by Anna J.
“Dance, he’s my son’s father. I don’t want anything to happen to him. Please, let’s just go.”
Her plea convinced him as to whose life was more important to her. Dance didn’t know her reason for not wanting her son to grow up fatherless. Personally, she could care less about Tah. She just didn’t want her son to grow up without a father in his life, like she did. She knew who her father was, but he disappeared out of her and her mother’s life when she was born. He even denied that Tamika was his daughter, all because of a rumor that Tamika’s mother was a prostitute before she fell in love with Tamika’s father. To add insult to injury, he fathered fifteen kids in Brooklyn and never denied any of them.
Tamika didn’t want anything to happen to Dance, either. She was planning on giving him the best sexual experience he’d ever had, hoping he would become her sugar daddy. Tah always seemed to get in the way of her plan, and that was one of her reasons for despising him. The main reason for her disdain for Tah was the fact that he made a lot of money on the streets and gave her nothing. Once in a while he would give her money for their son, and that was only when she fussed about it. Otherwise, he was under Mecca’s ass, strung out.
While Dance waited for his cavalry to arrive, Tamika tried to take her mind off the situation by attempting to unzip Dance’s pants to give him what she called her “tongue talent” and some goodies afterward. With his mind on the drama about to unfold, Dance pushed her hand away.
“Another time, Ma.” Before she could protest, his cell phone’s ring tone of the song “Niggaz Done Started Something” by The Lox went off, with him quickly answering it.
“Yo!” he barked into the phone. Tamika watched as Dance got off the couch and looked out the window. “Yeah, I see y’all. Yeah, that’s them. I’m coming down now.” Dance clicked off his phone and headed toward the door.
“I’m coming with you, right?” Tamika asked. Dance paused, with a thoughtful look on his face, before replying, “Yeah, baby girl, c’mon.”
While Tamika got dressed, shots rang out from in front of the building, startling her and causing a smile to show on Dance’s face. He recognized the sound of the AK-47 that he gave to his cousin going off. He was proud that his boys came through, representing L.G. Dance pulled out his Glock and cocked it back as Tamika came out, dressed, with a look of terror on her face.
“C’mon, shorty!” Dance commanded.
Tears welled up in Tamika’s eyes. “Dance, they shooting. We can’t go out there!”
“It’s cool. They just wanted to get them dudes from in front of the building. My peoples ain’t come to shoot nobody,” Dance lied with a straight face.
When they reached the front of the building, Tamika screamed when she noticed that the person lying on the ground, in a pool of his own blood, was none other than Tah, moaning in pain.
“You don’t look so gangster now, homie!” Dance taunted while Tamika got on her knees, cradling Tah’s head in her arms.
“Taheem, get up. Don’t die, nigga. Your son needs you!” Tamika cried as Tah’s eyes blinked rapidly and tears flowed down his cheeks.
“Shorty, you coming? You can’t help him,” Dance said as his crew drove off and Tah’s crew vanished into the Brownsville night.
“Dance, I have to get him help. He’s dying!” Tamika yelled.
Dance shook his head. “Nah, Ma, he dead.”
While Tamika looked down at Tah, crying, Dance placed his Glock to the back of her head and pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot echoed through the hood as Tamika’s body slumped on top of Tah’s. Still alive, Taheem closed his eyes, unable to feel Tamika’s body on top of his due to a bullet shattering his spine from the neck down. Dance walk to his truck, parked in the parking lot in front of the building. He didn’t want to kill Tamika, but leaving witnesses wasn’t his thing. Charge it to the game.
As sirens roared through the night, Taheem opened his eyes after playing dead. He could hear his own labored breathing among the sounds of the streets. He never thought that things would turn out like this. Why did he allow himself to get caught up in these situations over women who didn’t care too much for him, like he didn’t care too much for them? Silly pride, he was told by an O.G., could get a man in deep shit. How true that is, Tah thought as he lay there, feeling his life slip away.
After being out for what felt like hours, and not satisfied with what Lou had shown her, Mecca woke up, staring into the face of her doctor, who was checking her blood pressure. He smiled at her, and then, after he was done, he left quietly. Mecca stared out the window at the rainy Brooklyn afternoon, thinking to herself, Lou calls Mo Blood getting AIDS revenge? Tamika getting killed meant nothing to her, and Tah should’ve been tortured, not just shot. Lou would have to do better than that to get her to change her mind about seeking revenge herself. She agreed that maybe she should move on, but her anger over how everything went down and what she found out still had her heated, and she wasn’t ready to let it go just yet.
“Good morning, Ms. Sykes. Are we going to try and get up today?” the nurse asked her in a friendly tone.
Mecca shook her head no at the fat, redheaded, jolly nurse’s irritating voice. It was going to be a long day. Mecca couldn’t wait to go to sleep again so she could pick a bone with Lou.
Chapter Two
Length of days is in her right hand; in her left hand, riches and honor.
—Proverbs 3:16
There is a saying among convicts that when asked how much time they are doing or did, the answer would be two days: the day they went in and the day they get or got out. In between is nothing but a blur to some. For Ruby, those days were spent plotting and scheming how she would get revenge on the people who set her up, shot her niece, and killed Shamel. Most important was how she planned on getting rich again.
When Ruby’s murder and drug convictions were overturned, and the case was dismissed due to the testimony of an eyewitness, she was given time served for the drug conviction, and began to map out exactly what she would do to get back on her road to riches.
Ruby had many associates and a few lovers in prison, but one person in particular became her confidant. Daphne, a five-foot-five, smooth brown-skinned woman with penetrating hazel eyes, was her favorite. Though no lesbian by far, she had “experimented” with sexual acts with a woman, but it wasn’t to her liking. She always told Ruby there wasn’t nothing like a hard dick banging up against your walls.
What Ruby did like about her was Daphne’s likable personality and her ferocity when she became angered. Ruby saw herself in Daphne. She had a no-nonsense, take-charge attitude that screamed leader. The added bonus to Daphne’s repertoire was that she was also from Brooklyn. The women met when Ruby was transferred to the women’s federal prison in West Virginia. Daphne had already been there ten years on a fifteen-year stint for being part of a conspiracy to distribute large quantities of heroin. Her boyfriend at the time was a Jamaican-born, Bed Stuy raised hustler who ran a crew out of Tomkins projects. He and Daphne met in 1984, when she moved into the projects with her mother, stepfather, and sister. Afterward, her mother married an abusive man from Bed-Stuy and moved them in with him.
Daphne loved her older brother and was always sad thinking about how much she missed him. There were rumors about his murder, but nothing ever came of them. He was a drug dealer, so the cops swept his murder under the rug like so many other murders in the ghetto. His presence was greatly missed because he was the man of the house after Daphne’s real father was sent to prison for two murders, with a sentence of fifty to life. It was her brother who really took care of the family after making lots of money on the street, which he also used to spoil his baby sister.
He was barely home because he lived mainly with women blocks away from where Daphne and the family stayed. She was protected by the family because she was the baby. Often, she wasn’t allowed out to play with kids on her block, and she went to an all girls’ school. Extremely smart and an avid reader, she knew th
ings about various topics, from romance novels to black history. Most of all she loved to read the dictionary, because she was determined to learn the meaning of a new word every day.
When she did see her brother, he would give her money to buy candy and toys, and he would make sure she wore the latest style of clothing. Her brother was only about five years older than her, and although she was a teenager, he wanted her to remain innocent. He encouraged her to play jump rope and jacks, and when she got clothes, he made sure they didn’t make her look too grown up. The only time she got to show off the clothes was when she went out with her mother to shop for food or visit relatives far away in Queens.
Daphne hated her stepfather, who would get high off ecstasy and cocaine. He also got drunk on hard liquor and abused her mother physically and verbally. Once she was old enough to get out of the house, she began to hang out in Bed-Stuy more than she did in Brownsville. No longer did anyone pay attention to her, like they had when her brother was alive. She figured that the only reason why her mother and sister had been protective of her was to please her brother, because he was her favorite, and if Daphne was happy, then he was, and when he was happy, he gave money to the whole family. Now that he was gone, Daphne could run the streets, and run the streets she did.
Kids growing up in the ghetto tended to get into trouble because of the lack of anything constructive for them to do. With the city’s non-caring attitude toward its poor inhabitants and the city’s politicians’ frequent mishandling of the city’s budget, no decent after-school programs existed for the children. The playgrounds were unsanitary due to addicts using them as a place to get high and dump their syringes. The people were too poor to buy things to keep their children’s minds from the activity on the streets, so the kids ran them and got into trouble.
Daphne was no exception to this phenomenon. She hung out with the kids in the projects and became amazed at ghetto life, especially at the older guys and girls wearing the expensive clothing and jewelry, like her brother did. The guys reminded her of him; and the girls, of the women he’d dated. These women were the stars of the neighborhood, and she wanted to be adored just like them. By the time she was fourteen, she was well developed and was mistaken for a nineteen-year-old. Still, even people knowing her actual age didn’t deter some of the neighborhood hustlers from trying to make her one of their conquests.
At the tender age of fourteen, Daphne lost her virginity when her and a boy from the projects cut out of school and went to his house to do the nasty. It took place on an old, dusty, uncomfortable couch, which made the experience for her unsatisfying. The couch was covered in plastic, and as the boy pumped his dick into her, she stuck to the couch from sweat. It was irritating, and the boy was simply just hurting her. After that she never had sex with him again.
Everyone in the hood liked her, though. She was the nice girl who always smiled. That was a mechanism she used that was taught to her by her brother. She was told by her older brother that regardless of what you were going through, you never showed anger. He told her that when people knew what got you angry, they would use it against you. So, Daphne always smiled. However, when her brother died, she stopped smiling altogether and began to wear her emotions on her sleeve. Her brother was her greatest joy, and with him gone, what did she have left to smile about?
It was her pretty smile that attracted a young Jamaican guy everyone called Marley to her. They called him that because he was Jamaican and he smoked a lot of weed at an early age. His father was one of those Rastafarians, but his real name was Donovan. His almond brown complexion and high cheekbones gave him an exotic look that the girls loved. His eyes were hazel, just like Daphne’s.
He was her dream man. He dressed like her brother and made money like him, selling weed for his father. At the age of fourteen he had more jewelry than all the kids in the projects, often wearing diamond rings and necklaces. Nobody dared rob him because his father was ruthless, and so was his crew, made up of family members. All of them were members of a Jamaican crew called the Shower Posse. They got the name because if anyone ever got out of line, as a reaction they would be showered with bullets.
Instantly, Marley fell in love with Daphne and made sure she was the flyest dressed girl in the projects. By the time Marley was seventeen, he was driving a Benz and had his own weed and heroin spots down on Franklin Avenue. Daphne worked out of Marley’s uncle’s Jamaican restaurant, where they secretly sold weed and heroin. She couldn’t have been happier. Soon afterward, both of them moved out of the projects into a two-story home in St. Albans, Queens. They traveled to Jamaica a lot to visit his relatives. No matter what, Marley always treated her the same, like when they first met, and Daphne swore she would never love another man like she did him. She never did.
Her world came crashing down in 1987, when federal authorities raided Marley’s spots on Franklin Avenue and their home in Queens. Daphne was working in the restaurant when the raids were being carried out, while Marley was home. She, along with the others, were all arrested and taken to the federal building in Brooklyn.
The next day Daphne received the most heartbreaking news: she found out about her lover’s murder. Marley was gunned down by agents during the raid. He was shot a total of forty-one times and died instantly.
After a lengthy two-month trial, Daphne and fourteen other defendants were convicted on various charges under the RICO statute. The only evidence they had on her was her voice on the phone with Marley, talking about orders of beef patties. A government witness lied and said she was referring to drugs.
Daphne was given fifteen years. She knew the feds were being hard on her because she refused to cooperate. The time did not matter to her. It didn’t matter if she got out of jail. As far as she was concerned, life was over. Life without Marley was something she did not want to face. Many days and nights she thought about taking her own life, but she just did not have the courage to pull it off. Even though she was depressed, she tried to take her brother’s advice and smile but couldn’t. Then she met Ruby.
The two women were inseparable in the prison, except for when they were locked in their cells. Daphne didn’t cell up with Ruby, because she celled up with only her lesbian lovers. She respected Ruby because she reminded her of her brother and Marley in certain ways. Ruby was bossy like her brother and laid-back like Marley.
At first she was skeptical of Ruby. All the women in the prison were scared of her, so Daphne stayed away. Ruby was in great shape, with a muscular, well-toned body that was still distinctly feminine, like Serena Williams, the tennis star. However, Daphne was sure that she did not want to get into a confrontation with her, so she avoided her.
It was inevitable that the two would meet due to their being from New York. In the federal system, it was customary for inmates from the same cities to clique up. They sat at the same tables in the mess halls and shared space in the rec yard. In the prison they were at, it was a little different for New York inmates. There New York inmates cliqued up with people from their own borough of the city. Ruby and Daphne being from Brooklyn made it more likely that they would cross paths.
After meeting Ruby, Daphne had a different opinion of her. She understood Ruby’s rough exterior was a defense to ward off people who would take her kindness for weakness. Growing up in Brownsville, Ruby learned to take that approach at an early age. Daphne could identify with her, and they quickly bonded, with Ruby nicknaming her “Smiley.”
In January 2000 Daphne was released, two years before Ruby’s conviction was overturned. They kept in contact with each other, and Daphne made sure that Ruby’s commissary account stayed full. Every month she would send Ruby five hundred dollars. Though Ruby didn’t need that much, holding down a job as a cook in the prison mess hall, she saved the money Daphne sent her. The only thing she would spend some of the money on was phone cards to call and talk to her niece and her niece’s boyfriend, Shamel, who was also her secret lover and who also kept Ruby’s commissary full.
; Daphne was on the street when Ruby received the news of Mecca lying in a coma after being shot and Shamel’s death. Ruby also got the news that two days before she walked out of prison, Shamel’s grandmother passed away. To say Ruby was ready for war was an understatement. She already held the guilt of being responsible for Mecca’s parents being murdered, and now her niece sitting up in a coma because she couldn’t protect her was too much. She had watched Shamel grow from a boy to a man, and even though they were sneaking around behind Mecca’s back, she still cared about him. Shamel’s grandmother dying was the icing on the cake. They always said tragedy came in threes, and those three events put Ruby on edge. Once she got out, she would have business to take care of. Daphne joined her at the funeral, and afterward, Daphne laid out the beginning of her and Ruby’s plan to rule Brooklyn.
“Weed is really popping now. Marley’s family in Jamaica gave me two hundred and fifty grand when I came home. I opened a restaurant in Crown Heights, which served to quadruple the money I invested in a short amount of time. I got a weed contact from them also in Texas. If you want, you can fly with me out there this weekend and see what kind of stuff they got. You want the best so you can make lots of paper.”
After Daphne gave Ruby fifty grand to go shopping, she smiled and asked, “You ready?”
“You know it!” Ruby told her while they embraced.
They drove from the Brooklyn cemetery in Daphne’s 1999 pistachio green 750iL BMW. When they stopped at the restaurant, the rays of the sunny day gleamed off a candy-apple red, two-door convertible Benz with a big purple bow on the hood.
“Somebody about to get a big surprise around here,” Ruby said, looking out the passenger window at the Benz.
“I know.” Daphne smiled.