by Noire
Punchie was a big, shiny-black drug slanga who had a screw or two loose. He lived in apartment 3F, which was one of the busiest drug holes on the block. The crib belonged to Punchie’s grandmother, and him and his street crew sold crack, yay, and wet from the joint twenty-four-seven, around the clock.
He stood over me smoking a Newport and grilling me like he wanted to X me out. He wore a doo-rag tied over his long cornrows, and a scary-looking SIG automatic was stuck down in his waistband.
“Look”—I stared into his crazy eyes as my knees shook and I worked up a lie—“I wasn’t tryna fuck with your product, Punchie! For real. I swear I didn’t even know this was you. The only one I was tryna fuck with was ya boy, Moolah. Me and that dude go way back to third grade, man! His whole family is grimy! I didn’t know he was puttin’ in work for you, cause if I did I never woulda messed with him.”
That fool swung on me so hard my head whipped over my shoulder and grit from the dirty tenement stairs filled my mouth. My ass was shook. I hadn’t been slapped real good in a minute and I didn’t know how to take it.
“Bitch don’t you ever fuck with my money!” Punchie screamed.
I was so shocked I felt frozen. I slid down two steps and my ass went bump, bump. I pressed my fingers to my lip and realized it was bleeding.
“But I thought I was fuckin’ with Moolah!” I cried out my bullshit.
Oh, this nigga had some screws loose, all right. Shit, them screws was rolling around inside his head like colorful little marbles.
“What? You think somebody stupid, Mink? I know you was tryna jack me, bitch! Catchin’ my cash on the stairs like you got some weight behind you or something! You and that grimy bitch across the hall was eatin’ off me like fuckin’ staircase rats! I oughta break ya fuckin’…”
Suddenly shit changed. Punchie took a deep pull on his cigarette as his beady eyes raped me from my ankles all the way up to the hem in my skirt. He eyeballed me like he had X-ray vision and could see my naked pussy beneath my clothes.
“Yo... you wanna square up with me, Mink?”
I played dumb. Punchie had access to plenty of freaks. Crackheads out the ass woulda lined up to suck his dick down to the bone if he wanted them to, but he didn’t. That psycho fool wanted what I had between my legs.
“Um, I can try to tear you off some change when I get a few dollars, Punchie. But that’s all I can do.”
“Nah, nah.” He waved me off. “I don’t want your money… all that pink you got on make a nigga wanna get up in them guts. Let’s step inside my crib for a few minutes so we can both get straight.”
I smirked. Punchie was feeling himself. Playing dirty. Ever since Gutta got knocked all kinds of shiesty niggas had been tryna play me. Punchie was coming up real nice on the streets, and he was making enough cash to keep me laced in glitter and shine. All I had to do was pull up my skirt and let him lick my sore pussy out, and he woulda forgiven me for violating his bizz, and handed me enough paper to replace what I had just lost, no questions asked.
But I wasn’t going out like that. I was greasy, not sleazy. I was grimy, hell I wasn’t slimy. I was an opportunist, but I damn sure wasn’t no fuckin’ idiot. If Gutta found out Punchie was trampling on his gushy and boning me out, that beast was likely to come home and go on a killing spree.
“C’mon, Miss Body.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a fat roll of bills. He grinned as he started peeling them off. “I’m feening for a hit of that dick-bricking ass you got, ma. I’m ready to get up in them guts and dig into that gushy right now, girl. How much is a slice of that sweet pussy gonna set me back?”
“Nigga don’t even play me like that!” I based. Just because he had knocked me on my ass didn’t mean it was up for sale. “You might be moving weight and all, but that don’t mean shit to me. It’s all about Team Gutta in this camp, and my gorilla ain’t gonna be locked up in the zoo forever! You better chill with all that noise before he comes home and twists your doo-rag back!”
“Fuck that bitch-ass nigga Gutta! That fool ain’t nobody slick!”
“I bet you won’t be talkin’ none of that shit when his ass rolls back on the block!”
“Bitch!” Punchie snatched his tool outta his pants and brought it up like he was gonna backhand me with it, but then somebody kicked the exit door open and cold smashed that fool’s head in with a Glock.
“I wish yo fuckin’ ass would,” Peaches spit and click-clacked a round in the head of his gat. He had on a red teddy top and a pair of flame-colored booty shorts. His size-fifteen feet wobbled in the three-inch heels he had ordered from the online drag queen store, and he stared down at Punchie’s dropped ass with one arched eyebrow raised up high on his forehead.
“Yo, Big P,” Punchie moaned and rolled over with his hands up in surrender. “Yo, my nig, she was—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Peaches barked. The veins in his thick neck bulged and his broad chest strained against his tiny silk top.
“Get up, Madame Mink! Did this muthafucka touch you?”
“I didn’t touch—”
Peaches punted that nigga straight in the balls with his pointy-toed shoe.
“If you ain’t touch her then why the fuck is she bleeding, muthafucka? I done told you”—Peaches reached down and drilled Punchie in the nose with a solid left—“ ’bout putting ya hands on women!”
Blood sprayed outta Punchie’s nose and he tried to sit up. Peaches kneed him under the chin, and Punchie’s head snapped back and cracked against the concrete steps. “You wanna fight a bitch?” Peaches growled, popping his neck. “Then fight me!”
With his tool steady trained on Punchie’s grill, Peaches bent over in his high heels and grabbed that nigga’s gat and his foot too. With one powerful arm he dragged Punchie straight through that puddle of piss and into the hallway.
“I’m telling you, nigga,” Peaches warned. “You better not say a goddamn thing to Madame Mink no more, you hear me? ’Cause if you do, I’ma stick my big dick so far up your narrow ass you gonna think I busted a cap in your colon!”
Peaches stuck Punchie’s pistol down in the front of his short-shorts and grabbed my hand as we headed toward his apartment. Both of us knew better than to turn our backs on crazy Punchie Collins. That loony tune probably had another burner stuck down in his sock.
Keeping our eyes plastered on him, me and Peaches moon-walked backward until we reached the apartment door, then we turned around and switched our asses as we hurried the hell up inside.
Before I hooked up with Gutta I had been living with Peaches and Bunni off and on for years. Gutter came from a big family of Haitians, and he was a true gangsta in every sense of the word. Rolling with him had been like a dream come true. He ran a tight crew of hoodlums who moved weight on Lenox Ave, collected payoffs for the local kingpins, punished niggas when they got outta pocket, and generally rode rough through the streets of Harlem.
Gutta was one of those fearless hoods who would blast a cat in the blink of an eye, and even the hardest dudes running game out there gave him a lot of room to move. He had six scary-ass brothers, and all of them were in and out of jail at various times, and on various charges. Right now his two oldest brothers were upstate doing bids for murdering an entire set on the Lower East Side, and just like everybody else in Harlem, I hoped like hell they would never get out.
Before I met Gutta I had been tricking off a low-level guy who worked in the post office, but I hopped on Gutta’s team when one of his manz started scoping on me. Dude made a big mistake when he took me around his way to show me off to his street crew. Me and Gutta busted one look at each other, and whatever I had going with that other hustler was instantly a dead deal.
Standing close to six-four, not only was Gutta a biggun like I liked ’em, he had a ruthless swagger about him that reminded me a lot of my daddy, Big Moe LaRue. Gutta stayed strapped up with a heavy tool, but his rep was so cold, and he was so fuckin’ brutal and intimidating that he could shake a nigga of
f his spot with just a look.
Right after me and him met, I watched him bum-rush a prime corner from three rival hustlers who were known to be hardbody killers in our hood. My dude walked right up on that profitable piece of concrete and claimed that shit, and all three of those cocky niggas got to scattin’ with a quickness as they relinquished their territory and ran for their lives.
I was in awe of his ass after that. I went home with Gutta and dropped my drawers that same night, and after he slung that dick on me the same way he slung that dope on the streets, I got hooked on his game and moved into his crib just like that.
At first Gutta kept me outta his bizz and outta his heart. He told me if he so much as turned his head he didn’t trust no chicken to keep her mouth shut or her fingers outta his dough. But after I got picked up twice and the cops tried to squeeze on me to get next to him, I showed his ass how tight I rolled. I pretended I was one of them ’Licious Lovers. Those three Harlem rappers who were known for their closed lips. I got up in that precinct and bit the shit outta my tongue, and I was still chewing on it when they booked my ass and sent me for a ride to Rikers Island.
The cops were only gunning for Gutta, and they didn’t really have nothing they could put on me, so I only stayed locked down in Rosie for a few weeks. But that was long enough to show my boo that not only did I have his back, I had mad heart too, and from that day forward he knew I was his loyal ride or die.
Gutta was waiting at the gate when they let me out of Rosie, and he took me back to his crib and treated me like a queen. He ran me a hot bubble bath, brought me dinner in bed, and showed me just how much he had missed me for those two weeks I was gone.
And then, after we finished fuckin’ and we was laying up in each other’s funky, sweaty arms, Gutta reached under the pillow and came out with a box. He slipped a white-gold diamond ring on my finger and told me how special I was to him and how much he was feeling me.
Then he reached under his pillow again, but this time he came out with a blade. He held that shit up in the air and told me he woulda straight up cut my throat if I had so much as squeaked about him to those goddamn cops, and on the real tip, I believed him.
But still, knowing Gutta was a certified fool didn’t stop me from dipping my hand in his dough when he got knocked. At first it was only a couple of dollars at a time. A hundred here, a hundred there. Shit, it cost money to accept all those collect phone calls and to be taking that funky Prison Gap bus upstate! And since Gutta liked me to look good I always went shopping before a visit, and in addition to my designer wear, my wigs and shoes and jewelry and stuff was not cheap!
I used to send him packages and put money on his commissary and stuff like that too, but he told me to stop all that real quick.
“My boyz got me while I’m in here, Mink. Don’t be sending me no money orders or nothin’ ’cause they holding me down real righteous and I’m straight. All I want you to do is take out enough to pay my rent, and then your ass better stand guard over the rest of my cash, ya heard?”
Well what the hell am I supposed to live on? I had thought to myself, and Gutta’s evil ass had straight-up read my mind.
“You still slick, right? And you’s a damn good liar, too. Do whatever you was doing before I met you, yo. Just don’t fuck over my dough ’cause that’s the closest thing to my heart, you feel me?”
That shoulda been enough of a warning to keep my fingers outta his stash, but it was in my nature to dip, and being Gutta’s chick had put me in a bind. The come-ups were biting at my ankles, but none of the major playas wanted to fuck with me. I mean, they all wanted to fuck me, but none of them wanted to fuck with me. Gutta was violent. He was a certified killer. They knew his ass wasn’t gonna be locked up for long, and the potential trouble I could cause them just wasn’t worth it.
That meant the only dudes I could hit were squares who were too low-level to be noticed, or dudes from other boroughs who came with their own ride or die bitches and their own set of problems.
True shit, I loved me some Gutta. I feened for his ass. Yeah, I was scared of him too, but that kind of danger just excited me even more. From his bed game to his head game, everything about that dude turned me on. We both had a thing for living on the edge, and I couldn’t wait for my boo to get back out on the streets so we could show the world what we was working with.
But first I had to replenish his stash. I had to get it up to where it was when he got knocked. There was no way around that shit neither. I mean, I knew my man really had feelings for me, but above all else Gutta was first and foremost a product of the streets. And now that I had lost his apartment and blew through his dough, whether I was his favorite boo or not, if he hit those bricks and his stash was short, the law of the streets dictated that he take his money straight outta my ass.
CHAPTER 5
When I walked into Bunni’s kitchen she was standing by the table looking laced from head to toe. Bunni Baines looked just like a chocolate brownie with a cherry on top. A spiral of fire-red dreadlocks sprouted all over her head like a burning halo, and the silver earrings she had boosted from Nordstrom dangled sexily above her shoulders.
Me and Bunni was almost opposite in our looks, and even though our styles were nothing alike, when we worked the poles together dudes had a real hard time deciding which one of us they should throw their money on.
Bunni was about five-nine, and she looked a lot like Lauryn Hill in the face, although her hips and ass were way curvier. She had big eyes and extra-long fake eyelashes, and her pretty brown skin was smooth and clear.
We were both shopaholic label-whores and we loved looking good, but I liked the weird and the extreme, while Bunni went for the slutty and the sexy. Today she had on a pair of tight-fitting white Armani riding pants, a clingy red Donna Karan belly top that showed off her deep navel and flat abs, and a wide silver jockey belt that I had picked up for her at Neiman Marcus. She was perched in a pair of six-inch hot-red gladiator sandals, and there was enough room between her bowlegs to drive a freakin’ motorcycle through them without touching either one of her knees.
Bunni always kept her shit looking extra-stylish, but that wasn’t what kept men feening after her though. Nah, dudes chased Bunni because of her vicious hoe gap. Her super-fat camel toe. The thick hunk of her pussy lips that she accentuated with every outfit she wore. You would never catch Bunni wearing a skirt or a dress because that type of shit didn’t show off her glamorous Venus mound. Bunni’s chunky monkey was her very best asset, and she put that gushy on front-row display every chance she got.
I wasn’t even in the kitchen good when she got up in my face and looked at me real close. “Oh hell yeah, it’s you all right. You’s a missing child, Mink! Word! Your mug is on the back of every milk carton in Food Land. Trick, please! We been friends all these years and you ain’t never told me your ass was adopted!”
“Please,” I said and rolled my eyes. “Go ’head with that.” I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my wig. “I ain’t got nothing but LaRue blood running through my veins. Besides, when’s the last time you seen a kid on a damn milk carton anyway?”
“Today, dammit! They doing that shit again to help find kids who’ve been missing for a long time, and for real Mink. It’s you in that picture girl! I looked it up on the Web site, and there’s a rich family searching for you. I think you need to let ’em find your ass.”
“Your ass is crazy,” I said and walked past Bunni and went into her bedroom. The outside of the five-story tenement looked a mess, but inside the two-bedroom apartment that Bunni and Peaches shared was some of the finest shit that had ever fallen off the back of a truck.
Bunni’s room was painted fuck-me fuchsia and decorated with butterflies made from thick silver glitter. Her fluffy bed was covered in designer pillows that had ended up in Harlem by way of a hijacked delivery van from a downtown furniture store, and there was all kinds of other stolen shit scattered everywhere.
Me and Bunni went back for a g
ood long minute. She had beat up three bully-ass girls for me when we were in the seventh grade, and she was the only real friend I ever had. I had slept on a fold-up cot in her bedroom from the time I was thirteen until I moved in with Gutta, and no matter what misadventures life took us through, me and Bunni were sistahs for life.
I stepped out of my dirty Fendi outfit and threw it in a pile of clothes that needed to go to the cleaners, then I dug down in a laundry basket full of clean clothes and pulled out one of Bunni’s raggedy bathrobes. I put it on, then peeled off my fishnet stockings and went back into the kitchen looking ratchet as hell.
I sat down at the cluttered table where Peaches was plucking his eyebrows.
“Good looking out, Peaches. That fool Punchie almost had my ass out there!”
He pursed his red-painted lips. “Errm-herrm ... ,” he said, sounding like Madeah. “You lucky I was lookin’ out the window and saw you come in the building, Madame Mink. It seemed like it was taking you forever to get up here so I came to see where you was.”
“Punchie caught me sleepin’.” I shook my head. “Crazy ass!”
“You better watch yourself, Mink. You fucked with that fool’s money and he ain’t going away, you know. I tried to tell you and Bunni that lil ‘catch-a-crackhead’ scam was way too risky, but y’all just didn’t wanna listen. And speaking of scams, where the hell was you all night long?”
I hated to tell them, but I knew I had to. “Y’all ain’t gonna believe this shit.” I leaned my elbows on the table and pushed a half-eaten bowl of Apple Jacks outta my way. “But I lost the damn money.”
Bunni bucked her eyes. “The money? Girl? What the hell you mean you lost the money?”
“Like I said, I lost the money!”
“You mean your ass stayed out all night and you didn’t go pick up that money?”
