Raven (Orphans 4)

Prologue

"I never asked to be born," I threw back at my mother when she complained about all the trouble I had caused her from the day I was born. The school had called, and the truancy officer had threatened to take Mama to court if I stayed home one more time. I hated my school. It was a hive of snobs buzzing around this queen bee or that and threatening to sting me if I so much as tried to enter their precious little social circles. My classes were so big most of my teachers didn't even know I existed anyway! If it wasn't for the new automated homeroom cards, no one would know I hadn't gone to school.

Mama kicked the refrigerator door closed with her bare foot and slapped a bottle of beer down so hard on the counter it almost shattered. She tore off the cap with her opener and stared at me, her eyes bloodshot. The truancy officer's phone call had jolted her out of a dead sleep. She brought the bottle to her lips and sucked on it, the muscles in her thin neck pulsating with the effort to get as much down her throat as she could in one gulp. Then she glared at me again. I saw she had a bruise on the bottom of her right forearm and a scraped elbow.

We were having one of those Indian summers The temperature had reached ninety today, and it was nearly October twenty-first. Mama's hair, just as black as mine, hung limply over her cheeks. Her bangs were too long and uneven. She pushed her lower lip out and blew up to sweep the strands out of her eyes. Once, she had been a very pretty woman with eyes that glittered like black pearls. She had a richly dark complexion with distinct, high cheekbones and perfect facial features. Women shot silicone into their lips to get the shape and fullness Mama's had naturally. I used to be flattered when people compared me to her in those days. All I ever dreamed of being was as pretty as my mother.

Now, I pretended I wasn't even related to her. Sometimes, I pretended she wasn't even there.

"How am I supposed to scratch out a living and watch a twelve-year-old, too? They should be giving me medals, not threats."

Mama's way of scratching out a living was working as a barmaid at a dump called Charlie Boy's in Newburgh, New York. Some nights, she didn't come home until nearly four in the morning, long after the bar had closed. If she wasn't drunk, she was high on something and would go stumbling around our one-bedroom apartment, knocking into furniture and dropping things

I slept on the pullout couch, so I usually woke up or heard her, but I always pretended I was still asleep. I hated talking to her when she was in that condition. Sometimes, I could smell her before I heard her. It was as if she had soaked her clothing in whiskey and beer.

Mama looked much older than her thirty-one years now. She had dark shadows under her eyes and wrinkles that looked like lines drawn with an eyebrow pencil at the corners. Her rich complexion had turned into a pasty, pale yellow, and her once silky hair looked like a mop made of piano wire. It was streaked with premature gray strands and always looked dirty and stringy to me.

Mama smoked and drank and didn't seem to care what man she went out with as long as he was willing to pay for what she wanted. I stopped keeping track of their names. Their faces had begun to merge into one, their red eyes peering at me with vague interest. Usually, I was just as much of a surprise to them as they were to me.

"You never said you had a daughter," most would remark.

Mama would shrug and reply, "Oh, didn't I? Well, I do. You have a problem with that?"

Some didn't say anything; some said no or shook their heads and laughed.

"You're the one with the problem," one man told her. That put her into a tirade about my father.

We rarely talked about him. Mama would say only that he was a handsome Latino but a

disappointment when it came to living up to his responsibilities.

"As are most men," she warned me.

She got me to believe that my real father's promises were like rainbows, beautiful while they lingered in the air but soon fading until they were only vague memories. And there was never a pot of gold! He would never come back, and he would never send us anything.

As long as I could remember, we lived in this small apartment in a building that looked as if a strong wind could knock it over. The walls in the corridors were chipped and gouged in places, as if some maddened creature had tried to dig its way out. The outside walls were scarred with graffiti, and the walkway was shattered so that there was just dirt in many sections where cement once had been. The small patch of lawn between the building and the street had turned sour years ago. The grass was a sickly pale green, and there was so much garbage in it that no one could run a lawn mower over it.

The sinks in our apartment always gave us trouble, dripping or clogging. I couldn't even guess how many times the toilet had overflowed. The nib was full of rust around the drain, and the shower dripped and usually ran out of hot water before I could finish or wash my hair. I know we had lots of mice, because I was always finding their droppings in drawers or under dressers and tables. Sometimes, I could hear them scurrying about, and a few times I saw one before it scurried under a piece of furniture. We put out traps and caught a couple, but for every one we trapped, there were ten to take its place.

Mama was always promising to get us out. A new apartment was just around the corner, just as soon as she saved another hundred for the deposit. But I knew that if she did get any spare money, she would spend it on whiskey, beer, or pot. One of her new boyfriends introduced her to cocaine, and she had some of that occasionally, but usually it was too expensive for her.

We had a television set that often lost its picture. I could get it back sometimes by knocking it hard on the side. Sometimes, Mama received a welfare check. I never understood why she did or didn't. She cursed the system and complained when there wasn't a check. If I got to it first, I would cash it at my mom's friend's convenience store, and get us some good groceries and some clothes for myself. If I didn't, she hid it or doled out some money to me in small dribs and drabs, and I had to make do with it.

I knew that other kids my age would steal what they couldn't afford, but that wasn't for me. There was a girl in my building, Lila Thomas, who went with some other girls from across town on weekends and raided malls. She had been caught shoplifting, but she didn't seem afraid of being caught again. She made fun of me all the time because I wouldn't go along. She called me "the girl scout" and told everyone I would end up selling cookies for a living.

I didn't care about not having her as a close friend. Most of the time, I was happy being with myself, reading a magazine or watching soaps whenever I could get the television set to work. I tried not to think about Mama sleeping late, maybe even with some new man in her room. I had gotten so I could look through people and pretend they weren't even there.