Harlem Girl Lost 2

by Blue, Treasure E.

  They decided to take no chances and plotted to take out Mama’s number two in charge, Precious, who would certainly pose a threat and continue with her boss’s orders to jeopardize their life by fulfilling the contract that was on their heads. Better safe than sorry. The girls waited till Precious returned to her cell and all four girls rushed in and stabbed her repeatedly until there was no longer any movement. They then showered and got rid of all weapons and clothing before the C.O’s would find her lifeless body.

  **********

  Shortly after the Mama and Precious incident, the girls spun their web and awaited their next victim—Officer Clooney. And just after two in the morning, like clockwork, the cat came for his kitten and led Tiny away. An hour and a half later Tiny came walking gingerly back toward her cell and grinned to the girls as she passed them by. She’d hit the jackpot.

  That night Jessica wrote a note that read:

  Dear Warden,

  This is a used condom wrapper that Officer David Clooney used to fuck me with last night. If you are not sure if it’s true, I also included the used condom with Officer David Clooney’s sperm in it. I tied it up nice and tight in case you want to do some kind of test on it or something.

  P.S. If you are receiving this letter that means that he done already killed me somehow.

  Signed,

  Eartha Lee Jenkins, a.k.a. Dear Mama.

  The girls dropped the envelope off in the Warden’s suggestion box.

  Three days later, just as officer Clooney was about to get off, the Warden, six guards, and two representatives from the state police came into the ward and read officer Clooney his rights then handcuffed him right there. The girls watched from their cells as all the women in the unit began to clap and shout their happiness that karma had finally caught up with him.

  Tiny simply lay back in her bunk and smiled for the first time in months.

  **********

  With three major problems taken care of, the girls decided to go for the quadruple play and they set their focus on the final piece to their problem. They set up the impromptu meeting up inside the recreation room.

  The girls sat in the recreation room well past the cut off time and awaited the overnight guard to clear them out—Officer Caroline Landry.

  As suspected, she made her rounds, walked into the recreation room. When she saw the four girls still inside the room, she barked, “What the hell are you bitches still doing in this recreation room? Get your asses to your cells right goddamn now!”

  None of the girls even flinched.

  Officer Landry couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “Did you hear what the fuck I said?”

  Vonda only smiled and said, “We heard you, and we ain’t going no-fucking-where!”

  Landry was taken aback for a moment and placed her hand on her baton. “What I want you all to do is—”

  Jessica cut her off and said, “What you gonna do is close the door and shut the fuck up if you don’t want to end up like your friend Clooney.”

  Landry was instantly silenced just hearing her partner’s name and was smart enough to at least hear her out. So, she complied with her order and closed the door behind her. She shrugged and challenged them, “I’m gonna give you five seconds to tell me what it is you want to me talk about.”

  Vonda approached her. “And I suggest you shut the fuck up and listen to the people who hold your whole fucking career in their hands.”

  They were now face-to-face, and Officer Landry thought better to hear her out. “So what is it that you all want?”

  Lynn saw her opportunity, ambled over and said, “You do remember ol’ Mama, don’t you? It’s too bad she and her friend Precious ain’t no longer around to run your business for you.”

  Officer Landry remained silent and let her continue.

  “Well, to make a long story short, we want control of her whole fucking operation—the drugs, the prostitution, and the protection.”

  Officer Landry was unmoved by the request. She needed someone take over the operation anyway since Dear Mama was killed, so if that’s all they wanted, things were working in her favor, she thought. “Ok, if that’s what you want, you got it,” she finally said with confidence. “But if all of yous fuck me on this, I have enough guards on the payroll to ensure that none of you will make out of this prison alive,” Landry threatened.

  Vonda stepped in front of her and said, “You must ain’t hearing us correctly. You ain’t running shit no more. We are running this shit, and you taking orders from us.”

  Landry snickered. “Oh, yeah? How is that?”

  Jessica spoke for the first time and began reading from a piece of paper. The more Jessica read, the more horrified Officer Landry became. By the time Jessica finished, Landry had her head down and was ready to faint.

  Vonda smiled wickedly at the officer and said, “Yeah, Mama may have certainly looked dumb, but she was very, very detailed oriented when it came to names of officers, dates, and times. I say you and about nine other officers could get up to twenty-five years in prison for all the shit y’all did so far. She even went as far as to take out an insurance policy on herself just in case she didn’t make it out of here alive by finding out the names and addresses of your whole family—your mama, your daddy, your sister, your brothers, grandparents, everybody.”

  Vonda paused to let it all sink in to her.

  “Well, guess who got all that information now?” Vonda nodded her head. “You guessed it.” She waved her hand around at her three friends and continued, “And don’t get any ideas of shaking down our cell and looking for the original copies that we stole from Mama’s cell the day she died, because we sent them off two days ago to our people on the outside.”

  Vonda paused to let her gain her bearings. “Now you got two options: either you take your chances by killing the four of us and live on what’s left of what you and your entire family have left, or you can roll with us and continue with the operation and retire with a fat pension and eat all the pussy you want to for the rest of your life.”

  It didn’t take Officer Landry to realize that the four girls had her over a barrel, and she quickly made her decision with a nod.

  Vonda smiled and said, “Good.” They began to walk out of the recreation room when Vonda turned around suddenly and added one more thing, “Oh, yeah, the split is now seventy-thirty. Us seventy, and you thirty.”

  Over the years, the Get ’Em Girls ran the prison with the organization of any top corporation. The violence and fear that once ruled the unit no longer existed so as long as you conformed to the Get ’Em Girls’ rules. They made a massive amount of money and sent every dime home to ensure that they would be on their feet when they would ultimately be released.

  Chapter 12

  After five and a half years, all the girls with the exception of Jessica were released on parole. Jessica received too many infractions that took away from her good time for not following staff orders. Tiny, Vonda, and Lynn were released six months before Jessica, but stayed in contact with her until she was ultimately released. In the letters, they told Jessica how much the neighborhood had changed for the worse due to a new form of drug that everyone called crack. Jessica caught a glimpse of how bad this drug must have been, because of the influx of all the girls that were coming in at a record breaking rate. Most of them came in looking like they were near to death, especially when she ran into a girl she knew from her neighborhood and she looked like she’d aged twenty years. They sat down at lunch one day and she told Jessica all about it.

  “Yeah, Jessica, it’s called ‘beaming up.’ You know, like they do on Star Trek, beam me up Scotty!” she joked. “That shit has you feeling good, yo. It’s like having multiple orgasms over and over again.”

  She tried to understand as she looked at the girl’s buttery yellow and rotting teeth. “So you smoke it from a pipe?” asked Jessica curiously,

  “Pipe, stem, whatever. It’s like freebasing but not as expensive. It comes in little
rocks, like pebbles. That’s why they call it crack rocks.”

  Jessica was still confused and frowned. “If it’s so inexpensive, why you get arrested for prostitution? What happened to your job?”

  She shrugged and said, “Well, that’s the one thing about crack; you can’t stop once you get started, and when the money run out you start out selling little things like your jewelry, clothes, and stuff like that. After a while, you ain’t got nothing else to sell and you get stuck cause you don’t want to do nothing but smoke. Your job and your appearance go first. So, after you stole enough from your family and borrowed all you can borrow, or stole all you can steal, you have no other choice but to start selling you body to get that next hit. But I ain’t get arrested for prostitution. I got it for possession of a damn ten-dollar cap.” She shrugged her small shoulders again and said, “And here I am, in prison again.”

  Jessica frowned, “So they gave you two years for only ten dollars worth of crack?”

  “Something like that. When I was arrested the first couple of times they usually give you an option of going into one of those drug programs, they call them T.C, or Therapeutic Community. That shit is like being in the Army, and plus you got to do like a year and a half, two years to complete it. The judge said either go into the program or go to prison.”

  “You choose to come to prison instead?” Jessica asked.

  “Hell no, you think I’m stupid? I took the program, but I found out that that shit was awful and I couldn’t take that shit, so I left. I got arrested on a humble and they found the dime cap of crack on me and arrested me. You want to know the bullshit?”

  “What?” Jessica asked, fascinated by her story.

  “After I came out of central booking, I stood before the same judge who gave me the choice of the program or prison and the motherfucker remembered me and threw the book at me and that’s why I’m here. I should have stayed in the program, yo.”

  Jessica shook her head and changed the subject, “So, you say everybody is doing it, huh?”

  “Yep, damn near. See, a lot of people start out by smoking it in a wulla, that’s when you cut open a cigar and replaced the tobacco with some weed. You crush up the crack in a dollar bill or something and sprinkle it on the weed and wrap it back up and smoke it. That’s how a lot of people get hooked. After a while, it’s only a matter a time when they hit the pipe and when that happens,” she shook her head, “your life is over. I’m serious, Jessica; I wouldn’t wish that shit on my worst enemy. I seen women sell their own children to men just to get a hit. I saw men—and I ain’t talking about gay men, real niggas—get down on their knees and suck another man’s dick, yo!”

  Jessica was shocked by what she heard and couldn’t help but think of her neighborhood amongst other things. Since Jessica didn’t have her girls there with her anymore, she thought about her brother, her mother, and Kenny most of the time. With her time dwindling down, her days began feeling like months, and she decided to take some correspondence courses to make her days go by quicker. Since she already had her high school diploma, she didn’t have to take any GED courses as required, so one day she saw a language course being offered in English, Spanish, or French. She smiled and thought of how Kenny used to talk to her in French and decided to take the French course for some strange reason. She found it to be very hard, but stuck with just in case it would come in useful one day.

  **********

  The day Jessica got out prison, she was met by Vonda at the bus station in Times Square. Jessica thought Vonda looked like a totally different person because of the fresh new hair style and fashionable clothing she now wore. They were so excited to see each other that when Jessica stepped off the bus, Vonda screamed and gave her a huge hug, sweeping her off her feet.

  “Welcome home baby girl.”

  “Thanks,” said Jessica, and she closed her eyes and felt her first warmth of real freedom.

  They pulled apart and Vonda inspected Jessica’s clothing and frowned immediately. “I’m taking you shopping because I ain’t having my girl seen in borrowed shit.”

  Since Jessica’s father had died, her and her mother’s relationship suffered. Jessica really felt that her mother still blamed her for her father’s untimely death of a heart attack because of the stress that he gone through over her arrest and sentencing. Jessica only called home for birthdays or when she wanted to talk to her younger brother. She wouldn’t ask her mother for a dime after she lost the house, and it’d been like that ever since. So Jessica had no choice but to wear borrowed clothes from the State to come home in.

  Vonda smiled at Jessica and joked, “I still got a reputation to maintain, you know.”

  They hugged again and Vonda looked around and asked, “Where’s your stuff?”

  Jessica shrugged. “You’re looking at it.” She patted her body to show her that was all she had.

  Vonda grabbed her by the arm and said, “Let’s go shopping.”

  When the girls finished shopping they went to an outdoor cafe and had a late lunch. Jessica looked and felt like a totally different person after she was stripped of the worn and borrowed clothes and into something new and chic. While they ate their food, they laughed, joked, and caught up on everything from old classmates to old flames.

  “So what’s up with li’l man?”

  Vonda frowned and said, “Who, you talking about, Chubby?”

  “Yeah.”

  Vonda rolled her eyes, “Girl, please, ain’t nothing little about him no more. He is big, and when I say big, I mean real big.”

  Jessica laughed. “So what is he up to these days, he working or what?”

  “He ain’t doing shit but trying to keep his ass out of jail. He was getting himself in so much trouble that the judge was tired of seeing his face in the courthouse. They on his ass too and his P.O said that if he violates one more time or don’t get a job soon, they gonna have to give all those years back to the state. So he’s walking on thin ice.”

  Jessica looked around at the scenery. “Yo, it’s nice to be out and around normal people, but it ain’t nothing like being up in Harlem around my people.” She smiled added, “and plus I want to see my baby brother. I miss my li’l man. I can’t wait to see him.” Jessica smiled as she reminisced. “Shoot, I didn’t talk to him in over a year; every time I called home my moms told me he was out.” She smiled again. “He must be enjoying his freedom since he turned eighteen. Probably found himself some new friends or girlfriend or something.”

  Jessica watched Vonda face sadden, followed by her putting her head down. She grew suspicious and inquired, “Vonda, what’s wrong?”

  Vonda appeared to be gathering her thoughts and finally confessed. “Jessica, remember when we wrote you and told you that the neighborhood changed? How everybody is doing this new drug called crack?”

  Jessica stared at her, dreading the worst. “Yeah, what about it?”

  Vonda let out a sigh. “Well, your li’l brother is hooked on that shit too.”

  Jessica was dazed for a moment and didn’t want to believe what she had just heard. In her mind her brother was still just twelve years old and she couldn’t see him smoking a cigarette much less doing some kind of drugs.

  The initial shock wore off and Jessica said, “Don’t worry, his big sister is home now I’ll straighten him out.” She nodded, trying to convince herself. “He’ll listen to me, and I’ll make sure he stops fucking around with that shit. You’ll see. I’ll kick his li’l ass if I have to.”

  Vonda shook her head. “Jesse, your little brother is not so little anymore. He is big now; he changed.” Vonda looked her deeply in her eyes. “That crack shit,” she shook her head again, “is unlike anything you saw before. That shit has all of Harlem changed in the worst way. Either you are getting rich from selling it or you losing your mind from smoking it. That shit got women selling their bodies for two fucking dollars just to get a hit, Jessica, and they will do anything to get it—anything!”

  Vonda pau
sed to see if she was getting through to her. “It like everybody is zombies or something. Even four of my brothers got hooked on that shit.” She read Jessica’s eyes and said, “No, Chubby is the only one who’s not on it, but he sells it from time to time and shouldn’t be doing that. That shit even got Tiny’s moms strung out and Lynn’s sisters.” Vonda shook her head again. “That’s why I met you before you got uptown to prepare you for what you are about to see.”

  Jessica remained silent as her words resonated in her mind.

  Vonda reached in her purse and pulled out a roll of money and handed it to her and said, “Here, this is a thousand dollars.”

  Jessica looked at the wad of money with apprehension.

  “This just part of the money that we earned while we were up. Come by my house anytime you ready and you can get the rest of your share.”

  Jessica looked at the money again and shook her head. “No, Vonda. I didn’t earn this.”

  “What do you mean you didn’t earn this?” asked Vonda. “We were crew, and that’s what we vowed before we even went in there. All for one and one for all, remember?”

  Jessica was still reluctant. “I told you from Jump Street that I didn’t want to deal drugs and wanted no part of that.”

  Vonda got serious and said, “Jessica, you know as well as I do that nobody on the outside was sending us any packages or filling our commissary. We had to do what we had to do, remember? Now we made it out and we are alive and that’s the only thing that matters.” She pushed the money back over to her. “We only did two days in prison, the day we entered . . .” Vonda waited for Jessica to complete the rest.

  “And the day we leave out,” Jessica finished. “And everything in the middle doesn’t count.”

  When Vonda and Jessica got uptown to Harlem, Jessica was surprised to see how much everything had changed. It seemed like everywhere they walked, young boys were yelling, “Jumbos, y’all. Jumbos, two for five.”

  The strange thing was how openly they were doing it, like they didn’t have a care in the world. All the guys seemed to wear huge gold chains around their necks and all had fancy cars and pagers on their hips. They also seemed more disrespectful to women. A group of guys hollered at Vonda and Jessica as they passed, trying to get their attention by offering them some money or drugs to talk to them. And then, with her own eyes, Jessica saw one of Vonda’s older brothers that she’d known since she was kid, pushing an old rickety shopping cart collecting cans. When he saw his sister and Jessica, his eyes lit up with excitement.