Man Curse by Raqiyah Mays

of his height. I had his brown hair, which when under stress tended to fall out at the top of the scalp. I even developed the dry caramel skin that peeled and itched in the summer sun. And a back full of clogged pores and spotted with acne scars.
    The stories Mom shared about my father, outside of his physical flaws, always began with “You look so much like him.” She’d stare at me in awe and then speak in the past tense: “He loved you so much. He loved him some Meena.”
    She told me we had a wonderful relationship. I was Danny Butler’s little girl, wrapping my arms around his leg as he dragged me from room to room, cooing and giggling. The same couldn’t be said of his relationship with Mom, though. Their tumultuous romance turned dark, somewhere in the street, with fists and fights. There’s one episode she shared that stands out, because I was asleep in the backseat when it took place.
    â€œWho’s that?” my father asked, waiting for an answer. He leaned on the Caddy with arms crossed. Toothpick in mouth, checkered applejack hat to the left, blue collared shirt opened to the chest, and black corduroy bell-bottoms sweeping the ground. He’d stopped to pick Mom up from NYU’s campus and take her to work. But she was always late, running with perspiration. The excuse this day: her missing book.
    â€œStupid,” Danny huffed. “How do you lose one of those big-ass million-page novels?”
    â€œI told you not to call me stupid.”
    â€œWhy, Deena?” he asked as he gunned the gas and sped off, screeching down the block. “Would you rather me use one of those big words you learned in your big college books?”
    â€œNo, I’d just rather you pick one up and get some common sense,” she replied, buckling her seat belt. My mother’s sarcasm was legendary. Quick with the comeback, sometimes funny, often insulting, her mouth was her most powerful weapon and biggest downfall.
    SMACK!
    The sound came from my father’s right hand smashing into Mom’s exposed cheek. He somehow still managed to expertly drive with his left hand, maneuvering the steering wheel down the street.
    Violence wasn’t a surprising occurrence between Danny and Deena. Although they’d been together three years, their relationship had moved as fast as a NASCAR race. Celebrating their six-month anniversary, they announced she was pregnant and moved in together. Over the following months, his tantrums escalated into pushes, grabs, and nighttime slaps. By day, he spent hours on the downtown streets of Brooklyn, sitting at a six-foot table, selling bronzed jewelry and mahogany figurines to black power people looking for African scenery. While away from him, my mother would map out an escape route inside her head, calculating. But at the end of each day, she always stayed. Even as the beatings grew more painful and frequent. Her love, entangled and twisted, was rooted in a codependent pity for a man she felt needed her, because he didn’t have the stable funds to rent an apartment alone.
    â€œWhat now?!” he screamed with an indignant look of self-justification as he made a left onto Gates Avenue. My mother grabbed her throbbing left eye, exploding into a purple mass of swollen skin. “What now?!” he repeated, waiting for an answer, looking for a reason to strike again. “Smart-ass motherfucker.”
    Mom cowered in the seat, tears flowing, her sight blurry. When the Caddy screeched to a stop at a red light, she jumped out, pulled off her black platform shoes, and limped down the block. Her Afro crooked, mascara running, she never looked back.
    Cars blew horns as rubbernecking drivers stretched to see why some barefoot woman was walking down the block in November. My father watched, too, a tiny smirk on his face. He crept along behind her sad stride as she turned onto a quiet, tree-lined block and picked up the pace. Danny expertly parallel