by Wahida Clark
He started to say something slick, but he didn’t want his young boys to think some feen had dissed him. He walked back over to the car, reached under the passenger seat and produced another Ziploc bag full of clips. He handed them to Nu-Nu, who quickly took the pack in the house.
“So what up, Wiz? What time we goin’ to the LL concert tonight at Sensations?” Pills asked him.
“Don’t know what time you goin’, but I’m goin’ at ten,” Wiz replied, sliding in the driver’s seat and closing the door.
Lil Mike leaned in the open window. “Come on, homeboy, let us roll wit’ you. These feens can wait a few hours.”
“See, that’s the attitude that keep nigguhs broke. You think they gonna not get high? Hell no, they gonna go spend they money on Bergen. We ain’t in business to miss money, nigguhs,” Wiz schooled him, then started the engine.
“Shit, you ain’t stayin’,” Pills remarked.
Wiz smirked. “ ’Cause, lil’ nigguh, I got you to handle all that, huh. Beep me.” He turned up the system to let them know…
The pussy is freeee, but the crack cost moneeey!
TWO
Wiz! Wiz! Boy, you hear that damn phone! You know it’s for you!”
Wiz heard his mother yell, bringing him out of a well-deserved sleep. Twenty-four/seven he stayed on the grind, so when he crashed, he crashed. He truly hadn’t heard the phone because the ringer was off. Wiz reached over and picked up the receiver. “What!”
“What? Oh, it’s what now? I been beepin’ you all day. You can’t call nobody?” the female voice belonging to Michelle hissed through the receiver.
Wiz rubbed his eyes, then checked his black Movado: eight-thirty p.m.
“Yo, I been busy. I ain’t got the luxury of waitin’ on a nigguh all day, aiight,” he replied sharply.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
He sighed, because the conversation was irrelevant. “You call to argue or you got something to say?”
Michelle sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes with the tone of her voice. “Anyway, is we still going to the LL concert?”
Wiz sat up like, we? “Why everybody think I’m a fuckin’ taxi? Look, I told you I might take you. Might. But right now, I really don’t feel like being bothered wit’ you, so—”
Michelle cut him off. “Bothered! Oh, so it ain’t no bother when you come to my house two in the mornin’ to lay up with me! It ain’t no bother when I’m suckin’—”
Click!
Wiz cut her tirade off in mid-stride and immediately turned his thoughts to what he would wear. He heard the phone ring up front, but he didn’t bother to answer until he heard, “Wiz! Wizard, get in here, boy!” He sighed deeply, then made his way down their apartment corridor to the kitchen. His mother was sitting in the kitchen, still wearing her nursing outfit, smoking a cigarette. “Boy, what did you do to that chile?” she questioned.
“Nothin’.”
“Nothin’? Well, why is she callin’ my house screamin’ ‘I hate you’ like she done lost her damn mind?”
Wiz leaned against the door frame. “Man, I don’t know, ask her.”
“I’m askin’ you. I done told you about these females and emotions. If you don’t want to deal with them, don’t. But don’t keep treatin’ them like shit, because what goes around comes around, you hear me?”
“Yeah, Ma,” he answered, like he’d heard it all before. “I gotta get dressed.”
“Dressed? For what?” she asked, putting out her cigarette.
“Just out, man,” he whined in annoyance, because he could see where she was going. She did it all the time.
“Well, before you go out, I need you to let me get a little somethin’. Shit, Momma wanna party too.” She smiled, trying to take the sting out of her request.
Wiz sucked his teeth. “Ma. I just gave you some yesterday. What you do with that?” She got up from the table to take her meal out of the microwave.
“What the hell you think I did wit’ it? What I ’posed to do wit’ it?” she quipped, snatching her hand back from the burning edge of the Tupperware bowl.
“I wish you would just leave that stuff alone,” Wiz mumbled under his breath.
“And I wish you would too,” she shot back.
“Why? I ain’t smokin’ it,” he fired back.
“No, you just sell it to people who do. Somebody’s daddy, somebody’s son and somebody’s momma. So if it ain’t good enough to get high on, it damn sure ain’t right to get by on,” his mother said, looking him dead in the eyes. “You wanna be grown, fine, so am I. You sell it; I smoke it, so fair exchange ain’t no robbery.” She scraped the leftover shrimp fried rice from the bowl onto her plate. “Now, you gonna look out for me, or do I have to pay for it too?”
Wiz looked at his mother. She was young, only thirty-five, and her pecan complexion still glowed with a girlish quality. But he could see how the drugs were beginning to take a toll on her beauty. “Yeah, man,” he reluctantly agreed, heading to his room to get it. He dug in his wall stash, retrieved a ten-bottle clip, and returned to the kitchen. He sat the clip on the table without looking at his mother, then turned and walked out.
She wanted to call him back, tell him she loved him and that she was sorry things were the way they were, but what could she say that could make him understand her addiction, and her dependency on him for a steady supply of drugs that kept her from becoming another crack feen in the street? There was nothing to say, so she simply closed the kitchen door and got her pipe out of her purse.
Every hood has a club… not just any club, but the club. Sensations was it in Newark. Only the liveliest nigguhs hung at Sensations, and the hood legends rarely missed an attendance. So when LL Cool J came to Newark that spring of ’86, nigguhs really showed out. Ask LL, he remembers.
Branford Place was lined with slick whips. No-top Wranglers with Louis Vuitton seat covers, Benz AMGs, with Ferrari kits, and, of course, various flavors of Suzuki bikes and Sidekicks.
Wiz pulled up and parked his Jetta on Halsey Street, then rounded the corner. He came alone because he didn’t do the crew, and he didn’t bring a girl, because that was like taking sand to the beach. But his presence was felt because his name was on the rise and he had legends in his bloodline.
Wiz slid through in a pair of white Calvin Kleins, baby blue silk shirt and matching baby blue Ballys. His forty-inch rope swung to the rhythm of his suave nonchalant stride and shimmered under the streetlights.
People were scattered everywhere. Girls in Chinese bobs, bamboo earrings and painted-on graffiti jeans congregated in cliques, flirting with the money nigguhs while the wild nigguhs stalked the shadows.
“Yo, Wiz! It’s vic season!”
The tone was ominous, but anyone familiar with the voice would know the words were barked in jest. Wiz knew the voice well. It belonged to his older cousin Ali Smalls, notorious across the Brick. Wiz turned his attention to Ali, who was leaning against a green Eldorado with Al-Ameen and Ali Hubcap from Prince Street. He walked up, giving everyone a pound, and gave Ali Smalls a brotherly hug.
“Look at lil’ cuz, yo. Muthafucka gettin’ his weight up, love love,” Smalls remarked, proudly checking Wiz out from head to toe. “What up wit’ you?”
“Chillin’, man, what up wit’ you?”
Ali shrugged. “I told you, Cuz,” he began, pulling a chrome bulldog .38 from his waist with a smile, “it’s vic season. You see anything you want?” Ali questioned, gesturing to the large crowd, gold and diamonds everywhere.
Wiz knew Smalls meant it, because the nigguh was treacherous. The type of nigguh to do drive-bys with a silencer, but to look at him, you never would’ve guessed this light-skinned pretty-type nigguh was so dangerous.
“Naw, yo, I’m straight,” Wiz declined.
“You sure? Let me know love, I’m in the house.”
Wiz nodded and walked off, heading inside Sensations. The air inside the club was suffocating. The place was packed, especial
ly with females waitin’ on Ladies Love, so Wiz was like a kid in a candy store. He knew from the eye contact he was getting from every angle that he would have his pick, so he told his dick don’t worry, we fuckin’ tonight. Once LL took the stage, he didn’t disappoint. He was young and hungry, already out to prove he was the G.O.A.T. He blazed “Rock the Bells” and “Radio,” made the chicks’ panties wet with “I Need Love” and the nigguhs amped for “I’m Bad,” but for some reason, the song that stuck in Wiz’s head was…
Yo, Yvette… There’s a lot of rumors goin’ around
It’s so bad, baby, you might have to skip town…
All he could think of was Crystal’s face. He just couldn’t shake it, because he wondered why a chick like that would choose to throw her life away over a ten-dollar high. He thought of his mother, Moe and all the cats he had seen get swallowed by the blast. What the fuck was this shit he was selling—but then again, why should he even care? Shit, somebody gotta sell it, might as well be me, was the last thought he had before he was brought out of his thoughts. “Excuse me. Excuse me, but umm, do you know what time it is?” the sweet soft voice asked him as he looked into the face of an angel. She was a sexy, short five-two in a pink tennis skirt, baby tee and white-on-white Lottos. Her ass was juicy, his eyes could taste it, and her thighs were so thick, his dick was already jumping.
“Time to show you where I’m parked,” Wiz smirked, winking his dimples.
She giggled. “No, really. I can’t find my girlfriend and I really ain’t trying to miss the last PATH home.”
“Oh, so you from New Yitty, huh? Where at?” he questioned, knowing damn well she wouldn’t see wherever it was until morning, if he could help it.
“Harlem.” She eyed his four-finger ring, “Wiz Kid,” she smiled, “why they call you Wiz?”
“My magic wand,” he joked, “I make dreams come true.”
“Oh really?”
“Would I lie?”
She looked at him, licking her lips. “Probably, but I do too.”
Wiz closed the distance between them to whisper in her ear. “Then you can trust me, ’cause I’m just like you. But believe me when I tell you, I got my car outside, and it’s ready to take you wherever you want to go.”
“What about the last train?” She quivered, already seeing it pulling off without her.
“I got you,” he replied, meaning it in more ways than one.
She smiled her consent.
“So, yo… what’s your name?”
“Damn, Veronica, let a nigguh wake…” Wiz’s sentence drifted off incomplete as he gave in to the sensation of Veronica’s mouth on his dick. He looked down at her head between his legs and her lips wrapped around his dick, letting the pleasure curl his toes. They had gotten a room last night and wasted no time in fucking the shit out of each other, then they had both collapsed into a satisfied slumber. He woke up to her uptown head game that had his Newark ass twisted.
“You like it, Daddy?” she purred between slurps. “Yeah, you like it, I bet your girl at home don’t do it like Veronica, do she?” She licked tantalizingly slowly up his eight-inch shaft and all around the ball of his head.
“What girl at home?”
She climbed on top of him, gripping his dick, then squatted on it with a squeal. “Stop… Stop lyin’… Dick this good don’t come without a leash,” she stuttered, long-dicking herself into a zone of pure feminine pleasure.
Veronica’s pussy felt like warm quivery Jell-O to Wiz, and he had to curl up his insides so he wouldn’t bust off too soon. But when she reversed her position and rode him backward, just the sight of his dick disappearing inside her made him pound her furiously until they both came. She flopped down beside him, brushed the hair from her face with a satisfied smile and asked, “Don’t Veronica know how to treat a man in the mornin’?”
“No doubt,” Wiz replied.
She leaned in to kiss him, but he turned his face, so the kiss landed on his cheek. Wiz’s rule was, he never kissed a chick on the mouth, especially not one he hit the first night.
Crystal lay on the mattress, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. She followed the crack from one side of the room to another while she waited for the old man to go limp inside her. He always did, which was one reason she didn’t mind tricking with him. Every month he got his disability check, and every month like clockwork she and Tricia would trick him out of it. It was always the same story. He could hold an erection only for a few minutes, then before he ejaculated he’d go limp, grunt and roll over. He’d give them both twenty or thirty dollars, then go to sleep.
All it was was a business transaction. Crystal felt nothing inside because she was learning to separate herself from herself, and in the process she lost a little more of her soul each day.
The old man rolled over and flopped down on the bed, sweating like it had been three hours and not three minutes. “Whew! You young gals is gonna be the death of me one day, I swear. Where’s your girlfriend? Why she ain’t come?”
Crystal thought of Tricia with a mild degree of remorse. Tricia was supposed to come. It was a silent agreement that they worked the old man together. Hell, Tricia had turned her on to the trick. But Crystal had lied to Tricia, telling her she had a ride to pick Tricia up. So instead of meeting her at the old man’s house, Crystal was coming to get her. That was just an excuse so Tricia wouldn’t come and she could get all the money, Fifty dollars, which he had given her before going to sleep.
Crystal pulled up her jeans and fixed herself in the mirror. It wasn’t that she didn’t like what she saw, she simply didn’t care. Friendship no longer mattered; she saw Tricia as stupid, because if it had been her, she would have kept the trick to herself.
Crystal walked out of the small bedroom and through the living room. She eyed his stereo system, weighing it in her mind, but she decided against it. He was a steady trick, so why burn a stable bridge? She let herself out of the dilapidated two-family home and exited the rusted fence with a squeaking clink. The rain wasn’t hard, but kept up a steady drizzle. Crystal put her windbreaker hoodie over her ponytail and headed toward Lyons Avenue to see who was holding. But when she turned the corner, all she heard was, “Bitch, you ain’t shit!”
She looked up and watched a fuming Tricia heading straight for her, double time. The look on her face told Crystal that Tricia didn’t want to talk, and before she knew it a razor came slicing through the air, narrowly missing her cheek. Crystal stumbled slightly, but she was able to grab Tricia’s forearm and keep the razor at bay, while she dug into Tricia’s face with her free hand.
“Argghh!” Tricia winced in pain, “I’ma kill you!”
Both Tricia and Crystal were small, but Crystal was quicker. She bit into Tricia’s wrist until the razor fell from her hand. Tricia grabbed her by the ponytail and yanked her head back, causing Crystal to fall backward on the ground.
“Get the fuck off me!” Crystal grunted as she struggled to topple Tricia in their wrestling match.
A small crowd of guys were gathered around, yelling, “Go hard, shorty! Flip her over on her back with your knees!”
“Fuck that, pin that bitch arms!”
“I got my money on Red,” one commented, referring to Tricia.
Both women were kicking, scratching and punching until one guy had the decency to break them up. He grabbed Tricia with one hand and Crystal with the other, holding them apart by the length of his arms. They struggled to get at each other. “Yo, y’all muthafuckas, help me!” he yelled.
Another guy grabbed Tricia as she continued the fight verbally. “You backstabbin’ bitch! I know you fucked ’im, I know you fucked ’im!”
The guys ohhed and ahhed like it was a joke.
“Damn girl, you fucked honey girl man?” The guy who had the decency to break it up accused Crystal, but she ignored him.
Her nose was bloody, her hoodie was ripped and she had lost a shoe in the fight, so her left sock was soaked. “Get off me!” she growled
, snatching away from the guy and spotting her shoe.
“You gonna give me my money, Crystal! You hear me?! Where’s the money?!” Tricia screamed, still trying to get at Crystal.
Crystal stepped into her shoe, fixed the heel and turned away like, Bitch, fuck you! I don’t owe you shit!
Tricia was close to tears. She was so mad, because she wanted to get high and she felt betrayed. “You crack-smokin’ bitch! That’s all you is! A fuckin’ ten-dollar whore!” Tricia screamed, knowing it hurt Crystal to hear it because it hurt Tricia to be one.
But Crystal took the insult in stride, letting the pain go where her self-esteem had drained into. Pure nothingness inside.
Wiz hated the rain. He was a summertime sunshine cat, so when it rained, it made him moody. He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t felt this way, but he didn’t remember the reason why. He had dropped Veronica at Penn Station, exchanged numbers and promised to call, which he definitely planned on doing. It wasn’t just because of her banging head game; she also lived in Harlem, where he bought his weight.
So it was convenient to have an uptown layup, and hopefully he could convince her to mule his drugs back to Newark on the 107 bus while he drove back without the heat. Wiz sat at the light, watching the windshield wipers go back and forth, while the system pumped… Sun showers bring light to the flowers loving you my baaaby. Until his attention was attracted to the hooded figure crossing the street in front of him. He recognized the person instantly as the chick from Goldsmith. He watched her huddle her shoulders against the heavy drizzle, walking like every drop was an assault on her person, and he was moved to compassion.
He made a right on the light, then let down the passenger window as he drove slowly next to her. “Yo! You, shorty!” Crystal saw who it was but didn’t even break stride, quickening her pace. “You act like I’ma snatch your purse, yo, where you headed? I’ll give you a ride,” Wiz offered, keeping one eye on the road and the other on her.
What does he want? she thought. “That’s all right, I can walk,” she replied without looking his way.
