A Deeper Love Inside

by Sister Souljah

  I knew Riot wanted to know the details of my hustle even though I didn’t know and she wouldn’t tell me the details of hers. What was I supposed to tell her? I didn’t want to tell her that I was the cigarette supplier for two crackheads, who I met at the homeless shelter where my mother used to stay in a bed beside 999 other homeless women. How could I? I wasn’t ashamed. I just wasn’t proud of it.

  I sell the cartons to the crackheads cash on delivery. I don’t listen to no mumbling, no begging, or no excuses. They had a built-in audience of buyers between the shelter and the blocks. Plenty of smokers couldn’t afford a pack of cigarettes and at the same time couldn’t resist. Swearing that their next cigarette was their last, they’d cough up, up to a dollar for one.

  The crackhead tour guides who went searching for Momma with me that night worked hard. I told myself, even if they disappeared, I had my cash up front. Of course, I also knew that the shelter had more and more hungry and addicted women each day who would love to sell loosies on the low. When I delivered the cartons to them, I also used it as an opportunity to look for Momma.

  “You’re coming up,” Riot said, calmly and quietly complimenting me. “Plus all of the cartons you already had,” she added. I could see her mind moving around the calculations. Riot and I are both swift and sharp at counting. Numbers are way better than vocabulary words, I thought as Elisha suddenly ran through my mind.

  “What are you smiling at?” Riot asked me.

  “Nothing, how’s our investment going?” Purposely, I kept it business.

  “It’s moving. Do you need money? Did you give Momma your money? Or did you spend it on those designer sneakers? She pointed to my Prada.

  “What you know about these?” I asked her, leaning and admiring my kicks.

  “When anything is expensive, everyone can just tell,” Riot said.

  “My money is straight. I’m just checking on our investment so I could know what to expect,” I told her.

  “I doubled it,” she said casually. A huge eight, comma, zero, zero, zero flashed in my mind.

  “But I had to reinvest some of that,” Riot added. “But if you really need it, I could pay out your original four thousand,” Riot offered.

  “My two thousand,” I corrected her. “We were fifty-fifty on four,” I said. “You’re the one working the money,” I said, being honest about Riot’s efforts. She smiled.

  “I wish you would come back upstate with me,” she said mixing emotion in our business. “Everyone who ever met you always remembers you. If I run into someone, they ask how you’re doing.”

  “I gotta take care of Momma,” I said. “Momma comes first.” I wanted to be clear and Riot’s eyes revealed that she got the message.

  “Did you find a rehab for her? Otherwise you’re gonna eat up all your profits,” Riot said, trying to convince.

  “Leave my fifty percent of our investment in,” I said. “I wanna see it grow some more.” I ignored the rehab talk.

  “Okay, long as you know there is some risk involved,” Riot warned.

  “I trust you with our money,” I said sincerely. Riot’s eyes widened some.

  “Trust is feelings and actions stretched out over time. Porsche, I loved when you said that to me,” she said, seeming perfectly warm in the cold.

  It seemed Riot preferred Manhattan over Brooklyn. Maybe it was because her first stop in Brooklyn was the Bed-Stuy projects. Maybe it was the furious fight I had with my cousin, or the encounter with Momma in the round cave. Whatever the case, it was midnight now. We were in lower Manhattan in the midst of some extra strange Halloween night parade. I was at ease in the mixture. There was so many things to pay attention to, no one was paying attention to me or us, especially the plenty of police patrolling.

  Setting a date for our next meet up and re-up, Riot suggested, “Two months from tonight. I can flip the money good if I have sixty days just like this time.” Soon as we were both bout to agree on it, we both realized that would be New Year’s Eve. To avoid what we knew would be a police presence times one hundred, we switched it to January instead, and both looked like we thought that next year was a long way away.

  “Let’s take a picture together. Then let’s take our photos apart,” Riot suggested in front of one of the many money-making photographers milling in the midnight madness.

  “Photos . . .” I repeated. “Should we?” I asked aloud but was really talking to myself.

  “Yep, we should. It will just be one picture of a masked pretty kitty and one picture of an African white girl,” Riot said. We laughed.

  I rolled my black MAC lipstick over my lips to freshen up. I struck a dancer’s pose under the photographer’s powerful light and the glare of the street lamps. After the flash, I posed with Riot after she posed alone. She faced the camera without a mask or makeup. She held her head up, chin out and her blonde cornrows were glistening, as she wore what I now knew was her version of an African dress.

  Chapter 35

  Four hundred thirty-five days after I escaped lockdown, I picked up the cuffs and locked Momma’s hands first and then her feet to an iron pipe connected to our steel radiator, which was cemented to the floor. She was kicking and cursing. Once she was locked, I stuffed a clean pair of gym socks in her mouth so no one would hear her yelling. It didn’t matter. No one would hear her anyway. She came crawling into the underground after midnight, and Big Johnnie’s store was closed. Still, I needed her to shut up. Through every episode of the crack house, her disappearances, her coming back wearing a hospital bracelet, her getting locked up for a few days, her reappearances, she used her “mother tone” against me, saying, “I’m the mother. You’re the child.” She would make me feel guilty for shit she did. Then she would make me feel guilty for pointing it out. She would promise me things, forget her promises, and call me a liar for reminding her of what they were. After a whole year, she still wouldn’t talk straight to me, honestly. Everything was a joke or a scream or denial.

  Out of all those days, 435 to be exact, she had spent only twenty-one nights with me, and, not really with me. I mean we were in the same room. I could see her, but I couldn’t feel her or feel anything coming from her. She had me thinking crazy thoughts, like maybe I was adopted and that’s why it was easy for her to treat me this way. On the coldest nights and the biggest holidays, I thought of dying, just fucking killing myself. I didn’t because I wasn’t sure how many days it would take her to come and discover my body. Maybe I would be dust by then and she would just sweep me under the bed or dump me in the trash, or worse, just leave me there.

  “You’re gonna listen to me now, Momma,” I said, looking directly into her bulging eyes. “I promised to take care of you. So far it’s only been you stopping me from caring for you,” I said.

  It seemed like Momma had something to say, but her teeth, tongue, and lips were just mashing down on the cotton socks. The few sounds that escaped were like notes from a harmonica.

  “I wanna take you to see Poppa. He’s locked down but he’s not dead, thankfully . . .,” I said softly. “Remember when I bought you the bus ticket for a visitation to go up north with the other ladies? You know I wanted to ride up with you and see Poppa. You know I couldn’t. You knew why. I took you to the bus stop myself where all of the ladies and families gathered to ride upstate. You ditched me. I don’t know where you disappeared to so fast. I blew the whole afternoon looking for you, Momma,” I explained. I wanted her to understand what had pushed me to this moment.

  “I know you wanna see Poppa. I even know you wanna look good like you normally do, so Poppa can smile at you like he always did.”

  Momma’s tears came spilling out. I had been crying already, so now at least we were feeling the same way. Before, it seemed like she wasn’t feeling too much at all.

  “Check these out, Momma.” I showed her the Gucci heels that me and Elisha picked out together. I had told him how stylish Momma is, and that she needed an outfit to attend a special event. We had fun
on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan that Friday. After I said that me and Momma wore the same dress size, but not shoes, Elisha told me, “Try on the dresses before you buy one.”

  I performed a fashion show for him, while the Gucci store salesperson grew more and more aggravated because we were unaccompanied kids. It’s crazy how people think young and broke go together. It doesn’t. At twelve years young I pulled out my money pile and hypnotized them. Used to seeing those plastic gold, platinum, or black credit cards, I knew my cash excited them and made them act right. These were the first fashions I spent my hard-earned money on. Since it was for Momma to go see Poppa, I knew it was worth it. Also, I thought Momma wouldn’t visit Poppa, although her heart wanted to, unless she could do it like the caked-up Lana would do it.

  Momma was squirming. I thought she wanted to say something nice about the heels. But maybe she would say something mean? I rushed to pull the dress out from its cloth hanger bag. I held it against my body to show her, and pulled the heels near my feet to show her how perfectly the outfit goes together. After I knew that she could see that it was top shelf, I removed the socks from her mouth.

  “Porsche, that dress is gorgeous,” Momma said. “And, if you don’t take these fucking cuffs . . .” I pushed the socks back in.

  “So here’s what we have to do, Momma,” I said, like a girl putting together a grocery list. “We have to get you clean. Clean on the outside and inside. I’ll be right here with you. Once you get clean, me and you could do almost anything. Momma, I have twenty thousand dollars.”

  Momma stopped squirming and resisting. I had her full attention now. “My money is not in here. I hid it, so you wouldn’t be tempted. Once you get clean, we are gonna take care of everything we should’ve tooken care of a year ago,” I promised her. It was the truth.

  “Momma, can we work together?” I asked her, pulling the socks out.

  “You lost your fucking mind,” she shouted. I pushed the socks back in.

  I picked up a piece of pink chalk so I could write on the small blackboard I purchased on Mr. Sharp’s advice.

  “Organize your thoughts, young Santiaga” Mr. Sharp once said to me. “After you organize your thoughts, organize your plans. Knock ’em out in steps, one by one,” he said. “You have to have the discipline to get a plan done.”

  Mr. Sharp owned several businesses, but didn’t own a computer. He said, “I don’t trust ’em, don’t need ’em.” That worked out well for me because he needed someone to file and organize his papers. He said, “I used to keep all debts, numbers, and payments in my head. After age forty, a man who used to remember begins to forget. A tailor can never be comfortable with loose threads or sloppy stitches.”

  Now he needed someone to go down his residents list and match the rent checks received with the list. He needed someone to send out late payment notices. He needed someone to check over the building superintendent’s work. For example, if a window had been reported broken, or a spill occurred, how long did it take the superintendent to respond, reply, and repair the situations? I became “Sharp’s Runner.” I would run right across the street and check things out. I only worked Mondays through Thursdays, three to six. Three hours a day was more than enough time to get Sharp’s papers and errands in order.

  Sharp said, “When a business owner gets older, he gotta figure out how to make his money work for him, instead of him working for his money.” He told me I was his second set of eyes, hands, and feet. He paid me sixty dollars a day, not for any reason except cause he wanted to. From age eleven till twelve I was making $240 a week from Sharp, $130 per week from Big Johnnie. My sandwich money was separate from the weekly $130, and that little business was blowing up to be big. I had started a line of spicy sandwiches, using the spices that I learned about and cooked with. I’d label the Saran Wrap when it was spicy. I tested it out, and Big Johnnie kept ordering me to make more and more. I liked that people on the block didn’t know who was making the sandwiches, except for the Baloney Boy who saw me in the first place. I made my meter money from all the businesses on my block, and cigarette money pushed my profits up like crazy.

  I made a truce with the superintendent in Mr. Sharp’s building that fattened my pockets some more.

  “I don’t want to see you get into any uncomfortable situation,” I told him. “So, if I see a spill, broken glass, piss, or globs of dirty chewing gum, whatever, I’ll clean it up for a fee. Then I’ll assure Mr. Sharp that everything’s good over here.” I had only one hand on my hip when I told him.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “Five dollars each time I cover for you,” I told him.

  “Damn, that’s too high,” he said.

  “It’s a lot,” I explained, “but on days when you be out and don’t get back on time, when you really supposed to be working here at the building and on twenty-four-hour call, I’m making things convenient for you.” I smiled sweetly. He agreed.

  The superintendent was only one person out of the eighty-two apartments in the building who I earned money from for various services, even agreeing to walk one lady’s two dogs at sunrise on weekdays. I was awake anyway, just finishing up at Big Johnnie’s.

  I made a clay pot filled with chicken soup for a woman who I could hear coughing through her apartment door each day. She was so grateful once she got better she tried to give me some of her real jewelry. I wouldn’t accept that cause I knew jewels were personal memories. I was waiting on my diamond set from Poppa. Until then, I wouldn’t wear none. Since I rejected her jewelry, the lady tried to give me other stuff. I told her just pay me for those expensive organic ingredients and we even. She tried to get me to cook more food for her, but the cooking hustle would’ve tied up too much of my time. Time is money, and she couldn’t afford me.

  I emptied trash for seniors who didn’t feel like it, supplied cigarettes, too, and received other perks and valuable gifts from people in the building who just seemed to like me, my work, and my manners.

  After asking Mr. Sharp about the unmarked store on the block of businesses he owned, “the one filled with junk,” I said.

  “Those are antiques, not junk. I’m a collector,” he confided.

  “A collector?” I repeated. “Of what?” I asked.

  “The most valuable things that the untrained eye either can’t see or don’t understand.”

  “If it’s so valuable, why is the store always closed and empty?” I pushed.

  “That’s what I want people to think. I open it once a month for a night auction in the back room,” he said.

  “Auction?” I repeated.

  “Yeah, that’s when a small group of people who know the real worth of things come and bid big bucks for that ‘junk’ in my store.” He laughed out two quick, cool sounds. “A pretty big player bought a music box from one of them auctions. He spent a small fortune getting one of my guys to get the box to play his favorite song instead of the tune it was already playing.”

  Then I knew why Mr. Sharp even bothered telling me about his private antique auction business. He was telling me a story about Poppa, without saying it was about Poppa. When Poppa gave Momma that music box that played an old Earth, Wind & Fire song, we all were amazed. Of course we had seen jewelry boxes before that played corny jingles. But, we had never seen a jewelry box that when you opened it up, played a badass song while a black ballerina spun round on one pretty black toe shoe!

  Ignoring admitting out loud that Poppa was my poppa, I used Mr. Sharp’s little story as an opportunity. “Your antique shop, let me clean it up for you, organize it, make it presentable. We’ll hang a pretty curtain like the one you have here in The Golden Needle. Except, since we don’t want everybody to know, we’ll hang a black curtain.”

  “Whatever you want to do, my little moneymaking machine,” Mr. Sharp said. But he was obviously the one with the real money pile, and he did an incredible job of not making it seem that way.

  Mr. Sharp’s lessons, plus my experience at hustling from b
eing locked down, raked me in $1,100 a week on the average.

  It was Elisha who taught me how to average numbers out and round ’em off. He didn’t know about my hustles. He only saw me after school on Fridays. He taught me because he was nice like that, and besides, I had the habit of flipping through his books and asking questions so I could learn, catch up, keep up, compete, and out-distance the school kids.

  I led Elisha to believe that I decided and registered at a junior high school in Manhattan because they specialized in fashion. It wasn’t hard to convince him. I had original fly styles that Siri and I made up.

  When I’d walk up to meet him at the market on Fridays, he would forever be surprised by my style, decorated denim, hand-designed T-shirts, all mixed in with the high fashions that Sharp got me in that one-day spree. Elisha was most amazed at a design I made in my hair out of one hundred red bobby pins. I wore my long ends loose at the bottom.

  “You look Indian,” Elisha said, touching the pins with his fingers.

  “You mean Native?” I asked him.

  “Not the dot Indian,” he said. “Woo-woo, the ones with the feathers.” He hopped around like he was doing a whacked-out Native dance. I hit him on his shoulder. “You’re so ignorant, and you go to the best private school!”

  “I’m just joking,” he said, smiling.

  When I was with Elisha for five or six hours only on Fridays was the only time I actually forgot about the hole in my heart.

  My mind returned back to Momma. On the blackboard I wrote a list so she could keep track of time. Also I wanted her to see when she did good. I’d make the check mark to show our plan was really working. That’s what I needed when I was locked up. I needed to know what I had to do to keep the authorities out my face. I needed to know in advance what the punishments were for things. I needed to be able to see an ending to hurt, even if it was way, way down the road.

  1. Clean the drugs out of Momma’s pretty body.