by Smooth Silk
Needless to say, I was Ray McWilliams free! I mean, for whatever reason, he decided that he wanted to keep in touch with the girls from time to time. But whenever he visited with them, I was right there watching him. His relationship with Honey was just okay. Honey never forgot how Ray had chosen money over him, and it left a bad taste in his mouth. He was down with the person who remained loyal to him and that was me. Talk about being my nigga, Honey was it. I had mad love for him, but what we decided to do was keep our business endeavors a secret. No one ever found out that we were behind what had happened to Ray. He never recovered from losing that much money, nor did he know that his son and I had been secretly building an empire that was much bigger than the one he’d had. Day by day, we built that shit together. We worked hard, and Honey let these niggas out there know that he ran a no-nonsense business. I was behind the scenes. Nobody knew what I’d been up to, not even my daughters who were now grown and much wiser than I was in my late twenties.
Thankfully, Karrine and Simone didn’t remember a lot about what had happened in that apartment. They knew Ray as he was today. To me, he was still a conniving fool. I despised him with a passion, and when Chyna came forth one day and told me what he’d done to her, I could’ve died. I was so upset with her for not telling me that he used to come into the room the girls slept in, in the middle of the night, and have his way with her. He’d wait until I went to sleep then go do his dirt. The thing is, I always knew, deep in my heart, that he had been messing with my baby. And now that it was confirmed, there was no way possible for me to let that nigga live. The first person I broke the news to was Honey. I was staring out of the window with my arms folded.
“I know he’s your father, but that nigga walking around here like he’s such the perfect damn daddy and he ain’t shit. I’m glad that Chyna finally told me what was up, and I honestly do not want him to take another breath on this earth.”
Honey stood back on his bowlegs with his hands in his pockets. He then wiped down his sexy, chiseled face and stroked the hair on his chin. He was such a handsome young man, and at thirty years old, he had all of the chicks in the neighborhood throwing their pussies at him. He cocked his neck from side to side and cracked his knuckles.
“I’m not sure what to say,” Honey said. “There are times when I still hang tight with the old man, but I don’t like what he did to Chyna. That shit ain’t cool at all.”
“You’re damn right it’s not. And there ain’t no way in hell for me to sit back and pretend that Chyna didn’t confirm this. I’ve sat back long enough for years. Now, it’s time for me to do something.”
Honey stood for a while, thinking. He then walked to the door and touched the knob. “Look, do whatever you wish. Just know that this one won’t be on me. I don’t want to be included in the plans, nor do I want to know when or where the shit will take place.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to take care of this for me, but what I would like to know is if you’re okay with me doing it? I don’t want you to hold any grudges against me or be upset behind my actions. All I want you to do is understand why I have to do this. Chyna is my child, Honey, and I feel as though I failed her. This is how I must make this right. Please support me on this and allow me to make some kind of peace with it.”
Honey released a deep sigh and stood for a few more minutes. He turned around then nodded. “Like I said, roll with it and do what you must. You have my full support. Don’t you ever think that I don’t understand what you and them girls went through. I witnessed some of it. Remember?”
I smiled because that’s all the confirmation I needed. Honey walked out the door, and the following week, Ray was shot dead in his home. Shot in the face, five motherfucking times. No one knew who had done it. I figured that everyone would point their fingers at me, but I was at home cooking dinner for my lovely daughters. They could vouch for me, and I could vouch for them, especially Chyna who handled her business in a major way. I was very proud of her for ridding us of our number one enemy. And when I say that this shit felt good, I mean it. Ray’s death felt good.
On the day of his funeral, I didn’t shed one tear. I leaned over his casket, and while many people thought I had given him a kiss, what I did was gather a gob of spit in my mouth and spat it in his face. I then sat on a pew, thinking about all that nigga had done to me. He almost destroyed me, but the truth is, people don’t change into who they are destined to be overnight. Experience is the best teacher, and whatever those experiences are, they mold and shape us “as is.”
Now, I was proud to be Taffy Douglas. I didn’t give two fucks about what people thought of me, not after what I’d been through, hell no. It might have taken awhile for me to break the grip that nigga had on me, but his grip was now gone. I couldn’t be mad at the vital lessons our fucked-up relationship had taught me; after all, it enabled me to assist in preparing a smoother life for my girls. They’d have to go through some of the bullshit out here too, but I endured years of pain with a no-good nigga so they wouldn’t have to. I was able to share, in great detail, what that shit felt like. I broke down the rules for them, just so they wouldn’t make the same mistakes. Somebody once said, “When you know better, you do better.” And if you don’t know, yo’ ass better learn fast. I hipped my girls to the game. Showed them how to make money from grimy, horny, weak niggas who would give up their life savings, just to gaze at a piece of ass or watch a woman play with her pussy. The fools couldn’t even touch them, but as long as the pussy looked good and asses clapped loudly, niggas were willing to pay.
There was no secret that I had developed disdain in my heart for fathers who didn’t take care of their kids, for cowards who lied to women and disrespected them, and for fools who paid money to watch ass. At the end of the day, their money was good, and it helped us stay on top for quite some time. But being on top in the drug game, and being without Ray, wasn’t the end of my story. Actually, it was just the beginning . . .
Part Two
The Beginning
Chapter Seven
Taffy
“Don’t know no love, don’t show no love,” was what I taught my three girls Chyna, Karrine, and Simone. The only love we had was for each other. Our bond as mother and daughters was unbreakable.
I’d been schooling my girls on this thing called life since the day I screamed out like a madwoman and forced them out of my coochie. I didn’t want my baby girls to hook up with any nigga who was like their deadbeat-ass daddy. I wanted them to hook up with a motherfucker who would respect them. One who they could love because he had their backs and they could count on him to provide for them every step of the way. One who could have them riding around in a Mercedes, Range Rover, or Bentley, as they all did right now. One who could take them on trips from the Bahamas to Africa, if they chose to go there. I mean, this dude had to come correct. But the only nigga who could be down with my daughters in a way that I expected him to be, he went by the name of money.
Yes, that’s right. I taught my daughters to fall in love with money. Money was the only thing that could give them what no other motherfucker could. It provided for them like no other and swept them off their goddamn feet. They were high off money, instead of being fucked up in the head because some damn fool done broke their hearts, done them wrong, or cheated on them. It was my job as Mama to make sure my girls didn’t go down the same path as I had travel. Getting their asses beat just because and getting kicked out of the crib because a man told you you had to go, that wasn’t where it was at. I had my stories to tell and you’d better believe that I told my daughters exactly what kind of father they’d had. They were now well aware, but Karrine and Simone had a little soft spot for him in their hearts. Not Chyna, though. She hated that motherfucker. She had every right to.
When Chyna turned twenty-six, she did her Mama a big favor. I’ll never forget it, and I owed her big time for handling something that I could or should have taken care of years ago.
That day, Chyna had gone to t
he beauty shop early in the morning to get her hair braided. Like me, she wore long braids that flowed down her back and almost touched her apple bottom big booty that was the most money producing ass in the house. While my braids sat wrapped tightly on my head, Chyna’s were parted through the middle. She had a round face that displayed her rich chocolate skin. Her body was sculptured like a goddess, and all of my girls’ curvy hips were enough to turn any man’s or woman’s head. There was no secret that Chyna and I were the closest out of me and my girls, because Chyna did shit for me that the other two might not do. She had my back. Anything that I asked her for she would do it.
She left the beauty shop around six o’clock that evening and called me on her way to Ray’s place. He had no idea she was coming and he had told the girls that if they ever stopped by they needed to call before they came. The only reason he required that was because he didn’t want any of them to confront his bitches. The last time Simone was at his house, she beat the mess out of his side ho, Tracy, who didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. He didn’t want the girls to catch him in the act of running his drug store. My girls were no fools, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what Ray was doing. I’ll just say that a motherfucker who dropped out of high school in the eighth grade didn’t have many options. Ray was a fifty-five-year-old man, but he liked bitches who were much younger than he was.
At forty-six my pussy was all dried up, according to him, so he didn’t want no part of me anymore. He considered me washed up way before then, but that was his opinion, not mine. I was happy about that because he could lay those ass kickings on somebody else. All the cheating was left for another bitch to deal with, and he had done me a favor when he kicked me out on my ass and told me to never come back.
The only thing that I didn’t like was when he disrespected my daughters. When Simone fought his trick, Tracy, Ray took her side and put his hands on my baby. That didn’t work for me either, and I really had to put a plan in action to get rid of his ass, especially after he molested Chyna.
After that day, I knew what I had to do. It was inevitable and timing was everything. I plotted revenge with Chyna and only her. Simone and Karrine were wussies when it came to Ray. They let him get away with too much shit, as I had done. I didn’t like that one bit, because what you allow yo’ daddy to do, you will allow any man to do. So without nobody knowing it, Chyna handled things like only she knew how.
She called me on the phone while I was cooking fish for dinner in the oversized kitchen in our townhouse. It was spacious, with four bedrooms and three levels. I slept in the upstairs bedroom, Chyna slept on the lower level, and Simone and Karrine shared the second floor. We all had privacy. That was a good thing because I didn’t want my girls to think I was crowding their space. As I turned the crispy fish cooking in hot grease, Chyna whispered to me.
“Mama, are you still there?”
“Yes, I am, Chyna. I was just trying to finish dinner.”
“Well, I just parked in front of his house. I want you to hear this shit go down, so don’t hang up.”
I didn’t hang up, but I put the phone on speakerphone so I could get done cooking before Simone and Karrine came home. I wanted Chyna to have something to fill her belly with too. Lord knows she deserved it. We had planned this for months. Chyna wanted to do this, and out of all of my kids, she was the brave one. I couldn’t think of a better person to kill that fool, and as we discussed it, Chyna seemed hyped. If or when the cops asked questions, I would be her alibi, and she would be mine. And if that wasn’t good enough, we already had a friend of mine, Phatty, who agreed to say she was right here with us having dinner. I suspected that the police wouldn’t dig too deep. As much trouble as Ray had been in, I figured that they wanted his ass off the streets just as much as we did.
“I’m makin’ my way to his door now,” Chyna said. “You wanna hear me knock?” she joked.
“Girl, would you stop playing? This is some serious shit and yo’ ass needs to be careful. Ray got all kinds of guns and shit up in there. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“He trusts me, Mama, so I’ll be fine. And if all else fails, all I have to do is fuck him and he’ll get with the program.”
Chyna touched a nerve. I halted what I was doing and stood still. That was another thing about Ray. He had hurt Chyna when she was seven years old, but Chyna never told me that he had come into her bedroom to have sex with her until years later. I stood stone-faced, thinking about the day she told me what Ray had done to her.
Chyna had just gotten home from high school. I was chilling back on the couch, watching TV while talking to one of my girlfriends about a fucked-up date she’d been on. But when I saw the horrified look in Chyna’s eyes, I told Nicole I’d have to call her back and hung up the phone.
“Chyna,” I yelled out to her as she headed toward her room. “Come back here. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing!” she hollered from the other room.
I smashed my cigarette in an ashtray then got off the couch to go see what was up. I suspected that she was having issues with some of those bad-ass, knucklehead boys from school, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t understand why they always picked on my damn kids, and I got tired of going to their school threatening those muthafuckas. Obviously, my threats weren’t working.
As Chyna sat on the bed with her head hanging low, I stood in the doorway with my arms crossed. “What happened at school today?”
“Nothing,” she said without looking up at me.
“Something had to happen because you wouldn’t be sitting there looking like a sad puppy. If those boys are still fucking with you, just tell me. I warned them before, and if I have to blow another hole in their asses for fucking with you I will.”
“They ain’t messing with me no more. I told you it was nothing.”
I walked farther into the room then sat on the bed next to Chyna. That’s when I noticed a small bruise underneath her eye. My heart sank to my stomach. I reached for her chin, and quickly turned her face toward me.
“What happened to your face?” My tone had gone up a notch. Chyna knew better than to lie to me.
“I tripped and fell—”
“Tripped and fell my ass, Chyna!” I let go of her face then jumped to my feet. I then reached for her hand, attempting to pull her off the bed. “Let’s go. Take me to whoever did that to you. I don’t care how young his ass is. If he’s brave enough to hit you then I’ma be bold enough to put my foot in his ass.”
I yanked Chyna’s arm but she resisted. “Let me go, Mama. I don’t want to go anywhere. Just leave me alone and stop trying to embarrass me!”
My mouth dropped open. “Embarrass you? I don’t give a damn if you’re embarrassed by me. If you don’t know how to stand up for your fucking self, then I’m going to stand up for you. All of this needs to stop, Chyna. I’ve been to the school, talked to those boys’ parents, and I’m sick of being nice. You can’t expect me to sit back and do nothing.”
Chyna still didn’t budge, so I left her ass sitting there near tears. I knew where to go to get the answers I needed, and one of Chyna’s friends down the street was the one who told me about those boys messing with my girls last time. Surely she knew something, so I was on my way to see her. But as I made my way to the door, Chyna called out to me. Displaying rage, I swung around, mad at her for not speaking up, but very sympathetic to my child who I knew was hurting from the tears she started to shed.
“I . . . It’s not those boys who keep messing with me,” Chyna said with her head hanging low again. She kept fidgeting and didn’t dare to look me in the eyes.
“Who in the hell is it then? Tell me who put their goddamn hands on you.”
There was a sharp, long silence before Chyna softly whispered, “Ray.”
I frowned, thinking that I misunderstood her. “Ray who?”
“My daddy. He chased after me because I refused to get in the car with him. I didn’t want to go with him. Not t
his time. I just couldn’t do it.”
“Go with him where? And what made him hit you?”
Chyna shrugged. “I guess the same thing that always made him hit you.”
Her words stung. I walked back over to the bed and sat next to Chyna again. She wasn’t telling me the whole story, and deep down, I feared there was so much more to this. I pushed and pushed for Chyna to tell me more. That’s when more tears started to fall, and she said something to me that damn near took every single breath out of me.
“He touched me, Mama. Been touching and feeling on me, ever since I was seven years old. I’m tired of him doing nasty things to me, and a father ain’t supposed to do that kind of stuff to his own daughter, is he?”
I sat as if cement had been poured over me. My lips felt locked together. Goosebumps were all over my arms, and there was a pain in my stomach that felt as if Mike Tyson had punched me in it. I slowly turned my head to look directly into Chyna’s eyes. I already knew she wasn’t lying to me, and the thought never crossed my mind. For years, I had suspected that Ray had done something to her. But every time I asked, she denied it. She brushed it off, and just a few months ago she told me I was out of my mind for thinking such a thing. I didn’t bother to ask what made her speak up now. It didn’t matter. What mattered was I knew. I’d heard every word my daughter had just told me, and she didn’t have to go into further details about it. At that point, I knew that Ray had to die.
I held Chyna in my arms, allowing her to cry hard on my shoulder. I cried too, but not in front of her. It was later that night when I sat on the edge of my bed with a Glock 9 shaking in my hand. Ray was supposed to come over, and I waited for him to come through the door so I could blow his fucking brains out. I didn’t need the police, and I didn’t want to tell anyone what had happened. Putting him behind bars wasn’t good enough for me. He needed to be six feet under; there was no other option. With that in mind, I waited. Waited for hours, but Ray was a no-show. I called his phone; he didn’t answer. Called around looking for him; nobody knew where he was. And by four o’clock in the morning, I finally realized that maybe it was a good thing that he didn’t come. My daughters would’ve witnessed a murder that they definitely didn’t need to see. They would see me in handcuffs, and knowing that they’d be thrown in the foster care system woke me up. This was something I had to plan for. I had to be real careful, and then execute a plan that would wash that nigga off this earth. I finally smiled that night while thinking about how I wanted it done.