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            I keep going to the bathroom looking for it. It usually comes every month, but it hasn’t come. I walk out of the bathroom and see Bella, my sister, sitting in the living room on the piano bench in her underwear, painting her toes. A breeze comes through one of the big picture windows every few seconds and breaks the sticky heat from the hot afternoon sun. The white curtains blow with the wind, and if someone wanted to come take a peek at Bella in her pink Barbie panties, they could. But coming out of the bathroom, the only thing on my mind is why it hasn't come yet.

            I am in the kitchen trying to finish mopping the floor before my mom gets home.  I can see out of the kitchen that Bella has one of her feet on the side of the piano, tapping to the song Beat It playing on the radio. Junk Man found that piano when I told him I always wanted to learn how to play.  He brought it over the same day he found it.  My mother didn’t mind because she said the piano would make our living room look like the rich people on TV.  I remember her wiping the piano off with bleach and everything else Junk Man touched, even the glass of water I gave him that she didn’t offer. The look that he had on his face still sends a sharp pain to my stomach.  My mother got Brother Desmond, a college student majoring in music, at the church to give me lessons.  He came by yesterday while Bella was at Kayla’s house.  He left his watch in my bedroom.

           He told me I had the hands of a pianist the first time I met him at the Old Saints Church.  He told me that I could do anything I wanted, that I could be anything.  The first time he came to my house, my mother let him stay for dinner, and we ate out of my grandmother’s plates that I haven’t seen in years.  Mother told him that I was going through a phase, that I wouldn’t be dedicated, that it takes patience to learn and, that that is something I don’t have.  But he put down his fork and looked her dead in the eye: Your daughter is the fastest learner I have ever seen.  That was the first time I had ever seen my mother look away from someone who was still looking her in the eye.

            “Hey, are you finished yet?” Bella yells.  “I am ready to go outside.”  She comes walking in the doorway of the kitchen with her hands on her hips. 

            “You’ll know when I’m done. I would have been done already if you would get your lazy butt up and help.”

            “I did help.  I straightened up the living room.”

            “Bella, no one hardly sits in the living room.  It was already clean.”

            “No, there was a pillow on the floor. Besides, if you would stop spending so much time in the bathroom, you would be done.”  She walks on the kitchen floor and gets plastic-wrapped cheese out of the refrigerator.  “What are you doing in there in anyway, playing with yourself?

            “Shut up, Bella.  And get off the floor so I can finish.”

 

            Bella is at Kayla’s house—two houses down—probably wondering about how their first year in high school will be in three weeks.  

It’s been two months going on three since I have had my period, and I keep thinking what it will be like to be beaten to death, because that is the way I am going to die if it doesn’t come.  I start jumping up and down like that girl on Flashdance thinking that blood will flow between my legs at any moment.  But it doesn’t. And all I can hear is Desmond asking me, “What you going to do about it?”

            Climbing on the kitchen counter, my hand touches the burnt spot that Bella put there when she was trying to hot-comb her hair.  I get to one of the high cabinets in the middle of the kitchen.  My mom keeps some red wine there for her Communion every Sunday night—just for her and Jesus.  I grab it and take deep swallows of the bitter, stinging liquid that flows down my throat.  I start coughing, and sprinkles of red wine splatter on the kitchen floor, and it feels like I am about to cough my stomach up.  I sit down on the kitchen floor and wait for it to come.  I remember him touching me for the first time.  He said he had to use the bathroom.  I sat practicing my chords, not realizing that he had come out.  He took one of my hands and kissed it.  I felt warm all over, like I had been covered with a blanket fresh out of the dryer.  He looked into my eyes and said, “Where did you come from? You must have come out of a dream.” He kissed me on the mouth and I knew it wasn’t right, but the way he touched me made it right, made me feel like I could do anything.

          I jump at the sound of a knock on the door.  I take a kitchen towel and wipe up the coughed-up wine on the floor.  Walking to the door, I hear a familiar voice singing “Amazing Grace.”  Junk Man stands at the door with that same raggedy green sack he carries across his back.  His beard is as long as those Jewish men who walk to the synagogues.  He still smells like too much onion on a hamburger with a touch of funky toe jam.  When school was in, I used to walk home every day from school and pass by the Old Saints Church, and there he would be, Junk Man, sweeping the church’s porch like it was his house.  Nobody told him to do it every day, but he said, “If something gon’ be clean in this neighborhood, let it be the church.”    

         “Now, what you doing inside, Miss Lisa? It’s too beautiful to be inside.”

          “I don’t feel so well today.”

           “Well, sing that don’t-feel-good feeling away.”  I crack a fake smile, thinking that he wouldn’t ask me why.  “I just want to check up on you before I go off to get the church ready for Wednesday-night service to see how your lessons going.” 

           “The lessons are fine.”

           “And how about yourself?”

           “Bella getting on my nerves.”

           “I didn’t ask about Bella, I ask about you.”  He takes a step back, and his eyes go behind me into the house, falling on the piano. “You know, just ‘cause someone say they Christian and parade around like they one, don’t mean they one.”

           “What you mean?”

“I’m just saying that just ‘cause somebody claim to be helping you or, they making promises they can’t keep—”

“What you talking about?”

“Well, I saw Desmond with one of the young girls from church the other day.” he stops talking and looks at me.

“And?”

“Well, they were nowhere close to a piano…and I didn’t think it was right what they were doing. Well, I shouldn’t say I think, I mean I know it wasn’t right.”

“What are you trying to say, Junk Man?”

“Miss Lisa, you’re a pretty girl, and you just as innocent as a baby and I guess that has to do with your mom, but sometimes people not who you think they are.”  He starts laughing that wheezing laugh that drunken men sometimes do.  I put my hands on my hips.  His laughing slowly dies as he looks into my face.  “I hope your mother wouldn’t allow Brother Desmond in here when she isn’t home.” He holds his head down like he has been hurt by his own words. “But you know when you skin a wolf, all you get is flesh.”

Before I can say anything, my mom’s car pulls up in the driveway, and all I can think about is how Desmond acted when I told him. “What you going to do about it?”  Junk Man turns his back to me, facing my mother, and blows that funky toe-jam smell my way.

“What you doing at my house?” my mother yells out.  I can hear her-polka dot dress shifting with every one of her heavy steps.  Those black high heels she only wears to work seem to echo louder as they hit against the pavement.

“I’m just here checking to see how that piano is working for Miss Lisa.  And how you doing, ma’am?”

“I was just fine until I seen you standing by my door when I already told you I don’t like you over here when I am not home.”

“Forgive me, Ma’am.  I don’t remember you telling me that.  But I know better next time.”

“You better.” Junk Man starts to walk away and turns around as if he has forgotten something.

“Ms. Koleman, do you have anything that you don’t need or want anymore? I have been doing pretty good with my business lately, you know.”

“No.”  The way she sighs when she passes me makes me think she is going to talk my ear off about opening the door for Junk Man.

“And you, Miss Lisa?” I look at his eyes for a second and notice they don’t look like they belong to a man who lost everything because of his drug addiction. I try to find some sign that he was once a crackhead, but it makes me mad when I always come up empty-handed.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ll always be here waiting.” He bends over and bows. “You be careful of those wolves.”  He walks away quietly until he gets far from the porch.  He steps onto the sidewalk I can hear him already humming “Amazing Grace.”  Behind me, my mother yells for a closed door, and by the sound of her voice I know something is wrong.

She holds the wine bottle in her hand, screaming at me. I don’t deny anything. I see her big hand coming toward my face, and the next thing I know I’m on the floor getting beaten by a woman who fought a bulldog off of me when I was seven years old.  I feel the heat of her fast palms all over my arms and legs.  I think to myself that the blood will come.  Her big arms dragging me to the bathroom make me wonder if she’s been fighting trees. The cold water from the shower stings my skin, causing little goose bumps to rise.  It drowns out my cries.  All that is left are loud gasps for breath. She holds me down in the tub, but I swing my arms at her, hitting her breasts.  She grabs my arms and pushes me down into the tub again with so much pressure that I can’t move.  Any moment now it will come. With one last hard push down she lets go.

“Be ready for church in an hour,” my mother says walking away and shaking the water off her arms. 

She says something to Bella, who is standing in the bathroom door looking at me.  I hear her tell my mother, “That explains why she always in the bathroom.”  I can’t even say anything.  The stinging from my legs and arms won’t allow me to.  Bella comes in the bathroom and wraps a towel around my back.  She stares at me a moment and pulls my hair back from my face.

“I’ll get your church clothes.”

 

Rain falls in sheets outside the car window, and all I can see is the rain washing over my reflection as we head to the Old Saints Church on the corner by the liquor store.  Hymns play on a gospel station on the radio, and I feel like I am marching in the civil rights movement.  My mother tells me to stop leaning into the car door because my head will leave grease spots on her window.  I lift my head up and look at her; small black bumps around her eyes look like little mountains with brown skin in between.  The car stops right in front of the church.  My mother turns to me and looks me up and down.

            “You and Bella take the umbrella and run to the church.”  Bella steps out of the car and opens the black umbrella.

“Walk fast so you don’t get soaked,” my mother yells out as I step out of the car.  I walk slowly toward the church with feet so heavy that I find myself standing in the warm rain falling down on my head and sliding down my whole body.  Bella tries to keep the umbrella over me, but every time she does I step right back into the rain.

 

Inside the church the musicians are already playing. The members of the church are talking amongst each other. Junk Man is at the back of the church leaning against the back wall.  I see Brother Desmond’s fingers sliding on the piano keys the way they slid against my body.  My clothes are dripping rainwater and I can see my sister’s mouth moving, but the only thing I hear is that damn piano playing.  It didn’t come. The damn thing didn’t come.

 

            Someone is leading me into one of the pews but I pull myself away from them. I continue to walk down the aisle, not sure where I am headed. I just know that no one can stop me. My vision becomes blurry and I can’t tell if I am crying or not. I want to keep walking, but the altar is my end. I can’t walk on the platform because he is there.  I feel a sharp stabbing pain in my pelvic area and fall to the floor thinking that I should have never let him touch me.  That I should have known better that I should have never let him in my room. I feel a thousand knives hitting my lower stomach.  Feet are moving toward me and I don’t bother to get up.  I still hear that piano that keeps playing, even though my body feels like it’s tearing on the inside—it plays.  The pain keeps moving—moving down to my back.  I reach my hand in my pocket, trying to pull it out, his watch. I feel his watch and take it out of my pocket, laying it on the altar.