“Hey cuz, I was looking for you. I need a ride home,” Reshunda said.
I was a little slow on the uptake but I caught on quickly. She passed her keys to me as I stepped back so I wasn’t directly in Ebony’s limited line of vision. She was so busy trying to stand up straight while looking through her purse she almost fell over. The man holding onto her licked his lips every time she faltered, but we were about to ruin his fantasy.
“Huh?” Ebony looked startled. Her eyes were red and unfocused. She was going to have a hell of a hangover in the morning. Even though I disliked her, I didn’t like seeing her like this. She was a beautiful woman, but I didn’t see it at that moment.
“I need a ride home. The guy I was kicking it with turned out to be a jerk,” Reshunda said.
I backed up. She apparently didn’t want Ebony to know I was waiting with her and I was cool with that. She might’ve shown her ass if she knew I was hanging around.
“Where’s your friend?” she asked as her eyes rolled around in her head like marbles.
I smiled. She was wasted but not enough to forget about me.
“Uh, I think she left a while ago,” Reshunda lied.
Ebony was so drunk, I doubted if she would’ve seen me even if I was standing right in front of her. Her eyes were locked on Reshunda and she appeared to have forgotten the man who was still holding her upright.
“I don’t mean no harm, lady, but I told Miss—umm—” He pointed at Ebony, “I told her I would see her home,” the perv interjected as Reshunda tried to pry Ebony’s arm from his fingers.
He acted like he was about to pitch a fit, so I decided to stick around to make sure I wasn’t going to have to run his stupid ass over.
“It’s okay. Thanks for your help. I’ll make sure she gets home.” Reshunda continued to pry his fingers away, and she damn near fell in the middle of the sidewalk.
“But she’s supposed to come with me!” He poked himself in the chest, upsetting his own precarious equilibrium.
“You should go somewhere and sleep it off,” she admonished in a scolding tone.
“Is everything all right out here?” One of the bouncers stepped forward and helped Reshunda push Ebony in the car.
She slumped over in the backseat and slid out of view.
“Thanks,” Reshunda mumbled to the bouncer, as the drunk guy took the hint and stumbled away. She got in the car and locked the doors. Once she was safe, I followed them home. When we got there, she waved me on. I rolled down the window.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to eat but I’m glad we stuck around at the club.” She glanced over her shoulder at the car.
“Yeah, me too. Give me a second to park and I’ll help you get her in the house.”
“Child, please. Go on home, I’ll get the car in the morning.”
“What about Ebony? You gonna leave her in the car?” I asked as she started walking to her apartment.
“I’m not about to carry that bitch, she’ll be all right.”
I tried not to laugh but it was funny. Together, we might’ve been able to get Ebony’s dead weight up a flight of stairs, but it would have been a struggle.
If she wasn’t going to sweat it, neither was I. “All right then. Call me later, but don’t forget I’m going to visit my mother and see if I can get a lawyer. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Stop by when you get back. I ain’t going anywhere.”
I shook my head as I drove. Even though Reshunda and I were technically grown, we still needed guidance. We were raising ourselves and it made me feel sad.
“You shouldn’t have come back so soon. I don’t want you to keep seeing me this way.” My mother had another black eye.
I hired a lawyer and couldn’t wait to tell her, so I rushed over to the jail but the news would have to wait. “What happened to your eye?” I demanded through the phone. Blood rushed to my head and the room began to sway before my eyes. I grabbed the counter and forced myself to sit down.
“It was a slight disagreement. Don’t worry about it,” my mother said, shrugging it off.
“Disagreement? Are you fucking kidding me? Disagreements do not result in black eyes!” If I wasn’t motivated to get my mother out of jail before, I was now. This was totally unacceptable and if she thought for one minute that I was going to sit around and let this continue she was out her rabbit-ass mind.
“Hey—don’t forget who you’re talking to.” Her look held a more intensified meaning. In other words, it meant, I may be locked up now, but I will tear that ass up the second I get out of here—so, shut it down.
“Did you have the doctor look at it?”
She laughed at me. “No, sweetheart, it doesn’t work like that in here. As long as I’m not bleeding or infecting others, they don’t give a shit. I believe they like it when we fight; gives them some entertainment.”
“That’s fucked up.” The words slipped out my mouth. I wanted her out of there so badly, I could taste it.
“I’m not going to tell you again to watch your mouth, young lady.”
I wasn’t trying to disrespect my mother, I was just mad. “I’m sorry.”
“Sweetie, you can’t keep coming here. It tears me up inside and it’s not fair to you.”
“Mom, it’s tearing me up too, but I can’t just not come.” I pleaded with my eyes. I didn’t know what I would’ve done if she forbid me to come back.
“Okay, but not so often. I just need a few dollars on my books and I’ll be okay.”
“You have money on your books. You should get it by Tuesday and I hired an attorney.” I could tell she was stunned by the look on her face but her eyes quickly narrowed.
“How did you . . .” If she wanted to know more, she didn’t finish asking.
I swallowed a huge lump in my throat because I didn’t know what I would say if she pressed the issue. We’d always had an open relationship so it would’ve been difficult to keep the truth from her.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, lowering her eyes but not before I saw her pain.
“I talked to Reshunda last night. She remembered overhearing a conversation her mother had with her aunt. She said her mother was arguing with her about some man she was messing around with. Do you know who she might have been talking about?” I watched my mother’s facial expressions as they changed from sadness, anger, and finally fear.
“Why? Has anybody been around the house? I’ll kill that motherfucker if he comes anywhere near you.”
The hairs on my arm stood up and I leaned forward in my chair. “No. Who is ‘he’ and why would ‘he’ come around me?”
Her face relaxed when the guard came over near her chair. I sat back and tried to act calmer than I felt. The guard walked away.
“He’s a local hustler, turned out to be a real piece of shit. His name is Trent.” She looked around again and this time she lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “The night he shot Candace and Kym he said if he didn’t get his shit back he would kill their families. I think he would have shot me too if he knew I was hiding in back of the room. Honey, I promise to tell my lawyer everything when I get to see one.”
I nodded my head. “But I don’t understand why Ms. Kym would get involved with a buster in the first place if he were such a scumbag?”
“Because I introduced them. She said she wanted to make some extra money and so did I. Since you and Reshunda were graduating from high school, we both wanted to do something nice for y’all.” She started crying and it nearly broke my heart to find out all this trouble was because of us.
“Mom, why would you do such a thing? You know me; I’m not high maintenance. I would’ve been happy with a card and a slice of cake.”
“I know, sweetie, but a woman’s daughter only graduates from high school once. I wanted to make it special for you. Besides, it was a one time thing for me. Once I collected my money, I was done, but Candace and Kym, well . . .” She shook her head without saying any more.
“Please stop
crying, Mom, there’s nothing you can do about it now.” Although I wanted her to quit crying, I needed to hear the rest of the story. I was curious as to where my mother met such an unsavory character, but I wasn’t going to press her on it just yet.
“Candace was screwing this guy in New York. Kym said he was paying the bills but Kym, I found out, was messing around with Trent.” She paused, peering at me through lowered lashes.
I impatiently waved her on.
“She told me it was Candace’s idea to skim a little off the top before they delivered the product to Trent. Candace would bring the drugs in and they would take a little and cut what was left with baking soda and some other shit; I forget what else they used.”
“Somebody has been watching too much TV,” I mumbled. My mind was racing one hundred miles a minute. I was trying to figure out how my mother was connected in all this because it wasn’t making any sense. A vital part was missing from her story.
“What did you say?” my mother asked, jolting me back into the conversation.
“Uh, nothing,” I replied. I gave her an innocent smile that only a mother would believe.
She smiled back at me, but only for a moment. “I’m guessing that Trent and Candace’s friend got to talking and grew suspicious of them.” She hunched her shoulders.
“But how did you know where to find them?”
“Kym’s phone must have dialed mine by accident. She normally met with Trent on the third Wednesday of each month. When I heard her voice, she sounded scared and when she said something about a gun, I got in the car and took a chance they’d met in their regular place.”
“Where was that?”
“The Cheetah Club in midtown,” I could feel the color drain from my face.
“Mom, they weren’t killed there.”
“I know, but that’s where they met each month.”
“The strip club?” I had to be sure she wasn’t mistaken, but somehow I knew she wasn’t. This was too much of a coincidence to ignore.
“Don’t go getting all excited and shit, they didn’t go there to dance. Candace and Kym never saw anyone other than Trent when they went to the club.”
I got this eerie feeling in the pit of my stomach. Instead of answering the questions, my mother only confused me more.
“How did you know Trent?”
Her eyes darted around the room and she had this pained expression on her face. She didn’t answer right away, which confirmed my fears that I wouldn’t like what she would say. I held my breath, anticipating the worst.
“Honey . . .”
“Oh shit.” Bad news almost always was predicated with a sweet nothing in front of it.
“I didn’t want you to find out. . . .”
A tiny voice in the back of my mind said put the phone down and walk away, but my stupid ass hung on. I felt like I was hyperventilating but I didn’t relinquish my death grip I had on the phone.
“We used to date before I married your stepfather,” she said.
I let loose some of air I had held captive in my lungs. This news wasn’t so bad—it was almost a decade ago.
She began to cry again but I was so relieved it wasn’t any bad news I hardly noticed.
If she didn’t utter another word, I would be good. I envisioned her saying some dumb shit that would change the way I felt about her.
“He’s your real father . . .”
Her words didn’t immediately infiltrate my brain, but when they did I was filled with murderous rage. For at least a minute, I couldn’t say anything. Everything and nothing made sense. I felt like I was reading a bad book, only this book wasn’t fiction, it was my life. My mother told me my father was dead and I never questioned it so, I didn’t spend my life wishing for something I couldn’t have. I never wondered what it would’ve been like to have a dad.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve been lying to me my entire life?”
“Time, Roberts.”
I looked helplessly from my mother to the guard who had stepped into the room to take my mother back to her cell.
“No, please, I need more time.”
My mother leaped from her chair and placed her hands behind her back. The guard slapped the handcuffs on her wrists and led her out of the room. I waited for her to say something to me, but instead she kept her eyes averted and head down, refusing to look at me. If I could’ve gone through the plate of glass separating us, I would’ve punched her in her other eye. I sat in the chair, stunned and confused. There was more to the story, but she was the only one left standing to tell the tale. Part of me didn’t want to know, but the other part knew I had to in order to move on.
Chapter Sixteen
EBONY QUEEN
Scared, I woke up cold and alone in the backseat of a car. I had no idea where I was and how I got there. I’d heard about blackouts before but had never experienced one.
“Oh shit,” I whispered. My imagination got the best of me as I looked around the strange car, trying to find a weapon.
“Fuck!” I couldn’t see anything on the dark floor. My hands were free and I intended to use them if anyone even thought about touching me. I finally got up the nerve to peek out the window after a few seconds to see where I was. I couldn’t believe it when I saw my own house.
“Asshole.” This shit would have been hysterical if I hadn’t been so afraid moments before. I almost crapped in my pants and the whole time all I needed to do was go in the damn house. Feeling stupid, I chuckled, but it was short-lived because I didn’t remember driving home. That was not good, but at least I’d made it safely. You made it, but what the fuck are you doing in the backseat? Why the hell didn’t you carry your dumb ass into the house? I shivered. The temperature had dropped since I had left home and I couldn’t wait to get inside to get warm.
I felt like shit when I got out of the car. My neck was stiff, my head felt like a tiny man was stomping around, and I had to pee. I found my purse on the front seat and started looking for my keys. I had to go to the bathroom really bad and my hands were shaking from the cold. I was at the front door when I stopped dead in my tracks. I remembered what started my out-of-control drinking.
“Oh hell no!” I shook my head side to side, trying to rid my mind of the image of Valencia’s face as she walked around the main room of the club. Bile rose in my mouth and I made a feeble attempt to stop it from spilling out, but was only partially successful. It tasted bad coming up but it was worse going back down. I stumbled back to my car to sit down. Valencia’s face flashed before my eyes, filling me with rage. Cheetah’s was an exclusive club, so how the hell had she managed to get her stank ass up in there? This had to be some kind of mistake. I had to be dreaming, or on some other shit, but I couldn’t even think about going to bed until I had some answers. I forgot all about going to the bathroom.
“Where the fuck are my keys?” I emptied the contents of my purse on the front seat of the car, but my keys were not there. I searched the floor but they were not there either. “Bitch, you had to have them to get home!” After a few more fruitless seconds, I gave up the search and took the extra key from my glove compartment.
“I knew this bitch would come in handy.” I smiled and started the car. With any luck, Trent would still be at the club because he had some explaining to do. I was still tipsy, but considering the circumstances, I thought I drove pretty good. Trying to restore missing pieces of memory took up most of my concentration but I managed to get to the club without hitting anything. It was a short drive and by the time I got there I had almost convinced myself I’d been having a nightmare. “Get a grip, bitch. There is no way in hell the club would hire Valencia to dance. There’s no fucking way. Why the fuck am I tripping?” I stumbled out of the car, fairly certain that I’d made the whole thing up.
Inside the club, the crowd had thinned to a more lewd and cruel type of atmosphere than I’d become accustomed to. Money spent, these patrons were looking for a freebie or someone to keep them warm, but I didn’t
care because I wasn’t there to make money. I was looking for Trent. Although my mind was relatively sober, my body didn’t get the memo. I staggered through the club searching for the back door. If Trent was still around, I knew he’d be in the back room playing cards with his buddies. He used the guise of the club to run a high-stakes poker game. I let out a sigh of relief when I opened the heavy oak door and saw him immersed in heavy plumes of cigar smoke. He looked up, obviously annoyed by the intrusion, but his friends seemed to be amused.
“You treating us to entertainment tonight, Trent?” they jeered.
“Negroes please, I can’t even afford her ass, so I know you can’t.” Trent joked but I didn’t think his remark was funny. I would’ve cussed his monkey ass out if he wasn’t my employer. I might have been drunk but I wasn’t stupid.
“Ebony, this room is off limits to the help.” If he were trying to be demeaning, it didn’t work. Although his voice was stern, I thought he was frontin’ for his boys. I wasn’t trying to piss him off, I was just trying to get some answers.
“I’m so sorry, Trent, but I really needed to speak with you. The girls outside told me I would find you in here.” I immediately switched my temperament from a mad bitch to a subservient temptress, honey dripping from my words and then I burped like the corna’ drunk. Shit. My face burned with embarrassment. However, my shame quickly turned to laughter. Part of me was humiliated, but the other part of me, thought that shit was the funniest thing I’d ever done. “Wow, did you hear that shit?” I giggled uncontrollably.
“You’re drunk, Ebony.” Trent pushed back his chair and rushed toward me.
He surprised me with his swiftness. I stepped back quickly and lost my footing. My arms windmilled as I tried to keep from falling. Laughing did not help but I couldn’t help it.
Trent roughly grabbed me, his boys caterwauling behind him. He dragged me out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He swept me up in his arms and he pushed open another door that I’d never noticed before. He carried me down to the basement.
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