Life After Death

by Sister Souljah

  Bullet put our Manhattan condo in my name, and every purchase he made for both of us in my name. Back then, at the time, I thought that meant he loved me. Of course I did, he provided. In turn, I covered for him here and there. Held his coke, concealed his weapons, and carried his cash here and there quietly whenever he told me to. I was trying to earn my way up and also in, to his heart. I thought we should be on some Bonnie-and-Clyde shit. But fuck Bonnie and Clyde. We should be on some Winter-and-Bullet shit, stacking our chips and styling and fucking and eating and chilling and staying together.

  Turned out, he put everything in my name not for love or for providing for a top bitch and daughter of legendary hustler and entrepreneur Ricky Santiaga. Instead Bullet was on some Brooklyn scheming. He made it so that if everything or anything went wrong, he could drop all the legalities and blame onto me without losing any street credibility because it wasn’t like he snitched on me. He simply left a paper trail and documentation all in my name that told the fictitious story of me being the hustler and him being blameless, unarrestable, and scot-free. On the day of my arrest that led to my conviction as a drug dealer sentenced to serve fifteen years on a mandatory minimum, which at the time I had never even heard of, my nigga Bullet had a car rented with a credit card in my name. In the rental car was me and the product, I was ’bout to ride round trip to Virginia on a run with him, a big and necessary business move.

  Simone, who for some reason can’t get the fuck out of my mind or life or death story, saw me sitting there on our Brooklyn block in the rental waiting on Bullet. I didn’t see her, though. Simone had bullshit beef with me that she swore was real. So, soon as she saw me that day, it was on. Bitch threw a brick through the rental window. Bitch dragged me out the car swinging. We thumped. My nigga Bullet saw the rah-rah from the distance. He started rushing over. He fired one shot in the air to cause the commotion to break. Seeing him boosted my confidence, but the gunshot distracted me from keeping my eyes on her. Simone took advantage and sliced my face. Bullet held my bleeding face in his hands. He sat me back in the rental car. He tossed the gun beneath the seat. He walked around to the driver’s side. I was relieved that he had rescued me. But the furious fight and the gunshot drew out the cops.

  The cops swooped in and Bullet, instead of jumping into the rental car and speeding away, walked off calmly as if he never was with me. Never even knew me and never intended to get in the car with me at all. I was arrested in the rental car that was in my name, with the weight stuffed inside teddy bears, and the weapon tossed beneath the seat. They cuffed, fingerprinted, mug-shotted, jailed, grilled, and investigated me. They asked me for names or just one big name. I gave them nothing. I rejected their bullshit tricks and game. The name is Santiaga, royalty not rats. I wasn’t mad at Bullet for being a hustler, obviously. I wasn’t mad at him for renting me the condo or even for taking me on his big business run to Virginia. I was down for him. I wanted to go. I didn’t like being left out of the business or the action. It’s that that nigga Bullet didn’t come for me. He didn’t add a dime to my legal defense. He didn’t send one of his men to make sure I had all that I needed. He didn’t put one cent on my commissary. He didn’t write me one letter, slip me one kite from his peoples on lock. He didn’t check for me and to me that meant he never loved me. That’s why he’s on my payback list. He betrayed me. I never betrayed him, not even once.

  So I understand this little sixteen-years-young-looking one, oddly named UBS, who is tight and at war with her ex. He seemed more my age than hers. But I knew that once a bitch blossoms, gets curves and titties and hungry between the thighs, whether or not she’s twelve, thirteen, or sixteen, whether or not the law says she’s a minor, she is bound to hunt and chase down a man she chooses for herself. A young sexy bitch, I know, can make it impossible for even an older guy to resist her powers no matter who he is. He could be handsome or ugly, paid or broke, married or single, hustler or preacher, politician or teacher, doctor or lawyer or even a goddamn judge. I accept that. As long as it’s not the other way around, some old guy hunting, cornering, and chasing her young ass. Fucking and raping are never ever the same thing. He says she betrayed him. He said she’s the police. She seemed too young to be anybody’s police. And in the, I guess seconds I had seen her, she didn’t seem like a cop. But I ain’t from down here. I don’t know how shit goes ’round here. Everything is unexpected. It’s like I’m stuck in the world of the unseen and unknown and can’t control or predict the action.

  But now I am not alone down here. Of course I choose him. He chose me in the first place. He was the greatest sex I ever had. The wildest feeling I ever felt. He was the only man who ever caused me to let go of Midnight, who never fucked me at all. I like a man who gives a bitch what she wants. A man who doesn’t make a bitch feel lonely. Wife number five! Oh hell no. That would never, ever be me.

  My new nigga is my forever nigga, from now until the real lights-out. Even though he only fucked me once on the same night we met, I was able to exist inside of that fucking memory. And unlike Bullet, who left me because I was cut and bleeding and would obviously wear a scar, and who set me up to take the fall, or either didn’t set me up but reacted only to secure himself, my forever nigga is different. When I became the red python, my forever nigga kept me, adored me, even allowed me to crawl all over his beautiful body no matter what time or where he was at the moment. Even if he was busy I could wrap myself around his neck. He is a thousand times smarter than Bullet. He knew I was poisonous and quite deadly, but apparently he was 100 percent certain that I would never ever bite him. This nigga kept it real. He still brought home and fucked other bitches. I’m sensible enough to know that if he couldn’t fuck me in my condition, he had to fuck someone. He didn’t try to sneak or hide any of them. He even let me watch. After the sex, he showed me his loyalty. Threw them random bitches right out. I remained because we lived together. He fed me. He shared his monkey bars, which I used to stay fit. He even talked to me even though I could not speak back like a human being. I could only gesture. He told me that I was the sexiest serpent ever, and that I would make a mean-ass belt, handbag, or pair of heels or boots, but that he would never ever allow anyone to swipe me from him or hurt me in any way.

  * * *

  But on the day of the most recent wind war, he wasn’t home. I was hanging there on the bars waiting for his return when the firehouse was attacked. As our firehouse rocked I promised myself that if the bitch UBS came in here, which she had not been able to do any other time while he was alert and home on watch, I would bite her with full venom.

  Unexpectedly, without her entering our house, I was sucked and pulled into a vicious vacuum-type current and fast-forwarding through blackness once again. As soon as the fast-forwarding stopped, and while my mind was still whirling, I was immediately mugged by the odor. Oh no, I thought. I’m back in the sewer location. I’m in the sitting position on the curb next to the gutter. Now I had arms and legs and fingers and feet. I touched my face. I could feel it. I even had my silky hair back. I was a human, Oh shit! I would have celebrated, but instead I was coughing from the stench. I reacted, wanted to jump up and walk away from it. However, I could not move my legs. I hated that. Thought it was foul play. Rather see my enemy face-to-face and have the opportunity to fight and change the action. I don’t like the feeling that someone is trying to control my story, my life, and even my life-after-death story.

  I was uncertain how many days I sat there alone in the overwhelming blackness. However, I could count the number of unexpected events and the ways in which it affected my body. My body, I repeated to myself. Was it even mine? How could it be when I could turn into something other than me? Some inhuman thing that I never chose to be. But it had to be my body, because even after I got shot dead, my mind never shut off. My thoughts continued. They were my same thoughts. I was thinking the exact same way I have thought about things for as long as I could remember, and I have a great memory. No matter what other thing I
became, no matter alive or dead, I was certainly throughout it all, me. And, I still was.

  I’m the crippled version. My arms and hands work but my legs don’t. I wasn’t gonna start crawling on my belly like I had to when I had no other choice. I wasn’t gonna make my way across the street from the curb I was sitting on, using my knuckles to carry the weight of my legs like some monkey. I wasn’t about to be on some Special Olympics–type vibe and walk on my hands. Besides, where would I be going? It was black where I was, and black across the street from me. Reminding myself to exist in the moment and not get caught up in bullshit depression. No matter who you are, depression is a fucking waste of time that people with no action and no brain to tell them how to get the action started or flip an inactive situation into something brand-new are enslaved to. Having that thought reminded me not to get hung up on the what-ifs, or what would or could or should have been. I’m a motherfucking survivor no matter what!

  So I endured the things I had become immune to: the blackness, the breaking of bones, the waves of heat that scorched my ass and the soles of my feet, the chorus of millions screaming different words and sounds but all at once, the sounds of ninety-nine niggas cracking their knuckles, the scraping and grinding and even the hissing. The hissing had become my only form of music down here. For serpents, hissing is like rhyming.

  I wasn’t prepared for the add-ons, though: a swarm of tiny flying-insect-type things. I called them that because they reminded me of the aggravating existence of mosquitoes. But I couldn’t actually see them. I don’t know if they were mosquitoes or not. But they came through suddenly in a violent swarm attacking my face and eating me. When I would touch myself, there would be rashes on me, which was something I never had. I never even had the chicken pox or the measles when I was a kid. I tried not to scratch because the scratching only satisfied me for what felt like a few seconds. Then the rash would feel moist and spread further. I don’t know if it was blood or what oozing from the rash. This was disturbing. On the low, I was waiting on him to find me. I was 100 percent sure he was out there searching for me. I wanted him to show up, but not while the rash was on me.

  Then there would be coughing spells. Felt like it lasted for days. All I could do was cough and could never catch my breath. Next were the sneezing spells that always came after the coughing but never both at the same time. When I would sneeze, which was continuously, if felt like my organs were going to fly out of each of the openings in my body. That’s how powerful the sneezes were. There were no tissues. There was no one to help or who would even complain that I was sneezing germs onto them. Instead my fingers felt the mucus accumulating on and around me. It was a good thing that I was back to being a dead human. It meant that I was never hungry. If I had been hungry in that situation, the mucus would have been all that I had to eat.

  I was sitting in my slime when the green-colored atmosphere began to devour the blackness. My eyes were attempting to adjust to the new existence of color that contained light. The greenness somehow eliminated the foul odor, silenced the screaming, and the grinding, cracking, breaking, and hissing. Although I was happy about the presence of color, I was worried that he was about to show up to come get me only to see my rashes and scratches and my lap filled with mucus that had oozed down over my feet.

  Instinctively, I touched my face, wanting to clear and clean it up a bit if that was even possible. When I touched my face, it was not slimy anymore. It was not bumpy. It was not wet. I moved my hands over my whole face. I could not even feel my scar. My hair felt soft, no more grease or residue or dead insects from the swarm. I pulled it to my nose. It smelled like it had been washed with expensive shampoo. My mood was shifting up. I was excited. I leaped up. My legs were working. The feeling of being able to really feel returned. As it did, the lavender sky appeared overhead. It opened and spilled out stars that were absolutely everywhere, like diamond raindrops.

  “Ah-hum-doo-lah-lah,” she said. Or at least that is what it sounded like to me. It was her, the Diamond Rain girl who I had seen once before. The one who he said is the police. “Soo-pan-ah-lah,” she said, and I was already getting tight at all of her foreign talk. “I apologize for being too late,” she said, switching to English as though she heard what I had just thought. Immediately I switched to my game face. I thought she had caught me slipping and read my facial expression. I had been so long fucked up, sick and paralyzed by the sewer in the blackness, that I had no reason for game face. Now I was back in pocket and even feeling like I got superpowers. I must. I’m standing up, feeling myself. My skin is flawless like how it was for the first eighteen young years of my life. She began speaking to me in a tone as though I knew her.

  “I’m not from this realm. I even have to get permission to come down here and an army of my UBS to back me up,” she said. But I had thought UBS was her name. Maybe not. Above her, the sparkling stars continued to decorate and light up the lavender sky. I could see and understand clearly why he liked her. That aggravated me. She obviously had something that the rest of us bitches don’t have. Not even the exotic foreign ones. Never met a bitch that came from the stars—stars more mesmerizing than flawless jewels. And somehow she controlled the color of the atmosphere. Probably she could keep a nigga fully entertained with just her little light show.

  “And if the trip down here is not exhausting enough, the battle is,” Diamond Rain said. I looked her over. She didn’t look like a bitch who had been fighting her way here the way she said she had to do. She didn’t have no scratches or knife swipes or burns or bullet holes and even her clothes were neat and fresh. The belt around her waist had slots stuffed with what seemed like big bullets. They were not exactly the same as the bullets I seen plenty of times in Brooklyn. But they definitely appeared to be ammunition. Around her neck was a diamond chain.

  She’s stunting on me, I thought. But the illest thing about the chain was her piece. I had seen the jewels of the hottest hustlers—my father at the top, of course, and his crew, celebs, and dealers at VIP parties, as well as low-level cats from our hood that were on the come-up. I had never ever seen any hustler or celeb with the piece she had hanging on her necklace. It was a grenade. This must be part of her psych game, I deduced. She came with her pretty face and sleek body, nicely dressed, but wearing warrior armor in a way that it was on display to make the next bitch she was ’bout to battle back off or bow down.

  “If it was so much trouble, why did you come here then?” I said without any excitement at all. She looked sad for a second, then brought back her smile. Maybe her smile is her version of her game face.

  “Is that all you have to say to me? And do you really want to say it that way? Why not start with the good words and good feelings?” she asked, then threw her arms in the air. She held them there and made her pretty un-manicured fingers dance, and then spun around rhythmically like a belly dancer. I’m thinking, What the fuck? A knockout combo: bullets, bombs, and hula-hoop hips.

  “You must like my hilab,” she said, striking a pose..

  “Hilab,” I repeated.

  “Yes, hilab means the scent that announces me. It remains only while I am here and trails me when I leave this realm. How come you don’t even mention it, when before I arrived down here, you were choking on odor?” She placed her hands on her hips gently, not like a commander or authority. Of course I smelled her beautiful scent. But one bad bitch don’t really need to be complimenting another badass bitch for her look and her style. Real bitches already know and don’t need compliments from anyone except their nigga. So I ignored her.

  “Or maybe you like the lavender sky? These are all gifts that the ONE has allowed and given me Alhamdulillah.” She said the foreign words again. “And I am so grateful to share these gifts with you,” she added.

  “Bitch, we ain’t friends,” I said. I wanted to cut out the bullshit niceties and get to it. “Did you come here expecting me to help you catch him? Or are you down here just to fuck with me?” I asked her.


  “Him!” she said and collapsed into a squatting position so that now she was looking up to me. I was like, That’s right bitch, look up to me.

  “He is evil. He is the enemy!” She stressed each word, raised her voice, but still had the happy face and delight. I didn’t like the mixture.

  “I see you’re still salty over him,” I said. “But a real bitch lets go after she gave it her best fight. So let go. Besides, you disqualified yourself. You betrayed him,” I blurted out so she would understand that he confided in me about everything and that I was aware of their past relationship and that I was even aware that she was the police.

  “Soo-pan-ah-lah, this is why we are shown that whoever the ONE leaves in error can never be corrected by anyone else except the ONE. Because of love, we UBS still try. And because the ONE is the Most Merciful, we are granted three trips of mercy to strive to correct the misunderstandings and wrongdoings of the ones we love,” she said, mumbling some foolishness. Then she stood up. “Please forget him. He is a liar. Every word he says is false. If you believe in him, and follow him, he will lead you to an even more evil destination than down here. You will be completely ruined in his company.”

  “So you’re not a cop. You’re a C.O. who showed up to correct me.” I laughed like, Yeah right, beat it bitch! Then I told her, “After a breakup all bitches talk just like how you are talking now.”

  “Blot him out! It is not about him! It’s about you and me. I don’t know exactly what lies he has told you. But I have never ever had any romance or relationship with him.”