Leaving Breezy Street

by Brenda Myers-Powell

  That was the kind of crazy nonsense I found myself caught up with. Crack was as bad in Chicago as it had been in California. All in all, I’ve been stabbed thirteen times and shot five times. When Sonny got back from his pretend Million Man March vacation, we got into it. Again. He and I went back and forth. He was another one of those brothers who was like, “You can’t be with no one but me.” And I was like, “Screw you.” He wasn’t as strong as Coolie. Maybe Sonny and I would have lasted, but he had gotten too regular with hitting on me. Maybe he would have gotten away with that kind of shit if I hadn’t done all my traveling, if I hadn’t gone through all that shit in California, if I hadn’t learned all those hard lessons from Ma’Dea. But Ma’Dea prepared me for when she wasn’t going to be around to protect me. In her own way, she prepped me to take a licking and keep on ticking. “She ain’t gone be no pushover, when I get through with her ass.” And I wasn’t. Fighting was not a problem for me, cause it just seemed the right way to be. That’s why I was always running and being an outlaw. I took some ass whippings from some men, but I fought some men, too.

  That kind of shit went down between Sonny and me. He would catch me and see me on the street or something, jump out the car. “How much money you got, bitch?” I would lean back, because I knew he was going to go in my titties and get my money. But being with him was too confining. And he overworked a bitch. I was tired.

  That day, I hadn’t done anything but went and got money. I hadn’t even finished working; I had more work to do. I had been out there when it was twenty, thirty degrees below zero. That’s why I was taking a break. And he was talking about how he was gone beat my ass. Sometimes men would be feeling bad about something else but they want to come and jump on you about it. And I wasn’t ready to get whooped that night. I ain’t did nothing. It was funny: something in me said, Are you really gone go in that house and have him beat your ass? Cause I knew he was going to do it when we got inside. And I’m thinking, For what? What did I do? I didn’t do nothing. Got his money. He told me what he was going to do when we got in the house. And when I got out the car, he talking about jumping me.

  He grabbed me up. “Bitch, get in that house.” And when he grabbed me, I coldcocked him. We got to fighting outside. I was tearing his ass up. Sonny couldn’t believe it. I’m not saying like I’m a man, but I handled his ass that night. I was so angry; I was so mad about everything he had ever done to me.

  There were three brothers across the street. And all of a sudden one of them came from across the street and said, “Alright, muffin man, back up off of her.”

  Another one reached down and said, “Back the fuck up off of her.”

  “That’s my woman, man.”

  “Yeah, but back the fuck up off her, man. We not gone watch you out here.” I was all over the place. Breathing heavy and crying and shit, but I really wanted to keep fighting. So them dudes looked at me and was like, “Come on here, baby,” and walked me away down the block. Sonny vroomed off.

  I was still crying. “That motherfucker…”

  “Calm down, baby.”

  They calmed me down and I said thank you. But they were like, “Naw, baby, you had it. We watched you. We just gave you a chance to whip that nigga’s ass. But you had it. We just came over there to stop it. You handled that.” I’m all emotional. Then this light-skinned brother stepped out and said, “Breezy, you a motherfucking G.”

  I thought to myself, yeah, I was the motherfucking hero.

  Chapter 18

  Chicago, Take Two

  Sometimes I make this seem like an action movie and I was the hero, and in a lot of ways it was. I was out there dodging bullets, beating up pimps. I was a part of a lifestyle that had me going back and forth with street people. And let me tell you something: people go through shit in completely different ways. Sometimes you wild out, sometimes you hide. You get to this place that whatever jumps off, you feel like that’s how life is supposed to be. One thing about street people is that they don’t look at responsibilities the way they should. And you accept those weak spots from each other. Just like I made a whole lotta money, but my pimp was always broke. Sonny wasn’t that bad because he didn’t do no drugs. He might not have been broke; he might have been stashing his money. I don’t know. I guess I’m saying we all learn to accept shit like that.

  But just because you accept shit doesn’t mean you like it. At some point, you think to yourself, screw all this. You know how me and Sonny just died? One night, Bridget, Sonny, and me were all in a room together. He was in one of his rages for no reason. He just came in and grabbed the broom and started swinging, and I blocked it. He hit me on my left arm, on the bone. It swole up. And then he took Bridget and me and dropped us off at the ho stroll.

  Bridget looked at me with my broken arm and said, “If you stay on this stroll, you a fool. Because I’m gone. Fuck him.”

  I looked at her and said, “Do what you got to do.” She and I weren’t tight enough to be discussing him like that.

  So I had caught a trick, and I went to the hotel with him, got his money, and I went to the spot out in the Grange where I met up with my friends Skip, Pete, and Reggie. They were all boosting. And they said, “Come go with us, Breezy. You don’t have to go back to Sonny; you can come with us.” They were sweet guys. And they were very funny. They weren’t trying to have sex with me or anything like that. They were just trying to take care of a sister. And I needed that. I wasn’t ready to go to the hospital yet. They knew my brothers, and they wanted to tell my brothers that this pimp done broke my arm. “Don’t do that,” I told them. My brothers were the kind who would deal with a situation, and I didn’t want my brothers to go to jail for dealing with Sonny. More important than dealing with Sonny was doing something about my arm. I was in so much pain.

  I took a hit of cocaine, but that wouldn’t let the pain go. Skip’s sister gave me some ibuprofen. I took two or three, and there was still pain. I had been out there for two days. My buddies said they were going back to the city. I said, “Hey, drop me off at the hospital. Where y’all gone be at and I’ll meet you?” They put my arm in a cast at the county hospital, then I went back to Sonny because I didn’t really know where else to go. I didn’t want my brothers to see me like that.

  When I went back to Sonny, he was acting sad and shit, like he wasn’t the one who did it. He opened the door and said, “Baby, what happened?”

  “You broke my arm.”

  “I didn’t mean to do that. Come on in.”

  There was Bridget sitting up in there. I turned to Sonny. “You got this broke bitch up in here? I’m gone.” I went to the door to go.

  “Don’t leave, don’t leave.” He went over to Bridget. “Get up. Get on and get out.” But Sonny and I weren’t right after that. I made a point of leaving and staying gone for a while.

  Weeks later, she brought up the incident. “Do you remember that?” Bridget asked me.

  “Yeah, I remember that.”

  “He knew that the real money was at the door and was ’bout to leave.”

  Do you see the relationship? What it is all about? Money. I knew he had a real liking for Bridget, but when it came to his money, Bridget could go and sit down somewhere because Sonny was going to follow the money.

  I started hanging with this dude who was a Mad Black Soul, Randy Johnson. He was like a big brother to me, cause his woman was cool with me. On the night of the Players Ball, I turned to Randy and said, “Let’s go to the Players Ball.” I had gone to the Players Ball before. Once, I went to one in Chicago. I went to another in New York. This time I was super excited, but looking back, let me tell you the truth about the Players Ball: the Players Ball is the grimiest, most stupid bullshit that has ever gone on. But it’s so exciting for the pimps because they love watching grimy shit. The only thing that saved it was that folks would put on the best outfits and show up in the best cars, even if they had to rent the car for the night. Even Sonny would go out and rent shit. I would look at him
and think, You so fake. The whole thing represents so much garbage.

  When you go into the Players Ball, dudes are grouped up with their stable. Then you have the men who come in there to cop a bitch. The drug dealers who came in there have women with them. And then you’ve got participants who came in there to praise the pimps and shit like that. You might have somebody like Ice-T in there. Or Snoop Dogg might come. But they don’t stay for long, they just come through, cause they want to see how these clowns be acting out. It’s just a big old party.

  It’s like walking into a club of ego-hungry dudes who have nothing better to do than stare at each other. It just makes you want to throw up. But for those who were involved in it, this is what they would tell you: the Players Ball is a glamourous exploitation of what we do 365 days a year. It represents the pimp’s ability to hold on to his stable for 365 days. And the point is, they need to control the same number of girls that they had at the beginning of the year. And whichever pimp has the most flawless lifestyle, the most bitches and money, they become the pimp of the year. And they can prove that, because everybody knows everybody’s business. Pimps are like hos; they like to sit around and brag. If a bitch breaks bad or runs off, everybody knows. I was considered one of the baddest bitches out there, but I always ran away. So Sonny never got any recognition. I used to think it was my fault, but you know what? Sonny never had any game.

  All the pimps come together and vote on who was best at sustaining their stable for that year. And you get a trophy. A pimp trophy. It’s like two feet high. Somebody just picked it up at the trophy store. How stupid is that? And then you get your name out there—you’re King Burt or King Frank. You’re all that and a bag of french fries. Hos want to pay you and choose you, cause you the coldest pimp out there. And I’m not gone lie—I liked it when I was involved in it.

  So, like I said, when I wanted to go to the Players Ball with Randy, the only question was the money. Randy told me, “We ain’t got no money.”

  I said, “Alright. I’ll be back.”

  So I went up on Cicero, and I beat a white guy off—hundred dollars. Came back. Went to Walgreens, got some smell goods. Got my little outfit. Put my shit on. I got my cast on, but check this shit out: what I did was, I had some sequined pants, and I cut out the bottom of them. I put sequins over the cast; that was how I worked with the cast. I covered it up, and it looked cute.

  I went to the Players Ball, and I was sharp. And I saw some pimps I had never seen before, and I was definitely an attraction. And guess who was there? Sonny. So I was with Sonny, but those Don Juans were taking a look or two. I was out there posing with my booty out and doing my thing. Next thing I knew, some pimp grabbed my arm, and Sonny grabbed my other arm, and he said, “Naw, bitch, this mine.”

  He put me in the car. Bridget was in the car, too, and he had picked up some other little ho in the place. She was licking on him, and he was licking on her. Bridget got mad. She was driving, but it was Sonny’s car—a rental—and Bridget ran into another car.

  Sonny said, “Did that bitch just hit this?”

  And I said, “Yeah, she pretty much did.”

  She slammed our car into another car. I got out the car. And Red, who was Sonny’s sidekick, who had come along with us, got out the car. Sonny grabbed Bridget, and he was kicking her on the ground like a dog. The other woman who was in the car just up and left. And the ambulance came, and then Sonny turned to me like he hadn’t just finished stomping on Bridget like she was trash.

  He said, “Baby, you alright?”

  I knew right then he was a dirty dog. I looked at him and told him I didn’t have time for police reports and shit like that. “I’ll see you later.” He was looking at me like, Where that bitch going? She knows I need her.

  Red knew I had money, and I told him, “I’m going to hit a lick, I’ll be back.” I handed him a few twenties, and I said, “I’ll be back. Don’t be following me and messing up my action,” because I was trying to help Sonny out, because now he got a tore-up car. Like I said, you can’t be a victim out there all the time in the streets.

  After I got my money from the stroll, I went to his sister’s house and he was in the kitchen looking all pitiful and shit. I was singing Patti LaBelle, “He’s the right kind of lover!” His sister was singing; she’s a big old fool. And I was dancing around, and I got my money out. I swiped my money across his face. “That’s what you get for fucking with broke-ass bitches.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that. Bitch, I’ll kill you.”

  His sister was calling after us, “I told him stop fucking around with those broke bitches.”

  “Shut up, motherfucker.” I could treat him like that because I was giving him money. That was the kind of girl I was and that’s why I was exciting to him.

  I was with Sonny off and on for three years. I’d walk away when there was too much drama, then I’d come back when things settled down.

  * * *

  I started drifting and staying with other people. I met up with this dude DayDay and his wife, Yolanda. Later on, she became my sponsor at Narcotics Anonymous. She’s still my sponsor today. I met them both when I was on the streets. DayDay was hustling with me, and he was still getting high, but she was clean. DayDay was good-looking, and white women especially liked him, and he used to have me step up to them and get him his money. That kind of work wasn’t really his forte. He used to tell me, “Go tell that ho to give you the money, Breezy.” And I was like, “Man, you scared to take money from a ho?”

  But he was also telling me about his woman. Yolanda was in recovery, and she had a real job and everything. Day used to talk about her so much, I felt I knew her. They were struggling. I would kick him like two, three hundred dollars, because he would be scared to go home without any money.

  By the grace of God, Yolanda was very laid-back and unconditional. She let her husband go through all of that. Once, I was with DayDay, and he was supposed to watch my back. This young Black guy walked up and wanted to do business. I told him I don’t date Black guys.

  “Baby, I got money. My money just as good as any white guy.”

  “But I don’t. I got to get my money and you’re not going to pay me what I want.”

  He was a drug dealer. “I got what you want. How much you want?”

  I said, “Give me a hundred dollars.”

  “Bet. Get in.”

  I said, “Why don’t you come back?” But he didn’t want to come back. He was parked in front of me and wouldn’t leave. I was watching all these white guys go by, and this Black man was blowing my money. I got angry, so I said, “Come on, then. Goddamnit. But I told you not to mess with me.” We went around the corner, and I didn’t just take the hundred, I took all his money. Men don’t pay attention when you having sex with them.

  The next day he came back, and he saw me walking across the street. I was about to get in the car with DayDay. We were about to go, because I got the money for the day.

  “You got my money?” the drug dealer said.

  Day said, “Gone, man. She tried to tell you to gone ’bout your business. But you wouldn’t. So you got what you got. She warned you not to fuck with her.”

  “Bitch better give me my money.”

  “You ain’t gone do shit to her.” DayDay looked at me. “Get in the car, Breezy.” I got in. “You get in, too,” Day said to the drug dealer.

  “What you fin to do?”

  “I’m gone take this nigga where he need to go.” DayDay was Vice Lord. He drove his ass right over there where the Vice Lords were.

  That dealer got up outta there, but he was yelling, “I’mma get y’all!”

  Shenanigans. I was back and forth in the streets. I was hooked up with the chief of the Mad Black Souls. I was staying on Jackson with my homeboy Benny Lee and his girlfriend, YaYa. And no matter what, I was strolling up and down Madison. I was out there doing all my wild-ass shit to get a trick.

  One day my brother caught me at it. Todd had been park
ed there, just watching. When he pulled up on me and I went to the car, I thought he was a trick. “Oh!”

  “Yeah. I been watching you for about thirty, forty minutes. You been up here having a time. Get in the car.” I got in. He started driving. “You was over there having so much fun, I’m telling you.”

  I’m laughing at him. “Give me twenty dollars, nigga.”

  “I ain’t giving you no money. You need to go home with me. You need a break. Look at you. You look wore out.”

  I couldn’t argue. I needed a break. And that’s how I woke up that morning in Todd’s basement. My other brothers came out to check on me. Jerome did; Jethro would come by in his truck. They never stopped coming by, they never stopped coming by to check on their sister.

  Chapter 19

  Chicago, Take Two, For Real

  April Fool’s Day, 1997. The day I was dragged by that trick. The day I made that little girl see me for the mess that I was and I took her innocence away. The day those dealers cursed me out and hustled me off the streets. April Fool’s Day was the day I learned the streets can reset you even if you didn’t want them to. I went straight from the hospital to Genesis House. If you came to Genesis House the way I did, they would let you stay three days, and then you would have to go to treatment and come back, because they had to stabilize you before they let you stay in the house, because you were a threat to the other girls because you fresh from out there, getting high. They want you stabilized off drugs. Which means that I had to be drug-free for a minute. It took thirty days for me to dry out, but it took another sixty days to get that gorilla off my back. I had to be put on routine: get up every morning, make my bed, eat real breakfast and lunch. I gained weight. Now I knew if I got the urge to get high, I should pray or think about something else. It was the same way with my prostitution. Sometimes I would sit in my room and I would hear car horns blowing outside. And I would think that the car horns were blowing for me. Friday and Saturday nights, the streets were active. I felt pulled toward the noise. I so wanted to go outside and hop in a car. But if I could hold tight, the urge would pass. Nobody had told me that before. That’s what the other programs never did for me. They always just threw me in the program, and I wasn’t even drug-free in the residential. They called in the ninety and ninety: I needed to be stabilized for ninety days before I started my treatment that lasted another ninety days. They didn’t send me to treatment until I finished with all my doctor’s appointments from the county hospital from my face being messed up.