by Mikal Malone
“It’s still a bad move, ma,” Oscar persisted. “Black Water would have never approved of this.”
“Do you know where Black Water and Tamir went wrong, son?”
“Blasphemy,” Oscar said with an attitude. “Black Water didn’t go wrong anywhere and I’m ashamed to hear you say that. If one of the family members heard you speak in such ways, they would have you killed for treason.”
“Luckily I’m just talking to my son, someone who can keep my secrets right?” When he doesn’t answer she gets louder. “You’ll keep my secrets right, son?”
“Yes, ma,” he said under his breath.
“Good. Now Black Water was a great leader, and his son Tamir was on his way to being the greatest too. But he messed up when he didn’t stand close to the doctrine we live by. We were always taught that when possible, we should keep the peace, and I’ve done that by this arrangement I have with the Emerald City Squad. As much as I loved Tamir and Black Water, they are both dead. This family is not, and it’s my responsibility to protect it.”
“Are you soft because you found out about your sister?”
Karen sits up in her chair and stares her son directly into the eyes. She’s beyond insulted because he knows first hand the people she has killed. He knows her murderous heart.
“You’ve known me all of your life, and you can still ask me that question? The only reason you’re still standing is because I gave birth to you. But, I’m not sure that I will extend the same graces to you if you disrespect me in that way again.”
“I’m just trying to make sense of this,” he said. “I didn’t mean to disrespect you.”
“Well it’s too late for that, Oscar. You already have. And let me give you a warning. If you ever come at me like that again I will forget that you are my child. Now leave me alone.”
When he left Karen removed a small silver key from the desk. She walked across the room to a large black chest against the wall. She pulled out a large red leather book that resembled a bible. She walked it over to her seat, sat down and placed the book on top of the desk.
Karen flipped open the book and stopped on page five. Inside were the laws and 100 Commandments in Black Water’s handwriting. She placed her finger on the first commandment.
She read them out loud.
“Man should put no man before the Klan. Number two, man should do all he can to protect the Klan. Number three, unless otherwise impossible, man should keep the peace if it benefits the Klan. Number four; if the enemy sees peace as a weakness, man should bring down that enemy by extreme force. Number five, man should consider the heart but always be seeking power. Number six, to preserve the Klan, all members must breed.”
Having gotten a refresher on what the Klan stood for, she felt right by making a decision to deal with the Pitbulls. Her only wish was that her son would see things the same way as she did.
When she was done wit the doctrine, she picked the book back up, walked it over to the chest and locked it up. When she was done she returned the key, slid out of her office, and closed the door.
Karen was in her head so she didn’t see Persia hiding in the shadows of the hallway. Originally Persia was going to cry to Karen, by telling her all of the things that Mercedes said to her over the phone. Now she had a better idea. If Oscar believed that Karen was being soft by not defending Tamir and Black Water’s legacies, she decided to play on that newfound information.
But first she wanted to see what was in that book.
CHAPTER 10
YVETTE
I’m sitting on my living room sofa thinking about my life. Carissa’s mouth is moving but I don’t hear her voice. I got too much shit on my mind, and heart. I think I’m making a mistake by marrying Judah. I don’t love him. I barely like him. He seems manufactured, like somebody God gave me just to appease me and answer my prayers.
The saddest part is that I’m holding a secret that I will never tell my friends out loud. I’m still thinking of Thick. I never fully got over him I suppose.
When he was alive as mean as he was, he limited the things I had to do. I didn’t have to say where I was going to live, he told me. I didn’t have to say where I wanted to go to eat, he told me. I didn’t have to ponder what to think, he thought for me. Since I killed him I’ve been sitting around like one of them bobble-head dolls I see in car windows. I’m lost.
“…So if she gonna act like that, Yvette, I’ll just put it to her ass. She not gonna keep disrespecting my daughter though. Believe that shit. Mercedes thinks just because she loud she can do what she wants to other people’s kids. Fuck that shit, you hear me?”
“Tell her that when she gets here,” I say sipping my wine. “I’m sure she’ll have a response for you.”
When my glass is empty, I stand up. I’m about to open my last bottle of Merlot, in my kitchen. On the way back, I walk past my bedroom door. My dogs are barking wildly in my room, and they sound angry with me. I hate that I have to put them up when company comes over, but everybody’s scared of them. I feel like I’m being disloyal, and I hate that feeling of disloyalty.
I’m almost in the kitchen when I hear a car outside. I turn around and walk back to the door. When I push my yellow curtain to the side, I see Mercedes’ gold Benz pull up in the front of my house, I’m certain that this evening is not going to end right. I sit my empty glass on the end table by the door, and let her inside.
“Where that bitch at?” Mercedes asks busting into my house.
“Hello, Mercedes,” I say. I close the door, and she walks up to Carissa.
“Say that shit you was talking over the phone to my face, Carissa.” Mercedes throws her purse down onto my floor. “I’m here now. Don’t let the pretty face fool you, bitch, I’m still about that life.”
Carissa stands up and says, “Mercedes, you got five seconds to get up out of my face. One...”
“Two, three, four, five,” Mercedes responds counting down for her. “Now what, bitch?”
The next thing I know Carissa presses her brown fist into the center of Mercedes’ yellow nose. Mercedes’ eyes fly open, and blood flies out of her nostrils, and splatters over the blue t-shirt she’s wearing. Mercedes counters her punch with a knee to Carissa’s gut, sending Carissa descending to the floor.
Carissa holds her stomach. “I hate you, you red ugly bitch.”
“Never ugly,” Mercedes responds. “Just mad.”
She looks like she’s preparing to kick Carissa in the gut, when Carissa grabs her ankle and pulls her down to her level. Hair is flying everywhere and Mercedes has already come out of her shirt. All you see now is Mercedes’ red titties, and her brown nipples in the air, and fists full of expensive weaves scattered on my living room floor. Carissa is tearing her apart.
My dogs are barking wildly in the room, and I yell at them to silence them up. They probably think somebody is hurting me, and I have no doubt they would rip into their flesh if I were being harmed.
The yelling and screaming has reached new heights and I’m getting irritated now. I live in an expensive neighborhood, and my sadity white and black neighbors don’t take too kindly to explosive drama.
Any other time I would break the fight up, but I realized something recently. This fight between them is long overdue. So I sit on the sofa, grab the remote, and turn on the television. Thirty minutes pass before they eventually whine down, and I don’t say a word until they are out of breath.
They look like they’re playing some half-naked Twister game. Mercedes is naked from the waist up, and she’s holding two fistfuls of Carissa’s long black hair. Carissa has her arm around Mercedes’ neck, and they are both breathing heavily.
“Are you two bitches done?” I ask.
“Tell her to get the fuck off of my neck,” Mercedes says. “I can go another round I swear to God. You know I got stamina.”
“Not until she gets off of my hair,” Carissa replies. “I know I got potholes in my scalp now fucking with this bitch.”
&nb
sp; “How about both of ya’ll let go at the same time,” I suggest.
“I’m not getting up until this bitch let’s my neck go,” Mercedes promises. “We can be here all night, Yvette. I got a lot of shit on my heart I been trying to get off with this girl. For real I don’t have nothing but time. Give me a few more seconds and we can box again.”
When I see they are both determined not to give in, I walk to my room and open my door. My pitbulls come rushing into the living room, barking and acting wildly. They haven’t been to the beauty dog salon so their nails are long and pointy. They hop all over them, and dig their dirty nails into the flesh of their skin.
Mercedes and Carissa separate, hop on the sofa and beg me to put them up. “Get your fucking dogs,” Mercedes screams, pressing her naked titties against Carissa’s chest. “Put them up.”
“I’ll put them up only if ya’ll are done.”
“We done,” Carissa cries into Mercedes’ shoulder. “Please put them up before I shoot ‘em both.”
“Bitch, don’t play like that.” I give her a serious look. “Some jokes get people killed around here.” Carissa knows that I don’t play when it comes to my animals. “Here boys.” They follow me back to my room. I grab a t-shirt from my dresser, and close them inside the room. When I come back out into the living room, Carissa and Mercedes are sitting on opposite ends of my sofa.
“Now, can we talk about what’s really going on?” I question them. I throw her the shirt and she slides it on and uses her old shirt to wipe her bloodied nose.
“I guess,” Mercedes says throwing the rag in her lap and folding her arms over her breasts.
“I know that we don’t like this situation with Karen, and the Black Water Klan. And we can all agree, after Persia has her baby something may have to give with them.”
“But why does it have to give?” Carissa asks looking at us. “Why can’t we just keep the peace? I mean I’m tired of all of the fighting, the murders and the crime. I can’t take it anymore. You know sometimes I wish we never took Emerald City away from the boys. I wish we just walked away and let them have it all. We could’ve been happy. We could've had our families. Now we got all the money in the world, and we don’t have nothing.”
I feel like punching Carissa in the face after that comment. Emerald City holds our blood money. “We didn’t do anything wrong by standing by Emerald City. We just fought for what belonged to us. Don’t talk like that again around me, Carissa. You know how I feel about Emerald.”
“Emerald is not a person, Yvette,” Carissa continues grabbing the soiled rag out of Mercedes’ lap to wipe her lip. “It’s a trap. It’s meant to hold us back from what we are really destined to do in life. I’m tired of it.” She tossed the rag in her own lap.
“Then walk away,” I tell her. “Because you sure didn’t have no problem taking the money needed for Persia. Emerald City has its problems but it has always been good to us. Anyway, this isn’t about Emerald. It’s about you two, and your children. Mercedes, Persia was upset the other day. So what I want to know is this, is it true that you called Persia and cursed her out?”
“I can’t believe ya’ll would even think I’d call that little girl up to do some bamma shit like that,” Mercedes says to me. “That’s why I started spinning and wind-milling when I came in here. What the fuck I look like calling that baby chick? I knew that little girl when she couldn’t even walk. When her clit wasn’t developed. Give me credit for that, if you don’t give me credit for nothing else.”
“Then why would she tell me that?” Carissa yells. “You’re supposed to be her aunt, Mercedes. Not her fucking enemy.”
Mercedes frowns. “Look, the moment she fucked C, the aunt shit went out the window. I mean we can all agree that if she is carrying his baby, they can’t be referred to as cousins anymore. That shit all the way weird and incestuous.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes I do,” Mercedes continues. “But you have to understand something about Persia. Your daughter lies, and a lot too. So what I want to know is why are you sitting on the other end of this sofa acting like you don’t know?”
“My daughter lies?” Carissa touches her chest.
“Carissa, you know that girl lies,” I say. “And unlike Mercedes, I don’t have direct ties to her so I can keep shit chief. She lies, and the sooner you realize that, the better you’ll be able to deal with her. Otherwise she’s going to get you into major trouble.”
Carissa sits back into the sofa. “She doesn’t necessarily lie, as much as she hides the truth.”
“She lies,” I repeat. “all the time too.” I sit on the arm of my loveseat. “With that said, Mercedes, you can’t antagonize her. Not only is it wrong because the girl is pregnant, but also because she’s Carissa’s daughter. Not one of us in this room wanted to see C and Persia fuck, but they have, and now we have a family crisis that must be dealt with.
“But I feel the need to remind you, that there is also another dark situation looming. If we aren’t careful a war can ensue with the Black Water Klan, before we can get Persia out of there, and we don’t need that right now. Who knows what lies Persia is telling Karen and them. So Mercedes, can I count on you to play fair with Persia? At least until we find out what we are going to do with the Klan?”
“I guess,” she shrugs.
“Mercedes, please,” I respond. “Although you still look young, you ain’t no teenager no more. It’s time to grow up and stop being immature.”
Mercedes sighs. “I won’t say nothing to her, just as long as she doesn’t say nothing to me. I mean you got to forgive me if I’m not a fan of Persia’s. She’s the main reason me and my son don’t have a bond anymore.”
“That’s a lie,” I say.
“How you figure?”
“Because you are the reason ya’ll don’t have a bond anymore,” Carissa interrupts. “Just like I’m the reason for the breakdown with my family, and with my girls.” Carissa shakes her head. “I can’t believe this shit. In the pursuit of money, we forgot what was really important. Family.”
Mercedes shakes her head. “This shit is crazy. We are richer than we could have ever imagined, yet we’re more fucked up in the head.” She looks at Carissa and asks, “Would you give it all up if you could get Persia back? The money, the cars? Everything?”
Carissa looks at me, and then back at Mercedes. “Yes. I would. In a heartbeat.” Carissa looks at me. “What about you, ‘Vette?”
“You already know my answer. Without Emerald City, I’m dead. Anyway, ya’ll so busy fighting that you have forgotten that I am engaged.” I flash my twelve-carat diamond ring as a reminder. “But I haven’t. We are supposed to be celebrating these days.”
“I’m sorry, ‘Vette,” Mercedes says to me. “We been so involved in our own shit that we forgot about you. Are you excited? I mean ya’ll are getting married in six-months right? I swear I’m looking forward to going to Hawaii for ya’ll ceremony.”
“I’m excited.”
“But are you happy?” Carissa questions.
I don’t know if I’m happy or not. I don’t even love him. I do know that as it stands, I’m not doing anything else with the rest of my life right now, so I might as well give him a chance. He’s a good businessman, he loves me to pieces and he isn’t trying to change me. What more could a girl ask for?
“I’m happy.”
“What about love,” Carissa says. “Do you love him?”
Silence.
“Yvette, do you love him?” she repeats.
“I’ll learn to love him. In time.”
****
Judah and I are sitting in a dark romantic restaurant. We just finished eating and were waiting on the chocolate mousse that we are going to share. We just finished a bottle of wine. I notice that whenever we are together, I have to drink. The more I drink when I’m with him, the better I feel about our microwaved relationship.
“Were you ever in love before?” I ask him while lo
oking into his eyes. He reaches for my hand across the table and I rub his fingers. “Because you don’t talk a lot about your past.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I was in love before.”
That hurts my feelings. I don’t know what my problem is but there’s something about being the first at everything that makes me feel better. It makes me feel safe. In the back of my mind I wonder if this is the kind of thing that he does all of the time. Meet some lonely girl, sweeps her off of her feet, and proposes. I hope he doesn’t do some weird thing like leave me at the alter, and embarrass me in front of my friends.
“Did you ask her to marry you?”
“Yes I did. She said yes, but she didn’t want to.”
The mousse comes, but suddenly I don’t want it anymore. “If you asked her to marry you, why didn’t she? You’re a total package. You are handsome, rich, awesome in the bedroom and you love dogs. Who wouldn’t want to be Mrs. Judah Hassam?”
He gives me one of them half smiles that only rise on one side of his mouth. “She wasn’t ready, Yvette,” he picks his spoon up and stabs at the mousse. “I knew I wanted to marry her from the moment I saw her face. It was similar to what happened when I met you.”
Uggh. What the fuck type shit is this?
“We had a happy life for a long time. I bought her the house of her dreams, gave her everything she could ever ask for, and asked her to marry me. She said no. When I told her if we weren’t going to be serious that I was going to leave her alone, she gave in and said yes. But that was many, many years ago, ‘Vette, and you don’t have to worry about her anymore. She killed herself.”
My lips push outward. “Killed herself?”
“Yes,” he snaps. “Killed herself. As in took her own life. As in she not here anymore. As in she was a weak bitch.”
Oh my God. Judah is crazy.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say sincerely. I touch the top of his hands. “Do you know why she committed suicide?”