I did, too—for a while.
Shit jumped the tracks when I turned twelve and I made the mistake of waking up in the middle of the night....
“Alice, what the fuck are you doing in here?” Maybelline barked.
My eyes bugged at the sight of a man’s yellow behind pumpin’ in between Maybelline’s legs.
“Get the fuck out of here,” she snapped again. “Go back to bed.” She dropped her head onto the pillow and started moaning and groaning.
I couldn’t tell if she was enjoying what was happening or not. The sounds confused me. I stood there, not sure of what to do. Yet, at the same time, I was fascinated.
SQUEAK. BANG. SQUEAK. BANG.
It was the bed making all that noise.
SQUEAK. BANG. SQUEAK. BANG.
“I said get the fuck out of here!”
The yellow man chuckled. “Let the girl be. Maybe she’s learning a thing or two.” He wrapped an arm around Maybelline and flipped her over. “You see how much your sister like this good dick I’m throwing at her?” he asked me.
Was she?
“Leroy, stop playing . . . OH . . . shit. That’s my spot, baby.”
“Hell, yeah. Big Daddy knows how you like it,” he bragged. He spread open my sister’s booty and I twisted up my face in disgust. “Shit is good, ain’t it, baby?”
“Fuck yeah.” Then Maybelline spotted me again. “A-Alice . . . oh . . . shit. Dammit. Don’t make me tell you again. NOW GO!”
Turning, I ran out and slammed the door behind me. Back in my own room, I slammed my own door and then covered my mouth with my free hand. Then, I laughed. Hard. I simply couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. It wasn’t like I never heard of sex. I had heard things and even seen some nasty pictures, but I’d never seen the shit raw like that. I set Nana’s gun down on top of the chest of drawers next to the door and giggled my way back to bed.
SQUEAK. BANG. SQUEAK. BANG. SQUEAK. BANG.
I shook my head. I couldn’t wait to tell Nana Maybelle about this shit. Maybelline was gonna get it. Nana done told us plenty of times not to bring niggas up in her house when she wasn’t home.
The squeaking and banging went on forever. In order to get some sleep, I ended up burying my head underneath the pillows. No sooner than when I dozed off, I felt something slide up my leg. Groggily, I kicked it away, but it became rougher and more persistent. Alarmed, I tossed off the pillow and tried to sit up, but I didn’t get an inch up off the bed before I was pinned back down with a huge hand shoved across my mouth. Who in the fuck?
“Shhhh,” the man said, peeling back my bedsheets. “We don’t want to wake Peaches up, do we?”
My eyes bulged as I realized who it was. I screamed and shoved him off me, but my voice was muted behind his hand and he was far too strong.
“Now. Now.You want to be nice to your Uncle Leroy, don’t you?”
I screamed again, but he laughed and shoved a hand between my legs.
“Ah. Yeah. This is what I’m talkin’ about. Your shit is tight as fuck.” He crammed in two more fingers and wiggled them around. “Has another nigga been up this shit before?”
I didn’t understand what he was asking me. Tears rolled from the corners of my eyes.
“Nah. This is some fresh pussy here.” He chuckled his beer breath into my face. “Shit. It must be my muthafuckin’ birthday.” He yanked my panties off of my hips and then snapped my legs open like a wishbone.
“Aaaaargh!” Leroy backhanded me so hard, cartoon stars rotated around my head.
“Shut the fuck up!” His hand crammed back over my mouth. “Are you tryna get my ass in trouble? Huh? I just came in here to give you what you wanted, baby girl.”
Hot tears blanketed my face. I didn’t want this. He was hurting me.
“I saw how you were looking when I was doing Peaches. You wanted a taste of Leroy for yourself, didn’t you?”
“Noooo!”
Leroy’s backhand rocked my head in the opposite direction. A second later, blood oozed into my mouth.
“You’re a muthafuckin’ liar.” Leroy grabbed my hand and then forced it around his dick. “You like that, baby girl? It’s all for you.”
My heart raced around my chest. His shit was hard and thick. Surely he didn’t think that he could fit all of that inside of me.
“You like that, baby girl? Hmm? You feel how hard you got me, thinking about your tight pussy? Fuck. I bet your shit is sweeter than Peaches’s.”
“Please,” I mumbled under his hand. “Don’t.”
“It’s gonna hurt for a second, but after that you’re gonna be beggin’ my ass not to stop.”
His hand pressed harder against my mouth—to the point that I thought my teeth were gonna collapse. Where the fuck was Peaches?
“Be happy, baby. Uncle Leroy is about to make a woman out of you.” Before he even finished the sentence, he thrust up his hips and split me wide open.
I screamed, cried, and bucked like hell; but he remained on top of me, ripping me apart.
“Aw, shit,” Leroy panted. “This is some good shit. Oooh.” He huffed and puffed and drilled his hips. He seemed unaware I was suffocating—that or he didn’t give a shit. My chest hurt, my head swelled, and the demon on top of me kept drilling his dick.
Suddenly, the door burst open and Maybelline bolted inside.
“Peaches, you come in here to join us?” Leroy asked, still stroking between my legs.
“Muthafucka, get off my sister!” Peaches ran toward the bed, leapt onto Leroy’s back, and pounded him on the head. “You sick, muthafucka. She’s just a kid.”
“Wh-what the fuck! Get off me.” With one powerful swing back, Leroy sent Maybelline careening back toward the wall.
She hit it headfirst and then dropped down on top of the nightstand below. However, she didn’t stay down long. She bounced up, grabbed my brass lamp, and swung it at Leroy’s head.
Thunk!
At last Leroy was lifted off of me.
I shot up, wheezing for oxygen, and then scrambled off the bed.
“I’m going to fuckin’ kill you!” Maybelline sprang back onto the bed, fists flying.
Leroy acted as if he felt no pain. He grabbed my sister by the throat and then whaled on her like a punching bag.
I rushed for Nana’s gun on the chest of drawers and swung back around.
“Have you lost your muthafuckin’ mind, bitch?” Leroy’s fist crashed against Maybelline’s jaw. “Do I look like some punk muthafucka to you? Huh?” He switched up and hit her with a right hook.
Maybelline dragged her nails straight down his face, fuckin’ up his shit forever.
He howled, but then delivered two more punches.
The gun shook in my hands. I felt like a human earthquake. What if I missed and he came after me?
“You just wanted all this good dick to yourself, didn’t you, Peaches? You ain’t got to worry about a damn thing. There’s plenty of this good dick to go around.” He snatched open Maybelline’s legs.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I drew a deep breath, closed my eyes, and fired.
POP! POP!
“What the fuck?” Leroy roared.
POP! POP!
I peeled open my eyes to see Leroy jerk around as my bullets slammed into him. It looked so good that I couldn’t stop firing.
POP! POP!
“Aaaaargh,” Maybelline yelled. “You shot me!”
I eased off the trigger. Leroy slumped over on the bed. His big golden eyes stared up at nothing while his dick remained rock hard.
It’s that look that haunts me to this day....
My man parks the van in front of the house and kills the engine. Instead of us jumping out and getting to work, we just sit there—listening to the sounds in the surrounding woods. My nerves are humming so bad that I dive for the glove compartment for a cigarette.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
I ignore the question until I put fire to the tip and suck in my nicotine
fix. “Let’s do this shit,” I say. I open the door and hop out of the van before he can ask me any more dumb-ass questions. The rain drenches me from head to toe. I stomp over leaves and broken tree branches. A tiny voice in the back of my head shouts that it’s not too late for me to back out of this shit, but I laugh at that. Grabbing Maybelline was messier than I intended.
At the back of the van, my boo opens the door and reveals the rolled bloody carpet inside. I smile and puff out a long stream of smoke.
“Feel better?” he asks.
“I’m having an orgasm just standing here,” I tell him.
Smirking, he tosses the carpet over his shoulder as if the body tucked in it doesn’t weigh shit. Strong niggas makes my clit hard.Who knows—I might keep his ass around.
Maybe.
Relationships aren’t exactly my strong suit.
Drawing in another deep drag, I follow my man’s steady march to the front door. I’m turned on by the young brothah, but I’m watching his ass. Like I said: I don’t trust nobody. I toss the cigarette and smash it into the wet ground with my heel before entering the house.
We get through the front door and edge our way to the stairs leading to the full basement. The place is a mess, but who really gives a shit? It will serve its purpose. I hit the switch and watch the light flicker while it decides whether to stay on. A whiff of mildew-funk assaults us as we descend the creaking stairs.At the bottom, we fight our way through a maze of spiderwebs to the spare room with a warped wooden door.
The room is as big as a matchbox. Inside there’s a single rollaway, a nightstand, and a wooden chair with one leg shorter than the others. There’s also a window with iron bars.
“Where do you want me to put this?”
My head swings back to my man at the stupid question. “On the floor. Where else?”
“All right.” He tilts the carpet off his shoulders and then eases it onto the floor. “There you go.”
I walk up to it and kick it until it rolls open and reveals the body within. “Maybelline, Maybelline, Maybelline.” A smile stretches across my lips. “Welcome to your new home.”
5
Lucifer
“This shit is fucked up,” Bishop swears, pounding his fist on the back door of this banged-up Escalade. Unlike me, my brother has never had a problem showing his emotions. He’s a tough soldier, but Fat Ace has been like a brother to him since we were kids. They rose up the ranks together. There was mad love and respect between them. I feel all that he’s feeling and more.
“I hear you, cuz,” Cutty says, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. Memphis’s city light passes by in a long blur.
Normally, I’m the one that’s behind the wheel, handling business and getting it done, but there ain’t shit normal about tonight.
“I hate to even think about what those sick GD fucks will do with our man’s body,” Novell adds, shaking his head. “Fat Ace deserves better, cuz.”
More tears sting my eyes, but with no rain inside the vehicle to cover them up, I fight those muthafuckas back with everything I got.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
A large sob grows in my throat, but I choke on that muthafucka instead of letting it out. Now that my body has been untwisted and I’m not pinned inside that wrecked SUV, I can breathe a little better—and think clearer.
“We gotta get over there,” Bishop announces. “No way we let them keep Mason’s body.”
Hope springs up in my chest. I reach for a gun that I no longer have at my side. “Let’s do it.”
Cutty lifts his head and stares at us through the rearview mirror. “Say what?”
“Nigga, I didn’t stutter. Let’s do this.”
Cutty glances at Novell in the front passenger seat only to see cuz hang his head.
“Strap me,” I tell Bishop, ignoring the incredible amount of pain ricocheting throughout my body.
He twists his face. “Hell naw.We’re dropping you off at Dr. Cleveland’s so he can patch you up. We’ll handle this shit.”
“Don’t you dare treat me like a bitch.”
Bishop tosses up his hands. “But, heifer—”
“Ain’t no buts to this shit. I’m a muthafuckin’ gangsta, nigga. All life long, baby. Now what?”
Bishop clams his jaw tight though I can see he wants to come hard at me. I can’t let that shit happen—especially in front of our people. If he clowns me, my authority goes out the window. I mush the side of his head. “Fall back and play your muthafuckin’ position.”
Bishop glares.
“Now strap me,” I order him again.
Swearing under his breath, Bishop reaches down to his pants leg and retrieves his backup.
I eyeball it and then his TEC-9. He knows what’s up before my ass even has to ask. We exchange guns. “The only reason I ain’t goin’ upside your head right now is because we’re blood.”
“Are you two fuckin’ crazy? We’re not going to get any closer than we did last time.”
“The fuck we won’t,” I tell him. “They would never expect our ass to hit them twice in one night.”
“That whole area should be swarming with cops by now,” Cutty shouts.
“Fuck them. I ain’t worried about the fuckin’ police,” I yell back, heated.
“You need to be,” Cutty shoots back. “We may have the captain in our back pocket, but that nigga don’t do miracles. We need to scrap these rides and lie low.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” Cutty barks.
I blink. Who this muthafucka thinks he’s talking to?
He adjusts his tone. “All I’m sayin’ is that we need to think this shit through. Unless that nigga Python is dumb as shit, he ain’t gonna be rollin’ over to Shotgun Row neither. It’s too hot over there right now. If he’s got our boy—”
“There’s no if to this shit,” I snap.“I watched the nigga take Fat Ace with my own eyes.”
“A’ight. A’ight,” Cutty gives in. “I ain’t doubting your word, ma.”
“Ma?” I snatch up the TEC-9 and plant that shit to the back of his head. “Who the fuck are you callin’ ma? Do I look like one of those fuckin’ chicken heads you get slobbin’ on your shit? Huh?”
Cutty throws his hands up. “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.”
“Show the proper respect, nigga.”
“My bad.” He flinches. “I didn’t mean to step out of line, Lucifer.”
Novell dives over from the passenger seat to grab the steering wheel while Cutty and I play out our drama.
After a long, tense silence, Bishop leans over.
“C’mon, Willow. He didn’t mean nothin’ by that shit.”
“Fuck that,” I growl. “Muthafucka talkin’ like his ass been promoted.You think because our leader is down that you can talk to me any kind of way?” I jam the barrel harder at the back of his head. “Huh?”
“Nah. Nah.” Cutty shook his head. “That’s not what’s up.”
“You sure?”
“Hell yeah.You got your stripes. I wouldn’t dare come out of pocket, cuz.”
“I used to think that shit—but you were bumping those gums mighty hard a few seconds ago.”
“I apologize, Lucifer. It’s all good.”
The car heats with tension while we eyeball each other through the rearview mirror. While I waver whether to pull the trigger, Bishop leans over again.
“He’s a good soldier, Willow.”
I grind my teeth and then lower the gun.
Cutty’s shoulders slack as his hands return to the steering wheel. His ass dodged a bullet.
For the next mile, nobody says shit, but all eyes keep darting back toward me. Only Bishop has the balls to speak.
“So what do you want to do?”
It burns my ass to admit Cutty is right. Hell, I hear sirens all over the place now. “Nah. That nigga wouldn’t go back to Shotgun Row. He’d be hiding out somewhere.” I cut my gaze toward Bishop. “Where are some of the other places you tagged hi
s ass?”
“Just to this one place out in West Memphis—an old warehouse that looks as if it’s been converted into a crib. He was only there for a hot minute. He could be laying his head there or maybe one of his jump-offs.”
“Shit. He got plenty of those stashed everywhere.” I roll my eyes at that long shot.
Bishop bobs his head.
“Fuck it. Let’s roll,” I say.
“You got it, cuz.” Cutty says, cheesing and flooring the accelerator.
I shake my head, knowing that he’s tryna get back on my good side. From the corner of my eyes, I see worry lines stretch across Bishop’s forehead. “What?”
He hesitates for a second.
“C’mon. Spit the shit out,” I tell him, agitated.
“I ain’t too sure about the lay of the land, nahwhatImean? I don’t know how many niggas he got stashed over there. Could be none, could be a whole lot. Like I said, he only dipped over there for a few minutes when I tagged him.”
“Fuck it. Call in backup.” I pat my pockets and realize I lost my burner inside the crash. “Give me your phone.”
Bishop reaches into his pocket and hands me his burner. I hit Tombstone and he picks up on the second ring.
“Holla at your boy,” he answers.
“Hey, man. This is death calling. What’s the damage over your way?”
“Far as I can tell we’re down eight. Minimum damage. What’s the head count in your neck of the woods?”
A boulder rolls into the center of my throat. I can’t get into this shit about Mason with him right now. I clear my throat. “Status report due later. Right now, we gonna need some backup.”
“You know I got you.Where you rollin’?”
“Hold up. Here’s Bishop. He’ll fill you in.” I hand the phone back to Bishop. While he gives directions, I tune out and pull my shit together. Every fucking muscle, tendon, and nerve feels like they’re rubbing over broken glass while my lungs threaten to collapse with each breath I take. I should go to the hospital—but I’m determined to see this shit through.
Gangsta Divas Page 3
