by Azarel
When the familiar smell hit the door, my hopes of an easy break-away went down the drain. His cologne seemed stronger than usual, but oddly still turned me on. When I turned to look over my shoulder, Daddy just stood there looking at me. His disapproval was evident. I wondered if the luggage in each hand signaled a dead give-away. I glanced down at the bags, then back at him. He returned the stare, to me first, then the bags. It was crazy. Tic for tac, I thought. He frowned at me. I frowned back at him. It was better to make Daddy think I was angry at him, for leaving me behind. I was ready to turn the tables and win the actress of the year award, until he spoke harshly.
“In there!” He pointed toward the showroom.
It wasn’t optional. I could tell in his voice.
My heart beat like crazy. I couldn’t tell him I was on my way out ‘cause the look on his face showed he might pull some type of murderous stunt if I made one wrong move.
“I got an important customer,” he belted out, following me into the showroom.
I moved slowly, giving Sushi the eye when I entered. Immediately, she knew something was wrong. He had a brutal look on his face as he nodded and pointed to School Teacher, Sushi, and Bambi. With each nod, he issued a snap. “Line up,” he ordered.
I inhaled hard, like the breaths I took were needed to stay alive. I wondered if the Senator was the important client he was talking about, or if he planned on selling us off. “Daddy, can I run up and put on something a lil’ more sexy?” I asked, in the most seductive voice I could muster.
My hands shook waiting for his response, but managed to point toward my cut up jeans and oversized polo hoping he would agree. He walked in a three hundred and sixty degree circle around us as we all stood in the middle of the showroom floor. When he didn’t even respond to my request, the answer was clear.
The other girls stood up straight shoulder to shoulder with their best faces groomed, and their sexiest stances ready. For them, they probably figured Daddy was angry, so it was time to make some money. In my heart, I knew differently, but I took my place at the end of the line like an idiot. I probably could’ve handled whatever Daddy planned on dishing out, until the unthinkable happened. The hairs on my eyebrows stood up when our important guest walked through the door.
“Candy baby, look who’s back from the dead,” Daddy teased.
I stood dumbfounded pretending I wasn’t having a panic attack. I focused on the hip-hop attire my mother wore. The Roca Wear hoodie and extra tight jeans certainly wasn’t made for a thirty-six year old. She always looked well below her age, but now she dressed the part.
Even through her clothes the extra weight and muscles were evident. Her scowl was so hard…yet her skin and facial features remained eye-catching.
She immediately started at the beginning of our short line, never making eye contact with me down at the end. “I never really liked Chinese food,” she said, stopping in front of Sushi. “That cat never taste too good. You cook cats?” She laughed like a crazy woman just before licking Sushi’s cheek with her tongue.
“You funny as a mufucka,” Daddy said, pulling over a chair to enjoy the entertainment.
“You think?” She never cracked a smile.
Her next move was to study School Teacher, who stood next to me. I guess Bambi didn’t interest her too much.
“So James…”
Daddy’s eyes lit up. “Daddy,” he suggested.
“Whatever, nigga. So, now I understand what you told me on the ride over here. Yeah, these bitches can make somebody good money overseas. Especially this one. Lose the fuckin’ glasses,” she said, grabbing School Teacher by the crouch. Her powerful strokes made School
Teacher turn a new shade, but she kept quiet, and my mother kept digging.
“I wish I could lick you like a lollipop,” she said, as she continued to rub School Teacher’s pussy through her pants. As Big V began to fondle School Teacher’s breast, she let out a slight moan. “I’ll be back for you later.”
School Teacher looked completely humiliated as my mother continued down the line.
When my turn came, I tried to keep a straight face. She walked right up to me. “Ummmph…Look at my baby,” she taunted. “Fineeeeeeee. All done up and shit.
Look like you been gettin’ money too. I taught you well.”
My stomach did like twelve flips making me think I was on a roller coaster ride. This one moment of uncertainty was enough to give anyone a massive stroke. No one would ever understand my position ‘cause it still didn’t seem real to me. I squirmed, damn near pissing in my pants, yet this was my flesh and blood standing before me. When her finger reached toward my face, I jerked. But her movements continued.
“Look at yo scared ass. I taught you better than that. Man up!” she yelled. “At least stand your ground after you did all that damn snitchin’.”
I didn’t speak ‘cause my guilt would be detected. All of a sudden she must’ve seen something on my skin, or felt something in her heart that made her facial expression change. I couldn’t pin-point it, but there was something different. Her fingers clutched at my face softly, like a mother would caress her young daughter’s skin. She tugged at my cheeks, which sent chills up my spine. I had no idea what was coming down the pipe. She looked over at Daddy, who sat not far away enjoying the show. He laughed in a low tone thinking it was all comical. I guess seeing a mother and daughter face off was priceless.
“Was you gonna sell her off too?” she turned to ask him.
He shrugged his shoulders, then crossed his legs not even worrying about her question.
“I know you said she was gon’ be one of your best. I can see why.”
“That’s sweet Candy,” he responded, then licked his lips in quick circles.
“Yeah…sweet Candy, huh?” she said.
“She too sweet to send off before doing her time here. Might keep her for myself,” Daddy added.
Damn, my mother talked as if she was proud of me, proud to be my mother too. I even started to get false hopes standing there listening to her. Maybe we could forgive each other, I thought. Start all over again? I wasn’t sure what would happen if I told the feds she wasn’t working with Luther, my Columbian connection. It was me…all me. I was even the reason he cut my mother off years ago.
I closed my eyes while my mother looked at Daddy with curiosity in her eyes. There seemed to be so much she wanted to know. It seemed like maybe she would give me a second chance. This was the perfect and only moment to repent for what I’d done. I reminisced back to the day at the cemetery when I asked the Good Lord to help me on my situation with Daddy. I promised that I would pray if He let me outta that situation, and He did. It was time for me to remember what my grandmother had taught me about prayer. Not just for the moment, but from here on out. I said a silent prayer asking for forgiveness while my mother continued to question Daddy. Her voice seemed to be distant, even though she spoke directly in front of my face.
“You slept wit’er, didn’t you?”
I opened my eyes to catch the tail end of his grin.
“You messed around with this fat mufucka,” she turned to ask me, but pointed at Daddy. “Tell me now!”
I nodded my confirmation.
“Against your will?” she questioned suspiciously. “Or he took it?”
“Uhh…Uhh…I guess we sorta fell for each other.” My head lowered.
“You so fuckin’ naive,” she shot back. “Easy pussy.”
She acted liked she was gonna hit me, so I flinched.
“He told me I was his woman.” I did my best to sound like the victim so she wouldn’t beat my ass for being so stupid.
“You planned on selling her off? Huh? Just like you did the other girls you bragged about on the way over here?”
My mother’s voice trembled a little. She was so unpredictable. Maybe abusive men was her soft spot. Daddy could sense her emotions changing, so spoke up fast. “No……” he said.
“You don’t lie too good,�
� she snapped. Her face reddened.
“Nah…for real. She was a keeper. I was only gonna let her go with the Senator a few times. He’s a good dude.”
“You were gonna send my daughter with that maniac!”
“Your daughter? What the hell!” Daddy was so shocked he couldn’t even process his thoughts anymore.
“You…nev…never told me…she was…yo…your…daughter.”
If I didn’t know better, it seemed as if my mother wanted to cry all of a sudden. But she was too hard for that. If anything she’d cry on the inside. She’d rather die than to show her weakness. She took two seconds to process all Daddy had said. Then rocked momentarily back and forth, showing she was in deep thought. My mother finally blurted out what weighed heavily on her mind. “You slept wit your daughter,” she announced. “This is the child you fathered,” she said in a whisper. “Our one night produced this. You fuckin’ bastard,” she added.
What the fuck did she mean? Them together? Me-their child? All the blood in my body must’ve rushed to my head when Big V snatched the gun from inside her pants, pointed it at Daddy’s chest, and fired! Bang, was all I heard. One bullet in the perfect spot was all it took. He slumped over in his chair, fighting for his life, just as the deafening sound bounced off the wall, and sent the girls running for cover.
School Teacher hollered a long scream like she was running from a killer in a horror movie. She cupped her face and shouted as she ran for cover, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
I tried to follow Sushi’s get away route toward the front door ‘cause I wanted to make a run for it too. I just couldn’t break free from the gaze I had on Daddy’s eyes…my father’s eyes. They remained wide open with his black eye-ball rolling to the top of his lids. He clutched at his chest wanting to speak to me. But nothing would come out.
My mother’s move took him by surprise, but not me. That was her style. She’d make you think you were cool then she’d do you in. My face showed no shock, no expression at all, just the tears that flowed. I was steadily trying to do the math, wondering where the hell my father had been for the last twenty-three years, and why my mother never told me who he was.
“He never knew,” she said bluntly, as she watched him squirm.
It was almost as if she read my mind.
“I never told the no-good-nigga. Just held my own.”
Her lip twitched as she spoke without remorse. “Niggas like that always say they not the daddy anyway.”
She kept talking, but I could no longer hear. A bullet in my head was better than living with the fact that I’d fucked my father, fell in love, and snitched on my mother under false pretenses.
I cried out for the first time, as loud as I could. “We gotta help him!”
“Shut the fuck up! I didn’t birth no fuckin’ coward.”
Daddy started gagging like he was taking his last breath. As a natural reaction, I jumped from my space to help him. I’d never seen anybody die right in front of me. I reached out to help the man who’d planned on selling me to Senator Marion. But my mother’s pistol now pointed at me. I froze!
“Go ‘head, take a chance.”
Her pity for me had disappeared too quickly. I was starting to think she had split personalities. Then I figured, she was probably just as mixed up as me. After a few seconds, she started laughing at me crazily. Then a second later, she lunged at me. It took a moment for my mind to process that she had attacked me. The gun swayed back and forth, all across the top of my head. The bobbing and weaving, hopefully would save me ‘cause one pull of the trigger, and I’d be dead. I fought hard, but my strength was pathetic compared to hers. Finally, she caught me with a right hook knocking me to the floor.
Luckily for me, I was able to pull her down with me. We tussled and rumbled on the floor like two wrestlers. I was hoping to get some help from the other two girls, but they were nowhere in sight. Finally, I knocked the gun from her hand, sending it clear across the room. The 9mm was a free agent- and the best woman would win.
My heart skipped a beat knowing I had a slight chance at living. The odds of me getting out alive were seventy/thirty. Seventy in my mother’s favor.
Even though she’d lost the gun, Big V still had me pinned down.
“You a slick bitch. What’chu do wit’ the money?” she shouted.
“What money?” I cried.
“You made plenty of mufuckin’ money from that Columbian mufucka. Rich told me! You stashed it somewhere!”
“If I had money stashed, you think I would’a resorted to this?” I asked.
“You slick. I don’t trust you as far as I can see you.”
I struggled to lift my head in my father’s direction. His breathing became heavier by the second; apparently dying a slow death. At that moment his breathing stopped completely.
My father had taken his last breath. I remained still for a moment. There was no escape obviously, and I couldn’t even cry. I felt like I was on the set of some violent movie. This was war. Not just a family spat. My mother had me on the floor in a position where she could kill me. Suddenly, I heard the bones in my arm crack, while the pain zipped through my body.
She had to have broken some shit. I didn’t scream though, ‘cause pain wasn’t my concern.
Just then, a jar was thrown through the window, and the smell of gas filtered through my nose. When it landed on the floor, not even three feet away from us, we both fought like wrestlers going for the gold. We quickly scrambled on top of one another to get away from the rag that erupted in a small blaze. My eyes bulged when I saw that my mother’s pant leg had caught on fire. Then from the corner of my eye, I saw another Molotov cocktail come bursting through another window. We were under attack from somebody on the outside, yet we fought each other for our lives on the inside.
My mother shook her leg like crazy trying to put the fire out, while I rushed across the room for the gun. She came after me, flames and all, but I managed to grab the gun. It felt heavy, cold, and perfect- all at the same time. I turned around and fired twice the moment my hand touched the trigger. My aim was low, lodging a bullet in each leg. I didn’t want to kill the woman who gave me life. Surely if she had gotten the gun, I would be done. Death was the only thing good enough for my mother, but I just couldn’t do it.
By now the flames had erupted higher and caught on to some of the furniture and structure of the house. We both coughed trying to see our way through the smoke filled room. Big V could no longer walk, but she crawled like hell, bloody legs and all. When the smoke detectors sounded, I sped up the pace. Time was crucial. I watched her scoot her way around the room looking for a way out. I dropped down on the floor on all fours and crawled over to my father, to confirm his death. I knew to stay low because between the rising temperature and the smoke the floor was the best place.
Sitting next to my father, I watched with tears in my eyes as the flames covered most of the lower part of Big V’s body. I took a deep breath, hopped up, and headed toward the double doors of the showroom. When I began pulling them shut my mother called out from the floor.
Her voice overshadowed the piercing sound of the smoke detectors. “Candice, just remember, when you do wrong, it comes back! That’s my word!”
I shut the door anyway knowing she was right. Her face remained etched in my mind when I opened the front door of the house breathing fresh air into my lungs. Even though sirens were heard in the distance, I could still hear my mother scream loudly in agony, “Candice, always sleep wit’ your eyes open!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
When I stepped out onto the landing, the sirens had gotten significantly closer. I was near being delirious, but knew the difference between fire truck sounds, ambulances, and police cars. Thankfully, they were all headed my way. From a distance, the flashing red and blue lights allowed a smile to slip through the side of my mouth. For the first time in my life, seeing the police was a good thing.
Somehow the gate was wide open at the end of the driveway,
and three unmarked cars came scurrying up the hill. I moved as fast as I could down the stairs ‘cause Daddy’s house which I left behind was now engulfed in flames. I moved with a slight limp ‘cause Big V had pretty much did some damage during our fight. My arm was either broken or sprained. I wasn’t sure which, but it hurt like hell. For some reason, I was able to ignore the pain in my effort to get away.
When I reached the bottom of the step, near the shrubbery, surprisingly, I saw a familiar face standing off to the side with the evidence in her hand. My heart pounded. Would she throw the cocktail directly on me?
My quick prayer was answered when she winked at me. I couldn’t process why she would come back to help me. Or was Cat really helping me? Her purpose had me confused. She stood in a daze looking as if she was gonna throw another cocktail into the house.
“Cat,” I yelled out. “Don’t do it!” I pointed to the undercover cars less than ten feet away from us.
She turned to see what looked like a slew of officers jumping from their cars, and three fire trucks proceeding loudly up the driveway. “It’s over,” I said to her.
“That muthafucka did me dirty,” she cried out.
“I know all about it,” I assured her. “Get rid of that shit. Hurry!”
She hurried over to Daddy’s Benz and dropped the cocktail inside his car door, just as one of the officers ran toward me. It was Agent Barnes. He rushed past the other officers, waving his hand like I wouldn’t recognize him.
“Danielle Crouch!” he shouted.