Gangsta Divas (12 page)

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Authors: De'nesha Diamond

BOOK: Gangsta Divas
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Though I feel her pain, I can't help but be annoyed with all the waterworks.Tears ain't never brought anybody back—then again, neither have bullets.
“But you can get out,” Dribbles whispers softly before turning her gaze back toward me. “It's not too late for you.”
My annoyance quickly flows to anger and suspicion. “So who sent you—Bishop or Profit?”
“Baby girl, nobody sent me. I'm talking to you woman-to-woman. Take this shit from someone who has been in your shoes.” She glances back out of the window and this time, I know she's staring at Smokestack. “Love can't survive out here. The streets don't have a retirement plan.You either end up like my son Mason or his father Smokestack—dead or in prison.”
I let that public service announcement hang in the air for a moment, but then decide to come at her direct. “But Mason's father isn't in prison—is he?”
Stunned, Dribbles stares and blinks at me.
“Cousin Skeet was his father, wasn't he?”
“Who told you that? Mason?”
“I doubt that Mason had a clue. So . . . was he the father?” I watch her shift in her seat for a while before answering.
“No.”
I blink. “But Smokestack said that Mason's mother used to deal with Cousin Skeet.”
“She did—and she did have a kid by him, but it wasn't Mason. It was his older brother.”
Now my world is spinning. “Mason had an older brother? Who is he?”
17
Momma Peaches
I
'm going to die in this hellhole. The shit is hard to accept, but I wish death would come the hell on. I'm an old woman . . . and I used to think that I'd done seen about all there was to see out here in these streets. I was wrong. I ain't never been in no bullshit like this. Sure, I've been behind bars plenty of times for big shit as well as small shit. But this right here? It's blowing my mind. I've been reduced to pissing and shitting in a bedpan, sipping on one glass of water a day and eating food that tastes like sawdust. I don't know what day it is and I've lost track of how long I've been down here.When it's hot outside, it's an oven in this bitch and when it's cold, the room turns into an icebox. I've been sick for so long, I done forgot how to be any other way. Painful stomach cramps and violent vomiting, I can't take my body aching and my head throbbing like this too much longer.
I can't.
I don't know if anybody is out there looking for me or if my ass is S.O.L. All I know is that I wish my crazy-ass sister would either let me go or put a bullet in my dome. I'm tired of being haunted by images of Cedric lying in a pool of his own blood. His handsome face so much like his father's, and my first love, Manny. He's dead because of me—because of my shit. Whatever this shit is.
I've always known that Alice and I hadn't ended things on a good note. I had deliberately cut her out of my and Terrell's life. Yes, she was his biological mother, but after that bullshit with Mason, I had to cut her off. But what else could I have done? I had put up with so much shit. Enough was enough....
 
For weeks after Alice's second son, Mason, disappeared while she was high off crack,Alice's face was splashed all over the news. Majority of the city's opinion was that she'd sold her six-month-old baby for a couple of rocks. After all, her precious rocks were on the table with her passed out on the sofa when I walked in and the baby was gone. I never liked jumping to conclusions, but one plus one will always equal two.
Not to mention, I had to deal with my own soap-opera drama back at my own crib. I came home straight from that bullshit to find my husband digging out my so-called best friend and neighbor, Josie. It wasn't like I had shit twisted and thought that my man was faithful. I learned the hard way that a dog is always going to roam—but to stick his dick in bitches that close to home. Nah, I wasn't having that shit. His ass had to go. Fuck all the money and bullshit that he was slinging in the streets. A bitch gotta stand for something or she'd always fall for anything.
Josie was lucky that all she got was a bullet in the ass. Fo' real. She gave everyone on Shotgun Row a real thrill when she ran naked out my front door, hollering, screaming, and bleeding. Isaac wrestled me to the floor because he knew that when I finished with Josie's ass, he was next.
“Peaches, Peaches, calm the fuck down,” he barked.
“Fuck you, muthafucka! I hate your grimy ass!” Under normal circumstances, Isaac's big muscly ass could've had my ass in a choke hold in two seconds, but my rage had my one-legged ass on equal footing. This nigga was sweating and putting in work to pin my ass down. Finally seizing my shooting hand, he lifted it up and banged it against the door frame, crushing my fingers and damn near breaking my wrist.
“Aaargh, fuck nigga. That shit hurts.”
“What the fuck, Peaches? You know that bitch don't mean shit to me.”
Disgusted with his lying ass, I hock up a loogie from the back of my throat and spit that shit dead in his face. “Punk-nigga!”
Muthafucka backhanded my ass so hard, I swore I saw my own momma giving birth to me. “You done lost your fuckin' mind,” Issac roared.
I was pretty sure that his ass was about to haul off and hit my ass again, but at that very moment, a shot rang out.
We froze and glanced up.
Terrell stood in the doorway with my .38 firmly gripped in his hand. Behind my nephew stood his best friend, Kyjuan, holding another piece that he must've gotten from the front room. Both aimed at Isaac.
“Get the fuck off her,”Terrell said in a menacing voice that defied his age.
If Isaac was surprised by the change in events, it didn't show in his face. In fact, he eyeballed the two boys hard while he calculated his odds on the situation.
Fuck. I struggled on whether to give the command for them to blast his ass or intervene. That's how pissed my ass was.
Isaac must've come to the calculation that Terrell wasn't playing because suddenly his hands came up and he eased his big ass off of me. “All right,Terrell.You're right. Shit got a little out of control in here. I wasn't tryna hurt your Aunt Peaches.”
Terrell's aim and gaze didn't waiver. “Momma P, you want us to shoot his ass?”
I sat up and then scooted the hell out the way.
Isaac tossed me a curious look, concerned that my ass hadn't told the boys to put the guns down.
I took my time, feeling on my busted lip while weighing my decision. Finally, my senses came back to me. I couldn't have these little boys commit their first homicide before they finished the first grade. “Nah. Don't shoot him.”
Though he didn't show it, I knew Isaac's ass was relieved.
“Y'all go on back outside and play,” I told them. “Put the guns back in the table drawer in the living room.”
They didn't move.
“Go on now,” I shouted, agitated.
They lowered their weapons, but took their time creeping from the door.
“Took your damn time with that shit, didn't you?” Isaac growled.
“Don't start. It ain't too late for me to call them back and tell them to shoot your cheating ass.” I sat there and glared at his ass while my heart ripped its way out of my chest.
Isaac heaved out a deep breath while he figured out a different way to come at me. “You're right. My shit was foul. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking. That shit is squashed. Word is bond on that shit.”
Lie. Lie. Lie.
I shook my head and fought my emotions. Before I knew it, Isaac had squat down next to me and tried to pull me into his arms. “Get off me.” I shrugged him off. “You really picked a bad day for this shit,” I told him as my troubled thoughts circled back to Alice and Mason. Before I knew it, tears were rolling down my face.
“Fuck,” Isaac said, stunned. He had never seen my ass cry before.
Hell, even I couldn't remember the last time I did that shit.
“What's really up with you, ma?” Isaac gathered me back into his arms, but that time, I didn't have the strength to fight him off. I unburdened myself onto those strong shoulders. It was a good thing, too, because the phone started ringing off the hook from reporters. Frankly, it looked like those nosy muthafuckas were more interested in tearing up my family than actually helping us find Mason.Alice's and my long-ass record had police—people who didn't even know us—concluding that Alice more than likely sold her baby for crack.
After reading Alice's account of the last time she'd seen her son— I believed that shit, too. She claimed some chick she blazed with, Dribbles, could back her up, but reporters hadn't been able to locate anyone by that name. Clearly, Alice was just pulling shit out her ass.
For the days that followed, I squashed the shit between me and Isaac . . . temporarily. I told myself that we would pick up that bullshit after we found my nephew, but after two weeks, the media no longer cared about a crackhead's missing black baby. The phone calls stopped, the media vans disappeared, and the police moved on. Shotgun Row was happy to see the attention leave because their presence was affecting niggas' pockets, but my thirst for justice and answers had only gotten stronger.
That meant I had to see Alice.
The second I planted my ass in the chair in the visiting room, I wanted to bounce back up and waltz out of that muthafucka. I couldn't get the image of Mason lying in a ditch somewhere or maybe even tossed in the bottom of some garbage dump out of my mind. If Alice didn't want the baby, she could've left him with me. Sure, I would've bitched, but I would've taken care of him. I had always picked up the broken pieces.
The metal door opened and a line of women in prison uniforms marched out to take their seats before the Plexiglas and their visitors.
When Alice strolled out, she looked rough as hell. Her once beautiful, black hair was long and stringy, her eyes were hollow and shifty, and her full lips were pale and dry. For a second, my heart softened and all I could see was that twelve-year-old with tears rolling down her face and blood oozing down her leg. I had a feeling that she was always going to be that girl to me.
Alice took one look at me, pivoted, and started to march out.
I leapt to my feet and pounded on the Plexiglas. “Alice!”
The guards jumped to attention and one even came up behind me to pull me back. “Alice!” I shrugged off the guard. “If I leave I'm never coming back.”
That didn't seem to bother her.
“And you'll never see Terrell again,” I threatened.
She stopped.
The guard's hand landed back on my shoulder and I tossed up my hands. “Okay. Okay. I'm going,” I told him. If the bitch didn't want to talk to me then fuck it.
“Wait,” Alice yelled.
I almost didn't stop, but I did. By the time I turned around, Alice was sitting in her chair and picking up the black phone. Grudgingly, I returned to my chair, but I waited before picking up. For a few seconds we listened to each other breathe.
“Well?” she asked, twitching in her seat. “What the fuck do you want?”
“What do you think? I want to know where Mason is.”
Alice's face hardened. “Why don't you tell me?”
I dropped the phone and rolled my eyes to the sky. “Lord, give me strength.” When I looked at her again, her eyes were brimming with contempt. I knew then that she was going to stick to her bullshit story. “I don't have time for this.”
“Please. I'm not stupid,” she said, twitching in her seat. “I know that you took Mason. It couldn't have been anybody but you.”
It was too big of a bait for me to ignore so I snatched the phone up again. “And why in the hell would I do that?”
“Because your dried-up pussy can't make any babies,” she shot back and then leaned toward the Plexiglas. “You can't stand that I'm more of a woman than you'll ever be. Face it. That's why all your niggas creep they way into my bed. They want to be with a real woman. That loose shit between your legs never could keep a man. In the end they all come to me wanting a taste of the real thing. Ask Isaac.”
The bottom fell out of my stomach. The evil bitch just shot me in my heart. I didn't even have time to beat back the tears. “You're lying,” I whispered.
Alice watched the water roll down my face and thrust up her chin with pride. “Am I?”
Our gazes crashed in what felt like a duel to the death, but my ass came up short. “You hate me that much?”
“If you were me, wouldn't you hate you, too?”
What the fuck could I say to that shit? She was never gonna see things from my side. What was the point of wasting more time and words on the issue? “All right. I'm glad that you got all that shit off your chest. Now that I know how the fuck you feel, we can squash the make-believe sisterly bullshit between us once and for all. I'm tired. You and your bullshit make me so fuckin' tired. But it's over. You hear me? You're dead to me.”
“Is this what the fuck you came down here for—to make me watch you climb up on that cross again? Squash that shit. I'm dead to you?” she shouts. “You're dead to me, bitch. I should've killed you when I took out your nigga Leroy!”
The image of twelve-year-old Alice firing our Nana's gun flashed in my head again. Two bullets slammed into Leroy's chest and two blazed holes into my left leg.
“Trust and believe that the world would've been a better place without your ass in it,” she spat.

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