When It All Falls Down: A Chicago Hood Drama (A Hustler's Lady Book 1)

by Tamicka Higgins

  Robertson continued. “You seem like a very intelligent and nice girl, but I do have some concerns, I guess you could say.”

  “Okay,” Ayana said. “Maybe I could help you with those concerns, Mister Robertson.”

  “Well, I don’t know if you can,” Robertson said. “One small issue I have with you is how you speak. With this job, you would be on the phone with people from all over the country, and maybe some in Canada and Mexico, depending on the specific day, I suppose. However, when I was listening to you speak, you speak clearly, but it sounds a little…it sounds a little….” Robertson paused as he tried to think of the right word to say. “Urban.”

  Urban? Ayana thought. What the fuck is this man trying to say? Is he trying to say that I sound ghetto or something? I do not sound ghetto.

  “Oh,” Ayana said, a little surprised. “I see.”

  “But don’t take that in a bad way,” Robertson said, with a crispness in his voice. “It’s really not that big of a deal, but, you know, we have to worry about how our clients and customers perceive our company when they call us. That’s why I’d be concerned about putting you in the position because it could send the wrong message to people.”

  Ayana looked across the desk, into the white man’s eyes. More than anything, she wanted to jump over the desk and slap him across his face. She had never been so insulted in her life, especially not at a job interview. She sat there, quietly, as Robertson went on to talk about some issues with her work history that he spotted on her resume. When the interview officially ended, Robertson gave Ayana what she considered to be the typical “nigga treatment” from a white man in charge of hiring someone. He said that he would call her and that he had other candidates for the position he wanted to consider before making his decision. Ayana put her feelings to the side, shook Robertson’s hand, and walked back to the elevator.

  As she waited at the elevator doors, smiling white faces breezed past her. They caused her to feel uncomfortable, and maybe a little unworthy because she knew deep in her soul that she probably wasn’t going to get the chance to work in a place that was so professional. When the elevator doors opened, Ayana stepped inside and headed down to the first floor. She waved at the Hispanic woman at the front desk as she walked back out onto the street, noticing how she hadn’t seen very many black people in the building on either the first floor or the sixteenth.

  Ayana walked down to the nearest corner, swaying around oblivious people on their cell phones – around crowds of white men talking about business. There was something telling her that she wasn’t going to get that job. No matter how confident she wanted to feel, the simple fact of the matter was that the Robertson guy had told her she sounded too urban. She looked down at the ground, shaking her head as she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.

  Ayana called Tramar. He answered after the second or third ring. “Yeah, wassup?” he said.

  “Hey,” Ayana said, a little down. “I was just callin’ you like you said.”

  “You think you got the job?” Tramar asked, sounding as if he were trying to be supportive.

  Ayana hesitated before answering. “Hell no,” she said. “He had some things to say about the way I talk.”

  “The way you talk?” Tramar asked. “What you mean? What he say about the way you talk? He ain’t tell you that you sound ghetto or somethin’, did he?”

  “Basically,” Ayana said, leaning against the side of a building as traffic and crowds of people rushed by her. “He told me that not only did he have some problems with my work history but he was also concerned with my speech. He told me that I sound too urban, and that could sound bad to people I’d be calling or people who would be calling me.”

  “Damn, was this dude white?” Tramar asked.

  “You know he was,” Ayana said. “You know he was white. This tall white guy with glasses and a little bit of gray hair on his head. Prolly fifty-something years old. The crazy thing is, now that I think about it, he had his nerve. He had a little bit of an accent. Sounded like he was from New York or somewhere out east.”

  “So he told you that you sound too urban?” Tramar said. “Damn, baby. I’m sorry to hear that shit. That’s fucked up that he not gon’ give you the job because of how you talk. You know how these racist ass white people be actin’ when it comes to black people. They will find any reason to not hire us, but then will hire some ole trashy ass white people who ain’t got no damn teeth.”

  Ayana giggled knowing that Tramar was telling the truth. “Well, he ain’t tell me that I didn’t get the job,” she explained. “He just told me his concerns. But at the end, he told me that he had a few other candidates that he was considering, and that he would be calling me when he made his decision. I’m already over it. I already know that he ain’t gon’ call me. I could tell they just probably wanted to hurry up and get me outta that damn building. I ain’t see no black people working in there anyway. I shoulda noticed that and walked right on out.”

  “Yeah, well,” Tramar said, clearly holding back from what he wanted to say. “I hate that you had to have that experience, Ayana. I really do. I remember when a nigga used to get out there and try to get a job. I ain’t even have no record, but they sure wanted to treat a nigga like he did. I looked for months until I finally gave up. Once this job told me they were worried about my tattoos showing. I be damned if when I left that place, there was this white dude up in there with tattoos showing too. I told you. Fuck that shit. Job probably wasn’t paying shit no way.”

  “Yeah,” Ayana said, starting to feel hopeless. “Guess you right. What you doin’?”

  “Bout to get up,” Tramar said, “and come pick you up.”

  “You don’t have to, Tramar,” Ayana said. “You know how the traffic be downtown during the day. You ain’t gotta come get me. I can just go back home and get back to applying for jobs online.”

  “Or you could come roll with a nigga, and we go hit up the mall,” Tramar said. “Plus, I gotta come downtown anyway. I gotta pay this fuckin’ child support so I can shut that bitch Precious up. Thank God a nigga finally got the money because I know she gon’ start tripping when the weekend get here.”

  “Yes, please,” Ayana said, rolling her eyes in disgust as she thought about Precious. “Pay that bitch so she will leave you alone. Please. When you gon’ be down here?”

  The sound of jingling keys came through the phone. “I’m headed out the door right now,” he said. “I’ll be down there in a little bit. I’mma park, run into the child support office, and then I can swoop you up. Where you gon’ wait?”

  Ayana stepped out into the sunshine from the shadow of the building on the sidewalk. She looked up and down both streets and thought about where she stood. “You know that food court that’s downtown?” she said. “I don’t know the street it’s on, but it’s that food court near the canal. I can go wait there, and you tell me when you out front and I can come out.”

  “Bet,” Tramar said, opening his door and closing it. Seconds later, Ayana could hear him starting his car. “I’ll be down there in a little bit.”

  They hung up and Ayana went and sat at the food court. She’d gotten herself a strawberry sundae from McDonald’s, noticing how even a majority of the workers behind the counters in the food court were some sort of foreigner. Ayana sat there until her phone rang. It was Tramar calling, telling her that he’d be pulling up outside shortly.

  Ayana went back down the escalators and onto the street. After a few minutes of waiting, she saw Tramar’s car on the other side of the street. She crossed at the cross walk and hopped in.

  “You feelin’ alright?” Tramar asked. “I could tell on the phone that you was a little down about that dude in there saying that shit about how you talk.”

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” Ayana said. “I mean, it is what it is. I can’t do nothin’ about it. Maybe he will call me and maybe he won’t. We’re just going to have to see what happens.”

  Tramar headed back to the
highway, still looking over his shoulder so to speak. Anytime he saw a stocky black dude walking down the street, he double-checked to see if it was Byron. On the highway, they headed south.

  “So, did you want me to take you home?” Tramar asked Ayana.

  Ayana shrugged. “You can if you want to,” she answered. “But not really. I ain’t tell you but me and my mama got into it last night.”

  “Got into it?” Tramar asked. “Like what? An argument.”

  Ayana described in brief details how she’d come home to hear her mother sucking some man’s dick in her bedroom. She explained how she’d heard the man giving her mother money out in the hallway and how she’d said something. The physical fight part was the hardest to talk about because she’d felt she had let her mother get the best of her. However, Ayana also felt like she didn’t go as hard on her mother as she would have on a chick she’d met and fought out in the street

  “Damn,” Tramar said, shaking his head. “I said you need to get up out that situation. Look, I know what is going on is crazy and stuff, but you can come stay at the motel with me until I figure out what I’mma do. I was thinkin’ bout some of the shit you said and you right, I don’t like having all that money up in the motel room like that. Every time I walk into the room, I feel like I’m a target. I hit my boy Jackson up last night, but he was with some chick or something. You know how that go, so he said that he’d come through tomorrow, or today now, and we’d talk. I just got this bad feeling that Byron nigga ain’t gon’ be able to let getting robbed of that kinda money go. And he damn sure ain’t gon’ call the police. I ain’t even tellin’ nobody where I’m staying. The only person that know I ain’t at home right now and where I am is you. When I called my daddy and told him that everything was okay and that them racist ass cops had picked me up because of Precious, he understood from back when he was going through that stuff with my mama.”

  Ayana nodded, her eyes consumed with the Chicago cityscape. “Yeah, might as well,” she answered. “I don’t even wanna see my mama. She was high on whatever again last night. I swear, I don’t even know what she be taking anymore. She looked all crazy in the eyes, you know, red and stuff and she was all sweaty. I can’t deal with her slapping me and stuff. Her jealousy of me is just too much.”

  Tramar reached over the console and rubbed Ayana’s thighs. “Yeah, she just jealous of you,” he said. “And I don’t know why she would ever tell you that she could take me if she wanted to. I wouldn’t let that woman touch me with a nine-foot pole, put that on everything.”

  Tramar drove his Charger across the state line and into Indiana. He got off the highway and zigzagged through Hammond, making his way back to the motel parking lot.

  “Good deal,” he said. “It look like that nigga still here.” He pointed toward Jackson’s motel room, his car parked in a spot out in front of his door.

  Tramar pulled into a parking spot outside of his motel room and let Ayana into the room. Inside, with the door closed, Tramar stood at the window, looking between the slit in the curtains. He called Jackson and told him that he was back in the room. He then checked under the dresser to make sure the money was still there, and it was.

  A few minutes later, Jackson was at the door. Tramar let him inside of the motel room, he spoke to Ayana, then looked at Tramar. As much as Jackson liked Ayana, in a sort of sister way, he didn’t like talking about business with Tramar in front of her. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, but Jackson didn’t trust anyone that he didn’t have to really deal with. Furthermore, he’d always feared things going sour between Tramar and Ayana – a situation that would leave what they’re doing vulnerable because she could be out in the streets running her mouth.

  “Oh, you wanna talk about it like this?” Jackson asked, motioned toward Ayana.

  Tramar glanced back at Ayana. “Hell yeah, nigga,” he said. “You know we can trust her and shit.”

  “A’ight,” Jackson said. “You know that Antonio want us to get back in that shit with him, hitting them houses up. He say that there’s a new subdivision, full of white people, out in Merrillville that is just a sitting duck and shit. He called me with that shit last night when I was with that bitch I was tellin’ you about.”

  Tramar smiled, wanting to laugh and ask Jackson more details about the chick. But he wasn’t going to do that in front of Ayana. Instead, he pushed the conversation right along. “Yeah,” he said, “but what about them houses I told you about over on the north side I saw, the ones not too far from downtown and shit. I remembered riding by them a couple of times and looking at them.”

  “Naw,” Jackson said. “That shit is what I call uncontrolled. These houses… Antonio already know some people who live over there that he work with who he would know when they not there because, well, they asses would be at work where he is.”

  Tramar nodded, thinking about the proposition some more. Ever since he’d gotten out of jail on Monday morning, he was on his grind to make money. All he wanted to do now was stack money. If Ayana did decide that she’d be willing to move away with him, he wanted to make sure that he had enough money to last the both of them wherever they went until they got some money going.

  “I see, I see,” Tramar said. “And these white people and shit that he know?”

  “Naw,” Jackson said. “These niggas… Niggas that make good money and shit. That’s how you know they got some nice ass shit up in there. Antonio was saying that he went over to one of the houses for a cook out or something and the shit was nice. Based on how he was describing the shit, it sounded like it was on par with that shit Byron live in.”

  “Byron?” Tramar said. “You heard from that nigga or what since yesterday morning? I was thinkin’ about that shit last night.”

  Ayana’s interest piqued. She wanted to stay updated on the situation with this Byron guy.

  “Yeah,” Jackson said, shrugging his shoulders. “The nigga been sending some nasty ass text messages, talkin’ bout he gon’ get us and shit.”

  “What?” Tramar asked, hitting his boy on the chest. “When the fuck was you gon’ mention this shit to a nigga? When was you gon’ tell me that he makin’ threats and shit?”

  “Nigga, calm down,” Jackson said. “Yo ass get too scared too quick. You know the nigga just talkin’ and shit. How he gon’ get us? Huh? How the fuck the nigga gon’ find us? We in some motel room, over in Indiana, surrounded by factories and abandoned flea markets and shit. Unless you tell the wrong people that we over here, ain’t nobody gon even know where we are.”

  “Man, I told you we shoulda killed that nigga,” Tramar said, walking away with his fists balled up. “Look, nigga, I’m all about gettin’ this money and shit now. I need to keep some fuckin’ money going and shit. I told you that if we killed the nigga when we was at his house like I wanted to do, then we wouldn’t have to worry about lookin’ over our shoulders and shit and trying to see if somebody is after us and shit. Nigga, I told you we shoulda killed that nigga. Fuck, man.”

  “Nigga, killin’ two people, cause you know he had that chick over there when we was there too, is only gonna draw more attention to us,” Jackson said. “I could imagine seeing that shit on the news, and the police pullin’ over every nigga in Chicago until they find whoever them white neighbors say look like the niggas they saw walking out the house before the bodies were found there. I ain’t got no problem with us killin’ him, but it ain’t gon be at his house and shit. If I’mma kill somebody, I’mma actually plan that shit out so I can cover my tracks. The nigga brought this shit on himself by not givin’ me my fuckin’ money. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Now he know that he need to take me serious and shit. Bet he won’t try shit else since he saw how we crept up in the house on his ass and shit, and he ain’t even hear us comin’.”

  “Okay, okay,” Tramar said. “But if that nigga start doing any crazy shit that we hear of, or if we hear that he askin’ around the streets about us and shit, you betta tell me so I ain’t walkin
’ around blind and shit. I’mma kill that nigga before he kill me.” Tramar looked at Ayana. “I got too much to live for, you know?”

  “Yeah, I feel you on that,” Jackson said. “So, back to my original question, nigga. You wanna hit these licks with Antonio or not?”

  “When?” Tramar asked. “When they try’na do them and shit, and do Antonio got a place we takin’ the shit back to.”

  “Nigga, Antonio even got a fucking moving truck and shit that he gon’ be using with us,” Jackson responded, smiling. “We gon’ go up in there like we some damn moving men and shit. They not gon even know what happened.”

  Tramar nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’m in and shit. What time later on because I gotta take my baby to the mall. She had to deal with some racist ass white man downtown today at some job interview. This man gon’ tell her that she sound too ghetto for the job.”

  Jackson looked at Ayana. “Is that so?” he asked, seeing Ayana nod. “Fuck them,” he continued. “Shit, if we want, we can hit up a couple white people houses up and down the street over there. Antonio was saying that it’s one of those subdivisions where they got the same five or six house models over and over again. All we gotta do is find a house that is the same model and run up in there. We will already know our way around and shit.”

  “I like that,” Tramar said.

  The two of them agreed on a time that Jackson would come back to Tramar’s room so they could ride down to Merrillville. When he left the room to walk back to his own, he called Antonio to let him know that his boy Tramar was in to be a part of the licks.

  When Tramar closed the door, he turned and looked at Ayana. “You okay?” he asked, sitting down next to her.

  “Tramar, just be careful today,” she said “Just be careful.”

  “You know I always am,” Tramar said. “And why you actin’ all new and shit? You wasn’t actin’ this way before when I was hittin’ licks. And you sure as hell wasn’t acting this way when I was deep in that weight out in the streets.”