That meant I had to see Alice.
The second I planted my ass in the chair in the visiting room, I wanted to bounce back up and waltz out of that muthafucka. I couldn’t get the image of Mason lying in a ditch somewhere or maybe even tossed in the bottom of some garbage dump out of my mind. If Alice didn’t want the baby, she could’ve left him with me. Sure, I would’ve bitched, but I would’ve taken care of him. I had always picked up the broken pieces.
The metal door opened and a line of women in prison uniforms marched out to take their seats before the Plexiglas and their visitors.
When Alice strolled out, she looked rough as hell. Her once beautiful, black hair was long and stringy, her eyes were hollow and shifty, and her full lips were pale and dry. For a second, my heart softened and all I could see was that twelve-year-old with tears rolling down her face and blood oozing down her leg. I had a feeling that she was always going to be that girl to me.
Alice took one look at me, pivoted, and started to march out.
I leapt to my feet and pounded on the Plexiglas. “Alice!”
The guards jumped to attention and one even came up behind me to pull me back. “Alice!” I shrugged off the guard. “If I leave I’m never coming back.”
That didn’t seem to bother her.
“And you’ll never see Terrell again,” I threatened.
She stopped.
The guard’s hand landed back on my shoulder and I tossed up my hands. “Okay. Okay. I’m going,” I told him. If the bitch didn’t want to talk to me then fuck it.
“Wait,” Alice yelled.
I almost didn’t stop, but I did. By the time I turned around, Alice was sitting in her chair and picking up the black phone. Grudgingly, I returned to my chair, but I waited before picking up. For a few seconds we listened to each other breathe.
“Well?” she asked, twitching in her seat. “What the fuck do you want?”
“What do you think? I want to know where Mason is.”
Alice’s face hardened. “Why don’t you tell me?”
I dropped the phone and rolled my eyes to the sky. “Lord, give me strength.” When I looked at her again, her eyes were brimming with contempt. I knew then that she was going to stick to her bullshit story. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Please. I’m not stupid,” she said, twitching in her seat. “I know that you took Mason. It couldn’t have been anybody but you.”
It was too big of a bait for me to ignore so I snatched the phone up again. “And why in the hell would I do that?”
“Because your dried-up pussy can’t make any babies,” she shot back and then leaned toward the Plexiglas. “You can’t stand that I’m more of a woman than you’ll ever be. Face it. That’s why all your niggas creep they way into my bed. They want to be with a real woman. That loose shit between your legs never could keep a man. In the end they all come to me wanting a taste of the real thing. Ask Isaac.”
The bottom fell out of my stomach. The evil bitch just shot me in my heart. I didn’t even have time to beat back the tears. “You’re lying,” I whispered.
Alice watched the water roll down my face and thrust up her chin with pride. “Am I?”
Our gazes crashed in what felt like a duel to the death, but my ass came up short. “You hate me that much?”
“If you were me, wouldn’t you hate you, too?”
What the fuck could I say to that shit? She was never gonna see things from my side. What was the point of wasting more time and words on the issue? “All right. I’m glad that you got all that shit off your chest. Now that I know how the fuck you feel, we can squash the make-believe sisterly bullshit between us once and for all. I’m tired. You and your bullshit make me so fuckin’ tired. But it’s over. You hear me? You’re dead to me.”
“Is this what the fuck you came down here for—to make me watch you climb up on that cross again? Squash that shit. I’m dead to you?” she shouts. “You’re dead to me, bitch. I should’ve killed you when I took out your nigga Leroy!”
The image of twelve-year-old Alice firing our Nana’s gun flashed in my head again. Two bullets slammed into Leroy’s chest and two blazed holes into my left leg.
“Trust and believe that the world would’ve been a better place without your ass in it,” she spat.
I slammed the phone back down and stood up.
“YOU HEAR ME? I SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU!”
“Fuck you. I hope your ass rots in here,” I mumbled under my breath as more tears rolled down my face.
Alice ranted as I headed out the door. “I want my sons back, bitch! GIMME ME BACK MY SONS!”
As the memory drifts away, I squeeze my eyes tighter and beg a God that I no longer believe in to end this shit. Apparently, He doesn’t believe in my ass either because the only answer I get is the familiar squeak from the basement stairs.
She’s back.
Groaning, I struggle to uncurl from one corner in the room, but when I move an inch my body mutinies and I ball up even tighter. A key rattles in the lock and then a second later, Alice strolls into the room wearing a bright smile.
“Good morning,” she sings, after spotting me in a corner. “I see you’re up early.” Alice walks over to the rickety wooden chair at the foot of the bed and sets the food down.
The smell of bacon and eggs has my stomach twisting into double knots and a new sheen of sweat beads my hairline.
“I figured that you should be sick of flapjacks by now so I switched it up.”
“Alice, please. I need . . . to get to a doctor.”
“Oh. You’re fine. You probably just have a stomach flu. You’ll shake it off in a couple of days.” Her smile thins out as our eyes connect.
She’s changed since I’ve been down here. Her long gray hair has been dyed back to it once youthful color of a warm chestnut, except for a strip in the front—exactly how I used to wear my shit. She’s wearing makeup and if I’m not mistaken that’s my blue dress, hugging her slim body. What the fuck is wrong with this girl?
“I see you staring.” Alice spins around so that the dress’s skirt fans around her. “You like?”
My stomach does another painful lurch. “Alice, please.”
What’s left of my sister’s smile fades. “Humph.” She cocks her head and inches her way toward me. “You know . . . maybe you’re right. You don’t look so good. In fact . . . you look kind of green.” Alice stops at our invisible line. She knows how far the chain shackled around my one good leg and arm will allow me to reach—if I wasn’t doubled over in pain. It doesn’t matter. The chains stopped being necessary a while ago. Pain is my shackle now.
“It doesn’t feel so good when someone tosses you in a cage and then throws away the key, does it?” Alice asks, looking philosophical. “The feeling of abandonment is so profound, isn’t it? The absence of love, caring, and understanding. It’s downright inhuman.”
My answer is a long, winding groan. I can’t help it. It feels like I’ve swallowed a box of nails. The simple task of breathing is a bitch. “Get me to a doctor,” I plead in between trying to process small sips of air, but I think my lungs are shutting down. “Please.”
Alice sighs and shakes her head. “Sorry. No can do. Seeing how I’ve escaped the hospital myself, I’m sure you can understand why it’s best that I avoid them.”
“You can . . . just drop me off in the emergency room,” I reason. “I promise . . . I won’t tell anyone about this.”
“There you go again—treating me like I’m stupid.” She tsks under her breath as if scolding a child. “I’ve always hated it when you did that shit. Just like I’ve always hated how you thought your ass was always better than me.We came from the same place. At one point, we both had monkeys on our backs.” She closes her eyes as if just mentioning them brought her to ecstasy.
When she opens them again, I see something that makes my heart skip a few beats.
“You’re never going to see a doctor.” Boldly, she crosses over the i
maginary line and hunches down next to me so that she can take a long whiff of my hair.
I can feel her shutter as another wave of ecstasy washes over her.
“Face it, Maybelline. This room is your coffin . . . and the only time you’re coming out of this basement is when I bury you by the big oak tree in the yard.”
18
Lucifer
Dribbles draws a deep breath and rakes her hands through her hair like she doesn’t know where to begin. I try to wait her out, but my curiosity is all over the place.
“You gotta tell me something. I’m freaking out over here. Mason had an older brother?”
“It was all so long ago and . . . it doesn’t matter now anyway. Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.” She turns and looks out the limousine’s window.
She has a point, but that’s not satisfying me at the moment. “Do you have a name? Maybe . . . this brother would like to know what has happened to Mason. I could go and . . . what is it?” I’m freaked out about the number of tears falling over Dribble’s lashes.
“Let it go.Trust me, going down that road will only lead to more trouble. He’s gone now. Just let it go.”
“Gone? You mean Mason or the brother? What about Alice? Is she still alive?”
Dribbles flinches. “How did you know her name was Alice?”
I hesitate for a moment and decide that the best way to get her confidence is to give her some of mine. “Smokestack.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” She searches for his face by the gravesite. “Funny. I don’t remember him being so chatty. Did he also tell you that he was the one who decided to take Mason from Alice that day?”
“Well, he did find him in the oven. Imagine if she had turned the damn thing on.”
Dribbles looks agitated. “She was high. I give you that—and she made a mistake, but what happened to her afterwards, she didn’t deserve that—prison and then the crazy house. We shouldn’t have taken her baby.”
“You wanted to give him back?” I ask, shocked.
“Everybody deserves a second chance. I’m living proof of that.” She crosses her arms and hugs herself. “Don’t get me wrong. I loved Mason. Lord knows I did, but I wasn’t any better than Alice.You remember. I was a hot mess roaming up and down these streets, robbing, stealing, and fucking anything just to get to high.You’re lucky.You don’t know what it’s like.You deal that poison, but you’ve never fucked up and got a monkey on your back.
“If nothing else, I understood Alice. We may have come from different backgrounds, but we were fucked up together. What Alice did could’ve easily happened to me. We were friends. She used to confide in me. Let me tell you that girl went through some shit that really messed her up. I’m the last person who should judge her.”
I’m trying hard to understand where Dribbles is coming from. “If you felt that way about it, why didn’t you take Mason back?”
“The way shit blew up, taking him back would’ve landed me in jail. There was a nationwide search for him for about a year. I was convinced that no matter what I said, they would’ve thrown the book at me.”
“But Cousin Skeet knew that you had him.”
“C’mon. Skeet wasn’t going to turn in his own brother. Besides, he thought Smokestack would do a better job with the kid than Alice anyway. After all, she’d already abandoned Mason’s older brother with one of her family members. He thought it would be just a matter of time before she did the same with Mason.”
I let that hang in the air between us for a few minutes. Before, when Smokestack had told me the story, I was glad that Smokestack and Dribbles came to Mason’s rescue. If they hadn’t, I would have never met him. I can’t imagine where I’d be if Mason had never been a part of my life. Now, Dribbles has made Alice sound more human.
“One year turned into two and then three and then pretty soon, Smokestack and I were the only parents Mason knew. I loved him as if he were my own.” She wrings her hands. “Still, it doesn’t make it right though.”
“No. But if you ask me, you made the right decision.”
Dribbles’ watery gaze shifts back to me. “Yeah?”
“I’ve learned that life is filled with a lot that’s hard and unfair. We do what we do and hope that it all comes out in the wash at the end.You and Smokestack saved a life that day and then you provided and loved him the best you could.You have to believe that it was enough.”
She smiles. “You’re very wise.”
“I don’t know about that,” I laugh.
“I do. You’re very smart . . . and beautiful. You could do anything that you set your mind to. Why would you want . . .”
My smile melts away. “What? Say it.”
“Why would you want to go down this violent and dangerous path as the supreme chief of the Vice Lords? You’re smart enough to know that there’s only two ways on how this is going to end.”
“Actually, there’s only one way all our stories are going to end. Nobody gets out of life alive.”
Dribbles throws back her head and laughs. “I guess you got me there.”
The conversation draws to an end and my curiosity is still getting the best of me. “I still think that we should at least send his other family something . . . even if it’s anonymously.”
She shakes her head again.
I’m at the end of my patience. “All right. What’s up? Why all the roadblocks?”
“Why can’t you let go?” she pushes back. “Nothing good will come out of it. If anything, it will just cause more problems.”
“Fine. I guess I’ll just go online and find the information out for myself. It shouldn’t be too hard to search the newspapers’ archives for the story.”
Dribbles’ shoulders deflate in defeat. “Why are you doing this? Is it that important?”
“It is now.” We engage in a stare-down that I win easily.
“Fine.” Dribbles tosses up her hands. “What do you want to know?”
19
LeShelle
November ...
“DIE, BITCH! DIE!”
Ta’Shara flies toward me with a pair of knitting needles and my eyes suddenly spring open. I blink, then glance around, confused by my surroundings. A loud, steady beep catches my attention and I swing my head to the left and recognize a heart monitor.
What the fuck?
I try to move, but my body mutinies until I give up. That’s when I notice the tubes and needles sprouting out of my arms and hands, as well as—handcuffs?
“Well, well, well. Look who rose from the dead.”
Startled, I jerk my head to the right and toward the last muthafucka I want to see: Captain Johnson. “What the hell do you want?” The second the question clears my dry throat, I erupt into a spasm of coughs.
Captain Johnson strolls from the door and bears down on me. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford one then one will be appointed to you. Blah, blah, blah.” He stops at the bed’s railing and leans down. “I’ve been waiting three months for you to wake up.”
Three months? That shit can’t be true.
“Where is he?” Johnson hisses.
The alcohol on his breath singes my nose hairs. “Who?”
A wide, sinister smile slithers over the corners of Johnson’s mouth while he plucks one of the pillows from behind my head and starts fluffing it. “Don’t play. My patience is real thin. It wouldn’t take much for it to snap.”
This crazy muthafucka places the pillow against my mouth and nose and glares into my eyes. “You feel me?”
I clamp my mouth shut.
“Now I’m going to ask you again: Where is Python? I know that he survived that car crash. Only you know all the little places that snake likes to hide. SO TALK!”
What the fuck is he talking about? I don’t even know where the hell I am.
Johnson adds pressure to the pillow.
I
twist my head in an attempt to steal some air, but Johnson locks my head between his hands. Air traps itself in my chest. My eyes bulge while the beeping on the heart monitor speeds up.
“Your fuckin’ life don’t mean shit to me,” he growls. “I’d be doing the world a favor by erasing you off the face of the earth. He killed my daughter and you’re the sick fuck who tortured my grandson.”
The pressure mounts, causing my temples to hammer my skull. My survival instincts kick in and my weak limbs fight back. Next thing I know, I’m dragging my nails down the side of his face.
“Aaaarggh!”
Johnson’s grip on the pillow loosens and I’m able to push him and the pillow off my face. The instant stream of oxygen sends me into another spasm of coughs.
Johnson touches his face and then gazes down at his blood-painted fingers. “You fuckin’ bitch!” He comes at me again with his fist cocked.
“What the hell is going on in here?” a woman’s voice snaps from the doorway.
Johnson and I jerk our heads to the door where a plus-size woman in a pair of floral hospital scrubs glares at us like a disappointed parent. By the time Johnson finds his tongue, the nurse charges toward him and shoves him out of the way.
“She’s fine,” the captain barks. “We were just talking and she got a little excited.”
The nurse frowns and then scolds him for his answer. “You should have called the nurses’ station.” When she turns to me, her frown morphs into a smile. “As for you, Ms. Murphy, we’re glad to have you back.” She picks up the discarded pillow, fluffs and then places it behind my head.
“You could have fooled me,” I croak through my dry throat. “You guys have one hell of a welcoming committee.” I lift and refer to my shackled wrist.
Gangsta Divas Page 11
