The Coldest Winter Ever

by Sister Souljah

  A whole woman is a natural magnet. She draws so much to herself, that sometimes she has to fight for time for herself and space to breathe. A whole woman creates an intelligent environment, where others can also grow and become something significant. A whole woman commands the respect of her husband. In fear of losing her respect he honors her boundaries. A whole woman’s mind and voice are so entertaining that she keeps a permanent audience. She provides her children with an arsenal of common sense, pertinent information, and worldly wisdom, so that they might do more than survive. So that they might triumph.

  Mrs. Santiaga gave birth to Winter when she was fourteen years old. When a teenager becomes pregnant at such a young age it is not a tragedy. However, it will take careful planning and teamwork in order for her to still be able to continue to learn and grow. The new life in her belly is of course the priority. In a good case, her parents and/or grandparents will pitch in. Her school will introduce her to a program with other young ladies needing the same kind of support. However, when this does not happen, or if she is the type of teen who doesn’t make it happen, the formal education is jeopardized and usually not replaced by anything else.

  In the novel we never hear Mrs. Santiaga speak of her own mother and father, or of having grandparents. We can assume that either they were dead or, more likely, that they did not have a powerfully positive impact on her. If this is true, the picture is beginning to come into focus. We now have a character whose education stopped on or before ninth grade, who also has a disconnection from her parents and past.

  Apparently Mrs. Santiaga was with Ricky Santiaga since the age of thirteen since she became pregnant at fourteen. When a young girl who is disinterested in, or running from, her parents meets a boy who she likes, usually he becomes the world to her. Ricky Santiaga was Mrs. Santiaga’s world. From what we know as readers, she did not have any other interest than him. She had no high school education. She had no high school degree. She had no occupation. Her main interest was getting beautiful, and remaining beautiful to keep his focus on her.

  When a girl grows up on the block, finds love on the block, has babies on the block, and doesn’t leave the block, how much can we expect her to contribute to her husband, children, and community? A small mind breeds bacteria. A pretty little empty-headed thing sits around and finds things to talk about. Gossip becomes the appetizer, a jealous competition with the other sitters becomes the meal. Mrs. Santiaga, trapped in a small mind, spent a lot of time comparing herself to others and making sure she was winning. After she had it all (as she knew it), she spent the rest of her time decorating her daughters and making sure they were winning. But winning against whom? Better compared to what? Is it really that hard to be rich in a poor neighborhood and be the best-dressed chick? Is it really hard to be rich in a poor neighborhood and be living a better lifestyle than the others?

  These were the simple goals she set for herself. They were the small and useless goals of a woman who had stopped thinking long ago.

  Through Mrs. Santiaga’s words, “I’m a bad bitch,” and her living example, Winter learns to understand her own womanhood, and how to exist in their small world. Winter is led to believe that the essence of womanhood is visual. As long as a woman is looking, dressing, and smelling the best, she is the best. As long as a woman is a fierce competitor in a ghetto beauty pageant, as long as she knows how to push the other women down to the floor and keep them there, then that’s what really matters.

  Winter was led to believe that womanhood was synonomous with vanity. Webster’s dictionary defines vanity as “useless.”

  The shooting of Mrs. Santiaga represented the assassination of vanity and the assassination of useless and incomplete women. As an author, my hope was to drive home the point so incredibly clearly that no girl anywhere will ever think or believe that it is cute to be stupid, uneducated, small-minded and unproductive. My mission was to piss off every little stagnant ghetto girl, to stir up every little silly suburban until they get off their asses and become something great.

  The twisted mouth of Mrs. Santiaga symbolized the twisted life she led. She felt so powerful yet could not influence her husband to become a better man. She used her imagined power to get diamonds, furs, money, and drugs. But she could not win over his mind. She could not help change his actions. She could not after all, even, command his loyalty.

  A whole woman has resilience. Resilience is the ability to recover, to bounce back from a setback or horrible fall. When Mrs. Santiaga experienced the first crack in her imaginary perfect life, it was the beginning of her permanent fall. When her husband failed to buy her Mercedes Benz on her birthday, the way she imagined it should go, she triggered a series of events that would lead her into a perpetual unrecovery.

  After unexpectedly meeting Dulce Tristemente, the other woman in her husband’s life, Mrs. Santiaga’s recreational drug use turned habitual. Whereas a whole woman searches for the strength to move on in the eyes of her children, and for the benefit of her children, Mrs. Santiaga falls to pieces. She loses not only herself. She loses her children as well. Where was her will to fight back? Where did it go? One visit to Porsche at the state facility, then no more mommy.

  Her impact withered away so immediately, and so completely. Even her own daughters, the twins, Mercedes and Lexy, did not shed a tear or say a word over her unrecognizable body twisted in the casket. What mother wants her children and family gathered around at her funeral out of obligation instead of love?

  Mrs. Santiaga’s life symbolized incompletion. Her shooting symbolized the assasination of vanity. Her death symbolized the death of motherhood in our community. Drugs destroy the taker and the giver.

  CHARACTER ANALYSIS:

  RICKY SANTIAGA

  When a man makes a choice to take a wife, he no longer belongs only to himself. He is in effect now promising to share himself completely. He is sharing not only his thoughts and moods, but his words and secrets, his challenges and struggles, his actions, reactions, and consequences, his finances and debts, his blessings and his sins. This is a very serious move indeed.

  A man must then, if not before, begin to build a foundation for himself, his new wife, and his children to come. The kind of foundation he is able to build will depend heavily upon his understanding of himself, his father before him, and the God he does or does not serve. If a man does not understand himself, his father before him or his beliefs, the foundation he lays for his family will rest in quicksand.

  In judging a man, most women are very easily misled by his style and rhythm. They look at his face, teeth, hands, and for some, his shoes. They check out his clothes, his watch, his car, and his willingness to spend. His lovemaking. However, if a man is 100 percent in all of the above mentioned categories, and a zero in his understanding of himself, his father and God, then he will still be worthless in the long run.

  Question: What makes a man worthless to a woman? Answer: If he cannot decide if he is good or evil. If he does not understand the universal spiritual laws of nature. If he cannot tell the truth about himself, his deeds and actions. If he carelessly places himself in danger. If he maintains control by feeding low self-esteem to and arousing jealousy and uneasiness in, his wife. If he is absent and unable to impact the shape and depth of the marriage, or present and setting a poor example for his sons and daughters to base their lives on. If he does not work hard he is short-sighted and incapable of securing the interests of his family in the event of his demise.

  A lot of women cling to worthless men. They lie and cover up his wrongful actions. They make excuses for his condition. They create an environment at home that allows his backwardness to thrive and spread. It may take these women more than a decade to figure out that everyone knows what’s really happening, that she’s an actress in a tragic theatrical performance, fooling only herself. That even her youngest child recognizes her shame.

  Question: What happens when a man is a good-looking, tall, sweet-smelling, gun-toting, fine-dressing,
money-having, sexy, worthless man? Answer: The same damn thing!

  A man who wants to build a drug empire must now and forever acknowledge that he should remain unattached. Or, he must accept that whomever he loves, his wife and his children, are fair game, living life at high risk, inevitable human targets.

  Ricky Santiaga built a foundation for his family that rested on top of quicksand. His house was destined to sink. It never even had a chance. As a drug dealer he was by choice participating in the world of evil. Yet at home he attempted to build a house of love. When a man makes a conscious decision to do evil, he steps outside of the grace of God and loses his spiritual protection. In forfeiting his spiritual protection, it does not mean that the man will lose his life immediately. It means that as that man goes out into the world to live, struggle, earn, and do battle, he has no spiritual armor.

  Spiritual armor protects a man beyond the limited physical and logical protection that he can provide for himself. When a man opts to do evil, he does so along with a multitude of other men who are also evil. The laws of God, the common boundaries of love, life, loyalty, respect, mercy, and compassion do not operate within the evil realm.

  God’s grace can only be earned by the man who acknowledges his wrongdoings, prays for forgiveness and strength to overcome them, then stops his evil doings. When he stops performing evil actions, the possibility then exists for him to earn back God’s grace. However, his conversation with God is not a negotiation. Fast talking and quick hands won’t get him more than he’s worth. An ayat from the Holy Quran says, “Allah is swift in all accounts.” This means that God is omniscient, sees everything, and is well aware of what your intentions and actions were and are. We will all be held accountable for each of our actions as God sees proper.

  Many men who consciously do evil believe that they are smarter than God. They craft careful but fruitless plans to win back the grace of God while still purposely doing evil actions and activities. They go to church or mosque while doing evil, which will not save them. They make contributions to and form relationships with the pastor or imam while doing evil, which will not save them. They wear a crucifix while doing evil, which will not help or save them. They pray for prosperity and victory while doing evil, which will not save them. They offer money to charities, which will not save them, their spirit, or their soul. Spiritual armor is one thing that can never be sold or bought for any amount of money. While any man can purchase security or a bodyguard, no man can purchase God’s grace.

  Some men don’t bother acknowledging the existence of God in word or deed. They see those who do acknowledge God as weak. Their fate will be the same as the fate of those who pretend to honor God. They will be prisoners of their own dark minds. Ricky Santiaga attempted to outmaneuver God, whom he never acknowledged. He built a drug empire in the world. He built a house of love at home. In not understanding or accepting the universal spiritual laws of nature, he believed he could sell drugs, oversee crackheads, exact punishments, order beatings and even murders, then return home leaving the evil outside the double doors of his apartment and away from his wife and daughters.

  However, when you invite the spirit of evil in through your conscious actions, that evil spirit lives within you. It will travel wherever you go, creating an evil energy. It places the ones whom you love the most in the most jeopardy. The Holy Bible says, “The sins of the father shall be inherited by the sons.” This means that the spiritual deeds and misdeeds of our parents shall rain down on our heads. We shall then become responsible for carrying or correcting them, coming back into God’s grace.

  So it was inevitable that Santiaga’s family would suffer, his roof cave in. At his wife’s funeral we witnessed the grave impact that never acknowledging God or changing the spiritual path that he traveled had on Santiaga. It was not simply that his wife was dead that impacted him so heavily. It was her spiritual death etched across her lifeless face, that twisted her appearance and ate her body, that ran the knife through Santiaga’s soul. At her gravesite, Santiaga’s longing for freedom, longing to simply know his now grown children, longing for his wife as she was when he originally chose her, his guilt in knowing that his living was the cause of her downfall, brought Santiaga to his knees, finally.

  In the physical world Santiaga tried to compensate for the danger his “occupation” placed his family in. He installed the double doors in his apartment inside of a project building. No doubt this took great expense, reputation, and intimidation to achieve. After all, every project building has a housing authority and perpetual police presence. Normally they regulate every detail of a resident’s living arrangement. Each family must adhere to a plain and basic structure, but not Santiaga. Despite the accomplishment of having his expensively furnished apartment specially renovated for increased security, he soon, out of fear or intuition, moved his family out of the projects. Their new location was what he called a Long Island, New York, “safe house.” However, without spiritual armor, even while living in the Long Island lap of luxury, they still were not safe.

  Santiaga was present in his family’s life enough for his wife and daughters to feel secure. But what did his presence teach his wife and children? We know it taught Winter that drug dealing was a preferred business opportunity, and her preferred lifestyle. It taught her that the drug dealer was the better man, at the top of the food chain. It became the criteria by which she judged all of her family and friends. Therefore, despite the love she said she had for her father, and the love he said he had for her, his presence set an example that was not a viable, life giving, life sustaining example for his children. His example led to Winter’s eventual loss of freedom. For his other three remaining daughters his example led to being split up under the administration of the state’s motherless-child protection system.

  Santiaga, though good looking, proud, and smooth, was short sighted. “Smart” enough to design and manage a well-manned illegal drug business, he could not see his way clearly enough to construct a master plan, a plan B, an escape route for his immediate family. Where was his underground hidden treasure? Where were the bonds he purchased on behalf of his children? Where were the educational funds, life insurance policies, trust funds, or off-shore accounts? Where was the money set aside for his children in some name other than his own? In fact, all of Santiaga’s money was either in his safe at home in Long Island, tied up in crack spots in Brooklyn, or surveilled, frozen, and out of reach in Manhattan bank accounts. By not planning ahead, Santiaga was in effect saying, “When I fall, we all fall.” Or worse, he was believing, “I will never fall.” A man’s love is supposed to make him do something. It’s supposed to make him think ahead to provide protection and security. It’s supposed to make him insure and deliver the longevity and future of his family.

  What about Dulce Tristemente? When a man is paid and good looking, women have a tendency to believe and expect that he is entitled to have more than one woman. However, if a man marries one woman and gives her the impression that she is his only woman, bringing a new woman into their life violates the trust he established in the beginning. Once a man does not tell the truth about his own deeds and actions, he calls into question all of his words ever spoken, his promises made, and actions taken. As the wife and Winter attempt to figure out how many times Santiaga must have lied to be able to carve out a separate life with another family, their trust diminishes. He has sprayed his family with the poison of doubt. When a wife and children doubt the husband and father, it corrodes the family and weakens the father’s leadership capabilities within the family. It also now infects the family with the notion that “If he’s not living right, why should we?” It loosens everybody’s idea of morality and responsibility. How much did Santiaga’s relationship with Dulce Tristemente, the other woman who birthed his only son (that we know of), spark the complete psychological downfall of Mrs. Santiaga? How wrenching was it for Momma Santiaga? How long did she blame and abuse herself for never having given birth to a boy? How much did his
actions affect Winter’s attitude toward visiting and sacrificing for and helping her father during his trial and incarceration?

  Overall, Santiaga provided his wife and children with a home, clothes, food, jewels, and all of the trappings of American-style prosperity. Yet in his role as husband and father he was unsuccessful due to his lack of understanding of himself, his father, and God.

  The Coldest Winter Ever

  CHARACTER LIST

  All of the characters’ names appear in alphabetical order

  Alvin Winter’s uncle by marriage. He was married to Aunt B.

  Aunt B Winter’s aunt. Winter moved in with her after the Santiagas’ Long Island mansion was raided and seized. This is the same woman who Winter believes set her up to be siezed by the Bureau of Child Welfare.

  Aunt Laurie Winter’s aunt. Winter’s mother moved in with her after the house was siezed.

  Bianca Winter’s cousin and the daughter of Aunt B. Winter shared a room with this cousin after her home was seized.

  Big Moe Operator of the local bar and dance set where Winter partied. This club was also one of Santiaga’s business meeting spots.

  Bilal Odé The birth name of Midnight, who was born in the Sudan, Africa.

  Bob Goldstein Santiaga’s lawyer.

  Boom The little dick, bad sex guy whom Winter dates while hanging with Souljah’s sister Lauren.

  Bryce The half-brother of Bullet who lived in Washington, D.C. He was one of Bullet’s drug-dealing, gun-running contacts.

  Bubbles The locksmith who came to Winter’s Brooklyn apartment to install a safe for Santiaga. Santiaga caught him gazing at Winter. He cut his face open with a knife to teach him a lesson.

  Butter The four-year-old boy who was murdered and beheaded along with his sister KK by the Young Heads, a ruthless up-and-coming drug-dealing squad.