by Noire
He flipped the alarm switch and the rickety elevator started moving again. When the doors opened on the sixth floor Carmiesha was still laying there in a pool of cold piss. She was half-naked, bleeding, and crying softly.
“Get up, bitch,” he said from the doorway. “And the next time I want me some pussy I better not have to fight you for it. Cause if I do, I might just have to go on in there and get me a little bit from Mere’maw instead.”
He laughed loudly at the look of horror that crossed Carmeisha’s face.
“Here, crybaby.” He tossed a piece of candy down at her and laughed. “Have a peppermint. On second thought, have two. As good as that pussy is, your motherfuckin’ breath stanks.”
He raped her any time he felt like it. And he beat her down each time too, spitting in her face as he called her the dirtiest kind of low-down bitches and hoes.
“Yeah, ya nasty shit-eater. Suck this big dick like you like it! Turn that big stank ass over’n lemme stick this pole up in there. Fuckin’ ho. Chickenhead! You know you been begging for this shit! You lucky I don’t let a few of my boys get at this shit too. Maybe I’ll bring ’em up here and let ’em run a train on you first, then hit Mere’maw next.”
At thirteen Carmiesha was still just a child, and just the threat of somebody sexually hurting Mere’maw was enough to keep her quiet and compliant. She did whatever he forced her to do, retreating deeper inside herself more each day. She cut off all her little girlfriends and stayed locked up in her room. She stopped seeing Thug too.
“C’mon, Muddah,” he would beg, promising to eat her pussy real good for her.
Carmiesha refused. It was just too hard to face him knowing that the cherry she wouldn’t give to him had been stolen by somebody else. At one point she had thought about telling Justice and Rome, but the more she watched her brothers the more she saw how useless they were. Both of them were scared of that deranged niggah and acted ready to suck him off. Telling them how he had abused her would probably make them mad at her and tell Mere’maw that she asked for it.
Carmiesha didn’t know where to turn. If she told Thug what was going on, she knew blood was gonna get spilled and she didn’t want to put him in that position. Plus, she was too ashamed of what that crazy motherfucker had made her do. He’d stuck his skinny dick in every hole she had, and she felt nasty and violated and mad enough to kill his ass at the same time. He fucked her on the elevators, on the staircase, and even up on the roof where that hot concrete cut into her knees and burned the skin on her ass and her bare back.
By the time shit came to a head a couple of months later, Carmiesha was so sick and nervous that she’d lost fifteen pounds. Her hands shook all the time and her hair was breaking off in clumps. She didn’t know what was gonna happen the next time he rolled up on her, but she had already decided he wasn’t fuckin’ her no more. She started carrying a knife with her at all times, ready to stab him or, better yet, slice his dick open if he touched her again.
As it turned out, Carmiesha had underestimated Mere’maw for real. She found out how much heat that old lady was packing one day when that niggah got so bold he thought he could come right up in her apartment and get him some pussy just because he felt like it.
She was stretched out on her bed reading when she looked up and saw him standing in her doorway.
“How the fuck did you get in here?” Carmiesha sat up quickly, her eyes darting across the room to the Reebok gym bag where she kept her knife.
His sick ass grinned. “My boy Rome let me in. We down like that. What you reading? Oh? How to Sex a Baller?” He moved into her small room, closing the door behind him. “I’m ya baller, baby girl. So why’ont you come over here and show me a little sumpin you done learned.”
Carmiesha shot across the small room like a cannon. Her hand was inside her gym bag searching for her knife when he jumped on her.
“What I tell you about fighting me?” he said, laughing as he tried to grab her wrists and pin her down. Carmiesha twisted from side to side, grunting as she tried to find her knife. She brought her knee up between them and he leaned on her leg, opening them wide and pinning her with his weight.
“Bitch, don’t make me—”
The door to her room flew open, and both of them turned their heads and froze.
“Boyyyyy,” Mere’maw said real slow as she reached between her thick legs and pulled a small silver pistol out from under her housedress. “I don’t know what you came in here to find, but I can sure tell you what you bout to get.”
Carmiesha was stunned. Where the hell did Mere’maw get a gat?
The moment Pimp jumped up, Carmiesha got her hand around her knife and yanked it out the bag. She held it in front of her, but he wasn’t even studying her no more. Carmiesha was just as shocked as he was, and watched his face go blank as he stared down the barrel of the small pistol Mere’maw was aiming with a fat, steady hand.
“What the hell was you doin to her, boy?”
Pimp laughed. “We was just playin’, Mere’maw.” He pointed toward the CD player, which wasn’t even turned on. “We was dancin’ and shit, and then she fell—”
“Oh?” the old woman said. “You wanna dance with my granddaughter?”
Carmiesha screamed as Mere’maw fired.
“Dance, durn you!” Mere’maw yelled, popping shots into the floor all around Pimp’s feet. “Lemme see how good you can dance to this kinda music!”
It was almost funny watching as Pimp jumped in the air and hopped from foot to foot, stutter-stepping as he tried to dodge Mere’maw’s bullets. Not one of them came close to hitting him, and Carmiesha knew the old woman wasn’t even trying to.
“Now get your no-good tail outta here.” Mere’maw stopped shooting and waved the gun, motioning Pimp toward the door. “And leave my grandsons the hell alone too. Ain’t nothing in you but trouble, and I’m old enough to shoot a no-good drug-dealing gangsta like you and get away with it.”
She kept the gun locked on him as he rushed past her and out of the room, then said, “Next time I catch you anywhere near my door, ain’t gone be no dancin’. I’ma shoot you clean dead. And if I ever find out you done something to Lil’ Muddah here, I’ma shoot you twice.”
“Yeah, motherfucker!” Carmiesha screamed, waving her knife and rejoicing that her nightmare was finally over. “Get the fuck outta here and don’t bring your crazy ass back!”
But three weeks later Carmiesha couldn’t find a damn thing to be happy about. Her breasts were sore and she’d been getting sick to her stomach a lot. Her period hadn’t come yet, and she was worried. A few days later a cheap drugstore pregnancy test confirmed her worst fear. That nasty niggah had got her pregnant. All she could see was her dreams in the gutter and her world crashing in. How was she gonna take care of a baby when she was only thirteen? How could she bring Mere’maw another mouth to feed when they were barely eating already? And how could she tell Thug she’d already been fucked when he was still waiting to be the first one to slide his dick between her legs?
Carmiesha missed the next three days of school. She laid in bed with the covers over her head shaking. She refused to eat or drink, and would only close her eyes and tremble when Mere’maw begged her to tell her what was wrong.
When she was finally able to accept her situation she forced herself to come up with a plan. Aside from her deep shame at being raped, the last thing she wanted was a baby. Especially by a twisted motherfucker like him. But she knew getting an abortion was out. She didn’t have the money or the insurance, and even if she could somehow come up with the cash, she didn’t believe in killing babies. But there was also no way in hell she could bring nobody else’s baby into her relationship with Thug.
On the fourth day Carmiesha got out of bed and walked into the kitchen to tell Mere’maw she was going to school.
“Bout time,” her brother Rome said. He had folded the last slice of bread in half and was wiping it around the inside of an almost-empty jelly jar.
Carmiesha wandered down the streets of Harlem like a black girl lost. She cried inside at all the shit that had been forced upon her her whole life. She wondered what her life mighta been like if her father hadn’t murdered her mother right in front of her eyes and left her with that lasting image in her young mind. If her brothers hadn’t been so damn useless and had gone to school and then worked together to move them out of Harlem. If she had had a knife or an ice pick on her that night in the elevator when that crazy niggah whipped out his pointy dick.
She walked around grieving until she found herself standing outside of the pool hall. It was too early in the morning for folks to be gambling, and the doors to T.C.’s Place were chained and locked. Carmiesha went over to a smaller doorway and rang a bell. Dre had told her that T.C. and Miss Lady lived in an apartment upstairs, and she hoped they wouldn’t be mad at her for ringing their bell so early in the morning.
She rang the bell for a long time, and had almost changed her mind and turned away when suddenly a second-floor window was snatched open and a pretty, sleepy-looking lady with a bright red scarf around her head appeared.
“Don’t be wearing my goddamn bell out!” the woman hollered, then looked closely at Carmiesha. Her voice changed when she realized that Carmiesha was just a child. “What’s the matter, baby? What you doing down here on a school day?”
Carmiesha swallowed hard. “Uhm, Miss Lady? Uhm…I know Thug. I mean, Dre. I know Andre.”
Miss Lady’s whole face changed. “What’s wrong?” she said, her voice rising with concern. “Don’t tell me that boy done got his narrow ass into something. Is he okay?”
Carmisha nodded. “He-he’s fine. But he told me how much you help people. People like him…and me.”
Miss Lady pursed her lips and took a real hard look at Carmiesha.
“You in trouble?” she asked quietly in a no-nonsense voice.
Carmiesha nodded, trying her hardest not to start crying again.
“Well what you standing out there for then?” Miss Lady said, waving Carmiesha toward the door. A buzzer sounded and the lock slid back. “Come on upstairs, child. Miss Lady ain’t no joke. I whip trouble’s ass seven days a week.”
Carmiesha went over to the window and looked down the street. So much had happened since that horrible day, and she felt blessed to have made it through without losing her young mind, thanks to her guardian angel. The night Carmiesha delivered her son it was Miss Lady who had been there beside her, soothing and encouraging her, and promising her everything would be okay.
She hadn’t even looked pregnant, especially with her clothes on. She’d gotten only one stretch mark. A thin, jagged line on her left booty cheek. And the only things that had grown any bigger were her breasts and her ass. Her stomach was barely pooching out enough to be called a potbelly. Miss Lady had already taken her to a dentist and gotten her front tooth fixed, but there was nothing she could help Carmiesha do about the baby that was growing in her stomach except comfort her while she waited.
Carmiesha remembered being shocked because the baby hadn’t been due for two and a half more months, but the pains had been unbearable for hours, doubling her over as they tore through her young body and drenched her in sweat.
She’d managed to stay away from Mere’maw for most of that day, scared to let on to her grandmother that she was in so much pain. Miss Lady had already made all the necessary arrangements and assured Carmiesha that nobody had to know about her shame, not even Mere’maw.
Around 7 P.M., Carmiesha had been forced to climb into her small closet and scream into her pillow against the sharp waves of pain drilling through her spine. She stayed there on her knees, panting and moaning as fire ripped across her back and lower stomach and the baby crept further down into her birth canal.
By 9:30 Mere’maw was snoring on the couch in front of the television and Carmiesha managed to stumble from the apartment. She wasn’t worried about running into anyone because both of her brothers were locked up. And Thug was too. Him and both of his cousins had gotten caught riding in a stolen car, and while Pimp was old enough to get sent to Rikers Island, Thug and Smoove ended up with a six-month sentence at a youth correctional group home up in Glenmont, New York.
In the emergency room at Harlem Hospital, she leaned heavily on Miss Lady.
“Treat her right,” Miss Lady instructed the nurses as they handled Carmiesha. “She ain’t nothing but a baby herself, and she’s been through a lot.”
At one minute after ten Carmiesha gave birth to a three-pound baby boy. She barely got a chance to look at him and could only stroke his little finger before he was whisked away in an incubator to neonatal intensive care.
“He gone be all right,” Miss Lady assured her, rubbing her cheek.
“Them people still gonna take him, right?” Carmiesha had asked in a trembling voice.
Miss Lady nodded. “Yeah, baby. They still want him. But they gone let you see him sometimes too, okay? I’ve known the Washingtons for a long time and they good people. Your son gone have the best of everything. And even though Bert and Jessie gone be his mama and daddy, you gonna be a part of his life too.”
When they brought her the legal papers to sign Carmiesha quickly scribbled her name over and over. In the space where she had to name the father of the child, Carmiesha hesitated for a second, then carefully printed a name in the box. After the staff had collected the stack of papers, Carmiesha closed her eyes and slept. And in the hour before dawn she slipped from the hospital room with the help of Miss Lady, and silently let herself into the apartment she shared with Mere’maw.
No matter how hard she fronted in the coming years, Carmiesha could never forget that she had given birth and had a child in this world. Even when she tried not to remember, she still couldn’t forget.
Chapter 9
As good as Muddah had handled me in bed, sexing her hadn’t done a damn thing to take my mind off my cousin Smoove. It was almost midnight and time was running out. Granite McKay’s word didn’t mean shit when it came to bitches, drugs, or dollars. Me and Pimp could bust up in T.C.’s safe and steal every dime he had, but handing the cash over to G didn’t guarantee that we’d be getting Smoove back alive.
The thought of going to jail behind this shit crossed my mind real quick, and made me feel even worse. I’d been in lock up a lot, and me and Smoove had done six months in a group home for youth offenders after getting caught riding in a stolen car, so while it wouldn’t be my first bit of contact with the penal system, prison and the NBA didn’t mix and I wasn’t anxious to do no time.
Besides. I was already two years late getting to college. I was twenty, not eighteen like most people who were about to graduate. All that hooky playing, stealing, and getting sent to juvenile jails had set me way back. There was younger cats coming up hard and hungry every day, and I was gonna be an old head compared to the other freshmen hoop stars. My music career was looking up too. I wasn’t performing with Pimp and Smoove that much no more, but I had a solo deal with Ruthless Rap and a brand new mixtape that was creating a big buzz. I wasn’t ready to gamble with all my potential success like that.
And what if some shit went wrong? Pimp was known to get crazy over minor shit. I didn’t know if I could trust him to pull off a job like this without nutting up in the middle of the mix.
I mean, I’d always known Pimp was cold and didn’t give a fuck about nobody, but about a year ago something had gone down that made me question what kinda black shit was really living in my cousin’s heart. Especially when it came to females.
The three of us were hanging out rapping in Hamilton projects with some niggahs Pimp had got tight with on Rikers Island. Them fools had done a push-in and took over some old lady’s apartment, and they were in there cutting crack
and mixing weight. They told us they was waiting for a connect to show so they could handle a little business, so we stepped out to let them do their thing. Pimp had been kicking it with one of the young jawns hanging around the apartment. She was real young and had bumpy skin and slum rings on every finger. She told us she was living next door with her grandmother while her mother was in jail, and she took us up to the roof to smoke some chronic. We was up there getting nice and plottin’ to run us a game on some herbs, when Pimp decided he wanted to bang the girl.
She was young, but she was down for it. She had on a real short Baby Phat dress, and it rose up over her cute yellow butt when she stood on her toes and started kissing all over Pimp’s neck. Pimp put his head back and laughed, and it wasn’t long before he had her on her knees pulling his dick outta his pants. Smoove went over there and got in on it too, but I just leaned against a pillar and smoked up all the chronic, watching them groove.
Smoove was just trying to get him some pussy, but Pimp was rough-handling the damn girl. She started saying ooch, ouch, and shit like that as he squeezed her little titties and twisted her nipples. He gripped her ass real hard and then started slapping it like he was a jockey and she was his horse.
The two of them got that girl butt-ass naked, and it tripped me out when Pimp snatched her by the hips and spun her around. He bent her over and rammed his dick in her so hard she screamed like she had gotten stabbed.
“Ow, motherfucker! You in my ass!”
Pimp held her by the hips, dicking her furiously. “Shut the fuck up and handle it bitch! Get up in that pussy, Smoove.”
They fucked her together like that. Hard and cruel. Thighs touching. Knees bumping. Smoove in her pussy, Pimp in her ass. She was moaning and crying but they was steady fucking. Them niggahs almost blew my high. I turned my back on that shit and smoked the rest of the blunt. When I turned back around I saw blood running down her skinny yellow legs. I didn’t know if it was coming from the front of her or the back, but I felt sick and didn’t want no part of that shit.