I was puzzled, but quickly shook that shit off. I now understood that Olu and Ink were pimps. And whoever this bitch was, she had to be the main ho. Damn, what the fuck am I gonna do?
“Yeah, I guess so, when do I start?” I asked her.
There was no turning back now. I was too humiliated to go back on my block. The bitch looked my naked body up and down again. My head was throbbing and I wiped the side of my face and felt crusty saliva. I hoped. I didn’t want to know what that shit was on my face. The chick must’ve read my mind because she gave me some other clothes to put on. Tight white spandex and a royal blue striped blue tank top. I left my dress behind. I still had my shoes to put on. I put on the clothes she gave me while the other chick, a Puerto Rican shorty with long dark hair, big eyes and wore a hot pink mini dress and white stilettos asked me, “So what’s your name Mami?”
I smoothed my hair and replied, “Angel.”
“Oh, okay, my name is Maribel. This is my homie Joelle. We work for Olu and I guess you’ll be working for us now,” she said, sucking on a Charm’s Blowpop, and rotating her thin lips around it.
“Okay, not a problem, which us are you referring to?” I asked her, putting my hands on my hips.
“Chill mami, no disrespect. You’ll be working with me and Joelle. Olu has us working over on South Road in Jamaica, Queens. You know where that’s at?” She waited for my answer as Joelle grilled me. I couldn’t read her mind, so I turned away and answered Maribel.
“Look, I know where that’s at. I just wanna know what I gotta do so I can go back to my block,” I said.
Joelle laughed, getting up from the couch. “Girl, you ain’t going home no time soon. Olu owns you now. He has a place for us in a burned out building right around where we’ll be working at. But don’t worry, the rewards are plenty.”
She laughed again, tugging at her ponytail and straightening out her orange cream colored short set. “So now let’s go.”
I went to wash my face in the bathroom and gave myself a long look in the floor length mirror. “Damn girl, you wanted to be a grown up, now you got it.”
I tried to beef myself up to make it seem like I was going to work at an office or something. We hopped in a cab, didn’t have to pay the cabbie since Maribel sat in the front and gave him a blowjob while he drove us to Queens.
Arriving in Jamaica, Queens on what Joelle deemed, ‘The ho stroll’, was a different world for me. Burned out buildings on 150th and South Road took up an entire block. Nearby South Jamaica projects was where the hustlers came out like vampires in the night, on a prowl for crackheads so they could sell them their next rock. Or bust a nut.
There were a few other older chicks out on the stroll looking for work. Cars stopped for us as we spread out on the block. The only thing Joelle and Maribel taught me was the blowjobs were fifty bucks, and a quick screw was seventy-five. I was sold, but that was short-lived when Joelle warned me, “But you know Olu gets to keep most of that money, right?” I wasn’t the least bit upset, I had been on the streets long enough to know that a pimp keeps most of his money if not all of it. And still I wouldn’t make a break for it and go home.
She turned her back on me before I could answer and I went to work. After about five customers, including quickies and blowjobs, within three hours at my new residence, I was hungry for food. I spotted Joelle bending her flat ass over in a window of a souped up Chevy Caprice and let her know I was hungry.
“Yeah, me, too…Let’s go get something to eat. We waited for Maribel to finish fucking this African motherfucker, around the corner from the building we were to be staying at and decided to get something from one of the many stores on Jamaica Avenue.
I was so tired from everything. Olu had played me and I didn’t know what to do. As we sat down in the Chinese restaurant, I told Joelle I was going to use the payphone.
“Bitch, no you ain’t. You wanna use the phone, wait until tonight!” she yelled. I sucked my teeth at her and she got in my face. “Look, you chose this shit when you took Olu’s number, right? So cough that shit up. Be lucky your ass ain’t home sucking dudes’ dicks for two dollars. Wait till Olu hits us all off tonight. You’ll see.”
I couldn’t believe I let this bitch punk me. I looked over at Maribel, who in turn grabbed the bags of food and walked out the door. Who the hell did these bitches think I was?
At the end of the hot, stale day, after fucking in and out different cars, working all day and night on the stroll, I came up with at least five hundred dollars. Not bad for my first day. We went inside our building, a walkup with three floors and a stale smell to it. The building was dark and we had to step over a man who had nodded off on the floor sitting in front of the door. Joelle kicked him and he looked up at her bug eyed and scrammed out of the way.
The place was small, with a wood table and two old chairs. Tattered shades were drawn shut on the dirty windows, and a small TV sat on a coffee table with a wire hanger sticking out of it. There was another bedroom down the small hallway and the bathroom was across the hall. I opted to go sit at the table so I could dig in my chicken wings and beef fried rice ignoring the smell of musty heat.
“Bitch, you gotta earn that seat, that’s my seat and the other one is for Maribel. You just started working,” Joelle said punking me.
I said nothing, shrugged my shoulders and sat on the floor. My view was the dingy kitchen and when I blinked, I saw a mouse on the counter. I clammed up, but then began to eat. Joelle and Maribel talked amongst themselves as I sat there drowning them out. I wanted to shower, change my clothes and sleep in my bed. I didn’t forget my phone call.
“Yo Joelle, I need to use the phone,” I called out to her.
She looked over at me, “Sure, go right ahead, it’s in the kitchen.”
They both giggled like shit was funny. I peered inside the kitchen and came face to face with a flock of roaches crawling all over the gold speckled dull counter. Didn’t matter to me, I just wanted the phone. I reached for the beige receiver on the wall and began to dial when I heard two male voices.
“Who the fuck told y’all to stop working and be up in here eating…? Get the fuck back out there and go back to getting me my money!”
Recognizing Olu’s voice, I hung up the phone and came out the kitchen. His once beautiful eyes were like igloos as he stormed over to me and slapped the shit out of me. I tasted blood in my mouth when I came to. “Who the fuck are you on the phone with? Better not be no fiveoh. Bitch, put them shoes on and go back outside and start getting me my money!” He spat at me. His clean shaven face made him look like a devil in disguise.
“Daddy, please, we was just leaving, right Joelle? Here’s your money from today,” Maribel chimed trying to get Olu’s attention.
She gave him a stack of bills. Ink went and sat on Joelle’s lap and started thumbing his hands across her breasts.
“Yes Daddy, we was just leaving, come on Angel. Let’s go,” Joelle quivered as Ink licked her on the side of her face.
She gave Olu the money that we both made for the day. I grabbed my shoes and ran out the door with Joelle and Maribel, wiping away at the blood that ran down the side of my face. Olu called me back, “Sinclair, get back in here. I need you to do something.” He rubbed on his bulging nutsack. Joelle and Maribel looked up at me from the view through the staircase and kept trotting down the stairs.
I went back to Olu and he grabbed at my hair and slammed the door behind me. He dropped his navy blue silk pants to the floor and rubbed on his big throbbing penis. I didn’t think this shit was love anymore. In fact I knew it wasn’t when Ink came behind me and pulled down his funky jean shorts, pushed me down on the floor and entered me. I had no choice but to stroke Olu’s dick while Ink humped on me with no rhythm. Why’d they have to do this to me? Shit, I already had enough of fucking niggas that I didn’t know. As much as I hated to admit, I wanted to go home.
They continued to rape me as I blocked the entire thing out. Between the noises i
n the building from the druggies, Ink’s tired ass moans, and Olu’s firm grip on my hair, I was totally out of it. I heard the whispers of Grandma Cora Jean’s words from long ago tickle my eardrums and then heard sirens.
“Oh shit, that’s the cops, yo we gotta break out!” Olu hissed, pushing me away from him. Ink scrambled for his shorts.
“Bloodclaat, me was just about to nut again. You nuh have nuting here do yuh?” he asked Olu as I struggled with bewilderment to pull up my spandex.
“No, I moved all that shit out of this shit-hole the other day, so if they come in here, ain’t shit they can do to nobody. And bitch,” he said, directing his finger at me. “Don’t you say nothing to them either.”
Before I could shake my head yes, I heard a kick on the door. It was a herd of cops yelling and screaming for us to get on the floor. One of them, a tall red headed man with a thick moustache wearing a tight black jacket and jeans waved a piece of paper in our faces. He had to be the lead detective as he flashed his badge of deceit.
“I have a warrant for Herman Higgins and Dexter Wills. We were told you’ve got some narcotics stashed in here,” he smirked at Olu and Ink.
“Man we ain’t got nuting! We was just buying us some pussy here from the gal here, see?” Ink pointed at me.
My hands trembled above my head. This shit was becoming knee deep.
“Well pussy or not, she’s here and so is this,” he said grabbing a plastic bag of what I knew was cocaine from his rookie officer who came out of the bedroom.
The rookie beamed with iron as he slapped cuffs on all three of us and read us our rights.
“Wait a fucking minute man, that shit ain’t mine. I came here to meet this ho right here and she bought us both here,” Olu dimed on me, grunting up from the floor and was led away.
I couldn’t fucking believe this shit, but I kept quiet. I had to set a plan in motion, but I didn’t know what. I didn’t know what the fuck just happened to me in a matter of twenty-four hours. As I was thrust in the backseat one of the cop’s cars and we drove off, I caught a glimpse of Maribel in front of the same Chinese restaurant that we had bought food from earlier. Joelle was leaning against the payphone that she didn’t want me to use.
The red headed detective interrogated me at the 103rd Precinct in a dim room and I had the slightest fucking idea of what to say. I knew one thing, I wasn’t gonna say shit. The red head and another woman cop got in my face.
“I’m Detective O’Mallow and this is Detective Ricco. We wanna know one thing and one thing only. Where’d you get those drugs from? You’d better talk, because Mr. Higgins is ratting you out like the piece of shit he is,” Detective O’Mallow happily admitted to me.
“Yeah Ms. Thing,” Detective Ricco started. She brushed her thin white fingers through her dark curly hair and leaned in closer to me where I sat. “Why won’t you talk?” she asked.
“You don’t look like a drug dealer, you’re a ho, just like Mr. Higgins said you was. ‘A ho is a garden tool. Used to rake the weeds’ is what he told us, so that means you don’t mean shit to him if you go down with him, so where did those drugs come from? Where did you come from? We never saw you on the stroll before.”
I sucked my teeth and folded my arms, ashamed of the funk from my mouth and underarms. “Look, don’t I get a lawyer or sump’n? I ain’t saying shit unless I got my lawyer!” I leaned back and closed my eyes devouring the sick things Olu said about me.
The two detectives glanced at each other. “Okay, she won’t talk, lock her ass up.”
I was led to a cell with other mangled looking whores. Shit, I was one to talk. I found a spot, sat on the cold floor and waited for someone to come and get me. This was some petty shit.
The wait turned into six months and a transfer to the Rose M. Singer House for Women at Riker’s Island. My pimpled face public defender, Mr. Jenkins, was no good. He couldn’t get me out of the situation and bail money was out of the question. Told me I had resisted arrest, and that they needed me as a witness to the drugs that they found at that sleazy hole from before.
“But I keep trying to tell you, they weren’t mine!” I hissed at him when he came to visit me. He clutched a folder full of papers and wiped at his big forehead although it was brick in the visiting hall.
“Ms. Peters, you keep saying that, but you won’t say why you were there. Yes, you did confess to being a prostitute, but do you think the judge is going to believe you when you tell him that you were soliciting for the first time? The prosecutor has a slew of witnesses from your old neighborhood who are going to testify that you, um, well, prost-, I mean solicited your body for money.” He cleared his throat then said, “Then you get caught with two pimps with drugs. Looks like you all were in on this, but Mr. Higgins is probably not going to do any time for this.” His voice lowered three octaves.
My eyes bugged the fuck out of my head. I pulled on my jumpsuit’s collar. “What do you mean? He’ll probably get off on this? What the fuck about me?” I ranted.
Mr. Jenkins cleared his throat again. Then he peered over his shoulder at the big black guard standing three feet away from us. Mr. Jenkins’ gray eyes settled on my tired ones.
“He comes from money dear, that’s why. This may be a losing battle for you, the best I can do for you is to cop a plea, five to seven the most. I’ll try to get you maybe three. I wish I could help you, but even the fact that you don’t have any prior offenses, may or may not work in our favor. You…”
His words trailed off as I watched part of my future go down the drain. I couldn’t believe motherfuckers wanted to rat me out—over what? What was in it for them? I also couldn’t believe this limp dick motherfucker couldn’t get me off this shit. And I couldn’t believe that Olu’s real name was Herman fucking Higgins.
I was screwed. I didn’t need Mr. Jenkins to tell me. I damn sure didn’t need my mother to tell me shit since she refused my collect calls anyway and then blocked them altogether after the first month. Randall was the only one who looked out for me, putting money in my commissary.
“Don’t worry sister, I’ll be there for you all the way,” he said on a visit before my court appearance that following week. The day before my court appearance, I called Jeena.
“Girl, it’s so good to hear your voice, you just don’t know,” she whispered in the phone.
I began to tear up, but sucked it up. “Yo Jeena, this is some bogus shit, why the fuck are they doing this to me?” I cried.
“Because baby, when you don’t snitch for the cops, they give you a one way ticket to hell. I’m sorry, Sinclair, but you may have to ride this one out. Worse they could do is give you a coupla years and then you’ll still be young.”
I began to whimper again. I didn’t want to hear Jeena anymore, so I hung up. I went back to my cell and wandered off to sleep.
Next day in court, the trial began. The case against me was that I was an accessory to a drug ring. Sure enough, I sat at the table with my lawyer and listened as every nigga from my hood testified that I did solicit my body for sex and would do just about anything for money.
“Would Ms. Peters sell drugs for money?” the pale thin prosecutor asked. She had long blonde hair and wore a black pantsuit.
Skill looked over at me and smirked. “Yes, I believe so. She was always hard up for money and sold her body for it, so yes, I believe she would.”
He leaned back in the hard wooden chair and grinned rubbing his dark hands over his low cut fade. I looked him dead in the eye then. I didn’t care what anyone said about me. The fucked up part, I didn’t have anyone say any good shit about me except for Randall. My brother always had my back. Jeena couldn’t testify because of an old charge she had.
“But how is it that you went away to college, Mr. Peters, and your sister dropped out of Sarah J. Hale High School in the tenth grade?” the bitchy prosecutor asked.
Randall sighed, “I don’t know, but I do know that my sister is not a drug lord, like you all claiming her to be.
” He stood up. “But that other nigga, he is. You need to lock his ass up! He set my sister up, that motherfucker! You cock sucking bitch! You wait—you’ll pay for what you’re doing to my sister!” Randall was flailing his arms on the witness stand sending a message to Olu.
The judge, an old bitch who wore her hair in a mushroom shaped bob, banged her gavel. “Bailiff, take him away, this witness is banned from my courtroom. Let the court rest, I’ve heard enough.” Banging her gavel again, she got up to leave, her robe wickedly flowing behind her.
So I chalked it up when the jury found me guilty for possession of narcotics in the third degree. I took my fate like a soldier facing an enemy in the Persian Gulf War. And although I was seven months pregnant with Olu’s baby, I went back to the Don’t-give-a-fuck attitude, and listened as the judge decided to sentence me to four years. Four years at the Upstate New York Albion Correctional Facility for Women.
As I was led away by the bailiff, I turned around to see if Randall was let back inside the courtroom. He wasn’t, but I saw Jeena disguised in Muslim garment in the back row. Her eyes told me not to worry. I knew she would always look out for me.
Two months later, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy in a cold hospital. I named him Randall after my brother, the savior who dropped out of college to become a private investigator for the hood. He was living back in Brooklyn. Mommy moved to South Carolina and never spoke to me.
Just as I had finished nursing my baby a week after I had him, there were two social workers who approached me in the hospital room, where we were still housed.
“My name is Lauren Barnett and this is my colleague Tracy Hill. We’ve come to take the baby to his guardian. You do understand that, right?”
I began to shake with fear as Baby Randall’s blue eyes drifted closed. I knew he was full. I also knew they were coming to take the baby to Randall.
Lipstick Diaries Part 2 Page 20
