by Noire
Carmiesha had taken those brochures and stuffed them down in the bottom of her purse. There wasn’t shit Dre was gonna want to hear about no damn treatment options. She knew her man. She had known him practically all her life. If Dre couldn’t ball and do his thing on the mic…well, she just didn’t even wanna think about it.
And now he was looking at her…waiting for her to put his mind at ease.
“Yeah, boo. We was at the game.” Carmiesha smiled, hoping he would remember the goodness of that day. He’d been playing an amazing game, and that’s how she prayed he would lock things in his mind, elevating the joy over the pain. “You was doing your thang too. Had them all shook with your devastating speed and your amazing skills. But something happened, Dre. One of the kids who came in with Pimp…he stabbed you, baby. He ran out the stands and stabbed you with an ice pick.”
Thug’s eyes never changed. He just looked at her for the longest time, like she was gonna jump up and yell, Psych! Just kidding! Get your black ass up outta that bed!
But this was real, and Carmiesha tried to let him see it bit by bit in her eyes.
“He was rolling with Pimp?”
Carmiesha nodded, rubbing his hand. “He hurt you real bad, baby. I’m sorry, Dre. I’m so damn sorry. As soon as you feeling better I got a lot of shit to tell you. Just give me a chance to explain. I’ma tell you everything….”
Thug’s eyes were locked on Carmiesha’s hands as they cupped his. He watched her small hands as they squeezed his fingers and rubbed his palms even though he didn’t feel a damn thing.
“So…I ain’t gone never move? I’m paralyzed…right?”
Carmiesha didn’t even wanna hear the truth of it coming out of his mouth, but she couldn’t lie to him. “Yeah, Dre, you are paralyzed. But you’re still you, baby. And I still love you and wanna be your wife. Okay, Dre? Okay?”
But Thug wasn’t even looking at her anymore. He wasn’t even listening. He had closed his eyes and gone somewhere inside of himself and wouldn’t come back out no matter what Carmiesha said, or how hard she cried.
Chapter 30
I closed my eyes on Muddah. Not cause I didn’t wanna look at her no more, but because I couldn’t stand the way she was looking at me. I couldn’t feel shit except a black spot in the pit of my throat. In a split second everything that I had hustled for was gone. My whole life had changed. And the fucked-up thing was, I couldn’t even feel it. I coulda laid there crying like a bitch and blaming everything on Pimp. But like I said, every man gotta hold his own nuts.
I made like I was sleep until Muddah left the room. She was crying so loud and hard the nurses had to come in and make her ass leave, and then she swelled up and got loud on them and they ended up calling security cause my baby just didn’t wanna move away from my side.
I opened my eyes later on when a nurse came into the room to check on me. She smiled all cheery and shit like I was gonna smile back.
“Yo, what you doin?” I whispered when she pulled my sheet back.
“You have a tube in your penis, Mr. Williams. It catches your urine and directs it into a plastic bag. I’m just checking to make sure it’s working properly.”
A fuckin tube? In my dick? Was that how I was gone hafta pee? I couldn’t believe it. And I didn’t even wanna think about how I was supposed to shit.
Two doctors and a social worker came to see me too. They stood over my bed and moved their lips. Telling me all kinds of shit about how lucky I was that I was gonna live. And with good care, it could be for a long time. And for all of that time I’d be unable to move. The only way I’d be able to breathe was with the help of a ventilator.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I wanted to laugh. I was gonna live? They called this shit living? Could a niggah handle a ball? Could he jump up on a stage and spit into a mic? Could I jack my own dick or wipe my own ass if I felt like taking a nice shit? No? Then what the fuck did living and breathing mean to a niggah like me?
I could see it now. The whole ball team and half the goddamn league. Standing over my bed. Looking down on me and shaking they heads with pity. Word was prolly all over the streets too. Rappers, hustlers, and gangstas. Them niggahs would all be pushing up in here in a minute. Just to see for themselves. They’d put the word out good too. The Notorious T.H.U.G. was flat on his back. Took down. Niggah’s hands was all crooked and curled up, and his legs had turned to hard jelly. Fuck a recording contract. Fuck the NBA too. No more balling and rolling the hottest honeys for old Thug. That niggah can’t move shit except his eyeballs and his lips. That infamous gangsta dick got a OUT OF ORDER sign propped up on it. A jawn’ll have to sit dead on his face to get her shit off on him now, and he better hope she don’t smother his ass. Marrying Muddah was out too. What was she gone do? Roll my crippled ass down the aisle beside her? And then what? She was gonna change my diapers too? Tie a bib around my neck and feed me mashed-up baby food with a cute little spoon? What a fuckin’ nightmare. The kind you never wake up from.
The social worker was still talking shit about nursing homes and physical therapy. He offered to get me some brochures on long-term care facilities.
Long-term care? What did that shit have to do with me?
Now the doctors was yapping again but I closed my eyes. I thought about Noojie and for the first time I was glad that she was dead and gone. I was glad Miss Lady was gone too. All a them ass-whippings she had laid on me just to come to this.
I drifted off and saw myself in a hot, bubbly Jacuzzi.
Crazy chicks was chillin’ up in there with me, and at one time or another all of them had had some of this thug-loving put on ’em. They was fine as hell too. Some of them slim with big asses, some of them medium-sized with big asses. Some had thick thighs and big asses. They all wanted to be next to me, and they was smiling and rubbing suds all over my arms and legs. Their fingers was playing with my nuts. Their tongues licking all over my earlobes. A bunch a pretty-ass honeys laughing my name. Giving up the noise.
Thug-A-LICIOUS! Thug-A-LICIOUS! Thug-A-LICIOUS!
Yeah! I laughed right along with them as I rubbed me a nice hard nipple. They knew I was a freak. A pussy-hound. A honey knew exactly what time it was when she slid in them sheets with me. I loved females. I loved everything about ’em. The way they walked. The sound of their voices. The way their skin felt. The way they smelled and how they tasted on my tongue. I put the nasty on that ass. Hit it until they begged me to stop. I couldn’t even bust me a little tiny one until I made her dance two or three times.
I turned to my right and saw my baby. Lil’ Muddah Vernoy. She was sitting next to me looking fine as hell. Muddah held a gangsta niggah’s heart in her hand! She was my ride-or-die baby and she was gonna be my wife.
Lil’ Muddah had a stretch mark on her ass she was all the time trying to hide. On the real, I think I know how she got that shit now. And it didn’t make me no difference neither, and that’s because I loved her. I blew her a kiss. No matter how she had handled her business, I was Muddah’s down-for-whatever niggah and she was my queen.
Thug-A-LICIOUS! Thug-A-LICIOUS! Thug-A-LICIOUS!
I heard giggling and that’s when I noticed a bunch of kids was up in the joint with us too. My kids. Precious Monique. Shantay Desiray. Duqeesa Rose. Tyrone “T-Roy” Gabril. Tyreek “Lil’ Man” Garelle. Mariah LaChae. Zion Malik. Dante Lamont. They was all up in there rubbing soapy water on me. Their hands worked on my shoulders and arms until my muscles felt like pudding. I had babies on me everywhere, and I took turns holding them. Loving it. Loving them. Damn, I couldn’t believe I’d wasted so much fuckin’ time! I picked my kids up and hugged their soft little bodies one at a time. They was mine and I loved the way their little bodies felt up against me as those kiddie fingers rubbed and patted me.
But it only took a second for all that shit to change.
Suddenly it wasn’t just my arms they was working, but my whole body that they had feeling good. My chest, legs, neck, back, every damn piece of me was bein
g stroked and adored. Kathy, Remy, Rasheena, Paula…even Passion, with her sexy-ass self. She was holding Mariah, our baby girl, and blowing hot kisses at me.
Kiss your crazy-ass daddy! Give your daddy a hug! Go ’head. Pat daddy’s back and rub his big head!
Little hands started patting and rubbing on me. And female hands were giving up mad love. My lips got kissed. Somebody stroked me on my neck. Vikki’s horny ass tried to sneak and touch my dick.
Yeah! I tried to yell, but Muddah leaned over and stuck her tongue in my mouth, snaking it around in hot circles as she moaned deep in her throat.
They were adoring a niggah big-time. Those jawns was yeasting me up with so much noise it swept my heart up in a cloud.
Y’all sistahs sure know how to bring the fuckin’ noise!
I was surrounded by a bunch of fine black women just loving all over me. Calling me baby, and boo-boo, and all kinds of sweet shit.
I nodded and laughed and turned my head, and that’s when I saw him.
Trust Chambers. Better known as Harlem’s T.C. His eyes was full of pride as he watched me cross that stage and get my college degree. A diploma in my hand, and street dreams on my back. T.C. was pressed out in some deep, expensive gear and had his arm around Miss Lady, who was dressed like a queen-ass diva and had been standing right next to me laughing and clapping on the day I got drafted into the NBA.
I had always known this day would come. What you put out in the world was what you got the fuck back. But only better. See, this was my reward after coming up on the streets as a hungry ghetto kid. After surviving on nothing but talent and ambition. Skills on the mic and moves on the court. But this was a dream, yo, and the rules of retribution dictated that my black ass had to wake up out of it.
And when I did, I saw my man standing there. My cousin. My Dawg-4-Lyfe. Smoove’s brother. Noojie’s heart. And Mimi’s sugar pimp.
I looked into his black-hearted eyes and saw everything I deserved.
My dawg had shit on me.
His dirty hands had been all over that shank.
Muddah had been smart to warn me to flip my bank. My baby had never trusted his ass. I knew she would die before she let this shiesty niggah get his grimy fingers on a single dime of my money.
“Do it, man,” I whispered, and he knew exactly what the fuck I meant. “Do it, Pimp. It’s only right.”
I saw him hesitate and I understood. After all, I was family and he loved me.
“Do it, man,” I whispered louder.
I pulled Pimp toward me using the mental muscle us street nigghas called loyalty. I tossed my monkey on his back and locked him in the cage of a hustler’s vow.
“Don’t let nobody see me like this,” I whispered quietly. “It ain’t right. Get my cheese, man. And keep my shawties tight…. Keep it in the family, cuz. Anything and everything for the motherfuckin family.”
Pimp stepped nearer and I closed my eyes.
I don’t wanna be here if I can’t hear the noise.
He stood over me for a long time, looking down on me.
I opened my eyes again and urged him, “Do it, Pimp.” You greedy, coldhearted motherfucker. “Do it, man. Dawgs-4-Lyfe, remember?”
I let my eyes fall closed, and when I felt his hands on my face I took a deep breath, then smiled inside and pictured Muddah.
My ride-or-die baby.
Half of a thug niggah’s heart.
I’m doin’ right, Muddah baby. Check me out, ma. Ya boy is doin’ right….
Chapter 31
Carmiesha stepped through the doors of the hospital only hours after she’d left. She didn’t give a damn what those nurses and security guards had said. Andre needed her, and she was gonna be by his side as much as she could. It had broken her heart in half to see him laying in that bed. She had rubbed and stroked his fingers but they had felt dead to her touch.
Warm, but dead.
She knew what the doctors had told her, but still she wasn’t gonna give up hope. She just wasn’t ready to count her man out yet.
“I’m squeezing your fingers, Dre,” she’d told him when he first came out from under the drugs they had given him. “Are they numb or can you feel me even just a little bit?”
“Nah,” he said slowly. “They ain’t numb, Muddah. They just ain’t there.”
Carmiesha had almost broken down in front of him but she told herself to be strong. She had to be strong for him. She had to be strong for herself. And she had to be strong for their baby.
She got off the elevator and walked past the intensive care unit and down the hall to the unit where they took patients who were no longer in critical condition. After they called security on her, she had gone home and taken a quick shower and made herself eat a banana and a pack of oatmeal cookies, even though she didn’t feel hungry.
This time was nothing like the last time. Even though she’d hidden it from him just like before, this time she was happy and looking forward to what the next few months would bring. She had been planning on telling Dre the good news after the championship was over. She figured if the Knicks won the finals, her news would just put the icing on the cake. If they lost, then telling him would give them a reason to celebrate anyway.
But now she’d have to tell him right away. She had never in her life seen Dre’s eyes look so damn empty. She’d bent over to kiss him good-bye and almost fell on top of him and hollered. It was like looking into blackness. A big black hole that just didn’t have a bottom.
Carmiesha touched her stomach. Them damn doctors didn’t know everything. They wasn’t God. They didn’t know what kinda G niggah they had laying up in that bed. He wasn’t just no ordinary homeboy. Dre was strong and had crazy energy. That boy had been fighting his way through life from the day he was born. If anybody had what it took to make a liar outta all them medical books, Andre “Thug-A-Licious” Williams did. And as soon as she got in that room and told him about their baby, he’d have a whole new reason to fight, and fight hard.
Carmiesha rushed down the hallway. She couldn’t wait to get up in there and give him the news because this was something she knew he would really wanna hear. She hoped she was carrying a boy. None of Dre’s sons had been named after him. Little Andre would have so many sisters and brothers and play aunties that he’d probably be so damn spoiled it wasn’t even funny.
But the second the automatic doors swung open Carmiesha blew up with rage.
Pimp.
That dirty motherfucker.
She walked up on him and swung her purse, hard. Catching him by surprise. He grabbed at his face and Carmiesha kicked high, smashing him in his little skinny dick.
“Get the fuck outta here!” she screamed, swinging on him. “This is your fault, you grimy motherfucker! He’s laying up in there because of you and your crazy-ass son!”
Carmiesha felt hands grabbing her and she bent over, holding her stomach. “Oh, God,” she whispered, trying to calm herself down for the baby’s sake. Two nurse’s aides were holding her and others were coming over to see what was going on. She prayed Dre hadn’t heard her screaming. She didn’t want him to know she had broken down and started fighing in front of all these people.
“I’m okay,” she said struggling to her feet. She shook the nurses off, ignoring their pleas. “Let me go. I’m sorry for that. Please. Just get out my way. Please! I’m sorry! Oh, God…” She stumbled toward Andre’s room and stopped at the door.
“W-w-what’s going…?”
There were three nurses by Dre’s bed.
One of them was taking tubes outta his arms and another one reached up and turned off his monitor.
“What y’all doing to him?”
An older white nurse reached down and yanked the ventilator tube out of Dre’s throat and sat it on his chest.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE Y’ALL DOING TO HIM!?”
One of the nurses spun around. Fluid leaked on the floor from the tubes draped over her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re going to ha
ve to leave.”
Carmiesha almost knocked that bitch down getting over to the bed.
“Dre?”
She covered her mouth, not understanding.
“Dre!” Carmiesha grabbed his arm and shook it hard.
“ANDRE!!!!!!!!!!!”
She collapsed on top of his still body, screaming his name. And then the old black nurse was holding her. “Baby, I know,” she said, taking Carmiesha in her arms like she was her own grandchild and rocking her against her big breasts.
Carmiesha sobbed into the old woman’s neck. Clinging to her like she was Mere’maw.
“I know, baby. I know! It happened so fast. His cousin was visiting him and he just…stopped breathing. Sometimes you see that with this type of injury. But look darling…” She turned Carmiesha around and made her look at her man laying there motionless. “Look in his face. Don’t you see that boy is smiling? He’s fine, sugar. He’s got the peace. No more worries for him. This child right here got him some peace.”
HARLEM HOMECOMING AWAITS SLAIN NBA RAPPER THUG-A-LICIOUS
NEW YORK (AP)—The body of “gangsta” rapper and NBA rookie Andre “Thug-A-Licious” Williams, whose hip-hop tales of sexual conquest closely mirrored his life, rested in a posh Harlem funeral home on Saturday morning awaiting a widely anticipated funeral procession through the New York streets where he lived.
Nearly a week after he was knifed in a brutal, unprovoked attack during an NBA Finals game at Madison Square Garden, thousands of basketball and rap fans of the 25-year-old star are still numb with disbelief. The rapper’s body, outfitted in his signature urban gear along with his official NBA hat, will be driven in a motorcade of stretch limousines from a public service on Harlem’s East Side to Washington Heights and then onward for burial in the Bronx.
Posters of the slain rapper and his new album, scheduled to be released next month, are already plastered to storefront windows along the route where fans and police have reportedly had several skirmishes.
