Around the Way Girls

by Karen Williams Chunichi

  “You know what, I was crying, baby, but for real, Mommy is fine.” She wanted to be honest with her daughter. Whakelah always told her kids that the truth would set them free and she didn’t want to go against her own values.

  Bad spending habits aside, Whakelah had done a good job raising her children on her own, and their behavior and attitude was a reflection of such. She had a rule, which was instilled in her by her own mother—Do as I say, not as I do. There was to be no cursing whatsoever in her household. And respect must be shown and given to adults at all times. Whakelah felt that just because she lived in the hood didn’t mean she had to be hood. Nor did she have to teach her children how to act hood. She wanted her children to be respectful, well-rounded individuals.

  Kadayja knew that there was something bothering her mother, but she didn’t want to upset her further by being disobedient. If she said she was fine, then Kadayja was going to accept that.

  She rolled the roll of paper towels, snatched one free and handed it to her mother. As Whakelah wiped her face, her daughter hugged her waist and squeezed her tight.

  “I love you, Mommy.”

  “I love you too, Dayja.”

  “Aww, and I love both of y’all. Now can we eat, please!” Misha exclaimed, as she and Marvin stood in the doorway of the kitchen.

  “Yeah, we can eat, but nobody said Misha’s name was in any of these pots,” Whakelah joked.

  “God, you actin’ stank tonight!”

  Whakelah played the previous scene back in her head. She felt that the conversations and thoughts that had just taken place in her home would be great for the ratings of her television show. A video camera! That’s what I need.

  “Y’all know what? With a computer and a video camera we can make our own reality show and just put it on the Internet,” Whakelah stated in excitement.

  “Yeah, Ma, we can do that,” Marvin chimed in. “That’s easy.”

  “And I can ask Tank to film it,” Whakelah said. Her cousin Tank was always down for her and willing to help her with whatever she needed.

  She didn’t know what took her so long to think of the idea of doing her show on her own, but boy, was she glad that she had come up with the idea. Now she had to come up with the money for the computer and video camera. She was just at a loss trying to figure out how to get a computer; now she added a video camera to the list.

  Whakelah was done crying. It wasn’t something she was used to doing, and she wasn’t fond of how it made her feel. Crying made her feel weak and she was far from weak. This was a woman who raised two kids single-handedly since she herself was a teenager, a woman who depended on no one but herself to provide for her and her children. Nah, she was by no means a weak individual and was going to get all of those skeletons out of her closets and bury them all.

  The five of them sat at the table in Whakelah’s small kitchen. It was crowded, but there was nothing but love at the table, so it was all good. Whakelah had put her foot in the food by seasoning the meat to perfection. By the way everyone was going at their plate and the pure silence in the room, you could tell that everything tasted just as good as it smelled, if not better. Whakelah had been like a kangaroo in her mother’s pouch on those Sundays when dinner was being prepared for just the two of them. Her mother had taught her everything she knew about cooking, and had done a fine job.

  “Girl, you don’t be playing with them pots and pans. You be gettin’ your cook ON! This food is on one thousand!” Misha said, giving her girl props.

  “Tha’s wha’s up! I wanna have some cooking episodes on my show too.”

  “And just what’s the name of this show?” Misha asked.

  Whakelah took a moment to think. She had never really thought about that. She wanted the name of her show to be one that people would remember. Whakelah also wanted the name of her television show to be intriguing, so that viewers would want to tune in just by hearing the name alone. She played around with a couple of ideas in her head and began to try them out.

  “Livin’ with the Browns,” Whakelah said.

  “No, that sounds too much like Tyler Perry’s movie, Meet the Browns,” her daughter told her.

  “The Life and Times of Whakelah Brown,” she said, trying again.

  “What about us, Mommy?” Marvin asked.

  “Baby, Mommy can’t have a show called ‘Whakelah and her kids!’”

  “Why not?” Marvin asked.

  “Because that sounds stupid,” Kadayja told her little brother.

  “Mommy, Dayja called me stupid.”

  “I did not. I said the name was stupid, not you, dummy.”

  “Ma, Kadayja called me a dummy!” Marvin whined louder.

  “Y’all two cut it out. Go on and finish up your dinner, and Dayja get you and your brother’s clothes ready for school tomorrow.”

  The kids had finished their meals first and went back into the back of the apartment to their bedrooms, to finish off their evening. They both had to be at school in the morning, and it was approaching the ten o’clock hour. It was pretty late for them to be eating dinner at ten o’clock, but Whakelah had gotten back from shopping a little later than she had expected, and she just had to roll with it. She didn’t keep them up past their bedtime often, so she saw it as no big deal.

  “I know what the name of your show could be,” Misha said.

  “What? And don’t play. Be serious, for once.” Whakelah knew Misha clowned around about most matters, but her show was no joke.

  “You say you wanna keep it real, right? So how about, ‘Keepin’ it Real-ah with Whakelah’?”

  “Okay, now you sound stupid,” Whakelah told her.

  “I was trying to help.”

  “Do me a favor, and just stick to helping those sorry-ass niggas you call clients come,” Whakelah said.

  “Fuck you!” Misha said, meaning no harm at all.

  “You heard from LaShawn?” Whakelah asked Misha, changing the subject. LaShawn was their best friend also. Together, they were the three amigas, all for one, and one for all.

  “Nah, come to think of it, I haven’t heard from her all day.”

  Whakelah and Misha finished their meal and had started clearing the dishes from the kitchen table and placing them in the sink. Whakelah knew that it was time to tell her best friend about her dilemma. She wanted to tell Misha and LaShawn together, but with the mind spell that she had before they all had sat down to eat, Whakelah knew she needed to tell someone else what was going on with her before her head exploded.

  “Yo chick, I got something real serious I’m dealing with right now. I could be in some trouble,” Whakelah said.

  Misha stopped what she was doing and paid full attention to her best friend. “Wha’s up, chick?”

  “You know I’ve been getting over on them muthafuckas for a while now, right?”

  “Who? The Social Services people?”

  “Yeah, well, they hollered at me and told me that they’re investigating me.”

  “Oh shit!” Misha knew that a lot of people getting over on the system and felt bad that her girl had gotten caught up. “So what they talkin’ about?” Misha asked.

  “Well, right now, they’re just investigating, but if they catch me up for real, then I have to pay back all of the money they ever gave me.”

  “What? How the hell are you going to be able to do that?”

  “I’m not going to be able to do it.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “That’s not all. They’re threatening jail time.”

  “What!” Misha shrieked. She immediately thought of Kadayja and Marvin and what would happen to them.

  “Chill, Misha. I don’t want the kids running back in here.”

  “That’s why I’m buggin’. I’m thinking about the kids.”

  Whakelah really hadn’t thought about the seriousness of her situation until Misha registered her reaction. Whakelah was slowly coming out of her denial and was starting to realize that she could, in
fact, go to prison and be taken away from her children. The thought put a sharp pain through her chest. She felt as if someone was killing her.

  Misha saw the effect the conversation was having on Whakelah and she wanted to make her best friend feel better. “Yo, fuck that! It’s gon’ be all good. I know a good lawyer. He knows all of the judges, and I know he would help you.”

  “Lawyers cost money, Misha. Where am I going to get money for a lawyer? I’m trying to get money to put on my reality show.”

  Misha didn’t have an answer to her best friend’s question, and she didn’t know about money for no damn reality show. But she knew one thing—If she had to fuck this lawyer to retain him for Whakelah, then that’s what she would do, so her girl wouldn’t have to stand in front of a judge alone, and have her and her kids’ lives destroyed.

  Misha now knew why Whakelah was acting so erratic. Why Whakelah had been shopping until she dropped, drowning herself into an endless pool of debt, and why she was obsessing over wanting a reality show that she most likely would never have, especially with all of the current events now brewing with her and the law. Misha recognized the symptoms. She had just read about them in a pamphlet at the free clinic. Her best friend was fighting depression, but she was slipping anyway, and didn’t know it.

  Damn! Misha thought. And I thought I had problems.

  That just went to show Misha that you never know what’s going on in someone else’s life, even if it is your own best friend.

  LASHAWN

  “Whose pussy is this?”

  “It’s your pussy.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “You’d better be sure, bitch, ’cause if I find out you been fuckin’ around on me, I’ll kill you, you hear me?”

  “Yes, I hear you.”

  “You better hear me, bitch, ’cause I’ll fuck you up!”

  LaShawn could feel the spit as it shot from the inside of his hot mouth on to her chilled skin. He had jabbed her in her side with his fists one too many times, and she was in complete pain. She didn’t know why she stayed with this poor example of a man. All he did was abuse her emotionally, verbally, physically, and sexually. She had heard many times that if a man hit you once and you stayed with him, nine times out of ten, he would do it again. LaShawn never thought that she would be in a relationship such as the volatile and unsafe relationship she was currently trapped in.

  “You know what? You’re an ugly bitch! And I’m going through too much for your ugly ass. I get pretty bitches!” He pulled his limp dick out of her and got up out of their bed.

  LaShawn, her feelings crushed, couldn’t look in his direction. He knew that she knew that she wasn’t the prettiest thing that had ever stepped onto the Earth, but the way he said it was simply cruel and unfeeling.

  “Yeah, bitch, that’s right. I said it, and you heard it, so don’t get it fucked up. You’s a ugly bitch!”

  “I’m ugly? I’m ugly, Larry?”

  “Hell fuckin’ yeah!”

  “That’s cool, Larry. Go on and get you a pretty bitch then and leave this ugly bitch alone.” LaShawn turned over to go back to sleep. Does he have someone else?

  “Shut up, bitch! I already left you alone and you don’t even know it.”

  “You shut up. I don’t give a fuck about you or your new bitch! Congratulations to the both of you bitches. I hope you’re happy together,” she said, under her breath. She wouldn’t dare say it aloud. That was sure to get her another ass-kicking.

  It was evident that her man had been out drinking and clubbing, and now he was going to make her night a living hell. Larry, LaShawn’s man, was a small-time drug dealer with a small mind, and a smaller dick. He grew up in a household where there was physical abuse. He had seen his mother get her ass kicked plenty of times, and he himself had been physically abused by his father. So he grew up thinking that hitting women was cool, a way to display his bravado.

  To say that LaShawn was simply having issues with her man would be putting it ever so mildly. Insecurities associated with his sexual organ, or shall we say his little dick, coupled with violent tendencies which he had harbored for years were causing him to lash out at her in ways so severe, at times she couldn’t bear to be in the same room with him. Then there were other times when he was the sweetest person in the world to her.

  LaShawn had tried to tell Larry that the size of his dick didn’t matter to her, and that he actually pleased her in bed, but in his world a man needed a big dick to please a woman. In his world, a man’s steez was measured by the length of his dick. And since he had a little dick, no matter what she said or did to try to make him feel better, he still thought that he was less of a man. So he tried to make up for the size of his dick by acting like a big dick, so to speak.

  There was a time when LaShawn thought it was cute that her man wanted to know her every move. She felt that Larry was showing how much he cared for by wanting to know where she was and who she was with, but then it got to a point where he didn’t want her out of his sight. She noticed he was becoming too possessive, and that the matter was getting out of control.

  LaShawn’s mother had warned her when she’d moved out of her apartment just three floors up to go and live with Larry. The scene of her leaving her mother’s apartment, the only place she had ever lived, played back in her mind. She could see her mother standing there yelling at her, as if it were just yesterday.

  “Don’t move out of here. You’ll regret it.”

  “Ma, Larry and I love each other. Why can’t you see that?”

  Her mother could see the love, or rather the infatuation, that her daughter had for the man that had turned her daughter’s world upside down, but she in no way saw the same affection coming from him.

  “What I see is, he is a jealous man. And he bucks at you whenever someone looks in your direction. Now just where do you think that’s going to lead?”

  “Oh, Ma, please. You’ll say anything to keep us apart,” LaShawn said, as she continued to throw her clothes into plastic C-Town shopping bags.

  “What mother wouldn’t want to keep their daughter away from a drug-dealing pimp?”

  “Ma, Larry is not a pimp!”

  “The shit, he’s not! Do you see those clothes and the jewelry that boy wears? If that ain’t a pimp, I ain’t never seen one a day in my old-ass life.”

  “I’m leaving, Ma.” LaShawn turned to leave her mother’s apartment.

  “That man got you fooled all the way, huh?”

  “Bye, Ma.” LaShawn let her mother’s apartment door slam behind her.

  That was two years ago. Now, here LaShawn was, wishing like hell that she hadn’t been so hardheaded and had listened to her mother. She wanted to run out of there and jet up the staircase and knock on her mother’s door and beg her to let her come back home. She wanted to tell her mother how right she was about Larry being an asshole, that he didn’t give a damn about her. But she didn’t want her mother to tell her, “I told you so.” She couldn’t allow herself to admit to her mother or anyone else that she was a victim of abuse and needed help.

  Every time LaShawn got her ass beat bad enough and got bold enough to make a move to break out and leave him, Larry would run out and buy her clothes and teddy bears and take her out to dinner. Once they returned home, he would throw the little dick on her, eat her pussy real good, and tell her repeatedly how sorry he was for hitting her, how much he really loved her, and that he needed her. That he couldn’t do what he did without her. This gave LaShawn the tremendous ego boost she constantly needed, and she would be wrapped up in his trifling ass all over again, until the next battle.

  LaShawn had to literally fight her man every time she wanted to go out and spend time with her girlfriends. It was amazing that Misha and Whakelah had no clue that her girl was being beat up by her man. So far, he hadn’t hit her in an area where anyone could tell what she was going through, but the summer was approaching and LaShawn wasn’t going to b
e able to hide the bruises that graced her arms and back.

  Larry wouldn’t allow her to get a job because he thought she might cheat on him with someone she worked with. She stayed in their apartment most of the day and night. The only time she really went out of their apartment was to go check out her girls, Misha and Whakelah. And that usually wasn’t for long because she had to make sure she had returned by the time Larry had finished hustling. LaShawn stayed in the relationship for several reasons, but the main reason was because she feared Larry.

  Larry, being a small-time drug dealer, had access to some of the best weed LaShawn had ever smoked. He supplied her habit, a habit that cost a minimum of one hundred dollars per week. He also paid all of the bills and kept their refrigerator stocked with food, which was more than a lot of other niggas was doing for their women.

  Larry wasn’t alone in his battle with low self-esteem. LaShawn had her own problems too. She didn’t consider herself to be very attractive and actually felt lucky that Larry even wanted to keep her at all, much less keep her all to himself. But now he was telling her that she was ugly, and he had never told her that before. He had always made it a point to make her feel pretty, even though he used to beat her ass. So was he lying to her all of this time by telling her that she was his pretty bald-headed baby? Was he laughing at her looks behind her back? She didn’t know what to think. With Larry one could never tell.

  LaShawn was short, at five foot three and a half. Her size fourteen jeans gave her the appearance of being considerably thick. Her skin was high yellow, and her hair was cut close to her scalp. She never did well with perms, so she kept her hair naturally short and cut low. To add a little pizzazz, she colored it bright red. There were several things about her appearance that she would have liked to change, but she didn’t need this little-dick nigga telling her she was an ugly bitch. His words were really fucking with her.

  LaShawn sat up in bed, reached blindly for the lamp that was on the small table near their bed, and turned the light on. She ripped the blanket from off of her body and turned to her left to look at herself in the large-mirrored armoire that almost filled up the entire bedroom. She was nowhere near the ugly monster Larry had painted her to be. But there was a part of her that knew deep down inside that she wasn’t considered pretty either.