Shameless Hoodwives

by Meesha Mink

  “I think I’m goin’ to start with a good hot shower,” Smokey declares, tryin’ his best to remain upbeat. Did he sense he’d finally pushed us too far?

  Maybe.

  I just know I have a hard time meetin’ his gaze, scared that he will see my doubt, exhaustion, and guilt.

  Smokey turns toward me, beamin’ his still remarkably white teeth and jerking me into a fierce hug. “I love you, baby.”

  The hug is too tight, and despite my mental urging, I can’t make myself hug him back. When he pulls away, he hunts down and traps my troubled gaze. “Don’t give up on me,” he pleads, his voice sounding like broken glass.

  Those goddamn tears return and I hear myself lying, “I won’t.”

  Satisfied, Smokey delivers an almost fatherly peck to my forehead. “That’s my girl.” He turns and gives his brother a mock salute. “Later, bro.”

  “Later.”

  Smokey whistles his way toward the bathroom like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Who knows. Maybe he doesn’t.

  Shakespeare and I make a great show of bouncing our gazes around the room until we hear the shower come on and Smokey’s off-key singing fills the apartment.

  “I better go.” Shakespeare turns for the door.

  “Wait.” I don’t know what I want to say beyond that, but my heart leaps when he stops with his hand frozen on the doorknob.

  “It was a mistake, Keesh,” he whispers, as if Smokey may hear him over the shower.

  “I don’t love him.”

  He rolls his head and stares up at the ceiling. “He’s my brother.”

  “And he’s my husband.”

  With a sigh, his hands fall away from the doorknob and he turns and faces me. “Those are two good reasons why—”

  “I love you.”

  His face stretches in agony. “C’mon, Keesh. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

  “How can it possibly get any harder than this?” I ask, approaching. I no longer recognize my voice and I feel like I’m choking on my words. “What happened a few weeks ago—”

  “Keesh—”

  “Changed my life,” I continue, not wanting him to interrupt. “I’ve been dead inside for so long. I’ve been living this fucked life somehow thinking that I deserve it. But guess what, I don’t deserve it.” I lay a hand against his arm, his muscles flex beneath my fingertips. “I deserve you.”

  The look he gives me scares me for a moment. It’s a look that tells me he doesn’t feel the same way I do. The woman he spent a lifetime loving died in his arms months ago at the gates of this hellhole. For him, what happened between us three weeks ago had nothing to do with love and everything to do about filling a void: loneliness.

  Fuck. I’ll take what I can get.

  I take his arms and direct them around my waist. “It’s okay. You don’t have to love me back.” I ease up onto my toes and press a kiss against his full lips.

  Fresh tears blur my vision when he doesn’t kiss me back. I’m a little more insistent on my second kiss, when I slip my tongue between his plump lips and slide it against his silky tongue.

  Goddamn, it feels like heaven.

  Smokey’s singing continues to fill the house as I pull Shakespeare’s shirt over his head and then attack the buttons of his pants.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he says, finally kissing me back.

  He may not love me, but I still have what he needs. I plan on giving it to him until we’re both satisfied, or at least until my husband gets out of the shower.

  15

  Princess

  “You got it, Princess. Come on out.”

  I smile at Danger through the glass as I take off the headphones in the recording booth. When he smiles at me, I smile right on back, and my heart skips a beat as I leave the booth. The smell of weed and cognac is thick as hell as Danger and his boys combine partying with working in the studio.

  Lucky is there waiting to throw her arm around my neck to hug me close. “Girl, you sounded so good. That’s my dawg,” she says, doing the two-step as she winks at me all playful and shit.

  She moves to sit on the lap of Man, Danger’s twenty-year-old brother, who looks as fine as Chance from I Love New York. I sit down on one of the cracked stools on either side of Danger as he plays the track back.

  The song reminds me of Method Man and Mary’s “You’re All I Need.” I look over at Q to see if he likes our work. His dreads swing back and forth a little as he bobs his head to Danger’s track. He’s mouthing his lyrics and motioning with his hands like he’s in the club partying to his favorite song.

  It’s kinda crazy hearing myself, my voice, come through the speakers loud as hell.

  “That’s you, baby,” Danger screams over my vocals. He holds out one of his thin hairy arms and pushes up the sleeves of his Coogi long-sleeved graphic tee. “Fucking goose bumps!”

  I don’t even realize I’m smiling until the track fades away.

  Danger stands and hitches his pants up. “Princess, your ass is the truth. Your voice is on some real ill shit,” he says with his grilles shining like the sun.

  My heart skips another beat. I can’t believe that for the first time ever I have a crush on a boy—well, a grown man. What’s weird is Danger treats me like nothing but a little sister. Maybe it’s my age or my mostly no-name clothes and homemade hairdos or my shyness. All I know is I want him to look at me different.

  “Thanks,” I say, still all shy and shit.

  He throws his arm around my shoulder and my nipples get real hard. I have to cross my arms over my chest to keep anybody from seeing them poke through my faded, old-ass Baby Phat shirt. “Princess, let me holla at you for a second,” he tells me before he leads me toward the door.

  “Lucky, I’ll be right back,” I tell her over my shoulder.

  “No problem,” she says as she crosses her legs and pokes out her chest. She toots her lips for Man’s blunt. Just like her little slave or some shit, he leans over to stick that motherfucker right in her mouth as his other hand moves up her leg to smack her ass.

  Lucky is way over Dean and Funky Felisha. Way, way over. Hearing that scandalous chick is pregnant helped her through it. Shit, it helped Felisha out that ass-whippin’ Lucky been plottin’ to put on that bitch for real. This time Felisha is the lucky one because my friend draws the line at fucking up pregnant bitches. Lucky love da kids.

  As Danger pushes open the door of the small studio—which really ain’t shit but a converted storefront—I have to squint my eyes to get used to the late afternoon sun.

  The cold whips at my ass and I wish like hell that I grabbed my jacket. It’s nippy as a bitch out there.

  “Listen, I was thinking maybe once we get Q’s shit sold to a label and I get my production company better situated, I’d like to work with you on your own demo, Shorty.”

  Say what? Say fucking who? “For real?” I ask as I look up at him as the sun frames his freshly braided head.

  Danger reaches in his back pocket for a soft pack of Newports. He pulls one out and lights it. “Hell, yeah. Your voice is the livest female shit I heard in a while.”

  I start to ask him for a cig but the last time I did he slapped me lightly on the nose and told me it’s a bad habit. So I didn’t fuck with it. “I can write music, too,” I say, surprising myself that I’m able to speak up for my damn self.

  He nods as he looks down at me. “I’m keepin’ it funky with you right now. Paying for this studio time set a nigga back, so it might take a minute to get this shit going. But I promise you as soon as I get my set straight I want to work with you.”

  The door opens and Q walks out talking on his BlackBerry. He holds it up from his mouth. “I gotta roll, but call me,” he says to Danger, not even looking at me before he gives him a pound and walks away up the busy downtown Atlanta street.

  That ain’t shit new. He’s hardly said ten words to me during the two weeks we worked on his demo together. Most times that nigga act li
ke I ain’t around. Who cares?

  Danger and I walk into the building past the makeshift receptionist area to the studio in the back. Another one of Danger’s tracks is booming against the walls. Lucky’s crazy ass is bent over in front of Man, booty dancing while he slaps at her ass with a white hand towel.

  “Pop it, Man,” she tells him in a singsong fashion while she jiggles that monster like a big old bowl of Jell-O.

  “Shake it, Lucky,” he answers with the blunt between his strong white teeth as he wrings the towel before he lets one end fly to hit her ass. POP!

  “Pop it, Man.”

  “Shake it, Lucky.”

  “Pop it, Man.”

  “Shake it—”

  “Y’all motherfuckers is stupid,” Danger says before he starts gathering up his stuff to throw in a leather duffel bag.

  I just laugh because Lucky always finds a way to have a good damn time. “Girl, you crazy.”

  The battered door to the small studio opens and I smile right on through my disappointment to see Sade, Danger’s girlfriend, stroll in. She frowns and makes a nasty face at Lucky, who keeps right on dancing with a suck of her teeth.

  “Pop it, Man.”

  “Shake it, Lucky.”

  “Pop it, Man.”

  Sade, who isn’t the same chick as his baby momma from up in Bentley Manor, just rolls her baby blue contacts before she wraps her arms around Danger and presses her curvaceous body against him as they kiss like they ’bout to fuck right there against the damn wall.

  I look away because I wish I had her body. Her clothes. Her tight-ass blond weave. Her light-ass skin. Her jewelry. Her clothes. Her life. Her man.

  “Come on, Lucky, we got to go.” I walk over and pick up my bookbag.

  “You go ’head. I’ll take her home,” Man says with his eyes on Lucky.

  She shakes her head. “No, we gots shit to do but I’ll get up with you another time,” Lucky says, surprising the shit out of me.

  “Bye y’all.” I sneak one last glance at Danger smiling down in Sade’s face.

  “Hey, Man, this for the road,” Lucky calls from the door as she makes her booty clap with a laugh and another eye roll at Sade.

  “Them bitches need somebody to upgrade they broke-down ass,” Sade said just as the door closes behind me. I didn’t tell Lucky what I overheard because she woulda went right back in there and jacked that bitch up…before she fucked that bitch up.

  We start walking up Peachtree, headed to the bus stop. “Damn, you turned Man down?” I ask.

  “Fuck him. I ain’t want shit but his weed. That nigga fine but I ain’t lookin’ for no damn dick. Shit. There’s more to life than a sore wet ass.”

  We laugh as we walk and we don’t even care that people look at us like we crazy.

  “Guess what Danger said?”

  “That he loves you just as much as you love him,” she jokes as she bumps her shoulder against mine.

  I mean-mug her ass and she starts laughing.

  “Oops. I’m supposed to carry that you loving you some Danger to my grave, right?”

  “Don’t talk about it, be about it,” I joke. I couldn’t really get mad at Lucky.

  There is commotion coming from behind us and we both turn to see two girls straight wilding out.

  “It’s a fight, Princess. Oh shit them bitches fighting.” Lucky covers her open mouth with both her hands. “Dayum!”

  Them chicks is swinging with their dukes up like two dudes. One of ’em shirt and bra is ripped in half and flappin’ down around her waist. One of her big-ass titties is swingin’ out free as ever like a third damn hand. The girl she is fighting is twice her size.

  The girls come together biting and kicking and punching and the crowd around them is hollering like they ass is watching a real boxing match. When the girls come apart, they call each other everything but a child of God before they battle again. The crowd circles the girls, blocking them from our view.

  “Oh shit, I can’t see,” Lucky says, turning to walk right toward the commotion.

  “Come back, Lucky, I don’t want to see no damn fight,” I yell at her.

  She turns to look at me over her shoulder and waves her hand for me to follow her before she disappears into the crowd.

  I start walking down the street toward the fight. My mind is set on pulling Lucky’s ass from that shit so we can catch the bus back to Bentley Manor. As I reach the outskirts of the circle, somebody hollers out loud as hell. It reminded me of something from a scary movie or some shit. It gives me chills.

  “Oh shit. Oh shit, she stabbed her! She stabbed her!” The crowd starts running in a thousand different directions.

  “Lucky,” I call out. My eyes dart from left to right as I look for her face while people run past me.

  An older guy is kneeling next to a body lying half in and half out the gutter. “What the—”

  I run toward them. I try like hell to make myself believe that what I see isn’t fucking true. I start shaking, and I gasp as I look down at my friend—my only friend—lying there with a knife stuck in her chest as her blood pools the street. I fall to the ground on my knees.

  “One of them gals fighting stabbed her by mistake,” the old man says as he rests his old wrinkled hand on my shoulder. “I called the police.”

  I shake him the fuck off as I bend down and pull her bloody body into my lap. My tears come fast and drip down my face to fall onto hers. “Don’t you leave me, Lucky,” I say through my snot and my tears.

  “She gone. I’m sorry, but she already gone.”

  I don’t need to hear his words. I knew as soon as I saw her that Lucky, my Lucky, is dead. I drop my head on top of hers and let out a scream that comes from deep down in my soul.

  16

  Takiah

  “I almost killed my baby.”

  The horrible words tumble from my lips and spill onto my lap just like my tears of remorse. I try to remember all the details of that day, but I can’t. The only things that remain in my mind are how badly I needed a hit and how wonderful that first puff felt hitting my bloodstream.

  Fuck. I’m a junkie and I’m not sure I want to quit…not even for my little girl.

  Life at Grandma Cleo’s has yet to be the same. I’m no longer allowed to be home alone when Grandma has to run out for errands, and she throws one hell of fight to leave me alone with my own baby. Maybe I need to pack my shit and go somewhere else.

  But where?

  “How does that make you feel?” Pastor Meyer asks from behind his big expensive desk.

  “How the fuck do you think it makes me feel?”

  Pastor Meyer’s eyebrows shoot up so fast, it’s comical.

  “Sorry,” I say, but I’m not really. If you ask a stupid question then you should be prepared for anything. But this behavior isn’t going to get me anywhere. The only way Grandma Cleo allows me to stay at her place now is because I agreed to have counseling sessions with Pastor Meyer.

  Ain’t I lucky?

  “Tell me about your husband?” he asks.

  I laugh for a while, and when I realize he’s serious, I say, “Ain’t much to tell.”

  “Where is he right now?”

  “Where do you think he’s at?”

  “Jail?”

  “Not bad. One guess and you got it right. Too bad I don’t have a prize to give you.”

  “Is this how you hide your pain—behind a wall of sarcasm?”

  “Is this how you make your money—stating the obvious?”

  He actually laughs.

  “Look, Takiah. I’m not trying to waste your time and I’ll appreciate it if you don’t waste mine.” His pointed gaze sears mine. I shift uncomfortably on his expensive leather couch. Jesus apparently pays pretty damn good.

  “Look.” I struggle for the right words. “Kameron is where he belongs.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he fucked up my life,” I shout, and then lower my voice. “Because he turned
me into a junkie and a ho. I hope he rots there.”

  The silence in Pastor Meyer’s office lasts so long I feel like we’re playing some kind of game. When I can’t stand it anymore, I continue. “Look, I’d done good. I lived eighteen years in Bentley Manor without ever developing a drug habit.”

  His eyebrows did their little seesaw thing, but I pretty much ignore them.

  “Sure, I pulled a few childish pranks. Stole a few candy bars or what have you. But I made it out, goddammit, and now I’m right back where I started from.” A sob tangles up on the last few words and I feel the threat of tears. “You don’t know what it’s like to take one step forward just to be dragged two steps back. Now I have to spend my life fightin’ against somethin’ I’m not strong enough to win.”

  “Have you talked to God?”

  My laugh is immediate. “Give me a break. God doesn’t even know my name.”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course he does.”

  I slump back into the couch. “Then he has a funny way of showing it.”

  “He shows it every day,” Pastor Meyer says with a wide smile. “Just think about all the people who didn’t wake up this morning.”

  “Lucky bastards.”

  He releases another laugh. “I see if I don’t watch you, you’ll get me in a whole lot of trouble.”

  “Trouble is my middle name,” I say, enjoying this unexpected camaraderie.

  The silence returns while Pastor Meyer holds my gaze. There’s something about his polished black eyes that gives me the sensation that he’s dissecting me like a biology frog or something. Am I really worthy of the kingdom of heaven or is he just wasting his time?

  If he’s truly wondering, I can give him the answer. I’m lost and God isn’t looking for me.

  “You should give your life over to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

  “I should do a lot of things,” I say, shrugging, feeling a little disappointed in him. However, my statement is true. I should do a lot of things. I should be a better mom to my baby girl. I should try to get a job, even if it is dishing out fries. I should try to forget the horrible life I led in D.C with Kameron.