by Omar Tyree
“So did you like my family and all?” he asked with a smile, as they traveled to the next stop in his jeep.
“Yeah. I wish I had a big family like that.”
Cash chuckled and said, “I wish I had a crib like yours. Girl, I would have loved to grow up up your way.”
“Why you say that?”
Cash grimaced as if it should have been obvious. “ ’Cause, it would have been a lot more peaceful, compared to the shit that I had to go through down North. And the thing that takes me out is how y’all got those fake-ass punks in y’all area, like that boah’ Peppy, thinkin’ he tough and shit. That’s why I had to smack him around for a second.”
Cash rolled down the windows to catch the night air. The sun was starting to set and the wind blew in, shaking Tracy’s earrings.
“That feels gooood,” she squealed.
Cash giggled at nothing.
“What’s so funny?” she quizzed him.
“I was just thinking about how scared you looked when I told you to get out the jeep,” he alluded. “GET OUT OF THE STREET, YOU LITTLE KNUCLEHEAD!” Cash screamed out of the window to a kid.
Tracy chuckled, watching the brown boy scatter to the sidewalk.
They arrived at their second destination, all the way down Southwest Philly. There weren’t as many people around as on Cash’s block in North. He told Tracy to stay inside the jeep, while he jumped out and ran into a house.
“Yo, you got that set-up for me?” he asked an older black man.
“Yeah. HEY SAM, give him that package, man!”
Sam said, “What took you so long, young-boah’? We thought you was gon’ be here at six-thirty.” He brought the package out with him from the kitchen. It was a clear sandwich bag with small packages of crack cocaine, all individually wrapped.
Cash said, “Yeah, well, I got this little young-girl out in the ride, and she just met my mom and sisters, back the way.”
“You got a little young-girl in the car, hunh?” Sam responded, looking out of the window at Tracy, who was sitting inside of the jeep impatiently. She didn’t like the idea of waiting outside of a drug house. “Damn, she a fine thing!” Sam said. He was at least thirty-two, and too old to be concerned about the latest fashions. He had on a plain pair of blue jeans and a red Nike T-shirt.
“How old you think she is?” Cash quizzed him with a smile.
“What, she’s like seventeen, eighteen, right? ’Cause I’m assuming she got to be younger than you. You ain’t got no game for no old-head pussy yet,” Sam told him. He laughed and slung an arm around Cash’s shoulder.
“Yeah, aw’ight, cuz’,” Cash responded, smirking. “But umm, naw. That girl only fifteen years old, Sam. Matter of fact, she fourteen, ’cause her birthday’s in two weeks.”
“W-o-o-o-o, slow down! You better watch them babies,” Sam told him seriously. “I don’t wanna see my man goin’ ta’ jail and shit, over some ass that still smell like piss.”
They roared laughing, like at a Richard Pryor concert.
Cash said, “Naw, Sam, it ain’t even like ’dat. She know what time it is. You gotta bring ’em in the right way, ’cause them young-boahs’ would just waste her potential. And I’m ’bout to blossom this young buck.”
Cash walked out with the package in a brown paper bag and hid it under his seat. It was the first time that Tracy had been around any crack cocaine. She tried to hold her tongue about it, but it was no use.
“What if we get stopped by the police?” she asked, laughing to camouflage her concern. She was serious, and Cash knew it. He rode down another street and turned the corner to park. He then turned the key off and took a deep breath.
Cash looked Tracy in her hazels and threw down his game. “Now I know that you’re spoiled and all, and that you grew up in a nice neighborhood, but this is the way I stay on top of life. I’m not tryin’ to get you involved in any dumb stuff, either. All I do, myself, is buy it and have it distributed. This the only time that I even touch the stuff.
“Now I’ma let you know right now, I like you, but this is how I do things. Now if you can’t deal with that, then fuck it. And after I drop you off tonight, just don’t call me no more.”
He turned the ignition back on and zoomed the jeep to the next stop, his distribution house. Tracy was not afraid of Cash like she was of Timmy; she just had some serious thinking to do about the drag trade. She was indirectly involved, but she knew that situations could turn hostile when the money didn’t add up right. Yet she liked the suspense of it, and she loved riding around in his jeep, but it was getting late.
Cash sprinted inside of the distribution house to organize his workers and kept some product for his buddy Ed. By then, it was ten thirty-five on a Tuesday night. Cash realized that Tracy had to be home soon, and by the time they had finally made it back to her Germantown block, she had fallen asleep and it was after twelve.
Cash howled, “Ay, girl! Get up!”
“What?” Tracy answered, pushing him off of her. Her hazels were sealed shut.
Cash hopped out of his jeep and walked around to the passenger side to carry her out.
“Dag, what time is it?” she asked, stretching in his arms.
“Just go in the house, girl.” He tossed Tracy down on the sidewalk. Her Reeboks hit the pavement with a plop, and she headed for her door.
Patti was asleep when Tracy crept into bed, but she knew that her daughter had been out later than usual. She figured she would catch her in the morning, or after she got in from work.
After cruising for six hours in Cash’s jeep, Tracy had a good sleep that night, straight through to eleven o’clock that next morning.
Jason announced, “Mommy said you gon’ get it when she gets home.” He was smiling, leaning overtop of her head when she awoke.
“Shet up and leave me alone.”
“Mommy told you to fix me some cereal when you get up.”
“Well, I ain’t up yet.”
Jason leaped on her demandingly. Tracy tossed him from her bed, and he landed on his head.
BLOOM!
“OOOOWWW! I’m gon’ tell mom on you, Tra-cy!”
“You shouldna’ been playin’ wit’ me!” she screamed at him. She climbed up out of bed to see if her brother was okay. Jason then punched her in the stomach and ran. Tracy smiled and shook her head, tickled by his revenge.
BRRRIIIINNGG! . . . BRRRIIIINNGG!
Jason called from the hallway, “The telephone, you dummy.”
“Hello,” Tracy answered, wiping sleep from her eyes.
“Yo, it’s Bruce. I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
Tracy didn’t want to be rude and just hang up on him, but she was in no mood to be hassled that morning. “Look, Bruce, I’m ’bout to fix my brother something to eat, so I’ll call you back,” she told him.
Bruce took a while to respond, as if he was thinking about something else to say. “Yeah, aw’ight then,” he finally responded to her.
“Come on, boy,” Tracy said to her brother, leading him down the steps and into the kitchen.
• • •
She expected her mother to be angry at her, but Tracy was not that concerned about it. I mean, what can she do to me? Put me on punishment, she pondered.
Tracy and Raheema gossiped all that afternoon about the boys and girls from around their neighborhood, while Jason had his playtime out in the sun. Raheema had been talking about boys more after dealing with Bruce, but she still did not date any of them, so Tracy told her all of her news, hoping that her neighbor would learn something for when she felt comfortable enough to try another boyfriend.
When a quarter after five ticked around, Patti pulled around the corner and parked out in front of the house.
“Here she comes, Tracy,” Raheema commented with a smile.
“I can see, girl,” Tracy snapped at her nervously. She then got up and walked into the house to make sure that she was not embarrassed outside. She strutted into the kitchen
and poured herself some water to calm her nerves, wondering what her mother had in store for her. By the time she had finished, Patti was right behind her.
“Where the hell was your grown-ass last night, Tracy?” Patti was taking off her rings.
Tracy said, “Mom, honest t’ God, I fell asleep. I didn’t know what time it was.”
She watched her mother set her rings on the kitchen table, as if they were going to fist fight. Patti was still an inch or so taller than her daughter, and she was nearly twenty pounds heavier.
Patti grabbed Tracy by her hair, which was all piled up on top of her head. “Girl, I’m ’bout to whip your motherfuckin’ ASS!” she yelled violently. They slammed up against the long kitchen cabinet, next to the refrigerator as Patti attacked her daughter, smacking her face and flooring her with fists and elbows.
Tracy hollered with tears rushing down her face, too petrified to try and get away, “I’M SORRY, MOM-MEE! I WON’T DO IT AGAIN! PL-E-E-EASE! OH GOD! HELP ME!”
“GOD AIN’T GON’ HELP YOUR ASS, GIRL!” Patti roared. She stopped herself, seeing how helpless her daughter was and took a couple of deep breaths.
Tracy slid to the floor, crying hysterically.
“Take your hot-ass upstairs to your room! And you best not come the hell out until it’s wintertime!”
Tracy jumped up and sprinted past her mother and up to her room. She closed her door and jumped into her bed before Patti got a chance to mumble her last sentence.
Jason had walked inside wearing a smile, to see what was going on.
“This ain’t nothing to laugh about, Jason, because if you start acting up, you’re gonna get some of this too,” his mother warned him.
Her son’s smile quickly faded as Patti continued to rant while pacing her living room:
“If Tracy thinks that she’s gonna do whatever she wants, and come home anytime that she wants to, while out here running around with these damn boys, then I’m gonna tear fire to her ass more often.
“I don’t know who she thinks she is, but she ain’t old enough to make her own rules and schedules in this house, and when she thinks that she is, then she’s gonna be hittin’ that damn door, ’cause I’m not losing my my mind chasing after her. I already have to go though this shit with your father.”
Jason cringed from his mother’s unexpected rage and snuck back outside.
Patti walked back to the kitchen and took a seat to slip her rings back on her fingers. “I simply refuse to be stepped on,” she told herself.
Tracy didn’t see Cash for three weeks. She was in no rush to get back out into the fast lanes. She stayed around her house and played with her brother, figuring that she needed a resting period.
Patti eased up and let her off of punishment once the new school year started. It was the first Friday night that Tracy was allowed to go out. Raheema, Carmen and Jantel weren’t home when she called them. She then decided to sit out on her front steps in the cool, nighttime breeze, hoping that neighbors, or anyone, would decide to come out on her block. No one did.
Tracy could hear crickets chirping, it was so quiet. She looked at the stars to amuse herself, thinking about Cash’s black and gold Bronco. If she could wish for something, it would be for him to pick her up. Then she laughed at her ridiculousness, remembering how ready her mother was to beat her senseless.
A voice seemed to fall out of the night air, “Hey, pretty.”
Tracy snapped out of her daze. It was Bruce. “What’s up?” she perked, happy to have his company. Bruce could not stay away from her.
“Nothin’. I was up here, so I figured I’d come talk to you for a while,” he told her.
They fell silent for the first five minutes.
Tracy said, “I thought you came up here to talk to me.”
Bruce chuckled. “You know I’m going into the Air Force, right?” He turned to look up at Tracy’s asymmetric hairdo and those big Tracy gold earrings. She was fifteen years old, in high school. He was eighteen, heading into the United States Air Force, but Bruce couldn’t help being attracted to her.
Tracy grunted, “Unt unh.” She shook her head and looked even prettier to him. “Why you goin’ there?”
“ ’Cause, college is for those education-type people. I’d rather be doing somethin’ physical.”
Tracy glanced up the street at a car that was driving by. She thought that it was Victor, but it wasn’t.
Bruce said, “It’s peaceful out here tonight, ain’t it? I feel like we on a romantic date or something. Yup, Tracy, we can put a candle right in front of us. Then I would stare at your pretty eyes and all.”
Tracy started to giggle. “How come you don’t sell drugs instead of going to the Air Force?” she asked, just for the hell of it. Bruce had never commented about the drug trade since the last time she had asked.
“Oh, you into that too, hunh?” he commented glumly. “I see that as an easy way out for people that don’t wanna work hard.”
“Well, why should life have to be hard work?”
“ ’Cause that’s the way that it is, Tracy.”
“Who says so?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know, girl.”
Tracy laughed at Bruce’s temperament before she quizzed him. “How come you can’t tell me why?”
“ ’Cause I don’t know why. Shit! What a nigga know in this world? Tell me.”
Tracy answered with sparkling hazels, “Well, if you don’t know, then leave things alone and live.” She played with her right earring and looked into Bruce’s placid face. “See, the way I see it, Bruce, is that everybody knows these things about life and all, but no one lets them get in the way of living. And that’s how it should be, ’cause no one wants to be constantly reminded that the world is dull and boring. Now I know I’m still young and all, but that’s how I see things.”
Bruce nodded. They sat and talked for hours about the times they had had in the year gone by. Tracy got Bruce to lighten up enough to talk about his life. He was delightful to be with when his mind was not on his letdowns and his shortcomings. They had good rapport.
Her sophomore year, every boy in the hallway was impressed with Tracy’s flamboyance and her stunning outfits. She scared off the boys who lacked self-confidence, attracting only the players, and she liked it that way.
The first week of classes took forever. Tracy wore smashing outfits, Monday through Friday, catching all eyes, while the guys whispered, “Damn, she flyy.”
One boy got up enough heart to ask, “Excuse me. Can I walk you home?”
Tracy turned and spotted a well-dressed, cool-looking, tanned-skinned boy, surrounded by hungry-looking friends.
“I’m getting a ride home today,” she told him. She wore a black suede skirt with black fishnet stockings and a gold silk blouse; her usual gold was around her neck, wrists and fingers, and her earrings dangled from her ears. Tracy’s full package glared like a teen model strutting down a concrete runway.
The boy responded, “Oh, don’t tell me you got a car, too.”
“No, but my boyfriend is picking me up in his jeep.”
The cool boy cracked a charming smile.
“What’s so funny?” Tracy asked him.
“Your boyfriend got a jeep, hunh?” He shook his head and added, “So everybody wants a drug dealer nowadays.”
“How you know he a drug dealer?”
“ ’Cause he got a jeep. And ain’t no young niggas ridin’ around in no jeeps, unless they sellin’ drugs.”
“Who told you that?”
“Everybody knows that shit, girl. Where you been at?”
“Everybody don’t know it. It’s some blacks who don’t need to sell drugs to buy a jeep. My boyfriend’s father bought it for him,” Tracy lied. At least her heart was in the right place.
“Yeah, right. Don’t run that game on me, girl. Save that corny shit for the next slow nigga, ’cause I ain’t him.” The cool boy strolled to rejoin his admiring friends. He had set Tracy strai
ght, and he knew it.
Tracy smirked and rushed to the spot where Cash said he would pick her up. He was running late. He then whipped around the corner blasting Rakim’s song, “Eric B For President.”
Tracy yelled through the heavy bass of the rap song, “What took you so long?”
Cash turned the volume down. “Oh, this nut dude tried to get over on Wayne, so we had to smack ’im up a bit.”
Tracy leaped in and slung her book-bag to the floor. “You gotta fight a lot?” she asked, curiously.
“Naw, just when somebody tries some dumb stuff. But don’t start gettin’ all worried about that, ’cause I know how you start thinkin’. So we just gon’ go to a movie and chill tonight.”
“We gotta go to an early show though, ’cause I got school tomorrow,” she told him. Tracy didn’t want her mother going crazy again.
“Yeah, aw’ight. I’ll pick you up before seven, and have you back before ten.”
“All right,” Tracy agreed.
Cash pulled up at the corner of her block just as Raheema was going inside of her house. She saw them kiss good-bye at the corner, and she decided to wait up for Tracy.
“I thought you said you weren’t gonna go with him anymore?” she asked her hard-headed neighbor.
“Mind your business, Raheema,” Tracy said in a sing-song fashion. She was too happy to argue.
“Well, you did say that.”
“So what? I changed my mind.”
“What if your mom finds out?” Raheema had heard about Tracy’s ass-kicking through her mother. Patti told Beth, and Beth passed it down to Raheema as a warning. Tracy assumed that she knew, because of the big smile she displayed.
Tracy snapped, “Then I’m gon’ kick your ass. You bitch!” she spat.
Aware that she had unintentionally hit a weak spot with Tracy, Raheema decided to slip inside. “I’m not a bitch. I’m just worried about you,” she retorted. She slipped into the house before Tracy could get ahold of her.
“Well, worry about yourself!” Tracy hollered at her neighbor’s door. She was pissed! Her feelings were hurt. “God, I hate that fuckin’ girl!” she shouted. She marched inside of her house and said, “That bitch gon’ mess around and dime on me. Watch! And if I get my ass kicked, then I’m gon’ kick her ass.”