Snow White: A Survival Story

by Anna J.

  “Khalid, meet me on the steps. You’ll be staying at the crib with Journey for a while. I already talked to Vince.”

  I was shocked into speechlessness. Did he say I would be staying with Journey for a while? Why didn’t he take me to my grandmother’s or my aunt’s house? I know my dad didn’t know me and Journey were intimate, but he had to know I was digging the hell out of her. Furthermore, I was surprised my mom even agreed to that. My dad hated my mom’s family, and his family lived in Neshaminy, so I guess this was the closest spot until he could decide what to do next. My mom must have really pissed him off this time, and I couldn’t believe that Vince went along with the plan. I had a bunch of questions, but the tone of his voice let me know that now wasn’t the time to ask.

  “Okay, Pop, I’ll meet you out front.”

  I got up and put my clothes back on, even my shoes, so that he wouldn’t suspect we were in here doing anything that we shouldn’t be. I told Journey to get completely dressed and sit in the living room, just in case he came upstairs to investigate shit. I didn’t want to give him any reason to change his mind.

  By the time I got outside, my dad was walking up the block with my duffle bag, packed to capacity, swung over his shoulder. I didn’t think I would be staying that long, but who was I to argue with a decision he made? He would let me know when it was time for me to go.

  “Listen, I got some heat in this bag. Hide it for me when you get upstairs, and don’t let anybody know you have it. I’ll come back for it later,” my dad said to me while checking his surroundings. I wondered why he didn’t just hide it himself, but knew better than to ask. I wasn’t even sure why he needed it hidden in the first place, but that’s what he wanted, so that’s what it would be.

  “What about Mom? Is she okay?” I asked, wondering why she hadn’t bothered to call me all day. My mom was usually on my heels, but lately she’d been acting weird, and I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

  “Your mom is going through something right now,” he said to me while looking the other way. That usually meant he was trying to sugar coat something, but he would usually keep it real with me later, so I would just wait. “Everything is cool, though. Don’t go to the house. Just chill around here until I tell you it’s cool to go back home.”

  I decided not to push the issue just yet. Depending on how long I would be staying here, that would determine my investigation. He peeled off four hundred dollars from the knot in his pocket, and we talked for a little while longer before he gave me a pound and we parted ways.

  “Remember what I told you to do,” he said to me, reminding me to hide the gun when I got upstairs.

  I sprinted up the steps into the house, finding Journey sitting on the couch, looking like an angel. No one would have thought that we were just doing the nasty grown-up, and I wanted to keep things that way. I set my bag in her room before taking a seat next to her on the couch.

  “Who was that?” she asked me as I sat down and pulled her into my arms.

  “My dad packed me an overnight bag. He said Vince said I can stay here for a while, but I’m concerned about my mom.” I spoke honestly to her, not sure if I should disobey my dad and go around there anyway, or just stay put and let whatever happened happen.

  “I’m sure he has a good reason, so let’s just chill and finish our date,” she said as she stood up and pulled me with her.

  Journey took the time to lock the door and shut off all the lights before we went back to her room. I stripped down to my boxers and climbed in the bed. She followed behind me with only her panties on. I couldn’t believe she finally let me get it. I was glad her back was to me so that she couldn’t see me smiling all hard and shit, and I was suddenly glad I had made the decision to not get with Gina and wait on my baby girl.

  She cuddled up next to me in a spooning position and I rubbed her belly while she lay in my arms. I knew we were going to have a pretty baby one of these days, and I was looking forward to spending the rest of my life with her.

  “You okay, ma?”

  “Yeah, I’m good. I’m bleeding a little, though,” she responded, snuggling up closer to me.

  “That’s natural, babe. You’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

  “Somebody paid attention in sex education, huh?” she said jokingly, both of us laughing out loud.

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  I was in the midst of dozing off, not paying too much attention to the television. I would get up during the night to hide that burner for my dad once Journey was asleep. I just had a nagging feeling telling me to go around the crib, but I couldn’t drag Journey out in the street this late at night.

  I was finally able to fall asleep around one. Journey had been asleep way before that, and it felt good lying next to my baby. I was having a horrible dream, though, that a guy was chasing me. I had blood all over my shirt, but I didn’t know if it was his or mine. I had my dad’s gun in my hand, and just as I decided to turn around and shoot, I heard a loud bang on the front door.

  Both of us jumped up and looked at each other, thinking it might be Vince at the door. Journey got out of the bed and threw on a nightshirt and grabbed a blanket from the bed so it would look like I was asleep in the living room. I lay down on the couch and let Journey answer the door so that if it was Vince, he wouldn’t snap out on me. The banging was insistent, and we were both scared to death at who could be on the other side.

  “Who is it?” Journey asked while trying to make out the image on the other side of the peephole.

  “It’s me, Shanyce. Khalid’s mom. I need you to hook me up again, baby girl. Vince said it was cool.”

  Journey’s entire body went rigid, and the look on my face was of confusion. What did she mean she needed another hook-up? I knew Journey cooked and bagged up product for her uncle sometimes, but was she selling that shit to my mother? Was my mother turned out on Snow White?

  “Open the door, Journey,” I said to her, now standing up from the couch. I needed to see with my own eyes that the woman on the other side of the door was really my mom and not some imposter.

  She hesitated, but eventually cast her eyes to the floor and opened the door. My breath was taken away as I laid my eyes upon my mother’s disheveled form. Tears sprung up in my eyes instantly, but I had to hold it down.

  “Mom, who did this to you? Who did this?” I asked as I walked her to the kitchen table to sit her down. Journey turned the light on and stood in the doorway, looking like she was scared to get any closer.

  “It’s nothing. Me and your dad got in a fight, that’s all. What are you doing here?” she asked as she slumped against the table. I couldn’t believe that shit I was seeing, and Journey was still cowering in the doorway like she was scared I was going to spaz out.

  I didn’t answer. I pulled Journey into the living room instead to see what the hell my mom was doing coming here for drugs, and how many times she’d been there before. I knew the love of my life was not selling my mother product and I wasn’t aware of it.

  “Journey, your answer better be a good one.”

  “Khalid, it’s not my fault,” she began as tears started streaming down her face. “Your mom came here one night and told me that Vince sent her here, so I gave her what she asked for. I didn’t find out until later on that she was telling a lie.”

  “And why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because your dad told me not to.”

  At that moment, my world came tumbling down around me. I didn’t know whether to go left or right, and I was ready to take that gun my dad gave me and kill his ass with it. Since when did we start keeping secrets? I started pulling on my clothes so that I could get up out of there. I felt like I was suffocating.

  “Where are you going?” Journey said as she tried to block me from leaving the room. I picked her up by her waist and moved her to the side. She followed behind me like a puppy dog. She was crying hysterically by now, but I had another mission.

  “Come on, Mom. Let’s go,”
I said to her as I helped her out of the chair.

  “I’m not going nowhere without some Snow White. Vince said I could have it,” she responded as she fought me to get up from the chair.

  Journey looked helpless, but I couldn’t deal with her right now. I had to get my mom home and in bed, and then I had to go get at my dad. My mom fought me tooth and nail, but I finally got her out of the house and down the steps. Those same hustle boys were on the corner, and I wished for a second that I had brought that gun out with me.

  My mom took me through it all the way back to the crib, and on the walk by, I saw Vince sitting on Choice’s porch, but I couldn’t even stop. He had a smirk on his face that made my skin boil, and I added him to the list too. Somebody was going to pay for this, and if I had to start at the top until I found out who it was, that’s the way it would be.

  Bunz B

  Shiesty Shit

  I’d told Toya on more than one occasion not to be having them nappy-headed bitches up in here, but she insisted that she had money to make, even though I was breaking her off. I didn’t want anyone to know I was here, and that shit pissed me off, because Lord forbid I had to take a piss or something. I couldn’t even go out of the room if she had somebody out there.

  I’d been knee-deep in the news, though, and the law had a bid on my head like crazy. A hundred thousand for whoever could find my black ass. That’s why I had to keep Toya on lock, because she would definitely say some shit just for the money. Word on the street was that Gary was so fucked up when the cops got him that he was in jail for three days before he woke up and realized where he was. They just left him to rot in the cell. A dead man can’t testify in court, so they would have woke him up eventually, but I told him so many times to stop fucking with that pancakes and syrup. That shit be having you on tilt, and now he saw where the shit got him.

  Chancing a walk by in the living room, I saw that Toya was doing the little young girl’s hair. Vince’s niece, Journey. She was in there crying the blues because her and her boyfriend must have been about to break up. I was wondering who was hitting that shit, because shorty had it going on.

  Her profile was the truth. She filled out what looked to be a nice D cup, and mami had hips. I could tell her ass was big just from the side view. That shit made me hard just looking at it, and I knew for certain I had to find a way to get at that. Vince didn’t really fuck with me like that, but I knew if I came at him about moving these bricks of coke I had from the spot we just hit, he’d do business. Even though Joey wanted to strike me out of the equation, Vince’s greedy-for-money ass would deal with me on the low if he could come up off it. He’d done so in the past, so he would probably do it again. Then I could see how to get next to her.

  I was ear-hustling hard as shit, and from what I could gather, she was fucking with Joey’s son. I’d been meaning to get at that nigga for a minute. We still had beef over that bullshit robbery we did back in the day, and I knew push come to shove, I would have to lay him down before he came at me. He’d tried so many times, but I stayed off the radar for that particular reason. He almost caught me slipping one night at the deli, but I grabbed one of the young girls in the store so that I could get out. I knew Joey would never shoot an innocent bystander on purpose.

  At any rate, I didn’t know too much about Khalid, so I’d have to send my boys to test him and see what he was about. It sounded like they had a petty argument; I just had to see if he was really ready to give shorty up. He was throwing her to the wolves, and I’d be right there to catch her ass.

  I watched her from the cut while they were talking, and Toya was giving her advice that she should have been using her damn self. How the fuck was she gonna tell the young girl how to draw her man back in when she was single as the day is long? Did that shit work for her? I just laughed to myself as I went and lay back across the bed.

  I had the television turned to a porn flick joint, and I had the volume down, because I didn’t want Toya spazzing out with the young girl here. Although I was watching the movie, I was picturing Journey in here giving me the business. I had my dick out, stroking it until it felt like it couldn’t get any harder. I briefly thought about tagging both their asses at the same time, but I knew they wouldn’t go for that shit.

  “Ay, Toya,” I called into the kitchen. She came and peeked her head in the doorway, looking like I was irritating her and shit.

  “What is it, B? I’m almost done with her hair.”

  “Suck my dick real fast,” I said while still stroking myself. She looked at me like I was crazy, and instead of responding, she slammed the bedroom door shut. I could hear her saying some shit to Journey as she walked back to the kitchen, and I just shook my head.

  Flicking the station to the news, I went from having a rock hard dick to limp when I saw Jamel being led out in handcuffs from the building right next to mine. Turning the volume up, I leaned forward to hear what he had to say. I knew he was mad because I had yet to break down the cash from the robbery, and I had my cell phone turned off since I got here, so I hadn’t talked to anyone. Yeah, I was wrong, but that’s what the simple ass got for letting me jet with the cash.

  “I bet if you check the projects, you’ll find who you lookin’ for, playa,” Jamel said into the camera as they led him to the car. He didn’t try to hide his face or anything like that. Most criminals be tryin’a hide under a hooded sweatshirt or something, but he took his shit like a man and walked with his head up. He just sent the wolves after me, though, so I’d definitely have to get at him about it later.

  Grabbing Toya’s house phone off the nightstand, I called my cell phone to check my messages, and the voice informed me that my mailbox was full. I had several messages from Jamel and Kev, threatening to kill me when they found me, because no one knew where I was hiding out. I had a feeling one, if not both of these dudes was going to dime me out, so I had to set some shit in motion quick.

  Toya came back into the room looking like she didn’t feel like getting into nothing with me. I was cool with that, because I had another plan for her anyway. She was about to earn her keep, and not with her dry-ass pussy.

  “Yo, you and the boy Vince is cool, right?” I asked her as I started pulling the bricks of coke out of my duffle bag.

  “Yeah, we okay. I haven’t been able to holler at him since you been here, though. Why? What, you about to leave?”

  “No, bitch, I’m not. And I been paying my way here, so go ahead with that bullshit. This is what I need you to do . . .”

  I knew Vince and them didn’t fuck with me like that, but by the time I got what I needed from them, I would be sitting up in Miami or some shit, living the good life. I’d hate to have to murk Toya after all this, so I hoped she played her cards right. There wasn’t room for any mistakes.

  Shanyce Davidson

  Stuck on Tilt

  I was not expecting my son to answer the door when I got there. I knew he wasn’t home, but I thought maybe Joey took him to his family’s house or some shit. And poor Journey, I knew she was fit to be tied right now. I just needed one last hit and I’d be cool, but Khalid looked like he was falling apart at the seams. He had to grow up eventually; I just hated that it had to be like this.

  I needed some money. Maybe I could take one of my pocketbooks back to the store. I couldn’t find my car keys, but I didn’t think Joey took the keys from me. I could ask him to take me down there, but I didn’t feel like arguing with him right now. Besides, I done tore the house up looking for his stash, so I had to put shit back in order before he popped back up. If I could get myself together, maybe I could work a deal out with him to get a hit. I’d go into a program; I just needed this one last high before I called it a day.

  Khalid had been lurking around me since he got here. His poor eyes were bloodshot, and every time I walked past him, he just looked the other way. How was I supposed to explain to him that I got caught out there? His dad had the shit around me all the time, and even back in the day, both Joey
and me used to get down. I guess Joey was stronger than I was.

  I was getting that antsy, feeling like it’s bugs crawling on my skin, and I can’t keep still. I just needed one small rock and I’d be in there. For a second I thought I saw a rock on the floor, but it turned out to be an earring back from a piece of jewelry I had. I didn’t want to go there, but I did have some nice pieces I could pawn. Then I could go see my boy down the bottom.

  “Khalid, are you upset with Journey?” I asked my son when I finally got the courage to face him in the living room. It looked like he had straightened up a little. I’d been kind of letting the place go lately, so he did what he could.

  “That’s my business, Ma. Just go upstairs and rest.”

  I looked at my son, and it was like I was seeing him for the first time. He’d grown up to be quite handsome. I’d never seen him hurt like this. The thing is, there was nothing I could do to make it better.

  “Journey didn’t know, Khalid. I told her a lie to get the drugs. It wasn’t her fault, and I didn’t know you were there.”

  “Ma, I don’t want to talk about it. Just go upstairs and rest.”

  There was nothing more to say. I had officially disappointed my son. I turned to go upstairs, but instead of going to my room, I went to Khalid’s instead. He had definitely grown over the years. His walls, which were once adorned with posters of his favorite cartoon characters, were now covered with posters of Beyoncé, 50 Cent, and various other music artists. He had a cute picture of him and Journey sitting on one nightstand, and a photo of me and his dad on the dresser.

  I didn’t know where to look at first, and then I remembered Joey taking stuff out of the closet. First look revealed a normal closet, but I knew enough to know Joey was smarter than that. I felt around on the sides of the wall until I was able to slip my finger inside the edge. An entire panel came loose, but I didn’t have enough light to see inside, so I felt around until I came across a small plastic bundle tucked tight in the corner. I couldn’t believe it. This had to be at least a quarter of coke. Joey must have left it there by accident.