PARTY OVA HERE
When Whakelah, Misha, and LaShawn stepped into Club Mansion, their eyes bulged, and their mouths fell open when they spotted faces they had seen in many of the popular hip-hop magazines. Everybody who was anybody in the industry was at that party. The three of them looked as if they were stuck together like popsicles that had been in the freezer too long and had to be carefully peeled apart.
The entertainment industry was becoming so saturated with everyone who was really no one, but who really thought that they were someone. But everyone looked like they were someone important at this party, and personas and egos looked to be at an all-time high. Females lined the walls like they were at a casting call for America’s Next Top Groupie, waiting to be selected.
The temperature hadn’t fully dropped in New York City, but that didn’t stop niggas from having their furs on. It seemed as though minks was reigning on this night, as the ladies spotted almost every color fur had ever been dyed into.
Some ballers took it there and had multicolored minks on. The amount of ice niggas had on their necks was unbelievable. Most of the dudes were rocking colored stones, but for the ones who didn’t quite have it like that, and whose paper wasn’t long enough, platinum and gold links were still a luxury.
Gators and Wallabees were on the feet of the slickest-looking niggas in the place. There were reserved signs on most of the tables. Some had people at them, but most of them were still empty. It was only one a.m., so it was still early.
“All right, ladies, let’s act like this is what we do,” Whakelah said. “Just act natural.”
They went to one of the bars in hopes that there were some real niggas in the place that might buy them all a drink. Sure enough, as soon as they stepped in the area of the bar, they heard some dude throwing back the Goose call them out. It was all good. Shit! He was buying.
As the bartender took their orders, the dude who was buying their drinks came over to holla at them.
“Hey there, pretty ladies,” he said. Dude’s breath was kicking. He needed a breath mint, some mouthwash, and some more shit to help him out with his condition. Misha, Whakelah, and LaShawn tolerated him for a little while, only because he had been nice and bought them all a drink.
As soon as Whakelah spotted Tank in the DJ booth, she immediately pulled the girls in that direction. Everybody knew, once you were allowed into the DJ booth, you HAD to be somebody worth knowing. And all of the ladies wanted people to think they were indeed worth knowing, and planned to milk it for all it was worth.
“Excuse me. Excuse me,” Whakelah said. “Pardon me. Coming through.”
The crowd of people lining the steps to the DJ booth was reluctant to let the ladies through, but Whakelah’s persistence voice convinced them to let the ladies go through.
LaShawn hit them all up with her business cards.
When Misha saw they were trying to read what she had to offer, she wished she had made some sort of advertisement about herself that she could have passed out. Turned out LaShawn’s idea wasn’t so stupid, after all.
“Tank, wha’s good, cousin? You mixin’ the hell out of them CDs, my dude!” Whakelah yelled.
The days of LP’s long gone, deejays were using laptops and computer files. It took the heart out of the art, in some people’s opinion, but Tank was just keeping up with the trends. Who wanted to carry a bunch of big old crates filled with records around anyway? Carrying laptops added to a nigga’s swag.
While Whakelah was kickin’ it with Tank, LaShawn and Misha took the opportunity to look down at all the enticing prospects scattered below. A few people were dancing, but people were mostly schmoozing. The chicks were looking too cute to move, and the dudes were all acting like the next Diddy.
A large portion of the crowd was glued to the DJ booth. Maybe it was because it was up in the air and surrounded by lights. The sounds were hittin’ on one thousand, so the crowd was checking to see just who was serving it to them just the way they liked it.
Tank threw on Jay-Z, Kanye, and Rihanna’s “Run This Town,” and the crowd went wild.
Misha began to dance and soon felt someone dancing behind her. She turned around to see who had taken such liberties with her ass. She was ready to curse a nigga out, but when she looked up, she was halted by the sight of one the sweetest-looking specimens she had seen in a minute.
Misha was speechless, which wasn’t something that occurred often. She didn’t know what to say to him. She turned her back on the dude and continued dancing. He held her waist and rocked to the beat with her. She could smell his cologne and was already diggin’ him. But something told Misha, this was no prospective client. She would be chumping herself if she carried him in that way.
From the quick glance she had taken, he had the look of a thug, but there was something else. He had a very strong aura. She could tell that he smoked weed because she could smell it on him. That was a plus in her book.
He turned Misha around to face him. “Let’s go somewhere where we can talk,” he told her in her ear, not wanting to yell over the extremely loud music.
“Nah, I came with my girls. I can’t leave,” Misha yelled, too short to reach his ear.
“I didn’t say you had to leave. Come on, follow me,” he said into her ear. He took her by the hand and led her out of the DJ booth.
LaShawn watched her go with him. She knew what her girl was about, so she figured dude was a duck, about to be plucked and sucked. She took note of what the dude looked like and what he had on, just in case she had to report his ass to the police if something had happened to Misha. She then continued handing out her business cards, letting some of the partygoers that looked like they knew what time it was know that she had some trees on her if they were ready to cop.
Tank had taken a moment to stop deejaying. He passed the laptop over to his protégé and let him get some shine for a few while he kicked it with his cousin.
Tank’s and Whakelah’s mothers were sisters, so they had played together all of their lives. They’d even all lived together in a one-bedroom apartment at one time. Whakelah could remember Tank, when he was about ten years old, getting his ass beat for scratching up all of his mother’s records, trying to learn how to mix records.
“Wha’s good, cuz?” Tank asked.
“You know you the nigga for being able to get us all into this party, right?”
“Ain’t no thing, cuz. I got a few people for you to meet.”
“For real?”
“I told you, I got you this time, cousin.”
She knew Tank knew a few famous people in some big places, but she never thought he would really introduce her to them. Tank had a habit of saying he was going to do something and then not doing it. So Whakelah was real glad when they got to the door and their names were really on the guest list. There had been invitations to other events where things didn’t go so smoothly.
Tank felt bad about all of the times he’d had his cousin and her friends come out and not be able to get in on the strength of his name alone. There were times when he was spinning tunes and his protégé wasn’t with him and he couldn’t leave to go and validate their entry.
Tank took Whakelah over to one of the tables that had a reserved sign on it. A white man sat, smoking a cigar and drinking a glass of Dom. Whakelah assumed it was Dom, since he had a whole bottle of it chilling in a silver bucket of ice on the table.
Tank sat down, and invited Whakelah to do the same. “Hey, Steve. This is Whakelah, my cousin with the idea for a reality show. Whakelah, this is Steve Smith. He has connections with HBO.”
Whakelah extended her hand, but she was the only one who did. Steve simply wanted to know what the concept was for her reality television show, and told her so.
Whakelah immediately explained what she wanted her show to be about. To depict the real life of a hood chick that had been caught abusing the welfare system and was at risk of losing her two kids. She described how heartwrenching it would be for America
to go through her trial on television.
She did mention to Steve that she had a lawyer, who was confident she would receive no jail time, thus securing her freedom for future episodes. Then she would prove to the hood chicks of America and everyone else who watched her show that you can’t give up when your back is up against a wall.
She also told him that she wanted to have a few episodes showing her shopping sprees, her and girlfriends interacting with her, and of course, her cooking skills.
Whakelah laid it all out for him in less than five minutes.
“Nobody is going to want to see that,” Steve said.
“It may not sound good coming out of my mouth, but here, look, I have some video of my friends on my cell phone.” Whakelah scrolled through her cell phone in search of the footage she had of Misha and LaShawn.
Steve Smith looked at Whakelah as if she had to be kidding. She wasn’t possibly about to show him video on a cellular phone. “I’m not interested.”
Tank saw how Steve’s comments had affected his cousin. He felt bad for her, but he had been telling her the same thing for a whole year.
“Fuck you, and HBO!” Whakelah got up and walked away.
Whakelah didn’t care what anyone said. There were still a lot of other important people at this party. She was still hoping to rub elbows with someone who could land her on MTV, VH1, or any other station interested in the idea. She just knew that her life was worth watching.
The public didn’t only want to see who was living large. They also wanted to see families that were struggling just to make it, period. People wanted to see others who were dealing with real-life trials and tribulations. She wanted the world to see how she was still standing strong, after facing civil and criminal charges for receiving illegal welfare and food stamps, but yet she still managed to stay rocking the latest fashions, while her kids wanted for nothing.
She knew she was sitting on a gold mine with her reality show idea. Fuck a Steve Smith, and her cousin Tank too. For all Whakelah knew, Tank could have told Steve what to say. She knew how muthafuckas could hate on peoples’ dreams, even family members.
LaShawn adjusted her fake Gucci sunglasses on her round face. LaShawn didn’t want people looking all up into her face. Her bruises weren’t so evident, but there was still a hint of discoloration in her light skin. She feared that someone might be able to see the pain in her battered soul, even though it was dark in the club, and she could hardly see through the tinted lenses of the sunglasses.
Nor did she care how the sunglasses looked with one Gucci symbol on the side, instead of the two symbols that they come with. These sunglasses, which she had bought from the Chinese store on Webster Avenue, served as a force field between her and the crowd. They gave her the protection to come out of her shell and get her grind on.
LaShawn didn’t know where her homegirls had gone, but she knew what they were there to do, so she knew they were on their grind as well.
She stepped outside of the DJ booth and continued mixing and mingling with the crowd. When it came to selling her weed, her self-esteem was at an all-time high. When she sold weed, she felt like she was in control. She had what people wanted and needed.
A few of the people who had copped a bag or two from her had apparently sampled the goods and was coming back to her, showing her madd love and attention. It made LaShawn feel sort of important.
She had the “crazy tree connect” thanks to her ex. That was the best thing about her breakup with Larry. She was now selling her own weed and making her own money. And she could do what she wanted without Larry’s overbearing presence. She could come and go as she pleased. Now, all she needed was a place to live.
LaShawn worked Club Mansion like a hustler on the block, as she worked off the ounce of weed that she had brought in with her. She had broken the ounce down into dime sacks and sold them for twenty so that she could fully capitalize on the small bundle of trees.
Her business cards also said that she had powder available, but when inquiring minds asked her, she told them she was already out of product, but to hit her up later. LaShawn never had powder, but she knew that was a surefire way to get her clients. She planned to cop her first small bundle of cocaine with the money that she had just made.
Wanting to know that she had made the $350 she expected to make for the night, LaShawn headed to the ladies’ room. After asking about five people where the bathroom was located and being sent in five different directions, she finally found one of the ladies’ rooms.
The line was a mile long, as chicks waited to release their liquor-filled bladders. LaShawn wasn’t trying to wait in a long line. She had done exactly what she had come to Club Mansion to do. Get money. Now she needed to count up and find her girls and get out of there, so she could get that bundle of coke and take her hustle to the next level.
“Where the fuck you think you goin’, bitch?”
LaShawn turned around to find a female in her personal space.
The female was next in line to use the bathroom and wasn’t about to let LaShawn get in front of her. She stood there, drunk as a bitch,
“Check this fake-ass bitch out with her fake-ass Gucci glasses, trying to skip somebody,” the female said, staring at LaShawn through the lenses of her authentic pair of Gucci sunglasses.
LaShawn didn’t say a word. A warm rush came over her body, and she simply snapped and started beating the brakes off the female.
The girl’s friends tried to get LaShawn off her, but LaShawn had a powerful grip on the female’s hair, and was pounding into her face like a boxer does his punching bag.
She managed to take the honey’s glasses off her face and slide them into her jacket pocket before Club Mansion’s bouncers rushed to the scene.
Although they were male bouncers, due to the circumstances, they put gender aside and went into the ladies’ bathroom. They grabbed LaShawn and forcefully escorted her to the door. Minutes later, they threw her out of the club without giving her a chance to say anything in her own defense.
“Where are you taking me?” Misha asked, yelling over the music at the dude. She still had yet to even get his name. These days you couldn’t go with anyone you really didn’t know. People were on too much sheisty shit.
“What? You think I’ma stick you up?” Swag laughed.
“Oh, nah, but you could dick me up,” Misha said on the low, not quite loud enough for Swag to hear. “I don’t even know your name,” she said aloud.
“Swag,” he said, turning back to look at her. Damn, she fine!
“Swag?” Misha knew everybody was using the word a lot lately, but she thought he had taken it just a tad bit far, using it as a name for himself.
Swag had Misha by the hand and was pulling her through the crowded club. Her fingers incidentally touched on a diamond bracelet he was wearing. Misha looked down in the dark club at his wrist and was almost blinded by the white ice in the piece of jewelry.
That shit can’t be real!
Females were standing in a row peering at them as if they were mannequins in Macy’s window and they were window-shopping. They were trying to catch Swag’s eye, while giving Misha dirty looks. She paid them no attention whatsoever. In fact, she dared anyone of them bitches to get at her live and direct, because she had something for all of their asses, a razor in her mouth on the right side of her cheek.
They went up to an exclusive area of the club, where there was thick red carpet and red velvet drapes surrounded by mirror and glass. Humongous crystal chandeliers glistened like ice glaciers as they hung low from the ceiling. And bartenders with white, collared shirts and black bowties filled glasses with premium labels of all types of alcohol.
In this section the liquor was being given away for free, and there was a long table with a full buffet of various foods, and two large ice sculptures resting at each end of the table.
As Misha walked with Swag through the room she saw the silver plates on the walls that proved her suspicions true. She
was in the VIP section of Club Mansion.
Misha knew that he looked like he was on his grind and that he had some paper, but she didn’t know dude was rolling with the real very important people of the industry. Whoever this dude Swag was, he was the muthafucka to know.
Misha let Swag’s hand go. She then used both of her hands to perk up her titties in her black satin bustier, and perked up her attitude as well. She could smell her dream of getting in the door of the video industry, and the scent was overpowering.
Swag led Misha past a few celebrities as they continued down a long corridor toward a private suite in the back of the VIP section. As Rihanna’s “Hard” blared through the club, Misha listened to the words of the song and swung her head to the beat. She just knew Rhianna was singing about her.
Misha wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn that she had just seen Jadakiss and Styles P coming out of one of the suites with some real hot Puerto Rican chicks. Misha had never been in a club such as this one, and she had never ever seen a VIP section in her life. She felt like Cinderella at the ball, and Swag was her Prince Charming.
Once they were all alone in the private suite, Swag locked the door and was able to relax. He was a bit uptight around large crowds, having been in several shootouts and stampedes in New York City nightclubs. He took his .45 caliber pistol from the harness that rested underneath his burnt orange leather jacket and sat it on a small chrome and glass table near the bar.
“Aw, shit! Please don’t tell me you five-O?” Misha asked. She had dislike for police officers and if Swag turned out to be one, she didn’t care how fine he was, her ass was out of there.
“Come on now. Nah, baby, I ain’t no cop. The truth be told, I don’t even like them muthafuckas.”
“Tha’s wha’s up. That’s one thing we already have in common.” Misha smiled. She liked that Swag kept his heat on him. That’s gangsta.
Around the Way Girls Page 24
