by Chrissy J
Chapter3
The next morning my mother was at my throat, talking about I had no respect for her and all that shit was about to change. I guess Whitey’s snitch ass told her I was smoking in my room all night. Shit, if my father didn’t have a problem with me smoking neither should she. It wasn’t as if I was asking her to buy the weed or to roll up. I sat in the kitchen with her while she went on and on about Whitey not doing this or that and that she needed a real man to take care of her and my brothers. I was cursing my father out something awful in my head. He was supposed to be there early in the morning to pick me up, but something came up at one of his spots that required both him and my uncle to be there. I understood business had to be handled, but shit, he could’ve sent Ma to come get me out that hellhole. My father came to pick me up before night fell; I was on my way home back to Harlem.
My father was not playing around about the bad grades that I had received. It had been a week and I wasn’t allowed any outside contact. My phone and television privilege had been taken away. I knew somebody had to be in his ear feeding him bullshit because in all of my 15 years he had never taken anything from me. I guess my father hadn’t realized that we were in the 21st century and as long as I had my laptop; I needed none of that other stuff. I laid across my bed and opened my computer slipping my headphones on. I Skyped Hershey. I hoped that she would be online; because I was going stir crazy just going to the lame Catholic school my father was sending me too. Plus the whole week of my so-called punishment, I noticed a lot of things were changing in the house. My father and Mary were arguing a lot; sometimes I would hear them in the middle of the night. By morning, they would put up a front for me as if I was five instead of fifteen. My birthday was coming up in a couple of days. We were in the first week of June and I knew my father and Mary were going to throw me a banging ass Sweet 16. And yes, it was going to be a real Sweet 16 because I was still sweet and hadn’t turned rotten yet. Both Hershey and I shared the same birthday; she was just three minutes older than I was. Mary and Sandy, Hershey’s sister, always threw our parties together. That year’s theme was “A Night out in Paris.” My father told Mary she didn’t have a spending limit when it came to paying the party planner for the party. She hired a photographer and cameraman to record every live moment. Our cake alone ran them four thousand dollars and that was just one of the cakes. The first cake was the Eiffel Tower with real diamonds for the lights. The other cake was of two bags, a Louis Vuitton, and Gucci bag with the shoes to match.
The day Hershey and I were to go get fitted for our dresses my mother and father had a big argument that had everybody in the house heated. I was in the kitchen with Hershey when my mother came up to the house going on and on about me living with her and my brothers. My father looked at her as if she had grown three heads and then laughed in her face telling her she was out of her rabbit ass mind. She jumped in his face calling him everything but the Son of God. She was extra with it, asking him if he was out of his rabbit ass mind. “Cinnamon Diva Jordan Woods is my fucking child also. I gave birth to her. I carried her for nine months and ten days, and I was the one in labor by myself for thirty-two hours while your ass was wrapped around this non-having babies bitch. Trying to get back on her good side; thank God for your mother while I was in labor. She helped me; a sixteen year old scared for her life, who had nobody. Until your no good ass showed five minutes before she was born. She belongs with me and her brothers,” my mother yelled making me almost spit my damn soda out of my mouth.
I don’t know why she had to say that stupid name. I hated the name Cinnamon. My mother named me that; she said I looked like a cinnamon stick when I was born. Granny named me Diva because she said that’s what I was going to be, a little diva, and Daddy named me Jordan after Michael Jordan his favorite basketball player. Crazy ass name. I was sitting in the kitchen with Hershey listening to the three of them go at it. My father stood there, cool, and calm as ever; like he didn’t have his wife and baby’s mother about to take each other’s heads off. Hershey was clowning me about my name until we heard my father yell, “That’s enough!” Mary had to have the last word, she told my mother the only reason she wanted me to live with her was for two reasons. The first reason was so I could become her live babysitter and the second reason was so my father could raise the weekly check he gave her. Mary laid it out and told her she was sorry to bust her bubble, but that wasn’t going to happen. “The princess belongs in Harlem with her father.” I wished I were a fly on wall, to see the look on my mother’s face when Mary said that. I peeked out of the kitchen and saw my mother’s head snap back towards Mary. “First off bitch who was talking to you? This is between Mel and me. You don’t have no say so in this matter. You weren’t in the room when we fucked to make her, so go run along and wait for Mel to tell you what to do,” my mother said. Hershey covered her mouth to stop from laughing. I shook my head. My mother was a fucking trip.
“Yo Meek watch your mouth when you’re talking to my wife. Like Mary said, Diva is not going to live with you. I’ll be damned if my princess is going to be cooped up in Brooklyn babysitting, brothers or not. I want my daughter to enjoy her life,” my father finally said.
Mary was fuming; she was ready to take my mom’s head off and vice versa. I smiled real big. My father wasn’t letting me go live with the evil witch. I mean, I loved my mom and everything but she was just stuck in her ways. Hearing the house door slam let me know she was gone. I walked out of the kitchen with Hershey behind me. Mary eyes were already bloodshot red and full with tears. I walked to her and she pulled into her arms, “I may not have birthed you but you are my baby, and that dizzy chick ain’t taking you from me,” she said kissing my forehead. I let her know I wasn’t going anywhere and that she was and always would be my mother. My father called himself trying to give me a speech about his black card, talking about three thousand spending limit each for both Hershey and me. We both nodded our heads like we understood him, but even he knew that was going to be impossible for us to follow. Our dresses alone were $2500 each, not including the shoes and our jewelry.
The night of the party was like a mad house inside my house, everybody was all over the place. Hershey was running late and my father didn’t want to change out of his blue Gucci jeans and blue Gucci shirt with his fresh Jordan’s. The Hummer limo he rented was waiting for us for over two hours. Everything was all fucked up. I kept telling Ma it was a bad sign and something was going to happen at the party or during the party, but she kept telling me everything was going to be fine and for me to stop worrying. My Uncle Mike brought me an iced out diamond princess crown to go over my drop curls.
The party was going smoothly. My father had walked me in with his Jordan’s, ghetto and hood as hell and Hershey’s brother Shakeem walked her in. All our friends from school and the neighborhood were there and we took a lot of pictures. I noticed one guy standing off to the side the whole time the party was going on; I always go with my gut feeling and my stomach was doing summersaults. I knew the party was too good to be true and while I stood in the middle of my uncle, father, and grandfather for some pictures shots rang out. Everyone dropped to the floor and my father dove on top of me. All I heard in the ballroom was shots and screaming. I didn’t know where Hershey was but I knew I had to find her. Ten minutes after the gunshots started, it ended. All I remember was sitting up and looking around to see if I could locate Hershey along with the rest of my family, and then everything went black…
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My Grandfather was and still is a very powerful man. Some of the Mob families still felt that my Papa disrespected the Mob by having a kid by a black woman; so the shooting didn’t surprise me and I was pretty sure the mob had something to do with it; some of the families still wanted both my Papa and Father killed.
My Grandfather was beaten and tortured for info on my father and Granny’s whereabouts once the Mob families learned he had his first-born son by a
black monkey. Yeah, that’s the punishment placed on you when your family feels you have lied down with dogs and created a mutt. I learned that my Grandfather could’ve been disowned from his family for bedding what my family called a hood monkey. However, they had a greater punishment for him. That was the least of my grandfather’s problems. My father was a constant reminder to the Ricci’s that my Grandfather had done the unthinkable, and they had no problem reminding him constantly. To think my Grandfather, a true Don, was willing to give up his legacy to bed my Granny left a bad taste on a lot of peoples tongue. My Papa felt he had no choice. He fell in love with Granny the first time he laid eyes on her even though he was married. The Mob families were disappointed with my Papa. Instead of killing him, because of his rank and his family name, the other families sat down at the round table and they sent him to the one place no one with dignity would dare go. Harlem; the other families expected that my Papa would fail and come home back to “Little Italy” with his tail between his legs and my father, his first born, out of his life. Whether it be death or adoption, I suspect the families didn’t care of my father’s fate, but my father was a Ricci by blood and my Papa wasn’t leaving his son anywhere. He took the bad hand he had been dealt, and made an empire in Harlem. When my father and Uncle Mike along with Rock and their best friend jumped head first into the game at fifteen, my Papa handed Harlem over to my father. Of course, my father started small. Nikko was a Mexican kid pushing black tar heroin. He showed my father the ins and outs of the game; even how to transport it using refrigerated fruit trucks. They called them cold trucks. Those trucks are rarely opened, because the change of temperature could ruin the whole shipment. After that, my father and Nikko seemed to be unstoppable. Great for my father, not so good for Nikko. My grandfather didn’t believe in sharing money with anyone. The story goes that Nikko was called into my grandfather’s office after working with my father for five years; he was told that he would have to pay 35% of his 50% he and my father shared with the Ricci family, for selling on their turf. He was offered protection and free run of the barrel. However, Nikko being the cocky man he was, laughed in my grandfather’s face. Days later, his body was found face down in the Hudson River. He had to be identified by his teeth because his flesh had been eaten by whatever swam in the water. That was the changing moment for my father; he realized that he was nothing more than a pawn in the Mob chess game. Nevertheless, you know the saying; watch a pawn become a king.
Waking up inside a hospital room hooked up to all different kinds of machines shook me up; I didn’t know what happened to me. One minute I was partying having a good time and the next thing I remember I was being knocked on the ground with my father landing on top of me and the sound of gunfire.
“Nice of you to join us Ms. Woods.” I turned to see a nurse walking in the room followed by damn near my whole family, who were pretty much still in the clothes they were in at the party. I tried sitting up in the bed but was stopped when a jolt of pain shot up my arm. I screamed out in agony and bit my bottom lip causing it to bleed. Seeing my father and mother along with the rest of my family have long faraway looks on their faces let me know I wasn’t the only one laid up in the hospital. I scanned the room once more with my eyes and didn’t see Hershey or my Uncle Mike inside my room with the rest of the family.
“Daddy where are Hershey and Uncle Mike?” I asked feeling a headache coming on. No one wanted to tell me but my bestie was lying in the room down the hall with two bullet holes in her back and my uncle was laid up in ICU in a coma. The doctor informed me that I was shot in the arm and the bullet had broken my arm in two places. The bullet missed cracking my shoulder in three places and missed an important artery. They also informed me that I had lost a lot of blood while I was lying under my father. I was just happy I was alive and I could see another day. Shit, I had just turned sixteen and I wasn’t ready to die, but I couldn’t say the same thing for my uncle or Hershey, they were both still not out of the woods.
The day I was discharged was the day Hershey finally opened her eyes. She looked around like she was in a state of shock. I told her what the family told me about the night of the shooting. The guys were dressed like waiters. They waited for everybody to get comfortable and for my grandfather to make his appearance to start shooting. Hershey and I weren’t the intended targets but being that I was the princess of not only Harlem but the Mob Princess as well, they shot at my grandfather and father while I was in the middle of them. The price of being kings. My grandfather ordered a sit down with the families. The hit had Mob written all over it. I even heard my father mention Nikko’s name a few times. After all Nikko was Mexican and had worked under the Carranza Cartel, so the shooting could’ve been ordered by them.
I was just happy that my girl was wide-awake and alert; the bullets went straight in and out her back. There were no damage to any of her organs or her spine, which we thanked God for over and over again. My father didn’t want me out his sight. If I wasn’t in the house with him and Ma, I had to have Bookie who was my father’s best friend with me. My father trusted Bookie with his life so he had him make sure I was safe at all times when I was leaving the house and going to school.
CHAPTER 4
My birthday came and went. A month after the shooting everything was getting back to normal. Half of the guys that were sent to kill my grandfather and uncle were killed the night of my party, but my grandfather and father didn’t want to take any chances. The summer finally came, and shit was popping off in my house. Mary pulled herself away from me. It was like she didn’t want to be around me. I was hurt at first but that hurt shit passed. I started not to give a fuck, as long as she didn’t come at me the wrong way, we were good. Kevin and I were kicking it on the low. He was easy to talk to. He listened to what was going on around me and gave advice when I needed it. He and I were friends, he told me all about Gina his on and off again girlfriend. He told me why he didn’t respect her any more. He told me she slept with his cousin and had a baby by him, but the baby died. He also told me he didn’t want to sell drugs all his life; he was only selling so he could stack money. Once he did, he was leaving New York. I spent most of my weekends with him at his spot on East 116th street and 2nd Avenue. I would lie to my father and say I was staying at Hershey’s house, which was a few blocks over on West 117th and Lenox Avenue. Bookie never stayed posted up outside of Hershey’s door because he thought her brothers would keep an eye on me. He and my father didn’t know Barkeem and Shakeem were out ripping and running in the streets. They didn’t have time to stay in the house babysitting two sixteen year olds.
I still didn’t drop my panties for Kevin after being with him for five months. I wasn’t ready to give him my jewel. I stayed the night at Kevin’s house one night while my father was out of town. He thought I was at Hershey’s house like always so I didn’t have anything to worry about, but boy was I wrong. Kevin came in around one that night and two hours later someone was banging on his door like they were the damn police. I rolled over in the bed wrapped up in Kevin’s arms and pushed him on the side of his face to wake him up. I didn’t know who the fuck was on the other side of the door. I eased off the bed while Kevin wiped the sleep from his eyes.
“Who the fuck is banging on my door,” he yelled walking to the front door while I walked in the bathroom. I could hear him and a female yelling about him having bitches in his spot and why he hadn’t been answering her calls. He told her to get away from his door with the bullshit before his girl came out of the bathroom and whooped her ass. I laughed at his ass and the girl just kept on and on, crying and carrying on like a true dummy for all his neighbors to see. Kevin slammed the door on her and walked back into the room. I peeked my head out the bathroom retying my headscarf.
“You need to let those bitches know Mommy’s home,” I said rolling my eyes and walking back into the room. Kevin smirked at me, pulling me into his arms. He began to nibble on my ear and neck; I let out a moan all the while turning to face h
im. He laid me on the bed. It was my first time, and I was scared shitless. I was finally giving my virginity to Kevin. He laid on top of me and began rubbing my legs while we kissed; I know he felt how fast my heart was beating.