Thong on Fire

by Noire

  “Don’t worry,” Tollie said. “I’ll try to get in to see Swag tomorrow and we’ll get this shit figured out.” He reached into his pocket and pulled ten one-hundred-dollar bills off the top of his money clip. My eyes followed that green as he passed it to Aunt Ruthie.

  “Call downstairs and get something for the kids to eat, Ruthie. Order them a movie too. I’ll be back to check on y’all tomorrow.”

  Tollie kissed us both goodbye and left. Aunt Ruthie went over to the sofa where Kaz was coloring in a book they’d given him at the front desk. She sat down and pulled him into her lap. I took my shoes off and plopped down on the bed, then sat there with my eyes glued to the zipper on Aunt Ruthie’s Manilio Argucci purse where she had just stuck all that doe.

  Chapter 5

  I DIDN’T EVEN act like I was going to school the next day.

  I heard Aunt Ruthie getting Kaz up and dressed for school in the other room, and I laid in the bed thinking and staring at the ceiling until the door slammed and they were gone.

  I wanted to call Tollie and see if he’d left to go see Uncle Swag already, but even if he had, it was still too early for him to have any news. I got up and took a shower, then got dressed and went in the outer room and chewed the two chicken nuggets Kaz had ordered then left on his plate the night before.

  Aunt Ruthie had the grand that Tollie had given her last night, but I was almost broke. With only sixty-seven dollars, my platinum tennis bracelet, a diamond choker and a pair of diamond studs, and almost no clothes at all, I felt damn near naked.

  I hung around the hotel room for hours waiting for Aunt Ruthie to get back. It shouldn’t have taken her more than an hour and a half to get Kaz to his school across town and come back, but at noon I was still by myself and I started thinking the worst.

  That bitch had left me.

  I gave myself a hard mental kick. I knew I should have slid some of that money outta her damn purse, but her sanctified ass had practically slept with it between her skinny legs. She was probably glad Uncle Swag got knocked. A baller like him had to have some emergency chips stashed somewhere, and Aunt Ruthie probably planned on sticking him and getting rid of me at the same time.

  I thought about my options and came up with a real short list. Aside from Dip and Plat, all the other niggas I’d fucked with were basically small-time hustlers. Kimichi was still living in Harlem, but she’d gotten kicked out of our old apartment, not that I wanted to be with her ass anyway. Every now and then I would run into her on the streets when I was hanging out. She was skinny as hell and looked a hot-ass mess.

  “That’s your mother?” Tai had asked me one night after we left the club and Kimichi ran across an avenue full of traffic and caught me going into a twenty-four-hour McDonald’s.

  I was too embarrassed to answer. Kimichi had on a pair of high-water men’s plaid pants and a dirty muscle shirt. Her long legs looked ridiculous in those short-man pants, and she had black socks and platform sandals on her feet.

  “Seung Cee!” she screamed over and over. She was so high she was weaving on her feet. “Oh!” She tried to wrap her bony arms around me. “I look for you, Seung Cee!”

  She smiled and showed a mouth full of rotten teeth. She tried to hug me again and I jumped back and hid behind Tai.

  “Girl!” Tai said, pushing me toward her, refusing to be the blocker. “Go ’head and talk to your moms, Saucy.” She held her hand out to Kimichi. “How you doing? I’m Tai, Saucy’s best friend.”

  I had looked over my shoulder for a month straight after that. Hoping Kimichi’s scary-looking ass didn’t roll up on me again. My moms was straight out there, but at least Tai was still high on my options list. I dialed her digits and her phone rang for a long time. Just when I thought it was gonna roll over to her voice mail, she picked up.

  “Saucy! I’m in class!”

  “Well dip your ass outta there then,” I told her.

  “Is your uncle still on lock?”

  “Yeah. But I’m chillin’ hard in a phat hotel, girl. Why don’t you cut out and meet me over here? We can take a cab uptown and pick up some sticky, then come back and drink up all these little bottles of liquor they got in the bar.”

  “I have exams coming up, Saucy. So do you. I’m sorry about your uncle but you need to bring your ass to school. Shit. They gone take my damn phone. I gotta go.” Click.

  Fuckin’ Tai! I was down and almost out, but I was a fighter and there was no surrender in me. I tossed my cell phone on the bed and was sitting there trying to figure out my next move when Tollie showed up.

  “Hey,” he said, kissing my cheek as I let him in. “Where’s Ruthie?”

  I shrugged and strode across the floor in my cutoff shorts that barely covered my ass. “I don’t know. I think she cut out on me. She went to take Kaz to school this morning and never came back. Shit, it’s almost checkout time so she probably dipped.”

  “Calm down, Saucy,” he said, but I noticed that the “it’s all good” look he’d had on his face yesterday was gone.

  “Look,” he said, leaning his elbow on a small table. “I saw Swag this morning and shit is bad. It’s worse than any of us thought.”

  “What?” I said, my fear getting me hyped. “Whatever go down you and his boys is gone look out for him though, right? Y’all gone get the bail money together and get him out, ain’t you?”

  Tollie reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a blue rectangular bag. It was one of those soft plastic things you put bank deposits in.

  “There ain’t no bail, Saucy. Ain’t no money either. Not even to pay his lawyers. Everything he had was in that fuckin’ safe they busted into, even though them dirty fuckers only officially reported about a third of what Swag told me was in there.”

  He dropped the blue bag on the counter.

  “Hold on to this. Give it to your aunt when she gets back. It’s enough in there for her to take y’all back to Harlem and find an apartment until some of them niggas who owe your uncle money start paying their debts.”

  Oh I knew better than that!

  “And who the fuck is gonna make them pay, Tollie? What are we supposed to do? Go to the police if they decide they wanna stiff him? Stiff us?”

  Tollie shook his head. “It’s fucked up, Saucy. But that was your uncle’s downfall, baby. He was overconfident. Sloppy. He didn’t stack his shit properly for the rainy days. That emergency stash shoulda never been kept in his house. But he thought he was flying under the radar. Thought he was too smooth to get caught. He’s gonna try to cut some kinda deal soon, he said. Let’s hope it works.”

  He shrugged, then pushed the blue bag toward me.

  “Take this, Saucy. Tell Ruthie to make it last as long as she can. I gotta roll down to Atlanta, but I’ll be checking on y’all and I’ll make sure you get a little bit more bank soon.”

  When Tollie left he took my hope with him. Uncle Swag was being held in a federal prison and you had to be eighteen to visit him. I opened the bag Tollie had left then sat at the table and counted the thick stack of bills inside. Ten thousand dollars wasn’t a whole lot of money but it was a good start. It took me about five minutes to decide what to do with it. Harlem was a moving town. Shit changed hands every few minutes and if I could hook up with Plat and move some weight, I could flip that ten and make it forty or fifty in just a couple of days.

  I stuck the money down in the bottom of my Dooney & Bourke purse and grabbed my cell. Downstairs I asked the doorman to hail me a taxi. I had just climbed into the back of the yellow cab and was giving him an address in Harlem when I saw Aunt Ruthie walking up to the front of the hotel. I didn’t understand what Uncle Swag had ever seen in that run-down bitch. She didn’t have half the fight in her whole body that I had in one strand of my damn hair. I was a survivor and she was already sunk. Her whole fuckin’ life was over and you could tell just by looking at her.

  I shifted my purse on my lap, feeling the weight of the money inside.

  Fuck Aunt Ruthie, I
thought as the cab pulled away from the curb and into the Midtown traffic. Let that bitch call her sister or go out and fend for herself. Kaz was cute. She’d find somebody to feel sorry for him and give them somewhere to stay. As for me? I was still wearing clothes that had played out two days ago. Harlem was calling me loud and clear, but first I was taking my black ass shopping.

  In three days I was back down to nothing.

  Well, almost nothing. I went to Michael Kors on Madison Avenue and caught a dope sale. They had a red Indian-collared, crocheted shirtdress in there that fit me like a mutha! It was sleeveless with just a thin satin lining, and it stopped right under the hump of my ass. I saw the perfect Vachetta Mazatlan shoes to match it too, and walked out of there with several getups that set me back more than a G.

  I took a taxi over to Nordstrom in New Jersey and found the cutest ruby earrings ever, and ya know the bracelet to match it ended up in my purchases too. I bought some jeans at Burberry, two cute bags at Gucci, and some new boots at Neiman Marcus that I planned to save for the wintertime, when it got cold. You know I had to get me a powder-blue leather jacket and some powder-blue Timbs to match, and a bunch of other stuff to replace all the fly gear them feds had ripped to shreds when they tossed our apartment.

  I wasn’t just focused on self, though. Back in New York I went in Macy’s to get some thongs, and saw a diamond choker in a markdown case that just screamed Tai’s name. It wasn’t my style, but it was perfect for her. I shopped my ass off and didn’t feel bad for spending almost half of Tollie’s money neither. Shit, I’d been traumatized as fuck by Uncle Swag getting knocked, and shopping helped relax me and make me feel better about myself.

  But then I got down on a flip deal with Plat and that nigga did me wrong. He claimed he got beat by a connect and the whole thing went bad. I felt stupid as hell. Instead of turning Tollie’s money over, Plat had turned me over. And fucked me in the ass while he had me in the right position.

  “Damn, Saucy,” Tai said. It was almost eleven at night and I was sitting in her kitchen watching her fry some bacon and make blueberry pancakes. “How’s he just gonna do you like that? That shit is messed up. I thought that nigga Plat was cool?”

  I groaned and pushed my hair back, then twisted it up into a roll. “I thought he was cool too. But that nigga was jerking me from the gate, girl. He’s still swole because I crossed him out for Akbar. That’s what’s real.”

  “Yeah,” Tai agreed. She opened the refrigerator and looked inside. “I’ma scramble me some eggs. Want some?”

  I shook my head. Tai’s mother had been walking back and forth. In the kitchen, out the kitchen, past the kitchen. I knew her nosy ass was probably sucking up every word we said.

  “So did you ever catch up with him to try and get your money back? What’s he saying about that?” Tai asked.

  I sighed. “He ain’t saying shit because I can’t call him. He must be hiding underground somewhere because I can never find him when I’m in Harlem. His number is in my cell phone, but that shit got cut off. Either Aunt Ruthie stopped my service, or maybe nobody paid the bill.”

  Tai scrambled her eggs and spread a slice of American cheese on top and let it melt. Then she squirted a gob of ketchup on top of the cheese and poured almost half a bottle of syrup over her pancakes.

  “So where you stayin’?” she asked and chewed hard on a piece of slab bacon. Her mother walked past the kitchen again and I waited until I heard her house shoes going down the hall.

  “I was gonna ask you to see if your moms’ll let me chill here for a minute.”

  I saw the look on Tai’s face. I hadn’t stayed more than two nights in a row at her house ever since that night she had poked a hole in her uterus tryna give herself an abortion when we was fourteen. Somehow Mrs. Watkins got it in her head that the baby and the hysterectomy Tai ended up getting was my damn fault. How?!? I didn’t get Tai pregnant and tell her to wait so long to get rid of it! I didn’t unbend the coat hanger and shove it up her pussy! All I did was sneak her the gin so she could get drunk first!

  “Just for a minute, Tai. Maybe a week or two until I can get on my feet.”

  Tai stuffed some pancakes in her mouth. “I already know what she’s gone say. But I’ll ask her.”

  My stomach felt shaky as I watched Tai grease her plate. I felt like a beggar again. Like that dirty raggedy Saucy nobody gave a damn about. Like that nasty little girl who was so grimy you had to scrub her down before she could come in your house because she might fuck up your child’s sheets.

  When Tai finished eating she stood up and put her plate in the sink. “C’mon, Sauce. Lemme ask her before she goes to bed.”

  But her moms was standing right there as soon as we stepped out of the kitchen. Before Tai could say a word, her mother beat her to it.

  “It’s late, Tai. It’s time for your company to leave. Goodnight, Saucy. Tai, lock the door behind Saucy and make sure you put the chain on it.”

  “Ma,” Tai said as her mother turned to walk away. “Ma, I was gone ask you—”

  “I said, lock my damn door, Tairene. And chain it too. Goodnight, Saucy.”

  Tai gave me a helpless look and walked me to the door with my bags. As I stepped out of the apartment I heard her get smart with her mother. “Ma! You know her uncle got in trouble. She can’t go back home!”

  Her mother answered her just as the door was closing.

  “Oh, she ain’t gotta go home, baby. She just gotta get the hell up outta here!”

  Chapter 6

  IT TOOK A lot for me to keep myself together as I waited for the elevator to come. Any other time I would have been riding upstairs to my own damn apartment and crawling into my big-ass bed to crash. Instead, I pressed the down button and when I got to the lobby I looked around for Frank. He was standing outside the building dressed in his navy blue uniform with the shiny gold buttons. His stomach was triplet-sized, and the toes of his pointy shoes was curled up in the air. I left my bags by the door and stepped outside and got ready for what I was about to do.

  “Whassup, Frank?”

  He turned and looked at me and a smile spread across his face that reminded me of that syrup running over Tai’s pancakes.

  “Little Miss Saucy! How’s everything, darling? You doing well in school? You’re such a smart girl. I bet you’re making all A’s, aren’t you?”

  He made me sick with that “friendly doorman” shit he pulled with all the tenants. I hated the way he pretended to kiss everybody’s ass and grin all over himself like a happy-ass slave. And he could cut all that how I’m doing in school bullshit. This motherfucker had rubbed his little tiny balls all over my nipples and shot his load on my neck. What did he care about how I was doing in school?

  But I needed him.

  “I’m doing good, Frank. Look, you working all night tonight, right?”

  “Surely, surely! Why? Are you going out for awhile? I’ll be right here waiting to open the door for you when you get back.”

  I shook my head real quick.

  “Nah, I’m not hanging tonight.” I gave him the sad face. “My uncle is in some trouble, you know. My aunt got sick and went upstate to stay with her sister. I’m locked out. I was gone ask you if I could, uhm, stay at your place for a minute. You know. Since you don’t be there at night anyway.”

  His fat little tongue slid across his lips.

  “Er—I don’t know, Saucy, I mean, I’m sorry your people are having troubles and you don’t have anywhere to stay, but you’re kind of young. I could get in a lot of trouble, you know. Maybe even lose my job if anybody found out I let a tenant’s child stay in my apartment.”

  I wasn’t too young when he was titty-fucking the hell outta me, but he had forgotten that small point. “Look, Frank. Nobody has to know. Just give me your address and your key, and I’ll catch a cab. I’ll be waiting there when you get off work in the morning and I’ll give you the best damn breakfast you’ve ever had.”

  I could read his nasty
thoughts in his eyes. I knew damn well his little dick was sticking straight up underneath all that stomach too.

  He looked around nervously, then peered into the building to make sure nobody was coming out.

  “Okay,” he said, digging into his pants pocket. “Get your bags. Breakfast sounds real good. You can skip the eggs and the toast, though. I’m a meat man. I like mine soft, brown, and warm.”

  I stayed with Frank for a few weeks. I stayed high outta my mind for a few weeks too. He paid my cell phone bill and kept a roof over my head. We actually got us a little routine going. I gave him “breakfast” every morning, and he put some money in my pocket every night. He lived in East Harlem and every night when he left to go to work, I was out the door right behind him.

  “You be a good girl while daddy’s gone,” he would call out before he left. Just hearing that shit made me mad. Frank was a sick motherfucker and I had to get my head tore down before I could even let him touch me.

  “You have beautiful breasts,” he told me one morning as I held on to both of his man-titties to keep myself from being thrown off of him. My head was spinning. I was on top of his great big stomach, riding his little tiny dick. That was the only way I could really fuck him because his dick barely reached the gushy when he tried to get on top.

  “Just hurry up,” I muttered as he gripped my ass and moved me back and forth on him. He was laying on the living room floor enjoying his “breakfast.” I had just killed a case of beer before he came in, and I was dizzy as fuck. His stomach felt like a waterbed. It was covered in stretch marks, and it was jiggling and sloshing all over the place. I honest to God did not know if his dick was inside me or not. I couldn’t feel a thing down there. The only thing I felt was sick, and even though I tried, I couldn’t help it when that beer came rushing up outta me and splashing all over him.

  “Saucy!” he yelled as I gagged some more, then rolled off him and hit the floor. “What’s wrong?” He sniffed the air. “Have you been drinking, young lady?”