California Connection (Califronia Connection)

by Chunichi

  But, like I had said, Jewel and Touch could test me if they wanted to. They were definitely fucking with the wrong cat, ’cause I wasn’t the one to be fucked with. My temper was rising, and my revenge list was getting longer by the day. Niggas and bitches alike were beginning to take me for a pussy, and it was time I started to make an example out of someone.

  Chapter 23

  “Label Me Ike Turner”

  Touch

  I couldn’t find Ciara anywhere. Just like her bum-ass friends, her lazy ass wasn’t ever about getting off her ass and doing shit. I knew there was only one place that she could be, and that was at her homegirl Monica’s house. Sure enough, when I pulled up to Monica’s house, Ciara’s car was parked in the driveway.

  After parking my car in the middle of the street, I jumped out and went to Monica’s front door and started ringing the bell like a madman. I wasn’t a short-tempered kind of dude. In fact, I had a real long fuse, and I definitely wasn’t one to be hitting on no chicks. That wasn’t me at all. But with certain bad memories continuing to flashback in my mind, something had snapped. I knew that I was about to cross that line to “woman-beater” status. I was trying to keep the thoughts out of my head, but I was having no such luck.

  Even as I rang Monica’s doorbell, I continued to have flashbacks of Ciara fucking one of my workers when I was locked up. My flashbacks continued, as I was reminded of the night I came home and my girl had burned my money and bleached my furs.

  Then I was reminded of that phone call I got when Jewel was fucking Calico. My otherwise easygoing nature was gone, leaving me with an anger that I’d never experienced before. I was literally looking to fuck a bitch up, and there was one just behind this door that needed that serious-ass beating.

  A voice from the inside asked, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Touch.”

  After I said my name, everything went silent for a few moments. Then I heard some rumbling around inside before the door flung open to reveal Ciara standing there in her bare feet, jeans, and a top. She was drinking a Heineken, and in the background, I could hear Judge Mathis on the television.

  Ciara looked me up and down. She didn’t say anything, but her body language was screaming, “What the fuck do you want?” She then took a swig of her beer.

  Looking at her ghettoness just disgusted the shit out of me. I couldn’t help but slap that beer right out of her hands.

  With no other words being said, Ciara just went crazy and started swinging on me like she was the female heavyweight champ Laila Ali. “You don’t be coming in here like you own the place, tryin’ to put your fucking hands on me!” she barked, landing punches and scratches to my face, chest, and arms.

  I hauled back with one right hook to her jaw, sending her straight to the floor like a rag doll. I immediately put my foot on her neck and applied as much pressure as I absolutely could, hoping to snap that shit in half.

  “Ciara, I’m asking you one time—Did you fuck that nigga?”

  Just as I said that, Monica came charging at me with a steak knife. Luckily, I saw her just in time and side-stepped her and grabbed hold of her wrist and bent it all the way back. She screamed out in pain and dropped the knife.

  “Ahhh shit!” I screamed as I looked down and realized that my baby mother had just stabbed me in my calf with the broken Heineken bottle. “You fucking bitch!” I yelled. I kicked her in her mouth and proceeded to stomp both her and Monica right there in Monica’s doorway. There were no words for the pain I was feeling, but there were many in between all the blows I was inflicting.

  Apparently we had been making so much noise that one of Monica’s neighbors came running over to see what was going.

  I hollered, “This ain’t none of your fucking business, miss! We all right. Everything is all right!” and slammed the front door shut.

  I picked Ciara up off the ground and flung her across the room, and when I caught up with her, I grabbed her by her hair and punched on her like she was a human punching bag.

  Meanwhile, Monica was still on the floor, clutching her wrist and writhing in pain.

  “Did you fuck Calico?”

  Ciara looked at me with the little bit of energy she had left. She looked as if she was trying to spit on me, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was blood. Through her tears and ragged look, she said, “You’re such an insecure pussy. Maybe if you weren’t fucking Diana, I wouldn’t have fucked Calico.”

  I looked at Ciara in disbelief, wondering how the fuck she knew I’d fuck Diana.

  “Look at you, looking all stupid in the face. Yeah, that’s right. Your boy told me. Calico told me all about your little sexcapade with that trick. And after a smack in the face like that, all I could do was fuck the nigga. He laid it on me so damn good. I knew it was worth it.”

  At that point, I sort of snapped out of the rage that I’d slipped into. My leg was stinging like a bitch. I looked down and saw a patch of blood staining my pants, and there was blood all over my sneakers.

  “Yeah, I fucked him! And he wasn’t no weak-dick nigga like your ass! What you need to be doing is watching your back, muthafucka!” She tried to laugh, but coughed up blood. “From what I’m hearin’ in the streets, you a snitch, and Calico is gonna git you.” Ciara had enough energy for that last sentence then she passed out.

  A neighbor burst open the front door and came inside the house. “Monica, you okay? I already called the cops. They should be here soon.”

  I looked over at Ciara and started to get angry at her ghetto ass again, but thankfully my rage had subsided enough to limp out of the house, jump in my car, and pull off.

  Before I could make it home, both Sasha and Jewel began taking turns blowing up my cell phone. I really didn’t want to speak to either one of them, or to anybody for that matter, so I let all of my calls go to voice mail as I continued on home.

  I went straight to my bathroom and applied rubbing alcohol to the gash on my calf that Ciara had caused. “Uggghhhh!”

  Sasha had stopped calling me, but Jewel was continuing to blow up my phone.

  Through my pain, I finally decided to answer.

  “Jewel, what’s up?” I asked through clenched teeth.

  “Damn, Touch, you sound like you taking a shit or something,” Jewel said.

  “Nah, that fucking bitch Ciara cut my ass.”

  “What? When did this happen?”

  I went on to explain everything to Jewel, and she made me describe the cut to her.

  “Can you see the white meat?”

  “Hell, yeah. I see white meat, red meat, and some blue stringy shit.”

  “Oh Lord! Touch, you ain’t gonna patch that shit up with no Band-Aid. I can tell you that right now. You need to take your ass to the emergency room and get stitched up.”

  I looked at the three blood-drenched towels that I had used to try and stop the flow of blood coming from my cut and realized that Jewel was probably right. “I think you right.”

  “Okay, so you going now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Which hospital you going to? I’ll meet you over there.”

  “Sentara Leigh.”

  “Okay, I’m on my way. Wrap your leg as tight as you can with a T-Shirt or some shit before you leave the house, a’ight? I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Jewel said to me and then hung up the phone.

  When I made it to the emergency room, I saw that it was crowded. I figured that I might have to wait for a while, but after I gave the nurse all of my personal information, she came from around her desk and took a quick look at my cut. After examining it for about thirty seconds, she ushered me right into the back where all of the other nurses and doctors were tending to patients.

  “That was quick.” I smiled. “You letting me skip all those people out there?”

  “Well, I’m not sure, it looks like you may have severed muscle tissue. I don’t want to have you wait out there for too long and take a chance on you properly using the leg ever again.”<
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  I thought about my baby mother. I’m-a kill that bitch! I followed the nurse, until she situated me in one of the rooms. She told me, “Sit on the bed. A doctor would be right with you.”

  Thankfully, after fifteen minutes or so, a doctor examined me and determined that although the wound was deep, it didn’t affect muscle tissue. “It it was awfully close. We’ll get you stitched up and out of here within a half an hour or so.”

  I nodded my head in agreement. I then lay back on the bed, propped my head up on the pillow, and stared into space. My quiet was then interrupted by my annoying-ass ringtone.

  “Leave me alone. Shit!” I looked down at my cell phone and saw Sasha’s number pop up. “Hello?”

  “Touch, it’s Sasha.”

  “Yeah, I know that, Sasha. What’s up?”

  Sasha sucked her teeth. “See, I knew it. So it was just about some pussy, right? So you just fuck and buck, Touch? Now you done hit it, you don’t give a fuck.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Uh, sir, I’m afraid you can’t use the cell phone in the hospital,” a nurse said to me.

  Thank God. Saved by the nurse, I thought.

  “Sasha, listen, I’m in the hospital right now and I can’t talk, but I’ll call you back.”

  “Yeah, whateva.” Sasha abruptly hung up.

  “I’m sorry about that,” I said to the nurse as I put my phone away.

  No sooner than I had put my phone away, Jewel came walking into my room.

  “Hey, pookie face,” she said as she walked up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  Jewel was looking good as hell. My dick got hard instantly, just looking at her divalicious self. At that moment, I realized I was actually playing myself by giving a fuck what my baby mother did, and for giving two shits about Sasha and how she felt. I realized that Jewel had everything I wanted and needed in a woman. I knew that I had to make her my girl and that we had to move forward in some type of commitment shit.

  “You okay?” Jewel asked.

  I looked down at her peep-toe stiletto heels. “Damn, them some sexy-ass shoes.”

  “I got these when I went to New York.” Jewel smiled. “You like ’em, huh?”

  Before I could even reply to Jewel, two police officers walked into my room.

  “Trayvon Davis?” they asked.

  I attempted to sit up as straight as I could. “Yeah, that’s me. What’s up?”

  “Just relax, sir,” one of the cops said to me.

  One cop went on one side of my bed, and the other cop went to the other side. Each cop grabbed one of my arms and placed a handcuff on each wrist and then proceeded to also cuff the railing of the bed that I was sitting on.

  “What the fuck is this?” I yelled.

  “Trayvon Davis, we’re placing you under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used . . .”

  This is some bullshit! I said to myself as the cop continued to read me my rights. I don’t know why, but just then a nervous smirk came across my face.

  Chapter 24

  “My Time to Shine”

  Sasha

  When I got back to Atlanta with the hundred thousand dollars, I knew one thing and one thing only. Sasha was going to do whatever the fuck Sasha felt like doing. If I didn’t feel like doing shit for the day, then I wasn’t doing shit. If I felt like buying new clothes every day, then that’s what the hell I was going to do.

  As I sat in my bedroom and counted the most money that I’d ever had at one time, I knew that I wasn’t going back to Bottoms Up. Fuck that dancer life! I was tired of that shit, tired of the hustle. Tired of lame-ass, crusty-ass niggas feeling up on me and me dancing for them just so I could get money to pay one pissy-ass bill here and there. I was quitting ASAP, and I had one hundred thousand reasons to do so.

  Jewel had been calling me from the moment that I had hit the Georgia State line. The bitch didn’t give me a minute to breathe before she started hounding me about the money. She even had the nerve to tell me that Calico was pressing her hard and that she was having second thoughts about the plan. She was changing her mind and wanted the money back.

  As far as I was concerned, that sounded like a personal problem. Hers, not mine. But I didn’t tell her that. Instead, I just kept her at bay and told her that it was too late and that I had gone through with the original plan that she’d agreed to. I told her that she needed to relax until the money was flipped.

  The truth of the matter was, Jewel wasn’t ever getting shit from me, and I could have cared less if I’d ever spoken to her ass again. She was always the one on top, always the one shining, and finally it was my turn.

  Two days after coming back to Atlanta, I had reached out to Touch. The nigga never called me back. I was always the one calling him and blowing up his phone, so I decided to keep calling until I got through to him, just so I could see where his head was at.

  “Hello?”

  “Touch, it’s Sasha.”

  “Yeah, I know that, Sasha. What’s up?”

  I shook my head and sucked my teeth. “See, I knew it. So it was just about some pussy, right? So you just fuck and buck, Touch? Now you done hit it, you don’t give a fuck.”

  Touch didn’t say anything. Just like the punk ass he was, he started bitching up. As far as I was concerned, if it was just about pussy and he had gamed me, then it was all good. All I needed for him to do was to be a man about it and admit the shit. Hell, it wasn’t the first time a nigga had gamed me for pussy.

  “Sasha, listen, I’m in the hospital right now and I can’t talk, but I’ll call you back.”

  “Yeah, whateva,” I said and then I hung up the phone.

  I sat in silence for a while. I was pissed off. The longer I sat, the angier I got. I was so angry, I began crying tears of fury. All I wanted was to have shit going well in my life and to be in a committed relationship with someone that wanted to be with me for me, and not for any other false motives.

  For the first time in weeks, I thought about Rick. Jewel and all my other fair-weather friends always had something negative to say about the father of my youngest child. But one thing that none of them ever understood was that Rick was the only person who ever accepted me for me and not for any other motives, and that was why I was so loyal and always felt indebted to him.

  I’d met Rick years ago after I’d finished dancing one night. I was stopping at a local 7-Eleven to grab a soda when he and his boys were there buying up the place. We locked eyes across the aisle, while the other niggas were grabbing shit like it was The Last Supper.

  I broke from my trance long enough to walk to the register. Before I could get the money for my soda, Rick told the dude to just add it to the rest of the shit he was buying. I thanked him and headed to my car. I didn’t know he was behind me, until he I saw a hand reach for the car handle. I jumped back, and it was him.

  “I just thought I’d open the door . . . and get your number,” he said slyly.

  I had to admit, it was a good move, but not that good to give him my number right away. So we talked outside of the 7-Eleven for a couple of minutes longer until his boys started harassing him to leave. I didn’t give him my number, but he gave me his and made me promise to call. And we started talking on the phone every day after that.

  It took me a whole year of knowing him before I told him I was a dancer. When I finally told him, he never condemned or judged me. Thinking back on it, I don’t know why I would think he would be like these other cats out here. He was the only guy that I’d ever been with who didn’t try to fuck me the same day, or within the first two weeks of knowing me. Nah, Rick was different. He waited six months before we fucked, and he was cool with that.

  I don’t know what I was thinking when I listened to Jewel and all of my dumb-ass friends. They didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. Rick loved me, and I know that he did. Sure, he had hit some hard times and was going through a rough patch financially, but that wa
s all good. I knew that he loved me and his son, and he’d supported me for years when he was getting money. Now it was my turn to return the favor.

  So as my tears of anger subsided, they were quickly replaced by tears of joy that was mixed with regret.

  I immediately dialed Rick’s number. “Baby, I love you so much,” I said to him when he picked up the phone.

  “Sasha?”

  “Yeah, baby, it’s me,” I said through my tears. I apologized to Rick for all the put-downs. “I’m just so stupid, always listening to my friends and shit. Now I realize they don’t have my best interest at heart, but you do.”

  “You been drinking, Sasha?”

  “Nooo, baby, I wasn’t drinking. I’m serious. I was just sitting here thinking about how much I love you. I miss you and I want you to be with your son. I want the three of us to be together.”

  Rick started to say something, but I cut him off.

  “Listen, baby, I did it. I did it, baby.”

  “You did what?”

  “I did what I said I was gonna do. I came down here and I changed things around.”

  “Sasha, you’re not making sense. What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I got enough money to get us a nice two-bedroom apartment, and I can pay the rent for one year up front, furnish the place, and get us a car. I can even give you the money to start your business. All I need you to do is just tell me that you’ll come down to Atlanta and be with me and RJ.”

  I was desperately hoping that Rick would say yes. I mean, after all, I had done him dirty by walking out on him and turning my back on him.

  “Whoa, I wasn’t expecting a call from you like that,” he said.

  All this information I was giving to him at one time seemed to have him exhausted.

  “Baby, just say yes.”

  Rick was silent for a moment, and then he spoke up. “You know I love you, right?”