("My Name is Valenza Will" appeared in the online literary journal, The Lampshade.)
My name is Valenza Will and, that’s right, I’m standing on the edge of a twelve-story rooftop and I’m leaning over real far. You can tell that I don’t have an inch to spare and that I’m all diagonal. You can tell that when I wave my arms they could send me this way or splat. So you’re walking just as fast as your fat ass can take you.
And I mean you, Mr. Fancy Chinos. I see you thinking, “Just came back from the dry cleaners and I have an appointment and don’t want no blood on my fancy pants.” Come on, come on, Mr. Chinos. Look up. I know you’re hearing me; I can tell. You had better look up and see me now or you’ll have Valenza pancake splattered all over you, and then you won’t know what to do with your gelled and pleated self.
Naw. You ain’t worth that to me. I got some plans. I ain’t ranting up here for nothing. I have a story that I want you to hear. That’s right. You folks over there. What’s that you sayin’? Valenza, that’s right. Valenza Will.
Somewhere along the line there was a father. He screwed for 30 seconds straight and fell over like a tree, stiff and heavy. She don’t mind the smell, since it was of man, but she knows she got to get out from under him and sing, walk, cook, so she could find a way to keep him for a day and then two.
There were moments when they all loved her. Sitting at the bed while she stands over them with soup, holding her around the waist, sobbing, inhaling her, imagining soft clean babies, remembering their own electricity bills, remembering their other women, hatin’ her, hollering, cursing her, smackin’ her, leaving.
My father is some phantom. And my girl, she don’t know hers either. He ain’t dead; he ain’t no criminal. Each day he wakes up in the prison of his making, strokes his belly, watches roaches scamper in the hallways, stares in the abyss, seeing nothing out there but air fried in grease. Then by night he wipes the grease off dishes, shuffling in a line with a bunch of retarded folks. That’s right, and they get along just fine, always smiling. It’s safer that way. Safer to putter around in a little routine with a bunch of folks who sing the alphabet song while they wash dishes, and you can sing along. There’s no harm in that and no parents to care for or children to feed or bills to pay. No one tells him he’s a nothing now; they tell him good Carl, nice job, what a clean and sparkling plate, clean enough to see your own daughter in if you only knew her face.
When he first touched me he had fury in his eyes and lust on his lips. His dreams looked pulsing, red, alive and when they died, as easily as the night wind blows, he was still and cold and pale.
Mr. Chinos or Miss Pinky Pink both flew past so fast I thought their feet were on fire. You can look down and scowl, but I know that in her heart that lady there in red did nod.
I’d known it since I was a kid watchin’ my moms, with some big man criticizin’ her, saying she was a crazy woman for naggin’ him ‘bout havin’ no job. I know that when she tried to explain her heart, he whooped her and then she cried and begged him not to leave her, for this big ugly sonuvabitch to stay with her. Oooo he loved that. I heard it like she was asking, beat me some more. And I’d scream I hate you and stay out with my friends, stay out for nights. But I’d always go home to see my moms and then we’d get calls. They croon, “pussy” over and over and that pizza man would come to the door, when we didn’t order it or didn’t have money, and that pimpled-face boy would tell us to pay.
Turns out the kids in the neighborhood had written my number everywhere. Who’ll blow ya? Valenza Will will. And I wanted someone to like me, and I see now I acted like my moms, until I knew better. Until I was punched up enough times, and landed that sorry man who clings to nurses all day and sings the alphabets while he washes the dishes.
Before my girl was born I was strung out and I was tired. My moms was fed up and took me in St. Vincent’s hospital. Everyone wandered around in their robes on drugs that made their tongues stick out, probing, twisting like worms in a jar. And they’d grab themselves or they’d grab you. And when they didn’t take their drugs they’d seem as normal as can be. But spend enough time there and you know they was crazy and you was crazy. You don’t trust anyone, but it’s safer in there. Safer than here.
They too would say pussy-cunt-bitch. When they said it inside at least I knew who said it and could view them straight. At least I could tell myself, “Well, hey, that fool is locked up in the looney bin.” But sometimes it would hit me. It went no no no no no no no no. It went, it isn’t this way. This is got to be wrong. It’s like I remembered being real small and thinkin’ it was okay and somehow I still thought it, it must still be okay.
I was inside when my stomach swelled. They strapped me to a table and gave me shock. I said no no no the baby. But they did it. They did it two, three, four more times in five, six, seven months. They said it would not hurt her. It didn’t. She’s beautiful. She’s twelve, just like the stories in this building. Like each story is a year of her life. I have her now, she’s mine, she’s safe in the four lead laden walls of some dark city school. No longer do I have to scream at the social workers and foster families; it ain’t me you fools, its you!
Will I jump? What can I do for my daughter if no one will hear me? I can’t change my past. I can’t change you. But I can get up here and scream from the rooftop. Lean far and scream loud. Look closer. Look at each other and how you all turn away. Who are you? I am Valenza Will. You think I’m crazy? What I’m doing is sane. I dare you people to look straight at me now.
