I once got fired from a job because I kept showing up late. I’m not talking about thirty minutes or an hour late more like five or six hours late. My hours were from 9-5, and I’d show up at 2 and then go to lunch. I got away with it for like a month.
I once got fired from the job because I left a bottle of Rum on my desk. My boss asked me if I had been drinking and I offered her a sip from my coffee cup. I thought she was cool.
I once got fired from a job because I forgot to book my Boss’s flight back from London. It was a weekend trip. He called me into his office Monday morning. He complained that he had to sleep on the airport floor for two days and it cost him almost ten thousand dollars to get back. I replied” You’re back, so what’s the problem.” Security escorted me out that afternoon.
Being fired is like saying “You’re dead to me.” How horrible. An aunt once said that to me when she caught me in bed with her boyfriend. I questioned for a second if I should call the police because she may had plans to kill me or put a hit on me. What does it mean for somebody to say, you’re dead to me when in fact I know I’m still alive and breathing. If I’m dead to them, does that make me a ghost and does that give me the right to haunt them? If I’m dead to them, I’m sure I didn’t die peacefully, so why not become a poltergeist?
I’ve also been disowned or renounced for various reasons depending on the crime. I think I got disowned for being a homosexual and renounced for practicing it. I think disownment is more emotional and renounced is the legal term as in getting kicked out of the family will. Is it truly possibly to disown anyone. I mean daddy can’t go back to that night when he got liquored up and seduced my mother. My mother can’t take back the nine months of pregnancy and 14 hours of labor. IS there paper work involved when you disown someone? I mean after a person turn eighteen years old, the law automatically disowns them from their parents. If I’m disowned should I give back my birth certificate and have my next of kin removed. Is disownment like the parent/child messing divorce? Should I hire a lawyer? I mean I was used to a certain lifestyle before the disownment, daddy can take back the last name but I want the vacation house and my childhood allowance until the day I die. Let’s not forget, the faithful, “don’t ever speak to me again.” It’s been used on me often. My sister yelled into the phone the night I called her a three in the morning blasting Michael Jackson in the speaker. I thought she’d be amused. She called me an immature drunk. I called her a fat frigid bitch and I though those people were supposed to be jolly. She told me to never speak to her again. I wondered if that mean I saw a grizzly bear charging at her in the grocery store did the rule still apply.
Every time I get fired from a job and I pass it, I wonder did the people still think of me. How long did it take for them to think of me as dead? How long did it take from them to wipe away my memory of showing up hung-over or with an attitude? Did it take days or hours?
I mean never speak to me again, what are the loopholes. I used that insult myself as to say I thought me getting fired was just a sign being a fuck up. I didn’t realize I was so romantic.
What’s worse than getting fired is watching other people get fired. It’s like everybody saw it coming except them. I showed up to my job one afternoon and security was putting five of my co-workers out the building. They came into work like everything was normal and exactly ten o’clock they were packing their desks and being escorted to their cars. Everybody knew they were going to get fired. It was the office gossip. I couldn’t understand they just didn’t quit and save themselves the embarrassment. It was like watching a bad break-up. Security stayed in the building for a month afterwards just in case anybody wanted to come back and shoot up the place. We were forced to sign contracts that we wouldn’t speak to any of the co-workers about company business. It was a mess.
As Whitney Houston would say, what happened to broken hearts? What happens to those who are fired after ten years? What happens to those who been disowned or told there are dead when in fact they know they are still alive? What happen to those who are tragically rejected? It’s more of a real death. Even if you saw it coming, death always feel the same. It’s like having a love one commit suicide to get away from you. It hurts so much as a real death. And healing is just the same as a real death. First, there’re the shock and denial. Then there’s the anger. Then there’s rationalization. And then there’s guilt what could’ve been different. And finally, acceptance.
When my youth ended, at first I was in shock and denial.
If my life was a sitcom it would have been canceled a long time ago. I never learned shit. I kept repeating the same mistakes. I was like that girl who couldn’t keep the man. Eventually people were gong to realize I was the fuck up. Eventually they were going to realize it was me. After all aren’t we here to prove to everyone, especially the poor that we mean something. Aren’t we here to have on our tombstones “H e was a good father or mother or brother or friend?” But what about that alcoholic years when he was an asshole. If I was a sitcom I would’ve been canceled a long time ago. People don’t want the truth. They want to the same bullshit.
But if my life was a movie, it would begin something like this. It was two o’clock in the evening. And I awoke to the loudest sound I’d ever heard in my life. Something was banging on the bathroom door, as if it was shaking it like a hysterical person. The door breath in and out so heavily I thought it was going to break from it hinges. It was the cops. Charles had called the cops. We had been having problems. He was trying to rid himself of me. I was his bile movement. I wasn’t impressed. I awoke and first there was the smell. I was lying in vomit. I was surprised. It wasn’t the first time. And then I saw the blood. Again, I wasn’t surprised. But it was the stale humid air prickling at my body that made me realized I was naked. I was naked on the bathroom floor lying in my own vomit and blood. I tried to think. I had to put it all together. I knew the vomit was from the abuse of alcohol. I had been drinking for days. I remember throwing up in to the toilet and passing out in the middle of it. That explained the vomit. And then I remembered the broken wine glass. I looked at my right hand and saw that it had little pieces of glass still stuck in it. The night before, I had squeezed the wine glass so hard in my hand that I burst its head liked they did in the movies. So I took the little pieces of glass and carved messages into my body. I looked at my thigh and there was the word “Help.” I looked at my other thigh and I had carved “Slave.” On my right arm I had carved in my name and “Hurt.” On my left arm I was going to write something but didn’t finish. So that explained the blood. But why was I naked. And then I remembered I wanted to go swimming. I remember climbing the gate. So I must’ve left my clothes. I must’ve somehow staggered back to the apartment without getting arrested. But the cops were at the door. I couldn’t remember everything. What did I do?
Everyone in my life had given up on me. My older sister called me a “common nigga” that would probably end up found dead in an alley or dying in the hospital from AIDS. I knew I deserved more.
But everyone was right, I had become a loser. I ruined everything in my life: credit, checking account, job references and friends. Nobody invited me to parties anymore. All my friends when they would see me out at the club either snubbed me or pitied me. I knew I deserved more. I was no longer the designer label, American express card carrying, Volkswagen driving, gym obsessed punk I had been since I was twenty two years old. Life had broken my heart, so I became the cheap box wine drinking, Wal-Mart shopping, unemployed hustler, bus card carrying, sex addict with a don’t give a damn attitude. I didn’t care about those materialistic bastards who didn’t want me in their plastic friendship circle anymore. I was better off without them. But that didn’t mean I was free.
Before the cops. Before the mutilation of my body. Before waking up in my own vomit. I had been trapped in Texas for two years with no job, no future, and hoping that I would die somehow. I was twenty seven years old and drowning at the deepest and darkest part of the ocean.
I woke up to screaming. It was like an alarm clock going off. Charles was screaming at me. He was tired. He wanted me out of his apartment. I remember I was sipping cheap box wine from a super sized McDonald’s plastic cup and he was yelling at me. We were supposed to be going to a pool party. He hated me. I had been staying with him for two years, using his car, spending his money, but never giving him sex. He wanted me out of his life. I couldn’t blame him. He was yelling at me that I was wasting my life; that I was stupid, lazy, and a drunk. He was yelling at me that I needed to get my shit together and I couldn’t continue sleeping on his floor. He was yelling at me that I was trifling, disgusting, and sad. I remember feeling powerless. I remember feeling not like a man. All my club friends thought my life was so fucking perfect--because when you’re fabulous they don’t ask too many questions. They all thought I had some fucking perfect situation, because when you’re good looking and thin, you don’t have problems. But my life was a nightmare. I was trying to kill myself every other day. I was trying to kill the boredom. I was trying to kill the hopelessness with the liquor, sex, drugs, glass bottles, sleeping pills or anything that would distract the reality I was a fucking loser. That I had fucked up my life. I was trying to kill that voice in my head constantly nagging, “Why are you here!!!!!!”
I hated Charles that night. I hated that I needed him. I wanted to believe because he was old he didn’t understand his soul anymore. But the truth, I didn’t understand my soul anymore. I hated him because he was ruining my seven year high. I didn’t want to come down. I wanted to crash. I wanted to overdose on my youth. It seemed like it happened so fast. I graduated high school. I then graduated college. I started going to the clubs. I hated all the jobs I had. I started drinking more. I started using drugs. And nobody complained in the beginning. I was young, cute, slender and full of cum. Nobody complained in the beginning. But I knew it was coming to an end. I never thought I live pass twenty five years old. I didn’t see a future for myself.
I knew it was over on my twenty seventh birthday. I was with friends and this young guy that wasn’t even that cute was getting all the attention. He got into the club free. They bought him his drinks for free. It was like I was no longer usable. And I had once said that would never be me. When I first came out into the life I said I was going to be one of those stupid bitches who moved in with men old enough to be their father. I said I would save my money. But somehow it happened. I had become one of those stupid bitches like Ike. I met him when I was twenty years old. He was twenty four years old staying with a fifty year old man. Ike never worked and he thought it was cute. I felt sorry for him. I told myself that would never be me. I was wrong.
And then I got very angry.
Shit hit the fan. I knew Charles had been dating some young new queen and he just happened to be at the pool party. The young queen was about nineteen years old. His body was waif, size twenty seven jeans, his skin was flawless. Before that night, I honestly never felt jealous of anyone or threatened, but I panicked when I turned twenty seven years old. I didn’t have a plan B. I had invested all my energy and importance in my youth. I put all my eggs in one basket, and suddenly I wasn’t young anymore and broke. After the pool party, Charles said that we were going to take his new young thing home. I’d never hated anyone so much in my life. I remember getting in the car, and I sat in the front seat, and his new toy sat in the back. I remember watching him from my vanity mirror. I wanted to kill that young bitch. I wanted to feel my hands around his neck. I wanted to kill reality. I felt he was stealing my world. He was stealing my crown. And suddenly, an intense heat took over my body. I saw Charles look at him in the rearview mirror and smiled. I immediately made Charles stop the car. I told him, we weren’t taking that bitch home. We were on the highway but I didn’t care. Charles was going to pull over the car and that young bitch was going to have to walk. Of course everyone thought I was crazy or drunk. I was both. I just felt betrayed. I was once that young bitch and now I was nothing. I was fucking nothing. I was just old and used and suddenly a nobody. Youth made me somebody without me even doing anything. Charles tried to calm me down, but I decided to attack the young bitch. I jumped in the backseat. I grabbed him by his throat, hit him in the face, opened the back door and commence to pushing him out of the car. I was seriously insane. He was trying to fight back but I was bigger and stronger and older. It was like an older dog attacking a young pup, the poor thing never had a chance. My teeth were sharper. He didn’t understand. Charles came to his rescue. He stopped the car. He flung opened the backdoor. He grabbed me out. He pushed me down on the ground. The boy got in the front seat and they drove off. They left me. They left me on the side of the highway. I had been with that old bastard on and off for eight years. I had known him since I was nineteen years old. He left me. He had found something better. I felt stupid. I couldn’t imagine that I ever thought it was really about me. I couldn’t believe I fell for all the lies. Or was it that being pretty and young made me lazy? Or was it that I stopped believing. Or was it that I was so damn arrogant I couldn’t see that old man was just using me? That I actually thought it was about me? It wasn’t all Charles fault. I was mostly to blame. Did I not think I was going to get old? I walked home. I got to the house and I drank some more. And I drank some more. I smoked a joint. I did some Tina. And I drank some more.
And then I started to rationalize.
As the cops escorted me out of the bathroom, I couldn’t help but hear the voice “What are you going to do with your life?” I didn’t used to be so weak.
The night before when Charles was yelling at me, I told him I was going to be a writer. That life wasn’t always going to be so fucking depressing for me. That I was going to be somebody one day. He laughed. The truth, I’d been writing since I was eight years old, but never took it serious. I thought I was too poor to be an artist. I needed to get a real job like in an office with medical benefits. I was too poor to chase some dream with no real future. I wanted to be a writer. I liked how it sounded. It felt free. It didn’t matter that I had notorious grammar. I was going to be a writer. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t published anything. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know anyone. I was going to be a writer. I just knew I liked how the sound felt on my tongue and lips. It felt like a future, something that would save me. And he laughed. Charles laughed in my face. Who could blame him? I was a fucking loser. I was a fucking liar. I was lazy. I had been sleeping on his floor for two years with no job. I hadn’t been sober in almost a year. I had too many excuses. What I didn’t tell him was that I had gone to a psychic a week before. The psychic told me my future will begin when my past ended. It was duh bitch. But she said I would first have to pay it back. But I knew one thing, I was leaving Texas.
Actually I was being put out of Texas. I picked myself up off the floor. I went to the sink and I washed off the vomit and blood. I cleaned up the bathroom floor. I brushed my teeth. I combed my hair. I wrapped a towel around my starved waistline. I opened the door. And there were the cops. They looked just like I thought they would. They looked pissed. And there were all of my belongings. Charles had packed all of my clothes, which was just one suitcase and black garbage bag full of books and cds. He handed me five hundred dollars. I asked if I could get dressed. I snatched the money from his hands. I got dressed as the cops watched. I grabbed my suitcase and black garbage bag. Charles tried not to look at me. I tried not to cry. I didn’t want to have one of those please don’t put me out scenes. I wanted to be a grown up about it. The first time in my miserable life I wanted to be a grown up. The cops took me to the bus station. They said I couldn’t go within five hundred feet of Charles or I would be arrested. They suggested I get out of town. It was so surreal, like a western movie. I first found a liquor store. I knew once I had rum in my system I would be able to think. I decided to call my ex-lover who moved to D.C. I decided to call Tom. He wasn’t happy to hear from me. I basically had to beg him. I told him about my dream to become a writer. He figured it was just another scheme of mine, that I was a no good nigga, the type that didn’t want to work. I promised him I would get a job because the world hated lazy black men. He promised himself that he wouldn’t fall back in love with me.
And then there was the guilt, what could I have done different.
It was over, the life I knew before. And it hurt me so bad because I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t enough. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t act right. But I was lying to myself. I hated that life. I wanted out. I just didn’t know how. Sometimes we get fired because deep down that’s what we want. Sometimes the relationships end because deep down that’s what’s right. Now what meant that I was going to have to believe in something or nothing.
And then finally acceptance.
What I knew before had died, but I was still alive. It didn’t matter that it claimed me dead; I knew I was still alive. At first I didn’t understand how one I could be the lover, the best friend and the next I was nothing. At first I was so damn angry. I felt like a fool. I like a fuck up. And then I started to blame myself. I knew I could’ve done better. I told myself if I do better then that would bring them all back. That would make them love me again. But that’s the thing about death or when you’re disowned. You are subjected to a different. Suddenly, I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t fuck if they ever loved me again. I begin to accept it. Mita was dead. Charles kicked me out of the apartment. Myron stopped speaking to me. My sister stopped speaking to me. Those things happened. They were real. Every job I got fired from, it took a little time but I eventually got back on my feet. It was blessing. It didn’t feel that way as I boarded the greyhound bus to D.C. but in the end, Charles kicking was the best thing about ever happen to my life.
