The Lipstick Clique

by David Weaver

  Tarra had chased behind Lena after she saved her from getting raped by her father. When she caught up with her that night, they ended up sleeping inside of the Greyhound bus station hugged together in tears as if they were the best of friends. Indeed, they became best friends instantly. The only point of deception was that Lena had lied to Tarra about her age. Tarra thought that Lena was 19 years old, but in fact was barely even 14.

  They had both gotten fake IDs, and they were enjoying life as feminine outlaws. They had managed to move into an apartment and had saved up quite a nice amount of money in a very short time. On both of their necks, they had a set of lips tattooed in red ink. They had the same matching lip tats in a trail going from their outer thighs by the kneecap, and wrapping around to the inner thigh. The lip prints went all the way up to both of their individual bliss.

  Lena had LC tattooed on her wrist’s pulse, and Tarra had the same tat, but on her eyelids in red ink. Her skin was gold, and the way they had her eyelids shaded in red made it seem as if she were simply wearing red makeup. It looked nice on her with her red hair and red lipstick. Lena had induced her spirit into believing that no matter where she was on the planet, she had become and would always be, The Lipstick Clique.

  Not only had Milan convinced her that she was the official Lipstick Clique ruler, but she had also managed to convince Tarra that she was the ruler and creator. She had convinced her that she was an official representative until death separated them from existence. Tarra had bitten the bullet and was learning all she could about robbery as the days went by. They had robbed everything from banks to gas stations, from trial robberies at mom and pop record stores to successful robberies in the most unlikely of places like car wash fund raisers.

  They were paid. But unlike Treasure, Milan, and Skye – the original Lipstick Clique; the two of them spent money with reckless abandon. They bought gold, platinum, diamonds, silver, copper, iron, palladium, rhinestones, and chrome. Just about any damn thing that shined, they wanted it. When they went shopping, they usually spent everything they had. They were young and making their own money, and neither of them felt that a more wonderful situation than the one they were in could ever exist.

  One day Tarra had suggested that they get them a brand new car.

  “What kind of car?” Lena asked her thoughtfully.

  “I don’t know Lena… I was thinking we should get us a new Dodge Challenger.”

  And they got it. They stole a brand new Dodge Challenger straight off of the dealer’s lot at 2 o’clock in the morning. They knew they wouldn’t be able to drive it long before it got tracked down, but they had made many connections in that short period of time. They drove it to the chop shop and exchanged it for a cheaper car, a legitimate older model Toyota Avalon and a few thousand dollars in cash. The chop shop would break it down to the smallest denominator so fast, it would be like the car just left the face of the planet.

  Even though neither of the girls knew how to drive well, they had always played it off as if they knew what they were doing. The most common tactic was for whoever was supposed to be driving, to find a place to park and be stationary for a while. After doing this for a while, they eventually began to become more comfortable with the wheel. They began to act the age that they claimed to be.

  Since she was the leader, it was an unspoken assumption that most of the driving burden would be placed on Lena. She tried her best to drive the car after midnight only, when there was less traffic on the road, allowing more room for error.

  One night they had been joy riding and scoping out a strip plaza that they were seriously considering for a stick up. They rode from north Columbus to south Columbus, scoping out as many robbery points and scenarios that they could possibly piece together. The immaturity was still prevalent between the two of them. Otherwise, they would long have realized that they could have just left the city and been better off as far as their names ringing bells in the streets.

  Lena ended up getting off at the wrong exit, but when she got off, she figured that she would just see what they had on that strip anyways before they turned around. She drove and drove, looking at small department stores and pawn shops. After a while, she saw a Wal-Mart and got an idea. She had no intentions of robbing the Wal-Mart, but she wouldn’t mind catching one of those “ballers” leaving the superstore. It was not uncommon to catch custom painted vehicles on expensive wheels parked outside of a Columbus, GA Wal-Mart. The guys knew that it was the one place they could always go to pick up women. She took a left and swerved their car through the parking lot.

  When she looked around, she only saw one car that looked like it was baller material. It was parked a bit off in the distance, almost as if the driver and passengers weren’t even going into Wal-Mart. The car was parked as if there were no parking spaces when it first came into the parking lot, and now everyone had left the parking lot except for that car.

  Lena and Tarra looked at each other and nodded as they drove to where that car was sitting. They drove beside the car slowly to see how many people were in it, and when they looked inside, they saw no one at all. Lena and Tarra were too amped up after seeing that. They figured that they could get quite a bit of money for that car at the chop shop. “That’s a good steal!” Tarra cracked as she watched Lena loop around and pull up to the curb of the Wal-Mart entrance. Lena hit the unlock button on all of the doors and sat there waiting.

  “What?” Tarra asked.

  “Get out.”

  “Get out for what Lena? We need to be up and at that car over there, not at the Wal-Mart door playing games.”

  Lena exhaled. “We are going to get that car, relax. I want you to walk in the direction of the car and cover me from the angles that I’ll miss while I’m trying to drive one car and hotwire another one. I need you to relax. We got this.”

  Tarra smiled at Lena and got out with her pistol in tow. It made plenty of sense to Tarra. She felt like there would be no way for them to continue to have the level of success that they were having if she hadn’t been around to watch Lena’s back and cover her from all angles. She knew that she was indeed important!

  Tarra started walking and observing her surroundings. She figured that she would just wait to see who the owner of the car was in case he came out of the store trying to open fire on her girl. If that happened, she knew that she would have to turn the parking lot into a chalkboard. She wasn’t going to let her homegirl go down in any way.

  She watched Lena drive all the way to the top of the road so that she could really get a bird’s eye view of the parking lot, and then watched her slowly turn around and head back in the car’s direction. While Lena’s car was driving towards the target vehicle, a white woman came out of the store speed-walking towards the expensive car. Tarra knew that Lena had to have spotted the white lady walking towards the car too, because she saw her slow down and take a left turn so that she wouldn’t appear obvious.

  A sharp pain arose in Tarra’s side as she thought to herself that Lena was probably going to kill the white lady right there in the middle of the parking lot. She really didn’t want her to do that, because there was no real need to. It wasn’t like they didn’t have other options, and it wasn’t as if they were starving to eat. They were good, so no need to go all out on an innocent woman just because they envied what she possessed. Tarra knew right then and there that she would have to stop her.

  She took off running toward the cutoff path between Lena and the target vehicle, causing Lena to slam on the breaks.

  “Bitch what the fuck is your issue?” Lena screamed as she stared Tarra in the face. “Why the hell did you do that?”

  Tarra stood there dumbfounded, unable to answer. “I… I…”

  She didn’t have an answer, and Lena was starting to become slightly irritated. “O.K… Tarra, get in the car, we’ll find another place to rob. It’s as simple as that.”

  Tarra happily jumped into the car and slammed the door when she got in. Lena placed her seatb
elt back on and slowly drove the car back around so that they could exit the parking lot. But when they got to the exit, Tarra seemed to go crazy.

  “Lena! Go back!! What the fuck! Go back!!! Go back now!! Now!!!!”

  Lena looked at Tarra with a confused expression on her face. “Go back where? I thought –”

  “Fuck what you thought Lena, take your ass back to the car now!”

  Lena shrugged her shoulders and swung around to head back to the target vehicle. What she saw stunned her and Tarra both. In a pair of khakis and a blue Wal-Mart worker’s vest, she saw the man that tried to rape her in the park loading items into the back of the white lady’s car. The man unloaded the items out of the cart, then leaned in and gave the mysterious female a passionate French kiss. “Tarra… that’s your Dad!”

  But she was talking to herself. Lena hadn’t even heard the passenger side car door open. She looked over and saw the door wide open, allowing the coolest breeze possible to pay her driving space a visit. She saw Tarra as she ran up to both of them with her gun drawn. She wanted to drive closer, but she didn’t know what the hell was going on. Normally, she wouldn’t have been nervous, but Tarra was scaring the living daylights out of her.

  She watched as Tarra ran up on her Dad and the lady with her pistol drawn and with rage plastered across her face. Lena sat in place, stunned. She was unable to move; paralyzed by a plethora of emotions. She wanted to get out and help her friend, but she didn’t know what her friend needed help doing. She wanted to run over and kill her Dad for trying to rape her, but didn’t know if that was what Tarra was already about to do or not.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath while she waited for the festivities to begin.

  Milan

  Vicky listened as Milan told her all about the plea deal that had been offered to her. She lay there in the prison cell and listened as Milan cried about how much time she was being forced to do in prison. She didn’t judge her; she only listened. She knew that what Milan really needed in her horrid predicament was to be heard. Vicky lay there and listened to Milan get it all off of her chest.

  She spoke for two and a half hours straight about every single thing that had been bothering her. She spoke about some of the escapades that they’d endured on the streets, and listened to her as she kept voicing her concern about not hearing from her sister over the past six months. As Vicky listened, she wanted to help her, but she knew that there would only be one way to help her, and it would require her to hurt her in order for her to break her stubborn mindset. Vicky set it in her mind that she was going to put her plan into action the following day.

  __________

  The next evening, Vicky and Milan were sitting in their prison cell at the small reading desk about to play two hand spades. Vicky had been shuffling the cards when the noise seared through the intercom again. “Drimp, attorney visit! Milan Drimp, you have an attorney visit.”

  Milan frowned and walked to the voice output. She cuffed her lips and bent down so that they could hear her. “Tell them to fuck off!” She said with amusement. Then she walked away and went back to the table to sit down and finish her game of Spades. But Vicky wasn’t having it; she hurriedly dashed to the intercom and pressed the button again.

  “Here she comes you guys.” Vicky spoke as she crouched down so that her voice could be heard. She had put in entirely too much work for Milan to just completely ignore the situation that she’d used her resources to set up.

  Milan scowled at Vicky. Then she spoke with venomous acid. “Bitch, you don’t tell me what the fuck to do! I do as I please bitch. I didn’t work for the Department of Motor Vehicles, so I’m sure that you don’t quite know how this shit feels to be facing this much time. That’s why you keep taking it lightly.”

  Vicky was hurt, but she would accept it. She only wanted Milan to be successful at whatever it was that she did. She was a rare breed, one who was more loyal than the most loyal of men. She felt that she was in a predicament that she didn’t belong in. In order to help her cellmate, she had pulled every string in her repertoire, and she just prayed that everything went through.

  Milan got up and put her clothes and boots on, then waited at the door with a disgusted frown on her face. When the correctional officer came and unlocked the door, she looked back at Vicky one final time and rolled her eyes. Vicky accepted it and spoke a silent prayer for her. She knew that she would most likely never see her again in life. But no matter what, it could never be said that she didn’t try to help.

  __________

  When Milan got to the attorney visitation room, she was even more confused because she didn’t see her attorney there. In the room was the racist prosecutor who had been trying to persuade her to sign her life away for 27 years. Right beside her was a federal agent sitting there with a smile on his face. Milan immediately felt as if she was being set up.

  “What the fuck is this about?” She asked right away.

  The prosecutor closed the folder that was sitting on the desk and pinned her with one of her coldest stares. “Let’s just cut straight to the case. You told your cellmate a lot of information. A lot of information we desperately need. So basically… you help us, we help you.”

  Milan immediately kicked her chair over without speaking and walked back to the door. She threw a smirk on her face and just waited. As soon as the correctional officer came, she was going to let him know that she would rather be raped than to be in that room cooperating with the authorities. And the nerve of that Vicky bitch! I’ma kill that ho! She thought as she waited.

  Strangely though, the prosecutor and special agent had brought lunches and juices, and didn’t look at all like they were in a hurry to go anywhere, anytime soon. They burst open a bag of chips and two sandwiches as they watched her stand at the door. After a moment of watching their arrogant asses eat, she took her fists and knocked on the door as best as she could. No one came.

  “Well… Milan, we hate to inform you, but you’re BOP custody as of right now. You belong to the Bureau of Prisons, and we certainly override this little state prison pre-trial facility that you’re staying in right now. Since we made such a long trip, you will talk to us. And you will speak to us in the most respectful of tones.”

  Milan rolled her eyes and stood at the door. In her mind, there was nothing possible left for them to tell her, except goodbye. Snitching was not in her resume at all.

  The little agent kept on pushing. “Basically, it will go like this. Your cellmate will be getting the credit for the bust, and in the press release, we will name you as the originating source and informer.”

  “What fuckin bust?!” Milan asked curiously. “What muthafuckin’ got damn bust!? I don’t have a muthafuckin’ thing to do with no got damned bust you stupid fucks!” She spat with hatred and disgust lacing her tone.

  The prosecutor pointed at the chair in front of her and told her to sit down. Milan pointed at her behind and told her to kiss it. The agent burst out laughing.

  “Playing a little hardball I see. But there’s nothing wrong with you playing hardball, in fact, it amuses me. The bust we’re talking about is for Treasure Brown and the Lipstick Clique. Obviously, you have plenty of information about this particular subject, but you seem to only want to share that info with your cellmate.”

  Milan’s mind raced as the agent continued to ramble on and on about her being a cooperating party in arresting her former home girl, Treasure. A couple of things didn’t make sense though. She sat there in deep thought trying to figure out if Treasure had restarted The Lipstick Clique with new people, or if her own sister, Skye, had joined Treasure and turned her back on her.

  That was the only thing that hurt her. The fact that her twin sister had not taken an hour out of her life to even have an anonymous letter or postcard sent to the prison was almost too painful to bear. All she wanted to do was make sure that she was ok out there. It was hard doing time while wondering and worrying about someone else. Doing time was extremely d
emanding, and as long as she couldn’t hear from her sister, she knew that her time was going to be an ongoing disaster.

  The disaster turned into a nightmare.

  “Plus, I want to find out if your friend Treasure is the person who murdered your sister. I’m sure that even if we did let you out of prison to work for us, you probably still wouldn’t be able to find out that type of information. But… it’s worth a try, and I’m also sure that you would at least get a lot further than us in this matter.”

  Milan felt her heartbeat slow down to a snail’s pace. Her mind felt like she was lost in the matrix. Her breathing pattern was abnormal, and her skin leaked sweat at a frightening pace. Within 40 seconds, she was almost looking as if someone had poured a half filled championship water cooler over her head. Her hands started to slowly shake and her teeth rattled slightly. She tried to suppress her uncontrollable reactions, but she found herself unable to.