by Cairo
So when she saw Heaven being confronted by those three chicks out in the yard, she knew from her own experiences in the streets that it was about to go down. One of her girls had slid her a wooden club that she’d made in her carpentry class—the one she’d smuggled out to the yard (the same one she’d planned on using on someone else who owed her three soups). Clitina knew those bitches had to get it to the head. And she was ready to put in some work. She’d been looking for a reason to brawl. She missed being home on the bricks, jumping females with her girl, Day’Asia and sister, Candylicious. Chicks knew The Switchblade Bitches were not to be fucked with. But when they fought, they didn’t always use blades. Sometimes they used their fists. Other times they used bats, hammers, and, even, crowbars.
“Mm. Thanks,” she said.
Heaven reached in her locker and pulled out a sleeve of wheat crackers and handed them to her. “Here’s some crackers.”
She watched as Clitina opened the crackers and packed salad onto one, then slid it in her mouth. Her eyes rolled up in her head as she chewed. “Mm. This is so good.”
Heaven smiled. She surprisingly liked her. And the wild, young woman intrigued her. “So, have you spoken to your mother?”
She shook her head. “Nope.” She answered with her mouth full, then swallowed. “That trick ain’t even acceptin’ my collect calls. But I talked to my sister, Candy.” She scooped more salad onto another cracker, then stuffed it in her mouth. “She said she gonna send me, like ten dollars—maybe more, as soon as she gets her SSI check.”
Heaven frowned. Ten dollars? What the hell was this poor soul going to do with ten damn dollars in here, Heaven wondered. She felt bad for her. “Oh, that’s nice of her,” she said lightly, but she was really being sarcastic. “Not to be in her business, but why is she getting SSI, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Clitina shrugged. “I don’t know. I think she was dropped on her head or sumthin’ when she was a baby ’cause she a lil’ slow-actin’ sometimes. She ain’t even finish high school until she was twenty.”
“Oh,” Heaven said.
“Unh-huh. She gets almost five hundred dollars, but by the time she buy her weed from the weed man, then get her nails did, and buy this boy, Killah, she be fuckin’ clothes ‘n’ stuff, she be broke in like three days.”
Heaven blinked. Killer? She didn’t have the stomach to ask her how he got his name. “Yeah, Candy fuckin’ Knutz’s nephew,” she answered as if reading Heaven’s thoughts. She shook her head. “She dumb as hell. All he doin’ is fuckin’ her ‘n’ usin’ her. But she can’t even see it. But he do gotta big dingaling, though.”
Heaven raised her brow in silent question.
“Me ‘n’ Candy used to sneak out into the living room mad late at night ‘n’ watch him playin’ with it,” she said. “Candy don’t know, but . . . me ‘n’ Day’Asia gave him some sloppy top in one of the stairwells a few times.” She smacked her lips together. “We tag-teamed the shit outta his ole nasty ass. But Day’Asia’s dumb ass ain’t even swallow him when he came.” She shook her head. “That bitch stupid as hell. How you not gonna swallow?”
Heaven gave her a blank stare. This was all too much information for Heaven to take in. And she felt a headache coming on.
“Anyway, Miss Heaven. You looked out for me when I first got here,” she said, changing the subject. Then she broke out laughing. “Ooh, I wanted to go off on you when you told me to go wash my ass ’cause my cootie stank. But I couldn’t even be mad at you ’cause I know it did.”
Heaven chuckled. “Lord, yes. It sure did. I tried to pretend that it didn’t. But, girl, your ass stunk worse than rotted meat. It smelled like an open grave, girl.”
Clitina laughed harder. “Oooh, Miss Heaven. I know I was smellin’ a lil’ raunchy, but I ain’t stink that damn bad. Did I?”
Heaven gave her a raised brow. “Like rotted skunk meat. You had roadkill pussy, boo.”
Clitina screamed out in laughter. “Ohmygod. Lies! But, whatever. I’m springtime fresh now. Thanks to you. So kick rocks, Miss Heaven.”
Heaven laughed, then became serious. “Tina”—she shook her head—“I know it’s Clit. Tina. But, uh, I’m having a problem calling you that. So forgive me.”
The young woman shrugged. “It’s cool. You can call me Tina, if you want. At least you’re not callin’ me Dickalina, or something shitty like that.”
Heaven winced. “I can’t even imagine what it was like having a mother who everyone called Dick . . .”
“A. Lina,” Clitina finished for her. “Mmph. Well, my name ain’t no better than hers. Growing up, bitches stayed calling me Clitty Clitty Tina until I started fuckin’ them up. I bashed this one ho dead in her ugly face with a brick when I was in six-grade. I bet the rest of them hoes left me alone after that. But, anyway, no one ain’t really mess with my moms ’cause they knew she would fight them ‘n’ if she couldn’t beat ’em, she’d get my Auntie Booty to fight ’em with her.”
Heaven shook her head, not believing what she’d heard. “Wait. Wait. Wait. So let me get this right. Your mom’s name is Dickalina. And you have an aunt named Booty?”
Clitina nodded. “Yeah. Well, it’s Big Booty in the streets. But her real name is Cassandra. Sometimes I call her Auntie Cass. Depends on how I feel. But I ain’t callin’ that bitch shit now. Not after what them bitches did to me out in visits. Fuck both them crazy bitches. All that ho like to do is chase young dingaling ‘n’ get fucked in the ass. Fuckin’ trick.”
Heaven blinked. She’d heard enough. Yet, she wanted to know more.
“I see. So before you got locked up, what did you like to do for fun?”
She shrugged. “Nothing really. Smoke. Drink. Chill wit’ my girl, Day’Asia ‘n’ my sister, Candy. Boostin’. We sometimes would go into Macy’s ‘n’ Walmart ‘n’ light they asses up.” She laughed. “We’d come out with mad shit. But, anyway. Most times me ‘n’ Candy ‘n’ Day’Asia would get us a pound of weed, a few boxes of condoms ‘n’ a room ‘n’ turn up all weekend.”
Heaven kept from frowning. What the hell? “Why’d y’all need so many condoms?”
Clitina tilted her head, and gave her a blank look. “Uh, damn, Miss Heaven. Why you think? Ain’t nobody got time for fuckin’ raw. Bad enough Day’Asia stayed havin’ nasty infections. That’s my girl ‘n’ all, but sometimes her pussy be stinkin’.” She laughed. “That’s my ride-or-die ho, though. But she one fishy bitch.” She laughed again. “Oh, she so nasty sometimes. This one time we had a room with some niggas from Irvington ‘n’ me ‘n’ her were drinkin’ Henny ‘n’ walkin’ around in our bra ‘n’ panties. We got liquored up, then started bendin’ over grabbin’ our ankles ‘n’ shit, shakin’ our ass. And Day’Asia nasty-ass ain’t even know she had a shit stain in her drawers.”
Heaven’s jaw dropped open. This was really just too damn much to take in.
So this girl was a cum-swallowing thief, a brawler, and a certified ho who hung out with nasty bitches, Heaven thought.
“And what about your father?”
“Psst. Please. Fuck him. I don’t even know who he is; Dickalina was fuckin’ some old-ass man ‘n’ his two sons all at the same time. Then got knocked up with Candy, then me. So me ‘n’ Candy is sisters ‘n’ cousins, too.”
THIRTY-TWO
That’s When I Knew . . .
“Ohmygod! Are you serious right now?” Heaven asked. She was stunned by what she’d just heard.
Clitina nodded her head. “Mmhmm. Serious as a hard dingaling.”
Heaven shook her head. “Wow. So how many years do you have to do for stabbing your stepfather?” she asked, quickly shifting from any further talk of incest, or Clitina’s fucked-up family tree.
Clitina frowned, jerking her neck. “That big-dicked niggah ain’t none of my stepfahver,” she said indignantly. “That’s my moms’ bum-ass boyfriend. Ohmygod, Miss Heaven. He is such a fuckin’ clown-ass. He don’t even have his damn L’s. And my moms’ dumb-
ass be thinkin’ it’s cute when he takes her out on his bike.”
“Oh, he rides motorcycles? That’s cute.”
Clitina frowned. “Oh no it ain’t cute. He ain’t ridin’ no motorcycles. Psst. Please. He be ridin’ her on them old-ass ten-speed bikes with them ugly-ass straw baskets in the front ‘n’ the back.”
Heaven blinked.
“Unh-huh. What kinda niggahs you know ridin’ they bitches on handlebars?”
None. Heaven shook her head.
“Exactly. Nobody. Anyway, I gotta do four years. They acted like I sliced his nasty shithole open. But, anyway, I might get out on parole in like three. And I can’t wait. I’ma turn the hell up. My sister done already got me a big bottle of Hen-dog on deck. I tol’ her to put it up in my room until I get out.”
“Hopefully, it’ll all work out for you,” Heaven said. “But you’re going to need to make sure you don’t get caught up in any major infractions and end up going to lockup while you’re here.”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
Heaven stared at the young girl, wondering why she ended up at Croydon Hill, anyway, when there was a prison for girls her age about two hours away, farther south from where they were. She didn’t have to wonder for long. She shared with Heaven the numerous assault and weapons charges she’d racked up since she was fifteen, along with things she’d done and hadn’t gotten caught doing.
“And this one time,” she stated excitedly. “Me ‘n’ Day’Asia busted up in my ex-boo’s house ‘n’ caught him fuckin’ some other bitch. We beat her ass real good with crowbars. Beat her face wide open.”
Heaven blinked, her mouth dropping open. “Ohmygod! Were the two of you arrested?”
“Well, yeah. That rat-ass bitch snitched on us. She knew who I was ‘n’ how I get down ‘n’ the ho still tried it. Even after I told that bitch on Twitter ‘n’ up on the Book that I was gonna come for her if I ever caught her ass. I Snapchatted that ho ‘n’ tol’ her ass what it was gonna be, so she shoulda been glad I came at her ladylike. I coulda just ran up on her ass. But, no. I kept it classy, like a hood bitch does it.”
Lord Jesus. I can’t. “And what did your mother say about all this?”
She sucked my teeth. “Her ‘n’ my Auntie Cass fought me ‘n’ Day’Asia in the courthouse. And they both got arrested.”
Heaven’s eyes widened.
“But, whatever. I told the judge that that bitch should’na been fuckin’ my man.”
Heaven shook her head, dumbfounded at the fact that she took no responsibility for taking a crowbar and beating that girl in the face. If anything, she should have beaten his ass instead.
Right at that thought, the warden’s voice licked at her ear. “One more incident that comes across my desk with your name on it or anywhere in it, and I promise you this: I’ll have you so hemmed up with street charges that by the time the judge finishes with you, you’ll be rotting under this prison . . .”
Heaven quickly shook the voice from her head. The last thing she needed was that bitch haunting her. Still, she knew she couldn’t afford to get caught up in any other beefs. She needed her own little stomp-out crew. A group of females who knew how to move, yet, didn’t mind getting their hands dirty if need be.
A sly smile eased over her lips as she eyed Clitina taking her finger and swiping it around the inside of the bowl, then bringing her fingers to her lips and sucking them into her mouth.
“Mm. That tuna salad was good as hell.”
Heaven smiled. “Glad you enjoyed it.”
Clitina handed her the empty bowl. Heaven took it from her, then set in the sink.
“Listen, girl,” Heaven said, lowering her voice. “I didn’t get a chance to really thank you for what you and your friends did . . .”
Clitina shrugged it off. “It was nothing, Miss Heaven. I like to fight, so it was a win-win.” Her eyes lit with excitement. “We took it to those bitches’ heads. Ooh, I wanted to bust that skinny bitch’s eyeballs out.”
Heaven cringed, feeling a smidgen of guilt for the loss of that one girl’s life.
“So who were those girls, anyway?” Heaven inquired, getting up from her bed and reaching under her bunk for a mesh commissary tote that she’d filled with pecan swirls, iced honey buns, chocolate cupcakes, tropical punch drinks, strawberry Twizzlers, assorted Now and Laters, BBQ corn chips, cheese puffs, and cinnamon graham crackers.
“Oh, two of ’em my hoes from the bricks. The dark-skin one with the long weave is my girl Weena . . .” Heaven cringed at the girl’s name. “Well, it’s Roweena, but we call her Weeena for short.”
Oh.
“And the one with the one with the short, spiky hair ‘n’ tats is my girl, Samara. And the other chick is some chick Weena knows from around the way. Plus, they over on Three East. They told me how you beat that ho’s ass over there, too.”
Images of blood splashing from the girl’s throat flashed in Heaven’s head, and she cringed inwardly. “Why did your friend, uh . . . Weena . . . why did she cut that girl’s throat? Slicing her up was good enough. But killing her?”
Clitina gave her a look. “Because that’s what she does. That bitch be on them mollies. And she do what crazy bitches do. She all burnt out on that purple drank.”
Heaven frowned.
“You know, cough syrup mixed with Sprite and Jolly Ranchers.”
“Oh,” was all Heaven was able to say. She had no understanding why anyone would want to drink a prescription cough syrup with codeine in it trying to emulate what he or she heard on rap songs. She simply couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
Clitina shook her head. “Damn, Miss Heaven, you stay lost. Anyway. Weena’s here now ’cause she beat up her moms, then stabbed her up, like ten times, with a screwdriver.”
Heaven gasped. “Ohmygod. She killed her?”
“She might as well had; she a crackhead anyway. Her life been over.”
Dear Lord. She couldn’t imagine having a crackhead for a mother. A drunk was bad enough. “How old is that girl?”
“She just turned nineteen last Sunday.”
“And the other girls?”
She slid a finger in her mouth, gliding it from back to front over her teeth, getting the last of her meal. “Samara’s like twenty-three. I don’t know how old that other chick is. She probably around my age, or sumthin’. Why?”
Heaven shrugged. “Oh. No reason. Here,” Heaven said as she handed the bag to her new ally. “This is for you.”
Clitina’s eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas. “Ohmygod! For me?”
Heaven nodded as she said, “Yes.”
Clitina took the bag of goodies. “Yassss, boo, yasss . . .” She quickly frowned. “Wait. I hope you ain’t givin’ me all this stuff ’cause you tryna get me to lick your cootie or sumthin’ ’cause I ain’t with that freaky licky-licky shit. I suck dingaling, Miss Heaven. I don’t fucks with lickin’ cooties. Sorry.”
Heaven laughed. “Little girl, relax your delusional ass.”
“Oh no, hon. I’ma grown-ass woman, boo. Trust. Ain’t nothin’ lil’ on me.”
Heaven waved her on, dismissively. “Girl, bye. Grown woman my ass. But, anyway, hon, you are not my type. Trust me. It’s simply my way of showing you my appreciation for having my back.”
Clitina clutched her bag of treats to her chest. She couldn’t wait to get back to her cell to flop on her bunk and eat herself into a sugar coma. “I fought those bitches for free. But, hell,” she said, shimmying her shoulders. “What a bitch gotta do to get a bottle of Henny, Miss Heaven? Set a ho on fire?”
Hmm. That’s a thought.
Heaven couldn’t deny it. She liked her new young, reckless friend. She was ratchet and hood, but with a little—hell, a lot of—coaching, Heaven saw potential.
And she saw opportunity.
All she needed were a few more crazy bitches like her on her side.
Then there’d be nothing—absolutely nothing—she wouldn’t be able to do.
&n
bsp; THIRTY-THREE
Don’t Look Back . . .
Heaven awoke to another morning behind bars, wishing (as she always did every morning) that she’d somehow be able to turn back the clock. Start anew. Wipe the slate clean and simply start over. But, there were no do-overs, no stage rehearsals. Once it was done, it was done. There were no retakes. No taking shit back.
She grabbed her pillow and put it to her face, and then screamed in it.
The monotony of prison life was slowly killing her. Being around a bunch of women all day, every day, was too much. All this estrogen flooding the prison walls was toxic at times. It was breathing in mold. And somewhere, she believed, there had to be studies on the detriment of one’s psyche from being around a bunch of crazy-ass bitches.
She was slowly starting to feel like she was being programmed and someone from behind a hidden control panel was controlling her.
Heaven put her pillow back over her face, and screamed again.
The shit was maddening.
It seemed like as hard as she tried—and Lord knows, she tried—to stay in the present, to not focus on the past, somehow it always found a way to drag her right back to it.
Last night, she’d dreamt of Freedom. It hadn’t been a bad dream. Nor was it a good one, either. He was just there, everywhere in her conscience. His face. His smile. His hands. Stalking her dreams. Hijacking her in her sleep.
Fucking Freedom! He was everywhere he shouldn’t be.
And Heaven knew that the only way she would be able to finally free herself of that part of her life would be by finally confronting him—that part of her past.
She stared over at the privacy curtain covering the bars of her cell, and sighed. There was no escaping this, or the nagging reminder of why she was here—because of herself. And that angered her.
She swung her body around and slid her feet into her shower shoes, before standing. She looked over at Sabina’s bunk. It was empty.
She hadn’t heard her leave, or the door slide open. She’d literally slept through the ruckus.
I must have been exhausted, she thought, lining the toilet with napkins, then sitting.