Riding Dirty on I-95 (7 page)

“
L
ate again? Your ass is about to be hauled off to the group home,” Farrah said, with her voice full of contempt.

“Oh, for real,” Mercy challenged, hands on hips.

“Remember a few weeks ago when you signed this last warning?” Farrah said, slapping a copy of the write-up with Mercy's signature on it down on the desk. “Bam!” she said with a Kool-Aid smile. “You're outta here and on the road to the group home, boo.” Farrah got in Mercy's face and Mercy could smell the Chinese food she had eaten earlier for lunch on her breath. Mercy almost gagged.

“Get out of my face,” Mercy said with no emotion as she sat down in the chair while Farrah roared into laughter.

“Don't you know I
liiivvvve
for this?” Farrah stressed. “I live for these days when I can shut down you little grown-ass girls who think you know everything. You ain't nothing, and you ain't going to be nothing. Now get out of here and carry your ass back to the group home.”

“Bitch, kiss my ass,” Mercy said with emotion and stood up. She scanned the room for something to throw at Farrah. Then for a split second she wanted to spit on Farrah. However, she knew
she had to leave. She walked calmly to the door, then turned and said, “The next girl that comes through here might not be as nice as me, so you better watch who you fuck with. And I mean what I said: Kiss my ass, bitch!” And Mercy pulled down her elastic uniform pants, bent over, and smacked her butt. She quickly pulled her pants back up and said, “I am eighteen years old, and I don't have to deal with your bullshit ever again. So stay the fuck out of my way.”

A week later, Mercy still hadn't found work. She looked for jobs in the mornings, and in the afternoons she took Deonie out for her exercise, which was usually a ride on her tricycle. With Deonie being so hyper, activity was a must. In fact, this was the only way to tire her out and get her to take a nap. Deonie loved her bike, and she rode it at top speed without ever slowing down. To keep up with her, Mercy would have to speed-walk beside her. She didn't care, because it helped keep her voluptuous hourglass figure intact since she couldn't afford a gym membership. They usually did three laps around the whole neighborhood.

On this particular day during the first trip around the block, Mercy saw the same old hoodrats whose total ambition was to become hustlers' wives, doing what they do best, hanging on the corner or sitting on the bench at the bus stop, wasting their lives away. These broads were looking for any hustler, didn't matter what kind—part-time, full-time, nickel-and-dime, or big-time drug dealer—to come and move them out of the hood. The leader of the hoodrat coalition was none other than Brianna, who just happened to be Farrah's niece. Brianna had so much potential but wasted it, instead devoting her life to picking on other people and making fun of them instead of looking in the mirror at herself.

When Mercy and Deonie passed the group of girls, they had jokes big-time, and, of course, Brianna was the ringleader. Like good little flunkies, the others followed suit, as they always did.

“I bet her baby have to eat with all that safety equipment on!” Brianna teased, making fun of Deonie's safety helmet, knee, and elbow pads.

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” the other girls laughed.

“Now we all know that she rides the short bus.” Brianna couldn't stop because she was on a roll. Mercy shot her a mean look.

How could these bitches be so fucking cruel?
she wondered.
To make those kinds of jokes, about a child? I swear I wish my niece wasn't with me. I would beat the brakes off of her and anyone in her crew who wants any part of me. I'm not going to stoop to their level, though
, Mercy thought, trying to calm herself down
. But fo' real this shit seems to escalate every time I walk around this motherfuckin' block. It's one thing for these chicks to hate on me, but what the fuck my niece gotta do with this?

Brianna kept going on with the jokes as if she was purposely trying to push Mercy's buttons, and on Mercy and Deonie's last lap around the block, Mercy gave Brianna a nasty look and Brianna laughed loudly. Mercy kept walking. She knew that she couldn't act a fool while her niece was with her. She knew her temper and that if she responded there would be a fight, and those girls would surely double-bank her.

Later that evening, Mercy was playing catch with Deonie and the two little kids that lived next door when Brianna and her crew came walking by. Brianna had more jokes when she saw Deonie without her safety equipment.

“Oh my God, look at her,” Brianna said, pointing to Deonie. “Poor thang. It ain't her fault. She's the one that's backwards,” she said, nodding toward Mercy. Brianna continued, “Don't that stupid girl know you suppose to wear safety equipment when you playing ball, not when you ride a bike. But that lil' girl don't have nowhere to get no sense from. I betcha if you put her brain in a bat, the bat would fly backwards.”

Brianna's followers roared into laughter as if they were watching the queens of comedy.

Mercy had had enough of Brianna and her crew.

“What? What did you say?” Mercy snapped.

Before Brianna could respond, Ms. Pat called out of her door, “Mercy, come here. I need you for a minute.”

Lucky bitch. She has no idea that Ms. Pat just saved her life.

“There's a job opening at the cookie factory,” Ms. Pat said as Mercy and Deonie entered her apartment. “Give this man a call. You can probably start right away.” Ms. Pat handed Mercy the number, and Mercy sighed with relief and called the man. It wasn't much, working in a cookie factory, but it would pay the bills and she and Deonie could move into their own apartment.

M
s. Pat pulled some strings and was able to get Mercy an apartment across the hall from her. Mercy wanted to move to a better neighborhood, but she felt her job at the cookie factory was unstable. Although it paid fifteen dollars an hour, they laid off on a regular basis. It was an unwritten rule that when work was available, they would call her back, but there was no telling how long it would be before that call came. Sometimes Mercy worked for four months straight; she'd get laid off for two months. But when she did work, she could rack up on the overtime. And she did. Sometimes she brought home over a grand a week. When she worked, she worked like a slave, on any shift they would give her. During her days of being laid off, she was eligible for unemployment checks, but that money wasn't half of what she raked in when she worked. During months when she didn't work a day and her unemployment had been exhausted, she would still somehow be able to scrape together enough to pay the low rent for her apartment in the hood.

When she did work, her rent would increase. She didn't want to report her income, but she had to or Brianna would be sure to tell someone and get her kicked out for sure.

One day when she hadn't been working for a couple of weeks, she went over to visit with Ms. Pat, who asked her to go to the store and pick up some Kool-Aid.

Although she didn't feel like it, she could never say no to Ms. Pat. Mercy left Deonie with Ms. Pat while she went off to the store.

Mercy noticed that dude C-Note that everybody had been talking about as he rode past her in his brand-new GS 400 Lexus. Although she knew of him, they had never been formally introduced. Mercy tried to stay clear of all the neighborhood boys, especially C-Note. She knew that all the girls wanted to ride his dick, including Brianna, and Mercy wasn't trying to be just another statistic.

The word on the street was that C-Note was a good dude, and she never really heard any dirt kicked on his name except that he was soft. He was known to get money, and he would go out of his way to duck the drama and the gunplay. He's what some would call a finesse hustler. She had heard that his older brother, Lynx, a renowned player, introduced him to the game. Lynx wouldn't let him accept anything less than a hundred dollars, so the fiends gave him the name C-note, a name that stuck with him. He was a nice guy, and on the strength of his brother, he could have any woman that he wanted. But he never entertained any from the hood. Not that anybody knew of, anyway. It was to no one's surprise that over a few months C-Note started coming up in a ghetto-fabulous way. He was pushing a new Lexus and slowly beginning to have three sets of projects on lock, which was making his name ring. Not only was he a stand-up dude, he was making major moves right in the footsteps of the brother, who was now in prison.

Mercy had never noticed how sexy he was until she saw him getting out of his car as she walked across the parking lot to the Chinese-owned store.

Damn, that nigga is sho wearing the fuck out of that wife beater, looking like a chocolate pop
, Mercy thought, licking her lips.
I'm always looking for a brother in a suit, but shit, I will take this wife beater any day.

Brianna was standing on the corner with her hoodrat crew. As soon as Brianna saw C-note pull into the parking lot, she rushed over so she could be heard and seen. Loudly, she screamed out, “Girl, you sooo funny, ahhh haaa-haaa.” Then she fell into laughter, trying to get C-note's attention. But he went into the store and never acknowledged her. Mercy laughed to herself and went to the back of the store to get Ms. Pat's Kool-Aid.

Brianna came in right behind her.

“Hey, C-note,” Brianna asked in a flirtatious manner. “How you doing?”

Mercy pretended not to be watching, but she saw that he never opened his mouth; he only threw his head up to indicate “What's up.”

Brianna bought a cherry blow pop while C-note went over to the grill side of the store and ordered food in a soft voice. “Yeah, let me get a, ummm, cheeseburger sub with no onions and a large fries cooked hard.” He leaned up against the counter to wait for his food. As soon as Brianna made eye contact with C-note, she began working the blow pop overtime, licking it as if it was a dick with a cherry on top. For a split second she had C-note's undivided attention. That is until Mercy came up to the counter with her packages of Kool-Aid and three cans of ravioli for Deonie.

Mercy never claimed to be anybody's beauty queen, but many people told her she was pretty. Although she was a bit on the thick side, she carried her weight well. She was one hot dog away from
a size sixteen but often squeezed into a fourteen, always telling herself that she was going to lose weight. She had tried every diet known to man at least once. At five feet and eight and a half inches tall, she was voluptuous and curvy. Her white teeth complemented her dark brown skin. Never letting the gap between her two front teeth slow her down, she constantly reminded herself that it was only temporary. Since her job's health insurance plan didn't offer dental, she was saving her extra dividends to get braces. However, her well-maintained spiked short haircut was her trademark, and each piece was always intact.

Mercy's appearance snapped C-note out of the trance Brianna had him in. Brianna had mastered the art of how to get to the center of the blow pop, but now every ounce of C-note's attention was directed to Mercy. He was absolutely mesmerized by her in her pink stretch Twirk jeans and the Twirk baby tee to match. She was wearing her brand-new 5411 white-on-white high-top Reeboks.

Walking past C-Note, Mercy could feel his eyes glued to her body. She didn't make eye contact with him, but she knew he could smell the faint scent of her Victoria's Secret Rapture.

As Mercy stood in line with her items, a man in front of her called out numbers to the clerk, a tiny little Chinese lady, to punch into the lotto machine's computer. C-Note finally caught her eye, looked her up and down, and then locked eyes with her.

“Whad'up?” C-Note said to Mercy.

Mercy saw Brianna gritting on her, so she worked the moment like it was a cow, milking it for all it was worth. She looked him up and down and in a very seductive voice replied, “Hey, boo, how you doing?”

“Not as good as I could be, and you?”

With a little sexy laugh, Mercy said, “Not as good as I should be.”

“I can't tell. But later with all that. What's
y
o' name, boo?” he asked. Brianna's mouth dropped, shocked that he was even entertaining Mercy.

“Mercy,” she said in a sure but confident way to give him a smile.

“Let me guess, that's short for Mercedes or something, huh?”

“Nope. It's just Mercy.”

C-Note mumbled under his breath only loud enough for Bri-anna to hear him. “Damn, but I sure hope she rides like a Mercedes.”

The smile that Mercy dropped on him had C-Note feeling like an M&M, only he was melting in the palm of her hands, not in her mouth. There was no way C-Note could hide or handle it. He might as well have written all over his face that he wanted to be Mercy's candy man.

“I don't know what you smiling up in his face fo'?” Brianna got up in Mercy's ear and said. “He don't fuck wit' no Reebok broads.”

“There's an exception to every rule,” C-Note said with a slight cockiness. “Besides, I make the rules around here.”

Mercy laughed like it was something funny, but she did not want to get in a verbal war with Brianna right then.