I was known as the crazy bitch around town after that night.  Friends I haven’t heard from in years hit me up asking if it was true.  As the word of mouth spread quickly, I became the latest chisme at local bars in Pacific Beach, something for his boys to gossip about as they chugged their beers leading into the early morning stumbling back to his studio apartment.

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The first time we met I originally thought he would be a one night stand as intended.  In my journal, I scribbled the names of every guy who rejected me, crossing out each name, because I “wasn’t what they were looking for.”  The list grew to a couple of pages front and back, so when I came across his social media page, we began chatting, exchanging phone numbers.  When he called, I immediately blushed when he said his name, “Hi, it’s _______,” my voice turning girly.  Agreeing to to meet up at the Blue Foot Bar by the end of the week, he promised, “I have all the kisses in the world for those pretty little lips of yours.”

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By the time he showed up at Blue Foot, I was already a few tequila shots in, feeling loose and warm.  I posted in the back of the bar, crossing my legs, checking my hair and make-up before he walked in.  We made eye contact from across the bar as he nodded with confidence strutting in my direction.  As he reached me, he grabbed a chunk of my hair, putting it back and stuck his tongue down my throat.  The ladies next to us were even engaged in our kiss, “Damn!” they shout, but we don’t stop.

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We ordered more shots, and the rest of the night was a blur.  If we spoke, I didn’t remember.  If I fell, I didn’t remember.  If we fucked, I didn’t remember, and that is how the night ended.  I woke up naked in my bed with him laying next to me.  The room smelled like ass.  I touched my pussy, slimy with his cum, my bed covered in wet spots.

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“I drove you home,” he said as he opened his eyes.

“How did you know where I lived?”

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“Your driver’s license.”  He pops out of my bed and finds his jeans tangled with my underwear.  He fastens his pants throwing his shirt over his shoulders, “I have to run to wrestling practice.  I’ll call you later,” and he was out the door.  Nobody ever called me back after they tapped my ass, but to my surprise, a few days later, he did.  I ripped out the pages in my journal of the guys who rejected me because I had finally found someone.

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But, again, I was a stupid bitch.  The first clue was when we met up again, this time with his boys.  He didn’t even greet me with a kiss, just a random hi.  He ordered a round of beer for the table.

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“Damn girl, you look good,” he said rubbing the waitress on her back.  He sized her up and down, another cute skinny blonde.  I silently stood across the table, but he didn’t notice me staring at him or he didn’t seem to care, but I stuck around.  Maybe it was a mistake for me to be there, while I listened to him share wrestling stories of how he beat the shit out of this guy and fucked the shit out of this girl.  He’s with his boys, I said in my mind, giving him an excuse as to why I felt so small.  After the bar, we cruised back to his studio to fuck, and I gave it up every time.  It was an easy way for him to keep seeing me, a guaranteed piece of ass.

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I knew the news would eventually come since a burning sensation stung as I pissed, “You just have to get over it or else we’re not going to work out.”

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“Who is she?”

“A girl in the complex, but that doesn’t fucking matter.  I told her I wanted to be with you.  You should be happy about that.”

“How did you find out?”

“She called me.  She got tested, and it came back positive. It’s not a big deal,” he said as he tossed the number to Planned Parenthood, “there’s one down the street.  I already went in for my appointment.  They gave me this powder stuff to cure it.  It takes about two weeks to completely go away.”  He sang a Sublime song as he stood up from the couch to grab a can from the fridge.  He cracked it opened and smiled at me as he chugged his beer.  “You didn’t want kids, anyways.”  And I just agreed with him.

 

On his 30th birthday, it was another borachera as usual, the alcohol poured itself as everyone crammed into his studio.  The Chargers secured a victory, and the celebration grew intense.   Mixed shots of cheap bottles passed around in a circle.  I took my fair share, eventually passing out on the couch.  The room was spinning, and I buried my head in a pillow covered with my drool.  It was hard to breath until my eyes fell shut.  I don’t know how long I stayed passed out, but when I woke, it was dark, and I was alone.

I always heard of crazy bitches who destroyed their man’s belonging, cutting holes in his clothes or slashing his tires.  I had never done anything like that until now.  By this time, his flirting, his STD, his trips to the strip club, my loneliness, built inside me, and I let it out in the most violent way, picking up random shit that were in arms reach and throwing it like a baseball across the room: bottles, lamps, ash trays, dishes, even a painting I gifted for him when his childhood friend, Larry, hung himself because his girlfriend left him for another dude.  As junk piled into the kitchen area, a cloth lying on top of the stove cough on fire.  I stumbled to the sink to fill a glass with water, putting out the mild fire with the single glass.  Since there were no windows in his studio, I slid open the back door to air out the place.   

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“What the fuck are you doing you psych bitch!” his brother screamed shoving me out of the way.  Later in the court documents, it found out that is brother returned to the studio for the pills he forgot before heading to the tittie bar for more partying with the birthday boy.  More names launched my way, so I left, leaving them with the mess.  A crazy Mexican bitch with scraggly black hair and sleeve tattoos is easy to spot in the beach community.  That’s how the cops were able to identify me quickly when they stopped me as I walked down the street catching me off guard. “You are under arrest for arson.”  The cop folded my hands behind my back and tightly handcuffed my wrist pressing my face on the hood of the cop car.  I am groped for weapons or narcotics, and the cop pushed me in the back seat.

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I am driven to Las Colinas, the women’s prison, where my mug is taken, and I am booked for felony charges.  The holding cell reeked of urine, benches covered in filth, and the ventilation turned up to its max.  Some ladies were passed out on the floor, others stood.  I sat on the corner of the bench and hugged myself since I wasn’t wearing a jacket at the time of my arrest.

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“You cold, honey?  They be up in here wanting us to freeze to death,” a hefty lady wrapped her arms around me, “my name is Opal, darling.”  Opal looked like she was in here a time or two.  A permanent scar stretched across the top of her lip.  She squeezed me in tighter, “No need to be scared, first timer.  We have each other’s back up in here.”  Opal was arrest for beating up her boyfriend, again.  “I dragged him to the ground and beat his ass.  I done told this heffer I’d put hands on him if he touched me like that.  Fool found out the hard way I ain’t playing with his ass.”  As a little girl, Opal was molested by her grandfather, and she promised herself that, at no cost, will a man ever touch her like that again.  Her father was shot by the police, which plunged her mother into prostitution, leaving Opal to be raised by the streets.  When she found an eviction notice taped to the front door, she had no choice but to drop out of high school to slang rocks, a trade dominated by the men on the block.  Opal wouldn’t even flinch at gun point.  Just gave the gunman the money and the drugs then went about her average day.  Although school wasn’t much of a priority, Opal missed the free food, school being the only time she ate.  “I had to feed myself, dress myself, and protect myself.”  Opal was an exception to the rules of the hustle game.  Her knuckles were hard, and her chin was even harder.  She could take a stiff one to the jaw if a dude was close enough to connect.  When she wasn’t running in the streets, she was found in the boxing gym sparring with grown men.  “I had to.  It was survive or die for me.  I was walking down an alley where I usually found leftover meals thrown in the dumpster.  When I was digging through one of them trash cans, I came across this here flyer that advertised for a month worth of free boxing lessons.  I didn’t have nothing to lose.  Might as well give it a shot.  They done laugh at me when I first walked in, but I had so much anger built inside of me, I let it all out in that ring.  I always caught them with my left hook.  Them heffers seen it coming,” she slapped her knee with excitement,  “Coach Padilla saw potential in me and took me under his wing.  He was, and still to this the day, my only father figure.”

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Coach Padilla trained Opal under the condition that she completed her G.E.D.  At her graduation ceremony, he surprised her with a boxing charm and platinum chain.  When she open the box, she cried, for the first time, tears of joy.  She never owned anything of value or at least anything she didn’t hawk from suburban homes.

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As an amateur boxer, Opal was undefeated, ready to turn pro, but she found herself back behind bars before her first professional bout, the streets always catching up to her.  “I was the heavy favorite going into my first professional fight.  I already earned my nickname ‘The High Jacker’ from the boys on my block, so the named carried over to the ring.  I was in the locker room wrapping my hands, getting ready to a sparring session  Coach Padilla walked in and broke the news that he could no longer train me.  At first, I though he be playing, but then I saw worry on his face. Coach Padilla don’t be worrying like that.  Three months later he died of brain cancer, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.  I braided my hair in cornrows, strapped on my Dickies and wife beater and returned to the block.  Oh Lord, I really did want to be a good person,” she said as she made a sign of the cross in the air.  “Society gets it twisted about us locked up.  We not all bad peeps.”

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After Opal was done telling her story, I shared the reason for my arrest.  The night passed, and I pressed my head against Opal’s shoulders and curled into her arms for protection.  I closed my eyes, and she crest my hair, “Everything will be alright, baby girl.  He won’t hurt you again,” her voice grew smooth, “I promise.”