Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon Read Free Book Online Page A

love me? Ma, you mad at me? And she always say that she would never stop loving me cause I was her firstborn and I came out of her body first and showed her what it meant to really be a woman, so she said that she would never stop loving me. But she ain’t never answer if she was mad at me, she never answered
that question straight. She just say stuff like, I’m sorry for what I put you through, or I should have left, or I wish things would have been better. So I guess she is kind of mad at me, at least a little bit. But after today, I know she still love me. I guess I didn’t want you to know about the things that went on in my house, about that shit that go on behind closed doors that nobody wanna talk about. And I guess I didn’t want you to be mad at me about letting shit go on. I should have been a man. I should have handled shit better.
    I could handle it when Black got up there, told them about that night, how we came home and my mother was all beat up and I grabbed a knife out of the sink and me and my daddy got into it and I just tried to get him off my mother but I stabbed him instead, by accident. Maybe. I don’t care if somebody reading this letter because I need to stand up and be a man and admit the truth to myself. I know Trevon was lying for me up there. I think he don’t think it was a accident, and looking back I don’t think it was either. I think I meant to do it. I meant to kill my father, Natasha. It wasn’t an accident. I did it. I guess I’m just gonna have to live with that. I wanted to shut my ears and crawl down on the floor and die when Trevon started talking about how my daddy swelled up, how he got heavy, how him and me and my mother pulled him in the bathroom and left him there while me and my mom was trying to figure out what to do. Trevon helped me remember it, helped me remember how I felt, how my head was swimming and how I couldn’t breathe or think or eat or dream about nothing but the body the body the body
coming to get me and swallow me whole. I wanted to get up and go out of the room and cry by myself, like a man, but I know I couldn’t get up and go nowhere. I know they would have wrestled me down on the ground and put their knees in my back and on my neck and made my mother cry even more, so fuck it, I just sat there and let tears come down my face. I tried to stop myself, but I just couldn’t help saying, “I’m sorry Ma.” I know I upset the courtroom, but I couldn’t help myself. Ma was really trying to get those people to believe her, to believe that I was a good son. But I know I wasn’t. I lied, I got in trouble in school, I stayed out all night and had her worrying and shit. I guess I did all that shit cause I didn’t want to be at home. I didn’t want to see my daddy hitting her or drinking or running around with other women. I couldn’t stand seeing Tyler and Trevon cry all the time. I couldn’t stand that shit. I didn’t want to see it. But if I would have known my mother was hurting and upset, I would have done better I really would have. I would have been a better son. I got a whole weekend to think about what I’m gonna say when I get up there, how I’m gonna get these people to believe I’m not a monster.
    With love,
    A

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    May 1, 1990
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    Antonio, we can’t change the past. We can only focus on the future. That’s what Madame Girard and Mr. Cook and Mr. Lombard and my mother and my grandma always say to me when I’m mad about something or feeling like I need to fight. Like when the fire happened and we lost my daddy and all our stuff and we had to go live in that shelter while we waited for an apartment to open up. I was so mad at everybody and all I could think about was killing somebody or setting something on blaze so I could burn up too and go be with my daddy again. That’s why we got put out of the shelter, cause they had found me