by T. Styles
“Yeah I’m good.” I look at Jayden. “It’s funny that you guys are together, me and Kreshon have a past too. Tell her…me and you use to go waaaaay back didn’t we?” I say.
Jayden looks at me and back at him. “Kreshon says he doesn’t know you like that.”
“Oh he did, did he? That’s funny, because I remember having a real close relationship with him. Think harder, Kreshon. Tell her how we use to roll.” In that abandoned house in D.C.
He swallows and takes a deep breath. “I think you got me confused, Harmony. Outside of you being my man’s girl, I don’t know too much about you. You sure you not thinking of somebody else?” His eyes tell me he wants me to keep our secret. He hadn’t told her anything about our past. He was in love with my daughter, and he wants my blessing. The thing is, he’ll never get it.
JAYDEN
THE TIME FOR THE GAMES HAVE BEGUN
It’s Showtime! We circled 16th street, a well-known hoe stroll in Washington D.C, five times. I shuffle around in the passenger seat of Olive’s van, getting dizzier by the moment as Metha drives. I can smell my girls’ designer perfume but it’s the scent of their nervousness that makes me question what I’m doing here. I can tell that they don’t believe I’m up for it and if they could read my mind, they’d be right. When I look in the back, Olive and Passion who never leave my side, stare at me as if they’re afraid. I put everybody together and its time to make money. The only thing is, we haven’t made a dime yet. I’m procrastinating and I can’t stop.
As the van crawls up and down the dark streets, I stare at the prostitutes on the block wearing high heels and higher skirts. The expressions on their faces are hard. Like they’d seen more shit than I could ever imagine. Had I not been born to Harmony Phillips, they might be true.
Focusing back on Metha she says, “You want me to drive everybody home? We been hitting the block for a while.” She isn’t comfortable about my choice of profession but its what I have to do.
I spot a place on the street that doesn’t have many whores or cars. “Naw. I’m ready. Let me out over there.” I point. “I want to check something out before I let everybody out.” She pulls up and parks the van. I gaze back at my team again, put a fake smile on my face, and hop out. When I hear another door open, I turn around and see Olive and Passion.
“Where we going?” Olive asks rolling the silver balls around her fingers. “I’m ready when you are.”
Sometimes she can be irritating. “Let me see what’s going on first.” I peep at both of them. “Just go back inside and keep an eye on the girls for me. They need coaching.”
“It’s your team, Jayden. And if you think we letting you cruise out here by yourself,” Olive looks around, “you must be crazy. Now come on, we wasting time.”
“Yeah, Jayden, Gucci and them know what time it is. So let’s go get them and let them handle business. It’s time to work. You ain’t got to be out here.” Passion says.
“This is not open for discussion.” Instead of arguing, I turn my back on them and walk up the block.
I’m trying to breathe in everything around me. I guess I should’ve done this before getting everyone dressed and ready to work. When I walk further up the block, I stand behind a few cars and observe. I see how the johns would pull up to the girl of their choice and how she’d wiggle into the car, always with a smile on her face.
I’m still checking the scene when a tall woman with a long pretty brown weave yells, “Now you’re a sexy red thing.” She’s with four other women, all pretty like her. Their makeup and hairstyles are faultless. “How come we haven’t seen you around here before?”
I turn around to see if she’s talking to somebody else but she’s looking slam at me. I love her voice. So kind. So sweet. And loud enough that each word makes it to my ears. “I don’t work out here. Just checking a few things out.”
She walks up to me and they follow. “You not one of them documentary people are you? Always trying to get our story?” She frowns. “I hate them mothafuckas.”
“Naw. Nothing like that.”
“Well you better get out of here, honey.” She looks concerned. “The last thing we want is somebody pulling you in a car and taking you to a place you don’t wanna go. There are some crazy niggas out here and if you not smart and quick enough, you can end up in the next life.”
“Yeah, my baby cousin was murdered on her first night a few weeks ago.” The one with the short black bob says. “I told her I didn’t want her out here but the little bitch wouldn’t listen. Now she’s the cause of her mother being in the hospital with a broken heart and snapped brain.”
Suddenly I’m scared for my girls. “Well it’s a good thing I’m not working then.”
The one with the long black weave places her hand against my face. It’s warm and soft, but I want her off of me so I back up. I can only imagine how many dicks she’d touch that night alone. “I’m not gonna hurt you.” Her voice relaxes me instantly. “You just remind me of my little sister and I’m concerned for you that’s all.”
“I’m strong. No need to worry about me.” I wave her off.
“I hear what you’re saying but your eyes tell me that none of this is for you. So why don’t you get on out of here, sweetie. The later it is the closer you get to danger.” She looks around.
She’s so sweet that I decide to keep it one hundred with her. “I’m leaving now, but do you think you can tell me what area would be good to bring my girls?”
“Your girls?” She grins. She reminds me of the aunt I never had. “I knew there was a reason you came out here, sunshine. So you have a little team now do you? That’s good because its important for ya’ll to stick together if you gonna be working the streets. The deeper you are the better.”
I laugh and stuff my hands into my pockets. Then I look down the block but I was too far away to see the van. “Yeah, it’s their first night on the job. I think they’ll do good though. So where do you think would be a good place to set them up?”
One moment I’m looking in her eyes and the next I’m kissing the rocky pavement beneath me. My nose is inches away from her pink pumps and I can smell the musty scent of her feet. What scares me more is not that she struck me, or that I’m having a hard time getting up, but the base that suddenly rolls through his voice.
When I look up at him, I can finally see that what I thought was a woman, is actually a man. This happened to me one other time, with Blaq. “Are you looking down there good, sweetheart?” He says with a scowl on his face. “Because you can place your bitches exactly where you are now, right there on the ground next to you. We run this block. I be damned if you think I’m gonna let you bring some young Twinkies to move on my turf.”
I rise up on my knees and look up at him. Now that he’s knocked some sense into me, I can see them all for what they really are…men. Standing on my feet I look him straight into his eyes. The anger rises from my feet to my head and the liquid in my mouth shoots out and smacks him in the eye. It’s over now. I just signed my own death certificate.
“Oh no she didn’t spit in your face, girl!” One of them screeches. “She got it all the way fucked up! You know what you gotta do. Cut that pretty face of hers so she won’t need it no more.” That’s an interesting idea and I don’t intend on letting her do it.
Long hair wipes my gook out of his eyes and gives me a look I haven’t seen since the last time I saw Madjesty. He looks like he’s about to take off after me, until a silver ball smacks him dead in the forehead, leaving an ugly red mark. When it hits the ground, I see its one of the balls Olive always rolls around her fingers. When I look down the block I see Olive staring at me. “Don’t just stand there, bitch, run!” Olive yells.
The last time I ran this fast, I’d stolen money out of Sandy’s purse and she and her friends wanted to burn my hair. The only difference now is I have five drag queens gunning for me. “I’m going to kill you, bitch!” Long hair yells. “I’m going to beat you and that bitch�
�s ass! You got me so mad I could probably fuck you.” YUCK! What would that accomplish?
Olive waits until I’m close to her and we both take off. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone!” She's breathing heavily.
In short breaths I yell, “What we going to do?”
“I got a plan!”
I look at her hesitantly and say, “That quick?”
“Just trust me!”
I follow Olive a few more feet and when I turn around, one of the drag queens has a knife in her hand. When I look at the others they seem to be clutching something in their claws too. I wasn’t about to wait around long enough to find out what it was. When Olive dips behind a car and hops, I do the exact same thing. When I look down and see why she leaped, I grin.
We wait on the other side of a white car until the queen’s approach. When they do, Long Hair says, “You must be dumber than you look. You should’ve ran all the way to the police station, now it’s too late.” The hairstyle that I gave her so much credit for is sliding back, revealing a brown stocking cap underneath. It was a wig. Damn that bitch is good. “Don’t worry, I’ma carve some sense into you and that pretty bitch you with.”
The next step he takes causes his foot to go slam into a huge pothole. He screams out in pain as the hole takes most of his foot, forcing him to fall on his face. The bone in his ankle cracks open and blood oozes out. There’s an orange cone lying under the wheel of the white car next to the hole. I guess it was supposed to be covering it so people would know it was dangerous.
“Oh my God, Niecey! The bitch tried to kill you.” One of them yells trying to help him up.
“Leave me alone, girl! It’s cracked! I’ma be out of work for days!” She points. “Look at it!” She focuses on me. “I’ma kill you!” He promises. “Do you hear me, bitch I’m gonna see your face again and when I do I’ma kill you!” Olive and me laugh as we run away from the scene.
****
We are on our way back to the van, when Olive grabs me and pulls me into an alley. It looks like one of us is about to serve the other the way we hang in the darkness of the two buildings. She steps so close to me, I can smell the Shea butter she uses in her hair.
“Jayden, I don’t know what’s going on with you and I don’t care. But that shit back there was dangerous. You wanted to get into this game and I’m with you all the way but to be honest, it looks like you not ready. You let the girls talk to you any kind of way and now you’re coming across as weak. You not making smart moves right now, Jayden and if they see you like this again, especially Gucci, you’ll only encourage them to take over. Is that what you want?”
I can’t tell her that she’s right. I can’t tell her that I’m scared. I can’t even tell her that I need two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to make most of my problems go away. So I put on my game face and say, “Get the fuck off of me, Olive.” I rise up on that bitch.
“What?” She says softly.
I look at her hands and repeat slowly, “Get…the…fuck…off…me.” She removes her hands and takes a step back. Her foot lands on an opened condom wrapper. “I’m tired of you acting like I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Yes I made a mistake tonight but there won’t be too many more of them. But if you ever try to tell me how to run my shit again, we won’t be friends. We won’t even be cordial. Am I clear?”
“Jayden, I was just…”
“Bitch, you not listening to me, are we clear?”
She steps back. “I got it.”
“Good, now lets get back to the van. I got shit to do.”
THIRTEEN FLAVORS
SCARY JAYDEN
The cool October night comforted Gucci, Queen, Na-Na and Foxie as they sat on the patio smoking a blunt and talking shit. As always, Gucci made it her mission to point out the obvious. “Did anybody but me think tonight was weird?” She frees the right arm of her pink sweater. “I mean Jayden really had us get dressed and ready to work for nothing. I’m telling you it’s going to be like this all the time if we continue to follow her.” She scratches the red bumps that recently appeared all over her arms and neck. “She not ready for the game, she never will be.”
“Gucci, I think you should ease up on Jayden.” Foxie says as she drinks hot water and lemon from a yellow cup. “I don’t know what happened tonight but she spent a lot of money getting us ready. So if we didn’t get out there I’m sure she had her reasons.”
“You are so stupid if you believe that shit! I don’t know about the rest of ya’ll but I’m going to keep my eyes open for any sign of weakness.”
“I thought you said you were really going to give it a chance. That’s why we came back.” Queen says, with her legs draped over Na-Na’s knees as she plays with her toes. “I like it here.”
“I’m with her,” Na-Na adds, never missing an opportunity to ride Queen’s tits.
“And I’m not saying…” Gucci’s response is broken when she sees her arch nemesis. “Hold fast everybody a spy is approaching.”
When Hadiyah walks out on the patio, the cool air heats up. “Dinner is ready,” she says with an attitude. She was in charge of the night’s meal. Tywanda and Blaq are by her side.
Since everyone moved in Concord Manor, the house had become divided. There are the Original Thirteen Flavor girls, which includes Gucci, Foxie, Na-Na and Queen. Then there’s Passion’s Team, which includes Johnna, Jay-O, Catherine and Tabitha. Finally there’s Hadiya’s squad, which is Blaq and Tywanda. It was just a matter of time before things kicked off for the worst in the house.
“I’m not eating shit in that kitchen.” Gucci says, scratching her bumps so hard they start to bleed. “Nothing you cook anyway.”
“What you even doing out here?” Foxie adds. “I’d think you’d be spoon feeding Jayden somewhere instead of coming out here bothering us. We all know you don’t let her do nothing but wipe her ass when she goes to the bathroom.”
“I heard she don’t even let her do that.” Gucci responds.
“And I heard your ass got Chicken Pox and you in the house trying to give it to everybody.” Blaq pops off. “Infected ass, bitch.”
“I wasn’t even talking to your flaming ass.” Gucci says.
“I’ma tell you like this, you may can talk that shit to Hadiya but I’m not her. Believe that. Fucking with me you’ll end up buried alive in somebody’s yard. Next to the tulips.”
“You going too far.” Foxie responds.”
“No, ya’ll are going too far with all this hating ass shit. I’m sick of how ya’ll be treating this girl just because she doing her job.”
“First of all its Passion’s responsibility to take care of the girls but it’s obvious Hadiya is trying to take her place. It’s cool with me though since everybody knows the only reason Passion is here, is to wait on Madjesty to show up.” Queen adds. “You and Tywanda always coming to Hadiya’s rescue. Let her speak up for herself. Her pussy is already developed.”
“You right, I can speak just fine for myself.” Hadiya says. “If ya’ll don’t want to eat I’m not going to force you. But just remember that shit the next time you try to act like I’m not doing my job around here in front of Jayden.”
“You are so funny, Hadiya. I can’t wait until all this fake shit is over. Because before long, you gonna see who will be running shit and it damn sure won’t be Jayden. Remember that!” Gucci ends.
****
Hadiya, Blaq and Tywanda walk down the hallway. “I’m telling you now at some point you gonna have to fight that bitch, Hadiya.” Blaq says. “Just make sure that when you do, you cut her ass into pieces before she does you. I know the kind of bitch Gucci is. She’s a low blower. You gotta be prepared.”
“Should I tell Jayden what she said?” She asks. “About taking over?”
“To be honest I wouldn’t rock the boat right now. Gucci just talking shit anyway, don’t even give her the satisfaction of knowing you’re still thinking about her.” Tywanda says.
****
&
nbsp; Passion, Johnna, Jay-O, Catherine and Tabitha were sitting in the living room watching the last five minutes of a College Hill rerun, when Gucci and her hating ass crew strolled in. Part of her wanted to start shit and the other part wanted to see if Hadiya told anyone what she’d just said about Jayden. The moment Passion sees her face she’s irritated.
“We know ya’ll watching TV and everything, but how do ya’ll feel about the way things went down tonight?” Gucci asks as her crew stands behind her.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Gucci.” Passion says looking at the stairs to see if Jayden is coming down. The house gets mighty quiet when the boss is in the room. “Why don’t you go eat, Hadiya says the food is ready.”
“You really are a scary ass bitch ain’t you?” Gucci says scratching her arms more. The recent rash she developed disgusts Passion and her friends. “Just cuz we live in her house don’t mean we can’t state our opinions.”
Passion rolls her eyes. “Why are you starting shit? If you don’t want to be here, go home. Ain’t no bars on the doors and windows. You are free to roam around the country.”
“I can’t believe you talking to her like that, when we been friends since forever.” Foxie adds as if she didn’t wish Gucci would slow the accusations down too. “She just looking out for us. You are such the switch over bitch, its ridiculous.”
When the doorbell rings, Passion damn near knocks everybody over to answer the door. Gucci and her crew are right behind her. Passion seems disappointed when she sees two pretty older Spanish women on the other side of the door, along with a black man holding a clipboard and pen in his hand. One of the women looks at them awkwardly and says, “Is Jayden here?” Passion leaves because it isn’t Madjesty.
“Who is you?” Gucci asks placing her hand on her hips.
“I’m Laura and this is my sister Ramona. We’re Jayden’s aunts.” They observe the bumps on her body. “The real question is who are you?”