by Dana Dane
Numbers and Waketta were in the window fighting back their laughter. It was hilarious to see the fat white cops scatter for cover thinking they were dead. Waketta felt relief wash over her body. She was vindicated. She had made the cops feel the humiliation she felt. It was grand!
Numbers had exacted his revenge, but to see Waketta’s reaction was more than he had bargained for. It really made it all worthwhile. They sat, waiting to see what would happen next. They’d gambled that the pigs would be too embarrassed to call for backup, but if they did, it would be okay, too. Numbers and Waketta could wait it out making love to each other. It was a good night.
Waketta
“Room service,” a voice chimed from outside room 3208 of the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square. Waketta got up off the king-sized bed in her bra and thong, her ass bouncing all the way to the door. She opened it and a middle-aged white room-service attendant stood there with their order. He looked like he had been doing this job way too long. At the sight of Waketta’s five-foot-nine chocolate, voluptuous body standing there half-naked, he damn near went into heart palpitations.
“You just gonna stand there or you gonna bring it in?” She turned around, letting the door go and showing him her pretty phat round ass. He tried to avert his eyes, but they weren’t following instructions.
Numbers was in the bathroom taking a shower. “Baby, the champagne and food here,” Waketta called to him.
“Where would you like this, miss?” The old man’s face was red, and he almost tripped over the carpet.
“Anywhere is good.” Waketta jumped onto the bed, covering her lower body with the sheet and leaving her upper body exposed.
The attendant rolled the tray near the foot of the bed and set everything out.
“Would you like me to pop the champagne?”
“Nah, that’s cool,” Waketta answered, holding out two $100 bills. She was more concerned with the movie she was watching on the tube.
He walked over and collected the payment from Waketta, transfixed by her breasts. He could only dream of touching this young beauty with vibrant eyes and juicy, full lips. But for all her beauty, she was still ghetto.
“Aiight, duke, keep the change and beat it.”
“Anything else, miss?” he asked, hoping he could find a reason to stay or at least come back.
“We good,” she replied without looking up from the TV.
The attendant exited and closed the door behind him, peeking one last time before it completely shut.
Numbers came out of the bathroom wearing paisley boxer shorts. He locked the dead bolt and privacy latch, not wanting to be interrupted by housekeeping. Then he placed his damp towel near the bottom of the door to stop any smoke from seeping out.
“Light up, Ketta.”
Waketta slowly took her eyes off the TV to reach into her purse and pull out a ready-rolled blunt. Numbers walked over to the dinner cart and unwrapped and popped the Moët. He poured two flutes, handing one to Waketta. “A toss to my ride-or-die chick,” he said, and smiled at his sexy honey dip. She was at the edge of the bed on her knees, smiling back at her man as she took a sip.
“Till the wheels fall off!” she said, reaching out to Numbers, signaling for him to come closer. He could tell she meant every word. She extended the blunt to his lips. He inhaled and exhaled several times, looking in her pretty marble-brown eyes, knowing he was going to serve her his hardness all night long. She placed her flute on the nightstand, rested the blunt next to it in a makeshift ashtray, and moved closer, kissing Numbers on his neck. She slowly began to move her luscious lips down his torso. Waketta knew what Numbers liked. He’d been training her for six or so years. She could have had just about any man she chose in and out the hood, but she wanted Numbers. She knew she was the side piece, and she accepted that it was what it was.
Waketta sat on the edge of the bed with Numbers in between her legs. She kissed his tight stomach, making herself wet as she anticipated his manhood in her mouth. Unable to wait any longer, she placed two fingers inside the elastic of his boxers and pulled them down.
Before she could go down, Numbers grabbed her around her neck. She gasped in excitement as he placed his lips on hers, kissing her passionately. Her nipples hardened. When he released her neck, her head drifted back down past his abdomen. She wrapped her mouth around his throbbing penis and began rotating her tongue around the tip of it. He breathed deeply, enjoying her initial touch, knowing it was going to get better. She moaned as she slurped his dick vigorously, massaging his balls with one hand.
“Come in my mouth, baby, please.” She spoke with her mouth full. “I want to suck your dick forever. Let me taste it.”
Numbers’s legs trembled with bliss. He wanted to satisfy her desire. “Yes, Ketta, you know you mines forever. Make it cum, baby. Ooh, you got it. Make it cum,” he said, panting. She stroked, massaged, and slurped him, making his dick hard as a rubber dumbbell. She could feel the babies pulsating and pounding, trying to break out. She deep-throated his cock, making herself gag on it. She knew Numbers loved when she tried to swallow his large muscle even though she couldn’t. This was it. He could no longer contain himself. She knew it was coming. She spoke almost like a ventriloquist, still slobbering on it, “Yes, baby, cum.”
Numbers complied.
Waketta let the semen shoot off the back of her throat, savoring every trickle. Numbers yelled with fulfillment.
“Ssshhh. Security gonna think I’m killing your ass up in here,” she said, giggling, kissing the tip of it until she was sure she’d swallowed every bit of him.
Numbers climbed into the bed with Waketta and gave her what she deserved for the next hour and a half. She came until she almost passed out. After she had taken all she could handle, she lay in Numbers’s arms caressing his chest. They both looked up at the ceiling, in their own separate worlds.
“Baby, can we talk?” Waketta said, not sounding like her usual loud self. Numbers had a way of making her feel like a woman, soft and feminine. That’s why she loved him so much. She didn’t have to be strong around him—she could be a girl. Numbers sat up and took a long swallow of his room-temperature champagne, then puffed the blunt.
“Yeah, Ketta. I want to talk to you, too.” Waketta sat up against the headboard. Curled up under the plush hotel bedding, she looked around trying to find a way to start her conversation. He saw that she was having a hard time finding the words, so he started. “Ketta, you know I love you … and care about you … and I would do anything for you.” He looked at her to make sure she understood he was sincere.
Waketta knew these things without him saying them, but it sounded good coming from his mouth. He was her rock, her friend, and her lover.
“Well, me and Ro—”
“I know about the baby,” she said, cutting him off.
Numbers searched his brain trying to figure out how she knew. Who’d told her? Was it Rosa? Mad questions ran through his mind. “I apologize, Ketta. I was gonna tell you sooner. I just didn’t know when the right time was to do it.”
“It’s okay … I mean … I knew what I was getting into when we started this. I wish it could be different, but …” She began to tear up and the words got lost in her throat.
Numbers couldn’t help but feel like a fuck-up. Like he was leading her on. He should just break it off with her, but that was really not an option, truth be told. He loved her as much as he loved Rosa. He wanted them both in his life and would do whatever it took to keep them. “If you don’t want to fuck with me anymore, I understand,” he said to her, lying to himself.
“Numbers, I could never stop being with you, I love you too much,” she confessed, straining to get her words out. “Why would you say something like that? It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it that you wanted to talk to me about?”
She hesitated, then asked, “What’s going on with you and Jar?” She looked at her man to see how he took her question.
“What y
ou mean, what’s going on?” He looked at her curiously.
“I’m saying, I know that’s your boy and he’s been your boy way before we became friends, but I was wondering if everything’s all right between you two.”
“Yeah, we cool. Why?” Numbers didn’t say it, but he felt like Jarvis had been acting a little distant too.
“’Cuz I think something’s going on with him. I seen him fucking with dude from the third side, that nigger Crush. I’m like Why he fucking with that dude, knowing you and him got beef?” Waketta paused, letting Numbers take it all in.
He took a few more hits from the blunt, thinking about what she said. Some funny shit was going on. Jarvis had just told him something similar about Waketta. What the fuck?
“Word? Don’t worry, baby. I got it.” Whatever it was, he intended to get to the bottom of it.
Crispy Carl had warned him about getting money. Remember this, young hustler: mo’ dollars, mo’ deceit, and the deceit will usually come from the people closest to you.
Numbers’s beeper went off. It was two-thirty in the morning. Who could it be? Looking at the screen, he saw Crispy Carl’s code. Must have thought him up, Numbers believed. But Crispy Carl would have to wait until he woke up in the morning. There was more head to get tonight.
“Enough talk for now, Ketta. It’s time for round two.”
She obliged.
One Door Closes …
After being released from the hospital a week earlier, Crispy Carl heard about the two dicks being shot up with paintballs in front of his building but had no idea Numbers was responsible and his pad was ground zero. His health was declining rapidly, but it tickled his fancy to hear the story of the coppers running scared for their lives.
After parking his car on Carlton Avenue, Numbers sent Waketta on a run. His mind was still reeling from the conversation they’d had earlier that morning. He needed to talk with Crispy Carl. He knew Carl could help him figure it out or least give him some advice on how to move forward. It was cold outside. Numbers zipped his Woolrich snow coat all the way up but left the hood down. He didn’t trust not being able to see his peripheral. After all, this was still the Fort Greene projects and niggers were grimy.
He entered the building and collected his mail. He pressed the elevator button, then decided not to wait and climbed the stairs to the third floor. He knocked on the door of apartment 3D as a courtesy, unlocking the door with his key at the same time. As soon as the door opened, he was assaulted by the smell of urine and shit. The place was in complete disarray.
Numbers called out, “Carl, where you at?” No answer. “Carl, you okay?” Something isn’t right. I shoulda answered Crispy Carl’s page when I got it this morning. He blamed himself.
He heard a soft moan coming from the bathroom. Rushing toward the sound, Numbers found Crispy Carl sprawled out on the cold tile, lying in his own feces. He was alive but barely. He looked weak and fragile. Numbers ran to the phone and called 911, opened all the windows, then hurried back to Crispy Carl’s side. Every day of Crispy Carl’s sixty-odd years of hard living showed on his face.
If someone would have told Numbers he would be washing excrement from a grown man, he’d have bet his life to the contrary. But he couldn’t let his mentor and friend be seen like this. Crispy Carl prided himself on being sharp—shit, he was Crispy Mother-fucking Carl. So Numbers set aside his ego and did what he had to do. It was a filthy, nasty task, but Crispy Carl was like a father to him. Nothing could change that, so the least he could do was keep the man’s dignity intact.
Crispy went in and out of consciousness as Numbers cleaned him up, then the apartment. The ambulance took so long to arrive, he could have cleaned the whole apartment twice. He moved Crispy Carl to the couch while they waited. He noticed that his mentor’s breathing was even more labored now.
“Mr. Carl, can you hear me? It’s me, Numbers.” Numbers’s eyes welled up. “Sip on this,” he said, raising Crispy Carl’s head in order to give him a sip of water. He kneeled in front of him on the couch so Carl could see him.
“Numbers,” Crispy Carl said. His voice was barely a whisper. “I been waiting for you. You better not be out there fucking with my hoes.” There was a trace of a smile on his face. It probably took all the energy he had to do it, but he was smiling.
“Easy, Mr. Carl, the ambulance is on its way.” At least Numbers hoped it was. Everyone knew that 911 was a joke in the hood. He had called the emergency line more than forty minutes ago.
Crispy Carl wheezed and gasped for air and continued to speak weakly. Numbers leaned as close to his mouth as he could in order to hear him. “You’re like a son to me,” he said. “Thank you for your friendship.”
Does Mr. Carl know how much he’s done for me over the years? What he’s been to me? Numbers wondered. “I know, Mr. Carl,” he answered, trying to hold back tears, finally hearing the ambulance sirens in the background nearing the projects. “The ambulance is here.” Numbers was overwhelmed. Tears streamed down his caramel cheeks.
“Remember everything I taught you … be better than me … be better than you think you can be. Full circle.” Crispy Carl faded.
The paramedics did all they could do to revive Crispy Carl, but his spirit had already moved on to a better place.
The wake and funeral were short and sweet. It was said that he had a daughter and son, but no one knew who they were or where they lived. Most of the people who attended the funeral were Crispy Carl’s old acquaintances and card-game comrades. The others were Numbers’s friends who knew how close the two had been. Since Numbers was his only real family, he wrote the eulogy.
A player is as a player does. Crispy Carl was the ultimate player because he played the game with no regrets. He believed in being real to himself first, so it made it easy to be real to everyone else. He may not have walked the straight and narrow, but he walked with his head held high, with integrity and dignity. He wasn’t the type to tell you what to do, but he was sure to tell you what it was.
“Crispy” Carl Stevenson once told me when one door closes, another one opens. Though the chapters to his life have closed, his guidance has opened up endless possibilities for me. I was blessed to be touched by this angel in the pimp suit. He was a father figure, a man of honor. He was my friend. As he would always say to me, I say to him now: I’ll catch you on the full circle. May God be your shepherd. Amen.
“Rosa, come on, I want to show you something,” Numbers beckoned to Rosa-Marie to get dressed and come with him.
“I’m moving as fast I can with this belly, and I don’t want to go out—it’s cold outside,” she complained. She was doing a lot of that these days; she was five months pregnant.
“You won’t regret it, I promise.”
“¿Dónde usted que toma a mi hija?” Ms. Vasquez interrogated Numbers about where they were going. She was still infuriated that Numbers had impregnated her only daughter. And they hadn’t even had the decency to tell her. She’d only found out once Rosa-Marie could no longer hide her growing stomach under her clothing. Of course she blew her top and told her daughter she would have to get out, she disgusted her and disgraced the family. Rosa moved in with Numbers for a few weeks, but it was already too crowded in the two-bedroom with his mother, two sisters, and himself. After pleading with her mother, who did miss her, she was allowed to move back in. Though Numbers had the means to get them an apartment outside of the projects, he thought it best for Rosa to stay with her mother while she was pregnant. He was running the streets all the time, and Ms. Vasquez could watch out for Rosa. As much as Ms. Vasquez wanted to dislike Numbers, she had to admit he treated her baby well and made her happy.
“Jupree”—Ms. Vasquez said his name incorrectly every time—“you hurry and bring Rosa back, okay?” she grumbled.
Before Numbers could answer, Rosa waddled out of the bedroom with her long black hair in a ponytail. She hated doing her own hair these days. Dressed for comfort, not fashion, she wore a pair of white
Reeboks, loose-fitting jeans, and an oversized yellow blouse. She went to the closet and grabbed the navy-blue three-quarter shearling coat Numbers had bought for her and put that on. She hated the cold weather. After wrapping her neck with a scarf, she scooped gloves and earmuffs of the same color as the coat out of its pockets and put them on. “I’m ready,” she said, exhausted.
Numbers was exhausted just watching her put on all the garments. He looked at his beautiful future baby mother and held out his arm, bent at the elbow. She smiled at him and put her hand through the opening, allowing Numbers to escort her out the door.
“Este detrás en un poco mientra que la madre,” Rosa told her mother—she would be back shortly.
“See you later, Ms. Vasquez,” Numbers said.
Ms. Vasquez just huffed at them both.
Numbers and Rosa-Marie walked around building 101, past the basketball court toward Carlton Avenue, arm in arm.
“Where are we going, Dupree?” Rosa queried.
“Right here!”
They were standing in front of building 60. A rough, dirty-looking thirty-something-year-old man came up the pathway from the connecting building, 75, with his coat open, oblivious to the wind.
“Yo, Numbers, can I get a two-oh?” the fiend asked, as if they were old friends. Rosa looked at Numbers. She was aware of his illegal activities, but this was the first time she witnessed it. Numbers gave her that much respect. The deadly sneer he flashed the fiend, though, told the man he had made a mistake. First off, Numbers hadn’t dealt drugs hand to hand since he formed PWH. Second, his crew only did business by the park.
“You playing yourself,” Numbers said in an even tone.
“I’ll go to the park and see what’s jumping off up there. Sorry, Numbers. Excuse me, miss.” He apologized repeatedly, knowing he fucked up. He picked up his pace as he limped away.
If Numbers hadn’t been with his lady, he might have shown some compassion for the man—after all, he knew Archie from way back. But he was nothing more than another customer now, and it was hard to believe his promising basketball future was all but an illusion.
