Still Hood

by K'wan

  “Ain’t gonna be none of that, Sharon, cause if he buck we all gotta buck,” she said very seriously.

  “Nah, I ain’t even on it like that. Just get her drunk ass the fuck up outta here,” Sean said, bending to pick up the glass. As soon as he was close enough, Sharon tired to kick him, but she ended up nicking Dena’s leg.

  Dena glared at her. “Now I know your ass is tripping.”

  “Come on, we out,” Mo said, half steering, half dragging Sharon towards the door. Dena shook her head and fell in step behind her peoples.

  “Yo, I’m sorry this shit happened,” Sean said to Dena.

  “Don’t sweat it,” she said casually.

  “Maybe one day I could make it up to you?”

  Dena gave him a seductive smile. “Nah.” She glanced at Sharon and back to Sean. “I think I’m a little too old for you.” With a playful wink, she was out the door.

  Chapter 12

  THE INSIDE OF THE CAMPER SMELLED LIKE A combination of body spray and pressed hair. Several of the more high-profile ladies to be featured in the video went about the task of getting themselves and their gear right for the shoot.

  Yoshi sat at the vanity table across from the lead girl, Ayanna, carefully applying the finishing touches to her make up. Yoshi had successfully tuned her from a nice-looking, around-the-way chick to a certified diva, using a smooth coat of foundation and autumn colors where she knew the light would hit. Yoshi had always considered herself a fly bitch, so doing wardrobe and makeup came quite naturally to her.

  “Yeah,” Yoshi said, using her thumb to wipe a smudge from beneath her bottom lip. “These muthafuckas is gonna be on you, ma.” She handed Ayanna a hand mirror.

  “You did ya thing, Yoshi.” Ayanna admired her face, and tugged at her Shirley Temple curls. “If these niggaz didn’t know, they gonna know.”

  “Okay.” Yoshi gave her a high five.

  Ayanna got up and went to give her five-seven banana frame the once over in the mirror. She was wearing a black leather miniskirt and a black corset. Her China doll eyes seemed to sit perfectly in her angular face, brought to the forefront by a thin line of black mascara. The black leather pumps were a little snug on her feet, but it was a small price to pay for fashion. Like Yoshi, Ayanna was a young chick on the come up. She had graced the pages of magazines and calendars and was the talk of the town on the video scene. She was a young chick with an exotic look and one hell of a swagger.

  “You killing em right now, but something’s missing,” Yoshi said, pacing around Ayanna. “Hold up, I got just the thing.” Yoshi fumbled around in her case until she found what she was looking for. Rubbing a nice hunk of Vaseline in her palms, Yoshi began to smooth it over Ayanna’s face and arms. When she was done she dipped one of her make-up brushes into a small jar of glitter and began flicking it on Ayanna. The flecks of gold clung to her, giving her skin a pixielike effect. For the finishing touch, Yoshi removed the gold slide necklace from around her neck and placed it on Ayanna.

  Yoshi nodded. “Now you’re ready.”

  “Damn, I thought you’d never get done. You ain’t the only one that gotta get right for the camera,” Peaches said, flopping her forty-eight-inch ass on the stool Ayanna had just vacated. She was a chocolate dime with hips like she was raised on nothing but corn bread and greens. Much like Ayanna, Peaches was on the come up in the entertainment business, but she represented the darker side of it. When someone said “down for whatever,” they were probably talking about Peaches. The girls were bitter rivals.

  “Yeah, some bitches need a head start,” Ayanna said slyly.

  Peaches faced Yoshi, who was just sitting back down to the vanity table, but addressed Ayanna: “Speaking of head, how did your private interview with Stacks work out?”

  “Bitch, knock it off. I know you ain’t trying to talk slick, wit all the dick you done sucked? Your head game is international. You throwing shade, when your ass is like forty, still trying to do videos. You ain’t get the memo? It’s a young bitch’s world,” Ayanna shot back, drawing laughter from the other four girls that were in the camper.

  “Come on girl, dead that shit. I still got two more ladies to do after you and I don’t wanna have to rush. You know I pride myself on quality,” Yoshi said, trying to ease the tension so she could do what she had to do and kick back.

  “I’m sorry, Yoshi, but you know how some of these bitches forget they place,” Peaches said, in an attempt to taunt Ayanna further. Thankfully, she didn’t bite. “So what you been up to, girl?” she asked Yoshi.

  “Out here trying to get a dollar,” Yoshi said, as she began to run the alcohol pad over Peaches’s face. “How’s the modeling thing going?”

  “It’s going, but not the way I want it to,” Peaches told her. “These niggaz act like if you ain’t trying to pose in a thong, they ain’t fucking wit you.”

  “Who you got managing you?” Yoshi asked, evening out Peaches’s makeup.

  “Oh, my son’s father and his cousin is handling that. His cousin used to work for Diddy, so you know he about his business.”

  “Peaches, a woman’s worth is too precious to be measured by a man. Leaving a novice nigga in control of your destiny is like having a pimp. Remind me to give you the name and number of the agency I went through back in the days. My girl Laurie Gold will get you right.”

  “You used to model?” a caramel-colored girl asked from the loveseat.

  Yoshi looked over at her. “Baby, I used to do some of everything, but now I’m just trying to make it through to tomorrow like everybody else.”

  “Yeah, I heard you was a beast on the streets,” an older girl said from near the wardrobe. Yoshi remembered her face from the club scene, but couldn’t place her name. “You used to headline at Shooter’s, right?”

  “That was a lifetime ago,” Yoshi told her, moving from Peaches’s eyes to her lips.

  “I can’t see it. You seem so … square,” Ayanna said.

  “You can’t take everything you see for surface value.”

  The door to the camper swung open, drawing everyone’s attention. “This shit is gonna be serious. Don B just rolled up.” She was dark, with the look of a newscaster on a good story.

  “Where them dollars at,” Peaches sang.

  Yoshi’s face didn’t show it, but a chill ran down her back. Every time she heard the name she got uneasy. Though Don B hadn’t been a participant in the rape, they were his minions. To her, he represented the worst the streets had to offer, hidden behind a pair of blacked-out glasses.

  “That nigga True looking like new money,” the newscaster broadcasted.

  “What’s better than new money?”

  “Long money!” Ayanna said. “Man, I’m about to hit the bricks and see who’s out there. Time is money, bitches,” Ayanna said, following the newscaster out of the camper.

  Yoshi watched the young girls leave, feeling somewhere between amused and saddened. They reminded her of herself not so long ago. Yoshi tore through Harlem like she had papers on it. She was young, fine, skillful, and determined to manipulate her way to the top. Until the now-departed members of Bad Blood and Rel’s grimy ass showed her how deep the rabbit hole goes. Just thinking of him made her want to vomit. Yoshi had never wished death on anyone, but she wasn’t sorry that someone tossed him off a roof.

  You have to really love someone in order to kill for them, and this is what had strengthened the bond between her and Jah. She was still pissed at him, but couldn’t help but to laugh when she thought of him. How could someone so versed in the streets be such a novice at love? Jah had stood by her and constantly helped absorb the pain all through her recovery, but when it came to him opening up, he withdrew. She had tried to figure out the puzzle that made up the young man but was stumped. Yoshi considered herself an expert in reading men, but Jah’s character was a puzzle she had yet to solve, and this is what often frustrated her most.

  Yoshi was distracted by the beeping of her cell phone. “Hello?”
she answered, without looking at the caller ID.

  “What’s good, skank?” Billy’s familiar voice came through the phone.

  “Takes one to know one,” Yoshi shot back.

  “What you doing?” Billy asked.

  “Shit, working. Stacks Green is shooting his video uptown, so you know ya girl out there trying to get a check. Why don’t you stop through, they got plenty of food and chronic. You know Stacks always feels like he gotta outstunt Don B, so it should be fun to watch.”

  “Damn, that sounds like what it is, but you know Reese ain’t trying to come nowhere near Don B.”

  “My poor home girl is gonna fuck around and miss out on a lot, trying to hide from a nigga that’s at every event. Yo, if it was me I’d have just stepped to the nigga by now.”

  “You and me both, but Reese don’t wanna press it. She figures, as she’s got Alex, she don’t need no nigga; and truthfully, I agree with her. All a nigga can really do is bring you grief or a fucking disease.”

  Yoshi sucked her teeth. “Yeah, right, you don’t be popping that shit when your ass be rushing home to watch Girlfriends with Marcus. His fake, tough ass watching a chick show is bananas.”

  “Leave my boo alone. I’ll have you know that Girlfriends is an excellent show. Yo ass don’t know nothing about upwardly mobile blacks,” Billy said.

  “And you do? Shit, ya man own a strip club,” Yoshi pointed out.

  “Baby, a check is a check,” Billy told her.

  “I know that’s right.”

  “Anyhow, how long are you gonna be stuck over there trying to swat them country nigga’s hands away from yo ass?” Billy asked.

  Yoshi glanced at her watch. “I don’t know. I’ve been through four wardrobe changes already, and these niggaz ain’t even halfway through the shoot. I might be here for a minute, ma.”

  “You gotta do what you gotta do, Yoshi. Well, me and Reese is gonna go get something to eat and probably hit a bar up. It’s been a while since I hung out with my girls.”

  “Cause you spend so much time on lockdown,” Yoshi teased.

  “Like Jah lets you run like you used to. Don’t go there with me, Yoshi. Speaking of Jah, what’s up with my little brother?”

  “He’s probably sulking around the house or playing that damn video game, fucking asshole.”

  “What’s with all the hostility?”

  “Nothin. That lil nigga just gets me tight. Stacks wanted him to do security this weekend and he acting all funny about the shit, like we don’t need that bread. When I checked him on it he act like he was feeling in a way. I don’t wanna have to filet that little thug-ass nigga, but damnit I will!”

  “You need to calm down, Yoshi. You knew Jah was wild when you got with him, so don’t go condemning him now,” Billy said seriously. Yoshi was her girl, but over the course of Yoshi’s recovery Jah had been a pillar. This is what earned her respect, and she was quick to defend him.

  “Billy, if you only knew the half.”

  “Talk to ya girl,” Billy urged her.

  “A’ight, peep this …” Yoshi went on to give Billy the short version of the story. She ended with, “Yo, if the nigga don’t wanna be around, he needs to just say so.”

  “Damn, that’s crazy; but I don’t think Jah meant it like that,” Billy said.

  “However the fuck he meant it, he said it. That was some hurtful shit, Billy, and to make it worse, he hasn’t even called me today.”

  “Now that’s whack, but the other shit I think you can work on. I know he should’ve called, but why don’t you give him a ring instead?”

  “Fuck that!” Yoshi spat.

  “Yoshi, stop acting like that. You’ve got more experience with the opposite sex, so you know you understand the rules of engagement a little better than he does. Just call him.”

  There was a knock on the door, then a round-faced female PA wearing a headset poked her head into the camper. “Yoshi, they need you on set. One of Persia’s tracks came out and they’re ready to shoot.”

  Yoshi covered the phone. “I’ll be right there. Billy, I gotta go, but I’ll shout y’all later.”

  “Alright then, do what you gotta do, kid. Make sure you call me later. One.”

  Chapter 13

  IT TOOK SOME DOING, BUT WITHIN A FEW HOURS the crew had the St. Nicholas projects looking like a BET soundstage. There were lights, trucks, high-tech equipment, and of course women. From far and wide they came. Black girls, White girls, Asians, you name it, they were out there. All came in search of their fifteen minutes of fame. As soon as the red Escalade bent the corner of 131st Street, blasting Don B’s latest single off his sophomore album, all attention was turned to it. The Don was in the building.

  Big Devil stepped from the driver’s side, causing the car to rock. He was dressed in a black T-shirt with THE TRUTH etched across the front of it. Black sunglasses covered his eyes and looked like they were too tight around his massive head. Next out of the ride was his partner Remo. In contrast to Devil’s dark skin, Remo was high yellow. Standing side by side they looked like human twin towers. The men were seasoned street vets and hired killers in the service of the Don.

  Don B climbed from the rear of the car with a blunt pinched between his lips. In addition to his rottweiler medallion, he was sporting a colorful diamond chain that looked like someone had sprinkled Fruity Pebbles on it. True was next, wearing a red bandana tied around his neck like a cowboy. A California Angels cap sat cocked on his head, looking like it would come off at the first strong wind that came through. Like Remo, he wore a black T-shirt with the title of his album scrawled across the front of it. With the twin towers at their heel, the two stars made their way across the street towards the projects.

  Halfway across the street, Devil noticed a short light-skinned kid coming in their direction. He had a shifty glare about him and his hands were tucked a little too deep inside the pockets of his Yankee jacket. Before he could get close enough to do any real damage, Devil stepped in front of him.

  “Sup, shorty?” Devil said to the kid.

  “Chillin, my nigga,” the kid said, trying to sidestep Devil.

  “You know somebody over here or something?” Devil asked, blocking his path again.

  “Fam,” the kid said, as if Devil was becoming an annoyance. “Why is you acting like I’m a deranged fan or something when I’m just trying to go holla at my man?”

  “Cause I don’t know ya face, fam,” Devil said in an icy tone.

  “My dude.” The kid went to take his hand out of his pocket and Devil went into action. He grabbed the kid by the arm and bent it behind his back. Though Devil had yet to apply any pressure, the kid yelled out, drawing True’s attention.

  “Yo, what you doing Devil?” True threw his hands in the air.

  “My job, lil muthafucka!” Devil shot back.

  “True, you know this nigga?” Don B asked in an unconcerned tone.

  True looked at Don B as if he should know the man, too. “D, you mean to tell me you don’t remember Wood?”

  “Who?”

  True shook his head. “Wood, nigga, little Hollywood. The fake John Singleton.”

  “Oh, fam wit the movies and shit?” Don B recalled. “True, I ain’t really trying to fuck wit that nigga right now, we got business with Stacks.”

  “Come on, dawg, we can’t just let Devil toss him up like that,” True said.

  Don B sighed heavily. “True, make this shit quick. Yo, Devil!” Don B called to the bodyguard. When he had Devil’s attention he motioned for him to let Hollywood go.

  “Told you, nigga,” Hollywood said, before popping his collar and strutting over to where Don B and True were standing. “What it is, my niggaz?” Hollywood gave True a pound then jerked him in for a hug. He went to repeat it with Don B, but the scowl on the man’s face changed his mind. “Right, right. So what’s good fellas.”

  “Ain’t nothing. Bout to roll over here to Stacks Green’s video shoot,” True told him.

>   “Oh word, that’s what it is. I wasn’t doing nothing anyway.” When Hollywood tried to fall in step with them Don B stopped him.

  “It’s a closed set, homey. You’re welcomed to stay around, though.” Don B stepped off the curb, leaving True to deal with Hollywood.

  “Yo, what’s up wit ya man?” Hollywood asked True, once Don B was out of earshot. “Duke be acting like I did something to him, what’s good with that?”

  “Ain’t about nothing,” True lied. The truth of the matter was that Hollywood was a bullshit artist. He was one of those cats that had big dreams and no initiative. Every time you saw him he was popping shit about what he was into and how he had another surefire plan, but nothing ever panned out for Hollywood, because he gave a half-ass effort.

  “Funny, cause it always seem like something,” Hollywood said. “But fuck that shit, I hear you doing ya thing wit the music, True?”

  “I ain’t did nothing yet,” True said modestly. “I killed a few mix tapes, but my album doesn’t come out for another couple of weeks. That’ll be the real test of fire.”

  “I hear that. Yo, y’all shot a video yet?”

  “Not since the Bad Blood joint. I’ve just been writing and trying to jump on every mix tape out there.”

  “Nigga, that’s what it is. But you know to come holla at me the next time you ready to shoot something, right?” Hollywood asked.

  “I don’t know, Wood. The record company usually chooses which directors we go with.”

  “Stop acting like that, True. You the biggest act on Don B’s label, you know he’ll listen to you. Check it: I got the high-eight joint at the crib right now. We can take that, shoot the video for the low. After we do that we can present it to Don B, to show him we know how to move.” Hollywood was trying to sell game, but True wasn’t buying.

  “Wood, I can’t speak for Don B, but I’ll put it in the air,” True said. He really just wanted Hollywood to go on about his business so he could go about his.

  “That’s what it is then. Yo, True, holla at ya man, we need to do something.”