“The show must go on,” Simone said in her low, manly voice. “ ‘Life After Death,’ ” like B.I.G. said. And dead entertainers sell more merchandise than living entertainers ever did, like B.I.G. did. Bet y’all didn’t know that! Winter wanted to be the star. So she got murdered on camera, a dramatic debut.” Simone waved her arms in the air, still holding the Cîroc. “You think any of these showbiz niggas, whether they Winter’s brother-in-law or not, gonna delete that footage of that murder? Hell no, they gonna let it roll, air it, sweep the ratings, collect and count the cheddar and continue to show the show!” Simone bragged.
“And how long before they figure out it was you who pulled the trigger?” Natalie said, and she was pissy.
“They ain’t gon’ find out. And y’all ain’t gonna tell ’em. That’s why I don’t give a fuck talking about it. Y’all need me. And y’all need the show. And everybody know in hip-hop the real making-moves murderers, the shooters, get the shine.”
Back to black, I thought Zakia was messing with the lights again, but she wasn’t. I had turned back into being nothing but a blob of heat, numb limbs and all. Couldn’t see no more or feel my face and I was back to being blind, deaf, and dumb.
4.
I’m not no fucking firefighter. So I do not know how to put out the raging fire that is me. I don’t know how long it would take, or how much water is needed to cool me off. I don’t have no fire extinguisher. Besides even if I did, would I use it on myself? Plus I can’t figure out this dead shit. I’m used to being able to figure out any situation no matter how complicated it is. Now I’m thinking, Since I’m dead, shouldn’t my mind shut off? How come I could still know my own thoughts?
Afterwhile, I figured out that the angrier I get, the worse the impact is on me. The only reason I reached this conclusion is because I thought about how I never ever in my lifetime was that angry bitch. I never had a reason to be dat. I was always calm and cool and cold and steady. Even when shit was fucked up, I knew how to flip shit in my favor. Even on lock I flipped everything and everyone in my favor. If any chick was mad at me, even if it was for a good reason, the next step was for that bitch to get glad because I had a crew she couldn’t resist. That crew started out with just me, and believe it or not, became me and Simone.
Yeah, the same Simone who cut my face with the jagged edge of a broken bottle, giving me the only scar I ever got in my young royal life, that could only be concealed by my silky hair if I wore it loose, which on lock I could not do. I hated Simone for impacting my flawless face. She hated me too. But in prison math, we were both better off using our mutual hatred together against others who probably hated us both more. So we did. We got on some beauty-and-the-beast-type shit breaking bitches down. My look, still stellar even with the scar, made them want to serve me or join me. Simone’s beasting made them have no other option. So they gave in and got glad and ganged up beneath us. But I don’t want to think about Simone. I just did and it caused my heat to flare up ’bout six notches. I was figuring out that when my heat peaks, I dissolve. When I dissolve, I disappear from whatever I was seeing, hearing, and feeling. But my thinking continues on. Who wants to be a glob of heat with thoughts, trapped in an infinite black space? Not me. So I figured I had to lower my temperature by thinking of anything that could make me feel good. Feeling good would be the opposite of feeling bad and then my anger might go away and the feeling in my face, arms, hands, legs, feet, and even my toes would return.
After Santiaga, there is only Midnight as far as real men in real life who I really know. Midnight still gives me that ooh-ah good feeling. It’s stronger and deeper than the spark a hot rapper or huge movie star or amazing baller could ever shoot through my pussy like lightning. Midnight is a man who makes all of my body parts pulsate, even when he is not doing anything but standing still. His effect lasts over time, no matter how much time passes. To the point where even if I don’t see him except in my mind, my whole body, including my heart, still feels the throbbing sensation. If you don’t know what I mean, it means you never met him, never seen him. And you never ever even met any man like him. Which is extremely possible.
When men see women, they grade us. They be like she’s a five, six, seven, or eight. Ten represents the top bitch, which is rare for them to say. When men see even a glimpse of me they automatically and naturally say ten, the highest. It’s the reason they call me, Winter Santiaga, a dime. So why not grade them, the men, the same way? Now I’m entertaining myself and getting excited, in a good way. Well let’s see. We will start at the bottom, which obviously is the lowest. The lowest type of man is a zero, a dude who actually fucks his children or anybody else’s little children. A man who molests and rapes because he feels like a zero and knows he’s a zero. So he stalks little kids and women who he’s pretty sure even his weak backward ass can overpower. Zero-type slime balls like this also molests and abuses and rapes his girlfriend’s children or his stepchildren who are not his biological kids. So sick is he, he even rapes his own or her own sons. I wouldn’t say none of this greasy shit if I didn’t know that it actually happens. Having been locked in with so many women coming from so many places across the country, I know it goes on.
Don’t misunderstand. I ain’t all kid-crazy. I think having babies is a burden that breaks a bitch down. Mostly it fucks up her figure and lessens her value. Same way a new whip is worth major paper, soon as you buy it and drive it off the car lot, it’s worth a lot less. It’s used. With babies, once you have one, all of a sudden you have two and then three. Then the only thing you have more than babies is problems. A bitch used to have the luxury of being all about herself. Even from the first baby everything becomes all about the kid. Instead of going for manicures and makeovers, she’s left wiping up piss and cleaning up poo. Washing diapers and dishes and your whole pizzazz is stolen and gone. Unless you got paper piles forget having babies. Better to have the cheese to pay the servants to do all of the dirty work, while you style. That’s the only way kids are all good with me. Still I don’t respect no nigga who hurts, rapes, or molests the children. Even if he got money stacks and status, he’s a zero nigga to me.
Men who are the next lowest type are the ones who are straight cowards. I don’t know what happened to cause so many men to fit this description. I do know that a coward can never get a bitch like me hot, and probably not you either. A lot of chicks on lock, when we got into talking about their men, had cowards. These guys were the ones that blamed everybody else for their circumstance. Especially they blamed their woman or their women. Most of the females I met who had gotten beat up bad by men were the ones messing with some coward who they were supporting and providing for and whose dick they were sucking. He’d take her money, go get drunk with it, and come back and beat her ass ’cause he spent it all, didn’t have no hustle, business, or a job, or any way to save face for his failures. So he used her as a punching bag.
Some niggas who got jobs or a business they own is also cowards, but instead of them being rated as a lowly one, they would be a two or a three ’cause at least they work! These types might beat up their woman or women, or might not. But, they are also still cowards in other ways. They the type that fuck a bunch of chicks, but not discreetly. They purposely leave clues that they fucking around randomly, just to set these bitches to battling one another, instead of all of the bitches linking up and catching him in his lying bullshit. Some of the females I was locked with been fighting some coward’s other broad for a whole decade! These bitches be baby battling instead of thinking. They be competing to give this coward a baby first. Then the next bitch gives him one soon after. The first one thinks she’s better ’cause she gave him one first. The second one thinks she’s better because she’s younger than the first one. On top of that she feels more relevant ’cause now she has his baby, too! Next thing you know, both of them got three or four kids from this fool who is still broke, still beats their ass, and spends their money from their nine-to-five or even their social servi
ce check. Meanwhile, he recruits a bitch three and a bitch four who are running around talking greasy ’bout his babies’ mommas ’cause now they old news, and number three and four don’t nag and sweat him ’cause they the new pussy he’s poking. He’s spending one and two’s money on three and four, and besides, three and four both ain’t pregnant yet.
A man in the four-to-six range definitely gotta have a business or a job, but he also, to earn those numbers four through six, gotta have a decent look. Some niggas stay stuck at number four because their style, ways, and look is limp and lame. If you need your teeth fixed, drag your ass to the dentist. Bad breath, funky armpits, puss-filled pimples, dirty rotten cheesy dick, shit-stained boxers or drawers, and toe jam are all disqualifiers. Don’t have long nails ever, especially not with last night’s dinner trapped underneath them. Never ever wear cheap soiled kicks, cheap or mismatched socks, or run-over shoes… even if you gotta eat out less. The kicks and shoes are way more important than a bucket of chicken or shrimp fried rice or even lobsters. Sacrifice, you idiot! When I started laughing, it felt like my temperature lowered ’bout twelve notches.
For a man to be a seven or eight, he has to have a hustle, a business or a job, and not beat his woman up ever. I’m not counting play fighting. I like sex to be a lil’ rough sometimes and always very physical. I like to look at a man’s body first ’cause I get wet by the design of something stunning. I don’t mind a few scratches during the lovemaking, long as there is no passion marks on my face. I like make-up sex, after we had a lil’ argument. I might even cause a lil’ argument to get that passionate thrust going on. But brutalizing is bullshit. I met several females on lock who agree. They murdered a man or two for laying into them repeatedly like they were professional fighters. These women would arrive at the joint black and blue in the face and permanent scars were all over their bodies when their uniforms dropped.
For the seven- and eight-rated men who do what a man is supposed to do but keep a bitch on a bullshit budget, even though he’s caked up, that’s why he’s stuck in the seven–eight range. Or the type of guy who over-monitors his woman, doesn’t buy her a car or hire her a driver and don’t give her taxi money and space to be a woman so she can get herself right. Get her look perfect so she can enslave him in the bedroom which whether he knows it or not is what he really wants! I’m cracking up now. I’m feeling my toes tingle and my calves and my knees are no longer numb.
Nine is next to perfect, but not quite. A man who is a nine definitely owns his own business or is CEO of someone else’s business. The key is, his endeavor, whatever it may be, has got to be profitable. A seven or eight can have a business, but it’s one thing to have a business by name only, but no dividends. That’s why there are sevens and eights that have mastered frontin’ and even done a great job at it. They have a business, but the small profit they earn is spent on what they are wearing on their backs, what whips they are leasing, and the apartments, condos, or houses they’re renting but can’t keep ’cause they don’t own. They make it all look good, but after the look there’s no equity, assets, or cheddar left over.
Nine distinguishes the man who’s big banking, legit and illegit, with corporate credit and corporate cash, personal cash and personal savings, and a slush fund as well as a stacked-up hood stash, from all of the lower-numbered men beneath him. Meaning a nine, in addition to his legit capital, has got to also have a dirty-money pile in his backyard, or in a super secret can’t-be-discovered place, stitched into his furniture, built into his wall, buried beneath his pool, floating in his yacht, or stuffed in his momma’s attic in the house he bought her. To be a nine he gotta be all that, as well as neat and clean and fashionable and manly. He can have any size dick because his status makes chicks overlook it and come with creative ways to get the sex and keep the sex exciting.
Ten is Santiaga and Midnight, the only men who are perfect to me. Stupid-ass Simone was talking ’bout how Midnight didn’t show up for me on my release day like I said he would. But, she didn’t know what really happened. I’m action. Simone’s after the action. She always been an after-the-action bitch. She waits for somebody else to build up their business and she robs their shit that they built. That’s why she’s after the action to me. When we was locked, our little crew was organizing in the dayroom what business we were gonna run once we got released. I of course was plotting a fashion empire. I would design the clothes ’cause I’m nice with it. Then I’d employ a bunch of chicks who was nice with the needle to sew. A lot of locked-up women were working in a sewing factory on the inside. They was nice with regular needle-and-thread sewing. Plus they knew how to work the sewing machinery.
I was not only going to be a clothing designer, merchandiser, wholesaler, and retailer. I planned to get into interior decoration. I figured no matter what anybody wore or possessed or imagined, I could make it look even better. I would set up the most meanest-looking images and make the whole hood and whole world chase it. Of course that means, more money more money for me.
Seated in a crooked circle, Simone was cheering my ideas on. Then she was like, “Winter, that’s the perfect setup. You look pretty and lure the clients with that interior decorating shit. I’ll lay low for a month or so after your work is done. Then, surprise motherfuckers! It’s a stickup! Get butt naked. Keep your hands where I can see them. Don’t make me check your orifices. If you’re hiding diamonds in your asshole, shit ’em out while I’m asking you nicely.” Simone dramatized, and we cracked up. “I’ll rob they whole crib, whoever’s home, even the bitch from next door who just stopped by to drop off a blueberry pie! I’m swiping everything that Winter convinced them to buy: their appliances, merchandise, cars, jewels, cash, credit cards, and even their dogs. Rich motherfuckers will pay high ransom just to get back one kidnapped dog. They’ll pay even more than they would for one of their kids! If not, I heard the black market for pets be bubbling.” Simone laughed. So did the rest of us. But in my mind, I knew she could never come up with a good business idea other than stealing. That shit must’ve been in her bloodline. That’s why she’s an after-the-action bitch. Oh no, my thighs are numbing. I wasn’t supposed to think about Simone. I didn’t want to get heated all over again.
Anyway, back to Midnight. When Elisha came up a week after we discussed on the phone that there was one thing I needed him to take care of that I needed to say face-to-face, he gave me a full report on the status of my reality-star demands. He said wardrobe was a 100 percent go and even threw in a diamond necklace, like a real motherfucking G. The VIP passes, liquor, parties, and perks was all a go. He got the warden and the city working on the permits and licensing to do the film shoot, and they were excited, ’cause nothing good really happens up there where I was, in locked-up territory. Plus I think they was just on Elisha’s balls and would give him anything he wanted for a close-up or selfie to brag about after he and his film crew packed up and left and their little prison city flipped back to dreary gray.
“Porsche had asked Midnight to promise that he would show up on your prison release date. She asked him way back, right after she came up here to check you. Midnight agreed. He’s a ‘word is bond’ type of brother,” Elisha said, speaking discreetly to me as every prisoner is always monitored even in visitation.
“But… when I followed up with him this week and told him about the reality show, he said, ‘No cameras.’ I started to try to convince him but he’s not the type who can be convinced once he has made a decision. So I stopped myself from asking again,” Elisha explained. “But Porsche could not be stopped. She called Midnight and said, ‘You promised, and a promise is a promise.’ Midnight told your sister, ‘I never promised to be a character in a show. That was never part of our agreement.’ ”
I was disappointed. For some seconds I didn’t say anything back to Elisha. I was thinking of ways to flip it in my favor, like how lil’ smart-ass kids used to try and maneuver that Rubik’s cube when it was hot.
“If you succeed with ge
tting my special request done, I will still do the reality show,” I finally said to Elisha.
“Without Midnight, his black Bentley, and the red carpet?” Elisha double-checked. I hesitated and then said, “Yes, without him, but I still want a badass black Bentley and the royal red carpet. After I walk the carpet I’ll let my girls get in the whip with me. So make that six crystal flute champagne glasses.”
“Cool. I’m surprised you let it go that easily,” Elisha said.
“Midnight is not the only cool one. I’m a ‘word is bond’ kind of bitch. I already gave my word and my loyalty to you that if you handle my special request I’ll do the show. So that’s our agreement. I’m waiting to see if you can honor that.”
True, I didn’t ever explain the details of the situation to my girls about the trade-off I had to make. I did not feel like I owed any one of them a damn thing, not even an explanation. That night in my cell during lights-out it dawned on me that this was the reason I was spun out over Midnight, whipped and fixed and maybe even a little obsessed. He was the only man in my whole wide world who I wanted with my whole heart, who I put in my full effort for, who I showed my whole self and even revealed my bare body to, who I could not draw to me. I just couldn’t move him. He was the only man who nothing anybody said mattered to him. He was so solid, his mind so made up that no one could move him unless he had already planned to move. Beside the power that moved within him, he could not be forced. It caused everyone who ever seen him to want him even more. Even my girls, although none of them would ever admit it, felt it, saw it, wanted a taste or touch or to really have him all to themselves. But they knew, from when he first walked through our Brooklyn block with Santiaga, he was not a man within their reach, not within their capability, not a dick they could pull, suck or just hop on and have their whole body, every part, in a state of involuntarily continuous overwhelming orgasm.
Life After Death Page 3
