Get It Girls (2 page)

Lynn, who stood about five feet, five inches tall, was the thickest of the crew, and she came along about the same time as Jessica.

They attended an all-girls Catholic school in East Manhattan downtown called Cathedral High School. Over the four years that they attended Cathedral, they’d become inseparable. But Tiny never came to terms with Jessica seemingly taking her place and constantly tried to show Jessica up with insults. Jessica developed a thick skin and knew from past experience not to show Tiny her weak spots because Tiny would feed on it. So, she simply just checked her hard by talking about her physical attributes, which Tiny hated.

Jessica sneered and said, “I ain’t ask you to wait for me, Tiny. You can do whatever you want to do. Nobody is stopping you.”

Tiny quickly retorted. “Don’t forget we letting you roll with us. So keep talking shit and we gonna leave ya ass next time.”

Jessica chuckled. “Who is we? Like you speak for Vonda and Lynn?”

Tiny looked at Vonda for support and asked, “Yo, Vonda, ain’t you getting tired of her shit?”

For the most part, Vonda tried to stand clear of Tiny’s nonsense and learned to ignore her, but lately she’d been growing weary because of her constant bickering and scheming. “Why don’t you shut the fuck up, Tiny? If you don’t want to wait with us, you can go ahead without us. It’s just that simple.”

Tiny stood stone-faced. “Oh, you gonna play me over her, Vonda?”

“Playing you? No, Tiny, you playing yourself. How you gonna try to tell us who and who not to wait for?” Vonda waited for a response and heard none. “So you can make up your mind what you want to do, because you’ve got options.”

Tiny was still unmoved by her comment and added, “Yeah, whatever, Vonda. But don’t forget we got that biology test first period, and see what happens if they lock us out this morning. Don’t say I didn’t tell you so, and we’ll see who you blame then.”

Lynn snickered and jumped in. “Since when the fuck did you start worrying about a test, Tiny? All you doing is starting shit.”

Tiny turned her attention to Lynn. “Don’t even start talking, Lynn. We waited for your fat ass this morning too.”

“Fuck you, Tiny!” Lynn quickly snapped. “My elevator was broke, and I had to walk down nineteen flights of stairs.”

Tiny gave her a wicked smile. “You should be happy. Maybe you lost some weight in the process.”

“Least I got some weight, Tiny, unlike your bony, malnutritioned ass.”

“Don’t even try it; all that shit is fat,” Tiny joked.

Lynn stopped suddenly and said, “Yeah, but you wish you had a body like mines, you skinny toothpick.” Lynn pointed her thumb at Tiny. “This bitch is so skinny, she could hula hoop through a Cheerio.”

“Oh, you snapping, Lynn? At least my hair ain’t so short that I use Rice-A-Roni to roll it.”

Tiny and Lynn always snapped on each other every morning, and Vonda and Jessica couldn’t help but laugh. These were the moments they enjoyed the most despite Tiny’s constant nitpicking.

Lynn and Tiny went on like this for the next two blocks as they cracked jokes on each other. They were all laughing so hard, they were oblivious to the five girls standing on the corner. When they finally spotted them, it was too late to avoid them, so they all grew silent and braced themselves for the unexpected.

The group of girls, the Lenox Avenue Girls, was a bunch of hard heads who lived for fighting and starting trouble. Cookie, Denise, Tay-Tay, Nikki, and Kimmi preyed on most of the girls in the neighborhood. They were all in their late teens or early twenties, and particularly didn’t like Catholic school girls. They thought all Catholic school girls were stuck up and thought they were better than public school girls. It wasn’t uncommon throughout Harlem, though. Public school girls were frequently seen jumping and beating up a few Catholic girls coming or going to school.

Vonda, Tiny, Lynn, and Jessica had had more than their share of run-ins with The Lenox Avenue Girls during their four years together. Normally, they avoided them by taking the long way to the train station. But today they were caught slipping.

“Oh, shit, Tay-Tay, look what the fuck we have here,” said the ringleader, Cookie. The group began walking in the four girls’ direction.

Jessica and her crew tried to walk around them, but the five girls blocked them by creating a human wall in front of them.

Vonda tried to show no weakness. “What the fuck do you want now, Cookie?” Even though Vonda was tall, she was small in comparison to Cookie in both height and girth.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you talking to, Vonda, but you better recognize who the fuck you talking to.”

Vonda gritted down on her jaw and cursed herself under her breath for not carrying her knife or razor as she normally did. She wasn’t afraid to throw down with Cookie one-on-one, but she knew if she got in the mix with her she would get jumped on by the four other girls. The only one in her crew she could really rely on was Jessica, because she knew from experience that neither Tiny nor Lynn would be any help. She weighed her odds and decided to use her head for now, but she wasn’t going to be taken advantage of by any means.

Vonda looked her directly in her eyes to gain some respect. “So what do you want, Cookie?”

“Y’all bitches know what the fuck it is. I told y’all last time the next time I see you bitches walking on my avenue, you gots ta pay a bitch to pass.”

Cookie’s partner Denise interjected and said, “What? Y’all bitches thought we forgot?”

Cookie snarled and gained even more confidence when she saw the fear in Lynn’s eyes. “What you got in your purse, Lynn? Come up off that shit right now.”

Lynn began shaking so badly that she was unable to respond.

Cookie stepped directly in her face and screamed, “You heard what the fuck I said, bitch. Up that shit right now or I’m gonna bust your shit!”

Lynn began reaching for her handbag when Vonda and Jessica stepped between them to defend their friend.

Vonda stated flatly, “Yo, Cookie, I’m not going to let you take her money.”

Cookie grimaced. “What? And how the fuck are you going to stop me?”

There was a moment of silence until Jessica spoke up. “She can’t give you her money because she’s a diabetic.”

The five girls looked at each other, not getting the point.

“So the fuck what?” asked Nikki, who looked at Cookie, Tay-Tay, Denise, and Kimmi like they might have an answer.

Jessica shook her head. “Since she’s a diabetic, she got to buy some snacks during and after school so she doesn’t get sick.”

The five girls all began looking at Lynn until Cookie joked, “This bitch look like she could stand to miss a few snacks.”

They all began laughing—hard—in light of the joke.

Cookie turned her attention to Tiny and looked her up and down. “Look at this li’l bitch,” she said, looking over her shoulders and pointing toward Tiny. “She looks like she’s the one that needs to be eating some snacks because she ain’t got no fucking titties.”

The Lenox Avenue girls all started laughing heartily and slapping high fives to each other.

Cookie continued digging into Tiny. “This bitch must be one of the board members on the Itty Bitty Titty Committee.”

They bent over in laughter as Tiny stood stoned-faced, clutching her fist.

Vonda and Jessica watched Tiny’s eyes slant and each prayed that she wouldn’t say a word because they knew her, and it would be nothing but trouble.

Cookie’s crew was laughing so hard they seemed to have forgotten they were there until Cookie said, “All right, all right. I’m gonna let y’all go this time, but the next time I catch y’all on my block or on my avenue,” she paused, pulled out a switchblade from her hoodie, flicked it open, and licked the blade, “All y’all bitches is gonna come up with that loot. Y’all hear me?”

Jessica, Vonda, Tiny, and Lynn remained silent as the five girls parted and allowed them to walk through.

As the rough girls watched them walk away, Tay-Tay added one more insult toward Tiny. “Ay yo, Tiny. I know why they call you that. ’Cause you a chicken head with a chicken butt.”

The girls began to mock her further by making clucking sounds. Tiny was clearly vexed, and Vonda, Jessica, and Lynn knew it by the way she was biting down on her lip. She was also slanting her eyes, and that was an expression they were all too familiar with. It had gotten them in more than their share of trouble in the past.

“Tiny, don’t say a fucking word. Just keep on walking,” Vonda whispered.

“Yeah, Tiny. Let that shit go,” added Jessica.

Tiny continued to bite down on her lip and clutch her fist. Halfway down the block, Tiny couldn’t take it any longer and lost it. She turned around and yelled at the top of her lungs, “At least I’m not a high school dropout like you, you dumb dyke bitches!”

That was it. Tiny had set it off, and the four girls ran as fast and as hard as they could toward the train station. Cookie and the four other girls were fuming as they yelled obscenities at the retreating girls’ backs.

“Get it on 'em, girls. Get in their asses! We gonna fuck y’all up. Get it in, y'all! Get it in on 'em!”

It was only in vain, as Cookie and her crew ran out of steam after only one block of pursuit.

“That’s all right, bitches,” yelled Cookie. “When I catch y’all asses it’s fuckin’ on!”

Jessica, Vonda, Tiny, and Lynn ran five more blocks and slowed down only when they were sure they were no longer in danger. When they arrived at the number 3 train at 148th and 7th Avenue, the four girls were out of breath and so furious that that Vonda threw Tiny up against the entrance wall and began digging into her—hard.

“You just couldn’t keep your fuckin’ mouth shut, could you? You just had to say something, Tiny, huh?” Vonda grabbed her by her sweater. “Now you got us in the fucking mix with them bitches and now we got to watch our backs!”

Tiny knew she was wrong and could not respond.

Vonda refused to let up as her eyes turned blood red from anger. “I fuckin’ told you not to say nothing, but you don’t listen.”

If it wasn’t for Lynn and Jessica pulling Vonda off of Tiny, she would have surely wound up choking Tiny to death. Tiny coyly eyed the ground like a child, only now realizing how much she had put them in jeopardy. Vonda’s chest heaved in and out. She stared down at Tiny red-faced, awaiting an answer, but she never received one.

Forever the peacemaker, Lynn wiped the sweat from her brow. “Damn. I don’t know about y’all, but I sure could use a snack, ’cause my diabetes must be acting up.”

Just like that, the four of them laughed as they looked at each other’s hair, which was now sweated out. Tiny walked over and lifted her chin toward Vonda. They stared at each other for a moment, and then they both grinned wickedly and embraced.

“Why the fuck do I keep you as a friend?” Vonda wondered out loud as she patted Tiny’s hair back into place.

“’Cause without me, your life would be boring.” Tiny snickered.

“No, because she would get that ass kicked every day if it wasn’t for you.” Jessica grinned as she playfully patted Tiny on her head.

They began to fix their clothing back into place and used their fingers to restyle their hair and walked down the stairs to the train station.

“They really wanted to get our asses, huh?” Vonda asked.

They all nodded, and Jessica asked, “Yo, was it me or did I hear that fat bitch Cookie yelling, ‘Get it in, girls’?”

“Yes, she did,” said Vonda. “‘Get it, girls. Get their asses, girls.’ Shit, I felt like we were being chased by a pack of hungry wolves or something.”

All the girls started cracking up. After their adrenaline rush subsided, reality once again struck them and Jessica said, “But, yo, them bitches is serious, so we can’t walk on 7th or Lenox Avenue no time soon.”

They all looked down and agreed with a nod.

“We could just catch the train on 135th instead of here from now on,” Lynn suggested. “We only got two months left till we all graduate. We lay low for the summer, and after that we don’t have to worry about them bitches forever.”

They collectively discussed it for a moment and agreed to avoid their rivals by lying low. “So that’s what it is,” said Vonda. “Watch each other’s back from now till we go off to college.”

They all nodded. They watched the train pulling into the station and Vonda added, “We are now wanted girls, so we got to be on point.”

Fear once again was in their eyes and Vonda saw it and joked, “We not just wanted girls, but we are the Get ’Em Girls.”

A smile instantly came across all their faces.

Lynn asked, “So, is that the name of our crew now? Are we the Get ’Em Girls crew?”

All at once, the girls began to nod and agree. One by one, each stuck out her fist and put it together in the center. In unison they said, “Get ’Em Girls!”

W
hen Jessica arrived home with her younger brother Jordan, she immediately began to follow her mother’s orders and took out some frozen meat from the freezer. She paused for a moment and listened closely. “Jordan, cut that Atari off and get to your homework, now!”

The sound coming from his room instantly stopped, and she became suspicious. She knew her brother, and she also knew that he didn’t take well to being told what to do that quickly, so she quietly began climbing the stairs to his bedroom. She listened at his door for a second and thought she heard the handling of the Atari controllers patting away. She rushed in his room. Just as she thought; he’d only turned the volume down on the television and continued playing the game.

“Aha!” yelled Jessica as she ran toward her little brother and snatched the controller out of his hands. “Jordan, you think I’m that stupid? You know Mama said you have to do your homework before you get on these games.”

“Come on, Jessica,” Jordan pleaded. “My friend at school let me borrow his game till tomorrow, and I’m just testing it out for a minute, that’s all.”

“Jordan, you know that if Mama comes home and finds you playing these games without your homework being done she’s going to yell at me too for letting you.”