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The reminder loomed as I crouched and begged on the stairs. It pushed against me while I washed crusted spaghetti off the dinner plates. It poked my head as I fried catfish and hot links. I flinched when it darted into my periphery. The baddest muthafucka was the most dangerous. I never forgot.
Now we know who’s in charge. Pay the fuck attention.
Lesson one. When dead women appeared on the news, it was their fault. Men got them because those dumbs broads didn’t listen. We could not trust men. All men. Men only wanted one thing. Their intentions were clear to our father. I was too book smart and not street smart. My sister was whateva.
You are so naïve.
I was too dumb to see. I could always be coerced. Daddy never explicitly said what I was dumb to. What boys could make me do. That vital education stayed locked behind his prudish lips. But I knew things he never taught me. Learned them from a girl in my fifth-grade math class. She forced me to hide her porno magazine. Those shining black bodies and wide spread legs knocked the scales from my eyes. Daddy meant that I would give it up. I’d be one of those bucking women on page nine.
Y’all don’t know shit.
I’m the baddest muthafucka in this house! Rememba dat!