Woman at the Top of the Stairs Read online

  Chapter Three

  It was a Saturday morning. I had worked a double shift that Friday so my ass was real tired. All I wanted to do on my day off was try and get some rest. I made myself a fresh pot of coffee and turned on the news so I could catch up on the stuff that had happened in the world while I had been tied down at the hospital. I popped a few pieces of bread into the toaster and looked forward to plopping down in my oversized leather chair. Just as the toaster was going off, there was a knock at my door. I rarely received company so hearing someone at my door was kind of odd. If it was someone from outside the building they would have had to call up, but there was no call. I figured it must have been Mr. Fitzgerald, my elderly neighbor from next door. Maybe he misplaced his hearing aids again and needed me to help him find them.

  I threw on my robe and went to the door. I peered through the peep hole but didn’t see anyone. Maybe they had left. I turned to get back to my toast and there was another gentle rap at the door. Poor Mr. Fitzgerald…he’s so old and forgetful that maybe he forgot why he knocked on my door and remembered as he walked away.

  I opened the door without peeking out a second time only to find Zenobia standing there. To say I was surprised is an understatement. I didn’t know what to say, so I said the first thing that came to mind.

  “Oh, hey Zenobia. What brings you to the top of the stairs?”

  It was awkward, but the best I could do given the situation.

  “Can I come talk to you?” she asked barely above a whisper; her voice almost childlike.

  “Sure, I guess…come on in.”

  I stepped aside and let her into the apartment. Instinctively, I looked down the hall to see if anyone was out there. More specifically, I was looking to see where Percy was.

  She entered the apartment and stood by the closest wall. She looked nervous and upset. I urged her to take a seat, and she did. She sat in the chair closest to the door. I closed the door behind me and made my way into the kitchen. The toast was ready and so was my coffee. I offered some to Zenobia, and she agreed to have a cup of coffee. It would have been rude of me to eat in front of her so I put the toast aside, grabbed the two mugs of coffee and made my way back into the living room where she was sitting. I handed her the cup of coffee and sat in my oversized leather chair immediately across from her. There goes my relaxing morning, I thought to myself.

  Zenobia looked troubled. She was a beautiful girl, but the battle scars she had endured had wreaked havoc on her natural good looks. She had on her trademark plaid scarf and her clothes were a bit disheveled. She sat quietly sipping her coffee. The silence was awkward. I didn’t want to press her, so I allowed her a few minutes to see if she would voluntarily tell me what was going on. Finally she spoke. She slowly began; seemingly with great contemplation and deliberation; making sure to say just the right thing without showing all her cards.

  “Has anyone ever hurt you, Ms. Gina?” Ms. Gina? She was referencing me like I was an old woman. Hell, I’m just a few years older than she is. I should have been more offended by the question. She don’t know me enough to ask me no blunt ass shit like that! But instead of reacting to the audacity of her question, I answered her honestly. She was here for a reason. As much as I wanted to stay out of it, there was a reason for everything that had happened so far. I indulged her - if only for the moment.

  “What would make you ask me something like that?” I hate rhetoric as much as the next person, but I felt the need to play my cards close to the vest. After all, I really didn’t know this woman.

  She began to back pedal immediately.

  “Oh I’m sorry, Ms. Gina…I didn’t mean to offend you.” She started to stand up as if to excuse herself from my presence. There she goes with that Ms. Gina shit again. Damn!

  I motioned to stop her from getting up.

  “Where you going in such a hurry?” I asked in an attempt to lighten the tension in the room.

  “Zenobia, sit back down girl. I’m not offended - not by that question anyway. But if you call me Ms. Gina again, you’re gonna’ have to get the hell out my house!”

  We both had to laugh at that. She sat back down and seemed to relax a bit.

  After a few moments I raised the question again. “What would make you ask me something like that?”

  She looked embarrassed again, but eventually answered. “I don’t know. I guess it’s because you asked me if I was okay.” She didn’t look at me when she answered. Her gaze seemed to always be low. Unfortunately, I could relate. I knew what it cost me when I tried to hold my head up. She took a sip of her coffee and continued.

  “I mean, I know other people have seen me…you know…but they never look AT me. They tend to look away from me, like either they’re embarrassed for me or shake their heads like I need to be embarrassed myself. I can’t remember the last time somebody actually stopped me and asked me how I was doing…if I was okay…you know?”

  Her tone was somber. There was so much sadness and hurt there. My heart broke for her. Boy could I relate to how she was feeling; being invisible with the only person seeing you being the one putting his foot in your ass.

  “It’s funny, I talk to my mom and the few friends I have quite a bit…considering…” she continued. She didn’t need to explain that to me. It’s all a part of the isolative nature of abusive relationships.

  “They ask me how I’m doing, but I have gotten so good at lying to them, it just comes naturally. And then when I say that things aren’t going so well - when I finally put my guard down and try to open up and be honest with them- they throw it in my face by saying things like ‘you knew what you was getting when you got with him’ or ‘I told you a long time ago to leave him alone, but you didn’t listen.’ And they’re right Ms. Gina…I mean, Gina…I didn’t listen to them. I should have, but that doesn’t change the fact that I still want them to be concerned about me and care if I’m doing okay.”

  Her voice began to crack and she started to tear up. The more she spoke, I found myself fighting back tears as well.

  “It’s my fault, though. I should have listened to them…so I can’t really blame them for not caring.”

  I would have liked to be able to reassure her that they did care - that people really do care - but when you are in the situation it doesn’t feel that way. Once people try to help you and they feel you’re not taking heed, they tend to turn their backs. They turn their backs because they realize you don’t care enough about yourself at the time.

  “So what made you come here to talk to me?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I guess when you asked me if I was okay it was like maybe there was somebody in the world who cared about me.”

  Zenobia burst into tears. It was hard seeing her so upset. I got up from my chair and went to the bathroom to get her some tissue. I needed to pull myself together as tears began to flow from my eyes as well. When I returned from the bathroom with the tissue, she was sobbing uncontrollably with her head in her hands. I reached out to her, placing my hand on her shoulder in an attempt console her. Her body convulsed with the depths of the tears and pain she was in. It was truly a heartbreaking reminder of when I was in her shoes. It took a while, but eventually she calmed down some. I handed her the tissue and sat back in my chair.

  I didn’t want to make her feel worse than she already did, but there were some questions that were unanswered.

  “I know your family doesn’t approve. They must have their reasons. Whether they are right or wrong, there’s a reason you stay. Tell me…how’d you two meet?”

  Maybe if she started at the beginning and heard herself talk through it she would come to some realizations on her own. At least that’s what I was hoping.

  “How we met?” Zenobia paused before continuing. “It feels like a lifetime ago, for real.” She took a deep breath and sat on the edge of her seat. I instinctively leaned forward as
well.

  “I wish I could say it was like the fairy tales, you know…boy meets girl, they fall in love and they live happily ever after.” She had a faraway look in her eyes as if realizing for the first time her dream of a life with a happy ending was deferred.

  “But sadly Gina, it was nothing like that…not even from the beginning. If it was good at one point and then got bad it would be one thing. My staying would make more sense. But it has never been good…never. I was attracted to Percy for all the wrong reasons. I was young and impressionable. I was 16 when we first met. Even back then there was nothing good about him.”

  I leaned forward in my seat as she spoke. The look in her eyes became more focused; more intense.

  “He was the resident bad boy - a friend of my older brother’s. He used to hang around the house a lot with my brother. All the girls in the neighborhood thought he was the cat’s meow because he had a nice car and always had money. Yeah, he had money all right - from dealing. He had dropped out of school in the 10th grade. He thought he could do better for himself by being a businessman instead of, as he says, “…wasting time on stuff he wasn’t going to use no way...” The other girls thought it was so cool that Percy was hanging around my house. At first I didn’t pay him no mind. I wasn’t really attracted to him like I said. He wasn’t my type. At least I didn’t think he was. But then he started paying attention to me, being nice to me, complimenting me and buying me things. The girls in the neighborhood were really jealous then,” Zenobia said with a smile. “If they only knew how much I would pay for that shit later…oh, excuse me for cursing Gina,” she said apologetically.

  “You don’t have to apologize for that baby girl. That’s nothing compared to the things that come out of my mouth sometimes.” We both laughed.

  After a moment, she resumed telling her story.

  “When I say he was bad from the beginning, he really was. I knew better. My parents taught me right – to stay away from drugs, stay in school and stay away from bad influences. They drilled in me to get my education, get a good job and save myself for marriage. People always say opposites attract. Well, two people couldn’t be more opposite then me and Percy. I should have left it at him flirting with me, but I started to believe the stuff he would say to me – especially when he said I was pretty and smart and could be his main girl. He even told me he would give up that life to be with me. It made me feel special that he was willing to give all of that up for me.

  And he did for a while - at least he pretended like he did in front of me. I learned later that instead of dealing directly, he got a few boys in the neighborhood to deal for him. In his mind that was giving it all up for me. You know what the problem was? I started getting used to the things and having people envious of me. I wasn’t popular before I got with Percy. People didn’t even see me, or pay attention to me or know my name for that matter. I was either so and so’s daughter or such and such’s sister – never my own identity. When I was with Percy, I was Zenobia – Percy’s girl. With Percy my name was included.

  Now you know he wasn’t just buying me stuff without something in return. I had every intention of saving myself for marriage - doing what the Bible said and what my parents taught me. I resisted that temptation for as long as I could. Percy would get so frustrated, but he never pressured me to do anything I wasn’t ready to do. That made me like him even more. Now he could have very well have been getting some from other girls - and I’m sure he was - but he respected my decision enough to not push me before I was ready. I thought that shit was romantic and it meant he really cared about me. Silly me…Had I just kept my damn legs closed I swear I wouldn’t be in the mess I’m in now! That first time cost me everything! He was so gentle and took such good care of me. He made me trust him. He made me comfortable. He said all the right things. He told me he loved me and there would never be anyone who could take my place. He was my first - that made it special. They say you never forget your first. Well I couldn’t forget him. He had my nose wide open. Even after he got busted and went to jail, I stuck by him. I waited for that man for four years…four years Gina! Of course during that time other guys tried to talk to me, but I was Percy’s girl and I was down for him. I wasn’t going to turn my back on him just because he was doing a bid. I thought that was some honorable shit.

  But being locked up changed him, or maybe it didn’t change him. Maybe being locked up just brought out the worst in him. Percy was different once he was back on the outside. I think some bad things happened to him when he was in. He was harder, more paranoid and much more cynical. But I still loved him and wanted to be there for him. He talked all the time about how folks bailed on him when he got locked down; how all the friends he had when he had money and was hustlin’ strong were nowhere around. I didn’t want to be like everybody else. I wanted to prove to him that I knew how to stand by my man. He couldn’t go back to doing what he had been doing so he tried to go straight by getting a real job to get out of the game. It was hard on him, Gina. He hadn’t graduated from high school, had no trade to speak of and he had a record. Nobody wanted to hire him. Thank goodness by this time I was working and had a fairly decent job. I had my own small one-bedroom apartment, so I let him move in with me. I didn’t want to shack up, though. I wanted to do it the right way, so we got married. That was mistake number two.

  He got more and more frustrated with just trying to make it. I could tell he was tempted to go back to the streets, but he feared what could happen if he did. That’s when he started drinking more. Sure he drank before, but I had never known him to be a sloppy drunk. The more he drank and the more frustrated he got, the more he started taking it out on me. At first it was just dissing me and not paying me as much attention as he had in the past. Sure he couldn’t give me the luxuries, but I was never in it for that. I really wasn’t. I had always been the kind of person that looked for the good in others. I saw pass the façade Percy put on for other people. I saw a good man screaming to get out. I was holding out for that. After discounting me, that’s when the name calling started. His verbal assaults crushed my spirit and broke my heart. No matter what I did it was never good enough or what I should have been doing. If I wasn’t home when he thought I should be, he accused me of being with somebody else. I swear I never looked at another man the way I looked at Percy. When I was out, I was working or spending time with my family and the few friends I had at the time. He started watching me – monitoring my comings and goings. He wasn’t working so he had all the time in the world to keep tabs on me. No explanation was ever the right one. I couldn’t win for losing. He got to the place where he started coming up to my job to see if the reason I was working so late was because I was messing around with some dude in the office. Needless to say that shit didn’t go over well with my boss. When I would ask him not to come to the office because it was jeopardizing my job, that made matters worse. He really became suspect then.

  The bottom started to fall out when he showed up at work and one of my male co-workers was at my cubicle. Percy came in and saw him there and started acting a damn fool right in the office. I had never been so embarrassed in my life. My boss called me in and fired me on the spot; saying they couldn’t have those kinds of disturbances at work and it was bad for business.

  Of course Percy took no responsibility for costing me my job. He found a way to blame that shit on me. That’s when the hitting started. At first it was a push here, a shove there and a slap here and there. Of course I justified it and made excuses for it. That was so stupid of me. He promised me it wouldn’t happen again and like a dummy I believed him. I needed to believe him. I still loved him and wanted things to be better for both of us. The broker we got the more violent he seemed to become. At first he was filling out job applications; trying to get any work he could. When that didn’t work he started working under the table for cash from one of his home boys that
had a garage. The work seemed to be honest at first, but I found out the garage was just a front for dealing dope out the back. Somebody snitched and the cops raided the garage. Thank goodness Percy wasn’t there at the time or he would have been back locked up for violating his probation. But then he was out of work again.

  We fell behind in the apartment we had been living in and got put out of there for being four months behind on the rent. We didn’t have no place to go. His folks ain’t never been about nothing, so I wasn’t about to stay with none of his people. They didn’t have money to help us, so I had to go begging to my mom for some help. She was willing to help me but not Percy. That definitely put a strain on my relationship with my mother. The ‘I told you so’s’ were being thrown all over the place. Gina, at the time I didn’t want to hear that. I needed some help – me and my husband needed some help. We had no place to go, and all my friends and family could do was throw that shit up in my face. It made me feel like I didn’t have nobody but Percy to lean on. Instead of driving a wedge between us like they thought it would, it just made us closer.

  When we didn’t have no place to go, we ended up sleeping in the little raggedy piece of car we had. You talk about humiliation? That was the absolute worst. Percy started to feel like it was worth the risk to get back in the game and I couldn’t blame him. We were scraping up change just to get something to eat. I never thought I would have to resort to begging or going to food pantries just to get a meal, but those are the things we had to do to survive. It was bad - really bad.

  It was hard for me to find work, too. I mean, what address was I supposed to put on the application? The back of the parking lot where we slept hoping the cops wouldn’t come rapping on the glass telling us we had to move? As much as I hated him dealing, we really didn’t have a lot of options. Literally, all we had was each other. We agreed he would do just enough to get us back on our feet, and once we found a place with an address I would start looking for work again. It was risky and I was scared all the time that he was going to get caught, but desperate times call for desperate measures - and we were desperate as hell.”

  Zenobia’s shoulders started to slump as if the weight of those trying times was pressing down upon her. She looked tired - more tired than I remembered her looking when she first knocked on my door.

  “Percy was able to get back up with some old friends my brother turned him on to. They didn’t care what his circumstances were. If he could move the weight, he was in. The money started to trickle in and we were able to eat a little better. Then it got to the place where we could get a hotel room for a night and then a few nights in a row. I saw how hard he was working and what he was risking to take care of me. It made me love him more. There were times we would fight about the little money he was making dealing on street corners. Percy wanted to be able to celebrate by buying something to drink or going out and party. I was so not interested in that. I wanted to get a place to live and get back on our feet so I could get real work and he could stop hustlin’. The dude he was working for started trusting him with more and more weight, and Percy was hustling harder than ever. We started to see some real profits and was able to finally move into the apartment downstairs. We had a little money we were able to save up after getting furniture and new clothes and stuff. I felt like it was a good time for Percy to start cutting back. I could actually start looking for work with a legitimate address. We didn’t need to risk the life anymore once I got work. But it got to be good to him and he didn’t want to let it go. That’s why we fight so much now – ‘cause Percy don’t want to come out the life.”

  It was interesting to me that she used the word fight. She reminded me so much of myself. That’s how I described Mac kicking my ass all over God’s green acre – fights. Well if she was fighting back she was losing…just like I had lost…

  “I thought the bottom had fallen out before, but I was so wrong Gina. I had never known Percy to start using his own supply. That was breaking the hustler’s code, and he used to tell me about other dealers that lost everything because they started to be their own best customers. But the pressure of trying to stay under the radar and move in such dangerous circles started to get to him. He had a few close calls with the police which made him even more paranoid and on edge. I could handle him drinking every now and then and even getting drunk. Hell, even smoking a little reefer here and there wasn’t a big deal to me. But him playing with that coke? That I couldn’t deal with. He becomes so explosive, and I end up bearing the brunt of it.”

  “So why don’t you just leave? You have been loyal to him, but is it really worth it at this point?”

  Zenobia paused for a long time before she responded.

  “That’s a good question, Gina. I wish I had a hard and fast answer. Sadly I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I have left him in my mind a hundred times. Friends and family have told me if I leave him I can come and stay with them until I get myself together. My own brother, who is still dealin’ and thuggin' after all these years, don’t like what’s going on over here. He’s threatened to step in and deal with him, but I keep telling him I got this. I don’t need my brother coming to my rescue. I’m not a little girl anymore. That’s what the last little bit of pride I have says. Other times, I want to call him and tell him to come over here and even the score for me. But that kind of thinking is dangerous, Gina. That could bring a whole lot of unnecessary drama to my brother. He has children he has to take care of. He can’t do that if he gets locked up...”

  She paused again. There was such a look of longing and reminiscing in her eyes.

  “I wanted kids - a boy and a girl - but not like this. I couldn’t bear to bring children into a situation like this.”

  I felt so bad for her. I could totally relate to wanting a family to call your own and not being able to do so because you picked an asshole for a partner. I felt her pain; having lost more than one to the hands of the man I thought loved me without condition. I couldn’t help ruminating on her brother though. Her brother and I were definitely on the same page. But if Zenobia was still trying to be loyal to her man and not trying to do anything to change her situation, then she was going to leave my apartment today and end up getting her ass kicked again before the week was out. I pressed her a little further to see how far from rock bottom she really was.

  “I don’t mean to push (although that was exactly my intention), and I understand your pride and everything, but what would Percy have to do for you to leave him? What would have to happen for you to realize that you deserve so much better? Is there anything that will break the bond between the two of you?”

  I thought she didn’t hear me. Zenobia didn’t look at me or seem to have any reaction to the question. The look of longing that had once been on her face was replaced by a blank stare. Her eyes didn’t seem to be focused anywhere in particular. I tried to follow her line of sight, but couldn’t see anything that would have captured her attention so intensely.

  I decided to be patient and wait; wait to see if she was going to say anything. Her eyes slowly moved back in my direction. The expression on her face was still as vacant as ever, but her eyes were piercing. I sat back slowly in my seat. The look in her eyes was unnerving.

  And then she spoke; barely above a whisper.

  “Death…”