Queen of the City 2: The Life of a Female Rapper

by Tamicka Higgins

  “I heard yo’ boy got knocked last night.”

  “Yeah. I just came from visiting him and shit.”

  “What he get locked up for?”

  “Unregistered gun and a couple of bags of coke.”

  “Damn. That gun charge is about to fuck him over.”

  “Unless somebody else catches the charge for him. He said Man-Man was in there too, and I don’t think he has a record, so I don’t know.”

  “Shit, that would be the only thing he could do to get his ass out.”

  A few cars rode by blasting their music with the windows down. Summer was coming to an end, so everybody was out stunting and getting their last bit of shine out before the weather changed.

  “Nas trying to get me to take Prince and move out of the city for a while.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You heard about a nigga named Blood?”

  “Ooh, yeah. Matter of fact, I did. Walter and nem’ were telling me about some OG ass nigga from Baltimore that just moved here. Yeah.”

  He looked at me while I remained speechless, waiting for him to piece it all together himself.

  “Oh shit! Hell yeah, then you should probably take Prince and get the fuck out of here, Lyric. Straight up.”

  As much as I didn’t want to listen, they were right. That was the exact thing Mrs. Butler warned me about with Prince. He could end up being hurt because of my carelessness the same way Uncle Stew was. Vinny spoke up, “Come on, Lyric. This ain’t just about you. I mean, if it was and you wanted to stay, then that’s on you, but you can’t think that way with Prince involved, you know what I’m sayin’? You just can’t do that shit.” I looked over to the streetlights as the darkness set in around them, causing them to flicker on, “Fuck. I know. I know, Vinny. That’s all I keep hearing, it ain’t about you, it ain’t about you. I get it.” He walked over and put his arm around me, saying, “it ain’t forever. Just until some shit blow over. I mean, you and Nas got the city on lock so maybe y’all both can get away for a minute, you know? Shit. I wish I could; I need a vacation.” My eyes lit up.

  “Yo, so why don’t you… why don’t you come with us for a minute? I mean, any place we go, we’re going to be driving. Shit, I’ll pay for your plane ticket back here and shit. Come on, Vinny. Please? I just don’t wanna go by myself.”

  “Aight, fam. Just let me check with my job and put in the vacation request. When are you trying to leave?”

  “I guess as soon as possible.”

  “Aight then. I’ll hit you up tomorrow and let you know whassup.”

  I reached over and hugged Vinny tight around his neck. It shocked him at first because I was never the type to do that. I couldn’t remember a time that I had hugged him like this before, but he slowly lifted his arms up and embraced me back. Another car drove by with its music blasting, base vibrating everything around us. Seconds later, I saw children running down the block full speed as if they were chasing the car on foot. I was going to miss Milwaukee, and I didn’t want to let it go, but I knew it was the best thing for us right now.

  It took a few weeks for me to convince myself to go and get shit settled for the trip out of town. Every time I talked to Nas over the phone, he was telling me to get the fuck out of Milwaukee. “Yo, Lyric, I’m not fuckin’ playin. Get yo’ ass the fuck out this city, yo’. Straight up.” After the first couple times, he sounded like a broken record, so I just started hanging up on him. He had been trying to get me to leave for a couple of weeks before I finally caved in. I decided to go back to Chicago and keep a low profile. I had enough money so I wouldn’t have to work; it would be like a vacation for me. At this point, it felt like a fresh beginning for me. Like I didn’t go there before and had to deal with being raped and robbed all at once. That was almost two years ago now and from what I could tell, I was over it. Vinny said that he was good to chill with me for a week or so, but that’s all the time he had for vacation. One week was better than none, so that was good enough for me. I had all my bags packed at the house as Loc stood with me just for added security.

  “Aight, Loc. I’m about to grab Prince and then I’ll be back here.”

  “Let me go with you.”

  “Loc, I’m good. Niggas ain’t did shit to me since I been driving through this city so what make you think something gon’ happen now.”

  “I hear you, but Nas said—”

  “Fuck Nas, I got this. You just chill right here and make sure nobody come through to try and take my shit, aight?”

  “But—”

  “Appreciate it, Loc.”

  I responded to him without giving him a chance to rebuttal and seconds later I was gone. The trip to Mrs. Butler’s house went quicker than normal. It was usually about a 30-minute drive but for some reason, the majority of the lights on the main streets were green when I approached them. The weather was pretty cool for one of the final days of summer. The bus stops were full of people with somber, dejected looks on their faces while they waited for the city transit to come. I remembered those days as a teenager but most of the time, I was out there hanging with Junie and Vinny, cracking jokes and rapping to pass the time. I couldn’t help but reminisce as I waited for the light ahead of me to turn green. I glanced out my rearview mirror and saw a black Navigator sitting a few cars behind me. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if it had been following me for the past few minutes, making all the same turns I did but staying just a few cars behind me every time. The light finally turned green, and I pulled out into the intersection, keeping an eye on the black truck. Just then, it veered off to the left and made a turn. I’m tripping, I said to myself as I finally got to Mrs. Butler’s house.

  She had him bundled and ready to go as soon as I got there. She told me that there hadn’t been any other incidents since the last time she was attacked, but Allen had gotten pistols for the both of them since that day, and she kept hers nearby at all times. They had even gotten one for Serena, but she was too afraid to use it. She almost passed out when they put in her hand; I laughed just remembering the story she told me about it. Prince smiled when he saw me and Mrs. Butler looked as if she was bittersweet about my decision,

  “Baby, now you know I’m happy that you and Prince are getting out of this crazy city,” she wiped a tear from her eye, “but just because I’m happy don’t mean I can’t be sad about the same thing.”

  “I know, Mama. I mean, you guys can visit anytime you—”

  She cut me off, “Oh, you think we’re not? We already planned to come out that way next weekend. I think Serena is going to go with us, too, but you know how she is. She plans to do something one second and the next; she backs out of it. I hate it when she does that.”

  I laughed, “Junie used to do the same thing, and it drove me crazy!”

  “Girl, I don’t see how you dealt with it.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence between us while we both reminisced on Junie as Prince laughed, swiping at some imaginary thing that was hanging in front of him.

  “How are you doing with Nas? I mean, I know it’s probably late for me to even talk to you about this but better late than never.”

  “It’s tough at times, you know? I mean, because they are so much alike. At times, I thought Nas was a better fit for me because he was, um…” I searched for a way to say it that didn’t imply his sexual nature, “a little more aggressive than Junie was, you know? We were a lot alike in that sense, but as I stay with him, going on two years now, I realize that being just alike is not what it should be. Now, I find myself thinking about Junie a little more, and it’s torturing me because I know there is not a chance we will get back together. I just have this lookalike in front of me, and I don’t think it’s good enough.”

  “I understand, baby. I mean, your father and I are nothing alike at all. Nothing, but because of that, we work well together. That’s just life. Things never fit the way you think it should. It fits the way it wants to fit.”

  “Yeah, I know. Are you ok
with not being close to your son?”

  “It hurts a lot, you know. Especially when he came over here and sat in our front room, and I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t hold him and call him son. I couldn’t do any of that, and it hurt. It still hurts to this day, but I realize that he is a grown man and it’s not something he is probably looking for. It’s like I had to let him go but I never really got to hold him to begin with.”

  We sat in the front room for at least an hour, talking and deepening our relationship. She wasn’t Big Mama, but if there were somebody that had to fill in the gap for her, Mrs. Butler would have undoubtedly been my choice. After we had spoken, I got up and took Prince outside, and we headed back to my house. It was around 6 pm when I stopped at a red light on Burleigh, a busy street on Milwaukee’s north side. I glanced across the street at the Boys and Girls Club that sat on the corner, watching young boys playing basketball outside on the playground. I fantasized about that being Prince out there one day with his friends and realized that if I didn’t make this move out of the city now, he might not get the opportunity. The light turned green, and I pulled out into the intersection when suddenly, another car slammed on its breaks, sliding across the intersection and smacking right into the front of my car. My airbag exploded into my face, knocking me backward into the seat. Everything was hazy for a moment as I heard Prince crying in the backseat. “Prince, you ok, baby?” I said, slowly coming back to consciousness. I finally got out the front seat, seeing some cars frozen around me as people ran up to my car to check on me. I pushed them away. “Back up; I gotta check on my baby,” I said as I did my best to garner strength and push them off. His cries were interrupted by the yelling of the woman whose car smacked into me.

  “Bitch, what the fuck is wrong with you?! Pullin out into the intersection like that! Bitch, you saw me coming! If you didn’t, you should have!” I turned to look in her direction, squinting my eyes to get a better view of her. It took me a few moments to put it together but I when I did, it was almost as if my body went cold. Keyonna stood there just on the side of her car, her long blond hair tied up in a ponytail as she peered at me with her arms folded across her chest. “Keyonna?” I said as I leaned my weight on the hood of my car. She walked closer to me, whispering in my ear, “yeah bitch, it’s me. You didn’t think this shit was over, did you? Nah, fuck that. You couldn’t have thought that.” Police sirens went off in the background, and I could tell they were getting closer by the second. Just then, she smiled at my left at a passenger in another car. The sirens got louder as I struggled to get to the back of my car to check on Prince. I glanced inside of his car seat, but he was gone. My eyes bucked as I flung the door open, refusing to believe my eyes but there was nothing left. His diaper bag was still on the seat and the bottle he was sucking on had fallen to the floor. “My baby! Where the fuck is he!” I yelled, mustering the last bit of strength I had. I looked around the scene of the accident as I became disoriented until I eventually lost my balance and crashed into the pavement.

  I saw people rushing up to me for help as the sirens became louder and louder. The last thing I saw was Prince’s baby bottle on its side, his milk dripping slowly onto the pavement matching the tears that left my eyes. Moments later, I blacked out.

  Chapter 10

  I woke up in the hospital and immediately tried to jump out the bed, “My son!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, “Let me the fuck out of here; I gotta find my son!” The doctors rushed in, pushing me back down onto the bed as I fought them off.

  “Get the fuck away from me! I need to find my son! My fuckin’ son is missing! They took him! That bitch took him!”

  “Ok, Ma’am, calm down. Just keep cool, ok? The authorities are on their way to help you.”

  “Fuck that! They don’t need to help me; they need to find my son!”

  “We’re going to need to give her something to calm her down,” the doctor said to the nurse as a few more of them came to try to restrain me. I threw my fists, connecting with a few of them and meeting the others with the bottom of my feet. Eventually, more of them came in and held me down as they stuck a needle in one of the tubes that were connected to my arm. Moments later, I calmed. My kicking and punching came to a silence and my eyes shut again. When I reopened them, my arms were tied to the bed and officers stood in front of me. I tried to yank myself free but it was to no avail, I wasn’t going anywhere. The detective stood in front of me and said,

  “Lyric Sutton, right?”

  “Find my son.”

  “We will get to that, but we at least need to know who we are talking to.”

  “Find my fuckin’ son or let me go so I can.”

  “Ma’am.”

  “Let me go!!!!!”

  I yelled as I struggled to break my arms and legs free to throw more blows at them as the detective dropped his arms to his side and watched me struggle. The more I tried to break free, the more tired I became. Eventually, I just stopped, still breathing hard with a rage that would have killed somebody if I had the chance. “Are you done?” he asked sarcastically as I gathered a mouthful of spit and hurled it at him. He watched it connect with his suit coat as another officer walked to my bed, his face reddened, ready to pay me back some way. The detective put his hand on the officer’s chest, keeping him from getting any closer to me. His demeanor was calm even though a mouthful of my saliva just splattered right on his chest. He took out a napkin and wiped his vest off, then tossed the napkin inside the trash can. His brown skin was as smooth as pudding, his mustache was thin, and his beard was a trimmed five-o’clock shadow. If I had to guess, he would have been a movie star before I pegged him as a detective. He was gorgeous, but I quickly went back to the reason I spat at him in the first place,

  “I need to find my son. Please! Let me go!”

  I yanked harder just to have the same outcome. The detective folded his arms across his chest as he spoke to the rogue officer, “You don’t do anything to a woman like this. This is a mother who just lost her son, and if she wants to take her anger out on you, you let her. If she is trying to curse you out and yell, you take it. As long as she is not doing anything to threaten your life, you let her vent. That is your fucking duty. To protect and serve,” he said to the officer just beyond him. I didn’t know if it was a good cop, bad cop act, but if it was I believed him. Suddenly, I calmed down to a state of mind that he could communicate with rationally. He turned towards me,

  “Your name?”

  I huffed, “Lyric Sutton.”

  “Do you know who it was that hit your car?”

  I knew exactly who she was. She was the girlfriend of Big Tuck, the drug dealer I extracted revenge on for killing Junie. She was the woman I sometimes fucked just to get close enough to Big Tuck for me to kill him. She was the chick that Nas wanted to kill and that I foolishly told him not to spare her life. Yeah, I knew exactly who she was.

  “No.”

  “Really?” the detective walked closer to me, “because she may have something to do with your son’s disappearance. Are you sure you don’t know who she is?”

  “I’m sure. I don’t know her. Never seen her before until she smacked into my car with hers. Can’t you run the plates or something?”

  “The car had no plates. It was a stolen vehicle that somehow ended up here from Waukegan, IL. Do you know anybody down there?”

  “No, I don't.”

  “Do you know of anybody who didn’t like you? Enemies?”

  “Sir, I have a bunch of those. All I remember is getting into an accident and then all of a sudden my fuckin’ son is gone. That’s all I got for you now if you can get me the fuck out of here so I can find my son, I would appreciate that.”

  “We’re out looking for him now. Checking with witnesses and all of that but something tells me that you know more than what you’re telling me.”

  “Something tells me that y’all need to fuckin’ let me go if I’m not being arrested. This is some violation; y’all can’t just
keep me here like a fuckin’ prisoner. Am I being arrested?”

  “No.”

  “Then get these fuckin’ doctors in here and tell them to cut me fuckin' loose to I can find my mutha fuckin’ son! The shit is not that hard to fuckin’ understand! Let me the fuck go!”

  He lowered his notebook and turned to the other officers and seconds later, they all left the room, and the doctors came in right after. They stood just in front of me, explaining the plethora of injuries I had and doing their best to convince me to keep myself in the hospital but nothing, not even God Himself, would be able to keep me in this place while my son was missing. Time was passing rapidly, and I knew I had to make a move before it was too late. Keyonna was the only lead I had to go with, and I was coming straight for her like a heat-seeking missile.

  I called Vinny as soon as they left so I could get a ride from him. I didn’t want to call Loc because then word would get back to Nas, and I knew all hell would break loose. He had been trying to get me to move for the past few weeks and the fact that I stalled wouldn’t do anything but piss him off. Not just because I stayed longer than I should have but the fact that since I did, Prince got kidnapped. I didn’t even want him to know about it and in a perfect world, I would find Prince and get him back home before he or anybody else noticed.

  It was around 9:30 pm when Vinny showed up in a panic. “Fuck, Lyric! They took Prince?!” he said as soon as I jumped into the car. “Yeah, I need to get on this shit. Take me to Big Tuck’s old crib. I need to look there first.” He paused as he looked at me in disbelief, “Big Tuck old spot? It’s fuckin’ wild over there now, Lyric. Like—,” I cut him off, “Listen, I don’t have time to hear that shit! Either take me over there or drop yo’ ass off at home and I’ll take my fuckin’ self. Either way, I’m there!”

  He leaned forward, momentarily looking around and then accelerated. I leaned back in my seat with nothing but anger and worried dripping from my mind. What if they are hurting him right now, I thought to myself, I’ma fucking kill that bitch. I swear on everything I love that bitch is dead on sight. We eventually pulled up to Big Tuck’s old crib, parking just a few houses away. A few crackheads walked around the neighborhood aimlessly as if they were searching for something that could be sold. I sat and observed Big Tuck’s house, looking for any sign of life inside. The front windows were broken, and tall blades of grass seemed to swallow the porch steps whole. The grass in front of the house looked as if it hadn’t been cut in a few months. I could tell Vinny was nervous; I saw him always checking his side and rearview mirrors every few seconds. That was cool with me though because out here, you could never be too careful. Seconds later, there was a knock on our window, and Vinny damn near shit his pants, “What! What the fuck?” he said, cracking his window. A fiend stood just on the other side of the car.