Girls from Da Hood 12

by Treasure Hernandez

  “Out of all the niggas you could have in M-Town, you wanna rock with a nigga like that?”

  “Mane, Clay, not now, a’ight? I’m just tryin’a have some fun tonight.”

  “You better than that, Strawberry.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Tell these niggas that.”

  Clay stepped back to let her inside of the club, but voices calling her name stopped her. Strawberry turned around and rolled her eyes at Sugar and Spice standing on the side of the line. She smacked her teeth and debated on if she was going to let them walk in with her. She guessed they were fly enough, and at least they straightened up after fucking Sir before leaving.

  “They with you?” Clay asked, seeing her hesitate.

  “Yeah, mane,” she said and waved for them to come in with her. “Let them in too.”

  “Thanks, Johnny,” Sugar said, licking her lips at Clay when she walked by.

  They followed Strawberry as she made her way through the big group of people until they all reached the bar. Strawberry ordered a drink while the other two sat down, casing the place. Rae Sremmurd’s song, “Come Get Her,” was blaring through the speakers, and everyone on the dance floor was going crazy to the beat. Every VIP table was sold out, and the occupants looked like they were working with some big money.

  “We need to start making our rounds,” Sugar said to Spice.

  “Girl, I know!” Spice looked around at all the men hungrily. “All this money in here is making my coochie wet! Daddy said he only needed a thousand, but I think I’ma bring him back two!”

  “Then I’ma do three!”

  Strawberry looked at their eager faces and realized that she too used to look like that. So eager to please Sir and make him happy. All she wanted to do was help him live the life that he wanted, even if that meant giving up her own.

  “How old are y’all?” she asked.

  She spent all day hating them, and it wasn’t until then that it dawned on her that she didn’t know a thing about them.

  “I’m twenty-one,” Spice said. “And she’s twenty-three.”

  “How the hell did Sir find y’all? Are y’all from Memphis?”

  “Yeah,” Spice answered again. “We met Sir at the hair store two weeks ago. He said he could put us on to some money, and shit, he looked like money, so here we are. We been hoeing on our own for a while, but we wasn’t really getting no real bread until we started fuckin’ with Sir. That’s why he moved us in with y’all. There wasn’t any point in us living house to house if he had an extra room for us.”

  “Right,” Sugar spoke up. “Y’all place is real nice. I can tell you was the one who decorated everything in there just by how you dress.” Sugar pointed at Strawberry’s outfit and gave her an approving smile. “Look, I know you don’t really want us there because you’ve probably been makin’ good money without us. But we ain’t tryin’a step on your toes or nothin’. We just wanna make some money too. I don’t see why we can’t just all get along. Like it or not, we all sharing the same dick now.”

  Strawberry wanted to slap the girl silly, but she was obviously already too silly for words. She shifted her eyes to Spice, who was nodding in agreement to Sugar, and Strawberry just tossed her drink back. There was no point in going to war with people who didn’t even know they were in a war. But Sugar was wrong about the reason Strawberry didn’t want them there. The real reason that she didn’t want them around was because they were the visible proof of all of Sir’s lies. She was foolish to think he would ever take her away to Hawaii. The reasons he said no other man would really be with her were the same reasons why he wouldn’t either. She was no longer his girlfriend; she was his employee. Strawberry wasn’t stupid. She knew what she was, and her fear of Sir and the outside world made her stay in her position. The three of them had a few more shots before Sugar and Spice got too antsy to sit in just one spot.

  “We’re about to go make some rounds, Strawberry. You coming with us?” Spice said, standing up from the bar stool she’d been sitting on.

  “Nah.” Strawberry gave her a fake smile. “I’m going to make my own moves tonight. Y’all got my number, though? And a taser?”

  “Yup, we got all that.”

  “A’ight. If I don’t see y’all in here again, I’ll just see y’all in the morning at home.”

  When the two of them left Strawberry alone, she asked the bartender for some water. It had suddenly gotten extremely hot.

  * * *

  Javier Jackson was a ladies’ man, not by choice, though. He wore his hair in two long braids and had an eccentric look about him. His jaw structure was strong, and his almond-shaped eyes were almost hazel. His full lips always made girls go crazy as a youngin’, and so did his muscular physique. Javier was full black, but his features made him look Native American. They attracted more attention than he would have liked, but then again, what man didn’t like attention from women? He just figured that maybe one day the right one would find him, and he would spoil her with all the good loving he had to offer. He knew when he graduated high school that he would be great, he just never guessed that it would be in the illegal distribution of drugs. Javier ran one of the top underground drug trades in all of Memphis. Most people called him a god, but he was more humble than that.... He settled for being called a king.

  The past five months business had been booming, and he hadn’t had time to do much if it didn’t include a dollar sign. But that Saturday, there was a big party going on at a club that he helped fund the opening for, so his presence was desired. Looking at it as a business matter, he decided to step out, however, not without a small army of soldiers around him. He could never be too careful. A man of his stature was always on somebody’s hit list. He dressed casually, in a tan Ralph Lauren button up, a pair of Levi jeans, and a pair of Ralph Lauren loafers. Most times, he was the richest man in the room, but Javier coined the phrase “Money is quiet, never loud.”

  When he pulled up to the club, he skipped the line and went straight in the large building.

  “My nigga!”

  Javier grinned because he knew the voice.

  “What’s up, Clay. How you livin’, mane?”

  “Can’t complain,” Clay responded, bumping fists with Javier. “Tryin’a get like you!”

  “Shit, I been tryin’a give a little opportunity,” Javier said, nodding at the men behind him. “You could probably show these niggas a thing or two! I’ve heard stories on how Big Clay used to get down, back in the day!”

  “Yeah, mane.” Clay smiled proudly at Javier’s compliment. “But that was back in the day. I’m a simple man now. But go on, head up in there. It’s a whole section cleared for you and yo’ peoples at the top. Enjoy yaself!”

  Javier dapped Clay up one more time and made his way to the party.

  “Javier!”

  “What’s up, my nigga!”

  “God! I knew you was gon’ show up!”

  “What’s poppin’, King?”

  As Javier walked, everyone showed him love, and he realized that he missed the people in his city. He had been holed up working so long, he forgot that they missed him too. When he got to the large VIP section with the soft leather seats, he ordered rounds for the entire club and just vibed out with his people. The strobe lights stalked the club, and everyone was going up. Many women fought their hardest to get in his VIP section, but security was too tight up there. All Javier saw was ass and titties, and he remembered that it had been too long since he last dug deep inside of a woman.

  Crazy as it sounded, Javier wasn’t the type to just take any woman to bed. He wasn’t even the type to entertain just any woman. That stopped a long time ago when he was in high school. His senior year, he learned a lesson from a girl that he always wanted to sleep with. He wanted her so bad. She had the best body in the whole school and a pretty face to match. He liked her because even though everybody made fun of her thick Hispanic accent, nobody would step to her because they knew she could throw hands. Maria Calico
was her name, and she’d made him feel like a complete scumbag one night at a party. It was the first time he’d ever seen her outside of school, but the impression he made on her that night was the reason she never spoke to him again. She walked in on him and three other guys getting head from a girl who had drunk too much. Maria didn’t try to save the girl, but out of all the boys in the room, Javier was the one she focused on.

  “I thought you was different,” she said. “You should be more selective on who you let put their mouth on you. She could have herpes.”

  And she was right. She didn’t know it, but she put so many things in perspective for him that night. He even left the room to go find her, but she was already gone. Afterward, Maria wouldn’t even look his way, so he never tried to shoot his shot with her. Still, though, years later, she still crossed his mind, and he wondered how she was doing. She was smart and had probably graduated from some Ivy League college, leaving the little people behind.

  “I was mobbin’ through the beach, yeah the city by the sea, Mama tried to keep me home, but I love the fuckin’ streets!”

  O. T. Genasis’s hit “Push It” blasted through the speakers, and it was almost as if the entire party turned up a notch. He and his right-hand man Teezo stood up on the upper level peering down on the dance floor.

  “Aye, mane,” Teezo nudged Javier with his shoulder. “That joint over there lookin’ kinda right!”

  Teezo was pointing his cup of Patrón over at a young woman sitting alone at the bar. Javier had to agree, she was definitely looking right. She was so thick, her entire ass couldn’t fit on the bar stool. She was sipping on what looked to be a glass of water, and when she looked up, giving Javier a glimpse of her face, he couldn’t believe who he was seeing.

  “Aye,” he said setting his drink down. “I’ll be right back.”

  “You got that thang on you?” Teezo asked since Javier was going to the lower level with no guards.

  “Nigga, I ain’t no rookie,” he said, lifting his Polo and flashing two pistols on his waist.

  “My nigga,” Teezo nodded his approval and went back to entertaining the women that had been let in the section.

  * * *

  Strawberry felt that she had wasted enough time just sitting at the bar. She figured it was time to move around. A few men had approached her, but none looked to have the kind of money she was looking to make for the night.

  “Maria?”

  Just as she stood up in her heels, she heard somebody call her by the name her mother gave her. Whipping around to see who it was, she saw a face and came up blank.

  “Do I know you?” she asked, making a face at the man who had approached her.

  He was really good looking, but one up-and-down look let her know he wasn’t a man she was going to waste any more time on.

  “Maybe.” He flashed a straight bright smile at her and licked his lips. “Javier. From East High.”

  Strawberry took the time to study his handsome face in hopes to jog a memory. When she did, her face broke into a smile. She would recognize those eyes anywhere.

  “Javier Jackson.”

  “That’s me,” he said, still smiling. “You still looking good, I see.”

  “I’ve been eating my rice and cabbage, you know,” she joked.

  “I see. Well, it does you well. Let me buy you a drink.”

  “Oh no,” Strawberry tried to put her hands up to tell him that she needed to go. “I can’t.”

  “I won’t take no for an answer.” Javier waved the bartender back over to them.

  “You still going, King?” the older bartender joked since Javier had spent so much already.

  “I’m here to get the club drunk and go home sober, Tim,” Javier chuckled. “What would you like?”

  “Umm . . .” The banter between the bartender and Javier had caught Strawberry’s attention. Reluctantly, she sat back down in her seat and pointed at a bottle of Cîroc behind the cabinet. “Some Berry Cîroc on the rocks would be fine.”

  “Coo,” Javier told her and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill. “Tim, let me get that bottle, two cups, and a jug filled with ice.”

  “No problem, King,” Tim said, taking his money. “Shit, for a fifty-dollar tip, I’d do just about anything except suck some dick!”

  Strawberry’s eyes grew wide, and she covered her mouth before her laugh could escape her lips. She couldn’t believe those words had just left the old man’s mouth, and from the looks of it, Javier didn’t either. Tim got them everything Javier had requested and went on his way to get the order of a young couple at the end of the bar.

  “Wait,” Strawberry said confused. “The fifty dollars wasn’t to pay for the bottle?”

  “I have a tab open,” Javier told her. “For the whole club. So if he made you pay for your drinks, you better get your money back now.”

  She hadn’t, but she had been sitting there wondering why Tim hadn’t asked for her to pay.

  “What is it that you do exactly to be able to open a tab for the entire club?”

  “I’m a street pharmacist, baby,” Javier joked, but he was completely serious, and Strawberry knew it too.

  “So that means you probably have a ton of little rats sniffing around your cheese, huh?”

  “I’m too real to keep a rat around me,” Javier said and licked his lips again.

  Every time he did that, Strawberry’s stomach did a flip. She didn’t know if the alcohol was getting to her, or if the man in front of her was just that fine. He was the kind of fine that gave a girl butterflies in her stomach and her clit at the same time.

  “Is that right?” she purred.

  “Damn right,” Javier replied. “You tryin’a find out?”

  “Uh-uh,” Strawberry shook her head giggling. “The Javier I remember is used to bitches chewing the whole crew.”

  “I left that life behind me.” He grew so serious that Strawberry stopped smiling. “I have too much going for me to spend my time degradin’ a woman. Shit, I don’t even have time to get my dick sucked these days.”

  “For real? You be that busy, huh?”

  “Yeah, I would make time for you, though.”

  The two of them talked and laughed until the entire Cîroc bottle was gone. It felt like it had only been a short while, but before she knew it, Tim was calling for last drink orders. The entire night had passed, and Strawberry hadn’t met a single john.

  “So what have you been up to since high school, Maria? You were always the smartest girl in school,” Javier was asking her. “What do you do for a living?”

  “Strawberry!”

  “Strawberry, girl!”

  She clenched her eyes shut. Sugar and Spice had chosen the worst time to show up again. She honestly had hoped they’d got their hits for the night and went home. She jumped up from her seat, suddenly embarrassed. They had such a good conversation, drunk or not, and the last thing she wanted was for him to know who and what she really was.

  “Umm, I have to go.”

  “What do you mean? I can drive you to wherever you need to be.”

  “Strawberry!”

  It was too late. Sugar and Spice were already standing right beside her, both with big smiles on their faces.

  “We just wanted to say bye and make sure you was all right before we left. You need some blow?” Sugar asked, and when Strawberry shook her head no, pointed at two men not too far behind them. “These drunk-ass niggas already gave us $300 for a hand job! Is this who you’re going home with? I thought Daddy said no broke niggas! Come on, Spice.”

  Spice waved her hand, and the two of them walked away. When they were gone, Strawberry was left standing there with a stuck expression on her face. The music was still loud, but the words sounded mushed together. She kept her head down not wanting to look into Javier’s eyes. She was too ashamed.

  “I-I gotta go,” she whispered and grabbed her clutch.

  “You’re a prostitute, Maria?”

  “I said I gotta go!”<
br />
  The disappointment in his voice was too much for Strawberry to bear. She had to get out of there and fast! However, Javier didn’t seem to want to let her do that.

  “I asked you a question.” He placed his hand on her arm, not allowing her to leave.

  “Let me go,” Strawberry begged and finally looked in his eyes. “Please.”

  “Not until you answer me.”

  “Yes,” she said snatching her arm away. “OK? Are you happy? Now you can regret the fact that you’ve spent your night talking to a ho while I try to figure out how to get a thousand dollars. Since I spent my whole night over here talking to yo’ ass, I’m probably going to be dead by the morning. Oh my God, Sir is going to kill me!”

  Strawberry looked around desperately for a john, but everyone had begun to clear the club.

  “Fuck!” she exclaimed and sat back down on the bar stool. She no longer cared about the nice time she’d had with Javier. All she could think about was the gun Sir pointed at her in the car. She knew he was serious about hurting her, and she didn’t want to spend another night in a hospital if she could help it.

  “Maria.”

  What am I going to do?

  “Maria?”

  He’s going to kill me this time. I know he is.

  “Maria!”

  “What?” she finally answered, whipping her neck with an attitude.

  “Here,” Javier said, holding out a small roll of hundred-dollar bills to her.

  “W-what’s this for?”

  “You said you needed a thousand dollars, right? Or some nigga is gon’ kill you. Take it. I owe you for ya time, anyway.”

  Slowly Strawberry reached out and took the money from him. She counted it and saw that there was five hundred more than what she needed.

  “Thank you,” she said, and he shrugged his shoulders.

  “You’re welcome,” Javier replied turning his back on her. He started to walk away but stopped and turned back to her. “Any nigga that feels that your body is only worth a thousand dollars is stupid. And you’re even more stupid if you believe it. Have a good night . . . Strawberry.”

  He walked away leaving Strawberry standing alone holding a fistful of cash, and like an idiot, she let him go.