Thong on Fire

by Noire

  “If your uncle coulda seen how fucked up and raggedy you was last night…your shit was wide open girl.”

  “I know,” I mumbled, digging deeper into her bed. “That’s why I called you instead of him, remember?”

  I heard her sigh.

  “I ain’t gonna be stealing my momma’s car in the middle of the night to come get you off the streets no more, Saucy. If my momma finds out you told me to steal her keys and take her ride, both of our asses gone be dead.”

  While I had to sneak out all the time, Tai’s mother never checked up on her. She actually trusted her, and that really tickled me.

  “She ain’t gonna find out, Tai. Not unless you keep running your mouth all loud like you doing.”

  “You was lucky I finally decided to answer my phone. You didn’t answer yours when I called you.”

  I rolled over and squinted at her. I’d walked what felt like thirty thousand blocks last night and my toes were killing me. “I already told you, Tai. We was in the diner when you called. Dip had disappeared in the back on me and I was busy looking out for him.”

  She got real quiet for a second, then said, “Did you see who shot him?”

  I shook my head. “Nah. I told you I went to the bathroom because I had to pee real bad. He was already popped when I got back.”

  “But you said you caught a ride into Manhattan on a water truck. What did you do about Dip?”

  I sat up and looked at Tai like she had a dick on her forehead.

  “I left his ass right there!”

  Her eyes got big. “Oh my God, Saucy. He probably died!”

  I shrugged. He probably did. But what the hell was I supposed to do about that? Dip was the one who had turned me on to this game. He knew the runnings and the risks ten times better than I did. I was just glad I had to pee when I did. Otherwise, there might have been two dead bodies propped up in that Expedition last night.

  Besides, I was the one who got stranded and left out there to find my own way home. No sooner than I’d slammed the door on Dip, that cute little man who had tried to holla at me in the diner came strolling down the steps.

  “What’s wrong, baby girl. What you do? Eat and run? I told you to get wit’ me if ya man’s bank was too short to get up in ya belly.”

  Him and his boy was climbing into a fresh cream-colored Caddy parked two cars over. I saw my opportunity and jumped on it.

  “Yeah,” I said sexily, strutting over to his car. “That nigga came up a little short. But his loss might be your gain.”

  He started his engine and grinned at me.

  “That right?” He dismissed his boy with a hand gesture without taking his eyes off me. “Yo, Jamal. Climb in the back, man.”

  And then to me: “Yeah, baby. Toss that herb who brought a dime like you to some raggedy-ass diner. You wanna party with a winner tonight? I’m Wakim. Jump your fine ass on over in here with me.”

  Tai stood up and opened the window. The breeze coming in felt good and all I wanted to do was roll over and go back to sleep.

  “But wait a damn minute,” she said, turning toward me, her eyes suspicious. “You ain’t tell me about no cream Caddy, Saucy. You mean you made me come get your ass when you was rolling around town in a Caddy? I thought you said the damn water man had kicked you outta his raggedy truck?”

  “He did. But that was after I ditched Wakim at the house party.”

  Tai looked at me with her eyebrows up. She slid off her bathrobe and I closed my eyes when I saw all that meat hanging out the side of her Miss Piggy pajamas. There’s some shit big girls like her just shouldn’t wear, ya feel me?

  “You bailed on Dip to go party with some niggas you didn’t even know? Damn. You should have at least called an ambulance for him, Saucy. Called the cops. Called some damn body.”

  “Nah!” I sat up. “Who I shoulda called the cops on was that skinny Puerto Rican bastard who made me suck his dick for a ride across the bridge!”

  Tai looked all shocked, but I was mad as hell.

  I didn’t know shit about Queens, and Wakim and Jamal had taken me deeper into I-don’t-know-where-the-hell-I’m-at territory to this house party he said his man was throwing. The two-story house was rocking when we rolled up. People were hanging out all over the second-floor balcony and the music was loud as hell. Wakim took me inside and up to the second floor. He offered me some X, but I said no and smoked a blunt with his man instead.

  The house was full of wall-to-wall niggas, and everybody was getting they heads buzzed. I drank and danced with Wakim, and even though I was a lot taller than him, I let him rub up on my ass as we leaned wit it and popped wit it too.

  Wakim was really trying to put it on me when I felt my cellie vibrating on my waist and unclipped it. The caller ID said PRIVATE, but the music was so loud I couldn’t hear a damn thing.

  “Hold on!” I screamed into the phone. “I’m going outside! Don’t hang up!”

  I left Wakim dancing by himself and started toward the balcony. The door leading out there was packed with bodies so I ran down the stairs yelling, “Hello! Hello! Hello!” into my cell phone the whole time.

  With my finger stuck in one ear and the phone pressed to the other, I walked out the house as about five niggas was walking in. I bumped dead into one of them and his body was so damn hard I yelled, “Ouch!” He stared down at me looking all mental, and I gave him the same look and then rolled my eyes as I walked off the porch and down to the curb.

  “Hello?” I said into my phone. “Who this? Don’t be playing no damn games on my phone. Who this?”

  I heard static but I could see that the call was still connected, so I walked down a few cars and was just about to yell into the phone again when I heard the screams.

  Niggas was wildin’ on the balcony and chicks were screaming like crazy. I looked up and saw a couple of homeys climbing over the banister. About five of them jumped down and hit the grass running fast, and I knew what time it was.

  That hard nigga I had just bumped into was now out on the balcony waving a gat, demanding dollars and jewelry, and threatening to pop the next fool who jumped over the railing. My heart damn near stopped. I dropped down and duck-walked my ass around the car I was leaning on. I stayed crouched down, breathing hard, until common sense told me to waddle my ass toward the next furthest car, and then the next one, and then the next one, until I was safely down the block.

  When I finally stood up my knees were aching, my leg muscles were burning and my heart was trying to come through my chest. I had to pee again, but I ignored that shit and started walking real fast. For what felt like miles. I passed a whole lot of houses that were shut down for the night. A few dogs barked, but otherwise the streets were quiet and the only sound I heard was my four-inch heels clacking on the concrete pavement.

  I had just crossed a street when I saw the brake lights of a truck glowing from a driveway. I ran past three houses and flagged the driver down just as he was backing into the street. He rolled down his window and I flashed him a sad smile.

  “Hey, mister. I need a favor. My girlfriend just dumped me to hang out with some guy she met, and now I don’t have a ride home. Can you take me into Manhattan?”

  He had looked at my legs and hips, then up into my face.

  “Ain’t you kinda young to be out by yourself this late, mami?”

  I smiled. “Yeah. That’s why I gotta get home. My daddy’s gonna kick my ass if I miss my curfew.”

  He smiled back at me. “I understand. I got a daughter about your age myself. Get in. I’ll give you a ride.”

  “Saucy!” Tai closed her mouth, then opened it again as she listened to my story. “You sucked the truck driver’s dick? You told me the guy just offered you a ride!”

  “Well, yeah, he told me to get in, but as soon as I did he tried to play me.”

  And it wasn’t the dick-sucking part that had made me mad, neither. It was the fact that I didn’t get all that was due to me out of it.

  “Gas c
osts money,” he’d said, putting his truck in park and opening his pants before I could even get my seat belt on.

  I stared at him. He looked fatherly. Probably even older than Uncle Swag. I was young, but I wasn’t dumb, and it had been a long, crazy night. Old men liked their dicks sucked too.

  “How bad you wanna get back to Manhattan?”

  I didn’t give it another thought. I slid across the seat and put my head in his lap and went to work. What the fuck. I’d sucked plenty of dicks, and like he said, nothing in life came free.

  But his ass had tried to yank me. I’d swallowed his muscle so good he’d started singing real loud in Spanish. But as soon as we left Queens and got over the bridge and into Manhattan, he pulled over and told me to get out.

  “Okay, we’re in Manhattan, baby. I’m about to make this U-turn. Out you go.”

  Of course I’d screamed on his ass and all that, but it didn’t matter. He was behind the wheel, and that truck full of big water jugs wasn’t moving an inch without his say-so.

  If it wasn’t for Tai I woulda had to walk home all the way from the Queensboro Bridge. I’d called her and she’d done me a favor by picking me up, so I guess she had the right to bitch and chastise me now. It was the price I had to pay for asking her to steal her mama’s car. I sighed and put my head back under the pillow while she screamed on me about how crazy I was to be getting in trucks with strange men and giving them head just for transportation.

  As far as I was concerned, listening to Tai talk her shit was no different than sucking that old man’s dick. It showed me that life would always be a bitch, and there was no such thing as a free ride.

  A few months later my whole world caved in.

  Uncle Swag got knocked.

  The feds came gunning for him while he was in a meeting at work, and pictures of him with his hands cuffed behind his back and being led out of his office were being flashed all over ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN too.

  Tai and I were cutting school when I found out. I was sitting with my head back in a sink at the Locks of Love hair and nail salon, and Tai had gone next door to buy her second platter of fried fish and chips. A nice Robb Hawk cut was playing over the speakers and I was loving the way my girl Carmiesha’s fingers were working my scalp.

  “Raise up,” she said, gathering my wet curls up in a towel. I sat up and wiped my face with the facecloth she was handing me, and when I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw on the television hanging from the wall was Uncle Swag.

  “Oh shit!” I jumped up from the chair. “Yo!” I waved my hand back and forth real quick. “Turn that music down for a second! Yo turn that fuckin’ music down!”

  By the time they turned down the music and found the remote for the television, I’d missed most of what the reporters had said. But the little bit I did catch scared the shit outta me. Uncle Swag was being arrested for signing off on illegal liquor licenses to unqualified bars and clubs. They were hitting him with tax evasion charges and accusing him of taking kickbacks too. My whole body was shaking when Tai walked back in the shop chewing a mouthful of fish and dropping gobs of tartar sauce all over her titties.

  “What’s wrong?” she said, noticing the panic in my face. I felt like I had just swallowed a huge rock and it was sitting on top of my bowels.

  “I gotta get home,” I said, drying my face and snatching up my purse and book bag. Tears forced themselves from my eyes and I had no way to hold them back. My uncle was my world and I loved him hard. “Something bad happened to Uncle Swag,” I sniffed. “I gotta go home and see how to get him some help.”

  “Hey where you going with wet hair?” the blow-dry girl called as I ran past her and toward the door. I threw my hand in the air.

  “Not now!” I hollered. I almost broke the damn door down getting out of there, and if Tai hadn’t been light on her feet and right on my heels, that door would have swung back and knocked her ass out.

  “I think she wanted you to pay her,” she huffed, trying to keep up with me as I jetted down the block toward the subway.

  I never even slowed my roll. Pay that trick no damn attention! The only thing I was focusing on right now was Uncle Swag, and finding out what I had to do to help him get out this mess.

  When I got inside the apartment I could barely see Aunt Ruthie sitting in a chair in the dark living room rocking Kaz’s long-legged butt on her lap.

  “Turn on the television!” I hollered, throwing my bag on the floor. “Uncle Swag got arrested. He’s locked up!” The second I clicked on the light, I knew shit was much worse than I’d thought.

  The crib had been tossed. Shit was all fucked up. I walked through the apartment with my mouth open, unable to believe my eyes. Every dresser drawer in the house had been emptied out. The mattresses were torn off the beds and the stuffing was falling out. Books from Uncle Swag’s den were tossed all over the floor in the hallway, papers scattered everywhere. They had even dragged shit out of Aunt Ruthie’s closet and swept her dresser clean, breaking bottles of expensive perfume and leaving glass all over the damn floor.

  I almost broke down when I went into my room. That big old bed had been sliced down the middle and then all the way across, gutted like a deer. My satin sheets and blankets were all cut the hell up. My shoes and clothes were ripped and torn and in one big pile in the middle of the floor. My jewelry box was empty, and every diamond, pearl, and precious metal I’d owned was gone.

  It looked like a tornado had gone through the apartment, tearing shit up from one end to the other. Debris crunched under my feet as I walked slowly back to the living room where Aunt Ruthie was still rocking her oversized baby.

  “They had a warrant,” she said, and shifted Kaz on her lap, and the way he looked at me I knew he wanted to get down. She let out a short, bitter laugh. “But Swag left a dirty trail leading straight to his own front door.”

  I bit my lip. “Well what do we do now? Are they gonna pay for all the shit they tore up? I know they don’t think we gone live up in here like this! Did you hear from Uncle Swag? Do you have the number to his lawyer?”

  Aunt Ruthie yawned and started patting her foot.

  “I told Swag a long time ago to stop fooling around with them Haitians and signing all them fake documents. This is what you get when you climb in bed with drug dealers and low-down criminals. He knows I wouldn’t go down to no jailhouse even to see about my own mama, and if he has a lawyer I don’t know nothing about it.”

  I stood in the middle of the demolished room staring at her. The chair she was sitting on was almost the only piece of furniture that wasn’t broke up.

  This chick didn’t have no fight in her. I hated the way she had tucked her damn tail between her legs and given up. Uncle Swag was in jail, his picture all on the damn news, and all she could do was sit there rocking a fifty-pound pony and patting her damn foot. I could have yanked her off that chair and stomped her into the floor.

  “Aunt Ruthie, we gotta do something. We can’t just be sitting here looking stupid and waiting for something to happen. The first thing we gotta do is get Uncle Swag out.”

  She gave me a funky look, and opened her mouth, but then the doorbell rang and we both jumped. I threw Aunt Ruthie a funky look of my own before answering it. I looked through the peephole and when I saw Tollie standing out there I snatched the door open and almost fell into his arms with relief.

  “Tollie! Damn I’m glad to see you. Uncle Swag got—”

  Tollie pushed into the apartment and covered my mouth with his big ol’ hand. He shook his head quickly, then let me go and put his finger to his lips. I caught on real fast, understanding his signal. I had never stopped to consider that the house might be wired, but if the feds had Uncle Swag boxed in then there was no telling how they had gotten their info.

  We spent the next fifteen minutes passing notes. Tollie would write on a piece of paper and let me and Aunt Ruthie read it, and then we would write down whatever we wanted to say back and let him read it. Tollie knew a wh
ole lot more than what the news had reported. Not only was they saying Uncle Swag had been playing both ends against the middle and hooking up Haitian felons and illegal immigrants with fake liquor licenses for their clubs, they also thought he was involved with the murder of a Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages employee who found out what Uncle Swag was up to and ended up floating dead in the East River. They’d waited a long time before making a move, laying in the cut until they got enough of what they needed to shut him down.

  Aunt Ruthie wrote that four men in street clothes had come barging in like they wanted to knock the door down. They’d handed her a warrant and even gave her a chance to read it, then went to work tearing shit up. She said they confiscated every computer in the house, even the one Kaz used to play his video games on. They told her all of Uncle Swag’s bank accounts had been seized so not to bother trying to use her debit or credit cards. They’d even found the safe Uncle Swag had had built into the wall in their private shower.

  “Damn,” I said out loud, shaking my head after reading all that.

  Tollie just shrugged, like, “Hey, this is what these cats do.”

  By the time we finished “talking” I felt even worse. In my head I kept seeing that picture of Uncle Swag being rushed down the sidewalk on Park Place in handcuffs. I was proud of his ass though. He was a G for real. Wasn’t no trying to hide under no jacket, or holding his head down in shame for my Uncle Swag. He walked outta that building and got into that car like those cats holding his arms was on his payroll and the detective driving the unmarked car was his damn chauffeur.

  Tollie said they probably wasn’t gonna give Uncle Swag no bail because of the murder charge. He told me and Aunt Ruthie to grab whatever clothes we had left and come with him. He was putting us in a hotel for the night.

  “What about tomorrow?” I asked him after he checked us into a five-star hotel on the East Side. Any other time I would have been wildin’ about staying in such a fly, high-class joint and ordering shit from room service that I couldn’t even pronounce. But right now my whole life felt shaky. Without Uncle Swag I was lost and ass out. All I wanted to do was go back to living the way I was used to.