by Miasha
Jamal and I both jumped up.
“What the hell is going on here? This ain’t no shelter. Um, excuse me, but you have to get out of my house. Jamal is not allowed to have certain people spend the night,” she said nastily.
“Mom, chill,” Jamal moaned.
“Chill? Boy, you must be kiddin’ me. Until you start paying some bills around here you ain’t allowed to say the word chill. Your ass’ll be real chill outside in that cold. Now keep runnin’ ya mouth,” Jamal’s mom said as she walked back up the basement stairs. “Should have took ya ass to college instead of chasin’ behind some little fast-ass girl,” she mumbled before she closed the basement door.
I sucked my teeth and started putting my clothes on.
“Little fast-ass girl,” I repeated Jamal’s mom under my breath. “She don’t even know me like that.”
Jamal put his arm around me and said, “Don’t let that bother you. She just sayin’ that to get you mad. You know how she is.”
“This is all we needed. I thought you set your alarm.”
“I did,” Jamal said, reaching over me to get his clock. “I don’t know what happened,” he added, looking at the clock, trying to figure out what went wrong.
I got dressed and Jamal walked me to the door. Just as he was closing the door behind me I heard his mom yell from upstairs.
“A girl is as good as her mother. Remember that when you pickin’ ya girlfriends!”
I had about enough of that lady’s mouth. I wanted to kick her damn door down. But I just climbed the banister and went in my house.
“Hey, Kenny,” I said to my little brother.
He was sitting on the couch watching cartoons.
“What you eatin?” I asked him as I sat beside him.
“Cereal,” he said holding a sandwich bag of Froot Loops up to my face.
“Umm,” I said, “Can I have some?”
He nodded his head and gave me a handful of the dry cereal. I dumped them in my mouth. Umm, I thought, I want some cereal. I walked in the kitchen and got out a bowl and a spoon. I took the box of Froot Loops down off the top of the refrigerator and filled the bowl. I went in the refrigerator to get the milk and noticed that besides a half gallon of milk and a carton of orange juice the refrigerator was empty. I didn’t see any eggs or shredded cheese for the macaroni and no onions or celery for the stuffing and gravy. I closed the refrigerator and opened the freezer. No turkey.
“Mom!” I shouted as I left out the kitchen and jogged up the steps. “Mom!”
My mom and Marvin were asleep on their mattress when I went in their room.
“Mom!” I called out.
“What, Angel?” my mom answered me, squinting her eyes.
“Where is the Thanksgiving food I gave you the money for?”
“Oh. Aunt Jackie goin’ take me to the market later on,” she said.
“Well, where is the money?”
“I got the money.”
“Where is it?”
“Angel, talk to me about it when I get up, now,” she whined.
I huffed and walked out my mom’s room. I was so mad. She spent that fifty dollars I gave her. Her and Aunt Jackie probably went and got high. Talkin’ about they was goin’ to the market. I went in my room and Naja was asleep in her bed. I got my book bag out of the closet and took fifty dollars out of the six hundred. I was determined to have a Thanksgiving dinner, if not for me, for my sister and brother and even for my mom. I figured her sitting down and having dinner with us would remind her how our family used to be, and maybe that would make her want to get help. I didn’t know. But I was willing to try. I wanted so bad to get things back to normal.
I ate my cereal, which I couldn’t even enjoy, I was so mad. Then I washed up and threw on some clothes. I banged on the wall in my room to get Jamal’s attention. He called my phone shortly after.
“What’s up, boo?” he asked as soon as I said hello.
“Can you walk me to the market?”
“When? Now?”
“Yeah. My mom didn’t get the food.”
I guessed the crack in my voice let him know that I was hurt. He told me to give him a half hour and he would meet me outside.
Jamal and me walked up our street and turned the corner. Cat and Stacey were opening their store.
“You comin’ around here to sweep up?” Cat asked as he saw me approaching.
I chuckled.
“Cat, leave Angel alone,” Stacey said, unlocking the door to go inside the store.
“What’s up man?” Jamal spoke and shook Cat’s hand. “Hey, how you doin’?” he greeted Stacey, too.
Stacey and Cat gestured for us to come in the store. We followed their lead.
“Where y’all goin’ dis early on a Saturday?” Stacey asked, taking off her full length fur coat.
“She was on her way ‘round here to sweep outside, I told you,” Cat said.
It was a good thing I had brought extra money out the house because that was the perfect opportunity to make good on my promise to Cat. I pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and put it in Cat’s hand.
“Now you sweep the front of ya own store,” I teased.
“Ohhh,” he said. “She played me.”
Stacey and Jamal laughed.
“Tats wassup, mon. You are now officially my favorite customer,” Cat said.
He walked behind the counter and opened the register. He put the twenty in it and took out a five and a ten.
“Here, mon. Your change,” he said, handing me the money.
I shook my head no.
“Girl, you better take that money,” Stacey said.
“No. It’s cool. Y’all looked out a lot,” I said, heading for the door. “I’ll be back around. I’m about to go to the market,” I told Stacey as I left the store.
Jamal wasted no time asking me what the transaction between me and Cat was about.
“You know how Stacey always be giving me free stuff? Well, Cat be cursin’ us out about it. So when I found out I got the job, I told him I would pay him back, and he was like if not I gotta sweep outside the store every Saturday,” I explained.
“Well, you should have took that change,” Jamal said. “I understand you got a job now, but you can’t be too generous with ya money.”
“It’s not like I can’t make it back,” I told him, subconsciously thinking about the night I had ahead of me and the tips I was bound to make.
“You talk like it’s sweet at your job. I might have to go with you tonight and fill out a app.”
“They don’t take applications at night,” I told him.
“Well, bring me one home. I’ll take it up there Monday morning,” he said.
I didn’t want to make up another excuse about the issue and make him suspicious, so I just agreed to bring him an application.
Me and Jamal spent more time in the market than we needed to. We debated about almost every item I wanted to put in the cart. Why you gettin’ jumbo eggs, get large. That kind of cheese don’t melt right. What you goin’ do with celery? Ain’t you supposed to use bread crumbs in stuffin’?
By the time I got back home and put the food away, it was lunchtime and I was hungry. I made me and Naja a Ellio’s Pizza. I was surprised she was home. Since that day Marvin did what he did, she been getting dressed and leaving out as soon as she woke up.
“Umm, how you get the crust so crispy?” Naja asked as she took a bite out her pizza. “My crust always be soft.”
“Put it directly on the rack,” I told her, pouring juice in our cups.
I sat at the kitchen table with my sister. Kindle was still in the living room watching TV.
“Thank you,” Naja came out and said.
“For what?” I asked, taking a piece of my pizza to my mouth.
“For buying us food and stuff. Our ‘frigerator ain’t been full in a while,” Naja explained.
“Y’all my family. That’s what I’m supposed to do,” I told Naja.
“Ye
ah, but you could spend ya money on yaself and like buy us stuff off the dollar menu at McDonald’ s.”
“You give a man fish, he’ll eat for a day. You teach ‘im how to fish, he’ll eat for good.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I broke it down for my sister, “I could buy y’all a dollar this and a dollar that. But that only lasts a day. But if I go to the market and keep our kitchen stocked, y’all will have food every day. The bottom line is, whoever is able to feed us should, and that person should show us how to feed ourselves so if that person ever becomes unable to feed us then we’ll be all right on our own. So don’t thank me, learn from me. And God forbid anything ever happens to me, you’ll be able to do this for yourself and Kenny.”
Naja nodded her head as if to say she understood. I loved my little sister and grew more emotional every time it dawned on me that she was virtually my responsibility. I figured I had to teach her as much as I could so that she could be responsible on her own. God knew my mom wasn’t in the position to show her, so it was up to me. And I was ready for the challenge. I was serious about getting us out of my mom’s house, and at the rate I had been going at Shake’s my goal could be achieved by the new year. That mental reminder amped me up for work that night.
I got to work at nine thirty. The girls that hated on me my first night had become my friends. Whenever I walked into the dressing room they smiled at me and spoke. I figured it was because of how much Shake favored me. They either was scared that I would rat them out if they gave me any problems and risk losing their job or maybe they were using me to get closer to the boss. I wasn’t sure, but I was sure of one thing, they weren’t no real friends.
“Hey, Angel!” the three girls that were in the dressing room greeted me.
“Hey, Chestnut. What’s up, Sugar. Hey, Baby Doll,” I spoke back.
At my station I started to change. The girls got back to their conversations about the tips they were making, their customers’ preferences, and sex stories whether with their partners or clients.
In a short while Butter walked through the door with a guy I had seen in the club once or twice. My natural reaction was to grab hold of my titties to keep him from seeing my nipples.
“Yeah right, like he ain’t seen ’em before,” Butter commented on my instinctual act.
“I know, right,” Chestnut agreed in laughter.
I felt a little embarrassed that I had been the only one covering up in front of the guy. The other girls carried on as usual, one of them butt naked.
My mind worked fast and I said, “Yeah, but not without paying.”
Butter did what she was known for and rolled her eyes. Nobody said anything back. They just snickered at me. The guy even chuckled. Then he followed Butter to her station, one away from mine. Out the corner of my eye, I watched him give Butter some blue pills. She gave him some money, and he walked out of the dressing room alone. Butter then sat in her chair and grabbed the spring water bottle that was filled with something much darker than water and opened the cap. She put one of the pills in her mouth and followed up with a swallow of the unknown drink. She put the rest of the pills in a Motrin bottle that she took out her makeup bag and then went back onto the floor.
“What you lookin’ at?” Chestnut asked.
I guessed she had noticed me watching Butter.
“Nothin’. What you talkin’ about?”
“You was all up in Butter mouth,” she continued.
“What? You ain’t never seen nobody pop a E-pill before?” Sugar butted in.
“I don’t know what y’all talkin’ about. What Butter do is Butter’s business,” I said.
“She probably wanted one for herself,” Baby Doll suggested. “She be on ’em all the time.”
“I know that’s right,” Chestnut and Sugar cosigned.
“What is y’all talkin’ about?” I asked, frustrated.
Chestnut pulled one of Butter’s numbers and rolled her eyes. “Tell me you don’t be poppin’E every time before you go on stage.”
“She do. She go right up to Fiesta and sip it down with that Hen,” Sugar concluded.
“Sugar, I take a shot of liquor, yeah, but I don’t fuck with no E-pills, damn.”
“Ohhhh,” Baby Doll sang as if she had learned a secret. “They do what they did to that other chick, what’s her name?” Baby Doll started snapping her fingers.
“The Puerto Rican girl?” Sugar asked.
“Yeah, what’s her name?” Baby Doll asked.
“Ria,” Sugar answered.
“Yeah, that’s it. Remember when she first started here they put the pill in her drink and she got sick?”
“That’s right. They sure did,” Chestnut jumped back in.
“Whatever happened to her?” Baby Doll asked.
“I heard she strung out,” Sugar said.
“Yeah. I heard that, too,” Chestnut added.
“So y’all sayin’ Fiesta be puttin’ E in my drinks?” I snapped.
“Basically,” Chestnut said. “I know what a bitch on E look like, and you be that bitch every time you up in this muthafucka.”
I said no more. I finished getting changed and left the dressing room. I wanted to find out if what they had told me was true. I didn’t know much about E-pills. I mean, I heard rappers say stuff about them in songs, but that was it.
“Fiesta!” I yelled over the music.
Fiesta turned around to face me. She put a finger up and told me she would be over to me in a minute. She fixed a drink and put it in front of a customer, picked up her tip, and walked over to me.
“What’s up. You ready for ya solution drink?” she asked picking up the bottle that stored the Hennessy.
“No, no. I gotta ask you something.”
“Oh, what’s up?”
“Do you got any E-pills?” I leaned over and asked her in her ear. I didn’t want to come right out and ask had she been putting pills in my so-called solution drinks because if she sensed my anger she would have probably lied.
“Of course. You want one?” she responded proudly.
“Do what you do,” I told her, still feeling her out.
She winked her eye at me and poured the Hennessy in a shot glass. She then put the glass under the counter, and that time I actually paid attention to what she was doing. She had dropped a tiny blue pill in my drink at the same time that she put an ice cube in it. She gave me the drink and smiled.
“You been doin’ this all this time?” I asked her.
She frowned her face up and said, “Yeah.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said, innocently enough.
“You didn’ t? Well, I thought you did. I mean, Butter did come over here and ask for a solution drink right in front of your face.”
“That was my first night here. I thought that was just the name of the damn drink,” I told her.
“Well, sorry. I won’t put none in ya drinks no more,” she said casually, as if it were no big deal.
“It’s cool. You ain’t know,” I told her. I wasn’t mad at Fiesta. Butter was to blame. But I didn’t trip. I figured it was nothing to worry about since everybody seemed to be cool about it and I wasn’t sick or anything. I just felt some type of way when Chestnut and them told me shit was being put in my drink without me knowing. I don’t play that shit. Too many people get strung out after shit like that, and one of my biggest fears was becoming a fiend. After seeing how crazy that shit got my mom, I vowed that would never be me.
I sat down on the bar stool and looked around the club. I was feeling funny, like depressed. I didn’t feel like working. I wanted to take a shot like I usually did to get me in my zone, but I doubted it would work the same without the pill in it. And I didn’t want to request the pill because then I would have felt like I had become dependent upon it. I didn’t know what to do. I just sat there watching the other girls work-some on the stage dancing and others giving lap dances. I watched them closely. They all seemed to have the sam
e glare in their eyes and the same passion in their performances. I couldn’t help but guess that they were all on E. All that time I had thought it was just alcohol. Silly me. I had gotten myself in some shit I wasn’t sure I knew how to get out of.
“Either pull some money out and start tippin’ a bitch or get ya ass up on that stage and do ya job. It’s too packed in here for you to be wastin’ space.” Butter approached me from out of nowhere.
“Butter, I don’t feel good,” I told her.
“Well, get you a drink and feel better,” she commanded. “Do somethin’ other than sit there and pout.”
Butter went behind the bar and picked up a tray of drinks. She shot a quick glance at me and then went back into the crowd. Fiesta must have heard what Butter told me because she slid me a drink.
“It’s straight,” Fiesta answered my question before I could ask it. “It should help you loosen up at the least.”
I picked up the shot glass and hesitantly took it back. I frowned up my face and let out a deep breath. I waited for the Hennessy to kick in, and all that happened was I felt buzzed. I felt like telling jokes and laughing. Now, that might have worked if I had been going on stage at a comedy show, but it didn’t help me get naked. And I needed something that would. All the other girls were up there getting paid while I was sitting at the bar getting drunk.
“You want another one?” Fiesta asked me.
“Make it a solution,” I said, desperate for the reaction I had got used to getting. I figured if it wasn’t broke I wasn’t going to try to fix it. I had done all right that far. And besides, I had only been getting them three days a week at work. It wasn’t like I was poppin’ pills on the regular. And if it helped me make money, then it would have to do, because that’s what I was there for in the first place. The conversation I had earlier with Naja played in my head, and I took the solution drink back without a second thought.
I started feeling the effects of the pill and was back in the groove of things. Before long I was on stage doing my thing, clapping my butt cheeks, caressing my breasts, and opening my legs in guys’ faces. They loved it. The tips started to pour in and I was glad I hadn’t let the news of me taking E-pills get the best of me because I would have left the club that night without a dime.
