“And my father, The Devil, snatched her right off the street. Dragged her back to a crack house. That was another weird thing. I grew up knowing there were drug dens in our area, but the addicts used meth or heroin. No one used crack. I suspect my grandparents didn’t know what drug was popular at the time.”
“What did your father do at the crack house?” I ask, hoping to keep him focused.
“Raped her for days, they say. Later, when I was as an adult, and they were dead, I paid a dirty cop to see if my grandparents ever filed a missing person’s report for my mom. If a good church girl goes missing for three days, people call the cops. But there wasn’t anything. I did find out she ran away a lot as a teenager. That’s also why I think their story was a lie.”
“Was The Devil a real man, though?”
“Yes. I saw pictures and videos of him once I joined the club. That was one way that Lonnie and Melanie convinced me to become their muscle. They said I would be following in my father’s footsteps. Of course, Lonnie skipped the part where he killed my dad. People always tell me only half the story. But, yeah, The Devil was real. I didn’t get any blood test to prove he was my dad, but the guy was huge, and I look like him. Not a lot. I don’t look a lot like my mom, either. I guess I got a little from a lot of people in my family.”
“And your mom is dead?”
“My grandparents claimed she hung herself. The autopsy said she OD’d, though.”
“Do you remember your mom?”
“No, she died after the state took me away from her and handed me over to my grandparents.”
“Why would they do that?”
“My mother tried to kill me when I was a few months old.”
“How?” I ask rather than why. Yet, I think why would be a better question.
“Everything I know is secondhand.”
“Of course. You were a child.”
Anders doesn’t speak right away. I hear him inhale the marijuana from his free hand while his left holds me against him. I run my fingers over his knuckles, patient for his answer. I noticed how Topanga talks a lot and enjoys the noise. I grew up where people might not talk all day. I can wait for however long Anders needs.
“I cried a lot as a baby,” he says finally. “Too much, I guess. Maybe because she was hurting me. My grandmother claimed she found little bruises on my legs when I was first born. She claimed my mother pinched me. I was evil, you see?” he mutters, chuckling angrily. “Like that kid in ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ with the devil eyes. That was me, so my mother had to kill me. Wasn’t her fault, really.”
Resting my head against his arm, I think of him as a tiny person. Long ago, Anders was small and defenseless and surrounded by enemies. Is that why he assumes the worst about me?
“She put a pillow over me and started pounding,” he says in a tight, harsh voice. “Her friend walked in on that and called the police. My grandparents claimed her friend was a whore who did cocaine and had babies with three men. I only know she saved me. But my mother broke several of my bones and cracked my skull before her friend stopped her.”
I think to say something reassuring to Anders. Maybe how his mother’s behavior wasn’t his fault, or she was mad after what happened to her. I could blame his grandparents or his father.
Or I can hold him and promise he’s full of sunshine.
Yet, I suspect he doesn’t want me to speak. As if he’s ready for whatever I might say, and then he can claim I’m wrong. Anders wants to argue. Mama always battles with people, even when she knows she can’t win. More than once, she’s told Dove and me to avoid being like her.
“My temper is a little monster inside me,” she will tell us. “I fed it too much when I was young. Now, that monster makes my life harder. Don’t feed your monster.”
I choose not to feed Anders’s monster right now. Rather than speak, I stroke his hand holding me. My lips nuzzle his large bicep. I know he wants affection.
His family never gave him any. Then he got big and strong, and women wanted him for sexual intercourse. They wanted orgasms, and softness doesn’t