Welfare Wifeys

by K'wan

  “What’s good, Malika?” Scar asked. His shifty dark eyes rolled over her body. He was a young block star from the projects who wore trouble like a second skin. Scar had gotten the name because of the scar that stretched from his left temple to the tip of his nose. As the story went, Scar had wrongfully cut a man in one prison and ended up bumping into him in a second prison where the favor was returned. Out of all the young men who hung out in front of Malika’s building Scar was probably the worst, constantly causing trouble and filling the younger boys’ heads with gang propaganda.

  “Not much,” she replied and kept walking.

  “What’s good, buzz’n?” Scar gave little Solomon dap and the boy’s eyes lit up.

  “Solomon,” Malika corrected Scar.

  “Huh?”

  “Solomon. His name is Solomon,” Malika repeated.

  “My fault, Ma, I didn’t mean nothing by it,” Scar told her with a crooked grin.

  “It’s all good.” Malika took Solomon by the hand and hurried toward the avenue. “I want you to stay away from that boy, do you hear me?” she told Solomon once they were out of earshot.

  “Ma, Scar is cool. That’s the big homey,” Solomon said proudly.

  “That snake is not your homey, and I’d better not catch you in that lobby with him and the rest of those junior delinquents. Do you hear me?”

  “Okay, gosh,” Solomon grumbled. He knew that his mother only rode him to protect him, but he hated when she treated him like some stupid kid who didn’t know what was happening on the streets. In Solomon’s mind he was technically the man of the house and therefore it was his job to make sure his family was good. Day in and day out, he watched his mother struggle just so that they could have a little and it tore him apart inside. He vowed that one day she would be able to just kick her feet up while he took care of things.

  As they stood on the curb waiting for the light to change so that they could cross the street and catch the number seven bus, a gold Acura pulled to a clumsy stop at the curb. The door flew open releasing a cloud of weed smoke and profane lyrics that were blasting from the speakers. A girl slithered from the car dressed in a pair of tight-fitting jeans and spandex shirt. She had a bit of a gut, but her small waist and curvaceous hips drew attention away from it. The light breeze blew her rich black weave, making her look like Farrah Fawcett at a photo shoot. In her manicured hand she held the six-inch heels that had given her feet enough hell so that she wore her broke-down thong flip-flops in the chill. Between her MAC-coated lips she twirled a cherry lollipop back and forth while the driver gave her his parting words. She laughed and blew him a kiss, releasing him from her spell and allowing him to compose himself enough to drive away. Jada Butler was a bad chick and she dared anyone to tell her different.

  “What’s up, Jada? I’m surprised to see your ass out and about so early,” Malika greeted her.

  “Girl, I’m just coming in,” Jada said proudly. “What’s up, Sol? Boy, you’re getting just as big and fine as you wanna be.” Jada smiled at Solomon, showing off the fifteen grand in dental work she’d had done.

  “Yeah, I know you see me, J, but you need to see about me,” Solomon capped.

  Jada laughed. “Listen to this one.”

  “You better watch that mouth of yours.” Malika pointed her finger at her son.

  “It’s all good, Malika. You know it’ll be years before his little ass even has an idea of what to do with all this.” Jada slapped herself on the ass.

  “I doubt if he’ll be able to handle you even then. So where are you coming from this morning?”

  Jada popped the lollipop from her mouth and waved it like a conductor’s wand as she spoke. “Girl, ol’ boy from the Knicks had a party in Atlantic City and a friend of a friend had the hookup, so you know I had to be in the building. When I tell you that it was some things in the building, it was some things in the building. I hit your phone to see if you wanted to roll, but when you didn’t answer I ended up having to take that dusty bitch Renee with me, and you know the girl ain’t got no home training.”

  “I was probably studying when you called; you know I don’t take no calls during crunch time,” Malika reminded her.

  “You still taking them online classes?”

  “Six months away from an Associate’s in business management.” Malika held up crossed fingers.

  “Malika, you’re better than me. After spending twelve years in school I couldn’t see myself doing another day let alone two more years just to get some piece of paper that says I’m qualified to do something that I already know how to do anyway.”

  “That piece of paper is gonna be me and my little man’s ticket outta these projects,” Malika said seriously.

  “There’s easier ways to getting outta the projects than busting your brain with those books and paying the government back for the money you had to borrow to get the ball rolling in the first place. Chicks like you hustle backward, Malika. You’re pretty and smart, so it wouldn’t be nothing for you to find somebody willing to lighten that load of yours and take you up outta here, you just gotta know how to go about it.”

  “Jada, you’re twice as pretty as me and you’ve been in these projects all your life,” Malika pointed out.

  “That’s by choice, baby-boo. I’ve lived in plenty of places, but it ain’t nothing like my projects. Look, my whole family is here so I ain’t never got a problem with a babysitter, and the fact that I ain’t gotta pay no light and gas frees up money for other shit.”

  Malika thought on it. “But don’t you get tired of all the bullshit that comes with living here? Scar and his boys play the lobby twenty-four/seven and if I had a dollar for every time the hot water was cut off or the elevators were broken, I’d be a rich woman. I’m not knocking what you’re saying, Jada, but I don’t think I could spend the rest of my life living off the mercies of Public Assistance and this jacked up ass housing system.”

  “Now hold on, little Ms. Sunshine.” Jada placed her hands on her hips and looked at Malika seriously. “I’ve worked different jobs since I was eleven years old. Even when I got pregnant with my son I had a gig downtown stuffing envelopes. I’ve given the state enough of my time and money, so it’s only right that they return the favor. For as long as the state is knocking out the bulk of my rent I ain’t gotta do much other than rest and dress,” Jada said with a snap of her fingers.

  “I feel you, Jada, but I’d still rather go get it than have it given to me.”

  “Which is why ya ass is broke and man-less now,” Jada teased her. “But on the real, I ain’t mad at you for the moves you’re making, Malika. If I had as high a tolerance for bullshit as you do then I might not be out here living by my wits now.”

  “It ain’t never too late, Jada.”

  “Yeah, but I think I’m gonna have fun with it for a while. Let me take my ass upstairs so I can lie down. I ain’t been to sleep in almost forty-eight hours.” Jada yawned.

  “Do, you and I’ll catch up later. You still gonna be able to style my hair tonight?” Malika twirled a hand full of her locks.

  “Yeah, as long as you come by at a decent time. I heard my cousin is in town and I’m trying to catch up with her before she breezes again.”

  “I ain’t seen Gucci in a minute, what’s up with her? Does she still date that rapper?” Malika asked.

  “Yeah, she’s still all wife’d up to that psycho muthafucka. Cuzo sure picked a live one with him. I don’t even try to understand their relationship, but I’m loving the benefits she gets from being a superstar’s wifey. I’m trying to get her to hook me up with one of them cats, and it ain’t necessarily gotta be a rapper. The way them niggaz from Big Dawg get money I could probably do pretty good for myself with one of their hype men.” Jada laughed.

  Malika shook her head. “J, I don’t know how you balance your kids and this rock and roll lifestyle of yours.”

  Jada winked at her. “It’s an art, baby. Maybe one day when you come up for air outta them
books I can give you a lesson or two.” Jada rubbed Solomon’s cheek as she passed him. “Bye, cutie.”

  “Imma holla at you later, Ma.” Solomon blushed.

  “Boy, bring your thirsty ass on.” Malika pulled him by the arm to the bus stop.

  Chapter 3

  Jada walked up the avenue, sucking her lollipop and switching her ass hard enough to dislocate her hips. She turned the attention of just about everyone she passed, including the females. As she cut down the path en route to the stairs leading to her building she spotted two local stoop rats sitting on the bench, sharing a cigarette. The one rocking the head scarf and mean-mug was named Boots. She was a brown-skinned girl with a decent body, but a face that took a special kind of love or several shots to stare at for too long. Boots was washed up, but thought that she still had a shot at greatness. With five kids by almost as many men it was a stretch at best that anyone would take her for more than what she was, a jump-off. Jada couldn’t stand Boots and the only reason she hadn’t whipped her out yet was because she was one of her cousin Gucci’s best friends. What someone of Gucci’s caliber could see in a girl like Boots was beyond Jada’s comprehension, but she let it be to keep the peace.

  The second girl wasn’t a hard-faced baby-making machine with a chip on her shoulder, but she was no less trifling. With big doe eyes and an inviting smile she had the face of an angel and the wit of a snake. Sahara was a pretty dark-skinned girl who had moved to the projects from West Africa six or seven years prior. When she was ten years old she was sold into slavery by her uncle and had been shuffled from port to port all around Europe as the play thing of those who had the money to spend for her. When she was fifteen she managed to garner the attentions of an underworld figure from New York who dealt in international trafficking. Together they plotted the robbery and murder of Sahara’s latest owner and fled to New York. Six months after arriving the man Sahara had fled with was found dead at the scene of what the police were calling a dope deal gone wrong. For a time Sahara floated from borough to borough doing what she could to survive, until she had managed to locate some cousins of hers who were living in the projects and opened their home to her. It didn’t take long for Sahara to get a taste of the darker side of New York life and become turned out by it. Sahara was a young girl with champagne dreams and beer money, but considering what she came from she was doing okay for herself.

  Sahara waved and Jada waved back. They knew some of the same people so they were cordial when they saw each other, but not Boots. She shot daggers at Jada as she passed to which she responded by throwing on her shades and switch harder. To Jada, Boots’s was just one more sour face in a world of many.

  Ever since Jada could remember she and her family had lived a world apart from their neighbors in the projects. With all the dirt they were involved in, it was the safest way to avoid an indictment. Jada was descended from a very long line of criminals. The Butler family notoriety went all the way back to her grandfather Jake, who in his heyday had been a leg breaker for Bumpy Johnson, but became the local numbers man in his later years. Up until the time of his death Jake had always had some type of hustle going on. It was a fixation that he passed on to all of his sons, but Jake Jr., or J.J. as they called him, showed the most promise. He was a beast when it came to his grind and his woman Gina was no slouch either. They were like the Bonnie and Clyde of the late eighties, and they lavished everything they took in on their baby girl, Jada.

  Things began to go south when J.J. had gotten arrested for murder. He hadn’t even been in Manhattan when the deed was done, but one of his close friends had told the police otherwise in order to save his own skin. Even though J.J. was innocent of the killing, because of his violent criminal history a jury would’ve more than likely gotten him fried so he copped out to a lesser charge and had to wear fifteen to life. The whole family was heartbroken when they lost J.J., but nobody took it harder than Gina. She slipped into a deep depression and the only thing that seemed to soothe her bleeding heart was cocaine. When she had snorted through most of the money they’d had in the stash, Gina started freebasing and it was all downhill from there. Social Services stepped in and had it not been for Jada’s grandmother, Ms. Pat, taking her in, the little girl would’ve become a ward of the state.

  Jada was only supposed to be with Ms. Pat until Gina successfully completed the rehabilitation program, but less than three months after she checked in, Gina fled the program. Sobriety had become too heavy a cross to carry so Gina went back to the oblivion of the pipe. Not long after her great escape they found Gina dead in Central Park. She had gone into cardiac arrest after one of her drug binges and collapsed in a secluded section of the park. Nobody really knew if it was that last blast that had killed her, or the fact that she lay in the freezing snow for almost thirty hours before somebody finally found her.

  Ms. Pat had stepped to the plate and played the role of both mother and father to young Jada. Even with the constantly shifting cast of relatives that revolved in and out of the Butler house, Jada’s grandmother made sure that Jada was never short on love. But for as loving as Ms. Pat was she made sure that Jada was under no illusions about the ugliness of the world they lived in. Ms. Pat did the best she could in the attempt to raise Jada right, but she was so busy with her own struggles that Jada was often left in the care of her aunts and uncles and it was from them that she really learned the ropes of what life was all about. Her uncles taught her to be hard and independent, while her aunts instilled in her ruthlessness and cunning. By the time Jada was a teenager she was an accident waiting to happen.

  During her developmental years Jada stumbled through life making more than her fair share of bad decisions, especially when it came to men. Jada had always been a pretty girl so men were constantly coming at her promising everything but delivering nothing. She had to make trips to Planned Parenthood and the Free Clinic more often than she cared to remember, before she even got a clue as to sorting bullshit from the truth. For as hard as her aunts and uncles had made her mentally, there wasn’t much they could do about her tender heart. The more she had gotten her heart broken the colder she became, until it reached a point where she just stopped feeling anything at all. By the time Jada was able to stand on her own she had become a predator and everything was food.

  “What up, Jada?” Scar called from the stairs. He had his henchman Lloyd with him.

  “About to turn it in because I’m tired as hell.” She continued walking toward the building with the three stooges on her heels.

  “I know that’s right because you’ve been running through my mind all day,” Lloyd said. He was a funny-faced dark-skinned kid with an overbite and a nervous tick.

  “Oh, now that’s one I never heard before,” Jada said sarcastically. She tapped for the elevator and busied herself with her BlackBerry hoping they’d get the hint, which they didn’t.

  Scar stepped up before Boogie could hit her with another stupid line. “So what you getting into today?”

  “My bed, I just told you that I’m tired.” Jada rolled her eyes behind her shades. She silently wished that the elevator would hurry so she could get away from Scar. She’d known him for years, but he still gave her the creeps.

  “Nah, I meant later on,” he explained. “That new flick The Last Outlaw just came out and I’m trying to catch it on opening night. The shit is based on a book by that nigga K’wan and it’s supposed to be off the hook!”

  “Sorry, I saw the screening last weekend. The author’s wife is a friend of mine.”

  Scar scowled. “Yeah, I forgot that you run in high-class circles.”

  “Because I’m a high-class chick. Ask about me,” Jada said, waving her lollipop dismissively.

  “A’ight, so if not the flick then let’s go get something to eat,” Scar pressed her.

  The elevator was still nowhere in sight and Jada couldn’t take it anymore so she decided to level with him. “Look”—she removed her shades—“Scar, you my nigga, but you know I a
in’t messing with you like that.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

  “Nothing, it just means that I ain’t really got time for the bullshit you’re putting down. Me and you live two different lifestyles.”

  “Oh, so now you acting all high off ya shit cuz you shining a little bit? I guess you too good to fuck with the hood niggaz anymore?” Scar asked defensively.

  “Never that, you know my family is filled with some of the illest cats this project or any other has yet to produce. What I’m saying is that you still running around trying to game bitches outta their drawers with a bag of piff and a movie and that ain’t me, duke.”

  “There you go with that bullshit.” Scar sucked his teeth.

  “No, there you go with that bullshit. Scar, you shit where you live so your dirt is out there for everyone to see. Why do you think that ain’t nobody in the hood fucking wit you but them young bitches?”

  “Jada, you know how the streets talk.”

  “Nah, I know how you move. Scar, me and you are peoples, but it ain’t gonna never be much more than that,” she told him just as the elevator finally reached the first floor. Jada stepped into the car without as much as a good-bye.

  “Well, fuck you too then, bitch,” Scar said after the elevator door had closed.

  “Damn, I would love to have her work my dick like she be working them lollipops,” Lloyd said.

  “Jada ain’t trying to fuck with you, nigga. You’re a scumbag,” Scar told him.

  “Well, she ain’t fucking with you either, so that makes us scumbags. And if Cutty ever caught wind that we was sniffing around his baby mama he might not appreciate it.”