Life After Death

by Sister Souljah

  19.

  Pretty was riding shotgun. She couldn’t stop laughing. I mean she was cracking up. It turned out she was the happiest-acting person I encountered in the Last Stop Before the Drop. Bridgette, all clean and fresh but rocking her gray garment and a cloth bag she called “her satchel,” was in the back savoring her one pot stick. She didn’t offer or pass it around. I didn’t care. I got four more to myself. Besides, the car was filled with smoke. Bridgette’s slow toke of the potent spliff was giving me a light, relaxing buzz.

  “You said you push a 7 series. You left out that it’s all fucked up! What happened to your whip?” Pretty asked while still laughing. “Don’t drive too fast,” she warned. “The glass fitting ta break out and cut us all into little pieces.” Pretty’s still laughing.

  “Just tell me when to turn left or right. Bridgette got us the gas. I’m driving you bitches around. You make sure we get to the club.”

  “I’m navigation. I got you,” Pretty said, and finally stopped laughing.

  “Club, what club? You didn’t ask me if I wanted to go to a club or not,” the protester protested.

  “You can cop at the club. They got more than weed. They got everything,” Pretty said. That shut Bridgette right up. With the promise of more weed, she started pulling like a vacuum cleaner on her pot stick.

  “I’m wearing the convent dress and the sandals!” Bridgette laughed at herself. She was feeling comfortable now and her tone was less hectic and aggravating. “No big deal,” she reassured herself aloud. “I’m white. Once they see my natural blonde hair and fair skin all of the doors will open for me.” She sang her words like a song. She believed it, too. I wasn’t mad at her. I’m top bitch. No reason to stop other bitches from dreaming.

  “What age were you at your T.O.D.?” Pretty asked.

  “T.O.D.?” Bridgette repeated.

  “Time of death.” Pretty turned to face Bridgette in the backseat and clarified. Pretty seemed too comfortable discussing the death topic that I don’t think no one at the Last Stop Before the Drop really wants to mention or face.

  “Twenty-four. They say the good die young. I guess that’s one thing ‘they’ say that’s true,” Bridgette said, sounding like she was trapped in some memory.

  “How ’bout you?” Pretty turned front and asked me.

  “Bitch, how ’bout you!” I said, turning the question back on her.

  “Twenty-four,” Pretty said.

  “Twenty-four, me too,” I lied, figuring they was probably both lying also.

  “I hear music!” Pretty screamed, all excited.

  “Hell yeah, it’s Pink! ‘Get the Party Started!’ ” She was singing the song but was obviously tone-deaf.

  “Follow the flames. We’re in the right area. They mark the path to the club entrance,” Pretty said, excited, and they did. “Turn left! Don’t pull up to the front. We gotta park this shit on the darkest side of the street or in a dark alley. Then we’ll walk over like we just stepped out of a Rolls,” Pretty suggested, and laughed.

  The beats shook the building that was lit up by a massive torch with live flames shooting out into the blackened sky. Beneath the torch was a glow-in-the-dark red cage where what looked like a twelve-foot-tall red-skinned man with ram horns and a 144-foot-long tail paraded back and forth between the bars. Me, Pretty, and Bridgette weren’t saying shit. We was all looking up at the red beast whose body was all muscle like the famous muscle dudes in the muscle mags that some chicks on lock enjoyed. I didn’t get off on those types of magazines. I thought that weightlifters all had shrunken dicks, and that wasn’t a good trade-off for more arm and chest muscles in my estimation. But this red beast had a big, hard, erect, foot-long red dick.

  The line to get in the club snaked and wiggled because everybody on it was dancing to the most incredible indoor and outdoor sound system.

  “Something wild is happening in the front,” Bridgette yelled. This time she had to yell. The music was overpowering all. Shaking the ground and even making my eardrums vibrate. “It’s ‘Paparazzi,’ Lady Gaga’s song! Maybe she’s performing!” Bridgette screamed. “Let’s do a train!” She threw both of her hands onto my shoulders and pushed me forward.

  Pretty ran in front of me. “Put your hands on my shoulders. We’re gonna push!” she said. I did and we were choo-choo-training our way through a moving, dancing mob of hundreds. I didn’t give a fuck about seeing Lady Gaga, but I loved the action and the reaction. Some moved out of our way willingly. Some got tight and pushed back. The crowd was so thick that even when we got pushed a few times we couldn’t fall over. Our bodies would just press against some other bodies that were also pressed against some other bodies! We’d rebound and keep it moving. It was mad fun! Pretty ducked low like a football player anticipating a tackle. So we ducked and pushed our final push to the forefront. Pretty’s high heel broke upon arrival. She didn’t care, just started laughing.

  There was no celebrity performance. We did all of that pushing only to find out that we were on the request line that led to a circus ring with a thick red rope dangling down in the center of it. No, it was not a rope—it was the tip of the red beast’s tail and dangling from it was a microphone.

  “I’m next,” some guy screamed.

  “We’re next!” some other people screamed. The crowd mashed forward. Some people raced in front of where we were standing trying to figure it out. They started beating the shit out of each other. The last man standing grabbed the mic and shouted, “Maroon 5, ‘Misery’!” The red beast roared. The track changed tunes. The whole outdoor crowd began to jump up and down, scream and do some version of a dance.

  “Oh, I get it. Check it out, he’s the fucking DJ,” Bridgette announced, pointing up towards the red guy. “Let’s go next!” she screamed while jumping up and down at the same time. “I have a request!” she shouted. But the song and the crowd overpowered her for once. Then she took three giant steps forward, waved for us to join her, and squatted like a runner who was waiting for the gunshot to start the race. I’m thinking she must really want to hear whatever song she has in her head. I didn’t care enough though to start thumping with some strangers over the microphone. And I wasn’t about to start rolling on the ground. Even though I wasn’t Fendi’d up or Gucci’d down, I was wearing that one outfit that I had left to my name. The tapered mean-ass three-quarter-length pearl-colored Burberry trench and my black Gucci saddle bag and my black Prada kicks. Yeah, I felt bad about it. And it was unlike myself to be wearing a threepeat-repeat outfit. But as I got dressed to go to the club, I assured myself that I wouldn’t know none of the motherfuckers out partying tonight. It would be their first time seeing me. So my gorgeous look, plus my almost brand-new fashion, would seem fresh to them.

  The Maroon 5 song was coming to an end. Bridgette took off running towards the mic. A lot of others seemed to have her same idea to jump-start. They started brawling. Bridgette was fighting some white dudes. They were fighting her in her nun garment like she was a man. Her blonde hair and blue eyes didn’t tame them, like she said it would. One of the dudes grabbed the mic. He shouted, “Kings of Leon, ‘Use Somebody’!”

  The red beast roared. The track switched to another song I never heard before. Bridgette came back tight. She was finger-combing her blonde hair back into place. She reached into her satchel and pulled out a—What the fuck?—camel-haired canteen! She began squirting water from it and washing her face clean, right there surrounded by the dancing crowd.

  “I have something I want the DJ to play!” Pretty yelled. She had her heel in her hand. “And I’m ’bout to beat the hell out of somebody!”

  “Round two! Let’s go for it!” Bridgette screamed, excited to now have Pretty as backup. Now I’m thinking, If somebody hits Pretty, I’ll have no choice but to start swinging. Brooklyn always fights together with whoever we showed up to the party with. I didn’t join Bridgette ’cause I thought the white bitch is straight crazy! I couldn’t be responsible for her ass. The
re was no telling what she might do in any given scenario.

  As the “Use Somebody” track neared its end, a deafening horn sounded and the music stopped. Suddenly, everyone in the crowd divided, leaving me, Pretty, and Bridgette at the top, unaware of what was happening.

  “It’s a trick. Let’s stay right here. We got next,” Bridgette said, still scheming on the request mic. But the whole crowd about-faced and began raising and waving their hands in the air. A motorcade came riding through, led by a rose-red Rolls-Royce. Twelve exotic car doors swung open. But the red Ferrari doors swung out and hung in the air. I felt my pussy pumping. As the must-be top hustlers from the Last Stop Before the Drop eased out of their whips, a herd of females ran into the circus ring where me, Pretty, and Bridgette had been standing all along. The red beast roared and rattled his cage, causing his tail and the mic to swing back and forth. Pretty dashed to grab it while the crowd, including me, was mesmerized by the car show.

  Bridgette snatched back my focus. She started screaming at Pretty, protesting. See what I mean? Now she was mad at Pretty for beating her to the mic. Every clique knows there’s no infighting in public. Now Bridgette wanted to fight with her own crew who she rode here with.

  “Rihanna!” Pretty screamed into the mic. Just the name alone of that green-eyed superstar bitch jolted the crowd to roar louder than the beast. “ ‘Rude Boy’!” Pretty shouted, and the mic amplified her request for all to hear. The crowd cheered the choice. The track began. Pretty moved her body with the alluring fluidness of a belly dancer and a Jamaican dance hall queen mixed. She displayed her ability to hump and ride and fuck the beat. Some of the crowd got caught up into her movements. Others was in a trance to the sound of Rihanna’s voice. Others were doing their own-style freak-out. Although no matter how wild the crowd danced, pushed, swung, moved, they all seemed somehow to know not to cross the line of the hustlers as they approached the ring. I had my eyes locked in on the hustlers. I was concentrating so hard that my hips only swung a little to the badass sexual beats. I was wishing I had a Cinderella moment and some fairy bitch showed up with some diamond stilettos and an open-backed minidress made innovatively out of the baddest Hermès scarves—a dress I designed just for this night—and authentic, flawless, glistening jewels and rare limited-edition designer accessories.

  “The three of you. The three of us. That makes six,” the hustler who I had saw easing out of the Ferrari said not with his mouth but with his hands. He had cut through the line-up of cheering screaming females and stood directly in front of me as Bridgette and Pretty were still doing their dances to the left and right of me. He pointed at me, then Pretty, then Bridgette, and raised up three fingers. Then he pointed out himself and two other ballers to the left and right of him. I looked them over thoroughly. When I looked at the one talking to me with his hands, I got a bad feeling. That never happened before when I first met any person, no matter their status. He must have thought since I wasn’t saying nothing back that I didn’t understand his offer. He stepped in close to me and said, “I choose you.”

  Without warning even from myself, I vomited right in his face. Pretty stopped dancing and her jaw dropped open. The music stopped. The goop slid down onto his expensive attire. The two hustlers with him did a one-eighty and grabbed two other begging chicks from the crowd who were still eagerly waving their hands in the air and cheering to be chosen. Now I was doubled over.

  I heard Pretty say to him, “She’s sorry. She must have gotten carsick from our drive over.”

  “Either that or she don’t choose you!” Bridgette said and cracked up. The nigga cocked back his hand and open-smacked Bridgette. I stood up but felt dizzy. Bridgette slapped him back, then pushed him. The crowd closed in.

  “I wasn’t talking to either one of you,” he lied, pointing to me and Bridgette. “I was speaking to the young pretty thing,” he said, nodding in the direction of Pretty. As he attempted to step close to Pretty, Bridgette cut him off. He then snatched Bridgette’s arm and twisted it behind her back. That was a wrong move. If he knew Bridgette, he would’ve cuffed or gagged her mouth. That’s her weapon.

  “We hate! We hate! We hate! We hate men who beat women!” Bridgette called out like a rallying cry. She broke free and began screaming, “We hate, we hate. We hate men who beat women!” on the microphone. She was screaming confidently, as though she knew there had to be at least three hundred other women in the crowd who also hated men who beat women.

  Soon a chorus of voices were chanting, “We hate, we hate. We hate men who beat women.” Then some of the men who were in the request line began beating the hustler who had been twisting Bridgette’s arm. The crowd began cheering for the guys that were mobbing and mopping up the hustler whose face I vomited in. But the beast must have gotten angry. He roared so loud flames of fire shot down from his mouth. Some of the fighters caught on fire. Some of the people tried to put the fire out. Instead of it going out, it grew larger and spread wider. Then a deafening horn went off, like a horn on an amplifier. The horn caused people to cover their ears and scatter. Out from the flames came a man who could only be described as irresistible. He was light-skinned. Usually I’m only powerfully attracted to men who don that deep-black-skinned color. This hustler was more the complexion of my father. He had silky black hair but cut it low, faded the sides, and was sexy physiqued and immaculate.

  It was as though the crowd recognized or respected him. When everybody saw him, they stopped doing everything and anything they had been doing. His walk was rhythmic, yet perfectly calm and humble, like a boss who never needs to get agitated because he runs it. He didn’t have the overplayed swag of the hustlers who had arrived before him. From his, had to be bespoken suit, because of the way it fit his muscles and the contour of his body, he pulled out a handkerchief and extended his hand to me. When I didn’t react naturally or quickly enough because I was hypnotized by the gleam of his clean diamond cuff links, he began using it to wipe my mouth with his right hand while grabbing the mic with his left.

  “I’m the owner of this club,” he said into the mic with calm seriousness. “You are all my guests.” He gestured towards the attentive crowd. They cheered. “I train my staff to exhibit superior customer service, unmatched guest relations and, below all, common sense. This fool here is my son. He’s a son of a bitch and a demon.” He placed his foot on his son’s stomach as he laid beaten and broken on the ground in the ring. “Apologize,” he said, pressing further into his son’s abs.

  His son’s face turned even more hateful. “For what! She’s the bitch who vomited on me.”

  The irresistible father moved his Gucci driving shoe onto his son’s neck. “Apologize to her for making her feel sick to her stomach. Then apologize to the noisy one for your unnecessary violence. Then apologize to the ‘pretty young thing’ for making it impossible for her to accept your invitation,” he said as he carefully lifted his shoe from his son’s throat and downshifted the mic to him so that his apology could be heard.

  “Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me,” his son said hatefully three times. I guess that was the best he could do. He stood up. He dusted off the ash and soil from his attire. “Sorry, Father, for ruining the night,” he said, like only a son apologizing to his father could say. An unrelated nigga would never have apologized even if he was 100 percent certain that he was dead wrong. Niggas would’ve just fought or shot it out till everybody, and possibly even the crowd, except for one, was all dead on the floor. His son dropped the mic.

  The father caught it smoothly and stepped my way. “My taste is more immaculate than my son’s. I choose you. You’re the finest choice,” he said, and his words were amplified for all to hear, no matter how far off they were from the club. I was publicly crowned. I was won over. He just confirmed my top-bitch status even though I wasn’t donned and dolled up in my fiercest fashions. I was won over in that second. “What do you say? Do you choose me back?” He smiled as though he already knew my answer.

 
The crowd cheered, “Say yes! Say yes! Say yes!”

  I saw Bridgette in the crowd screaming, “Say yes! Say yes!” with as much passion as she protested or cheered for anything. She could have been screaming Toilet paper! Toilet paper! Toilet paper! and she would still be screaming it with the same resolve, enthusiasm, and force. The thought made me laugh. When he saw my smile, he took it as a yes. At the same time, my eyes landed on Pretty. She was watching closely, not cheering or laughing.

  “If…” I answered.

  “Whatever your ‘if’ involves, I agree. If you say, ‘Allow all of these people into my club for free,’ I agree!” The crowd went haywire! Now it was a different type of pressure. It didn’t matter. He had everything he needed to have to have me. Pretty dashed and grabbed the mic. “But what does she have to give if she’s agrees? What’s the terms of the contract?” she asked sweetly, with what felt like a deep concern for me. But the wild crowd booed her. Wall-to-wall boos.

  The club owner waved Pretty over, like how a boss waves over a worker. Then he waved his hand one time, commanding the crowd to silence. “A gentleman only offers and never forces a woman to do anything that she does not approve of. These are the only words in my contract,” he said to Pretty, but really to everyone. He extended the mic to her lips.

  I intercepted the mic. “Deal!” I said calmly. “Free entry for all the clubbers and the drinks are on the house!” I added, snatching back the spotlight and feeding the momentum in my favor. The whole entire outdoor crowd went buck wild. Pandemonium!

  “Go get my whip,” he said to his son.

  “What about my car? I drove the Ferrari here,” his son said. His father just stared at him. The pupils of the father’s eyes turned red. The son went to fetch the vehicle without further hesitation. His father signaled his suited men who I just noticed scattered about in the crowd. I liked the way he commanded the situation so smoothly and didn’t panic or respond to the wildness that surrounded him. He pulled back the mic. “Music! DJ, spin ‘All I Do Is Win!’ ” And when he said the track title, he did a one-step dance move, like I seen my father do back in the day at certain moments where he had to be too cool to dance. The red beast roared and the cut came on at his command. I loved it. His choice pushed out pop and put hip-hop back into play.