The
Nano Experiment
by
Richard Brawer
Copyright
© 2013 Richard Brawer. All Rights
Reserved ©
No part of this book
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic,
electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any
information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the
author.
This is a work of
fiction. All characters, names, places,
incidents, and circumstances in it are created by the author, and do not
portray any actual person, place or event.
Any resemblance to actual people, places, events, locals, and business
or government establishments is purely coincidental.
*****
CHAPTER 1
I
grabbed my purse and slung it over my shoulder.
“Where
are you going?” my ten year old sister asked.
“Out.
I’m tired of babysitting you two. You’re old enough to take care of
yourselves.”
“I’m
hungry.”
A
horn tooted three short beeps.
I
stomped into the kitchen and yanked open doors and drawers, grabbed plates,
peanut butter, bread and a knife and slammed them on the table.
“I
had peanut butter for lunch,” my eight year old sister protested.
The
horn blared a long, impatient blast.
“Eat
it, don’t eat it, I don’t care,” I said and ran out of the house.
******
“Mama, I’m sorry,” I said, tears streaming down my face.
Twirling
red and white lights on the fire engines bounced off my mother’s paralyzed
face. Her mouth hung slightly open and her eyes were fixed in a deadened stare.
The smell of smoke and burnt wood from the smoldering ruins of our house
engulfed me as I watched the firemen reverently place my sisters in black bags
and slowly draw the zippers over their charred bodies, their arms cocked in a
boxer’s stance, looking like they had tried to fight off the flames. When their
faces, frozen in an expression of perpetual pain, disappeared under the heavy
plastic, Mama turned her head slowly to me, and, as if awakening from a coma
calmly asked, “Where were you, Eileen?”
“Mama,
I’m sorry,” I repeated.
Fighting
to catch her breath, she screamed, “You’re sorry? You’re sorry? You’re
sorry if you spill milk! You’re sorry if you break a glass! Then you clean it
up and try to do better the next time. You can’t clean this up, Eileen!” With
each gasp of breath her anguish grew and her voice became louder until she fell
to her knees and pounded the dirt with her fists. “You killed your sisters! Get
away from me! I never want to see you again!”
Before
Daddy was murdered, an innocent victim in a drive by shooting, my life was a
Disney fairy tale, only with a black princess. That’s what Daddy called me, his
African-American princess. Daddy had a good job as an assistant postmaster. He
rarely missed a dinner with us. He helped me with my homework. He snuck out of
the post office to attend all my gymnastic events. We went to church almost
every Sunday, and that’s where I ran.
Sitting
in a pew staring at the big cross behind the altar, I tried to rationalize what
I’d done. If Daddy hadn’t been killed... if Mama hadn’t had to go to work at
night cleaning offices to support us… if I wasn’t selfish, wanting to hang with
my friends at the mall and hadn’t run out on my sisters… if they hadn’t tried
to cook something and die in the fire…
If—such
a little word that bore such huge consequences. I could say if for the
rest of my life, but it wouldn’t change a thing. My sisters were dead and it
was my fault.
I
missed Daddy so much. I knew Mama loved me, even if she had little time for me
lately. My sisters needed her more. I was fifteen, and they were only ten and
eight. Was I jealous of them getting all of what little attention Mama had left
for us? I never thought I was until this very moment. Had I run out on them
because my jealousy seethed in back of my mind?
I
tried to pray, but the words forgive me rang hollow. How could the Lord
forgive me? There was no forgiveness for what I did. Instead, I asked for
retribution. “Kill me, Lord! Send me to hell, to burn for eternity like my
sisters burned!” Of course the Lord would never do that, so I would have to do
it myself.
Leaving
the church, I wandered the streets trying to decide how to end my life. With no
place to sleep I drifted under the freeway overpass by the railroad tracks
where drug dealers, whores and homeless people hang out, where Daddy had warned
us never to go. “Those people are the scum of the earth,” he had said. “They’ll
kill you as soon as look at you.” That’s exactly what I deserved. Maybe one of
those crazies would beat me to death.
Approaching
the forbidden area, I watched a car creep up to a highway pillar. Its tires
crunching the gravel sounded like a page of newspaper being crumpled. Its
headlights reflected off hundreds of shards from broken bottles, making the
ground look like it was covered in crystal. Discarded fast food wrappers
littered the area. I gagged from the heavy smell of urine. When the car stopped
and a window rolled down, a man slipped out from behind an abutment. The buyer
and seller talked for a second. Then the seller shoved his closed fist inside
the car, exchanged a little packet of drugs for cash and skulked back into the
shadows.
Out
in the open, two white girls and four black girls sauntered around three idling
cars. They teased the drivers, arching their backs to thrust out their breasts
uplifted by halter tops, the fabric barely wide enough to cover their nipples.
A couple of them hooted, “You know you goin’ like this!” and “You try this you
never goin’ go nowheres else!” When a hand poked out the window at a particular
girl, she would hustle to the driver, make her deal and hop in.
I
looked down at my body and wondered whether anybody would want to buy me. When
I did gymnastics I was five feet two and as flat-chested as a balance beam.
Most of my friends were taller than me and had already developed breasts. I was
told the harsh training regimen had stunted my growth. After Daddy was killed,
I quit gymnastics. That was two years ago. Now I had shot up to five seven, my
breasts had popped out and I had developed a nice booty. But compared to those
girls’ bulging chests I felt like a developing grade-schooler.
I
tied my T-shirt with the pictures of Jay-Z above my belly button. It was my
favorite shirt. I made it myself by cutting pictures out of magazines, scanning
them into my computer, flipping them around and printing them on iron-on
decals.
I
approached the girls. All at once, like they were in a chorus line, they put
their hands on their hips and looked down their noses at me. “Look what we got
here,” the tall one said. “What you doin’ here, girl? You have a fight wit’
your mama?”
“Wait
’til Leroy see this one,” one of the white girls said.
“Umm
umm, can’t wait,” another said.
Flicking
her head toward an approaching black car, the fat one said, “You ain’t got to
wait too long.”
The
car with the black out windows stopped right next to me. The door swung open
and a guy with three gold chains around his neck and diamond rings on four
fingers stepped out. He was coal black, and he wore cowboy boots and a silk
shirt unbuttoned to his belt buckle. Before I knew what was happening he
grabbed me by the arm and dragged me behind a pillar.
“What
you think you doin’? I owns this spot! Ain’t no freelance bitches allowed
here!”
I
lifted my chin. “Kill me. Please.”
He
stared at me. “What are you, one of them fucked up bitches lives in a box?”
“No.”
“Then
get your scrawny ass out of here. Next time I see you I will kill you.”
“Are
you their pimp?”
He
slapped me hard across the face. I yelped in pain and almost fell down.
“I
don’ like that word.” He shoved me. “Go on. Get!”
“Can
I work for you?” If he wouldn’t kill me, maybe a sadistic John would. Or I
could get enough money to buy an overdose of drugs.
He
scanned me up and down. “What I do with a skinny ass bitch like you?”
I
had no answer.
He
started to walk away then turned back. “Say somthin’ to me again.”
“What
do you want me to say?”
“Where
you come from? What your name?”
“Sunnyside.
My name is Eileen.”
He
bellowed a deep laugh. “Eileen. That a funny name for a black bitch.” He
glanced at his girls then back at me. “I like the way you talk. Maybe you class
up this place. Get me some of that uptown money likes sweet young bitches that
talks nice.”
Daddy
and Mama had pounded proper English into my brain from the time I could speak,
but once in a while I’d slip into street slang like Leroy talked. When I did,
they came down on me hard. “You’ll get nowhere in life with that kind of talk,”
Daddy had said.
Yeah,
Daddy, look where all that proper English got me. I’m a murderer and now I’m
going to be a whore.
“Let
me see what you got. Take them clothes off.”
I
started to untie the knot in my T-shirt, but I didn’t move fast enough for him.
He grabbed a handful of fabric and my bra and ripped them off.
“Ow!”
My arms flew up to cover my bare breasts.
“We
goin’ get you some implants for them pimples you got. Get them jeans off.”
I’d
started to work the button when a voice said, “Yo’, Leroy, let her go.”
Leroy
looked around to see who was talking. “This ain’t none your bidness, Thomas.”
“How
much you want for her?”
Thomas
was the drug dealer who controlled the trade in Sunnyside and other areas of
south Houston, except for South Park which was the Mexican area. Everyone knew
him, but this was the first time I’d seen him up close. Mama and Daddy had
lectured us incessantly about not using drugs. What difference did it make now?
Daddy was gone, and I was dead to Mama. My sisters were dead because of me.
Nothing mattered anymore. I’d seen drug addicts in their dream world. If there
was anything I needed right now it was an escape from my nightmare.
“She
a fine bitch. She worth a hunert.”
Thomas
peeled a bill off a fat roll.
Before
he released me, Leroy said, “Thomas done with you, you come back here.”
I
gulped and nodded like a bobble-head doll.
Leroy
swaggered off to his girls. I watched them hand him money and heard one say,
“What you mean class this place up?”
“Shut
up, bitch.”
Thomas
poked me, drawing my attention back to him. “Take these,” he said, holding out
my ripped clothes.
With
one arm still over my breasts, I took the destroyed T-shirt and fought not to
cry. It had taken me a couple of hours fiddling with Jay-Z’s pictures in my
computer to get them just right. Then it hit me. Here I was upset about a
stupid torn T-shirt, when less than an hour ago I had killed my sisters. What a
self-centered, worthless piece of trash I was. I deserved everything that was
going to happen to me.
“Cover
yourself,” Thomas said, snapping me out of my self-loathing. “Don’t want no cop
seeing you riding in my car with your titties showing.”
The
hooks on my bra were broken so I tied my T-shirt around me like a tube top. He
directed me to his car, a big silver Mercedes, and we drove to a house. His
crib was a small ranch. Peeling paint rippled the clapboard siding. Tufts of
grass poked through the dirt in a few places in the front yard. The wooden
steps squeaked and buckled a bit under our weight even though together we couldn’t
have weighed more than two-eighty. Thomas was a wiry guy, only a few inches
taller than me. He unlocked the two dead bolts on the rust-speckled steel front
door and walked in ahead of me.
After
seeing the outside, I was a bit stunned at the lavish inside. A semi-circular
black leather couch flanked by chrome and glass tables faced a huge TV. A bar,
its doors open, stood behind the couch. African paintings covered the walls.
Thomas
walked to the bar and poured two tall drinks. Handing me one, he said, “I seen
you around. Didn’t know you was one of Leroy’s whores.”
“This
is my first night.”
I
never had alcohol before and gulped the drink down like I would a glass of
milk. It tasted horrible, burned my throat and forced me to squinch my eyes
closed. But it spread a warm glow over me and calmed my anxiety a little.
“Easy,
girl,” he said. “I want you awake. Why you want to be a whore, an uptown girl
like you?”
“I
need money,” I said, leaving out the part about wanting to die. Maybe after he
did it to me, if he fell asleep, I could find his drug stash and OD.
“You
ain’t goin’ get it from Leroy. He keeps all the money his girls make.” He took
my hand and led me to his bedroom. He threw the leopard print bedspread onto
the floor, revealing soiled, gray-white sheets. Mama would never let us
sleep on filthy sheets like these, I thought, trying to force my mind to
think about anything other than what was coming. When I saw Thomas naked, I
flinched. How was that thing going to fit inside me?
“What
you waitin’ for, girl?”
I
pulled off the torn T-shirt, slid down my jeans and panties and fell back lying
stiff, like I was dead. He climbed on top of me, spread my legs and jammed
himself in. I screamed in pain.
He
leaped off me. “You is a virgin? That what you meant by your first night?”
I
nodded, washing tears across my cheeks. This was not how I dreamed my first
night would be. I was a princess. Daddy said so. My first time was supposed to
be in the arms of a loving prince. But I was no longer a princess. I was a
murderer. Having my virginity ravaged from me by someone as far away from a
prince as I could get had to be only the beginning of the Lord’s punishment.
Maybe he would give me AIDS. That’s more like what His justice would be, me
dying a horrible, painful death.
“Leroy
ain’t knowed you a virgin, did he?”
“No.”
“’Cause
if he did, he’d not given you to me for a hundred.” He broke into a big grin.
“Virgins is worth a thousand!”
He
scrambled out of bed, went back to the living room and returned with the bottle
of liquor. As I forced down a long swallow he said, “Girl, you is lucky I come
along. Leroy about to deflower you hard and painful. Then when he realized you
a virgin he would a been so mad he lost out on that thousand he’d a probably
beat you to shit.”
If
only you hadn’t come along.
He
didn’t jump on me again right away, but stroked me, fiddled me with his
fingers, nibbled and suckled me all over and whispered things in my ear like
how good looking I was. Between the liquor and his playing, my body got so hot
I thought I was on fire. Bodies on fire! Oh my God! “No. No! I can’t do
this! Stop.”
“Relax,
girl” he whispered through a nibble on my ear.
A
second later he pushed into me again. It still hurt, but not as bad as the
first time. The liquor had dulled the pain.
When
it was over, I lay there, my eyes closed as I thought about how he had made me
feel, how there had been a strange twang of pleasure through the pain. A siren
wailed going by the house and my mind suddenly flooded with a vision of flames
licking at my screaming sisters. My eyelids sprang open, but the vision
continued to pound through my head. Sobs wracked my body. How could I feel even
that brief moment of pleasure after what I had done only hours ago?
“What?”
he asked. “I ain’t hurtin’ you?”
“No.”
He
pushed himself up on his elbow and looked down on me. “Then what?”
When
I didn’t answer, he asked, “How old is you?”
“Fifteen.”
He
leaped off the bed. “Shit!” he screamed and paced the floor. “What my goin’ do
wit’ you?”
“I’m
not going to the cops. It has nothing to do with you.”
He
stopped his pacing. “So, zup wit’ the rain?”
How
could I talk about it? He wasn’t my daddy, although he looked old enough to be.
I couldn’t tell him. But I didn’t want him to send me away. I needed the
comfort he gave me to keep me from falling into a black abyss of hopelessness.
I opened my arms. “Please hold me.”
He
came back into bed. Before he took me again, he asked, “Where you live?”
“Nowhere.
I have no home.”
“You
want to stay here wit’ me for a while? I think we be good for each other.”
I
nodded. Yeah, being a drug dealer’s bitch is exactly what I deserve.
“You
have to know what I did first. Maybe you won’t want me around.” But after I
told him, he still did.
*****
Two
months later I found myself pregnant. With my expanding stomach, my desire to
kill myself slipped away, but the nightmares continued to jar me awake many
nights, drenching my body in sweat. I begged Thomas for something to drive them
away.
“The
mother of my child don’t take no drugs,” he said. Then he’d hold me until my
shaking subsided.
When
our son Calvin came along, Thomas thumped his chest, the proudest drug dealer
in Houston. Two years later, Tamika came and Thomas thumped his chest again. He
never denied me and the kids anything. With hundred dollar bills stuffed in my
wallet, I bought clothes in Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdales. Thomas bought
expensive toys for the kids and beautiful bling for me.
Thomas
was a good man. I couldn’t understand why the Lord had let my life turn out so
well, until they sent Thomas to prison for twenty-five years.
Other Novels by Richard Brawer
Silk Legacy
The Pac Conspiracy
Murder at the Jersey Shore
Murder Goes Round and Round
The Bishop Committee
For book jackets, reviews and
excerpts go to my website:
www.silklegacy.com
