What's Really Hood!: A Collection of Tales From the Streets (24 page)

“No I don’t.” Cream stood there.

“I’m not going to ask you again. Hands up over your head and spread them,” the short officer repeated.

By the time the charade was all over it was four in the morning. Nina and Michelle had to be up and out by nine to go on a
mission.

At nine a.m. sharp, Michelle and Nina were looking tired as hell but ready to take care of business. Michelle had been promoted
from babysitter to driver and partner. The new babysitter was old lady Ruthie from across the street. She would come over
and watch the kids, cook and clean. Some days Nina would let them go over to her house. Ms. Ruthie lived solely off of her
Social Security and food stamps. So whatever extra money she got from Nina was greatly appreciated. Plus she enjoyed the kids’
company. She didn’t mind working hard for her money and Nina felt she deserved every dime.

Nina and Michelle both had on their disguises, which consisted of wigs, makeup, moles and glasses. They looked like entirely
different women. The conservative
clothing added the finishing touch. Today was not a shopping-at-the-mall day. This was strictly a get-money day. Michelle
had gotten a hold of some insurance checks. She had the personal checking account info of a Tina Machurley. The account was
drawn on a bank with at least fifteen branches in the South Jersey area alone. Nina had from nine to five to hit as many drive-through
windows as possible. The check-cashing limit of the drive-through window was a thousand dollars. So Nina typed out seven insurance
checks, each for $975.00, payable to Tina Machurley.

She was looking over the checks one more time. First she combed the front of the check to make sure everything looked legit
and perfect. She then turned the check over to its back. She had a photocopy of Tina Machurley’s canceled check and she carefully
matched her version of Tina’s signature against the original. Once satisfied that it was a perfect match she carefully stuffed
all seven checks in the Coach checkbook holder that she carried. Being that the banks she had planned to hit were all deep
in South Jersey she estimated that they should be able to cash all seven of them. Give or take one or two.

Map in hand, Michelle yelled, “Let’s roll!”

Nina nodded to her partner in crime, locked the front door and on foot they went to find the stolen vehicle that she had Derrick
cop. He had said it was a white-on-white Acura Legend and the keys would be under the mat. Nina never used her own vehicle,
it would always be a stolen one or some crackhead’s who
didn’t give a damn what she did with their car as long as she supplied them with a couple of rocks to smoke. That way, when
the bank cameras or employees caught the plate number, the joke would be on them. After the banks were hit, she would ditch
the ride by giving it back to the hood. Someone would happily take it off her hands.

They walked two blocks before spotting the pearly white-on-white Legend. “Damn, I was beginning to think somebody had stole
it back from us! I might wanna hold on to this for a few days.” Michelle lusted after the new vehicle as she jumped in the
driver’s seat and began feeling under the carpet for the keys.

Nina tapped on the window. “Unlock the door.” Michelle popped the lock and when Nina jumped in she warned, “Don’t even think
about it. This shit is history after today.”

Michelle grinned. “You know I was only playin’!”

“Yeah right. Your ass look mighty happy to me.” Nina watched as Michelle adjusted the seats and mirrors and found something
on the radio.

“Let’s do it!” Michelle was hyped up as she pulled out and headed for the highway.

An hour and twenty minutes later they were pulling into the first bank parking lot.

“Damn,” Nina pouted. “This country-ass bank don’t even have a drive-through! I should walk my ass right on in, shouldn’t I?”

“Hell fuckin’ no!” Michelle snapped as she rolled right
back out of the bank’s parking lot. “Your black ass ain’t walking up in there talking about give me 975 dollars! They’ll
lock your black ass up, Mrs. Machurley!”

“Whateva, bitch. You know I look the part, I can pull that shit off if I need to.” Nina snapped her neck back as she pulled
out her list of the bank branches. “There should be another one on this same highway. Turn left and we’ll just cruise until
another one pops up.”

Sure enough, after they drove for another ten minutes they came to another branch. The same rule applied just as if you were
mall shopping:
go to the easiest-looking mark
. It was tricky, because the black folks were such Uncle Toms and harder on their own people than the white folks. There was
a sister at one window and an older white woman at the other. “Go to the sister,” Nina ordered.

Michelle did as she was told. The sister smiled at Michelle and nodded as she counted a stack of bills. Michelle flashed her
own Ms. America smile as she rolled the window down, grabbed the glass tube and handed it to Nina. Nina confidently stuffed
the check and license inside the tube and handed it back to Michelle, who stuck it in the slot, pressing the green button
that sent the tube sliding to their lick. Sister girl opened up the tube, took the check out, eyed the front, turned it over,
eyed the back and began punching some keys on the computer. Nina and Michelle were slyly keeping an eye on the sister as they
indulged in idle chitchat. A minute later they both let out a sigh of relief as sister girl asked, “Mrs. Machurley, would
you like that in large bills or small?”

“Large, please.” Nina smiled as she went back to conversing with Michelle.

When sister girl finished counting she stuffed the bills into a bank envelope, placed it in the tube and sent it back. She
then smiled and said, “Have a good day.”

“Thank you and you have a good one,” Nina said as Michelle took the envelope out of the tube, handed the envelope to Nina
and placed the tube back. Nina counted the money to make sure it was all there as Michelle put the car in drive and they headed
off.

“All praise is due to the Most High,” Nina said.

“Amen to that,” commented Michelle. She was happy because as the driver, her take was twenty percent on each envelope.

At bank two they collected 975 dollars as well as at banks three, four and five. When they arrived at bank six the bank was
stashed at the back of the shopping center. It was very busy and had lots of traffic.

“This should be a piece of cake. This spot is jumpin’. It’s like we back in the hood. Obviously, this must be where all the
black people shop,” Michelle cracked as she pulled up to the drive-through, snatched the check from Nina and placed it in
the glass tube.

“Sho’ you right!” Nina said. They kept an eye on the teller as they indulged in their usual chitchatter.

After about three minutes Michelle said out the side of her mouth, “What the fuck are they doing? Who is he at the window?”
A young guy had appeared next to the teller servicing them. He was talking to her and looking at the check and ID in her hand.

“It’s probably her supervisor. You know how some branches gotta get approval when it’s over a certain amount.” Nina didn’t
want to go into panic mode.

“Fuck that! Let’s roll.” Michelle’s hand was already on the gear.

“Hold up,” Nina said. “Don’t panic. How many times we went through this and everything turned out copacetic?” she said as
she smiled at the teller. The supervisor rushed back inside. “Aw hell no! Hit the call button.” Michelle hit the button.

Nina leaned over Michelle and said, “Excuse me, miss. Is there a problem?”

The teller looked up and gave a fake smile and said, “It’ll be a minute, we don’t have your signature card on file.”

“Oh, okay.” Nina relaxed because that was a normal response and plus she knew that she had the woman’s signature down to a
tee. “See what I mean?” she assured Michelle.

Just then the supervisor came back out, looked over at the car and ran back in.

“Aw, hell no!” Nina said.

“You ain’t said nothing but a word!” Michelle said as she threw the car in drive and pulled off.

When Nina looked back the teller was writing the tag number down. Michelle swerved recklessly, trying to get the hell outta
Dodge.

“Ain’t this a bitch?” Nina yelled. “We only had one more spot to hit! Slow down, girl we don’t want to get pulled over for
speeding.” They both knew the drill and
began pulling off the wigs and taking off the jackets, cleaning the makeup off their faces, thus giving themselves a totally
new appearance. Nina ripped up the check, cut up the ID and tossed everything out the window. She watched the fifty-five-mile-an-hour
wind blow everything away. Two police cruisers passed them and Nina and Michelle both watched as they turned into the shopping
center.

“Step on it, Michelle. Hit the fucking turnpike! Or should we ditch the ride and hop a bus?”

“Naw, fuck it! I got it. I think we can make it. We won’t get on the turnpike, we can take the back roads.” Michelle mashed
the gas until she hit seventy. Both of them had an adrenaline rush. When Michelle looked again in the rearview mirror she
saw lights flashing. “Damn it!” They both saw another shopping center up ahead.

“Hurry, quick Michelle. Pull into that shopping center,” Nina ordered, as she gave Michelle her share of the money. Michelle
slowed down as she pulled into the huge parking lot of a Target. There was no need for words. They stuffed the wigs under
the seat and then split up. Nina headed for the bus and Michelle flagged down a cab as a police cruiser turned into the parking
lot.

Two buses, three hours later and 4,390 dollars richer, Nina was putting the key into her front door. The first thing she noticed
was the stillness of her house. “Ms. Ruthie,” she called out. She walked to the back of the
house and saw that the back door was swinging off the hinges. “Oh shit!” Her heart began to race as she grabbed a butcher
knife outta the kitchen drawer. “Fuck!” she cursed as she ran to one of her hiding spots for her loot. She frantically snatched
the garbage bag out of the way; the box with 8,200 dollars was gone! The tears immediately began streaming down her cheeks
as she ran to her second spot. The 14,400 dollars was gone! “Oh my God!” Her knees were turning to mush as she saw her ticket
out of this hellhole fly out the window. She snatched open the door to the attic and climbed the stairs and as soon as she
saw the closet door off the hinges, she knew the safe was gone. She sat down, balled up into a knot and let out gut-wrenching
sobs. “I hate this place!” she screamed out into the silent air.

M
s. Ruthie had taken the kids to the park. Nina was sitting on the porch with a baseball bat waiting on Michelle to pull up.
She had paid the sitter an extra hundred dollars to stay with the kids. She was also waiting on her neighbor Mr. Jimmy to
fix the back door. He had said he would be right there but that was an hour ago. Nina had steam coming out of her ears and
if she could have spit hot boiling blood she would have.

“Damn, shorty, who yo’ fine ass plannin’ on fuckin’ up?” Nina ignored the two niggas in the silver Porsche. Any other day
and time she would have been ready to get her mack on and hone her pimpin’ skills, but not today. “Yo, shorty, come here!”
the dude on the passenger side yelled. “Why you lookin’ so mean?”

“Nigga go ’head. If you ain’t trying to help a sista out by fixing her door or replacing my shit that was stolen then I suggest
you keep it movin’.” Nina rolled her eyes and kept looking up the street for Michelle’s ride.

Ol’ boy shocked Nina by getting outta the car. She gave him a
nigga what!
look as she gripped the baseball bat tighter.

“You’re not planning on using that on me, are you? ’Cause I just want to get your name and number.”

“Nigga, didn’t you just hear what I said? If you ain’t ready to fix my door or replace the shit that was stolen outta my crib,
then I suggest you keep it movin’.”

“I heard you, ma. Where’s the door?”

Nina hesitated before answering as she gave this fine specimen of a man before her the once-over. “Go right around back and
you’ll see it.”

He surprised her again by going around the back of the house. She used this opportunity to further scope this nigga out. He
was definitely from New York, the accent was a dead giveaway. From the ice on his wrist and in his ears she knew he was ballin’.
The crisp Air Force 1s looked like they were fresh out of the box. The Rocawear sweatsuit looked brand new. The Porsche was
pimped out. He was her complexion and about six feet two. He reminded her of Alonzo Mourning of the Miami Heat.

“Damn,” she mumbled to herself. Then her attention went to the nigga in the car, who was looking at her while he was licking
his lips. He was finer than his partna. “Fuck him!” She said to herself,
His ass ain’t get out and offer no assistance. Which would say a whole lot for the brotha
.

“Yo, Nick, pop the trunk and see if my toolbox is in there.” Dude came back from behind the house.

“Ump, looks like the whip belongs to the passenger after all,” Nina mumbled to herself.

“Yo, shorty, I can fix the door but you still need to
replace the locks. The bottom one is busted up.” He disappeared again. Nick closed the trunk and was carrying a medium-size
gray toolbox.

“Yo, my boy don’t be going around assisting damsels in distress on the regular. He must see something in you,” Nick told her.

She turned her glare in the opposite direction to make sure her body language said she wasn’t falling for the bullshit.
This big ass, perky tits and pretty face. That’s all the nigga sees
, she mumbled under her breath.

“What was that?”

“I said, don’t be trying to big your boy up on my account.”

“I’m serious, ma,” he said as he carried the toolbox to the back.

Nina opened up her cell phone and hit seven, Michelle’s speed-dial key. Michelle answered on the first ring. “Yo, I’m turning
down Hermitage now. I had to get ma dukes some Rolaids, a Pepsi and a pack of Kools. You know how she do.”