A Project Chick

by Nikki Turner

  Unfortunately, she later ran into Wiggles and saw with her own eyes.

  Tressa was at the 7-11 Convenience Store with Lucky one day playing her lotto numbers when she was pregnant with her sons. Out of nowhere, she heard an excited voice yell. "Treesssaaaa!"

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  Tressa wasn't sure, but she thought she recognized the voice. She turned to look and the person wasn't anybody she knew. Tressa frowned her face because she didn't know who this skeletal looking chick was.

  "Tressa, hey baby."

  "Who are you, where do I know you from?" Tressa asked, totally confused.

  "Tressa, it's me. It's Wiggles." She looked shocked.

  Tressa's heart dropped. Speaking before she knew it, she exclaimed. "Oh my God! What happened to you?

  You look like a shitty mess!"

  "I know! Between the dope and the crack, this shit got me gone. I am trying to get it together, but girrrlll, it's hard."

  "Wiggles, you gotta get clean. If I can help you in any way, just let me know. You know that if you want to go to rehab, I'll go with you."

  "I know you will, but I ain't even gonna front, I'm not ready yet. But I'm gonna let you know when I'm ready." It broke Tressa's heart to hear the words coming out of Wiggles mouth. Tears began to form in Tressa's eyes when the realness of the words set in that her sister, her icon, her leader, was strung out on the glass dick, the crack pipe. She felt so betrayed that she couldn't even look Wiggles in the face anymore.

  "Tressa, don't look at me away from me like that."

  "Wiggles, I can't help it." She burst into tears. "You were my sister, and now look at you. I depended on you."

  "And believe it, you still can depend on me if you need me. I will come and help you with your baby when you have it."

  "You gotta be clean."

  Tears started to run down Wiggles' eyes when she seen the hurt written all over Tressa's face. Lucky approached, and Tressa just turned to walk away. "I gotta go."

  Wiggles called out. "Tressa, I am still your sister, and no matter what, I am gonna be here for you when you need me. I love you and even at your darkest point, I am going to be here! You know where I live and no matter how much I move from block to block, I'm gonna always have the same number. When you need me, I am gonna be right 70

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  there for you, no matter how high I'm getting or how clean I am. I promise you that on everything I love, on my life, on the crack pipe, I promise you!"

  Tressa never responded. Instead, she just hurried over to the car and broke down crying when she finally got inside. From that moment on, she acted as if Wiggles didn't exist. Wiggles understood, because she knew the hurt Tressa felt. She saw the same hurt on the faces of everyone she loved and disappointed when she became a drug addict.

  As Tressa put the two dimes in the pay phone, she wondered if Wiggles really meant what she said. Wiggles I need you, and you promised me. Promises aren't made to be broken. I hope you meant exactly what you said. There's nobody else I can call. Dutchess's money hungry ass can't be trusted. I know most likely she'll sell me out to Lucky for the right price. Missy is now into church and I don't want to drag her into this mess, but I know she'll be there for me.

  Please Wiggles, I hope you come through for me. I need you to.

  She listened as the phone rang. "Hello." A guy answered on the third ring.

  Tressa was thrown off by a man answering. Maybe it's the wrong number, maybe she moved or maybe she's locked up.

  "Hello, I am trying to get in touch with Wiggles. Is she available?"

  "Who dis?" The guy asked in a hesitating voice.

  She was relieved when he asked, but could barely hear, due to the loud noise in the background. "It's Sugar Gal." She said.

  "Hole up!" He screamed at the people making noise, with his mouth directly over the mouthpiece of the phone.

  "Wiggggles, get da phone somebody name Sugar Gal on the phone."

  "Damn, is it that serious? I ain't never seen you move that quick." The guy said to Wiggles, as she ran over to grab the phone from him.

  Wiggles snatched the phone out of his hand.

  "Hello." She said in a worried, but happy tone.

  "Wiggles, it's me Tressa. I'm in trouble and I need you. You ain't gonna believe."

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  Wiggles cut her off. "Where are you and where do I need to meet you."

  "I am at a pay phone, but I can't stay here long. I don't want to go to your house. Can you catch a cab and meet me. I'll pay for it."

  "No, hold on one second. DON'T HANG UP!" Wiggles could hear the hurt, pain and desperation in Tressa's voice. She was talking low to the guy that answered the phone. "Look, I have a family emergency. I need to use the car."

  Tressa listened attentively, holding her free ear closed so she could hear better, but keeping a watchful eye on her children sleeping in the car.

  "I ain't know you had family." The dude said in a joking way.

  "Yeah, crack heads and dope fiends got family too." Wiggles got back on the phone, "I'm on my way out the door, now where do I need to go."

  "Ummm, meet me at the service station at Parham and Broad."

  "It's gonna take me about twenty minutes to get there, but don't worry I will be there."

  "OK, just hurry! Please, Wiggles. Bye." Tressa said.

  But before she hung up, Wiggles called out to her to try to catch her from hanging up. "Tressa!!!!" She screamed into the phone.

  "Yes." Tressa said, hoping that Wiggles hadn't changed her mind.

  "Never say bye, because bye means forever! Simply say see you later!"

  "Oh, OK, see you in a few."

  "Alright, see you in a few then!"

  Tressa looked around suspiciously as she got into the car and began to drive to the meeting place. Tressa arrived right before Wiggles did and she thought about some of the countless times Wiggles had come through for her. There was the time when she got into her first fight, the time when Taj got locked up and Wiggles went down to child protective services posing as her mother to take her home, and the time she got caught stealing fake fingernails out of Peoples Drug Store.

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  Tressa reflected on her very first fist fight and giggled a bit. It was third period at Fairfield Middle School, Tressa's best friend, Dutchess, ran into the classroom with the gossip for the hour. "Tressa girl, I just ran into Michelle Booger, and she said that she gonna punch you in your face because you think you are cute."

  "What?" Tressa asked, completely taken aback.

  "That's what she said." Dutchess replied.

  She had no idea why Michelle wanted to lay a finger on her. She had never done a thing to Michelle Booger, they never even had a conversation before. She did not have the foggiest idea why Michelle wanted to step to her.

  Tressa was petrified! The night before, she discreetly told her mother that she might have to call her to pick her up from school because she may be getting into a fight. Cyn asked if she wanted her to call the principal and she said no, because she didn't want to seem like a punk.

  Amazingly, Cyn just agreed, but if things got to out of hand, for her to just call her. Cyn knew this would be an important life lesson that Tressa had to learn, even though she was just in the third grade.

  The next day at school, Tressa raised her hand and asked could she go to the restroom. She went straight to the pay phone. She called Cyn, but Cyn wasn't at her desk.

  She then tried to call home, but Cyn wasn't there either.

  Instead, Wiggles answered. Taj was suspended from school and Wiggles had skipped school to be with him.

  "Hello." Wiggles answered.

  "Hey Wiggles, is my mother there?"

  "Nah, she at work."

  "I tried calling her a
t work, but they said she wasn't there. I need her to come and pick me up."

  "What's wrong with you, you sick or something?"

  "No, I need her to pick me up cuz this girl name Michelle Booger is gonna beat me up!"

  "What? You need Cyn to pick you up for what?" Wiggles asked confused.

  "Cuz this girl Michelle." Tressa said whimpering.

  Wiggles cut her off before she could go any further.

  "Are you sure she gonna try to fight you?"

  "Yes, she skipped class just so she could look for me to fight me, and I know people told her where I was." 73

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  Wiggles could not believe her ears. Even though Tressa had never been in a fight before, no sister of hers was going to be pushed around. She knew she couldn't go up to the school and fight for her. She would have to call a cab, and by the time it got there, it would be too late.

  Besides, Tressa was still in elementary school and Wiggles was too old to mess with those kids. But, she was going to make sure Tressa knew what to do until she could get up to the school and have her back.

  The phone was silent for a minute. "Hello." Tressa said, because she thought the call was disconnected. At that very moment, Wiggles put some pitch and authority into her voice. "Look, let me tell you one mafucking thing, you ain't ever gonna run from nobody. You hear me? She ain't no damn body. Now listen to what I'm saying. When she walks up to you, you don't say nothing to her. Don't argue, don't say nothing! Just hit her as hard as you can in the face and just keep hitting her and don't ever stop hitting her. Whatever you do, don't let her hit you first. You hear me?"

  "But I don't want to get in trouble." Tressa said in a weak voice.

  "Look, if I find out you didn't do what you was told, and you know I know people who got sisters that go to that school, and they will tell me you didn't hit her first, I am gonna whip your ass myself when you get home. Do you understand?"

  As she held the phone and listened to Wiggles warning, she wasn't even scared anymore. All she could think of is that she knew she had to do what she had to do.

  She hung up the phone and headed back to class.

  When the bell finally rang, she gathered her things and headed for her next class. As soon as she got onto the main walkway in the campus style school, she saw Michelle Booger coming towards her with what seemed like the whole school following behind her. The butterflies started to flutter in her stomach as Michelle Booger got closer.

  Michelle Booger got within an arm's reach of Tressa.

  She looked Tressa up and down. "Oh, I hearred you said you wasn't scared of me? Did you say that?" Seeing the silent and hyped look on the crowds face, gave her the push she needed. "Yes, I said it, cuz I don't 74

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  have a reason to be scared of you or anybody else." Tressa was almost in tears, but didn't let it show. Her heart was beating fast, and although it was a winter day, Tressa could feel the perspiration under her arms.

  "What?" Michelle Booger snapped with plenty of attitude, shocked at Tressa's response. Then Michelle Booger started taking off her earrings and fake gold tarnished rings while saying. "Oh, beitch, I'm bout to make you know that you should be afraid of me!"

  "Whoooop!" To everybody's shock, Tressa hit her with a right hook that made her stumble, but before she got her balance back, Tressa hit her with another right hook that dropped big, bad, Michelle "Bully" Booger to her knees.

  Tressa just kept laying Michelle with blow after blow and never letting up. Booger was on her knees, and every lick she was trying to throw was only hitting Tressa's legs, which was doing no damage to Tressa at all. It took the school's teachers, custodians and the assistant principal to try to pull her away and calm her down.

  Tressa snapped out of reminiscing when Wiggles rode in a souped up Cadilliac beside her and rolled down the window. Tressa was smiling. "Who Cadi you got?"

  "Girl, it's mine. Well, by law it is. It's in my name.

  The dude Boo-Boo paid me to register it in my name, but really it's his car."

  "Oh, Ok. You keep you a damn hustle, girl."

  "Girl, they all think I am a stupid dope fiend. But, I ain't a coke smoking or dope sniffing fool all the time. I still got game for days for they asses."

  Tressa laughed from the depths of her stomach, although she was ashamed at how she had held such a grudge with Wiggles for so long.

  "If you are on the run, I need to get you out of this lighted area." Wiggles seriously stated.

  "On my way over here, I ran across this old trick and gave him some head for fifty dollars, but while I was on my knees I stuck him for a $100. So, I got $150 to help get you a room." Wiggles said.

  Tressa shook her head at Wiggles bluntness, she always, seemed to amaze her. There was no shame in Wiggles game. It was just like back in the day. Wiggles still had her back and was as gangster as ever.

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  "Girl, those babies are so cute, I can't believe you had twins."

  Tressa parked her car on a side street and got most of her belongings out of the car and put them in Wiggles'

  car. What she couldn't fit, Wiggles said she would come back later to get. "You need to get settled and put those kids to sleep somewhere comfortable." Wiggles used her ID to get Tressa checked into a cheap, one story hotel way on the outskirts of town, some place Lucky would never look.

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  -9-

  Money Talks, B/S Walks

  The next day, Wiggles came over to the cheap, raunchy hotel room to watch the children while Tressa went to run some errands. Tressa was worried that the twins would drive Wiggles crazy whining because they were so attached to Tressa. Tressa made Wiggles promise that she wouldn't get high around her kids, and she meant it.

  Wiggles knew this was the last chance for her to make things right between them. One of the reasons Wiggles started getting high, is because she couldn't live with herself after crossing Taj. Taj was a remarkable man. He was her everything and she didn't know how to cope with him being incarcerated and locked away from her. There were so many days she wished she could go back and make it up to him, but she knew after she missed the first month, and had taken his money, that there was no turning back.

  She knew if Taj was ever released from jail, she would be the first person he'd want to see to seek his revenge on.

  The wages of double crossing Taj was death and there was no way around it. There was no amount of time that could heal Taj's wounded and broken heart. Wiggles thought that just maybe, if she lived up to all of the expectations that Tressa had of her, coupled with knowing that Tressa was Taj's pride and joy, that just maybe he'd let bygones be bygones and spare her life.

  Dressed in blue jeans, a Nike T-shirt and some Air Max sneakers, the first place Tressa went was to the 77

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  housing authority. They told her that the waiting list was six months. They gave her a list of government subsidized apartment complexes. She studied the list, but she couldn't figure out which was the best place to live. So, she started going to each one, some had three year waiting lists and others were not even accepting applications.

  When she called over the phone to get directions to one of the complexes, the woman told her that there was only a three-month waiting list. But when she arrived, the woman took one look at Tressa, and told her they were not accepting applications. When Tressa visited the last complex on the list, she thought, as she parked, Lord please let this work out.

  While filling out the application, she was told there was a six-month wait. She knew she couldn't live in any hotel for six months and she surely couldn't go back to Lucky. She had to finesse a way to get moved to the top of the waiting list. She looked at the man who worked as an office assistant. He
was wearing some balded up shoes that turned up at the toe, with some old Lee jeans with a cardboard crease in it. He saw her looking back at him.

  She could tell off the back that he was a real buster. He was full of himself, so she made him her mark. She knew all she had to do was stroke his ego a little and maybe, just maybe, he could be of assistance to her.

  "Ms. Shawsdale." He called into the waiting room.

  Tressa got up and went into the cluttered office. He looked over her application to make sure she had filled it out properly.

  With an impressed look on his face, he said. "This is the first application that has been filled out completely and I did not have to ask you to change or fill in missing information."

  "Does that mean I get the apartment?" She asked in a humble, soft voice.

  He smiled and started to stumble as he began to speak. "Ummm, ummm, ummm, there's a waiting list." The phone rang, he answered it and she could tell by his conversation and uncomfortable tone that it was a bill collector.

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  Oh, so he needs money. I know good and well he is not going to let this opportunity of free money pass him by. I am gonna try my hand with him and see.

  She considered the possibility that if he didn't bite, that she may lose the opportunity for the six-month wait list spot altogether. But what did she have to lose? She and her kids were already living in a raunchy hotel as it was.

  "Excuse me, but I had to take that call."

  "No problem." She said.

  "As I was saying, it's a six-month waiting list and it's important that when you get a letter in the mail advising that you are next to receive a vacant apartment, you must call the rental office ASAP."

  "Look, I don't mean to sound forward, but I need a place for me and my two sons to live and I need it before Friday. I'll give you $300 to move me to the top of the list and $300 more the day I get the keys. I noticed when I pulled up that they are working on an apartment. I see you the HNIC, (Head Negro In Charge) and I know if anybody can make it happen, you can. Can you make this my address by Friday?" Tressa said confidently.