Hell's Diva

by Anna J.

  The men who attended the funeral, who were mostly friends of Kaheem and Born, simply stared at her as if she were the star of the show. The women, who were either girlfriends of the men in attendance or of the many girlfriends Kaheem and Born had, gave Mecca the evil eye. As a show of respect and honor to Kaheem and Born, the men who were their friends and associates showed up in red suits, and some wore red street clothing with bandannas around their wrists.

  The funeral was held in a funeral home called Unity in Brownsville. Shamel, his grandmother, and Mecca sat in front while the others sat behind them in the wooden pews sectioned in two rows. The bodies of Kaheem and Born, dressed in black tuxedos, lay in two cherry wood caskets in front of the mourners. The mortician did a great job at covering up the scars and gunshot wounds on both bodies, and although it wasn’t possible to piece Kaheem’s skull back together, it was barely noticeable that the top of his head was sewn shut.

  A preacher gave a speech about life and death and spoke a few good words about Kaheem and Born, which Mecca knew were lies. To her, there was nothing good about the two scoundrels. All they did was rob and shoot people and snake those close to them. Mecca looked at their bodies and thought, There lie two no good niggas. The world is better off without them. They deserve to be wherever they are. See you in hell mu’fuckas.

  Mecca turned to look around the funeral home, wondering if someone heard her thoughts, and looked at some of the people, wondering how many of them felt the same way. She smiled at Karmen sitting behind her in a black, button-down, cotton Gap shirt, black Gap jeans, and a pair of black leather Timberland boots.

  Karmen half smiled back at her, and she noticed the smile leave Mecca’s face as she caught Tah and his crew come inside the funeral home. Tah and his crew entered all dressed in black. The four of them wore black butter soft leathers, baggy jeans, and Timberland chukkas.

  Tah looked at Mecca, smiled, and nodded his head as he and his crew found seats in the back. She wondered what Tah was doing there. Did he know Born and Kaheem? Born and Kaheem were from Brownsville, but she didn’t think they knew or even associated with Tah. If they did, then could it be that Tah was the mastermind behind Shamel’s kidnapping? Mecca was willing to bet he was. How she would find out was another question she needed an answer to, and knew it would be hard to get.

  The N.Y.P.D. set up shop outside of the funeral home. Some were on the roof of the building and across the street in marked and unmarked vehicles. They were investigating the murders and wanted to know who Kaheem and Born associated with. It was obvious to them that the two were Bloods, which to the N.Y.P.D. meant anybody could have killed these two.

  “Mecca a grimy bitch, son. She know damn well her and duke did this shit and they gonna sit up there acting like they hurt. I like her style,” one of the members of Tah’s crew whispered in his ear.

  Tah smiled and whispered back, “She ain’t shit, right?”

  Tah hated the fact that Mecca left him for Shamel. Not so much because he loved her, but his ego and pride couldn’t deal with some nigga taking something from him. He didn’t want people to look at him like he couldn’t keep a girl and he had no control, or like she played him. He swore to himself that both of them would pay for their violation.

  After the preacher finished his sermon and asked if anyone wanted to say something about the two men (and no one could or would say good things about them), everyone viewed the bodies. The Bloods left red bandannas, bullets, and weed in the caskets and threw gang signs as they passed by the bodies.

  Tah and his crew were the first to walk out of the funeral home. They stood around out front hugging people they knew, and staring menacingly at guys they had beefs with in the past or guys they robbed. Tah hugged a girl he knew from Brownsville and his jacket lifted up as he did, revealing the black 9 mm Berretta he had tucked under his belt. A plainclothes cop noticed the gun and immediately spoke into his walkie-talkie.

  “I see a gun. I’m going to walk toward the guy. When I get to him, back me up.” The cop got out of his unmarked car directly across the street where Tah stood. He walked over to Tah from behind.

  “Excuse me. Can I have a word with you?” the cop said, tapping Tah on his shoulder. Tah turned around and looked the white man up and down, curiously.

  “Who the fuck is—” Before Tah could finish the sentence, he heard yells from a dozen cops.

  “Freeze! Don’t move!”

  The cop in front of him showed his badge and grabbed Tah by the arm and patted him down. Tah’s crew all began walking away as the other cops told the crowd to either walk away or go back into the funeral home. The guys dressed in red all walked away quickly. Some of them also had guns on them. The cop who approached Tah pulled the gun from his pants.

  “What you got this for, buddy? Plan on shooting up the funeral?”

  Tah grinned as he was cuffed. “Nah.”

  The cop searched his pockets while another took his arm. “You got anything in your pocket that will stick me? Did you come here to shoot these guys again?”

  “Fuck you talking about?” Tah wiped the grin off of his face, puzzled by the officer’s comment.

  “The dead guys, you come to shoot them again?” The cop continued smiling at Tah.

  “Fuck outta here, I ain’t shoot nobody!”

  The cop walked Tah to one of the marked police vehicles. “Yeah, right, wiseass. You’re innocent, huh?”

  “Did you ever think about taking up acting instead of selling drugs, Mecca?” Lou asked sarcastically after showing Mecca the funeral of Kaheem and Born. “’Cause you’re good, you got Halle Berry beat for an Oscar!”

  Mecca ignored Lou and thought about what he said. Everyone around her was an actor. Shamel acted as if he truly loved her. So did Tah. Karmen acted as if she was her friend, yet she was fucking Shamel and smiling in her face. Who else was acting? she asked herself. Mecca admitted she acted like she didn’t kill Born and Kaheem, but they deserved it, and the only reason she had to act that way was to avoid suspicion. She didn’t act like that with the people she loved. She was real and loyal to those who were supposed to be her friends and loved ones.

  “You’re like the jackal,” Lou said excitedly. “You disguise yourself and everything. You’re amazing!”

  Mecca sucked her teeth, but kept silent. She was tired of Lou’s antics and this game he was playing with her. She wanted it to end. If she knew that death was like this, and because you did wrong you would have to watch what you did and what others who were supposed to be your friends did, she would have changed her life. But death is the most unsolved mystery that exists.

  “But Shamel, he’s way better than Denzel Washington. Y’all were made for each other!” He chuckled. “I got to give it to Ruby, though, she is the best who ever did it. No one can compare to the diva, Ruby! That’s right, I said it, Ruby is a diva!”

  “My aunt is straight up real,” Mecca said sternly.

  “You ever read in the Bible—”

  “Fuck the Bible; I don’t wanna hear that shit. Just get this shit over with!” Mecca yelled, cutting Lou off. Lou smiled and bowed as if he finished performing on stage.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Federal Courthouse, Brooklyn, 1999

  “Objection! Your honor, counsel is retrying the case. This is an evidentiary hearing.”

  “Counsel, what is your point?”

  “Your Honor, with all due respect, I’m trying to show how my client was prejudiced by trial counsel’s failure to call these witnesses. These witnesses would have provided that my client was defending herself!”

  Ruby sat next to her lawyer dressed in a beige prison suit with her hair cut in a low Afro. She smiled hearing her lawyer argue the case. Mecca and Shamel sat in the spectators’ seats, two rows behind the defense table where Ruby and two lawyers sat. Shamel and Mecca were the only spectators in the courtroom, along with court officers, who were standing at the entrance to the courtroom.

  “I’m going to
overrule the objection. Proceed.”

  After the two-hour hearing, Mecca spoke with Ruby’s attorneys about Ruby’s chance of getting a new trial or having the conviction vacated. Mecca dressed in a Dolce & Gabbana powder blue, button-down blouse, and butt-hugging, black khaki pants, with a pair of powder blue Gucci shoes. She held her black Coach bag under her armpit while listening attentively to Ruby’s lawyer explain how Ruby’s chances looked good, but the courts were unpredictable. The attorney promised to keep Mecca updated on the case; until then they would have to wait.

  While Mecca spoke to the attorney, Shamel sat speaking to a shackled Ruby. The judge allowed an in-court visit. She looked Shamel up and down, smiling.

  “I knew you were going to be a looker, but damn, I didn’t think you would be this fine.”

  “Stop fronting like you into men again,” Shamel joked. Ruby could see that Shamel kept himself in good shape. His frame filled in the gold and black Versace shirt, and Ruby felt a tingle in her pussy.

  “When you gonna come visit me again? You in love now, huh? So I can’t get no more of that?”

  “You know since this shit happened, Mecca hardly lets me out of her sight,” he said in a low tone, fingering the scar on his face.

  Shamel remembered the last time he snuck off to visit Ruby. She paid the guard to let her sneak off into a bathroom in the visiting room that the staff used. When Shamel walked in, Ruby had her beige prison skirt lifted up to her waist, and was holding on to the sink, bent over.

  “Hurry up, Shamel, we got ten minutes.”

  Shamel quickly pulled his Fila velour pants down and already erect, grabbed his dick and pushed it into Ruby’s hairy pussy. Ruby felt Shamel’s large dick fill her insides. She thought she felt him in her stomach when he rammed his pole in and out of her. She held her head down and tried to hold her moan in. She inhaled and exhaled loudly.

  “Shamel, fuck me! Fuck me harder!”

  After about fifteen minutes, the guard knocked on the door and told Ruby her time was up. The shift was about to change. She fixed herself up before walking out of the bathroom and back to her seat. Shamel walked out a minute later and took his seat at the visitor’s side of the table. He knew that dick was Ruby’s weakness and he had no quarrels exploiting that fact. He knew if he gave her what he wanted he would get what he wanted. When he wanted her to give Mecca her blessing to mess with him, he gave her one of the best half hours of fucking she ever had on one of their secret visits.

  When Ruby was on the streets, he would fuck her when she wanted to go heterosexual for a minute. Then she would reward him with cocaine for him to sell. It was on one of their creeping moments when Shamel suggested to Ruby that she put him in charge of Sutter Gardens by giving him five kilos on consignment and he would re-up from her. When she got locked up he promised Ruby that he would continue to re-up from Mecca and protect her. Ruby agreed.

  “She’s all I have, Shamel. I went through a lot to get where I’m at and I want to return to the streets the same way I left them!”

  Mecca returned to the courtroom, where Shamel was speaking to Ruby. She sat next to Shamel and smiled at her aunt.

  “The lawyers said it looks good,” Mecca said, enthused.

  Ruby shrugged her shoulders. “They been saying that for the last ten years, Mecca. They say whatever to keep that money coming in.”

  “You know it takes time when it comes to these appeals. You got all them other bodies thrown out. All you got now is this one,” Shamel said, trying to lighten the mood. He knew Mecca was in a good mood after speaking to the lawyer. Ruby’s attitude toward her possibly having the murder of the Spanish man overturned made Mecca’s change.

  He didn’t want to be around her when she was in a bad mood. He already had to put up with her when she was on her period. Those were the worst three-to-five days to be in her presence. It was on those days that Mecca never second-guessed shooting or cutting somebody. When the marshals told Ruby her in-court visit was over, Ruby gave Mecca and Shamel a warning before they left the courthouse.

  “Y’all be easy out there. Stay off them phones and hang them cron’s up for a minute. They are looking to that witness who got hit uptown. They trying to link it to me.”

  When the marshal walked Ruby out of the courtroom, she smiled at Mecca, and without a sound coming out of her mouth, Mecca read “I love you” on Ruby’s lips.

  Mecca did the same. “I love you too.”

  When the visit was over, Ruby would return to her cell and cry herself to sleep. She hated the fact that her weakness was a man’s penis, dating all the way back to when she was in love with Wise. She despised the fact that a man could control her if he made her orgasm. Her attempt to control her life was one of the reasons she turned to women for sexual gratification. She had no weakness for women.

  Before she fell asleep, she got up from the bottom bunk and tapped her cellmate’s leg. Her cellmate was a young, black woman who resembled Monique; same complexion, height, and build.

  “Kima, I need some attention, baby,” Ruby said in a commanding tone.

  Kima rolled her eyes and put down a book called Shattered Souls written by Dywane Birch. She jumped off the top bunk. Ruby covered the cell door with a sheet then she pulled off her beige prison dress. She laid on her bunk after taking her white panties off. Kima put her knees on the floor and leaned between Ruby’s legs and sucked and licked Ruby’s pussy. Ruby held her head and closed her eyes and moaned.

  “Lick this pussy, Kima.”

  Tah was back on the streets, and like most cats who returned from prison without plans of going straight, Tah had plans to take over Brownsville regardless of whose toes he stepped on. While he was up north, he got the word that all members of his crew were Bloods and that Brownsville Houses were being run by a Blood cat from East New York. The blood was getting his product from Shamel.

  Tah blamed Mecca for everything that happened. Shamel was her boyfriend and he got his product from her. Tah found out that Mecca made Ruby’s villa her permanent residence and transformed her East New York apartment into a weed spot. She was selling weed and crack. Word on the street was that Mecca’s re-up was fifteen bricks and ten pounds of weed a week.

  While Tah was up north, he became a Blood. He moved up in ranks quickly off his rep on the streets and while he was locked up he caught cuttings and stabbings that made him feared throughout the state system. It was the reason he served his whole sentence. By the time Tah served his sentence, he was a general. The word was sent to Brownsville that when Tah came home, he was the general over the ville, and anyone who didn’t abide by that would be dealt with accordingly.

  “I’m feeling this CLK right here.” Tah grinned as he stared at a 1999 candy-apple red CLK 600 Benz.

  “It’s yours if you want it, son,” replied Mo Blood.

  He was the Blood from East New York who Shamel put in charge over Brownsville Houses. Mo Blood received the word from his higher-ups in state prison throughout the state that when Tah returned, he was under his command. Mo Blood was loyal to the U.B.N. (United Blood Nation) and had no quarrels with the order. In fact, he bought Tah a full wardrobe of all the latest fashion, and now they stood in a Benz dealership in Freeport, Long Island so Tah could have a ride.

  Tah was feeling good dressed in a red and white Sean John button-down shirt, black Iceberg jeans, and red dolomite Gore-Tex boots, driving his CLK straight off the lot as Mo Blood followed in a silver Range Rover 4.6 with chrome, twenty-inch Sprewell rims. Tah threw in Jay-Z’s Vol. 2 Hard Knock Life CD and drove down the Long Island Expressway, blasting the track where Foxy Brown and Jay spit, “Gotta get that paper dog!” Tah was ready to handle business and was planning to disrupt the entire operation. People had to pay for the time he spent locked up and the money he lost while being away, and at the top of his list were Mecca and Shamel.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?

&n
bsp; Proverbs 27:4

  Lou stood in front of a bright light. A light too bright for human eyes. A voice spoke from the light as Lou kneeled down.

  “Where do you come from?”

  “Your Majesty, I come from walking up and down the earth, observing the bloodshed and destruction that humans cause among each other,” Lou replied.

  “What about the girl?” the voice asked. Lou paused for a few seconds before responding.

  “Her ways, her lifestyle, and the people around her are a perfect example of what I’ve told you from the beginning. These beings you’ve created above us are unworthy of the praise you give them. With all due respect, Your Majesty, they are weak. I’m trying to understand their psyche. I’m trying to come to terms with why you believe that these animals would love you as I do, most glorified and exalted.”

  “This is why I cast you and those like you out. You question things; you have no authority to question me. I know what you know not. You’re using this child Mecca as a guinea pig for your silly games. You don’t understand humans. You walked the earth for millions of years and still can’t understand them. It wasn’t meant for you to do!”

  “I’m not playing a game with her at all, Your Majesty. I actually pity her. Her life has been filled with turmoil and betrayal by those she loves. I can relate to her plight, Your Majesty. This is one I ask for you to show mercy on.”

  “Continue. What I have planned for her will manifest through her will!”

  The image of Lou returned in the eyesight of Mecca.

  “What, you took a lunch break or something?” Mecca asked sarcastically.

  “Mecca. I’ll ask this question again. What would you do if you were given a second chance to live?”

  Mecca thought about lying to Lou when she answered the question. She wanted to tell him, “I will start my life off fresh, get a job, and leave the streets alone,” but she figured he would know she was lying, so she might as well keep it real.