We leave. Quan don’t want to come with us. He want to stay a gangster. “He get to choose,” Ed say, when we back in the car. We go through the drive thru at the McDonald’s before we jump on the E-way. I get a Happy Meal. Then that’s it. Last time I’m over there.

Thirty-Four
Haunted

December 20, 1999

I go see Ms. Pierce all the time now. Ed take me to her house in South Shore. First time I go over her house, I tell her I’m growing a baby. She asked me, “What you gone do with a baby?”

“My brother and his wife gone help. We gone love it.”

“Bet Gail happy for you. Having babies a good hustle.” I looked down at my shoes. That’s why she pretended to be proud when I told her. Ms. Pierce been more of a mama than Gail. We both know it. I got my period at school, and she the one who told me what to do. She paid for all my field trips. She the one been telling me I ain’t got to be like Gail. She been knowing her since the first time Gail got locked up for running drugs for Ed daddy. Ms. Pierce was already a teacher then and tried to help Gail live too. But my mama only been interested in money her whole damn life.

Ms. Pierce say my next school gonna be a Alternative School, cause I’m pregnant, but it might be the best thing to happen to me, cause I’ll get a little more encouragement and attention and be in class with just a few other kids who pregnant too.

Ms. Pierce remind me, “You were raised by criminals, your mama didn’t parent, give you what you needed. This’ll be good for you.” She make it sound nice. I get a little excited about my new school. “They got teachers like you?” I ask her.

“Ain’t nobody like me,” she say, snapping that chicken head around. We laugh. Then she say, “Yes, they bring in teachers who ready to push you and get you back on track.”

I’m still worried about something though: Tonya. I don’t know everything that happened to her, but we beat her up real bad and I worry that I could still go to jail, me and this baby.

I still see her sometimes, all leaned over in that stairwell, bloody.