Charm City Part 1 (Welcome to Bodymore Murdaland)

by S. L. Walker

  “Oh, shit,” he jumped a little and laughed. His smile could light up the moon. I dropped the bag in his lap and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Hey you,” I joined him on the bench.

  “What’s this?” He grinned.

  “Open it, silly,” I couldn’t help but smile. He eagerly opened the bag and pulled out a black leather sunglass case. He looked at me and his eyes widened when he opened the case.

  “Hell no! You got them?!” He took the $400 shades out the case and put them on his face. “This is dope, Victoria. But dang, you really didn’t have to do this,” he took them off and put them in the case. “I can’t take these from you, sweety,” his facial expression changed and I was offended.

  “What do you mean? Those are the shades you were gawking over that day, right?” I looked at him as if he just turned down a million dollars.

  “Yeah, but-” he started to say.

  “But nothing. Take the damn glasses, Lance. You’re welcome,” I frowned. I never spent money on anyone but myself, my friends and my mom before and I never had that much money to spend. I thought that he would be grateful but maybe he was used to getting his own or more so, maybe he didn’t think I could afford it. A couple months ago, I didn’t and wouldn’t have even dreamed of purchasing $400 sunglasses. The shit we were doing provided this for me. I wouldn’t even had met Lance if I hadn’t had the money to shop.

  “Aight, aight, yo. You are something else,” he pulled me to him and kissed my lips.

  “I passed a hot chocolate stand not too far, you want to go get one?” I asked him, ready to get the blood flowing in the cold weather.

  “Of course,” he sai,d standing up and sliding on his new shades. “What you think?” He jokingly pointed at the shades.

  “You dork. You look fine as fuck,” I laughed. Lance was all square, but I loved that about him.

  “Your mom must pay you a nice allowance!” He joked.

  “Shut up!” I joked back, pushing him to walk forward. In the back of my mind, reality hit me again, that everything he knew about me was a lie and I knew I may have made a mistake by buying those shades. How could I be so stupid? Showing off. Lance took my hand, interrupting my guilty thoughts and I once again emptied my lies and enjoyed his company.

  I walked in the house and met my pissed off mother who was waiting to chew me out. I had seen her missed pages but I was so lost with Lance that I kept pushing calling her back off.

  “Where have you been?! Did you forget what today was?!” She shouted. I hadn’t even made it all the way in the house yet. My mind searched for what today was. Birthday? No. Doctors appointment? No.

  “Court Victoria! Today was the preliminary hearing against your dad! You were supposed to be there!” She yelled. My heart dropped. I had totally forgot. If I had went, I would have been able to go ahead and testify on my mother’s behalf that he wasn’t shit.

  “Now we have another court date! I wanted to get this over with, you know this! Where the hell were you?!” She yelled some more. I felt so bad and I knew me telling her I was with a boy would fly her through the roof.

  “I was helping Angel with a project. Mom, I am so sorry, I didn’t even look at my pager. When is the next one, I swear I’ll be there,” I lied, jumbling my words.

  “You damn right you will be!” She walked away just like that. I don’t know if she believed me or just done with me at that point, but I sank against the hallway wall. I really did want to be there. I wanted my dad to pay and I wanted to see the look on his dumb face when he did.

  EVA

  This was the first time since the school year started that I dreaded going to Professor Heart’s class. I was sick; not physically, but the kind of sick you feel when you find out your boyfriend cheated on you. The kind of sick you feel when you have been betrayed by someone you love. The kind of sick that sits at the bottom of your stomach waiting to throw up, but all you can do is feel the disgusting taste of saliva forming in your mouth. I was still mortified at Nicole. Her words ringing through my ears, her love struck eyes crying at me. He had done that to her. She could have easily been me. How could I have been so stupid?

  The classroom door was already open as I followed behind other students racing to beat the last bell. Professor Heart immediately looked at me. I gave him one cold glance and walked to my seat, but I could feel his eyes watching my every step. I sat down as his gaze turned away to the chalkboard. Raven walked in and sat in her usual spot next to me.

  “What sup? I didn’t get shit done last night, did you do the questions?” She quickly asked. “Hey!” She snapped her fingers in my face, breaking my burning stare from the back of Professor Hearts head.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I told her, shaking off how extra I was being and grabbed the worksheet from my backpack.

  “You good?! Don’t tell me you trippin’ off his ass,” Raven said with a warning in her voice. I gave her a look that told her not today and handed her the worksheet. Instead of continuing to give me shit, she took the paper and copied the notes without another word.

  The last bell rang as he wrote on the board the days lesson.

  “Class, today we are going to play a group game and those of you who get answers right, I will add extra credit points to your next test,” he smiled as if nothing was wrong. The class cheered at the idea of spending the whole class day playing a game. I, on the other hand just wanted to listen to him lecture while I scowled at him the whole time. He was lucky, because I was willing to make him uncomfortable the whole hour we were in this bitch.

  “I’ll need a volunteer to show how this goes,” he said to us. Normally, I would’ve been all over it, but not today. Several hands went up, probably hoping they’d get an easy point just for volunteering. Raven nudged me, mockingly. I rolled my eyes.

  “Eva! Come join me!” He called out to me. I frowned and I know my eyes scolded him, but he didn’t care. He was fucking with me.

  “I’m cool,” I said coldly, staying in my seat.

  “Nonsense, come on this is easy,” he smiled. He walked over to his desk and grabbed some index cards.

  This motherfucker.

  I got up from my desk and joined him in the front. He smiled at me, but I couldn’t return the gesture. All I saw was red when I looked at him.

  “I’m going to write a word on the back of this index card and tape it to your back,” he said to me and the class. “Now, I will tell you that this word is a noun and you class need to guess what kind of noun. An animal, etcetera. I will whisper it in her ear and she will answer your yes or no question and give you clues as to what the word is. So! Let’s start with this example,” he said.

  He bent down slowly to my ear and whispered, “Sex.” I could smell his stale minty breath from the gum he had been chewing earlier and the same enticing cologne he always wore. I looked at him in shock.

  Was he serious?

  “Okay, Eva, give the class an example,” he said to me.

  He was serious.

  “It can be used as a verb and a noun,” I told the class, moving away from him.

  “Very good. Another example would be a man and a woman,” he smiled at me. “Any guesses?” He then turned to the class.

  “Orgasm!” One girl with too big of glasses on her face yelled out. The class hollered in laughter.

  “Mmmm orgasms aren’t nouns sweety, but you are close, try again,” Professor Heart told her. He swayed behind me and put his hands on my shoulder. My jaws clinched. Not too long ago I would’ve melted to his touch, but the thought of him and Nicole together made me gag.

  “Daniel, what do you think?” He pointed at the chubby, X-Men t-shirt wearing boy with his hands raised.

  “Asexual,” he answered.

  “Oouuuuu, good answer Daniel, you are digging a little deeper than what we have talked about in class. Let’s keep this close to the things we learned. I’m not trying to trick you guys here. Need another example?” Professor Heart took his hands off me, which
felt like a load lifted and looked at me.

  “Another example?” He smirked at me.

  I couldn’t help myself.

  “Another word for fucking. You know? Fucking someone. Or fucking OVER someone,” I smirked at him with mad emphasis on the word fucking. The whole class laughed and filled the room with Ohhhhhhhs! I glanced over at Raven who was also cheesing from ear to ear in laughter. She shook her head at me, knowing something was up.

  A guy yelled out sex and I looked back at Professor Hearts face. This time his smirk was gone. He was not amused.

  Two can play his game.

  I reached for the index card on my back and ripped it off slapping it against the chalkboard to reveal the word. The students laughed and high-fived the guy who got it right.

  “I need to use the restroom,” I told him and walked quickly out the door. I could hear the class talking loudly amongst themselves. Right behind me came Professor Heart. I looked back in shock, not believing that he actually followed me.

  “Aye!” He shouted out to me. I almost kept walking, but stopped and turned around curious as to what he had to say.

  “What the hell was that? You know I don’t allow that kind of talk in my class, Eve,” he looked at me sternly.

  “Are you fucking serious right now? You think I give a shit about what kind of language I used in your classroom?! They got it right didn’t they?” I was appalled at him actually trying to chew me out for cursing. I turned to walk away to the bathroom. He grabbed my arm and snatched me up to a small corner in the hallway where we couldn’t be seen.

  “I’m sorry,” he quickly changed up his whole demeanor. His eyes were soft as he pressed against me grabbing my face with his large warm hands. I didn’t even realize how cold it was outside until I felt his hands on my face. My heart sank.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about,” I removed his hands from my face.

  “I shouldn’t have been there with Nicole. I was mad, I…I was upset. You blew me off out of nowhere…” he quickly explained himself. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Right here and right now, he was doing this.

  “Professor Heart-”

  “Steve! You call me Steve, Eve. Nothing has to change. What’s going on with you?” He asked me. “Why did you curve me?”

  “Because this is wrong! And just because I did doesn’t mean you go running to her!” I finally broke.

  “I didn’t run to her, I just took her to eat. She told me what you did to her. I had to go into the bathroom to see what was taking so long because she never came back out. She has a bruise on her stomach, Eve,” he halfway chuckled before he fixed his face back to all seriousness. “Not cool, Vee.”

  “She started it!” I got angrier. “You started it! Comin’ up in there talking about I’ll never have you! Who is she to you?!” The cold no longer bothered me, I was being fueled by my own heated anger.

  “I told you no-one!” He tried to keep his voice down.

  “Bullshit,” I shook my head at his lies.

  “Eva, please, can we finish this after school?” He took my face in his hands again. Something he always did when he wanted my undivided attention. I was surprised that he would be this bold for me. My eyes were once again his. My body all of a sudden melted like it was 100 degrees outside instead of 40. Before I could tell him no, he kissed me, long and hard.

  “Come back to class,” he said just like that, walked away and disappeared around the corner. I stood there, leaning against the chilly wall. I waited a second and turned the corner to Raven in front of me. She gave me a look of disappointment. I watched Professor Heart walk back in class, closing the door behind him. She shook her head and her stare matched the coldness of outside.

  “Vee, it ain’t what you think,” I started to explain.

  “I’m done,” she put her hands up and walked past me to the bathroom.

  RAVEN

  Treach had me doing a drop solo for Lo, he felt comfortable enough since I had done this drop a couple times already before. I was also a favorite of Los’.

  I headed straight to Treach’s new warehouse after school. Gathered a backpack full and high tailed it all the way to Lo’s spot. For some reason it was a lot gloomier on his side. The orange leaves were falling from every tree, dropping in front of Lo’s warehouse, leaving a wave of leaves as the wind blew. One of his goons stood outside smoking a cigarette. He head nodded to me with an understanding and I walked past him. Lo was standing outside of his office talking to another hefty man who resembled him. We made eye contact and he smiled and motioned for me to come towards him.

  “Misses Raven, how are you, bonita?” He smiled from ear to ear. I had never seen him standing before and noticed we were both the same height. I giggled inside at how short he was; 5’5 wasn’t exactly an intimidating height.

  “This is the special girl I’ve been tellin’ you about. Raven.” He said to his look alike. “This is mi hermano, Francisco, or we call him Franky,” Lo introduced me to his brother. “She’s a doll isn’t she?” he showed me off as if I was his personally.

  “Nice to meet you,” I shook Francisco’s hand.

  “Pleasure is mine,” he grinned. His accent was heavier than Los’ and he had a big gap in between his teeth. It actually did more complimenting than it did harm. He had small facial features and long black hair tied into a ponytail.

  “So, you brought me something?” Lo motioned at the backpack. I shook my head. “My office,” he opened his office door and, him, Franky and I walked in. Franky shut the door behind us and stood by it like a guard.

  “I’ve been waiting on this load,” Lo chuckled as I handed him the backpack. I looked around expecting any of his little goon helpers to join us, but they never did. Every other time I came he was surrounded by protection. Maybe Franky was enough or maybe he didn’t feel like he needed it with me.

  I helped him pull out the bricks of white girls one by one. Five bricks.

  “Woohoo! He trusts you with this?” Franky asked me referring to Treach. Five bricks of cocaine in my bag equaled to 5,000 kilos meaning Lo was purchasing this shit for at least $120,000. May seem like petty money to real King Pins, but Lo was just one customer. Unfortunately losing Big Willy put a damper in his pockets, but that was something Treach just had to chalk up and deal with.

  “I’m reliable,” I told him showing him my two nines in the front of my jeans. He laughed out loud.

  “You see why I like her,” Lo pointed at me laughing. He grabbed a knife and took a taste test as the usual buyers do. He shook his head in approval and motioned for Franky to give me my portion. Franky dug into a cabinet with wrapped up $100 bills and put them in the backpack for me.

  “So, what is Treach doing now that Big Willy is no longer a customer?” Lo blindsided me with that question. Not only did I not know he was familiar with Big Willy, but I didn’t know he knew Big Willy was a customer. It also irritated me that news got around that fast of his death.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I gave him the most confused look I could make on my face, zipping up the bag of money.

  “Oh don’t do that sweetheart we are all amigos. Big Willy was a customer of mine, too. Guns,” he sat down in his raggedy office chair.

  “Treach doesn’t discuss his other customers with me,” I flung the backpack over my shoulders ready to bolt. I knew Lo liked me, but none of these motherfuckers could be trusted.

  “Didn’t he send you and your chicas to Big Willy?” He interrogated me. I looked at Franky who leaned on the door with his arms folded. I couldn’t tell if he was blocking me or just getting comfortable.

  “And?” I asked Lo.

  “If you ask me, I think Treach had something to do with Big Willy getting shot at his own party,” Lo eyed me, looking for any sign of information I might mistakenly give.

  I smiled.

  “Why would Treach mess up anything with one of his customers? That would be like doing something to you,” I waited
for his response.

  Lo continued to study me, but I guess decided he wasn’t getting shit from me.

  “Okay, chica, next time, huh?” He slammed his hands on his desk and got up to shake my hand. “Franky, can you see her out?” Franky nodded his head and opened the door for me to exit first. I slowly kept one of my hands on the backpack and the other on the handle of my nine. I didn’t think Lo would do anything stupid, but he was fishing. He clearly didn’t trust Treach either and maybe he had every right not to.

  ZARA

  After I had unsuccessfully waited on Raven after school that day, I decided to pop up at her house. I had heard about the shooting of Big Willy and a couple of his goons and that the girls were there. I had saw Victoria pass by in the hallway at school, so I knew they had to be okay. It bothered me that when I went to say hi, she completely kept walking. I immediately regretted losing them as friends, but I was also worried that they were going to get hurt. While my dad continued to celebrate his California opening, I was hurting inside and longing for my friends again.

  I ended up pulling up the same time Raven did. The look on her face showed me she was not happy to see me. She parked her bike on the porch and thought she was going to walk right in the house and ignore me, but instead, she waited.

  I put the car in park and stepped out. I noticed a few sprinkles started to form, a drop hitting the tip of my nose. I cringed at the thought of rain while I was wearing some brand new tan Creative Recreation sneakers that went bomb with my tan and white sweater dress. Raven was tomboyishly fly as usual. I smiled, but didn’t get the same in return.

  “Wassup?” She asked coldly as I walked up. I followed her up the two steps of her porch and joined her sitting in one of the chairs.