by Noire
But about a month before Passion was supposed to have the baby, Isis threw a crazy brick in my game. I was getting with both her and Lani, taking turns on they asses, and she brought me some news that fucked me up. We were sitting in the student union between classes, and I had just been trying to decide which one of them I was gonna bone first that night.
“I had to go to the doctor today,” Isis said with her face all red. She stared at me for a second, then looked down at the floor.
That “doctor” shit scared me. Anytime a female rolled up on me talking like that it meant I’d shot another baby up in somebody’s ass.
“Yeah?” I said, feeling my stomach clench up. “What for?”
She looked up at me. “I got a sore, Thug. On my na-na.”
I did a double take. “A sore?” I glanced around, then whispered out the corner of my mouth, “On your pussy?”
She nodded, then crossed her arms and held her head down. “They tested me for herpes. And you gotta get tested too.”
“Girl! You gave me herpes?”
“No, motherfucker!” she dropped her arms and beefed. “You gave me herpes! Know how I know?”
“How the fuck you know?”
“Cause you gave it to Lani too!”
I stood there feeling real stupid for a minute, and I was glad when my cell phone rang. It was Dave.
“What, niggah!?”
“Yo, Dre. I just seen Passion’s roommate, man.”
“So?”
“So she said Passion started bleeding real bad in class. They had to call the ambulance, man. They took her to the emergency room and something might be wrong with the baby.”
I closed my eyes and ran my hands over my face. More females, more fuckin’ problems. I told Isis to chill and not to worry. I kissed her cheek and promised we’d talk all this shit over later on that night. Then I bounced my ass over to the hospital, but by the time I got there everything was all over.
“Are you the father?” a white nurse asked me when I gave her Passion’s name.
“Yeah,” I said, although I still wasn’t ready to be claiming nothing in writing.
She took me in a back room where Passion was sitting up on a bed. Her face was red, and she was still crying.
“She didn’t make it, Thug,” she whispered, showing me what she was holding in her arms. She let the blanket fall, and I saw a naked baby. It was a girl and she was real small, but she looked perfect.
“Your daughter was stillborn,” the nurse said quietly. “Sometimes these things just happen.”
My daugher? I thought. The little infant was a funny dead color, and she didn’t look nothing much like me or like Passion. But then I reached over and pulled the blanket back some more, and what I saw just about confirmed it.
She had twelve little fingers. Six on each hand. She was my daughter all right. The proof was in the pudding. And at this point there wasn’t no use in denying it.
Chapter 13
Carmiesha was almost finished with college, and if it wasn’t for all her family drama everything else would have been on track.
Mere’maw was depressed a lot these days. It seemed like tragedy just wouldn’t stop dogging her bloodline. The police had found Justice. He’d been beaten and shot, and his body dumped in a drug house somewhere in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. And just a few months ago Rome had been murdered too. In jail. A dude Carmiesha knew from high school named B-Low had been locked up in Greenhaven with Rome. He told her how Rome had gotten caught out there in the yard by his own boys. He said Rome was exercising, doing chin-ups or something when they bum-rushed his ass, shanking him all in the neck and chest and even in both of his eyes.
“I heard his boy set him up, Muddah,” B-Low said. “That niggah wanted him poked in the eyes.” B-Low wasn’t no snitch, but he liked Muddah and was disgusted by that foul shit. He knew how tight she was with the family of her brother’s killer. “They said it was that dark-skinned cat in your building that he used to scramble for. You know who I mean. He put the order out all the way from another joint. But they still heard him loud and clear.”
Carmiesha had cried for days after hearing that, hating that deranged niggah even more than she thought possible. She was hoping somebody would take his ass out in jail. If she had the connections and the money she would have ordered it done without blinking her eyes. But she didn’t. The most she could do was hate him and try not to talk too bad about him in front of Noojie. She kept the info about Rome’s killer and what had been done to him to herself too, because she knew Mere’maw would have only grieved harder if she gave her the horrible details.
Justice had been dead in that building too long to even think about having a real funeral, and they couldn’t afford to give Rome one, so she and Mere’maw had agreed to let the state cremate him. She hadn’t been real close with her brothers, but they were still her brothers. She felt even more alone and on her own in the world now. Daddy dead, mama dead. Both brothers dead. Mere’maw was really all she had, and for months Carmiesha clung to the old lady, following her around the small apartment afraid of what would happen to her if Mere’maw got sick or died. She walked around worried and biting her nails most of the time.
And to make things worse, Jahlil was acting up as usual. He was getting so much bigger, and so much more temperamental. One day while they were on their way to the Brooklyn Academy of Music he started in with all that “daddy” shit again, and Carmiesha got exasperated because no matter what she told him, he was never satisfied.
“Little boy! I already told you! Your father is in college! He’s gonna graduate in a couple of years and then he’ll probably be playing in the NBA!”
Jahlil’s eyes had lit up then, and a rare smile was on his face. “For real? Aw, man! I can’t wait until he’s on television. What school is he playing for right now? What’s his name, Carmiesha. What number is he wearing? Does he know I’m a baller too?”
Carmiesha bit her lip. She had a feeling she’d just made a big mistake. “I can’t remember what school he’s in right now, Jahlil. I think he got transferred around a few times anyway.”
“But you my real mother. Can’t you find him if you wanna? Won’t schools and stuff tell you where he is since you my mother and he’s my father?”
“You know I signed them papers saying I wouldn’t try to contact you or tell you anything about us, Jahlil. The only reason I get to see you and spend time with you is because Mr. and Ms. Washington are good people, and they wanted you to know me. They’re doing both of us a favor, Jahlil. So please, baby. Please. Can we just hang out together for a while and leave everybody else out of it?”
She felt bad when she saw his cute little chocolate face fall into a frown, but that’s the way it had to be. It wasn’t doing either one of them a damn bit of good going back and forth over the identity of Jahlil’s father. In fact, it was stressing her the hell out. Carmiesha had already sworn she would never tell him about her rape. And since the adoption papers were sealed, he’d never find out whose name she had written on his birth documents.
“That’s messed up, Carmiesha,” Jahlil said, snatching his hand away. “All I wanna know is where I can find my daddy. Other people know who they daddy is. Even if they don’t live with him, at least they know his name. I don’t know why everybody keeps hiding him from me. One day I’ma find him all by myself.”
“You have a good life, Jahlil!” Carmiesha exclaimed. She was getting exasperated, but she didn’t want him to know it. She’d lived her whole life without her murdering-ass father, and it hadn’t killed her. Not having a father wasn’t what had killed Rome or Justice either. Not having a brain and goals and ambition is what had done them in.
“I wanna know who my father is, Carmiesha,” Jahlil said coldly, folding his arms across his chest. “And if you don’t tell me that, then you can’t tell me nothing else neither.”
Carmiesha didn’t even answer him. Between school, her part-time job, and taking care of Mere
’maw, her head was just too full. She should have told Jahlil his father was dead from the very beginning, she realized. If she had just done that, then she wouldn’t have had to keep spinning no tale all these years, and wouldn’t be going through all this drama right now.
“Jahlil, don’t act ugly like that, baby. You shouldn’t let some person you don’t even know come between us and mess up what we got. I love you, Jahlil. You know that right?”
Carmiesha almost flinched when she looked at the boy for his answer. He was staring at her with something dangerous and familiar in his eyes, and love didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.
Chapter 14
There was a real cool cat who worked in the gym named Sly.
He looked like he mighta been one of them slick hustling brothers back in the day. You know the kinda cat who took time and care with his appearance and his gear, even if it wasn’t nothing but a maintenance worker’s uniform he was profiling.
Sly had started laying his rap on me right after they tried to bring them gambling charges on me. One of my jawns got jealous over some chick who didn’t even mean nothing to me, and snitched like a bitch. I didn’t get nothing official, but I did get some restrictions tossed on me off the record, and every damn body seemed to know about it. Coach had me cleaning out the equipment room as part of my punishment, and I was outside hosing down ball bags and disinfecting mildewed nets when Sly came up carrying two dirty mops.
“Whattup, man?”
I looked over at him and nodded. A star athlete like me was already mad as hell cause I had to do some menial shit like clean out a supply closet. Having some janitor all up in my grill while I was doing it would only make it worse.
“You got caught up in some shit again, huh?”
I looked at him again. Harder this time. Niggah sure was pressed out tight for a fuckin’ janitor. His uniform was starched with hard creases, and his sneaks was spotless.
I made a get-the-fuck-outta-my-face sound. I didn’t know if he was talking about that gambling shit, or the craziness that had gone down with that nut Passion after she bought a hot gat and tried to shoot up the whole gym.
“I’on’t know what you talkin’ bout, man.”
He just nodded and propped the mops up against the door. “I bet that’s your answer for a whole lotta shit. Used to be mine too.”
I cut off the water, and he turned his back on me and started pulling a big metal bucket from under a sink. “Fuck you,” I mumbled. This niggah didn’t know who he was dealing with.
“Nah, niggah,” he said, turning around. “You the one bout to get fucked. And when they get your ass, make sure you come on back and see me. I’ll hook you up with a job, man. With benefits and ere’thang. I’ll even throw in one of my uniforms too. It’ll fit. Cause you and me, we wear the same size.”
Sly tried to get in my head every chance he got. Every time I fucked up he would offer me a hook-up. Remind me that the maintenance department was looking for a few good men.
I noticed he was around at most of the home games too. He would be right down front hyped as fucked, getting in the game from the sidelines.
“Who dat niggah supposed to be?” I asked Blackie Broadwater, one of the senior forwards on our team.
Blackie laughed. “Niggah you don’t know who that is? That’s Sylvester “Sly” Jones, man. He’s an all-around athlete. Football, track, basketball…they used to call him the black Victor Hanson. But then that niggah got kicked off the hoop team, ya know? Lost his scholarship and got passed over in the draft. He beat Jordan out for the Naismith in ’83 and was the NCAA Player of the Year in ’84. He’s a bad hooper, man. He just let all kinds of stupid shit fuck his career up, that’s all.”
I started watching Sly real close after that.
And that niggah was watching me too.
It wasn’t long before we was rapping and hitting the weights when he wasn’t working. Sly was in good shape for an old head. Something about him reminded me of T.C. though, and sometimes that fucked with my head.
“You oughta leave them chop shops alone, Thug,” he told me one day. “That little bit of money you getting from Al ain’t shit compared to how you gone be rolling after the draft, man.”
“Why you in my business, dog? What the fuck you know about what I got going with Al?’
Sly had laughed real loud. “Man, Al been around since before you was born. I stole enough cars for that fat white boy to open up a fuckin’ dealership. What you doin’ ain’t nothing new. It’s stupid as fuck. But it ain’t new.”
And I felt real stupid too.
Especially after Al got busted and sang like a bitch, snitching out Blackie Broadwater and about five other seniors who’d been fattening his pockets the whole time they’d been in college. I spent the next month sweating like a motherfucker. Wondering if one of those cats was gonna let my name fall out they mouth. Wondering if I was gonna be the next fool to get snatched up by the po-po and get sent packing by Coach Boyhem.
When a month had passed and I still hadn’t gotten knocked, I started breathing a little easier and promised myself I was done with the thug-life for good. At least while I was in college, yo.
But my problems wasn’t solved cause that jawn Isis was still tripping on me hard. She was right. I did have herpes, but if Lani hadn’t had that shit too, I never woulda copped to giving it to Isis.
Lani just cried. That was all she could do.
“I trusted you, Thug. You told me you cared about me, and I really, really, trusted you.”
She made a niggah feel real bad. And I guess I deserved it. But I did care about her. Lani was a lot like Muddah to me. Just clean in the spirit, where my shit was black and crusty. I guess that’s why I liked her. She was every innocent thing that I had never been.
But a month later she dropped a bomb on me too.
“I’m pregnant. And I’m leaving school. I’m going back to Kentucky to have the baby, and my people are going to help me raise it.”
Good thing I was sitting on her bed when she said all that, or my gangsta ass woulda been rolling around on the floor. Not another baby, that was all I could think. Damn. Not another one.
And now Lani was staring at me like she hated me and telling me she was carrying my baby too? I didn’t know what to say to her. The look on her face told me she wasn’t trying to hear nothing anyway.
“Uhm, so when you leaving?”
She stood up. “In a few days.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry, Lani.”
“Is that right?”
I nodded again. “Yeah, girl. That’s right. I shoulda left you alone, ya know? Let some nice square brother in the accounting program come sweep you off your feet.”
She smiled a little and smacked my arm. “I’m not into square brothers. But I’ll take an accountant, though. But I’m not blaming you for all my sinning. I’m just mad at myself for being stupid enough to sleep with you and not make you use protection. Now I have to live with that.”
I didn’t say shit.
“You ran that line,” she said and chuckled, even though I heard pain all in her, “about not being able to feel it right, and I went for it. It’s probably more my fault than yours, cause you don’t have to go home and show up at your daddy’s church with your stomach poked out in front of you.”
“Lani,” I said, grabbing her hands and pulling her down on my lap. “I’ma ask you this, just because I wanna know. Not because I’m telling you what to do, cool?”
She waited.
“Since your family is gonna give you drama and you in school and thangs, did you think about maybe not having the baby?”
I saw a tear slip from her eye as she nodded. “I did. I thought about it a lot. But I was raised in the church, you know? My daddy preached against abortion all the time. There’s worse things than being pregnant, Thug. I’d rather deal with a baby than go through the rest of my life worried about my soul.”
I rubbed her back and held her while she wept,
but I couldn’t even relate to that stuff she was talking. I had never really thought too much about my soul. I was too busy out there on the streets handling my pockets, cause a niggah had to eat and do his thing. Where I came from, niggahs didn’t start worrying about their souls until they were dead.
“Don’t cry, Lani,” I kept whispering. “Baby please don’t cry.”
I kept my hands moving on Lani, and she felt real good to me. I kissed her neck and licked the salty tears off her cheeks, then found her soft lips and slipped my tongue between them.
“You got some nerve,” she said as I stretched her out on the bed. “First you give me some nasty disease, then you get me pregnant. And now you want to have sex with me on top of all that too?”
“Yeah, baby,” I whispered, my teeth tugging gently on her nipple through her shirt. “Thug knows how bad he hurt you, and he’s sorry. Now give him a few minutes so he can make you feel good.”
Chapter 15
It had taken her three years of working full-time and going to college at the same time, but she’d done it. At the age of twenty-two, Carmiesha was officially a business owner, and as she stood outside of Locks of Love with Ya-Yo she couldn’t stop grinning.
“It’s all yours,” Ya-Yo said, reaching over to give her a kiss. Carmiesha kissed him back and laughed.
“Now all I gotta do is perm enough hair to pay the damn bills!”
Ya-Yo eyed her down. “Oh, you gone make the money, baby. Believe that. You know what you doing when it comes to hair, and you got the business education to back it up. I’m proud of you, Carmiesha. Not a whole lot of sistahs in Harlem got the head or the heart to do what you doing, baby.”
Carmiesha felt good with Ya-Yo standing beside her. He was one of them guys that a lot of sistahs overlook as being too nice. But she appreciated that about him. She had some deep feelings for him too. She might not have loved him the way she loved Dre, but who said she needed to. Ya-Yo brought stability to her life and he was the kinda man who would die before he let his woman or his kids do without. Not that he had any.