The Autobiography of Mia Saxon

Chapter One

         I love Men! I don't know how it all started, but I just know I love everything about them. If they belonged to someone else, I loved them even more! Apparently, when I was 2 years old and we'd see momma’s male friends out on the streets, "Dance Mia," she'd say, and I’d do a li'l jiggle and wiggle and wouldn't stop dancing until everyone was holding their stomachs from uncontrollable laughter.
         Of course, I don't remember any of this happening. What I do remember is when I was in the second grade, instead of going straight home after school I walked past my house and went with William to play at his. William wasn’t good looking or anything, he was just a friend. I finally got home around 5:30. Momma was so angry, you'd think I stepped on the dog's paw or something. She was getting ready to call the po-po to report me missing.
         There are six kids in our family and I’m the baby. Jim joined the Navy but got out after four years and got a good job working for the Port Authority as an Accountant. I guess the job was too damn good because soon he was counting dollar bills to see how much drugs he could buy to get him through to next payday. It was all downhill from there: failed marriage, in and out of rehab programs, he jumped from job to job, hid from the man, so on and so forth.
         Under him was Lewis. As far as I remembered, Lewis ain’t never had no girlfriend but he had millions of pictures of his girl friends taped to his dresser mirror. How the hell could he have so many girl friends but no girlfriend? Where she at? Lewis was the one person we always depended on to do anything we asked of him. He was soft spoken, kept to himself, and for the past 20 years he still worked at the same place. Now that’s the kind of man we all need! Oh sure, he smoked his little weed in the back bathroom and outside in the back yard but he never hurt anyone.
         Happy was the next in line. This kid was always happy-go-lucky, never sad about anything so the name suited him perfectly. The only thing I have to say about him is that he had no taste in women, whatsoever! His first girlfriend was very beautiful and his baby momma was really nice, very classy and beautiful, but all those other dogs he brought around, I don’t know what pound he found them at. Why the hell he brought them home is unknown to me. I bet the SPCA didn't care either, they wanted those dogs gone! He probably he felt sorry for them. Hell, how many strays and head cases do you need to pick up off the street before you learn your lesson, boy? One girlfriend called him Hercules; I wondered what his pet name was for her. I could give him a couple of suggestions, let’s begin with Buster, WOOF!! Happy always kept a job, though, I’ll give him that, and he kept the house looking good for momma, putting in bay windows, kept the landscape looking fresh, something was always going on with that house.
         Under him is Deena. She never let me hang out with her and her friends. When she and Lydia went to the baseball games on the Hill, I had to beg and plead to go along and sometimes daddy made her take me along. Not until many years later after I joined the Navy did Deena and I really start hanging out together when I came home on the weekends. She was in love with a tall, bony ass dude, got pregnant by him but had a miscarriage. I was young and didn’t really understand what happened. Her boyfriend had sickle cell anemia and he died some years later.
         Duck is the baby boy and he’s as blind a bat. Ever since the second grade he wore those coke bottle eyeglasses. I hung out with him more than with Deena. We went everywhere together, had the same friends. Duck married his high school sweetheart, Sheryl, and they had six kids. Damn, didn’t they believe in birth control?
         Lastly, there is me, Mia. Some called me red bone, some called me Mitch, but most called me a spitting image of my momma.
         Daddy was a Mess Specialist in the Army and retired in the late sixties early seventies. He had an 8 x 10 picture with his crew cut haircut and looked exactly like Sergeant Carter. Sometimes we felt maybe daddy still thought he was in the Army because there were many times I fell asleep under my bed because I didn’t want to clean my room. Many more times I was up at three in the morning washing dishes because I left a pot undone. Dude woke us up and made us put those pots on the stove and boil the burnt food off the bottom of the pot.
         "C'mon, man!"
         One good thing about daddy being a cook in the Army though, between him and momma we always had good food to eat. When daddy cooked you didn't know it because all the dirty dishes and pots he used were washed and placed back in their proper places the moment he was done using them. Had to be that military training!
         Momma was a private duty nurse and always had jobs taking care of sick white folk either on the Battery, across the Ashley or downtown somewhere. I don’t recall her ever accepting a position to take care of a black person. Still today, you cannot tell her she ain’t white and that she ain’t pee-teet.
         Although we all had our own circle of friends, we were a close knit family. Duck wrote poetry, wrote a little something every now and then but never really took his writing seriously. We sat on the side steps in the back yard with pen and paper, wrote poetry and sang Bee Gees songs many times. I remember the day we buried grandmammy, Wake Up Everybody by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes was on the radio and it played in my head for days and days.
         Back then, we only had one car in the family and I clearly remember me and momma walking three miles to the eye doctors to get my glasses. We walked by my school and I was so happy I didn't have to go to school that day. I remember my teacher, she reminded me of Florida on Good Times.
         I had the usual friends, you know, the ones you fight after school then sleep over at their houses on the weekend like nothing happened. I kicked Mabel’s ass more than once and each time she brought her sisters along for support. I had my girls too and we always sent them home bruised and bloody.
         There was a white church in front of our house with a playground and they did not want us younguns playing in their playground. Shoot, they didn't scare us and everyday we swinged, ran from swing to see-saw to monkey bars, until Chuck came around with his big black dog. We were so afraid of that dog! The stupid dog was harmless but it was so black and that made it more frightening. It was a black lab retriever and he chased us up the monkey bars and barked at us for no reason. Chuck thought it was funny but we were scared as hell, and every time we tried to come down from the monkey bars that fucking dog chased us back up again. Our house was right across the street but we were too scared to even risk jumping down and running home. Chuck’s grandmammy and momma were close friends, still are today.
         The Thompsons lived next to the church. Duck and I were very good friends with Sharon and Marvin, their little brother Billy and their older brother Mikey. Little Billy was like DeeJay on Roseanne, he was always in our space, getting into everything. Sharon’s dad had the biggest nuts I’d ever seen in my life! He was out in the front yard doing some gardening one day and I tried to help him. Not that I was interested in gardening at all, I stared at his nuts! Good gawd, I didn’t know they made them that large!
         Many times Duck and I slept over at their house or they slept at ours. We were like brothers and sisters until they sold their house and moved away. Duck still talks to Mikey every now and then. I hear he’s doing well for himself these days, got himself a string of pawn shops.
         In the sixth grade or so, that's when I really started to blossom. Duck helped coach the softball teams and he also helped out in the community center with the after school and summer programs. I soon got involved with helping out at the community center, and I played on a softball team and eventually helped coach as well. At one point I coached the little pip squeaks, then suited up for my own game later in the day.
         My positions were right field and catcher. I loved the umpires kneeling down behind me and the smell of their cologne. When I was at bat, I made sure I got a good look at the ump and his clean shaven face. If only he knew that homer was for him! Damn, those huge mosquitoes! My running partner, Shaylia, came to the games and cheered me on. Momma came out every now & then and once my oldest brother, Jim, came home from the Navy and watched me play. Dude should've stayed his ass in the Navy, more on him later. I think that was the day I got hit in the head with the ball.
         Judy and I were on the same team and I became good friends with her, her brother Paul and their parents. Oh my gawd, I had this huge crush on Paul because he reminded me of Paul McCartney who, by the way, I also had a huge crush on so it kind of went hand in hand. Hey, to me it made sense, ok? I must’ve made Paul McCartney a millionaire that year because I bought every fucking cassette he had out at the time and memorized the words to all his songs!
         I sat at the dining room table for hours trying to draw Paul’s car. He drove an Elite, then a Cougar. From our front door you could see the main highway and I stood at the door or sat outside looking for him to drive by. My nose was wide open and damn, I wanted that! He looked at me as a kid, I’m sure, but this kid eventually grew up into an 18 year old and he finally gave me what I was waiting for. We finally had sex at his place, and he was horrible! I don't even know why I went back for seconds. Uugghh!
         As I was saying, Shaylia and I became good friends with Judy and her folks and we dropped by their house all the time. Judy's mother was a hoot! She kept us laughing so much all the time. Shaylia liked Judy's dad, and for the life of me I still don't know what she saw in that man. Tall, bony, had no looks whatsoever just some tall, plain old white man.
         Driving back home from their house, “Shaylia, what do you see in that man anyways,” I asked her one day.
         “He has nice lips.”
         We drove by Paul's house all the time too, checking to see if he was home and most of the time he wasn't. When he was home we banged on the door and he wouldn't let us in.