by Roy Glenn
“Fifteen hundred each,” Amel said quickly.
I said, “Oh, hell no!” Got my shit and got out of there. It was a good thing that I did to, ’cause that guy was a cop and he arrested Amel. That was the end of my career as a private dancer.
Six
Now I was addicted to having that cash again, so once again, I had to decide what I was going to do. What I decided to do was something that I swore I would never do. I walked up in a strip club and asked the manager for a job.
My thinking was that I would be all right onstage dancing, I would just dance and the customers would bring me money. That’s what I was used to from working with Amel. I would dance around the room teasing men, then they’d pay me.
Unfortunately, I learned that in the club, the way to make money is to walk around all night saying “You want a table dance? You want a table dance?” Then, when you get a guy who’s paying, you gotta sit there and listen to him try to mack. I told one guy, “Look, I’m just here to get paid. I don’t wanna hear that shit.”
As you could imagine, he told me to get the fuck on, which I gladly did. I lasted two weeks before I quit. I was making money, but I was never really built for all that anyway. Still, whether I was meant to be a dancer or not, the fact remained: I still needed to make some money. And I don’t care how good they make it sound on TV; I was not getting a job at Wal-Mart. I decided that if I was gonna have to hustle, I might as well get paid.
But was I really ready? I thought about Lorenzo. Damn, I missed him. What was more important to remember, though, was why I missed him. I missed him ’cause he was in jail, and I certainly had no desire to do any time. So, if I was going to do this, I had to be smart about it.
Me, Shay, and Teena sat in my living room and talked about getting into the game, and most importantly, avoiding Lorenzo’s fate.
“One thing you won’t have is a woman like you,” Shay said. “You were the flashy one. Drivin’ that BMW; spending all that money shoppin’. And Teena, you weren’t too much better. Both of y’all was caught up in that lifestyle.”
“Don’t hate, Shay,” I said.
“I’m not hatin’. Come on, Nina. You know me better then that. I’m just being real. Y’all two heifers was caught up in that ballers’ girl lifestyle, spending money like it was water. Now what you got to show for it? Government took everything but the clothes you had on your back.”
“You’re right, Shay. I don’t have shit. But what’s that got to do with avoiding Lorenzo’s fate?”
“I’m just sayin’, you should have opened an account in your name,” Shay went on without answering my question. All me and Teena could do was sit there and look at one another ’cause we knew she was right. I had some money, but without any coming in, it was going fast. “If y’all are gonna do this, then you gotta tone it down a whole lot, ladies. Cut out all the flash, and understand that this is a business, not a lifestyle,” Shay continued. “When you start livin’ that lifestyle, you get desperate to make that money.”
“That’s when you get careless,” I added when I understood Shay’s point. “You gotta have money to fuel that lifestyle, and you start takin’ risks to make that money.” I paused and thought. Was I the cause of Lorenzo being locked up? Did my flashy lifestyle draw the attention of the police? Or maybe it was my shopping addiction that forced him to take greater and greater risks, like doing business with that bitch-ass Bryce. Lorenzo always said that even though he had known him for years, he never trusted Bryce, but he brought in so much money that he had to keep fucking with him. I was glad Bryce was bringing in so much money. “More for me to spend,” I remember saying at the time. Now I wished I hadn’t.
While I was lost in my thoughts, Shay continued her sermon. “That’s right, so let’s try not to make careless or flashy mistakes,” she said, looking dead at me.
“That’s what we’re talkin’ about, Shay. Tryin’ to roll and keep from goin’ to jail for it.”
“But Lo is in jail for murder,” Teena said, “not selling drugs. So as long as we don’t blast nobody”—she pointed her fingers like a gun at Shay—“we won’t get locked down for life.” Then she blasted her. “Boom!” And we all laughed.
“True,” Shay had to agree, “but drugs are the reason the cop was there for him to murder. So, when you break it down a little further, he’s in jail because Bryce and Chris rolled over on him.”
“True that, true that,” I said, feeling the guilt once again, that Bryce was on my card and it was a weight I had to carry. “So, how do we avoid the same thing happening to us?”
“You start with people around you that you can trust,” Teena said.
“Yeah, but Lorenzo trusted Bryce, and I know he loved Chris like a brother,” Shay pointed out.
“No,” I said. “Lorenzo never trusted Bryce.”
“Okay, let’s be real. We all know that Bryce was a snake,” Shay commented.
“Since we being real, Nina, Chris was always real envious of Lorenzo. He was always talkin’ about how he was smarter than Lorenzo, and how it should be him runnin’ the show,” Teena admitted.
“Why didn’t you say something before now?”
“I didn’t take it as anything more than pillow talk, something to get his dick hard again. I never thought it would come to this.”
“The only people I trust is the two of you,” I said quietly.
“You can trust me, Nina,” Shay said as she sat down next to me.
We both looked at Teena.
“What the fuck are you two bitches starin’ at me for? Y’all know you can trust me,” Teena said and sat by my other side. “We’re down together to the bloody end.”
“Let’s hope it ain’t that deep, Teena,” Shay said, and I had to agree.
“So, we gonna do this or not?” I asked, smiling.
“What we just say, Nina?” Teena asked.
“You won’t be alone, Nina,” Shay said. “We’re down with you. So, what do we do now?”
“How much money y’all got?” I asked.
Seven
Now that the decision had been made, it was time to put it into action. I had twenty-four hundred dollars. That was enough money to cover expenses and get a couple of ounces—maybe two and a half. That would be enough to get us started.
My partners didn’t have much money to invest in our new business venture. Shay had no money, which I understood; she got kids to take care of. Teena came up with four hundred, but I was cool with that for the time being. I figured that I should start with a couple of people who did business with Lorenzo and build up from there. My thinking was that if everything went the way it should, I would recoup my investment in no time.
Before the deputies took Lorenzo away, he told me that if I ever needed anything, I should call his cousin, Leon, in Jacksonville. Lorenzo would go down there all the time. And I went with him on a few of his trips. Lorenzo never said and I never asked him, but I always thought that Leon was his supplier.
I was a little nervous about talking to Leon. We got along okay and he treated me with respect, but I always felt that he really didn’t like me. It was nothing he said; it was just the way he looked at me sometimes: like I wasn’t good enough for his baby cousin.
“Hello.”
“Hello, can I speak to Leon?”
“This is Leon. Who is this?”
“This is Nina. I’m Lorenzo’s girlfriend.”
“What’s up, Nina? How you holdin’ up?”
“I’m okay.”
“How come it took you so long to call me? We’re family now, girl. Remember that.”
“I will. And thank you, that means a lot to me.”
“So, what’s up?”
“I need to talk to you about something, but I don’t wanna talk over the phone.”
“Come down here. Spend some time with me. Call me when you get here.”
“I’ll call the airport now and call you back with my flight info.”
“No, I think you
should drive. It ain’t safe to fly. Terrorists and shit, you know. Much safer if you drive.”
“I understand. I’ll call you when I’m in Jacksonville,” I said and hung up the phone. I looked at Teena and Shay.
“Well?” Shay asked. “You in there or what?”
“He said I was family now and should drive down there and spend some time with him.”
“Either you in there or he wants some pussy,” Teena said.
“Yeah maybe, but I don’t think that’s it.”
“What’s he like?” Teena asked.
“He’s in his thirties. Tall, good lookin’ and dark-skinned like Lorenzo, but he’s a big guy. Not fat, but a big guy. Any time we went there, he always had a different woman with him. Big house, always got mad cash to spend, you know what I mean.”
“Sounds like somebody I should know,” Teena said.
“Maybe next trip, Teena. Besides, he wants me to drive to Jacksonville, and you hate long trips. Only problem with that is a car. I don’t have one.”
“You could rent one,” Teena suggested.
“No credit card.”
“You can use mine,” Shay volunteered. “It’s not fancy, but Gary keeps it in good condition.”
“He should. He’s a mechanic,” Teena said.
“Are you sure, Shay? I’m just sayin’, what you gonna drive?”
“I’ll be all right for a few days without it. If I need to go somewhere, Gary will take me,” Shay said.
I was set. The next morning, I hit the road for Jacksonville in Shay’s old Escort station wagon. She left the baby’s seat in the back along with all of her kids’ junk. Shay said it was too much trouble to take out the car seat, and she was just too lazy to clean the car. I didn’t care. I just got in, said good-bye to my girls, and headed south. Shay was right about one thing: the car, junky or not, ran like a champ. All it had, though, was a radio—no CD, not even a tape player. “This is gonna be a long ride.”
I rode down I-95 South, changing stations on the radio. I found that listening to music that you don’t like keeps you awake. A lot of the time I spent with the radio off, just letting my mind flow. Naturally, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I was driving to Jacksonville for. The same question kept rolling around in my mind: Was I ready to sell drugs? And at this point, did it matter? I was going to do it. In my mind, there was no turning around now.
I thought about Lorenzo a lot too. I wanted so badly to talk to him to tell him just how much I loved him, how much I missed him. I wanted to tell him about all the things I had been through since he’d been gone.
I thought about my parents and how much the choices I’d made had disappointed them. I could almost hear my father’s voice telling me that he didn’t raise me to take the easy way. It was hard work and making the hard choices that was going to carry me in the long run. But there I was, living and making short-term choices. My thoughts were fuckin’ with me, so I turned the radio back on to drown them out.
When I got to Jacksonville, I called Leon and he came to meet me. After he laughed at the car, I followed him back to his house, where there were two women lounging by the pool. They were both pretty women, in their late twenties, I guessed. One had no top on, and both of them had big, fake-ass titties. I could tell ’cause they were too round at the top.
He introduced one as Diamond and the other as Pearl. I practically had to bite my lip to keep from laughing in their faces. He introduced me as Lorenzo’s woman. Both of them acted like they knew exactly who Lorenzo was, which led me to believe that Lorenzo had fucked one, if not both of them, when he came here without me. I started to cop an attitude with them, but then I caught myself. Lorenzo was in jail for life; no point in getting all twisted about it now.
“Are you hungry, Nina?” Leon asked.
“Starvin’,” was my one-word answer.
Leon turned to his other two guests. “Y’all get us something to eat,” he said to them, then turned around and went back in the house. I stood there looking at them until Leon said, “You coming, Nina?”
“It was nice meeting y’all,” I said to them.
“I hope you like seafood,” one of the women said to me as I walked away, “’cause I’m goin’ to Red Lobster.”
I followed Leon back in the house and he took my bag upstairs to one of the bedrooms. He opened the door and held it for me as I walked in. Once I was in the room, he closed the door and locked it. I guess Teena was right. This man really does want some pussy.
I guess he could tell by the look on my face that I was apprehensive about him locking us in. “Don’t worry, Nina. I only locked the door so we won’t be disturbed. We don’t need nobody walkin’ in on us while we’re talkin’.”
“Oh.”
“Now, make yourself comfortable. You consider this your home, you hear me? Like I said, you’re family. You need anything while you’re here you just have to say so. Understand?”
“I understand, and thank you.”
“Now, talk to me, Nina,” Leon said as he sat down in the chair across from the bed. “Tell me what’s been goin’ on with you.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and told Leon everything I had gone through since Lorenzo went to jail, eventually, working up to my decision to get into the game. I even told him that I had been dancing, and how I felt about the whole experience.
“You don’t have to feel ashamed about that, Nina. A lot of women go down that road and find that it’s not what they thought it was.”
“Don’t get it twisted. I’m not ashamed of what I did. I was just doin’ what I had to do.”
“It’s called survival, baby girl,” Leon said and stood up. He walked over to the window.
“But sometimes, Leon, I feel like I’m just out here spiraling out of control.” I was surprising myself with how open I was being with Leon. He was just so easy to talk to. He was a good listener. Talking to him now, I no longer felt like I wasn’t ‘good enough’ for his baby cousin. That’s when I realized that he was the same person, treating me with the same respect that he had each time I was a guest in his house. It was my attitude that had changed.
“I have an idea, but I hate misunderstandings. So, what was it that you wanted to talk to me about, Nina?” Leon asked and returned to his chair.
“Lorenzo said if I ever needed anything to call you. Well, I saved up some money and I’m ready for whatever.”
Leon sat quietly and listened while I talked. I explained that I had some money and I wanted to get as much product as I could for what I had. He laughed a little when I said I had two thousand dollars, but he tried to play it off as a cough.
“How did you know to come see me about that?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, I can help you, but first I gotta ask are you sure this is what you wanna do?”
“I’m sure.”
“I can help you with that. In fact, I’ve been expecting you, but I was expecting you three months ago. Lorenzo said that you’d be coming,” Leon said and stood up. “You get settled in and relax. I’ll call you when they get back with the food.”
“They said they were goin’ to Red Lobster.”
“I know they had to go somewhere. Neither of them can boil water.” Leon laughed and closed the door behind him.
Over the next four days, me and Leon became inseparable. We didn’t sleep together or anything like that. Leon was always a perfect gentleman. At the end of the day, Leon would say good night and go to his room, where the tittie twins were waiting for him.
We would talk all day about the game—what to do, what not to do; who to fuck with and who to leave alone; how to deal with the cops. We talked about seeing the bigger picture and not getting caught up on bullshit, and we talked a lot about trust. It was like going to school. “Damn, you mean there’s more to this than just collecting money?” I joked early on, but Leon was not amused.
“This shit ain’t no joke, Nina. You get to fuckin’ around in them streets, thinki
n’ this shit is funny, and you’ll get yourself killed or locked up like your man,” Leon advised.
Some things I knew from being with Lorenzo, some things were just common sense, but most of what he was telling me I had no clue about.
“Do you like football, Nina?”
“I love football.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Then you understand the game?” he questioned. “You’re not one of these women who love football because it’s men in tight pants?”
“No, Leon, I really understand the game.”
“Good. I would have been disappointed in you if it was just the pants.”
“Why would that disappoint you?”
“’Cause it’s so much deeper than that.”
“How so?”
“Football is like life, Nina. Each time you step on the field, your objective is to score a touchdown, right?”
“Right.”
“So the natural temptation is to go for the big play every time. The fans go wild, and it’s great for your ego. However”—Leon said, taking a timely pause and raising his finger to emphasize his point—“the defense is there to prevent this from happening. But the objective remains.”
“To score a touchdown,” I added.
“Exactly. This poses a problem, so you got to study the defense. You have to understand its strengths and learn how to exploit its weaknesses. Now you can take advantage of what the defense gives you. You run the draw up the middle, you run the short passing routes, but you’re moving the ball downfield and moving closer to your objective. You’ve got to play your hardest on every play until you’ve put yourself in a position to complete your objective.”
“To score a touchdown.”
“Just like life,” Leon said.
