Playing Dirty

by Kiki Swinson

  I had to admit that I was tired as hell when I arrived in Norfolk, so I stopped by the Marriott hotel downtown near Waterside Drive to get some rest. It was around three in the afternoon, so I was able to wear my sunshades in front of the hotel clerk without looking awkward. After I paid for my room with cash, I headed up to the fifth floor to unwind. I started to call my cousin Carmine right after I unpacked, but then decided to wait until I got me a nap.

  When I woke up, it was a little after seven, so I got up from the bed and decided to make the call to my family. The only number I had was the number to my father’s mother house. My grandmother had had that number for as long as I could remember, and it had never been disconnected. So I figured that when I called her I could get Carmine’s number and make some arrangements to hook up.

  The phone rang about four times before someone picked it up. I wasn’t too familiar with the woman’s voice, so I said hello and asked to speak with my grandmother.

  “Can I ask who’s calling?” the woman asked.

  “This is her grandaughter, Yoshi,” I replied.

  “Wait a minute. Now I know this ain’t my cousin Yoshi from New York.”

  “Yes…is this Carmine?”

  “Oh my God! I can’t believe it’s you.”

  “How you been?”

  “I’ve been doing okay. What about yourself?”

  “Nothing has changed. I’m still a lawyer, trying to make a name for myself.”

  “Wow! When we were kids I remember how we used to talk about when we grew up that we were going to be lawyers. But you were the only one who stuck with it. Damn, that’s so good.”

  “Trust me, Carmine, life as an attorney isn’t a bowl of fucking cherries. Girl, you’ve got to constantly stay on the grind and stay away from the psycho-ass clients. They will try to kill you,” I replied, reflecting on the shit I went through back in Miami with Haitian drug lord Sheldon Chisholm. He was part of the reason I was on the run from the law.

  “Ahh, it can’t be that bad. Shit, I would love to have your life any day.”

  “You can’t be doing that bad.”

  “Yoshi, I am over thirty and working as a fucking waitress at the I-Hop on 21st Street. I live with Grandma and I don’t have a car. Now tell me I’m not in a fucked-up situation?”

  I thought about it and the answer was clear. She was in a fucked-up situation. Not as fucked-up as mine, but she was on my tail. I never would have pictured Carmine’s life like this. Back when we were kids, she was always the smarter one. She was prettier, too. All the boys wanted to be her boyfriend before they ever considered looking at me. There was no doubt that I was an attractive little girl growing up, but the boys couldn’t get over my chinky eyes and the fact that I was boney as hell. Those little neighborhood bastards chose Carmine over me every single time because of her almond-shaped eyes and big butt. I dealt with their bullshit the entire time I was in Virginia visiting my dad. I wondered where those boys are now? Probably in jail on drug charges or deployed over in Iraq. Whatever their status was right now, it sure wasn’t helping Carmine out, because the way she just laid out everything, shit was really messed up for her. I just hoped she didn’t try to come at me with her hand out because I had only enough money to last me until I could make my next power move. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’d help her as much as I could, but I would not purchase her a car. Instead of making any comments about her situation, I just told her that she was going to be alright.

  “Easy for you to say. You’re the big-time lawyer.”

  I sighed heavily. “That’s what you think.”

  “So what’s going on? Last time I heard, you moved on down to Florida.”

  “Yes, that was true. But I just took some time off and now I’m not too far from you.”

  “What do you mean, you’re not too far from me? Where are you?” Carmine got excited.

  “I’m in Norfolk at the downtown Marriott.”

  “Oh my God! Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I’m serious. So let’s get together in about another hour so we can continue to catch up.”

  “Are you driving?”

  “Yes, I have a rental.”

  “Okay, well, you can come by the house and pick me up. That way you can see Grandma and the rest of the family.”

  “Does Grandma still live in the same house from when we were kids?”

  “Yep, she sure does. Ain’t nothing changed but our ages.”

  The thought of my grandmother still living in that old house made me cringe. I honestly couldn’t imagine anyone living in a house for as long as she has. I thought back to when I used to visit her and how the floor used to crackle because the hardwood flooring was old and had never been maintained. I also remembered her having wooden paneling on her walls, space heaters in every room of the house during the winter season, and one big air conditioner in the living room during the summer months. Everybody used to pile up in that small-ass room when it was hot. That was the only way to stay cool. I just hoped conditions for them had gotten a little bit better.

  After I told Carmine to get ready and that I would be out there to get her in about an hour, she said okay and then we hung up. It took me only thirty minutes to hop in the shower and get dressed. Even though I was a fugitive, I didn’t need to look sloppy, so I slid on a pair of dark blue Chip & Pepper jeans, a black wool Ellen Tracy turtleneck sweater, and a black pair of Fendi riding boots. It was kind of nippy outside, so I also threw on a wool blazer with patches on the elbow. Right before I left La La’s estate in South America, I had gotten some hair extensions put in my hair, so I was back to my normal-looking self. I planned to have Carmine point me in the direction of a good hair stylist because I was overdue for a full makeover.

  The Reunion I Will Never Forget

  The distance from the hotel to my grandmother’s house was a total of seven miles. From the looks of it, a lot of things had indeed changed since I last visited. I saw that a lot of new high-rise developments had gone up while a lot of the low-income housing projects were torn down. I figured that was a good thing. But while I was driving down Church Street toward Huntersville where my family grew up, I noticed that some of the houses were condemned. The farther I drove into the neighborhood, the more ravaged it became. To make matters worse, there were at least five bums and drug addicts on each corner. The neighborhood small-time drug pushers weren’t too far from them, so there was no question that there were hand-to-hand deals in the works.

  I wanted so badly to turn around and go back the way I’d come, but I figured that being amongst my people would probably be the only way I could stay clear of the police. No one around here looked like they’d watched the news in a very long time, so they wouldn’t recognize me. Continuing my journey to my grandmother’s house, I drove about two more blocks before pulling up in front of her domain. The house was exactly how I remembered it, except the vinyl siding was gray instead of white and the front porch was packed with living-room furniture instead of your normal outdoor furniture. The old cloth fabric sofa and love seat were probably filled with mold and mildew from the rain and outside moisture. I knew for sure that I wouldn’t be sitting on that godforsaking-looking thing. I was going to keep my visits here to a minimum and carry my ass back to my hotel.

  As soon as I got out of the truck and closed the door behind me, the front door to the house opened and Carmine walked out onto the porch. “Oh my God! I can’t believe it’s you.” She smiled and raced toward me.

  We embraced each other, then I pulled back from her so I could get a good look at her. I wasn’t too pleased with how Carmine was looking. She wasn’t pretty like she used to be. She used to have beautiful skin and long and healthy hair. Her figure was the same, but somehow or another she looked like she was at least ten years older than me. She had bags under her eyes that looked like she needed surgery to get rid of them. And her clothes were a mess. She was wearing an old, red, hideous Enyce velour sweat suit with lint balls covering the enti
re jacket. The Reebok classic sneakers she had on looked a little better than the sweat suit, but not by much. Her hair was combed back into a ponytail, but the edges near her scalp sent a clear message that she needed a relaxer a.s.a.p. I wanted to be the one to tell her, but it was too early in the game for me to be giving her advice without her taking it personal. I wouldn’t want us to have a falling out within the first five minutes of us reuniting. That wouldn’t be appropriate at all. So, I smiled and said, “I can’t believe it’s you either.”

  “You look so good,” she said as she circled around me to check me out.

  I smiled. “Thanks,” I said, then I threw my Prada handbag over my shoulder as if to say, let’s proceed into the house, please. Apparently she caught on to the hint, because not even a second later she grabbed my arm and told me to come on in the house. We treaded over the weak wooden planks that were there to support the foundation of the porch and then went inside the house. Carmine walked ahead of me and led me straight to the back room of the house, which was where everyone hung out. It was like the meeting room for the family.

  My grandmother was sitting in a recliner facing the television when I walked into the room. I would bet every dime I had stashed away that she was seventy-two years old, but she looked like she was every bit of fifty-five to sixty. She hadn’t aged one bit from the last time I saw her. She kind of reminded me of Martin Lawrence’s Big Mama character from the movie Big Mama’s House. When she saw me, she smiled and said, “I see you’re not a little girl anymore. Come on over and give me a hug.”

  I leaned over and hugged her. “How have you been?” I asked her after I stood back up.

  “I’ve been doing fine. Now take a seat,” she instructed me, pointing to the sofa next to her.

  I sat on the sofa and crossed my legs while Carmine took a seat next to me. “I see you haven’t changed anything around here,” I commented, looking around the room.

  “When you got family living with you, tearing your mess down, how can you keep everything looking like the first day you bought it?” she replied with a disgusted expression. “I’ve been trying to keep all my kids from coming back in my home for years, but they don’t listen. They all get out there in those streets and get on those drugs and forget all about their bills. When they get kicked out of their houses, where do you think they come? Here. And their trifling tails don’t ever offer me any money. And on top of that, they come up here and steal me blind.”

  “Wow! Are you kidding me?” I asked.

  “Honey, Grandma Hattie don’t do no lying.”

  “So, who’s staying here with you besides Carmine?”

  “Carmine’s mama Sandra and her little sister Rachael.”

  “How long have they been living here?” I asked.

  “For about six months now, but before they moved back in, your Uncle Reginald was sleeping on that sofa you’re sitting on for three years. I just put his butt out a couple of weeks ago because I caught him trying to steal my social security check from out my pocketbook.”

  “Oh my God! That’s awful.”

  “Child, you ain’t seen nothing. Be around here longer than a week and you gon’ see what Grandma Hattie be going through.”

  “You need a vacation.”

  “I sure do, but I can’t go nowhere and leave my house. Shoot, I’d probably mess around and come back and my house will be burned down to the ground. Or it’ll be empty from Sandra trying to sell everything out of here.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “To support her drug habit. What else?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Grandma done already told you that she don’t do no lying,” Carmined blurted out.

  “What does she get high off of?”

  “She’s on that heroin stuff. And that mess got her looking really bad, too.”

  “I am sorry to hear that.”

  “Honey, all we can do is pray for her because she ain’t gon’ stop running them streets until something powerful stops her in her tracks.”

  I really didn’t know what else to say about that situation with Carmine’s mother. I mean, who was I to pass judgment? I was a recovering cokehead. Thankfully, I hadn’t gotten as bad as my aunt Sandra, but the fact that I used drugs still lingered in my head. So, my best bet was to leave that subject alone.

  I was about to extend a dinner invitation to Carmine and Grandma Hattie when the back door burst wide open and the doorknob tore a hole into the wall it smashed into. That shit scared the hell out of me. I thought the police were busting in and I was going to be handcuffed and hauled downtown to Norfolk’s jail until an extradition order was processed for me to be sent back to Florida.

  While I sat there in stunned silence, my grandmother and Carmine jumped to their feet. “What in the world…” my grandmother said, and then her words faded. Two seconds later, I heard loud thumping noises heading toward us, and a man’s voice saying, “Bitch, you gon’ die this time!”

  To my surprise, I witnessed my aunt Sandra being tossed up against the wall outside the den area where we were, and staring down the barrel of a .357 Magnum. Tears were pouring down her face as she pleaded for her life. I honestly couldn’t believe my fucking eyes. This young-looking street thug, who looked like he wasn’t more than twenty-one years old, seriously had some balls running up in here like this. I sat back in awe and watched the whole scene as it unfolded.

  “What in the world is going on?” my grandmother cried out.

  “This bitch gave me some fake money for my dope!” he roared, still pointing the pistol directly at her forehead.

  “How much does she owe you?” my grandmother pressed on, as she began to dig inside the secret compartment of her bra.

  “Forty dollars,” he said.

  “Please don’t kill her. I’ll give you the money,” she pleaded, then pulled out several five- and ten-dollar bills. After she counted it to make sure it was the correct amount, she handed it to the guy.

  With the gun still at Sandra’s head he took the money and counted it to make sure it was all there. Right when he was about to walk off, he mashed Sandra in her face really hard, sending her straight to the floor. “Next time ain’t nobody gon’ be able to save you,” he warned her and then exited the house.

  This was too much fucking drama for me. I needed to get out of there and go back to my hotel and regroup before something else happened. Maybe coming to Virginia was the wrong thing to do. I mean, I thought the niggas back in Miami were crazy. But these motherfuckers here aren’t playing with a full deck, so I’m definitely going to have to rethink my whole strategy.

  But where else could I go without being noticed?

  Enjoy the following excerpts from Kiki Swinson’s previous novels

  Wifey

  I’m Still Wifey

  Life After Wifey

  Available now wherever books are sold!

  From Wifey

  Tired of the Drama

  It’s 4:30 am in the morning and I’ve been pacing back and forth from my bed to my bedroom window, which overlooked the driveway of my six-hundred-thousand-dollar house, waiting for my husband Ricky to bring dat ass home. Who cared about all the plucks he had to make every other night? I kept telling him, all money ain’t good money! But he didn’t listen. Not to mention, I had to deal with all his hoes on a daily basis. We’ve been married for seven years now, and since then I’ve had to spend a whole lot of nights alone in this gorgeous five-bedroom home he got for us two years ago. That’s how his three children came into play. All of them were by different chickenheads who lived in the projects. But one of them had a Section Eight crib somewhere in D.C. and she was ghetto as hell. Just like the other two, who lived not too far from here.

  Now, Ricky didn’t have enough sense to go out and donate his sperm to women with some class. Every last one of them were high school dropouts, holding eighth-grade educations and an ass full of drama. They figured since Ricky had a baby by them, that he was gonna le
ave me to be with their nasty tails. Oh, but trust me! It won’t happen! Not in this lifetime. Because all they could offer him was pussy. And the last time I checked, pussy wasn’t in high demand these days like them hoes thought. That’s why I could say with much confidence—that Ricky needed me. I kept his hotheaded ass straight. And not only that, I’ve got assets. I’m light-skinned and very pretty with a banging ass body! Niggas in the street said I reminded them of the rapper Trina because both of us favored each other and we had small waists and big asses. And to complement all that, I knew how to play most of the games on the street, as well as the ins and outs of running the hair salon I opened a few years back. Not to mention, Ricky gave me the dough to make it happen. Now you see, he was good for something other than screwing other chicks behind my back. This was why I was always trying to find reasons not to leave his ass.

  So, after pacing back and forth a few more times, Mr. Good Dick finally pulled his sedan into the driveway. I made my way on downstairs to greet his butt at the front door. “What you doing up?” he asked as soon as he saw me standing in the foyer.

  “Ricky, don’t ask me no stupid-ass questions! I told him with much attitude. Then I moved backwards two steps, giving him enough room to shut the front door.

  “What you upset for?” he responded with uncertainty.

  I’m standing dead smack in front of my husband, who is, by the way, very, very handsome with a set of six packs out of this world. I’m wearing one of my newest Victoria’s Secret lingerie pieces, looking extra sexy; and all he could do was stand there looking stupid and ask me what I’m upset for? I wanted so badly to smack the hell outta him; but I decided to remain a lady and continue to get him where it hurts, which is his pockets. This dummy had no clue whatsoever that I was robbing his ass blind.