At Ground Level

Tiffany Sewell                                                 

           At Ground Level

“Go to hell, Anthony,” my mother screamed over the sound of glass shattering. How long will it last this time, I thought. I slowly got off of my bed, trying to be as quiet as possible, and shut my bedroom door. I turned the lock on the knob and sighed. This is going to be a long day.

“You can’t make me do shit I don’t wanna do!” my mother screamed in the distance. 

“Rachel, lower your voice.” my father replied, his voice a bit lower.

This was so common in my house that my sister and I just stayed in our rooms. Sometimes I worried that our neighbors would hear my parents going at it and call the police, but we lived in Jamaica, Queens. The cops here were more concerned with gang violence and drug deals. They couldn’t care less about a domestic disturbance. My television flashed scenes of some show on the Sundance channel. On some other day, a quieter day, I might have been more interested. But, right now, my mind was somewhere else. 

I sat on my bed, chowing away on some Frosted Flakes. I heard a knock on my bedroom door, and my body froze. My heart skipped a beat. “It’s me,” my sister said, her voice a few volumes lower than usual. I ran a hand through my hair and sighed in relief before unlocking my door. Azzy walked into my room, turning the knob on the door, before silently pushing it into the door frame. I watched as her nimble fingers turned the lock. She walked over to my dresser, looking through the sparse amount of makeup that I owned. I wasn’t really the type to get glammed up for school or work. It just seemed like a waste of time to me, especially with so many other things going on. Azzy, my older sister, loved to get all dolled up. She spent countless hours on her laptop, watching makeup tutorials on Youtube.

“You need to get some more makeup, Aubrey. Those baby cheeks are gonna fade sooner or later. No dudes are going to be trying to holler at you if you look busted.”

I stared at her with a look of indifference. You have to take Azzy with a grain of salt. She has the habit of saying things other people would find appalling, and she never knew when not to say something. “Anything I can help you with, or are you just in here to annoy me?”

“What you don’t realize, baby girl, is that it’s my job to annoy you,” Azzy replied, a smirk plastered on her face. Something hard hit the wall downstairs, and Azzy’s head quickly turned toward the sound. She shook her head a little and looked back at me. “Actually, I need a favor. Let me get twenty dollars.”

My eyes widened by about two sizes. “I don’t understand how someone can have a job for two years, but never have any money.” Azzy was the type to spend money on the most unnecessary things. Every time she got a paycheck, she headed to Queens Center Mall to go to Mac and Victoria Secret. Most of her income was spent on makeup and clothes, as if she didn’t have enough of them already.

“Because I had stuff to do,” she said, as she brushed something off of her Timbs.

“What ‘stuff’? Paying for that loser boyfriend of yours when you go on dates? Or buying the latest Air Force Ones? I swear, you always need some money.”

She rolled her eyes, and put her hand on her hip. “Come on. I’ll pay you back next week. You know you’re gonna give it to me, I don’t even know why you tryin’ to front,” she said, flashing a smile at me. I couldn’t help but smirk in return. 

“I swear I don’t like you,” I said as I rolled my eyes, and I reached behind my bed’s headboard. I felt around for the change purse that was taped to the back of it. Around here, if you wanted to keep anything of value, you had to hide it. I pulled the change purse from it’s place and took out a folded twenty. “And you better pay me back,” I said. Azzy grabbed it and walked to the door, a “thanks” barely audible as she closed it behind her.