Juicy Read Free Page B

remember him. Juicy figured that her Momma hadn’t been angry back in those days before he died and when she had a good paying job at the hospital. Juicy would look at the photographs that showed her dimpled grin, and her Daddy with his arms wrapped around the both of them as if he would keep the outside world from touching them. Sometimes she would cry from wishing so hard for a Daddy to protect them.
     
    But he had died and the reality is that a single woman can’t make a car note, pay rent and utilities, AND daycare when you have little more than a minimum wage job. Initially money in their house was tight, but as Juicy got older their income was supplemented by what she brought in from doing hair. Momma worked at a soul food restaurant and so, didn’t have to spend much for groceries. Their meals consisted almost entirely of the leftovers that Momma brought home from work, which meant that Juicy's diet was made up mainly of fatty pork ribs, deep fried fish and fries, peach cobbler, butter cakes etc. The two lived in a one bedroom apartment and Juicy's bedroom was the couch that was sorely inadequate for a girl of her height and weight.
     
    She had very few friends to speak of, which meant the majority of her free time was spent in front of the TV set or reading. She hated school because the kids made fun of her. Juicy wasn't dumb but she failed enough times that she didn't graduate until the age of twenty. Had it not been for the promise that she had made to her Momma, Juicy would have dropped out long before.
     
    To Juicy, friends were people that you sat next to in school. But you didn’t actually call them on the telephone or hang out with them; at least Juicy didn’t. She didn’t really know what it was to have a real friend until Felix. He lived in her apartment complex and people made fun of him because they said he had too much ‘sugar in his tank.’ Sometimes the boys used to chase him and if they caught him they would beat him up or make him pull down his pants and show the girls what he had. She remembered watching Felix from the stoop and how he always had quick come-backs to insults, and also how fast he could run when someone threatened to whup his ass. He could outrun anyone in the neighborhood. It was funny how sometimes talent was derived from necessity. Without the ability to do hair, Juicy would never have had the money to make herself look nice, and Felix was the fastest runner in the neighborhood because he had to be.
     
    One day she was sitting on her stoop playing with her Barbie dolls and he sat down next to her. His eyes were glued to the Barbies. She handed him one and he grinned happily. But then he looked around and told her that they would have to play up on the roof. Shrugging she followed him up there, away from prying eyes and from that day on there was never a day that the two didn’t hang out with each other; either on the roof, in one of their apartments or at school.
     
    Felix was like a girl, though she would never say that to his face, even though she always got caught saying, ‘Girl, let me tell you!’ But he seemed to love it when she did that, so it was never a big deal. He liked to dress up in their mother’s clothes—mostly her mother’s clothes because he said her Momma was hip and his Momma was a thrift store Queen! He liked Barbies and having tea parties. But he also knew how to fight and he taught her how to kick, to punch and to stomp the shit out of someone...but mostly he liked acting like a girl. Felix’s passion was fashion and make-up, and as they grew older his love of fashion spread to her, pushing her to be his model. Felix went a long way in convincing Juicy that just because she was big didn’t mean she couldn’t be beautiful.
     
    As a result, she and Felix dressed better than anybody else in the entire school and she made sure that her hair was more stylish then any of the other girls. Sometimes he would steal outfits for her and sometimes