by Ca$H
I think about u so much.It seems like I’m 13 yrs old n having my 1st crush =). I guess this is the way true luv is, regardless to one’s age. I’m so happy to be a part of ur life, n have u a part of mine. The distance is a small price 2 pay 4 true luv. I don’t kno if I really deserve u, but I promise never 2 do n-e thing to make u regret being with me. I am enjoying my job at the hospital in the laundry, the women who work with me r a hot mess! I saw my friend Porcelin over here n the pj’s last week. The next morning when I walked 2 the bus stop 2 go 2 work, she was still over here, walking up and down the block with no coat on. So you can guess what that means. N-E way, baby, they are having a big talent search at The Apollo in New York in a few weeks. I want to audition but I’m kind of afraid. I’m going 2 do it though. Wish me luck. Luv u, baby.
Sparkle.
Rah was about to email Kayundra back when his cell phone chirped. He recognized Paco’s number and answered with a harshness in his tone.
“Yeah, nigga, sup?”
“I’m tryna holla at you, Raheem. I got that bread I owe you. Things went crazy for a minute but I got you. And I need to cop again. I got the bread up front this time,” said Paco.
“What you tryna get?” asked Rah, slipping in more ways than one. Not only was he talking reckless on the phone, he hadn’t noticed that Paco called him by his government, though he usually called him “Rah” or “shawdy.” Paco was using Rah’s government for the benefit of the narc who was recording the conversation.
Paco had exaggerated Rah’s status to the drug agent, who was thirsty to bust the big drug dealer Paco made Rah out to be, and perhaps earn himself a promotion.
“I need ’bout five pounds of purp, some X, and a key of coke if you got it,” Paco said.
“I told you, son, I don’t fuck with coke. How much E you need?” asked Rah, talking himself into a drug conspiracy charge.
What saved him from catching a more serious case was his distrust of Paco. Rah really thought the nigga was tryna set him up to get jacked. So when he met up with Paco the next day, at the pre-arranged time and place out in Dekalb County, Rah didn’t bring along any work.
Paco paid Rah what he owed him in marked bills. The narc’s were filming the meeting from across the street, using a camera with a zoom lens, plus Paco was wired. DaQuan, who was rolling with Rah in case some funny shit went down had hopped in the backseat and let Paco sit up front.
“You got the weed and the X pills?” Paco asked Rah, sweating, though fall had kicked in and the summer heat had disappeared like niggaz respect for the code of the streets.
“Naw, I’ma have to holla back at you about that later,” said Rah, studying his face and sensing something foul.
“Damn, man. I got people depending on me. When you think you’ll be straight?”
“I’ma get at you,” was all Rah would say no matter how Paco rephrased the question.
“I don’t trust that nigga,” said DaQuan after Paco had gotten out of the car and they were driving off.
“Me either, that’s why I’m not fuckin’ with him no more. I wanted to mark his ass…just on the strength.”
The narc’s didn’t pull them over and arrest them because they wanted to bang them with some drugs. “We’ll have you try again in a few days,” Paco was told.
When he tried to call Rah later that week, Rah’s number had been changed.
Rah tried to block out the ominous feeling that he was left with over his dealing with Paco, but something just didn’t feel right. So he chilled out on hustlin’ for the time being, and invited Kayundra down for the weekend.
They were lying in bed, satiated from a long night of good sex, when Rah’s apartment door was kicked in. He heard the loud crash and recognized it for what it was. However, thinking it was some niggaz pulling a home invasion, Rah jumped up and grabbed his strap off the dresser, ready to go out like a G.
“Police! Freeze!”
“Drop the weapon!”
Rah realized that the crackers were official popo, so he complied. As they led him out in cuffs, he mouthed to Kayundra, “I’m sorry. Get in touch with CJ.”
Kayundra nodded her understanding as tears poured down her face.
CJ didn’t hesitate. He flew down to ATL and gave Stephanie the money to bond Rah out of jail. They had decided it was best, for appearances sake, to have her post Rah’s bond.
CJ also gave DaQuan’s people money to bond him out. DaQuan had been arrested the same morning that Rah’s door was kicked in. CJ and DaQuan wanted to go mark Paco’s whole family because they were sure that they wouldn’t be able to find his bitch ass, but a cooler head prevailed.
“It’s just a conspiracy and gun charge,” said Rah, “Ain’t no sense in adding murder charges to it, unless we can find Paco. I’m not touching his family. They haven’t done me any dirt.”
They couldn’t find Paco.He was hid safer than a niggaz stash. So CJ went back to New Jersey to handle his growing empire. Kayundra wanted to remain in Atlanta to be by Rah’s side while he awaited the outcome of the charged he faced, but Rah wouldn’t hear of it. He did not want it to interfere with her job or the outpatient program that she was involved in as part of her recovery.
“I’m good, baby,” Rah reassured her. “Go on back home and I’ll see you again soon. I apologize for getting you caught up in my shit. Even though you weren’t arrested, I hate that you were here when the shit went down.”
“Raheem, I’m down with you through whatever,” Kayundra said.
“I know that. So make sure Big Ma doesn’t find out about this.”
“Baby, my lips are sealed,” she promised, making the gesture of zipping them.
As winter kicked in and Kayundra shined at the audition at The Apollo, Rah wondered if he would have to go do a bid. Because he had used a cell phone to conspire to distribute drugs, the feds had decided to pick up his charges. CJ got Cujo to holla at his people on behalf of Rah, and a deal was worked out where Rah would serve thirty months in federal prison.
“That’s the best we can do for your boy,” Cujo related to CJ. “And we can get the kid, DaQuan, sixteen months.”
“For what? He ain’t do shit,” protested CJ, knowing how everything had went down.
“Wrong place, wrong time. Sixteen months, unless he wants to roll the dice, which I advise against.”
“I’ll relay the message.”
DaQuan didn’t want to roll the dice and neither did Rah. The bid would not only dash out his journalistic dreams, it would break Big Ma’s heart, but Rah had to swallow these bitter pills.
“Let’s do this. The sooner I go in, the sooner I touch back down,” he advised his attorney, through whom the official plea was offered.
“You want to wait until after the Christmas holidays? It’s only a few weeks away,” asked the attorney.
“Nah, man, I don’t celebrate Christmas,” replied Rah.
The toughest thing was when he had to inform Big Ma that he was going away to serve a bid. Rah manned up, though and flew up to New Jersey and delivered the news to her face to face, enduring her tears and disappointment.
The next flood of tears came from Kayundra when it was time to tell her goodbye.
“Stay strong,” he urged her.
“I will,” she promised as she wept in his arms.
SEVENTEEN
Tamika was in the bedroom watching a Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion on DVD and smoking a blunt. She heard CJ come into the house and go into the kitchen.
She pressed pause on the DVD player and went to see what he was doing; she had cooked dinner and left him a plate in the microwave. When she walked into the kitchen in her Prada pajamas she saw CJ stacking twenty kilos in the cabinet above the sink.
I thought a hustla wasn’t supposed to shit where he eats.
Tamika didn’t know that CJ was immune from arrest. And a nigga running up in there on a jack move was highly unlikely. Besides, their crib being tucked away in an affluent gated community
, the streets knew that CJ wasn’t to be fucked with.
After stacking the work that he would drop off to Kareem in two days to sell to a nigga in Irvington, CJ sat down at the kitchen table feeding money into a money counting machine.
“Oh, you don’t know how to speak to nobody?” Tamika asked, stepping into CJ’s view.
“Hey, boo.” He kept his attention on the task, but Tamika was determined to get his undivided.
She sat down on top of the table, dead on top of the pile of money.
“Can’t you put business aside long enough to kiss me and ask how my day has been?”
CJ smacked lips with her.
“How was your day, Tamika?” he asked so perfunctorily she didn’t even respond. She just stood up and glared at him, then stormed back to the bedroom and locked the door.
Sleep on the couch, nigga!
Tamika fell asleep hoping CJ would come knocking on the bedroom door, begging her to let him in.
When she woke up, he was already gone. It was Christmas Eve, her birthday.
Tamika’s cell phone chirped. The ringtone told her that it was her mother calling.
“Good morning, Mommie.”
“Good morning, baby. Happy birthday. Are you coming over to get your present?”
“Maybe later,” said Tamika dryly.
“What’s wrong?” asked her Mom Dukes.
“CJ. He doesn’t love me anymore,” she cried. “It’s my birthday. I should’ve woke up to roses and breakfast in bed. Instead, when I woke up he was already gone.”
“Maybe he’s handling business.”
“No, he’s not. I locked the bedroom door and made his ass sleep on the couch last night. Mama, he didn’t even come to the door and ask me to let him in. And you know that is not CJ. If he doesn’t mind sleeping on the couch, that means he has someone else. Before he started making all this money, he would’ve dropped to his knees begging me to let him in bed. Now, because he has all this stuff, and women are falling to his feet, he acts as if he can do without me.”
“Show him that he can’t. Pack up your clothes and come home, and don’t go back to him until he gets his shit together,” her Mom Dukes advised.
“But what if I leave him and he doesn’t want me back?”
“He’ll want you back, I promise you. And if he doesn’t, you were going to lose him anyway.”
“I’m scared to do that, Mommie. I don’t want some other chick to end up with him,” admitted Tamika.
“Chile, you gotta show that man that you won’t play second to the streets. If you allow him to take you for granted, you’ll be crying a lot more often than just on your birthday.”
“You’re right, Mommie,” acknowledged Tamika, though she was not ready to test CJ. “I’m going to see what today brings before I do anything, though.”
They talked, woman to woman, for the better part of an hour. After hanging up from her Mom Dukes, Tamika called CJ.
“Sup?” Tamika noted that he answered like she was one of his boys, not wifey.
“Nothing. I’m not just calling to see what you’re up to. What time did you leave this morning?”
“’Bout six-thirty,”
“Why didn’t you come to bed last night?”
“You locked me outta the bedroom.”
“You should’ve knocked. Maybe I would’ve unlocked the door.”
CJ didn’t respond.
“Do you have anything special planned for today?” Tamika asked, trying to give CJ a hint that it was her birthday.
“Nope. Just the usual, getting this gaup. Oh, don’t bother what I left in the cabinet.”
“Don’t worry, CJ, I’m not gonna bother your precious stuff. I wish you wouldn’t bring it to the house though,” she said.
“I got this, ma.”
“Bye, CJ. I love you.” Her heart ached.
“I’ll holla later.”
Tears dripped down from Tamika’s eyes as she looked at the phone in her hand.
Across town, CJ, Star, Danyelle, and some members of CJ’s squad were decorating the club where they were throwing Tamika a surprise birthday party. CJ hadn’t told Tamika’s Mom Dukes about the surprise party because he felt she would’ve let it slip out. He had heard the hurt in his girl’s voice a minute ago.
She thinks I forgot that today is her birthday. Neva, ma. I might creep but you still a niggaz heart.
He was doing it up big for Tamika’s surprise party. Free food and drinks for everyone, all night long. Male strippers for the women, female strippers for the niggaz. RZA and Method Man were going to perform. And CJ had spent twenty stacks on gifts for his boo. He wanted to show her that she was still special to him.
Tamika wasn’t feeling special at all, she spent the whole day at home waiting for CJ to call and remember that it was her birthday, a call that did not come.
The sun had gone down and the wintery night’s wind whistled outside her windows. She tried to call her Mom Dukes but got no answer. Same thing with Star and Danyelle. It was as if everyone had forgotten about her or were busy doing other things. Malcolm called to wish her a happy birthday and to invite her over, but she was not that desperate.
She tried to call CJ but he did not answer his phone.
Nigga probably laid up with Tricia or some other bitch.
At hope’s end, Tamika called her hairstylist.
“Joylynn, I need you to do me a favor. CJ won’t answer his cell phone when I call. I need you to call him on the three-way and see if he answers, he won’t recognize your number.”
She gave Joylynn CJ’s number and she made the call for her.
CJ answered on the third ring.
“Oops, I have the wrong number,” pretended the hairstylist. They could hear loud music in the background. She hung up.
“Thanks, girlfriend,” said Tamika fighting back tears.
“No problem. Trust, I understand. I’m thinking about getting me a dildo and saying to hell with niggaz, they’re too much damn heartache.”
Tamika faked a laugh.
When she hung up with Joylynn, instead of crying her eyes out, Tamika set out perfumed candles all over the condo and put a bottle of Moet on ice. She put on a sexy Vicky Secrets thong and bra, six inch red stilettos, and a short mink jacket. As soon as CJ stepped through the door she was going to attack him with a sexual flury that would remind him that he had that good-good at home.
The hands on the grandfather clock in the living room read 8:15. Tamika laid across her bed and waited for her man to come home. When a half hour more passed and CJ still hadn’t walked through the door, Tamika popped the Moet. Two full glasses later she was mad as hell. And drunk.
Okay, nigga, you think I’m a weak bitch that you can just walk all over? I’ll teach your ass not to neglect me.
She went to the kitchen and got his twenty kilos of coke out of the cabinet, making several staggered trips to carry them all into the bathroom.
Then she went back to get a butcher knife.
On the way back to the bathroom Tamika detoured into the den and slashed up the Italian leather sofa. Next, she staggered to the bedroom closet and cut up all of CJ’s clothes. She did so with such a fury that she cut her hand and blood got all over her mink jacket. But Tamika was too zoned out to care. Her hair was sweated out and she was breathing hard as she made her way back to the bathroom. Her cell phone rang on the sink counter just as she plopped down on the floor where she had dropped the yayo.
“Hello!” she shouted into the phone.
“Hey, girl. Come to that new club out in Arlington. Your man is here with some red bitch draped all over him,” said Star, trying to bait Tamika to her surprise party.
“Fuck that nigga! Whoever she is, she can have him,” replied Tamika in tears.
“Come to the club!”
“No! Fuck CJ!”
“Bitch, you sound drunk.”
“I am,” she cried.
“Hol’ up. I’ma come pick you up,” said Star,
with CJ, Danyelle, and Tamika’s Mom Dukes standing next to her. They had let Ms. Jerkins in on the surprise at the last moment.
“No, bitch, don’t come pick me up. Just tell CJ that I said I’m flushing all of his shit down the toilet; all twenty keys!”
She dial-toned Star and cut open a block. Her cell phone was screaming; she knew that it was her man calling.
Muhfucka, you haven’t called me all fuckin’ day, too late now!
Tamika broke one of her nails ripping the wrapping off of the block of Peruvian flake as the phone continued to ring. Then it went to voicemail.
By the time she had flushed the whole kilo down the toilet her cell phone was ringing again, persistently.
“What, muthafucka!” she answered it.
“Tamika, don’t do nothing crazy.”
“You hear this, nigga?” she dropped half of another block into the toilet and flushed it. The compressed powdery substance dissolved in the toilet water and flushed away. “Say goodbye to your precious drugs!”
“Tamika, stop! Please, baby, listen—”
“Naw, you listen, black muthafucka!” Flush. “That’s two down, eighteen to go!”
“Tamika, nooooooo!”
Flush. “That’s for the bitch you’re with.”
“Star, please talk to her!” CJ pleaded, passing Star his phone.
“Tamika—
“Stay outta my business, bitch!” Tamika screamed at her and hung up the phone.
Tamika cut open another brick and sent it to the sewers of New Jersey. Then vomit rose up in her throat and she threw up all over the commode and the floor. It did not deter her, though, she was determined to flush the remaining sixteen bricks.
Her cell phone rang again. This time it was Danyelle.
Tamika answered, “I don’t wanna talk!” and hung up.
Seconds later, her Mom Dukes called. Tamika ignored her call and flushed another of CJ’s bricks. Then another and another and …
It was seventeen down, three to go, when she heard hurried footsteps come running into the bathroom. She vomited again, then looked up to see CJ and Star standing in the doorway.