“No,” Lynn answered as she shook her head sadly. “Well, not directly. After days of calling and text messaging him with no reply, he finally sent me a text message last night telling me to get my life together and never speak to him again.”
I could see the tears forming in her eyes as she made an ill attempt to fight them back.
“I’m sorry, Lynn.” I sympathized with her as I reached out to hug her.
As we embraced, she replied, “No, it’s all for the best. I shouldn’t have been with him anyway. I do need to get my life together. I’ve fallen off track in so many ways. I’ve disrespected so many people. I’ve disrespected God in so many ways...”
I could hear her crying quietly as we continued to hold each other close. I rubbed her back and she rubbed mine. Honestly, I needed the embrace and support just as much as she did.
As we let one another go, my eyes began tofill with tears as well.
“How are your kids?”
“Glad to be back with their mother,” she told me shamefully. “I missed my babies, but it’s so hard to have them sleeping on couches with me.”
“What about Travis?”
Lynn sneered. “What about him?”
“Is he asking you to come back?”
“Yes, but for the wrong reasons.”
“Then you know what you need to do.”
Lynn nodded as the tears still flowed quietly. “I just hope I’m forgiven for all that I’ve done, ya' know?”
“You already are,” I told her. “You know that simply because you asked, you are already forgiven.”
As we re-entered the sanctuary, I opted to sit close to Lynn since it was obvious that she needed the support. Her heart was obviously weary and burdened. Though mine was as well, I felt that my burdens were so minuscule in comparison to hers. Taij was sitting on the other side of the church with DeSire, so I was free to cater to my friend.
After the praise team opened for the pastor, God’s anointing filled the sanctuary with a layer of praise and worship that was remarkably powerful. The presence of the Lord was so thick that it could not be denied or ignored. I sat beside Lynn and held her hand as we both prayed.
As the presence of the Lord became more intense, the Holy Ghost scattered across the room hitting random worshippers and causing them to fall out, shout in praise, and speak in tongues. The more praises went up, the more overwhelmed Lynn became. I could hear her saying “I’m sorry” over and over again as she rocked back and forth.
Suddenly she stood and slowly walked the aisle that lead to the pulpit. I watched Lynn as she arrived at the pulpit, lay prostrate, and wailed her apologies. She cried out repeatedly for forgiveness. It was so ironic how she lay so vulnerable on that pulpit, revealing her indiscretions, and begging for forgiveness as Travis stood above her alongside Pastor Jackson.
I knew that Lynn’s tears were not for Travis, the marriage that she lost, or for the happiness that she destroyed with Ray.
Lynn’s tears were from the shame of defying a much higher being than any man or any penis can ever be.
TRICEY
I woke up on the floor in front of the back door.
I had cried myself to sleep.
Slowly, I attempted to get up from the floor. I thanked God that nothing felt broken or fractured, but many of my limbs were sore to the touch and ached uncontrollably. I was going straight to the living room to get my cell phone. I was hoping that I missed calls from Blood, but there were only missed calls from my mother and Lyric.
When I saw that the time was ten minutes after noon, I realized how many hours it had been and how little time it takes to kill someone. I prayed that they were just holding Blood captive, but my common sense knew better.
When I made it into my bedroom, I finally saw the extent of my injuries. My face was swollen in various places, but the bleeding had stopped. My eyes were still swollen and were black and blue.
I called Lyric first, but she didn’t answer. I started to call Vic, but I stopped when I remembered that it was Sunday. I knew she was in church. Therefore, I struggled to slip on a pair of jeans and slid into a pair of flip-flops in order to go to Walgreens to get some first aid supplies.
I couldn’t go to the police because, not only had Blood just stashed work in my home, but I was also sure that there were guns and drug paraphernalia hidden around the house that would get me locked up. There was nothing that I could tell the police that wouldn’t get me arrested and Blood locked up… if they were able to find him.
So, I obviously couldn’t go to the hospital either.
As I walked out of the front door, I dialed Smith’s cell phone number.
It went straight to voicemail.
Dazed, I felt like I was floating rather than driving. I didn’t know what to do or what to feel. I was so thankful to be alive, but at the same time, I wished that I were dead. The feeling of guilt for tricking Blood into his own death was the equivalent of death to my soul.
I wondered if his death would make the news or if his body would lie in its hiding place for months before it was found.
Again, I called Smith.
Again, it went straight to voicemail.
As I pulled into the Walgreens parking lot, my cell phone began to ring. I prayed that it was Blood or even Smith, but it was Lyric.
As I answered her call, I searched my car for sunglasses to hide my black eyes. Luckily, there was a pair in the glove compartment. “Lyric, I think Blood is dead,” I said as I began to cry.
“WHAT?!”
I explained everything to her; how they held me captive since yesterday morning, how they beat me, and how they made me set Blood up.
“Oh my God! Tricey, are you okay?!”
“I’m sore, but I’m okay. My face is swollen, but I’m at Walgreens now getting an ice pack and some pain medication. I just want to sleep.”
“What about the baby?”
“It feels fine. They didn’t hit me in my stomach, thank God.”
“Well, what are you going to do? Aren’t you going to call the police?”
“Blood told me not to.”
“Fuck that! Call the police! They are probably killing him!”
“I know,” I whined as I fought tears. “But what am I supposed to tell the police? That I was kidnapped because my friend killed someone? They’ll know what’s up! He’s already being watched by the Feds. They’ll raid my house! I don’t know how much dope is in there! Do you want me to have my baby in jail?”
“Do you need to go the hospital? Are you in pain?”
“Everything hurts, Lyric. I can’t go to the hospital though. They will want to know who did this to me. I just want to go home. Will you come by, please?”
“Of course, girl. I’m already getting dressed.”
I was still crying as I walked the pain reliever aisle aimlessly. I still felt like I was floating, suspended in mid-air in an alternate hellish reality. This was all too unreal. I did feel stupid for not calling the police, but just in case Blood was granted a miracle and wasn’t dead, I needed to do what he told me to.
As Lyric continued to promise me that she was on her way and would make sure to take care of me, I began to feel weak. Though I was in pain from limb to limb, there was new dizziness that suddenly came over me.
I began to whence from the sudden spinning and nausea.
“Tricey, you okay??”
“I don’t think so, Lyric.”
Next thing I knew, I was sliding down to the floor and taking all of the Tylenol from the shelves to the floor with me. I could hear Lyric screaming as my cell phone hit the floor beside me. Before I could pick it up, a customer that was in the aisle with me quickly ran towards me. All she saw was a pregnant woman on the floor with a busted lip, so she immediately went ballistic.
I was too out of it to pretend as if I was okay for the sake ofgetting out of there before someone called an ambulance.
The woman began to call for help. “Help! Someone call 9-1-1!”
Soon there were many footsteps rushing towards us. I could hear people gasping at my condition. My sunglasses had fallen off. I was so embarrassed, but too dizzy and in pain to care anymore.
“Babe, she just fell. Call the police,” I heard the lady, who initially came to my assistance, say to someone. “Help her. Hold her head up.” Then she told me, “Sweetie, this is my husband, Amiel. We’re going to help you. You’re going to be okay.”
Seven months later . . .
Grand Hustle
ONE
Monday, March 1, 2010
STAR
It was the first of the month, and I had been up since bright and early that morning.
The first of the month is not only the busiest day in the drug game, but in the sex industry as well, so I had a hectic day ahead of me.
I wouldn’t exactly call what I was doing prostitution. As a matter of fact, I didn’t put any labels on how I made money. It was simply called doin’ what I had to do.
My mother always taught my sister, Tricey, and me to be independent women. When I had my son, during my sophomore year of high school, I kept that independent mentality. As soon as I was old enough to work, I got a job. At first, the money wasn’t that bad because I had so much help from Jordan’s father. Then, by the time I graduated from high school, I was a single parent and that pissy minimum wage wasn’t enough for me to wipe my ass with. My mother and sister helped as much as they could, but once Tricey gave birth to her baby girl, I couldn’t expect my family to be available to help me as much anymore. Plus, it wasn’t their duty to take the place of my deadbeat baby’s daddy. He took his need for a higher education to some college in Florida and left me here to work and go to nursing school full-time while taking care of Jordan.
Almost a year ago, my best friend, Ebony, who I met in an anatomy class at school, introduced me to trickin'. Her personality was magnetically overwhelming. I was immediately sucked into her ability to have fun with life, no matter what. I was also amazed by how she was able to keep her nails and hair done, have the nicest clothes, feed her three kids, keep a nice apartment, and pay for school without clocking in at a job. My curiosity in her abilities led her to tell me that she was escorting.
At first, I was turned off by even the thought of escorting. However, as Ebony continued to make thousands of dollars every time her phone rang and I continued to have sex for free with guys who couldn’t care less about me, my mind eventually changed. I finally smartened up and figured that I needed to get more out of sex than some thoughtless fool on top of me for an hour or two.
As I was running back and forth getting Jordan’s morning bath ready and checking emails through our campus student connect, my cell began to vibrate. It was a text from Ebony with a list of stuff to get from a few websites.
From time to time, Ebony and I also ran credit card scams. We got credit card numbers from our guys, Benz and Scoop, and purchased items by request for half the price.
We also would help Benz and Scoop set up known drug dealers with a lot of cash. Ebony and I would get to know the guy and gain his trust. We also memorized the layout of their houses and stash spots, and then gave Benz and Scoop all of that information so that they were able to rob them quick and easily when ready.
In return, Ebony and I got a nice cut.
I know that the shit that I was doing was rather fucked up, but it allowed me to live comfortably. I watched my mother be a single parent and struggle from paycheck to paycheck while piecing together dinners, making excuses when the heat would get turned off, and shopping at the Goodwill store. I swore that I would do anything I had to do to keep my son from watching me live that same miserable existence.
I knew my worth. I knew that I was a beautiful and educated Black woman that could do better, but even Cinderella had to do some dirty work, and Alice had to game her way out of Wonderland.
Later that afternoon, after class, Ebony and I met in the front of her apartment building, hopped in her Charger, and rode to the West Side to drop off some merchandise to one of our faithful customers. Then, DeShawn was going to meet us on Roosevelt so that I could hop in his truck and hang out with him for the rest of the night.
Roxie introduced me to DeShawn about two months ago so that Benz and Scoop could stick him up. She met him when one of her flings introduced them when he was buying work from DeShawn. After some pillow talk, Roxie learned about DeShawn’s status in the drug game.
After I was able to gain his trust and learn his stash spots, I gave Benz and Scoop a full layout of DeShawn’s condo: entrances, security, location of stash spots, and how much drugs and money he had in them. Benz and Scoop were going to stick him up when they felt it was time.
“So how much longer do you think we have to sit on DeShawn?” Roxie was talking to me, but she was going through a green light while looking in the rear view mirror as she applied more lip gloss. Roxie is Ebony’s “stage name.” It’s actually what she demanded to be called because, in her mind, she was always on stage, and she presented herself as such twenty-four/seven. She kept her hair done, whether in its natural state or a weave, makeup was always on and in place, and she was always accented with beautiful accessories, even if she had on her scrubs. She was 5’7”, with a handful of titties, but a lot of hips and a very fit shape. In her mind, she was in competition with Beyonce, Halle, all of ‘em. No matter how anyone else thought she looked, Roxie’s confidence spilled from her dramatically, and you couldn’t tell her that her shit stunk, even if you could smell it a mile away.
I sighed slightly before answering her question.
Before I could say anything, Roxie smacked her lips and said, “Don’t start that shit, Star. I know you like him and all, but...”
“I know! I know! I haven’t forgotten.”
This was going to be my second set-up. I didn’t feel guilty about the first one because Darnell was a loud mouth, cocky asshole who thought the world revolved around him, and he treated me like a piece of disposable ass. When Benz and Scoop took him for that twenty thousand dollars, I laughed my ass off the entire run down the street after Benz pretended to let me out of the house to “spare my life.”
Twenty thousand dollars was nothing to Darnell, and the five thousand dollar cut that I got from it wasn’t even worth the months I spent laying up under that arrogant son of a bitch.
Benz and Scoop never hurt anyone during these stick ups. They were hustlers, not murderers. The closest they got to guns were while using one as a scare tactic during a robbery. At that point, I don’t think they had ever even pulled a trigger. So, I was comfortable helping Benz and Scoop get an asshole for thousands that he would most likely throw away anyway.
However, DeShawn was different. He was so sweet and focused for his age. Most twenty-five year old guys are so geeked about balling that they throw money around arrogantly and obscenely. DeShawn was low key. The only reason people knew that he had money was because there was no other way that someone so young and unemployed could have a condo downtown with both a Range Rover and Lexus truck in the garage. Unlike other ballers, DeShawn didn’t flaunt the thirty thousand dollars a week that I eventually learned that he made by selling cocaine in weight. He stayed quiet, was never on the scene, and stacked his money.
It also helped that he was so adorable and sexy.
“I don’t know. I told Scoop that any day now is cool. DeShawn trusts me at this point. I think Benz and Scoop should make sure that he is alone when they stick him up, though.”
Roxie looked at me curiously. “Why? You think he’s trigger happy?”
“No, but his boys are.”
“How much money do you think he has?”
At first, DeShawn was very cautious about me even being in his house, which was understandable. However, as the months went on, and since I’d already learned how to gain his trust through my experience with Darnell, I was eventually such a “sweetheart” that he finally began to open up to me. He began allowing me to spend the night. H
e also started going into his stash in front of me and staying in the room with me when he had business calls.
I hesitated to answer Roxie’s question because I was beginning to feel guilty about this particular set up. Even though I knew that DeShawn was strictly “work,” I was starting to like him more and more as the days went by. I was beginning to wonder if I was sacrificing potential long-term happiness and comfort to help my friends get rich quick.
I had to check myself though. It was easy to fall for an attractive man with a lot of money. I had only spent two months with DeShawn, when Benz, Scoop, Roxie, and I had been in this for over a year, risking everything to feed each other and our kids.
“At least one hundred thousand.”
Roxie damn near hit the brakes. “Whew! Yes! I can put the pussy on vacation for a while off that cut! Wait until I tell Benz! He is going to be so happy.”
I laughed half-heartedly.
Sometimes Roxie’s money hunger and elementary schoolgirl crush on Benz got on my nerves. She thought that I didn’t notice, but I saw how she tried to get Benz’s attention and flirted with him. She had to be more so attracted to his personality, his thug appeal, and his status, because he wasn’t cute at all.
He barely paid her any attention anyway, except when he needed her to make him some money.
LYRIC
When James walked into my condo, my mouth instantly began to water.
I loved just watching him. I was attracted to him in a way that I hadn’t been attracted to a significant other in a very long time. Beyond our sexual attraction, I was extremely attracted to the way he loved and accepted me for me.
I met James about seven months ago. Neither one of us were looking for anything serious. We simply wanted to date casually because committed relationships had been too dramatic for both of us. We both openly dated other people for the first two months. However, as time progressed, there was no denying the chemistry between us, so we slowly became an item.
Good Girls Ain't No Fun Boxed Set (The SIX romance and urban fiction volumes of the LOVE, SEX, LIES series) Page 38