Around the Way Girls

by Karen Williams Chunichi

  I kept quiet, while Danada rambled through the rooms in the house.

  A few minutes later, she came back into the living room and said, “The bitch ain’t got shit.” Then she glanced over at the Christmas tree.

  “No, Danada.”

  “No, what? Murder said to clear her crib out. It’s her fault. She shouldn’t have shit up so damn soon. It’s still November. I didn’t know they sell trees this early anyway.”

  I started to tell her that the tree was fake, but didn’t bother. As fucked-up as I was, I couldn’t take the lady’s shit she had for her kids.

  “Leave that shit. Murder don’t”—

  She shot me an evil look. “I wonder how Murder would like you going against what he told us to do, Diamond?”

  I took a deep breath and watched her go to the kitchen and run back out with a huge garbage bag.

  The children and the mother cried as Danada filled the bag up with the gifts she had under the tree.

  And I wanted to cry too. Really, I did. They were fucking kids. They didn’t do nothing wrong. They were just victims of circumstance, like I was. I wanted to punch Danada in her face, empty that bag out, and place that stuff right back under the tree, but I didn’t wanna face Murder’s wrath.

  I sat back and let her do what she was doing. I could imagine how horrible those kids were gonna feel when they woke up on Christmas morning with no shit under the tree.

  It’s how I felt all those times I didn’t get shit. Rhonda would always laugh at me and say, “You dumb little bitch. You might as well take your ass back to bed. Santa ain’t brought you jack.” Then she would drop her pipe back in her mouth.

  I would look at my daddy, and he would be passed out on the couch in a pool of vomit. I would always run back to my room, get in my bed, and pretend I was a part of another family. One that loved me. We would all sit around a big-ass white tree and open our gifts, while sipping on hot apple cider. Then we would sit at a big-ass table and stuff ourselves with tender turkey, dressing, yams, and mac and cheese—

  “Diamond!”

  I looked at Danada, who was at the front door with the trash bag.

  “I called your fuckin’ name three times. Quit fuckin’ day-dreaming and come on!” She turned back to the lady. “Bitch, I know where the fuck you live.”

  Duh. We were in her house, so of course we knew where she lived. Danada wasn’t too bright.

  “Don’t even think about calling the cops.”

  With that, we rushed out of the house. Crazy part was, we robbed somebody who lived in the Poly Apartments. We lugged the big-ass bag over to Murder’s house.

  “Man, that shit was so fuckin’ cool!” Danada kept saying, obviously pleased with herself, when I felt like shit.

  When we got to Murder’s house, we banged on his door.

  Trina quickly opened it. She had the ugliest look reserved for me.

  I smirked. I guess she was never gonna get over me fucking her dude. I guess I couldn’t blame her.

  Murder was seated on the couch with the TV remote in his hand. “What y’all got, Diamond?”

  “Um, some Christmas toys.”

  “Christmas toys?”

  The smile on Danada’s face vanished.

  “Ho, you think you did something?” he asked Danada.

  She shrugged. “I mean—”

  He waved a hand at her, which shut her up quickly. He turned and studied me for a moment. “How many kids?”

  “Three.”

  “How old were the kids, Diamond?”

  “They looked like they were five, three, and one, because one of them was still in diapers.”

  He turned to Danada. “Ho, go get your ass on the track!”

  Danada rushed out the house.

  “Diamond, get rid of that shit! What the fuck I need with some kid toys? Danada is a fuckin’ dingbat!”

  I thought it was just a test, I wanted to say, but I thought better and lugged the bag out the door before closing the door.

  After I got a few yards from Murder’s apartment, I went back into the direction of the lady’s apartment. I knocked on her door and when her knucklehead son opened the door again without asking who it was, I shoved my way in the door with the bag of toys. Without saying anything, I dumped the bag on the living room floor and walked back out.

  “Thank you!” the lady yelled.

  Chapter 11

  That shit between me and Danada was long over. We went back to being BFF. And we were so deep in that gang shit, it was crazy. Over the next four months, we went from the sweet, innocent girls we were (well, you know what I mean), to some cold bitches.

  She ended up telling me that the same initiation to Eastside Crips that I did, she had to do as well. Only, she said it was Murder and four other guys. She also said, when they were done, Murder humiliated her by peeing in her face. So I guess they went kind of easy on me. She said she knew I didn’t purposely sleep with Li’l Murder to spite or hurt her. He just so happened to be one of the dudes there. So we were as thick as thieves again.

  And we were thieves. Murder taught us how to carjack. And that’s mainly what we did. I knew how to break into a car four different ways—with a butter knife, a flat-end screwdriver, or a grinded piece of crowbar. Then the wires were always under the steering, under this flat piece. The crazy part was, jacking the car was the easy part for me. What I had a difficult time learning was driving that bitch after stealing it. After crashing a few good times, I got the hang of it.

  And there was no sound better than when you rubbed the wires together and that muthafucka started. I had gotten so good at the shit, I could have taught a class on how to carjack. We had stolen Impalas, Camrys, Saturns, Camaros, and of course, Honda Civics. While my favorite car to take were the Honda Civics, Danada loved her some Impalas.

  I was even able to steal a Tahoe one day. You have to know what works for each particular car. For example, to get into a Camry, you need a pair of scissors, which works like a regular key. For a Saturn or Honda Accord, you need a grinded butter knife. You slip in the top window of the car under the black flap. And for a Tahoe, you need a screwdriver.

  But Danada would go a little deeper. A lot of times, she would carjack with a gun. That wasn’t for me. So when she used a burner, she did those excursions on her own. Fuck the bullshit. Money or a car wasn’t worth me losing my life. But she wasn’t tripping.

  Murder had taught us so much. He had the hookup with someone who worked for the DMV, so we never got caught. I didn’t have to go boost no more clothes or take any more naked pictures or suck no dick. Murder would also kick us down with ends too, and we always went shopping, and more importantly, he was proud as fuck of us. He gave me my hood name, Li’l Deadly. And best believe, Danada was my crime partner for sure.

  I now had a Sidekick cell phone, countless pairs of tennis shoes. Pastry, Jordan’s, Ed Hardy’s, what! And, yes, all the skinny jeans I wanted. So I said bye to the pisa homie and the whole naked pictures deal, and the security guard at the shoe warehouse.

  I was also rarely home. Some days we stayed up all night, or others, I crashed at Danada’s, which I was sure pissed Rhonda off because she had nobody to talk down to, to bring her pathetic ass up. She also couldn’t sneak nobody in my room to make a quick buck ’cause all they would get was an empty box spring. Ha! And what could she do?

  My daddy didn’t give a fuck that I was never there. His program didn’t change. Either he wasn’t home, or if he was there, he was passed out on the fucking couch. And the vomit. Can’t forget the vomit. Passed out in a pool of his own vomit.

  For me life was good. And Gutter’s ass was on me in a major fucking way. And I was enjoying the hell out of him chasing me. It made me feel like I was worth being with. And the more I resisted, the more he was after me.

  When I wanted to be bothered, we would go to the movies and sometimes out to eat to real simple spots because we were still teenagers. We went to Chili’s, El Torito, places like that.
I only went to first base with him, though. I really wasn’t into sex. Maybe if the shit that happened to me hadn’t happened, my attitude would’ve been different. So I only answered his calls or text when I felt like it.

  But, hey, he wasn’t tripping. He probably had several different broads.

  I guess I wasn’t the relationship type.

  And my girl Danada had managed to snag Li’l Murder, so you know her ass was in straight love. We were living good.

  I pondered over how good my life was as I slipped on my True Religion jeans and a black turtleneck, since it was chilly, and some black Air Force One’s. I decided to skip school and go to the mall.

  I grabbed my Sidekick and sent Danada a text. Hey, ho. Skip school and roll with me to the Lakewood mall.

  Negative ho. I’m chilling wit Lil Murder - in bed.

  I chuckled and texted, Alright, lil hookah.

  So I boned out on the 112 bus by myself. I needed to get a new pair of boots. They had this new style where you wear them over your knees now, all the way to your thighs. Shit was always changing, but hey, anything for fashion. And I was now “that bitch,” so I had to keep up with all the trends.

  After I tossed the money for the boots on the counter, I went and got a Dooney and Bourke bag. I got the pink one with all the pretty hearts on it. It was from the money me and Danada had made doing a carjacking. And although I really enjoyed spending this money, I would have done all the shit I was doing for Murder for free. I was gonna be down for that big nigga for life. But, at the same time, it felt good to have money to spend.

  I had fifty bucks left, so I went to get a pair of skinny jeans. I had pretty much every color in skinny jeans, but I could’ve used a yellow pair, just because. I snatched up a size six . Well, really, I was a size five, but my booty was so big, I always had to get my pants one size bigger.

  I put the size six on and had a hard time buttoning them bitches. It was the first time I noticed the little bulge my ass was developing in my stomach area. What the hell? I guess my fat ass had been eating out way too much. Stuffing catfish and hush puppies with hot sauce and them big-ass burgers with the hot link on top from Big Mike’s joint.

  I guess I needed to stop shopping and take my fat ass to a gym. The last thing I needed was to lose my figure. It wasn’t like I had anything else going for myself. I wasn’t very smart, I could barely read. I didn’t have a lively personality and could barely hold a conversation unless it was about clothes or niggas. I was just another pretty face with a killer body. That’s all.

  I sighed and yanked another pair off the rack, a size seven. I didn’t bother trying them on, I just purchased them and was on my way out of the mall. But I couldn’t help but smell muthafucking cinnabun.

  I resisted the urge to buy one. Instead, I made a bee-line toward an exit, so I could get on the bus and go home. The mere thought of being fat like Rhonda made me put more pep in my step.

  Once I was able to get outside, I took a deep breath and was on my way to the bus stop when something caught my eye, a bomb-ass silver Caprice in the parking lot sitting on some serious twinkies. I knew I could hot-wire that shit. And since it was a weekday, the parking lot was almost empty.

  I did the normal routine, fired that muthafucka up, and drove it out of the mall parking lot. I took the streets, so I didn’t draw attention to myself, even though Murder had taught me how to use the 710, 405, and the 91 freeways. But the mall wasn’t but fifteen minutes away from Murder’s crib.

  I knew seeing the Caprice was going to make him happy. He had been saying he wanted a Caprice and that he didn’t care what condition it was in because he wanted to fix it up.

  Once I got it to the Poly Apartments, I parked it in the back of Murder’s crib like he always instructed. The security never tripped about it because he was afraid of Murder. Everybody was afraid of Murder. He ran the Poly Apartments. I jogged up to his crib, anxious for him to see what I had managed to do all by myself. I rushed up the steps and was out of breath, which was why I didn’t immediately yell his name.

  I placed my hand to my chest and took a few deep breaths. The living room door was slightly ajar, and just as I was about to raise my fist to knock on the door—Murder didn’t like nodody just barging in—the image I saw in the space of the open door had me frozen.

  I had to be seeing things. I held my breath, closed my eyes, opened them again, and I steadied my eyes to peer past the open frame of the door into the living room. Yep. I wasn’t seeing things. I placed a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. There was Gutter and Murder. Gutter was leaning over the coffee table, and Murder was behind him, thrashing into Gutter’s body.

  I tried to tell myself that Murder was just giving Gutter the Heimlich maneuver. But I heard Gutter whimpering like a girl, and Murder yelled, “Shut the fuck up and take this dick!” He gripped Gutter’s neck and kept jabbing his body into his.

  They were fucking! No doubt about that shit. They were breathing heavily and making grunting sounds.

  Murder bit Gutter on his neck. Then Gutter turned his face toward Murder, and they started kissing.

  Murder slapped him upside his head. “Stop that kissing shit, nigga!”

  I backed away from the door as quietly as I possibly could and ran the hell down the stairs and out of the Poly Apartments, leaving them two and the stolen car behind me.

  And as soon as I made it away without being seen, I vomited the contents in my stomach onto the ground.

  Chapter 12

  Okay, I needed to do something to confirm the suspicion that was growing in me. So I put that shit I saw between Gutter and Murder to rest and worried about myself. In all the dust that I was kicking up with Danada, my dumb ass overlooked the fact that I had missed my period again! I was irregular, but the size of my titties and my stomach was unnatural to me. I could be pregnant. The thought of having a baby inside of me was a scary feeling. I had been drinking and smoking weed, and if I was pregnant, I was going to put a stop to that shit. No baby deserved to be unhealthy. Shit, the way I looked at it, a baby didn’t ask to be brought into this world. So if I was pregnant, I was going to stop all of that shit. The weed, the drank, wilding out, and robbing folks, all of it would have to stop.

  I’d always wanted a baby. It was someone to love and love me back. And I knew that if God blessed me to have a baby, I would be the best mom ever.

  Me and Danada were at St. Mary’s Hospital, waiting for me to take a free pregnancy test. Thank God, you could get free medical help. I kept biting my nails.

  “Damn, girl! Are you hungry or nervous?” Danada asked.

  “Nervous.”

  “Well, that foster home over on New York Street called God’s Children pays cash for babies. The only problem is, you have to sign a paper saying you won’t ever try to get it back, and they say that shit is null and void.”

  I stopped biting my nails. “Selling babies? Ain’t that shit illegal?”

  “Yeah, girl. Tameka little sister, Jamilah, sold her baby boy over there. Then about a month later she changed her mind. But that white bitch would not give that baby back to her and it was nothing Jamilah could do.”

  “Well, best believe, if I am pregnant, I am not giving my baby away or selling her for no amount of money. Fuck that! I would keep mine.”

  “As you should.” Danada put her earphones to her iPod in her ears.

  After a pregnant pause, I asked, “Hey, Danada?”

  She turned off her iPod and turned to me. “What’s up, D?”

  “You ever been pregnant?”

  “Girl, hell yes. I done been pregnant like six times already.”

  Damn! She was only fourteen. Guess you don’t share everything with your friend, because I sure didn’t tell Danada my deep dark secrets. I didn’t even tell her about Gutter and Murder. Good thing I didn’t fuck Gutter. Wait! I did fuck his ass. Well, at least it was only once.

  “The first time I got pregnant was by my mama’s boyfriend. But that bitch
didn’t believe me and couldn’t be without her precious boyfriend, who really wasn’t shit. When I told her I was pregnant, she simply sent me to the abortion clinic. But I said after that experience that I wasn’t killing no more babies. Then my older brother call himself trying to rape me. And I knew for sure that I wasn’t having that muthafuckin’ baby!”

  “Why?”

  “Girl, that was my brother. I would be the baby’s mom and aunt at the same fuckin’ time. And you know what they say about incest, mixing blood. That baby was going to come out possessed. Probably have a spinning head with four eyes and shit.”

  I laughed and slapped my hands into my thighs.

  “He probably would have killed me and my brother for bringing his fucked up ass into the world.”

  “Yep.”

  She got silent.

  “What about the third baby?”

  “Oh. I met this one guy, when I was twelve, and he was twenty-five. So you know I thought I was doing big things. When I would get out of school, he would pick me up. Girl, that man did everything you can imagine a man doing to a woman. He made me a woman. He turned my young ass out for sure. I was definitely in love with his ass. And I don’t care what nobody say. I may have been young back then, but his ass loved me too. And I could go toe to toe with just about any other woman. I could do everything they could and maybe more. I knew how to cook for him, keep his house clean, wait on him hand and foot, give him good head, and could take his dick.”

  “Damn!” I wondered if I would ever be in love with somebody.

  She took one look at me and cracked up laughing. “You should see your face, girl.”

  “’Cause your story got me interested. So what happened?”

  “The baby ended up in my tubes or some shit like that. And, plus, the doc said I had them abortions too close together. I was half-listening to his ass. Anyway, to make a long story short, he said I would never be able to carry a baby to full term. And once the dude’s wife found out about me, she beat me like I stole something, and then he blamed me for her finding out about me, and he beat me like I stole something, and I didn’t see him again.”