South Central Noir

The baby had finally had enough excitement and began whining for a bottle. Hope walked to the bathroom and carefully rinsed the Donald Duck bottle. She should have gotten another bottle and nipples too, now that Chauncey had started gnawing through the nipples. She’d save the banana for morning; now at sixteen months, Chauncey wanted much more than formula. She looked at herself in the mirror as she mixed formula, two scoops and slightly warm water, and he was good. Chauncey didn’t look like her; he had their mother’s face, her straight hair and white skin. Hope had met her own dad a few times, a Black firefighter who used to like to kick it with her mother, but he got off drugs and left town and Hope’s mom could never find him to make him pay child support, or so she said.

Chauncey’s dad was white, she knew that, but Rika would never admit to who he was, like it was some kind of secret. Hope had some ideas; sometimes Rika would visit her old school, so she thought it might be a teacher. You couldn’t put anything past a teacher, but maybe the father wasn’t a total loser. Chauncey was handsome and playful and with the sweetest disposition; he hardly cried and was so smart. When he was really little, when he was hungry, he’d point to his mouth, and when he was tired, he’d cradle his head. When Rika brought him home from the hospital, she seemed to want to live a different life. She even went to church for a little bit, but that didn’t last. Hope had seen her decline over time, going from trying to be a good mother to just not giving a fuck.

Rika would say, “I’m going out, watch Chauncey.”

That would be it; she’d bail and leave Hope with a baby. So, there she was, sixteen and trying to take care of a two-month-old. It was the most overwhelming thing that Hope had every experienced, and it changed her. She realized she could do. She could be the mother for her little brother, at least she would try, and that was more than Rika ever did. She was sure she could do a better job than anybody else.

“Hurry up with that bottle!” Maria shouted.

Hope returned. At the sight of her, Chauncey squirmed out of Maria’s arms to reach for the bottle and couldn’t get the nipple into his mouth fast enough.

“He’s hungry, this one,” Maria said with satisfaction.

“Yeah, he is.”

“Think we should take him to school tomorrow?”

Hope sat on the edge of the bed, surprised to hear the word “school” slip from Maria’s mouth. “Maybe we should go, see what’s happening.”

“Yeah, maybe...”

Hope didn’t think much of the idea and thought that Maria must be tripping. They both knew the score, what it meant to go to school with Chauncey.

“You go, Maria. I’ll stay here.”

Maria paused before she said another word. She put her hand on Hope’s arm.

“I don’t care if you go. But you know I can’t go up there. You know Rika will be looking.”

“I know,” said Maria. “You’re doing your best for him. I just wanted to see what’s going on.”

Hope nodded. Seeing what was going on didn’t just mean seeing how much classwork she had missed. Hardest thing about doing what they were doing was giving up on the life they had before, no matter that that life was shit for the both of them.

“I’m not going to go to Locke without you.”

“You need to do what you need to do. I ain’t stopping you.”

Maria started to cry then, softly like it wasn’t really happening. Hope knew that Maria had a sister, but something had happened between the two of them and they hadn’t talked in a long time.

“Do you want to catch the bus to the beach?” Maria asked.

Maria always wanted to go to the beach, especially when things were going bad. Things weren’t there yet, but one more night and they had to be out of the Snooty Fox Motor Inn. Hope knew they had to plan. They had options but not good ones. If Chauncey got sick, or if they just couldn’t stand another night at Aunt Thelma’s, they’d do what they had to do.

“Manny comes back Saturday. We need to be out of here before that.”

Maria shrugged, though it was her that Manny fiended over. Hope knew that if it was her the asshole wanted, she sure as hell would be trying to make sure they were long gone before he got back.

“We’ll see Aunt Thelma. She’ll help us out, but we can do that Saturday. We’ll go to the beach tomorrow.”

Maria smiled lazily, closed her eyes. The baby finished the bottle and began drifting off. Hope slid out of bed and checked to see that the lock was on and that the chair was secure under the knob. She made sure the half-sized bat was where it was supposed to be, near the bed, and the raggedy cell phone, the last gift her mother had given her before she went crazy, was where it was supposed to be, in the diaper bag, alongside the rusty .38. The .38 was Maria’s, but Hope doubted that it worked or even that it was loaded. She hated guns and didn’t want anything to do with them, yet Maria insisted they keep it.