Hell's Diva

by Anna J.

  The kids in Mecca’s new Coney Island neighborhood learned the hard way that Mecca wasn’t the social type. Ruby kept Mecca’s hair tightly corn-rowed, which made Mecca’s eyes seem catlike. The look in Mecca’s light brown eyes scared a lot of the kids. A lot of the kids envied Mecca, due to Ruby making sure that Mecca’s clothes were of the latest fashion. Mecca wore clothes that kids in Coney Island wouldn’t see until months later and wouldn’t be able to have because their parents couldn’t afford them.

  What Mecca didn’t know was that her clothes were from boosters that Ruby paid for with dope or were given to her by her friends. The only things Ruby bought for Mecca were jewelry, sneakers, and shoes. Mecca wore two-karat diamond earrings, diamond-flooded wrist and ankle bracelets, and she had every cartridge for the Atari 2600 and the 3200 ever made.

  When the summer of 1983 rolled in, Mecca met a girl her age named Dawn who lived down the hall from her tenth floor apartment. Dawn’s mother was one of Ruby’s customers and asked Ruby if Dawn could stay at her apartment while she went out on “dates,” which everybody in Coney Island knew were Johns. She sold her body to support her habit. At first, Mecca hated the dark-skinned, thick, bushy-haired girl. Dawn wore dirty clothes, smelled like piss, and she was always ashy. Mecca didn’t like her out of jealousy. Ruby started giving Dawn new clothes; she bathed Dawn, and did her hair the same way she did Mecca’s.

  Mecca found her excuse to try to physically hurt Dawn when Dawn tried to steal one of Mecca’s Atari cartridges. They were playing each other in a game of Frogger when Mecca noticed out of the corner of her eye the print of a cartridge in Dawn’s dungaree pockets. Mecca dropped her joystick and went to grab Dawns pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Dawn jumped back and yelled.

  Mecca gave her the look that usually scared other kids away from her, but to her surprise Dawn returned the look. Mecca was caught off guard. She was not used to anyone not being scared when she gave them that menacing stare.

  “Gimme my cartridge, you thief!” Mecca barked.

  “This ain’t yours!” Dawn grabbed her pocket when she saw Mecca stare at it.

  “Yes, it is!” Mecca yelled, charging at Dawn, who was no pushover.

  This was no easy fight for Mecca. Dawn was just as strong and ferocious as she was. Ruby, in her bedroom, was bagging up heroin into small, white packets, wearing a hospital mask over her face as not to inhale the fumes, when she heard the argument going on between the girls, and ran out to see what the commotion was. When she entered the living room she saw Mecca and Dawn both with ripped T-shirts, hair out wild, and both had scratches and blood coming out of their noses. They were both out of breath holding each other’s hair, and swinging their arms at each other. Ruby watched them fight for a few more minutes, grinning, then when she realized they had both had enough, she stepped between them, holding them apart from each other.

  “All right, you two! Y’all know damn well y’all had enough. I don’t know what y’all was fighting for….”

  “She tried to—” Mecca replied, pointing to Dawn, out of breath.

  Ruby cut her off. “I don’t want to know. The way y’all fought each other y’all better off being friends and holding each other down against them people that’s going to hate you for who you are. Whatever it was, don’t let it come between y’all again. Don’t let nothing come between y’all, I want y’all to be like sisters, you hear me?”

  Both girls stared at each other, neither not wanting to fight each other again. Mecca had to admit to herself Dawn was tough and Dawn thought the same of Mecca. Dawn also thought Mecca was a spoiled brat who was spoon-fed and didn’t have to fight for anything, but she had a change of heart after the fight Mecca had put up.

  “I said did y’all hear me?” Ruby grumbled. Both girls nodded their heads.

  Dawn never tried to take anything from Mecca again. In fact, she stole cartridges from other kids that Mecca didn’t have, and gave them to her. Afterward, Mecca started to like Dawn, and when Mecca realized Dawn’s mother was a fiend she felt sorry for Dawn and their bond got tighter. Ruby enrolled Dawn in the same school as Mecca and the two became inseparable. When you fought one, you fought the other. Eventually no one messed with the two girls. Kids in their Brownsville school started calling them The Devil’s Daughters.

  The man in the white robe laughed loudly while Mecca just stared. “The Devil’s Daughters!” the white-robed man called Lou yelled, chuckling.

  “I didn’t tell anybody to call us that. So what’s so funny?” Mecca asked with anger in her voice.

  Lou stopped laughing and said, “I know you didn’t tell no one to call y’all that. It’s what they saw in you and her. People see you better than you see yourself, Mecca. That’s why now I’m giving you the opportunity to see yourself from day one and the people around you, I’m giving you the opportunity to see how your life affected others and how people saw you.”

  “I don’t care how people saw me,” Mecca said sternly.

  “After this, you’re going to wish you had cared, Ms. Mecca.”

  Chapter Five

  For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.

  Proverbs 6:26

  The Summer of 1987

  The summer of 1987 was one of the best summers Ruby ever had. Crack was on the scene and Ruby became acquainted with the rock form of cocaine, and established a relationship with it that fattened her pockets. The Langston Hughes projects were full of crack fiends looking for the dealer who had the best stuff. A lot of good people fell victim to the lure of the three-minute high that crack gave.

  A lot of people Ruby knew from her younger days were now strung out, people who were once a part of the in crowd. The people who everyone in the hood wanted to be like, dress like, and talk like got bit by the crack epidemic, even Stone.

  When Stone, the once kingpin of the projects became a full-fledged crack-head, he eventually lost the respect of his soldiers and confidants. He started smoking his own product until he went broke. Darnell, the man who killed Ruby’s sister and brother-in-law, made his move. He had the product and the product was good. With that came the soldiers. Stone’s ex-soldiers. In no time Darnell was the biggest cat in the projects. Ruby set up shop in Coney Island, and she had her friend Monique sell her stuff in Langston Hughes. Ruby wasn’t making as much as Darnell was, but it was enough. Most of her money was being made on her Coney Island block.

  “Girl, guess who home?” Monique asked as if she was about to deliver bad news.

  “Who?” Ruby asked while she chopped up a rock the size of a tennis ball on a white china dish with a razor blade. She placed the pebbles inside small vials with yellow tops.

  “Your ex-nigga a Five Percenter now. They call him Wise, like the dumb nigga wise or something,” Monique giggled.

  Monique was the only person Ruby talked to about the ordeal with Wise. Monique and Ruby had been friends since they were kids growing up in Brownsville. Ruby talked to Monique about men because Monique was an expert when it came to dealing with the opposite sex. She had men wrapped around her finger. Her voluptuous body and striking good looks were the keys to making men bow at her feet. She had a caramel complexion and hazel eyes with firm C-cup breasts. Monique had an exotic look having been born to a Panamanian mother and Cuban father. Oddly, Monique didn’t know a lick of Spanish.

  The thought of seeing her ex made Ruby nervous. She wondered how she would react or feel when she saw him. She wondered how he looked. Was he buff from lifting weights in jail? Did he still look the same with his fine self? His curly hair that looked wet, his chinky eyes, and those dimples…damn.

  “Girl, what you thinking about?” Monique asked, snapping Ruby out of her daydream.

  “I was thinking how much product I left in Coney Island,” Ruby lied. Monique knew she was lying, also. She knew her girl and knew when she was hurt, happy, and lying.

  “Please, Ruby, you
thinking about that clown Wise or whatever he call himself.” Monique laughed at Ruby’s expense, causing Ruby to laugh too.

  “You know me too good. I got to change my ways.”

  “What’s there to think about? That nigga old news,” Monique said, hoping Ruby wasn’t thinking about reconciling her and Wise’s relationship. She knew how hurt Ruby was when she had gone on that visit and saw him hugging and kissing another woman. She didn’t want her best friend to go through that again. People just didn’t know how much Ruby changed after that episode.

  “You right, girl. Fuck that clown,” Ruby said, continuing to chop on the crack rock she had on the plate. “It’s about money and you know what m-o-n-e-y means to us!”

  In unison, Ruby and Monique yelled, “Money Over Niggas Every Year!” They both howled in laughter.

  Mecca was now thirteen years old and still a virgin. Her body developed quickly. The boys in her junior high school noticed the feisty thirteen-year-old, and her friend, Dawn, who had also developed quickly.

  Dawn had already lost her virginity in the school bathroom to a Puerto Rican boy in her social studies class. They started off passing notes to each other, then Dawn answered the last letter with a check in the “yes” box when he asked if she wanted to go out with him. He motioned for her to meet him when the bell rang to change classes. They snuck to the basement and had sex in the bathroom.

  “Did you like it?” Mecca asked curiously.

  “At first I didn’t, because it hurt. Then it started feeling good,” Dawn replied shyly.

  “You so nasty.” Mecca smiled and playfully hit Dawn on the shoulder.

  Dawn sucked her teeth. “Please, you better get you some before your stuff dry up and die.”

  Both girls laughed. Mecca and Dawn had to gain their respect back when they entered junior high. Their reputations stayed intact the entire time. Both Mecca and Dawn were problem students, so they both had to attend the “six hundred school” for bad kids. Ruby thought Mecca would be cool going to school in Brownsville because that’s where her friends were, and when she had tried to school Mecca in her Coney Island neighborhood she kept getting into fights. The sad thing was, the fights continued in Brownsville. It was a new school and there were new foes at the time, and some of the kids from their elementary schools were there and spread the word that Dawn and Mecca were not to be fucked with. But with some people, examples had to me made.

  The opportunity presented itself when the girlfriend of a guy who had a crush on Mecca found out that he liked her. Instead of confronting her boyfriend, she chose to approach Mecca, who didn’t even know the boy. The girl made a bad choice. A choice that she had to carry for the rest of her life.

  Dawn and Mecca both dressed in tight-fitting Lee Jeans. Mecca with burgundy pinstriped ones with burgundy on white shell–top Adidas, and a white sweat shirt with “Mecca” written in script on the upper left corner, and giant door knocker earrings. Dawn wore black ones with black on white shell–top Adidas, and a white sweatshirt with matching earrings. They both walked down the crowded hallway heading toward the exit, when a light-skinned girl with a short Jherri curl that left stains on her no name–brand, button-down blue shirt approached Mecca with an angry look on her face.

  “You better stay away from my man!”

  Mecca and Dawn looked at each other, then back at the girl, confused. “Who you talking to?” Mecca asked.

  “I’m talking to you! Stay away from Tah or I’m gonna…” the girl replied, stepping closer to Mecca’s face.

  Mecca didn’t give her the opportunity to finish her threat. She was punching the girl in the face and pulled her Jherri curl, pulling the girl down to the floor. Dawn started kicking the girl in the stomach and the face. The girl screamed as the crowd in the hallway gathered around, watching the two fly girls beat up the girl who had approached them with hostility. While the girl was down, she managed to look up and spit in Mecca’s face. Mecca turned as red as an apple. Mecca reached in her back pocket and pulled out a Gem Star razor that she had found on the kitchen table. Ruby used them to chop up her drugs.

  Grabbing the girl by the back of her head, holding her hair, she sliced the girl’s face from her ear to the corner of her lip. The blood squirted from the girl’s face. She tried to hold her face closed so the blood wouldn’t leak out.

  “She cut me! Get this bitch off of me!”

  When the crowd saw all the blood, they started walking away. Mecca and Dawn both ran to the exit and rushed to the bus stop to catch the bus heading home. Later that day, two cops knocked on Monique’s door in Langston Hughes looking for Dawn and Mecca. The girls used Monique’s address so they could go to school in Brownsville. They had to live in the zone in order to attend the school. If the school found out they lived in Coney Island, they wouldn’t be allowed to attend. The cops told Monique that they had a warrant for the arrest of Dawn and Mecca. Monique informed both of them that Dawn and Mecca didn’t return home that day. When they did she would bring them to the station. She lied.

  “Who the hell is Tah, Dawn?” Mecca asked Dawn while they rode the bus home.

  “You know him by face. He’s in my math class,” Dawn replied, looking out the window while the bus rode through the Pitkin Avenue shopping area.

  “How he look? He better be cute after all this bullshit we going through,” Mecca said.

  “He all right. He ain’t no LL Cool J. He gets fresh and all that. He pump jums in Brownsville houses.”

  “You know we can’t go back to school, right?” Mecca said more than asked.

  Dawn sighed. “Yeah, I know. Fuck it, I’m tired of school anyway. I’m ready to start making some dough.”

  “What are you talking about, Dawn?” Mecca asked with a look on her face that said, “I know you ain’t talking about what I think you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the way your aunt gets money. Like everybody else. I’m tired of taking handouts from Ruby, Mecca. I’m ready to get down with the program.”

  Mecca shook her head at her friend. Dawn is going crazy, she thought. It’s probably losing her virginity that messed her brain up. Mecca hoped Dawn was just talking and not dead serious about it.

  “Dawn, you crazy, girl,” was all she could say before riding the rest of the way to Coney Island in silence.

  The white-robed man named Lou folded his arms and stared at Mecca for a few seconds.

  “What?” Mecca asked tersely.

  “Did that girl deserve to have her face sliced up like that?”

  Mecca sucked her teeth and looked away from Lou. “Shoot, she spit on me. I ain’t letting nobody spit on me, for real.”

  “Don’t you see how reckless you were, Mecca? I could understand you being young and in emotional pain from the tragic loss of your parents, but to live your life blaming everybody for it? It’s not fair, Mecca. Two people are responsible for what happened to your parents. Not the eight million people that live in New York City.”

  “What do you care? It wasn’t your family!” Mecca barked. “You don’t know what it feels like. How you going to tell me how I should have felt?”

  “I didn’t tell you how you should feel. I’m just saying you should have learned how to deal with your feelings better than the way you did,” Lou shot back.

  “What’s the point then?” Mecca asked, lifting her hands in a protesting manner while shrugging her shoulders

  “I haven’t gotten to that yet. When I do you’ll be the first to know.”

  Chapter Six

  His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own plate.

  Psalms 7:18

  “Damn, Stone. How you let yourself go like that, man? This ain’t you, man!” Wise said as he and Stone stood on the corner of Rockaway Avenue and Dumont in Tilden Projects.

  It was a hot, sunny day. There were people barbecuing all around the projects. Hustlers in fancy cars drove up and down Rockaway Avenue while corner
hustlers stared in envy. Women in Daisy Dukes and T-shirts tied in knots exposing belly buttons with large, gold earrings in their ears waved to the hustlers, looking for attention from them and hopefully a chance to ride in their car.

  Kids played in fire hydrants while some kids pointed at passing cars screaming to each other, “That’s my car!” and “Punch buggy got my license!”

  Stone, dressed in a dirty, blue suede–front jacket with holes in it and ripped-up jeans and dirty, red suede Pumas, looked down while his mouth twitched, looking for an answer to Wise’s question.

  “I’ll be back on my feet in no time, kid! Watch, ain’t nothing change, baby.” Stone smiled, showing yellow-stained teeth with some missing. His skin was ashy and dull, and though he was in his late thirties he looked to be in his fifties.

  Wise looked at Stone, disgusted. This was a man Wise had looked up to when he was younger. This was his idol. Stone had it all. The women. The big caddies. Diamond-studded jewels and name belts. He wore the flyest clothes money could buy. Minks, silk suits, gators, crocs, and other reptiles on his feet. He was a legend. He was a stone cold killer everyone looked up to. Now, look at him.

  “So what’s going on around here, Stone? Who’s doing what?”

  Wise wore a bright red BVD nylon T-shirt, showing his muscular build from years of working out in prison. His black Calvin Klein jeans matched his black Reebok Classics. His once curly hair was now cut low with 360 waves.

  “You know Darnell from the projects got things sowed up over there. Boy blew up something decent,” Stone said in admiration.

  “Word?” Wise asked, nodding his head.

  “The only person besides Darnell getting some money is your girl Ruby. She doing okay for herself.” Stone continued rocking back and forth on one leg at a time.

  The mention of Ruby’s name brought back memories for Wise. He also still felt the same guilt he felt for years after being caught on the visiting floor with a girl who was actually a mule bringing up weed and dope for him to sell. The kiss was the girl passing him dope. He led the girl on to thinking they were in a relationship because she wouldn’t do what she was asked if he didn’t give her the attention she wanted.