’t a real diploma.

  Lordy, graduation was sumpin’. I had me a fine pink dress and a rose, and I walked myself proud and straight-backed onto that football field. Took my diploma and shake the principal’s hand like we been showed, then walk back to my seat. That durned tassel thing tickle my nose, but I didn’t scratch it or nothing.

  Biddy, I swear that girl. She smile so big, you could put her diploma in her mouth crostways. She practally run up that platform and snatch her certificate from the principal’s hand. She grab his hand and pump it like she be getting water, then she shaking hands with the other folks on the platform. Just a-babbling at ’em. She shake every single person’s hand — even the cop guard! Then she start back to her seat, but she turnt wrong and start loping right off the field. Ms. Evans had to get her turnt around.

  And I got to live with this fool. I must’ve done something bad awful that I got to bear this cross. Leastwise, if I live with her, I finally be the smartest person in the house.

  Quincy and me met up at the high school with Ms. Evans and our new counselor, Ms. Delamino. I like to say her name real slow. With my nose a little bit up in the air like smart people on the TV.

  Ms. Delamino rode us in her car to meet the lady that I’m going to do for. Her last name is longer than Ms. Delamino’s. It’s hard to get hold of, so I’m gonna call her Miss Lizzy. Ms. Delamino say Miss Lizzy was married to the mayor. But he done died a few years back. She had her a sometime housekeeper. Now she need all-the-time help.

  When we got there, I couldn’t believe my own eyes. Miss Lizzy live in a house that look like it come straight out a storybook. Great big front porch that you got to walk up a couple of steps to get to. A door with glass in a big egg shape. Ms. Delamino tapped on the door and opened it. She called out Miss Lizzy last name. Said that we was here. I stood in the hall and look up. I never knew a ceiling in a house could be so tall up in the air. And a light with hanging-down pieces of glass that twinkled and shined was over my head. Under my feet was wood floor with a long, skinny rug covering a lots of it. That rug was thick enough to sleep on.

  “Please come in.” That’s when I saw Miss Lizzy. She was in a room off to the side of the hall. Ms. Delamino walked into that fancy room. Shook Miss Lizzy’s hand. She waved at Quincy and me to come in. She told Miss Lizzy our names.

  Miss Lizzy’s real little. With silver hair. Eyes so black they look shiny. She wore a dress-up suit and stood in a walker thing. She looked me over real hard and said, “Honey, you look like an angel come down to earth. Don’t know why you’re wearing that coat in the summer, though.”

  I stared at my shoes. I couldn�
�t think if I ought to say thank you or I’m sorry.

  Miss Lizzy pushed her walker to Quincy. She put her hand up to Quincy’s bad cheek and said, “You poor dear. Nobody will hurt you here.”

  Quincy jerked away and sulled up. Sometimes I don’t know about that girl.

  We went with Ms. Delamino to see our house. We climb the white stairs nextside of the garage. I felt like the princess going up to the castle. We went in. It was the prettiest place I ever did see. The kitchen look like it come from a dollhouse. So cute and tidy. There’s a counter that has stools at it, so we don’t need a table. The furniture isn’t broke down and the walls are clean. No peeling wallpaper or brown water stains nowhere. And two bedrooms! I never had me a bedroom before. Granny stored stacks of old newspaper and magazines and all her mail in the extra bedroom in her house. I slept on a pallet in the living room.

  Quincy picked her room first. Mine is painted white and has a bed made of curly metal. It’s painted white too. It has a pretty quilt on it. It has a table nextside of the bed with a fancy cloth on it that reaches all the way to the floor. It’s got yellow and blue flowers. I never saw anything so nice. I turned myself in a circle. I put my arms out wide, just to feel the pretty. I’ll work hard all the day to live in a place so nice and clean.

  Our apartment/house ’bout as big as a hummingbird’s nest but it ain’t so bad. It only gots a shower and I like me a good soaking tub, but I can get along pretty good here, long as that stick of an ole woman be leavin’ me alone. Ms. D. tell us she take us to our houses to collect our things. Biddy run outside, then come back in with a paper sack. Everything that girl own in a little ole sack. I shake my head.

  Biddy scoot into her room and thump her pitiful sack on her bed. She start whirling ’round like she Cinderella and babbling ’bout her “princess table.” Under the raggedy flower sheet, her “table” just a turnt-over garbage can. Girl can’t see past the stars in her eyes. “I’m moved in. I’m home to stay,” she say, smiling so big her cheeks ’bout hide her eyes.

  If I had eyes that wasn’t mashed up by a brick, I sure ’nuff wouldn’t hide ’em behind a bunch a fat. I guess when even ole witch ladies call her purty and say she look like a angel, Biddy got something to smile about, fat or not. It ain’t like she earn being purty.