First Floor on Fire © Michael Russell
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. –
Psalm 137:9
Chapter One: Nevaya Briggs
Yeah, I just threw Chardae down the stairs, so what? I don’t give a fuck.
My boo died a year ago today. Nobody got no business getting in my face. They all should of shown some respect. Can’t take my cats with me to school to calm me down. Why didn’t I just cut school today? For an anniversary, I’ve earned a break.
Chardae and her friends spotted me minding my own business on my way to Ms. Dee’s corny English class. As soon as my feet touched the second floor, I saw them, ten feet away, and don’t even try to say they ain’t been waiting. They must of known my girls weren’t with me. Oh, hell no. She did not bring her mom in to help her. That is too ghetto. The whole family fight on the street, everyone do that, but in school?! Chardae didn’t waste a second. “Your mom!”
“Your grandmom!”
“Your mom a teabagging bitch! Bet she was fucking your man like a champ when he got popped!”
So I did what I had to. I grabbed that smut by her hair, shoved her to the door, kicked the door open, dragged her a few feet and pushed that shitball of hate down the stairs. Tough and fast, I got her to the stairs before her stupid-ass friends and nasty bitch of a mom got to me. She dropped just as the first blow struck me. Chardae hit the next stair. A foot to my belly. The third stair. Fist to my head. Fourth stair. Police officer grabbed the next fist, half a foot from my eye. Fifth and sixth stair. The next officer pinned me to the wall.
Damn right we had an audience. Look at all those wannabes scream. I got something done, and they had to live through me. Got they phones out, filming me, screaming, wanting more. I could always see things they couldn’t, and they hated me for it. I been making my dreams, and they wanted me to burn them one by one. They tried to steal from me, but I’m the part that can’t be stolen.
Bunch of them laughing they asses off. They think the whole fight funny, like something on YouTube. Build theyselves up by trying to tear me down, but they gonna fall. And if you think I could ever fall, then y’all have done lost your minds. Anyone can see Chardae on the floor, curled up, broken, twisted, blood carving up the shape of her face. I saw my blood, too, but it winner’s blood.
Wait - oh, my fucking God, she stood up again. Lots of blood, but nothing really broken. Never yell “I won!” before you know for sure they down for good.
Chardae moaned, “You ugly dark bitch.“ I tried to run forward so she could get got proper, but the officers held me back.
I done the right things all week. Ain’t nobody can say different. You know, you really know I’m never no teacher’s pet, but I can do right without kissing ass. Why can’t these corny police leave me alone? “Get your fucking hands off me! I don’t need your help! I’m gonna fucking kill those bitches! They can’t beat me! They gotta be in a group to even try any shit!”
Officer Alina, stone and hammer, wasn’t having it, dragged me into one of the security rooms, just her and me. “Nevaya, you little fuckhead, I been tired of telling you to stop this shit. How about it? What happened this time?”
“So what??! Chardae shouldn’t of called my mom a teabagging bitch!”
Officer Alina threw me her don’t-even-think-you-gonna-try-that-shit face. “I told you time and time again to ignore them when they try that. You let them set you off like that, you let them control you.”
Every grown up try to say some corny shit to trick me into not throwing down. “So what??!! You ain’t my mom, so don’t say nothing to me.”
“You better be glad I ain’t your mom! If you was mine - “
“And you got a nerve! When I ever see you ignore anything? You always in our business! Come around here and pretend you’re some motherfucking role model!” That always gets them mad, find any way that they wrong. Don’t matter how small it is. If it change the subject, it good.
“Call me out my name like that again.” Yeah, I knew she really meant it that time, but I never kiss no ass.
I leaned against the cracked wall, looked her clear in her eye. “Aiight, you a fatherfuckin’ role model!”
Lava melted in Officer Alina’s eyes. Her left hand hit the wall, her arm cutting me off in one direction. “Navaya, you think you so hard.” If I pushed this much further, she’d snap. I knew I had better say something corny.
“Yeah, every morning, I eat puppies on toast!”
That gave Alina an out. She didn’t have to beat my ass now. “Well, you oughta know better than that. Ain’t you never heard toast is bad for you?!”
She almost made me smile with that one. At least she tried. Don’t mean she wouldn’t rat me out for the price of a cup of coffee. Don’t mean I couldn’t take her in a fair fight. But she a cop with a gun, she got the advantage for now.
I know I messed up big earlier in the school year, and nobody better pretend they got any business reminding me about that. But I’m not gonna let myself fail, drop out, spend my life doing hair. I’m getting out of here, gonna go to college, make my brothers proud, and those nasty-ass, dickeating-all-night, take-it-up-they-ass smuts can’t stop me. They hated me since third grade, can’t let nothing go. If I insulted them seven years ago, you can bet cash money they remember every word I said, very gesture I made, all programmed in they brains. Yeah, I know everything they said, so fucking what? They keep track of me, I return the favor.
My face must of snitched what I was thinking. Officer Alina glared at me. “You can’t go on like this. Richard Allen and Blumburg girls have hated each other for years, and for what?! Can you even remember when or how it started? And now you gonna be damn lucky if you not in jail tonight.”
Huh, who she think she talking to? I been threatened with jail enough times to know when somebody talking shit to try to scare me.
Those bitches from Blumburg should not of fucked with us. They never learn. They too grown. Those dickeaters is drawin’. Nobody from that dirty project ever been shit. We live in Richard Allen. We don’t play. We didn’t start nothing but we will end it.
Nana said to me, “You make me so mad you make my ass wanna chew tobacco.” She know how it is. The way you feel just before you explode and rain your blood all over the city. I’m about to snap. Anybody give me any shit all all, I’m a snap. Especially today, the one day any fool should know to let me be. Officer Alina ain’t been here long, so she don’t know.
I gotta get out of here, nobody knows me. Gonna kill the next motherfucker who look at me wrong. Cut you open and burn everyone to ash. Nobody say nothing to me - get out my mind and my face, punk ass teachers and haters think they know but they don’t know shit GET THE FUCK OUT you ain’t gonna know me, never gonna touch my fire, my heaven and hell. You just go on thinking I’m some dumb bitch, and it’s your loss, cause you’ll never know. Yeah, go right ahead and call me out my name. You won’t break my skin, you won’t tear up my guts, I won’t pay no attention to you at all unless I beat you down. You go ahead and think I bathe in the blood of baby bunnies so long as it keep you off my pussy.
Officer Alina don’t understand me. She say she do, act like she do, but she one of them, not one of us, especially not one of me, so she don’t know. She kept her eyes on me, got me alone in this falling-down room til they decide whether I go to jail or not. I bet I don’t. Those bitches hate the police as much as I do, they won’t press charges. They want to get they own revenge, and the law would just get in the way.
Why you asking me where we are? You oughta know this is Killadelphia, Filthydelphia, The City That Smacks You Back. We in the North Philly Badlands. Don’t ever tell me what we should do, what would make good sense, cause good sense never happen here. Forget you ever learned those two words.
Center City act like it made of platinum, and up northwest they a bunch of rich white stuck up neighborhoods, but I’m stuck in the rotten soul of the city falling down all over us. Broken glass never get cleaned up. Young bols killing young bols. Bitches killing bitches. They don’t know what they do, but they know they gotta do it. Raw project law. Never shook the hand of nobody who own no stores. They always behind bulletproof glass.
Have I ever been out of town? Naw, everything I know is here. I’d love to get out, but where would I go? We ain’t allowed to live noplace else. But don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I’ll kick you ass if you try that shit.
No matter what I crawl through, no matter how wrong it be, everybody try to stop me being angry. They say, “It’s not appropriate.” What they actually sayin’ is my real pain take up too much of they time. Gotta keep the factory goin’, can’t stop for a messy human. I gotta make a way out of no way.
“Miss Briggs.”
“Mr. Price.” Why that man always gotta say some obvious shit. Waste of air, that all he be.
“I told you I never wanted to see you in my office again.”
“Then don’t. I’m not trying to be here.” Not in this crazy, messed-up room. Some things in his office look like they belong in rich white folks’ houses. Glass cases and dark wood. Shiny new laptop. But the room still got cracks on the walls, old paint that look like mold. One wall look pregnant, like it thinking about falling on our heads.
“Miss Briggs. You will not disrespect me in my own office.”
“That so? Things sure change, don’t they?”
Mr. Price slammed his fist on the desk. I knew I could make him snap. The more all the rich people try to glue theyselves together, the more they snap. Oh, look, now he putting on his reasonable face. The one he use when he want me to believe he care real deep about me. He think he God’s blessing to the world, gonna save us all from ourselves just so we’ll thank him.
“Nevaya, I am making … an exceptional effort … not to call the police. Don’t make me do it.” He gonna sit there and lie to me like that? He can’t press no charges. I know those Blumburg bitches don’t want no police in the way. And even if Price could throw me in jail, I ain’t make him do shit.
Principals and teachers must think we stupid. They quick to suspend us beginning of the year. Tell us they won’t put up with none of us losing our minds. And for awhile, they do kick out some young bols. But then the numbers pile up. If they suspend and kick out too much, then they the ones who look bad. So they find excuses to pretend we don’t do what we do. Keep the numbers looking pretty. Oh, yeah. They think I’m too dumb to figure that one out. So I just let them think that stupid shit. Cause when they think that, I win.
“Nevaya, I’m talking to you.”
“Yes, you are.”
“And I think you owe me an explanation for what you did.”
“Those bitches –“
“Don’t change the subject. Why did you do what you did?”
“Because I had to!” People in charge sure do like to pretend we can all hold hands and just walk away from a fight. If I did that, the fight would bum rush me. They think they so smart, but what they really telling me to do is let myself get jumped. And then they shake they heads and act sad and sorry for me. We got this program for you, we got that program for you. We promise this time it will change everything. Nothing at all like that program last year that was gonna change everything for me. Try to fool theyselves into believing they saved the world.
“You did not have to. You could have ignored them and walked away.” Yup. What did I just tell you? They always say that. “They didn’t hit first. You did.”
“If I didn’t, they would have!”
“You don’t know that.” Like fuck I don’t. “I keep telling you you need to find a way to de-escalate.” Oh, my fucking God! I’d like to see one of these soft motherfuckers “de-escalate.” They’d get they ass stomped in. I could sell tickets. Everybody’d like to see folks who work in a school get theyselves a big mudhole in they ass. Especially fuckheads who went to college and think they know it all.
“You need to find ways of thinking outside the box.” Oh, my fucking God!!! Mr. Price don’t even need to be here. He would just have somebody play a file of what I already heard a million times. Always the same shit by people who don’t know what they talking about, but they think they so smart. The faces change; the words don’t. They think they can make me change my mind by yelling the same thing at me my whole life. I stopped listening a thousand years ago.
“Tell me what I can do to help you.”
“Kill those smuts for me. Do it slow.”
“You know you don’t mean that.”
“Don’t tell me what I don’t mean. I ain’t no child.” I wish just once an adult would offer to help me and mean it. But no, I can’t trust any of them. At least those Blumburg smuts don’t front. They evil, right on the surface, no hiding. Nothing I hate more than some big, friendly smile fronting for a devil.
The noise file wouldn’t stop. “I know you don’t want to hear this –“
“Then don’t say it!”
“- but you are still technically a child. And that’s ok. I used to be just like you.” Mmm hmm, anybody say that, it mean the conversation all about them. I might as well not be in the room. Just have that noise file play to an empty chair. “I understand just what it’s like to be a young person.” Nobody who really understand anything gotta let folks know how smart they is. If you have it, we already gonna know.
“This is your lucky day.” Mr. Price’s eyes stayed on me just a beat too long. Just like most grownups. I knew he thought he so slick I wouldn’t feel his nasty self oozing out to step to me.
“Mr. Price, why you staring at me? I ain’t your shorty.”
“Nevaya! You will not disrespect me like that! How dare you!” Veins dancing, sweat pretending it wasn’t there, eyes putting on a show of being offended. He sure knew just how offended to pretend to be. Took him no time at all to figure out what I meant. Bet he already rehearsed his answer. “I am a married man and would never treat my students like that. I care about all of you, but not like that. The idea of anyone abusing any of you in that way makes me sick to my stomach.” You never know, he might even believe that shit he say. But I ain’t taking that bet.
“Good for you.”
Quickly, he put on his calm voice, his saving-the-world voice, as if he never yelled. His shame-on-you-for-even-thinking-I-ever-yell fake warmth, warm like January concrete. “Nevaya.” Smiling, trying that eye contact trick all the players like. They think they so slick when they pretend to look at my face. “I think we both know what you’re trying to do. As always, instead of dealing with your own misbehavior, you change the subject by pretending someone did something to you.”
I stared straight ahead. No way I was playing this game. “I never pretend. I ain’t got time.” Why that man never say what he really mean?! Always hiding behind “someone” and “something.” That really make me feel some kind of way.
“I am a merciful man. I think of my students as my own children. I grew up in North Philly. I used to be just like you.” Fuck outta here. Fuck all the way outta here. Only person who ever used to be just like me is me. “I’m cooler than other folks my age.” Mmm hmm. Once again, if you gotta say you it, then you ain’t it. “I’m strict, and I believe in the rules, but I don’t think you would be well served by being kept out of school. And that’s what really matters. Your education.”
Ha! I knew it! Like I said, if this was September, I’d be kicked out by the next day. But it almost March, and those suspension numbers have piled up. Big bad principal sliced up by paper pushers. About my education, my ass.
“So I’m not suspending you this time. Instead, I want you to complete a ten-page research paper on the history of nonviolence.”
Now … if I believed I was really going to have to write that paper, I’d have told him he was a crazy grandmotherfucker. But I knew how this go down. I come up with this or that sincere, almost crying excuse for why the paper not done yet. Saying I have a big family emergency is the best way to go. Maybe my cousin got shot.
Eventually, he’ll forget that he told me to write it. He can look all serious about school now and never have to follow up.
“Aiight, Mr. Price, I’ll write the paper.”
“That’s good, Nevaya. See how far being reasonable can take you? If you can keep up this change in attitude, you can go places in life. There was this time I was your age and feeling just like you …”
His story was days long. To keep myself from smacking him down, my head went through all Janelle Monae’s jawns. Every word and beat. Not the first time she helped me get through the day. She know all about life, and nobody tell her who she gonna be. Janelle from outer space, and that make her more human than most people I know. That crazy in her voice tell the truth. She showed me the world, so I’ll always have her back.
Every minute or so, I said “Uh huh” and sounded real interested. Gotta pick my battles. The playing field here always weighted against me. I knew that in a fair fight, Price be face down. Bleeding from a hundred holes. Today a good day in one way: at least Price not boring me to death trying to get me to like his corny oldhead music. Nobody alive listen to that shit he like, but he preach and preach about it, like I’d let anybody see me dance to somebody with a name like Run DMV, DMC, whatever the fuck it is.
“And Nevaya …” Uh oh, he gonna have to find something to pick on to make sure I know he think he won. “I don’t want to have to keep telling you to obey the rules about school uniforms. I expect better from you than to wear jeans under your uniform pants.”
So I got away with a warning, just like I said I would. I left the office and waved at one of the cameras in the hall. School uniform rules one of a thousand parts of life that don’t make no sense. They say it for our own good, so we not distracted by clothes, not tearing each other down for not having the right name, the right style. And they think if we not distracted, we can concentrate on school, be in the right frame of mind to learn. Uniforms ain’t stopped nobody from tearing nobody down. We all notice if some broke ass bitch wear the same uniform every day, with the same stain on the same part of they shirt. We know who buy they shoes from Payless or get them from the church and mosque poor piles. I don’t give a fuck about none of that, but I know everybody’s business, anyway. We all hear about it whether we ask or not. And now we gotta buy a bunch of clothes so ugly we never gonna wear them outside this falling-down, ugly-ass building. Maybe they figure that since the school building all ruined, the clothes have to match.
I am so glad those bitches don’t know about my favorite place in Fairmount Park. Nobody know, even though it not really that far away. So many people I know scream they heads off at the idea of walking more than a few blocks, They just wanna stay home, drink they Hugs, smoke they weed, fuck they whatever. All that might be decent for them, but I can’t do that. Staying trapped in four walls all the time would make me snap.
Most of the time I walk there, but today I was feeling tired, so I took the bus. At least that way, I wouldn’t have to hear the same old noise. “You must be crazy walking all that way. You a young girl. Anything could happen.”
Everybody told me that, as if they all the first one who ever think it up. Shaking they heads, acting like they feel sorry for me. Sure, everybody have picnics and family reunions in the park, but hanging out by yourself, just to be there? That some crazy white mess. Oh, well. Nobody ever gonna mistake me for no white bitch, and I’m a do what I want.
Cause this be the place that keep me from killing everybody who make me feel some kind of way. Ms. Dee said Fairmount Park bigger than Central Park. Never been to New York, so I don’t know, but Ms. Dee seem to know what she say. You could get lost here. After some days, I wanna get lost.
First time I went, I hated it. I was a lot younger, and some Blumburg bitches chased me for blocks until I lost them in the park. They kept screaming, “Bitch, we gonna find you and tear up you ass!” But I found a spot full of bushes with thorns. Ain’t nobody wanted to search them all just to find me. And I sat still, didn’t even let myself step on a twig. They got tired of looking for me and walked away, Chardae yelling over her shoulder, “Bitch, this ain’t over!”
I had to stay awhile until I knew they wouldn’t catch me. Too many for me to fight alone. But I almost felt more scared sitting in the woods than I would in a fight. Everything too quiet. In normal life, nobody making noise, we all know something about to go down. You can’t trust quiet. Took me awhile to figure out nothing goes down here. Yeah, there was that young girl who got raped and killed, but that just one of a few times. There be raping and killing on my block every time you turn around. Well maybe not every time, but some days it sure do feel like it.
So yeah, I hated the quiet at first. The park so beautiful it made me nervous. I had to calm down from all the calm. Not feeling like my hand on the trigger just wasn’t natural.
But something about it kept bugging me and calling to me, so I tried it again. I wanted to spend some time with the trees and the sky. Killadelphia kill the sky, cover it up. Buildings stand over you like bullies in a playground. But none of that happen here. I could let some poison out my head, and it stayed out long as I was here.
I can see the face of God out here. The city blur and ash Him away. I don’t tell nobody about this. They’d think I was corny and crazy, like teachers on Earth Day. I guess they think God live in a church or mosque a few times a week, and then he done with us.
Well, yeah, I did tell Donyair and brought him out here. He loved it, but then he had the nerve to tell me he went again by himself and got naked, just to do it. I was not trying to hear that. Seeing my brother showing his ass would make me wanna go blind. Why the fuck he do that? It sounds like something crazy white people like to do. Naw, don’t say that, now I’m doing it, even though what Donyair do sound like that. He said it made him feel free, so I told him to have his own fun, but from then on, I was going to Fairmount Park by myself.
You wouldn’t think Killadelph would have so many trees and bushes, but it do. If you know where to look, you got places you can hide. Places nobody else think to look. Nobody in they right or wrong mind. If I never came here, I would have flowed into lava long ago, burned the whole fucking block with me.
I liked to wait around long enough to see animals. At home, we only get the animals mean and tough enough to survive anywhere: dogs, cats, rats, mice, roaches, pigeons. They all dirty. You won’t catch me touching a one of them. Well, maybe cats, but just my own. But here, if I’m lucky, I can see a rabbit and sometimes even deer. Things I thought were only on cartoons.
One time almost made me jump outta my skin. At a creek bed was the biggest bird I ever seen. Tall and skinny. It looked like a punk everybody knew would fall down, and we’d watch just so we could laugh. But then its beak rushed the water and killed a fish. Lightning on crack. Nobody told me a bird could do that.
Turns out this crazy bird is called a heron. Made me laugh cause it sound like the way real people say “heroin.” We say “hair-on.” White people say it wrong. Bet that why the bird so skinny. Heron on hair-on. I could die laughing.
Small waterfall twenty feet away. Looks big close up. Wish it could wash away the nasty city making my lungs want to throw up. Headaches from God knows what chemicals. Ms. Dee said white people trying to kill us. I don’t know if she right, but I wouldn’t put it past them to try. Ms. Dee talk crazy a lot of the time, but sometime it the kind of crazy that make more sense than books do. Didn’t even know the city air hurt me before I got to spend some time away from it.
Ms. Dee grew up in Arkansas. She said it look like the park, but more so. She loved the outdoors and clean air. I asked her why she never went back; she said they’d have to haul away all the mean white people before she’d set a toe there again. She sounded so sad I didn’t say nothing else to her. Not many folks make me want to let them be.
I loved and hated the feeling of rain on my face. It made me smile like a waterfall breaking free and frown like a wet kitten. Sometimes, I erased the outside world, but other times, it sliced its way in. I wished I could lock all the bullies in a cage. Get me a long knife, jab it in, stab them all to death. They didn’t even have to be nice to me. All they had to do was not beat on me and spit on me, and they couldn’t even manage that. They think it cute to make me a monster. Well, ok, then. If that what they think of me, I’m a be the scariest motherfucking monster anybody ever saw.
Oh, try to forget that. Just for a little while. Look at the sun stabbing through the – no, no, no, I meant shining through the space between the leaves on the trees. Nevaya, you don’t have to fight right now. Fall back. Don’t be so hype.
I stayed until I thought I could look the world in the eye again without feeling some kind of way about it. But going home always made me so mad. I got one foot on the bus, and all around me a bunch of fools who’d die if they stopped running they mouths. Peace and quiet cracked into sharp broken glass. Felt like an invasion, made me wanna snap even more. I bet a lot of folks in this crazy town never had a quiet moment in they lives. Not even when they sleep. Like sharks who die if they stop moving, they always gotta be talking.
So I tried to turn off my ears, pretend all the noise wasn’t there. Soon, it blurred into a low hum. I could deal with that. Until –
“Teabagging bitch smut!”
- slashed open my calm and let the noise and poison pour in. Oh, no, they didn’t. They did not ruin my peaceful afternoon. I should of just walked back home. Took the bus cause I felt a bit tired. That voice made me feel a lot tired.
“You think you hard, Nevaya! You ain’t tough! You ain’t shit! You can’t beat me!” Chardae had Aeyana with her. She never had the heart to try to take me on her own. Aeyana always whispered in her ear, always seemed to give Chardae an energy boost, make her hate even more.
In my bag was a mostly empty glass bottle of juice. I wanted to smash it over Chardae’s head so bad, glass and citric acid jumping her blood. But the bus was full, too many witnesses, all pretending to be better than us but watching every second. Bet some of them took notes.
And that bitch said my name. And my look stand out too much. What am I gonna say, “No, officer, you mistaken me for that other girl who dress like a paint factory done blew up”? Motherfucker, I coulda really taken her, too.
So I just looked Chardae straight in the eye and told her, “Say that again when we both alone.”
“Why you want us to be alone, you dyke?! Yeah, I know you really want us to be alone!”
“I know you want that, bitch! I ain’t no dyke!” She call me out my name the same way every time. I never knew how much of the shit that come out her mouth she even believed.
“Yes, you is. I’m a embarrass you in front of everybody!”
“You talk tough in front of a group! Just wait til I catch you with no help. You never had such a beatdown.”
“I oughta sock the shit outta you right now!”
“You got a nasty dirty smut ass that can’t cash that check!”
“Little girl, go home and suck your brother’s dick! The next block is you stop! I know you can’t wait for some tiny brother dick! Slurp slurp!”
Red lightning through my brain. I could not let that pass. Didn’t matter who could see now. Lightning slashed so fast I couldn’t remember standing up and running to Chardae, bottle in hand.
A flying glass and blood fountain.
Screaming.
Jump out the side door.
Run a blur, hoped nobody on the bus remembered right what I look like.
I thought I saw Chardae nothing but a melted puddle of blood, skin and glass.
Heart drumming. Keep running. Don’t hear no footsteps. That bitch ain’t shit. I won again. Keep it coming. I can’t lose.
Ow! My back hurt. Beating down stupid bitches really fucked up my muscles. But I’m a recover soon, absorb the pain, not let anyone see. Nothing can keep me down. Yeah, the whole world hate on me. But they all punks. Can’t catch me, can’t beat me. Not if I beat them down, get home first, lock the door, stay clear of all windows.