Black Beauty

Shemeya Asks For Help

Shemeya stood in the hallway eating a bowl of cereal. Alisha, her younger sister, squirmed as their mother, Mary, ran a comb through the girl's kinky hair; the medicated scent of Black Magic hair grease mingled oddly with the sweet smell of Frosted Flakes. The good thing about dreads: she never had to get another scalp burn from a relaxer and she never had to comb her hair.

"Momma, since you don't work today can you take me to school? The bus has been late every day for the past three days." Shemeya had practiced how to ask so it sounded casual instead of like a desperate plea for help.

"Hell, no." Mary pulled the comb roughly through Alisha's hair before she pointed it at Shemeya. "And if you miss that bus I'm gonna whoop your ass. I don't care if you are about to graduate. You ain't too old to get a beating."

"You could have just said no," Shemeya muttered. 

"What did you say?" Mary worked as a health care worker and traveled from house to house, cleaning shit and cooking shit, as she put it. And so when she got home, she'd always tell them, 'I deal with too much shit at work to hear it from my kids.'

"Nothing. Bye." Shemeya placed the empty bowl on the kitchen counter, grabbed her backpack, and raced out of the apartment before her mother could deliver any threats involving someone's ass getting beat.

She had known the chances of her mother taking her to school were slim so she headed out of the apartments and walked three blocks to stand in line for the neighborhood bus. The apartment kids were not allowed to ride the neighborhood's bus, and the neighborhood kids were not allowed to ride the apartment's bus. Separating them had been the school's half-assed attempt at keeping the well-off bougie kids from the poorer apartment kids, but the bougie kids had moved out of this area years ago. Everyone in this part of town either received welfare benefits or they were one paycheck away from living on the streets.

Once the bus arrived, she lowered her head and followed the other students. She chose a seat in the middle of the bus away from the driver's line of sight. While she removed her backpack, she noticed a few stares, but no one said anything.

When the bus started moving, she closed her eyes and let out a sigh of relief.

"What are you doing here?"

She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked up. Jason, her chemistry partner, stood in the aisle. "It's a free world. I can ride this bus if I want to."

He sat down, put his arm over the back of the seat, and leaned towards her. He was so close that she could see the flecks of dandruff in his box cut. "No, you can't.  No Vista kids are allowed on this bus."

Shemeya scowled. "You gonna tell on me?"

Jason laughed. "No, I wouldn't do that to you. Anyway, our chemistry project is due soon. You want to meet up at my place today and work on it?"

"Sure." She took a deep breath. "I thought you were gonna snitch. Then I was gonna have to cut you."

He grabbed her arm and laughed, letting his hand linger. "You know I wouldn't do you like that. So why you on this bus?"

She turned from him and slipped lower into the seat. "No reason. I just wanted to change it up." 

 

***

The twenty minute ride through the outskirts of Oklahoma City took Shemeya past farmland and oversized warehouses. According to her sophomore history teacher, the small school district was created in order to fight the desegregation of public schools in the 1950s. 40 years later, Blacks, Hispanics, and Vietnamese made up 30% of the school district as more minorities moved into the suburbs. As she entered the school, fliers requesting her vote for the next student president and posters daring her to say no to drugs littered the walls on her way to first hour.

"Hey, Shemeya." Malik, a senior that hadn't talked to her since freshman year, walked beside her. He was smiling with a mouth full of gold caps. "You want to meet up later?"

"No," she said. "Why would I want to do that? I hardly know you."

"I heard you were pretty much down for anything."

She stopped. "Who told you that?"

"I heard about what happened with you and Corey. So what's up, you want to hook up?" He grabbed his crotch and licked his lips.

"Eww. No."

Malik put a piece of paper in her hand. "Here is my number. Call me if you change your mind. I've always wondered what it would be like to pull on those dreads."

Shemeya's mouth fell open and she threw the paper into his face. What the hell? Before she could cuss him out, someone pushed her from behind. Her hands broke her fall as she went crashing to the floor. Embarrassed and uncomfortably aware of everyone staring, she looked up.

Latreece stood above her, lips pressed and shoulders back. "Watch where you're going, Medusa."

"What's going on?" asked Mrs. Smith, the social studies teacher.

"I'm sorry. That was an accident." Latreece sneered at Shemeya before she turned and blended back into the crowd.

Mrs. Smith, with her forehead wrinkled and worry reflected in her blue eyes, bent down and helped Shemeya pick up her bag. "Are you okay? I can report her to the office. That didn't look like an accident."

"I'm fine." Shemeya forced herself to stop trembling. She stood and hurriedly walked in the opposite direction of Latreece and her first hour class.

She managed to avoid Latreece for the rest of the day, but she had been tripped, jabbed, and propositioned by half of the school. Through all of the taunting she'd kept her head high and her face blank, but the quiet walk through her apartment complex caused the flimsy barrier she'd built to crumble. Tears streamed down her face as she turned towards home. Jade stood in the same spot as yesterday, staring at Shemeya with her murky red-brown eyes.

Shemeya stopped and wiped the tears with her sleeve. "How can you help me?"

A slow grin crept across Jade's face.