Pitbulls In a Skirt 4

by Mikal Malone

  “Oh no,” Karen said. “Even if she chooses you, the baby stays here with me.”

  “What?” Carissa cried. “But, why? This baby isn’t even your blood.”

  “I don’t care about this baby,” Persia said. “Fuck this baby! Just pick me, mommy.”

  “Karen, you can’t have my grandchild,” Carissa screamed. “I can’t leave the baby behind. The baby isn’t yours.”

  “But I’ll raise it like mine,” Karen laughed. “You see, either way you lose.”

  Carissa dropped to her knees and sobbed uncontrollably. When she was done she reached in her back pocket. Oscar was about to shoot her thinking she had a weapon until she said, “I’m unarmed. Your man took my gun before he let me come down here. I just want to read you something, Karen. Please.” She looked at Karen. “May I?”

  Karen studied her for a minute. It wasn’t like anything she said would influence Karen’s decision, but it was interesting to see Carissa perform. “Go ahead.”

  Carissa pulled the folded doctrine paper from her pocket. She opened it up and read it out loud. “The 80th Commandment. The mother of a dying child must always be granted two wishes. And these wishes, no matter what, can not be denied.”

  Karen’s eyes widened. “Where did you get that from?” She snatched the sheet from her hand. “Who gave this to you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Carissa said not wanting to throw her child under the bus. “But this is your word, not mine.”

  “But you can’t…I can’t…”

  “Mother, you don’t have to honor this commandment,” Oscar said walking up behind her. “Black Water wrote that for our people,” Oscar clarified. “He did it so if one of our members lost a child during the a war, they would get some sort of reward. It’s not for outsiders.”

  “But he didn’t specify in the commandment,” Karen said under her breath looking at the papers. She observed Carissa. “I’ll honor this, because I’m righteous. But you smoothed over one important fact. For me to honor this, you must have a dying child, which means you can not save Persia with one of your wishes.”

  “I know,” Carissa sobbed. “Oh my, God, I know.”

  “Mommy, what’s going on?” Persia asked with wide eyes. “What is she talking about?”

  Karen suddenly grinned. “So you are prepared to sacrifice your own child, to save another?”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “Then what are your wishes?”

  “That you free C, and that I am allowed to take my grandchild with me.”

  Karen was shocked. “But the child isn’t born yet.”

  Carissa looked at Persia. “I know.”

  Persia let out a blood-curdling scream. “Mommy no,” she shook her head. “No, mommy, you can’t do this to me. Please.”

  Karen snatched the knife from Lance’s hand that he was using to clean his nails. She walked up to Carissa and said, “If you want the child that badly,” she handed her the knife, “then you take it out yourself.”

  CHAPTER 30

  MERCEDES

  “You driving too slow is all I’m saying,” I yell at Yvette from the passenger seat. “Press the gas on this bitch!”

  “Mercedes, I’m pushing the limit on this girl’s car already,” Yvette tells me. “I don’t even know why she would have a Prius in her garage anyway. Who the fuck drives around in one of these little mothafuckas?”

  “I guess somebody who likes to stay low key like Toi,” I yell. “And thanks to you, your car was out of gas, so we didn’t have no choice. Just be glad she had another ride in her garage.”

  When I found out that C had been kidnapped, I felt my world had been switched with a less fortunate bitch. I’m having the worst luck of my life, but when I was in the bathroom, I prayed for some better days. Hopefully God likes me, and will honor my prayers.

  So much is going on, that I didn’t have time to tell Yvette about Emerald and Camelot being bought by some white man, or that I knew who had our money. I was too embarrassed to tell her the last part anyway, and planned to hold off on that info until I could get my hands on Lloyd, and our cash.

  “Ain’t that them right there?” Yvette says to me when we pull up in front of the main building. “Ain’t that C and Carissa?”

  A smile spreads across my face. “Yes it is, Yvette, and it looks like they got the baby too.”

  “But where is Persia?” she asks.

  Yvette pulls the tiny little white car in front of the building, and we jump out. C doesn’t have on a shirt, because it’s wrapped around the baby. I run straight for C and surprisingly, he hugs me tightly into his arms. I cry as he holds me, this is what I always wanted.

  I pull away from him and say, “C, I’m so sorry about all of the shit I did to you, I really am,” I wipe my hands over the sides of his face. “I should’ve been straight up with you about your father, and that was my mistake. I took a sucker’s way out, and I hope you can forgive me. Or will at least try.”

  “Ma, let’s talk about it later,” he says.

  “Wait a minute,” I say noticing his bruised face, “who did this shit to you? And are you missing teeth?”

  “It don’t even matter, we just gotta get out of here,” he tells me. “Before something else happens.”

  Just when he says that four large Hummers pull up in front of the compound. My heart rate increases, because I know these are members of the Klan. We are dead now.

  “Please say you’re strapped,” I ask Yvette. “Please tell me you are.”

  “For the first time in my life I’m not,” Yvette sighs.

  “Me either,” Carissa said with the baby in her arms.

  My heart drops with the news. A tall man wearing fatigues jumps out of the first Hummer and approaches us. C squares up with the hands, preparing to use the only weapons he has to defend us, his fists. But instead of hurting us the man says, “I’m Sarge, Bambi sent us.”

  Now I see the girl Race, who I saw earlier at Toi’s house, get out one of the other Hummers. She looks up at the two Black Water Klan buildings. “The rest of them in there?” she asks me. “The Klan members?”

  “Yes.”

  She cocks her weapon and says, “Not anymore.” She goes inside, followed by what looked like twenty men.

  “Ya’ll get out of here,” Sarge tells us. “The Pretty Kings sent us, and not to sound melodramatic or nothing, but we got it from here.”

  He didn’t have to tell us twice. Me, Yvette, Carissa, C and the new baby pile inside the tiny car.

  When I hear Carissa sobbing in the back seat I ask, “Where is Persia?”

  “We can’t talk about it now, ma,” C says to me. “I’ll put you down with that later. Leave Carissa be.”

  If she isn’t here it means she’s dead and I love it.

  It’s quiet for a few more moments. I think about the Pretty Kings, and how they looked out for us. I don’t know what this act will cost us, and even more, I don’t know if we can afford it. Even still, I’m grateful. Grateful that my son, my grandbaby, and my friends are alive, and we are all together.

  When I look over at Yvette, I notice that she seems like she’s in her head. “What you thinking about, Yvette?” I ask her.

  “That we use to command an army like that,” she says under her breath. “I guess our reign is over now.”

  EPILOGUE

  ONE MONTH LATER

  Yvette, Mercedes, Carissa, C, Treasure, Chante and Jackson were in the park with the grandbaby having a picnic. Although Yvette and Carissa were broke, unsure of their futures and helpless, Mercedes was on cloud nine. She was in a loving relationship with Jackson, and had won the love of C, and Chante again. Carissa, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky.

  Carissa was sitting on the wooden bench in the park, looking at Mercedes rock the baby in her arms. C was over her right shoulder, playing with the baby’s foot. Chante was on the other side of Mercedes, cooing at her new nephew. Jackson was behind Mercedes, with his hands on her wai
st, looking over her head at the beautiful child dressed in a peach sailor’s suit. Treasure was across the park talking to a little boy, being very fresh.

  Holding a beer, Yvette walked over to Carissa on the bench, and sat next to her. “What’s on your mind?” Yvette asked her.

  “Have you ever noticed that Mercedes always gets to have it all?” Carissa said looking at the happy family. “Here it is, me and you are broke, living in her friend Toi’s house, and fighting with each other every other day, but Mercedes is living with Jackson, with C, Chante and the baby, playing house. Why is it that luck always seems to follow her around? When am I going to roll sevens, huh? When do I get to win the game? Why I gotta always roll craps?”

  Yvette sighed. “Look, Mercedes isn’t always lucky, she just makes the best out of the breaks she gets that’s all. If you ask me, we should start doing the same thing.”

  Carissa looked at Yvette. Her eyebrows pulled closely together. “Do you know that every time I hold my grandbaby in my arms, it cries like I’m pinching it?”

  “Carissa, it’s just a baby. It don’t—”

  “It doesn’t like me,” Carissa yelled. “The baby don’t like me, because she telling it not to like me.”

  “You sound like a fucking fool,” Yvette screamed.

  Mercedes turned around and said, “Ya’ll okay? What ya’ll fussing about now?”

  “We just peachy, ‘Cedes,” Carissa said sarcastically. “Everything is just as peachy as that faggoted sailor’s suit you bought for Ryan.”

  Mercedes rolled her eyes, turned around, and joined her family again with the baby.

  “Carissa, just what the fuck are you getting at?” Yvette whispered heavily. “Because I’m not feeling the heat rising off of you. It stinks and you need to check yourself.”

  “I’m saying that I gave my daughter’s life for her son’s and Ryan, and the baby don’t want to have nothing to do with me. I’m saying that I have nightmares every time I close my eyes, about the basement cesarean that I had to give my oldest daughter. And I’m saying that it seems that Mercedes’ life goes along, untouched, just like Persia always told me before I killed her.”

  Yvette drank all of her beer, and slammed it on the table. “You a rotten, bitch, Carissa. Just as rotten as a brown apple can be.”

  “Me?” Carissa pointed to herself.

  “Yeah you, bitch. You sitting over here, in your fucked up attitude like you the only one thinking about what happened to Persia. We love you, so we feel that shit too, skank! Not to mention that I spent two hours on the phone with Mercedes last night, trying to come up with some way to cheer you up. Talking about she can’t sleep because she understands how much you sacrificed for her, C and the baby. Don’t read a book if you not gonna understand what it means, bitch. That girl is fucked up, Carissa. Real fucked up. And so what if she gets a little love along the way? Who gives a fuck? What you need to be thinking about is the fact that Karen has gotten away, with her son Oscar. Because although Bambi’s crew got most of the Klan, with them on the loose, they might as well have gotten nobody. If anything, that may come back on us.”

  “Come back on us how?” Carissa asked. “NIGGA tore down Emerald City and Camelot. We don’t have no money, because the one hundred thousand I took into the compound mysteriously got away with Karen and her son. And, since the Feds are not involved, we still don’t know who stole our millions from the overseas accounts. Even though, and I’ll keep most of this to myself, I think Mercedes may be involved. Not only that, we living on somebody else’s grace right now. So please tell me, Thickums, what else do we have that Karen and her son could possibly want? The air coming out of our stanking asses?”

  “You think we gonna stay down forever?” Yvette asked. “Bitch, I’m just getting started. You can if you want to, but I’m not gonna take this broke shit lying down. I’m a queen, and a queen sits on her throne, not bow down too it. If you gonna give thought to anything, give thought to that.” Yvette stormed off and left Carissa alone.

  “You have your thoughts, Yvette, and I’ll have mine,” Carissa said to herself, as she continued to eye Mercedes with malice tinted shades.

  PITBULLS IN A SKIRT 5

  The Fall From Grace