Diary of a Young Girl Read online

  Diary of a Young Girl

  Mark Anthony

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Part I - The Formative Years

  Chapter One - New York–1983

  Chapter Two - The Cycle Continues

  Chapter Three - End of an Era—Fall 1986

  Chapter Four - Hoochie Momma

  Chapter Five - Do As I Say—Not As I Do

  Chapter Six - Kiss and Tell

  Chapter Seven - Drastic Actions—Drastic Measures

  Chapter Eight - A Queens Thing

  Chapter Nine - The Power of the Pussy

  Chapter Ten - Ain’t No Party Like an Underground Party

  Chapter Eleven - Ho Drama

  Chapter Twelve - Heaven to Hell

  Part II - The Early Adult Years

  Chapter Thirteen - The Dream

  Chapter Fourteen - The Chant

  Chapter Fifteen - Still Lying

  Chapter Sixteen - No Love Like A Father’s Love

  Chapter Seventeen - Get Your Lies Straight

  Chapter Eighteen - Reasonable Doubt

  Chapter Nineteen - Crocodile Tears

  Chapter Twenty - New Friends

  Chapter Twenty-one - Ms. Boswell

  Chapter Twenty-two - Mom

  Part III - The Adult Years

  Chapter Twenty-three - The Witness Stand

  Chapter Twenty-four - Kwame

  Chapter Twenty-five - The Verdict

  Chapter Twenty-six - School Daze

  Chapter Twenty-seven - D.E. Shaw & Co.

  Chapter Twenty-eight - The Truth Shall Set You Free—Late Summer 2002

  Chapter Twenty-nine - Real Power

  Epilogue

  Copyright Page

  Part I

  The Formative Years

  Chapter One

  New York–1983

  Dear Diary,

  I was just nine years old when I first held a vibrator. I thought it was a toy until my live-in nanny, Joyce, caught me playing with it and raised her voice, scolding me with her thick Jamaican accent. Unfortunately, Joyce was very sick in the head and on several occasions, either when my dad wasn’t home or when she was bold enough to sneak me into her room, she showed me how to use her vibrator. That was just the start of the sexual abuse that I endured at the hands of Joyce. Only I was too young to really know what abuse was. Like I would always feel awkward and instinctively knew that something was wrong about what Joyce did to me, but at the same time I kind of enjoyed it.

  See, my daddy was a male whore, never home and always out chasing women so I couldn’t run to him. And sadly, my mom had died when I was very young so I couldn’t run to her either. Fortunately for me, I loved to write from as early as I could remember. I loved to create stories that were so compelling and believable just so it could help me escape to a fantasy world, a world where I didn’t have to cope with abuse or with the reality of growing up without my mom.

  Make-believe stories weren’t the only things that I wrote about. I also would write about reality in my secret diary. Early on in my diary I would write deep things for my young age. Like I would ask God how come he didn’t take some little boy’s father away from him, instead of taking my mom away from me. I would write and say that God didn’t love Shayla Coleman because if he did, there is no way that he would have taken my mom from me.

  I reasoned in my diary that fathers usually help their sons with external things that are outside of a boy’s life. Things like learning to tie a necktie, or learning to play baseball, all trivial things like that. But with mothers and daughters it is different, I reasoned. Like only a mom could truly teach her daughter about things that directly impacted her. Internal things. Things like her first period. Training bras for the new bumps that form on a woman’s chest. A daughter can trust a mom when a mom talks to her about sex and what is healthy and what is not. A mother can tell a daughter what is a violation of a woman’s body. And a daughter can trust her mom to go to her for protection when a violation of her body has occurred, especially if it’s a repeated violation.

  But, for me, I didn’t have my mom physically present to help me. All I had was my diary. It got to the point where I stopped writing about deep things and just started writing about the daily things that were happening in my life. What’s funny is before I knew it, those daily things that I was writing about started to take the form and the shape of a full-length novel but I continue to call it a diary. And while my diary may read like a novel, my story wasn’t make-believe. My story was real and my story was just that. My story. A story that started with Joyce “tickling” me with something that was far from a toy and one that progressed into incest, an addiction to pornography, and me living a very promiscuous life.

  Chapter Two

  The Cycle Continues

  My father had an alarm system on our house. It was set up where anytime a door or a window in the house would open a quick, one-time beep or chirp sound would go off, sort of like an alert.

  Well, I was almost sure that I heard that beep sound and I panicked like no end.

  “Joyce! I think my dad is home!” I blurted out to Joyce in a loud whisper as I jumped up in a panic, trying to figure out just what the hell to do.

  “Lawd Jesus!” Joyce screamed in panic and not pleasure as she started scrambling to pick up her clothes.

  She screamed at me to take my things and run upstairs as fast as I could. We were in the living room, which was in the front of the house. Thankfully there was a formal dining room and the kitchen that separated us from where my father had entered the house.

  “Shayla, go in me room and get dressed! Hurry for ya’ fada catch me and kill me!”

  I darted toward the stairs and I glanced at Joyce standing in front of the VCR banging on it and yelling at it, trying to get the tape out. This was 1983 and back then VCRs were big and bulky as hell and loud as hell and slow as hell when it came to ejecting tapes.

  “Shayla!” my father yelled out to me.

  My heart was pounding and I didn’t answer him. I just knew that he had heard the porno tape. I was stiff and frozen because from upstairs I couldn’t see anything and I couldn’t tell if my father had made it into the living room and realized what was going on or what.

  “Shayla!” he yelled out again, only this time the yell was louder and filled up the whole house.

  I managed to put on my pants and as soon as I slipped them on Joyce came bursting into the room and she locked her door behind her. She was breathing really hard to the point where she was almost hyperventilating. The first thing I noticed was that I didn’t see the porno tape in her hand.

  “Hurry up and get dressed!” she screamed at me as she hurried and put on her skintight jeans. She almost tripped and fell on her face in the process.

  “Shayla!” my father shouted again. Only this time I could tell that he was making his way up the steps.

  “Yes, Daddy?” I responded. “I’m in Joyce’s room doing my homework,” I lied. I didn’t know where that lie came from but considering it had been the first day of school, it sounded good and it came off smooth as hell.

  “Okay, listen, I got something for you but it’s in the basement and I need you to stay upstairs for about five minutes or so until I get everything set up and ready. Okay? Don’t come down until I call you.”

  Wheeeeeewwww. I thought as I blew out some air.

  “Okay,” I hollered back.

  My heart continued to beat a mile a minute but I was so damn relieved at that moment and lucky as hell!

  What I later found out was that when my father had initially came home and opened
the side door. He had gone directly to the basement so that he could bring in the dog cage, dog food and supplies he was carrying and wanted to surprise me with. That had been the only thing that had prevented him from coming directly into the kitchen and then into the living room where he would have surely caught me and Joyce.

  Yup, it was my birthday after all, and my missing-in-action father trying to surprise me was the only thing that had saved my ass from a serious ass whoopin’ and Joyce’s ass from being deported or killed or sent to jail, or a combination of all of the above.

  The reason that my father had told me to wait five minutes before coming downstairs was so that he could go back outside to the car and get the puppy that he had bought for me as a surprise.

  Looking back, I don’t know if I should thank God for my father not having caught me and Joyce that day or if I should be mad at God for not allowing my father to catch me and Joyce that day.

  All I do know is that Joyce and I had dodged a major bullet but the thing was, from that day forward I was hooked on watching “girlie flicks” as Joyce described it, and I was also hooked on touching myself. What was even sicker was that having almost been caught, that sort of provided me with an even bigger thrill, as if I was an exhibitionist or something. What’s sad was that I was only in the fifth damn grade at the time and I didn’t have a clue as to the seriousness of what I was being exposed to.

  Chapter Three

  End of an Era—Fall 1986

  By the fall of 1986, Joyce had gotten older and somewhat wiser. I never actually knew her real age because on more than two birthdays, Joyce had told me that she was twenty-two. So I knew that she lied when it came to her age. I think that she was always actually seven to ten years older than any age she would ever tell me. She was a pretty woman who reminded me a lot of the actress Jackée Harry who played Sandra on the TV show 227, only she wasn’t as tall.

  Joyce had managed to establish herself in this country to the point where she was ready to move on to bigger and better things than being a full-time nanny. She had finally gotten her citizenship and she had also managed to get her associate’s degree from Manhattan Community College. With her degree she landed a job at a law firm doing paralegal work. As part of her natural progression she also managed to get herself an apartment of her own out in Queens.

  As for me, I had turned thirteen years old and was in the eighth grade. With Joyce having served as my sexual abuser for the past four years I was fast as lightning. I was armed with sexual experience and skills that most married women in their thirties couldn’t claim.

  I had mixed emotions when I found out that Joyce was leaving. On one hand I was happy for her because she was prospering and progressing. But on the other hand, I was upset because I didn’t want Joyce to go. She was like a rock of stability for me in many ways.

  With my mom having passed when I was so young, Joyce had been like a mother figure to me. In fact, she was really the only mother figure that I knew. And with my father constantly on the go, chasing skirts and tricking money on chicks, I could never bond with him emotionally the way I desperately had wanted to. So emotionally, I guess it was kind of natural that I latched on to Joyce in the maternal kind of way that I had, regardless of her sick ways.

  Joyce had been the one that I had run to when my period came for the first time when I was eleven years old. She’d bought me my training bra and explained to me about cup sizes and all of that. Joyce was the one who had taught me how to cook and how to wash clothes. Joyce taught me about style, fashion, lingerie, and how to walk in heels. She was the one who would wake me up in the mornings to make sure that I was on time for school. She was also the one who would protect me on the few occasions when I’d gotten into altercations with some jealous-ass ghetto chicks from my school in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn.

  Yeah, Joyce was definitely like my mom, a big sister, and playmate all wrapped up into one. What was bugged was that by not having my mom around, I had always just assumed that the sexual things that Joyce exposed me to were the things that my real mom would have exposed me to and taught me had she been alive. It wasn’t until I got older that I learned differently. In my mind, I thought that all of the girls in my school had a mom who watched “girlie flicks” with them and who tickled them in the same way that they would buy maxi pads for them.

  I know it sounds bugged but that was my reality. My reality with Joyce also included the time that she literally stood by and coached me during a threesome. I lost my virginity that day at twelve years old to one of her thirty-year-old jump-offs. Again, I thought all moms were right there in the room with their daughters when they lost their virginity the same way they would be in the room if a doctor was examining their daughter in a hospital or something. How was I supposed to know any different?

  Anyway, when Joyce finally left, it sort of marked the end of an era for me. Yeah, Joyce gave me about two hundred and fifty dollars in hush money and she told me that she would stay in touch with me and visit me and check up on me, but part of me just sensed that she was gonna disappear out of my life in the same way that my real mom had disappeared out of my life. And sure enough, after about two months or so had passed I never heard from or saw Joyce again.

  My father replaced Joyce with a new live-in nanny named Vera. Vera was cool and she too was a young, pretty West Indian girl but she was definitely no Joyce. Vera was way too uptight and she seemed like she didn’t know how to let her hair down. I mean I gave her a chance to see how she would work out but it soon became clear to me that she was not gonna be that mother figure to me that Joyce was.

  But it was cool. Joyce had bounced on me and she couldn’t be replaced. My pops was still missing in action and I was at the point where I stopped hoping and wishing for his attention.

  Looking back, I now know that I had this real big emotional void that I was desperately trying to fill. That is why I probably turned my attention to being desired and noticed by my classmates. I soon got on a quest to become popular and accepted at all costs.

  I was only thirteen and in the eighth grade, but I was about to get buck-ass wild!

  Chapter Four

  Hoochie Momma

  I was light-skinned with hazel eyes and naturally straight hair that extended down to my shoulders. I was extremely attractive with an Alicia Keys type of look. At thirteen years old, my five-foot-four-inch body was developed like that of a nineteen-year-old college freshman, complete with big legs, full C-cup breasts, and a nice onion booty. Yet despite all of my physical attributes I never felt like I looked good or was all that pretty.

  So despite all of the attention that I would receive from the opposite sex I would always dress in the tightest jeans and the tightest shirts that I could fit into. When it came to shorts, they had to be short shorts. Although I liked wearing sneakers, I preferred to wear heels or some type of sexy open toes shoes or sandals.

  To say I dressed provocatively—well, that would be an understatement. A hoochie momma would be a better way to describe how I looked on most days when I would head out of my house and make my way to school.

  The thing was that my hoochie momma look did get me the type of attention that I was craving and usually that attention was from guys who were older than myself. For the majority of the time I would get approached by guys who were in high school and in college but more and more I was also the recipient of catcalls and comments from men who looked old enough to be my daddy.

  Although I wasn’t in high school, my route home from school would take me right past Canarsie High School and put me in constant contact with a lot of the students who went to Canarsie High. That was how I had come to meet this guy who everybody called BK.

  BK was a super-senior and he had that sexy, thugged-out look. Me and BK would make small talk every time I would see him. He would always come at me with comments about how good I looked and how I was so sexy and all of that. Usually I would flirt with him as well but I kept it to just flirting. In the back of
my mind, I knew that I was eventually gonna call his bluff.

  Not much longer after the time that Joyce had totally disappeared on me, I walked into this bodega located on Rockaway Parkway, the same bodega that I would go into everyday after-school. It was at the start of the wintertime so the bodega was sort of like an impromptu after school gathering spot where everyone could gather and escape the cold winds and kick it with each other before heading home.

  I walked into the bodega with one of my home-girls named Angie. Angie and I were so much alike when it came to our style of dress and the hoochie momma mentality that it was scary. The only difference between the two of us was that Angie was dark-skinned and I was light-skinned. I mean, I knew that Angie didn’t know as much as I knew sexually—in fact, she was still a virgin—but she had this vibe that she would give off and from that vibe, I knew that she would always be open and down for whatever.

  Angie and I were both in the bodega just standing around chat-chatting when BK, who was also in the bodega, walked past us. He didn’t immediately recognize me, so I playfully pushed him in his back.

  “Oh shit! What’s up Shayla?”

  “How you gonna just walk past me like that and not speak?”

  “My bad,” BK said while licking his lips like LL Cool J. “With that big ass of yours I don’t know how I didn’t see you.”

  I just laughed at BK’s comments, but at the same time I loved the fact that he’d taken notice of my ass. I was wearing a Triple F.A.T Goose jacket that stopped right at my waistline. Although it was wintertime and I had to cover myself up to keep warm I made sure that I always showed off my ass no matter what I wore.

  “BK, you know you don’t know nothing about this,” I said while trying to squeeze one of my hands into the back pockets of my jeans while simultaneously placing a blow pop into my mouth using my other hand.