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  for the black man to have to see this raping.

  My baby is pretty baby. I don’t not love him. He is a rapist’s baby. But that’s OK, Miz Rain say we is a nation of raped children, that the black man in America today is the product of rape.

  Still I don’t want nobody to know but I tell again like when I was twelve. How can I say baby’s fahver unknown when I know?

  School, of everything, I know I want to get back to school. I got little baby suckes at my tittie, at my bress. I love Abdul. He normal. But I ain’? I want to go back to school. Abdul in my way.

  Abdul can not go to Higher Education/Each One Teach One. What I’m gonna do? I love my baby but he ain’ mine, he is but I didn’t fuck for him. I was raped by my fahver. Now instead of life for me I got Abdul. But I love Abdul. I want go school love abdul schoolabdulschoolabdul.

  I write Miz Rain in my journal, when she come hospital she write me back like school: Dr Miz Ms Rain,

  all yr I sit els I nevr lrn

  (all years I sit in class I never learn) bt I gt babe agn Babe bi my favr

  (but I got baby again Babe by my father) I wis i had boy but I don

  (l wish I had a boyfriend but J don ‘i) ws i had su me fucks a boy Ike

  (wish I had excuse me, fucks a boy like) or girl den i fel rite dat I have to qk skool (other girls then I feel right that I have to quit school)

  i lv baby abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz (i love baby)

  Dear Precious,

  Don’t forget to put the date, 1/18/88, on your journal entries.

  I am glad you love your baby. I think a beautiful young girl like you should get a chance to get an education. I think your first responsibility has to be to yourself. You should not drop out of school.

  COME BACK TO CLASS. WE MISS YOU.

  Love Ms Rain

  Ms R Ja 19,1988

  S

  wrk as mi i want to gv Litt Mong Abdul up adopsus

  (Social worker ask me if I want to give Little Mongo and Abdul up for adoption)

  I fel ki her

  (I feel kill her)

  Nevr hep now wnt kiz way

  (Never help now want to take kids away) tsak Abdul i don notin

  (take Abdul I don’t have nothing)

  Precious,

  It seems the opposite to me. If you keep Abdul you might have nothing. You are learning to read and write, that is everything.

  Come back to school when you get out the hospital.

  You’re only seventeen. Your whole life is in front of you.

  Ms Rain

  1/20

  Gr

  cme vit sa onle dog dro babee an wak off (Grandmother come visit say only a dog will drop a baby and walk off)

  say lat no^vipa dog

  (say later not even a dog)

  Dear Precious,

  Don’t forget to put the year, ‘88, on your journal entries.

  Precious you are not a dog. You are a wonderful young woman who is trying to make something of her life. I have some questions for you: Where was your grandmother when your father was abusing you?

  Where is Little Mongo now?

  What is going to be the best thing for you in this situation?

  Ms Rain

  Mss, Rinas

  lot qu u ask Hoo?

  (lot of questions you ask)

  (Who?)

  Nbi

  (nobody)

  aln

  (alone)

  no Frknm

  (no Farrakhan)

  no mmam

  (no mama)

  no gr muver fther fucktz mefrJ

  (no grandmother father fucks me years) lii Mongl with my gr

  (Little Mongo -with my grandmother) bes four mi tostop breev i sm tim tik (best for me to stop breathing I sometimes think) aso i want to b god muvther

  (also I wants to be good mother)

  Precious Jones

  Dear Dear Precious,

  Being a good mother might mean letting your baby be raised by someone who is better able than you to meet the child’s needs.

  Ms Rain

  Mz Rain

  Dan frget rite day Ms R

  (Don’t forget to write the date Ms Rain.) I is be bt meet cldls ed.

  (I is best able to meet my child’s need.) Ms Precious

  Dear Ms Precious, 1/22/88

  When you are raising a small infant you need help. Who is going to help you? How will you support yourself? How will you keep learning to read and write?

  Ms Rain

  Ms Rain

  th wfr hip mma it help mi

  (The welfare help Mama. It help me?) Precious Mi

  Dear Precious Miss,

  When you get home from the hospital look and see how much welfare has helped your mother.

  You could go further than your mother. You could get your G.E.D. and go to college. You could do anything Precious but you gotta believe it.

  Love Blue Rain

  Dear Blu

  I lie tah nme Ms Ran. I ty/ty)

  (I like that name Ms. Rain. Vm tired tired.) Well I honestly did wanna jus’ take Abdul home ‘n rest so I could hurry up ‘n go back to school. But when I git home from the hospital Mama try to kill me. I had told myself if she ever come at me like that again I will stab her to def. But when it happen, when she git up off that couch ‘n charge toward me like fifty niggers, I ran. I just grab Abdul, my bags, ‘n hit the door. I got new baby boy in my arms ‘n she calling me bitch hoe slut say she gonna kill me ‘cause I ruin her life.

  Gonna kill me wif her “BARE HANDS!” It’s like a black wall gonna crash down on me, nuthin’ to do but run. “First you steal my husband! Then you get me cut off welfare!” She MAD! No time to say nothin’. Once I’m outside the door I stop at top of the stairs, look hard at her. She still foaming at mouf, talking about her husband I spoze to steal.

  I do tell her one thing as I going down the stairs. I say, “Nigger rape me. I not steal shit fat bitch your husband RAPE me RAPE ME!”

  I screaming holding little Abdul, hospital bag with Pampers ‘n his stuff, ‘n a shopping bag from Wool-worth’s with my stuff in it.

  I don’t even think, my feets just take me back to Harlem Hospital. You know Koch wanna close it, say niggers don’t need no hospital all to theyself.

  Farrakhan say we need one. Miz Rain say Farrakhan is jive anti-Semitic, homophobe fool.

  My pussy hurt. I turn down piece of pavement lead to ‘mergency. Then I turn back, go through front door, ‘n say I wanna visit maternity ward.

  They not spozed to let you up without hassle

  ‘cause of baby snatchers. But bitch see I got Abdul. She must know if anything I be dropping little homeboy off, not snatching nuffin’.

  I get off elevator, looking for Nurse Lenore Harrison, that’s Ms Butter’s name from when I had Little Mongo. Done worked her way up to queen of the ward. What I gonna be, queen of babies? No, I gonna be queen of those ABCs—

  readin’ ‘n writin’. I not gonna stop going to school

  ‘n I not going to give Abdul up and I is gonna get Little Mongo back one day, maybe. I hardly even know what she look like, aside from retarded, that is.

  I’m waiting. ‘Nother nurse pass me, look at me say she remember me from ‘83. She skinny, black, I don’t remember her. She say she sorry to see me back here, had hoped I be done learned from my mistakes. What kinda shit is that! I didn’t make no mistake unless it being born, ‘n Miz Rain say I was born for a purpose, ‘n Mr Wicher had said I had aptitude for maff. I don’t know what purpose but I know I got a purpose, a reason, and according to Farrakhan I got a almighty allah god.

  Mistake? I don’t think so. Mistakes for niggers to rape. I think I might be the solution. Shit where nurse, yellow bitch. Ize homeless right now. Me

  ‘n Abdul homeless. I can see evil Mama in room tearing posters off wall, messing up my clothes ‘n shit. Well bitch gonna hafta get off her ass now!

  Nurse Butter come. I tell her what happen. I tell her about school, ‘bout
Farrakhan ‘n allah, ‘bout maff— how Mr Wicher had told Mrs Lichenstein I got maff aptitude, and ABCs. How Miz Rain say I’m moving faster through the vowel ‘n consonant sounds than even

  Rita Romero, who is light skinned. I tell her I not hardly seed Little Mongo since my grandmother tooked her and how Abdul my daddy’s baby too. I don’t feel shamed—Carl Kenwood Jones freak NOT me!

  I am Precious ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST

  UVWXYZ

  My baby is born

  My baby is black

  I am girl

  I am black

  I want house to live

  Help nurse, help me Miz Lenore. Help me. One thing from going to school ‘n talking in class I done learned to talk up. Ms Rain say it’s a big country. Say bombs cost more than welfare.

  Bombs to murder kids ‘n shit. Guns to war people

  —all that cost more than milk ‘n Pampers. Say no shame. No shame. Most time it seem like hype,

  ‘cause she say it so much. But that why she say she say it—to reprogram us to love our-selve. I love me. I ain’ gonna let that big fat bitch kick my ass ‘n shout on me. And I ain’ giving Abdul away.

  And I ain’ gonna stop school.

  Nurse Butter saying she going off duty now, hate to leave me but got to pick up her daughter from babysitter, nurse coming on duty will help me.

  I ask new nurse for sanitary napkin, I’m bleeding.

  This nurse I don’t know. She look me kinda cold.

  She whisper talk some shit to another nurse then come tell me I got to go to the armory. It’s like they tired. I’m a problem got to be got out they face. I am’ got no coat, I say. They say people at shelter give me something when I get there. Sit still, van gonna come git me and drop me, and some of the other patients, off. Nurse say lots of people get out hospital wif no place to go, calm down, you not so special.

  The armory is like a dungeon of bricks, damp, wif a few ‘lectrik lightbulbs hanging from ceiling. A bitch in bed next to bed I’m in hit herself over ‘n over in mouf with her own fist. Over ‘n OVER.

  Another girl with swole junkie hands, sores, and shit say, “Put your bags in bed with you.”

  I’m bress feeding Abdul. He cry. He wet. He seem like little rat or cat. I know some things to do for him but I get scared when he cough throw up. He is only seven days old. He could die.

  Woman, big woman, bigger than me and old—

  she around forty, come up ‘n snatch blanket off my cot. Remind me of Mama, the red light in her eye, the way her hair stick up. What I’m spozed to do; my pussy feel torn apart in pieces, my lower back pain me, my bresses is leaking milk, my bra wet and not smell nice, and maniac done snatched my blanket.

  “Give the kid back her blanket,” lady wif junkie sores on her arm say.

  “Fuck you,” maniac say, “I ain’ giving back shit.”

  I jus’ take off sheet that’s on top the plastic-covered mattress and wrap it around Abdul, then I wrap myself around Abdul and hunker down on that cold plastic. I wish they would turn the lights out. But they don’t. I go to sleep anyway. When I wake up bags with my stuff gone, one of my shoes the laces is untied. Maybe that’s what wake me up, them trying to get the shoes off my feet. How many days I lay up in Mama’s house thinking nothing could be worse than that. I get up, tie my shoes. These bitches here crazy. I feed Abdul. My body is his breakfast. I gotta get something to eat myself.

  I’m at armory not far from hospital. This shit ain’

  gonna work. What time is it? Six a.m. Miz West!

  Live down the hall from us, stop Mama from kicking me to death when Mongo being born.

  She like me. I always did go to the store for her since I was little.

  “Precious, bring me back a pack of Winstons and a big bag of pork rinds.”

  “Yes Miz West.”

  “Keep the change Precious.”

  One time she tell me, You ever wanna talk about anything you could come to me.

  But I never did. And I don’t know her phone number now. How would she get in Mama’s house to get my stuff out anyway?

  “Breakfast?” dope addict girl say.

  “Yeah,” I say. Lots of the girlz, womens, is moving toward a door. Some just sit on the bed cots like they in shock or some shit. Dope addict girl point at people moving, say follow them. I do.

  Coffee out a steel pitcher, a little box of cornflakes, and a banana. I don’t drink coffee. It’s almost 7 o’clock.

  Fuck it, I go wait for Ms Rain in lobby. Maybe it be one of those days she come in early. I wait there till 8:45 a.m. She is shock when she walk through door and see me sitting on floor of lobby in Hotel Theresa wif Abdul in my arms. I almost forgit about me for a minute, I feel so sorry for her. She just ABC teacher, not no social worker or shit. But where else can I go?

  I can tell by Ms Rain’s face I’m not gonna be homeless no more. She mumbling cursing about what damn safety net, most basic needs, a newborn child, A NEWBORN CHILD! She going OFF now. Rhonda come in behind her. No class, all of Each One Teach One is on the phone! They calling everybody from Mama to the mayor’s office to TV stations! Before this day is up, Ms Rain say, you gonna be living somewhere, as god is my witness. As GOD is my witness!

  Thas when Queens shit come up. They wanna send me to 2way house in Queens, immediate opening! NO! What I know about Queens?! They got Arabs, Koreans, Jews, and Jamaicans—all kinda shit me and Abdul don’t need to be bothered with. Here, I stay here in Harlem.

  Harlem house say they couldn’t take me for two weeks. Ms Rain’s boss git on phone. She is West Indian woman, don’t take no shit. Boyfriend sit on some council. She hang up phone, say, They can take her tomorrow. So they just have to find me a place for tonight. Everyone says I can stay over their house. But you know where I stay? Ms Rain got friend who is caretaker or something at Langston Hughes’ house which is not but around the corner, it’s city landmark. I SPEND ONE

  NIGHT IN LANGSTON HUGHES’ HOUSE HE

  USED TO LIVE IN. Me and Abdul in the Dream Keeper’s house! Day after that, we come here, where I been ever since. Here, at Advancement House, main good thing is they got somebody we can trust to take care of our babies while we go to school for four hours a day, three times a week. Queens, no Ms Rain, no school.

  I like my room here. Better than home, Mama’s house, I mean. I got bed for me, crib for Abdul.

  Dresser drawers, desk, chair, bookcase for my books and Abdul’s books. Some of my books is: The Life of Lucy Fern 1 and 2 (it’s two books) by Moira Crone

  Pat King’s Family by Karen McFall

  Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad by Ann Petry

  Wanted Dead or Alive: The True Story of Harriet Tubman by Ann McGovern

  (got two Harriet books!)

  Malcolm X by Arnold Adoff

  A Piece of Mine by J. California Cooper The Color Purple by Alice Walker

  Selected Poems by Langston Hughes

  some books Abdul got:

  The Black BC’s by Lucille Clifton

  Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

  The Story of a Little Mouse Trapped in a Book by Monique Felix

  The Boy Who Didn *t Believe in Spring by Lucille Clifton

  Hi, Cat! by Ezra Jack Keats

  Most of what we got Ms Rain give us. I would like a job, a paycheck—be able to buy what I want when I want it.

  We reading The Color Purple in school. Which is really hard for me. Ms Rain try to break it down but most of it I can’t read myself. But the rest of the class kinda can, ‘cept Rita. But how Ms Rain hook it up I am getting something out the story. I cry cry cry you hear me, it sound in a way so much like myself except I ain’ no butch like Celie.

  But just when I go to break on that shit, go to tell class what Five Percenters ‘n Farrakhan got to say about butches, Ms Rain tell me I don’t like homosexuals she guess I don’t like her ‘cause she one. I was shocked as shit. Then I jus’ shut up. Too bad about Farrakhan. I still believe a
llah and stuff. I guess I still believe everything. Ms Rain say homos not who rape me, not homos who let me sit up not learn for sixteen years, not homos who sell crack fuck Harlem. It’s true. Ms Rain the one who put the chalk in my hand, make me queen of the ABCs.

  Oh, I not tell you that! Every year mayor’s office give awards to outstanding students in literacy programs. Well, this year, 1988, it was me. After I get in 2way house (which turn out to be only way cool ‘cause some of the bitches there is Sick with a capital S (capital letter is how you start off sentence or say something with deep shit meaning like Fuck with capital F you mad or some shit like that!). But like I said the good thing, the real good thing, about 2way house is it in Harlem so I could keep going to school easy.

  So anyway by February I’m pretty settled in Advancement House. So I work all spring, memorizing letter sounds, writing in journal, reading books. I have read Pat King’s Family

  ‘bout white woman whose husband abuse ‘n abandon her. I have read Ain Nobodi Gon’ Turn Me ‘Round ‘bout civil rights. I ain’ know black people in this country went through shit like that.

  But thas the deal here in cracker jack city as Farrakhan say. So anyway I made so much progress I won award. Literacy Award. I get it September of 1988. Ms Rain wanted to give it to me even before then. She say she had wanted to give it to me after I come back from Abdul being born and homeless ‘n stuff. But director say, Well, we got other students who deserve it, let’s see if Precious got staying power.

  So I get award from mayor’s office, money ($75) from Each One Teach One, and class have a party for me.

  Things going good in my life, almost like The Color Purple. Abdul nine months old, walkingl Smart smart. He smart. I been reading to him since day he was born damn near. I love The Color Purple, that book give me so much strength. Ms Rain say a group of black men wanted to stop movie from the book. Say unfair picture of nigger men. She ax me what do J