The Coldest Winter Ever

by Sister Souljah

  I strained to think at 8 A.M. The sun was well up, but I was so exhausted I couldn’t put anything in order in my head. The only thing I had decided for definite was, after Lashay brought my clothes I would check into a hotel, sleep, shower, and figure it all out. The fact that Simone—well not really Simone, but her crew—knew where to find me, put me on the defensive. I didn’t like that arrangement. I should be the one coming up with the surprises.

  The Koreans, who are always open the earliest and the latest, sold me a hat and a pair of sunglasses. Total cost: seven dollars. They were disposable. There was no way I was gonna walk out in the morning rush where professional people wore suits, dresses, and trench coats, with bedroom slippers on my feet. At least I wouldn’t walk without first shielding my eyes with the sunglasses and the hat to add to my disguise and a sense of mystery.

  Anyway, by 10 A.M. I would be standing outside of Macy’s on 34th Street. I’d get some new shoes, maybe a moderately priced dress, then I’d toss this depressing disguise. Why should I go shopping when Lashay was going to bring my clothes? Because I wouldn’t give her the pleasure of seeing me down and out. Besides looking tired, she would never know what happened to me last night. I wouldn’t be caught dead in this getup by anybody who knows me.

  Macy’s bathroom was a welcome relief. It definitely beat the filthy, claustrophobic closet bathroom in the doughnut shop. The couch, comfortable chairs, clean counters, soap dispensers, and toilettes were just what I needed. I had already begun to smell my underarms. I slid straight out of my soiled panties. I threw them in the garbage can. I washed myself with the rough paper towels. I splashed my face with water to wake up. A sprinkle of water in my hair, I swept it up in a bun. I took a deep breath and said, “This will have to do.”

  My keen eyes were ready to find the best quality walking shoe at a reasonable price. As I picked through some of the sale items on the table, I looked up briefly only to notice an elderly white man watching me. Every time I would look back to see if he was still there, he’d be staring right back at me. He was careful to stay about four feet away from me when I was walking. When the entire scene became too aggravating for me, I turned around quickly to startle him, throwing my hands up in the air then on my waist.

  I said firmly, “Yes, can I help you?”

  At first he tried to have a blank look on his face. Then he stepped to me and said in a repulsively mild and courteous tone, “Do you mind if I take a look in your bag?”

  “You’re damn right I mind,” I snapped, my natural reaction.

  He held his right hand up, holding a security badge.

  “Listen, miss, here are your options. You can cooperate with me, or I can get the police involved.”

  “Police, for what?”

  “Miss, please calm yourself down. Lower your voice, you’re alarming the customers.”

  “I am a customer.”

  He looked me over, head to toe. His eyes landed on my pink slippers, then back on my face. I’m thinking my shit don’t match, but that ain’t no crime.

  “Come with me, miss.” He walked me into a back room, one you wouldn’t notice if you were just an ordinary customer like me, I thought.

  “Sit down,” he ordered. I sat in the chair right next to a silver two-way mirror. I could look out and see the customers, but I knew they couldn’t see me. “Now I would like you to volunteer for me to look in your bag.”

  “Why?” I asked. “I didn’t do shit.”

  “I saw you when you were at our front door early this morning, at 9:45 A.M., to be exact. You were wearing a black knit hat, black sunglasses, and pink bedroom slippers. You walked around the first floor for about ten minutes, looking at and touching the merchandise. You took the escalator to the third floor clutching your bag, then entered the ladies’ rest room on the west side of the building. You were in the bathroom for approximately thirty minutes. When you exited, you were no longer wearing the hat or the sunglasses. Now, because of your suspicious behavior, I need to be sure that everything in your bag belongs to you.”

  Sucking my teeth like a fast car hitting its brakes, I opened my bag. I had a feeling this military asshole was willing to take this foolishness all the way. Besides, I hadn’t stolen anything.

  He said, “May I take a look at the bag?” He turned it over emptying its contents onto the blotter on the desk. His wrinkled face, with the bulging eyeballs, looked over everything. He knew he was wrong, but he was determined to be right. First thing he grabbed was my box cutter. “How old are you, young lady?”

  “Twenty-one,” I said, with no hesitation.

  He opened my wallet, glanced over my business cards then discovered my House of Success ID. Looking from the ID, then into my eyes, the ID, then into my eyes again, he said, “You’re seventeen, not twenty-one. You know it’s illegal for anyone to sell a box cutter to a minor in New York.”

  “Listen,” I said curtly. “You accused me of stealing. As you can see, I didn’t take anything that belongs to your store.” Busting a small sweat, I told him I just wanted my bag back. Luckily, this idiot did not even see the envelope taped to the bottom of the bag. This is why I cooperated with him. I didn’t want him to call the police. Then I’d have to explain where I got sixteen hundred in cash and my diamond jewelry from. No doubt, even if I offered the police a great explanation, they would have wanted to drive me to the House of Success, where I didn’t want to go. No telling what would’ve happened when the counselors and authorities found out how much dough I had without having a job.

  On his signal I picked up each and every item belonging to me and put it back in the bag. With an impatient face, while tapping my foot, I asked, “Can you please let me go now?”

  “One minute,” he ordered, “raise up your arms.” He ran his two hands from the top of my shoulders down to my wrists.

  “C’mon, this is ridiculous. You can tell there’s nothing in my blouse. It’s tight. All of my clothes are tight.”

  “I can still get the police,” he threatened. “They can get a warrant and search you … thoroughly. I can make you sit and wait for them to get here.”

  This bastard, whose hands couldn’t stop shaking, ran over the center of my back, right down along my spine. Facing me, he then ran his two hands from my shoulder blades right over each of my titties, cupping them a bit. Infuriated, I saw nothing but images of the cops cuffing Momma, stealing Daddy’s stuff, impounding Momma’s car. If I could tolerate him for a few minutes, I would be home-free. “Take off your skirt.”

  “What?”

  “Take off your skirt.”

  “See now, you’re bugging. I ain’t taking off my skirt. What do you think I have, a pair of high heels hidden in my panties?”

  “I’ve seen all types of things happen before, miss. I’m just doing my job.” I looked down at this man’s little hard dick poking through his pants.

  “I think you’re doing a little more than your job.” Just then a lady security officer, short and fat with cat woman glasses, opened the door with her key.

  “Hey, what ya got in here, Izzy?” she asked, like Izzy was her best pal.

  “Nothing,” I answered for Izzy. I gave him a threatening look, letting him know I’d blow the whistle on his little perverted party. “We’re finished, right?”

  “Yes, everything seems to be in order,” he said. I brushed by the lady security officer and walked out swiftly and kept going until I got out on the street. The clock said 11:15 A.M. I’d run to meet Lashay. Fuck it. I don’t owe her any explanations about my appearance anyway.

  As I placed the plate and pizza crust into the garbage can, my eye caught a glimpse of Rashida coming up the subway stairs and into the mall in Penn Station. She didn’t see me standing there.

  She kept looking over her shoulder nervously. She’d run in and out of every little indoor store in the huge waiting area. Wondering what she was doing, but not wanting to see her, I stepped three steps back into the pizza store and glanced outward from
my discreet position. That’s when she did it. Like a woman having a nervous breakdown, she went directly under the huge digital train schedule display on the ceiling and shouted with both hands on her head.

  “Winter, Winter, Winter. If you hear me please, please—”

  Stunned, I came. I rushed over so she could shut up. When she saw me coming toward her she got excited, like I was Ed McMahon delivering a Publishers Clearinghouse multimillion-dollar-sweepstakes check.

  Without talking, she grabbed my hand and jerked it, pulling me toward the staircase that led to the uptown train. When I resisted, she said, “Winter, seriously, we got to get out of here.” I saw the terror in her face. I followed, knowing she ain’t the slick type.

  “Simone is going to kill you, well maybe not kill you—Well maybe not kill you, but hurt you real bad. She has a gun. You must of did something terrible to her.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Everybody knows. Last night Lashay said that Simone said that you was a double-crossing bitch. Lashay was with Simone yesterday from eight to ten. When Lashay came inside she told everybody that you was gonna get popped. She said you deserved it ’cause you had double-crossed her too, and cut her out of some money. They was waiting for you. Lashay said Simone had a crew of girls outside the House of Success. Everybody thought you’d be in before curfew. I was praying you didn’t come. I told them the whole thing was between Simone and Winter and it was stupid for anyone else to get involved. I told them, “Y’all don’t even know Winter’s side of the story.’ ”

  “Then what happened?”

  “They locked me in our room and kept their bodies against the door so I couldn’t get out. They locked me in there till, like eleven thirty.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody wouldn’t tell me shit.”

  “So how did you know I was here?”

  “Last night, after everybody thought I was sleeping, Lashay came in our room. They was looking for something ’cause they were all over your bed. Next thing I know, Lashay had opened your trunk. They was picking and choosing who wanted what and Lashay was giving your stuff out. From what I could see, they took everything, down to the barrettes and the face cream. Even the security guard was tryna get something out of the deal. But none of the clothes could fit her. So she stole those cartons of cigarettes you had in the pouch on the side.”

  “But how did you know I was gonna be in Penn Station at twelve?”

  “ ’Cause when Mrs. Porter came in this morning about nine, she asked the girls if they knew where you were. She wanted to know if you came in last night. Everybody started looking nervous and guilty. So Mrs. Porter stepped to me. Before I could open my mouth, Lashay blurted out that your moms was in the hospital and you slept over with her. Lashay said she would see you at twelve noon at Penn Station because you needed some clothes and she was gonna bring them to you. Now Lashay was getting calls all night, going back and forth to the security desk, so I knew she was up to no good. I didn’t know if you had spoken to her or even if you would be here or not. But I took a chance, I didn’t want to see nothing bad happen to you.”

  Rashida hugged me and my body stiffened. It was time to figure everything out.

  “Come on.” Rashida grabbed my hand and guided me swiftly through the train station like I was in kindergarten or something.

  “What’s the deal?” I asked. “Where we headed?”

  “To a friend’s house, Winter. Someone who can help you out.”

  “I don’t need no help,” I told her. “I just need a couple of minutes to think.” By the time we got off at the stop she wanted, it struck me, dropped into my head out of nowhere. Without saying a word I turned around and began to walk back onto the subway platform in the opposite direction of Rashida.

  “Winter, please,” she begged me. “I just want to help.”

  “Oh no, you tryna take me to Souljah’s house like I’m some kind of charity case. A homeless runaway or something. You can forget it, girl. I ain’t gonna do it.”

  “Winter, seriously though. Do you have somewhere else to go?” I didn’t answer. I didn’t like her self-appointed mother role. “You already live in a girls’ home. You already don’t have no family.”

  “I got family bitch, you bugging. I got mad family, you don’t know the half.”

  “If you got family, Winter, so much family, why don’t you live with them? Where are they? You can’t come back to the House of Success. It wouldn’t be safe. And you don’t have to live at Souljah’s. Just chill for a few days while we figure out what to do next.”

  “We!” I screamed, throwing my hands up in the air. “Now all of a sudden it’s we.”

  “Fuck you, Winter!” Rashida screamed back at me. “That’s it. I try to do the right thing and look at you. You don’t even realize when somebody’s tryna help your ass.” As Rashida cried, I laughed. My laughing threw her off. She stopped crying. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “You don’t even know how to curse right. You sound funny. You don’t curse.” She got back at ease and led the way.

  “Her house is right up there. Just do me one favor, check it out before you just flat out say no.”

  12

  Two big cemented roaring lions sat on opposite sides of the cement steps leading to the place. The door was made of solid thick glass, framed by maple wood with all kinds of carvings. Behind the solid glass was a black designer gate, an expensive and fancy way to say “keep the hell out.” The building was one of Harlem’s Sugar Hill brownstones with five floors. What really caught my eye was the money-green Mercedes Benz illegally parked in front. A little black, ugly girl answered the huge door. It was so wide and heavy that it opened slowly.

  “How are you, Rashida,” the miniature lady asked. Once inside the door we were faced with another door, lighter in weight, that the girl swung right open. Parquet floors with color designs. I caught my breath and reminded myself that months ago I lived in a place three times phatter than this, so no need to get excited. While the troll interrogated, “Rashida, did you let Souljah know you were coming today?” I checked the next spacious room behind two more opened wooden doors, which revealed a winding staircase leading to the second floor.

  Now, art, I don’t follow that shit, but there was enough paintings on the wall. Of what? Don’t ask me. African titties everywhere and wooden mask carvings. There were big pictures with big frames. The kind I hated, that were supposed to be a portrait of a person. To me the person was painted to seem alive, but almost always looked dead.

  “No, I didn’t tell Souljah I was coming, but I know it’s not a problem because she told me if I ever needed …” The short girl disappeared into the darkened huge room before Rashida could even finish. From what I could hear she was talking on the phone for three seconds. She came back out and said, “You can go on up, Rashida.”

  It was like walking through a museum. There were huge ivory tusks that had to be straight off an elephant, carefully placed in a sitting room with huge windows. Chess pieces, marble tables, statues, heavyweight curtains, and plants everywhere. The plants were like decorations as the designer or whoever hooked this place up had them draped over each window and outlining the walls up at the top near the ceilings, then cascading down to the floor.

  On the third floor were doors closed tightly as though something top secret was done in there. Each corridor on every floor was elegant with marble stools for sitting and plant holders with more plants.

  By the time I reached the top floor, I calculated twenty-seven hours since I had slept. My heart was racing out of the normal rhythm. Now, what was bugged about the fifth floor was it was huge and clean, with tall windows and beautiful wooden floors like the rest of the house. But it was as if the designer decorated the whole place, got to the fifth floor and just quit.

  “This is it,” Rashida said. “There is where Souljah is.” She knocked lightly on the half-open door and pushed her way in like she lived t
here. “You can sit there.” She directed me to a basic wooden chair near a small table. Rashida exited the room where I was seated. She walked through a small kitchen, the fourth one I had seen in this house, and into another room. I watched everything as Rashida began to talk to someone who was concealed behind the half-open door.

  “Souljah, I have a sister out here who’s a good friend of mine.” And that’s all I heard because Rashida stepped into the room and closed the door. She probably purposely lowered her voice so I couldn’t hear her begging. She better not be begging.

  The room I was waiting in was like a library. There were two wide and towering sets of bookcases that went from the floor to the ceiling. There must have been at least a thousand books on those shelves, big, small, every color, old, new, hard, and soft. Some of the books had papers hanging out of them. One shelf had magazines and newspapers only. The windows in this room had no curtains even though the people in the brownstones across the street could look right in. How did I know, because that’s what I was doing, standing in the window looking in their house. But their windows had curtains.

  The kitchen was clean, but nothing was in it. Curiosity made me open the refrigerator just enough to look in. Water, salsa, and ginger ale. That’s it.

  I heard a slight movement and closed the refrigerator door real quick. Souljah was taller than I thought, about five-foot-six. She had big brown eyes, long lashes, and chubby-type cheeks. Her hair was shining like it just got done. It was a flat twist style, kind of original. She was a typical uptown girl: big ass, wide hips, and, nope, not a flat belly. She still needed to do those sit-ups. Nothing to say about her clothes: blue jeans, white shirt, and, wait a minute, a pair of skips. Nondescript sneakers, skips, like she was from one of the Long Island flea-market towns. No she didn’t, I thought to myself.