House of Cars Read online

  Sierra passed my plate to the girl and she gave me two sandwiches instead of one, like she felt sorry for me. Any other time I would have been happy to have an extra sandwich on my plate, but today was a horse of a different color as my mom would say. I was mad as hell, not to mention embarrassed and ashamed. They kept talking and then it looked like Sierra was laughing too.

  “Sierra, Kirstie, enough of the talking. We have a long line of people to feed. Save the talking for when you’re finished,” some woman came up and told her. I guess the woman must have heard them or something, but it didn’t make me feel better. If anything, I felt worse because now it was like both of them and a couple of more teenagers were laughing at me with their eyes; if that makes any sense.

  While the woman was preaching to Sierra, I couldn’t get out of the line fast enough. I quickly picked up my tray and walked off, leaving Nyla and Pops behind. I found a seat in the very back of the cafeteria, which wasn’t that large in the first place.

  “Somebody you know?” Pops asked as he came and took a seat next to me.

  “Only the most popular girl in ninth grade,” I answered roughly. “And the girl who was crazy about me…until now.” I looked at my dad with eyes full of anger and disgust. Any other time, I know he would have jawed me, but this time he looked at me and all I saw in his eyes was sadness. It was like maybe he finally realized how living like this was killing me, tearing me apart. How did he expect me to leave here, go to basketball practice, and pretend like none of this had ever happened? My secret was exposed and there was nothing I could do about it.

  As hungry as I had been, now my appetite was gone. I looked up and saw Sierra and the Kirstie girl talking to each other while looking over at me. I know they had to be talking about me.

  “Son, look I know how you feel. And I’m sorry. I really am, but I promise you, things are going to get better,” Pops said as he started eating his food. “Don’t worry about those girls anyway. You have too much to be thinking about, like getting your books, and doing well on the basketball team. Those girls will come a dime a dozen.”

  If he was trying to make me feel better…well, let’s just say, he missed ‘cause I was mad as hell.

  “Eat, son.”

  “I’m not hungry anymore,” I said. “And you don’t understand who she is. You don’t know what’s going to happen when I go back to school. I have a feeling it’s not going to be good. She’s the most popular girl in the ninth grade and she likes me. I’m supposed to be her boyfriend, Pops.”

  “I don’t wish anything bad on you, but you see what happens when you do wrong? You stole from me. You lied to me. And if she’s the one you stole money to go be with, now look at her. Look how she’s treating you. That’s why I told you, we have to stick together. We only have each other.”

  Yeah, maybe he was right, again, but still how could he expect me to sit up in this place and eat? He must really be crazy or something. On top of that, he’s telling me not to be bothered about Sierra? He must have forgotten what it was like to be a teenager.

  “You’re not hungry? Boy, you betta eat that food or pack it up or something. I don’t wanna hear you talking about you’re hungry later on.

  I took a bite from one of my sandwiches then used some napkins that were on the table to wrap it back up. The other sandwich, I had never opened.

  I didn’t look back in Sierra’s direction. It seemed like it was taking forever and a day for Pops and Nyla to get through eating.

  “I gotta go to the restroom,” I finally said, and got up and left outta there as fast as I could. I went outside instead, and next thing I know Sierra pops up. She’s standing next to me.

  “What are you doing at a place like this?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t even look at her. I couldn’t handle it right now. This was so foul.

  “Nyl, don’t you hear me talkin’ to you? Do you volunteer here too or something ‘cause I know you aren’t like, like one of them.” She looked around at some of the homeless people standing outside and turned her nose up at them.

  “Yeah, we volunteer here sometimes.”

  “Ohhh,” she answered and when I turned and looked at her, it was like she could tell I was lying.

  “Me and some of the cheerleading team just started volunteering not too long ago. But, still, what you’re saying doesn’t make sense, because they told us that the volunteers can’t eat any of the food, because it’s only for the homeless people.”

  “They didn’t tell us that,” I said. “Look, I gotta get back inside. Uh, I got to help clean up after they finish serving everybody.”

  “I think you’re telling a big fat lie. I know for a fact if you volunteer here you can’t eat the food.”

  “Look, stay out of my business already. I said we volunteer here, so get outta my face with that crap you’re talking. I don’t wanna hear it,” I snapped.

  I walked past Sierra, leaving her standing outside with a funny look on her face. Why did she have to be the one, of all people, to see me here? I went to the restroom and hid out until I heard Pops calling my name.

  “Nyl, you in here?” I heard him ask. At first I started not to answer but then again, I thought, forget it. If I don’t answer him, then I’m just going to cause more trouble for myself.

  “Yes, sir. I’m coming out,” I answered.

  “Come on outta there then. We need to get going.”

  I waited until I heard him leave and I slowly came out of the restroom stall where I had been sitting on the toilet thinking about how miserable my life was. When I opened the stall door, the restroom was empty. I washed my hands, then drug myself back to the cafeteria where Pops and Nyla were standing next to the table we had been sitting at.

  “Here, take your food,” Pops ordered. “Let’s go.” He put his hand on my shoulder like he was trying to make me feel better. It didn’t work.

  I was glad that I didn’t see Sierra when we left St. Mary’s. I got in the Yukon and didn’t say a word. I was still too mad at everything that had happened.

  When we got to Fairley, Pops tried to tell me again that everything would be all right.

  “Nyl, when I say that things are going to get better, believe me they are. But still, you have to be strong in this situation, son. You have to suck it up and know that this is not how things are going to always be.”

  I nodded, but I was so sick and tired of his crap. When was he ever going to realize that everything was not all right and it hadn’t been all right for the past year, and it surely hadn’t been all right since Momz died.

  “Have a good practice, and Nyla don’t give your brother any problems, you hear me?”

  Nyla nodded her head and then followed me as I got out of the truck and walked to the gym.

  “Wait on your sister,” I heard Pop say as I walked off. “I should be off by noon and I’ll be back and get y’all.”

  I turned and looked back at Nyla. She was walking slow like concrete was in the bottom of her shoes. “Come on, will you already?” I told her.

  When we got in the gym, I warned Nyla to sit on the bleachers and not say a word, or else I was going to take that Barbie doll she loved and stuff it in the nearest trash bin. Yeah, I know it was wrong of me to threaten my little sister like that, but I’d had enough humiliation to last a lifetime, and I wasn’t about to have her embarrass me anymore by running her mouth around Coach or the team.

  I already saw it coming. Coach Byrd was coming my way and the look on his face was one that I didn’t want to see.

  “Hello, young lady,” he said and smiled at Nyla. His smile turned into a frown when he looked at me. “Come with me.” He walked a few feet away from Nyla and I followed. “What’s going on? Coach Byrd asked looking back at Nyla and sounding like he was about to go off. “I thought you had this worked out.”

  I explained to him about my father having to work again and not having a babysitter. Hell, I was the babysitter. I usually don’t curse but this wa
s one of the rare occasions when I wished I could curse out any and everybody who came my way.

  “Coach, I’m sorry, but my Pops had to work this morning. I didn’t have a choice.”

  Coach barked. “Well you already know she can’t come in the locker room. She can sit here in the gym and that’s it.” He turned and walked off. I looked at Nyla, rolled my eyes at her like she was the blame for my life being the way that it was.

  “You heard Coach. You better sit here. Don’t you move and don’t say a word to anybody or else you know what will happen to Barbie, don’t you?”

  She cowered and squeezed her Barbie doll close to her chest, gathered her coloring book and crayons and answered, “Yes.”

  Nyla looked like she was about to cry, but I didn’t care if I did see tears in her eyes. The thing is, if I had to deal with her, she had to deal with me and it was going to be on my own terms.

  During practice, I couldn’t get my mind off seeing Sierra at St. Mary’s. When practice was over and Pops picked us up, he drove to Overton Park and we sat in the Yukon doing nothing. I got out of the truck and walked around for a minute, but heck it was cold outside. I was about to go get back in the Yukon until I heard the beep letting me know I had a text message. It was from Sierra.

  “ u didn hve 2 talk 2 me lik u did.”

  “Then dont b all up n mine,” I texted back.

  Wher u live?

  Why?

  Cuz I wanna no.

  I gotta go. I texted her.

  “U make me sick,” she replied.

  “whateva.”

  “I’m not ur girlfriend anymore. I don’t wanna boyfrien who dont hav a place 2 liv. U embarrass me.”

  “4get u then,” I texted.

  Dang, knowing Sierra, she probably couldn’t wait to broadcast it over the whole school. This was my first year at Fairley and already I was going to be the brunt of a lot of the kid’s checking me. I could feel it. My name and situation plastered all over FaceGroup, posted on Tweetgram and any and every other social site she and her little crew could possibly think of. God, where are you and why are you destroying my life?

  “do u liv unda a bridge or n da park?” she texted.

  I didn’t even answer her. I didn’t know what she was up to, but Sierra James had turned into somebody that spelled trouble for me. I could tell. I turned the phone off and headed back to the truck. I got inside the Yukon and tried to get some sleep.

  “Y’all wanna check out a movie? We can go to the two dollar movie,” Pops suggested.

  “Yay, yay, yah,” Nyla answered and started bouncing up and down on the seat like she was a basketball.

  “I don’t care,” I answered. And I didn’t care ‘cause going to a movie with them was not the same as hanging out with my friends. Plus, anything was better than sitting up in the Yukon all day. Plus, I needed to try to get my mind off Sierra. There was nothing I could do about what had happened, so I was just going to have to suck it up.

  When we got to the theater, there were a couple of movies I wouldn’t mind seeing, but Pops let Nyla pick out something.

  “Yippee, I get to pick out my own movie.” Nyla clapped her hands and jumped up and down. Of course, she picked out some kiddie movie that was really boring and corny. If this was Pops way of paying me back for what I had done, then it was working. The movie was so bad that I wished I could have gotten up and walked out. But instead, I laid my head back on the seat and almost as soon as the movie started, I went to sleep. When I woke up, Pops and Nyla were laughing and talking. There had only been a couple of other people in the theatre so we sat around for a minute, and watched the names scroll on the screen.

  “Y’all ready?” Pops finally asked and stood up to leave.

  “I didn’t say anything. I just got up and followed him and Nyla back to the Yukon.

  “Hey, Nyl.”

  I stopped and looked around when I heard my name called. It was Juvaun and two other dudes from school.

  “Hey, wassup Juvaun?” I answered and then kept on walking out of the movie theatre.

  Chapter 11

  When I thought that my life couldn’t get any worse…it did. Sunday morning Pops had the bright idea that we would go to church. That meant digging through bags of clothes that we kept in the back of the Yukon and finding something that didn’t need washing or wasn’t too smelly to wear to church. I found a pair of jeans and a red polo that could have stood a good washing but wasn’t yet smelly. We only went to the launderette when it was absolutely necessary and even then it was mostly to wash our school uniforms and Pops work clothes. Anything other than that, Pops waited to wash, his way of saving money.

  Pops helped Nyla find a blue dress with some weird designs on it, and a pair of shoes that looked like they were two sizes too small.

  We walked into the sanctuary and almost instantly, I felt like we were three people who were on display. It was like we wore signs around our necks that said, “We Live In Our Car”. Maybe it was in my head, but seem like all eyes were on me. It wasn’t a good feeling at all.

  “Daddy, my feet hurt,” Nyla whined. “I want some new shoes. I don’t like these anymore.”

  “Girl, be quiet. We’re in church,” Pops scolded. “Your feet are fine, and I’ll get you some new shoes soon.”

  Yeah, sure he would. He had a lot of catching up and a lot of making up to do, but it seemed to satisfy Nyla because all of a sudden she was walking normal, and holding on to her Barbie with a smile on her face. Dang, she was so easy to please.

  Anyway, I guess one good thing that I was glad about was Pops didn’t go down to the front of the church to sit like we used to do when Momz was alive. Instead, we actually sat on the back row. After the church service started, for a minute I felt like we were almost normal again. I could almost see Momz clapping her hands, swaying her head from side to side with the music and shouting ‘Amen, thank you, Lord.’ I wonder if she’s doing that up in heaven.

  The church was good ‘n warm, and the pews weren’t so bad so I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. Maybe I could catch a little nap, but that was short lived because Pops jabbed me hard in my side, gave me a stern look and mouthed, “Wake up, don’t you go to sleep in here,” he roared under his breath.

  I sat up and then listened to the choir sing some song about God being able to do anything. If God was so able then why didn't he make it so Pops could get a job and us a place to live? I pulled out my phone and started scrolling through the contacts I had collected but couldn’t use. I looked at the free phone again. Then I thought about Pops and his Cricket phone. How could he keep his phone on, when he couldn’t keep the lights turned on when we lived in an apartment nor keep a roof over me and Nyla’s head. How smart is that; I almost laughed at the thought of how crazy my life was right about now.

  Seeing Sierra yesterday, well I hadn’t gotten over that and I was playing over in my mind how things would be Monday when I got back to school. If she was laughing at me yesterday, there’s no telling how she’s going to act once we get back to school. I couldn’t figure out why Sierra was serving food at St. Mary’s anyway. And why out of the three main shelters in Memphis did she have to be serving food at St. Mary’s, the very one me, Pops and Nyla went to the most. This stuff that was happening to me just didn’t make sense.

  Don’t ask me how, and don’t ask me why but things quickly turned to another horrific situation for me. After the choir stopped singing, the servers started taking up money. I just happened to look up from my phone. I was bored with pretending like I was texting and on the internet. Like I said, I looked up and who do I see? You guessed it, Sierra! Can you believe my luck? She’s standing at the end of the row where I’m sitting, and she’s dressed in some funny looking church uniform. She’s passing down a basket, and people are putting money in it. I quickly look away but not before I see her grinning.

  It’s funny, but I don’t mean it to be funny, but all of a sudden Sierra looked like an evil
witch, and not the fine Rihanna I’m so crazy about. It was weird. Okay, so when the basket reaches Pops, he looks at it, looks at the money in the basket, looks to his left, then to his right like he wants to see if anybody is watching him. He stares at the pile of money like he’s thinking about taking it all out and putting it in his own empty pockets. I’m thinking, that if he’s thinking what I think, then it ain’t such a bad idea because then I would have the money to go to the Kanye West concert that’s coming up in a few weeks, plus have some left over, but Pops does no such thing. He passes the basket to me without putting anything in it, and I pass it to the woman sitting next to me. I look back over at Sierra who has a look on her face that says oh-no-you-and-your-daddy-didn’t-pass-the-basket-without-putting-money-in-it-and-I’m-going-to-tell-the-whole-school-that-not-only-are-you-homeless-but-you-ain’t-got-money-either.

  I did everything but slide underneath the pew then I got up as fast as my feet would carry me. I ran outside to the Yukon. Of course the doors were all locked so I slid down behind it, put my head in my hands, and bit down on my bottom lip to keep myself from crying because like Pops always says, real men don’t cry.

  Chapter 12

  Sierra, once the girl of my dreams, who used to be so crazy about me, who wanted to be my girlfriend, yep the same Sierra had somehow got word to what seemed like the entire freshman class of Fairley High and let them know that Nyl Person, Fairley’s bulldog wonder on the basketball court, was homeless and flat broke. To add insult to injury, I heard several kids whispering and talking about me living on the streets. They were laughing and they started “free styling” about me being homeless. I won’t repeat what they said because it’s too foul, even for me to say but I can tell you this, I felt like joining Momz, because anything was better than living the life I was living. I don’t know how I made it through my classes that day. Anyhow, things continued to go downhill, especially after Zach stepped to me after our American Government class, talking about what he’d heard about me.