The Last Black Unicorn - Tiffany Haddish Page 0,14

get to see my mom when she was in there. I remember we went to court one time and she was at court, and it didn’t go well.

Judge: “You have to take your medications, you have to take a parenting class. You have to do all of that, it’s the law.”

Mom: “I don’t need to do none of that by the law of God. Them is my kids, and y’all gonna give me my kids back.”

She did not do any of those things, and so she did not get us back.

My grandma ended up taking the parenting class and doing what she had to do to get us. They wouldn’t let her have us at first. I guess they felt like ’cause my grandma was there during that time that we were in danger, and she allowed us to be in danger, they didn’t let us go to her right away. But, eventually, she got us.

But not before I had to spend almost two years in foster care.

I was in group homes for a while. Man, I hate thinking about that. It was more like a prison. I was only there for a while, but man, it was scary. That’s when I started using my comedy skills, though.

My comedy came in real handy, because them bitches was out to beat my ass. We was in a dorm, like a big room and there’s bunk beds everywhere. That’s why I don’t like bunk beds to this day. We was in there and these older girls was like:

Bully Girl: “Yeah you going to cry tonight, bitch, you’re going to get your ass beat.”

You ever seen Saved by the Bell? There’s this episode where Screech puts his hand over his face, then he sticks his other arm through the crook of his elbow and punches with one arm while the other arm protects his face, but he looks all funky. So I started doing that, and they didn’t know how to handle that.

Bully Girl: “Oh, this bitch is stupid. Is you stupid?”

So I started cracking jokes, and I’d bark like a dog. They started laughing, and then they started making fun of my hair.

Bully Girl: “You funny-looking, do anybody ever do your hair?”

Tiffany: “No, I got Raggedy Ann hair. This hair, you can’t comb it. It breaks combs.”

I thought that if I made these girls laugh, they wouldn’t beat me up. They’d let me be the goofy one in the crew or something. But that didn’t really work.

Bully Girl: “Yeah, they’re about to lock these doors. When they lock these doors, that’s it. You trapped in here with us.”

Tiffany: “Oh yeah, we’re going to be trapped? It’s going to be like we in an Indiana Jones movie.”

Bully Girl: “Ahhh bitch, we is still going to beat your ass . . . but you funny.”

My social worker came and got me after two days and took me to a home. It was off of Normandy and 128th, which is the hood. This lady was so ghetto, but her house was so dope.

The first day I got there, she and my social worker were smoking weed and talking about me. They were sitting there, having a powwow in the living room, talking about me, getting high.

Foster Mom: “Well, is she fucking? Is she having sex? That’s what I need to know.”

Social Worker: “Well, she’s thirteen.”

Foster Mom: “That don’t mean shit. Is she fucking? That’s what I want to know.”

Social Worker: “I don’t think she’s fucking. I’m pretty sure she’s not fucking.”

Foster Mom: “Hm, hm, you’d be surprised, these little kids be out here fucking. ’Cause you know the last one you had up in here, she was eleven years old, and I had to get her a whole box of condoms.”

I was standing there, right in front of them, and they just talking all this shit. Then she decided to take me, and that was that.

She had her dad living with her, and she told us to call him Foster Grandpa. And he didn’t have no teeth or nothing. He was kind of creepy, but he was nice. At least it seemed like it.

Foster Mom give me a tour of the house. “This is the bathroom you’re going to be cleaning. This is the kitchen you going to be cooking in, ’cause everybody here contributes. This ain’t no vacation spot. And here is the room you’re going to sleep in. You see this drawer right here? This top drawer? It’s full of condoms. Now, the