Free The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson

wavy black hair. Her background was even harder to place than mine. Maybe he hada thing for that. Maybe he’d be smart enough to try a different line on her.
    Tafari and Rich had their heads together. Looked like Rich was repeating his pieces and Tafari was coaching him. He could, too; like me, he’d heard those rhymes till he could recite them in his sleep. Kinda weird, being jealous of your own brother’s friendship with your boyfriend. Your ex-boyfriend. While Tafari and I were still dating, it hadn’t bothered me that he and Rich were best buddies. It was just one more thing we had in common. But now I was on the outs, but Rich could still call Taf up for a chat, go hang with him at the mall, and do stuff together.
    Oh, I was such a shit. How could I begrudge Rich having a friend to hang with? Three months ago, he hadn’t been able to go anywhere, with anyone.
    My wrist was itching. I slipped the other hand under the sleeve of my blouse and scratched the slightly raised place. If this kept up, pretty soon, I’d be nothing but one big, sticky blob. A real, live tar baby.
    I checked out Mr. Be-Everyone-But-Yourself again. He and that other girl had progressed to laughing at each other’s jokes, occasionally giving each other a light touch on the knee or shoulder.
    He hadn’t been able to tell I was black. Was I really looking that pale? My skin did tend to fade to a more yellowy brown in the winter, but it was only mid-September.
    There was another guy eyeing me, from one of the tables over by the wall. He was sitting with three other guys, all of them excited, yakking at the tops of their voices. He was cute.
    “Soon come,” I said to Rich and Tafari. I stood up and gave the guy a quick eye flash. You know; the kind where they’re not exactly sure they’ve caught you looking? Then I looked down demurely, like I was too shy to keep looking.I’d wander back his way after I’d checked on my makeup. Tafari saw what I was doing, and scowled. It was pretty much the same way I’d caught his attention, those first few times at school. I looked away from him. It’s not like I was trying to hurt him. It was just better if we both moved on.
    I had that ointment in my purse. Not the nighttime mixture from the naturopath; the other stuff, the one that Mom and Dad didn’t know about. The guy who’d sold it to me had said I could put it on anytime I wanted, as many times a day as I felt like. “Be right back,” I said to Taf and Rich. Taf’s scowl deepened.
    I found the signs to the women’s washroom and headed where they pointed. Down narrow stairs, brick walls with about an inch of latex paint layered on. So tacky.

CHAPTER SIX
    Why did bathrooms in public places always smell so weird? It’s like the ghost of rotting cabbage from fifty years ago had seeped into the walls and was slowly leaking out. And talk about cold. I didn’t notice that the toilet seat was metal until I sat my naked butt down on it. Yow! My bladder cinched up so tight, it was like the shock had made it forget how to pee. Not quite, though. I peed, washed my hands in water as hot as I could make it. So then I had warm hands, which made the rest of me shiver even more. I got the ointment out of my purse. It was in one of those tiny eight-sided jars, clearly a Tiger Balm jar that someone had soaked the label off and glued a handmade paper label onto. The label used to read, in wavery, badly photocopied black pen, YONKER GENE’S NATURAL REMEDY FOR BLISTERS AND BLEMISHES . The tin screw-on lid had the same message glued onto it, also written on cheap white paper. Both labels had mostly worn away through weeks of my handling the jar with damp hands. The Tiger Balm logo on the tin lid wasshowing through. I screwed the lid off. My nose wrinkled at the weird sulfur-mint smell of the muddy green ointment inside.
    I pushed the sleeve of my blouse up. The new patch of tar on my wrist was like the others; black, weirdly shiny, slightly raised, a teeny