Curled up at the bottom of the bed sat Ruthie’s fat orange cat, Milly. It stared at me with glowing yellow eyes before meowing some more. I hated that cat, but I couldn’t waste my element of surprise by trying to chase it around the room. The only other light in the room came from the red digital numbers glowing from the nightstand table. I knew Ruthie slept on that side of the bed and instead headed to the opposite side, where Abdul snored like a bulldozer. With each step, more heat rushed through my body and my grip tightened on the knife. Yet, for some reason, I didn’t feel the small stab wounds I made into my own legs. I focused my attention on my target like a laser beam.
Once I reached the side of the bed, I wasted no time raising the knife high over my head. An incredible power surged through me.
Meow!
Milly’s warning cry failed to wake her owners.
“Fuck you, muthafucka!” With each ounce of strength I had, I plunged the knife downward. The blade sliced through Abdul like he was made of warm butter.
Abdul sat up with a roar, waking his fat bitch.
“WHAT? WHAT’S GOING ON?”
I yanked the knife out, but Abdul’s arm shot out and blindly grabbed my wrist.
Ruthie jumped out of bed and turned on the light.
Shock colored their faces when they saw me standing there with the bloody knife.
“You little bitch.” Ruthie dove across the bed, tryna reach me. With renewed strength, I snatched my arm free and then slashed anything that came near me. For a full minute I tore their asses up, but then Ruthie tackled my ass to the floor and knocked the knife out of my hand. From there she wailed on my ass like a heavyweight fighter.
I didn’t even remember blacking out....
15
Alice
Niggas keep dropping like flies around me. That shit is just a fact of life. I’m long past the days of when I gave a fuck. Clearly, Arzell thought the dick was so good that he could spit out the side of his neck at me. What the fuck? Comparing me to that no-good grimy bitch in the basement. He must’ve lost his fuckin’ mind.
I lean over Arzell’s permanently shocked face and smirk. “You let the gray hairs fool you, didn’t you?” When I realize that I’m actually waiting for an answer, I straighten up and head to the refrigerator for a cold one. I need my morning buzz so I can think.
After I pop the top, I take a couple of swigs to clear my mind up. It’s fair to say that my situation out here has gotten worse. “You just had to pop off at the mouth, didn’t you?”
Disgusted, I march out of the kitchen and head back to the living room to turn on the television. Terrell’s face is on every channel. My ears perk when reporters are unable to confirm reports of someone escaping the Monte Carlo as it splashed down into the Mississippi. All I can do is hope.
Why couldn’t I pull my shit together to be a better mom to my children? Could’ves, should’ves, and would’ves fill my head while I drain the beer bottle.The truth is that back in the day that crack rock had my ass shook. There was no better lover, mother, or friend in the whole world. When I had that shit in me, nothing and no one else mattered. Hell. It’s been ages since I’ve had a taste and I’m still jonesing for that bullshit.
Still, I should’ve never left Terrell with Maybelline. The bitch was the reason for my downfall—is it no wonder that my older baby is now the Most Wanted Nigga in Memphis? My firstborn. I close my eyes and place a hand over my empty belly.
But what about Mason?
Guilt crashes through me, causing my eyes to burn and my throat to tighten. That whole Mason shit wasn’t my fault. I didn’t sell my baby for no crack rock. I mean, I know that I’ve done some pretty fucked up shit—but I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t.
I feel a prick of doubt at the back of my head. The same one I’ve had since that horrible day . . .
In the early nineties my ass was a full-blown crackhead. Muthafuckas acted like I should’ve been ashamed of that shit or something, but I wasn’t. Those fuckin’ rocks were the only things in my life that made me feel good. One puff and it felt like every strand of hair on my body was having an orgasm. So what if I had to rob, blast, fuck, or blow muthafuckas in order to get down? The shit was worth it for no other reason than that I’d stop seeing Leroy’s raping ass when I blazed up—stop feeling the pain of my legs being snapped open for the very first time and him telling me how much I wanted him before ramming into my dry pussy and ripping my young world apart.
No one understood that shit, least of all Maybelline. Sure, she would toss me a “sorry” every once in a while, but “sorry” didn’t stop the nightmares. Frankly, she had a way of looking at me like I should be apologizing to her for the loss of one of her legs.
Selfish bitch.
Anyway, me and Jerome didn’t work out. It was pretty much a rap when his ass left me to deliver my own baby in the middle of a check-cashing place that we had robbed. If the muthafuckin’ security cameras had been working in that place, my ass would’ve been hauled into jail for the dead bitch Jerome took out behind the counter. In the end, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like Terrell was his kid no ways. That honor went to Supercop himself, Melvin Johnson.
Sure, when the dust cleared, Jerome tried to holler at me again, but I wasn’t tryna hear all that noise he was spitting. I was on patrol for a real nigga, doing real thangs.
With Jerome out of the picture and Maybelline banning my ass from Nana’s crib just because we stole a brick of coke from her, that meant my ass had to hustle hard. That shit was damn near impossible with a baby. Terrell was a good baby. He didn’t cry, even on the days when I’d blaze and forget to feed him. He would look at me with those big ole eyes as if he understood my pain better than I did.
Dribbles, one of the bitches that would patrol some of the same corners with me, took one look at Terrell and said that he had an old soul—like he’d been here before.
That shit freaked me out a bit. Like . . . what if it was Leroy’s trifling ass, coming back from the dead to fuck with me some more? From that day on, I couldn’t look at Terrell the same. I knew that shit was foul, but it was the truth. I mean, what kind of baby don’t cry? Ever?
Unable to deal with Leroy fuckin’ with my mind from beyond the grave, I decided that a boy child was probably best off with his damn daddy. So that’s where I took him.
It took more than a couple of bus transfers and an additional two-mile walk to get to the suburban home. Hell, I didn’t know that Memphis still had nice little nooks of postcard-perfect homes. I had never seen grass so green or so many flowers perfuming the air. I kept looking down at the address Dribbles got for me and thinking that the bitch had just pulled a fast one on my ass. Still, I marched on up to the front door and rang that doorbell.
I stood there for what felt like forever, peeking out at a few neighbors who wandered out onto their front porch to get a good look at me. Suddenly, I was aware of every tear, hole, or food stain on my clothes. It probably wouldn’t have hurt to run a brush through my hair a couple of more times before I’d gone out there. As the time stretched, I warred with myself on whether to press the doorbell again. I started to walk away, but another look at Terrell’s dark, watchful eyes and I pushed the button again. Almost immediately, the door opened and I was staring at a woman who looked like she was cut out of a magazine. Perfect hair. Perfect clothes and a smile so white, her teeth didn’t look real.
“May I help you?” she asked sweetly.
“Yeah. Uhm . . . is Sk—I mean, is Lieutenant Johnson here?”
Though the woman’s smile remained in place, her gaze performed a quick, suspicious drag over my entire body. “And whom shall I tell him is calling?”
Calling? My ass wasn’t on no phone. “Uhm, Alice.” I adjusted Terrell on my hip. “He’ll know who I am.”
After staring at me and then Terrell for a long while, she glanced over my shoulder and noticed the number of neighbors out on their porches before putting the smile back on her face.
&
nbsp; “Won’t you come in?”
I pushed up my own smile and stepped inside. The entire house smelled like peach cobbler and it quickly had both me and Terrell’s stomachs rumbling.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked. “Coffee, tea, or some water?”
“You wouldn’t happen to have something a little stronger, would you?”
Her brows shot up at that. “How about a gin and tonic?”
“That will work,” I told her, disappointed she didn’t offer something with vodka or rum, but beggars couldn’t be choosey. She led me to a room filled with books and a computer and then told me to take a seat.
Terrell cooed softly.
“How old?” she asked.
“Two months.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Boy,” I answered and watched sadness touch her face.
“Melvin and I have been trying to have a baby.” Her gaze returned to Terrell.
I instinctively gathered him close. Could she see her man in Terrell’s face? My eyes fell to her free hand that kept knotting up into a fist.
“You know what?” I said, springing to my feet. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here.”
Her silence told me that she agreed and she said nothing as I raced toward the door. But it was Skeet’s voice thundering from above that stopped me in my tracks.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOIN’ HERE?”
Turning, I glanced up the stairs to see fury blanketing his face.
Fuck. It wasn’t like my ass rolled up in there, tryna rob the place.
“I-I ...”I looked at his wife for help.
“She was just leaving,” his wife said. “Weren’t you?”
Terrell picked that moment to utter his first words. “Daa-Daa.”
Melvin’s wife gasped and then slapped a hand across her mouth.
Melvin flew down the stairs.
I turned for the door, but he caught up to me and grabbed my hair and yanked me back. “You dirty bitch, you have the nerve to bring your ass to my house?” He yanked my hair again and Terrell fell out of my arms and hit the floor.
“My baby!”
“You must be out of your muthafuckin’ mind!” He shoved past his wife and dragged me into a study room.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I yelled.
“Oh, you are about to be sorry.”
Next thing I knew, he was beating me so bad that I never took my ass back there again. The next week, word got to me that Nana had passed away. I swallowed my pride and rolled over to see Maybelline. If she was happy to see me, she didn’t say, but she took to Terrell like fish to water.
And Terrell liked her, too. I could tell.
I stayed clean for about three days. Long enough to kinda help with the funeral arrangements. Not too much later, the monkey hopped onto my back again. Being in that house, sleeping in that bed . . . it was all too much. Leroy’s ghost was everywhere. I didn’t understand how Maybelline never saw him. Soon, I needed a little taste to take off the edge. I snuck two hundred dollars out of Maybelline’s purse, promising myself that I would pay her back.
“Where are you going?” Maybelline asked the minute my hand touched the front doorknob.
“Out.”
“Out? Ain’t you forgetting somebody?” she asked, jabbing her hand on her hip.
“Fuck, Maybelline. I’m just running to the store real quick. Can’t you watch him?”
She gave me a look like I’d just slapped her with a handful of shit.
“Ten minutes,” I lied. “He’s sleeping any damn way.You want me to wake him up just to take him to the store?”
Terrell started cooing through the baby monitor Maybelline bought. That boy and his timing was killing me.
“Looks like he’s up now,” Maybelline said, smugly.
“Fuck, Maybelline. I said I will be back.” I went ahead and threw open the door, daring her ass to stop me.
She didn’t.
I cursed her name all during my soldier march out of the neighborhood, past the store and all the way to my favorite corner boy. I spotted Dribbles unzipping one nigga’s jeans to suck him off for a hit and hollered out. “Girl, I got you!”
She turned and saw the money I was waving in my hand.
“What the fuck?” the nigga with his dick in his hand whined.
“Put that dick on ice, baby boy. Me and my girl are about to par-rrrtay!” Dribbles said expectantly.
And that was just what the fuck we did. We stayed blazed for days. When the rocks got low, I thought about going back to get Terrell, but I knew that I’d have to hear Maybelline’s fat mouth. So I put it off.
For five years ...
I click off the television and head over to the stairs leading to the basement. The second I open it I hear a loud banging.
“ALICE! I KNOW YOU’RE OUT THERE. LET ME OUT OF HERE!”
Looks like Sleeping Beauty has finally woken up. I smile and hit the light switch. Slowly, I descend the stairs while the lightbulb goes through its flickering routine.
“ALICE! ALICE! DO YOU HEAR ME?” Maybelline pounds her fist on the door. “YOU CAN’T KEEP ME DOWN HERE FOREVER!”
“I don’t know about that,” I answer calmly during a small break in her banging and screaming.
“ALICE? IS THAT YOU?”
Crossing my arms, I lean against the locked door. “Were you expecting someone else?”
She calms down. “What are you doing, Alice? Why the fuck am I in here?”
“C’mon, Maybelline. Don’t play stupid. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Fuuuuuck,” she groans. “Leroy? Still? Damn, Alice. How long are you going to keep punishing me for that shit? You know I’ve never meant that shit to happen. I lost a leg, I’ve supported you, I raised your child—”
“Ha! Kill yourself with that Mother Teresa shit.”
She sighs. “So what do you want?”
“Why, I want us to spend some time together,” I tell her. “That’s not so wrong, is it?”
Maybelline doesn’t answer.
“How about this—are you hungry?”
Silence.
“I bet you are. Tell you what. Why don’t I go back upstairs and fix you something to eat? Then we can have a long sisterly talk. Sound good?”
Silence.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t you go anywhere.” I rush back upstairs and into the kitchen. I step over Arzell’s body and head over to the stove. “You know what? Maybe I will fix some flapjacks.” I rummage around until I find an old bottle of Pine-Sol underneath the sink. “I’m going to fix the best damn pancakes this bitch has ever had.”
Resurrection
16
Lucifer
October . . .
Mason “Fat Ace” Lewis
September 13, 1990–August 24, 2011
Two months after Mason’s death a decision within the Lewis family is reached, and a funeral is scheduled. The prospect puts the city on edge. Even media outlets express their concerns about potential violence between rival gangs breaking out during the services. As it stands now, chaos reigns in the streets and as long as a majority of them are GD roaches, I have no desire to end the war—not until I have Python’s grimy ass sucking on my 9mm.
Cousin Skeet uses the citywide concern as an excuse to pack the funeral with cops. Rumors ran rampant in the streets about what really went down that night on the bridge. Some insist that someone was seen coming out the river that night. Despite the odds and common sense, too many times I find myself hoping that the rumors are true and Mason is laid up somewhere lost and with amnesia. Hell, it works on those soap operas I was forced to watch while I was on the mend.
The city spent a lot of money pulling vehicles out the mighty Mississippi and, so far, only Dougie’s bloated body has been found. If Python had been the one to survive that shit, then I’d be convinced that the muthafucka made a deal with the devil.
Every once in a while, I remember him clutching Mason and w
eeping like a little child. That shit still has me stuck. No matter how I turn the shit around in my mind, I can’t explain it and I damn sure haven’t told anybody about it.
Profit’s mother, Barbara, flew up from Atlanta. I have to admit that I don’t recognize her as the same white, dirty crackhead that used to patrol our corners and parade on Smokestack’s arm. She claims to be clean now and has made a new life for herself. Smokestack made big moves and was released from prison in order to attend the funeral, but he has to go right back to prison when it’s over.
A nineties OG, he is still pretty-boy fine with a mean-ass swagger. Like the old days, women still clock his ass whenever he’s around. The soldiers give him nothing but mad respect and each make a point to make their way over to shake his hand and flood his head with praise.
However, Smokestack only has eyes for Dribbles, but she’s sending out signals that she’s shut the door on that part of her life and refuses to make eye contact.
I watch everything feeling like a widow without the ring. Cloaked in my Grim Reaper black, I stand between Bishop and Smokestack as Profit strolls forward. After two months of intensive rehabilitation, Profit has packed back on his thirty pounds of muscle and has developed a swagger that commands attention. As he thrusts up his chin to speak to our people, the resemblance between him and Smokestack is stunning.
“First, let me start off by saying, I want to thank each and every one of you for coming out here today,” Profit begins. “Seeing so many of you out here brings home that we are more than just soldiers on a battlefield—we’re family. Blood be damned.” He pauses a beat while he works his jaw muscles to control his emotions. “We might not have shared the same blood”—he glances over at his mother and father and tosses them a smile—“but he was my brother . . . no matter what anybody says . . . and I loved him.”
While mother and son share a tender moment, I choke down a knot in my throat and mentally beg myself to keep it together.
“We all loved him.” Profit turns back toward our street family. “And because of that, his death will be avenged. The war against the Gangster Disciples niggas is far from over. This murkin’ season has just begun. SIX POPPIN’, FIVE DROPPIN’!”
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