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I slept on that brown carpet in that small room with the closet door that hung off the top hinges, so it didn't really open. But it opened enough for a skinny four-year-old me to climb inside when I heard raised voices in my house.
The carpet wasn't comfortable. It wasn't the kind like they had in the house of the lady next door who watched me when my mom went... wherever she went - all plush like you sank into it. It was hard, and the strings all stuck out wild and itchy. When an extra blanket was clean, I spread it out over the carpet to sleep. When one wasn't, I pulled my arms into the armholes of my shirt and slept with them pressed against my body, so they didn't get scratchy.
It hadn't occurred to me at the time why I didn't have a bed like my mom did. Or why I couldn't sleep on the couch in the living room. All I knew was that when I was home, I had to stay in my shoebox of a room and Out of my mom's hair like she told me all the time.
And since all she did was scream at me or slap at me when I did come out of it, I was happy to stay in until she and her friend were in her room making noises. Only then, I would sneak out, go to the bathroom, snatch some quiet food from the kitchen. Quiet food meant anything that didn't come in a crinkly, noisy wrapper. No cereal or chips or crackers. Usually, I stole stuff off the plate my mom left in the kitchen cold and a cup of water, rushing back to my room before the bed stopped knocking around, eating, curling up on the floor, trying to sleep, comforting myself with ideas of the house next door.
Squishy carpets.
A TV that was always set to cartoons.
A lumpy couch to sit on with a heavy knitted blanket the lady with the glasses who insisted I call her Mama Rita told me she made herself, though I didn't understand how you could make a blanket.
She gave me big glasses of watery milk she said would feed my bones, make me grow big and strong.
There was always butter and cinnamon toast for a late morning snack. Then lunch would usually be canned tuna fish mixed with mayonnaise and a bit of hot sauce. Some days, she would chop up pickles and mix it in. Those were my favorite days.
My mom never cooked.
Sometimes, she didn't even shop, so there was nothing around to eat unless I was at Mama Rita's.
The biggest blow in my young, sad little life was when I came out in the morning to have my mom walk me to Mama Rita's before she did... whatever she did during the day and she told me to go back to my room.
"Rita croaked," she told me with a shrug. "As if I needed this shit in my life right now. The fuck am I supposed to do with you now?" she asked, but I knew she didn't want an answer. She liked to talk at me, not to me. "Know what, never mind. I will drop you off with my mother," she declared, grabbing my arm, dragging me along with her, still in my clothes from the day before.
"I raised my kids. I'm not raisin' yours." Those were the first words I heard out of my grandmother.
She looked nothing like my mom who was tall and skinny - all arms and legs like I was at the time as well. My grandmother was short and round all over with perfectly curled hair, small, angry eyes, and a dress that was too tight around the chest, making the buttons pull apart, create little holes between them that you could stick fingers through, making her dark brown bra visible from certain angles.
"Raised me," my mom scoffed. "That's a joke. Watch him. You have nothing else to do. I'll pick him up later."
Except she didn't.
My mom always came home right when the sun was going down.
But the sun went down.
The streetlights outside went on.
And she didn't come back for me.
My grandmother's house wasn't bare like my mom's house, but not comfortable and cozy like Mama Rita's either. The furniture in the living room had slippery, uncomfortable plastic on it. The TV was there, but my grandmother sat on the slippery couch drinking something out of a big bottle as she watched her shows on it - all angry grown-ups or grown-ups kissing. Sometimes both. Yelling and kissing. Kissing and yelling.
There was no cinnamon toast.
Or tuna on rye bread with mayonnaise and hot sauce and maybe, if I was super lucky, pickles.
There was no food at all.
Or milk.
But there were orders.
