Carl Weber Presents Ride or Die Chick 2

by J. M. Benjamin

  New Chapter—The First Time, she titled it.

  Norfolk Detention Center was jammed with young adolescents and juvenile delinquents. I remember Treacherous telling me how it had taken him no time to find position and gain status up in the juvenile jail for young boys and girls. He had been charged with illegal possession of firearms and receiving stolen property. Like me, the judge had called Treacherous a menace to society and a threat to the community and remanded him in the detention center, only he stipulated Treacherous remain in the youth facility until he reached the age of eighteen. To all the other kids who only had to serve a couple weeks, months, or a year or two, what Treacherous had was a juvenile life sentence, so they all respected him for his time. In addition to that, all the wannabe young hustlers and gangsters had discovered that the man they had read about in the newspapers and some knew of and respected was Treacherous’s father, Richie Gunz. But what they thought about Treacherous made him no difference. His only concern was serving the five and a half years in confinement, and how he would pay society back for stripping him of his father as well as his freedom. Some kids learned their lessons and went home better than they came in. Treacherous had never committed a crime in his life prior to the charges he had received, and had felt he was being condemned and punished for who his father was and what his father had done, and he was angry at the judicial system. So instead of learning any lessons and going home and becoming a productive part of society, he made a vow to himself that he would leave up out of there worse than when he entered. By the time he and I had met, four years had gone by and Treacherous grew both physically and mentally. If he wasn’t doing push-ups or dips, he was reading a book. He had gotten his GED two years prior and began to teach himself by acquiring more knowledge through the books that were available to him, which were mostly white historical ones. Treacherous wasn’t fortunate to have someone on the outside sending him any good books, but there was one kid who had gotten in a bunch of them by some black authors and he offered Treacherous the opportunity to read them.

  Treacherous enjoyed reading, especially while he was on room-lockdown from fighting. He had told me that prior to us meeting he had a total of twenty-nine fights in the four-year span he had been in the detention center, and won every last one of them. Whenever Treacherous would get locked down, the kid would slide a book under the door for him. He had read all of the books by Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim over and over until he practically knew them by heart. He had his favorites like the Kenyatta sequels and Black Girl Lost, but his all-time favorite was Black Gangster, all written by Donald Goines. Pimp was his favorite of Iceberg Slim along with Long White Con. It was through these books he had become more educated with the many aspects of the game. He realized, through the books he read, whether you were a pimp, player, con, drug dealer, or a gangsta, you were still a hustler and you only had two choices: Either you go out there and go hard by making it, or you go hard by taking it. From that day forward Treacherous knew what he was going to do upon his release. He told himself it was in his blood. Treacherous had grown accustomed to the type of attention he received while at the Norfolk Detention Center. The detention center had been his home for the past few years and he practically ran it. He knew some people spoke out of respect while others out of fear. But either way, I later found out Treacherous gave none of them the time of day, male or female staff or resident, no one but me. He was a loner by nature, and that’s the way he liked it.

  Treacherous had just gotten off room restrictions after being locked down for twenty-one days when he entered the dayroom. He was eighteen months short of getting his release and decided that he would chill this time since his time was quickly coming to an end. As he got his breakfast and sat down he noticed the young females who had been released from the girls’ side to eat. Initially we were both feeling each other, but what started out as a natural chemistry quickly turned into a war zone. Eventually when war turned into peace he told me over the years girls had come and gone but none had never really caught his eye prior to me and I believed him. He said when he first saw me I stood out from the rest, that I looked out of place, and he could see the toughness in my eyes. Treacherous thought I favored his mother slightly. I took that as both an honor and compliment after he had told me the story of his parents. He said it was the first time he had ever thought someone was worthy of even being compared to his mother. I peeped him staring at me, causing our eyes to meet for a brief moment. I had only been in the detention center for ten days, but throughout that short period of time I had practically seen all the guys that had been in there, most of them trying to talk to me, but I wasn’t beat. After the first few days of being unsuccessful, they began to view me as stuck-up and conceited, which was fine with me. I had heard stories about a kid named Treacherous who had been in detention for four years and stayed on lockdown for fighting. I mean, everybody was practically on his dick. I was told that he ran the detention center. Now laying eyes on him had me confident he was the one who the girls spoke about, even before the other girls who knew of him had confirmed it.

  While everyone else sat at the tables grouped up, Treacherous sat alone and had been doing so for years. Apparently, no one had told me that. Not that it would’ve made a difference, because I had already made up my mind. I headed toward the table where Treacherous was sitting. I could tell he had seen me heading his way because he stopped eating his cereal in mid-chew. When I reached his table he looked up at me. I remember his eyes looking as if he were too young to possess such a pair. They seemed cold, yet wise.

  “Is this seat taken?” I asked with the deepest, but softest voice he had ever heard from a female.

  Instead of answering, Treacherous shook his head. I took that as my cue and sat down. I could see everyone in the dayroom looking at me as I sat with Treacherous. All the boys who were in the detention center were jealous while the girls were envious. Even the staff was in disbelief. No one had bothered to inform me that Treacherous liked to eat alone and expected him to blow up on me, but to their surprise he didn’t. I began to feel a little nervous, not because of him, but because all eyes were on me—or rather, us—and I hated being in the spotlight.

  Treacherous continued eating his cereal as I fumbled trying to open my milk. I hoped that my nervousness in Treacherous’s presence didn’t show on the outside, because on the inside I was a nervous wreck. I had never met a guy who reeked of strength and commanded respect. I saw how he had the entire facility walking on eggshells. My then ex-boyfriend, who was a bitch-ass nigga and the reason why I was in the detention center in the first place, had been the leader of his block, but he was not respected or feared the way I had felt he should have been. I was only fifteen at the time, but my ex was nineteen. As sharp as I thought I was, I couldn’t believe how naive I had been when it came to him, and now I was sitting up in jail for him.

  I continued to fight with the milk carton as Treacherous watched me out the corner of his eye as he ate. Later he revealed to me that he was tempted to help me, but he just couldn’t bring himself to it. That was not his style. He was a gangsta, and gangstas kept it gangsta at all times. Just then I was able to get my fingernail in the lip, thinking I had the difficult milk carton licked, but as I peeled the flaps open, the dumbest shit happened. The milk slipped out of my hands.

  “Oh shit, my bad,” I quickly chimed, seeing the milk had spilled over the table toward Treacherous. He jumped up just as the milk began pouring in his lap. Everyone saw the commotion and turned their attention toward me and Treacherous.

  “Clumsy-ass chick,” Treacherous shouted as he brushed the milk off the front of his jumper.

  I was just about to apologize for my mistake until I was interrupted by the words that came out of his mouth.

  “What? Fuck you,” I retorted. “It was a mistake. Who the fuck you calling clumsy?”

  All the other girls and guys were now looking at me as if I had lost my mind. The other kids were sure now Treacherous was goi
ng to knock my teeth down my throat for the blatant disrespect. They had never heard anyone take the tone with Treacherous the way I had done.

  Treacherous looked at me as if my words lashed at him. Before he could even do or say anything, staff ran and jumped between the two of us.

  “Mr. Freeman, please go over there,” one of the staff members requested, pleading with him while the other staff tried to escort me out of the dining area.

  Treacherous knew why they were handling him in such a manner. On several occasions throughout his stay at the detention center, Treacherous had become untamable whenever altercations arose with him and another resident. The situation with me was actually Treacherous’s first time ever getting into a situation with a female. What the staff could not have known was no matter what I had said to him, Treacherous would never put his hands on me. Treacherous did as he was told and backed up as he watched me carry on.

  “Get your fucking hands off me, bitch,” I screamed as I punched one of the female staffers in the midsection. Another one tried to calm me down, only to be met with my fist to her jaw, putting her to the floor. That’s when two male staff grabbed me from behind. Even they had a hard time with me. Later when he came home Treacherous would sometime tease me on how feisty and rowdy of a girl I was when I was younger.

  “Why y’all catering to that mu’fucka. I didn’t do shit!” I yelled as I kicked and scratched all the way out the dayroom.

  Everyone laughed at the performance. Everyone except Treacherous. He had never met a female like me and admired my tenacity. He said he loved the way I fought for what I believed in and was able to say what others wished they could have said to him regardless of any consequences or repercussions. He told me about a quote he had read in a book that had stuck with him: If you don’t stand for something then you’ll fall for anything. He knew I was only standing up for what I believed in. After everything had died down, Treacherous went back to his room where he felt most comfortable, picked up a book, and read it. He said that night he stayed in his room and thought about me. Back then he referred to me as the crazy girl who had resembled his mother who just caused so much trouble. Based on the stories his father had told him about her, he said he could see I also shared his mother’s same fire.

  While eating lunch, he came across my name from the discussion the other girls were having at the table across from him. Treacherous thought the name Teflon to be peculiar for a girl, he told me, but then again wondered who was he to talk about names? His father had given him the reason behind his name and wondered what had possessed my parents to give me such a name. I laid across the bed with my arms folded, locked inside the little six by nine room and thought about how I had gotten there, but I knew the answer to that: From dealing with a little boy who thought he was the man. That and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The ending result was me being sentenced to sixteen months in Norfolk Detention House for possession with intent and aggravated assault with a weapon. I didn’t mind being charged with the assault because I was guilty of that.

  I and my then boyfriend were just coming home after having an enjoyable dinner and evening at a popular restaurant in downtown Norfolk. As I unlocked my home and opened the door, I didn’t think anything of the darkness as we entered the two-bedroom condo my boyfriend had purchased for me as a birthday present in my name under the table. As I reached for the light to illuminate my domain, me and my boyfriend were met with badges, guns, and a barrage was yelling. Both me and my boyfriend did as we were told and hit the ground quick and fast. When the officer approached us with the packaged drugs and asked the unforgettable question of whose drugs it was, looking over to my boyfriend, confident he would step up to the plate, something he had always preached, I could not believe her ears. “That shit ain’t mine. I don’t live here. I’m just visiting my girl.” You would have thought he was Denzel Washington the way words came out of my boyfriend’s mouth. My now ex-boyfriend would always remember how he had did me dirty every time he looked in the mirror and saw the scar on his face that ran from the side of his eye down to the corner of his mouth, compliments of my blade, which I used to keep in my mouth at all times, the way I used to see my mother do before they parted. Far from being a dummy, seeing that the fix was in, I spit the razor into my hand just as quick as any veteran on Rikers Island and caught my ex across the face, good enough to send him to the hospital for 150 stitches known as a buck-fifty. The police maced me with pepper spray to subdue me and carried me off to detention, while they took my ex to the hospital.

  He was charged with the drugs in the house as well, but posted bail and because I refused to tell who the drugs really belonged to and my ex had already given his statement, he beat his case and I wore the weight. I couldn’t bring myself to snitch on somebody. It just wasn’t in my blood. I was and still what you’d call a ride or die bitch so I took the sixteen months they gave me and maintained my integrity and self-respect, compromising neither of the two. Neither of my parents were ever really there for me or told me anything to prepare me for the life that lay ahead of me, but what I knew about them both, I assumed they played the game fair, each playing their role and position.

  As I laid in the bed that night I couldn’t help but think about Treacherous. It wasn’t my intention to beef with him the way I had, but he had caught my vein. I had an issue with the way people talked to me, males in particular and still do. My mother had instilled that inside of me and there was no exception to the rule. Besides, all that was built up inside of me from my ex was released and directed toward him. It took me a day take it down and cool off to realize I wasn’t even mad at him. I had no right to be because I barely knew him other then what I had heard about him. He must think I’m crazy, I thought as I dwelled on the situation. I couldn’t figure back then why was I so concerned about what he thought about me. I had no clue, but I had promised myself when my forty-five-day room restriction was up I would step to him again, only with a different approach. I laid back in the six by nine room’s bed and closed my eyes that night. Images of my childhood haunted me, invading my mind as I slipped into a trance and began to relive my past. After my forty-five days of room restriction had ended I was all too ready to see Treacherous again and start all over. Being in the room for so long and just eating and resting, had put on a few pounds on me, filling out my 112-pound frame into an even 120 pounds, all eight pounds going into the right places. My hair had also grown at least two-and-a-half inches from keeping it in two, but that day I wore it all pulled back in one big ponytail, which showed off my cornrows of good hair. I had actually enjoyed my little room vacation. It gave me time to gather my thoughts, and now that I had gotten them together I wanted to be allowed to interact with the others, one person in particular.

  Treacherous later admitted he had scratched my last day of room lock date off his calendar as soon as he woke. He had been counting down the forty-five days they had given me. Throughout that time he had done less reading and more working out, trying to get better toned. He had always had a nice, chiseled physique, but he told me I became his motivation. There was something about me that caused him to want to work out harder. He went from doing a thousand push-ups a day to doing fifteen hundred, along with increasing his crunches from 750 a day to a thousand, adding to his washboard stomach. When he had weighed himself two days before, he had gone up from 170 pounds to 182 pounds solid, with only 10 percent body fat. During my room lock he had packed on twelve pounds of bulk.

  The staff was a little leery about allowing me to return to general population, especially not knowing how Treacherous would react to seeing me again, so they decided to monitor both of our behavior, prepared for anything. The last thing they wanted to see was Treacherous half killing me, but I wasn’t worried about anything like that. My only concern was that he wouldn’t want to hear me out.

  All the other inmates had been doing their own counting down of my release, placing bets on how long it would take for me to go back into loc
kup or get strangled by Treacherous, betting their breakfast, lunch, and dinner trays. The detention center had gotten live in the past month and a half. Some kids from Norfolk had gotten arrested in a drug raid and smuggled some weed inside, and six new girls, three who were young prostitutes, had came up in there, so everybody was trying to get in on the action. Treacherous had later hipped me to the fact that the kids who had possession of the weed had both heard about and respected him, so they offered him a nice chunk, figuring he either smoked or wanted to trick with the young prostitutes, who were giving other inmates hand jobs and blow jobs for food and weed. Some were even taking chances sliding up in the bathroom or one of the classrooms with them unnoticed, sexing the young prostitutes. But Treacherous wasn’t concerned with any of that. He didn’t get high nor did he trick. He did take the weed, though, and stashed it in a book he knew nobody would touch because none of the kids up in there really read books.

  All the girls were attracted to Treacherous and tried to entice him in hopes of becoming his jailhouse girlfriend, by flashing their breasts at him and propositioning him, but he was only interested in one girl. Treacherous sat at his regular table by himself as he saw the young girls lined up coming from off the female side. In total, including me, there were now eleven girls, which was the most Treacherous had ever seen in the juvenile facility at one time the whole four years and some change he had been there.