by Nikki Turner
"Yo, I am trying to definitely meet your home girl right there," he turns his attention back to Yarni.
"Yarni, this is Rallo," pointing to Rallo, "Rallo this is my best friend Yarni," as she points to Yarni, making introduction.
Rallo throws up his head, acknowledging her. Yarni extends her hand.
"It's nice to meet you, Rallo," She says in a sweet, innocent voice. Rallo looked and laughed. Damn, what type of shit she into? This chic gonna extend her hand for me to shake. Do she think she white or what? He threw his bottle in the trash and reached out and shook Yarni's hand. Yarni thought, Where in the world did Sophie pick this stray up from with no manners? She knows she is wrong for introducing me to him.
At that very moment the Southside boys got to fighting with the Church Hill boys. Sophie and Yarni made way to their car, afraid something more might happen.
The following Sunday Sophie and Yarni drove out to Byrd Park. Byrd Park is off the hook every Sunday. It is the only thing to do on Sundays during the day in Richmond. Luckily, they roll up when someone is leaving, so they get a good parking space.
It was a hassle not having a parking space on a Sunday. Traffic is at a stand still, this one and that one running to and from cars, carrying on conversation, females and guys catching up on gossip. No telling whom a person may run across. One is subject to see anybody and everybody at Byrd Park. You must also have a full tank of gas when riding through Byrd Park on a Sunday.
People would sit in any one spot for twenty minutes before traffic would inch up even a few feet. Byrd Park was the happening place for all ages, but just like everything else, when there is a whole bunch of blacks folks, the police get scared and over react. They started blocking certain sides of the park down. Then they put signs up "No Parking, on Sundays 2pm-8pm." Nevertheless, Sunday life at Byrd Park went on. The crowd just moved the party over to the other side of Byrd Park. The police posted "No Stopping or Standing" signs all over the park enforc-ing hundred dollar fines.
They saw Rallo again, and he tried to get Yarni's number, but she wasn't pressed.
"Yarni, how come you don't like Rallo?" Sophie almost knew the answer, but she had to ask.
"I don't think I want to talk to no man who drives a canary yellow BMW." They both laughed. "Besides, that car looks like it could be a female car. To me only a female would drive that bright yellow car."
"Yarni, you know a brother is getting some money and want to shine."
"The only place shining gets you is in the penitentiary or in the diary of a stick up kid."
"Yarni, you right."
"But the crazy thing is, these brothers know this. They see so many of their boys right in their immediate circle fall victim. You would think they would learn. Right?" Yarni, in her own way, tried to make sense of the high rate of black men in prison, more than at ODU and all the colleges in Virginia.
"You would think, but I guess their motto is ball til you fall," Sophie fell out laughing at her own poetics.
"Guess so, but you can't tell them nothing. When they sitting in da clinker, they be wishing they had listened," Yarni said.
Later that night, Sophie wanted to go to Tropicana BADDD!!
Yarni didn't really have any money to be jerking off at the club.
She had just gotten her car out of the shop so her funds were very limited. To her the club wasn't where she wanted to spend her last money.
"Yarni, I'll pay your way in, and once we get in, some clown will buy our drinks and pay for our pictures." They still were not old enough to drink.
"I don't even like rolling like that. I like having my owns. Just the thought of some Wack Jack nigga, giving me the impression that because he buys me a little $5.00 drink that I have to entertain him and act interested in his conversation for the rest of the night. No, I am not feeling that." Gloria had trained her daughter well.
"Yarni, don't you got the money for your polo lessons?"
"Yep"
"Well, use that for your pictures and drinks and I'll give it back to you when I get paid tomorrow." Yarni seen that Sophie was determined to go, so she went.
When they arrived at "Tropp" the line was all the way up to the next corner. As soon as they walked by they saw Rallo and his crew at the very front of the line. He called out to Yarni.
"I got y'all, come on." He paid for them to get in, bought their drinks all night long, as well as paid for about six or seven pictures. He pulled Sophie to the side, peeled off five twenties and told her, he was paying her $100.00 for Yarni's number.
Sophie told him she'd get back to him before the end of the night.
"Look, Rallo is giving me a hundred dollars for your phone number. I'm going to give it to him. If he'll give up a hundred for your number you could probably get some shit out of him." At the end of the night, when they were walking to their car, he rolled up beside them in his canary yellow car with neon yellow lights under the bottom. Yarni was not feeling that yellow car. I hope when he calls he doesn't ask to take me out anywhere. I am not riding in that car looking like it came straight from the Universal Soul Circus, she thought to herself. He called Sophie over to the car.
"You got that for me?" Sophie reached in her back pocket and handed over the number to Rallo. Rallo passed Sophie the hundred for the number. He then produced another a hundred.
"Put in a good word for me," Rallo said handing Sophie the second hundred dollar bill.
Yarni thought to herself, This clown is really trying to shine, huh? I should've told Sophie to write "1-800-Joke" on the paper.
Once they got in the car, Sophie handed Yarni one-hundred dollars.
Rallo's first impression of Yarni was she was a "missy prissy" type of chic. After conversing with her over the phone for 2
weeks, he felt her personality was down to Earth. Judging by the way she spoke, it would make one think that she was slow to the street life. She was very thorough.
Their first date was to Kings Dominion amusement park.
They played and rode all the games and rides. Rallo won Yarni a teddy bear, and she won him an even bigger teddy bear playing skeet ball. He was shocked when he found out she was actually a lot of fun to be around. They laughed and joked. She was pretty too. He was attracted to her and she didn't have a ghetto demeanor, which he wasn't use to. She was the best chic that he had ever dated.
They started hanging out a lot. Yarni was on her summer vacation from school so she was in Richmond for the next three months. They went to see Jamie Foxx's comedy show together and went out to eat just about everyday. They went bowling, played pool in the pool hall in Shockoe Bottom and saw every single movie together. He even took her shopping. Everything they did, she'd make sure none of their dates ran into the wee hours of the morning. She never put herself in the situation to have to feel pressured for sex. He actually was so intrigued with Yarni he forgot what his initial intentions were.
That got old soon. Rallo had paid for all these extravagant clothes and hairdos to make her look drop dead gorgeous and for what? He couldn't even take them off her. He wasn't able to mess up the hair after he paid top dollar for it. Half of the time, he really didn't go out to any clubs. She'd come through the spot to get money to go out and he'd see exactly how good she looked. She wouldn't even come back around there to be with him after she left the club. She'd go straight home and kick it over the phone for the rest of the night. He decided they needed to have a "heart to heart" talk and now was the time.
"I need to see you," Rallo telephoned. "I've got something important to talk to you about." Yarni and Rallo went to Red Lobster. Understand that back in the day, Red Lobster was a big deal. If you were a female and a guy took you to Red Lobster, oh he was really doing something.
Yarni was curious to know what exactly he wanted to talk to her about. Once their appetizers, mozzarella sticks, arrived, he dipped them into the tomato sauce and looked at Yarni with a serious look. Here comes the game, Yarni thought.
Rallo pulled no punches. "We have re
ally been hanging tight and I want you to be a permanent part of my life. I want you to be my girl. I want us to be on some one-on- one type shit. I WANT US TO CARRY IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL. Now I've showed you how I get down for mines and I haven't even had sex with you. Now imagine how lovely it can be if we step this up a notch." This was the game Rallo kicked to Yarni.
"Honestly, I don't need a boyfriend right now. It wouldn't be fair to you because I already have a man! I love him very much and I am not leaving him for anybody. So me sitting here pretending that I can carry it to the next level with you, is a dead issue. I appreciate everything you've done for me and I value your friendship, but at the same time, I told you this in the beginning and I still feel the same way. I hope we are still cool." She bit into her mozzarella stick.
Oh, it's cool for you to accept my money and eat up all my damn food, but you don't want to be my girl. Now all of a sudden, you want to remember that you got a man. This no good, ho!
Yarni's response cut him down. He wanted to smack the cowboy shit out of her, but he kept his composure.
"I respect you for being real about it," he shook his head and drank some of his Heineken.
The realness was, that he wanted to fuck her and just had to go at her from another angle. He continued to talk to her on the phone as nothing had changed. He called her six nights later.
"I want to ask you something. I don't want you to take any offense by it though. It's very important," Rallo put on his sincere, serious voice.
"Go ahead and ask," Yarni responded.
"I am so attracted to you mentally and physically, you know this, and I feel like you got a wall up against me to shield yourself from my feelings. I've tried to come at you from various different ways, but you keep turning me away. You turn me on and off like a light switch. Now, don't cuss me out when I ask you this, but if I give you a G, could we have sex?" I can't believe he is propositioning me. I am broke as a broke dick dog. At the same time, I don't want to seem like a trick. I was planning on doing it to him in the next couple of days anyway. I think I have been jerking his chain long enough What the hell? I would have to do it to him, doggy style. He's so ugly, I can't stand the thought of looking at him in his face.
"It's really not about the money, Rallo, but I am broke as I don't know what. You can come over. That's no problem," she said, holding her breath.
He went right over her house with the G in his pocket. His plan was to fuck the shit out of her and not ever speak to her gold digging ass again.
When he arrived, she had candles burning all through her den, bedroom, and bathroom. She ran him a candlelit bubble bath, washed him up from head to toe. When he got out of the tub she wrapped him in a big, oversized towel, and wiped him off. She pulled her Dr. Scholls foot massager out and gave him a pedicure. She put lotion on him, and gave him a full body massage, with sensual massage oils. She then fed him some fruit, grapes off the vine, cherries, as well as chocolate covered straw-berries. Then hopped on his little, itsy bitty dick and rode him backwards. He came in approximately 45 seconds and he had on a rubber. "If that wasn't a damn waste, I don't know what was." Nevertheless. She got up to wash up and brought a washcloth back to the bed to wash him up. Rallo was sleep, knocked out, snoring. When he felt the warmness of the washcloth on him, he opened his eyes and went right back to sleep.
The next morning he woke up to her voice.
"Rise and Shine Big Daddy" Yarni said. His eyes opened when she placed a tray on his lap. Turkey bacon, fried potatoes with onions, scrambled eggs, two almond croissants, some Smucker's grape jelly and a glass of Sunny Delight Orange Juice occupied the tray. NOBODY had ever cooked for him except his mother. The thought of somebody bringing him breakfast in bed was almost too much. He questioned her because he didn't know what a croissant was. He cleaned his plate empty, gave her the thousand dollars and an extra two hundred dollar tip. It was worth every penny, the best $1,200 he'd ever spent.
How could he possibly leave her alone? It wasn't as easy as he thought. Romancing him, she took fucking to another level.
He'd gotten plenty of pussy in the hood, but that was all it was, sex, no romance, no feelings behind it. None of the things that Yarni had done had ever even crossed his mind.
For the next two weeks, they saw each other every day just like before. They had sexual encounters two more times. He paid her each time. The third time when he went to give her the money, she wouldn't take it. She told him that it wasn't that type of party anymore. She informed him that they were better than that. When she came in, she looked at the mail. There was a letter there from Des. She tore it open.
My Dearest Yarni,
Just exactly how long do you plan to stay mad at me? I miss you and I love you very much. I want to apologize for asking you to jeopardize your freedom for my own selfish reasons. I also apologize for taking you for granted. You have every right not to speak to me ever again. I hope you won't take that avenue, though.
Anyway I need to put you down with something. I heard that you were hollering at that nigga, Rallo, out there. He made sure it got back to me. He and Roy were boys. He hates me.
He and I were beefing before I left the streets. He is telling niggas how he is fucking my wife and how he really don't want you, and some other things I rather not say. What I will say is there's no need for you to get upset. Because the word is the dude is gone behind you. His plan to fuck you over blew up in his face. Now, what you've got to do is to take this dude for everything he got.
And when you feel you tired of that nigga YOU just bounce on his ass. That's how you get revenge on him. And never ever let this dude know you know what his intentions were. The joke is on him, Boo!
Come and check me soon!!!!
Forever and Ever, Des
Yarni was furious. Was Des just trying to throw salt in the game for his own selfish reasons? Nah, Des wasn't that petty. But when you love somebody, love will make you genuinely do crazy stuff.
Right after she finished Des' letter, Stanka came by. He basically gave her the same info. So it was about to be on now, for real.
After Yarni turned down that last money Rallo had offered her, his mind was blown. In his mind, that confirmed that she wasn't just out for his money. She knew that he'd never had a woman in her league and she used that to her advantage. She'd make sure that when she was with him, she'd always have some new type thing going on. She'd always wear the sexy, but not sleazy lingerie. She'd walk around him buck naked with nothing but some "come fuck me boots" on. Sometimes he'd never know who she was going to be until he arrived. She may come to the door with a blonde wig on, ask him "Is it true that blondes have more fun?" She'd cook for him and bring him back presents from the mall when he'd give her money to go shopping for herself.
He wasn't used to any of this. All he ever dealt with was sleeze bags. So, everything Yarni was doing was just getting him wide open.
Rallo fell in love with Yarni. All he thought about all day was Yarni. He catered to her in his own little way. He gave her money freely. Anything new that came out for females, he got it for her. He took care of her upcoming school expenses. He gave her a brand new candy apple Saab convertible with license plates that said "NO NOTE" because it was paid for. He said, he wanted them to have his and hers BMW's. She convinced him to get her a Saab because people were not really into the Saab convertibles back then.
After all this, Yarni still continued to go see Des faithfully. The only difference was, she was riding in the Saab that Rallo brought her. She'd drive any of Rallo's array of cars as well. Every Saturday morning, she'd get out of the bed with Rallo to go see Des. At the same time, Rallo believed if he did everything for Yarni and just was patient, she would eventually drop Des. That wasn't the issue, though, because Des was in her heart. Rallo wasn't aware that Yarni knew what his initial intentions were.
Every Sunday morning, she'd go to church. After all, it was God who made all these things possible. She'd invite Rallo to go.
; She'd preach to him.
"You throw bricks at the penitentiary all day everyday. God watches over you even though you are doing wrong. The least you could do is devote Sunday to Him and go to church to say,
'Thanks' and give God the praises," Yarni preached.
Rallo didn't hustle on Sundays, but he would never go with her. However he'd always send his tithes and offerings.
"Don't you think God want to see you in church every once in a while?"
"No, I need to get myself together first," he hugged her and rolled back under the cover.
"Well, you start with hearing and studying the word. You doggone for sure ain't going to hear it on the strip." Richmond was a small town where everybody, knew everybody. So, news traveled around the town. It got back to Tina, the mother of Rallo's baby girl; Ralleshia, found he'd went out and brought Yarni a brand new car while she drove around in a raggedy Chevy Chevette. She flipped. Oh, it was about to be on.
Tina wasn't as unruly as she pretended to be, but the crew she rolled with went for bad. However, her deep voice made her bark louder than her bite. She was light skinned with short hair on the top and long weave sewn in. She had green eyes, a big nose and buckteeth. She stood five feet seven inches, weighing one-hundred ninety-five pounds; the two size too small clothes she squeezed into really added a good 20 extra pounds to her visual. No one could ever figure out why she continued to wear the gold earrings with "Tina" and "Rallo" inside of them. Is it because she couldn't afford to go and get some more? Or was it because she still loved Rallo? Or was it that she wanted everybody else to think she was still with Rallo? Whatever it was she wore the earrings faithfully.
Rallo always took care of his daughter. Yarni would even buy Ralleshia the cutest stuff when she went to the mall. He never told Tina that she bought it because with her ignorant self, she never would have accepted it. "Come on, what difference does it make who bought it? It wasn't for you anyway. It was for Ralleshia," he would most likely argue with Tina in his mind.
Little dick Rallo was at least a peaceful man when it concerned his daughter.