Never be ashamed of your tears

"The mo' you cry duh less you piss!" she spewed.  As if I didn't know how much she hated me.  I was eight years old, captured, imprisoned by a black hearted sadistic demon.  I knew the b**** hated me.  I always knew.  There was never  any doubt in my mind.  The truth was I didn't like her a** much either.

"Common!"  I was a child and had sense enough to be repulsed by her proclivities.  She said I was too dark, too black to love.  That's not why.  My father rejected her.  He couldn't marry a whore.  Not one that had her lovers after him, trying to shoot him, to fight him.

Why couldn't she get it?  There is no way to be a slick whore.  She thought it was unfair, the way men could be whores and women couldn't.  There was and still is a double standard.  It might not be fair.  But, it is the way of our world.   She claimed she hated me, my brothers, my family.  In truth it was herself that she hated.  I think she really hated being so promiscuous.  But she couldn't help it.  She was beautiful.  Men did hound her.  She could never hold her liquor.  Some cousin from Detroit told her that she was "sitting on a gold mine".

Lazy as a dog because her dark skinned mother never made her do a lick of work. "I didn't hit a lick at a black snake."  Never did an honest days work.  She was looking for a short cut to success.  Why work, read a book or study if you could make money on your back?  Wrong choice.  Didn't she know she was going to be talked about, scorned?

You can't have baby after illegitimate baby in a small town and think you are not going to be talked about.  Did she think XXX XXX was going to marry her at sixteen?  Did he lie to her? Did he trick her?  Or was she trying to trick him?  He was fine! Pure-tee beautiful!  The man was movie star fine. The only thing he ever gave her was a pretty baby.

She was sixteen and ruined (so she thought).  Did she decide to fix the world, to ruin everyone in her world because she was ruined?  One thing for sure, she vowed to never cry.  And never has.  She'll make you cry, but she won't cry.  I guess tears are a sign of weakness to her.

I cry now.  She stopped me from crying at age eight.  I tried to make myself hard.  I was a tough little nut.  I was violent.  In my youth I used to carry a pistol every where I went in Atlanta.  I had a nice little feminine carrying case for my .38 H/R.  I would pull it on you.  I would slap it in your face.  We laughed and called it a "great equalizer" .  It more than made up for my petiteness .

People in my family are known for carrying guns and shooting people.  "Don't mess wid dem Walters, dem niggas are crazy and they will shoot to kill."  They say my great grandmother Mary was famous for shooting at niggas. As was her mother before her.

One day I started crying.  I can't remember the exact day.  This hardened little violent woman softened, begged GOD for forgiveness.  Gave away my gun.  I discovered GOD's WORD was mightier than any pistol loaded with hollow point bullets.

I cry.  So what? "Jesus wept."