Prince Charming: A Cinder(F)ella Story

Chapter One: Jay

Life really has a funny way of biting us in the ass, doesn't it?

Everyone tries to warn us at every step of the way. "Life's not fair." "Life's a box of chocolates." Or more straight to the point, "Life sucks."

I feel the most fitting saying is that "life is a roller coaster." It's full of loops, twists, and curls that will make your gut clench. Then right when things are going smoothly, you are making a steady climb upward, you can see the pretty view of the park, and then...you drop so hard you vomit all of the funnel cake you pigged out on.

That's life. At least, that's my life.

My roller coaster of a life took it's first dip when I was a few months. My mother died in a car accident, that I had somehow miraculously survived. I was the miracle baby that got some fire man on the front page of news after he rescued me from the wreckage. Yay fireman, yay car seats...I guess.

It was just me and my dad. He was in the military and struggled to raise a child on his own. Between deployments and drills, I was often kept at my grandmother's house. She owned a brown stone in Harlem. She had said that her father bought it long before gentrification. She was proud of the house, but all I knew was that it smelt like moth balls and she smelled like feet. I would be there for months at a time, until Dad returned from deployment.

I loved my father, truly. He was modest and happy, no matter our circumstance. He often called himself ugly, and said that he was thankful I looked more like my mother. I disagreed, I thought the gap in his teeth and the width of his ears were endearing. His features were large, while mine were small, including my build. As I got older, it was clear I would not be near the six feet and four inches my father managed. My grandmother used to do that corny thing where she would measure my height on the door frame. She was old fashioned that way. 

Every morning I would wake up to the sound of her singing spirituals. I asked her once if she could tone it down so I could sleep in. She said only sinners sleep past 8 A.M. Grandmother had a large build like my father. Tall and broad, she stood like and oak tree. She seemed invincible. Until she died.

Dip number two.

After my grandmother died, the Brown Stone became ours. I was about nine years old. No matter what I sprayed, I couldn't rid the house of the moth ball smell. Dad still had a hard time balancing his military deployments and raising a child. He began to rent out the rooms to people who seemed to have an ounce of maternal instinct, so they could function as a live-in sitter.  

That's when Bertha moved in. I loved me some, Bertha. She would  bake caramel cakes, let me have ice cream for breakfast, and let me stay up as long as I wanted. When Dad was away she had three of her girl friends living in the house too. They would always have the greatest parties, with these loud men who would smoke cigars. Finally, the smell of moth balls would fade and be replaced with tobacco, cheap perfume, caramel cakes, and musk. She was with us two years and I loved every second, but Dad kicked her out when he realized she was running a brothel out of the building.

The next to move in was Alvitia. God,  did I hate that woman. She was big Jamaican woman that would practically shout Bible Verses at me every morning to wake me. The woman couldn't cook to save her life. Thank god her nephew moved into the building with her.

His name was Deonte and we were the same age. He didn't like me at first, said that I was quiet, boring, and as basic as they come. Close to his thirteenth birthday,  Alvitia was about to beat him for stealing her lipstick. She chased him around the house, bible in one hand and broom in the other. Deonte dodged the blows from the broom handle and the large book. 

It only ended once I said I had stolen the lipstick, which I hadn't. Not because I felt particularly bad for Deonte, but I wanted the shouting to stop. Alvitia stopped running, looked at me like I smelt awful, smacked her lips and said, "I should have known."