by Meesha Mink
I look over at Hassan standing up to pull on his pants as I grab my Louis Vuitton satchel. “Sick of what?” I ask as I reach in the bag for a brush. See, if I still had my braids I coulda been outta here.
“Sick of you only wanting to be with me if we fucking sneaking. Sick of you always rushing back to your whack-ass husband. Sick of you not dealing with what you really want and what the fuck your phony ass really is.”
“I ain’t phony,” I tell him with attitude.
“Oh, you ain’t?” Hassan snaps.
“And you ain’t,” I shoot back.
We fall silent as I finish trying to brush my hair back into the buster-ass bob Reggie likes me to wear.
“Listen, I love you, WooWoo—”
I turn and wrap my arms around his neck. “And you know I love you, Has.”
He locks his hands around my wrists and takes my arms from around his neck. “But I don’t want to be with you if you got to sneak and shit. I’m sick of eating Reggie’s pussy. I’m sick of sneaking with Reggie’s wife.”
“So what the fuck you sayin’, Has?” I ask as I step back to look at him.
“I’m saying leave your husband and move into my apartment.”
Now I know Hassan done lost his motherfucking mind. I move past him to grab my keys. “You think I’m moving back into Bentley Manor?”
Hassan grabs my arm and twirls me around to step into my face. “What the fuck, you better than me now? You too good for where the fuck you from?”
“Excuse the hell out of me for wanting better. What’s sad is your ass don’t even see that there is better out there. I ain’t ashamed of growing up in the hood. I ain’t ashamed of Bentley Manor. Sometimes I miss the hood. I miss Bentley Manor and all my friends and shit, but damn right I’m glad to be up outta there. If I’m wrong for that then so the fuck what.”
Hassan’s face twists in anger and I lean back to look at him. “I’m saying I’m not ready yet. Give me some time. This is a big decision, Has. Way too big for you to be stressin’ me for an answer in some dingy-ass hotel room.”
“The same dingy hotel your ass wanted to come to ’cause you don’t want nobody to know me and you fucking around.” The anger leaves his eyes and is replaced with pain. “How the fuck you think this shit make me feel?”
“I’m not trying to hurt you but you knew the situation going in. You act like I blindsided you or some shit—”
“Fuck that. We been dealing for two fucking years. I done had enough of this shit.” Hassan pushes me and I fall back into the wall. He grabs his hoodie and his keys before he walks to the door. “When you ready to step up and be a woman ’bout yours, call me. Until then? Just leave me the fuck alone, WooWoo.”
He slams out the room and I couldn’t do shit but drop down to sit on the end of the bed.
Touch of Class is packed as ever. The smell of bodies, liquor, and the chicken being fried and sold in the back is one of a kind. Only in the dirty South could you party, get your drink on, and get a twelve-pack of fried chicken wings.
It’s been a minute since I been to the club, but I’m a bitch on a mission. Nothing or no one can keep me up out of here tonight.
“Let me get a Hpnotiq and Hennessy,” I tell the buff-ass bartender as I turn to look around the crowded club.
For as long as I knew Hassan, on Friday nights he’d collect whatever money is owed out to him by his customers and then head out to Touch of Class around twelve. This is the spot to find him, and that’s my goal for the night.
Ever since he walked out on my ass in the hotel today, he won’t answer my calls to his cell phone. The thought of it really being over is fucking with me big-time. There’s no way I can let it go down like this.
So I lied and told Reggie that I was going to Lexi’s for a card game. They usually lasted until one or two in the morning. So I’m good for a minute. I have other shit on my mind than Reggie.
“This Is the Way I Live” booms against the walls of the club and the gyrating bodies as I look around for Hassan or his boys. Nothing. I sip on my drink and squeeze my way out the small club to see if his car is even outside.
“Whaddup, WooWoo!”
“Nothing much,” I call back to whoever called out to me. I didn’t even bother to turn and see who it is. Fuck ’em.
Even the parking lot is crunk as hell. There’s enough weed floating in the air to give you a contact. I go right on ’head and breathe it on in.
“Damn, Has. You doin’ it like that, son?”
I turn toward the direction of that voice so fast that most of my drink flies out my cup. My mouth drops open. Hassan is twirling some bitch in the front of someone’s car with their headlights on as a crowd of his friends stand around watching and cheering on his show.
It takes a second but I recognize the bitch. It’s Candy, some bullshit-ass local celebrity because she was in a few low-level hip-hop videos.
My mouth twists as I take in the strapless jean dress she wore under a leather tight-fitting jacket with leather knee boots. I have to admit that the bitch had a frame that put Buffy the Body to shame. Still, she doesn’t make me want to go home and sit in the mirror and ask the Lord why I can’t be her. That’s a big nothing.
Hassan fucking with Candy? How long that shit been going down?
I toss the rest of my drink down and don’t even care when some of it splashes on the legs of my new Lucky jeans. My chest feels like a tornado is spinning through it as Candy steps up and wraps her arms around Hassan’s neck while he cups her big ass and smacks it.
I’m halfway over there to snatch that bitch when I stop. I can’t be out at the club fighting some other bitch over Hassan. I pick up my cell phone and dial his number. I watch as he takes one hand off Candy’s jiggling ass to send me straight to voice mail.
19
WooWoo
Leaving that club last night was one of the hardest things I ever did. At first when Lexi and Reggie started blowing up my cell phone I ignored their calls. I felt like I wasn’t going no damn where until I spoke to Hassan. So I sat in the club and watched Hassan and Candy partying it up. Even when he saw I was there he ignored me. All of his time and attention was focused on some video ho.
Around two his ass disappeared. For a minute I didn’t see shit but Candy with more video-vixen-looking chicks. So I went right back outside and the spot where Hassan’s Lexus sat was empty.
While I drove like crazy to Bentley Manor I kept calling his phone and he kept sending my ass to voice mail. I drove into the parking lot of Bentley Manor and couldn’t do shit but bang my fist against the steering wheel to see that his car wasn’t parked there.
When it looked like my fight with Hassan was gonna have to wait, I went to Lexi’s and gave her my cell phone. I told her to hold on to it. She gave me the heads-up that Reggie was looking for me and knew I hadn’t been at her house. Oh, a bitch like me is always on the grind. Always. I ain’t forgot a damn thing about my hood roots and the hood taught you early to always and forever think fast on your feet.
About a block from our house I pulled on the side of the road. I lugged out my full-sized spare tire and rolled it in some dirt and stones to give it a used look. Next I used a screwdriver to puncture a hole in it before I pressed the air out that motherfucker with my knees. I reached under the flap of the trunk and grabbed the shit people used to change a tire. I opened its case and emptied that into the trunk before I flung the tire on top of it. A little dirt and grime on my knees and hands and just as calm as I fucking please I jumped in my ride.
Reggie bought the flat-tire story, and he bought that I missed and left my cell phone at Lexi’s and couldn’t call for help. Good. I had other shit on my mind.
My ass ain’t sleep all night. And as soon as Reggie left for his half a day at his practice I’m up, dressed, and headed back to Bentley Manor.
I drive through the main gate and circle back out. Sure enough, Hassan’s car is parked in its normal spot. The whole time I drive dow
n to the gas station, park my car, and jog back to the complex, my heart is racing like crazy. I come up by the back of the buildings before I cut up to walk into Hassan’s.
As I knock on his door, I just tell myself with the utmost seriousness that we are going to get to the bottom of all this shit once and for all.
“So you’re just gone sit there fucking with your precious shit like I ain’t sitting here?” I ask as I watch Hassan sitting at the kitchen table cutting up his dope to fit into the vials.
He won’t say shit. Matter fact he ain’t said nothing since he opened the door for me, and that was thirty damn minutes ago. No matter what I say, nothing will get his attention away from that fucking dope:
“So you fucking Candy?”
“I saw you and your video bitch at the club.”
“How long you been fucking that bitch?”
“I can’t stand your ass.”
“Let me get the fuck outta this motherfucker. I’m gone. Bye-Bye.”
“So you giving that bitch The Dick, too?”
Hassan ignores every damn thing that comes out of my mouth as he sits there in an oversized black tee and jeans. His hair is freshly braided. His angular face all determined and shit as he ignores my ass and focuses on handling his “work.”
Another ten minutes goes by with me sitting at the table with my legs crossed wanting to get something out of his ass. I stand up and reach across the table to nudge him in the face. “You know what. Fuck you, then. I’m going home to my motherfucking husband—”
Hassan jumps to his feet so fast that the table tilts up, sending the plate holding the dope crashing to the floor. “Go to your husband and keep livin’ a fuckin’ lie. You think I give a fuck? ’Cause I don’t give a fuck, you fake-ass bitch,” he shouts in my face with veins protruding from his neck as his eyes bulge like he ’bout to stroke the fuck out.
I use both my hands to shove him back away from me. He stumbles and falls against the window. “No, fuck you, bitch.”
Hassan flexes his shoulders. “Let me give you what you want so you can get the fuck outta here,” he says over his shoulder as he stalks into his bedroom.
Not quite sure what the fuck this fool is going for—like his nine millimeter—I run the fuck outta his apartment. Even as I fly down the stairwell I hear him hollering down behind me. “Why you runnin’? This all you want. Come get this motherfucker. Trust me, you can get this shit.”
I bust outta the door, and I can just shit myself to see people already hangin’ around chillin’ in the parking lot. “Shit…shit…shit,” I swear as several people, including Miz Cleo and Miz Osceola, look me dead in my face before I can remember to throw up my hood.
I hear the door of the building open and slam close.
“Huh, bitch. This all the fuck you want any motherfucking way!”
I turn and something solid and thick hits me dead in the face, knocking my head back a little bit before it falls to the ground.
“Oh, what the fuck is that?” somebody yells out.
“That looks like a—”
“Damn, Has, you fucking WooWoo?” somebody else asks.
Embarrassment fills me like a motherfucker. My secret is out. Everybody will know. The ghetto gossip delivery service is off the chain. Lexi. Oh, God, somebody going to tell Lexi. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I flip the fuck out in anger and start swinging out on Hassan like he’s a fucking stranger to me. I took him by surprise and I can see it on his face. It fuels the fire in me. I feel my fists landing blow after blow, stunning his ass before he gets his shit together and starts swinging back on me. Them licks that motherfucker put on me hurt but I fight back like a fucking soldier until somebody pulled us apart.
Hassan’s face is bloody from my nails and my chest feels numb from his blows. My head feels like it’s spinning and one of my eyes is already swelling shut.
Hassan starts pacing in the middle of the circle of people surrounding us. “I’m sick of this shit,” he hollers, with his hands slicing through the air. “Face facts, bitch, you is what you is. Fuck that.”
My mouth drops open as I watch this crazy motherfucker pull his torn T-shirt over his head, exposing the breasts that are strapped down and flattened by duct tape. “I ain’t no dude, bitch. I don’t give a fuck how I dress or how I walk and fucking talk, you stupid bitch. You eat my pussy just like I eat yours, bitch. You a dyke…deal with it.”
The gasps of the crowd is like something out a damn movie. Some people knew that crazy-ass Hassan was really a girl. Some people didn’t. Damn it, they know now.
I scratch and fight whoever is holding me, trying to get at that motherfucker. “You’s a stupid bitch, Leslie,” I say sarcastically.
Hassan/Leslie walks over to scoop up the strap-on dildo that he threw at me earlier. He puts it to the crotch area and makes the dick bob up and down as the crowd laughs. “Call me Has like you always do when I’m giving you The Dick.”
He tosses that bitch and the crowd all jumps back. It lands in a puddle of water with a splash.
“Damn WooWoo a fucking dyke, yo!”
“Shit, fuck that. Hassan ain’t a dude? What the fuck is that shit all about?”
I give Hassan one last nasty stare before I run out of Bentley Manor. People turn to watch me as I run down the street to the gas station and hop into my ride. My hands are shaking so damn bad, and my heart feels like the shit is going to run up out of my chest. I can hardly start the car my hands are shaking so bad, but I know I have to get away from there.
I reverse out the spot.
“Hey!”
I slam on the brakes and turn to look through the back window to see a lady shaking her fist at me. I throw the car into drive and squeal out of the parking lot.
Shit. Damn. Fuck. Bullshit. Motherfucker. Hell. Damn. No. Hell no. Everybody knows. Everybody knows.
That shit keeps running through my head as I drive. People blow horns at me as I race through red lights. Even when I turn the corner too close and run up on the curb, I keep driving, ignoring the angry squeal as the front side of the car drags against a metal pole.
I don’t know how the hell I make it home in one piece, but as soon as I walk through the front door, I drop to the floor and cry like I just discovered my life is over.
Hey, this is Leesha to some…WooWoo to most. Either way, leave me a message.
Beep.
“Woo, this Lexi. What the hell going on with you and Hassan? All kinds of motherfuckers from Bentley Manor blowing up my phone talkin’ ’bout you gay. What the hell were you doing there, anyway? What the hell is going on, Woo? Call me.”
Beep.
“Leesha, I’m worried about you, little sister. I’m outside. Come and open the door. I’m not leaving until I know you okay.”
Beep.
“WooWoo, this Has…I ain’t mean for that shit to go down like that today. I was just so shitting at your ass because I love you and you know you love me, too. Shit, it wasn’t my business to tell about you being gay on the low or whatever but I ain’t gone lie that, I’m glad it’s out. Maybe now you’ll fucking deal with it and see it ain’t that big a deal. You love who you love, Woo. And that’s all to it. Just call me.”
Beep.
“Leesha, if I have to wait here until Reggie gets home to let me in I will. Open the fucking door, girl.”
Beep.
“I meant to tell you there ain’t shit going on with me and Candy. I saw you at the club and I pushed up on that bitch just to make you jealous. I swear to fucking God I love you, Woo. I love your ass. You got me crying and shit. I wish I knew where you live ’cause I would come right there and get you and bring you right here where you fucking belong…with me.”
Beep.
“Baby, this me. I’m running a little late but I’ll be home by three at the latest. Don’t cook. It’s Saturday and we’ll go to Café Dupree. Love you. Bye.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I close my cell phone and take the raw ste
ak off my eye. Thank God it isn’t black and the swelling went down enough that I can blame it on allergies or something. I already have my lie ready about being in an accident. I step away from the mirror and drop down on the toilet.
If I can only press Rewind and delete this morning. Like I’d really be that fucking lucky.
20
Takiah
Grandma Cleo is at it again.
She’s staring me down over breakfast like I’m some damn puzzle she can’t figure out or a broken kitchen appliance she can’t fix. Hell, you’d think that she’d be happy that I’d finally got a job. Of course the job has been fuckin’ her beloved pastor until he’s speakin’ in tongues for the past month, but she doesn’t need to know the details.
Eddie was right: I know how to keep a secret.
“So what do you do down there at the church?” she finally asks while spooning oatmeal to Tanana.
“Just a little bit of everything,” I answer, straddling the line of truth. I do perform a little of everything: A little fuckin’, a little suckin’, and a whole lot of blow.
Shit. I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on Pastor Meyer’s junkie signs sooner. The sweatin’, the wild and watery eyes—it’s all right there. Motherfucker has one hell of a hustle going on.
I don’t give a shit. I’m gettin’ what I need and I’m a better woman for it. Gone are my suicidal thoughts and the daydreams of hurtin’ my baby. I’m free to concentrate on doin’ what I need to do: savin’ this paper Eddie is breakin’ me off and tryin’ to find my own place, even if it’s my own apartment in this hellhole.
I glance up at Grandma Cleo and she’s still staring me down like my ass is suddenly going to break down with a confession.
She should know better than that.
A fierce pounding at the front door startles everyone at the table.
“Who in the hell?” Grandma says, jumping from her chair.
Tanana let loose one of her mighty wails, and I go to take her into my arms when a voice in the hallway stops me in my tracks.
