by Cash
“Hello.”
“Where da fuck you at?”
“Don’t you wanna know?” she responded sarcastically.
“What da fuck that’s supposed to mean?”
“Ask your bitch!”
“What?”
“You heard me, nigga! What you calling me for? Call Corlette!”
The ensuing silence exclamated Q’s guilt.
“Look, baby,” he finally spoke. “Come home and we’ll talk about it.”
“I’m not your baby! Your bitch just gave birth to your baby!”
“Boo,” Q pleaded, “I need you right now. Don’t do this shit.”
“Trust! You haven’t seen nothing yet! I just got my pussy ate and it felt damn good. Now I’m about to suck his dick until that muthafucka get real hard then I’ma let him run up in my wet pussy. I don’t get mad, nigga, I get even—you got the wrong bitch!”
She hung up before he could respond.
A few seconds later Persia’s cell phone rang again. She ignored the persistent ringing letting the call go to her voicemail.
“I guess that was ya boy, huh?” B-Man said, tryna put his arms around her.
“You think?” Persia replied. Her tone was sarcastic and suddenly cold. She looked at B-Man like he was retarded.
Persia removed B-Man’s arms from around her.
“Oh, it’s like dat?” he complained. “Don’t let my brother fade you shawdy. He’s out there doing him; you need to do you. I keep tryna tell you to leave that nigga and become my woman.”
Persia wasn’t tryna even consider that. B-Man had a big dick, and he was a determined, if not skilled, pussy-eater, but he still couldn’t measure up to Q. Now that Persia took a good, long look at B-Man—to her, he looked like he was on dope. This nigga has gotten skinny as hell.
Persia wondered if B-Man might have HIV or something. Sweating his diminished physique, she asked him why he had lost so much weight.
“Stressin’, shawdy,” he told her.
Saying that she suddenly felt ill, Persia was able to get B-Man to leave. Before leaving he had broke her off a stack. Persia added the thousand dollars to the other money she had in her purse. She had more than enough money to see her through until she decided to go back home. Q always kept at least eight stacks at the condo; before leaving Persia had taken all that, plus she’d already had money of her own.
Three days after he’d been with his brother’s wifey, B-Man sat at the crib with his own girl, Gwen, smoking woos and tryna figure out how he had fucked up so much money the past few months. He had spent the entire fifty thousand dollars Q had given him. What the fuck he spent it on, B-Man couldn’t clearly recall. He knew he’d been tricking off a lot of guap lately, but dayum!
The thousand dollars he’d given to Persia didn’t fade him, though. B-Man would’ve gave his last dollar to his lil’ brother’s fly ass wifey—he desired her just that much. He had convinced himself that he would eventually have Persia, especially if he could drop just a little bit more salt in the mix.
“Hook up another woo, baby,” B-Man instructed Gwen.
“We ain’t got no more weed,” she informed him.
“Damn, what happened to all the weed?”
He had just bought two ounces the other day.
“Dat shit gone, boo,” Gwen said reminding him that they’d been smoking woos damn near 24/7, for three straight days.
B-Man and Gwen searched their apartment for weed that they may have accidentally hidden from themselves. Usually a joint or two could be found under the couch cushions. But today the search under the cushion was futile; B-Man and Gwen were too high and paranoid to go out and cop more weed to twist up a woo. So they just sat there looking at one another, like two fiends.
Gwen said, “Baby, let’s try it without the weed.”
B-Man knew what she was proposing.
“I don’t know about that, shawdy,” he hedged. “Fucking wit’ it like that is a whole ‘nother level.”
“We ain’t gotta do it all the time; just this once, since we don’t have any weed.”
B-Man pondered it for a minute; he had been curious about smoking crack for a while. He wanted to feel that high that made others neglect their children; that high that made bitches suck a dog’s dick for a five-dollar crack rock. That shit had to be dat helluva helluva!
“How we gon’ smoke it? You got one?”
“I got a straight shooter,” replied Gwen, dashing off to get it.
When she came back from the bedroom, B-Man was thinking: She been smoking it like this already. Why else would she have a muthafuckin’ straight shooter around?
B-Man had the bloodline of a hustla, from both parents, so he could’ve been focused on getting at the money, like Q and Khalil. Together, the trio would’ve made a formidable team. He also had the bloodline of a junkie. So once he let Gwen talk him into putting that glass dick in his mouth, the end of his story was written.
B-Man put the pipe to his mouth and inhaled. “Hold the smoke in for a minute, baby. Then let it out slowly.” Coached Gwen.
He followed her instructions, and within seconds it felt as if his whole body was busting
a nut. The feeling was better than any other he had ever experienced. He felt he had the ability to pimp harder than Khalil and hustle better than Q. With each hit he became more confident, more unstoppable. But this was only in his mind. Reality would prove to be much different.
Chapter Twenty
Rapheal was one of the few who was strong enough to get that crack gorilla off his back. It had taken him damn near fifteen years to do it though. Still he knew better than to think that the gorilla was dead. Like all reformed addicts, Rapheal could only count one day at a time, hoping he’d continue to have the strength to stay clean.
It had been a little more than three months since Rapheal had gotten high. Things were looking up for the old school playa. The same shit that brought him down, was bringing him back up.
Rapheal had bought himself a brand new Escalade and tricked it out with some rims.
“Pop, you stuntin’, aintcha?” Joked Q when Rapheal pulled up in front of Corlette’s apartment bumpin’ Levert.
“Just doing me, young jit.”
Q smiled at Rapheal’s swag; he was glad to have been able to help his pops regain his pride and dignity in the streets.
“Where’s my granddaughter?” asked Rapheal.
“She’s inside.”
“S’up, Elisse,” Q spoke to his pop’s girl, who was in the passenger seat of the Caddy.
“I’m superfantastic,” beamed Elisse. “How are you?”
“Superfantastic, too!” Q playfully mocked.
Rapheal laughed.
“I don’t know where she got that country ass shit from,” he said, shaking his head.
“You don’t be saying that when I’m putting this superfantastic nookie on you,” teased Elisse.
“Puttin’ it on me? Girl, I be having your young ass climbing the wall.”
“Nah, I be having your old ass climbing the wall.”
“Old?” Rapheal laughed. “Shid, ain’t nothin’ old about me. Even my money new!”
He flashed a roll of crisp new bills, held together by a gold money clip.
“He jammed on you, Elisse,” laughed Q.
“Yeah, he got down,” she conceded with a smile, then leaned over and planted a kiss on Rapheal’s cheek, leaving lipstick on his neatly- trimmed goatee.
Rapheal reached in the back seat and grabbed the presents they had brought for his granddaughter. Elisse lovingly wiped the lipstick smudge off of his face with a tissue before they went inside.
“Hi, Mr. Jones,” Corlette greeted Q’s pops. “Hi, Elisse.”
“Lemme hold my precious granddaughter,” Rapheal cooed as he gently took little Alize from across Corlette’s shoulder.
“I just burped her, so she shouldn’t spit up on you.”
Still she passed him a small blanket to lay across his la
p. Ten minutes later Alize was asleep. Corlette laid the baby in her bassinet. Then she oohed ahhed over the presents.
Miss Jean came through the front door. Q introduced her to Rapheal and Elisse.
“His girlfriend?” Miss Jean shrieked in exaggerated disbelief. “Chile, you look young enough to be his daughter!” she commented, hatin’ on Elisse’s youth.
“I like my women like I like my steaks—tender,” Rapheal said. “Never well done.”
Rapheal cooled Miss Jean’s thighs.
Rapheal and Elisse left, Miss Jean couldn’t stop talking about how “fine” Q’s father was.
“If I can just get that fine nigga in bed one night, I bet he’d change his mind about not liking his steak well done,” declared Miss Jean.
“Mama, you need to stop your stuff!” laughed Corlette.
The next day when Q and Khalil fell through Rapheal’s crib, the three of them had a good laugh at Miss Jean’s expense.
“I’m telling you, pop, she gon’ rape you if you ever go over there without Elisse,” Q warned laughing hard as hell.
“Boy, I know that’s your shawdy’s mother, but real talk, I wouldn’t hit that unless she’s paying five figures,” Rapheal let it be known.
Miss Jean, who resembled Oprah wasn’t Rapheal’s cup of tea.
“Oh, guess who I ran into the other day,” said Rapheal.
“Who?” asked his sons simultaneously.
“Y’all’s step-mother.”
“Sophie?” asked Khalil.
“Uh-huh.”
“Where at, pop? Damn, I ain’t seen Sophie in a minute,” Q said. “
“Where she living at?” Q asked.
“In different crack houses.”
“She fucked up like dat?” Khalil further inquired.
“Yep. Got that crack gorilla on her back,” Rapheal informed them. “I gave her my cell phone number; when she calls I’ma help her if I can.”
“You getting soft, old man,” Khalil teased tryna make light of the disconcerting news about Sophie. He didn’t really consider Sophie his step-mother, but he liked her well enough.
Q, true to his character, had a soft spot for Sophie. He recalled Sophie being as kind to him as if she had pushed him out of her own pussy.
“When Sophie gets in touch with you, pops, let me know. I’ma put her on her feet,” said Q. Rapheal reminded him that he couldn’t “lift” a junkie up, all he could do was offer her a helping hand.
“She gotta lift herself up,” Rapheal explained.
Q nodded his understanding.
“Anyway, what’s up with your wifey? She still ain’t come back home?” asked Rafael, changing the subject.
“Nah, shawdy still trippin’ bout Corlette and the baby. I be talking to her on the phone, but I can’t talk her into coming back home, and she won’t tell me where she’s staying. I know she’s coming back sooner or later, though,” Q added. “Cause she left a lot of her things at the crib.”
“Yeah, she’ll be back, she’s just fuckin’ with his head for a minute,” guessed Khalil.
“Never let ‘em see you sweat,” advised Rapheal.
“Neva dat,” Q said frontin’.
He was damn near going out of his mind with worry. Every single day since Persia had said that slick shit he had constant thoughts of some nigga running dick up in his wifey. If he only knew knew the half!
Rapheal could tell that Q had it bad. He had met Persia and wasn’t impressed.
“Quantavious,” Rapheal said, “some shit you just gotta live and learn. So I’ma just say this: A spoiled woman is like a rotten tooth—you just get rid of ‘em. I’m a leave it at that.”
“Pimpin’ ain’t easy,” added Khalil, patting his lil’ brother on the back.
Rapheal laughed.
It was a week later when Rapheal received a call from Sophie.
When he and Elisse picked her up from outside a crack house, Rapheal was horrified by what had become of his ex- ho. Having been on drugs himself for the past decade and a half, before finally bouncing back, Rapheal had seen up close and personal how crack could turn the flyest muthafucka into a hollow-faced zombie. Still, it appalled him to see Sophie. “Hey, daddy!” Her smile was missing four front teeth.
“What’s up, girl,” Rapheal spoke.
“Missing you, daddy.”
Tears fell from Sophie’s eyes.
Wasn’t shit romantically nostalgic about her past life as a ho in Rapheal’s stable. Pimps use, abuse, and destroy their women. Rapheal had done exactly that to Sophie, but her reality since then had been even worse. Her naturally long and curly hair was now short, stringy, and unwashed. That ass of hers that once could balance a cup on its mounds had diminished into two bee stings. Her skin, which used to be radiant and smooth, was now blemished with dark spots. Most of all, Sophie’s dreams had turned into nightmares. Though it defied logic, she longed for the days when she was walking up and down the stroll, turning tricks for her pimp.
“Cut the tears, girl, and get in the back seat.” Rapheal told her. “This my woman Elisse. Elisse that’s Sophie.”
At their apartment Elisse fixed dinner while Rapheal and Sophie sat around reminiscing about the past.
Later, after they had eaten, Rapheal told Sophie that he’d help her get herself together if she’d enter a drug rehabilitation program. “But I’m not going to help you until you prove to me you’re willing to help yourself,” he said.
“Okay, daddy. I’ma call around and see what I can find.”
When they dropped Sophie back off in front of the house where they’d picked her up, Rapheal was doubtful she’d stick to the plan. Despite his misgivings over it, he gave Sophie some money before pulling off, knowing she’d most likely spend the money to get high.
Two nights later, Rapheal was at the crib in the bathroom trimming his newly grown goatee. Elisse was asleep on the couch, having dozed off while watching television. There was a knock on the front door, which awakened Elisse.
“Who’s there?” she called out, going to answer the door.
“Excuse me, ma’am. May I please use your phone? My baby is sick, and I need to call her daddy to come take us to the hospital. I live over in the next building; I just moved in and I can’t find my cell phone.”
Elisse looked through the peephole to see if she recognized the woman whose anxious voice resonated from the other side of the door. It was dark out so Elisse tried to switch on the porch light to get a better look at the woman, but the light did not come on. She tried the switch again, but to no avail.
Elisse engaged the door’s security chain then opened the door just wide enough to pass the woman her cell phone.
“I’ll let you use my cell phone, but I’m sorry, I can’t allow you to come inside,” she explained politely.
“That’ll be fine.”
“Who you talking to, baby?” asked Rapheal, walking up behind her and putting his arms around her waist.
“A lady who—”
The door was kicked violently inwards, slamming into Elissa’s face. She screamed slipping from Rapheal’s arms and falling to the floor, blood pouring from her broken nose.
Rapheal stumbled back and fell.
Two men rushed the apartment, both wearing black ski masks and brandishing burners. One stood over Rapheal; the other stood over Elisse. The girl, who’d knocked on the door, now closed it and went back to the get-away car to wait for her accomplices. Inside the vehicle she tossed a bundled baby doll on the back seat.
Inside the apartment, one of the armed, masked men ordered Rapheal to take him to the drugs and money. The other robber remained silent, but the gun he held to Elisse’s head spoke loud and clear.
“Yo, old school, you make a country move, I’ma nod you! Then, son over there gon’ do your bitch,” threatened the masked robber with the burner trained on Rapheal.
After they had robbed them of all the money and drugs at the apartment, the robbers took the couple’s jewelry, too
including the iced Rolex that Khalil had given Rapheal. One robber hadn’t spoken the entire time. As he and his partna prepared to leave, the silent one pointed his burner at Rapheal and shot him in the stomach.
Elisse was still screaming as the robbers ran outside, hopped in the awaiting get-away car and mashed out.
“Damn,” one of the robbers said to his partnas. “Why you shoot him?”
“Fuck dat nigga.”
Chapter Twenty One
Khalil was .38-hot! He wanted to nod somebody for what happened to his pops. But with Rapheal in critical condition in ICU at Georgia Baptist Hospital, and unable to point a finger at anyone, Khalil didn’t know who to slump.
Elisse had not recognized the one ski masked robber’s voice when he’d spoken, and the second robber hadn’t spoken at all.
“What about the girl who knocked on the door?” Khalil and Q questioned Elisse after she explained how the robbers were able to gain entry into the apartment.
“I can’t recall ever seeing her before,” she answered. “And now that I think about it, that wasn’t a real baby she was cradling because she held it like it might have been a doll or something.”
Elisse mentioned that they’d just had Sophie over for dinner a few days prior to the incident.
“I’m not saying that she had anything to do with it. It could just be a coincidence.”
Khalil was saying to himself, I bet that crackhead bitch did set dat shit up!
Q made it known that he didn’t believe Sophie would do no foul shit like that. “Na, fam. Sophie would never violate Rapheal like that.”
“Fool, a clucker don’t love nobody,” Khalil snapped. Q was too quick to give people the benefit of the doubt.
When they told B-Man that Rapheal had been shot and robbed, B-Man couldn’t have cared less.
“What, you want me to fake kick it? Come to the hospital and act like I’m concerned whether Rapheal lives or dies? Real talk, I hope he dies,” B-Man stated, with no compassion.
“You ain’t shit, shawdy!” Khalil spat back.
“Whateva, nigga—you already know how I feel about that dude; his being shot don’t change shit.”