“I’m glad that we are able to come to an understanding.” Skeet winks at me. “I’ll see my way out.”
“You do that.” It takes everything I have not to throw something. A few minutes later, I hear my mother giggling downstairs. No doubt he’s turned on the charm. I swear I don’t know what the fuck she’s see in that man. A few minutes later, I hear Bishop coming into the house.
Round two.
I get less than a minute to prepare myself before Bishop fills my doorway. “Got your summons,” he starts in on my bad side. “What’s up?”
“C’mon in. Sit down.” I gesture to the foot of my bed.
He hesitates and then finally drifts inside.
“I wanted to give you a heads-up that I’m gonna call a meeting with our high-ranking members sometime next week. I’m going to lay out some new plans and directions for our set going forward.”
Bishop’s brows clash in the center of his forehead.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He shrugs and does a slow drag over my two casts. “Just . . . do you really think that you’re up for something like that?”
“What do you mean? We have chairs, I’ve certainly mastered the art of sitting on my ass these past couple of weeks.”
“I know. It’s just . . . nobody’s going to blame you if you take a little more time for yourself. I mean, I can handle things until you’re back on your feet.” He reaches over and squeezes the knee on my good leg. “You should be focusing on getting better.”
The used car salesman’s smile creeps me out. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m fine.”
“C’mon, Willow. You’re pushing yourself too hard. Clearly, you’re still having a hard time dealing with . . .” He glances at the laptop. “. . . Mason’s passing. You’re not eating. You’re not sleeping. I didn’t want to say this, but you look like hell.”
“Yeah. It looks like you were struggling to tell me that.”
“I’m going through it, too. You know how much Mason meant to me. He was like the brother I never had.”
That part of his story is true. “I know.”
“Then let me do this for you. I want to.”
“You mean that you want to take over permanently,” I correct him.
“Sure. I mean,…uhm….”
Unable to hold it in any longer, I laugh. “Juvon, who in the hell do you think you’re fooling?”
“What?”
“This whole concerned bullshit.You can’t possibly believe that I’m falling for it.”
“What?” He stands up from the bed. “You think I’m faking this?”
“I don’t think, I know. You might want to get those wheels in your head greased because I can hear them turning a mile away. I’m not even in the mood to pretend that I don’t know what you’re up to.”
Bishop’s face performs all kinds of acrobatics while he tries to think of something to say. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“You don’t know what I’m talking about?” I’m heated.
“No,” he says, stubbornly sticking to his lie.
“All right then. When were you going to tell me that you’ve already called a meeting with the leaders for tomorrow? ”
Blood drains from his face while it does that whole acrobatic shit again.
“See.You’re showing me all kinds of disrespect right now. You know that, don’t you? If you were any other nigga I’d be going upside your head.”
Our gazes crash.
I decide to give him one more warning. “Don’t come at me sideways.”
Bishop rolls his eyes and backs up just in case I go for the cane next to my bed and carry out my threat. “A’ight. So I called a meeting—but it wasn’t because I was tryna sneak behind your back. I was tryna to help—like you always did for Mason. Didn’t you always have his back? Didn’t you step in whenever he was locked down or laid up? I don’t remember you always asking for permission to step in or step up. What’s the problem?”
“The problem is people are already whispering about you plotting to come at me for the throne. Seems some disloyal and gossiping soldiers are swoll about having a woman running the game. Now here you come cock-blocking—again. What the hell am I supposed to think?”
“That’s not what’s up,” he insists, looking guilty as hell. “Besides, since when do you listen to gossip?”
“Every time my name comes up.”
“Fine. You see it how you see it. I didn’t come here to argue with you.”
“That’s because you don’t have an argument. I told you once, now I’m going to tell you again. Fall back and play your position. If I have to tell you a third time, it’s gonna be a fuckin’ problem.”
Bishop clearly got something to say so I wait for his ass to say it, but then he punks out. “Anything else?”
“I canceled your meeting,” I tell him.
He grinds his teeth together. “Anything else?”
“Nope.We’re good.”
He nods and then storms out of the room. This is not going to be the end of this.
14
LeShelle
There’s an endless stream of voices floating around my head. I try to concentrate on what they’re saying, but it’s too hard and I just give up and drift among the memories swirling around. . . .
The room was pitch black. Not even the moon bothered to shine through the open window. I hated that house. It smelled like old cat piss and Newport Menthol cigarettes. The tiny twin-size beds we had to sleep on were as hard as rocks and the pillows were as flat as pancakes. It was our fourth foster home in three months and the drill was pretty much the same. The woman of the house, Ms. Ruthie, didn’t want us to be seen or heard and she damn sure didn’t want our asses eating too much.
In the first two weeks of our moving in, soap and water never hit her ass. She was planted in a La-Z-Boy in front of the television and would only get up to eat and shit—and she did a whole lot of both. Her face reminded me of Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son and she kept her hair in braids except in patches of bald spots.
Her man was a white nigga who insisted that his name was Abdul and he was at least ten years older. He didn’t smell no better. But he would get up every fucking morning like he had a W-2 to get to, but in reality, that muthafucka never went farther than the front porch. He sat out there and talked a lot of shit about how niggas was ruinin’ the neighborhood.
I wasn’t in that house two seconds before figuring his ass out. Hell, I knew a pedophile when I saw one. When he got the right amount of alcohol in him, he didn’t even hide the lust in his eyes and would do it in front of his bitch, too.
“Get me a beer,” he’d always say when he wanted a close inspection.
I wanted to bark that I wasn’t nobody’s trained dog, but a few foster homes back I got busted in the mouth for that smart remark so I knew better than popping off. Each time I handed him a beer, he’d make me stand there with the bottle held out while his gaze dragged over me.
“You sure are a pretty lil thing,” he’d say. “I betcha your pussy is just as pretty.”
I never responded.
“How old did you say you were again?”
Silence.
“What’s the matter? Cat’s got your tongue?”
Silence.
“That’s all right.” He’d reached for the bottle. “I like a bitch who knows how to keep her mouth shut.”
It was a matter of time. I knew it—and he knew it. Which was why on the night shit went down I was laying there in that eerie darkness with my ears strained for the slightest sound. For a long time, all I could hear was Ta’Shara slow-breathing in the bed next to me.
“T?”
There was a long silence and then, “Yeah?”
“Let’s run away,” I blurted out, sitting up. We’d done that before but this time I was determined we wouldn’t get caught.
“Where would we go?”
“I don’t care. Anywhere.”
> She didn’t say anything.
“Don’t tell me that you rather stay here.”
“God, no. It’s just . . . it’s so dark and scary outside.”
I huffed out a breath, remembering that during the last escape, Ta’Shara cried every time she saw a crackhead shaking down the sidewalk.
“I don’t know, LeShelle.”
My hands balled at my sides. Why did she always make things difficult? Five minutes passed before I tried it again.
“T? Are you still awake?”
She hesitated. “Yeah.”
“Well, do you want to?”
“I—”
SQUEEEAAK.
My head whipped around to the door. There was somebody coming up the hallway. Not wanting to take any chances, I grabbed the blanket and pulled it up over my head. I don’t remember ever praying so hard in my life. “Please, God. Not this shit again.”
SQUEEEAAK.
The sound grew closer, so close that I knew that whoever was out there in the hallway had already walked past the half-bathroom. My stomach knotted up when the doorknob turned.
“Don’t worry, Shelle,”T whispered. “I locked it.”
I released a sigh of relief, but then a key slipped into the lock and rattled around.
SQUEEEAAK.
The door hinges sounded far worse than the loose floorboards in the hallway. The moment Abdul edged into the room, I smelled him.
SQUEEEAAK.
He closed the door behind him and then called himself tiptoeing his way toward my bed. The bed was so hard that when he sat down it didn’t even dip.
Squeezing my eyes tight, I prayed: God, make him go away. God, make him go away.
“Hey, lil girl.” He felt around and then snatched down the blanket. “Whatchu doing hiding under there?”
“What do you want?” I hissed, angry that God hadn’t answered my prayers.
Abdul’s funky breath singed my nose hairs. “C’mon, girl. You’ve played this game before. Anyone can take one look at you and know that your cherry was popped a long time ago.” He jammed his hands between my legs and squeezed. “Ain’t that right?”
I bolted up, but before I could jump out of the bed, he’d grabbed and pinned me back down.
“Where are you going, you lil cock tease? I’m not finished with you.”
The thought of that muthafucka putting his pasty-ass dick anywhere near me had that undercooked chicken Ms. Ruthie fixed for dinner rolling around in my stomach.
“Get off of me!” I twisted, kicked, and tried to buck him off.
“Aww. You’re a feisty bitch, huh?” He wrestled with me, but after a while he got tired of the game and slammed his fist across my jaw. Stars exploded and circled around my head like a cartoon. In case my ass was about to say something else, he sent another blow in the opposite direction. Blood gushed out of my mouth and I was too stunned to say anything. While I tried to clear my head, Adbul snatched my cotton nightgown off.
His rough, calloused hands roamed over my body like he didn’t know where to start playing first.
If there was anything to be grateful for, it was that I couldn’t see him. Light continued to avoid the room. All I could do was close my eyes and hope that he would nut fast and get the fuck on.
Something sharp trailed up my leg. He had a knife.
“You better be nice to me or I’ll cut this hot lil pussy up.” Proving he meant business, he slid the tip of the blade across my clit.
I flinched at a sharp sting of pain.
His ass was crazy.
“You know in some parts in Africa men cut the girls’ pussies out to stop them from becoming whores.” He chuckled. “Maybe I’ll do the same thing to you.”
The blade glided down the other side of my clit. I jerked, tryna get away, but he locked me down with one hand and emitted another wave of stank-ass funk in my face.
“That’s it. I love it when you lil bitches fight back.” He shifted around until I felt his dick hit my leg.
I froze. The shit was about go down no matter what I did. Something snapped inside of me and I gave up. The sooner I let him do whatever he was gonna do, the faster the shit was gonna be over with. I took one deep breath, closed my eyes, and then let my arms and legs go limp.
To my surprise, Abdul went from excited to confused to pissed. “What the fuck?”
To get another rise out of me, the blade returned and made another slice. I forced myself not to react.
Abdul grew angrier. “Oh, I know what you need.” He rammed his dick between my legs. He huffed and puffed but my pussy remained dry as a desert.
“Ah, Shit. Ah, shit,” Adbul kept moaning. That, and, “I love fuckin’ black pussy.”
On and on it went. What this rapist lacked in size, he made up in stamina. Every time I thought that his ass was about to come, he would just flip me over into a new position and go back at it.
Throughout his bullshit sex talk, I could hear T whimpering and crying in her bed. During a few dry thrusts, I wondered what the hell she was crying about. It wasn’t like he was stretching out her pussy. My resentment melted away and I reminded myself that it was better that I endured this shit because I was stronger. I was the protector.
Hell. Most of the time Ta’Shara was scared of her own shadow. She couldn’t take it when other kids picked on her or looked at her sideways. It had become a habit of mine to step up and fight her battles. That’s how it’s supposed to be. We’re family. We only have each other.
SQUEEEAAK. SQUEEEAAK. SQUEEAAK.
My heart leapt. Ms. Ruthie was up. She’s gonna catch this muthafucka and get him off me. Our bedroom door burst open.
“Ain’t you through yet?” Ms. Ruthie snapped.
Adbul kept deep stroking. “Does it look like I’m through? Aw. Shit. I’m about to cum.”
“It’s about time. You’ve been in here almost an hour.”
“Ah, shit. Ah, shit. This bitch got some tight shit, Ruthie.You just don’t know. Ah, shit.”
“What? That fast bitch? Please. Tell that shit to somebody else.” I spotted the glowing tip of her cigarette at the door before she responded.
“Ah, shit.” He kept pounding.
“What about that other one?” she asked. “You test her out yet?”
“FUUUUUUUCCCK,” Abdul blew out my eardrum. By the way he convulsed, I guessed it meant his ass came. He didn’t even bother to pull out.
“Shit. It’s about time,” Ms. Ruthie huffed. “Now c’mon.You done played long enough.”
Abdul grunted. “Damn.You ain’t gonna let me catch my breath?”
“If you’re talkin’, you’re breathin’. Now c’mon.”
He sat up and whined, “I haven’t played with the other one yet.”
“It’s late. Now bring your ass on.”
“Dammit, Ruthie.” He stood from the bed and shuffled to the door. “You said I can do both of them.”
“Don’t get mad at me because you spent all your time with the slutty one,” she argued back. “Do her tomorrow.”
“Fine. Tomorrow then.” They walked out of the room and closed the door.
SQUEEEAAK. SQUEEEAAK.
Ta’Shara and I listened as they headed back to their bedroom. Neither of us moved or said a word until we were sure Abdul and Ruthie were back in their bedroom.
At last,Ta’Shara popped up and raced to turn on the light. We expected to see my sheets drenched with blood, but they weren’t. Like I said, Adbul was hardly my first rapist foster dad, but I could still feel those three cuts on my clit.
“Shelle, are you okay?”Ta’Shara asked, rushing over to me.
I wanted to scream, “Does it look like I’m fuckin’ okay?” But T was too young to understand.
“Shelle?”
“Yeah. I’m all right.” Those four words hurt like hell to get out of my mouth.
“I’ll go get you a washcloth.”
She turned to run off, but I grabbed her wrist. “Wait until they’re asleep. W
e don’t know if he’ll creep back out.”
“And grab me?” she asked with fear blanketing her face.
I wanted to reassure her. She didn’t have a single curve on her young body yet. What would he want with her? Then I remembered that some dudes like young boys—or anything with a hole—and Ta’Shara had as many as I did.
“He’s gonna beat me and stick his weenie in me, ain’t he?”
I shook my head.
“But he said—”
“Don’t worry about what he said. I’m going to take care of it.”
“But—”
“Hey.” I grabbed her chin and forced her to look at me. “Don’t I always take care of you?”
Ta’Shara nodded.
“Then leave it to me.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Go back to bed.”
“Don’t you want me to help you clean up?”
“No. I can take care of it myself. Go!”
She hesitated.
“Go,” I hissed.
Ta’Shara slunk back over to her bed and crawled beneath the sheet.
I felt guilty for yelling at her, but damn she could be hardheaded sometimes. I sat up in that bed for another hour with no clue on what the fuck I was going to do. I kept thinking it was best for us to pack up our shit and go. I was a smart girl. We could survive the streets. I’d seen plenty of abandoned and boarded-up houses on the way to school. Why couldn’t we stay in one until we could get some real money flowing?
That shit sounded real good to me and I was convinced that we could do it. When I was sure that Abdul wasn’t coming back, I climbed out of bed and walked like a zombie toward the door. On my way out, I turned off the bedroom light. I told myself to go straight to the bathroom to clean myself up, but I ended up in the kitchen without thinking about it and pulling out a butcher knife.
The floorboards didn’t squeak when I eased my way back down the hall. I evened out my breathing so that I wouldn’t make a sound. The only time that my heart tripped up in my chest was when I turned the doorknob to Adbul and Ruthie’s bedroom. I waited to see whether the old hinges would announce my presence. When they didn’t, a sinister smile curled up the corners of my lips and my grip on the knife tightened.
Meow.
Gangsta Divas Page 8
