Free Push by Sapphire Page B

be her daddy.
    "Mama?"
    She look over where I'm at.
    ʻYo' huzbn, Carl, my real daddy?" I ask.
    "What chu mean?"
    "Carl, was he my real daddy? Was you married to him for real?"
    "He your daddy, couldn't no one else be your daddy. I was with him since since I was sixteen. I never been with nobody else. We not married though, he got a wife though, a real wife, purty light-skin woman he got two kids by."

    Hmmm, they got special kinda AIDS for yellow bitches? Mama! Thought jus' now hit me, don't know why, it the most obvious—do Mama got it?
    "You got it?" I ask.
    "No."
    "How you know?"
    "We never did, you know—"
    I look at Mama like she fucking crazy! What she talking about?
    "You know," she repeat. "What you got to do to get it."
    "He never fuck you," I say shock.
    "Oh yeah," she say. "But not like faggots, in the ass and all, so I know—"
    Her voice trail off, stupid bitch. I'm jus' staring at her. I wanna kill her. I remember what I know from AIDS Awareness Day at school. Look at Mama, say, "You better get tested."
    That's all really I got to say. Mama look at me like she wanna say something.
    "You welcome back home," she say.
    "I home here," I say. Silence. "Well I guess I better go see 'bout Abdul 'n do homework."
    Mama don't move. So, you know, I jus' get up and leave.
    Song playing in my head now, not rap. Not TV
    colors flashing funny noise pictures in on me, scratching and itching in my brain at the same time. I see a color I don't know the name for, maybe one like only another kind of animal thas not human can see. Like butterflies? I ask Ms Rain tomorrow do butterflies see colors. Song caught on me like how plastic bags on tree branches. I sit on my bed. New picture on wall now. I got Alice Walker up there with Harriet Tubman 'n Farrakhan. But she can't help me now. Where my Color Purple} Where my god most high? Where my king? Where my black love? Where my man love? Woman love? Any kinda love? Why me? I don't deserve this. I not crack addict. Why I get Mama for a mama? Why I not born a light-skin dream? Why? Why? It's a movie, splashing like swimming pool at Y, in my head. I see Abdul running away from me, he is like little animal running toward a cliff, I am running running too, all over is clowns with evil eyes laffing at me I can't run fast enuff, the music is playing louder now I going off cliff myself now, maybe I don't come back. Don't see Abdul. A huh! A Huh! I can't breathe! Song loud now real loud. I stop running. It's grass green all aroun'. I listen to song, I can hear it now. It's Aretha. I always did wish she was my mother or Miss Rain or Tina Turner; a mother I be proud of, love me. I breathe in, lay down on my bed. Bed, I remember, I finded for myself when Mama go off on me that last time. Aretha singing, "Gotta find me an angel gotta find me an angel in my liifffe."
    Heart hurt. I don't know what to do. If not for Abdul (name mean servant of god) I... I... my god, Jezus— allah most high, ABDUL! Mama, Carl, me, Abdul Abdul Abdul, he my angel, my little angel. Do Abdul got it?
    I don't know what to do. I ask Ms Rain tomorrow.
    On the wall under pictures of Harriet, Alice Walker, and Farrakhan is my Literacy Award.
    That is good proof to me I can do anything.
    Already Abdul know ABC. Plus he know his numbers. Barely talk and he counting. I did that.
    One day I going back for Little Mongo. Maybe I make the day sooner than I had thought. Time, I want to learn to look at round clock and tell time.
    No one ever show me. I never tell Ms Rain I don't know that. Got everything like digital watch display, them watches from Korea. What's the difference between Korean and Jap? Mr Wicher say I got aptitude for maff. Where I gonna go when I leave V^way house? I got AIDS? HIV?
    What's the difference? My son got it? Lil Mongo?
    How I gonna learn and be smart if I got the virus? Why me? Why me? Maybe virus don't get me? Maybe, I, jus' 'cause Carl have it don't mean me and Abdul have it.

    I gotta go upstairs to