Who Does That!

By Victoria Herring

Who Does That! is a novel full of lustful yet life learning experiences that will keep you wanting for more. It tells the dramatic story of Victoria White. In her earlier years, all she wanted to do was get an education and make a better life for herself. She gets side tracked when she meets a guy name Dwight and falls in love. When things don’t work out, her life takes an unexpected turn. She gets a big dose of reality when she starts looking for love in all the wrong places. She gets into a relationship with several guys and ends up getting hurt. She starts getting revengeful, wanting to hurt everyone that hurts her. She seeks her revenge at no cost. In the midst all she gets a devastating blow by the death of her father and her unborn child. Dealing with the pain alone was unbearable. She needed someone to talk to, someone that would love her unconditionally. In order to do that, she had to make some changes in her life. But before she could, along came Paul. Paul was a very caring person. He knew what she needed and was willing to give to her. That is until her insecurities got the best of her, and she started acting like a jealous maniac. Her jealousy leads her to losing Paul and her freedom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 29, 2007
• ISBN: 9781669805632

Victoria Herring

Victoria Louise Herring is a forty-three-year-old mother of eight. She attended National College of Business and Technology, where she received an associate degree in administrative office professional and a diploma in business administration. She graduated at the top her class with high honors. She spends most of her time reading books and taking care of her children. Victoria currently resides in Kentucky, where she is working on a new novel.

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Copyright © 2007 by Victoria Herring.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/30/2021

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Dedications

In memory of all my friends and family members that have

passed on before me, we miss you guys, and we love you.

You will never be forgotten.

Nannie Ferguson Maupin

Bruce Maupin

Lee Morris Watts

John Watts Sr.

Robert Watts

James Watts

Velma Watts

Passion Stanford

Erik Antonio McCoy

Timothy Bride

Faye Neal

Beatrice Parks

Lovesta Sloan

George Miller

Lorence Stanford

Larry Burns Jr.

Margaret Ann Moore

Gertrude Herring

Tony C. Lester

Labrain Westmoreland

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I would to thank God because without him, I wouldn’t be here today. I would like to thank my mother, Rosa Lee Watts; my father, Robert Humes Watts; and my grandmother, Henrietta Redding because without them, I wouldn’t have anything to write about. Next, I would like to thank all those that read my book for me and gave me their opinions-Twana Ellis, Richard Cantrell, Danielle Gentry, Jennifer Watts, Sky Burns, Courtney Shearer, Regina Watts, Edwin Herring Sr., and Michelle Farris. Thanks for hanging in there with me, guys. I know you all got tired of hearing me talk about my book. I would like to thank my nephew Christopher Lamont Burns for giving me the title of my book. I would like to thank the beautiful people that posed for my book cover – Ivan Curtis Watts, Teveas Williams, Christopher Lamont Burns, Georgia Parks, Richard Cantrell, and Joseph Crowdus.

To all my children – Elizabeth Herring, Eden Herring, Eshayla Herring, Edwin Herring II, Vincent Herring, Essence Herring, Vryon Herring, and Victor Herring-I would like to thank you guys for holding down the fort so that I could accomplish what I set out to do. Last but not least, I would like to thank everyone that supported me in my adventure and all the people who will go out and buy my book.

To my brothers and sisters – Ramona Burns, Terry Hatcher, Regina Stanford, Vic Watts, Dion Watts (a.k.a. Dpryme), Latanya Watts Walker, Georgia Parks, Gladys Parks, Richard Parks, Robert Parks, Johnathan Parks, and Bobby Hocker – I wish you guys all the luck in finding what you’re looking for in life.

To my nieces and nephews – Douglisa Ferguson, Anqunett Nelson, Lorenzo Burns, Christopher Burns, Zahrea Gill, Dion Lemarr Watts, Arsenio (Shawn) Watts, Ivan Curtis Watts, and all the others. I have too many to name them all. I have one thing to say to you all, keep you your eyes on your dreams, and don’t let go.

To my best friend – Jeanette Lester Brown – I have been through a lot of rough times in my life, and you’ve stood by me through them all. I could not have asked for a better friend and godmother to my children. I love you like a sister, and I thank you for all you have done for me and the kids.

I love all you guys. Without you all, I would not have been able to do this.

I am a forty-three-year-old African American woman, and my name is Victoria White. I was born to Nevaeh Simpson and Robbie White. Other than that, I don’t know much else. So I am going to start from the earliest age I can remember. Life was hard when I was going up. I was the last of four children. My siblings were Joyce, who is now forty-nine years old; Jerry, who is forty-eight; and Tina, who is forty-three years old.

We lived in a small town in Kentucky called Richmond. I can remember walking to school because there were no school buses except if you lived in the country. The winter days were cold, and the wind cut you like a knife. It would cut through your clothes and make you feel like you didn’t have on any. By the time we got to school, our face and hands were so cold it felt like they were frostbitten. I remember we would be walking to school, and a school bus would pass us. The kids would yell out the windows, teasing us, and they would throw paper wads at us. It didn’t matter, though, because there was only one thing on my mind: getting an education. I was tired of living with relatives because my father worried more about his girlfriends than he did his kids that lived in the home with him. We didn’t have much food to eat, nor did we ever get much money to buy candy. When my sister Tina and I wanted something sweet, we would mix flour, water, and sugar together and fry them on the stove. They were kind of like pancakes, but they were sweeter. I could remember my sister Tina and I having to decide if we wanted to share a can of corn or green beans for supper. There was a place where you could buy chicken wings for a quarter a bag. You got about fifteen wings without the drumettes on them. Sometimes we would have those and a bowl of popcorn for supper. They also sold chicken necks. We would cook the necks and save the skin for another day. Then we would have our cousin fry them for us. She fried them hard the way we liked them. We stayed with my grandmother on my father’s side of the family, who is now deceased. We lived in a one-bedroom house. The living room was my grandmother’s bedroom. There was a bed in the hallway where my mother and father slept, and my sister and I slept in what was probably the bedroom. We had no bathtub and had to wash up in a wash pan. There was no hot water, so we had to heat water on a coal stove. There was not much money to buy coal, so the house was cold most of the time. When we ran out of coal, we would have to burn everything from broken furniture to paper and anything else that we did not need. I never could understand why we would run out of coal when my mom would go out to work every day. When I asked her, she would say that the coal man didn’t have any more. I used to watch my grandma scramble around the house to find something to burn. I guess she figured that anything would be better than nothing. My grandma was a very caring person; there was never a stranger in her house. Everyone was like family to her. If you were hungry, she would feed you even if she had to share her plate. We were definitely a poor family, but we were rich in love. We always gave each other well-needed hugs and told each other we loved them. That made up for the lack of money. I remember one day, my mother gave us a quarter because it was all she could afford. I was so excited to get that quarter because we didn’t get money that often. I wanted to take my quarter and go buy some chewing gum. The only problem was that the gum cost twenty-six cents, and I needed another penny. So before I went to school the next morning, I got up the courage to ask my father for the penny I needed. Boy, what a mistake that was. He cursed me out so bad I vowed never to ask him for anything else.

He ranted and raved, I don’t have a goddamn penny! You got a quarter, let that satisfy you.

I left for school that morning feeling sad, wondering what was so bad about asking for a penny. To me it was just a penny, but to him, I guess it was more. After that day, I tried not to ask him for anything else although I got into a lot of trouble asking for things for my sister Tina. Tina is a year older than I am, and she was always getting me in some kind of trouble. She would put me up to asking for things because she knew I would be the one getting yelled at, not her. But it was okay. I was used to it, and it didn’t bother me after a while. I didn’t care if I didn’t get anything, but I wanted my sister Tina to be able to get the things she wanted from time to time. We used to take pop bottles to the store so that we wouldn’t have to ask our parents for anything. One day we took some pop bottles to the store, and when we got caught eating the candy, we told them that the Easter Bunny had given the candy to us. Can you imagine that? We didn’t, or at least I didn’t, believe in the Easter Bunny, but it sounded like a good story at the time. My cousin was the one that caught us, and she was so mad at us that she told our mom, and we got a whipping. I always believed that she was mad because we got to the pop bottles first. I remember thinking that when I grew up, life was going to be a little better for me than this.

Going to school wasn’t easy for me either. I remember all the kids wanted to pick on us because we didn’t wear the nice clothes and shoes that they wore. They used to call us zip monsters because we had on the cheap shoes when everyone else wore Chuck Taylors, and our coats were fake leather, so they called us the pleather sisters. My mother bought us a new dress, and we were so happy because we didn’t get things that often. So we decided to wear them to school the next day. They were red and white and blue at the top and blue at the bottom and had a blue jacket to go with them. When we got to school, the kids started laughing at our dresses and started saluting us, telling us that we looked like the American flag. I used to go into the bathroom and cry. I cried, not because we didn’t have the things other kids had, but because my mother did the best that she could and even her best couldn’t buy us friends. My sister Tina didn’t really care too much, she would just beat them up and go on about her business. Tina was the mean one, at least that’s what everybody called her. To me she was just my sister. She wouldn’t let anyone mess with me, and if they did, they had to deal with her. Tina and I were very close. We had the sister bond that all the other girls in the school wanted with their sisters. Tina was a daddy’s girl, and one day, while we were at school, she got the shock of her life: some kids at school came up to her and told her that some guy name Robbie kept telling everyone that he was our brother.

Tina didn’t want to believe that, so she went and asked him, What is your daddy’s name?

When he told her, she came to me in tears and told me the story. When school let out, we hurried home to tell our mother what had happened. She told us that it was true. I thought to myself, That’s just what we needed, someone else to take our daddy’s love away from us. We dealt with it though and went on with our lives.

Once winter came around, my mother had rented a house for us to live in. We were so happy. The house was old and had a gas furnace. We didn’t care where we lived as long as it had hot water and a bathtub. We were tired of warming water up in a pan. We had to heat water to wash dishes, to wash up in, and anything else that required hot water. Not that we were ungrateful, but because there were so many people living with my grandma, by the time it got around to us washing up, the coal was gone out of the stove, and we sometimes had to wash up in cold water. Sometimes during the winter months, the faucets would freeze up, and we would have to walk up and down the street to see if anyone would let us have a bucket of water. That was miserable to me because we would have to walk a country mile just to find someone nice enough to give us some water, and I would always spill it on me and have to walk home freezing in wet clothes. Back then, water was free; you didn’t have water bills, but no one wanted to share. I didn’t complain though; my mother had enough to worry about.

Times got harder for us once we moved out of my grandmother’s house. I guess my dad felt the same way even though he didn’t help pay the bills. He had us ration out the toilet paper. He said we were to use one sheet when we peed and two sheets when we had a bowel movement, and that’s what we did even though we knew two sheets of toilet paper wasn’t enough to clean the poop from our behinds. One day, while my mother was at work, we went to my grandmother’s house to tell my father that we were hungry. When we got there, he was nowhere to be found. That didn’t surprise me because I knew that he must have been over at one of his girlfriend’s. So Tina and I decided to go there and tell our father that we needed something to eat. We had to go to a couple of houses before we found the right one. When we got there, he gave us a quarter. Yes, one quarter to share and told us to go get some candy and then go home, that he would be there later. Tina and I took the quarter to the store and got a bag of chips because we knew chips would satisfy our hunger better than candy. Then we walked home and started our chores for the day. The day seemed to have gone by very fast, and the house had gotten colder. We decided to go to bed so that we could keep warm, not to mention that the chips had started to dissolve in our stomachs and we became hungry again. We kept asking each other why Daddy hadn’t gotten there yet, but deep in our hearts, we knew the answer.

It was almost eleven thirty that night when we heard the door open. It was our mother. When she noticed how cold the house was, she asked where our father was; and although we didn’t say a word, it wasn’t that hard for her to guess. So she told us to lock the door behind her and left. When she returned, she told us to pack our stuff and get ready to leave. She had called our Aunt Louis and told her that she needed to get out of Kentucky as soon as possible. She told her that she was tired and couldn’t take any more; she wanted to leave. So Aunt Louis came and got us and, the next morning, took us to Cincinnati where we lived out the rest of our childhood.

Once again, I don’t think it mattered to us where we lived. I was kind of glad we left, not because I didn’t love my daddy, but because I got tired of all the fighting that went on. My father drank a lot, cheated a lot, and stayed out all night. That just didn’t sit well with my mother. I can’t say I blame her. When my dad would stay out, the next day, he would walk in like nothing ever happened and resume his role as the man of the house. I guess my mother wasn’t supposed to say anything about it because when she did, that was when the fights would start. In a lot of ways, I wished she would have left him a long time ago. I remember thinking, If you don’t love him, then leave him. Well, it finally happened. She left, and we were now living in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Once we got to Cincinnati, we moved in with our Uncle Doug. I was glad because I loved my uncle. He was a marine vet. He was the quiet but deadly type. No one messed with him, and I didn’t blame them. He had a very large house, and since he lived alone, us living with him wasn’t a problem. I know that it was nice finally living in a nice home, but it didn’t last long. I don’t know what happened, but the stay was short and sweet. So we moved again, this time to an apartment up the street from my great-grandma. My great-grandma was my favorite person. We called her Momma Nannie. My Momma Nannie was the person I admired most in this world. I would go to church with her every Sunday that my mother would let me go. My mother would always say that she didn’t want us to go because we didn’t have many clothes, but that didn’t stop Momma Nannie from taking me. She would say, Put that dress on that girl and let her go to church. And so it was; we went to church. Momma Nannie was on point as far as keeping the adult family members in line was concerned. When she said it, it got done whether she said it to a child or an adult. I loved her for that. She was the Big Momma of our family, you know, like in the movie Soul Food. She was the rock that held our family together. I spent a lot of time at Momma Nannie’s house. I loved listening to her talk about the old days. She told me stories about the family and things that she went through when she was younger. She taught me things like how to make lye soap, and not only that, but she taught me family values. She died on January 19, 1975, on the first birthday of my niece Lisa. I miss her very much; and although she is gone, I still find myself talking to her from time to time, hoping that she could hear me. I can’t wait until the day I can see her again. Until then, I have to go on living my life and remembering what she had taught me.

The summer was over, and now it was time to go back to school. I thought things would get better as far as school was concerned, being in a bigger city and all, but no such luck. The new school was even worse. They not only talked about our clothes, but they talked about us. I used to be called an Oreo, white girl, half-breed, and every other name but the name my mother gave me. There were a lot of people hating us because of the color of our skin. If you were light skinned, you just didn’t fit in. I don’t know how it came to be that some of my brothers and sisters and I were so light. Rumor had it that my momma’s father was white. Like I said, that’s just a rumor. If it’s true, I think that is a secret my grandmother will take to her grave. We questioned her on many occasions, but we got the same answer every time. She would always say, I know who my baby’s daddy is, and I told you what his name is So we left it alone. Being light skinned was not my only downfall in those days. It didn’t help that I was skinny and had long hair, either. Kids would pick on me, calling me toothpicks and saying they were going to hang me by my ponytails. They would pull my hair and hit me when my back was turned; I remember it was funny to everyone but me. At this point, I thought I would never have any friends. One day, I got tired of my hair being pulled and decided to fight back. I got tired of going home and crying myself to sleep. So that night, I contemplated on whether or not to stand up for myself or tell the teacher, but I knew telling the teacher wouldn’t help any, so I chose the other. The next day in school, we were lined up for lunch, and this girl started pulling my hair and calling me white bitch. I had to think about it a couple of minutes before I decided to turn around and tell her to stop pulling my hair because this girl was almost three times the size of me. Out of pure meanness, she did it again; and it made me angry, so I turned around and punched her in the face, and we started fighting. I felt really bad because I didn’t want to fight her, but I had to stop these people from picking on me; and I thought that if I could just beat up one person, everyone else would get the point that I was tired of their cruelty, and I wasn’t going to take it anymore. Well, it worked because after that, a lot of kids wanted to be my friend. Did I want friends now? No, I didn’t. All I really wanted was to be left alone. So I decided once again to concentrate on my education. I knew I wanted to go somewhere in life, I just didn’t know where. When I got home that day, boy, I got my butt torn up for fighting in school. My mother didn’t play that. She was kind of strict on my sister Tina and me you know, the kind of mother that wanted you to be in the house before the streetlights came on. It seemed like all the kids in the neighborhood were out playing except Tina and I. We went in the house and talked to our friends from the window. You should have seen them trying to find something to play with so that they could stay in the same spot where we could watch them. It was okay. I would rather have a strict mother than one who didn’t care.

I got up the next morning and went to school. I actually had a good day until I walked home and entered the house, only to see an unexpected sight. Guess who’s home? Daddy! My heart fell to my feet. I felt as if I was going to stop breathing, and when he opened his mouth to speak, I thought I was going to pass out. What is he doing here? I thought. So I called my sister Tina in our bedroom, which was actually a room in between the living room and my mother’s bedroom, and we had a talk about what we thought would come out of this. We decided to wait and see. As time went on, I started getting this nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was one that would last throughout my school days. Somehow I knew that things were not going to be any different than it was before with the man of the house home, but our mother wanted him there, so we had to respect her wishes.

The days were long, and the nights were longer. My nerves were on edge as I sat by, patiently waiting to see if this was going to have a happy ending. My dad had been home for almost a year. Things were all right at times, and at other times, I wished I could just disappear. One day I overheard my mom fussing at my sister Joyce. She was asking her, why was she in her room being noisy? My mom was so upset; it made me wonder what that was all about, so I waited for my sister to come out of my mother’s room. When she did, I asked her.

And she replied by saying, I saw some maternity clothes in momma’s room in a bag. She said our mother is pregnant.

I was sort happy about the news because I was tired of being the baby of the family. I thought with a new baby in the house, it would have made a difference, and my parents would get along better. It was nine months later, and out came a baby boy. He was named Rick, a.k.a Onion Head. That was the nickname my great-grandma gave him because he was bald except for the top of his head. The new bundle of joy brought a period of happiness. Then one day, the shit hit the fan. My mother was at work, and one of her coworkers brought a receipt to work showing the purchase of two new coats that she had gotten. One was leather and the other was cashmere, but what topped it off was the fact that my dad’s name was on the top of the receipt, showing that he was the purchaser. My mother was furious because my dad had bought his mistress new coats when we were wearing sweaters to school in the middle of winter. When my mother got home, she was steaming, and she confronted my dad. My dad hit my mother, and that was the last straw. My father hit my mom one time too many. She pulled out a gun that belonged to my father and attempted to shoot him. The only thing that saved him that day was that the spring on the gun was broke. I remember crying and asking her to please don’t kill my daddy. After the gun didn’t go off, my dad grabbed the gun from my mother’s hand and told her that the next time she tried to shoot someone, she should make sure that she used a gun that worked. The Lord was with him that day, but he never put his hands on my mother again. Who would have thought it would take my mother to scare the shit out of him to stop the violence. Shortly after that, my father moved back to Kentucky. We didn’t hear from him that often, but when we did, it was few and far between. I know that in his own way, he loved us. He just had a drinking problem, and that got in the way of us being a family. I also know that’s no excuse, and I’m not trying to make any for him; but at the time, it sounded good.

Life went on after my father left. I could tell my mother missed him, but she knew as well as I did that it was for the better. As for me, things just