Hustle & Heartache

by D. Gamblez

  “Take out the trash before Roy-Boy gets home.”

  “But it’s not my turn!” I argued. “Pedro was supposed to do it yesterday and today because he didn’t do it last week. My turn’s tomorrow.”

  Pedro’s my little brother. He’s only a year younger than me, but he acted as though he was already grown. It did not help that our older brother Manuel was killed in a drive-by shooting three years ago. Ever since then, my mother ignored whatever nonsense Pedro got into. I’m not sure why, but I suspect she felt that the more she tried to control him−like she did Manuel−the more rebellious he would become.

  “Your turn is when I say it is, young lady,” my mother said as she entered my room. “Now get off that phone and take the trash out like I said or you can forget about your little birthday party tomorrow. I have to get dinner ready and do the laundry before Roy-Boy gets home, and you’re gonna complain about taking out some goddamn trash? Get yo’ ass off that phone.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I muttered.”Cherish, I gotta go,” I said solemnly into the receiver.

  “Damn, girl,” Cherish said on the other end of the phone. “Your mama’s a real bitch. That’s why I don’t come over there anymore. If she’s going to be at the party, then I’m definitely not coming. All right, then, girl. I’ll talk to you later. Holla.”

  “Holla.” I hung up the phone than slipped on my Adidas and exited my room. When I entered the hallway, I found my mother leaning against the wall outside my bedroom. I jumped because I had not realized she was there.

  “Just wanted to make sure you wasn’t talking shit to your little friends about me,” she explained, then turned and headed down the hall. “And I’ll deal with your brother and sister when they get back from wherever they decided to sneak off to. I swear you kids are trying to kill me,” my mother continued to talk to me over her shoulder as I followed her to the kitchen. I had to slow my usually quick pace because she was slightly shorter than I.

  Man, I can’t stand her ass, I thought to myself as I looked her over with disdain. Besides her flowing yet wavy brown hair, which was tied back into a ponytail, her plump derriere, and her cocoa brown skin tone, she and I did not look much alike, at least not in a mother and daughter sense.

  After I took out the trash, I wheeled the large city-issued bin down to the curb so that it would get emptied out in the morning. The May wind chill caused me to shiver, coating my light-brown skin in tiny goose bumps. I struggled with the heavy can and nearly tripped when one of the wheels caught on a piece of broken concrete. I tried to yank the wheel free and fell backwards after my hand slipped, but before I hit the ground, a firm hand gripped me around the waist, steadying me.

  When I turned to see who my savior was, I froze, my heart rate speeding up, thumping loudly in my chest out of embarrassment and nervousness as Dre grabbed hold of the trashcan. Somehow, while catching me from falling, he had caught hold of the trashcan as well, keeping it from falling and spilling rotten food and old newspaper on the ground.

  “I thought it was Pedro’s turn to take out the trash,” he said matter-of-factly as if he lived in the same household with us. He knew this because it had been that way since he and I were kids and he lived across the street from me.

  “Y-Yeah, that’s what I tried to tell my mom,” I stuttered. I could feel the heat on my cheeks from blushing. How in the hell does this guy make me so nervous all of a sudden? I thought to myself.

  As he positioned the trashcan at the curb, he turned back to me and I swear I could feel his eyes caressing my entire body. I felt a little embarrassed because I was in my chill-at-home burgundy sweatpants and sweatshirt. Dre must have sensed my discomfort because he quickly averted his eyes and rubbed a hand over his freshly bald-shaven head.

  “Could you tell your mama that I’m here to hook up her new water sprinkler?” he asked me as he turned his attention to the wheelbarrow he had brought with him. I had not noticed it until now.

  As I turned to head back up to the house to deliver his message, something made me turn back, and when I did, I caught a glimpse of Dre’s well-toned, muscular upper body as he removed his black T-shirt, revealing chiseled abs and well defined chest muscles before he again covered his delicious chocolate frame with a long-sleeved Polo shirt.

  “What?” he said, noticing I was staring.

  “Huh? Oh, nothing,” I struggled. I really needed to get it together. “I was just gonna ask if you were planning on coming to my birthday party tomorrow.”

  “Your birthday’s tomorrow?” he said nonchalantly.

  How the hell does he not know my birthday’s tomorrow? We’ve been living across the street from each other for the past ten years, but ever since my mom decided to move around the corner, he’s been acting like he’s forgotten everything there is to know about me. Then again, he’s never been to any of my birthday parties, so he really may not know.

  “What time is it gonna be at?” he asked with wrinkled brow as if pondering if he’d be able to make it or not.

  “It’s supposed to be at 4:00 in the afternoon, but my mom said she might have a hair appointment, so if she does, then I’d have to wait until Roy-Boy got off at 5:30. So, either 4:00 or 6:00 in the evening.”

  “Who all gonna be there?”

  “Just family. A few friends from school, maybe. Oh! And the Suzy Q twins are gonna be there. Cherish said she’s not coming because she doesn’t like my mom.”

  “The Suzy Q twins, huh? That’s Coco and Makita, right? Wait, ain’t that the twins that got caught switching classes last month so that they could cheat on their tests and shit?”Dre chuckled lightly.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed, sharing in the laughter. “That was so dumb. How are you gonna switch classes but forget that you’re wearing different outfits? When Mr. Hightower saw Coco coming back from the bathroom with not only a different hairstyle, but with a totally different outfit as well, he knew they were on some bullshit.”

  “That, plus the fact that Coco had gotten a black eye from fighting the week before. No way bruises heal that fast. Yeah, that was pretty stupid,” he agreed.

  A long silence passed between us. “So,” I said a moment later. “Are you coming to my party or what?”You better say yes or... Well, I’m not sure what I’ll do if you say no, but I know I’ll be mad if you do.

  Dre never got a chance to answer my question. My mother came outside with a pitcher of grape kool-aid in her hand and handed Dre a red, plastic Solo cup filled to the brim with the over-sweetened purple liquid. She thought just because she offered black people chicken, kool-aid, or 40oz.bottles of beer, then they’d leave our house alone when they decided to do break-ins on this block, which happened almost every other day in this neighborhood. My mother was too stupid to realize that what she considered acts of kindness was actually stereotyping and racist, but you couldn’t tell her that. And with her being of Spanish descent, you’d think she would be more knowledgeable and aware of how sensitive the subject of racism was due to the fact that she, herself, was Mexican.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Escobar,” Dre said politely, downing the entire cup of the pre-diabetic concoction.

  “Miss Escobar,” my mother corrected him. “I’m not married anymore, so I’m available for a little fun every now and then.” She put her hands in the pockets of her black Apple Bottom shorts, her ass cheeks hanging out the bottom, and stuck out her chest, which was covered in nothing but a red, sleeveless crop top that only came down to her midriff. I had not noticed she had changed out of her sweats until now.

  Oh, my God! Is she flirting with him? I thought to myself. I can’t believe this shit! She gets on me about a guy being a few years older than me, but her old ass is doing everything but giving up some pussy to an18-year-old.

  “And call me Eliza from now on, okay, baby? Mrs. or Miss sounds like I’m an old lady or sumthin’.”

  You are an old lady, you old lady. A 42-year-old lady, to be exact. 24 years older than Dre. So back your old ass up off my man.
Wait! Did I just say that? Dre isn’t my man...but I think I want him to be.

  “Where’s your brother? Haven’t seen him around in a while.” I watched in disgust as my mother slid her hand seductively over her breast like she was wiping lent from her top, but nothing was there. Like I said, she was flirting.

  “You talkin’ ‘bout Damon?”Dre answered, his eyes on my mother’s breasts, even after she removed her hand. “Damon moved to Chicago with his baby mama about five months ago. I’ll tell him you said hi, if you want me to.”

  “Naw, that’s all right, baby. Here, let me give you your money. Twenty dollars for putting that big ol’ hose in the front and in the back, right?”

  The way she was talking, the way she was eyeing Dre, I knew she meant her front and back as opposed to the front and back yard. She was talking about sex. She was practically asking him to fuck her for money.

  “You don’t have to give me money, Mrs─I mean─ Miss─ I mean, Eliza,” Dre struggled. “I don’t mind hooking up your hoses for free. I like the exercise, anyway.”

  “That’s all right, baby. I don’t mind giving you a little sumthin’ every now and then. You do sumthin’ for me and I’ll do sumthin’ for you. Now give me a second while I go to the bank.”

  I looked on at my mother in shame as she slid her hand down the front of her shorts and pulled out a twenty dollar bill.

  “Ka-ching!” she said, indicating that her vagina was the till in a cash register. “Here you go, sweetie. Let me know when you’re done, okay? If you get hungry, I’ll have Audriana bring you a sandwich or something.”

  As Dre took the money, I could see the bulge in his pants getting bigger by the second. I think my mother saw it too, because she covered her mouth and giggled.

  “Come on, Audriana,” she said to me as she turned and started walking back up to the house. “I got some more chores for you to do.”

  I was furious as I followed my mother back up to the house. I did not care if she flirted with boys in front of me. I mean, she did it all the time whenever Roy-Boy was not home, so it was not like I had not seen it before. My problem was that she flirted with Dre.

  In all the years when he and I had not got along, my mother never even bothered to toss a look in his direction, but the moment I showed some kind of interest in him, all of a sudden she acts like they had been high school sweethearts or something. It was as if she was threatened by me and had to show her dominance by throwing herself at every boy who even glanced in my direction, just to show me that she could have them if she wanted. Can you believe that shit? Hating on her own damn daughter. She had no idea how it truly made me feel. She was hurting me and did not even realize it. Or maybe she did realize it and just did not care.

  As I got to the screen door, I turned back one last time to see if Dre was paying attention to my ass or my mother’s. When he saw me looking in his direction, he quickly turned his attention back to the wheelbarrow and started unraveling the water hose.

  Yeah, he was definitely looking at my mom’s ass. Probably needs that water hose to cool himself off after seeing her dressed like that.

  When we got back inside, I heard the sound of the water running as Dre turned on the spout.

  “Do me a favor and watch the sauce so that it doesn’t stick,” my mother said as she headed down the hall towards the bathroom. “I gotta take a shower real quick before Roy-Boy gets here. And kill some of these damn mosquitoes, I’m sick of waking up with all these goddamn bumps on me and shit.”

  “Want me to put the spaghetti in the water?” I asked solemnly.

  “No, I don’t want you to put the damn spaghetti in the water,” she shot back at me as she started undressing in the bathroom. “You know damn well you can’t cook. If your fast-ass wasn’t so busy chasing boys all the time, you’d have learned to be more like me. You may look good now, but that shit ain’t gonna keep an honest man around for too long. You gotta know how to feed him. Can’t do that if you can’t cook.”

  “Mari’s got boyfriends and she still can’t cook,” I retorted.

  “Don’t get slapped in your mouth making them smart-ass comments, hear me?” my mother threatened. “Marisol’s prettier than you, so she don’t have to worry about all that. She’s got her mama’s looks, so men will take care of everything she needs, regardless if she can cook or not.

  That was a lie. Mari looked nothing like our mother. She was actually way prettier than the both of us.

  Where our mother, Pedro, and I had brown hair that would grow past our butts if we’d let it, Mari had black hair that was naturally curly and only came down to the middle of her back. She was also darker than the rest of the family, which is not saying much since we’re all light-brown complexioned, but Mari looked more like a black girl with really good hair.

  Sometimes I suspect, since our parents never told us why they divorced in the first place, our mother cheated on our father and Marisol was the proof of her infidelity. I mean, it would make sense since every time our father comes around to visit us, my mother takes extra measures to ensure that Marisol is nowhere around. Whether she’s pushing her out the door to go hang with friends or shoving wads of money in her hand so she can go shopping, my mother seems to put a lot of effort in keeping Marisol and our father from each other whenever he comes to visit.

  “By the way,” she was still saying. “I don’t want that horny-ass little boy at your party tomorrow either. You saw the way he was looking at me. Boys like him only want one thing, and you ain’t got it, you understand me, young lady?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I mumbled. I was devastated. I had finally seen Dre for who he really was and I could not have him around me. I cried silently to myself as I stirred the sauce. I could not wait until I got my own place. I hated it here.

  “Your hear me, missy? I catch that boy here, I’ma beat your ass.”

  And sometimes I really hated my mother.

  Dre

  “Put my shit back, little nigga!” my older brother said to me as he came into the room he and I shared. He tossed his black and blue Nike hat on the dresser, kicked off his matching Nike shoes, then plopped down on the bed and pulled the latest issue of the Bad Bitchez magazine from his back pocket. “Told yo’ ass to stop goin’ through my stuff.”

  I returned my brother’s Dark Woods cologne back to the hiding spot behind the can of Murray’s Hair Grease and the large bottle of jewelry cleaner inside the middle drawer of the dresser, closed the drawer, then grabbed my car keys from the THUG LIFE-carved key hook on the wall right next to the Tupac Shakur: All Eyez On Me poster.

  “Where you going, anyway?” my brother asked me as he flipped through the magazine with his eyes glued to the page and a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m going to Audi’s birthday party. Then I gotta pick Jackie up from work at 9:00. Her Park Avenue need a new alternator belt, so she can’t drive it till Tom comes over to fix it tomorrow. You coming with me to Audi’s party?” I asked him as I slipped on my orange and white Reeboks.

  “You talkin’ ‘bout that little Mexican girl who used to live across the street? The one that stay ‘round the corner, now?” He twisted his face up at me and looked at me sideways.

  “Yeah, man. Why you looking like that for? It ain’t like she ugly or nuthin’.”

  “Man, please. You trippin, my nigga,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I ain’t fucking with them little-ass 15-year-old hoes.”

  “First of all, Audi just turned 18 today. Like I said, it’s her birthday. Second of all, if anybody’s gonna be fucking with her, it’s gonna be me. But most of all, Coco and Makita gonna be there, and both of them turned 18 ‘bout a year, year and half ago, maybe. Anyway, they old enough for yo’ old ass.”

  “Shut up, little nigga. You just mad cause you ain’t 23 like me, like them Air Jordans! Wait, hold up. You said Makita and Coco gonna be there? Ooh! That’s the Suzy-Q twins, ain’t it? The dark-skinned hoes with the big ol’ a
sses, right, fam?” my brother asked excitedly.

  “The same ones that’s always asking ‘bout you? Yep, that’s them!” I said, smiling at him.

  “They don’t be asking ‘bout me, nigga. Tsk, man stop lying.”

  My brother always pretended like he did not know what I was talking about, but he knew the twins asked about him all the time because he’s the one who told me about it. He just liked it better when somebody else told him when bitches was on his jock.

  “Yeah, right, nigga,” I playfully punched him in the chest. “You know they be on yo’ dick. Tryin’ to play all hard and shit. Every time I see them bitches, they be like, ‘Where your brother Elijah at with his fine ass’. And you know what I tell ‘em?”

  “What?” he put down the Bad Bitchez magazine and sat up. “What you tell them hoes, dawg?”

  “I told them, ‘He don’t love you hoes’ and I be out the door.”

  Chiming in, I sang a few bars of the song myself, doing my best Snoop Dog impression.

  “Get yo’ ass outta here with that bullshit, man,” my brother laughed. “A’ight, my nigga. I’ma go. What time is it gonna be at, anyway?”

  “Started like an hour ago,” I told him as I checked my watch. “I’m ‘bout to head over there now.”

  “A’ight, then. I’ma meet you out in the car, fam,” my brother said, giving me our secret handshake, which was two fist bumps, a slap, and then a kind of weird intertwining of our middle and index fingers. “I gotta take a shit real quick. Let’s take yo’ Chevy, my Cutlass’ been acting funny since that ma’fuckin’ oil leak and shit. I think I need a new solenoid switch, too, and shit, though. I don’t know. I’ll have Tom check it out tomorrow.”

  “A’ight, my nigga. T.A.B.”

  “T.A.B,” he responded back. T.A.B stood for Tru Aetna Boyz. It was something I overheard my brother Damon saying one night when I was about ten or eleven years old. As we got older, my brother seemed to forget all about it, but I did not. Since he did not care for it anymore, I claimed it as my own. Then I told my friends about it and soon after, we started addressing each other as such. Other people had overheard us saying it one day, then months later everyone in our neighborhood who stayed on East 10th Avenue in Gary, Indiana started saying it, too. Soon after, everybody and their mama was claiming that they were the ones who came up with it, but I knew better. Me and my crew were the original Tru Aetna Boyz and there’s not a man or woman alive who can tell us different.