by Noire
“Look at me!” she barked into the mic and demanded as she pulled her long red hair back from her face and made sure everybody could see what she needed them to see. “I said, look at me!” she yelled and pointed into the crowd. “Y’all see my face? Y’all see my scar? It’s ugly as hell, ain’t it?”
“Noooo!” people in the crowd screamed. “No!”
“Yeah it is!” Candy shouted back. “It’s ugly and it’s permanent! It’s always gonna be there. I’ma take this scar with me all the way to my grave! And you know why?”
She peered out at all the young girls with a look of quiet seriousness on her beautiful face.
“Because I was just like y’all a minute ago! I was hardheaded! I was caught up in the hype and chasing the lights! I was silly and naïve! Greedy! Impatient! Attracted to the madness! Tricked out on the money, the fame, and the game!”
The whole gym was in an uproar as people clapped and whistled at the pure truth Candy was spitting down on them.
“My little sister lost her life because of this industry bullshit! My best friends Dom and Vonnie died because we got blinded by this impossible dream! So I’ma need y’all to be way smarter than we was!” Candy hollered into the mic as the young girls of Harlem screamed and clapped.
“I’ma need y’all to keep your eyes open. To see straight through the fake glitter and the gold in this industry! I’ma need y’all to have vision, and direction, and to recognize this shit for what it really is—a trap baby! It’s a booby-trap! An ambush! A young girl’s graveyard! Chasing ballas will kill you! Do you hear me? Chasing dollars and drugs will kill you! But check it out, little sisters. What happened to me and my girls don’t have to happen to you! Y’all can be better than we was. Y’all can do better than we did! Y’all got a scar-face sister like me standing up here today to make sure you don’t step on none of those landmines and booby-traps that blew our lives away! I’m standing here today to give you a little bit of knowledge so you can turn it into a whole lot of POWER!”
The crowd went off. Every hand in the joint was clapping. The young girls were screaming and the dudes in the house were all whistling. Candy’s man Knowledge Graham was standing in the background just a’ watching her. He was a fine-ass investment baller who everybody said was rich as hell. They were a power-couple who had clawed their way up outta the trenches in a real rags-to-riches story. I could tell how much he loved her just by the way he looked at her, and when all the clapping had just about died down, he was still putting his hands together and giving it up for his girl.
Candy got back on the mic and called five teenage girls up on the stage and challenged them to freestyle a rap or a song by finishing the sentence, “My life has meaning because…” The first teenage girl got up there and took the mic and started getting hers in. She had a sweet face and a strong voice, and the lyrics falling out of her mouth were full of gutter street pain mixed with hope and determination.
“Look at Taleah!” Trey said from over my shoulder. I glanced up at him and saw that he was smiling real big and had a look of pride on his face like the young girl was his daughter or something.
“She’s good,” I nodded and agreed. “Real good. Who is she?”
Trey beamed up at the stage. “Taleah’s an ‘around the way’ lil sis that I look out for when I can. She used to hang out with my goddaughter Princess before she overdosed on some bad shit and died. Taleah started hanging around the Crossover a lot after that.”
Lil Mama was up on there on that mic cutting up hard and stealing the show. The girls who got up there behind her were pretty good too, but none of them could match her delivery or her flow. When the contest was over Candy gave all five girls one of her business cards and invited them to join the Girl Power! mentoring program she held over at Knowledge is Power Productions.
The Crossover was on a happy buzz by the time Candy got off the stage, but you know how niggahs are, and just a few minutes later some kind of scuffle broke out near the door.
I peered through the small group of people who were crowding around. I saw two girls and I recognized one of them. They looked just alike, except one was taller and older than the other one. They younger chick was crying and the older one looked mad as hell.
“I thought I told you to stay your stupid ass away from here!” the older one screamed on the teenager as she grabbed her by the back of her shirt and yanked her toward the door. “Get the fuck outta here!” she spit, pushing the young girl around as the kid looked up at her like she was mad as hell. I didn’t know what was going on, but I could see Big Sister wasn’t no joke. Every time I’d ever seen this chick she was flyer than fly, and I couldn’t understand why she would wanna be down with a dude like Flex. She was a lace-front junkie with curls falling down her back. She had on a real tight jean jumpsuit that fit her ass like a second skin, and her two-thousand-dollar Manolo Blahniks were just like a pair I’d seen Beyoncé sporting at a basketball game.
“Wassup, Lil Lee?” Trey bust through the crowd out of nowhere. He towered tall over the two girls and everybody else in range as he quickly took control of the scene. “You came out to get your D.I.V.A on today?” he said like they shared a joke.
Joke, hell. That chick Lil Lee hit him with a look so hot and venomous that her cat-eyes narrowed all the way down to slits. “Don’t fuckin’ play with me, Trey. I came to get my sister up outta this shit hole. Didn’t nobody give her permission to come up in here, but hold up. When it comes to you having your way with little girls you don’t need no fuckin’ body’s permission right?”
The sounds of, “Ooooooh,” rose in the crowd like she had burned Trey a big one.
Trey never dropped his smile.
“C’mon, mami,” he said easily. “Can’t you come down off ya gangsta horse for just one day? Today is for the kids. All of them. Let your sister stay. I took good care of your daughter, didn’t I?” He gave her a real slick smirk. “I’ll take care of your sister too.”
And then he added, “Or anybody else you make me take care of.”
Lil Lee looked like she was ready to start throwing blows. Instead, she nodded, then snatched her sister up again and headed out the door. “A’ight, Trey. A’ight, you muthafucka, you. Remember, you gots to bring ass to get ass! You better watch your fuckin’ back, son. You heard? Me and you got a whole lotta unfinished bizzness. You better watch your fuckin’ back.”
Trey laughed. “I will, baby, but you better watch more than that, Lil Lee. You better watch more than that.”
CHAPTER 12
It was getting late when fourteen-year-old Taleah left the Crossover Community Center and walked back to her apartment building. An alarm was ringing loudly as she entered the lobby, signaling that once again that the elevator was stuck between floors, probably from some hoodlum kicking the shit outta the exterior door.
Sighing, the young girl headed towards the building’s stairwell. She held her breath against the familiar onslaught of pissy air as she pushed against the door and began dashing up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Taleah made it all the way up to the third floor before she was forced to take some air into her burning lungs, and after inhaling one deep breath she sped up to the fifth floor. Exhaling with relief, she pushed through the exit door, turned the corner, and to her horror and surprise, she ran dead smack into a monster from her nightmares.
“Sup, Taleah,” the tall, skinny dude with the cornrows said as he stared at her from a pair of cold, merciless eyes. Taleah was mute with fear as he pushed up on her and forced her back through the door and into the pissy stairwell.
She had been terrified of running into him ever since the night her best friend Princess had been found dead and she was forced to tell Trey where Princess had copped her drugs.
Unbeknownst to Taleah, she had been spotted spittin’ fiyah on the stage at the Crossover Community Center earlier in the day. No, not by an A&R agent or by a big-time executive of a music label, but by a chick who was so diabolical and cold
-blooded that she had busted up in a church and spit down into the casket of a pregnant thirteen-year old girl, and then viciously flung a handful of crack vials into the face of the corpse.
“I want you to get that lil bitch Taleah,” Lil Lee had placed a call and barked an order to the undisputed most brutal member of the Divine Nine. “I want you to fuck that stank ho up!”
Lil Lee pictured the way Trey had sat with his arm wrapped protectively around young Taleah at Princess’s funeral that day, and how he had pushed her safely to the floor when the gats came busting out. That niggah was gonna learn that nobody he cared about was safe from the grip of Lil Lee. Nobody.
Locked in the glare of a murderer’s eyes, Taleah trembled. She had feared this day was coming. She had dreamed of it. She knew Trey had made the wrong drug dealer pay for Princess’s death, and now her best friend’s real killer had come to snuff her life out too. Tears fell down her cheeks. Her entire body was stiff with terror as the nightmare from her dreams fumbled in the pocket of his hoodie and came out with two small vials.
“You know the rules, baby. Around here snitch-bitches get all kinds of stitches,” the young man said quietly as he backed her up against a cold wall. “But that ain’t always true.” He put his head back and laughed, and the cruel, eerie sound bounced off the concrete walls and echoed throughout the empty stairwell.
“Sometimes snitches don’t get stitches,” he told her as he pulled out a clear glass stem and started packing it with crystals. “Sometimes them muh’fuckas just get . . . high. ”
$$$$$
It was real late when we got back to Trey’s apartment, and the house was so quiet that I could tell right away that Chiney wasn’t there. I didn’t have to wonder where she was because I already knew she was somewhere out on the streets chasing her girl Venus and chasing a high too. I understood how much it hurt Trey to see Chiney getting strung out on that street shit, but my mama had been a stone-cold junkie and I didn’t think barring Venus from his crib was gonna stop his sister from getting her fix.
“You hungry?” Trey asked me as we walked into the living room. I plopped down on the couch. “Yeah,” I said. “A little bit.”
I sat there while he went into the kitchen. I leaned my head back when I heard the water running, and the refrigerator door opening and closing. He was rattling pots and pans, and pulling drawers opening and rumbling through silverware. I wanted to get up and go help him fix whatever he was fixing, but I was just too exhausted to move.
I must have dozed off, because when I opened my eyes again Trey was setting a Cherry-wood serving tray on the coffee table. Two small candles were glowing from the tray, and he’d even folded two napkins in a cute little design. He’d fixed us a plate of Ritz crackers with grape jelly spread on top of them, and he’d sliced up some strawberries and apples and put them on a separate plate.
“Yum,” I said, sitting up with a smile. “That looks real good.”
Trey grinned, “It’s just a little something for you to sleep on so your stomach ain’t making a whole lotta noise tonight. You know the walls are thin as hell, and I ain’t tryna hear your stomach growling all night long.” He sat down next to me and reached for my hand.
I hesitated for a moment.
I swear I tried not to, but I automatically thought about Gino and how he used to hold my hand and say grace over our food. It used to make me feel so good when my man did that. Like we were bonded in the world together and he was asking God to bless us both.
Trey was still reaching for me, and slowly I gave him my hand. He looked at me with real patient eyes, then lowered his head slightly and began to pray.
“Father in Heaven, the Master of our world and the Owner of the Day of Judgment. Bless this food and those that are about to receive it. Allow it to nourish and sustain our bodies and souls. Amen.”
I didn’t realize how hungry I was. I tore into them jelly crackers like they were little hunks of fried shrimp. Trey ate a few crackers too, and he played with a couple of strawberries, but he pushed most of the food toward me and told me to knock myself out.
While I was busy eating Trey slid down to the end of the couch near my feet, and leaned back into the plush sofa. I crossed my legs at the ankles and nibbled on the sweetest strawberries I’d tasted in a long time.
I looked over at him and I was surprised to see how intensely he was staring into my eyes. I got kinda embarrassed and coughed nervously, and then out of nowhere I started rambling off with the mouth.
“I know I already said this a whole bunch of times before, but thanks for letting me stay here with y’all. I mean, I appreciate being here, I just don’t wanna cause no trouble between you and your girl.”
I wanted to kick myself. Now why the hell did I say that?
But Trey played it real cool. “My girl? What girl?”
“Oh you know what girl,” I said, thinking about the fuck noises I had heard coming from his room the night he was over there pounding her pussy and blowing her fucking back out. I felt my cheeks flush as I remembered how I had fantasized that it was me he was over there deep-drilling, and I remembered how I had gotten my pussy nice and sticky as I masturbated to the sounds of them fucking and beat my own stuff up deliciously.
And then I remembered how ashamed I had been after I had nutted all over my fingers and then heard the two of them arguing. That chick had been steady hollering, “No! What’s my name, Trey? Call me by my fuckin’ name!”
Man, that chick had been raging on fire when she busted on me out in the hallway and asked me who I was. And after I told her, I would never forget how I felt when she stared at me and said, “Oh, so you’re Juicy, huh? Well since you’re the bitch whose name this niggah keeps moaning out while he’s fucking, I guess you’re the bitch he really wants to be with then!”
All of this flashed through my mind as I stared into Trey’s dark, intense eyes, and I could tell that he was remembering that shit too.
“Yo, I don’t know what you talking about, Juicy. I don’t even know no other girls,” he joked and bust out laughing. Then he reached over and tickled my feet with his big hand, making me giggle too.
“Yeah, uh-huh. Remember, the walls are thin Trey, and you sure as hell knew that chick that night. Inside and out.”
“Oh, you real funny,” he said, grinning. “But don’t worry about Debbie. Ain’t nothing going on between me and her no more.”
I gave him the “niggah please” look.
“What? You don’t believe me?”
I shrugged. He was rubbing my feet in both his hands now, and I squirmed a little trying to ignore the sudden wave of heat that was being stoked up in me. “I’m not saying you’re lying . . . but I could tell that girl was really into you.”
His eyes bore into mine as his sexy lips moved.
“So you can tell all that,” he said, pressing his thumb into the arch of my foot and teasing me with small strokes, “but you still can’t tell when a man is really into you?”
A ball of fire flashed through me. I squirmed and squeezed my thighs tightly together. I didn’t wanna feel what Trey was making me feel. I loved it and I was damn near feening for it, but I didn’t want it.
“Trey—” I said, “I’m just really tired.”
He rubbed my feet once more lightly, and then he nodded and let them go.
“I know you are,” he said quietly. “You’ve been through a whole lot, Juicy. And I ain’t talking about just today either.” He stood up, and I couldn’t stop my nasty eyes from zooming straight to the bulge that had formed in the front of his pants. “Come on,” he said, reaching for my hand. He pulled me easily to my feet and looked down at me. We were only inches apart and just his manly scent had every nerve in my body screaming.
“You ready for bed?”
I swallowed hard. His six-foot-six inch muscled-up body damn sure had me ready for something.
I don’t know what came over me, or what the hell I was thinking, but I just stepped into him.
I stepped straight up on him, crushing my titties to his chest as my arms went around him, and then his arms went around me too.
I felt like a starving woman who had accidently stumbled into a food fest.
Trey was all man as I pressed myself into his rocked up chest and felt the hardness of his thighs pressing against mine. I don’t know who went for it first, but I think we met halfway. His lips were on mine, and I opened my mouth to him. Our kisses were hot and greedy. You couldn’t tell who wanted it more. Who was loving it more. I melted in the middle as his tongue probed my mouth. He teased me with it, giving and taking at the same time, fucking me orally just the way I needed it.
“Juicy,” he whispered, pulling away even as I was pushing forward and going in for more. “You ain’t ready for this, baby.”
I knew he was tryna think about me but I was on fire. The only way he was gonna get me off him was if he poured a bucket of cold water over my head.
I stood on my tiptoes and reached for him again. My arms wound around his neck as my nipples tingled against his chest. My hips started moving on their own, grinding on the boulder that stood out boldly from his groin.
Trey cupped my ass with both hands and squeezed. He pulled me to him, letting me work my hips the way I wanted to. I almost came as I moved back and forth against his dick, scraping my clit on his hardness through our clothes.
I found his lips and nipped the bottom one gently between my teeth. I sucked it the way a baby sucked a nee-nee, with my eyes rolling back in my head as I inhaled the scent of sweet strawberries on his breath.