"This, bitch!" One of the girls screamed as she drew back her arm with all her might and slammed it forward into my stomach. The surprise coincided with the intense pain I felt. The blow knocked me to my knees.

"You think you all that, bitch?" another shouted as she socked me in my back. Stinging rays of pain rushed up my back.

Partly from pain and partly to protect myself, I doubled over as all three began throwing punches. It took a moment for me to realize that I was actually being jumped. Once I realized this was an all-out fight, I tried to fight back, but with four on one, and me with a bulging belly, I didn't have a chance. My swinging was awkward, and none of my punches were reaching anyone.

Conceding that fighting back was useless, I focused instead on trying to protect my baby. The blows were too fast and too hard. As my knees gave way, I fell to the ground, still trying to guard my stomach by wrapping my arms around it as far as I could. The blows came faster and harder, pounding my forehead, my cheeks, my neck. Protect your head! I screamed to myself. Protect your head!

I decided to try to curl myself into a ball, to help protect both my stomach and my head. Before squeezing my head into the fold of my now agonizingly throbbing body, I caught a glimpse of Diane standing back, hands on her hips, watching, a contemptuous grin stretched across her face. Bitch. That peek cost me a punch to the ear.

I quickly tucked my head into the fold of my fetal position and cried as they continued to beat me: kicking my body, clawing at my face and hair, punching at will, until Diane finally announced, "That's enough." And then, as suddenly as they began, they stopped. They stood around me, panting and out of breath from the energy they'd exerted beating my ass. Then, as if nothing had happened, they casually strolled out of the garage, laughing and talking as if chatting about a good movie they'd just seen. They left me lying there, still on the ground, doubled over in agony, every part of my body pulsing with pain. But I wasn't so concerned about that; I was worried about my baby. I lay there for a while crying. I felt beaten in every way-physically, mentally, emotionally.

As I lay there, my pain slowly turned into anger. I was pissed because I knew that Diane had the girls jump me at a time when I couldn't fight back. I'd've kicked some ass if I hadn't been pregnant, but they knew that. Running away, hooking, doing drugs and alcohol had given me a badass attitude: get me drunk or loaded and I'd fight any kid. And I was always talking shit. I talked shit so good, folks figured I had to be able to back it up. So Diane and her crew had waited till I was vulnerable, till I couldn't defend myself, and that's when they struck. Scary-asses.

I lay there for what seemed like forever, though it was only a couple of hours. I slowly got up, expecting to feel pain in my stomach. But there was none. Although every other part of my body hurt like hell, my stomach didn't. I began to think maybe the beating I had taken had missed my baby. I got up and began walking (or rather waddling) very slowly and bent over like a hunchback-unable to stand up straight because of the pain racing up my back. Each step felt like knives were shooting up and down my body. I had to pass Diane and the girls as I walked through the kitchen. They were eating the "good food"-a reward for their performance.

I was in too much pain to care. I just wanted to get off the cold garage floor and lie down. I could still hear them laughing as I waddled down the hall and into my room.

"Did you see that punch to her stomach?" Connie bragged as I closed the bedroom door and began to slowly inch my way toward my bed.

A few seconds later the door swung open, the sound of it slamming against the wall startling me.

"Don't you close no doors in my fucking house!" Diane screamed, stepping into the doorway. She stood there for a moment sporting an evil grin and savoring my pain. Then she turned and rejoined the party in the kitchen. I watched her leave before lying down-unsure if she'd gotten in the mood to continue the beating herself. As I lay down oohing and aahing from the pain of each movement, I looked after her and wondered how so much evil could be in one person.

- I had been asleep a few hours when I was suddenly awakened by a sharp pain in my stomach. I was used to the extreme cramps I suffered during my period. But this pain was ten times as bad. I awoke with a scream.

"Shhh," one of the girls said.

Sometime during the night, they had crawled into their beds. Since the beating, none of the girls had spoken a word to me, except periodic snickering. They'd spent the evening enjoying Diane's approval.

"Yeah, bitch, shut it up," another snapped as she turned over to go back to sleep.

I couldn't keep quiet. The pain was horrific. I got up and waddled to the bathroom. I was starting to panic because I knew something was wrong. Once I got to the bathroom, I felt like I had to pee. I sat on the toilet hoping to be able to hurry up and pee so the pain would let up. But instead of pee, a large clot of blood plopped out and landed in the toilet. "Oh, no!" I screamed. Something was terribly wrong.

Without thinking (or out of habit), I flushed the toilet.

I didn't care about waking everybody up. I didn't even care about Diane being pissed. I was more concerned about my baby-about the only thing I had that was going to love me. I waddled into Diane's room as quick as I could and flicked on the lights (something I would have never done before, but like I said, I didn't care anymore).

"Something's wrong with my baby!" I screamed. "I've got to get to the hospital!"

"Stop your fucking whining!" she shouted as she slowly sat up. "Ain't nothing wrong with you!"

"Yes it is!" I shouted. "I'm bleeding!"

I was hysterical. I was crying. I was angry. I was hurting.

Connie was now awake. "What's goin' on?" she asked, as she came walking down the hallway into her mother's room, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"The lil whore is sick," Diane chimed in a whiny voice.

For the first time, I stood up to her. "If you don't take me to the hospital, I'll tell them what happened!" I shouted. "I'll tell them that you let me lay here, knowing I was pregnant and hurt! I swear I will!" I was screaming and spitting a mixture of tears and snot. I was panicked and scared out of my wits.

Maybe it was the hate in my eyes that convinced her I meant it. Maybe it was the thought of police at her house that made her decide to move. I don't know what it was, but suddenly she told Connie, "Get your clothes on; we're gonna take her to the hospital."

"Shit," Connie mumbled as she slowly returned to her room to get dressed.

The pain was so great, I could no longer stand, and I was still bleeding profusely. Diane didn't want blood on her carpet, so she made the other girls help me onto the porch where they had laid sheets. Meanwhile, Diane and Connie took their time getting ready. Even after the girls half-carried, half-dragged me to Diane's car, we still couldn't leave. Diane didn't want blood all over her new car, so the other girls had to lay several sheets on the floor of it before I was allowed to crawl in. I had to lie on the floor because we couldn't risk getting blood on the seats.

Finally, we headed for the hospital. But at the speed Diane drove, you would have never known there was a pregnant, beaten, bleeding child in the back. You would have thought we were early for Sunday school.

- When we finally arrived, in between screams of pain, I told a nurse about the lump of blood that had come out in the toilet. That was the last time I spoke to anyone on the hospital staff. Diane angrily informed them that I was a minor, so all communication needed to be with her, my legal guardian. I didn't know if that was true or not, but the doctors and nurses obviously believed it because all the information I got from then on was relayed by Diane.

In between my outbursts, Diane told me that the hospital said they couldn't take me because they didn't have the proper equipment (she never explained what equipment), and that the only hospital with the necessary equipment was thirty to forty-five minutes away. Diane said we'd never make it.

"Besides," Diane continued, "they said you're already through most of it. So, the best thing to do is wait and let you do the rest naturally, because really there's nothing left to do." She added that the doctor had said the mass lump that had come out into the toilet back at the house was probably part of the baby, so there was nothing to be done.

They put me on a gurney and let me lie there to finish what nature had begun.

Nature didn't do this to me! I wanted to scream in between blasts of pain. That sick, demented black bitch and her little shits did this to me!

But I didn't. I was in too much pain. And what good would it do? Diane was right: I "wasn't gon' never be shit" because I didn't have a mother. Candy was right: nobody gave a fuck about me. And I was right: God sucked. All of this was His fault. I hated Him now more than ever.

As I lay there, bleeding and writhing in pain, I sobbed-partly from the physical pain and partly from knowing that I had lost the only thing that might have loved me. Then, my pain turned to anger. I got angrier and angrier. Whatever "straightening out" I had previously resolved to do for the sake of my baby vanished. Because now, I had nothing left to live for.

14.

I DON'T THINK I was ever formally admitted to the hospital. I was never put in a hospital room. As far as I know, no one questioned Diane about the black eyes, bloody lips, and bruises that were clearly visible from my recent beating. I lay on the gurney until the pain stopped. Then, I got up and went home. Just like that. The whole ordeal-from the pain that first woke me to the time I walked out of the hospital-took less than twenty-four hours.

Neither Diane nor Connie said a word to me as they drove me home. Their looks of guilt and shame spoke for them. Diane and the others had to know that beating up a pregnant girl would seriously harm or kill the baby. Yet, for some reason, now they wanted to feel bad about it. Diane tried to ease their part in the ordeal by commenting that, if at six months pieces of my baby plopped into the toilet, it must have been abnormal anyway. She said the doctor surmised that, if I had carried the baby to full term, it would have probably been deformed or even stillborn. She spoke very quietly and slowly, like this piece of information would make me feel better.

Any guilt they had did me no good. My baby was dead. I was angry and plotting revenge. Actually, I was plotting murder. They had murdered my baby, so they all deserved to die. But to kill them, I'd have to get them to let their guards down. So although I was livid, I acted like everything was okay; like I held no grudge. I decided to kill Diane first.

- Everyone was nice to me the first couple of days after my miscarriage. No one said much; I wasn't even cussed out. And for the first time since I had come to Diane's, I was excused from cleaning. Everyone walked around on tiptoe and spoke to me quietly and cautiously, as though I were a little dense. They treated me like a fragile doll capable of breaking at any moment. They didn't realize how accurate they were.

I had been trying to figure out how I could kill Diane without anyone suspecting me. After a few days, it came to me. I'd kill her as I'd once tried to kill Larry-I'd use poison.

The next day, I was lying in my bed crying on the inside about the murder of my baby. I could never again cry on the outside because to do so would have given Diane great pleasure in knowing the ordeal had truly gotten to me. So I mourned on the inside, and wore the "fuck-you" mask on the outside.

I got up to use the bathroom. As I shuffled past Diane's room, I looked in and saw her sitting comfortably in her large plush bed, watching her large color TV. I decided it was a good day for her to die.

Fortunately for me, Diane was still pretending to be full of pity. So she suspected nothing when, on my way back from the bathroom, I offered to get her a glass of Kool-Aid. It was a hot day, and Diane was clearly burning up from thirst, so she readily gave me permission to enter the kitchen. She gave me her key to the fridge and told me I had five minutes to get her Kool-Aid.

I had to act fast.

The other children were in the den, suffering through the heat. I didn't know where Connie was, but so long as she stayed the fuck away from me, I could care less. My momma had always kept the rat poison under the kitchen sink. I hoped that was where Diane kept hers because I wouldn't have time to search for it.

It was my lucky day. The box was sitting right there under the kitchen sink. I grabbed it and quickly filled a glass half full with the yellowish powder. I added some hot water to dissolve the granules and quickly stirred it. Then I unlocked the padlock, removed the chain, got the Kool-Aid, and filled the rest of the glass with it. I dropped in a few ice cubes, wrapped the chain back around the fridge, closed the lock, and walked back to Diane's room, with revenge in one hand and the refrigerator key in the other.

Diane thanked me for the Kool-Aid, but instead of drinking it, she set it on the nightstand next to her. Shit, I thought. Drink it! I stood there staring at the glass, wishing she'd drink it, when she noticed I was still there.

"Can I help you?" she snapped.

"No," I replied as I slowly backed out, watching her until she was out of sight. I don't know if she ever drank it. Maybe my behavior was too suspicious. Maybe, as Larry had done, she'd gotten a clue from my uncharacteristic desire to help. What I do know is that she never got sick, and she never said a word to me about it. And, worse, she didn't die. But I wouldn't wait for another chance. I promised myself that the latest ass-whuppin' I'd taken would be the last one.

- A few weeks after my miscarriage, Tim finally called. He was in Texas and said he was having a "good ol' time." When I thought no one could hear me, I whispered to him that I'd lost the baby. He sounded sad, but when I told him that Diane made Connie and the other girls jump me, he didn't believe me.

"Who would do such a thing?" he asked.

Why would I lie about a thing like that? When I first met Tim, I'd told him about Diane and her violence. At the time he believed me; he'd suffered abuse from his own father. But now he thought siccing a group of girls on a pregnant girl was just too unbelievable.

"Maybe they were just playing," he continued. "Maybe they didn't really mean to hurt you, but somehow during y'all's wrestling it got out of hand. Nobody could be that mean. That's just downright evil."

I was sick and tired of telling folks about this crazy woman and no one believing me.

This bitch is evil! Get your head out of your ass! Wake the fuck up! This is real! This shit is real!

But, I couldn't respond. Diane had come and stood in the doorway, staring at me intently as she listened to my conversation.

Tim was still making empty promises about coming to get me, but I no longer cared. I didn't care about anyone or anything-not even myself. Still, I didn't want Diane to know she'd been right about Tim. She had always said that black men "weren't shit," and that since Tim was a black man, he would never come through for me because he was doing only what all black men did: talk shit. So although I wanted to cuss him out and tell him to kiss my ass for not believing me, I didn't. Instead, I looked Diane dead in the face, smiled, and said, "Okay, baby, I'll see you when you get here," and hung up. I never saw or spoke to Tim again.

- The conversation with Tim made me abandon any hopes of killing Diane, because I realized that if I got caught, no one would believe me about the things she'd done. Hell, Tim was my man and he didn't believe me. The judge in San Diego didn't believe me. Social workers didn't believe me. With my luck, if I did kill her, I'd just end up in jail; so she'd still win. I decided I wasn't going out like that.

It didn't take long for Diane to return to her old self. Not long after my conversation with Tim, Diane decided she needed to do something about me because she said I "wasn't gon' bring no more black ghetto bastards" into the world. So she took me to a free clinic and forced me to get an IUD. At first, I didn't know what an IUD was. I sat there as she completed all the paperwork and answered all the doctor's questions. It wasn't until I was screaming from the pain of having the IUD inserted inside me that the doctor told me what it was. "It's a form of birth control," he said. "But unlike the pill, now that it's inserted, there's nothing more for you to do-ever."

At first I was pissed at Diane. But I soon got over it, because it meant that now I could really run the streets and not worry about remembering to take my birth-control pills, finding the damn things, or getting pregnant. And since it was time for me to run again, that would be a plus.

- The next night, I slipped out the window and hitchhiked out of Lancaster. I was standing on the side of the highway where my previous ride had dropped me off. I had no idea where I was, nor did it really matter. I stuck out my thumb and waited for the next ride to pick me up. A white car pulled over and a white man told me to hop in. I did.

"Where ya goin'?" he asked as we pulled into traffic (the usual question).

"As far as you can take me" (my usual reply).

We rode for a while in silence. Then, out the blue, he told me he was a cop. He just announced it-just like that. At first I didn't believe him. He wasn't in a police car, he wasn't wearing a uniform, and I couldn't see a gun.

"You don't look like no cop."

He said his car was unmarked, and that his gun was in a holster under his jacket.

Shit, I thought when I realized he really was what he said he was. It crossed my mind to jump out, but the car was moving too fast.

I asked him if he was going to take me to jail or, worse, to a foster home. He said he wasn't interested in taking me to jail or any foster home. Turns out, he was interested in having "cheerleading practice."

It no longer shocked or bothered me that men-young and old alike-wanted young girls. I had been turning tricks since I was eleven-always with older men who willingly paid extra because of my age. Nor did it shock me that this one was a cop. In fact, I never really thought twice about it because, hell, I figured a cop's money would spend just like anyone else's.

We pulled over on a small, quiet street and, after he removed his holster, we had cheerleading practice in his car. Afterward, he paid me twenty dollars and took me to the county line. I got out, stuck out my thumb, and waited for the next ride.

- I continued to hitchhike and turn tricks for a few months. I also added a new drug to my arsenal-methamphetamine, more commonly known as crystal. A white boy had picked me up somewhere near Oxnard and said he was headed for Beverly Hills. Since I rode with the ride and went where the ride went, I went with him to Beverly Hills.

At some point in the ride, he pulled over at a liquor store to get some beer. When he returned, I lied and said that it was my birthday. "Well, that calls for a special celebration," he said as he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small folded piece of white paper. As I watched with interest, he carefully unfolded the paper, used his pinkie fingernail to scoop up some of the white powder inside, and sniffed. I'd done coke before, so I figured that's what it was. It was white like coke and powdery like coke. But when I sniffed the powder from his pinkie nail, my eyes watered and my nose burned. Coke never burned like that-and I'd had the best of the best. I grabbed my ears and pushed them tight against my head in an attempt to suppress the burning.

"Fuck!" I yelled. He quickly snatched the paper away so the powder wouldn't spill or my breath blow it away. "What is that shit?" (I'd do the drug and then ask what is was.) He started laughing. "It's crystal, girl. You ain't never had no crystal?"

Nope. That was my first time. But as the burning sensation in my nose began to disappear, and as my heartbeat started to speed up, I knew this would not be the last time.

The ride ended on Rodeo Drive. I had no idea about Rodeo Drive or where it was. I vaguely remembered folks talking about it when I was with Tim, hanging out in Hollywood. But I was loaded and couldn't quite remember what the hype about it had been. I didn't have to stand there long before another car pulled up. A nice Mercedes.

That's my claim to fame in Beverly Hills: I turned a trick on Rodeo Drive.

I finished my fame on Rodeo Drive, copped some vodka and orange juice, and stuck out my thumb to catch the next ride. To where? Didn't matter. Long as I was heading south, I was heading away from Lancaster. I was standing in the middle of the street with my thumb stuck out when a cop pulled over. Normally I would've run, but I was drunk, so it took a moment for my brain to register that he was a cop.

He asked my name. Although I had made a vow to use "La'Vette" as my bad name and "Cupcake" as my good one, lately I had begun to confuse the two. Right now, I was so drunk that I'd forgotten which one I was supposed to be.

Don't matter, the booze said.

(You know that alcohol talks to you, don't you? Sure it does. Who do you think convinces the drunk man that he drives better drunk? Who do you think convinces the drunk husband that he should beat the shit out of his wife because she's fucking around on him, or plotting to leave him or kill him? Alcohol! It talks to you. It's says, Go ahead, drive the car! You can see better now than you ever did! Problem, though, is that it turns on you. Yup, sure does. Once it convinces you to do something idiotic, reckless, dangerous, or stupid, that same voice snickers, Ooooooh, YOU done fucked up now!) The vodka was telling me: Fuck him. Give him any name-just be sure to end with asshole.

"Cupcake, asshole!" I bellowed. I tried to get up in his face, but the booze caused me to lose my balance and almost fall on him. Luckily, he caught me.

He was not amused.

"Oh, my God, girl. You're drunk!" He was utterly disgusted. "All right, young lady, let's go," he said as he grabbed my arm and half led, half dragged me to his car.

I was cussing him out the whole way. The booze was telling me, Fuck him! He can't do this to you. Talk about his momma!

So I did. I talked about his momma, calling her every bad name I could think of.

That's right, the booze egged me on. Now call him a short white bastard!

I don't think the cop was really bothered by my talking about his momma, he just ignored me. But I think the reference to his height pissed him off, because he roughly snapped on cuffs and harshly tossed me into the back of his car. As he angrily drove off, the same booze voice that convinced me to curse the cop now, unpredictably, turned on me.

Ooooh, you done fucked up now!

I slumped into the seat as I realized the mess I had gotten myself into. My high quickly vanished.

While he drove, the cop kept glancing at me in his rearview mirror. His anger seemed to gradually dissipate as he realized what he was looking at-a drunken child. He must have had a change of heart. He pulled over and softly said, "I'm going to ask you one more time, 'what's your name?' "

Now that I'd sobered up a little I'd remembered which name I was supposed to be-the bad one.

"La'Vette," I replied, "La'Vette Burns."

While he radioed my bad name in, I fell asleep. He awakened me and told me he was going to do me a favor. Instead of taking me to juvie where we were initially heading, he was going to take me to a shelter home that kept children on an emergency basis. He said that a Mrs. Dobson had reported me missing. He and whoever he'd talked to decided that instead of taking me to jail I should be returned to Lancaster, apparently with no questions asked.

As we drove to the shelter home, he gave me a long, boring talk about how I didn't belong in the streets, how I shouldn't be drinking, and how dangerous hitchhiking was. His sermon put me back to sleep. It's easy to talk that shit when you have a nice, comfortable, loving home to go to that's filled with a warm, caring family. Asshole. He had no idea what he was talking about. He had no idea what I'd been through. He had no idea how stupid he sounded. I couldn't wait to get to the shelter home so I could escape his nonsense.