by Sa'id Salaam
Only problem was, Mac and his crew had already established themselves. All the customers went to them rather than the girls. Zaria was the one who came up with a sales plan that worked instantly. She rushed upstairs to put it in motion.
“Now watch this!” Zaria said when she returned wearing a tiny pair of shorts and wife beater. Not a single man walked past. Even dudes, who didn’t smoke, bought weed so they would have an excuse to talk to her.
Of course Dasia got the same results, Aqua not so much. Mac felt the pinch in his pocket, and stepped to them.
“Ayo check this, I don’t mind y’all being out here looking cute. Well, you cute, you ‘aight, and you…. Anyway, y’all bitches beat it. This is me! Don’t get hurt,” he said.
“What?” Cameisha asked in disbelief when her girls ran to her with the news. “See that’s that shit I hate! Niggas wanna hog the block! Where I come from hogs get slaughtered!”
She was about to get her hands dirty!
******
The crew wasn’t too pleased to attend Crystalline’s funeral, but Cameisha insisted. Since she was the one with the work she was now in charge. They griped and moped all the way up town to Woodlawn Cemetery.
“Still don’t see why we gotta go...We ain’t even fuck with her no more,” Zaria pouted. It was clear she was upset about being bumped from the head of the pack.
“For real though! She was a damn crack head,” Dasia seconded. Cameisha didn’t hear them as she watched the city streets rush below from the elevated train.
New York was crazy, wild and exciting and she loved it. She also missed the peace and tranquility of her rural roots. In a few months she would be headed south to attend school in Atlanta. The time couldn’t come quick enough.
“Yo’ we here Meisha,” Aqua said gently pulling her back to the present. The worst part of someone pulling you out of your head is when it’s done abruptly.
A short cab ride later they entered the same funeral home, where they attended Angle’s funeral, almost a year before. Only this time they were completely alone, the place was empty.
“What the fuck yo’!Where her people at?” Zaria complained loudly. Cameisha was really getting tired of her, but this was neither the time nor the place.
Besides, she wondered the same thing. Where were her people, her mom, sisters, her son? Not a soul showed up to see the girl off. She led the way up to the casket so they could say their good-byes.
“The fuck!” Dasia wailed at the sight of the body in the cheap casket. Cameisha even felt her knees buckle looking down at her.
Crystallinelooked more like an avatar than a human. She even had a blue-green tint to her skin. Her face was mis-shaped from the abuse she suffered in the last year of her life.
Aqua couldn’t take it and ran away crying from the parlor. Zaria sucked her teeth and walked off, and Meisha reached down and touched her cold hand.
“Ayo how long y’all staying up here? I’m ‘bout to bounce!” Zaria demanded. She didn’t wait for a response before storming off.
“Go get Aqua, y’all go on back to the projects. I’ll catch y’all at home.” Cameisha said still unable to take her eyes off the dead girl in the box.
“Excuse me miss? Miss? We’re about to close,” the funeral director advised gently. Cameisha was still holding the dead girl’s hands an hour later. Her mind had traveled around the globe and back. She took a deep breath that exhaled as a sigh. It was time to go. It was time for her to put someone in a box.
******
“You straight yo’?” Zaria asked, as Cameisha returned to the projects.
“Yeah I’m cool,” she replied with what could be considered a smile. She realized the act of contrition was as close to an apology as it was going to get and she accepted it.
“What them niggas talking about?” Meisha asked pointing at Mac with her head.
“Some bull-shit!” Dasia pouted. “Talking ‘bout if he see us sell a seed he gone put his foot in our ass.”
“Sho-nuff? Well y’all go get some rest tonight ‘cause we back to work tomorrow!” Cameisha proclaimed. Her crew didn’t doubt her one bit and jumped up to comply.
When Cameisha got upstairs grandma Deidra was waiting on her. In her hands were the lab results from her tests at the hospital. She sank down in a chair and stared at it.
“Well?” grandma said, as she tore into it. Her eyes scanned the lines but her face gave no clue one way or the other. She sighed as she folded the letter up and put it back into the envelope. “You’re not pregnant.”
“You don’t seem too happy,” Meisha noted.
“I’m not. I’m very upset you did this to yourself. It could have been so much worse. Cameisha, I love you girl and I will protect you from any and everything, except you. I cannot protect you from you.”
******
The plan was simple and if it came off as planned, it would rid the projects of the intruders. The plan was simple and if it came off as planned, it would rid the projects of the intruders. A Glock 23 was exactly where her grandfather left it in case she needed it. Cameisha needed it.
She was fond of the small 40 Caliber pistol that fit nicely in her hands, but could stop a truck. This was her weapon of choice at the range and she was deadly accurate with it.
Mac and his crew were the only ones not in the court yard. That meant no witnesses or bystanders. Cameisha crept from behind the building and took aim. She pointed the large caliber gun at the back of Mac’s head and began slowly squeezing the trigger.
“What the fuck!” Mac yelled as the forty in his hand exploded. Cameisha emptied her clip making sure to only hit the bench and their beer bottles.
When they had taken off running so did she. She put another clip in as she ran around the building to cut them off. She fired on them again making it look like they were surrounded. This time Meisha couldn’t help herself. She took aim and shot Mac dead in his ass.
She got a big kick watching him hop and scream from not knowing which way to run.They put their hands in the air and laid down. That’s where the police found them when they finally responded to the shots fired call. They all had dope on them and got cuffed and carted away. The girls now had the trap to themselves.
Chapter 31
Cameisha watched proudly as her girl’s pumped dimes of weed. She wasn’t just watching them, but police and jackers also. The walkie-talkie was to alert the crew if po-po showed up, while a throw away 380, tucked in the garbage was for the jackers.
“Look at you mama,” Sincerity laughed as she and her son walked through the court yard. Little X as he was called ran for a smooch and then back to his mother.
“Just wanna get my college money back. That’s all” Cameisha said believing it. “No telling how long it will take to move all that weed and get my ten grand.”
“You gonna make ten thousand and stop? Quit? Fuck outta here!” Sincerity laughed.
“I’m for real! If dude ain’t rob me I wouldn’t even have to do this! All I want is my money back.”
“Bet a stack?” she dared.
“A grand that I won’t quit once I finish the pack?Bet!”Cameisha exclaimed. “Shoot that will make eleven G’s to go to Atlanta with.”
“Excuse me, we done,” Aqua interrupted. Zaria and Dasia were close behind.
“Done what?” Meisha asked confused.
“With the pack, it’s all gone,” Zaria replied.
“Y’all sold a hundred and fifty bags already!”
She asked looking at her watch. Only three hours had elapsed.
Zaria’s sales pitch of dressing half naked or half-dressed was obviously working. Dudes from all over High Bridge came through to holler at the cuties; and Aqua too.
Cameisha gave them each more dime bags after collecting three hundred and fifty from the first package. She was at 1/10th of her goal. By the time they wrapped up for the day she was even closer.
The Dope girl had learned from the Dope boy and knew what days and times sales
were brisk, compared to down times. She maximized the up-swings and was done in a week.
“Owe this girl a damn stack,” she admitted to herself. Sincerity was right.She was going to keep hustling. Just one more flip, just once more.
Once the word was out about the fat bags of good weed the second flip took six days. Taking a lesson from her father’s play book she dubbed her product ‘fat-fat’. The marketing worked and err’-body wanted some of that ‘fat-fat’. It even made it into a verse of a rap song.
‘Keep a burner in my back-pack smoking on the ‘fat-fat’.
******
“I hate to say I told you so but…” Sincerity laughed as Cameisha bagged up at her apartment. She had just re-upped spending five grand on ten pounds and had close to ten grand saved.
“No you don’t ‘cause you made a stack of that told you so” Cameisha quipped.
She was making mo-money so she should not have been surprised when she had mo-problems.
“Ayo Z, this short. This is only three ten,” Cameisha said after a second recount.
“Word?” Zaria frowned as if shocked. “I think my moms hit me up. She be buggin’!”
“Aight yo’, just make it up on the next pack,” she said dubiously.
This wasn’t the first time she was short. Usually it’s five or ten bucks so it gets over looked, but forty. Funny, that her moms hitting her up didn’t stop her from buying the new sneakers on her feet.
Once the next package was done, they all went down to Fordham Rd and did some shopping. Cameisha already had all of her clothes for college, but a chic could never have too many clothes.
Cameisha’s money was a little longer than her friends so she was able to shop long after they were spent out. No one seemed to mind except Zaria. No one seemed to catch it except Cameisha. Her father told her this would happen.
“Ayo check,” Meisha began as they took a cab back to High Bridge. “If y’all invest y’all money back into the next pack, y’all could make a lot more money.”
“Shit, I’m cool Dasia shot back immediately. I mean it ain’t as much as boosting but it’s mad easy! I’m cool”
“Me too,” Aqua said. The two to three hundred dollars a day she made was way more than she could possibly eat.
“Shit why you don’t just split the pie four ways? Since you so concerned about our pockets,” Zaria announced.
Now, the proper response would have been to tell the driver to stop, get out and beat Zaria’s ass. Instead she said “That’s what’s up.”
Cameisha was sitting on close to twenty grand, twice what she came for. Besides she was leaving soon and leaving the ball rolling would help them once she was gone.
“Ok, I'll put up the money and we split it four ways. Only one rule. Whoever comes short gets their ass whooped by the rest of the crew. A second for every dollar short,” Cameisha added. This way Zaria could buy an ass whooping with her stolen money.
“Bet, bet, that’s a bet,” they agreed one by one. Guess who was last to agree?
Cameisha kept her word and invested her profits into a package for the crew. They stood to make four thousand dollars apiece if they all kept it one hundred. They didn’t.
“Ayo my moms got me again. I’ma hafta’ make mines up on the next flip,” Zaria explained nonchalantly.
“You mean you ain’t got shit on the next flip!” Dasia demanded.
“Naw yo’, I’ll catch up on the next one,” she said fingering her new gold hoop earrings.
“Yo’, lets not talk business out here in public lets go up on the roof,” Cameisha suggested. This was the place she had learned to fight.
“Shit bet!” Zaria said hearing and accepting the challenge, she led the way marching into the building and banging on the elevator like she was in a hurry.
“Ayo two stacks, that’s like ….an hour,” Dasia said calculating the beating time.
“Thirty three point three minutes,” Cameisha said calculating a rough guess.
“Hope you bitches can hang that long!” Zaria said confidently. She knew she had skills with the hands. “Let’s get it!”
As soon as the girls reached the roof-top Zaria bombed on Meisha. She intended to follow the blow up with a second, but a body blow from Aqua lifted her off her feet. Dasia joined in throwing dainty little punches. Cameisha shook off the blow and joined the fray.
Aqua knocked her down and the girls moved in and began kicking and stomping her. Zaria never quit or cowered.Instead ,she was still talking shit and fighting back. That’s when Cameisha had an epiphany.
She suddenly stopped kicking and walked away. Aqua and Dasia stopped too and wondered what was going on. Zaria still had thirty minutes left.
“Where you going yo’?”Dasia asked.
Zaria took advantage of the lull and jumped to her feet. She pulled a straight razor and took a swing at Dasia’s face. The blade was so sharp she didn’t even know she was hit. A split second later a white line appeared from Dasia’s forehead, through her eye, ending on her cheek. The line turned red and began gushing blood.
Zaria wasn’t done yet. She turned and swung the super sharp blade at Aqua. Aqua reacted with a move Cameisha had taught her and kicked Zaria square in her chest. The blow sent her reeling backwards ten steps. The only problem was she was only seven steps from the edge of the roof.
Nobody moved until they heard the ‘thud’ of Zaria’s body reaching the ground below. Thinking quick, Cameisha acted immediately. It was like her grandfather said; panic and die or think and survive.
“Yo’ Dasia, you stay here! When po-po come, just say some niggas tried to rape y’all, y’all fought, you got cut and she got pushed,” she demanded. “You follow me?”
Dasia nodded holding her face with blood practically squirting between her fingers. Cameisha took all eleven flights of stairs two at a time with Aqua close on her heels. They rushed out the back of the building, around front and joined the growing crowd.
Cameisha could only shake her head at the mangled mess that she once considered a friend. She was bent and twisted from the fall, but her earrings were cute.
“Oh I’m so sorry!” Rosa wailed and embraced Meisha tightly. This reminded her that she was supposed to be upset and grieving. Appropriately, she began to weep.
Aqua looked confused, which was about right for Aqua. It took a second but she caught on and began crying as well. Dasia too put on an Oscar worthy performance. When they brought her down she was wailing and heaving as they led her away in an ambulance.
******
The tears that ran down Cameisha’s face as she attended the third funeral were as real as the pain in her chest. This was definitely one of the ‘downs’ of the ups and downs of life.
“I’m done y’all. I can’t do it anymore,” Cameisha whispered to her friends seated beside her in the funeral parlor. “I’m finna’ go to school in two weeks; it’s over.”
“What about us? You just gonna leave us?” Aqua asked sadly, as Dasia touched the bandage covering her stitches.
“I gotta go ma, but I’ll come get you one day. That’s my word,” she vowed, meaning every word of it. These two survivors were considered the weak ones, the followers, but they’d survived. They survived because they were loyal.
“Go on and do you chica.We gone be aight,” Dasia offered. She didn’t know how true it was but she didn’t want to hold her friend back.
“We can go down to Atlanta and sell weed!” Aqua cheered, way too loudly for a funeral.
“No. No more drugs for me,” Cameisha shot back. The words of her father came rushing into her head when she said it.
‘That’s the thing about hustling, it’s an addiction. Once you start you can never really stop. Take breaks maybe, try something legit but you’ll be back.’
“No daddy,” she replied to the inaudible warning causing her friends to look at her oddly. “I’m finna’ go to college, no more Dope Girl.”
The End.
Epilogue
“Shit!!!” Jackie screamed as an orgasm wracked her curvy black body. Her lover Joline just sucked a nut out of her swollen vagina.
“You like that?” Joline asked proudly, still glistening in the spray Jackie emitted when she came.
“Loved it daddy, I’m gonna miss that tongue,” she lied. Jackie wasn’t even a lesbian but thought it wise to hook up with the stud to do her little bid. It was a matter of survival. She was no punk though, in fact she was a killer. She had just murdered her exboy friend the notorious Ill-Will. She was the other half of the deadly stick up kids called Jack and Ill.
The D.A. refused to charge her on the murder, calling it self-defense. The dirty 380. She used to do it was a different story. Jackie copped out to two years on a gun charge, two years ago. It was time to go home.
Jackie vowed to never step foot into her projects again. It was full of murderous memories and domestic abuse. She was done. Having been accepted to numerous colleges and universities she had her pick of a dozen schools throughout the country.
It was fate and good writing skills by the author that she chose the same Atlanta College. Yep, same school Cameisha was going to.
Jackie from Jack and Ill meets the Dope Girl! I can’t wait for part two!
Sex and Violence:
The Killer and the Slut
Chapter 1
“Um, excuse me mommy. Can I talk to you?” Triste asked timidly. She knew her mother didn’t like being disturbed while she was either watching her soaps or smoking her blunts. She just so happened to be doing both at the present time.
“Shit, you already talkin’ to me, you stupid, yellow heifer! Fuck you want now!” Her mother barked viciously while exhaling a plume of putrid weed smoke in the eleven year olds face.