Choosing Sides

by Treasure Hernandez

  “What?” Malek said as he sat there in shock. The words felt like daggers straight through his heart.

  “Baby, I’m sorry,” Mrs. Johnson said. “He said it doesn’t look too good. He doesn’t even want to represent you anymore.”

  A single tear slid down Malek’s face as his childhood dreams began to evaporate. All he knew was basketball. If you took that away from him, in his mind, he was nothing.

  “Let’s just thank the Almighty Lord that you are still breathing.” Mrs. Johnson grabbed her only child’s hand.

  Malek was too devastated to speak. He just threw his head back in the pillow, bit his bottom lip, and let the tears flow. He didn’t have Halleigh, he didn’t have basketball, and he didn’t have any hope. College basketball was out of the question, because he’d hired an agent, which made him ineligible to play college ball. And the bullet holes in his body wasn’t helping matters, either.

  “Ma, the only thing I ever wanted to do was play ball. That’s all I ever knew. What am I supposed to do now, huh? I was supposed to buy you and Dad that big brick house. I’m just like my real daddy now. A failure.”

  “Malek, hush that nonsense. You ain’t nothing like that man. You are an intelligent young man with all the opportunities in the world. This little mishap isn’t going to stop you. With God on our side, we gon’ make it through this, hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Malek gripped his mother’s hand. “Ma, I never forgot how you worked so hard all these years. And how Pops worked those two jobs selling sweepers and doing telemarketing sales just to feed and clothe me. How y’all found the money to send me to basketball camp every summer, even if y’all had to go without. Mama, I will try to find some way to pay you and Dad back, I promise.” Malek just broke down in a heaving sob.

  “Don’t worry about it. Everything is going to work out. You don’t owe me or your father anything. Just be a good man and make something out of your life. I don’t know why this happened to you, son, but we are going to get through it.”

  Malek didn’t tell his mother that he knew the man who the bullet was really intended for. He just told her that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time and caught a stray bullet, trying to spare her all that worrying.

  The painkillers the doctor had Malek on were starting to make him kind of drowsy. As he began to doze off, the thoughts of the news about his future was eating him up.

  “I love you, baby,” Mrs. Johnson said, rubbing her son’s forehead.

  “I love you too,” Malek answered, closing his eyes.

  Malek thoughts were consumed by his ugly reality. Why hadn’t he listened to his agent, or to his own gut feelings for that matter? He’d had a bad feeling about playing in the Berston game, but felt that he owed it to Joe. Now his career had ended before it even began.

  I fucked up. I fucked up, Malek thought to himself, wishing that the recent events had never happened. But Mrs. Johnson was right. At least he had his life, unlike Rah-Rah, who his brother, Lynch, could only wish for at this point. Three days after the shooting, Malek might have been laying up in the hospital, but Lynch’s brother was about to be laying six feet under.

  Lynch walked out of the funeral home with revenge on his mind. He just had to do the most difficult task he’d ever been faced with—pick out his brother’s casket. He didn’t know how he would even make it through the funeral. It had always been Rah-Rah and Lynch, since they were little boys. He didn’t know how he was going to be able to go on.

  Although grief-stricken, all he could think about for the last three days was getting back at Jamaica Joe. He kept picturing him hugging and cheering along with Malek after the game. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became.

  Still feeling incensed, he joined Sweets and the rest of the Shottah Boyz in Sweet’s Hummer. He wanted Jamaica Joe’s blood. “Where you say ol’ dude live again?” Lynch asked. He loaded up his automatic assault rifle, aka, the street sweeper.

  Sweets hadn’t been able to find out where Joe lived, so he suggested the next best thing. He was going to make Joe look for them. “Yeah, when you wanna bring out a rat, you gotta lay out the cheese,” Sweets told Lynch. “Don’t worry, we gon’ get these niggas. I swear on everything I love, and I swear on your brother’s grave.”

  Sweets was also devastated by the loss. Rah-Rah had been like a son to him. He had raised the boy up since he was nine years old. After their mother’s crack habit had caused her to dissipate into a strawberry, Rah-Rah and Lynch were just two homeless little waifs.

  Although they had been placed in foster care, the boys kept running away due to the physical and emotional abuse. When Sweets found them, they had just run away from their latest foster home placement and were eating out of the garbage. He took them into his home and taught them a trade. Eventually, the authorities, their caseloads swollen with too many drug babies, too many broken families, and too much dysfunction to worry about two little black boys, stopped looking for them. So they were just another statistic that had fallen into the cracks.

  From the start, Sweets became their provider, their protector, and their mentor. Sweets never forgot the foster home he had been raised in, where he had been sexually molested. Which was why he had always provided a safe haven for “his boys.” Although bisexual, Sweets wasn’t a pedophile, and he never messed with any of his boys. That’s why they were all so loyal to him. In return, they became his little killing squad; Rah-Rah being the baddest.

  Sweets never went along with his Shottah Boyz when handling business, but this time it was personal. He was ready to kill anyone associated with Joe, and that meant Malek was in danger now too.

  After some convincing from the nurses on staff, Mrs. Johnson went home to get some rest. They told her that the medication would have Malek out for quite some time, so while he was asleep, it was as good a time to sleep as any for her as well. At first, she insisted that she do what she had been doing, sleeping right there in the hospital chair, but after further convincing she headed on home.

  Mrs. Johnson pulled up to her house and prepared to walk in to change clothes. She wanted to get back to her son’s side as quickly as possible. She knew that he was in pain. She didn’t show Malek, but she was hurting inside also. The thought of a big house was nice to her. She didn’t say it, but she had also been banking on Malek getting drafted by the pros.

  She had worked hard for so many years, and she thought that Malek would change all of that. But reality finally set in, and she now knew the chances of him going pro were slim and next to nothing.

  It took all her strength not to break down and cry when she pulled up in front of their little Cape Cod-style house. Malek just didn’t know what his success had represented for her. He’d been her entire life, and his success had become hers.

  Now, she could see the dark days that lay ahead for her son. She was a realist. It was a crushing defeat for her to see Malek throw away his one opportunity to get out of Flint.

  Nineteen years earlier, she had missed her chance when she chose not to go away to college, hooking up instead with Malek’s biological father, which turned out to be one of the worst decisions, considering he never was a father to her son. Determined not to raise her child on welfare, she worked at a string of low-paying jobs, never the career she could have had as a school teacher, had she not chosen love. That’s why she didn’t want Malek to throw everything away on a hoodrat like Halleigh, who was no longer in the picture anyhow.

  Mrs. Johnson was so consumed by her thoughts as she shambled up the stairs on her front porch and unlocked her front door, she didn’t see the black SUV pull up with Lynch hanging out of the window, his weapon cocked.

  Shots rang out as Lynch sprayed the house like an insane man. He didn’t care that he was shooting at an innocent bystander. He just wanted to send a message to Joe. Bullets ripped through Mrs. Johnson’s back, and she fell to the ground, gripping her Bible to her chest.

  “Lord, help me,” were her last words spoken.


  Lynch made the Johnson house look like Swiss cheese and laughed as he let off his whole clip. He was trying to start a war. And indeed that’s what he did. The war had just begun—North versus South Flint.

  Chapter Twenty

  “You got another john on his way up,” Tasha said into the phone.

  “Okay, I’m ready.” Halleigh watched her last customer leave the room. She hung up the phone and took a long, deep breath. She walked over to the hotel’s bathroom so she could freshen up before her next customer arrived. She glanced in the mirror and didn’t recognize the face that was staring back at her.

  The past weeks had flown by like a blur and she hated the person that she had become. What would her momma think if she saw her little girl now? What would Malek think? she wondered. Or was he even thinking about her at all? But she knew one thing. Not a day went by when Malek didn’t cross her mind.

  I can’t believe he just up and left me like that. He promised me that he would always be here for me. I should’ve never told him about what happened that night. He probably thought less of me because—

  Before Halleigh could complete her thoughts, the sound of knocking on the door filled the air. She dropped her head and rested her hands on the sink as she remembered how much she hated exchanging sex for money. But it was the only way she knew to survive.

  Halleigh wiped the semen from her cheek as she finished up her last job for the day. The overweight black man was looking at her with goo-goo eyes as he stroked his manhood until all of his juices were out.

  “You something else, Sunshine!” he said, calling her by her working name, the one Manolo had branded her with. He pulled up his pants and zipped them up.

  Halleigh looked at Barry and smiled as she stood to her feet. Barry was a regular customer of hers who loved to frequently call upon her to get a blowjob after work. She was totally disgusted by him, but she would never let him know that. Let Barry tell it, Halleigh enjoyed hitting him off just as much as he loved receiving it.

  “Eighty dollars, Daddy.” Halleigh walked over to the bathroom sink totally nude, her voluptuous cakes shifting sides with every step.

  Barry enjoyed the view and left a hundred-dollar bill on the bed, giving her a twenty-dollar tip. “See you next week, baby,” he said, admiring Halleigh’s body. He headed for the door to return to his wife and children across town.

  “I’ll be waiting for you, Daddy,” she said, leaning halfway out of the bathroom and displaying her pretty smile. She glanced at the bed to make sure he had left her the cash and then focused back on him as he exited the hotel room.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, she dropped her fake smile and went over to pick up her cash. She was glad that it was the end of the day so she could rest. She’d turned eight tricks that day, and her body was tired. After turning her first trick with Mitch, she had started keeping count, but now there had been so many, she’d lost count of how many tricks she’d turned in the past weeks .

  She turned on the shower and flopped on the bed. She picked up the phone and called Tasha to let her know she had finished up with her last client. Tasha instructed her to meet her in her room when she finished showering.

  After getting fresh, Halleigh walked to Tasha’s room and knocked on the door.

  “Come in. It’s open!” she heard Tasha yell.

  Halleigh opened the door and saw Tasha on the bed counting money. She had money stacks placed all over the bed as she sat Indian-style adding up the day’s total. Halleigh couldn’t understand why Tasha didn’t have to turn tricks anymore, but although Tasha was only twenty-three, she had put in a lot of work for Manolo. She had been turning tricks since she was sixteen, and Manolo had a sweet spot for her.

  “Hey, girl,” Tasha said as she looked at Halleigh with a smile. “How did you do tonight?”

  “Not too bad. I made nearly eight hundred,” Halleigh replied, digging into her purse and pulling out a wad of money.

  Tasha, still counting the money, replied, “Toss it on the bed.”

  Following Tasha’s instructions, Halleigh stated, “Girl, I’m tired as hell. I hate when you send stanky-ass Barry to me.”

  “That nigga is fat and ugly as hell, but the nigga always request you. That’s a part of the game though.” Tasha briefly stopped counting the money and looked at Halleigh. “Nolo gon’ be happy with you. You made a killing tonight.”

  “Yeah, they were tipping good.”

  Mimi came storming in, a Newport hanging out of her mouth. “What’s up, bitches?” Mimi said jokingly. She kicked off her stilettos. “These mu’fuckas are killing my feet.”

  “Hey, Mimi,” Halleigh said as she watched Mimi dig into her bra and pull out wrinkled bills.

  “Hey, girl,” Tasha said while she counted the money.

  “I made five hundred tonight,” Mimi said, tossing money onto the bed near Tasha. “Damn, I’m good!” She looked at Halleigh. “How much you make?”

  Tasha replied on Halleigh’s behalf, “Eight hundred.”

  Mimi got a salty look on her face and smacked her lips in jealousy. Tasha and Halleigh giggled at the sight of Mimi’s bubble getting busted.

  “Anyways!” Mimi said as she snapped her head and rolled her eyes, and she and Tasha began a conversation while Halleigh’s mind was elsewhere.

  Halleigh couldn’t believe the life she was leading. She could’ve been preparing to graduate from school and be with the love of her life. But instead she was laid up in a cheap hotel, fucking anybody who was willing to throw her a little cash. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to fall for Manolo’s game. He took advantage of my situation, and now I can’t get out. I wish I would have run away from his ass the day I met him, she thought sadly to herself. Halleigh, ashamed of the things she was doing, knew that she had to get by any way that she could.

  “Y’all coming to watch my set tonight?” Mimi asked. She often doubled up and made money in Manolo’s and Sweets’ strip club. She was all about her paper and figured that if she was gon’ sell pussy, she might as well get extra customers from Wild Thangs.

  Halleigh was so engrossed in her own thoughts that she didn’t even hear Mimi. The only thing on her mind at that particular moment was Malek. She missed him, and the thought of him hurt so badly, she tried to suppress the fact that she ever had him in her life. Ain’t no point in thinking about what I can’t have, she thought.

  “Damn, Hal, what you thinking about?” Tasha asked. “You good, girl?”

  “Yeah, I’m good,” she replied.

  Mimi just stared at her. That wasn’t the first time she’d seen Hal just completely blank out. She knew what the cause was too. Halleigh was heartbroken. “Fuck that nigga, Hal,” Mimi remarked. “He didn’t deserve you anyway. I bet you his ass ain’t losing no sleep over you.”

  Tasha looked at Halleigh. “What nigga?”

  Halleigh lowered her eyes to the floor and shook her head. “Nobody,” she said.

  “It better be nobody. I hope you not talking about the kid, Malek. Manolo will kill both you and him if he even finds out you even thinking about him.”

  “But he’s not gon’ find out,” Mimi cut in quickly. “Right, Tash?”

  Tasha looked at Halleigh. “Yeah, I’ll keep my mouth shut, but you get your head together, Hal.”

  Halleigh tried to dismiss thoughts of Malek. “Ain’t nothing to get together, Tasha. Don’t worry, I’m okay.”

  Tasha almost felt bad for Halleigh as she watched her drift back into wishful thinking. She knew that Halleigh wasn’t built for the lifestyle she was leading. It takes a strong bitch to make this money. You can’t let it make you, Tasha thought. She knew that Halleigh looked down on herself for what she had become, and it was the first time that she felt guilty for keeping one of Manolo’s girls in line.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Tasha stood and walked out of the room, heading toward home.

  When they arrived at the house, Tasha went to give Manolo their earnings for the night
. She tapped on his door lightly and then entered without waiting for a response. When she opened the door she saw Manolo kicked back on his king-size bed, one hand down his sweat pants, the other on the remote control.

  “Bring that ass over here,” he ordered.

  Tasha chortled and then walked over to the bed. She could tell that he had blown a couple trees from the scent of marijuana that still lingered in the air.

  “You already know what I want,” he said, patting a spot on the bed next to him.

  “Yeah, I know.” She pulled out and then dumped the rolled-up wads of money onto the bed beside him.

  Manolo grabbed the cash and began counting, twenty, forty, sixty, sixty-five, seventy . . . until he reached two thousand seven hundred.

  “How much Mimi bring in?” he asked, a look of confusion on his face.

  Tasha noticed. “Five—why you ask that?”

  He ignored her question, but in his head he thought, That bitch been shaving money off the top. She usually brings in at least seven bills a night.

  Once Tasha saw that he wasn’t going to respond to her, she got up to leave.

  Before she reached the door, he said, “Send Halleigh in here. I feel like getting my dick sucked.”

  Tasha turned up her face. She hated when Manolo got beside himself. He usually treated his girls decent, but when something was bothering him, he would get to smelling hisself and start degrading his girls. She nodded and then walked out of the room.

  Tasha entered the room Halleigh and Mimi shared in time to see Mimi standing with her back to the mirror and her head turned around as she watched herself work her ass muscles. She wore only a thong and was making her booty clap.

  “Them other hoes don’t got shit on me. Them bitches better hope my set ain’t first, cuz it ain’t gon’ be no tip money left,” Mimi mumbled conceitedly.

  Mimi was a different type of chick. She was confident and felt like she chose to do what she was doing. Her motto was, “If I’m a ho, I’m a top-dollar ho,” and she didn’t mind sleeping with a different man every night as long as his pockets were heavy.