by Sa'id Salaam
“Oh hey baby!!!” she exclaimed totally switching gears from ferocious to friendly.
“Hey Cameisha giggled as her aunt embraced her tightly. “What was that all about?”
“What baby?” Denise asked sweetly.
“You just whooped that mans ass!!!”
“Oh that!” Dee Gee laughed. My silly ass baby father, he came to take our son to the park and he out there selling drugs! Got crack all in his pampers!”
Cameisha tried and failed not to laugh at the scene. It was hilarious though watching him getting beat with the stroller until it was in pieces. She then passed out his drugs for free to all the junkies on the block.
“Girl that shit ain’t funny,” Denise said joining in on the laughter. “Besides, this is my block. I run this shit.”
Cameisha spent the rest of the day getting schooled on men, business and family. All day Aunt Dee Gee was Queen B, head bitch in charge. Boss bitch, etc, etc.
Nigga’s ain’t shit, trust no man, can’t no man, I can do bad by myself, I wish a nigga would. I don’t need no man.
Then her man came home from work.
Now she’s all ‘how was your day honey?” “Dinner is on the table dear.” Rubbing his feet and running his bath. Cameisha being the smart girl that she was, caught the unspoken lesson in that as well.
Chapter 18
Cameisha looked at herself in the mirror and shook her head in disapproval at what she saw. She was still too cute. She had long ago learned her lesson about going to school looking cute; the ugly girls wouldn’t have it.
Her first fight with Big Bessie came after her mother in a rare moment of sobriety and sanity decided to do her hair. The cascading curls framing her pretty face was more than the bully who looked like Busta Rhymes in pigtails could take. She beat all the ribbons and bows out of her hair.
No! Being cute was more trouble than it was worth. Subsequently, she pulled her curls into a ponytail and wiped the gloss from her lips.
“That’s more like it,” Cameisha cheered to herself after “Dumbing” her looks down.
Even with the “plain Jane” and clean face, the girl was pretty.The run of the mill ponytail showed thick waves of long curly hair, good hair.
Likewise, the baggy Capri pants couldn’t hide the fact that she had a little ass. The oversized shirt concealed her softball sized breast to her satisfaction. She was all set.
“Going for the Ms. Frumpy look I see,” Deidra teased when Cameisha finally emerged from the bathroom.
The quip was despite the fact she was proud that the young girl showed so much modesty. Although she hadn’t opened up about her childhood abuse, the signs were there. Cameisha subconsciously cowered whenever a strange man was in the vicinity.
A glance out of the window at the project’sRatchet Girls showed just the opposite. Crystalline and her crew made their way through the project courtyard as loud and as ghetto as possible. None of the girls had on appropriate clothing for school, but the trail of weed smoke they left suggested they weren’t going to school to learn.
“You don’t like it grandma?” Cameisha whined.
“I love it girl and you,” she cooed as she sat a bowl on the table. “I made you some breakfast.”
“What’s that?” Cameisha frowned at the steaming content of the bowl.
“Grits!” Grandma beamed proudly. “See” Cameisha held her tongue and the lumpy and watery concoction in the bowl. On one hand grandma had tried, but on the other hand she wasn’t eating it.
“Um… I, think…” Cameisha stammered in her search for words.
“Girl stop at the deli and grab a bagel then,” Deidra huffed, as she took the bowl and dumped it out.
“Thank you grandma,” she cheered with a kiss on the cheek. A few words of warning and wisdom later, and Cameisha was out of the door.
Deidra wished she could go with the girl to school. Instead, she settled for watching her from the window as she headed off for her first day of school. Cameisha obviously felt like giving her grandmother a comforting wave but she had already ducked out of sight.
Kids from the High Bridge neighborhood were supposed to attend Taft High School, but a long standing turf war made it too dangerous. Instead, they were sent further uptown to Walton High school on 183rd. This meant the kids had to take the number 13 bus down the hill to Yankee Stadium then catch the number 4 train five stops.
A hush fell over Crystalline and company as Cameisha approached the bus stop. A tense few seconds later, the crew began yapping about some of life’s more complex matters.
“You crazy girl, D-Lite’s dick gotta be bigger than Young Dap’s!” Zaria insisted.
“Why ‘causehe taller?” Angle disagreed.
“He is taller! And he got big feet! Crystalline cosigned in favor of their hometown hero.
Meanwhile, Cameisha was engaged in her favorite pastime, math. Mentally she was adding, subtracting and dividing every number she saw. She multiplied the numbers on a license plate by the 166 on the street sign.
As she flipped and bounced numbers around her brain, Tay and his crew of misfits merged from the projects. They all had a slow duck waddle from expensive jeans pulled low off their asses, cascading on top of even more expensive sneakers.
Tay was front and center with a swag so cool it should have had theme music playing. He took a long pull from a thick blunt as he and Cameisha locked eyes. When his gaze grazed her soul she averted her eyes, and went back to her mathematics.
All the girls sang each and every one of their names as they greeted the boys in passing. They nodded and ‘what’s upped’ their replies, as they headed over to Nelson Park. They were going to school too, but not to learn either. The school had a booming weed business that they had a big part in. Half of the three thousand kids in the school smoked pot. It was a gold mine.
There were so many kids, not to mention adults waiting at the bus stop that there was no way they all could fit onto one bus. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t try. The city ran buses in tandem on that route in the mornings and afternoon.Still, everyone squeezed onto the first bus even though the second trailed closely behind.
Crystalline and her crew were amongst the squeezers and boarded the jammed bus. Aqua was the last one and when no one was looking she flashed Cameisha a smile and discreet wave.
Cameisha cracked a quarter of a smile then prepared to board the second less crowded bus. The bus rumbled down the hill and let them out at the 161st street train station at Yankee Stadium. The school issued bus and train pass granted her access to the next stage of travel. Back home kids boarded a yellow bus to school, here you traveled like grown folks.
Up on the platform all the loud kids gravitated to the back so they could all crowd into the last car. It was as if they had to be in the mix so they wouldn’t miss anything. Fuck saying ‘I heard’, they wanted to say ‘I saw’ or ‘I was there’.
Cameisha along with the rest of the smart, nerdy and un-cool, boarded the train in the middle. The 4 train was on an elevated line so Cameisha stood up the whole way staring out of the window at the city passing by her eyes. How quickly and thoroughly had her world changed.
The herd dismounted the train at 183rd and River Ave and piled out onto the streets. Most went to the school for 1st period while others went to smoke weed and eat.
“Man!” Cameisha whined when she saw that the school didn’t serve grits for breakfast either. Instead, she opted for one of the hard donuts everyone called bagels.
Following what she saw the other kids doing she smeared strawberry cream cheese on it and took a bite. When she finished the toasted treat she had forgotten all about her grits.
Walton High School had the same number of people as Longs Mississippi. All those kids milling about in the hallways scared her at first. It reminded her of walking the halls of her small school back home, and boys grabbing her booty.
Things like that didn’t happen in the Bronx though. Grab some girls ass here if you want
to, just don’t be offended when a brother, cousin or father is waiting to murder you when school lets out.
Cameisha took a deep breath and waded into the crowd.Following the numbers over the classes she found her first period class and ventured inside. Since most kids wanted to be fashionably late, she had her pick of any desk. She picked the one closet to the teacher. Aqua took the one next to her.
“Hey, I’m Aqua,” she said extending a chubby hand.
Cameisha inspected the hand, the face, and finally, the eyes for traces of treachery, but found none.
“Cameisha,” she said politely as she shook the offered hand. “Nice to meet you”
“Where you from?Queens?” Aqua frowned at the trace of accent left in her voice.
Cameisha had practiced night and day to ‘tawk’ like New Yorkers ‘tawked’, but still, she had a slight twang. If she got upset or angry her speech reverted back to Mississippi.
“Mississippi,” Cameisha admitted. She wasn’t ashamed. She just didn’t want to be different.
“Miss sipi?”Aqua asked.
“Yeah, Miss sipi.” She smiled.“Close enough.”
“Hola buenos dias. Mi llamo es seniora Campos,” a pretty lady sang through a smile as she entered the room.
The students all stared back not understanding a word of what she said.Oddly enough, there were several Puerto Rican and Dominican kids who didn’t speak Spanish either.
Cameisha was able to translate the new words simply by the context she used. She understood the cheerful greeting and caught that her name was Mrs. Campos.
The Spanish teacher began with introductory phrases all of which instantly embedded on the smart girls brain. Half way through the class, Tay swaggered in and had taken a seat. His eyes were fire engine red from the weed he’d smoked and reeked of it. Mrs. Campos didn’t even acknowledge his presence. She was only there to teach the kids who wanted to be taught. She had no concern for the others.
A lot of kids are only concerned with being cool and they didn’t need school for that. ‘Cool’ was taught by the music and street, then perfected in the jails and morgues.
There were cool funerals held every day in New York.
All of Cameisha’s classes went well until she absent mindedly replied “Hure” to roll call in 3rd period.
“Hure?What the fuck is a ‘hure’?” A girl laughed from the cool section in the back of the class.
Cameisha turned to see who the antagonist was which only added fuel to the fire. Lola was a trouble maker looking for trouble. And she’d found it.
“Bitch who the fuck you looking at! You don’t know me bitch!” she yelled up to the un-cool section where Cameisha sat.
“Call me out my name again and I’m finna’ whoop ya’ ass,” Cameisha advised.
“Finna? Bitch what the fuck is a ‘finna’?” Lola laughed using the magic word.
Cameisha had to endure being called the dreadful slander coming up by her mother. It died with her buried in the same card board box. The word now came with a free ass whooping on the house.
“Can’t say I ain’t warned ya!”she said marching towards the back of the class.
Lola jumped up and met her halfway up the row of desks. She delivered her ass to get whooped and that’s exactly what she got. The sound of the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahh’s’.
The teacher ran over to break it up but was too late; or Cameisha was too quick because the ass whooping was over by the time she gotten to where they were.
Lola was lumped, leaning and lopsided from the short yet brutal beating. Cameisha had to do a double take to make sure she was the same girl she was beefing with because she now looked so different.
“Um I don’t think so,” the teacher said as she’d retaken her seat. “To the principal’s office young… um lady.”
“You to the nurse then the principal,” she said helping Lola off the linoleum.
Lola was so disoriented she opened the closet to leave. Luckily one of her friends helped her out. After a quick check up and an ice pack she joined Cameisha in the principal’s office.
“Congratulations, you both made history!” The elderly principal quipped sarcastically. “See you girls next week.”
Chapter 19
“Girl how in the world did you get suspended on the first day of school?” Deidra asked frustrated.
The woman who had raised the notorious Cameron Forrest senior as well as the infamous Killa was scared she had another menace to society on her hands. She was right, she did.
“I ain’t had no choice. She kept calling me out my name,” Cameisha pouted.
“You can’t fight every time you feel insulted. You gotta pick your your battles,” grandma offered.
“She called me a bitch!”
“A what? Well, you were supposed to beat her ass then!” Deidra fumed. She didn’t play that either. “Bet she learned her lesson!”
“There go that bitch right there!” Lola yelled pointing Cameisha out to her friends.
‘I know this bitch did not just call me a bitch again!” Cameisha thought aloud, as she turned to confront her. She had made up her mind to fight her, and anybody else who disrespected her. Fight every day if need be, there would be no disrespect.
“Reckon I best whoop ya’ again,” she offered as she approached. Grandma would be upset if she got suspended again but she could live with that. She could not live with the slander.
“Bitch you ain’t did shit!” Lola laughed. She wasn’t lying because she really didn’t recall the beating. She saw the results in the mirror but wasn’t mentally present when she received them.
“Beat the tar out ya,” Cameisha laughed, sounding every bit like Tywanna.
“Ayo, y’all wait ‘til after school so no one gets in trouble,” Lola right hand Tovia suggested.
“Sounds like a plan!” Cameisha shot back. She was still too green to understand that the plan was to jump her.
“Bet bitch, after school! Over on 183rd Lola chided. Cameisha fought the urge to attack and turned on her heels. She had no idea that all the girls from the Bronx River projects all stuck together. She had just made a play date with all twenty of them.
******
“Yo what’s good mama?” Tay drawled as he plopped down beside Cameisha in Spanish class.
Cameisha frowned as she contemplated an answer. First what was good? And why mama?
“Fine,” she replied with half a smile, figuring that reply should cover it.
“Yeah you are,” he laughed feeling her up visually.
“Cameisha, que es un problemo?” Mrs. Campos inquired.
“No problemo senorita,” she replied in flawless Spanish that impressed them both.
As hard as it was she ignored the cute boy beside her and focused her attention to the lesson. By the end of the class her vocabulary had increased tremendously. She absorbed everything she was given; not just in Spanish but in every class she entered. She was smarter when she left. She even ignored the cat calls and slander from Lola and company during third period history. She figured she may as well let her have her fun considering the beating she had coming.
Word about the rumble quietly and quickly spread through the school. The Bronx River Wolf Pack was especially vicious and had a reputation of stripping girls naked after jumping on them. This of course brought the boys out to see some titties.
“Sup now bitch!” Lola demanded. She was real confident, now that the odds were Twenty to one.
“I was hoping you would say that.” Cameisha smiled and moved in. Just as she reached Lola to throw a blow, the wolf pack pounced.
Cameisha knew she was about to get jumped so she focused on Lola. Whatever happened she was getting her ass kicked.
The street exploded in violence as blows were thrown in every direction. Miraculously, Cameisha didn’t feel a thing. Luckily, Lola was so quickly defeated it afforded her a chance to glance around. The first thing she saw was Aqua who had knocked Tovia out cold.
�
�Y’all bitches can’t fuck with High Ridge!” Crystalline shouted as she pummeled another girl.
Zaria, Angle and a few more girls from the projects were giving the Bronx River chicks all they could handle.
A police cruiser whipped up to a stop in front of the combatants and watched the fight. After all, who doesn’t love a good girl fight? And this was a good one. It wasn’t until the glint of a knife caught the officer’s eye that they’d broken it up.
“Aight, Aight, that’s plenty!” The driver of the patrol car announced through the P.A. system. A quick blast of the siren broke up the fight and dispersed the crowd.
“Hell yeah! We beat them hoes ass!”Crystalline cheered and raised her hand.
“Damn skraight!” Cameisha laughed giving her a high five.
The Rowdy project chicks rambled over to the train for the ride home. The combatants were now on opposite sides of the platform hurling insults at each other,
“Y’all hoes ain’t did shit!” Tovia yelled from across the divide. It was obvious she was their leader or their spokesman.
“Shit we can go again!” Crystalline shouted back since she was theirs.
The argument escalated to the point of throwing bottles and debris from the over flowing trash cans. Luckily, both trains came and took both sets of girls in separate directions.
“Ayo, you with us now!” Crystalline announced to Cameisha and everyone listening. Everyone paused waiting for her to reply. A slow smile spread on her face as she accepted being accepted.
Even though she was officially a part of the crew Cameisha stuck to her routine. She only spoke when spoken to and didn’t hang out with the girls except for at school.
She and Aqua did manage to become friendly, if not friends. Cameisha grew extremely fond of the large girl with the slow wit and quick smile. Soon they were friends and very protective of each other. No one could tease either one in the presence of the other.
The beef between the Bronx River girls and the High Bridge hood rats simmered all year. There were a few flare ups and squirmishes but the school security managed to contain it. Police posted up each day after school to prevent them from killing each other.