Pretty Eyes My Woman

By Piper Davenport

This is a new take on the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716693687

Book preview

Pretty Eyes My Woman

                                                  By Piper Davenport

Pretty Eyes My Woman

Copyright © 2020 by Piper Davenport

Cover Design by Elaine Davenport

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Print and Bound in the United States of America

Third Printing August 2020

Published by Lulu.com

627 Davis Drive

Suite 300

Morrisville, NC 27560

USA

Visit lulu.com

Pretty Eyes My Woman

  Part I

I hated babies so why did I end up acting like one, I'll never know.

It's all Billie's fault. I shouldn't have allowed myself to get involved

with her mess. Hell, I had my own messes to straighten out but I thought

everything would be okay but it wasn't...I had grown up on the other side

of Eight Mile Road. A vast distant world of clay faces with upside-down

smiles every time they saw this city on the news, my mother one of them.

I would become the same kind of woman as my mother . She grew up on

the edge of the city: Warrendale, a neighborhood where people like me didn’t

really exist at that time, not yet and when we did, we were ignored. In fact,

that’s what my grandmother said to her when she told her about me.

It was a vicious cycle that my mother had started when she found

out that she was pregnant by a man that I never met. But my mother

thought she was doing me a favor by not telling me about how the other

half lives, my other half. She said that I didn’t need to know about them.

They didn’t exist. The ones walking through, driving through, passing

through were just visitors. Even their homes were just temporary; Grandma

said that we couldn’t exist that way. But she was wrong.

Growing up, the voice inside me said: Why don’t I look like you?

Momma’s reply, a sad little voice said, The better to see your pretty eyes, my dear.  That was my first important memory of my life with Momma. I remember when she read a letter. It was from across Eight Mile Road. The name I could not pronounce. It was long, at least ten letters. She had been approved for special housing. It all started because of what happened on this one particular night. She came home that night to a darkened house and panicked when her ride dropped her off in front of Grandma’s home. She thought that the house was empty until she saw a pair of green eyes looking beneath a white plastic shade with just enough pity to know that I was hiding. Momma came upstairs and took me in her arms.

Where is everyone? she asked but I had no answer.

Grandma did not want me-I was a reminder of a way of life she was being forced to leave behind and I got her in trouble. She had moved as close to Telegraph Road as possible but she just couldn’t afford to move onto the other side, which was outside of Detroit, not yet. She was a widow; a woman left alone with wandering souls to keep her company and pay her rent. The neighborhood association president suggested that she sell her house or worse yet, join hands with the Henry Ford president and make bullshit promises and just give up but then what? She was too proud to join in her words the bottom of the run, that worked in the auto factories.

"Having to share dirty gloves and probably the same bathroom, the same toilet with factory workers? Jesus Christ! Maybe with other Polish factory workers but that’s probably it. Oh, I don’t know if I could!" Said the same woman who dropped food on the ground, picked it back up with her weathered-looking hands, and kissed it up to the sky. Wearing gloves was a part of the changing world, and even people like us had dirty hands anywhere we went. So Grandma stayed home. Momma drove a bus for awhile but then they wanted her to go to certain neighborhoods and she wouldn’t. She stayed home.

One night, Momma came home to find Grandma gone and me alone. When she found me in the dark, and Grandma had left me to fend for myself—Momma blamed herself. I was playing a game with them though. I was hiding in the closet and I refused to say anything, not a word until Grandma came looking for me. But she never came. She called my name once from the stairs, called my name twice and asked where Momma kept her secret stash of money. I said nothing back. I wasn’t going to help Grandma out. She called my name a third time and then I heard the door slam. I knew her legs wouldn’t have made it up the stairs without help. I could have gone to her, maybe I should have but I knew that Grandma was sick. She had been that way since before I was born, before Momma was born. I was fine by myself. I just went into Grandma’s room to play dress-up.

My eyes peeked out into their bedroom through a little hole I made in the wall. Some days I would eat ketchup sandwiches and hide in her closet. Grandma had food but she didn’t always share it. When there was not ketchup and bread to eat, I dug my fingernails into the wall and carved out the word ‘die.’ On the outside of the house, it looked like we were doing all right but we barely belonged in that neighborhood. On days when we couldn’t even afford ketchup, I just ate paper. I did so because I was hungry, I was always hungry, and I wanted to peek at Grandma doing nasty things with that man from Hamtramck.

I hid behind that door, any door that hid me from public view. Only went near the window at nighttime when no one could see me. Momma left me alone a lot then. Another time, I saw a dirty glove around that man’s hand and he was shaking it violently against himself with his fist attached to his leg. A black-and-white picture in his hand was of a woman and a man naked, the picture was facing me and I could see their body parts. A part of me felt like crying and the other part of me felt like giggling. I remember throwing up a little spit into his beat-up leather shoes.

Grandma’s boyfriend only wore those shoes when he wore one of his costumes. On that day, everyone dressed up like different people, sometimes animals or even monsters. On that day, I got to eat all the candy in the world and actually belonged to my changing world. Everyone looked kind of funny, even me. I could hide behind my mask and the only thing people could see were my green eyes. They did not know who I was and for that night, I didn’t either.

I remained behind the door, eventually falling asleep in there. When I woke, they were in bed. Grandma asked him if he knew where I was.

I don’t know, he said.

Then, she looked towards the closet where I was hiding. A funny little thing happens to my eyes when I am sad. They change colors from green to blue. But Grandma doesn’t care. Oh, yeah, then I remember, she doesn’t see me in that way. I’m not really her granddaughter.

Her mouth opened like a complete yawn. Her eyes narrowed and I thought she saw me. I thought I saw her smile turn into a frown. But she licked her lips and went back to knitting. Later, when I left the room, I thought I saw one of her eyes open. That one eye of hers always stayed open. It doesn’t go to sleep. Momma has an eye like that but I don’t. I guess you could say that it skipped a generation. There are a lot of things that Momma has that I don’t.

When Momma came home and found me in the darkened house by myself—she said nothing except, I’m sorry. She did not even look at me when she said this. Her face scanned the wall up above my head. A light came on in my bedroom and I saw everything in our room was gone.

Where did you put my belongings?

In a place—a new home with your very own bedroom, she said. I did not understand.

Momma, why are we moving?

She had sat down in front of the television and cried. I asked her again. She said that it was because she did not understand the world anymore. She wanted us to move far away—she had already crossed so many other lines but this was the most important. We were moving this time but not with Grandma. It was one thing to leave her alone but it wasn’t right for her to leave me alone. That’s what Momma said the day we moved into our new place.

I was told to go straight home after school. To sit by myself in an empty apartment with no one around while Momma lost herself for long hours with the dirt she puts on her face dreaming of dead faces and the dirty leftover food she eats at work, food leftover from other people’s plates. She will not have to buy groceries or leave the house again and look for a job. No, sir. Not with that kind of luck. On her off days, I kind of like how she stays home and talks to the wall sometimes. She stays in bed all day talking to family members that don’t exist. Me, I am still required to set two places at the dining room table, one place for me and one for Momma.

That was before I met my new bestest friend. I met her on a Tuesday. The very next day, I was staring out the window at this little girl walking home from school with a group of other kids. They were in a big circle—all different ages, sizes. I watched them toss a big, red ball back and forth and then I was outside. I was looking back at the empty apartment; I was eating a can of sardines with two dirty fingers. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be out but I longed to be outdoors.

I saw the children playing a game. They were kicking a ball around. I longed to be one of them, normal. One of the little girls was about my height and was also looking over at me. She noticed the green of my eyes. She tugged on her bracelet and shook it for me. It was also green. Someone called her name and she turned around. I wanted to point to her but a delivery truck sped by, ruining her perfect day with muddy puddle water. I wanted to laugh and hug her at the same time. I found out later on that her name was Billie. Each day for me in those days was the same. I was to wake Momma up when the sunlight streamed into her bedroom. She would leave for work a few minutes after that, and I was to go outside and start playing until the other kids came out. 

The corner store was only a few blocks away, the baseball field was even farther and the park was very far away and that summer, I would be ten years old. By the time school almost started, I was one of the gang but I had to prove myself. I had to be the lookout while they went in and stole candy. When they come out, we headed up there to the park to eat our special treats. I would wait outside, according to Billie. It was easier for everyone but especially for me to remain invisible. A cop car stopped us before we began our journey, us being me, Billie, and the other kids. He stared at me.

What are you doin’ in this neighborhood, little gal? He asked. Everyone else stopped walking and stared at their shoes. Even the trees along Eight Mile Road and Nine Mile Road