19
And what are you making again?” Sana asked Harlem.
“It’s an Ethiopian dish called wat,” Harlem answered.
“What?”
“Wat—W-A-T,” Harlem corrected.
Sana wrinkled her nose. “Well, whatever it’s called, it smells funny and it’s stinking up the kitchen.”
“Believe me, it is really good.”
“I doubt it . . . just the smell of it is making my stomach turn.”
“Don’t knock it until you tried it,” Harlem replied.
Sana leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed her arms. “And I don’t wanna try it.”
“It’s a dish my mother taught me how to make,” Harlem said.
Harlem had chopped up a red onion and simmered it in a pot. Once the onions had softened, she added some vegetable oil. Following that step, she added some berbere to make a spicy wat.
“I don’t get it. You were born here, Harlem, and your parents abandoned you and went back to Ethiopia. So why are you cooking up some foreign shit? Keep things American. I mean, damn, your parents named you Harlem. You can’t get any blacker than that,” said Sana.
Harlem chuckled at the comment. “It’s my culture.”
“Your culture is here in this country.”
“I may have been born here, but this country isn’t my culture.”
“So do you consider yourself an American or Ethiopian?”
“Both.”
“Both? You need to be loyal to one nationality. And since your skin is so dark, you should just represent that African side of you. It definitely works.”
Harlem looked at Sana, but she refused to reply to the ignorance. It wasn’t the first time she had come across someone like Sana—someone judgmental and naïve, who added their two cents about her skin color and her Ethiopian culture. Unlike her parents, Harlem took pride in the Ethiopian ways and culture. She felt that it gave her an identity. She blamed her parents for not having an identity and being confused about who they were when arriving to this country—and who she was. But being with Cartier, she saw strength in her identity.
“I swear, if it ain’t made in America, then it ain’t right,” Sana added.
Harlem rolled her eyes and sighed. Sana was something else. But she refused to argue with the girl because she was in a celebratory mood. The case the state had against her for prostitution was wrapped up with her pleading no contest. Her punishment was three days community service and a fine.
Sana stood in the kitchen wearing only a strapless bra and a pair of panties, showing off her bony ass. She considered herself an exhibitionist. She loved walking around the apartment nearly naked, and she didn’t care who saw her, including Head, who was also staying there. She had been warned numerous times by Cartier to put some clothes on, especially when Head was there.
“When you’re done with them pots and pans, you need to wash them out thoroughly, because I don’t want to taste lingering effects from your weird food,” Sana said, nodding in the direction of the sink.
“You’re missing out.”
Sana smirked. “I doubt it. I’ll take some eggs or a steak any day.”
Harlem continued cooking her traditional meal and refused to let Sana get under her skin. Not today.
“Damn, what the fuck you cooking in here?” Head asked as he walked in the kitchen.
Harlem sighed. She didn’t feel like explaining her dish again—especially not to Head. He walked into the kitchen shirtless and wearing basketball shorts and he screwed his face at the smell of things.
“Shit smells like something’s dying in here,” he added.
“That’s what I told her,” Sana said.
“Don’t eat it then,” Harlem replied.
“Believe me, you don’t have to worry about that with me,” Head countered.
He then gazed at Sana in her bra and panties, showing off her tiny tits. He frowned at her. The chick thinks she’s cute, he said to himself. But he showed no interest in Sana. In fact, he would fuss with Cartier about keeping a white woman at her place. One night, he requested that she be kicked out, ranting that white women were the devil and the downfall of a black man.
Cartier had countered with, “She’s half-black.”
Head was admittedly shocked to hear this.
Cartier wasn’t about to take orders from Head. As far as she was concerned, Sana was doing big things. She went to a great college and held down a job. It would be cruel to kick her out when she was leveling up. It was her place, and she would let whoever she wanted stay there.
Head had just returned after being gone for ten days, and he gave Cartier a full business report on the progress he was making with his legit endeavors. She didn’t drill him too much about his whereabouts and long absence, but she did require answers to any and all of her questions. He provided her with plane tickets and travel information to prove to her that he wasn’t staying at Pebbles’ place.
Along with his beefing with Sana, Head and Harlem weren’t the best of friends either. The two were always arguing. He hated when Harlem took to the kitchen to cook her foreign African foods. For some strange reason, he disliked her culture. Harlem found it ironic, since he went around preaching black pride, black politics, black businesses, building strong black families and structure, and Black Lives Matter.
Harlem went to her bedroom to talk to her parents through WhatsApp. She was rebuilding her relationship with her parents, particularly with her mother, and she frequently talked to them through the app. Though she had never been to Ethiopia, she yearned to see it and experience everything her parents talked about.
“How are things there?” Harlem asked her mother, Eden.
“Things are good. Really good,” Eden replied.
“That’s good news,” Harlem replied, taking a seat on her bed.
“But I need a favor from you, Harlem,” Eden began.
“What kind of favor?”
“Since you are doing so well over there, can you send us some money again? It is truly needed,” said Eden.
Harlem looked around her bedroom, grateful for all the nice things she had. “That’s not a problem. I can do that.”
Eden smiled. “We appreciate it so much, Harlem. You are a blessing to your parents.”
“Look out for it tomorrow afternoon.”
“How much will you send?”
“Work and tips have been good at the club, so maybe three hundred dollars,” said Harlem.
“That is fine. Thank you.”
“Goodbye, Mom,” Harlem said, walking back into the kitchen.
“Goodbye.”
After getting her food, Harlem went back to her bedroom to enjoy her meal in peace. She needed a timeout from everyone.
Sana sat on the living room couch in her panties and bra, heavily engrossed in her crossword puzzle. She was obsessed with doing puzzles and playing word games in the newspapers or on her cell phone. She almost needed an intervention. Working the puzzles kept her thinking and focused, and she loved the challenge.
Head walked into the living room and gazed at her in her underwear.
She looked his way and asked, “Why don’t you like white people? What did they ever do to you?”
He scowled. “Are you seriously asking me that question—what have white people done to me?”
“Yes.”
“Let me say this to you, little girl. As a black man in this country, to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time,” he said, his body tensing up.
She looked back down at her puzzle and said, “You don’t have to be in a rage. You just need to relax, that’s all.”
“Relax. Of course for you, it’s that simple.”
She looked up and smiled. “It can be.”
“I have a question for you
.”
“Ask.”
“With your light or white skin, what race do you consider yourself? What ethnicity do you consider your primary? Is it white?”
Sana didn’t answer the question right away. Head stared at her with intensity until she finally answered, “I’m mixed.”
“Mixed, huh?”
Of course, Sana was lying. She wanted to say white, but she felt that she was behind enemy lines and she didn’t want to upset Head. There was this ferocity inside of him toward white folks that she felt threatened by.
“When you were mixed back in the day—a mulatto—you were still considered black and lynched by mobs of whites. Having a drop of black blood in your veins, in your DNA, meant you were a nigger.”
Sana sat there quietly for a moment. It looked like she was taking in his words. She then smiled. “You really need to relax. When was the last time Cartier gave you some?”
“That’s not your business.”
“I know, but maybe if you were getting some pussy then you wouldn’t be walking around here with your chest all out and preaching this black supremacy,” she countered.
Head was taken aback by her boldness.
She continued to smile at him in her underwear. Her smile was vexing Head. It was becoming a strange encounter between the two of them.
“What’s going on in here?” Cartier asked, walking into the living room and tying her robe together.
She observed Head and Sana staring at each other, and seeing Sana lounging on her couch in her panties and bra made her upset. She immediately barked at Sana, “Girl, what the fuck did I tell you about walking around here half naked, especially when he is here?”
“I’m sorry, Cartier.”
“Don’t be sorry, go and put some fuckin’ clothes on.”
Sana sprung from the couch and hurried into the bedroom. Cartier and Harlem were becoming tiresome with always telling her to put some clothes on when Head was there.
Cartier was three seconds away from putting her hands on the young white-looking bitch to get her point across. She didn’t know what Sana was up to, but she wanted it to stop.
Cartier turned to look at Head and asked him, “What were y’all in here talking about?”
“Her privileged white skin,” Head replied.
“Are you attracted to her, Head?” she asked him.
“Are you seriously asking me that question?”
Cartier stepped closer to him and locked eyes with him. “Yes!”
“I don’t associate myself with the devil, Cartier. Her people—they’re our oppressors and they have been for hundreds of years. Her people have done things to the black race that are unimaginable. I would never betray my race by sleeping with white women. Do you understand me?”
She didn’t respond. She continued to stare at him. His eyes and voice were showing and speaking hate for white people, but in Cartier’s mind, the nigga was still a man—and pussy was still pussy, no matter what race it was.
Cartier waved him off and went into Sana’s bedroom to have a talk with her. She was lying on her bed still working on her crossword puzzle.
Sana looked at Cartier and said, “I’m sorry, Cartier. I was in there minding my business and doing my puzzle and he started talking to me.”
Sana didn’t know that Cartier had overheard some of their conversation. Lately, Sana had been walking around the place thinking that she was better than everyone else. Yet, Cartier was the one paying the bills. When they would go out in public together, Cartier noticed how Sana took to white people quicker than she did black people. Her speech and demeanor would change up around them, as if she desperately wanted to fit in with the white race and forget about the black DNA inside of her.
Cartier figured out that she was pretending to be completely white around a certain class of people and she wanted to talk to her about it—or better yet, call her out on her bullshit.
“Do you hate black people, Sana?” Cartier asked her bluntly.
“No, I don’t. Why are you asking me that?” Sana replied timidly.
“Because I’ve been watching you lately, and it seems like you’d rather be white than black,” said Cartier.
“But I am black,” she said clearly inside the room.
“Are you sure about that? Because when you’re out there”—Cartier pointed to the window—“you don’t announce that like you just did in here.”
“I just have a lot going on, Cartier.”
“We all do. But don’t be ashamed to be black too.”
“I’m not,” she lied.
“Listen, you have the best of both worlds and you should embrace both races equally. You don’t have to choose one race over the other, because you’re both,” Cartier explained.
“I understand.”
With that said, Cartier walked out and went into her own room. She opened her top drawer and removed the white card from it. She took a seat at the foot of her bed and stared at it. This one had the same skull, dagger, and blood with the handwritten letter R in black ink. The cards were starting to bother her. She had put Majestic and Scooter on a mission to find the culprits behind them, but after the ambush on her trap house, their attention was diverted.
Cartier couldn’t front. She was worried. Whatever this was with the cards, she didn’t want it spilling over into Harlem and Sana’s lives, possibly putting them in danger. Cartier felt like she was the big sister inside the home, and they were filling the voids left by her two deceased sisters, Fendi and Prada. She missed her little sisters very much, and having Harlem and Sana around reminded her of them.
While Cartier was in her bedroom alone, brooding and at the same time reminiscing about her little sisters, Harlem decided to go for a walk outside for some fresh air and to work off her meal. She opened the front door to see Head standing in the hallway alone. He was on his phone and didn’t notice her behind him. She then heard him say into the phone, “I miss you too, Pebbles. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Harlem was shocked to hear that. She knew Cartier was going to go into a heated rage once she found out.
20
Head was away again, leaving Cartier without her man. She hated his trips out of town, which he kept saying were about business. She believed that he was a busy man—but how busy?
Harlem and Sana were working at the club, and the apartment was quiet. Relaxing in her bedroom, she poured herself a glass of white wine, spread out across her large bed nearly naked, and loaded up Netflix. The night belonged to her, and she planned on taking full advantage of it. She didn’t want to worry about the streets, business, Head, or any threatening cards. It was too stressful. Just as the intro to the movie finished, her cell phone started to ring next to her. Glancing at the caller ID, Cartier saw it was Caesar calling her at the late hour. She answered the call with, “Hey Caesar,” like they were best friends.
“How is your night?” he asked her.
“It’s going fine.”
“That’s good to hear,” he said.
With Head gone so much, Cartier found herself on the phone with Caesar more and more. He called her regularly. He called her when his wife was home, when she wasn’t home, and he even called her when he was taking his son on play dates. Soon she found herself confiding in him, telling Caesar things that she probably shouldn’t, like how it felt to lose her daughter in Miami. She told him about doing years of jail time for a murder she didn’t commit. She talked about Monya, Jason, her mother and her sisters, and she confessed how empty she felt inside from losing all of her childhood friends and how she was secretly suffering from abandonment issues.
Caesar was a great listener.
She soon found herself expecting Caesar’s phone calls. She didn’t know where things were going with them, but she liked the attention he gave her.
Her friendship with Caesar came at
a time when Head wasn’t around. He was always out of town, always traveling somewhere rebuilding his empire. Business became his favorite word to her. His hateful rhetoric toward the government and white people started to become scary—so scary that she believed he was a borderline terrorist and the C.I.A. and NSA were going to tap her phones and raid her home.
Cartier truly loved Head, but she started to grow concerned about the change in him, and she was becoming weary of his long absences from her.
Harlem dawdled by Cartier’s bedroom door for a short moment, thinking on how she was going to tell Cartier the grim news. She couldn’t keep silent any longer. Cartier needed to know the truth.
Finally, she knocked on the master bedroom door and hollered, “It’s me, Cartier. We need to talk.”
The door opened and Cartier stood in front of Harlem in a blue silk robe. It looked like she had just gotten out of the tub.
“What’s up, Harlem? What do you need to talk about?”
The look on Harlem’s face matched the words she was about to speak. “It’s something you might not want to hear.”
“Just say it. I don’t like it when people try to sugarcoat shit.”
“It’s Head. I overheard him talking to Pebbles the other day when he was in the hallway. He didn’t see me. I think he’s still messing with her.”
“And you sure it was Pebbles he was talking to?”
“I heard him say her name.”
The deadpan look on Cartier’s face was worrisome. Harlem was sure that she was going to fly into a rage and flip out. She remembered the night Cartier shot at him outside his great aunt’s place. This time she believed Cartier was going to kill him. She had warned him to leave Pebbles alone if they were going to be together—but Head wanted to have his cake and eat it too.
“You okay?” Harlem asked her.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m here if you need me, Cartier. You know I have your back,” said Harlem.
“I know. I just need some time alone to think,” she said.
Cartier closed her door and retreated back into her room while Harlem stood there bewildered by her calm demeanor. It wasn’t the Cartier she knew.
Cartier Cartel--Part 4 Page 14