Thong on Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

flying through the air too.

    I was still mad with Paris when Aunt Ruthie called us into the kitchen to eat dinner. I walked in there dragging my feet ’cause I hated everything she cooked. All them damn vegetables and lettuce and baked meat that didn’t taste like nothing. I wasn’t big on stuffing my stomach anyway, but if I had to eat, then gimme some hot chicken wings from the Chinese man on the corner, or maybe some barbeque ribs and fries, or some Ramen noodles with a frank sliced up in it.
    Aunt Ruthie didn’t really like me and I knew it. Whenever I came to her house she made me strip naked outta my Harlem clothes at the door and then get straight in the bathtub so I could be scrubbed clean.
    “Girl, you got to be washed,” she would say, hustling me into the bathroom, “’cause ain’t no way in hell you climbing in Paris’s bed smelling like that!”
    Yeah, Aunt Ruthie fed me and ironed my clothes and she didn’t feel me up or beat my ass. She treated me all right when Uncle Swag was around, but when he wasn’t there just her whole attitude made me feel dirty and low, like a nasty little beggar. The only time she ever really touched me was when she was scrubbing me hard enough to make my skin scrape off. She never hugged me or told me I was cute. She never let Paris come over to my crib neither, and I knew it was because of Kimichi.
    I’d heard Aunt Ruthie telling one of her ugly church friends that my daddy must’ve been a real fool for dragging that Chinese hooker outta some back alley in Seoul when there were plenty of two-cent whores up for sale right on the streets of Harlem.
    I might have been just eight, but already I understood that women like Aunt Ruthie looked down on people like Kimichi and me. My mother stuck out in Harlem because Asian junkies with half-black children weren’t an everyday sight on our streets. But I had Aunt Ruthie figured out, though. Paris mighta had the finest stuff money could buy, but she was still ugly, short, knock-kneed, and had her mama’s big forehead. Whenever we were out together I was the one people ooohed and ahhhed over. They played in my curly hair and rubbed my smooth light-brown skin. They told me I had the cutest little bowlegs and the prettiest slanted eyes, just like a black Chinese. Nobody said much of nothing about Paris, except when they was complimenting her on her clothes. She was just regular looking. There was nothing cute about her at all, especially with that rock-head of hers, and I didn’t care how pressed she dressed, or how many top beauty salons permed her hair and hot-curled her bangs. There was no hiding that big shiny dome Paris was packing, and even Aunt Ruthie knew I looked way better than her daughter did.
    I kissed Uncle Swag’s cheek as I walked past his chair at the head of the dinner table. He grinned and nodded at me as I took the seat across from Paris. I could feel Aunt Ruthie staring at me, looking for something to be disgusted about. I always tried to act real sweet and innocent around her, but she knew what it was. She took up for Paris all the damn time, but if she hurt my feelings too bad, I’d just get Paris alone in her room and kick her ass until I felt better.
    Aunt Ruthie mighta been richer than me and Kimichi, but when it came to being up on her shit I had her blinded. She might have been black, but she wasn’t half as slick as my Korean mother was. She left her stuff laying around everywhere, and I hit her purse for five or ten dollars almost every time I visited because she carried so much bank that she didn’t even miss it.
    I played with my food a little bit and laughed when the baby, Kaz, threw broccoli chunks all around the room. Uncle Swag laughed too, rubbing his little boy’s head and reaching over to push some dry-ass turkey in his mouth. Aunt Ruthie acted like she was mad about all that food getting all over the floor, but I could tell she was fronting and felt real good about her little family.
    I