Iris

“Ow mama! That hurt!” 7 year old Iris cried between her mother's legs. Her eyes stinged the color red from forceful tears escaping her sockets.

“So sit still;” her mother Martha warned “if you wanna go outside and play, you have to let me finish detangling your hair.”

Iris winced at her mother's intense tug on the pink comb through her thick afro hair. The room reeked of Sulfur 8 hair grease and hot comb heat. It was the same routine every week since the beginning of summer in 07. Martha would pull Iris out of bed in the morning and force her to go wash her hair. After constant back-and-forth Iris would always end up doing it anyway, which would then lead us back to this exact moment right here.

"I can't have my baby out here looking like 74th street.” Martha huffed out a ridiculous laugh at her own joke, as she leaned back into the couch stomping both her feet on either side of Iris.

“Rochelle said that on one of them episodes of Everybody Hates Chris. You remember that baby?” She asked, using the comb in Iris's hair to tilt her head upward and face her.

“I'll tell you what, I know you’re mad, so when I'm done with your hair I'll go find you the cutest lil outfit to go show them kids at the park alright.” Iris nodded at her proposition and used her hand to swipe away her last single tear.

Iris was the baddest little girl on the block, and by the way she strutted her lil short dark skin legs whilst hand in hand with her mom, she knew it too. Her mother had cornrowed three braids in the front of her head going upward and connected them into a false crown. She then slathered a shit ton of crystal gel all over her baby hairs to slick all of it to the front into a clean ass bun. That’s right, her baby was looking like a princess. When they arrived to the park Iris jetted to a crowd of her friends by the sprinklers to show off her new hair and belted blue romper. In hopes of joining in on the fun, she had packed a sack of colorful water balloons and was planning to hand them out to the rest when she noticed the gaze of Reina, the daughter of one of her mother’s friends. No one was ever really messing with her as much as she thought they were, especially since she still sucked her thumb and had the nerves to be rubbing her smelly spit finger on everybody! It was of no interest of Iris to befriend her after she gave her bestie Talia a black and blue by the jigsaw bridge in class.

Iris attempted to ignore Reina and continued to distribute the water balloons to her clique, while Martha caught up with the other parents on the black benches, gossipping about everyone else's business, but their own. One topic that was particularly off limits were the details about Iris’s father’s case and sentence. The women knew that, although their curiosity attacked them like a bat to the cranium. Martha’s husband had gotten locked up for doing some dumb shit that everyone knew his ass shouldn’t have been involved in and was now facing 35 to life. As soon as Martha got that call from Rikers, she marched right on down there and handed the ring back to him. She wanted to look him in the eyes herself and let him know in person that he was alone and she would not allow his stupidity to compromise that of the life she's built for herself. That was the reason he never laid sight on his daughter since her birth and wasn't holding his breath for the day.

"Mama!" Iris’s tearful cry caught the attention of her mother in an instant. She rushed to her daughter's aid, the other parents not too far behind. "What’s wrong baby?" Martha's eyebrows furrowed, she was seemingly confused as she scanned over the crowd of children who all had plastered smiles onto their faces besides Iris, who was now huffing out her tears like a toddler.

"Well?" One of the parents chimed in "what happened?"

A wave of silence washed over the children which irritated Martha even more. Her patience was being tested and if one of them kids didn't open their mouth and start talking soon, she was going to lose it.

"Well I ain't no snitch, but... " Albyn, the tall kid with four pieces of teeth glued to the inside of his mouth began "Reina and her friends were making fun of Iris for being darker than us. They was calling her all kinds of animals from the zoo." A couple of kids covered their lips with their hands to conceal their chuckles. At this point Martha was furious.

"I don't want to be here anymore" Iris tugged her mother's hands and gestured towards the exit of the park. "Let's go, mama."

Martha nodded, tears beginning to sting her eyes as well, she couldn't help but feel powerless as she watched her miniature self with her bright brown eyes in her cute blue romper, on the brink of tears because the other kids made her believe that her dark skin made her an animal. She swiped away the single tear that escaped her eye and followed her daughter as she led them back to the gates and through the exit.