Lipstick Diaries Part 2

by Anthony Whyte

“Yes, I understand, can my brother come here to see me before the baby leaves? I just want to tell him how to hold him and to please bring him here to see me every month and…”

  The other social worker named Tracy who was a plump black chick and wore her hair in Goddess braids said, “Ms. Peters, your brother’s petition to be legal guardian over the baby has been reversed. The baby’s father’s family has agreed to take care of him while you are, um, away,” she explained with the quickness.

  “After your brother’s outburst at the court, it was discovered that the baby would be better off with his grandparents. They can make arrangements for the baby to come and see you. Don’t worry. He’ll be in good hands,” she said, folding her sausage sized fingers, obviously not fazed by what she just told me.

  The other social worker was smoothing her sandy brown bangs from her face as I slowly got up from my chair and placed the baby in her arms. This fat bitch in front of me reminded me of that other bitch Joelle, so I hooked off on her dead in her pie shaped face. Blood and teeth splattered across the room. The correctional officers burst in the room, one of them a well built female who wrestled me to the ground.

  “Give me my baby!” I screamed. “Take him and keep him in my family! Please Ms. Barnett! Please, don’t do this to me!” My voice grew hoarse and I wrestled with the C.O’s. They held their knees in my back to keep me from getting up.

  “I just want to kiss my baby, please!” I yelled in agony.

  Ms. Barnett bent down to me with tears in her eyes with my son. I looked up in defeat and leaned my lips to Randall’s pale face and brushed him with two kisses before she quickly got up and put the sky blue blanket over his face. She looked back at me squirming on the floor and hurried out of the room. The other bitch Ms. Hill was led away to get treated for her busted grill. The C.O. with her knee in my back took her club and hit me in the back of my head. I blacked out.

  In my dreams, I saw Olu wearing a black judge’s robe. I heard my baby Randall crying in the shadows. I saw me and Jeena pushing Olu off of a cliff and laughing at his screams as they turned to silence. I saw my brother Randall graduating from law school and being the best defense attorney there was, and then I saw me again, a different person. Not the whore or drug dealer everyone claimed I was. I was happy. Then I heard Grandma Cora Jean’s thick hissing telling me I had dark clouds around me, but those whispers were tamed with Mommy’s trail of oil and Holy water she was throwing at me. Maybe it was time to tame my dark clouds and give it some sunshine. That sunshine was my son.

  Months turned into years, three to be exact and I was a changed woman. It didn’t happen overnight. I had a few fights with some of the bitches who wanted to test me. After my fourth year of lockup, I came across this chick I knew from my twenty-four hour ho stroll, Maribel. She couldn’t run from me as I came face to face with her in her cell. She was pregnant like I was when I first came to Albion. Her hair was now dyed a white blonde and she had dark rings under her eyes. Wonder who had pimped her out? I looked at her arms and noticed track marks—Dope.

  “Angel, what’s up girl? You still look the same,” she nervously said.

  I wasted no time with the chit chat. “What the fuck happened that day? I want to know!” I grabbed at her throat.

  “Look Angel, it was all her, you know that. I would never dime you out like that, shit I was just as scared of Olu and Ink as you were. Please believe, I would never snitch! You gotta believe me, mami!” She rambled and sniffed snot through her small nose.

  I put her down, realizing she was carrying a seed.

  “I want to know everything that happened, from the time you all ran downstairs and left me there to get raped then jailed for some shit I still don’t fucking understand,” I demanded. I grabbed the steel chair that was on the other side of the small cell and sat down waiting for her to tell me. She calmed down and went to her sink to splash some water on her face.

  “Okay, this is what I remember,” she started.

  I waited. She leaned against the metal bunk bed as she told me what I already knew.

  “That bitch, Joelle, is a snitch and she was afraid you was gonna take her place. She knew those drugs were in that house. She put them back in there the night you got, well, you know.” She stared down at her swollen feet.

  “The night I was raped you mean, right?” Fury shone in my eyes and Maribel’s watery eyes could not clear the fire out of mine.

  “Yes, but I didn’t think you would go down like this. She wanted to get away from Olu and Ink. She also didn’t want you on top. She wanted you and me out of the picture so she could get into her own game, the drug game.”

  I wasn’t satisfied with Maribel’s story, but it helped me to know that Joelle was still out on the streets. I tried not to worry about nothing, since I still had a year to go.

  “Look, no hard feelings aight?” I stood and faced her, rubbing her shoulders in a friendly sisterly kind of way and left her room. I poked my head back in. “What you in here for anyway?”

  She smiled, “Petty larceny, some ole bullshit, Adios mios!” She laughed and shook her head.

  “Yeah, me too, petty bullshit,” I said and watched the stupid smile disappear from Maribel’s face.

  Maribel gave birth to a baby girl and her father came to take the baby and raise her.

  The next month, he came to claim Maribel’s body. I received some powdered donuts Jeena sent me through the mail along with other food items to enjoy. How clever was she to disguise them in an Entenmanns’s box! The donuts were laced with strychnine poison. Enough for stupid ass Maribel to eat to the very last crumb, licking her fingers and then break out in convulsions, pulling her throat in a tight jam and eventually stopping her heart altogether. Her daughter would be better off without a dope head such as Maribel was anyway.

  At the age of twenty-one, I had gained a little weight, mainly muscle. I had a host of letters from Randall and Jeena, the only two to still have my back. I finally went to class to get my GED, read several books, hundreds to be exact and earned an Associate’s degree in Criminal Justice.

  I never did receive a visit from my son or his grandparents. In the new millennium, I went before the parole board, and to my amazement, they let me out. Even with the extra year they tacked on for whipping that fat bitch’s ass who took my son, they still looked at me as a decent person. Yeah, the fuck right! But I was out and there was work to do.

  As soon as I went to Jeena’s place on Grand Avenue in Williamsburg, she hugged me and grabbed my hand, leading me to a bedroom.

  “Look inside the chest,” she said gleefully.

  I did and what I saw in there gave me the biggest smile I had had in years. I mouthed thank you to her and closed the chest. Later on that night, my radical brother Randall came to pick me up in a black Nissan Maxima.

  “Sis, you still look the same. Beautiful,” he said as we whizzed away towards the Bronx.

  His once curly hair was replaced with shoulder length cornrows. I knew I was due for curfew at my halfway house at nine o’clock. I knew that Jeena really loved me and wanted to be with me. I also knew that when Randall came to get me, it was to see a nigga I had been waiting to see for a real long time—Ink. So fuck parole right about now.

  When we pulled up to an old dark warehouse in the murky area of Hunts Point, Randall made sure I was safely inside. My heart thumped with rage as I approached this nigga who was surrounded by ten brawny guys who wore all black shades. I had on a matching outfit. I stared at Ink who was tied to a chair and naked, and then above him. There was a wooden box of rats held tight by a pulley and two guys holding each end of the rope.

  “Long time no see motherfucker, where’s my son?” I spat at him.

  This nigga who still looked the same minus the swollen eyes and busted lips, had the nerve to say, “Fuck you bloodclaat ho!”

  “With what…?” I asked.

  And with that, I pulled out the sharpened garden hoe blade from under my coat that Jeena had tu
cked safely in her cedar chest and came down on Ink’s shriveled up dick and chopped it off. I turned away from him and drowned out his piercing screams and the squeals from the rats when my brother’s friends released the box and walked out of the warehouse with Randall. I still had work to do.

  Experience is priceless too bad we have to pay for it with our youth…

  Pit of Her Stomach

  CAROLINE McGILL

  Taj sat with her arm around Jill’s shoulder. She was comforting her pregnant best friend at her time of loss. There was a woman standing at the front of the church, in the middle of a tear jerking solo, and Jill was crying uncontrollably. Taj’s heart went out to her. Jill’s fiancé, Jeff, was in an ivory, marble coffin a few feet in front of them. Poor Jill was eight months pregnant with their first child. She was having a boy.

  Jill wasn’t the only one crying. She was Jeff’s third baby mother. The other two sat on the pew behind her. She and Taj sat on the front pew with Jeff’s mother, grandmother, and two aunts. The church was pretty big, and it was packed. Jeff was a well loved dude. The place was decorated with so many flowers it looked like a floral shop.

  But something just wasn’t right. Taj just had a funny feeling. She kept on glancing around the church nervously. Her left eye was jumping. That meant something was going to happen. Taj was a little superstitious because she was raised by her superstitious southern grandmother.

  Some folks in the south believed that your left eye jumping meant your luck would be bad. And they believed the right eye jumping was an indication of good luck. Taj tried to be easy and relax, but her gut told her that something was going to go down.

  After the soloist was done, the preacher stood up at the front. Reverend Bixby followed that heartfelt solo with a sermon full of fervor. Midway through, he had half of the congregation in tears, and the other half up on their feet shouting. The reverend continued preaching and telling it like it was.

  “Here lies a good man! He was a good son! A father of two, with another one on the way…And he will be missed. Can I get a Amen? Well, now! God wanted him home. I say, God wanted this young brother home. It wasn’t his time, but God knows best. Jesus! I pray for the killing to stop. It’s just so senseless. Lil’ children growing up with no daddies and Mother’s losing their sons. It don’t make no kind a sense! Lord knows, sometimes we just don’t understand. God, we need you! I say, Lord, we praise you! We trust that you will make a way! Out of no way! You did it for Job! And I know you’ll do it for us! I know you will!”

  He wiped the sweat from his brow with a navy blue silk handkerchief he took from the breast pocket of his suit, and continued.

  “I heard a lot of people stand up and say how good this man was! He helped a lot of people, and touched a lot of lives! See, God judge us by the things we do. He say “let the works I’ve done speak for me-e. So to the family, I say don’t worry! You see, it’s alright…Don’t you weep no mo’! Lord, don’t you mourn. Let not your hearts be troubled, ‘cause Brother Jeff don’ gon’ on to another place! A better place! A place where the thunder don’t roll and the rain don’t pour. Good God almighty! Where troubled winds no longer blow! Glory hallelujah! I’m talkin’ ‘bout heaven, ya’ll. Do you wanna go? I say, do you wanna go? ‘Cause I wanna go. And if you get there before me…When you get there… Tell my mother… And tell my father… That one day… I’m comin’ home! I said I’m comin’ home! Glory be to God! Hallelujah!”

  Jeff’s mother threw up her hands in the air, and cried out, “Rejoice! Hallelujah! Praise God! Rejoice!” Two of the church ushers dressed in white stood over her and fanned her.

  There was a loud thud, the church doors flew open, and a crew of thugs entered menacingly with big guns drawn. They were all dressed in black, with matching black boots, hats, and ratchets. At the sight of the intimidating looking crew, parishioners began to panic and look for a way out. Everyone knew that there were slim chances of a happy ending in this situation. That posse’s intent was clear, like they came to kill.

  They walked down the church aisle and further intimidated everyone by ice grilling them threateningly, and pointing guns at their faces. Amidst the thugs was one female, dressed in black army fatigues, black Timbs, and a black hat just like the rest of them.

  The last man of the bunch entered the church, and the others in the crew respectfully parted, allowing him to pass. They posted up along the aisle on both sides to make sure nobody made a move. The last man headed up to the front of the church with two men following close on his heels. His presence was that of authority. It was obvious that he was captain, and the other two were his lieutenants.

  The captain gave the command, and his lieutenants sprang into action. Jeff had already been shot eight times when he was killed four days ago, but they walked up to his casket and coldly opened fire on him again, putting a brand new set of holes in his corpse. The lieutenants, Loc and Fuck-You-Phil, had been briefed and given orders earlier that day. No mercy was to be shown to anyone at Jeff’s funeral, not even the preacher. Whoever didn’t cooperate was to be gunned down. It was that simple.

  People hovered cowardly down by the pews, and witnessed horror in the desecration of Jeff’s corpse. To shoot a dead man in his casket was unheard of—and in the house of the Lord? They had to be out of their minds. The funeral attendees all realized that their lives were in danger. The crew of young criminals in their presence was bold and reckless.

  The whole church got down, lurchig for cover, including the preacher. Everybody ducked except for Jeff’s mother. She refused to let her son’s memory be disrespected that way. She had to speak up in his honor.

  “My God…! What have you done? What kind of people are you? Have you no hearts, and no souls? My child is already dead. You all are nothing but the children of Satan! Get outta here! I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. Get outta here! My son is dead! This is his home going ceremony. You killed him once, and you come to shoot him again? How can he rest in peace? My God, have you no shame?”

  Jeff’s mother was upset, and very emotional. She threw both hands up to the sky like she was looking to God for answers, and shook her head helplessly.

  She was a woman of God, but her son’s murderers were unmoved by her display of maternal bereavement and holiness. Loc, the shorter one wearing the black Yankee fitted cap, walked right up to her and shot her in the forehead at pointblank range.

  The woman fell silent, and her blood splattered on Jeff’s grandmother, who was seated right next to her. After witnessing her daughter’s murder, the elderly woman’s initial reaction was of one of protest. She called on the Lord, and stood up, as if there was something she could do—Even though she was powerless. Fuck-You-Phil responded with a slug to her chest. That shot knocked her back in the pew. The poor old lady clutched her chest in disbelief, clinging to her life. Two seconds later, she was dead.

  The two lieutenants, Loc and Fuck-You-Phil, were a special pair. Neither of them played with a full deck. At the sight of the old woman’s demise, Loc started laughing, hard as hell. That was the way he had earned his street name. He was just straight loco.

  Fuck-You-Phil had his moniker because his name was Phil, and he was known to have told a few dudes who begged for their lives “fuck you” before he pulled the trigger, and took their heads off. Both of the lieutenants were honored they had been delegated the task of shooting up Jeff’s corpse, and were delighted to take shit a step further. Fuck that nigga, and his whole family.

  To shoot a dead man at his funeral was the highest form of disrespect. That nigga Jeff had fucked with the wrong person’s money, so Jeff had to go. The captain, Butch, was so angry about the loss Jeff had caused, he wanted to kill him again. That was one of two reasons he had rounded up his troops and crashed the funeral. The other reason he was there was to find Jeff’s partner, Bless, to retrieve his muthafucking’ money, and kill him too.

  Loc had been smoking a blunt laced with some powerful angel dust right before they came. He was
out of his mind and in a straight I-don’t-give-a-fuck mode. He was already crazy, so dust made him insane to the twelfth degree. Loc turned to the congregation, and pointed to Jeff’s grandmother.

  He yelled, “Yo, ya’ll think that’s disrespectful? I’ll show you mothafuckas disrespectful! Ya’ll wanna see disrespectful? Ahight!”

  He unzipped his black fatigues and removed his flaccid penis. He waved it at the congregation with an evil smirk, and then he walked over and pissed on Jeff’s corpse. Everyone gasped in horror, each half expecting God to strike him down right there for his despicable act.

  After Loc relieved his bladder, he put his dick away, and just stared at everyone. He yelled, “Ya’ll mothafuckas better act like ya’ll know! Who else up in here want it? Who the fuck else want it? Nobody move, nobody get shot!”

  He raised his gun, and fired twice up in the air. It looked like he was busting shots at God.

  “T.B.G. mothafuckas! T.B.G. up in this bitch! Yeah, niggas!”

  That was the name of their crew. T.B.G. simply stood for The Bad Guys. Butch was the captain, and he and his dudes didn’t give a fuck. They were ruthless. They figured shooting up the funeral was appropriate. There was already slow singing and flower bringing, so it was nothing to body a few more mothafuckas.

  Jeff’s mother had asked for it, and his granny was old anyway. Fuck it! Butch’s heart was stone cold. The person he had come for, Bless, wasn’t in sight. Bless was Jeff’s partner, and he was one lucky nigga. Fortunately for him, he had been smart enough not to show up to see his best homie laid to rest. Somebody must’ve been praying for his ass. But he was a marked man. He could run, but he couldn’t hide. Butch had already decided that his days were numbered.

  After learning that Bless wasn’t there, he scanned the pews for someone he could get answers from. He zoomed in on Jill and Taj in the front. They were trying to hide, but he saw them. Butch knew that bitch, Jill was having a baby by Jeff, and Taj used to be Bless’ girlfriend. He walked over and addressed them both with no nonsense.