Living with my dad forced my mom to kick her cocaine habit, the catalyst that hadenabled her to stay so incredibly skinny and, in her sick mind, sexy. I used to hate to seeher that way: thin, with empty eyes with dark circles around them. Her spine drooped andher breasts looked saggy and wrinkled, like two brown rotten potatoes. Her skin saggedaround her bones like a deflated balloon. This was my mommy at her worse. She wouldbe paranoid, like a convict on the run, peaking out of curtains, pacing back and forth,constantly wiping the dripping snot from her nose. She would warn my brother and menot to turn on the lights watch TV or go out and play.
“It’s dangerous.,” she would hiss. “They’re out there and I don’t want anybody to getyou.”
Yeah, she was pretty scary. I would much rather deal with my mom being addictedto my father than drugs. At least the thought of being with him made her somewhathappy. In her head, she believed that they were going to have a happy and beautifulrelationship.
There were times when I was tempted to scream in her face “He doesn’t love us.”But I kinda knew that this action would result in me getting slapped across the face.Honestly, my mommy could be a handful, and I could understand why my daddy wantedto stay away. Hell, half the time I didn’t want anything to do with her. Don’t think that Ididn’t use half of my nightly prayers wishing for a new mommy. Yeah, let’s just say thatthe thought crossed my mind a few times.
My mom had a lot of time on her hands, time that she spent lying on the sofa andstuffing her face with food. She began to develop a small tub around her waist and a greatdeal of extra cushion on her bottom. Like me, she began to feel self-conscious about howshe looked. I told her that she was beautiful, comparatively speaking. Anything wasbetter than the walking skeleton that she was before. But like any addiction, it just got outof control. She put on so much weight that the fat began to ripple around her chin, thighsand stomach. My brother and I joked about her. Ali secretly referred to her as Jabba theHut because she got so fat, she literally couldn’t move. Instead, she commanded us to doall of her chores from the living room sofa. Barking out orders while munching oncookies and candy bars, the remnants of the food mixed with spittle driveling down herface and chin.
The additional weight impeded my mommy’s reaction time. This gave Ali, a starathlete on the junior league football team, the chance to fuck with her. He hit her where ithurt most, her food. Man, it was a sight to see as he ran to the sofa at top speed andsnatched a candy bar, almost out of her hand. Her eyes grew angry and bulged out of hersockets, she made a piteous attempt to try and get off the sofa and chase Ali, but theeffort almost killed her. Instead, she sat fuming, like a bull in a bucking chute.Meanwhile, Ali was already halfway across the room. The candy bar was fully exposedand its wrapping discarded as Ali bit into it, smacking his lips and rolling his eyes,savoring the taste.
I love my brother. He was a real rebel. He was always testing his luck. One day, hemanaged to grab a whole tray of cookies that were seated on my mom’s lap. He ran fullforce into the living room while balancing the trey in his right hand. To our surprise, ourmom got up and chased after him. She looked possessed but determined to catch him,like a lioness hunting her prey. Her shirt was a tad bit small, exposing her burgeoningbelly. I think that my heart stopped beating as I watched the whole event unfold.Everything seemed to happen so fast; I kept turning my head, focusing first on my momand then on Ali. Then, I heard a huge thump. I gasped from surprise. My mom wassprawled out on the floor; I could only guess that she had tripped over something. Sheslowly got up and rested on her hands and knees, out of breath and huffing and puffinglike the wolf after he tried to blow the little piggy’s brick house down. Ali and I ranoutside, roaring from laughter while shoveling cookies into our mouth.
My mom getting fat didn’t increase her chances of getting back with our daddy. Ithink that he really couldn’t stand the sight of her. I really didn’t understand why he keptus around. His face was always tense and he was always biting back his words. I wantedhim to say it. Dammit! Let the truth be told so we could go on with our lives, withouthim. But no matter how mad he got, he would never say that he didn’t love us and that hewasn’t our father. I suppose saying that would be equivalent to waving his shit-staineddrawers in our face.
My mom would sit around and complain about him all day.
“I do everything for him. I cook and clean, and it’s not enough, it’s never enough,”she said, wiping her tears and then stomping into her room and slamming the door behindher. Ali and I looked at each other, puzzled. We really couldn’t understand why she wasso upset. After all, we were the ones that did all of the work; she just sat on her ass allday. But still, we felt like
