Karma's a Bitch

by J. Gail

  “Probably Scoop, Rob and Belly,” Tony said, his voice trailing off as he headed outside, the screen door slamming behind him.

  * * *

  Devilutions was a night club populated mostly by dirty, grimy thugs and shameless hoodrats, a few decent types thrown here and there. About 30% of the regular crowd had bullet wounds, and it seemed as if the party wasn’t really over until somebody started shooting outside.

  Tony, Rob, Scoop and Terrance finally walked in at 11:15pm after waiting on line for about a half hour. Belly couldn’t make it because of a prior engagement, but everybody knew it was because his possessive baby’s mother told him he couldn’t go out. They arrived in just enough time to catch the drink specials, and had only paid half-price because Rob’s boy worked the door. He of course got in for free. The women who walked in with them could smell the broke nigga scent emanating from these brothas from a mile away, and each took a mental note of their faces for future reference.

  Tony swaggered up to the bar, ready to spend up the $25 he had left after paying admission. He hadn’t had time to ask his mom for more cash because of procrastinating in the streets too long. The hispanic female bartender came over smiling.

  “What can I get you?” she asked leaning over the bar to hear.

  “Gimme two shots of Henny, those are a dollar right?”

  “No the Hennessey is regular price, $6 a shot. The only dollar shots are …. Smirnoff, Bankers Club, Bacardi Dark….” the bartenders voice came in and out over the noise as she listed a few more cheap brands.

  “Damn. Aiight, just give me two shots of Smirnoff. Naw, make that one shot Smirnoff, one shot of Bacardi.”

  “Tony, man, you ain’t supposed to mix light and dark liquor. You gonna be fucked up if you keep that up,” Scoop piped in from behind him. Rob and Terrance flanked him on either side.

  “Shut up the hell up man. I’ll drink how I want,” Tony said as he watched the bartender pour the liquor into little plastic cups.

  Scoop ignored him. “Lemme get a Hennessey. I gots a job so I can afford the good shit,” he joked back at Tony when the bartender got back with Tony’s drinks and threw a $20 bill on the bar. The bartender tried to hide a smile as she turned to retrieve the open bottle of Hennessey. Rob yelled out his order of a shot of Bacardi Dark as well.

  “Nigga I can afford that shit,” Tony said slightly annoyed and embarrassed. He downed his shots one after the other. Scoop and Terrance shook their heads, watching the bartender ring up Scoop’s Hennessey. When she came back, the bartender gave Scoop change, of which he left $2 on the bar as a tip. She asked if Terrance needed anything, but he waved her off.

  “Okay then. That’ll be…$3 for the other drinks please,” the bartender said looking at Tony, who was sitting closest to the bar, after adding up the amounts in her head.

  “What? Oh naw, you gotta separate that. Those are separate orders,” Tony specified.

  Rob looked at Tony as if he had farted right in his face. “Nigga you can’t pay a dollar for my drink? I’ll get you later.”

  “Naw, naw. You know damned well I ain’t down for that. Later on yo ass will be running around the club chasing bitches and I can’t find you nowheres to pay for my drink. Fuck that, pay for own your drink nigga,” Tony said throwing a $5 bill on the bar. The bartender turned around and rang up his order.

  “You cheap as shit! I cannot believe this nigga’s getting particular over a buck!” Rob complained as he pulled out a $10 bill and threw it on the bar.

  “Bucks add up. Quit complaining,” Tony sneered. The bartender came back with his change and Tony took two dollars from her. “Let me get a Bud.”

  Terrance watched as Tony put the $2 dollars in his pocket. “You ain’t gonna give her that?”

  “Naw! What the hell for, she ain’t do nothing but pour some drinks in a cup,” he answered rudely. The bartender overheard the last bit of the conversation, and slammed Tony’s beer down on the bar before walking away.

  “She’ll get over it,” Tony laughed and walked away from the bar, following Rob.

  The club was getting packed, but it was still light enough to easily pass through the crowd. A cute light skinned girl passed by and Tony jumped in front of her. He was moving to the beat of Da Band’s Bad Boy This, holding his beer high and looking down at the girl like a piece of meat. She followed suit and grabbed onto him, moving in a two step and then finally turning around, dropping to the floor and grinding her way back up.

  The night went on and before Tony knew it, it was going on 2:15am. The club wasn’t shutting down until 3am though. Tony was lit. And then had the nerve to go to the bar once again and order another shot of Bacardi, which was now $3. The other bartender working the bar, a short pretty chubby-faced brown skinned girl, went to the other side of the bar to get a new bottle of Bacardi Dark. The hispanic bartender, Melinda, pulled her aside as she was pulling the bottle out of the crate.

  “You getting that for that broke ass nigga over there? The one with the fake ass Girbaud t-shirt?” she asked.

  “Yea, why?” the brown skinned bartender named Brenda responded and started twisting the bottle cap off.

  “Hold up,” Melinda said as she held up her hand and walked over to the middle of the bar. She found a double shot glass holding some dirty bar tools. She took the tools out and saw that there was the beginnings of mold on the bottom of the glass. The glass was so dirty and cloudy with specks of grime that she could barely see through it. Requesting the bottle of Bacardi from her bar-mate, she smiled and looked over at Tony, who was looking as if he was about to spin off his seat. Brenda just looked on, knowing that her girlfriend had to have a method to her madness. She watched Melinda turn around and discreetly pour a healthy glass of the Bacardi dark in the dirty glass, and then walk over to the other side of the bar to garnish it with a lime. She smiled and handed the drink to Brenda.

  “Here, give him a double shot of this.” Melinda threw her head back and laughed as she walked away to help more customers.

  Back on the other side of the bar, Brenda handed Tony the drink.

  “That’ll be $3 please,” she said in her sweetest voice. She watched as Tony threw the shot back without hesitation and cringed. He smacked his lips and made a funny face as he pulled what was left of his money out of his pocket. He put $3 on the bar and got up, but before he left he stopped Brenda again.

  “Wait, here.” He stumbled, and then shoved his hand in his pants pocket coming out with a handful of change. He picked 50 cents out of the pile and placed it on the bar, pushing it forward and smiled as if he were giving her a twenty dollar bill. “That’s for you.”

  Brenda the bartender pushed the two coins back to him. “Keep it. You need it more than me brah,” she said and walked off, annoyed. That’s why your ass just drank a Bacardi and Mildew, nigga, she thought. No wonder Melissa had a vendetta on him. She wanted to flick those coins at his forehead.

  Tony turned up his nose and picked his 50 cents right back up off the bar. “Fine, shit that was almost a 20% tip!”

  The women sitting at the bar shook their head at his sorry trifling self.

  Tony made his way back over to the middle of the dance floor and roughly pulled a girl wearing a bra top which was only hidden by a sheer shirt towards him. They started dancing wildy, not having any type of regard or remorse for who they were pushing out of the way nearby. After a few moments, a brother wearing a pair of authentic Gucci shades balanced on his forehead pushed Tony out of the way and told him to watch himself. Tony ignored him and kept dancing, even more reckless than before. When the Gucci brotha had been hit a couple more times, he again pushed Tony, causing him to fall forward into the girl he was dancing with. Gucci had about four inches on Tony.

  “What the fuck?” the ghetto hispanic girl said balancing herself. Tony had some words with Gucci before walking off to find his boys.

  He spotted Rob near the bar, and luckily Scoop not far from him dancing with a girl that looked l
ike she needed a shower with a fire hose. He grabbed them both, talking in a tone that let them know he needed their attention immediately, and they followed him back to the middle of the dance floor. Tony pointed out Gucci, like a little girl telling on someone who had bothered her on the bus, and Scoop and Rob, who was officially heavy at 5’9 285 lbs immediately walked up on the dude with Tony close behind. Rob and Scoop then stood on either side of Gucci, while Tony stood in the middle facing him.

  “What seems to be the problem?” Scoop inquired.

  “There ain’t no problem, yo boy just need to learn how to respect people’s space,” Gucci said annoyed, but sensing that something was about to go down. Just then out of the blue Tony reached over to mush Gucci in the face, and when Gucci tried to retaliate, Rob and Scoop immediately pounced on him. One of them threw a punch, while the other tried to restrain his hands. Tony stood by and laughed. Gucci’s $400 glasses fell off his face, and hit the floor, along with his cell phone, which had been strapped to his belt. Scavengers rushed to pick up the falling items, one of them of course Tony, who managed to scoop up the cellphone, keys and some money that had slipped out of Gucci’s pocket as he was struggling to get free. The bouncers finally got over to the scene and grabbed Gucci from Rob and Scoop, carrying Gucci to and out the door.

  “Get the fuck off me! How you gonna take me out? They the ones that came at me!…” Gucci could be heard before the bouncers closed the door in his face.

  At 3:00 the club let out and Tony and his boys were still falling out laughing about what had happened to Gucci. When they came out they saw that he was still there, arguing with the bouncers and one of the promoters about having been taken out and losing most of his valuable belongings. The promoters were trying to calm him down, but to no avail. It got worse when he spotted Tony and his friends.

  “There they go! These the niggas ya’ll let stay in the club and steal my shit!” Gucci tried to make a rush at one of them, but the 330 pound bouncer held him back. Gucci looked at him helplessly. “Come on man, they probably got my keys and shit. I can’t get home without my damn keys!”

  “You just gonna have to calm down, my man. Just go back in the club, maybe they got your keys at the DJ booth,” the bouncer reasoned.

  Tony and his boys stifled laughter as they quickly moved towards Scoop’s truck. Terrance was thoroughly confused.

  “What happened?” he asked, still uninformed.

  About 15 minutes into their ride home, Tony felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He went to the source and saw that it wasn’t his phone, but Gucci’s. He quickly picked up.

  “Yeee-ooww,” Tony greeted obnoxiously.

  “Who’s this?”

  “This ya boy, who dis?” Tony chuckled. Rob and Scoop joined in when they realized what was happening.

  “Nigga what the fuck you doing with my phone??!!”

  “This my phone, whatchu talkin’ about man? Go on with that shit.”

  Gucci continued yelling obscenities through the phone, but Tony, Rob and Scoop’s laughter only grew louder and louder.

  “Yea yea yea, I got me a new phone and some new keys. To a shiny new Benz. Hahaha….” Tony laughed and then hung up the phone. The phone rang three more times before Gucci gave up. Tony scanned the keys and wondered if it would be worth trying to find Gucci’s Benz out in the parking lot…

  “Ya’ll took that man’s keys for real? How the hell is he supposed to get home and in his house?” Terrance’s voice of reason piped in as he slowly caught up with what was going on.

  “Man, fuck that nigga. He should have thought about all that before he pushed me,” Tony snorted out and then leaned down in the passenger’s seat.

  “Oh so he just pushed you outta nowhere. Yea, that sounds right,” Terrance said sarcastically and thoroughly angry at the situation. How were they going to take the man’s cellphone and keys to his house? What did they need the keys for? That was just trifling.

  “Yea that’s right. And that nigga got his shit rocked.” Tony reached his hand over and held it out for Scoop to slap. “Now he’ll know, don’t fuck with these niggas in the club. That’s a bad idea dude.”

  “So all three of ya’ll niggas were involved right? I thought you said he pushed you?” Terrance directed at Tony.

  “You fuck with my boy, you fucking with me,” Rob reasoned as he started chomping on some barbecue potato chips he had grabbed from the vending machine in the club.

  “Nigga, I know you ain’t eating no chips in my truck!” Scoop yelled at Rob. “You black burnt crispy Pillsbury dough boy lookin’ muthafucka! Why you always gotta be eating somethin’? Damn!”

  Rob stopped chewing.

  “You know, you always doing that shit Tony. Getting other people to fight your battles. I don’t think you’ve ever even got your own hands dirty, not even back in elementary school,” Terrance accused.

  “Shut the fuck up Terrance, I ain’t trying to hear all your whining tonight. Don’t be mad at me cause you ain’t get no numbers. That nigga deserved what he got,” Tony retorted.

  “Actually, I did get numbers. Two. And they wasn’t no straight up hoochie ass skanks like the ones I seen you with. I guess they can spot a real man when they see him,” Terrance confirmed. Rob and Scoop ooooohhed at Terrance’s comment.

  Tony turned around and looked at Terrance as if he were out of his God-given mind. Rob tried to mediate before things got out of hand. The truth was, he respected Terrance despite his tendency to be a square, and would never think of trying to lay a hand on him in defense of Tony of all people. A stranger though, that was no problem. Besides, Terrance would probably whoop his ass.

  “Aiight ya’ll. What’s done is done, that nigga done lost his shit, and he’s gonna have to deal with it. That’s the risk you take. We probably was fucked up for taking that shit, but what we gonna do now? Nothin’. So just drop it,” Rob said, trying to end the conversation. There was quiet for a few moments.

  “Alright. But just know that what goes around come around. You don’t do people like that and get away with it,” Terrance said after thinking over what his friends had done with complete disdain.

  “Yea yea, whatever,” Tony scoffed. He rolled down the window and threw Gucci’s keys out of the window carelessly. The car sat in silence the rest of the ride home.

  * * *

  It was 5:14am that same morning when Tony got a call on his cellphone. Who the fuck could this be? It better not be one of these bitches, he thought to himself as he looked over at Quanisha. She moved a little, but was still fast asleep. Quanisha was a very deep sleeper.

  He reached over and clicked the phone’s talk button.

  “Hello?”

  “Tony! Oh Tony, baby, they robbed me…” the familiar voice moaned.

  “What? Momma? What are you talking about?” Tony asked frantically. It was his grandmother, who he considered to be his mother since she had raised and taken care of him.

  “Baby, they took everything. Both my TVs and my good china… they just cleaned me out…and knocked me over…”

  “What? Momma finish what you sayin’???”

  “They knocked me over the head with a gun baby, and I’m bleeding. I’m bleeding bad…” Tony’s grandmother’s voice faded again.

  “Momma!! Imma be RIGHT there aiight??” Tony yelled into the phone to make sure she heard him before he ended the call, fingers shaking. He threw the covers back and leapt out of bed.

  When Tony finally jumped in his Cavalier it was about three minutes after his grandmother had made the distressed call. It was breaking his heart; Tony’s grandmother meant everything to him in the world. Despite how he treated her – always asking her for money, coming into her house at all hours, smoking weed in her basement, yelling at her when things didn’t go his way – he loved his Grandma more than anything or anybody. He turned the ignition and sped off down the street into the night towards his grandmother’s house in West Philly.

  When he reached the red
light at the corner of 53th and Baltimore he had to pause. He had run every light from 60th and on, but now there was a cop crossing down 53rd. He had two nick bags of weed on him, and he didn’t need that extra added aggravation. He knew that even if he explained what his rush was about, they would tell him to calm down, detain him at first and hold him from seeing to his Grandma. He watched the officer pass, and the officer looked right back at him.

  As he finally saw the officer turn the corner out of sight, his car began puttering and jerking violently. He looked down at the dash as if that would stop what was happening. The car finally just shut off completely.

  “What the?” Tony tried the ignition, but it only made that grinding noise that tells you it’s not planning on starting up any time soon. He tried it again, and again, cursing and screaming as the car behind him finally got the idea and went around him. He tried one more time, pressing the gas pedal all the way down as he turned the key, but still the car didn’t turn on.

  “Noooo, this cannot happen right now!” Tony screamed and then fumbled for his cellphone in his pocket. He retrieved the cellphone he had taken from Gucci, and dialed the number to Quanisha’s, who had barely even stirred when Tony ran out of the door.

  At Quanisha’s, the phone rang, and rang, and rang. Quanisha, who was still fast asleep, was dreaming about sitting at her big desk, at her own office at the beauty salon she had always wished she could open. She figured the phone sounds were the phones ringing off the hook at her shop, and smiled in her sleep as Tony’s call got sent to voicemail.

  “Quanisha!” Tony yelled into the voicemail as if Quanisha could hear him. Gucci’s cellphone made a loud beeping sound. “What the hell is wrong with you! Pick up the phone!” he hung the phone up angrily. He dialed Terrance’s number and the voicemail picked up on the first ring. Terrance had his high tech home phone programmed to go straight to voicemail at night so that he wouldn’t be disturbed before he had to go to work. Only his mother and sister’s phones could get through at that time of night. Terrance hated cellphones, and the only one he carried was paid for by his job and used for work purposes only. Nobody even had Terrance’s cellphone number besides his mother.