by T. Styles
Since I’d been staying with her, I was learning a lot about myself too and I guess I’m stronger than I give myself credit for. It had been 8 months since I had anything to drink, and it was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life. Not a day went by when I didn’t want to taste Hennessey or smoke with my friends. But I was pregnant and although I always imagined my wife giving birth to my baby instead of me, it was still mine and I wanted it to live. Healthy. Fun would come later, for now I would have to wait.
“What you over there thinking about, boy?” Arizona asks, glass in one hand and a crack pipe in the other. It’s like she’s trying to decide which one to do next. “You been staring at us for hours. Give your eyes some rest, we ain’t no TV show.”
I crack a half smile for charity.
“How many times I gotta tell you, bitch, that ain’t no boy.” My grandmother pulls her wig down a little by the bang, forcing it up in the back. “It’s my granddaughter. Say it again and I’m gonna throw you out on your tailbone.”
“I hear what you saying,” Arizona responds, “but it sure looks weird to see her dressed in baggy jeans, t-shirts and hats while she’s sporting that big ass belly. If you ask me she got twins in there.” I shiver. “Either that or a fat boy.”
“I don’t give a fuck about none of that shit you spitting, you heard what I said.” Bernie retaliates. “She’s a girl...address her as one.”
Pressed for the last word she says, “It just looks like a boy, is all I’m saying.”
In a whisper Bernie says, “Okay, how ‘bout I bust both of your eyes and you can tell me what she look like then.”
“Fuck you!” She chuckles stuffing the pipe with crack.
As Arizona pulls and Bernie drinks, there’s a knock at the door. “Who the fuck is that?” She yells slamming her empty glass on the table. She stares at the door with violent eyes. “Did you hear me? Who the fuck there?” No one answers.
Hoping it’s my father, I hop up as fast as I can with my belly. When I pull it open, I see my friends standing on the other side. I grin when I realize how much I miss them. Krazy, Kid Lightning and Dynamite eye my belly like I’d stolen it from somebody. It isn’t until I look to my right, that I see Sugar. Something happened to her since the last time I saw her. Something that I can only describe as a total transformation. She’s still wearing her red glasses but her brown chest seemed to fill out more in her shirt. She’s never been a big girl but the extra pounds she took off did wonders for her frame. All and all, she’s sexy as hell.
“Who is it, Madjesty?” Bernie yells. “You making me nervous.”
I hold the door open and look back at her. “I told you to call me Mad and my friends are here. Give me a second.”
“Well I don’t want nobody in my house, so go talk to them outside.” I bet if they had rock you’d let them in, bitch.
Embarrassed, I step outside and subject myself to more of their scrutiny. “Yo, you really pregnant?” Kid asks looking me over. “Like, you really got a baby in there and shit?” He touches my belly and I jump back. Still wasn’t too keen on having niggas touch me, friends or foe.
“I told you she was pregnant, punk!” Krazy replies. “You ain’t believe me when I said I saw her at the store the other day and followed her here. I want my fifty bucks too, I don’t care how you get it.”
“Suck my balls.” He fires back.
I look at Dynamite and she waves. Can’t believe she’s still with them after all of this time. I figure Dynamite had to be at least 21 years old, but she never told me about her life. Our friendship started and ended so quick. “I see you still have her with you.”
“Fuck yeah!” Kid says. “Man, you scored big time with bringing her from that institution. She can pick locks to everything from a car to a safe.” He pauses. “No way we letting her out of our sights that easy.”
“How you doing, Mad?” Sugar says softly. She even talks different. “I know you ain’t want this.” She steps up and points at my belly. “So I’m so sorry you have to go through it alone. Do you know what you gonna do about it? You look too far along to have an abortion.”
“I’m fine, I guess. And I’ma keep the kid.” They all frown.
She steps back and stumbles on the brick I threw at my grandmother months back. Bernie didn’t bother moving it, so I figured she wanted it there. Maybe as a reminder to throw me out later. When she’s about to fall, Krazy catches her and touches her softly on the back. He looks into her eyes and says, “Be careful, baby. Don’t be breaking your stuff all up. You too pretty for that shit.”
Sugar smiles. The kind of smile a girl could give you that would change your world. “Stop, baby, you embarrassing me.”
I know instantly they are together and for some reason, it makes me want to hit him, or do some harm to his face. “What are ya’ll doing here?” I sound madder than I intend to.
“Just checking up on you,” Sugar responds with love in her voice. “Since you tried to write us off we had to put the dogs on you. I worry about you everyday, Mad. I’m glad to see you fine.” Yeah right. After or before you have Krazy’s dick in your mouth?
“Why you worrying about me?”
“Because you’re my friend and no matter where you are, I’m going to always be the one to find you. Like I said, I just wish you didn’t write us off.”
“I’m not writing you off. I’m just not in the mood for company right now.”
“Why you carrying it like that?” Kid asks. “You know we don’t care about you being pregnant if that’s why you hiding. We brothers, man.”
“Yeah…real niggas do real things, including getting our homie’s back.” Krazy adds. “But we don’t know it’s a problem, if you don’t tell us. We could’ve found a place for you to lay up. I thought you didn’t fuck with your grands like that. You probably in there catching a contact and shit.” He looks at the door. “What about the baby?”
“My grandmother is fine.” I lie. “And you don’t have to get my back. That’s what I’m trying to tell ya’ll.” I look at all of them. “I’m good over here.” I’m so jealous. Why am I so jealous? It’s a weak emotion and I hate myself for it. All they want to do is be here for me but I can’t accept their help right now.
“So what, we not friends no more?” Sugar inquires.
“I’m not saying that…all I’m saying is give me some more time to get my mind right. I promise I’ll get up with ya’ll when I can.”
“I don’t know why you’re doing this but I can’t get you to change your mind either.” Krazy says. “Had it been one of us breaking Mad Max up, you would’ve lost it. It’s cool though.” He taps Kid and Dynamite on the shoulders. “Come on, ya’ll, let’s leave Ms. Prego to it.”
They’re just about to leave when Kid turns around and says, “Oh…I saw your sister at the cemetery a while back when I was visiting my brother. Not sure if you know this or not, but her father died. You may want to see about her, that is if you care about anybody other than yourself.” I’m stuck. I didn’t fuck with Jace, but I knew Jayden did. And how did he die? There are so many things I want to say to her. I just don’t know where to start. I don’t even know how to start.
As if Kid just told me regular shit, he and the crew get in a black truck and pull off, with Sugar eyeing me the entire time from the window. I wonder if she still likes me. If she still cares. Or if seeing me like this made her realize how dumb she was for trying to get with me in the first place.
I walk back into my grandmother’s house, fucked up about what he said and worried about Jayden. “What you looking so crazy for, girl?” Bernie asks me when I walk through the door. She can be an insensitive ass drunk when she wanted too. I guess that’s why Kali hates her so much. And where is my father? I still haven’t heard from him. Did he have something to do with Jace’s death? “One minute you smiling and the next you looking like somebody slapped your best friend. What’s on your mind, honey?”
I look into her eyes trying to figur
e out if she’s really concerned about me or not. Half of her eyeballs are hiding under her eyelids and the other parts are red and glassy. She doesn’t give a fuck about me. “I wanna be by myself, Bernie. Thanks for asking though.”
I walk downstairs where my father use to stay and ease on the mattress on the floor. I wish I could talk to him. I wish I could ask his advice. Knowing him, I’m probably the last person on his mind. It wasn’t like we were so close that he had to look out for me. He didn’t owe me shit but life.
Jayden’s face comes to my mind again. She was the only person who cared about me and I ruined it all. Everyday that went by and we weren’t in contact, reminded me of the mistake I made. I still can’t believe I…
Wait a minute.
A pain ripples across the bottom of my stomach that stops my thoughts. What’s going on? I turn face up on the bed and look up at the light on the ceiling. I feel a warm liquid splash between my legs. I roll over and crawl on my hands and knees to the bathroom in the basement. Some kind of way, I take my jeans off, pull myself on the toilet and sit down. I’m there for five minutes trying to figure out what’s going on. To make matters worse, suddenly I feel like I have to shit. Sitting on the cold toilet, I press down as hard as I can but this pain is different. Like nothing I ever experienced. And then it hits me. I think I’m about to…I think I’m about to have this baby. I fill my chest up with air and yell, “Bernie! Help me! Please!”
When I hear two sets of footsteps rushing down the stairs I’m relieved. But the pain. Oh my God the pain. I ease off of the toilet and my knees slam against the cold floor. I grip the bottom of my stomach tightly, because the pressure is heavy. My baby. I’m about to have this baby!
****
I feel like I’m floating. Like somebody removed all of the furniture, the floors, and even the walls. I’m in space, accept everything is white. My arms are flying by my sides and my legs are hanging loosely under me. And then someone shakes me. Real hard.
“Wake up, Madjesty! You have to wake up.” It’s my grandmother’s frantic voice. She seems scared and I don’t know why.
I pull my eyes open and she’s staring at me. Her expression is hard, like the worst thing in the world has happened. The floor under me is uncomfortable, and air rushes up my wet legs. I don’t have any clothes on below. Why am I half naked, lying on the bathroom floor? I place my hand on my stomach. It’s flatter than it was the last few months. Where is my baby? I know immediately something is wrong, and then I see the police. Three of them, wearing scowls on their faces like thugs.
My grandmother throws a towel over my legs. Thank goodness. “You gotta get up, baby.”
“Where is Cassius?” I named my baby Cassius after Muhammad Ali when I was pushing him out. I made an announcement to everybody because he was a fighter and somebody told me he wasn’t breathing at first. Wait a minute, is he dead? I look around. “Where is my baby?” No one speaks. “Where is he?”
My grandmother stoops down and places her cold hand on my arm. She doesn’t seem so mean now. Just sad. “He’s fine.” I smile in relief. “But…well…”
Fear takes over me. “If he’s fine, what the fuck is going on?” I look at all of them. Somebody had better tell me something before I flip the fuck out.
“It’s Arizona. She…she took your baby.”
JAYDEN
PUSSY GAME REWIND
I make a decision to sell pussy again but it wasn’t going to be mine. Then again, it never was. Nighttime falls on Maryland and Metha is sitting in my truck, looking at me scan through the bushes under the window outside of my house. I’m searching for something I lost a long time ago. Something I thought I would never need again. I was wrong. I’ve been outside for fifteen minutes and had been bitten by at least twenty mosquitos all over my back and arms. I keep tugging at the red tank top that keeps rising in the back, but it doesn’t stop them. If I can’t find that phone, I won’t get my clientele back and will need to start from scratch. I feel so fucking stupid for throwing it out in the first place. But why isn’t it still here?
Mrs. Sheers made it clear that some things needed to change in Concord Manor. First she ordered my mother to alcoholic treatment, with regular meetings to check her sobriety. If she doesn’t push back, after her last butt naked session, she won’t hesitate to yank me out of my house for good and put me in a group home. She also kept talking about Madjesty and how she’d be back soon to make sure she was there and okay. I’m going to try my best to help my mother stay sober but I had no idea what I was going to do about Madjesty. To make shit worse, since the lights keep getting cut off at the house, I need to come up on some cash quick.
Defeated, after not finding the phone, I slip back into my truck. “Just drive, anywhere.” I tell her. She eases into traffic and I throw my body into the plushness of the seat. Since he left me the title, maybe I can sell this.
I want to get Thirteen Flavors back on track but I need money to make money. Still it’s my only plan. I even sat my mother down and told her some things would be changing around the house. She fought about it at first, when I didn’t give her details but realized she didn’t have a choice.
My life is so shitty. I don’t have a dime to my name, I’m hungry and I’m over my head with my mother’s responsibilities. I’m too young to get a decent paying job and even if I could, Mrs. Sheers said she would be stopping by the house regularly and checking on me at school. So it’s impossible for me to get a job and make good grades too. My temples throb until I remember Kreshon. He said if I ever needed him, I could call his name. I hope that’s true.
I lean up and look at Metha. She’s wearing the same mean expression she always does. I hate this bitch most times. She doesn’t say much to me and I don’t say much to her. I guess we work better that way. I wonder all the time why she’s still around. My father must’ve looked out for her majorly and if I ask, I doubt she’ll tell me. “Metha, you know how to get to Kreshon’s house?”
She places her hair behind her ear and I focus on her lips. No hearing aids today. They hurt sometimes and give me headaches. “Yes. I think I remember.” She looks at me through the rearview mirror. Her lips tighten and she rolls her eyes. “He don’t live too far from here. Why?”
“Can you take me there? I got to ask him something and it’s kind of important.”
“Jayden, what did your father say about Kreshon?” She doesn’t look at me this time, just focuses on the road.
This bitch’s job is to drive, not question me. “What do you mean?” I smack my tongue. “And what does that have to do with you taking me to his house?”
She looks out of the left window and back at the road. I’m irritating her I can tell. “Kreshon can’t take a lot of stress. I know he seems cool and most of the time he is, but you have to be careful with him.” She looks at me seriously. “A young girl like you shouldn’t be connecting with an older man like him anyway. Hang out with kids your own age. He can be dangerous.”
My forehead crinkles. She’s working my nerves beyond belief. “First of all what is he like, thirty something?”
She scratched her nose. “Yes. Why?”
“Well as far as I know that doesn’t make him mad older than me. Second of all before my father died he said there was one person I could trust and that was Kreshon.” He actually said I could trust her too and the fact that I leave her out seems to hurt her feelings. “So what you need to do is steer this truck and let me tend to my business.”
She shakes her head and waits until I look at her to start speaking again. “I’m not saying that you can’t trust him, Jayden but everyone has limits. Some more than others. Please be careful is all I’m saying to you. I know you don’t like me and I feel bad that we got off to a bad start. But you’re Jace’s daughter and I’m worried about you.” Her expression tells me she’s telling the truth but I need money. In a hurry. So unless she’s taking me to the bank, she can swallow the words she’s spitting and choke on them for all I care.<
br />
“Metha, I’m confused on why you feel it’s any of your business. My father didn’t leave you as my guardian angel he left you as my driver until I get a license. That’s why we’re always going at it, you don’t know your place.”
She shakes her head again. “First things first, the only place I have is home. Secondly I’m this way with you because I know your past. Jace and I spoke a lot.” She looks like she wants to cry again. Oh brother. “I know a little about your mother too and I know she’s not the best woman. Remember I saw her running out of her neighbor’s house naked.” My jaw tightens and I want to punch her in the back of the head. “I’m not judging her because like I said I came from a fucked up life too.” She scratches her nose. “If I could take back half of the things I did, I would. But I don’t have that option anymore, Jayden. You do.”
“What part of this got to do with me?” I ask.
“You have to be a bitch everyday don’t you?” I stay silent. I guess she knows the answer already. “When I see somebody going down a path that might lead to a dead end, I have to say something. Nobody did that for me until I met your father. He cared enough about me to invest some time by helping me with my alcoholism. I’m trying to pay it forward with his daughter and I wish you give me a chance.”
What is she talking about? I wish this bitch just kills herself in a car accident and save me the trouble of her mouth. “You use to fuck Kreshon or something? I mean tell me the truth, is that why you coming at me sideways?”
She frowns. “Not even close, little girl. I don’t even know why you would ask me something like that.”
I fan her away with my hand. “If you didn’t use to fuck him, why do you care what I do with him? It’s not your business. You act like I make you ride us around while I fuck him in my truck. Relax.”