by Kia
“Why you wanna be a citizen so bad?” he asked. “A passport is a form of identification here.”
“But the minute we start making more legal money, I know the first thing they will try to do is send us back. And I ain’t having it. We must be two steps ahead, Gabrelle.” When I was serious about something, I called him by his middle name. That’s where we got the name Gee. He didn’t like Gabrelle either. My brother meant well, but he was very picky.
“Well, I’ma see how far I can take it. If push comes to falling off the edge of a cliff, I’ll take what you said into consideration.”
“And what if they say no at this meeting?” I asked.
“I have a plan for them. But I’m sure they will say yes, or they wouldn’t have called this meeting.”
Gee and I were trying to start a whole foods movement to get rid of the junk that entered the U.S. On our island, we could distribute healthy foods just like we did the drugs. But Gee was on this new shit where he was tired of the drug business. He wanted to do something useful. We just needed partners to make our shit legit. Everyone else kept turning us away, but we finally got this one company to set up a meeting.
“Damn, I hate this traffic,” I said as we turned on 132nd.
I pulled my locs into a rubber band as I reached behind me to see if I still had my fruit roll-ups in the back seat pocket. And I did. This brought me a brief excitement because I hadn’t had the chance to eat all day.
“Good thing it’s not far.”
Chapter Five
Patricia
“Davinchi!” I yelled as I ran outside my apartment half naked.
Before I could make my way to the last step, I heard his tires screeching off. I looked down and saw two junkies laughing at me as I struggled to keep my bra on my titties. He had me fucked up. I ran inside and called him, but got no answer, which pissed me off more. So I texted him something that I knew would get his attention.
I’m bouta go to ya bitch job and tell her everything.
Just like I knew he would, he called right away. “Yo, B, why you always doing the most?” he asked.
“Oh, so you talk now? Nigga, you just ripped me a new asshole and dipped,” I said as I fixed up everything that was fucked up from our get down.
My favorite lamp was ruined. It was broken into too many pieces for me to fix it, so I tossed it in the trash. Just when I tossed it in the trash, a small rat crawled out, causing me to drop my phone. I rushed over to my two cats’ cages and let them out. They immediately ran after the rat, forcing it into a small hole that was located next to my window. I hated cats, but they came in handy when living in the hood. Especially in New York.
“You started it. Bitch, I got moves to make, and you got me walking around here looking like I just got my ass whooped.”
I grinned. “You did. Shouldn’t have been lying about that bitch.”
“Man, you knew what time it was.”
“But I been fucking with you longer. Not to mention she’s a fucking maid. That’s who I got put on the back burner for?” I asked.
“I didn’t put you on the back burner.”
“Then what you call it?”
“I call it, you was tripping, so I did what I had to do.”
“And that was go off and fuck another bitch?”
“If that’s what you wanna call it. Look, B, I’ma call you later.”
“Come see me later, and I won’t go to her job.”
“Girl, fuck you.”
This nigga must have thought I was playing. After he hung in my face, I called the one bitch I knew was down to ride. My bitch, Seeka. It was one thing to be playing me, but for a maid? Hell nah!
“Hello,” Seeka answered.
“Bitch, where you at?”
“At home sick. What’s up?”
“Didn’t you used to work for Mayhem?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I need you to ride with me up there. Vinchi got a bitch he fuck with there.”
“Not today, Pat. I don’t feel good. I think I’m pregnant again.”
“Bye.”
Seeka’s ass was always pregnant or had some shit going on. Or maybe it was just an excuse ’cause she didn’t wanna go with me. Either way, fuck her. She probably was laid up with her no good ass baby daddy. The fourth one.
With a quickness, I grabbed my purse and my bus pass. As I was locking the door to my apartment, I heard the loud noise of the bus stopping at the bus stop across the street. I almost broke my neck trying to step over junkies and sprint my way to the bus before he left. That was one thing about these NYC bus and taxi drivers, they wasted no time. In less than twenty seconds, they were ready to move to the next bus stop.
I caught his ugly, Prince on crack looking ass just as he was shutting the doors. He rolled his eyes when he saw that it was me again. I always caught him at the last minute, but I didn’t care. This was his job.
“Next time I’ma leave ya ass,” he threatened like always.
“And I’ll call in and tell them I caught you smoking rock,” I bounced back.
“But that would be a lie,” he said as he pulled the long handle to shut the doors.
“They wouldn’t know that.”
I walked to the very back and stood up. There were no more seats. Well, it was one, but it was next to a woman who smelled like she lived in an onion field. No one was sitting by her. On the cool, she damn near looked dead.
“Pat! Is that you?”
I turned my head and saw my friend, Skata sitting on the very last row. Skata was ghetto fabulous. She had the blue quick weave and gold teeth that didn’t match her dark complexion. But hey, that’s the way Skata did shit. I would never understand.
“What’s up?” I asked, not really trying to talk. I was on a mission. Diamond was about to find out everything.
“Come here, let me holla at you,” she said.
She leaned over and said something to the dude sitting next to her. It was too loud, so I didn’t hear what she said, but he got up and moved. I eased my way around people and sat next to her.
“Yo.”
“Where you headed?” she asked, licking on an ice cream cone.
I didn’t see how people ate anything on this bus, or any public transportation in NYC. It smelled like a fucking bathroom at McDonalds.
“Somewhere… why?” I wasn’t ashamed of where I was going, but she was being way too nosey for me.
“Did you look at yourself before you came out?” she asked.
“Yeah, why?”
She handed me a mirror. “You sure?”
I looked at the side of my face. There was cum all over my ear.
“You got any baby wipes?” I asked her. She always carried those because she rocked the long nails, and those were the only things that she used to properly wipe her ass.
“Sure do.” She laughed and handed me two wet wipes. “So, Davinchi must have just left?”
“You know it,” I said, wiping the last of the cum off my ear. I was too embarrassed to even look up to see who else had noticed it and didn’t say anything.
“I don’t know why you fucking with that boy anyway,” she said, putting her wipes back.
“Same reason you still with that African that no one can understand but you.”
“That there. No one can understand him but me, and that’s how I like it.”
“Whatever. That mothafucka be having y’all whole block smelling like oxtails and feet. Fuck outta here.”
“Yeah, okay. I’m not even about to go there with you.”
“Where you headed?” I asked.
“To get my nails done. It’s about that time.” She showed me her nails, and it didn’t look like they needed to be fixed, but Skata took pride in her nails for some reason. Just weird as fuck; her and that nigga.
“They look cool to me.”
“So I heard Davinchi just hit a big lick.”
“Yeah? I heard the same thing,” I said.
I didn�
��t know for sure because he never really showed me much but his dick. Another reason why I was on my way to tell Diamond about us. If she was out the picture, I could get more time with him.
“How you don’t know?”
“I know he just got a new car.”
“Yeah? What kind?”
“Lexus coupe. That joint hot too,” I boasted with a smile.
“Like that one right there?” Skata said as she pointed to a Lexus coupe at the corner.
I leaned over her and squinted to make sure I was really seeing what I thought I was. Somebody was robbing that nigga in broad daylight on the side of the projects. He was sitting in the car, and someone was standing on the passenger side with a gun pointed through the window.
“Hell, nah,” I said as I yanked my purse out the seat and ran to the front of the bus. I knocked about three people down and didn’t give a fuck. “Stop the bus! Stop the mothafucking bus!” I yelled.
“Have a seat, lady,” the bus driver said.
“Open the fucking door! Stop the bus!” I yelled, standing on the first step.
“Lady, you’re gonna get me fired! Have a seat!” he yelled back. Sad to say, chaos was normal on public transportation, so people weren’t even paying me no mind.
“Open the door!” I started to kick at it.
Finally, he stopped and opened the door.
Without thinking, I ran back down the street to where Davinchi was. It wasn’t until I had a gun pointed at me that I realized this was the dumbest shit I ever did. I didn’t even have a gun.
“Who the fuck is this bitch?” the first man asked as he grabbed me.
“Who is it?” the second masked man asked Davinchi.
“Yo, Pat, what the fuck are you doing?” he asked, with both hands on the steering wheel.
“Fuck it, get in the trunk,” the first man said as the second man popped the trunk.
Davinchi started shaking his head at me.
“You got five seconds to let her go or I’ma blow the top off both you niggas,” Skata said she held two guns. One pointed at each man.
Without warning, they both dropped their guns and ran.
I ran to the driver’s side to check on my man.
“You okay, baby?” I asked. I now felt bad because he still had welts on his face that I put there.
“Are you kidding me? These niggas just tried to rob you with BB guns,” Skata said, shooting the small pellet’s the other way.
“Them niggas dead, B. Toy gun or not, them niggas dead,” he said, cranking the car.
“I think I knew one of them. That look like the stick up kid from East Harlem,” Skata said.
“The fuck he doing over here?” I asked.
“Yo, where y’all headed. Let me give y’all a ride,” Davinchi said as he rubbed his short, curly fro.
“Nail shop,” Skata said, hopping in the back seat.
“You?” he asked me.
I couldn’t tell him where I was really headed, so I lied.
“Nail shop too,” I said, and slid in the passenger side of the coupe.
“Y’all came through for a nigga,” he said. “Thanks.”
“No biggie. Just learn the difference between a real gun and a fake one.” Skata laughed as she put both her guns back into her bag.
I silently sat in the passenger seat and acted like I didn’t see the driver’s license on the floor that belonged to the biggest known transsexual in hood.
Chapter Six
Yazz
“I told you that shit was a waste of time,” I said to Gee as we left Kombit. To get good food, we had to come way to the hood in Brooklyn. Kombit had fire Caribbean food, so it was worth the traffic and the drive.
“They laughed in our faces,” Gee said, shaking his head.
They basically told us that they would be our competition before they partnered with a bunch of immigrants. First off, it was only two of us, secondly, they threatened us. They only gave us the meeting to tell us in person. But they had no idea who they were fucking with. We had something for all that laughing they were doing at us.
“Look at this shit,” I said, pointing at a woman who jumped off a moving bus and took off running down the street. Behind her was a woman with blue hair, running as she pulled two guns from her purse.
“That’s Brooklyn for you,” Gee said as we drove past them.
I looked in my rearview mirror and saw why they were running. Some nigga was getting robbed in broad daylight.
“Well, we could always become legal residents. Only thing we can’t do is vote,” I said.
“But that would require us to have jobs that benefited the U.S. in some way, not trying to bring healthy food here. They would send us back with a quickness.”
“You got a point. Man, fuck the bullshit. I’m cool with the drug game.”
“But it’s too risky. I’m tryna go legit. We can’t deal drugs forever.”
“Well, find you a broke-ass American woman and pay her to marry you and to keep her mouth shut.”
“Shit, it’s looking like I might have to do that,” Gee said as we finally made our way to the highway, which was also backed up.
“I know the perfect place to find one.”
“Where?” he asked.
“The strip club.”
“The what? The strip club?” he asked, looking at me like I was stupid.
“Yeah, you ain’t gotta worry about them catching feelings or no mushy shit.”
“But a stripper?”
“Yes!”
“They nasty.”
“It’s not like you gonna fuck the bitch. Just gonna pay her, marry her, and kick her to the curb.”
“But what if they take the money and leave? Can’t trust a stripper.”
“Then she gets killed.”
“And what if the next stripper does the same?”
“Then we kill her too.”
“Nah, that’s the dumbest shit ever.”
“Well, what do you think we should do? We’re running out of options. I’m running thin on patience dealing with this fucking government here. We need to show them that we don’t need them.”
“We don’t,” Gee said, texting and driving.
“We’re running out of time, Gee.”
“We have time. There is no rush.”
“What do you mean, no rush? They just threatened to run us out of the fucking country.”
“I have another meeting lined up tomorrow. For each and every laugh that has been thrown at us, I have a cry. And that’s my word,” Gee said with a straight face.
I never knew what he was up to.
Chapter Seven
Diamond
“We need to leave within the next thirty minutes,” Red said as we watched the sun go down from the penthouse.
“Why?” I asked.
“Don’t you have to pick up Rena before a certain time?”
“Nah, she twenty-four hours. I’ll just have to pay twenty dollars extra.”
“Are you finished with the top floor?” Red asked.
Her hair was now all over her head. We had to do his laundry also, which was a lot. That was most of our work. This man had more clothes than shells on the beach, and I do no exaggeration.
“Yep. Now all we have to do is the master bedroom.”
I sat on the couch and took a small break. It was like exercise carrying shit from one end to another in this house.
“I wonder what they do to have so much money,” Red said as she joined me on the lavish nude colored couch.
“Who’s to say they have a lot of money?”
“Look at this place,” she said, pointing around.
“Maybe they’re businessmen. You saw the suits.”
“And I also saw the guns tucked away in his closet.”
“And may I ask why were you in the closet? And who are you?” a woman asked.
We both turned around to see a tall, bright skinned, grey eyed, well fitted and gorgeous woman dragging a sui
tcase inside.
“I’m sorry. We’re the maids for Gee,” I said as Red and I jumped up and rushed over to our cleaning utensils so we could get back to work.
“That’s Mr. Achul to you two. Speaking of him, where is he?” she asked as she walked to the kitchen, but not before dropping her suitcase into my hands.
“I’m sorry, but what am I supposed to do with this?” I asked as she swung her long, silky hair from side to side.
She had an accent just like Yazz and Gee. “What else would you do with it? Put it away, please and thank you.” She took off her heels, grabbed a bottle of water, and walked to the balcony.
“Lord, be my peace as I attempt not to slap this bitch,” I whispered to myself as I walked to the master bedroom and placed the suitcase next to the stairs.
“Rude ass,” Red said as I walked back up the stairs.
“The sun is almost down. Let’s just pack up and come back tomorrow,” I said as I watched the woman on the balcony. I envied her life. She looked like she didn’t have a care in the world.
As we headed out the door, Gee was walking in. “It smells good in here,” he said as he walked in with food in his hand and his nose in the air, smelling the scent of freshness.
“Leaving already?” Yazz asked, walking inside and shutting the door.
I opened it back. I had a long day, and that rude ass bitch didn’t make it any better.
“Yes, we will come back first thing in the morning,” I said as I lifted my bag over my shoulders. I just wanted to go home and sleep. My feet were so sore.
“Cool, cool, cool. See you ladies tomorrow,” Yazz said as he stood behind the door, preparing to shut it behind us.
Before he shut the door, I got a glimpse of the rude woman jumping into Gee’s strong and muscular arms. He kissed her so passionately, like she was the only woman in the world.
“Lucky bitch,” Red said as we used the key card to access the elevator.
“I wonder how it feels,” I said.
“What?”
“To have a man be so happy to see you like that. Did you see the way he caressed her? Like the world was ending tomorrow.”