by Joy
“Home,” both Dollar and Ral replied in unison.
Tommy went back to her place to get ready for work while Dollar took Ral to his new pad. It wasn’t much, but he now had a place to call his own. Dollar figured that maybe if Ral possessed a little bit of stuff, then he would start getting hungry for bigger stuff and want to do some things. Ral wasn’t going to be any good to him as a junkie, though. Dollar had to show him that he could enjoy life much more being clean and sober . . . and rich!
Dollar arranged for some inexpensive Value City Furniture stuff to be delivered to Ral’s apartment. There wasn’t any use buying some expensive stuff to put in an apartment in the projects. Folk will buy a leather sectional in a heartbeat to put up in their low-income housing unit. They be having $1,000 cherry wood sleigh beds and shit. They didn’t realize that, no matter what they laced their crib with, it’s still in the hood.
Dollar had given Tommy some money to grocery shop for Ral’s place so that he would have the bare necessities, enough to get by. Dollar even bought Ral a $2,200 cross between a get-about and a hooptie to get back and forth from seeing his rehab counselor.
Dollar didn’t even have a place for himself and yet he was making sure Ral was straight. The rest of the world may have looked at it as Dollar taking a chance on a junkie, but to Dollar he was taking care of a friend. That’s just how Dollar was. He knew that his crew’s shit had to be on point before he could feel confident about his game. Now Dollar understood why, for all those years, his granny always ate after everybody else had even eaten seconds. She wouldn’t have been able to enjoy one morsel wondering if somebody else was still hungry and she had eaten the last bite.
“How’d you do all this shit for me?” Ral asked as he cased his new pad.
“I used your money,” Dollar said.
“What money?”
“Let’s just say it was restitution.”
“Yo, Dollar,” Ral said. “Thanks, man. I mean, it’s gonna be hard, but I’m going to try to do right. I owe you, man. I don’t know what happened to me. I used to feel like I could control the shit. But after you got locked up, the shit start controlling me.”
“Must be that Kennedy curse.” Dollar winked.
Ral walked over to a corner in the living room where a large box with a television in it was sitting. He and Dollar lifted the television out and set it up.
“This television ain’t gon’ work without cable,” Ral said.
“Damn, I knew I was forgetting something,” Dollar responded. “I forgot to call Comcast.”
Ral played with the television until he got a basic channel that the morning news was on.
“Damn, that’s Tyrone,” Ral said, pointing at the television. He and Dollar watched closely as the newscaster reported Tyrone’s homicide. He had been found dead. He was murdered execution style. It was reportedly drug related.
Kera didn’t even look up from the book that her nose was buried in as Dollar entered the office. Dollar cleared his throat to gain her attention.
“Oh, hi,” Kera said, looking up at Dollar. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Maybe y’all ought to get a bell put on that door,” Dollar replied. “You all into that book. It must be good.”
“It’s very good,” Kera said, rolling her tongue across her teeth.
“What’s it called?”
“A Hustler’s Wife,” Kera answered.
“A Hustler’s Wife, huh?” Dollar said. “I think I’ve heard of that one. What’s it about?”
“It’s about a young girl who knows what she wants,” Kera answered in a rousing tone. “And she sets out to get it.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me more.”
Kera was happy to oblige. “She meets this guy who’s older than her and she falls in love with him. He’s not all about the right thing, but he loves her strong.” Kera licked her lips and proceeded to give Dollar the synopsis. “People think that because she’s young she doesn’t know what she wants or what’s good for her.”
“Not everything we want is good for us,” Dollar interrupted, referring to himself.
“She followed her heart and her head and let them lead her in the right direction.”
“And what do you follow?” Dollar asked. “Your head or your heart?”
“It depends,” Kera said, rising up from the desk to show off her skintight jeans with that sexy-ass gap between her inner thighs.
“It depends on what?” Dollar asked.
“On what the final destination is, on where I’m trying to go, and who’s taking me there.”
Bitches sure have changed, Dollar thought. It seemed as though the chicks nowadays had much more game than the ones he grew up with. Hoes in the new millennium were bold.
“So tell me,” Kera said, “what do you follow?” She put up her index finger. “Wait a minute. Let me guess.” Kera walked around her desk to Dollar and looked him up and down. “Your head,” she said with her eyes glued on Dollar’s bulge. “Yeah, you look like the type of man who follows his head.”
Dollar laughed as he took a couple of steps backward, away from Kera. “Slow down, little mama.”
Dollar was willing to bet the tenderoni standing before him tasted as good as she looked. He realized that he had been subconsciously grabbing his nuts. What the fuck was he thinking, knowing Kera wasn’t nothin’ but a baby? He was a grown, big-ass nigga. He didn’t have time for the games and obsession that came along with fucking a young broad. He would put a hurting on that tight-ass little pussy of hers. Besides, he had to stay focused and get his shit together. Tommy was already on the up and up and he had gotten Ral settled in. Handling his own business was going to be a piece of cake, especially with those few Gs he was already sitting on.
He had looked into a nice spot to live. He didn’t want just anything, like what he had set Ral up in. He wanted a nice crib with nice things. He put in an application at a couple of spots and was waiting to hear back from them. Until he got that call on his prepaid minutes cell phone he had recently bought, he was going to stay put at the Y. He probably could have crashed at Tommy’s, and he definitely could have chilled at Ral’s, but he didn’t want to be able to be associated with Tommy or Ral’s spot.
Dollar hated the hours he had to waste with a nine to five. He could’ve been spending that time casing the streets, seeing what was what and who was who. He had enough confidence in Tommy though to get the job done, and she was in just the right spot to do it. Next to a beauty or barbershop, a skin house was the perfect pair of ears and lips. One heard all and told all up in those types of spots. As tempted as Dollar was to just say, “Fuck Redd,” he knew he had to be on point with his game. One small hole could cause a leak great enough to sink the entire ship. Kera could be that hole.
“Dollar,” Redd said, entering the office from the restroom. “I thought that was you out here. What’s happening?”
“Oh, I can’t call it,” Dollar said, giving Redd a five and a snap. “What’s things looking like today?”
“For the rest of those saps, who knows? But you know you the number one gem around here. Everybody after Dollar Bill.” Redd laughed. “I should just get you a desk set up in here.”
“Yeah,” Kera concurred. “Everybody’s after Dollar Bill.”
Before a moment of uncomfortable silence and awkwardness could set in, Dollar quickly spoke, “Well, I’m gonna head out and shoot the breeze with some of these cats and wait on some work,” Dollar said as he turned to the exit. “And, Kera, you’re gonna have to let me know how that book turns out.”
“I’ll give you a blow by blow,” Kera said, rounding her lips at Dollar, then looking to make sure her father was none the wiser of her innuendo.
“A’ight then, little mama.” Dollar smiled at Kera and exited the office. When he got outside, Mr. Owens had pulled up in his Lincoln Navigator that all the cats admired. They admired his whip and his habit of paying cash to Redd for the men’s services, who, in turn, then paid the men
in cash. Seeing cash switch hands for their services made some of the men feel like hoes being pimped, but what the fuck? Half of them bastards didn’t have a bank to cash no check at and the others desperately needed that twenty dollar check cashing fee the check cashing place would rape them of.
Mr. Owens only needed three men that day and had picked them already when Dollar came out of the building. One of the three men knew he was about to get the boot and be replaced with Dollar just as soon as Mr. Owens noticed him. Dollar was a strong, hard worker. He managed to do the work of two men.
Just as suspected, when Mr. Owens spotted Dollar, he gave the third guy, who was fixin’ to hop into the Navigator, a “beat it” stare. The guy mean-mugged Dollar as he walked back over with the other unchosen.
“Nigga, what?” Dollar said. “You got something to say then say that shit.”
The man twisted his lips up at Dollar and sucked his teeth as he proceeded to walk on. “Man, I ain’t even on that bullshit you screamin’,” the guy threw over his shoulder.
“You don’t want none of this,” Dollar said, getting in the last word before closing the door.
Where was all this cockiness coming from? Dollar had only envisioned his master plan. He hadn’t put shit into play and already he was starting to act like the muthafuckin’ man. As far as Dollar was concerned, he had a win-win bulletproof plan. He was going to make sure everything was airtight this time around. As they rode off, Dollar thought about the long hours and hard work he was about to put in and this only motivated him more.
“I gotta stop off at my house first, fellas,” Mr. Owens said. “I left my keys to the property we gotta work on.”
Dollar nodded in the affirmative as if he was giving Mr. Owens permission to make a detour. He then continued deep in thought.
Dollar thought about how once he, Tommy, and Ral successfully completed their first hit for that paper, Dollar’s pockets would be cool enough to show up at Redd’s every other day or so. Once they really put in work, he was only gonna fuck with Redd on the weekends. But for now, he had to pay homage to one of his strongest traits of which spending time in the joint forced upon him: patience.
Dollar had nothing but time. Haste makes waste. This was his second opportunity, his golden opportunity, to redeem himself to the streets by proving that he wasn’t some young thug who couldn’t even pull off a simple stickup. No, this time he would do everything by the book. When all was said and done the streets would belong to him.
Dollar thought as he rolled down the window, the streets are already mine.
CHAPTER 13
Chocolate: Melts in Your Mouth and Your Hands
Dollar always wanted to know what the inside of the Chocolate Factory looked like. As a kid, he’d heard stories about what went on up in that spot. He witnessed a lot of men’s clothing flying out of apartment windows because of those stories. Their wives must have heard them too.
The Chocolate Factory was a pretty cool-looking joint. From the outside, it looked like just another hole in the wall, like one of those raggedy titty bars on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. But on the inside, it looked like some Vegas-type shit was jumping off. Disco globes hung about the ceiling that whirled around and around, giving a hypnotic effect. There was a live DJ instead of some jukebox. He spun the beats the dancers shook their asses to from a sky box. Some smoke still filled the air where you could assume the last dancer must have wriggled her body through. Dollar was sure things had changed since back in the day, but if this was the type of entertainment the old playas fell victim to, he could almost see why them niggaz left home and never came back.
“These bitches is tizight,” Dollar said to himself, grinning from ear to ear. He copped a seat at the stage and looked around for a barmaid. Fine women were in every corner of the room talking shit to niggaz. Dollar felt like he was a wishing well filled with dimes. That’s exactly what the broads up in that piece were, dimes: perfect asses, perfect breasts, stomachs, and teeth. They didn’t have any stretch marks, their weaves looked believable, and their cosmetics were flawless. Whoever hired these hoes must have worked at Baskin-Robbins at one point because every flavor was represented.
While Dollar was turned to his left signaling the barmaid, on his right a dancer sat down next to him. With skin the tone of a vanilla wafer, her Alicia Keys braids flowed down her back like a waterfall. Her Janet Jackson baby hair gave her a look of innocence, while her Aaliyah smile had already earned her three fifty dollar drinks that night. This black mixed with Indian looking young miss was on point.
Dollar looked her up and down. She looked like she had just stepped out of a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog. Peeking through her long hot pink sheer cover up was a hot pink little two-piece liquid leather number. Her five-inch ice pick heels were the narrator to the story her body would soon tell.
Dollar tried to find a flaw on her, but it was an uphill battle. She was perfect, right down to her edible toes that hung slightly over her shoes, in a sexy way, for them foot fetish muthafuckas. She was whole thangin’ it, no doubt.
“Sup, poppa?” She smiled.
“You, ma,” Dollar said as the barmaid approached him. This broad think she got perfect timing, Dollar thought, referring to the barmaid.
“What can I get you?” the barmaid asked Dollar.
“I’ll take a shot of Hennessy, straight, no ice,” Dollar requested.
“And for the lady,” the barmaid said, looking dead at Dollar. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the dancer giving the barmaid a “good lookin’ out” wink.
“Ah huh huh huh,” Dollar laughed. “Get ma a twenty dollar spot of whatever she’s drinking.”
“Thank you. I’ll have my regular,” the dancer said as the barmaid nodded and walked away.
“No problem,” Dollar said, gazing into the dancer’s eyes. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
The dancer laughed at Dollar’s use of the most abused and corny-ass line in the book. “I ain’t never seen you before so I know you ain’t never seen me. Although I could be that girl you been dreaming about all of your life.”
“That’s cute,” Dollar said.
“So are you.” The dancer smiled.
“What’s your name?” Dollar asked. “Wait a minute, let me guess. Is it Lexus? Is it Mercedes, or is it Delicious?
“Storm,” she replied.
“So, why they call you that, Storm?”
“I come across soft, like a light rain or a summer’s mist,” Storm explained, as she put her hand on Dollar’s knee. “But I cum like a storm, a drowning rain or a roaring wave on a Cancun beach.”
Just as Storm’s hand began to make its way up Dollar’s leg, the barmaid’s arm cut between them as she proceeded to place their drinks in front of them. Dollar paid for the cost of the drinks plus a three dollar tip for the barmaid. He took a sip of his drink as the DJ introduced the next dancer.
“Like her name, she’s intoxicating,” the DJ said. “Fellas, fuck dem dolla bills. Y’all better pull out them tens and twenties because our next dancer, repin’ the chicks in da club, is the one, and only, Wine.”
As the stage went black, a figure could be seen taking its place on the stage. The dancer strutted like she was modeling for the new Victoria’s Secret line. As the theme song to her act began to play, the fellas in the club got hype and drew all their attention to the main act.
“‘Hoes in da club show love . . .’” the male patrons sang along.
As the lights pulled up slowly, the crowd was in awe. Before them stood a bad-ass bitch in spiked red thigh-high boots. Her red hot pants covered only the top portion of her ass, allowing for her chestnut ass cheeks to hang out. The matching bandeau squeezed her pretty brown browns tightly. As she stretched her arms high to grab the pole on each side of her, the fellas were hoping them coconuts would pop out. But she had so much grace it was as if she was rising from the ground like magic. Once she reached the ceiling with poles in hand, the lights came
completely up. She swung her legs up so that both her ankles grasped one pole and saw to it that both her hands secured the other. Slowly she slid down, piercing Dollar with her eyes the entire way down.
“Son of a bitch,” Dollar said once he realized the dancer was Tommy. He couldn’t believe his eyes. For one minute, he imagined the trick on the pole sliding right down onto his dick. Come to find it was Tommy, someone who was like one of the boys as far as he was concerned. On that note, Dollar gulped down his drink and raised his glass to the barmaid for another.
Dollar couldn’t wait for Tommy to dance her two songs and get off the stage. Shit only got worse though. On the second song, the hot pants came off and all of Tommy’s ass was revealed, compliments of the matching G-string.
As “It Seems Like You’re Ready” by R. Kelly played, Tommy maneuvered her body in unimaginable positions. Niggaz was filling those boots and G-string with bills. They swarmed the stage like vultures. The hoes was even showing Tommy love with all the “work it, girl” and “do that shit” shout outs. Tommy was putting her heart into that little show. She was working it like she had never worked it before.
Dollar tried to occupy his time by slamming down shots of Hennessy. Thanks to Tommy’s rump-shaking ass, he had spent sixty dollars on Storm’s drinks.
“You know her or something?” Storm asked Dollar. “Is she who you want? You wanna buy her drinks? You wanna fuck her?” Clearly Storm was jealous of Dollar’s reaction to Tommy.
“Slow down, baby,” Dollar said. “You my girl or something? Bitch, I bought you a drink, not a fucking wedding ring,” Dollar said with attitude.
“I’m sorry, poppa,” Storm said, realizing Dollar wasn’t the kind to get off on the jealous-type acting girls. She quickly changed her role. “It’s just that I get so jealous. I mean, you so fine and all. But I’m over it. I’m good. You make me better.”
“You got game, ma.” Dollar laughed. “It’s cool. You do your thang. I respect that.”
“So we cool?” Storm said, running her hand down the back of Dollar’s neck.
