Talking with addicts and watching the Sun set
Mad Rose and Momma
“You don’t have an alter ego? Must not need to know yourself enough yet” said Mad Rose looking over at Shell.
Shell was confident she didn’t need to know all the ways Mad Rose felt she hadn’t matured. Rose was a nauseating drug addict. Shell couldn’t stand the sight of her. She always came over to the house, sat on the furniture with her dirty body and said things to push Shell’s buttons. What does she know about needing to know yourself. She was a bum. Did she get to “know” herself and find out she liked living like a vagrant with an opinion?!
Momma always encouraged her. Shell didn’t understand why. Mad Rose didn’t go to anyone else’s house for food. She wasn’t even related. Momma never discouraged her from bringing up some scandalous talk from her guttered mind. She’s going to somehow bring up sex, the old troll.
“I bet she does it all on purpose. Just to embarrass me,” Shell thought.
Shell committed to not giving her the satisfaction. The last time Mad Rose told Momma how she saw Shell and Marshall holding hands. Shell was so shocked she couldn’t hide her reaction. After that it was too late, her reaction put Mad Rose on the scent. Ever since, she’s been taunting Shell about being a prude and about having sex.
“Dem gyul want to rush fuh sex an dey doh know what dey want self!”
According to her, Shell should just go and get on with it. As far as Mad Rose was concerned she said,
“Sex was nothing in the end. Just sex.”
Shell’s 18th birthday was approaching and she was hoping to finally take the big step with Marshall. He didn’t come out and say it but she felt that he was a virgin too. To pull off what they were going to do they’d have to navigate some well positioned lies that would earn them the opportunity to spend the night together.
If the adults found out all hell would break loose. She might as well build the cross and carry it through the streets if she got caught. The risk was high but the reward would be their first time.
Mad Rose interrupted Shell’s thoughts, “I keep seeing Marshall in front de gap, ah wonder if is Shell he coming round for still?”
Without hesitation Shell shot back,
“Why yuh do mind yuh business Rose?”
Mad Rose smiled to see the reaction, “Momma like ah hit a nerve?”
Standing up in a rage Shell pouted her lips and sucked her teeth in a steups and walked pass Mad Rose.
“Shell, what happen to you child! You and Rose pitch marble, mind yuhself!” Momma was watching Shell with the look that demanded an immediate apology to Mad Rose.
“Sorry Rose, Momma can I please be excused?”
“Go on, wid yuh dry foot like corn husk!” — this time by the end of her sentence she was laughing with her shoulders jump up and down like a tweeting Blue Jay.
Mad Rose laughed too and threw back her head showing her front row of missing teeth. To support her frail body she leaned over the banister watching out into the front yard. It was full of chalk markings for cricket and on the side was a circle for jacks.
“Shell bring some water fuh meh please child” asked Mad Rose.
The house was two levels made of part concrete and wood. The gallery, the front and back stairs and the kitchen were all concrete. The inside was wood. As she walked past the living room and dining room her footsteps could be heard pounding the floor boards of the house. From the gallery Momma shouted-
“Aye girl yuh want to break up de damn ole house!”
As Shell walked back with the water for Mad Rose she overheard the conversation between Momma and Rose. Rose was telling Momma that she didn’t speak to her family anymore or rather they didn’t speak to her. Shell imagined it was related to her drug addiction but Momma didn’t mention it. She just listened.
Rose had been living in a board house with a curtain for a door and galvanize for walls. Her addiction had led to her stealing and sleeping with strange men sometimes. Shell grew up seeing Rose’s deterioration. In the corner of Momma’s kitchen she kept a plate and a cup that she used for Rose. From what Shell heard now it seemed like someone had stolen her money and she had a feeling it was Frankie’s boy David.
Shell broke the conversation with her presence and handed the cup of water to Rose.
“Thanks, yuh is a good girl yuh know Shell, yuh lil hot like a scotch bonnet but yuh is a good girl, all Momma grand is good children”
This made Momma smile and gave Shell the ok to resume sitting with them in the gallery.
“Breeze nice out here boy!” Shell said with a smile. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the salty breeze.
“I hear Fyzabad flood out last week wit rain, ent you from dey Momma?” said Mad Rose.
As the sun set in the gallery Momma and Mad Rose carried on their conversation. Flipping the pages of her Showtime magazine Shell’s thoughts drifted to Marshall. Her first. Soon.
