Black Beauty

by Erica Hilton

  By the time Charlie and Claire were six and seven years old, they started to tease Chanel about her dark skin and say she wasn’t their sister. Bacardi never stopped them. In fact, she was the most divisive one. Bacardi would treat Charlie and Claire like queens and Chanel like trash, and her daughters treated Chanel accordingly.

  Whenever Bacardi would look at Chanel, she saw Leroy all over again—the man who rocked her world with great sex, the man who’d made promises to take care of her and love her forever. But Leroy soon became the man to break her heart, suddenly leaving her with no explanation, a protruding belly, and no idea if the baby she was carrying was his or her husband’s.

  ***

  “Damn, your sister can burn in the kitchen. These eggs are fuckin’ good,” God said as he munched on the breakfast Chanel had cooked.

  Charlie twisted her face at the compliment. “She a’ight. Don’t be sweatin’ her cooking.”

  “I’m just sayin’, that bitch did us nice wit’ this breakfast. A nigga was fuckin’ starvin’ this morning,” said God.

  They were both seated at the foot of the queen size bed in Charlie’s bedroom. Charlie was dressed in her panties and bra, and God was shirtless and in his boxers. His physique was manly—tattoos, battle scars, and muscles. He rocked a low haircut and a long, thick beard and mustache. He was twenty-three years old and a monster on the streets—everyone’s worst nightmare. He was known to be ruthless and coldblooded. He had been killing people since he was thirteen years old and he once lived in Miami’s Pork ‘n’ Bean projects. It was his gang initiation. When he was seventeen, he moved to New York City with his mother in search of a better life, but his criminal life only advanced in the Big Apple.

  “I can give you sumthin’ better to eat,” Charlie said with a flirtatious smile.

  God laughed. “I bet you can, shorty.”

  God’s cell phone rang on the bed beside him. The caller ID indicated that it was Fingers calling him. God answered. “What’s up, my nigga?”

  “Yo, turn to the news on channel five right now,” Fingers quickly said.

  God wasted no time picking up the remote and powering on the flat screen TV. He turned to Fox News and there it was, their horrendous job displayed across the television screen. He turned the volume up to listen to the anchorwoman.

  “What was supposed to be a joyous and celebrated holiday for this family on Christmas Day turned out to be a nightmare. A couple was found brutally murdered in their home after an apparent home invasion,” announced the female field anchor.

  The lavish house in Jamaica Estates was broadcasted for everyone to see. The area was flooded with police. The camera panned right to show distraught neighbors lingering in the background, and then it showed friends and family members pulling up the crime scene and folks consoling one another after hearing the news. Some were completely inconsolable. They cut to a middle-aged female neighbor who had nothing but nice things to say about the Johnsons.

  “They loved each other so much, and they loved life, and they loved people. This is so horrible. I can’t imagine how anyone could do such an atrocious thing to such wonderful people,” the neighbor lady proclaimed.

  Charlie munched on her bacon and God stared intently at the news. He was watching and listening to find out if they had any suspects or if there was a break in the case. But he knew the police didn’t have any suspects. God was a very cautious criminal. He had been doing home invasions for over five years and had never been caught. To him, robbing and killing became simple—always wear latex gloves and black, know everything about your targets, always strike after midnight, and never leave any witnesses behind. To God, it was less risky than robbing hustlers or dealing drugs.

  God and Charlie felt no remorse for the deadly home invasion—not when they’d struck payday. Liasha and Malik Johnson had lots of nice things—a closet full of pricey clothing and furs, diamonds, watches, electronics, and, of course, money. It was a beautiful score for the robbing and murderous trio. Fingers walked away with fur coats too—one for his girl and one for himself. God wasn’t into wearing mink coats—too effeminate for his reputation, but he took one anyway. Free was free.

  After the story of the deadly home invasion ended, Charlie turned to God and uttered, “Let’s fuck! I’m horny.”

  She didn’t care that her parents were home. They both let Charlie do whatever she wanted, including have sex with a twenty-three-year-old man in her bedroom.

  God smiled. She stole the moment to yank his boxers down and used her forefinger and thumb to tease his dick and stir up a huge erection from him. She straddled him, rubbing her dripping pussy over his hard dick and moaning when he bumped her clit. She worked his dick into her nice and slow. She moaned when he thrust into her—almost going animalistic on her—hungry for every square inch of her naked and natural frame. God was a beast. And she was on fire with need.

  “Oh baby, fuck me! Fuck me!” she groaned.

  She panted as he pushed himself farther in. His erection was hard like concrete inside of her. She wrapped her arms around him, clutching him affectionately, and their bodies became entangled in sexual bliss. Their mouths opened and they kissed fervently. She continued to grind her naked bottom into his lap, wanting to explode with fire.

  God moaned and groaned. “You’re so fuckin’ tight!” he cried out.

  Charlie rode him like a professional. She reached behind her and started to massage his balls. God was her rock, and there was never a boring moment with him. He provided her with whatever she needed—money, material things, and security.

  “Oh shit . . . you ’bout to make me come, shorty!” God cried out, his breath hard and hot.

  Both conveniently forgot about the Christmas Day massacre.

  Chapter Three

  Bacardi waltzed into the ACS office proudly wearing Claire’s mink coat without her permission. Despite the cold, she had to keep the coat open since it wouldn’t close around her, and she had to wear two pairs of socks with the red bottoms she strutted in. She also carried her new Valentino bag and sported her new Apple watch. It was hardly appropriate clothing for her job. She was a walking fashion disaster—a mismatched heap of ill-fitting designer clothes that looked a mess on her overweight frame, but no one could tell her she wasn’t fierce.

  It was early Tuesday morning, and it was her first day back to work from their short Christmas break. Bacardi paraded through the office with her tight mink coat and designer bag and started to chitchat with her coworkers so they could see the new items that her wonderful and beautiful daughter had bought her for the holidays. Some coworkers complimented her coat, but many ignored her and the coat, bag, watch, and shoes altogether. Some even snickered at the outfit she had on behind her back, even uttering the words, “Ghetto trash.”

  Bacardi just knew she was the shit, though. She wanted folks to hate on her. Everything she had on was expensive and stylish.

  She went to her cubicle to start her day as an ACS caseworker. The office was busy with cases, and Bacardi had a backlog of work to do. In the past year alone, the agency had received over seventy thousand abuse reports. Most times she felt overworked and underpaid, but it was a city job with benefits that she truly needed.

  Before Bacardi sat down at her cubicle, she noticed her friend Keisha coming in to work. Bacardi was about to take off her coat and start her day, but she decided to keep it on for just a bit longer so Keisha could see her in it. Not only were they best friends, but they had been coworkers for many years now. Every chance she got, Bacardi would brag about her beautiful daughter Charlie and her amazing boyfriend God to whoever would listen—especially to Keisha.

  Keisha walked toward Bacardi and stared at the ill-fitting coat and the red bottoms with the thick socks, and she immediately knew that her friend was wearing her daughter’s clothes. But she smiled brightly at her friend, gave Bacardi a friendly hug, and said
, “Damn, girl, that coat is gorgeous. And shoot, you got red bottoms too?”

  Bacardi beamed. It was exactly what she wanted to hear. She absorbed the compliments pompously and then, with the snap of a finger, she went completely dark. Her smile transformed into a hard frown aimed at Keisha. “You got my muthafuckin’ money?” she asked in a low tone.

  Keisha didn’t want to discuss it at the moment, especially at work, but Bacardi wasn’t going to let her off the hook. “I’m putting it together right now, Bernice. But I thought you gave me two weeks, and you know I didn’t get paid yet. We both get paid on the same day.”

  “Keisha, don’t be tryin’ to play me. You fucked up my kids’ Christmas!”

  “I told you before, I didn’t steal your money. But I’ll get you your money. Show you how good a friend I am.”

  Bacardi frowned. She hated to wait, especially for something that belonged to her in the first place. But Keisha was a good friend and she always kept her word, so Bacardi didn’t push the issue. Instead, she decided to change the subject.

  “Anyway, how was your Christmas?” Bacardi asked her.

  “It was okay.”

  “Well, you know my Christmas was fabulous, as you can tell,” boasted Bacardi as she did a twirl with her arms extended so Keisha could take everything in.

  “I see.”

  “Charlie came through for us on Christmas Day. She and her man came through with a boatload of gifts for everyone. I love my firstborn.”

  Keisha smiled while Bacardi continued to brag about all the magnificent gifts her family received. Not once did she mention Chanel. Keisha knew they treated Chanel like shit. She slightly tilted her head and raised her eyebrow.

  “Damn, y’all came off lovely this year, but where would Charlie and God get the money to buy so much nice stuff? And what did Chanel get?”

  Bacardi didn’t like the questions. She quickly spewed, “I got work to do,” and then she turned her back to Keisha and sat down at her cubicle—conversation over.

  Keisha shrugged. She knew her friend and her family like Mayweather knows boxing. Keisha pivoted and started to walk to her cubicle. On her way, she overheard one coworker say to another, “Bernice is a hot damn mess walking into work looking like that. She thinks she cute!”

  “I know, right?”

  They laughed at Bacardi’s expense. Keisha didn’t respond to the insult. She minded her business and went to work.

  The first day back to work felt long and dragged out. Phones rang constantly with reports of abuse during the Christmas holidays, and supervisors and caseworkers were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. There were too many neglected, abused, and dysfunctional families in New York City to count. It was one horror story after another. Caseworkers were working feverishly to prevent another Nixzmary Brown. After the little girl’s death in 2006, the department made some changes to the system, and the last thing they needed was another child’s death on their watch.

  Thirty minutes before quitting time, Bacardi and Keisha were given a removal assignment in the Bronx to place three children in protective custody. Bacardi was tired. It had been a long day. Her feet were hurting because of the too-high shoes she wore, and the mink coat was strangling her arms. She was becoming highly aggravated, and she wanted to go home on time, soak in a nice hot bath, smoke weed, and drink some Hennessy.

  Her job as a caseworker for ACS wasn’t easy. The hours were grueling and the supervisors were overbearing. The pay was decent, but it wasn’t life changing. The worst part was going out in the field to handle the reported cases of child neglect, endangerment, and abuse—sometimes dealing with hostile parents and an unwelcoming environment.

  Keisha was ready to go, but Bacardi was hesitant.

  “Let’s just try and beat the traffic into the Bronx,” said Keisha.

  Bacardi sighed and grumbled. “You think I want to go to the Bronx at this hour and deal with this case?”

  “It’s our job, Bernice. These children need to be removed by day’s end.”

  Bacardi sighed heavily. The office was nearly empty. She coolly looked around her surroundings and came up with an idea. She looked at Keisha and suggested, “Look, why don’t we just drive to the home and sit for a moment in your car, and then note that the mother wasn’t present during our visitation? We can follow up on the case another day. If we do this knock for a removal, we might be there for hours. I’m fuckin’ tired, Keisha.”

  It was a good idea, Bacardi felt, since caseworkers’ phones had tracking and the supervisors were known to do call checks. However, Keisha was against it. She flat-out refused to go along with the plan.

  “We can’t do that, Bernice. Plus, I need the overtime. Did you forget? I got to pay you your money back, right?”

  Bacardi grumbled and sighed again. Keisha wasn’t going to budge, and she did need her $500 back. Bacardi dragged herself away from the cubicle with her mink coat in hand and her feet on fire. Her toes ached so badly, she was ready to walk out in the street barefoot. She didn’t care if it was cold outside.

  The traffic going into the Bronx seemed longer than the Great Wall of China. The roadways were a parking lot, with brake lights stretching for miles and miles. Every minute Bacardi sat in the traffic was a minute closer to her boiling point. She blew air out of her mouth and frowned.

  “We’re almost there, Bernice,” Keisha said.

  “We should have been fuckin’ there. I swear, this city is a fuckin’ mess! I hate this fuckin’ city!”

  “We’re just doing our jobs.”

  “I fuckin’ hate this job too!” she griped.

  Keisha decided to keep quiet and just drive. Bacardi was bitter. Keisha felt it was best not to say anything else to piss her off.

  The five-story brick building on Jerome Avenue looked like a mountain of trouble. Their assigned removal was on the top floor. There was no elevator, so they had to take the stairs, which agitated Bacardi even more. Her dogs were barking like the mailman was outside. She grimaced and cursed every step and every floor. When they finally reached apartment 5D, Bacardi said to Keisha, “This bitch better not give me any problems.”

  Bacardi knocked several times on the apartment door. She could hear music playing and the kids inside, sounding loud and disorderly. It was taking a while for the occupant of the apartment to answer the door and Bacardi was growing impatient. What made it worse was the fact that she could smell weed burning from inside and she couldn’t take a hit of it when she needed it the most right now. Bacardi clenched her fist and once again rammed the bottom of it against the door.

  “I got a bad feeling about this. Maybe we should wait for our police liaison,” Keisha said.

  Bacardi looked at her like she was crazy. Waiting for an escort meant more time, and it was time she didn’t want to waste. She wanted to get the shit over with. Protocol was that every caseworker would be required to seek entry orders when denied access to a home of a child suspected to be at risk of neglect or abuse. But this was an immediate removal, and every minute was valuable.

  Finally, the old, brown door was swung open by the children’s mother. She stood barefoot in front of Bacardi and Keisha looking a ghetto mess in tight blue pum pum shorts, a tattered bra, a red scarf covering her head, and a serrated knife in her hand. Both of her arms and chest were swathed with tattoos. She scowled at the caseworkers and placed her hand on her hip, looking at them like, Bitch what? “Y’all fuckin’ bitches ain’t coming up in here takin’ any of my fuckin’ kids!”

  Her unruly kids were behind her, running around the messy and foul smelling apartment. They were 10, 14, and 16. There had been reports of the ten– and fourteen-year-old girls being physically and sexually abused by the mother’s boyfriend, who also lived in the home. The sixteen-year-old daughter was a known Blood gang member in the neighborhood, and it was alleged that she was pregnan
t by a man old enough to be her father. It was total chaos inside the two-bedroom apartment.

  “Y’all bitches need to get the fuck away from my fuckin’ door! I ain’t fuckin’ playin’. I will fuckin’ cut and kill y’all muthafuckas if you try to step foot in this apartment and disrespect me and my fuckin’ kids!” shouted the mother.

  It didn’t take long for her kids to join her at the door and emulate their mother. They too started to curse and threaten the caseworkers.

  Keisha immediately took a few steps back from the apartment door. She didn’t want that kind of trouble, so she got on the horn to call for backup.

  Bacardi was livid. She thought, The audacity of this bitch pulling a knife out on me! Her hateful scowl matched the threatening mother and her kids. Bacardi was a bitch from the block, and a dumb ghetto thot with a kitchen knife didn’t intimidate her.

  “You need to fall the fuck back, bitch, or get fucked up,” Bacardi retorted.

  “You stupid lookin’ big bitch, fuck off!” the mother shouted, while wildly waving the knife around in the air.

  The shouting echoed through the hallway. A few neighbors opened their doors with inquisitiveness.

  The oldest daughter was up in Bacardi’s face too, furiously wagging her finger and threatening to have both ladies fucked up by her peoples. The mother egged her daughter on. They were two peas in a pod, and they were ready to tag team Bacardi. It soon became a shoving match at the doorway, and Bacardi saw her moment and abruptly charged at the mother with two rapid punches to her face, somewhat dazing her and catching her off guard. Then Bacardi grabbed the arm that carried the knife and she made sure it was flung from the woman’s hand. Bacardi outweighed the lady by fifty or sixty pounds. A violent fist fight between them ensued inside the apartment. The sixteen-year-old daughter jumped in and tried to protect her mother from the pit bull of a caseworker.