Hustlin' Divas (11 page)

T
he moment Python peels out of Shotgun Row, word leaks about Fat Ace's whereabouts. Soon after, members of the set spill out of their houses and turn the whole street into a spontaneous block party. Niggas started blasting music and shooting their guns in the air as an early celebration. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that the dirty dozen McGriff selected would handle this situation with Fat Ace once and for all.

Of course, I never seen a party I didn't like, so me and my boo climb out of bed and go mingle. Given that it's past midnight and I'm not allowed to be out of my house, I simply remove the electronic tag on my prosthetic leg.

“What's going on out here?” I ask, strolling out my front door.

My next door neighbor, Chantal, scratches at her unkempt hair and repositions her two-year-old son, who's wearing the Gangster Disciples colors and smells like he has a full shit load in his diaper, on her hip. “They've found Fat Ace. Python has gone to handle this business himself.”

POP! POP! POP!

“ALL IS ONE!” some corner boys shout.

“UNTIL THE WORLD BLOWS UP!” the rest of the crowd shouts.

Everyone cheers as more guns are waved into the air.

POP! POP! POP!

The corners of my lips kick up. “I knew we'd find that fat fucka sooner or later.” I spot a couple of Queen Gs and snap my fingers. “Hey, you two, let me have a hit of that shit.” I continue to snap my fingers as Baby and Yolanda turn and jog up my porch steps.

“Be careful. That shit got a powerful kick,” Baby warns.

I roll my eyes. “Chile, please. My ass has been smoking these muthafuckas since before you were an itch in your granddaddy's sac.” I pop the blunt into my mouth and then fill my lungs with a deep toke only to find out that the lil girl wasn't playing. My eyes droop, my lips go numb, and my mind just fucking takes flight.

“Told you.” Baby Thug grabs the blunt back and hands it to Yo-Yo.

“Goddamn that's some good shit,” I say, already wavering on my feet. “What the fuck is in that?”

A wide smile stretches across Baby's face. “It's my own special blend. I only smoke it on special occasions. And cutting the head off those fake-ass slobs is a hell of a good reason to get blitz, nahwhatImean?”

Yo-Yo takes a deep drag. “My girl knows how to hook shit up, don't she?”

“That she does, chile. Puff, puff, pass,” I joke, reaching for the blunt again and rocking my hips to the booming bass from one of the car's stereo systems. “Chantal, you want a hit of this?”

“Nah, Momma. I'm straight.”

“Everybody going to have to watch they back for a while. You know the streets are going to be on fire after this,” Baby says.

“Fuck. They started this shit as far as I'm concerned. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the muthafuckin' kitchen.” I take a second hit and know that shit is going to have to be the last tug. “Go on, girl. You can have the rest. That shit gone have me fuckin' embarrassing myself after a while.”

“Hey, Peaches,” Rufus calls from the fence. “Sho look good this evening.” His eyes rake me up and down.

“Nigga, don't start begging me for no pussy. I ain't got time for that shit tonight.”

Rufus just shrugs his shoulders. “One day. Watch and see.”

Arzell returns to the porch, carrying two beers. “Gotcha something to drink, Momma.” He hands a chilled bottle over to me and then gives my ass a good smack and squeeze in front of the whole neighborhood.

“Whoooaa!” A few niggas snicker and point at us.

Arzell gives everyone the middle finger. “Fuck all y'all, muthafuckas!”

“Don't worry about them, baby. They ain't nothing but a bunch of haters 'cause they can't get at this. Muthafuckas don't know pussy is like fine wine—it only gets better with time.”

The brothers howl.

Arzell smirks and then jogs off the porch to go talk shit.

“So what's goin' on with you, Yo-Yo?” I ask. “What you been up to? I haven't been able to catch up with you since I've been back home.”

Yolanda shrugs her shoulders. “You know how it is. Doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that so I can stack some paper.”

“Get your kids back yet?”

Yo-Yo takes another powerful pull on the rapidly disappearing woolie. “Nah. Not yet.” She shrugs. “But I'm working on it. Got me a job over at the Pink Monkey today.”

“Humph.” I lean back and check her out. “Well, ain't nothing wrong with working what the good Lord gave you. You just make sure you stay one step ahead of the game. Don't let those niggas gas you up on some bullshit or you'll be poppin' out more crumb snatchers you can't afford to take care of.”

She drops her head.

Even though I'm pretty fucked up, I realize that I hurt the girl's feelings, and knowing what the girl has been through, I ease up. “Chile, don't pay me no mind. You do what you gotta do to get your babies back, girl.” I shake my head as another old memory starts to emerge through my drugged haze. When it's all said and done, it's up to the woman to provide for her babies. And sometimes we gotta stack money any way we can….

 

April 1985. I had my arms full with trying to take care of Nana Maybelle. She had suffered a stroke a few weeks prior, and she was having trouble regaining the use of her left side. Medical bills ate through Maybelle's nest egg in just a matter of months. The good times were officially over for the Carver women.

Alice, six months pregnant, had moved back into the house after much back-and-forth with her latest boyfriend, Jerome. Neither one of them was any use to me. The muthafuckas partied all night and slept all day. For years, Nana and I tiptoed around Alice, mainly because we felt guilty for what Leroy had done to her twelve years ago. Maybelle felt bad because she wasn't home that night, and I felt bad for obvious reasons.

Given the rape and her age, the courts ruled Leroy's murder as a justified homicide. However, Alice was never the same again. She got into trouble, flunked out of school, and just overall didn't give a fuck about anything. Then there were the men. Where I liked bad boys, Alice loved dangerous boys.

It was unclear where Jerome came from. His story changed damn near every day. And if you asked him too many questions, he'd become agitated and start cussing muthafuckas out. Around town, he'd been known to jack cars in broad daylight and shoot niggas over dice games. He even shot one nigga because he'd snuck a chicken leg out of Jerome's Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket. He straight up just didn't give a fuck.

I had to check his ass almost on the daily and came close to slicing his throat when I caught his ass stealing money out of my purse. Still, Alice defended him and refused to put him out of the house.

She also defended him whenever he hauled off and beat her ass for any and everything. I didn't understand. Alice had blossomed into a beautiful woman. Pretty face, big titties, small waist, and a thick ass. Everywhere she went, niggas damn near got whiplash trying to holler at her. She could've had any nigga she wanted, but for some damn reason, she wanted this illiterate, nasty, Jheri curl–wearing, gold-toothed, stank-breath muthafucka who dressed like Tubbs on
Miami Vice.

The few times that I tried to push the issue, Alice had cussed me the fuck out. And the one time I'd jumped in the middle of one of their fights, trying to defend Alice, the bitch turned on me and tried to beat my ass. So I decided to let her do whatever the fuck she wanted to do. A hard head made a soft ass.

It wasn't easy staying on the sidelines. Jerome would beat Alice so bad sometimes that I just knew she was going to miscarry one day or even be killed herself. If that day ever came, I didn't know what I was going to do.

Money became such an issue at the Carver house that I tried to take over the family business, establish some connections, but Jerome fucked all that shit up, too.

“He's gotta go!” I shouted after discovering I was missing a couple of bricks I had kept stashed in a loose board beneath my bed. “I can't take this shit no more! Niggas die for shit like this.”

“Calm down,” Alice said, rolling her eyes. “You don't know whether Jerome took your shit. Maybe you have another nigga roaming around the house while you're high as fuck and passed out.” She cocked a half smile at me. “It's happened before.”

Our gazes clashed.

“So what? I'm supposed to let this muthafucka run all over me for some mistake twelve years ago? Fuck that. Enough is enough. The past is the past. It's time to fucking move on from that shit. He's stealing money out of our pockets, food out of our mouths. We got bills in this bitch. You think the muthafuckin' lights stay on because people at Memphis Light and Gas just love our black asses? Nah. He's gotta go.”

Alice rolled her eyes again and smacked her heavily glossed lips. “The last time I checked, this wasn't your house. Nana Maybelle said that we could stay here as long as we wanted.”

“I tell you what. When Nana can wipe her ass again, then she can have a vote. But as long as my ass is hustlin' in this muthafucka to keep the lights on, then what I fuckin' say goes.”

Alice teared up. “So, what, you're putting me out?”

“I didn't say that you had to go anywhere. Jerome needs to take his dusty behind somewhere else—back to Atlanta, Birmingham, or wherever the fuck he says he's from this week.”

“If he goes, then I go,” Alice said, playing her best card.

“Then I'm going to miss you,” I said.

Alice's face fell. “You'd do that?”

“Nobody pimps me out. Not you and certainly not some drip, drip Jheri curl muthafucka who's ruining all our good sheets.”

“Fine. Fuck you, bitch. If it wasn't for me, your ass wouldn't even be here now.”

I shook my head. “It's not going to work this time. I appreciate and am grateful that you saved my life that night, but I can't keep living like this. I'm sorry for what Leroy did to you—for my part in what happened—but I've got to draw a line, Alice. Jerome has to go.”

“Your part? The whole fuckin' thing was your fault. You brought that nigga in here…to my bed. Now you wanna stand there and judge me on how me and my man get down? Well, fuck you. You got a lot of fuckin' nerve.”

I shook my head. “I'm not changing my mind about this, Alice. I don't owe—”

“Bitch, you owe me your life.” Alice winced and clutched at her belly.

“What's wrong?”

“N-nothing.” She doubled over. I rushed to her side, but she stubbornly pulled away. “Get away from me. I don't need your help.”

“Don't be stupid. Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Alice didn't answer. She stayed doubled over, drawing in several short breaths until the pain subsided..

“I'm calling nine-one-one,” I decided.

“No.” Alice stood, seeming to have recovered. “I'm fine, so stop pretending you give a fuck.”

“Alice…”

My sister didn't stand around to hear whatever I had to say. She simply turned and marched out of the room. An hour later, she had packed her and Jerome's shit and stormed out. Nana Maybelle was hurt but understood that I had to do what I had to do.

Alice and Jerome spent the next two weeks sleeping in his black van. For the first week, Jerome sold some of the brick he'd lifted from my stash. They partied hard with the rest. Alice kept telling herself that she wasn't doing that much coke and that her baby was going to be fine. Then she tried crack for the first time and had long spells when she forgot that she was pregnant altogether.

Two weeks later, Jerome sold the van out from under them, leaving them to roam from one shitty motel to another. Then he sold his gold teeth. None of the money lasted long. Then Jerome had the bright idea to pimp Alice out, even though she was now seven months pregnant. She refused at first, but after being slapped around for a little bit, she changed her mind. Niggas didn't give a fuck that her ass was pregnant. She was still pretty with a fat ass.

But the money wasn't coming fast enough for Jerome, so he concocted a plan to hit two check-cashing joints off Lamar. “It's just a smash-and-grab, baby. Ain't shit going to go wrong,” he said. “We roll up in there, get that money, and we'll be set for a while—at least until Junior comes,” he said, reaching over and rubbing her big belly.

“I don't know.”

“What the fuck don't you know?” Jerome yelled. “We need the money, don't we?”

Alice sighed. “Yes, baby.” She was getting tired of this same argument from him.

“Then what's the problem? It's tax refund time. You know these muthafuckas have mad loot in there. We hit this one and then the one over off Winchester, and I'm telling you we'll be set.”

Alice remained unconvinced.

“Looky here.” He sniffed and then sat next to her on the rumpled motel bed. “If it makes you feel better, after the job, we can get a couple of rocks and have ourselves a little party.” He leaned over and nibbled on her bottom lip. “You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

Just the idea of getting high had Alice smacking her lips in anticipation. Fuck. They did need the money, and the little chump change she made with these broke niggas around Memphis was barely enough for a couple of rocks, let alone for some food and shit. In the back of her mind, she knew the shit she was doing was fucked up, but, damn, she couldn't help herself at this point. Life was too fucking hard to deal with when she wasn't high. Of course, she could always go home, but that would require her tucking in her tail and kissing her sister's ass. She couldn't do that.