Hell's Diva

by Anna J.

  When Mecca spoke to Shamel about it, Shamel knew exactly what Mecca knew. “He knows because he’s the one who got niggas doing it,” Shamel said.

  “I ain’t been showing my face around the ville. Mu’fucka think that I’m on some high posty shit,” Mecca replied.

  Shamel shook his head. “Nah, Mecca. Niggas know you a female and even though you bust your guns, niggas still can’t grasp the thought of a girl running a spot. Another strike is that you’re not out there on the front lines. Niggas respected your aunt so off the strength niggas went with the flow, but how long will you last just off the strength of who your aunt is? You aunt is not here so niggas don’t give a fuck no more.”

  Mecca slammed her fist into her palm. “I’ma show these niggas I ain’t no soft-ass chick!”

  Shamel grabbed Mecca’s hands in his, and then kissed her softly on the lips. “Chill, Mecca, you ain’t got to do nothing. That’s what I’m here for. I’m going to handle this. You my woman now and I ain’t gonna have you running around getting into no shootouts with niggas. I got this.”

  Three weeks after the kidnapping of Shamel, as the swelling on his face disappeared, Shamel was back out on the streets. The scar on his face was still raw and pinkish, giving Shamel a menacing look. Shamel called Kaheem’s girlfriend and Kaheem answered the phone.

  “Shamel, what up, son!” he bellowed, sounding as if he were happy to hear from his cousin.

  “Ka, what up. Where you been, kid?”

  “A yo, son, me and Born was out of town in B-More trying to get something going out there. There’s crazy paper out there, son,” Kaheem lied.

  Shamel kept his cool and talked as if he didn’t know that it was his own cousins who kidnapped him and cut his face. “You heard what happened, right?” Shamel asked.

  “Yeah, son. We gonna find out who did that foul shit and it’s on!” Kaheem said, trying to sound sincere and angry about what happened to Shamel. Shamel could tell that Kaheem covered the phone with his hand. He heard him mumbling in the background.

  “Where Born at?” Shamel inquired, setting his plan in motion.

  “Still in B-More. He fucks with some bird out there. Nigga act like he in love or something,” Kaheem chuckled.

  “When he get back in town, y’all come see me, al right?”

  “I’m saying if shit is back to normal. I’ll be back on the block tonight,” Kaheem replied while getting a stronger grip on his girlfriend’s hair as she sucked his dick.

  “That’ll be good. Yeah, come through.”

  Dear Aunt Ruby,

  I hope that by the time you receive this letter you’ll be in the best of health physically and mentally. As for me, I’m maintaining and holding things down. A lot of shit has been going on and I feel like I’m going to have to go there. Shamel got kidnapped and niggas cut his face. I had to cough up paper to the cats who got him or Shamel would have made the column. Tah on some other shit. All of a sudden gates in the ville get held up and he dumb to who or what. I know he behind it all because I ain’t fucking with him. Times are hard and I need you. Things ran smooth when you were home. Niggas and bitches think I got soft, but I swear I didn’t. I’m going to prove to you that I didn’t. When you come home, things will still be on the up. Aunt Ruby, write me back ASAP and let me know what you think and what I should do. I miss you and I’m coming up next month.

  Love, Mecca

  When Mecca went to her mailbox a week later, she kind of expected Ruby’s response to be short and to the point, but Mecca wished Ruby would at least break things down more. Reading the response, Mecca knew her aunt was angry at her.

  Dear Mecca,

  Take care of what I asked you to do.

  Ruby

  Chapter Eighteen

  Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

  Proverbs 27:6

  “There’s a proverb in the Bible, Mecca, that says, ‘Hell and destruction are never full: so the eyes of man are never satisfied’,” Lou quoted. He continued, “Never satisfied, how true that is,” Lou snickered. “Greed, greed, greed. Humans are greedy! How did you put up with conniving, low-down people and still feel that it was worth it?”

  “You just don’t understand. I had to do what I had to do,” Mecca responded with candor.

  Lou howled with laughter. “You’re wrong, I do understand. I understand that your whole life you’ve been surrounded by these types of people. Hate to have to say it to you, but your parents were those types of people too.”

  “I wasn’t around them long enough for that,” Mecca growled, angry at Lou’s comment.

  “That’s so unfortunate. All I’m saying is that you were raised to think that what you were doing was right, but at some point with all you were going through, you should have realized nothing good would come of that life. Your family was the perfect example of why you should have stopped.”

  “Stopped and did what?” Mecca yelled.

  “Let’s see.”

  Shamel’s grandmother returned from her trip down South. Before she could share the news of how good of a time she had, and advise Shamel and Mecca to save up some money, buy land down there, and get away from these treacherous streets, she was concerned about the scar on Shamel’s face.

  “Baby, what happened? How did you get that? Lord Jesus!”

  “I was fixing a light at Mecca’s apartment and one of those florescent bulbs broke and cut my face,” Shamel lied, with Mecca cosigning his tale.

  “You got to be careful. I bought you and your cousins some stuff back,” she said, digging in her black leather suitcase. Shamel watched his bowlegged grandmother walk to her suitcase slowly, as if her bones hurt. He figured her arthritis was getting worse. He acknowledged that for her eighty years of living, her dark chocolate skin, though wrinkled a little, made her look twenty years younger.

  She still had pretty long hair, now gray, that reached beyond her shoulders when she didn’t have it in a bun. She always dressed as if she was going to church: skirts down to her knees, knee-high stockings with shoes that nurses wore, and a blouse buttoned up to the top. Shamel rushed over to help her open the suitcase.

  “Thank you, baby. I brought y’all some shirts that are nice. They look as good as those expensive clothes y’all waste y’all money on. Y’all crazy with them ninety-dollar shirts and pants, and hundred-dollar sneakers.”

  Shamel looked at Mecca, shrugging his shoulders as his grandmother pulled out multicolored, flannel, button-down shirts and some blue and black jeans. The kind they sold in Sears or gave you in prison.

  “Ain’t they nice?” she asked, holding up a shirt, showing Shamel. “And look at these jeans. They just like the ones y’all wear and I only paid twenty dollars for the shirt and pants together! Clothes are cheaper in the south than up here! This city is so crazy I got to go, and so should y’all! Mecca, you’re a pretty girl. Ain’t no pretty girl like you need to be wasting her time in this crazy place. These guys have no respect for women up here. Down south they treat you like a lady, you hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mecca replied.

  Shamel’s grandmother handed him the clothes. “Go try them on, and give these to those two knucklehead cousins of yours. Those two are up to no good. Where they been? I ain’t seen them in a while before I left. Tell them I said don’t be calling me from no Rikers Island asking for bail. I’ll tell that judge to keep they little tails in there.”

  Shamel threw the clothing on his bed. “Grandma, I’ll try them on later. I got to make a run!” Shamel yelled from his room. He walked out of his room and waved his hand to Mecca, signaling for them to leave.

  “Okay, baby. Don’t forget to tell those knuckleheads I wanna see ’em.”

  “I ordered the double cheeseburger, son!”

  “Nah, nigga, I did. This your Big Mac!” Kaheem and Born argued in front of a McDonald’s on Broadway and Kosciusko Street in Bushwick. Kaheem held the McDonald’s bag in his hand while Born trie
d to reach in and grab the double cheeseburger.

  “What difference does it make? Just come on!” Kaheem’s Puerto Rican girlfriend yelled while she folded her arms, trying to keep warm from the cold night air. Her cream complexion was red from the frigid wind. The black and red North Face kept her upper body warm but the tight-fitting Parasuco Jeans that gripped her heart–shaped, plump ass didn’t protect her from the cold.

  “It’s cold as hell and you dumb-ass niggas wanna argue over some burgers. Kaheem, let’s go!”

  Kaheem and Born both looked at her at the same time and in unison barked, “Shut the fuck up!”

  “Y’all niggas need to get a life, for real.”

  “Karmen, you get yourself a job and all of the sudden we gotta get our lives together. You got the nerve to ask Mecca to come work with you at this bullshit McDonald’s!” Kaheem grumbled while Born laughed.

  “Some people change. Unlike y’all dumb asses y’all want to be in the streets forever. This shit don’t last forever, y’all gonna wind up in jail…”

  Kaheem and Born finished the sentence with Karmen, “Or dead!”

  “We heard it all before, Karmen. Come up with something new. Nothing last forever, man,” Kaheem said.

  Karmen thought Mecca would at least give it a try. She and Mecca became friends when Kaheem brought Karmen to Shamel’s crib. They double-dated twice and Karmen and Mecca clicked. Karmen liked Mecca’s style. She knew Mecca was real and not like the fake chicks in her neighborhood who smiled in your face and gossiped behind your back.

  After Dawn, Mecca told herself she would never get close to another chick like that. In fact, Mecca kept her circle extremely small. Shamel and her aunt. Yet, she could not help but be drawn to Karmen. Karmen talked about a lot of things besides men and materialistic things. Karmen had goals. She wanted to save up money and open a restaurant that served soul food and Spanish food. She wanted to eventually leave New York after opening up a chain of restaurants. She loved to cook. She worked in McDonald’s to save up money to go to culinary school to become a chef.

  Mecca wondered why somebody like Karmen would be in a relationship with a low-life like Kaheem. She figured there was somebody for everybody. Karmen even suggested that she and Mecca go into business together. Mecca would agree with her, but she thought that Karmen was just a dreamer and it would never happen. As long as she was with Kaheem, he would do nothing but bring her down. A lot of times, Mecca wanted to tell Karmen about what she thought, but it wasn’t her business. Maybe Karmen knew something she didn’t.

  “Whatever, Kaheem, I’m walking. Y’all can argue over some burgers all night if you want, I don’t care,” Karmen said, starting to walk up Broadway under the elevated train tracks that the J train ran on.

  As the train rode by, Karmen looked back to see if Kaheem and Born were behind her. She sucked her teeth when she noticed them still arguing over the burgers. Karmen heard footsteps behind her when she turned. A man who appeared to be a homeless bum bumped into her.

  “Damn, watch where you going,” Karmen snapped.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the man said gravely.

  Karmen looked him up and down, studying his dirty, ripped-up jeans, old gray sheepskin that looked like a mangy dog, and some old beat-up New Balances that were caked in dirt. Karmen looked at the man’s face. It didn’t fit the way he appeared. His face looked clean, when he spoke he showed pearly white teeth, and he was clean-shaven. To her, he appeared to be attractive and no older than twenty-five. As Karmen walked passed him, the man turned around and grabbed her from the back in a bear hug.

  “What you doing?” Karmen screamed as a car screeched to a halt and the man, who was too strong for Karmen, lifted her head and walked toward the car.

  “Get off me! Kaheem!”

  By the time Kaheem and Born heard Karmen scream and they took off running toward her, she was already in the back of a black MPV minivan that screeched off. Kaheem pulled his black .357 Magnum and shot at the vehicle until he emptied his gun. “Karmen!” he screamed, watching the back of the MPV disappear into the cold night.

  In Mecca’s East New York apartment, Shamel’s cellular phone rang while he sat in front of Mecca’s fifty-two-inch screen television playing Super Nintendo. He answered after the first ring.

  “Yo!”

  The voice on the phone answered indistinctly, “She said she’ll meet you in Queens.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Open rebuke is better than secret love.

  Proverbs 27:5

  “Welcome to the Baisley Park Houses,” the orange and blue sign said as you came into the eight-story, brown brick housing project on Guy R. Brewer Boulevard in South Jamaica, Queens. It was a notorious neighborhood that bred one of the most infamous drug gangs in the city of New York; a project that filled the pockets of hustlers with millions. The people of Jamaica, Queens called it “The Baisley.”

  Shamel had a partner he met on Rikers Island from the Baisley, and he would let Shamel use the apartment to hide out from the police in Brooklyn if needed. He also let Shamel use it when he was creeping on Mecca.

  “You think he would put up the money?” Shamel asked Karmen, referring to his cousin putting up ransom money for her.

  “If he did that to you, I know he don’t give a fuck about me,” Karmen said to Shamel as she sat at the kitchen table eating four chicken wings and fried rice off of a Styrofoam plate from the Chinese restaurant. Shamel sat on the other side of the small wooden table eating a pastrami and cheese sub sandwich.

  “I told you before, Shamel, he can’t be trusted. Neither of them,” Karmen continued.

  Shamel pulled his cellular phone out of his black and red Avirex leather jacket and set it on the table in front of Karmen. “Call him and find out. You got to put the act on. You know, sound like you’re scared and all that.”

  “C’mon, Shamel, you know I know how to act. I got this, watch the performance.” Karmen smiled and grabbed the phone. Karmen dialed Kaheem’s cellular phone, and he answered on the first ring.

  “Who this?”

  “Kaheem, come get me, boo, they gonna kill me!” Karmen said in a shaky and terrified tone. She hoped she sounded believable over the phone.

  “Karmen, you all right, ma?” Kaheem asked, sounding concerned.

  “Yeah, Papi, I’m fine, but they want thirty G’s and they’ll let me go!”

  “Karmen, listen. You know where you at?”

  “No. Just come—”

  Shamel grabbed the phone and disguised his voice the way Kaheem and Born tried to do when they kidnapped him.

  “A yo, duke, thirty G’s. Drop it off on Linden Boulevard by the weed spot. Right on the block where the car lot is at. You got an hour.”

  Before Shamel hung up he heard Kaheem say, “A yo, hold up, son. Listen. That bitch ain’t worth nothing to me. Do what you gonna do.”

  Shamel let Karmen listen to what Kaheem said by putting the phone between his ear and hers. Karmen was hurt by what he said, but not shocked. She shrugged her shoulders,

  “Oh, well, we knew what to expect though,” Karmen said, getting up and throwing the plate of Chinese food in the garbage.

  “Damn, niggas ain’t shit!” Shamel grumbled.

  “You should know that. You ain’t shit either, or is this pussy so good you can’t turn it down?” Karmen said as she sat on Shamel’s lap and ran a finger along Shamel’s ear. He grabbed her ass and squeezed through the jeans, grinning.

  “You want me to answer that?” Shamel spoke as he smiled in her face. Karmen grabbed Shamel’s crotch and felt his hard dick under his pants.

  “Damn, that big boy ready, huh? To answer your question, I want you to answer mines by fucking this pussy.”

  Karmen stood up and unzipped her jeans, pulling one pant leg down, exposing the red lace thong she had on underneath. At the same time Shamel pulled his pants down to his ankles, letting his dick poke out through the hole in his blue silk boxers. Karmen pulled her th
ong to the side and sat on his stiff dick.

  “Ay, Papi, I know Mecca’s pussy ain’t better than this.”

  “I can’t get involved in that. Those cops are going to harass me.”

  “So you’re just going to allow a woman who was protecting herself from a man trying to kill her to sit in jail for life?” Mecca asked the eyewitness from Harlem who saw the Spanish man creeping up on Ruby try to shoot her.

  Mecca was dressed in an ocean green blazer with a white blouse underneath and a beige skirt that made her look like she was a businesswoman. Her hair was neatly pressed out to her shoulders, with a part running down the middle of her head. The witness looked like a nerdy computer wiz who lived alone, sitting at his computer all day, drinking tea and eating potato chips. He was a brown-skinned, frail-framed, twenty-five-year-old college student from Rhode Island attending Columbia University. He tried to close the door of the brownstone on 138th and Morningside, but Mecca jammed her foot between the door and the frame.

  “Please just leave me alone. I’ll call the police!”

  Mecca sighed and put on a sad demeanor. “Please, man, she’s my aunt, and she’s all I have. Just please help her.”

  “I don’t think I can help her anyway. From what I hear, she’s in jail for other murders. She’s not an innocent person I just seen protecting herself, she’s a monster,” the guy said, watching Mecca’s facial expression change from a pleading one to a face of fury and rage. Mecca stared at him coldly for a few seconds, moved her foot, and let him close the door. Then she walked away.

  The witness looked through the glass on the wooden door at Mecca’s back and shook his head. “People are crazy these days.”

  If the man knew who Mecca was, he would have taken the $100,000 she had offered him and signed the affidavit. If he knew what that look in Mecca’s face meant, he would have packed up and headed back to Rhode Island. Instead, he put it all behind him and forgot all about Ruby and that day. The witness remembered the look on Ruby’s face when she emptied her gun. It was the same look he just saw on Mecca’s face.