Black Widow

by Nikki Turner

  “I’m sorry,” Phoebe apologized. “Things have just been so hectic for the past few days, and I just got a chance to check my messages a couple of minutes ago,” she said. “So first, please explain this to me, sister: You living where, and with who?”

  “You heard it right, sister, I’m living with Bam in a real nice trailer in Caroline County.”

  “A trailer?” Phoebe exclaimed. “Sister, you have never been any trailer-park type of chick. What happened while I’ve been gone? Did you fall and bump your head, or has Bam drugged you?” she joked.

  “None of the above,” Isis assured her sibling. “It’s a double-wide trailer and it’s really nice. It looks just like a house, only smaller. You just have to see it.” Just as Phoebe was about to respond, Isis jumped back in. “You know when we drive down I-95 and we see those houses on eighteen-wheelers that say ‘wide load’?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, something like that.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “But you’ll have to see it for yourself.”

  “I know,” Phoebe agreed. “I can’t wait.” There was a small pause, and then Phoebe asked, “But are you happy?”

  “Yes, very happy,” Isis declared. “I don’t have to worry about anything but creating my jewelry designs. Bam takes care of everything else. If I may say so myself, this is the life, sister.”

  “Well, as long as you’re happy.”

  “As happy as I’ve ever been…in a long time anyway,” she confessed. “But enough about me. How are things going with you in Dallas?”

  “So far, so good. I made the first cut.”

  “That’s great!” Isis yelled into the phone.

  “I met someone too.”

  “Who?” Isis wanted to know who was courting her sister.

  “All I can say is that he plays for the Cowboys.”

  “Really? But what do you mean all you ‘can say is that he plays for the Cowboys’? What’s up with him?”

  “I‘ll have to tell you later, because we’re not supposed to talk to the players like that.”

  “So you’re going to leave me in suspense?” Isis asked.

  Phoebe and Isis had never kept secrets from each other, so she thought long and hard before answering her sister’s question.

  “Not right now,” Phoebe said.

  “Okay, sister, tell me in your own time, but don’t keep me in suspense for too long.” Then she added, “Remember, I’m the one that has your back no matter what.”

  “I know.” Phoebe said, and laughed.

  Although the rain showered the capital city, the streets were dry. Richmond’s cocaine trade had been suffering from a drought for more than two months. There were many theories floating around the streets as to why the drug, from the high-priced, high-quality stuff to the inferior, was so hard to find, but no one really knew the answer. New York used to be the place to go at such times, but things had changed. Cats up top were asking for ridiculous prices, just like the local jokers. Some of the younger, less-experienced hustlers liked the current market. They could sell cut-up coke—that they normally couldn’t give away—for a jacked-up price. Supply and demand is a mutha.

  While the fiends were in the streets trying to figure out how they were going to come up with the extra money being charged to get them lifted, Bam was at a friend’s house on the west end bagging up a fresh shipment of work. He’d recently met a guy from North Carolina with more grade-A coke than Bam had ever thought about selling, and the new connect was playing more than fair with the prices. The south was taking over more than just the music business.

  “Tameka?” Bam called. “Bring me a glass of water.” Weighing, cutting, and bagging the two and a half kilos of soft white had made him thirsty.

  “Okay, give me a second.” A beat later, Tameka walked into the room wearing a powder-blue Baby Phat miniskirt and matching wife beater. She was giving Kimora Lee Simmons a run for her money, body-wise. She set a bottle of Dasani on the table where Bam was breaking the coke down. “Here you go.”

  “What the fuck is this?” Bam asked. “Girl, you know I don’t drink that bourgeois-ass shit. Water is the most abundant natural resource in the world, and them crackers done tricked you mu’fuckaz into spending two-fiddy a bottle for it. I’ll take mines right out the tap.” Before he could go any further into his lecture on marketing and resources, his cell phone rang.

  A familiar voice on the other end said, “What up, my nig? I’m trying to do sixty-two. You gon’ help me?”

  The voice belonged to his best friend, Drop-Top. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s just like I told ya it would be,” Bam boasted. “I’m almost done with the washing and folding now; just drop by the laundry. Meet me in about ten minutes.”

  Drop-Top knew that he was referring to Tameka’s house. “I got some other important business to talk to you about when I get there,” he announced. “Gone.”

  Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang. Drop-Top was always prompt. It was almost annoying how meticulous he was about time. Tameka opened the door. “You’re late,” she teased.

  “Never that,” Drop-Top said, seriously. “Where’s B?”

  “The same place he’s always at.”

  Drop-Top slid into the den, or the lab, depending on the time of day and who you were. The two friends slapped hands. “What took you so long?” Bam asked.

  Drop-Top smiled. “So now I know where Tameka gets the jokes from.” He took a seat on a blue leather sofa across from where Bam was sitting.

  Bam asked, “What is it that you need to talk to me about?”

  “Smiley.”

  “What about him?”

  “You went from copping from the man to fucking his girl and taking half of his clientele.”

  “Tell me something that I don’t already know.” Bam stroked his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. “Smiley can put his hands on twenty bitches at any given time, so I know the nigga ain’t trippin’ off one stray ho. Besides, just like his customers, the bitch chose me,” Bam reasoned. “Smiley knows how the game goes.”

  Bam had looked up to Smiley when he’d first gotten in the game and Smiley had fronted him his first package. But over the past couple of years, Bam had gone from being a little shorty on the block to a certified bigwig.

  “This is true,” Drop-Top agreed, “but his ego won’t allow him to accept the loss. He put fifty G’s on your head.”

  Bam’s pupils grew slightly larger after hearing the contract amount.

  Drop-Top was glad to know that he finally had his friend’s attention. “I don’t have to tell you how many thirsty niggas that’ll try their hand for that type of paper. You gonna have to sleep on point.”

  Chapter 6

  The Bundle of Joy

  The radio in Isis’s car was tuned to 92.1 FM, but her mind wasn’t on the noon throwback mix that was being broadcasted across the airwaves. If someone offered to give her a million dollars to name just one of the songs that had been played while she was in the car, her bank account would’ve screamed out in disgust because she didn’t have clue. Her mind was elsewhere. She and Bam had been living together for almost a year, and things couldn’t have been better. Besides Bam’s unpredictable temperament at times, Isis was completely satisfied with the way her life was going.

  Bam was sitting at the kitchen table eating a grilled cheese sandwich when she walked through the front door. She smiled at the sight of him. “Hello, darling.”

  “’Sup?” Bam responded back.

  “We need to talk.” Isis walked down the hall and into their bedroom, trusting he was behind her.

  Bam was irritable. He’d been that way off and on for months now since finding out that Smiley had put the hit out on him. There had been at least fifteen attempts at his life—that he knew of. The stress was starting to get to him.

  “What’s good?” he asked, walking into the bedroom, where Isis was sitting on the bed.

  Isis felt like a child going on a roller coaste
r for the very first time—excited, yet afraid of the unknown. Not wanting to beat around the bush, she blurted out the good news: “I’m pregnant.”

  Bam was at a loss for words. His throat started to feel dry and sticky. “You’re what?”

  “I was just as surprised when doctor told me as you are now,” she said, “but don’t you think it’s great?”

  “No, I don’t,” Bam said. “You have too much on your plate right now with your jewelry gig and all, and didn’t you tell me the other day that you wanted to do some traveling?” He tried another angle. “Plus, these streets are insane; I never know if I’ll survive to see the end of today, not to mention tomorrow. How are you going to take care of a baby when I’m gone?”

  “Stop talking like that…. You could get hit by a car while crossing these insane streets also—and so could I—but I don’t live in fear of it.”

  “It’s not just that,” Bam said. “I told you before we ever moved in together, that day right there in your old apartment, that I didn’t want any children, and you agreed.”

  Her eyes searched his. “So what are you saying?”

  “That I love you and the whole nine yards,” he told her, “but I ain’t trying to have no baby. So you know what needs to be done.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Yes, it is, Ice. People go and have it done every day.”

  “No,” she said. “I am three and a half months pregnant, Bam. I’m out of my first trimester.”

  “So you knew what I would say,” he questioned, “and you kept this shit from me?”

  “Stop it. I’ve never hidden anything from you. For some reason, I never missed my period. Today when I went for my checkup, the doctor told me…well, this…” Isis put her hand over her flat stomach.

  Bam’s eyes softened. Gently stroking her cheek with the back of his hand, he said, “I’m sorry.”

  Before Isis could process his odd response, suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her side. She had no idea where it came from. She put her hand where the pain was and doubled over. Bam had landed a well-placed sucker punch to her kidney. And then he hit her again, harder, sending her to the floor. Stunned and in excruciating pain, she curled up into a fetal position to try to protect herself from the blows. She thought that he would stop if she didn’t fight back. She thought wrong.

  “Bitch, don’t lie to me again.” This time he kicked her in the stomach.

  “Please, Bam, no!” she begged. “What are you doing?” Bam had never put his hands on her before. Maybe a little play-wrestling or a shove here and there, but never anything like this.

  Bam was in monster mode. She no longer knew the man who was beating the living crap out of her. When he was finished with her, she looked as if she had been walking in Central Park after dark wearing a miniskirt and high heels and carrying a suitcase filled with money.

  Isis lay on the floor in pain.

  “You will appreciate me when your career is booming and all is going well,” he said. “When the time is right, we will have us a baby,” Bam promised before leaving the house.

  After he was gone, Isis drove herself to the hospital. Before the doctors even took any X-rays, they noticed blood on her underwear. “I’m pregnant,” Isis said to the doctor.

  “Can you tell me what happened to you?” he asked.

  “I fell down the steps.” The doctor knew that her two black eyes and cracked ribs had not come from falling down stairs, but his first concern was to make sure that she was all right before reporting the incident to the police.

  After examining Isis thoroughly and checking all the X-rays, the doctor asked if this was her first pregnancy.

  “What do you mean by was, doctor?” Isis knew what the doctor was going to say even before he said it. She had known when Bam was beating her, but she hadn’t wanted to believe it.

  The doctor regretted telling her. “I’m sorry, Ms. Tatum, but the bleeding was too severe. You’ve suffered a miscarriage.”

  At that moment, Isis hated Bam with every fiber in her body for killing her baby.

  Isis called her Aunt Samantha from the hospital for a ride home after the doctor said that she shouldn’t drive. Samantha saw the bruises on her niece and grilled her about them. Because Isis was mad at Bam, she confided in Samantha about everything. Samantha might have been living her life as a woman for the past umpteen-plus years, but under all the makeup, padded bras and support garments, make no mistake about it, she was a man.

  Samantha took Isis home and made sure that she was resting and doing everything that the doctors had recommended. Once Isis dozed off, Samantha went to her truck and got out a gym bag that contained her “just in case I have to fuck up a nigga” clothes. She transformed into the man she was born as, except for the false eyelashes, and waited for Bam to come home.

  As soon as Bam walked into the trailer, Samantha shouted, “Bitch-ass nigga,” and snuck him with a powerful punch that made Bam stumble and trip over the Air Jordans that he had left in the middle of the floor. Before Bam could catch his balance, Samantha hit him again with another blow, and then pulled out a pink-pearl-handled .22. “This asswhipping is your free pass; you don’t get another chance, motherfucker. Keep your hands off of my niece.”

  Samantha let Bam go and looked down at her own hands. “Shit, you made me break a goddamn nail.” Then she threw in one last kick.

  Bam wasn’t the toughest kid on the block without his gun, but it wasn’t wise to try him and let him live. He got up, brushed himself off, and warned Samantha, “Muthafuckas get killed for shit like this, but I am going to spare your life this time because I know how much you mean to Isis. I’m going to leave now, and when I get back, your ass better not be here.”

  Samantha had made her point, so she didn’t press her luck by staying much longer, but before she left she said, “I’m not afraid of you. You’d just better not put your greasy hands on her again.”

  Bam asked his aunt to sit with Isis for the next couple of days while he ran the streets and made things happen. He wasn’t about to let her Aunt Samantha tend to her.

  Isis was resting in bed when she heard Bam’s key in the front door lock. She involuntarily cringed at the thought of his presence. She could hear his footsteps as he walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and poured something to drink. When he started toward the room, she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep.

  His footsteps stopped once he entered their bedroom. Isis could smell his cologne mixed with the aroma of perspiration and the outdoors.

  He whispered, “Ice, you awake?”

  She used to like it when he called her Ice. Her mother used to call her father Ice; she missed her father. For a few seconds, thoughts of her father flashed through her head. What would he do if he knew a low-down coward-ass motherfucker had put his hands on her and beaten her as if she were a man?

  “Wake up, baby.” This time his tone was slightly louder than a whisper, but not quite his normal talking voice. “I have something for you.”

  She still didn’t open her eyes.

  The man who had forced her to lose her baby—their baby—kissed her on the forehead. “I know this has been tough on you, but I want to make it right.” He sat a box down on the bed beside her.

  Besides her diaphragm pumping up and down from her shallow breaths, Isis remained motionless.

  Bam wasn’t used to this type of treatment from her. In his own selfish way, he really thought that he’d been looking out for their best interests by causing her to lose the baby. He asked, “You still love me, right?”

  “I love you, but I hate you.” Isis decided to speak, parroting the line that famous radio personality Wendy Williams had used so many times on her show.

  “Well, I love you,” Bam said, happy that she was speaking to him, “and I need you to get better because you gotta get ready for what’s in this box.”

  She opened her eyes and saw the gift for the first time. “Wha
t is it?”

  “You’re gonna have to open it to find that out.” Sitting on the bed next to her, he picked up the box. “Let me help you out…you’re going to love it.” He put a couple of extra pillows behind her head so that she would be sitting up and unwrapped the box before gesturing with a nod for her to remove the lid.

  Isis couldn’t believe what she was looking at. The box contained ten stacks of fifty-dollar bills. Each stack had 100 bills. And there was a plane ticket to New York. $50,000. That was just what she needed to buy the diamonds to complete some of her ring designs. So this is what my baby’s life was worth to him? Isis thought as she gazed at Bam, who acted as if he genuinely cared about her future.

  Bam took one of her hands in his. “I want you to design a ring for yourself that lets men know they gotta back the fuck up and support what you do at the same time.”

  “Bam, this doesn’t make up for what you’ve done to me. You do understand that, right?”

  “I know, Ice, but we just weren’t ready.”

  From this point on, Isis thought, I gotta really get myself together and make sure that I am okay, instead of always worrying about these niggas. I’ll take his money, but nigga better sleep with one eye open, because there will be some get-back.

  It took Isis two and a half weeks to get her body and mind back in shape to make the trip, but when she returned from New York not only was she rejuvenated but she also had established a great wholesale diamond connection.

  Isis was now able to turn the designs that once existed only on paper into actual creations. The six-carat yellow diamond engagement ring she made for herself was nothing less than fabulous. The attention she was getting because of it was priceless. Drop-Top wanted her to make one just like it for his girlfriend, only in a different color. All of Bam’s hustling friends wanted one of her original pieces. She flipped all the rings that she had purchased on her first trip to the Big Apple, and six months later, she was making regular runs for more material. The more diamonds she bought, the better the price got. She even sold a few of her ideas to other jewelers. For the people who wanted one of her rings but didn’t have a lot of money to spend, she used her same hot designs but used lesser-quality diamonds. Business was up and down because people didn’t always have cash on the spot, but she made it work.