by E. N. Joy
"Yeah," I confirmed.
"Tia says she's a firecracker."
"More like an explosion." I laughed, more so to myself.
Monet felt my forehead. "You sure you're all right, Poppa? You usually send trouble packing before it even hits the door-not invite it in to stay a while."
"Hmm, I got a feeling her bark is far worse than her bite." I paused for a minute. "Matter fact, I'm sure of it. Anyway, what shall we make?"
Monet stared at me like I had two heads. "You? Help me? Oh, you must really be sick; so sick you are delirious. Where's the thermometer so I can take your temperature?"
"Quit playing, girl," I said to Monet, slapping her on the butt.
"Umm, Daddy, don't start nothing we can't finish." Monet put her hands around my neck. Next she put her tongue in my mouth.
She tasted sweet like pepper mint sticks. She was sweet. It was her sweetness that had made her my girlfriend a couple of years ago. I know, me with a girlfriend, right? But it's true. I wasn't even looking for love that day I went into Starbucks and saw her in there working behind the counter. All I wanted was a tall, black one with sugar. I guess you could say that's exactly what I got.
Monet stood five feet and nine inches tall. She was as dark as rich molasses and had enough curves to make even the most skilled driver fail a road test. Her innocence was so becoming to her. It was the kind that didn't make a dude like me take advantage of her. It was the kind that made a man want her period. It was the purity of a puppy...man's best friend. After two more trips to her place of employment, that's just what she became; my best friend.
I asked her out on a couple of dates, we started hanging together, and the next thing I knew she was my...she was my...girlfriend. It's still hard for me to confess that once upon a time Poppa had a girlfriend. That's crazy, right? A pimp having a steady girlfriend? I'm talking a for real-for real girlfriend, not a main girl on the squad. But it's true, and I didn't once try to make her one of my girls. No, that ended up being all of her idea.
"I don't care about what you do," Monet had pleaded the day she found out what I really was; what I really did for a living.
Up until that point, she thought I was an entrepreneur. She never asked for specifics. I knew in my heart she didn't really want to know. It's like that chick who falls in love with a dope boy. She never asks where all the money comes from so that she doesn't have a guilty conscious when spending it. Something told me that Monet wished I had just been a dope boy.
"It doesn't bother me that you're a ..." She couldn't even say the word 'pimp.' That's how I knew it really did bother her. "I just want to be with you," she cried. She literally cried.
Once she'd found out what I really did for a living, there was no way I could ask her to continue on with our relationship. It just didn't feel right after that. Monet had been my other world, the one that didn't exist. The normal one where I had a girl by my side, one girl, who really loved me and wanted to be with me. Not for what I could offer her. Not for what she could offer me. But just because. But I'd been living in a fairytale. That wasn't me. The dream with Monet had been wonderful, but that day I woke up and realized that if I was really going to take this pimp game to a whole notha level, then I needed to stay focused. I couldn't let that little thing called love side track me.
Even after I broke things off with Monet, she still called me every day for a week straight. I stopped taking her calls, telling her that it was impossible for us to just be friends; not after where we'd come from. The next thing I know, Monet shows up at my door a week later with over a thousand dollars in her hand. I knew she hadn't made that kind of money pouring lattes.
Dressed in a tube top and a mini skirt with stilettos, the once meek girl dressed in a Starbucks uniform had turned into a woman. A woman of the night.
She handed me all the cash as she strutted through the threshold of my throne. "That's for you," she said. "I did it for you. I can do this. Just let me be your girl."
"Monet, baby, what are you saying?" I asked confused.
"I'm saying that if I can't be your girlfriend, let me just be one of your girls. Whatever it takes to keep you in my life, that's what I'm willing to do."
Little had I known, I'd gotten into Monet's head. And all that was by accident. But Monet, like most of my other girls, had a story too. But right now, it was all about Saved's story.
After taking in one more of Monet's peppermint kisses, I had to push her away and remind her that she needed to earn her time with Poppa. After putting up a bit of fight, she and I began preparing a meal for Saved.
I got so caught up in helping Monet in the kitchen that I didn't realize that five minutes had come and gone and Saved still had not appeared from my bedroom.
"Let yourself out, Monet," I told her since the meal was now complete. Getting somewhat suspicious, I tip-toed toward my bedroom.
"What, you mean let myself out? I don't even get to meet this girl that has you breaking all the rules?" Monet asked.
"Later. Just lock the door on your way out," I instructed as I made my way down the hall and approached my bedroom door.
I peeked through the bedroom door, and that's when I saw Saved standing at my dresser. At first I was going to say something, but then I just decided to wait it out; watch her to see what she was up to.
She picked up one of my white gold chains with a cross medallion on it. She admired it, even putting it around her neck and modeling it in the mirror. She took it off and laid it back in its rightful place. She was just about to pick up one of my watches when her eyes caught my wallet.
"Dang it," I whispered to myself for slipping. But it had been a force of habit that had me place it there.
I wasn't a praying man, but I prayed to God this girl wasn't about to do what I thought she was. If she did, there would be no more exceptions. As much as I'd hate to do it, I would put her, her knock off bag and her Bible out on the street.
She picked up my wallet and began going through it. She came upon something and then removed it from my wallet. That's when I remembered that I still had the money one of my girls had paid me earlier still in there. I wasn't about to stand there and let this girl jack me and then have to put my hands on her to get it back. No way was I about to catch a case.
"Hold up!" I yelled out, making my way over to the dresser to retrieve my wallet from her hands.
Here I had caught this girl about to try to get me for my paper, but the next thing I knew, she came charging at me like she'd caught me stealing from her.
"You dirty...you son of a...why? Why didn't you say anything?" Her hands, one with my wallet still in it, began to flare and windmill me.
"Calm down!" I ordered.
"No...no...you just let me go on and on like a fool and you knew," she cried.
I managed to get a hold of her wrist as tears streamed down her face. "What are you doing?" I asked her, confused by everything that was going on.
"I just wanted to know who you are; you're real name maybe. That's why I was in your wallet. But you're a liar." She continued her attack.
That's when I saw that what she had retrieved out of my wallet was in her other hand.
"You knew her! Why didn't you tell me?" She smashed the picture against my chest and I watched the picture of Nina fall to the floor.
"Is everything good, Poppa?" Monet said, appearing in the doorway with a butcher knife in her hand, as if she was prepared for battle.
"It's all good," I told her, still lightweight wrestling with Saved as I had her by the wrists still. "Go on...go on back up to the apartment."
"You sure, Poppa, 'cause I can take this hoe?" Monet pointed the knife toward Saved. "Ain't no need in you catching a case."
"Go, Monet!" I ordered. "Leave now. Lock up and go back to your apartment now." The tone in my voice let her know that I wasn't going to repeat myself again.
Monet hesitantly left the room and I heard the living room door close behind her shortly after. I turned back a
round to face Saved. "Now can you please tell me why you trippin' on me when I'm the one who just caught you all up in my wallet?"
"Why didn't you tell me?" Saved cried. Uncontrollable tears fell from each eye. "Why didn't you tell me you knew her?" She snatched her hands from my grip and looked down at the picture she had taken out of my wallet that had now fallen to the floor.
I slowly bent down and picked it up, keeping my eyes on Saved the entire time just in case she tried to do something stupid. "Knew who? Her." I held the picture of Nina in my hand. "What's Nina got to do with anything?"
She snatched the picture from me. "That's not Nina. That's Puddin'" She held the picture up to my face. "This is Puddin'," she said with great certainty.
All of a sudden I felt a knot in my throat. "That's not Puddin', Saved." It was as if a revelation was manifesting right then and there in the room. I could hear my heart thumping. My palms began to sweat, but I wanted to knock on denial's door, visit and stay a while. "That's Nina. Nina Heartly, my baby sister who lives in..." My words trailed off and the next thing I knew my knees hit the floor. Denial had not answered the door quickly enough so I was left outside in the real world also known as reality. Tears began pouring out of my eyes as if someone had just turned on a spigot inside them. My sentence ended, and so did life as I once knew it.
Chapter Ten
I wish it had been raining. Rain on the day of my sister's, Nina, funeral would have been more appropriate to me. Instead it was this beautiful sun shiny day. The sun seemed to be smiling down on me as if it was happy. Trust me, there was nothing happy about standing beside my baby sister's graveside, waiting for the preacher man to shovel a couple scoops of dirt on her while saying, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
"You okay?" Saved nudged me and asked as she stood next to me over the grave. She'd been so caring and emotional all day. One would have thought she and Nina, who she referred to as Puddin, which was the nickname Nina's boyfriend had given her, had been the best of friends.
"No, not really." I refused to lie. There was nothing okay about burying my little sister. There was nothing okay about standing here crying so much I thought the dirt would turn to mud as my tears hit the ground. Where was rain when a man needed it? When he needed the rain to wash his tears away? To hide and cover them so that the world couldn't see a grown man cry?
"I did some research and found out Cos' real name," Saved whispered in my ear as the preacher began speaking his final words over my sister's grave. "I called the jail, of course they wouldn't release him to attend the funeral. He's looking at big time."
"Then I guess he wouldn't have made much of a baby daddy anyway, huh?" That was the only way I could justify in my mind why God would have allowed for an innocent seed to not have a chance in the world. Even if it had had a chance, with a father as a locked up dope boy and a mother being the wifey of a locked up dope boy...technically, it still wouldn't have had a chance in the world. It might have ended up like me, or like chicks like Saved.
I looked over at Saved who was wiping away the last of her tears. I guess the baby turning out like Saved wouldn't have been too bad.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," I heard the pastor say, and that's when I knew that my sister's quaint little funeral was pretty much over.
Considering that she and I were all the family each other ever had, it wasn't like a band of folks came out to show love. Our mother was nowhere to be found. The word on the street was that she and Nina's father had reconnected again. Nina and I had different fathers. I never knew who mine was. The last I'd known Nina's was some dude who ended up getting addicted to heroin. Rehab must work; either that or our mother is now in love with a dope head. Heck, maybe she's even addicted to the stuff too.
I'm not sure, but I think, if I know Mom's, she's in New York. She'd always dreamed about moving to New York and starting a new life without any baggage. Nina and I, although we never spoke about it, just naturally assumed that we were the baggage she was referring to.
Nina's father had been locked up since she was about one or two. I can't call it. As many men as I saw come and go, they were all the same to me. Just one big blur. Same man, different name. I'd heard on the streets, though, that Nina's father had been sent to prison after robbing a bank several years back. An officer even got wounded during the process. I suppose I could have called the prison just to double check, but the streets don't lie, so I didn't even bother. Just like me, I'm sure that dude had ears on the streets as well. He'd more than likely heard about Nina's death...my mom too. If they wanted to be there, they would have been. But neither of them were really there for Nina when she was alive. So, what good would they have done her now that she was dead?
But there was one person there, one person who hadn't even known my sister from the man in the moon, but was determined to bring her closure. And now a year after Nina's death, as I visited my sister's grave, that one person was still there-there with me.
"So, you ready to go, Poppa?" Saved asked as she walked up behind me. "The girls are already waiting on us over in the truck." She nodded towards my Escalade.
Saved had been like some type of replacement for my sister; to fill a void I hadn't even anticipated having. She was heaven sent, that's for sure. And now that she was eighteen, she was no longer on the run from juvie. She was free, living back at the apartment with the other girls.
Turns out that Saved was much better at rounding chicks up than Tia ever was. I had three apartments for the girls. There were a total of thirteen of them now. Good stock. Good hard working girls. Each of them had a dream, but each of them had a story.
"Let them wait, the customers aren't going anywhere," I told Saved, wanting to spend just a little bit more time at Nina's grave.
"But you know how the clients get when all of the girls aren't there to serve them. Besides, do you really want to lose out on all that money? Them folks be hungry for what we got-"
"Let 'em starve." I cut Saved off. "Today it's about showing respect for my sister. Besides, Tia's running things back at the spot. She can handle things while we're gone."
With hands on hips and the sucking of teeth, Saved reminded me that, "The last time Tia tried to serve all the customers by herself, she almost burned the entire restaurant down."
Saved was right. Tia had been much better at servicing tricks than serving customers at Puddin's Place. Puddin's Place is the restaurant I opened up shortly after my sister's death. The last time Nina and I had talked I'd told her that I'd started my own business. Because I was always a whiz in the kitchen; whipping up all kinds of stuff so that she and I could have something to eat, she had just assumed I was in the restaurant business. I let her believe that too. She looked up to me. How could I tell her that her big brother was a pimp? How could I tell her that her big brother was the kind of man I'd been trying to protect her from? Well, now I didn't have to. Now I was the owner of the busiest eatery on the Mount Vernon strip.
Oh, yeah, and all of Saved’s Bible quoting and Jesus talk finally paid off-for everybody. She started having Bible study with the girls up in her apartment. Her teachings were so powerful that a couple of the girls turned their lives over to Christ. Tia was the first. Heck, Saved was even starting to make a believer out of me. It wasn’t just that though. With the way everything had transpired- Saved getting off of that Greyhound bus and practically landing right at my doorstep-that was no coincidence. It was nothing less than a 'divine set up' (I learned about that in one of Saved’s Bible Study sessions I slipped in on). There is absolutely no other explanation for the way Saved and I connected other than the fact that God Himself had to have had His hand on the situation. Man alone could not have orchestrated it, no more than man alone could have orchestrated the creation and wonders of this beautiful earth. How could I not be a believer after that?
Anyway, Saved also found us a real nice church home here in Columbus, and now…well…I’m saved too.
The End
About the Au
thor
E. N. Joy is the author of Me, Myself and Him, which was her debut work into the Christian Fiction genre. Formerly a secular author writing under the names Joylynn M. Jossel and JOY, when she decided to fully dedicate her life to Christ, that meant she had to fully dedicate her work as well. She made a conscious decision that whatever she penned from that point on had to glorify God and His Kingdom.
E. N. Joy currently resides in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, where she is continuing work on her next series, "Still Divas," as well as finishing up her "Street Preacher" series.
You can visit the author at www.enjoywrites.com or e-mail her at [email protected] to share with her any feedback.
COMING SOON...
The Streets Don't Lie
Book Two of The Street Preacher eBook Series
An Urban Tract
By E. N. Joy