The Pink Panther Clique

by Wahida Clark

  “Milla Davison!”

  “Here!” she said, then grabbed her mail and went off to her room. I went to mine. I was sure Sun-Solé would get mail too. That husband of hers, H, always wrote her every single day. A few minutes later, Milla was in my room.

  “Guess what, Eshe? They moved KG to Atlanta USP.”

  “Are you serious? That’s crazy.” She then showed me the return address of her letter. Sure enough, it was Atlanta USP. That was a little spooky, being that there were tens of federal prisons around the country.

  What were the odds of my codefendants, Marcellus and Jerry, Sun-Sole’s husband, H, and now King-G too, all being at the same spot together? It was crazy, but a good crazy nonetheless. King-G just got moved there after getting sentenced to life. The whole thought of that was too much to bear for any of us. King-G was a household name, like Drake, Future, Jadakiss, or Jay-Z. They were black America’s distant family linked through the blood of media.

  Milla didn’t have approval to correspond with him, so I would now drop a scribe from her to King-G, with my letter to Marcellus or Jerry. This way, he’d know that Milla had him on her mind.

  Not long after KG got there, the guards got scared. Marcellus explained in his letter that KG was placed in the hole because they felt he had too much influence over other inmates. They did that sometimes with high-profile cases. It was foul. The system was killing us in more than one way. In the streets and on top of that, off of rumors (a.k.a. conspiracy charges). When I opened Jerry’s letter, I couldn’t believe what he was telling me:

  Boss Lady,

  Remember what I used to do working on Seven Mile? Before I met you and I was working out da crib? Opportunity. The vice principal at my job is into the same thing I used to love being into. He’s about to move close to that spot, sis. He fucks with your girl Sun-Solé’s boy. They were making some heavy moves, but while in the process of making things happen, the VP got transferred to Boss. Tell Boss to get with him quick when he comes that way. He already knows who Boss is, and he owes me a favor. Nothing is off limits, sis, so work your magic!

  Love,

  Your Brother for Life,

  Jerry

  Once I deciphered what he was saying, it basically meant that the assistant warden at his prison was about to or had just transferred here to this prison, and he’s a crook. When Jerry talked about his “old job,” he’s talking about when he used to move weight back in the day. This assistant warden coming here was into bringing drugs into the prison. I had to talk to my sisters about what we could do with this cat because I could smell opportunity in the air. I met with Milla and Sun-Solé in the dining hall to talk about it.

  “Check this out, ladies. We’ve been here for over a year now. I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t have shit anymore. The Feds took everything from us, and we’re moving on fumes right now. Milla, KG is fighting a life sentence, and Sun-Solé, H is doing some serious numbers. And my brothers and I are all facing this bullshit murder charge. If we’re going to be here, we might as well make it work for us.”

  “I feel you, Eshe. So what you talkin’ ’bout? I’ve had a few ideas myself that I’ve been playing with in my head.”

  “I second that,” Sun-Solé added. “You already know I been thinking of some ways to get shit crackin’. I leave first to go home before either of you, so this is important right here.”

  “Okay. Well, good that we’re all on the same page. So look . . . all of the men in our lives are locked up together. I got some information today from Jerry telling me that the dude coming here as the assistant warden is down for whatever. They’ve been moving dope through the prison in ATL.”

  “That’s cool and all, but I am not about to get no drug charge,” Sun-Solé said. “That’s not my hustle.”

  “Definitely not worth it,” Milla added.

  “Who said anything about drugs? There are other things we can get him to do for us, that will help us make money but has nothing to do with drugs. We just have to think outside the box. Drugs messed up our people enough. I want no parts of that either. So drugs are out of the question,” Eshe said.

  “So what else can we do? What other kind of moves can we make that will help us get these moneybags?” Sun-Solé inquired.

  “I got it! I got it, y’all!” Milla said excitedly.

  “What?” Sun-Solé and I said in unison.

  “Pink Panther Records!”

  “What the hell is that, Milla? Pink Panther Records? I don’t get it.”

  “We can start a record label from prison. Let’s get the assistant warden to bring us studio equipment. I’m talkin’ ’bout soundboards, microphones, drum kits, an Apple computer—the whole nine.”

  “Are you serious?” Sun-Solé asked.

  “I’m dead serious,” Milla said. That idea was the best thing I’ve heard so far. Music and money, the two things I breathed. It sounded almost too good to be true.

  “So, hold up a minute. Where would we put this . . . studio?” I asked.

  “In the chapel. Check this out . . . They have a room in the back of the chapel where they store all these CDs, microphones, and fifty-year-old records that the church uses. We can clear that room out and put the studio in there. We can drop some hot music from federal prison and put it out for the world. Think about it,” Milla said. “I got some studio engineering background.”

  “Me too,” Sun-Solé added. “H used to stay in the studio. So I picked up a li’l somethin’ too.”

  “You do have a point, Milla. I mean, at the end of the day, chicks like us are rare. How many females you know that were making millions, living the life we lived, and doing what we do? Not too many. And not only that, we did it on our own. We weren’t driving our boyfriends’ cars, or sitting at home letting dudes take care of us. We’re all bosses,” I said proudly.

  “No question! So from this day forward, not only do we have Pink Panther Records, we da Pink Panther Clique!”

  Chapter 22

  Milla

  * * *

  The call-out sheets were given out last night, listing any place that any inmate had to be and what time they had to be there. I had two call-outs today. The first one was to the dentist. I put in a request to see the dentist a minute ago because of a toothache, and it is only now, eight months later, that I am being seen for it. There were no words to describe the deficiencies of federal prison.

  My second call-out was to see the assistant warden, Mr. Pulls, at noon. As soon as the clock struck twelve, I was sitting outside his office. Then to my surprise, Eshe came along and sat beside me. “Girl, what are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Shit, I don’t know. I was on the call-out.”

  “Me too!” We were speaking in soft whispers. What were the odds of him calling us both at the same time?

  “Come in, ladies,” he yelled from behind closed doors.

  We walked in, and I immediately noticed the air reeked of cheap cologne and cigarette smoke. He knew good and well he wasn’t supposed to be smoking in a federal building. But obviously, this man didn’t care about rules or laws, which was good for us. The office was plush. Looked more like a congressman’s office to me.

  “Hello, sir,” I said. Eshe nodded. She had no respect for authority whatsoever and didn’t try to hide it either. I didn’t necessarily see these people as authoritative figures myself, but more so, I knew how to be an actress in order to get what I wanted.

  “Have a seat,” he said, spreading his arms. He was white, partially bald, but in pretty good shape. Probably no older than fifty.

  “Thank you! I wanted to talk to you briefly about some things. I know you know my boyfriend. His name is—” He cut me off.

  “King-G. Yes, I am very fond of him.”

  “And you also know Eshe Haller,” I said very matter-of-factly, since she didn’t seem to want to engage in conversation with him.

  “Yes, I’ve heard of Ms. Haller. I know Jerry and Marcellus. They’re two interesting guys
, I must say.” Eshe nodded again. I kicked her under the table and gave her a slight nod.

  “Okay, look, why am I on the call-out? I didn’t request to speak with you. And honestly, I don’t like being behind closed doors with the police for too long because I ain’t trying to be mistaken for being a snitch. So, can we please get to the point of this meeting?”

  I just shook my head. Leave it to Eshe.

  “I like your fire, Ms. Haller. I do. Okay, let me get straight to it. I’m a man who likes to be as comfortable as possible. I’m sure you feel the same, like Jerry and Marcellus. They spoke very highly of you. And obviously, you, Milla, are something special, if the world-famous King-G is crazy over you. Everything out of his mouth is Milla this and Milla that.” That made my stomach instantly dance. I felt like I had butterflies swarming around my belly. The thought of KG thinking about me and speaking about me so often really warmed my heart. I just hoped that this was not the end for him, for us, and that he would eventually get out and not have to die in prison.

  “That’s nice to hear. We all know KG loves Milla. But right now, I wanna talk about money,” Eshe said, interrupting my emotional moment. She knew I was an emotional creature, and I needed a second to process what this man just told me. But she didn’t wait for my recovery. She jumped right in, like she always does.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “I already know you’re looking to make some bread. That’s the only reason you called us in here. Have you worked at a female prison before?”

  “No. You ladies are the lucky winners.”

  “Okay, well, let me explain something to you. I know what you were doing at Atlanta USP. That won’t work here. The drug use at female prisons is far lower than that at men’s institutions. This is a different animal, and they snitch way too much. I don’t know what it is about women in prison and talking to the police, but that’s not a risk we’re willing to take.”

  “I don’t know what risk you’re willing to take, nor do I care. I have two rules. The first is that my name stays out of anything you do. There will be no direct connection to me at all. If that happens, I go to great lengths to bring you down. And second, I need to make money. As long as we meet those two requirements, you ladies can do whatever you want. I wouldn’t give a damn if you charged the ladies here a fee to use the television or charged rent for every room. As long as I get a cut, you have my blessing.” He folded his hands together and sat all the way back in his plush leather chair.

  “Well, here’s what we need.” I slid him a list of all the studio equipment. He looked at it, and then looked back up at me.

  “Are you kidding me?” he said. And then he started laughing. However, he laughed by himself because Eshe and I just stared at him. Then he stopped. “Oh, you’re serious? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  “We’ve got $5,000 we’re working with. That’s it. We pooled our money together. Get all this stuff. I don’t care if it’s used, as long as it works. You can keep whatever you don’t spend, and we’ll go from there.”

  “This is play money, ladies. I thought you all were big time,” he said sarcastically.

  “We’ll show you who we are; just keep your word and handle this.”

  We told him where to go pick up the money. It took about two weeks, but we were able to get the chapel to approve the equipment, under the guise of the prison choir recording music for charity. So we had to let the chapel use the studio as well. But it didn’t matter. Whenever they weren’t, we were using it on the low. The assistant warden worked his magic and got us on the cleaning crew for the chapel without supervision. That was our daily studio time.

  I had unlimited connections in the music industry. Thanks to my baby KG, I was able to get one of the hottest producers to send in some beats just on the strength of his name. And when we laid our first track, I knew we were on to something. Me, Eshe, and Sun-Solé. We had a story to tell. And it wasn’t made up bullshit; everything we spoke about was real. All of us had flow. The challenge was now getting our music out there without prison officials knowing. I hadn’t got that far yet, but I’d figure something out. That’s what I did . . . I figured things out.

  Then it hit me. I wrote King-G and told him to spit a verse over the phone to Biggie’s “One More Chance,” so we could know the tempo and pick the right track to lay it down on. Under my label, Pink Panther Records, I was going to release a single for my man while he was locked up. People were going to go crazy if we pulled this off. And behind him, the Pink Panther Clique would drop a follow-up hit. Well, I hoped it would be a hit. None of us had ever gone this far with music, but we were sure as hell going to try. We’d record as much material as possible, so if they took the studio away, we’d already have enough music done to keep us relevant. I had 100 percent faith in the plan. Creativity should never go to waste, and I looked forward to making sure ours didn’t. I only hoped we made some money. Because if not, I was sure Mr. Pulls would make good on his threat to take us down.

  Chapter 23

  Sunny-SolÉ

  * * *

  Prison was a waste of time. It was full of drama and even worse, the staff was miserable. A girl who lived a few cubes down from me just found out this morning that her son shot himself. He had severe mental illness. As a matter of fact, the reason she was here was because she robbed a bank in order to raise money for his medication. She couldn’t afford it. It didn’t make bank robbery okay, but it sure made you understand the actions of a desperate mother. Everybody had a story. Everybody had a breaking point. That one thing in their life that made them say, “fuck it.” I felt bad for her. Ms. Glads, we called her, received thirty-four years for robbery, and she never even had a weapon. She only passed a note to the bank teller. Now her son was dead, and she was not handling it well.

  Thank goodness we could go to the studio and let off some steam. I had to get away from all the sadness in the unit. I had a lot to say in the booth. Even if nothing came from the music we did, it was therapeutic. There was nothing like speaking my mind, especially over a fire beat.

  “I don’t understand why everybody’s in such an uproar. I lost my mother, father, and my brother since I been down. People die. It’s part of life,” Mona said. She was a petite Indian girl who swore she was black.

  “We know people die, but damn, have a heart,” I responded.

  “Whatever, Sun-Solé! Bitches are too dramatic,” Mona, my new bunkie, said. I didn’t like her. She was nothing like Munchie. Munchie was in the hole after that whole wedding fight broke out. I hoped that she could come and reclaim the room once she got out. I couldn’t stand this new chick. The wedding was a disaster; it ended up turning into a big brawl and getting us banned from being on the yard without supervision for a while. I managed to stay out of the miniwar, thank goodness. I only fought if I had to, and that situation didn’t seem worthy of my time or energy. Couples, they kept some shit going in this bitch. Turns out, messing with females could be worse than dealing with men. I just wanted to do my time and go home. My thoughts were interrupted by the loudspeaker.

  “Inmate Sun-Solé Williamson. . . Sun-Solé Williamson, report to the officer’s station.” What the hell did they want now? I got off my bunk and headed toward the officer’s station.

  “What’s up?” I asked the officer.

  “The warden wants to see you.”

  “Me? For what?”

  “I don’t know. That’s not my job.” The bitch always had to say something sarcastic.

  I walked to the warden’s office and waited in the lobby. “Can I help you?” his secretary asked, looking me up and down. She used to be a regular corrections officer, but somehow, she got a promotion.

  “I was told to come over here to see the warden.”

  “Any call-outs for the warden, I handle that. And I never called for you. He doesn’t see inmates in his office.”

  “Okay . . . well, I was told to come down here. Shit, what if I got immediate release? I’m going
to wait for him.”

  “No, you’re going to leave and go back up to your unit. If you don’t, I’ll write you an incident report. What makes you so special that the warden wants to see you?”

  “An incident report?”

  “Yes, are you deaf, inmate?”

  “I’m not going through this. A’ight, lady. I’m out!” I got up to leave because I knew my temper, and I’d be in the hole with another charge in a minute if that bitch said the wrong thing to me. Then the warden walked in just as I was leaving.

  “Mrs. Williamson?” he said. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to my unit.”

  “Didn’t they tell you I called for you?” he asked, puzzled. I looked at his secretary, Ms. Schitz.

  “Ms. Schitz told me if I didn’t leave, she was going to write me up. She was real nasty,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “Is this true, Ms. Schitz?” he asked.

  “Well, I mean, umm, she came in here demanding to see you, and I didn’t know anything about it. So I told her to go back to her unit.”

  “She didn’t say it that way,” I corrected. The bitch was trying to talk all nice and sweet now.

  “I apologize, Ms. Williamson. Please, my office,” he said, nodding in the direction of his office. “And you, Schitz, when she leaves, come see me,” he said sternly. I wanted to give her the finger, but I knew he would handle it. Something about his character assured me that he would.

  “So . . . Ms. Williamson, how are you today?”

  “I’m good. So what’s this about?” I asked, wanting to get straight to the point.

  “It’s about inmate Gaines. You know, you all refer to her as Prego. She’s about seven or so months pregnant right now. How is your rapport with her?”

  “I mean, we’re cool. Why?”

  “I’ve gotten a few kites from some of the other women in your unit complaining about some inappropriate behavior between her and Lieutenant Longwood. I’ve called several other women to see if there is any truth to this.” Does this muthafucka think I’m a snitch? He got me fucked up if he does.