A Night at the Babysitter’s House

This is the first story I wrote for my first unpublished manuscript, a collection of interrelated stories called The Tabitha Times.
”Playing House” is also part of that manuscript.

“Mama, where you gonna go?” asked Tabitha as she sat in the back seat of the car.

“Out,” Mama replied curtly from the driver’s seat. Tisha sat next to her mother and had a conversation with her blond-haired baby doll.

Mama’s always going out; she’s always leaving us with the babysitter, Tabitha thought as she watched the apartment buildings pass by from her window. Mama, I wish you wouldn’t leave us with the babysitter; please don’t leave us with the babysitter, Tabitha implored her mother, though her lips didn’t speak a word as the car pulled up into the familiar driveway.

The babysitter was standing at the doorway waiting to greet Tabitha’s mother. “Hey, Pearl! How you doin’, girl?” the thin, sallow-complexioned woman yelled at the car as it parked. As Mama unloaded her daughters from the car and walked them up the rotten wooden steps to the porch the babysitter wore a big grin. Tabitha gripped her mother’s hand tightly as she walked up the steps; she looked up at the house and thought that it looked like a haunted house she saw on TV, big, old, grey—and scary.

The mother and the babysitter chatted; Tisha continued to talk to her doll, and Tabitha stared at her mother and the babysitter while thinking that if Mama knew what the babysitter thought of her, then the babysitter wouldn’t be smiling in Mama’s face so hard. Also, Tabitha thought that the babysitter looked like a stick as she stood beside her mother, who was tall and round. The small talk ended between Mama and the babysitter, and the mother turned to her children to say goodbye. Mama hugged and kissed Tisha first, then Tisha’s doll. When Mama embraced Tabitha, Tabitha squeezed her tight. When Mama let go, Tabitha’s brown eyes were bulging out of her face, her brows were raised, and her lips were parted but still.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Mama, puzzled at Tabitha’s face.

Tabitha cried to her mother within the confines of her mind, Don’t go. Her voice mumbled “Nothin’,” and she lowered her head.

Mama kissed Tabitha on the cheek and said “Girl, sometimes I wish you would let me in on what goes on in your head.”

Mama stepped carefully down the rotted porch steps to make sure the heels on her black leather pumps didn’t get caught in any cracks. *! As the mother got into the car and backed out of the driveway, the babysitter said to Tabitha and Tisha, “All right, you damned brats, come in the house; ain’t no use of y’all standing in the door moping.”

“Yes, Miss Minnie,” the girls said in pensive unison.

“Yeah, y’all better call me Miss Minnie,” the babysitter replied as she pushed the girls in the house and closed the door, “ ’cause if you forget again you know I’m gonna whoop your ass.”

*

On the inside, the babysitter’s house was made up of small, cramped rooms covered with imitation wood panels and dirt-brown, wall-to-wall shag carpet. Heavy olive-green curtains covered the windows and shut out any light from the outside. The living room furniture consisted of a couch upholstered with a rough, grainy, gray cloth, an old, large-screen, floor model TV set encased in dusty wood paneling, and a black, vinyl reclining easy chair. The easy chair sat against the wall to the right of the TV; it was the babysitter’s throne, and the girls had learned early the painful consequences of sitting there.

Hanging on a nail stuck in the wall next to the easy chair, at the arm rest’s level, was the belt. The belt was a wide, thick strap of brown leather with a heavy silver-tone buckle.

*

“I’m gonna get feeding your asses over with; come in the kitchen,” commanded the babysitter. Tabitha and Tisha followed the babysitter into the hot, grease-coated kitchen and climbed into the wobbly metal chairs with torn plastic seats to dine at the rickety, chipped Formica table. The babysitter struck a match from a box beside the stove, turned a knob on the front of the stove, and ignited a blue flame by touching the match against one of the eyes of the stove top. Tabitha always wondered how the babysitter kept from burning herself when she lit the stove. If the babysitter got burned up, then she’d have to go to the hospital, and if she got burned up bad enough, she would have to stay in the hospital and we’d never have to see her again because she couldn’t babysit us anymore, Tabitha thought as she watched the babysitter turn down the high flame and set a pot over it.

The babysitter struggled with a can opener and a can of Spaghettios while grunting, “Good damn thing your mama buys this shit. I ain’t payin’ out my money for this expensive-ass shit.” She opened the can and poured its contents into the pot.

Tabitha sat at the table with her chin in her hands while the meal was warmed up, occupying herself with fantasies of the Isis show that came on Saturday mornings. Tabitha imagined that she was like the main character in the TV show, an ordinary woman who could become the ancient Egyptian goddess with magical powers. Tisha still held her doll, though she had stopped talking to it. In fact, the moment the two sisters entered the house, there was to be no talking, not without the babysitter’s permission.

“Tisha, what the hell you bring that doll to the table for? You can’t play with it and eat. Give it to me,” said the babysitter, and then she snatched the doll from Tisha’s arms. Tisha broke into a shocked and frightened wail as the doll was suddenly torn from her.

“Shut up before I give you somethin’ to cry about!” the babysitter shouted directly at Tisha’s face. Tisha immediately clamped her mouth shut and fought to hold her breath so the babysitter couldn’t hear the sobs she couldn’t instantly stifle.

“Just for that, you can’t play with this doll tonight; I’m puttin’ it up ’til your mama comes and gets you,” said the babysitter, and she took the doll into the living room. When the babysitter came back to the kitchen, dinner was ready.

*

I hate sitting on this couch; it’s so scratchy, thought Tabitha. After dinner, Tabitha and Tisha were ordered to go sit in the living room. The babysitter flopped onto her easy chair without turning on the TV. Tabitha glared at the blank screen; just because she don’t feel like watching TV that means we can’t watch it, she mused as she fidgeted in her itchy seat. The babysitter reached behind the chair for her worn brown vinyl purse and tossed it into her lap. She opened it and, after searching doggedly, she retrieved a small marijuana joint and a lighter. She lit one end of the joint, let it burn for a second, and then blew the tiny flame out; a thin string of smoke rose up from where the flame had been.

The babysitter put the joint to her lips and inhaled deeply. Her already hollow cheeks were pulled in tighter with her effort to suck in the noxious smoke. When she exhaled, she glared at the girls on the couch and said with a scratchy, mocking rasp, “Y’all want some?” She cackled and threw her head back onto the cushion of the easy chair.

The girls were as silent as hunted rabbits hidden in a bush; they didn’t look in her direction. They sat together cross-legged on the couch and stared straight ahead at a TV that wasn’t on.

*

Tabitha saw out of the corner of her left eye that Tisha’s legs were shaking. She’s gotta go to the bathroom, Tabitha realized, but she’s too scared to say something. I’m scared, too, but if Tisha doesn’t go to the bathroom, she’ll pee on herself on the couch and she’ll get a whooping.

Tabitha’s head shook as it turned toward the babysitter stretched out on the easy chair to the right of the couch. The babysitter’s eyes were bloodshot, her lips were tightly pursed, and her left hand dangled off the arm rest and brushed precariously against the belt.

Tabitha’s lips trembled as she carefully, quietly asked “Miss Minnie?” There was no answer. Tabitha swallowed hard and repeated: “Miss Minnie?”

The babysitter rolled her head toward Tabitha’s direction and said “What the hell do you want?” The babysitter absentmindedly hit the belt with her hand, and it swung like a noose on the nail.

“Can me and Tisha go to the bathroom?” Tabitha asked softly, holding her breath at the last word.

The babysitter snorted and rubbed her eyes; after a moment that seemed to last forever to Tabitha, the babysitter said “Yeah.”

Tabitha and Tisha jumped off the couch. “One at a time!” the babysitter yelled. The girls froze at the edge of the stairway.

“Tisha, you go first,” said the babysitter, “Tabitha, you sit your ass back down on the couch ’til she gets back. I don’t want y’all being up there all night playing in the sink and shit.”

Tabitha sat down as Tisha started to trot up the stairs. “Stop running!” the babysitter bellowed. Tisha tiptoed up the stairs.

Tabitha was relieved that the babysitter chose Tisha to go first; Tisha had to go real bad, Tabitha thought, and I’ll go, too, so I don’t have to ask her again.

As soon as she saw Tisha at the top of the staircase, Tabitha rose from the couch and walked up the stairs. She entered the bathroom, closed the door, and sighed as she sat on the toilet. Bathroom time was always her time to think; it was the only time she was ever allowed to be alone. The distance between her and the babysitter and the closed door was a relief from the tension of being in the babysitter’s presence. She mused over her mother, her sister, her Friday art class at school—we made paper animals, she recalled fondly—her Monday gym class—“Yuck!” she thought—swinging on the playground. . .

“Hey, what did you do, fall in? Hurry up up there!” Tabitha heard the babysitter holler from downstairs.

Tabitha flushed the toilet as soon as she heard the call to let the babysitter know she was coming before she got up, washed her hands, turned off the light and left the bathroom.

*

“Y’all know that your mama is a ho, don’t you?” said the babysitter as she sat with the children in the living room.

The girls continued to stare mutely at the blank TV screen; they didn’t dare to look the babysitter in the face.

“Shit, your mama be goin’ out with a different nigga every night,” the babysitter continued, “and that girlfriend she be runnin’ with, Annie, hell, that bitch ain’t nothin’ but a big-time bulldagger—damn, I gotta go piss!” The babysitter staggered out of the easy chair and stomped her way across the room and up the stairs. When they heard the bathroom door shut, the girls took a relieving breath, stretched their arms and legs, but didn’t speak to each other. After a moment that was too short for the girls, they heard the toilet flush and the bathroom door open with an explosive slam. The babysitter tumbled down the stairs, marched over to the easy chair, and grabbed the belt.

“Get up and go to the bathroom—NOW!” she roared at the girls.

As she and her sister jumped off the couch and scurried up the stairs, Tabitha’s mind raced in panic. What did we do? . . .What did we do?. . .I was the last one in the bathroom before the babysitter, I flushed the toilet, I put the drying towel back up neatly after I used it, I turned off the light. . .What did we do?

When they all entered the bathroom, the babysitter pointed at the toilet tissue on the dispenser. A line of tissue trailed from the roll to the floor below it, which left a tail a couple of sheets long lying on the floor.

“Who did this?” demanded the babysitter. Tabitha’s heart fluttered like a captured bird. I don’t remember doing that, Tabitha thought. She looked at her sister; Tisha’s face looked just as confused as Tabitha felt, and already there were tears in Tisha’s eyes.

“All right, if one of you don’t say who did it, I’m gonna whoop both your asses! So somebody better say somethin’ right now!” yelled the babysitter at the girls’ silence. She waved the belt under the girls’ noses.

The words that Tabitha uttered left a foreshadowing trace of the agony that would follow them: “I. . .did it.”

The babysitter grabbed Tabitha’s arm and twisted it, turning Tabitha’s body around to show her backside. The belt’s first strike fell on Tabitha like an axe.

*

“Tabitha! What a stupid name! That’s a witch’s name, that witch off of that show Bewitched!” the babysitter taunted Tabitha.

Tabitha sniffled and faced the TV. She tried to imagine her way out of the babysitter’s house, as she did when she used the bathroom, but the pain she felt kept one thought on her mind: I hate the babysitter. I hate her. I HATE HER! I HATE HER! Tabitha remembered that her mother told her that she should never say she hated anything or anyone: “Say you dislike it; don’t say hate.”

“Witch, witch, bo-bitch, banana-fana, fo-dana. . .wi-itch! Witch, witch, bo-bitch. . .” the babysitter chanted, “You don’t remember that old ‘name game’ song, do you? Well, anyway, I’m playing the ‘name game’ with your name—witch! Witch, witch, bo-bitch, banana-fana, fo-dana. . .”

*

“Tisha, wake your ass up!” shouted the babysitter. Tisha’s head snapped up at attention; her eyes were wide and glazed with sleep. Why don’t she just let us go to bed, Tabitha fumed silently. We can’t help but go to sleep, as boring as it is with no TV on.

Tisha’s head slowly nodded as her body fell back on the couch. “Tisha!” the babysitter yelled, “Get up off the couch!”

Tisha dragged herself off the couch and onto her feet. “Now you stand there!” commanded the babysitter.

Tisha’s body swayed back and forth like a limp reed. Her eyes were puffy slits on her slackened face. As Tabitha watched her sister’s struggle to stay awake, she kept herself from falling asleep through her anger and the sting she still felt on her arms, her legs, and her bottom.

Tisha’s chin fell onto her chest. “Tisha! Wake up!” the babysitter shouted again.

Tabitha heard a motor running from outside. A light came on inside her; it was like a brilliant billboard that spelled in giant letters the most beautiful word in the world to Tabitha: “MAMA!” *!

The babysitter also heard the motor; she jumped out of her easy chair, pushed Tisha back onto the couch, and whispered, “Now, if you go runnin’ to your mama talkin’ ’bout ‘Miss Minnie whooped me, Miss Minnie whooped me!’ then next time you come over I’m a-whoop y’all ass! You hear me?”

“Yes, Miss Minnie,” the girls groaned in reply.

A hard rap sounded on the wooden front door. The babysitter ran to the door, stretched her face into a smile, and opened the door.

“Mama! Mama! Mama!” Tabitha and Tisha shouted as they flew from the couch and threw themselves onto their mother. The children clung to Mama’s silky dress and leaned against her plump, pillow-soft form.

“Dang! Well, I’m glad to see y’all, too,” said Mama, delighted and surprised by the eager welcome. “Well, Minnie, they didn’t act a fool on you, did they?” she asked the babysitter.

“Naw, you know they act right with me,” the babysitter responded, the smile still pasted on her face.

“Oh, they act right with everybody; they’re good kids, aren’t you girls?” said Mama as she looked down at the children wrapped around her waist and legs. “Well, it’s time to go home now.” She wrapped her arms around her children and turned toward the door.

“My baby! I want my baby!” Tisha suddenly cried.

“Oh, shoot, we almost forgot your doll, huh?” Mama said sweetly to Tisha. “Minnie, do you know where her doll is?” the mother asked the babysitter.

“Oh. . .uh, hold on a minute,” the babysitter said, and she walked across the room to her easy chair. She pulled the doll from behind the chair and brought it to the mother.

“What’s it doing behind there?” asked the mother, “Tisha never lets go of this doll for nothing.”

“Oh, I took it from Tisha so she could eat dinner without spillin’ stuff on it, and I forgot to give it back,” responded the babysitter. Her voice was fawningly apologetic, and the smile never left her face.

“Oh. . . OK,” said Mama absentmindedly, and she passed the doll to Tisha. Tisha released one hand from its grip on her mother’s waist, grabbed the doll, and gave the doll a long, soft smooch.

“Girl, sometimes I think you love that doll more than you love me,” Mama said in jest to Tisha. “Well, we’re going to go,” she said to the babysitter as she walked her daughters through the door. The babysitter followed them out onto the porch, where she watched them step down the cracking porch steps and walk to the car. Mama separated her daughters from her and placed them in the car. She got into the car herself and waved at the ever-smiling babysitter as she started the motor.

As the car pulled away from the house, Tabitha saw that Tisha had already fallen asleep in the front seat next to her mother. Tisha’s arm was curled around her doll, and with every soft snore the doll rose and fell on Tisha’s chest. Tabitha had taken refuge in her relief and her mother’s presence since the moment her mother knocked on the babysitter’s door. Mama’s here, Mama’s taking us home; those thoughts comforted Tabitha. She tried as hard as she could not to think about the next time Mama would have to go somewhere. . .again, the next time Mama would drop her and her sister off. . .again, the next time they would have to stay the night over the babysitter’s house. . .again.