Thong on Fire

by Noire

  I waved my hand. I wasn’t no rapper, just a real bitch like I had said. Besides, all that had happened two weeks ago and I wasn’t dwelling on it. I was living a free life and back on my game. No man had ever shit on me like Free had, and from now on I was gonna stay on top and get what I could get outta every single nigga I met.

  And I needed to hook me a herb real quick, too. Since Free had put me out, Tai was letting me stay at her crib. Her mother had had a stroke a few months back and was recovering in a long-term rehab joint, which is the only reason Tai had let me in. She said her mother would die if she knew I was staying up in her house, and made me promise not to go nowhere near her parents’ bedroom. So I slept on the sofa whenever Tai was home, but you better believe when she was gone I got right in her mama’s big pretty bed and rolled my ass around in it. But trust me, living up in there with Tai was almost as bad as staying with Free. Tai was my girl and stuff, but she had picked up some of Jaheim’s stupid-ass habits that got on my nerves.

  She was the one who insisted I had to sleep on her living room sofa, but every morning she got up with the pigeons and got on her loud-ass treadmill that was right next to my head and ran for what seemed like three hours. That made me mad because she could see I had not so long ago got in from hanging out and was trying to get me some damn sleep.

  And that flimsy nigga Jaheim. I couldn’t stand his square ass. Coming around looking at me like I wasn’t shit. We argued all the damn time. I heard him telling Tai that I was probably out there selling pussy, and I told Tai that motherfucker was probably out there selling ass! Just the way he talked around his tongue shoulda been a damn hint. Sounding like a uptight white boy from the Catskills or something. But Tai was slow and Jaheim had her blinded. She was still making all these big-time wedding plans. She had invited all Jaheim’s peeps, politicians in his office, corporate executives, and a bunch of religious dudes from his church. I just couldn’t see it. Instead of taking her money and splurging on something for herself, she was tricking it out on a wedding with Jah!

  I was getting so damn tired of hearing every little detail too, but I tried not to let Tai know that. Ever since that night I had tried to lure Jaheim into my mix, I just couldn’t see my girl with a non-fucker like him. Damn right he was gay. He musta been yeasting Tai up to get her money because if he could turn this phat ass down then that meant he wasn’t really into women. I didn’t know a single straight heterosexual nigga who would take a chick like Tai over the splendor that was me, so what else could it be?

  I ended up moving outta Tai’s place a few weeks later even though I had drank and smoked up all my doe. They had gotten a new girl to model for the Birthday Cake ads, and didn’t even tell me why. She sure as hell didn’t look half as good in them jeans as I did. Video jobs was getting real hard to come by too, and I just couldn’t understand it. There was mad new artists cutting records left and right, and a lot of them were paying good money for videos. I would hear about an audition and run down there as fast as I could, and then I wouldn’t get picked! Yeah, they might offer me a spot as an extra, but I walked away from those real quick. I just couldn’t see going from the top spot down to the bottom especially when there was no explaining it. My body was still ten times hotter than all of those chicks put together, and my looks beat them all out too.

  “Maybe it’s ’cause of that nasty funk you give off,” Jaheim said when I came in complaining about an audition one day. I knew I wasn’t getting a callback without them even telling me. The minute the assistant called me in the back and they looked at my call sheet, they all of a sudden wanted a real light-skinned chick for the part and told me they’d keep my number on file.

  I had stopped over by Baruch and smoked some sticky green with Quaison’s homeboy Brickett to bring me down off my mad trip, but I was still kinda pissed, and when I walked in the door and Jaheim opened up his faggot-ass mouth, I went straight off.

  “You just hatin’ because I wouldn’t suck your damn dick,” I screamed.

  That long-legged yellow freak walked toward me like he was gonna do something and I ran in the kitchen and snatched a butcher knife out the drawer.

  “Come on, you scrawny motherfucker! I’ll find me some dark meat to cut off your bony ass! Just come on!”

  Tai jumped up and got between us.

  “Saucy! Put that fuckin’ knife down! What is wrong with you? Girl, you can’t be coming up in my house disrespecting my fuckin’ man! We just don’t get down like that!”

  “Look at her,” Jaheim said. “Pulling a knife on me like some hood bitch. And in somebody else’s house! Free should have shut you down a long time ago, Saucy. You’re lucky to have a friend like Tai, but you don’t know the first thing about friendship. All you know is grime, sister. Grit and grime. That’s all you know.”

  That motherfucker had just insulted me for the last time. I dropped the knife in the sink and pushed past Tai. I went in the hall closet and got the two huge striped laundry bags that Free had put my clothes in, and started filling them up with whatever I saw that belonged to me.

  “I see how you living, Tai,” I said as I was packing. “You gonna let your nigga talk to me like that and stand up for him over your girl. I’m good with it, though. ’Cause when his swishy ass leaves you, you gone come running right back to me.”

  Tai looked at me real crazy.

  “Saucy, I have never come running to you for anything in my whole fuckin’ life.”

  I nodded and dragged my bags toward the door. “You remember them words, bitch. Because one day you gonna eat ’em.”

  I moved in with Quaison even though his moms didn’t like it. I didn’t understand what her big problem was because I didn’t spend no real time there anyway, other than to sleep and take a shower. I hung out with Quaison and his boys in the studio, and partied with them in the clubs most of the night.

  I had stopped trying to contact Free. He still wouldn’t take no calls from me, and I knew better than to knock on the door because he had an order of protection against me. I wanted to see Nasir, but the last time I went over there Free called the cops on me and they locked me up overnight. I had been standing across the street watching the building when him and Aunt Mercy Ann pulled up in that raggedy Honda. I couldn’t believe Free had my baby up in that rattle trap, but he did. I ran across the street as soon as he got Nasir out the car seat, but I only got one good peek at him before Free threw a blanket over his head and turned his back on me.

  “Get the fuck outta here, Saucy!” Free said, and broke out with Nasir toward the building.

  Aunt Mercy Ann was still at the car. She had the nerve to roll them big-ass eyes at me. She rolled them so hard I was surprised one didn’t pop out and skid across the ice. But I had had enough of that bitch too. She had lied and told the cops she caught me shaking Nasir one day ’cause he was crying! All I was doing was trying to rock him, and I had told her that. Yeah. I was sick of that old moley-nosed bitch! I couldn’t get to Free, but she was a whole lot slower and I ran up on her and swung, punching the shit outta her. She tried to turn away and run toward the building but I caught her upside the head again, then ran behind her and gave her a big flying kick in her wide ass. “That’s what you get for making me leave my damn baby in the house, bitch!”

  I kicked her in the ass again, this time higher up her back, and don’t you know that damn doorman ran out and grabbed me? He threw me on the cold, icy ground and fell on top of me, and we was still down there fighting when the cops pulled up!

  “She hit me!” Aunt Mercy Ann screamed, holding the side of her face. “Arrest her, she hit me!”

  I spent the whole night in a cell, but I didn’t feel a minute’s worth of regret. That old bitch had treated me real bad, and she was due that ass-kicking for real.

  I had used my one phone call to call Tai, and she still sounded mad at me but she came and got me out. That’s what friends were for.

  “Saucy, you gonna run yourself right in the ground,” she t
old me as she drove me toward Quaison’s crib. “I be worrying about you, girl. For real.”

  “I just wanted to see my son, Tai. I don’t care what that judge said. They don’t have no right to keep my baby away from me.”

  She sighed. “Nas is fine. I kept him the other night because Aunt Mercy Ann was sick again. You could have killed that old woman, you know. Punching her out like that! You know she’s got a bad heart.”

  “Free let you pick Nas up?”

  Tai nodded. “Yeah. I been getting him a lot because Free is working so much and Aunt Mercy Ann has been real sick and he doesn’t like to burden her. That boy is so big, Saucy. And smart too. He has your hair and pretty eyes, but Free’s temperament. He’s a cute little mess.”

  I was jealous! Tai wasn’t Nas’s goddamn mother! Not only was Free letting her take my baby whenever she wanted, she was standing up here in my face telling me about my own kid like he was really her son!

  “So when’s the next time you gone have him? Call me so I can come by and see him.”

  Tai shook her head. “Saucy, you know I can’t do that. I promised Free I wouldn’t do nothing to violate his court order and he trusts me to keep my word. Besides, I take him straight from Free’s crib to my apartment, and Jaheim is always there. You know?”

  I thought about it for a minute, then nodded. Hell yeah, I knew. She didn’t wanna let me in her crib to see my own damn son because that nigga Jaheim was up in there.

  “C’mon, Saucy. I see that crazy look in your eyes. Don’t even think no stupid shit because this ain’t about Jaheim. It’s about Free having custody of Nasir.”

  “He’s my damn son, Tai!”

  “I know he is. So what are you doing to try and get him back? You didn’t show up for the court date, then you roll up on Aunt Mercy Ann and beat the shit outta her. You think that’s making you look like a mother who really wants to have her child?”

  “I still wanna see him,” I mumbled. “I should be able to at least see him.”

  Tai sighed and put her arm around me and drove with one hand. “I think you should be able to see Nasir too. I really do. If it was me I would be going crazy without my baby.”

  “I am,” I sniffed. “I am.”

  She sighed again, then pulled me close and squeezed me.

  “Hand me my purse,” she said, stopping at a traffic light. I gave it to her and she reached inside and handed me a colorful piece of paper that had been folded like a booket.

  “Check this out. How ’bout this. Our Black History Month celebration is coming up in the next few weeks. We’re holding it at Jaheim’s father’s church, and Free and Nas are gonna be there. Why don’t you just swing by and take a peek at him?”

  I looked at the program I was holding and my face lit up as my mind worked like a little computer. Tareek was still living in Harlem in the apartment connected to the record shop his father used to own. I ran into him and his friend Stubbs every now and then when I was partying on the Lower East Side, and he was still a hot mess. A couple of weeks ago I had talked this fine-ass cop outta bustin’ him and Stubbs for tryna work a corner in their little mini-skirts. “Ms. Tareeka” owed me a big favor and I knew just how he could pay me back.

  “Now wait,” Tai warned. “That don’t mean come up in no house of God starting no shit, Saucy. It means come by, slide in and get a glimpse of your son, and then slide back out, cool?”

  “Cool!” I said.

  “But you gotta promise me you won’t try to talk to Free, you won’t try to take Nasir, and you especially won’t swing on Aunt Mercy Ann.”

  “Jaheim father is a minister, right? It’s gonna be at his church?”

  Tai nodded. “But you gotta promise you won’t start no shit right over your baby’s head, Saucy. You deserve the right to see him, but don’t nobody need no unnecessary drama. You know?”

  I nodded real quick, wondering if Tai knew what she was doing for me.

  I smiled. “Thanks, Tai. You always there for me. Always. I love you, girl.”

  She hugged me again. “I love you too, Saucy. That’s why I put up with your crazy-ass shit! And don’t worry. You know what kind of friend I am, girl. I’ma be there for you until the day you die.”

  Chapter 23

  THREE WEEKS later I was finally getting a chance to see my son. I was still kicking it with Quaison at his crib, but his friend Brickett had started liking me. He was asshole-ugly, but he sold some good powder and all I had to do was spend some time with him and he let me have as much of it as I wanted for free.

  Tai had told me not to come up in the church starting no shit with Free, and I had promised her that I wouldn’t. I didn’t have no church clothes, so I put on a pair of tight black corduroy pants, a white T-shirt, and a long black shirt over it, and that was about as homely as I was willing to get so it was just gonna have to do.

  It was cold as hell outside, and by the time I slipped into the church I was freezing. They say niggas draw heat, and it was sure warm up in there. I peeked in the hall and saw the pews was packed. People was standing around talking and sitting around laughing and carrying on.

  I found the stairs and went up to the projection room. An old man was sitting up in there. I pulled my long black shirt over my head and took it off, then pushed the door open and went inside to talk to him. Two minutes later I had found the ladies’ room and was sitting inside a locked stall. I stayed there chilling for a little while, waiting until the program got started before going back in the chapel and slipping into a back pew.

  I had to scan the room from side to side, looking over and around all them big ugly church hats before I spotted Free and Aunt Mercy Ann. They were sitting way down front with Tai, and when I stood up I could see Nasir sleeping in Aunt Mercy Ann’s arms.

  My baby was so big! He had a lot of curly black hair and he was light brown like me too. I grinned as Aunt Mercy Ann rocked him on her lap. It didn’t matter what they did to keep me away from him, they couldn’t take away the fact that I had carried him in my stomach and he was my damn son!

  I sat back down and looked around. It was a big, pretty church, and those Pentecostals sure knew how to throw a party and get their sang on too. Everybody was swaying and patting their feet and clapping their hands, as I just sat there listening to a whole bunch of holy lyrics that didn’t mean nothing to me.

  Jaheim’s father was easy to spot because he looked just like his son, but older. Like a walking bag of high-yellow bones that somebody had stuck inside of a suit.

  When all the praises and testaments were over, Jaheim stepped up to the podium. He had on a pair of dark shades, and if his people didn’t know what them glasses was hiding, I sure couldn’t wait until they found out! That damn hypocrite! Thought he was better than me? He damn sure wasn’t smarter than me. I was about to show and prove that to him and everybody else. I couldn’t stand the way he walked around like he was high class and up there above me, Tai, and everybody else. Tareek and his boy Stubbs had only had to knock him around a little bit, and Jaheim’s sweet ass had caved in and bent right over. They had given him three chances to pay the cost or play the game and get put on blast, and that arrogant nigga had refused to deal and told them to kiss his black ass.

  I was half listening as he talked about how important people like Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman were. But when the lights dropped and the overhead projector came on and shone on the big screen they had set up in the pulpit, my heart started beating real fast in my chest.

  Yeah, motherfucker! I thought, clenching my teeth. What did he call me? Grimy and gritty? Well Jaheim had fucked with the wrong grimy chick because I was about to get me some payback in a real gritty way. And it had been real easy too. A couple of packs of powder donated by Brickett, and Tareek and Stubbs had been more than happy to do the job.

  That toothless old deacon they had upstairs running the film projector had been easy to control too. Hey, a big-titty stunna wearing a white belly shirt in the middle of the winte
r was something to look at. When I told him Tai wanted to use a different DVD for today’s program he had never suspected a thing. And how could he? He couldn’t take his eyes off my firm knockers and flat stomach long enough to have any sense!

  And now, I sat in that back row and waited as the music came up and Dr. King’s face appeared on the screen. Jaheim was narrating from the podium and looking up at the screen at the same time. It took him a minute to realize that somebody had flipped the damn script, but when his tooted-up hairy yellow ass came on camera, he damn near collapsed. Tareek, with his big ol’ hormonal titties and snake dick, had on a hot pink teddy and was holding his hard dick and slapping Jaheim all in the crack of his ass with it.

  A loud gasp went up in the church, and Jaheim’s mother screamed when a shot of Stubbs straddling a black-eyed, busted-lip Jaheim and squeezing his perfect round titties while his dick hung in Jaheim’s face came into frame next.

  “Turn that off!” Reverend Miller’s voice boomed toward the drunk in the projection booth. “You turn that craziness off right now!”

  Oh, them sinners in hell was screaming for ice water.

  Tai was standing there holding her stomach and covering her mouth. Jaheim’s mother needed to cover her damn mouth because all that hollerin’ she was doing was just sparking everybody else up. I saw her go down to the ground as a bunch of saints rushed over to help her. I stood up and saw Free. He was standing over Aunt Mercy Ann, fanning her real fast with her big church hat as he held Nasir in his arms.

  Jaheim was still up at the podium. His face was twisted in pain and he was reaching out toward Tai.

  “I knew I should have told you!” he moaned. Dufus must didn’t realize the damn mic was still on, so we all heard him loud and clear. “I’m sorry, baby! I should have told you about this!”