Kiss the Ring

by Meesha Mink

  Right on top was a big eight-by-ten-inch photo of Brandon when he was in first grade. The night she went to Ms. JuJu’s to check her—and wound up getting thoroughly checked her damned self—the woman had blessed her with photos of Brandon she’d collected during the years Naeema had missed.

  She smiled a little as she touched his face before she set it down and picked up the next. Photo by photo, she saw her son grow year by year until his eighth-grade graduation photo was the last of the pile. “Damn,” she swore at the senselessness of it all.

  • • •

  Brandon had been a hustler like his daddy—making it do what it do by whatever means necessary—and although he didn’t sling dope like his daddy he started out hustling backward just like him. Wasting a lot of time out of his life appearing busy and gaining not a motherfucking thing but a police record. Ms. JuJu was right. She did her best but Brandon needed somebody wise to the streets to see that hunger in him and kill it.

  He needed us.

  Getting up from the bed she dug her purse out from beneath the garment bag and pushed aside that same wad of money from the robbery and removed the gun she took from Rico, unloaded it, and set it in the container next to her 9mm. That gun was in her name and it woulda been dumb as hell to kill someone with it. She smiled, thinking of the days when Tank took her to the range and taught her to shoot after he bought it for her.

  She felt so alone in her search for her son’s killer, and she knew Tank would’ve had her back if she’d had the balls to reveal her truths to him. He always had been her protector and if he knew she was in the streets of Newark straight running up on fools and being undercover with a gang of thieves, he would’ve flipped the hell out.

  More and more she was feeling like she needed someone to talk to about it. Someone to run shit by to make sure she was seeing everything clearly and not getting caught up in her own head. She opened the file again and pulled out the notebook she kept with it. Under her list of suspects she scratched off Rico, put bold-ass stars next to Red, a question mark next to Vivica, and a circle around Bas. That left Hammer, Nelson, and the dude Brandon stole the cell phone from.

  A look at the updated police report would help but she wasn’t trying to ask Tank for more help with it. She tried to find more info within his juvie record but that was one of the crimes not listed in his report.

  It was time to put more pressure on the Make Money Crew because Naeema was ready to get it handled and leave them the fuck behind.

  Especially Bas.

  Her eyes shifted to the Louis Vuitton bag on the floor. He gave it to her along with the clothes inside it. If her fireplace was working she would light the bitch and shove the bag into the flames. Not that she didn’t love authentic Louis . . . she just didn’t want it from Bas.

  She didn’t want a damn thing from him but the truth.

  But what if he’s not in on it? What then?

  She pushed away that doubt. It didn’t matter.

  And the fact that he probably gave her the best pussy licking of her life didn’t matter either. “Whoo,” she said, fanning herself.

  Frowning she instantly felt fucked up for her hope that she didn’t have to kill Bas. Good candy licker or not, if he was behind Brandon’s death, then she had no mercy for his life.

  Naeema looked down at her notepad and tapped her pen directly between the names Hammer and Nelson. I need to get them alone.

  Hammer the Lover and Nelson the Kid.

  She didn’t have phone numbers for either one, so even if she came up with a scheme to meet up with them, she would need Vivica to execute it. She wasn’t trusting that.

  “Man, shit.”

  She needed a break from thinking. Sometimes when you set a problem on the “shelf” and walked away from it—forgot about it—the answer would just appear. She needed one of those moments big-time.

  Shaking her head, she closed the container but kept the ring on her finger as she replaced the containers and the TV. She turned on the radio, took out her weed pipe, and packed it as she swayed to Faith Evans singing “Soon as I Get Home.”

  “Baby I’ll do what I gotta do,” Naeema sang off-key as hell in between inhales and exhales.

  BAM-BAM-BAM.

  Naeema kept on singing as she raised her foot and stomped back in response to Sarge’s nonverbal complaint.

  STOMP-STOMP-STOMP.

  Humming along to the song, she took another toke from the pipe. “Sing, Faith,” she said, feeling herself get emotional as she thought of Tank.

  The weed and the music were fucking with her.

  Being free from a hotel suite (aka high-end jail cell) was fucking with her.

  Living a double life was fucking with her.

  Knowing old crabby Sarge in the basement cared about her was fucking with her.

  Seeing those pictures of her boy was fucking with her.

  She used to be surrounded by friends and partying nonstop but she preferred being a loner—except when everything was coming at her at once.

  “Shit,” she swore, sitting the dick pipe down and picking up her cell phone to call Tank’s phone number.

  It rang once and went to voice mail.

  Was he serious about pulling away from her? She couldn’t believe that his words the other night were nothing more than just that. Actions trumped everything.

  There’s no way Tank is done. No way in hell.

  Naeema opened her robe and lay back on the bed to spread her legs wide like propellers and used one hand to spread her lips down below and the other to take a picture that she sent to him along with the text COME AND GET IT . . .

  She dropped the phone and put her arm over her eyes as she heard gunshots in the distance. She was feeling the weed and getting lost in the slow jams as she lay in the middle of the bed and stroked the soft hairs covering her fat mound.

  Good thing too or Bas woulda seen my tat.

  Only Tank’s dick game was strong enough to make her put his name on it.

  She bent her leg and swayed her knee back and forth as she picked her phone up from the bed. Nothing from Tank.

  He was her constant.

  Even after she left him he was always there when she called. Always.

  “I’m not feeling this shit no more, Na.”

  Did she underestimate him?

  She dialed his number again and it just rang endlessly this time.

  Naeema called again. And again. And ten times more.

  “You have reached an automated voice mail system. Please leave a message after the tone.”

  Naeema paced back and forth across her living room.

  Beeeep.

  “Fuck you, La-va-ri-us,” she said, using his first name because she knew he hated that. “I ain’t the one to play with and you know that. You got me mixed up with them little tricks in the street that’s blowing up both your heads. Don’t call me no more. And look for them divorce papers.”

  Naeema ended the call and flung the phone back onto the bed as she continued to pace. It wasn’t like Tank not to answer her call. For any reason.

  “I’m not feeling this shit no more, Na.”

  She remembered the night she went with him to the club and he walked up just as some random dude brought her a drink. That led to a discussion of his woman being disrespectful by accepting a drink—which he said was basically an “I want to fuck you” calling card. That discussion led to a heated argument that led to them yelling in the street outside the club and ended with her trying to run him over with her car.

  And when she called him an hour later and told him to come thru they had the most explosive sex ever on the hood of that same car. He fucked her so fast and furious she thought she saw Tyrese, Ving Rhames, and the ghost of Paul Walker applauding from the sidelines.

  But he still had answered her call.

  What if something happened to him?

  And just like that her anger turned to fear.

  She snatched up her cell phone and called his phone
again. It went straight to voice mail.

  “You have reached an automated voice mail system. Please leave a message after the tone.”

  Naeema’s heart was pounding like crazy.

  Beep.

  “Tank, it’s not like you not to call me back . . . not to answer me. Hell, are you okay? Just call or text me that you’re okay. Please?” she said, not caring that she was pleading.

  She dropped down onto the bed and covered her face with both of her hands. She hated not knowing. Who wanted to be angry at someone who was laid up in the hospital or worse? And she hated to worry about his ass if he was just ignoring her calls.

  “Lawd Jesus, all these emotions while I’m high,” Naeema wailed, throwing her hands up to the ceiling before she flopped back onto the bed.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  Naeema tilted her head up and looked toward the entrance to the kitchen. She couldn’t see any of Sarge but his arm stretched across the doorway as he rapped on the frame. “Yes, Sarge,” she said, sitting up and feeling her upper body sway.

  Yo, I am soooo faded right now.

  She fought the urge to giggle.

  “Tank a’ight,” he said, never moving past that point behind the wall that kept him from seeing into the living room.

  So he called Sarge and not me. Oh, okay.

  “Oh, so you can answer the phone I bought,” she snapped, shooting her anger in Sarge’s direction.

  Moments later the door to the basement slammed shut.

  WHAM.

  So they both mad at me.

  And her mood swung from fear and anxiety back to anger and then nonchalance. Fuck it.

  Good weed kicking in had that effect.

  “And they both will be the fuck a’ight,” Naeema said, leaning her head back to look up to the ceiling. “O-kay.”

  Bzzz . . . bzzz . . . bzzz . . .

  Naeema picked up her cell but it wasn’t vibrating. She reached in her purse for her burner cell phone. It was Bas. She sucked air between her teeth. “This motherfucker,” she muttered.

  She had freed herself from the hotel suite and told the front desk he checked out before she caught two different taxis to bring her tired black ass home. She was sick of waiting on him to spare her twenty minutes and a phone call every day. She’d meant to shake him up by leaving because she couldn’t accomplish a damn thing roaming around a suite all day. It was seriously time to shake shit up. So she ignored his call and lowered the volume to silent before dropping the cell onto the middle of the bed.

  Besides, there was no way in hell she could talk to him so high. Naeema wasn’t even trying to trust that shit.

  • • •

  Naeema stayed up all night enjoying the effects of the weed and then getting smoked up all over again as soon as she felt even an ounce of clarity. At nine p.m. she grabbed her wedding ring from its jewelry box and tossed it into the ashes of the unlit fireplace. She dug through those same ashes ten minutes later to find it and then called and cursed Tank out via his voice mail again. At ten o’clock she watched the news while sitting butt naked on the edge of the bed crying. At eleven she baked a batch of brownies packed with walnuts and then ate damn near the whole pan while she blazed on. At 1:00 a.m. she sang along to the entire The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill CD at the top of her lungs as Sarge continued to bang on the ceiling below her. At 3:00 a.m. she walked through every room in the house for no reason at all. And at five she tacked the mug shots or photos of the Make Money Crew to the wall and pretended to blast shots through the dome of each one. At six she fell face forward onto her bed and slept.

  Naeema’s eyes fluttered open and with each blink of her eyes her vision, focused on the doorway leading into the kitchen, was now covered with a dark gray blanket. It wasn’t definite whether the gray was dinge or not. Raising her head from the bed she looked around the living room. She arched her brow at the photos torn in half on the floor like big-ass pieces of confetti. It took a minute to remember being the one to rip them and throw them up in the air.

  Groaning as she backed up off the bed, she smacked her lips and frowned at the nasty taste in her mouth. The combo of morning breath, brownie, and weed had to be worse than dog shit. Naked, with her breasts swaying in countermotion to her hips, Naeema walked to the bathroom. She paused at the entrance and whipped her head to look over her shoulder at the blanket.

  Her eyes squinted.

  Vaguely she remembered the sound of hammering last night during her adventures. She was quite sure Sarge must have accidentally caught sight of her naked ramblings around the house. “Oh Lord,” she drawled, feeling her face flush with embarrassment.

  Bzzz . . . bzzz . . . bzzz . . .

  She turned and walked back to the bed to search the covers for her vibrating phone. “Hey, Bas,” she said into the throwaway phone as she strode back to the bathroom.

  “I’m coming to scoop you up.”

  She paused with her mouth open as she searched for a lie. “I’m at the dentist.”

  “I wanted to show you my new crib.”

  “New crib?” she asked. “What happened to that old crib . . . and that old situation?”

  He laughed. “I told you I was taking care of that.”

  “The old folks say even a slow and steady drip can make an impact and the tortoise beat the rabbit and all kinds of shit to back up you slow rolling on this,” she teased.

  “You comin’ to see it or not?”

  Naeema bit her bottom lip. There is no way I’m passing on that. “Uhmm . . . well, can you pick me up downtown? I should be done in like . . . thirty minutes.”

  “A’ight. Where?”

  “Just come to Broad and Market.”

  “Bet.”

  “What you driving?” she asked.

  “It’ll stand out.”

  What’s next, a fucking helicopter?

  “A’ight,” she said.

  Naeema called for a cab as soon as he hung up and then rushed to the bathroom.

  • • •

  “What city is this?” Naeema asked as she continued to look out the passenger window of the metallic orange BMW Z4 roadster.

  Glancing over at him, she saw the look of confusion on his face as he shifted gears. “We’re still in Newark,” he said, as if that shit should’ve been obvious to her.

  It was her turn to be confused. The long suburban streets lined with either mansions or mini-mansions with manicured lawns and towering trees looked like something on television and nothing like the Newark where she was born and raised. Nothing at all.

  She was used to the towering office buildings and the old-looking buildings housing the museums and churches downtown being so different from her hood. And her hood, made up of small homes or three-family apartment buildings, differed from the projects where she used to roam as a wild teenager . . . but this was like nothing she knew existed in the city she loved.

  “Yo, you never been out the Central Ward?” Bas asked, smiling over at her.

  She might as well have been the naive Queen she played so well for him. She just held up her hand and shrugged before raking her stiletto nails through her black lace-front wig.

  “This is the Forest Hill section of Newark, Queen,” he said, like he was talking to a toddler or some shit. “It’s supposed to be the city’s like richest neighborhood . . . on the books anyway. But this is where you’ll find all the nice-ass cribs built back in the 1920s by rich white folks. Some of the houses are historic landmarks—that means you can’t fuck with ’em, without permission.”

  Naeema’s interest wasn’t faked and her eyes shifted to take in each home as Bas drove up the street past them.

  “Some of these joints ’round here are worth a million dollars.”

  “Newark is way bigger than I thought,” she admitted.

  “Word.”

  He pulled up alongside a huge stone mansion that sat high above the street on manicured grass and was surrounded by a stone wall topped with black wrought iron. “I
used to live there,” Bas said.

  Naeema turned and looked at him in surprise.

  “And I’m going to live there again.”

  She saw the determination in his eyes even with just the light from the towering streetlight above to illuminate the interior of the car. “What happened?” she asked, deciding to feed her curiosity even though she knew she shouldn’t give a flying fuck about his story.

  “This my hood,” he said, flexing his shoulders. “Little private school kid with the prep school flow. My father was a surgeon.”

  She stayed silent. Was?

  “We lived here until I was in college at NYU and my father . . .”

  “Your father what, Bas?” Naeema asked softly.

  “He passed away,” he answered her, suddenly accelerating forward away from the house.

  “Wow. I’m sorry, Bas,” she said, her eyes on his profile. There was more to the story. Her gut told her that. “That must’ve been hard on you and your mom.”

  Bas’s jaw clenched. “Don’t mention her,” he said, his voice hard and angry.

  Another order from him on a person he didn’t want to discuss.

  “Did your moms die too, Bas?” she said, meaning to nudge him. Bait him.

  He slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a stop in the middle of the street. Thankfully it was quiet and no other cars were behind them. He released the wheel and grabbed her chin. She stiffened as the pressure of his fingers deepened.

  Just as quickly he smiled and released her. “Yeah, she’s dead,” he said.

  Her heart was pounding and she was ready to reach for the gun she carried in her purse, but she didn’t fall back. “What happened to them?”

  “Don’t fuck with that, Queen,” he said, his voice low and filled with warning.

  She let it go and settled back against her seat but she set her pocketbook on her lap and patted her piece inside it just in case the motherfucker flipped. Besides, his parents’ story really wasn’t any of her concern. She was on the hunt for her son’s killer and the only thing she could promise Bas was that he would see both his parents sooner than later if he was the one who did it.