The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

against mine. And it felt good, felt right. So we started kissing more, using our lips like we was meaning it, using our tongues. Kissing like we meant it, like we was in love. And he lifted me outta that chair, like I weighed nothing. And he took off my clothes. And he put me on the table. And he licked me, and sucked me, and fucked me till I couldn’t see straight. Lying right next to my drugs. He showed me how to get high. He showed me what it felt like to feel good. He fucked me, and he loved me, and when he came inside me, it fulfilled more than any person, school, church, book, or God had in my life. He whispered I love you in my ear and he came inside me and it felt like I was right inside. It felt like what it was supposed to feel like to be believing in all those other things.

When we was finished that first time, he stayed inside me a long time. Just stayed inside and kissed me and held me. And then he picked me up, still inside me, and carried me to bed. And he put me down on that bed with his arms around me and we went to sleep. I didn’t think about being poor. I didn’t think about what I was doing for money. I didn’t think about my brother rotting in a fucking cell. About my mother dying in a fucking hospital where nobody cared. About being black in a country where it means I ain’t got no chance. About my daughter who wasn’t gonna have no chance either. About a life stretching out in front of me where it never gets to be any better. The feeling of arms around me, of love in my heart, it was more powerful than any of the negativity I knew was existing in the world for me. That feeling of love killed it all.

When I woke up, he was gone. I went in to be looking in on Mercedes and she was still sleeping. I was supposed to be working so I started getting ready. Taking me a shower and doing my makeup in the bathroom. When I went out to the kitchen, my shit was still there on the table. Made me fucking sick to see it there, made me sick to be thinking that’s what I’d been doing for the last year. Made me sick to be thinking why I’d been doing it and why I was just getting ready. For money. For money that didn’t make a difference. Didn’t get me or my daughter out of anywhere or anything. Didn’t change how I felt in my heart or how I was feeling when I looked in the mirror. Was just something I could hold in my hand. Money don’t mean nothing when your heart is empty.

So I picked that shit up and threw it out the window. Figured some crackhead would find it and have a surprise, there was enough of ’em around. And I didn’t go to work. Didn’t even bother calling. They wasn’t gonna miss me. They might not have even been noticing I was gone. Was gonna be easy to find another girl, ’cause they always too many out there willing to throw it around for the money. I ain’t judging, ’cause I did it. It’s the way of the world. You use what you got, and that’s all that too many women got.

I waited for Ben. Mercedes woke up and I got her and gave her a big long hug. We went out and started playing in the living room, singing songs and tickling. I started getting a little sick, was starting to realize I might be needing the crack I throwed out. I went over to the window and looked down and it was still there. Was some kind of miracle it hadn’t been picked up. I know in the Bible they be saying miracles is withering some motherfucking fig tree or some shit, but in the world I live in, the real fucking world, a miracle is a vial of crack lying on the ground in an American housing project unclaimed for more than three fucking minutes. But there it was. Tempting me. Calling to me. Not even calling, it was screaming at me. I could hear Mercedes behind me. I started telling myself love stronger than drugs, stronger than anything, love stronger, but telling ain’t always believing. You can tell yourself anything you want, but until you believe what you’re telling yourself, you’re wasting words. I was ready to go down there. Ready to go. So I turned and walked towards the door. When I opened it, Ben was sitting on the floor. He smiled. I started talking.

What you doing?

Sitting.

How long you been sitting there?

A while.

Doing what?

Just sitting.

I looked at him. Just sitting there on the floor.

He smiled at me, spoke.

You want to go back inside.

I smiled.

Yeah.

May I come in?

Yeah.

He stood up and followed me back inside. We played with Mercedes for a long time, singing and playing with her toys, and the whole time I was wanting to smoke. Dinner come around and Ben serve us more spaghetti. We eat at the table. When we finished I’m feeling really sick, shaking, wanting to jump out the fucking window. Ben have me put Mercedes to sleep and when I’m done I come out and he waiting for me. He take me to my room and lay me down and spend the rest of the night licking and sucking and fucking. And every time I got to feeling sick he do it again, till I finally fall asleep.

And that’s the way it stay for a few days, maybe a week. Ben go out in the morning while I sleep and find food somewhere. When I wake up he with Mercedes, and whenever she nap or sleep or whenever I feel sick he take me in the bedroom or on the floor or the table. And he was always telling me he love me. That I’m beautiful. That I can live however I want to live. That life can be beautiful. That Mercedes love me and I can be a good momma. And I stop hearing it. I start believing it.

And then one day I wake up and know. Know that I’m okay and going to be good, or as good as I can be where I’m at. And I tell Ben and he smile. And I stop thinking just about me and ask him more about why he here with me. He tell me about living in the tunnels and being arrested and he tell me how he leave his family. And how he skipped on his bail. He tell me about his being able to speak to God. He tell me that he know things about the world, and that he know the world going to end if we don’t change it. That man is sick. That the leaders of the world killing us all. Making us think we progressing while killing us. And it ain’t like there be some big grand plan, they just ignorant. And greedy. And thinking about themselves. And thinking about their Gods. Christians thinking they got God. Muslims thinking they got God. Jews thinking they got God. Everybody thinking God on their side. That God want them to kill and judge and dominate. And all of them wrong. All of them doing what they do in the name of something that don’t exist like that. That fairy tales ruling the world. That God ain’t part of the world that way. That God don’t judge. God don’t give power. That God something beyond the understanding of men or women on earth. That God ain’t giving no gift of eternal life. The gift is the life we got, and when it’s over, it’s fucking over. No Heaven. No parties with relatives and people we love while the angels sing and play harps. No seventy-two virgins waiting for us to teach them how to fuck. No nothing. No God like we believe. Just the end. And all we got in the world is other people. And all we got with them is love. And not love like some dumbass pop song. Love is just taking care of each other, and fucking each other, and letting each other live how we want to be living. And protecting each other from all the shit that life throws us. That comes at us because that’s fucking life, not because some fake silly God is trying to test us, or prepare us for the afterlife, or because he thinks we strong enough to deal with it. Bad shit just happens. Ain’t no reason for it ’cept that it’s life. It ain’t no fucking God. And everything he say making sense to me. Making more sense than everything else I hear in the world. Making more sense than the bullshit politicians and preachers and popes spewing out every day. Making more sense than the bullshit in textbooks and newspapers and on TV news shows. Making more sense than the bullshit laws our government be trying to make us live by. The government that says One Nation Under God, but under what God? The old white man God with a beard who say blacks ain’t got rights, Hispanics ain’t got no rights, women ain’t got rights, gays ain’t got rights, and no one who ain’t like him and believe like him ain’t got no rights. Fuck that. And fuck that God. And fuck all the fools believing in that God. They can come kiss my black ass, ’cause that ain’t no kind of Nation Under God, it’s just fucking bullshit.

Life settled down for me and Mercedes and Ben. I started taking me some GED classes and got Mercedes in a daycare program in the project. It wasn’t all daisies and bunnies and hugs, but it was better than sitting and watching TV. Ben would leave for the day. Said he would just wander around New York. Walk or get on the train and get off wherever he felt like it. Said he would just see people and talk to them and help them and love them. I