Baby Momma 3

by Ni'chelle Genovese

  He marched over and asked Frankie what the problem was and of course Frankie put him off.

  “You ain’t gonna keep that nose if you keep sticking it in traps to see if they’ve snapped. This ain’t got nothing to do you with you, young blood. Go tend to your woman before I decide to tend to her, too.” Frankie Diamonds looked around Ray, blowing a kiss in my direction.

  My baby whooped his ass right then and there. He went to help up the girl Frankie beat and she was pretty much at the point of just giving up. She wasn’t going to make it and she knew it. She told Ray where Frankie’s clip was at in the car and he went for it. Came back across the street and showed me what had to be at least $30,000. Back then that was a lot of damn money. We decided we were gonna take that and move away together.

  A shout split the silence. “Them motherfucka’s right there. They snatched my shit.” Frankie’s Cadillac pulled up at the end of the alley and we could hear him circle around. I took Rasheed; he was all I could carry and I ran like the devil was chasing me. I ran through front alleys, back alleys, slid through puddles, ducked around trash cans. I splashed through what I could only hope was mud or puddles.

  “You’d better have a bank roll of bills strapped to that baby’s ass or I’ll kill everything you’ve ever known and that ain’t a forecast, it’s official,” Frankie hissed at me as he climbed out of the Cadillac.

  I wasn’t fast enough and damn sure didn’t hide well enough. Raising my chin and squaring up my shoulders I stepped out from behind the corner of the Dumpster where I’d been hiding.

  “I don’t have your money, so best you just g’on ahead and kill me then,” I told him defiantly.

  My head snapped around. I saw Frankie, brick, that dumpster, and then Frankie again. I could feel my cheek split open from the spot where his ring connected with the skin. He stood there in the alley with all of them diamonds glittering and glistening, sneering at me like I won’t nothing but shit on the bottom of his shoe. Somebody’d gone and rubbed the lamp his daddy called a dick one day and this evil genie of a man floated into the world promising all of these riches and treasure, claiming he could make all your troubles go away. The only thing you had to sell was you.

  He looked over at this tall, lanky black thang beside him. “What you think? Should I put her on the track, she look like she got thirty grand makin’ snatch, plus my commission?”

  They stared me up and down, assessing my street value while Rasheed whimpered in my arms.

  “You down one ho anyway. Lexy ass is done for. Might as well make her work off that roll; the kid gonna be an issue. Dead that.”

  Even if Ray gave Frankie that money back I knew he’d still kill him, Rasheed, and Mona for taking it. Something like that wouldn’t go unpunished and if word got out it’d make Frankie look weak. Police wouldn’t do nothing about it except lock Ray up for stealing if I went to them. I did what I had to do to save my family.

  “My sister can keep my baby. Put me on that track and I’ll make you six figures. Please don’t hurt anyone.” I was out there begging for lives that ain’t even know they were in danger, tears running down my face falling on Rasheed’s. He stopped crying though.

  “You make six figures and I’ll give you my Caddy, throw in some girls and make you a damn partner shit.” He laughed and jabbed the other guy with his elbow. “Tell Smoke where your sister stay and he’ll take your brat to her. Understand one thing ho, my repumatation, yes you heard me right because I’m never wrong. My repumatation is imperial. I won’t be known for peddlin’ or maintainin’ dirty sewer shit-stain pussy. Those are the kind of accusations I’d get if niggas saw or smelled yo’ ripe alley cat lookin’ ass right about now. I’m the hand of God as far as you’re concerned, cross me and I will smite thee. Your shift starts once you are cleaned up to my liking and you are on my clock.”

  That was the night Frankie the Ambassador Diamonds became my pimp, lover, husband, confidant, and my employer. When it was time to take me up out that alley and show me my new home he’d actually said out his mouth that I wasn’t ready to ride in his car yet; that I’d funk and fuck up his interior. This nigga took every side street and back road through the city and I had to walk while he followed along beside me. He said it’d toughen up my feet, get me conditioned for long hours of standing. Teach me how to get out there and properly do that ho stroll.

  It’s a big deal when a pimp adds a new girl to his roster. All the other girls that want and chose to be there are instantly jealous and catty. There were eight women all cramped up in this small three-bedroom house. The master bedroom belonged to Frankie and the only way you got to sleep in there with him was when you were earning stupid money. It didn’t make a lick of sense to me. If he had so much money why did he have us all up in this little-ass house and why would he want a ho that any dude could run up in on any given day? I never said that shit out loud though. Just kept it to myself.

  Frankie had the girl he called his “bread winner” show me the ropes and explain how everything worked. His reasoning behind that was that if I was trained by a “bread winner” then maybe I’d become one. Royce was a pretty round-faced girl I heard him call her a black and tan. She had a nice brown skin complexion with long, shiny black hair. I didn’t know what black and tans were but I was determined to figure it out one of those days.

  “Hand jobs is ten dollars, blowjobs is twenty dollars, sex is fifty dollars. Always use a rubber and don’t go anywhere suspect with more guys than you can handle. Stay away from the other pimps or they’ll think you’re choosing. That means like you’re looking for a new pimp. If you get locked up call Frankie, he gonna take it out cho’ ass if he have to bail you out that’s what happened to Lexy. Rule number one have Frankie’s paper and rule number um, one don’t get busted.” She rattled off rules like she was reciting her bedtime prayers. I wanted to ask if both of the rules were number one because they were that important but I left it alone. Royce talked in a spaced out breathy little voice like she was in a galaxy far, far away.

  Hours later I was out there with thoughts flying through my head, driving me crazy at around 145 mph. All I knew was that it was gonna be a helluva long way before I saw $30,000. My first hand job was easy as hell and after that I kept getting those left and right. Lacy walked over to ask my secret.

  I shrugged. “I just stand there like y’all do and tell ’em it’s ten dollars; ain’t no secret.”

  She looked dumbfounded. “Ten dollars! Ho, is you crazy? Hand jobs are twenty dollars. Frankie is gonna have your ass if he finds out the only reason you makin’ any money is because you out here giving discounts on your first damn day.” She rolled her neck at me.

  I almost popped her smart ass in the mouth for threatening to rat me out, and Royce for telling me the wrong prices. Spacey or not, she only did that shit because she was ruthless and wanted to stay the top earner. Showed me to never trust nobody no matter what. Just to show them hoes I wasn’t playin’ I waited until all they asses went to sleep and any nasty douche bottle left sitting in the bathroom got dipped in toilet water. Nasty-ass heffas ain’t know better than I’d show their asses better.

  After about a week I was the top earner and everybody except Lacy was up in the clinic with they snatch smelling like a sewer rat’s ass. That week Frankie Diamonds took me to see Rasheed for the first time. He cried when I tried to hold him like he didn’t know who I was and Mona clucked her tongue taking him back from me.

  “Mona, you seen or heard anything about Ray?”

  “He moved from what I heard, don’t know where. His ass win the lottery or something?”

  I smirked. “Yeah, or something.” I couldn’t believe he’d just leave without even looking for me or trying to help me. He didn’t even have the nerve to face Frankie and here I was selling myself to pay back the money he was out enjoying? I changed the subject. “How you been doing though? You okay with the baby and everything?”

  “Me and little man here is good. He get gassy
at night and wake up fussy but Auntie Mona taking good care of you ain’t she?” She cooed at my baby and he smiled up at her.

  “Oh, sis, let me borrow about ten dollars. I’m gonna need to go get Rasheed some more formula.”

  I gave her ten out of the money I had to pay out to Frankie; it’d be nothing to make it back up. Frankie beeped and I kissed Mona’s and Rasheed’s cheeks.

  After working for Frankie Diamonds for three years I finally decided to ask him how much I’d made him. He was sitting in the bathtub in the master bedroom at the house. It was one of the few times he actually stayed there during the week. The other girls were in the bedroom fighting over the clothes he’d brought us. He liked to keep us pitted against each other. Normally, I’d have already picked mine out and left the rest for them to fight over since I had the top spot. I had more pressing matters to deal with than cheap clothes.

  “You ain’t the tally keeper you the tail. You earn the tally and I run the tally wagon. When you hit your mark I’ll give you your letter.” Frankie smirked at me.

  He tried to brush me off but I wasn’t having it. I handed him my notebook wrapped in a towel so he couldn’t complain about his hands being too wet to take it.

  “I know, baby. You love your Diamond Ambassador pimp and you wrote me a poem or song or some other beautiful sonnettical form of self-expression and shit. I’m relaxing in my bath. I’ll look at it later.” Closing his eyes he laid his head back on the rolled-up towel on the ledge, mumbling, “Y’all hoes kill me thinking you worth a nigga every waking breath.”

  “That’s because I am worth it. This year I started tracking every dick I’ve had to touch for a dollar. I’ve made you a total $115,200!” I screamed at him, throwing my notebook at his head.

  You start to touch so many twenties and hundreds in a day and then you see a man with all these diamonds, watches, and furs. It makes you start to wonder what it all adds up to. The other girls didn’t question shit because as long as they had their dope for the night or Frankie got them that bottle of whatever they liked to drink they were fine. My ass got out there every night. More sober than a got-damn saint. I seen what that shit did to Mona and I wasn’t touchin’ none of it.

  There was a particular Friday night when I got out on that corner before sundown at six p.m. and didn’t get in until the sun came up the next morning at seven. During those thirteen hours I made $975. That was in one day. Made me wonder where ol’ Frankie really went when he stayed gone days and nights on end. He took me on a run with him once, to get dresses. He told me to go try shit on while he paid. I watched through the slats in the fitting room; he leaned ’cross that counter, running his mouth. When he was done, we were pulling around back and the bags went in the trunk. That register didn’t ring, ching, or nothing. Our money wasn’t even going toward us.

  It had gotten dead quiet outside that bathroom, which meant all ears were probably glued to the door.

  “Look here.” Frankie sat up in the bathtub, adjusting the shower cap on his head. “What I tell you about trying to count higher than what you can hold in one night? Ho business is yo’ business and dough business is mine. Unless you got receipts I don’t know what the fuck you talking about. Matter of fact if you made that much and it ain’t cross my palm”—he slapped the palm of his hand, spraying bubbles and strawberry-scented water into the air—“bitch, you betta go find my motherfuckin’ money! Delusional ass. Hey, hey now! What the hell y’all give this ho to smoke before you . . .”

  I didn’t think about it. It was one of those things that you just see in your head over and over every day. Especially when you’re laid up under some stranger and he’s just sweating and gruntin’ over top of you. Or someone’s got you by the back of the head and they’re mashing your face into they stank balls, for a measly fifty dollars. This is life day in and day out because a nigga says he’ll kill you and everything you love.

  One day I pulled that fantasy out of my head and made it happen. I turned to walk out of that bathroom knowing for a fact that I’d made this clown-ass poor excuse of a nigga well over $100,000. I’d lost my family behind it and sad to say for all that I barely had more than three grand to my name.

  The curling irons sizzled when I knocked them off the edge of the sink into that bathtub. I could never put in words the way Frankie the Ambassador Diamonds smelled as he stewed in his own excrements in that tub. Burning flesh has a smell that’s all its own. It’s kind of like how bacon smells exactly like bacon, you can’t describe it you just know it. He got fried to a crisp, knocked out the power in a four-block radius. And it all smelled like salvation to me.

  I took his car keys and drove home to see my baby.

  Chapter 19

  Burn Bitches Like Bridges

  (The Other Side of Miami)

  There’s only two times that a man is actually scared to walk into his own house. One is when you don’t know who in there. That morning I’d stood in front of the door trying to perfect my game face before I walked in on that second moment—a pissed-off woman with Lord knows what as a weapon. I’d driven around the rest of the night hazy as fuck piecing together exactly what I thought she’d heard but the shit was fuzzy. There wasn’t gonna be any lying my way out of this; she wasn’t the one to play with like that.

  Exhausted I gave up and went home when the sun started hurting my eyes. I’d gone up in there ready to face damn near anything except an empty house. Shiree sent my calls straight to voicemail so I blocked my number and started calling. She turned off her phone. I kicked myself for being so damn stupid. Last thing I remember was laying my ass across the bed fully clothed still buzzing from the long night.

  Hissing woke me up. Shiree hissed in my face; her nose was so close to mine I actually jumped when I saw her.

  “Shiree, baby,” I started to explain, wanted to explain everything to her.

  She held her finger up to my lip and shushed me. “You could have at least taken off your nut-stained jeans nigga. Don’t even try to start a lie. Worried about me at work and you out doing you.” She sneered.

  I’d started to sit up; maybe I could reason with her or plead, beg her to stay, I didn’t know. She laid her hand on my chest, motioning for me to lie back down. I ain’t know if we was about to angry fuck or what. Tense as hell, I did as directed. My head wasn’t flat on the pillow before she was floating a damn Mason jar right above my forehead.

  She looked down at me out the corner of her eye. “Ah, ah, ah. Don’t do that or you might make me spill it,” she said in a calm quiet voice.

  “What’s going on, Shiree? What the hell is that?”

  “Shhh. Acetic acid can eat through skin. You’d be amazed at what I have access to in the lab, Rasheed. I’d do worse to you, but karma is comin’ around and it’s gonna fuck you over better than I ever could. You’ve got me confused if you think I’m about to have this baby myself.”

  Baby? I ain’t even know she was . . . was it mine? Of course it was mine. The cool glass bottom of the jar felt like a lethal iceberg resting on my forehead as Shiree removed her hand, letting it balance itself out. Holding my breath I watched her out the corner of my eye as she slowly backed away from the bed. I wanted to cuss at her ass so bad my lip twitched.

  “I packed all my stuff while you were in your drugged-up, hoed-out coma. See how much the world loves you, when you and your pretty dick ain’t so fuckin’ pretty.”

  I heard her call out in a petty voice from the doorway but all my focus was on not breathing, blinking, or moving. Shit she was probably bluffing and that shit wasn’t nothing more than bleach but I didn’t want to take any chances with hit. The smoke detectors were going off and I could smell smoke, even see it out the corner of my eye. If I ain’t think of something quick that shit would have me coughing and it’d be a wrap.

  I prayed every prayer I’d ever heard or read and I smacked the jar off my head, rolling to the side simultaneously. It shattered against the closet, sizzling and fizzing.

&nb
sp; That crazy bitch really set a jar of acid on top of my fuckin’ head!

  I’d be mad about it later; first I had to figure out what the hell was smoking. The couch in the living room was completely engulfed in flames. All my clothes were up there my kicks, my dress shoes. I couldn’t have slept that hard.

  Grabbing the fire extinguisher out of the kitchen I got the fire put out. The fire department still showed up because all the smoke set off the alarms in the building. I lied and said a cigarette fell. Couldn’t risk throwing her crazy ass under the bus out of spite; she was liable to throw the bus right back at me. After the fire department left I checked my voicemail and tried to find something clean to put on. She’d actually managed to fit every piece of clothing I owned on that damn couch. I was reduced to washin’ the crotch of my jeans in the sink until I could roll out to buy some more.

  That made me think of car keys. I panicked. Thankfully, they were still on the table by the front door. I checked my car and it didn’t seem like she’d tampered with it so I was good. It felt like a piece of my damn heart was missing and it was my own fault. She ain’t even want to hear anything I had to say. On top of all that she was havin’ my baby. How far along was she? Man, Shiree couldn’t get rid of it; that wasn’t an option. She’d come around; she’d have to come back around and hear me out. I returned Angelo’s call to get my mind off Shiree’s craziness.

  The phone didn’t even ring a whole ring before he picked up.

  “Angelo, what, was you sitting on top of your phone waiting for those chicks from the club to hit you back?” Hopefully he’d be able to get me out of this foul-ass mood I was in.

  He shrieked in my ear, “You cut me out and cut a deal with my pop?”

  Or not. I grimaced. It hadn’t crossed my mind that Angelo would eventually find out and that he’d be pissed when he did. Shit, Shiree messed up my planning process. I’d have normally sat down and figured something like that out.