Ordained By the Streets (Street Preacher Ebook Series Vol. 1)

by E. N. Joy

  Vol. 1

  The Street Preacher Ebook Series

  Ordained By The Streets

  An Urban Tract

  By E. N. Joy

  Published by End of the Rainbow Projects

  P.O. Box 298238

  Columbus, OH 43229

  Ordained By The Streets©Copyright 2011 by End of the Rainbow Projects

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the publisher, except for brief quotes used in reviews.

  First edition published February 2011

  This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places and incidents is entirely coincidental.

  Other Books by this Author

  Me, Myself and Him (E. N. Joy)

  She Who Finds A Husband (E. N. Joy)

  Been There, Prayed That (E. N. Joy)

  Love, Honor or Stray (E. N. Joy)

  Trying to Stay Saved (E. N. Joy)

  I Can Do Better All By Myself (E. N. Joy)

  Even Sinners Have Souls (Edited by E. N. Joy)

  Even Sinners Have Souls Too (Edited by E. N .Joy)

  Even Sinners Still Have Souls (Edited by E. N. Joy)

  The Secret Olivia Told Me (N. Joy)

  Dedication

  This Urban Tract is first dedicated to God for giving me the details of this story blow by blow in a dream, and for allowing me to remember every single aspect of the dream when I woke up. You did that for a reason. Now I'm waiting on the edge of my seat for you to reveal why.

  Next, this book is dedicated to my readers all the way back from when I used to write secular works under the names Joylynn M. Jossel and JOY, who have now transitioned with me to Christian fiction under the name E. N. Joy. It's also dedicated to all those reading fans in between; the ones who are still Joylynn M. Jossel and JOY fans, the ones who are E. N. Joy fans and, of course, the ones who are both. Thank you for being avid readers who are in love with the written word as a whole and not just a genre.

  Acknowledgements

  My family and friends always deserve a great big shout out. It's hard to fly and soar toward your dreams without wind beneath your wings. Family and friends, especially my husband and four children, you are the wind beneath my wings.

  Dr. Maxine Thompson, thank you for your wonderful editorial skills. You took this story from me just retelling a dream to actually being able to visualize on paper every step and detail so that the reader would feel as if they were the one actually experiencing the dream. You are the best.

  Darrell King, thank you for calling me up that day and sharing with me exactly what I should do with this story. Between your Ghetto Bytes and my Urban Tracts, we've recreated the modern day Penny dreadful. Much success to you.

  Chapter One

  "I'm Saved," she said as she stood next to me, full of a painted-on attitude. It was clear, to me anyway, that she was trying to hide. She was trying to hide the fact that underneath that Khaki mini skirt, crisp, white Tommy Hilfiger puffy short sleeved blouse, and behind those hundred dollar tennis shoes that she wore with footies with a ball on the back, she was nothing but a bonafide hoodrat.

  Her outfit was fitting for the end of spring beginning of summer weather we were having here in Columbus, Ohio. What wasn't fitting, though, was her. She just didn't look cut out for what she was trying to paste herself into.

  I looked at my favorite girl, Tia, strangely as we all stood outside of the Greyhound bus station on Town and Fourth Street. "For real, Tia? Are you serious with this one?" I mean, I had to ask her. Like I said, this footie wearing hoodrat just didn't seem to fit the picture I'd painted in my head when Tia had told me about her over the phone. I couldn't believe I'd interrupted a recorded episode of The Wire for this live rendition of Orphan Annie here.

  "Poppa, I'm serious," Tia replied. "You know I wouldn't play you like that-waste your time and all." Tia rocked back and forth, shifting her one hundred and eighteen pounds from one leg to the other. "She's everything I said she was." Tia looked at the girl. "She's young; said she just turned eighteen, looking for work and got no place to stay."

  The typical runaway fresh off the Greyhound bus, I thought. But what was she running from? Or perhaps I should be asking who was she running from? Then there was always the possibility that she was actually running to something.

  Both Tia and I looked the girl up and down. "Eighteen," I commented in disbelief, then sucked my teeth while shaking my head.

  "Yeah, eighteen," the girl jumped in, detecting my doubt. "What? You calling me a liar or something? 'Cause I don't get down with nobody who don't trust me and thinks I'm a liar."

  As offended as the girl tried to sound—as upset about my not believing she wasn't eighteen as she tried to appeared—I knew she wasn't eighteen. Seventeen maybe...seventeen and a half about to have a birthday, but eighteen she was not. I mean, who did she think she was fooling with here, an amateur? I'd been in this game for seven years; since I was seventeen myself. So I'm kind of what one might think of as a connoisseur when it came to broads. Like wine, I could just sniff 'em and tell everything I needed to know about 'em. And this one...sniff sniff sniff...was seventeen.

  "She ain't have no ID on her, Poppa," Tia added. "But what reasons she got to lie? Ain't like there's a legal age limit for what she gon' be doin' anyway," Tia chuckled. "I think I did pretty good if you ask me." Shrugging, Tia simply stood next to Little Bo Peep (or was she the lost little sheep?) as if she'd just brought forth the best of her herd to be sacrificed.

  As I stared at the two, it was no wonder Tia was so fond of the young girl. Standing there together, they looked like they could have been best friends in high school. Tia the leader of the pack of course, with her long weave down to her butt, acrylic nails and pretty brown skin donned in cosmetics. Her clothes, skinny jeans, a silky blouse with ruffles and two inch heels made her look a little more mature than her protégé. Although she would be turning twenty-two her next birthday, Tia could easily pass for a high schooler.

  "Yeah, Tia, I agree," I decided to stroke her ego just a tad. "I think you might have done good, but we'll have to see." I took a step closer to the young girl and gave her the once over. "Yeah, we'll just have to see about Mary's little lamb here." I chuckled this time around.

  If I were to use church folk terms, I could have referred to Tia as an Evangelist. Somehow she had an anointing on her that could bring the people into the house. Not the house of the Lord, but the house where I gathered, fed and kept all the other sheep like the strange girl standing before me; like Tia herself.

  After a brief observation, this young girl appeared to be just another lost sheep that had now been found. She'd been found by Tia. I could be wrong; this girl could have, in fact, found Tia. Young girls were just drawn to Tia like that. It was because Tia looked like she had the answer they needed in order to make it. Other girls didn't feel threatened by her. With the way Tia walked, with the way Tia talked, and with the way she looked at them with such conviction in her eyes, by the time Tia was finished with her verbal spiel, they believed she could lead them to someone who could save them from the evil that lurked. Not save their souls, not save them from the wretches of hell, but save them from the streets.

  "So what's the deal?" Now the girl looked me up and down like she was sizing me up, "...Poppa?" The way she said my name, unlike when the other girls said my name, had a hint of sarcasm behind it. It was like she was wondering i
f I could live up to my name. Could I be that Poppa, that Daddy in a girl's life that most of them were out here on these streets seeking?

  "I don't know yet," I replied, wondering why I was even still entertaining this broad at this point. She had too much lip. That meant trouble. Coming from the streets though, trouble always seemed to find me, whether I was hiding from it or not.

  "You don't know?" The girl sucked her teeth and then looked at Tia. "What kind of mess is this? I don't have time for this. I'm tired, I'm dirty...I'm tired. Is we gon' do this or not? If not, I'm going to keep it moving."

  She looked at me as if her leaving would be my loss. I thought for a second; heck, maybe it would be. But she was right; we'd already wasted enough time. In this business, time was money. She needed to make up for lost time. 'To turn her out or not to turn her out?' That is the question that lied before me. Hmm, now what would be my answer?

  Chapter Two

  I looked over Tia's and the girl's shoulders as if I was looking for someone else. It was time to start playing the game.

  "Wha-what is it, Poppa?" Tia asked, looking behind her.

  "I'm looking for that chick you was telling me about on the phone that had me dragging my butt all the way down to this bus station." I pretended as though Little Bo Peep was invisible. It was time to break her down.

  "Poppa, this is the girl I was telling you about," Tia stressed, playing along. "The one I met in there, inside the bus station." Tia pointed toward the bus station doors of which we stood about twenty-five feet from at the curb.

  "This is her?" I said, feigning shock that Tia would even think that I would entertain allowing this girl to feed in our pasture.

  It wasn't a complete act though. I was somewhat shocked, because Tia should have known better. She knew my type more than any of the girls. Tia was one of my best girls, which is why I kept her posted up at the bus station. I did this for two reasons. For one, she was a sight for the sore eyes of those dudes fresh off of hours, sometime days, of travel without female companionship. She, uh, sort of knew how to lead them to a help mate. She, uh, kind of, helped them mate. Second, she was hope for those girls fresh off of hours, some days, of travel with nothing to eat and nowhere to go once they stepped off the bus.

  I shook my head. "For real, Tia girl, who is this chick?" I asked.

  "I'm Saved," the girl said once again, this time extending her hand.

  I noticed the sterling silver crucifix around her neck. "So what's a saved girl doing looking to get into this line of work?" I asked, taking her hand into mine and kissing her knuckles. It was time to get into character. I then pulled out a handkerchief from the pocket of my slacks and wiped her knuckles off. "My saliva is like a top of the line cologne. Goes for $75 an ounce minimum. Can't let you walk around with my scent on you for free."

  The girl looked over at Tia who winked and smiled at her. The girl was obviously not impressed as she looked me up and down before asking, "So you're Poppa?" She then, once again, looked me up and down like I was a bag of trash her father had forgotten to take out on garbage day.

  I could tell right off the bat it was going take me a little longer to mess with her head than it had been for me to mess with some of the other girls' heads. But I wasn't stressin'. There wasn't a nut yet that Tia had brought to me that I hadn't been able to crack, although, like I discerned initially, Miss Thing was going to be a challenge. But that was cool. It was time for a challenge in my life, to keep me on top of my pimp game. Trials, tests and tribulations only made me stronger. I just had to figure out which one of those this new girl was.

  I looked Miss Thing up and down, returning the same glare she'd given me. She was playing hard. I was hard. The streets had made me that way. She had no idea what she was up against. I nodded and thought to myself, A month tops and I'll have her right where I want her.

  "Big Poppa...that's me." I stuffed the handkerchief back into my pocket. "Now that you know my name, tell me, what's yours?"

  Once again, she looked over at Tia as if to say, "Is this dude deaf or something?" She faced me and then repeated for the third time, "I'm Saved. Lucinda Sa'Ved Allen. But everybody just calls me Saved."

  The revelation of me realizing that she had been introducing herself to me and not giving me her religious status must have shown across my face as Saved spoke again. "Yeah, that's right...get it now? My name is Saved. When I said 'I'm Saved,' I didn't mean it as in sanctified and Holy Ghost filled. Although I am a strong believer in God. And even though I ain't never been for real for real saved...you know, turning my life over fully to Christ and dipped in water and all...just as soon as I get myself together, I'm gonna get saved...in the church house."

  "Is that so?" I chuckled. I couldn't hide my amusement. I'd heard it a thousand times before. These young girls all expected God to reach down from the heavens and pull them out of the life they'd chosen to live. The life that most of them blamed the devil for instead of the jacked-up choices they'd decided to make.

  Each and every one of them was Julia Roberts waiting on their Richard Gere from the movie, Pretty Woman. God was going to send them that trick that came riding up on shining, spinning, twenty-two inch rims and rescue them from the life—rescue them from themselves—rescue them from me. Yep, many of girls had stood before me with that pipe dream; a couple of them only fortunate enough to encounter that trick who came riding up with a shining, sharp, twelve-inch knife, cutting them from ear to ear. Yeah, they'd gotten out of the life all right. They'd lost their lives.

  Did I feel guilty about that? Yeah, sometimes. But, hey, I couldn't protect them all, could I? I had ninety-nine sheep, which meant I had ninety-nine problems. So when one went astray, could I risk losing the other ninety-eight to go after just that one? And now here stood sheep one hundred.

  "Yes, that is so," Saved stated, placing her hands on her hips as if she'd sensed my doubt and was yet again highly offended. "Why you ask like that? You think God won't let an ex-whore into heaven?" Before I could even reply, she was pointing at me and bobbing her head. "Well, I'll have you know that Mary Magdalene was an ex-whore, and not only was she one of Jesus' homegirls, she was also one of the first to discover that Jesus' tomb was empty after all those mean people jacked him up. Yeah, that's right, while all the brothas, his so-called homeboys, were still hiding out, afraid they'd be associated with Jesus and put to death, the sistas were up and ready to draw heat if necessary to have their Lord and Savior's back." She rolled her eyes and let out a tsk sound. "That's just like men; always leaving the sistas to hold things down."

  "Baby girl," I said, brushing my hand across her cheek. "That may all be true, but one thing is false."

  "Oh, yeah," she stated.

  "Yeah." I stepped in closer and began brushing her other cheek. "You are no whore. You are a strong, beautiful, young woman who's doing what she has to do to survive...or as you would say, to hold things down." Oh how I loved messing with their heads. Just did something to my ego.

  She looked over at Tia. "Girl, I thought you said this was a pimp. A real pimp ain't afraid to call it just like it is, and I'm a whore." She gave me one of them Jennifer Hudson attitude huffs.

  Oh how I hated when my ego was deflated.

  I placed my hands in my pockets and waited. Although I'd only known this girl all of five minutes, I knew she was just getting started.

  "Heck, I ain't ashamed to say it; I'm a whore," she admitted. "Can't be delivered from it if I can't even confess it. So no need to sugar coat things for my sake. I'm only seventeen," she said, not even realizing she'd just confirmed her lie, "but I've seen more than any grown woman will ever see in her lifetime." Her eyes seemed to gaze past me. "I've been through scenes in my life that not even the best scriptwriter could describe. That not even the best movie director could direct. That not even the best novelist could write."

  For the first time since I'd laid eyes on Saved, I saw it. I saw what Tia must have seen in this girl. I saw that look of desperation.
I saw that look of need. She desperately needed to forget all about her past and move on with her future. It was time for me to play on that.

  "Well, Poppa's here now," I told her. I removed my hands from my pockets. "And you got Tia and some other chicks on the squad I'll introduce you to that will have your back. So...maybe it's time for you to start writing your own script to life. Directing your own life. Calling your own shots."

  Saved's once far-off stare now rested on me. "Good. I'm glad you see it that way. Because speaking of calling my own shots; first thing is first: I don't trick on Sundays. As soon as I find me a church around this town, that's where I'll be on Sundays. We had some live churches up in Cleveland. I mean them praise and worship teams could take a Saint to the throne I'll tell you. Hopefully y'all do it in the CO like we did in Cleveland. Anyway, so don't 'spect me to be turning no tricks on my day of rest."

  I looked over at Tia who just shrugged. I gave her a look letting her know that I'd deal with her tail later for bringing me some snot nose hussy who thought she was gon' come up into my camp running things. I then looked back at Saved. "Anything else?" I asked sarcastically. I wasn't really expecting her to tell me anything else. I never drilled the girls right off the bat. In time, they'd tell me everything I needed to know and then some.

  "Yeah," she stated matter of factly. "I don't know what your cut of my money is. I don't care. I just need a warm bed, food and clothes. But what I do know is that I don't put no man before God, which means I take His money, ten percent tithes, off the top. Cool?"

  On that note I couldn't hold it in any longer. I busted out laughing. A measly chuckle wouldn't suffice. "Is she for real?" I said to Tia. I then addressed the question to Saved. "Are you for real?" I mean, this girl was buggin', like she was doing me a favor or something. It was as if she had an agenda. She was on a mission and I was just a stepping stone in her getting there. No, I take that back, more like a pebble.

  "Yeah, I'm serious," she said.

  And she was. That much I could tell. Once I saw just how serious she was, my laughter ceased. This girl was like none other I'd ever dealt with. No other chick had ever come at me with such boldness. When any of them had tried to step to me like they were running things, I'd back hand them so quick and hard that they never thought twice about doing it again. But with this girl, I don't know. I liked her feistiness. I liked her. She had character. I liked her enough to at least try her out. I saw it this way; if I liked her, so would the johns.