The Coldest Winter Ever

by Sister Souljah

  “Don’t worry, baby, I’m on the way.”

  “Bullet, one more thing. Where’s Key West?”

  “That’s Florida baby. Don’t worry about it.”

  I followed quickly behind the irate man. I handed him his phone before he could alert the authorities, who were nowhere to be found in this little bus station. Thanks was all I said to the man, with a polite half-smile.

  Quickly I jetted out of the bus station. I jumped on the mall shuttle, jumped out at Victoria’s Secret and dropped my last yard on some sexy lingerie. I jetted to the north entrance of Nordstrom and waited.

  Standing with only one hundred dollars’ worth of Victoria’s Secret goodies, my Nike bag, and the red leather Coach bag, my mouth hung open. Then I checked myself as Bullet rolled around in a cream-colored Lexus coupe. All my juices everywhere in my body leaked out with excitement.

  It took great concentration for me not to just jump out of my skin and go buck, dance naked on the hood of the car or something. The warmth in the car made the winter cold seem like a crude prank. I checked out every inch of the interior. Yet I knew I had to chill like I ride in one of these whips every day. My father had a car like this. But this was the new model. As my ass fit into the soft grooves of the leather seat, Bullet leaned over two inches from my face. “Where that nigga at?”

  “He’s been gone,” I told him, going right along with it. Bullet threw the car into reverse and raced backward to the corner of the building. He peered out the tinted windows down the sidewalk lining Nordstrom. Then he shifted into drive and raced to the opposite corner, checking down the street. My imaginary lover was nowhere to be found.

  “You know you mine’s now,” he said, like I was a trophy or an expensive piece of jewelry. His lips were wet, teeth white, and haircut fresh like his barber trimmed it on the drive over here. It had been a year since I took a real good look at him. I don’t know if it was his Armani leather coat or if his body was even more buffed than when I saw him last. This nigga Bullet thought he had to fight to make me his girl. I’d let him believe it, too. Little did he know, I was his when he pulled the whip around the bend.

  Bullet made me throw my Nike bag and all of its contents in the garbage. He said he didn’t want me wearing nothing no other nigga bought. He could take care of his girl with no problem. I didn’t have no arguments. After a twenty-five minute drive, we parked the coupe in the airport parking lot and boarded American Airlines. We sat in the first-class section with the executives. Sipping champagne and listening to hits on his CD Walkman, we felt good all the way to Key West.

  17

  Sunshine, heat, and palm trees, a dramatic departure from my life twelve hours ago. To say I was gassed would not be enough. It wasn’t so much the scenery, although I seen a hundred types of trees I never seen before! It was the balls of the whole thing. This is the type of life I saw myself having, leaving town with no permission, warning, or limitations. This whole matter was what made Bullet so damn sexy to me at that moment. He was making the rules, maybe even breaking the rules. He was the shot-caller. A man who can only react to life could never have me. A man with excuses about why he couldn’t make anything happen his way could only win pity, but never respect.

  The airport limo delivered us to our Key West, Florida, villa. The beach was a short walk away. The most noticeable thing about the villa was that everything inside was white and clean. No dingy color, not eggshell, not cream-colored, but a crisp white, seemingly freshly painted place with ceramic tiled floors. We only explored the villa once over for about ten minutes. Next thing I know a driver was taking us shopping.

  Now Bullet was obviously the one with the money. But he didn’t push hard. He asked me where I wanted to shop. He walked patiently behind me as I led the way through the most fashionable departments. When I tried things on, he sat inside the dressing room despite the store attendant’s objections and commented on every piece of clothing I modeled. The crazy thing is he never had nothing bad to say about anything I selected.

  “That’s it right there.”

  “That’s the bomb, baby.”

  “You’re wearing that dress.”

  “Look at those sweet thighs.”

  “Ten perfect toes—now when have anybody seen that before.”

  So I stretched things a little, was aware of how I stood, was stylish about undressing and did seductive things to keep him in the palm of my hand where he appeared to be.

  We ate dinner in a little Cuban restaurant. It wasn’t an expensive-looking place. In fact, it was more like a huge kitchen in someone’s house. It didn’t have a vibe like a business. But the food was mad good. I was surrounded by young Cuban waiters who served me hand and foot. More than two of them waiters was giving Bullet props for having a fine woman. “La Morena,” they called me.

  One of the guys started talking Cuban to me, or Spanish, or whatever it was. He apologized when he realized I couldn’t speak it and explained to Bullet that I looked Cuban because of my skin, dark eyes and hair. Unlike the jealous rage I expected to see in Bullet, he smiled, pretty teeth all exposed, like the proud holder of a fifty-million-dollar Lotto ticket. Now, I don’t know what they put in that food besides a half a pound of garlic, but they must of done some kind of voodoo on me ’cause it made me all warm inside and real horny. Even my chest was warm and my titties felt bigger than normal and extra sensitive. When the feeling of my own titties rubbing against the cloth of my own shirt turned me on I knew it was time to get back to the villa.

  We didn’t have to say much. We understood each other. After bags were put away he handed me a glass of champagne. We got nice. As the CD player pumped R. Kelley, Bullet began to tongue me slow and sensuously. I ain’t no punk so I tongued him back, sucking his lips and chin. He kissed me with his eyes open and kept the lights on the way that I prefer it. He unfastened my hair tie and my hair fell down. He put his hands all through my hair like he was tossing a salad.

  “This is all you,” he commented, ’cause I didn’t have no weave. The way he was all up in my head, if my hair would have been fake his fingers would’ve been all jammed in the strings, glue, or whatever. As he licked my collarbone, both hands exploring my shoulders and breasts, he said in a low sexual voice, “You have the softest skin I ever touched.” It was live to see my roughneck turn into a house cat.

  Easing me out of my blouse and unstrapping my bra, he laid my back on the cold ceramic tile and my nipples puffed up and out. Undressing me totally, the cold floor sent a sensation all over my body. “Your pussy smells good,” he said as he buried his face in it and allowed two butterscotch Life Savers he had gotten from me to go inside of me while his tongue searched for them and sucked them out. By the time he found and got control of the melted candy I had come twice. I couldn’t control my shouting. Getting eaten out always made me crazy. My moaning had him harder than U.S. Steel so I wrestled him over and mounted him. I tried to ride him like a prize jockey but he wanted to dominate. Seconds later I was butt up, facedown and we doggy-styled until my whole butt was filled with warm semen. In the air-conditioned villa we sweated. Our black bodies were pressed against the white tile.

  As the CD played itself over again I thought about how it couldn’t be any better than this. A man, a solid man, with loot and a luscious big dick, a champion pussy-eater and he was dedicated to my desire. I waited for someone to wake me up. But no one ever did.

  In the morning we went straight to the beach. My new bikini was killing every onlooker. However, there was only a sprinkle of people out this early. Bullet was tryna teach me how to swim in the warm, clear ocean water. As I fumbled he patiently corrected me. He tried to teach me to do the easy stuff first, like what he called the doggy paddle. He even attempted to show me how to float on my back. As my body would tense up, it would sink to the bottom. He would pull me up. Holding my wet body against his chest, we were face-to-face as he said, “You see, the reason why you can’t float is because you’re not relaxed in the water
. The reason why you’re not relaxed is because you don’t trust me. You gotta trust me. I’m not gonna let you down. I would never hurt you.” He laid me back down and talked me into a state of relaxation. After an hour or so I could float and dog paddle, but still I was no swimmer.

  “Don’t worry, Sexy, you’ll get the hang of it after a while. I’ll teach you all the tricks. You won’t be able to say I didn’t teach you something your father didn’t already teach you.”

  Now he might as well have hit me in the head with a brick. My body tensed up. Trying to run out of the water I felt as though my body was going in slow motion. He caught me on the sand a couple of feet from the water.

  “Winter, yo, yo. Winter, what’s up? What’s the matter? Why you flipping?”

  My anger took a jump on me and my mouth just started going.

  “Midnight told me you was my father’s enemy. That makes you my enemy. Don’t even fucking mention my father. You keep his name out of your mouth.” My chest was heaving in and out. My titties were easing out of my bikini top against my permission.

  “I thought you understood business, Winter. I ain’t got nothing against your father. I got mad respect for your pops. Your pops is my motherfucking hero. I’m tryna be part of the world he built.”

  “I know you was a part of the takeover. You think I’m stupid? I know what happened.”

  “How you know what happened when you wasn’t even there? I didn’t see you for months. I was there. Hell your pops wasn’t even there half the time I was in the thick of it from the beginning to the end. A true soldier. What happened was business. It was bigger than your pops. If your pops wasn’t who he is, it still would of happened. That’s how big it was. Winter, I want you and me to have an understanding. I got mad love for you. You know how much money a nigga is losing just being out here with you for three days? Mad money! Now I got cats moving shit for me but everybody know the money ain’t gon’ be all the way straight unless you there, right on top of it watching it. I brought you out here ’cause I know you a classy woman, top-of-the-line. I know you is used to the best ’cause I seen how Santiaga treated you. I knew I couldn’t just throw you a pair of 10-karat gold earrings or take you up to the played-out Poconos. I had to let you see that I know you’re special. This ain’t about ass. I can get plenty of ass. I got bitches lined up around the corner. It’s about quality and style. It’d take forty of them bitches to make one of you. They all glued together, fake hair, fake nails, fake clothes, high mileage. They ain’t been raised right so they always running they mouths too much, exposing a nigga’s business, bringing a nigga down. Now you, on the other hand, you know how to act. You know how to keep your mouth shut and hold a nigga down. You proved and tested. On a bad day you still gonna be the finest bitch in the world. You know what to wear and when to wear it. You came up in the first family. You got training. That’s what I’m talking about. I’m a family man. I have to be able to concentrate. I learned that watching Santiaga. Too many bitches coming in and out, next thing you know your whole shit is falling apart. You dig what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, I check for that,” I said coolly. Inside I’m like, Hell yeah! He gave me enough compliments to last me six months. But I was still curious, so I asked. “So what really happened?”

  Shaking his head from left to right he said, “Man … it’s a complicated story …”

  “Are you saying you don’t think I can follow the story? Or are you saying you want me to trust you but you don’t want me to know what’s happening around me?”

  “See, that’s what I like. You got mad smarts.”

  Bullet picked up a stick that washed in with the tide. Not only was he going to tell me the story, he was drawing a picture in the moist sand.

  “This is me,” he said pointing to a small stick figure. “No mother, no father. They was both killed. My father was killed by the police when I was four. My mother was killed by her boyfriend when I was six. I got two relatives. My half-brother Bryce who lived in D.C. with foster parents, and Granny. I was raised by Granny from seven years old up, right there in them Brooklyn projects. You seen Granny around our way. She’s a good woman but she got a little gambling problem. She was collecting welfare for me and blowing it all at the Lotto machine. After a while she elevated to every weekend, bus trips to Atlantic City. A nigga didn’t have nothing, no food, forget clothes— you saw me, you and your little girlfriends chitchattin’.

  “At eight years old, I started earning my own dough. I was a lookout for Rings. Now Rings had me watching the block. All I had to do is sit on the bench and clock everything and everybody. I had a Mickey Mouse watch Rings gave me. I knew when everybody left and came, who worked, who didn’t. I knew when people got checks, new furniture, whatever. Back when the building had buzzers. All I had to do was stand by the wall and press the buzzer to let Rings know when someone was coming up into an apartment he was in. Or I’d press the buzzer to let him know 5.0. was on they way up. Man, a lot of people had no love for Rings, including your father. Everybody considered him a thief. He was a thief. But I thank him to this day, may he rest in peace, because nobody took the time to teach me nothing. Rings did. He taught me patience. You had to have patience to sit there hour after hour, day after day. That’s how I peeped you. Watching you everyday from the bench. You always stood out like a diamond. But Santiaga protected you, like a diamond. I’d sit right there in my fucked-up clothes, snot running down my nose, unable to run upstairs to get a tissue, scared to miss a beat. I said to myself I’m gonna get her. She’s gonna be mine.

  “I knew to get into your world, I’d have to work like a dog, scheme like a motherfucker. Hell, nobody was gonna just let me get down, just like that. I was already an outcast because I worked for Rings. I didn’t have no family, no connections. So I started to watch Santiaga. He was my hero. He had the respect. There was something so smooth about that nigga. Even before he became boss. He was like a politician, all dressed up like every day was an occasion. Everybody liked his way of talking. I always thought he was able to connect with the big-up whites ’cause he’s light-skinned with that good hair. Them same cops he had on the payroll doing business with him was the ones that would beat a brown nigga like me with no mercy.

  “Now, when Santiaga connected with Captain Chulla at the precinct, it pulled the heat off a lot of niggas around our way. They loved him for that. I watched the block so close, so long, I knew all the police routines. I knew when a patrol car was coming around; which cop would be riding in it, when the shifts changed, everything. I could almost read the badge numbers I watched them so close. I knew who was getting payoffs, who wasn’t. I mean there may have been more cops on the payroll than I knew about, but a lot of them dudes I watched knew how it was going down.

  “Santiaga made use of most niggas in the ’hood. He knew how to make everybody feel good. He gave every man a purpose, some money for their pockets, money for their families. But some niggas he shut down. Like Rings, who he had no respect for and a few of the independent dealers, and Stack and ’em, the stick-up kids. There wasn’t nothing they could do about it though ’cause he had it all hemmed up. He was making it possible for so many cats to get paid that any bad talk against him was not only bad for that person’s business, it was bad for they health. Next thing you know you might turn up disappeared.

  “About a year and a half ago, right before your family left the area, there was a crew of Young Heads, thirteen- to sixteen-year-olds. In a surprise attack they stuck up one of your pop’s spots, got away with mad cheese. Word went out on the streets that Santiaga got stuck up by some kids. At the same time, Captain Chulla retired. It was unexpected, but that old fuck caught a stroke. Rudolph became D.A. He started up some campaign about cleaning up the drugs in the ’hood and busting crooked cops. On the streets the D.A.’s office started recruiting informants. Any available two-buck nigga signed on as a snitch with Rudolph. Meanwhile the crooked cops panicked, tried to cover up they tracks. They started su
pplying protection, guns, and ammunition to the Young Heads even though they were still cops on Santiaga’s payroll. They made it appear to the D.A. that there was a war between the Young Heads and Santiaga. But without police backing, the Young Heads couldn’t have gone head up in a war with Santiaga.

  “Your pops got paranoid and started strong-arming niggas. He was even twisting arms of niggas who was loyal to him, niggas who would’ve killed for him. Niggas who would’ve died for him. Without Captain Chulla at the helm coordinating the cops on the inside, it was hard for Santiaga to know who was who. Plus, in the shake-up there was just too many new faces. The cops started busting more of Santiaga’s men but they went easy on the Young Heads. When Santiaga moved your family out there to Long Island, there was no way for him to see how the pieces were moving. The pieces were moving too fast. Some of Santiaga’s men who got busted wasn’t cool with him moving out of the ’hood. They looked at him like he jumped ship. With Chulla out and Rudolph in, some of Santiaga’s other connections dried up. Even money couldn’t get none of his men out of the pen. But I could dig it. Santiaga had to move. Them Young Heads was ruthless. They was hitting whole families, players and nonplayers. They even eighty-sixed KK and Butter.”

  “Miss Sonya’s babies?”

  “Yeah, her man got in the way so they sent him a message. Two corpses: heads off. One three-year-old, one four-year-old, dead. But I gotta give Santiaga credit. He held it down for a long time. But with the police behind the Young Heads it was only a matter of time before they wiped Santiaga out. When the cops working with the D.A. applied pressure on niggas in Santiaga’s crew, they started telling on each other. Once one or two started talking, there was a chorus of singers. Everybody was tryna cut a deal with the police, save they own tails.”

  “What about my mother? Who shot her?”