Temper grabbed her bags, feeling protected by the stranger. When she turned around, she couldn’t believe that the voice belonged to a five-foot-two gangster-looking chick and not to a much taller woman by the way the shadow had covered her.
“You gotta be careful down here. These fuckers see young girls and see an easy target. I’m Blanca, by the way. Where’s your ride?”
Blanca must have attended a gang meeting before arriving at the bus station. She was wearing a white T-shirt under a creased black Dickies shirt that buttoned at the neck. Her khaki-colored Dickies pants had been cut at the ankles, and the strings hung past her calf-high socks to her brand-new white-and-black Nike Cortez shoes. Her face was partially covered by a black-and-white paisley bandana that covered her forehead from her drawn-on eyebrows to where her bangs began on her head. Her eyes were dark brown like the heavy makeup she had around them, and the crease of her eyes had a black tail made from an eyeliner pencil that stopped at her temples. Above her thin lips, painted black, was a drawn-on mole that was too big to be confused with being real. Although her neck gave proof that she was naturally shades darker brown than Temper, the foundation on her face was white, almost ghostly.
Everything about Blanca read that she was a real-deal chola, even her heel-to-heel stance. It wasn’t until Temper read the fake-looking gang tattoo going across her neck that she was sure Blanca’s gangster image was tied to a Mexican gang.
“So what’s up? You gon’ tell me where your ride is so I can get you there safely, or are you going to keep checking me with your eyes, chola?”
“I don’t have a ride.”
“Big, bad chola bitch is on her own, huh? Well, what side of Vegas are you headed to? I got a few lame-ass vatos picking me up. I can give you a ride or whatever.”
Temper had slept during the entire ride to Vegas to avoid dealing with the pain she was in, so she’d failed to plan her next move. Getting out of California had been her only goal. “Nah, I’m good, but can you do me a favor and buy me a cigar from that tobacco shop? My ID isn’t legit for a few more days,” she lied.
“I got you. Wait, do you know where I can get a sack of mota around here? Those fools I’m with do that heavy shit. I like to float when I’m high.” She laughed.
“Call me Mary fucking Jane. Get the cigar and meet me in the family restroom when you get back. I’ll have it already weighed out. How much are you trying to get?”
“Shit, I’ll take whatever you can spare to sell.”
“Okay, have a hundred dollars with you when you come back, and I’m going to get you straight.”
Temper didn’t plan to sell half of the pound she had stashed in her suitcase. It was her smoke supply. She sold it because the Mexican gangster stepped to the junkie for her. She felt obligated to show her that same kind of love back. She didn’t have scales with her, so she eyeballed the ounce and weighed it out in front of the mirror. When the knocks fell on the restroom’s door, Temper made herself ready for the quick transaction, and she decided to take her up on the ride.
“Damn, what’s up with the change of clothes?” Blanca asked. “You’re not on the run, are you?”
“Hell no. I, um, I started my rag and fucked up my clothes. I had to change. Here you go.” Temper stretched out her arm to hand her the sack of weed.
“Hell yeah, all this for a Franklin? Can I get your number? I need to be a returning customer. Fuck that,” she giggled.
“Shit, being real with you, this isn’t my weed,” she lied just as her Uncle Troy had taught her. He told her never to claim ownership and watch who you’re talking to because they might be the police. “This nigga in Cali stashed it in my bag before the Feds locked him up. I forgot he had put it in here until I got off the fucking bus. I smoke that shit. I don’t sell it. You can have the weed for free. I want the money to get me a room tonight. I’m not feeling too good. I think I need to rest.”
“I can tell. Your face is pale, like you’ve lost a lot of blood. Your period has you looking all messed up. You know what? Fuck a room. You can stay with me. I know the shit sounds weird, but I got a little house not too far from here, and you’re more than welcome to crash a night or two. What did you say your name was again?”
“My name is Temper, and I appreciate the offer, but I’m straight. Can I get that ride you offered me instead?”
“Sure, let’s head out. I’m sure they are tired of waiting for me. So what are you? I mean, like, your nationality?”
“I’m black and Asian.”
“Damn, for real? What are you, Korean?”
“Naw,” she giggled, “I’m Cambodian. Everyone always says Korean.”
“My bad, no disrespect. You just look like one of those chicks at the nail shop with a dark tan, but your voice sounds like a black girl’s. That shit is trippy as fuck. Let me guess, you’re like nineteen, huh?”
“Yes,” Temper lied.
“I hated being nineteen. Too young to buy alcohol, and too old to keep living in the house with my parents. Nineteen was a fucked-up age for me, but how’s it treating you? Oh, there those fools go. They’re parked over there.” She pointed.
Temper followed her finger and thought she was pointing at a new-model car. Instead, they walked up to a dark blue Astro van with tint parked beside it. She couldn’t make out who was in the driver seat or front passenger seat as she climbed in because the sun hadn’t fully risen yet.
“Thanks for the ride. Can you drop me off at whatever motel is the cheapest on the strip?” Temper said as Blanca slid the door closed once she was all the way in.
“Sure, no problem. I’ll take you wherever you need to go after you straighten a few things out for me, Temper Chey. I talked to your bus driver, and I want to know, what’s a minor doing traveling by herself from Los Angeles with no place to stay and weed?”
The heavy Mexican accent she had been speaking with was gone, and she was holding a badge in Temper’s face. Instantly, Temper began crying.
“I think I’m dying. I’m not trying to ignore your badge, but I need to go to the hospital.”
“I agree with you and will make sure you see a doctor, but first I want to talk about this weed and why your guardian got a one-way ticket to Las Vegas for his sixteen-year-old niece?”
“I already told you I didn’t know the weed was in my bags until I got here, and he didn’t have enough for a round-trip ticket. He told me to call if my mom didn’t meet me tonight like she said she would, and he’d get me a ticket back. I didn’t want to sell you the weed. I needed the money for a hotel. I feel real bad. That’s the truth.”
“That’s a lie, and a horrible one at that,” the guy sitting in the front passenger seat announced. He was another pretend Mexican who you could quickly tell was white with a tan. “Exactly how much weed are you transporting from California?” he asked as he made his way to the back of the van to check Temper’s bag while Blanca slapped cuffs on her wrists. In less than thirty seconds, he said, “Oh, shit. It’s not the jackpot, but I’m looking at a brick. I say we get her down to the station now.”
“No. We don’t know if her connect is watching,” Blanca stated.
“I don’t see a tail,” said the driver, speaking for the first time.
“We’ve been working the Greyhound for four months straight, and this is the biggest bust we got. Weed ain’t dope, and that’s the white bitch we’re looking for. Take her to the hotel with the others, Matthew. Let me question her there and see what else we can get out of her.” She turned her attention back to Temper. “If you tell the truth and answer our questions honestly, we will let you go. No arrest and not one night in jail, understood?”
She shook her head as snot dripped from her nose to her shirt. Her eyes felt as though the moisture in them was drying out, and if she exhaled too hard, she was sure she’d spit out fire. Temper’s stomach began to contract as it had when she was in labor, and everything in between her legs began to irritate her. “I think I’m—”
“You think what?” Blanca asked with concern in her voice that wasn’t there before. She could look at the little girl in front of her and could see that something wasn’t right. If she spoke up, though, her partners would chalk it up to her being a woman. Knowing they wanted her off their undercover case, she bit her tongue as she placed her palm to the girl’s forehead. “You’re on fire. Are you okay?”
“No, something is wrong with me,” Temper announced as her body began to shake uncontrollably.
“Damn right something is wrong with you. You’re going to jail, drug dealer,” Matthew stated, making an announcement that wasn’t intended only for Temper. He wanted his estrogen-filled partner to know that her woman’s intuition wasn’t going to interfere with this drug bust. He made a series of unnecessary turns, aiming to hit every bump that he approached before they pulled into the parking lot of a motel in sight of the Greyhound station.
“I’m going to take these cuffs off and let you walk into the room freely, but if you try anything—”
“I won’t. I just want to get this shit over with, and afterward, can you please take me to the hospital?”
The undercover officer nodded her head in agreement, and five steps later, Temper blacked out.
* * *
The phone vibrated in Keith’s pocket every fifteen seconds. If he were still pushing weight, it would be a dream come true. Unfortunately, he was out of the game. No one called his phone, family included. For it to be going off meant there was an emergency at home that needed his attention. His common-law wife of the past twenty or so years never bothered him while he was working. She understood how dangerous his job at the oil refinery was and waited for him to reach out when he deemed it safe.
He excused himself from the meeting as if he weren’t the host. There were too many of his bosses in the room who he aimed to impress. He needed the promotion to safety inspector like he needed air in his lungs. The title was excellent, and the work would be less strenuous. However, it was the pay increase he was gunning for.
For years he’d listened to his wife complain about living in the hood. Though it didn’t bother him and his baby girl Kei’Lani, it drove his wife mad. Everything he loved about her was slipping away with each year she spent in his hood. She didn’t smile as much, and he couldn’t recall the last time they’d lain in bed and laughed together. Keith was thankful his current position kept him on the road 40 percent of the time because her nagging about everything hood and Crips drove him crazy. If he could land this promotion, he could buy her a house in a city along his commute to work and retire her from teaching. The benefit of the promotion for him would be the increase in travel to 70 percent, and that would save him from pretending that he was still in love with her.
“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked with urgency at the sound of her voice.
“It’s . . . it’s Kei’Lani. She’s in critical condition and—” Bridget began to say through sobs, and he cut her off.
“What hospital?”
“They don’t know if she’ll—”
“What fucking hospital is my baby at, dammit?”
“You watch your tone—”
He hung up on her. Even in a time of peril, he couldn’t fake interest in his wife. She irritated him like a thorn in his side or a corn on his pinky toe in tight shoes. She talked shit, too much shit, and he could no longer stand the smell of her. When they were young, he thought it was cute. Having a sassy mouth, an Oreo from the Valley fit perfectly with the kingpin lifestyle he was living. She was sexy, educated, and overly opinionated. She knew a lot about everything, and if she didn’t know it, she’d research the subject until she did. He never foresaw the result of her metamorphosis being her transformation into a selfish, self-absorbed, uppity, and bigmouthed bitch he’d eventually despise. He assumed she’d grow to love his neighborhood as much as he did. She just needed time to adjust to the change. He thought she’d be so busy getting her degree and finding work that she’d stop tripping on their surroundings. He was wrong.
“How am I supposed to study with police sirens going off in every direction every second? I wonder which one of your Crips friends is getting chased this time?” She paused, knowing he would be too pissed to answer, and then said, “You want me to get used to this trash receptacle you call home?” She snickered until her beautiful, big brown eyes transformed into slits. “As a matter of fact, King Crip, when are you going to stop Cripping and grow the fuck up? You can’t sell nickel bags of weed all of your life.”
“Who said I was going to stop doing that?” he growled.
Keith was a Crip. Bridget knew it before she ever sent her first letter to him, and he never mentioned retiring from gangbanging in any of the letters he wrote back. Yeah, she voiced ill feelings about his choice of organization, mostly about how stupid gangbanging was, which left him bewildered, seeing that he had never asked her to join. If she didn’t see the similarities between the sorority she belonged to and street gangs, then it wasn’t for him to be the person who pointed them out.
“The baby in my stomach says it.”
It broke his heart when she threatened to abort their child if he didn’t give up his street life and secure a job to provide for them. Nevertheless, he loved her and would have done anything to keep them together, so he tucked in his flag and became a family man.
Bridget didn’t understand that there was no getting out, especially when someone was in as deep as Keith was. His was a second-generation Crip. His flag was passed down to him and his brother not only from their father, but from two of their uncles who’d lost their lives for banging and believing in everything blue. His mother bled blue. He would be lying if he said that he heard his mother bang Crip out of her mouth, but he was sure she was down for his father and everything that came along with him, the gang included.
He announced he was out of the gang, although none of his homeboys seemed to get the memo, nor did his enemies. Bridget must have dwelled in a land of make-believe if she thought you could shoot up Bloods and then tell them you weren’t a Crip anymore and the beef disintegrated. You couldn’t hold all the hood’s secrets and walk away to hold hands and skip around scot-free. There was always a price, and Keith wasn’t ready to pay it.
California Hospital. Come quick.
Bridget sent the message to his two-way in the midst of her calls, and he was glad he thought to check it. After responding, which was his way of apologizing, he jumped in his Excursion and hit the freeway speeding.
“I know Beast has a hand in this shit,” he said, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. It was a wild assumption, seeing that this incident involved his daughter and not him. However, he had his reasons for pointing the finger at him.
For the last three days, every piece of bad news that had made its way to his ears involved that reckless nigga Beast. First, his protégé Casper was found shot up in Pomona with niggas who Beast had welcomed in their hood against his better judgment. It wasn’t that Keith knew the Pomona Crips were shady, and that was his gripe. He didn’t know shit about them except for one, OG Capone. They used to be tight years ago, almost inseparable. Nonetheless, that changed, and the pair hadn’t spoken a word to each other in years. Crips weren’t created equal. That was a fact he’d tried to drill in Beast’s head, but since Keith was no longer the supreme chief, his words didn’t mean shit.
He didn’t need to know all the details surrounding the Pomona tragedy to know that Beast played a part in it. Instead of pulling up to Big Trice’s house and consoling her over her baby daddy’s loss, he met yellow police tape. The rumor was that she’d committed suicide over losing the love of her life, and Keith didn’t believe it. Suicide didn’t fit her character, and there was a baby involved who needed raising. Not even a broken heart could force her to leave her son’s side. Keith was pissed that everyone could believe the Romeo-and-Juliet tragedy so easily, so he did his own little investigating. He found out that Trice’s moves before her death gave the impres
sion that she was uncovering a truth that wasn’t supposed to get out. Lady Chocolate, Trice’s right-hand woman, told him that Trice was fucked up over Casper, but it seemed she had more important shit to handle.
“What do you mean, more important shit?” Keith asked as he passed her the bottle of gin back after taking a long swallow.
“My bitch was asking questions about nobodies. I answered what I could, but when I asked her why she wanted to know about a dumbass little girl, she got all secretive and bounced.” She swallowed until she needed a break to get oxygen, then passed it back. “I don’t know what’s going down, big homie, but what I do know is that she didn’t kill herself. She loved little man too much to let these streets raise him.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same.” He stood up and handed her the bottle back to let her know it was hers to keep. He asked, “Who was she asking questions about?”
“That little young tramp Temper. You know, junkie-ass Troy’s niece. She ain’t from the set, but that little Asian ho act like it.”
Hearing Temper’s name was beginning to make his ears ring. She was Bridget’s biggest complaint when it came to their daughter. She thought the girl’s friendship was toxic, and he agreed. He just made sure that he never agreed with her when she said it.
One thing was for certain, if Kei’Lani was in trouble, then there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Temper was in trouble too. Bridget had asked him multiple times to have a talk with the girl and to run her off. He hadn’t. His daughter loved the little mixed breed, and Temper was her only friend. He couldn’t see himself tearing them apart. Keith wouldn’t deny that the girls seemed to stay in mischief together. Even so, he felt like the girls needed each other. He knew Temper’s mama and her uncle. He’d gone to school with them. Back then, every nigga prayed Dorothy would let them fuck, and every dope boy wanted to be Troy. It was sad to watch crack fuck them both over. Temper didn’t have anybody left except for her drunk-ass grandmother, and her bond with Kei’Lani gave her value in her world of nothing.
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