by Cash
I loved my seeds, cared for Inez deeply, and if I overlooked my anger, I loved my Ma Dukes. But I wasn’t ever returning to Atlanta unless it was to get the rest of my stash or to murk Rich Kid if he ever resurfaced. Maybe one day Inez and Tamia could slip away and come to me, but even that would be too risky. I knew for sure I wouldn’t see my son again, because I most definitely couldn’t contact Shan. She’d probably pointed the cops in our direction when she was nowhere to be found.
It was a bitter pill for me to swallow, having to accept I’d never get to see Lil’ T and Tamia again. The alternative was going back to see them and ending up in prison forever, which was no alternative at all.
With a little help from convenient store attendants in Las Vegas, I found the address Juanita had written on a sheet of blue stationary. I didn’t have a phone number for her, so I couldn’t call and let her know to be expecting me. More than a year had passed since I’d seen Juanita. She could’ve moved again, or had a man living with her. Or she might’ve heard I was wanted, and might slam the door in my face. If either was the case I’d hop back on my bike and head on to some small city in California.
No.
A large city, where I could get lost in the crowd. Mafuckaz in small places were nosy and suspicious, especially of a young nigga wearing a leather eye-patch.
I pulled up in front of the apartment that matched the address on the stationary paper, parked the bike and took off my helmet and the eye patch. I left the seat compartment locked. The backpack on my back. I knocked on the door.
No answer.
The evening sun beamed on the back of my neck.
Then, “Who’s there?” The west coast hadn’t changed that sweet sounding voice.
“Youngblood.”
“Who?”
“Youngblood,” I repeated.
The door swung open. A look of surprise. A blink. Like she was making sure it wasn’t a dream. A huge and beautiful smile. She was wearing the diamond-crusted inter-locking hearts pin I’d given her more than a year ago. No other jewelry, unless I counted the hand-woven plastic-string necklace and pendant that hung around her neck. The pendant caught my eye because it looked like a religious symbol: an eight-point star with a number seven in the middle.
In an instance I thought: Has shawdy turned into a religious nut? Is that why she moved away? To follow the Lord? Shit! God already stole Poochie from a nigga.
Juanita’s arms went around me. “Hi, baby! What are you doing way out here?” She asked but was mostly surprised.
“Am I still welcomed?”
“Of course you are!” Finally releasing me from her feminine bear hug. “Oh, excuse my manners. Please come in! I’m so excited to see you.”
The inside of the apartment was much cooler than the sweltering heat at my back. I followed Juanita into a small living room where three men and a gorgeous dark skinned shawdy sat on the floor, on pillows, in a circle. An unoccupied pillow must’ve been where Juanita had been sitting before I interrupted their little party. I quickly scanned the dudes, wondering which was Juanita’s boyfriend. The bitch was wearing the inter-locking hearts pin I’d given to her to remember a nigga, while entertaining her nigga and some friends.
That’s a bitch for you!
“Look, I’ll stop by later,” I said at her heels. “I didn’t know you had company.” I felt a twinge of jealously but mostly I didn’t want her friends to see my face and remember it if my mug popped up on America’s Most Wanted. I held my head down as much as possible without looking retarded.
“No, no, no, you better not dare leave!” Juanita took my hand in hers. “These are my people.” She turned to the group who had all stood up: “Pardon self. This is a close friend of mine from Atlanta.”
I cringed.
“His name is—”
“Popeye!” I cut her off, squeezing her hand as a signal to let the lie stand.
She introduced a tall, skinny, real dark dude as Wise Professor. He looked to be forty years old. A medium-height, brown-skin nigga with a bald head was named Intelligent Knowledge Allah. That’s how she introduced him.
“Just call me Intelligent,” dude said, and dapped hands with me.
The third dude was, “Born Conscious Soldier,” Juanita said.
I dapped dude’s hand, too, wondering what type of good-good these fools were on.
Do all people in Vegas name their kids crazy shit like this?
I braced myself for the chocolate honey’s name.
“And this is Asia.” Cool. That was a simple enough name.
“Pleased to meet you.” Her voice was strong, but pleasant. Her handshake firm, but feminine. She reminded me of Lauren Hill who used to be with the Fugees.
The dude, Wise Professor, said to Juanita: “Queen Africa, we’ll continue building next week.”
“Okay. At Intelligent’s place, right?”
“Right,” he confirmed.
I remained in the small living room while Juanita, Queen Africa, walked her company to the door.
From the living room I heard: “Peace.”
“See you in school Wednesday. Peace.”
“Peace, God.”
“Peace, Earth.”
I was sitting on the couch when Juanita returned to the living room.
“So, what brings you all the way to Nevada?” She stacked the floor pillows neatly in a corner. I waited until she was done, and came and sat next to me, before I responded.
I told her that I’d gotten into some serious trouble and had to leave Atlanta, for good. For her own good, in case I was ever arrested, I didn’t tell her what I’d done. I did let her know that I was wanted by police and told her not to be surprised if one day she saw pictures of me on television. I lied, telling her that I wasn’t guilty of the crimes I was wanted for, but I had no way to prove my innocence.
“If you want me to leave, I will.” I tried to read her eyes.
Could she be trusted not to call 911 the minute I turned my back? Was she on some religious trip, a devout Muslim or something, that would demand that she turn me in? What did the eight-point star hanging from the string around her neck mean? What did it mean that, along with that strange necklace, the diamond pin I’d given her were the only pieces of jewelry Juanita wore? And the diamond-crusted inter-locking hearts were pinned to the front of a UNLV T-shirt, right above her heart. I had to believe that it was more than something worn as an accessory. Like the necklace, it had to stand for something to her.
Fuck it!
If Juanita sold me out to the po-po I had two fully-loaded nine-millimeters with two fully-loaded extra clips. My peeps wouldn’t be the only mafuckaz dressed in black, crying over a grave!
“Are you hungry?” asked Juanita.
“Nah, I’m cool.”
“Would you like a soda?” she offered. “That’s all I have to drink. I don’t drink alcoholic beverages. Oh, I have bottled water.”
I declined.
“So, you’re never going back to Atlanta?”
“Not for a long time. If I do go back, it’ll just be to get the money I left there.”
“Am I to assume you plan on staying with me? Or is this just a brief stop before you head elsewhere?”
“I was kinda hoping I was welcomed here, with you,” I said.
“You are.” Her response was quick. Sincere. She unconsciously fingered the pin above her left breast. Or maybe she did it consciously.
“But, I don’t want to stay here in this apartment,” I clarified.
Juanita let out a small laugh. “Oh, you don’t like my little place, huh? I forgot, you’re used to much more luxury.”
“It ain’t that, shawdy. I just don’t wanna take a chance on living in an apartment so close to neighbors who may see my picture on TV and recognize me.”
“Is it really that bad, whatever the reason you had to leave Atlanta?” asked Juanita.
I just nodded.
That night Juanita slept in her bedroom, the only one in
the small apartment. I slept fitfully on the couch; both loaded gats under the pillow Juanita had given me off her bed. I dreamt of Inez, my children, and all that I’d left behind in ATL.
I gave Juanita twenty-five hundred to give to the apartment manager to legally let her out of the lease agreement she’d recently renewed. We moved into a newly-built tract house in East Las Vegas, in a middle-class neighborhood, nothing fancy that would draw attention to a young couple. The house was damn near identical to every other one on the street that lead to the cul-de-sac where ours was located.
There were only five houses on the cul-de-sac. Juanita said the four other houses were owned by middle-aged or old couples. Which was good and bad. The differences in our ages would keep our neighbors from trying to get too friendly with us. On the other hand, old people were nosy and loved cop shows. I’d wear the eye patch and a cap whenever leaving the house, and never be outside in the yard or driveway long enough for the old mafuckaz to get a good look at me.
As for the friends who’d been at Juanita’s apartment when I first arrived there, Juanita explained that her “people” were “gods,” and Asia was Conscious Soldier’s “Earth,” and even if any of them ever did see my picture on TV, they would never turn me in to the “devils” and make me face the white man’s justice.
“Which is really injustice,” she said. “Because the court system is ruled by the white man and his laws, designed to function as another form of genocide.”
“Huh?” I was lost.
I had been locked up with some Five-Percenters during the five-year bid I served, but I never had interest in it.
Juanita explained that she was a Five-Percenter and what it meant. Islam was her way of life, not a religion or a belief. She was not a Muslim, definitely not a Christian, and not an atheist.
“I don’t believe in God, not the mystery creation the white man inflicts upon us. In fact, I don’t believe in anything. I either know it or I don’t know it,” she explained. “And the only god I know is the black man.”
She told me that Wise Professor was her enlightener, and that he and the others I’d met were also Five Percenters. They’d been “building” together the night I had shown up at her door.
“Building what, shawdy?” I asked. And felt foolish when she explained what she’d meant by “building.”
“I’m not going to trip on you calling me shawdy.” she said, “‘Cause I know you’re not conscious. But hopefully one day you’ll become conscious and see me and other black women for the Earths we are. Though I’ll be the first to admit that most of us don’t know our true essence ourselves.”
I was hearing Juanita, but I wasn’t really feeling what she was stressing. It sounded like she was on some Queen Latifah or Sister Souljah shit—two bitches that didn’t seem to wanna accept that a nigga was the couch; the female was the rug, always beneath us. Never equal or on top. Not to a real nigga!
It was time to put the dick in Juanita and make her bow down before this “Queen” shit Wise Professor was teaching got embedded in her head. I’d make her get on her knees and give a nigga some brains, my way of letting her know she’ll always be looking up to me! It wasn’t that I wasn’t feeling Juanita; she was still sweet and attentive to me. I just needed to lay down the law. I couldn’t live with “Queen Latifah” the rest of my life.
I’d been in Las Vegas four weeks, had spent every night in the same house with Juanita, some nights in the same bed, yet I hadn’t sexed her since my arrival. I’d tried two or three times, but Juanita had rebuffed a nigga, saying she wanted me to be certain that it was more than just sex I wanted, and that she wasn’t gon’ come home from school one day and find me gone.
“If it ever goes down like that,” I’d assured her, “it’ll be because po-po was hot on my ass.”
Sitting around the house all day long, doing nothing but watching television and playing video games, was hard for a nigga like me to get used to. I was used to pushing fly whips and gettin’ at bitches all day. Now I was living like a hermit or an old man. I’d given Juanita the money to go out and buy me mad shit to keep me entertained in the house while she was at school or somewhere “building with her people.” Still I was bored to death. I had no transportation while Juanita was gone. But that was by design. If I never drove a car, I didn’t have to worry about being pulled over for a traffic violation and being detained and maybe fingerprinted because of the fake ID I carried.
I’d rode the Ninja to a mostly Mexican section of West Las Vegas, parked it, left it with the keys in the ignition, got in the Cressida with Juanita and forgot about the bike. It was probably in Tijuana by now.
Some days the crazy urge to go out and buy a fly whip, mad bling and mad gear, and cruise the West Vegas hoods for some fine Mexican cha cha, was almost overwhelming. The casinos and bright lights of the Vegas strip were also tempting. Surely I could blend in with the crowd on the strip. Before I had come out to Las Vegas, I thought the whole city was casinos, hotels, and other tourist spots. I knew UNLV was in Vegas, too, but I never thought there were regular neighborhoods like in any other city. Grocery stores, hospitals, fast food restaurants, the whole nine. I wanted to experience the whole city, especially the casinos and the Mexican as well as the Mexican/black bitches—the cha cha!
A fly whip and crazy jewels would make it all easily accessible. What good was having crazy, stupid loot if I couldn’t go out and enjoy it? That’s what tugged at me when I was bored, but my better senses kept me from doing some stupid shit that might get me popped and extradited back to the ATL to face “the devil’s injustice,” as Juanita would say.
Juanita cooked broiled lobster and shrimp, broccoli, corn on the cob, and sour dough bread for dinner. She never ate anything fried, but would fry chicken and other meats for me if I asked her. Tonight’s meal was a’ight, though. She had some type of bottled water with her meal. I had Old English with mine.
After dinner she cleaned the dishes, and we moved into the den where Juanita usually studied for two hours, as was her routine. I put on my headphones, plugged them into the big flat screen as not to disturb her, and watched Monday Night Football. I’d usually put on headphones and listen to music, read a magazine or the newspaper while she studied, unless a game was on I wanted to see. I’d asked her if being in the den while she was studying bothered her.
“Not at all,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Matter of fact, I concentrate better just having you in the room with me.”
Juanita closed the thick textbook, sat it on the end table and took off her sporty reading glasses. She folded her legs up-under her Indian style and watched me watch the game. She had to be watching me and not the game, ‘cause every time I looked at her she was looking at me.
“Whud up?”
“Nothing. I just like looking at you.” She said smiling.
“You trippin’,” I said.
“You trippin’,” Juanita said, imitating my voice.
“Oh, you’re finished studying; now you wanna play?” I tossed a pillow at her. When she caught it, I tackled her like a linebacker.
“Okay! Okay!” she huffed when I let her up. “Now it’s on!” She tossed me the pillow. “You run the ball. C’mon!”
I went into my running back role, but let Juanita tackle me to the floor.
“Who’s the baddest?” she taunted on top of me.
“I am,” I said.
She stood up and came crashing down on me with an elbow, WWF style.
“Owww!” I yelped. “You the baddest!” I conceded.
She moved to let me up but I held onto her and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were as soft as usual, and receptive. Soon our tongues were deliciously tangled. My hands caressed her back, went under her T-shirt and unsnapped her bra. Her breasts were full like I remembered them. I felt her quiver. I lifted her shirt and covered a nipple with my lips. I sucked it gently. Her hands were on the back of my head, encouraging me to continue. I flicked the nipple with my tongue. She pan
ted. I felt her body heating up. My hands went down her body and underneath the elastic of her shorts, and cupped her butt. With my middle finger I felt her wetness. Lying on top of me she had to feel my hardness pressing between her legs.
“I wanna make love to you,” I whispered in her ear.
“Why?” she whispered back. “Tell me why you want me.”
Shit! What kind of question was that? Couldn’t she feel that I was rock hard? That was why I wanted her!
Juanita must’ve sensed that I was struggling to verbalize an answer, but what nigga could think with a hard dick? She gave me a quick kiss on the lips then got up and fixed her clothes properly, except for her bra, which she took off without removing her T-shirt, a magic trick I could never figure out how women did it. They had to have been taught it, ‘cause every one of ‘em could do it.
She handed me a notebook tablet and a pen. “I want to make love to you, too,” Juanita said, “I haven’t slept with anyone since we were together more than two years ago.”
“You want me to believe that?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Believe what you like. The truth remains the truth regardless whether you know it or not. Anyway, hush.” She put her finger to my lips. “We’ll make it meaningful and fun,” continued Juanita. “I’m going to go bathe. While I’m away getting fresh and perfumed, you write down why you want to make love to me. No lies just to make me feel good. I don’t need that. Then I’ll write down why I want to make love to you, while you bathe and get cologned. Then we can read what each other wrote before we make love.”
Her lips pressed against mine. “No lies or games.” Her finger jabbed the air in front of my face, but a pretty smile accompanied the warning.
Off to bathe she went.
I stared at the blank paper until I heard Jill Scott’s “Do You Remember Me?” playing on the system that we’d had wired to play from wall speakers in every room throughout the house. Jaunita must’ve turned it on from the bedroom. I was feeling Jill Scott, so I turned off the football game and began to write…