Resurrection

by Treasure Hernandez

  Scratch smiled because Halleigh had promised him that she would show up for the program. He kept it to himself, so that Sharina would have a big surprise. Scratch gon’ make Rina’s day, he thought to himself as he stared at beautiful Sharina.

  Halleigh couldn’t stop smiling, knowing that she was about to bring a life into the world. She pulled into the parking lot of Genesis. I hope I didn’t miss seeing Scratch get his certificate, she thought as her heels clicked on the pavement on her way into the building.

  Halleigh walked into the building during the middle of a woman’s speech and saw Scratch sitting in the front row. She immediately took a seat, so she wouldn’t be a distraction. As she sat down, she heard a voice that she hadn’t heard in years. She immediately looked at the podium, and anxiety took over her body. Standing there talking to the people was her mother. “Oh my God,” she whispered as she sat there in disbelief.

  “Drive by slow,” Mitch instructed as he and another henchman, both with semi-automatic assault rifles, hung out of the window. The Genesis building had a glass front, so they could see all of the people gathered inside looking at the speaker. Under Malek’s orders, Mitch prepared to let it rain bullets inside of the building.

  “Thank you all very much,” Sharina said as she received a standing ovation for her touching speech. She walked off the stage and over to Scratch and gave him a hug to congratulate him on his recovery.

  Scratch whispered in her ear as they embraced, “I got someone I want you to see.” Then he led her to Halleigh.

  Sharina’s heart nearly stopped when she saw her only daughter. She had been anticipating their reunion for so long, and now that she was face to face with her, she was speechless. She had so much to say, so much to explain, but nothing seemed to come out. Tears ran down her cheeks as she began to speak. “Halleigh, I—”

  Before Sharina could finish her sentence, bullets rang out, one grazing her neck.

  The entire place broke out into complete pandemonium. Scratch dove for Halleigh and covered her to protect her. The sound of shattering glass and horrified screams filled the air as they dropped to the floor, trying to avoid taking any bullets. After ten seconds of non-stop shooting, the mayhem finally ceased.

  “Baby girl, are you okay?” Scratch asked as he uncovered Halleigh. He noticed blood coming from her thigh and panicked. “You hit! You hit in the leg!” he said as he looked at the rest of her body to make sure that she wasn’t hit anywhere else.

  A woman screamed, causing them to look in her direction. It was Moses. She had Sharina in her arms. Blood was coming from her neck, but fortunately for her, the bullet hadn’t hit her jugular vein. It had merely broken her skin.

  “Nooo!” Halleigh screamed as she scooted over next to her mother and held her in her arms. She didn’t even get a chance to tell her how much she loved her, how much she hated her, how much she needed her, and how much she had to go through without her. She disregarded her own bullet wound as she asked her mom, “You okay?”

  Thankfully, her mom wasn’t dead, and she would eventually get a chance to tell her all of those things.

  The sound of ambulance sirens sounded, and the paramedics rushed into the building to save the lives of the wounded.

  Halleigh threw up, and the room began to spin, as she was losing an awful lot of blood from her leg. She looked down at her stomach, and for the first time she thought of the life inside of her. “Oh God, no, please no,” she whispered. She put her hand over her wound and tried to stop the bleeding.

  “You need to get to the hospital, Li’l Rina.” Scratch waved a paramedic over to Halleigh.

  Losing a lot of blood, Halleigh became light-headed and fainted. The last thing that crossed her mind was Malek and her unborn child.

  “It’s done,” Mitch said to Malek.

  “Good. Maybe now they will see it my way.” Malek hung up the phone.

  Malek sat on the couch and looked at his watch. “Halleigh should have been home by now. Where my baby at?” he asked himself as he stood in his living room with a bottle of wine. The wind blew open his white linen shirt as he took a sip. He pulled out a box holding a three-carat diamond ring. That night was the night he would propose to Halleigh. From here on out, life will be good.

  “Come on, girl, where you at?” Malek flipped open his phone and dialed her number, but he never received an answer. Malek checked his voice mail to see if Halleigh had left him any messages, and that was when he heard the message that she had left him the other night.

  “Baby, I feel bad about something, and I just gotta come clean with it. But please promise me that you won’t get upset. Okay, well, I know how you feel about the rehab center cutting into your business, and I just wanted to tell you that when you was calling my phone and you couldn’t get me, that was because I was really with Scratch at the rehab, trying to get some help for him.

  “And, baby, there’s something else that I wanted to tell you, but I have to tell you that in person. It’s about Mitch, okay, baby. I love you. Be safe. Call me back.”

  Malek quickly called back Halleigh’s cell phone, but again he got no answer.

  Immediately he thought the worst about Mitch. “I’ll cut that nigga’s dick off and shove that shit in his mouth and then murder his ass!” Malek screamed. He had a sick feeling as to what was up. “He snaked me! Don’t nobody come in my crib and snake me and think they can live!”

  All of the veins in Malek’s head began to bulge, and fire was ready to shoot out of him. He took hold of his cell phone and called Mitch.

  “Yo,” Mitch said, answering his phone.

  “Yo, Mitch, swing by the crib. I just wanna talk about this rehab shit, so all our bases is covered and nothing comes back to bite us in the ass.”

  “You want me to come right now?” Mitch asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, and come solo. I ain’t trusting nobody right now.”

  “Okay, no doubt. I’ll be there in about a half-hour,” Mitch said and then hung up the phone. He immediately got on the horn with Sweets. “It’s time to roll on this nigga,” he said to Sweets.

  “A’ight, no doubt,” Sweets said without hesitation. “Say no more. Swing by the crib. I’ll line niggas up, and we’ll get the ratchets and go tighten that ass up!”

  Halleigh was slipping in and out of consciousness as she rode in the back of the ambulance. Scratch was right there by her side, tears in his eyes. “Come on, Li’l Rina, you’ll be all right,” he kept saying, hoping that she could stay conscious.

  “She’s lost a lot of blood!” one of the paramedics said as he tried to apply pressure to her wound.

  Halleigh tried to whisper something, but Scratch couldn’t make it out clearly. “What’s that, baby girl?” Scratch asked, stroking her hair and placing his ear next to her lips.

  Halleigh whispered, “My-my baby, my baby,” just before losing consciousness. Those were the last words that she uttered, and she slipped into total darkness.

  THE END

  But the saga continues in Flint 5

  Coming Soon in 2009

  A Pimp’s Life

  By Treasure Hernandez

  Prologue

  My moms died today. The monster finally devoured her spirit and life. Sick the whole time through, she lived HIV-positive for fifteen years before finally succumbing to full-blown AIDS.

  Drugs fucked up her whole shit up years ago. Fucked my whole shit up too. I watched her get high every day. It used to make me cry to see her after she hit that pipe. She’d be so lost in space. It was like her soul wasn’t there, but her body was always there for anyone that could keep her high. I guess she finally reached that mountaintop she’d been climbing for so long.

  What sense did it make though, when all she did was fall off? Maybe my father could’ve given her a helping hand. If she knew who that was. She’d had a child with a man from Virginia three years before I was born. She never knew what it was, and didn’t want to know, putting up the baby for adoption the instant i
t was born.

  I may as well have been adopted too because I didn’t like the idea of admitting that my moms was a crackhead ho. She didn’t love me. All she ever loved was that pipe. You know how that shit makes me feel? It don’t make me feel like nothing. Because if you ain’t never known love, then you ain’t going to miss love.

  Chapter One

  MACK

  I shielded my eyes from the glare of the afternoon sun as I walked out of Queens Courthouse. It had been a long night. I’d just spent it serving nine hours behind bars, thanks to the brave and dedicated hard work of New York City’s Finest. I walked down the long row of cement steps and stood at the curb. The traffic lights were out, and cars headed east and west uncompromisingly whizzed by with no regard for pedestrians trying to make a dash for the island that divided the flow of traffic. I stood under the Don’t Walk sign and pressed the button to no avail.

  “Fuck it,” I said, running into the street as soon as I saw a momentary clearing. I jumped on top of the divider and looked to my immediate right. Cars raced up the street as if this was the “Ghetto 500.” My heart pounded through my chest from running, and my adrenaline rushed like Russell’s when he was up in that elevator catching the full force of a J.B. beat-down.

  Soon as I hit the sidewalk my cell rang. “Yo,” I said, panting heavily, searching for air.

  “You get out yet, jailbird?” Sade laughed.

  Sade was my woman. We lived together in a house in Queens Village. She wasn’t the best-looking woman I’d dealt with, but she had a good heart. Sade was 5-6, and was dark-skinned with full lips like Fantasia. Originally from Virginia, she’d moved to New York three years ago after her stepfather, Glen, tried to rape her. When she brought the issue to her mom’s attention, her mom flipped the script by accusing her of lying and trying to cause a rift in her stable relationship.

  When Sade’s moms finally did confront Glen with the charges, he denied it, swearing up and down every crack of ass he’d ever licked that Sade came on to him. Deep in her heart, she knew she was wrong, so she let her daughter go and moved right along. She knew Sade was telling the truth and that he’d always had his eyes on her. I mean, why not? Here you had this young woman physically blossoming right before your eyes versus a sickly, one-tittie lady, slowly but surely withering away.

  Afraid of spending the latter years of her life home alone, she chose his side, with her head down to the floor. That still bothered Sade to this day. She didn’t understand how you could love somebody your entire life then just turn your back on them. None of the men her mother dated had good intentions.

  Sade’s moms was dying of breast cancer and had a huge life insurance policy. Every eligible bachelor in Richmond knew that she was worth four hundred thousand dollars after her ass expired. All she wanted to do was never die alone.

  Sade would call her every now and again, but Glen always answered the phone and hung up when he heard her voice. Eventually he had the number changed, and Sade lost contact with her and refused to go visit her as long he was still living there.

  “Yeah. I’m free. About to grab me some New York Fried Chicken from the Habeebs.” I walked inside the restaurant. “Call Anton and tell him I said to come and get me. It’s his fault I was in there in the first place,” I said, sitting down. “Yo, Ahmed, let me get two thighs, small fries, and a lemon Mystic Iced Tea, man,” I said to the owner. “Yeah, so, baby, did you miss me?”

  “You know I did.”

  “Uh-huh. You better had.”

  “Whatever, Mack. I’m about to see the Dominicans. My hair needs to be washed and wrapped.”

  “Don’t be out there spending up a whole lot of money, Sade. You heard?”

  “Love you,” she said, disconnecting the call.

  I walked inside my Queens Village home and flopped down on the blue leather couch. I had been up the entire night madder than a muthafucka, sitting up in jail on some bullshit marijuana charge. I don’t even smoke. My dude Anton was blowing one of them thangs down while we was inside Cambria Heights Park with these two bitches. I don’t know which was faster, the detectives that rolled up in the park in the black Expedition with tinted windows, or Anton’s warrant-having ass hopping over the five-foot gate at the end of the park. He dropped the cigar shit right in front of me. So guess who it belonged to, according to the law? They let the girls off with a warning and let me ride in back of the truck with them.

  The doorbell rang just as I’d reached my comfort zone level. I ignored it at first, but the person continued to pound the fucking bell out. I looked through the peephole. “Ay, yo, who the fuck is it?”

  Anton’s big-ass head was all up in my view. I’m looking out the hole, his silly, non-complex ass is trying to look in.

  “Open the door, man. You know I got warrants.” He looked around before quickly rushing inside. Then he held out his hand. “Hey, man, apologies for last night.”

  “You’s an ill dude, yo. I ain’t fucking with you no more outside. I don’t like being locked up. You just bounced without saying a word.”

  “If there was time to say anything, I would of. Look, I can’t afford to get caught by these pigs, yo. They’ll kill me. That’s what they do when you shoot one of theirs.”

  I walked to the refrigerator, pulled two Heinekens from the top shelf, and popped the caps. “Whatever, man. Did you ever speak to them girls in Brooklyn . . . Kim’s people?”

  “Aw, man, I was caught up in some next shit, son. But I’m-a get up with her tonight and shit. Matter of fact, you should come too. She keep asking about you.”

  “Naw. I’m chilling at home with Sade. I didn’t get to give her no ‘daddy good loving’ last night because of your ass.” I pointed at him.

  Anton took a long swig of the beer. “Gordy was asking about you too.”

  “Yeah? I don’t hear my phone ringing off the hook. He ain’t looking for me. He looking for something about me.”

  “Well, whatever the fuck”—He held out his hand—“ I’m about to be out. Just came to check in on you and make sure you wasn’t violated in the shower.” Anton laughed.

  “Fuck you!” I laughed. “Get the hell out my house,” I said, pushing him out and closing the door.

  Chapter Two

  MACK

  “I ’m thinking about taking a trip to see my mother.” Sade sat up in the bed. She leaned her back against the headboard and touched my chest. “You heard me, baby?”

  “Naw. What’s up?” I said, my eyes still closed.

  “I said I want to see my mother. What do you think about that?”

  “Sade,” I said, sitting up, “if you want to see your mother, I’ll roll with you down there. It’s nothing.”

  “No, I need to do this by myself. I’ll be all right.”

  “What about ol’ boy?”

  “I’ll worry about that when I get there.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m a big girl, baby. I’ll be cool.”

  “A’ight. I know you can handle yourself. So when you leaving?”

  “I’m driving down there next Friday. I’ll be gone for about three days.”

  I kissed her cheek.

  “What was that for?”

  “For being a real thorough bitch. That’s the shit right there that made me fall in love with you.”

  Sade reached her hand under the covers and placed it on my hardening dick, massaging the head with her thumb. “And that’s the shit that made me fall in love with you,” she said, removing the covers from over me. She pulled my boxers off and slowly slid her mouth around the head of my dick and sucked it like a swollen thumb, licking around the rim and poking at the eye with the tip of her tongue.

  I lay on my back looking at her, as she widened her mouth and long-throated the nine inches of “bless you with my loving.” She gagged once, she gagged twice, but maintained the sexual discipline required to control tossing it up. When my body shivered, she sucked even harder.

  “A W W W W SHIIIIT,
” I yelled out. “SADE. Oh my damn,” I cried out as she continued milking the cow.

  “What’s the matter, boo? You can’t take it?” she asked, my love fluids leaking from the corners of her mouth. “Where the freak at, daddy?” She rolled her tongue around at me then stuck it down my throat.

  I lifted off her shirt and sucked on her hard, erect nipples, my mouth cruising around, on, and between her firm titties. I licked from her neck down to her navel and spoke to it in tongues. I melted down in between her legs and sniffed my pussy. And craved my pussy. I watched it as it throbbed and leaked in anticipation of a forthcoming tsunami.

  “Come on, daddy, I wanna see lakes running down these sheets,” she said, rubbing them with one hand while the other was snug behind my head.

  I made her butterfly wings flap and her cat sing for tender victuals. I eloquently ran my tongue around the edges of each wing then quickly slid it further down. I pushed it up into her ass, and she sighed loudly. I razzled her and dazzled her with tonguenastic flips and twists, and turns and churns.

  And then she farted in my fucking face. I was done.

  “What happened, daddy?” Sade rubbed between her legs.

  “Come on, man, how many times you going to fart in my face?”

  She laughed. “Did it stink?”

  “Oh, you think that shit is funny now, huh?” I playfully grabbed her by the shoulders and lay back down. “Come on, ma, get on top.” I was standing strong as ever.

  Wetter than a Mexican being rescued by the Coast Guard, Sade sat on it, and it slid straight up inside of her, the soft walls collapsing around me then constricting. As I lay still for a moment and let it burn, my body ushered in an even harder erection.

  She planted her palms on my chest and slowly began to gyrate her hips a lil’ something. She heard my black snake moan and matched it with a pleasurable meow. She leaned forward and grabbed my shoulders then began popping that thing up and down like hydraulics.