How to Escape From a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique Page A

go to UVI, but I’m old now. You know. When would I have time? Between selling shades to the tourists at the Sun Shack and sitting at the bottom of the park slide with my pockets full of dime bags. I mean, I know things. I read the entire newspaper every day. And sometimes Yolanda and I shout each other down over politics. We teach each other stuff. This is love, son. The real thing.
    One day I up by Fish and as usual Yolanda waiting in the car. This time I have my gun and I open my shirt to show him. “Listen,” I tell him. “I ain smoking it all. It’s that shitty skunk weed come in from Jamaica. It making everybody sick. Even I can’t smoke it. Either I sell it cheap or we go in the hole.” He want me to sell some coke to make up. I tell him I’ll come back for it cause my lady in the car and it’s bad enough I carry my gun around with her. I don’t want her caught up in nothing. He give me a hard time but I remind him that I been his partner for years. I’ll come the fuck back after I drop her off. I hate that Fish nigger, but he my cousin on my mom’s side—so I suppose to know that he won’t really kill me. And he’s suppose to know that I won’t really sell him out.
    I’ve been up in Fish’s house this time for only thirty minutes when I get back to the car. Instead of legs up on the dash, she hunched forward. When I open the car she jump and hide her arms. That messes me up. See, once I dated a girl who started shooting. I saw her arms all scarred and blue and it frig me up so bad I never sold heroin again. I never touched her again either. So now I’m freaking out, thinking I done turned my angel Yolanda bad and we in the car right in Fish’s driveway struggling. She thicker than me but I still stronger and taller than her. She forget that even though I skinny, I could still pick her up and slam her on the bed.
    I get her arms in front and see words written on them. It freaks me out. But it’s just words. “Stop looking,” she says. “Stop reading.” Lord Harry the Judge. I lay back in my seat and I just ask, “This is stupid. You couldn’t find no paper?” She shakes her head, “I left my notebook.” I open the golf and show her the roller paper, like a small notepad. “I didn’t think of that” she say with her voice going all Yankee now. And then she crying like I hit her or something. She sit on her hands the whole drive back. Keep her arms tight by her side. Tonight, I think, I going kiss those arms. I going lick every word if she let me.
    When we at her gate I stop her and say, “Why won’t you let me see what you write?” And she just shrug. I ask if she let anyone see and she look out the window like she talking to somebody in the street. “I got some poems published in the college magazine.” I nod. “Anybody on island read it?” And she look at the roof of my car. She reach up and pick at the felt that’s coming loose. I don’t have a drug dealer’s pimped-out ride. I just have a regular four-runner. She look at the roof like it’s falling in and it is. She say, “I sometimes read at this open mic down in Fredericksted.” I pull her face close to mine. I kiss her hard like I know she like it. She does call it “the I love you kiss.” I say, “Next time, I coming with you.” Only when I on my way back to Fish’s do I wonder when and how she go there without me ever knowing. When I get to her the ink is all washed off.
    For two weeks she forget to tell me about the open mic thing. I act like I don’t care. Instead, I do a little investigation. I hit up my crew in the park. “Like Def Jam on HBO?” they ask. I say yeah, but still they don’t know nothing. I ask my moms. I check the paper. I ask the lady I sell shades with. Nothing. So I do something bazadie. I stake my girl out. I borrow one of Fish’s cars and I park down the street, watching her house in the side mirror. On the fourth night she come out around nine. She suppose to be hanging with her