فصل 04

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Family and Foster Care

The Car Wreck

Where do I even start with my family?

I should probably start with the car accident. That’s when everything changed.

Before the car accident, my mom had it together. She had two small businesses going, she was a manager at a U.S. post office, and she owned two houses on the same street.

At that point, she was married to my stepfather. I’ll call him Step-Father. He sucked. He was always cheating on her, but it didn’t matter to her. She worshiped the ground he walked on. Whatever mistakes he made, she didn’t care. He knocked up one of the employees of her businesses. She argued with him, but she didn’t leave him. She just loved that man. He could never do wrong, even when he did a lot of wrong.

She had three kids by him, all younger than me. I was the oldest. I felt like she loved them way more because she loved their dad. She didn’t love my dad. He left when I was real young.

I was around seven when Step-Father knocked up my mom’s employee, so he and my mom moved us all out to Pomona, and then to Colton. She was still trying to work in Marina del Rey after she had my sister. It was like she was working the graveyard shift. She had to drop us off at my grandmother’s every day. This one day when I was eight I told her she didn’t have to do it.

Tiffany: “Mom, let me babysit. I know how to make bottles. I know how to change diapers. We’re going to go to bed in about two hours. I know how to make hot dogs, rice. I know how to cook everything. We’re about to go to bed, and when you get home we’ll be waking up.”

Mom: “I’m running late. Okay.”

She never came back.

Two days went by. She did not come home. Step-Father didn’t come home, either. No one came home. Step-Father used to come home every night, but he didn’t come home at all.

I called my grandma, and my grandma said she hadn’t heard from my mom. By the third day, my grandma came out to where we were. She called Step-Father’s auntie and his auntie said:

Auntie: “Oh, she’s in the hospital in Pomona. She had a car accident on the 10 Freeway. You didn’t know?”

Grandma: “Why didn’t nobody tell me? How do you know and I don’t know?”

Auntie: “Well, Step-Father knew.”

Step-Father knew, and he didn’t do nothing.

They wouldn’t let me see my mom for two months. The accident was real bad. Her head was open and all this stuff. They didn’t tell me the details, they just looked at me and told me my mama would be fine. I would always think, If she’s gonna be fine, why can’t I see her?

When we finally got to see her, I was not prepared. She looked like a monster. Her eyes were black, and she had bandages across her head. She was swollen. Her whole body was swollen.

She didn’t look like my mama.

She had to learn to walk again. And talk, and eat, and everything. She did not remember any of my brothers and sisters. She just remembered me, and she was saying things like:

Mom: “You look just like my daughter, Tiffany. You should meet my daughter. She’s only three.”

Tiffany: “I am Tiffany. I am your daughter.”

It kind of made me feel really good, because I didn’t necessarily like my brothers and sisters that much. I felt like she loved them way more than she loved me.

When she was in the hospital for three months, learning how to do all that stuff again, me and my siblings were with our grandmother.

When she got out of the hospital, me and my siblings went back to live with her. Everything was totally different after that.

I had to grow up fast. I taught her how to tie her shoe, like she had taught me how to tie my shoe. I taught her how to put her pants on, like she had taught me to put pants on. I was showing her how to make hot dogs like she showed me how to make hot dogs. Everything she had taught me, I was teaching her back.

That was bad enough, but after that accident, oh my God, she would say the worst things to me. I felt like all of the inner thoughts that she used to have before the accident, but she never said out loud, would all come out. She’d be like:

Mom: “Oh, you look like your ugly-ass daddy. Oh, God, where’s my husband at? I’m so sick of looking at your ugly ass.”

I guess that is common for people with a brain injury. They talk crazy, and all kinds of mean stuff comes out.

It was pretty clear that my mama did not like me. She did not. She loved me but she did not like me. I think it was because I reminded her of my father.

Mom: “You look like your father’s ugly ass. I hate him.”

All like that, all the time, until I was twelve. Constantly telling me I’m ugly, I’m stupid, I’m not worth nothing. I just felt stupid and not important, but I loved this woman so much. I’d just do whatever, ’cause I loved her. She was the first person I’d ever loved.

And now, after this car wreck, she hated me. She even said that to me at times.

Tiffany: “Mom, how are you feeling?”

Mom: “I hate you.”

It took her maybe two months to really get acclimated with my brothers and sisters, so during that time I was nurturing them. I was nurturing everybody.

And because of this, I was doing really bad in school.

My grandma, though, she would come and help. And my great-granny would come, and they would help. My grandma would always be like:

Grandma: “I’m proud of you. Look at all you did, you’re a good daughter.”

She could see what I was doing for the family. She and my great-granny saw it. My mom would cuss me out in front of them:

Mom: “Get that ugly-ass girl out of here. Why you don’t comb your hair? Ugh, you’re so ugly.”

Tiffany: “I’ll try. I’ll try to comb my hair.”

Grandma: “Come here, I’ll comb your hair. You are not ugly. Your mom is just tired. She’s bad when she’s tired.”

They would make excuses for her, but they didn’t need to, ’cause I loved her. As bad as she was to me, I still couldn’t help but love her.

Then she started beating me. By the time I was nine, she got her motor skills back. She couldn’t get all her words out, so she’d just punch me. Just full on. Because of her, I can take a punch like nobody’s business.

I feel like I’m so strong in the chest area, mainly from her punches. I have always thought that’s why my titties never grew. My sisters, all of them got titties. She punched mine down. Every day, I knew I was getting punched in the chest, slapped in the back of the head.

She liked to whip me with the bath brush, that you wash your back with. That’s why I don’t have one in my house now, because she liked to beat my ass with that wooden thing. She liked to get you right out of the tub, too. Soon as you got out:

Mom: “Didn’t I tell you to wash the dishes?”

Tiffany: “I did wash the dishes.”

Mom: “No, you didn’t. You didn’t wash nothing.”

Tiffany: “Yes, I did. Yes I did.”

It’d be like two dirty dishes that my sister had put in the sink after I’d washed the dishes. She’d just light my ass up.

When I was like ten or eleven, she would send me to school with all kinds of problems, like a busted lip or cuts or whatever. They’d call her up to school to get me, and the teacher’s like:

Teacher: “Why’s Tiffany’s lip busted? What’s going on with Tiffany? Did she have a fight or something?”

I didn’t say anything. When the teacher asked me, I just didn’t say shit.

Mom: “She’s fine. She’s fine. You know kids is clumsy. She just clumsy.”

Then my mom started beating me on the bottom of my feet. I don’t know if you ever been hit on the bottom of your feet, but you feel that through your whole body. You always pee on yourself, when somebody beats you on the bottom of your feet. Nobody should do that.

Then she became a super-crazy Jehovah’s Witness, where she would talk about sex and then she’d be like, “We got to read the Bible now.” One minute she’d be reading Bible scriptures, and you’d be feeling good and comfortable. And the next thing you know, she’s snatching you by your hair, yelling, “Go wash these goddam dishes!” Go do this or that. You just never knew. “We have to go to church right now!” She’d drag your ass right off the bed at 4 a.m. to go to church, even though it was closed.

It was like living with a mean teenaged girl, who was hormonal and boy crazy. She used to talk to me about the weirdest things. I didn’t understand it, but she would always talk about sex and stuff, like I was her friend. I guess because she didn’t have any friends. After that accident all her friends fell off. She would talk crazy to everybody, because of the brain injury, and no one wanted to be around her.

She was boy crazy, but just for my stepfather. My mom was still having more kids. My baby brother Justin had just been born. She still was hooking up with my stepdad because she still said that’s her husband, even though they were divorced now. She was fucking him in a Volkswagen.

At the time, I had no idea why he didn’t come back to the house after the accident.

Then I found out, maybe.

For my twenty-first birthday, Step-Father took me out for drinks. I was real depressed then. Around this time I had a breakdown and I was physically ill. This was also the first time I got drunk. He had certainly had more than a few too.

Tiffany: “I don’t know if I’m going to make it, man. I don’t know if I’m going to live any longer. I know I’m twenty-one and everything, but I just don’t feel like I’m going to make it, you know.”

Step-Father: “Look, you are fine. You’re going to make it. You’re supposed to be here on Earth. God has a purpose for you.”

Tiffany: “Man, God ain’t got no purpose with me. I’m just God’s punching bag. I feel like I’m a punching bag.”

Step-Father: “Nope, you got a purpose, ’cause you’re supposed to be dead. I’ll tell you that right now. You and all your brothers and sisters. Y’all was supposed to be dead. Justin’s not even supposed to be born. None of y’all supposed to be here.”

Tiffany: “What do you mean?”

Step-Father: “Remember that car accident? You all was supposed to be in the car. I had a life insurance policy on all of y’all. I’m supposed to be a multimillionaire now, and y’all supposed to be gone.”

He told me this whole story. That he took out all the insurance policies. Then he cut the line in her brakes. He said he knew that she drove too fast, and we was all supposed to be in the car that day. We was supposed to be dead.

That was the day that my mom left us all home, because I told her I could take care of the little ones. He said he hadn’t planned for that, and that was the only reason it was just my mom.

He told me this.

I did not know what to say or do. I did not know if I was supposed to believe him or this was some weird fairy-tale horror story he thought would make me want to live. I was totally in shock. I had no idea how to take it. Later he would say that it was not true, he hadn’t done any such thing. But it was too late to get it out of my mind.

After that, I started dating police officers. I started fucking police, trying to figure out how can I find out if this was real. And if it was, how can I get him prosecuted. How can I get him sent to jail?

But all the police were like, “Well, there’s no way you can prove it. Where’s the vehicle? It’s just him saying it. He could have just been saying it to make you feel better when you were depressed. There’s no way you can prove it in a court of law.”

Fuck it. I didn’t care. How much would it cost? I tried to get lawyers involved. I was dating lawyers, dating everybody, still trying to find out if this was real, if he should be prosecuted. But everybody said the same thing: “There’s no way you can find out now. Too much time has passed.”

It was pretty depressing. Had this man tried to kill us, ruined my mom’s life, and for what? Or was he just so perverse that he had put this horror show into my mind thinking it would help?

You know what’s funny? I could have set him up, if I really wanted to. Because he did it again. Years later, he asked me if I wanted my physically abusive ex-husband killed.

Step-Father: “Your sister told me what happened to you, with your husband. Do you want me to have this motherfucker put to sleep? I can have him put to sleep. You know I was in Vietnam. I got motherfuckers that’ll put him to sleep.”

Tiffany: “Nah, I don’t think you’re really good at putting people to sleep. You’re good at fucking up people’s lives, but I don’t think you’re going to be able to put them to sleep because you didn’t put my mama to sleep. I’m still awake. You’re not good at that. I don’t think so.”

Step-Father: “All right. Well you let me know if ever you need me to put somebody to sleep. I ain’t got nothing to lose.”

So either way, this dude was messing with my head.

I try to forgive him. I really do try to find a place of forgiveness in my heart for him.

That shit is hard, though.

Foster Care

I was in foster care from the time I was thirteen until I was eighteen. We was taken from our mom when I was thirteen. I was moved around a lot in that one year. By the time I was fourteen, my grandmother got custody, but she kept us in the system so that she could have the money to raise us.

The reason I went into foster care in the first place was because my mom got in a fight, and she hit a baby with a two-by-four. For real.

It’s a long, complicated story—as crazy family stories can be—but it boils down to this:

We had some neighbors that were all messed up, but my mom used to talk to the lady all the time. Her husband would always try to holler at my mom. One day, my mom got tired of the man and told him, “You leave me alone. Leave my kids alone.” And they ended up getting in some kind of fight. Now mind you, this is after her accident, and she was mentally sick, of course.

When I got home from school, there was police everywhere. My mom was in the police car. The social worker was packing up my sisters’ and brothers’ clothes in trash bags. She told me to get a trash bag and put my clothes in the bag, ’cause my mom was not coming back home. That we gonna be placed in a foster home.

Tiffany: “Why are you all taking my mom away?”

Social Worker: “She got in a fight with the man, and she hit him with a two-by-four, and she accidentally hit his baby.”

The baby was fine, but it caused all of this ruckus. The police showed up, and after talking to her, the police ended up taking her to the hospital, and diagnosing her. They gave her a 5150, so she had to be there for a seventy-two-hour hold. Then the doctors decided she’s schizophrenic. They diagnosed her with that. She ended up being hospitalized for a year.

Step-Father was there, though. He showed up when I did.

Social Worker: “If he wants to take you guys, he could take you guys. At least take his biological children, and then I don’t have to place them.”

Step-Father: “Oh no, you take ’em. I don’t have nowhere for ’em. You take ’em all.”

So my mom went into a state mental facility for a year, and all my sisters and brothers went into foster care.

We didn’t 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 Social Worker said you’re not out here having sex, but who knows? Who knows? You probably are having sex, you just ain’t telling nobody, right?”

And I’m just looking at her like completely confused. Of course I wasn’t having sex!

This was when that movie Crooklyn came out, by Spike Lee. Foster Mom took me to see it, along with two other foster kids she was taking care of at the time. We went to that drive-in theater that was off of Centinela. We went to the drive-in movie theater, and the two little foster boys were in the backseat. They were giggling and trying to touch me. They was nasty little boys and I was pushing them off me. They were like eight and seven, right? The movie started and she went:

Foster Mom: “I know you’re going to cry at some point, don’t cry in my car.”

Tiffany: “I ain’t gonna cry.”

She started blazing weed. Remember, this is in a car, and she had the windows up, so she was straight hot boxing us in there. There was a man in the front seat with her, I can’t remember who it was, some boyfriend of hers.

Foster Mom: “This is going to help you all to relax.”

Boyfriend: “You know you crazy, right girl? You know?”

Foster Mom: “Man, these kids gonna be exposed to way more bullshit than this. You don’t know what these kids been through. This ain’t nothing. All y’all shut up and enjoy this movie.”

I remember watching that movie and feeling like, I know how this little girl feels. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t cry.

Then, when we was driving back, my eyes was burning and stuff, I guess ’cause I had a contact high, and I didn’t even know it. Foster Mom saw me and said:

Foster Mom: “You know what, Tiffany? You seem like a really nice young lady, but I know you’re out here doing things. I know you doing things. You probably gonna cry tonight, ’cause all that innocence is gone. It’s all gone.”

I didn’t understand what she was talking about at all, not at that point. Still, I did cry a lot that night.

• • •

About a week later, I was doing my chores, and one of the little boys who was also staying with her came into the bathroom. He was butt naked with a condom on, talking about:

Foster Boy: “You wanna play with my dick? You want to play with my dick?”

Tiffany: “What the hell? What the hell is this?”

I freaked out and start running through the house, calling out to Foster Mom to get him.

Tiffany: “He out here naked! He out here naked!”

Foster Boy: “Stop being a snitch. Don’t be a snitch. I’m gonna fuck your shit up.”

Then she tried to blame it on me!

Foster Mom: “Oh, you tell this little boy to be naked like this?”

Tiffany: “I ain’t tell that little boy to be naked. He’s running around here with condoms on his dick. I don’t know what that’s about.”

She slapped me in the mouth.

Foster Mom: “Don’t be saying dick.”

Really? This eight-year-old running around naked with a condom on, and she’s worried about my language?

She told him to put on some clothes and stop playing.

The next day, that boy and the other boy started to make water balloons, right? Except all they had was condoms to make them with. Foster Mom was gone when they did this, and they started throwing these water balloons at me. Water-filled condom balloons.

I wanted to beat them up so bad, but I didn’t. I just cleaned up the mess and threw all them condoms away. Threw out the condoms and told them to stop playing games.

She came back, and later that night, she found the condom drawer empty.

FosterMom: “Oh, you fucking, huh? How you fucking this many people that fast? What is you doing? Are you a ho?”

Tiffany: “No, I’m not a ho! They made water balloons. They was throwing them at me.”

FosterMom: “Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wait till I tell your social worker. Wait till I tell your social worker.”

I guess she never told, ’cause nothing ever happened.

When school started back up, I was still living there. One day Foster Grandpa caught me in the bathroom, putting toilet paper in my little training bra I had.

Foster Grandpa: “What are you doing?”

Tiffany: “Ah, just putting some tissue in my shirt.”

Foster Grandpa: “Why you doing that?”

Tiffany: “?’Cause all my friends, they got big boobs and I want to be like my friends.”

Foster Grandpa: “Well I can help you make your titties grow.”

Tiffany: “You can?”

Foster Grandpa: “Yeah, just let me suck on them every day. If you let me suck on them, they’ll grow.”

So, I started letting this old-ass man suck on my titties every day when I was thirteen.

He never tried to touch my cootchie or nothing. He just would suck on my titties for fifteen minutes before I left for school. Then I’d go to school.

When I was nineteen, I was hanging out with one of my girlfriends, and she was like:

Friend: “Yeah, I’m going to get a boob job.”

Tiffany: “I don’t know. I probably should get a boob job too, maybe.”

Friend: “Or maybe we get somebody to suck on our titties every day until they grow.”

Tiffany: “Oh that don’t work.”

Friend: “How do you know it don’t work?”

Tiffany: “?’Cause I did that shit when I was thirteen years old.”

Friend: “What do you mean, you did that when you was thirteen? I thought you didn’t lose your virginity until you was like sixteen, seventeen?”

Tiffany: “I didn’t, but this was different. This old man that was in my foster home, he would suck on my titties every day before I’d go to school, and it didn’t do nothing. They didn’t grow or nothing. They still the same size.”

Friend: “Bitch, you was molested?”

Tiffany: “Wait, what?”

I had no idea I was molested. In my mind, “molested” meant somebody hurt you in some kind of way. Like, they took something from you that you didn’t want to give. And what that old man did never hurt. It didn’t necessarily feel good, either, it was just whatever. And he never tried nothing else with me, not even once. It was just like—in my mind—he was helping me out.

Look, obviously I can see now that this was messed up and absolutely was molestation. But at the time, I had no clue I was being molested. Even at nineteen, I had to have this pointed out to me.

I used to talk about it onstage all the time, ’cause parents say, “If somebody touch your private parts, or if somebody hurt your pee-pee, or if somebody pushed their private parts on you, you tell somebody.”

But that man never did any of that. I never saw his penis. I never touched his penis. He never tried to make me touch him, and he never tried to touch my privates. He just sucked on my titties every day. And he wasn’t even like, telling me not to tell anyone. I just never said anything, because I thought he was hooking me up. I thought he was helping me out.

I guess maybe we gotta update what we tell kids—that old men sucking your titties is also molestation.

Belonging

As a young kid, it didn’t feel like nobody cared about me or protected me (except for my grandma). It didn’t feel like anybody gave two fucks about me, unless it was benefiting them. Unless they was getting paid. Unless it was making them look good in some kind of way. Me just being myself was never good enough for anyone to love me.

My auntie Gina, she taught me how to dance. We would dance together, but that was so I could dance with her at weddings and make her look good. Having a little girl copying her moves. But I don’t think it was because she loved me or liked to spend time with me or dance with me. That was just to make her shine.

My auntie Mary, she would do my hair. She would sing songs with me and stuff, but that was because she was rehearsing for her own thing. She’d be like, “Now, you do backups.”

Now that I think about it, she was teaching me about music and performing, but really that was her getting ready for her own shit. It wasn’t about me. It was about her looking good.

I didn’t get much from my family, so I tried to be a gangbanger. But they wouldn’t let me gangbang.

When I was a foster kid, I would have to walk through the gang hoods to get to the bus stop. I used to try to holla at all of them. I wanted to be in the gang, because I felt like then I’d be a part of something.

And I’d have me a man. Every gangbanger girl got a gangbanger boyfriend. You had somebody, that’s what I wanted.

But it didn’t work out like that. I couldn’t get into the gang.

Gangbanger: “You too cute. You gonna be something one day. You can come and kick it, but you can’t gangbang with us. If you want a drink or something, you can have a drink.”

Tiffany: “I don’t drink.”

Gangbanger: “You don’t even drink! Take your ass to school, bitch. Get the fuck up off the block.”

Tiffany: “Let me hit the weed.”

Gangbanger: “Your ass can’t hit no weed. You don’t know how to smoke, bitch. Go take your ass home and go read one of those heavy-ass books you got in your backpack.”

They could cuss me out all the time, but I didn’t mind. I just wanted to be a part of something, you know?

And the cool part was, I got to party with them, but didn’t have to do all the terrible shit you have to do to be in a gang. Best of both worlds. Not a lot of shit went my way when I was young, but that did.

Grandma

Like I said, my grandma eventually got custody of me and my siblings when I was fourteen. I was still in the system, because even though my grandmother got custody of me, she wanted to get paid. So we had to go to court and stuff. And the social worker came and checked on us every month and everything. We were with our grandmother, but we were still state property.

Even though my grandmother was my legal guardian, she didn’t want to teach me to drive.

Grandma: “I don’t want to be responsible if you kill somebody. I’m not signing any paperwork.”

I took the driver’s ed class in school, and I did good.

I needed to be able to drive, because at that time I was making money as a hype woman for Bar Mitzvahs, and most of those were out where there wasn’t many bus routes. So I had to get my social worker and a judge to sign that paperwork, for me to be able to get my driver’s license.

I had the money to pay for the driving class and all of that, because of the Bar Mitzvahs. I remember my grandma was like:

Grandma: “Oh you think you just so smart, huh? You just figuring out ways around everything, huh? You think you so smart.”

Tiffany: “Grandma, I’m going to be somebody. I’m going to be something, and I know I’ve got to have a car to do it.”

Grandma: “You got that right, you do.”

I never understood my grandma. She would be so encouraging sometimes, and so mean at other times. I’d be like, I don’t know who this bitch is. I don’t know if she here to help me or she here to hurt me.

When I was eighteen, she put me out. She wasn’t getting paid for me anymore, so she just put me out. I was just homeless.

Daddy

My first real memory of my daddy is when I was three and he head-butted my mom.

She was wearing one of those all-white jumpers like the girls had in the eighties, those sexy jumpers that women used to wear. I don’t know why they were fighting, but I remember being on the couch and screaming loud and stuff and seeing blood. He head-butted my mom, and beat his own head, and blood was pouring down his face and her nose, and her white jumper was just covered with blood, all over.

Not too long ago, I asked my mom about this:

Tiffany: “Was that a dream that I had, that Dad head-butted you and your nose was bleeding?”

Mom: “No, you remember that?”

Tiffany: “Why was y’all fighting?”

Mom: “Because I threw hot water on him.”

Tiffany: “Why did you throw hot water on him?”

Mom: “Because he came in the house at two in the morning, and he didn’t give me the $300 he was supposed to give me, so I went in his wallet and I took the money. And then I found another woman’s number, and I called the number, talked to the lady, and then I boiled some water and threw it on him.”

Tiffany: “You threw boiling water on him?”

Mom: “His skin wasn’t burnt, I just wanted to get him to wake up.”

My dad even admitted this when we briefly reunited.

Dad: “Yeah that happened. She stole my money, so I beat her ass.”

I thought it was some crazy dream I’d had. I remember screaming so hard, till I couldn’t scream anymore, you know like when a baby screams himself out?

Mom: “Yeah you pulled your hair out. There was blood, you had my blood on your face and your hair was missing.”

At three, trying to make them stop fighting, I remember screaming until I pulled my hair out.

My dad is Eritrean. He abandoned me when I was three. I was reunited with my dad when I was twenty-seven. That’s when I got married. He even came to my wedding. He was part of my life for a little while.

But then he just abandoned me again. It happened as I was working on this book. He was supposed to stay at my house. I flew him out, paid for him to be out here in LA. When he got here, I bought him all these clothes. All this stuff he wanted. Everything he asked for, I got it. Got him an iPhone 7, even.

Then I woke up on Monday, and he was just gone. He decided to take the Greyhound home. I called him:

Tiffany: “You know you had a plane ticket to go back to wherever you came from.”

Dad: “No, I just decided to take the Greyhound, ’cause you made me feel like a pauper.”

Tiffany: “How did I make you feel like a pauper?”

Dad: “Because, you think you’re better than me!”

Tiffany: “When did I ever say I was better than you?”

Dad: “You walk around like you’re better than me.”

Tiffany: “What do you mean? Everything you asked for, I gave you. Anything you wanted, you had. How is that better than you?”

He hung up on me.

My friend told me that the answer to my question was right there, in his answers. He pointed out to me what he was trying to say, but couldn’t say. This is what my friend said:

“He’s ashamed of himself, because he left you when you were three, did nothing for you, and you ended up being very successful without him, and then you buy him stuff. You are not only a better person than he is, but you are kind and responsible where he is not, and you’re providing where he did not. Not just as his child, but as a woman, providing for him. Your goodness holds up a mirror to his ugliness, and that is too painful for him, so he has to project this onto you, by saying you make him feel less about himself. It’s nothing you did. It’s guilt.”

I don’t get it. I don’t get it, ’cause he’s my dad, and whatever he asks for, he can have it. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for your parents?

I don’t know. I just know that I was crying all day after he left. I was crying all day, because I just felt like that abandoned three-year-old girl again. I felt horrible.

All I wanted was for my father to be there with me. I didn’t care about none of that other stuff.

Watch Yo Back

When I was twenty-three, I was staying at one of my grandma’s properties. I told my grandma I’d take care of the property, so she’d let me stay there for free.

One day, I was getting ready to leave from the house to go to a party, and I had a cute little outfit on. All of a sudden, I heard this loud-ass knocking on the door.

It was my mama.

Mama: “Let me in the house. Let me in the house.”

Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in this house.”

Mama: “It’s my mama’s house. You let me in the goddam house!”

Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in this house, Mom. Like, you need to go somewhere. Go to Grandma’s house, but I’m not letting you in this house.”

Mama: “This is my mama’s house! She own it!”

Tiffany: “I’m not letting you in. I’m about to go. I gotta go to an event, anyways.”

I walked out the house with my short little skirt on.

Mama: “Where do you think you’re going with that short-ass skirt? You trying to get pregnant out here? You out here being a prostitute?”

Tiffany: “No Ma, I was just going to an event, so leave me alone. Just leave me alone.”

She had this long rearview mirror in her hand. Remember in the eighties, when they had them long, detachable rearview mirrors that had the smaller individual mirrors in it, which tilted to the sides? Somehow, she had found one of these mirrors. It was like two feet long. I could not understand why she had that in her hand.

I walked past her and said:

Tiffany: “I’m outta here, Mom. You need to leave, too. Get off the property.”

Mama: “Oh, so you just think you grown now? You think you fucking grown?”

She reared back and threw that rearview mirror at the back of my head. It hit me. It hit me so hard in the back of the head, I just fell to the ground. Collapsed.

Mama: “That’s right. You need to watch your back, bitch. Take that mirror with you and watch yo’ motherfucking back.”

I was looking so cute, I had on my little heels and everything, and it’s just, BAM!

Tiffany: “I cannot believe you did that. I should call the police on you right now. I should call the police.”

Mama: “Call the police, but just let them know that I got your back. I’m watching your back, bitch. Don’t go out there getting pregnant.”

Then, just as quick as she showed up, she left.

I had no idea what to do. So I just picked up the mirror and put it in my Geo Metro.

In my heart, I was so hurt and mad . . . but also I felt like that was so funny. Who throws a huge, broke-ass rearview mirror at people?

Sometimes I laugh so hard about it, but sometimes I just cry, because I know my mom is sick. She’s sick, and she’s trying to be a good parent, I think. In my mind, I like to think she was trying to be motherly, she was trying to tell me to be safe and not get pregnant. Trying to keep me out of trouble. You know?

But to this day, if I have words with somebody, I never walk past them. I never turn my back on them. Now I’m always watching people. I’ve never had that problem with somebody hitting me in the back of the head no more. Never again after that.

Mama

One time, when I was twenty-three, I got my tax return, and they gave me $4000 back. I told my mom:

Tiffany: “I’m going to spend a thousand dollars on you at the Walmart. I’m going to get you whatever you want at the Walmart.”

I was doing it partially because she was my mom, but also because her mental illness was not going well. She was basically becoming a bag lady, carrying trash around.

But it was weirder than that. She would collect the trash, and she’d mail it back to the companies that manufactured it. She would say that’s how she recycles and keeps the post office in business. That’s how she would spend her disability checks, mailing trash back to the companies that it came from.

When you’d go into her apartment, she had five kids’ car seats that she found. I don’t know where she found them. And five piggy banks of the same type. My favorite character was Wonder Woman, so she had five Wonder Woman piggy banks, five Hello Kitty piggy banks. Like, five of whatever our favorite characters was as kids, for each one of my brothers and sisters. Five of everything, for each one of her kids.

Everywhere she went, she wanted to carry one of these bags of trash with her.

Tiffany: “Well, I’m going to take you to the Walmart. We gonna shop. Leave your trash at home. Leave it at home.”

Mama: “It’s not trash. It’s not trash. This is recycling. I am helping the environment. I am removing my footprint. What are you doing for the environment?”

Tiffany: “I’m taking you to Walmart to buy you some stuff. That’s what I’m doing.”

We pulled up into the Walmart parking lot. She tried to take the bag of trash into the parking lot.

Tiffany: “Mom, you cannot take that into the Walmart. Leave it in the car.”

Mama: “I’m not leaving it in the car, somebody might steal it.”

Tiffany: “Mom, just leave this trash in the car. Just leave it here, and we’ll come back for it.”

Mama: “I’M NOT LEAVING IT IN THE CAR!”

She started yelling at me, and I don’t do well with that. I just don’t do well with people yelling at me.

I got mad and I snatched the trash and I tried to run to the dumpster. But before I could run to the dumpster, she snatched me by the back of my shirt and threw me up against the car and started punching me, repeatedly, in the chest and the stomach, in the mouth.

I started trying to fight her back, but she’s crazy strong. She’s five-foot-ten, two hundred and some pounds. Strong as shit. My little punches don’t do shit. There’s all these people walking by, and I started yelling, “Help! Help!” ’cause she is beating my ass and nobody is helping. They just looking.

She finally got tired of punching of me. I never did let go of that bag of trash, though. When she got tired, I just started jetting over to the dumpster, and I threw the bag of trash in the dumpster.

Once I got the trash in the dumpster, she tackled me and beat me up again by the dumpster.

Tiffany: “Mom, I just want to take you shopping with my money. This is crazy.”

Mama: “Fuck you. I hate you. I hate you, Renee.”

She started calling me Renee, which is the woman who my stepdad was cheating on her with.

Mama: “I hate you, Renee. I fucking hate you. I should kill you, but I’m not. I’m gonna let you suffer. I’m gonna let you fucking suffer.”

She just walked away and went towards the Walmart. Like nothing happened.

At the front of the Walmart, there was a man in a wheelchair, the greeter. He’s probably a veteran, and he’s missing legs, and he’s Mexican. He had one of those big mustaches and a Walmart shirt on, and he said, “Welcome to Walmart.”

My mom spat on him.

Mama: “Your people make me vomit. I hate your burritos and everything. You make me vomit.”

She hocked another loogie and spat in his face.

Once she spat on him, she continued to walk through the Walmart. Like nothing happened.

I was shocked. I tried to apologize to that man, but he was in shock, too.

Then and only then, did the police show up. They showed up immediately after that. Like, not even five minutes later.

I was getting my ass beat in the parking lot for forty-five minutes, and nobody came to help. But they immediately showed up when she spat on this Walmart employee.

The police came, and she started sprinting away from them, so they started chasing her. She ran out of the Walmart, into the actual mall, and they followed and chased her around the mall. It was crazy.

She is a big woman, and she was straight sprinting from the police. I didn’t know what to think, except, damn, I did NOT know she could move like that.

They eventually caught her. I was following right behind them:

Tiffany: “That’s my mom. Please don’t hurt my mom. That’s my mom. Please don’t hurt my mom.”

But she started struggling with them. It took six police to get her subdued. They had to hog-tie her. They tied up her ankles, and they made her legs connect like shackles, you know? Nobody wants to see their parents like that.

Mama: “Tiffany, this is all your fault. I could have been at my house, counting my shit. Tiffany, this is your fault. This is your fucking fault.”

Tiffany: “Mama, it’s not my fault. Why did you spit on that poor man?”

Mama: “I fucking hate you, Tiffany. I fucking hate you. This is all your fault. All your fucking fault.”

They took her to the hospital. They ran her file and stuff.

Police: “Oh, she’s a mental patient.”

Tiffany: “She’s not a criminal. I’ve been telling you this for an hour!”

Now remember, my lip was bleeding. My eyes were swollen, my ribs were hurting, and everything.

Police: “Who did that to you?”

Tiffany: “My mom did, but no, I do not want to press charges. I just want her to get help. She just needs help. She needs the right doctors.”

She went into a mental institution then. She has been in and out, ever since.