by Cash
“Time’s up,” announced Juanita as she came into the den wrapped in only a towel that covered her breasts down to her mid-thighs. “I’ve already drawn a tub of water for your bath, just the way you like it.”
I pulled her to me and kissed her. Jill Scott was singing a different song by now but a nice one, still.
Juanita was first to break the kiss. “Now go, so I can write.” She nudged me toward the bathroom.
The bath water was hot and soothing. I sank down further in the tub so that all but my head was submerged underneath. I heard Jill Scott stop in mid-song, then Musiq Soulchild started crooning Love. Probably from the same CD I’d given Juanita before she left Atlanta after her mom’s funeral.
I closed my eyes and listened to his lyrics—ideas that sounded good on CD but were, thus far, foreign to me. However, Juanita made a nigga feel like she was the type of female Musiq Soulchild was spittin’ about in the song.
When I walked into the den in nothing but boxers, freshly bathed, cologne-splashed, Juanita was through writing. Still clad in only a towel, she looked sexy and definitely eatable sitting on the couch. Mad thigh was showing me that underneath the towel was nothing but naked pleasure. Musiq Soulchild was crooning the same song over and over, but from the expression on Juanita’s face, it was all good.
We took our papers back into the master bedroom, where I laid across the queen-size bed while Juanita lotioned my body and nibbled on my earlobes. She changed the music from Soulchild to instrumental jazz, then she handed me what she had written. I handed her my paper and told her it contained no lies or games.
“Promise?”
“No doubt,” I said and we both began reading.
Juanita had written:
I want to make love with you tonight for the same reason I chose to make love with you once before and for the same reason I haven’t been with anyone since. Because I believe it is “love” that we made that night, and not just an act to satisfy passion. I don’t give myself to passion, I give myself to love. I know what I had begun to feel for you before I gave myself to you last time, and that feeling continued to blossom even when we were apart. I love you. Yes! I LOVE YOU! Understand that, okay? Although that love is in its early stages, it is real love, nevertheless. By sharing love with you, I know I’ll help you learn to show the love that is buried deep inside of you. The love that all gods possess for their earths.
You are the sun. I am the moon. Though you’re not conscious of it, you are the foundation of all things in existence, including me. When you come to know yourself, I will receive my light from you. Tonight I want to receive your tenderness. I want to feel your touch and give you mine ‘cause I know that it will just be the beginning of a love that will be ours forever. So tonight, I will not be timid or shy. I will try to please you and help you to feel what you make me feel. Tonight I will give you all of me, baby. It was almost 2 ½ years ago, but I remember that night like it was just yesterday. So, tonight we build on yesteryear. We build on today. WE BUILD ON FOR ALWAYS…
That night our love-making was slow and intense. Juanita was naturally small, but her inactive sex life had made her even tighter. I’d been patient and gentle, allowing her time to get used to my size. From there, our bodies became one.
Yeah, I know it’s ill for a young G to be talking some Dave Hollister shit. On the real, though, I was feelin’ like I was not only making love to Juanita, I was becoming a part of her and her a part of me. The shit fucked with my mental ‘cause I didn’t wanna feel like that about nobody!
Life was too fickle, especially for a nigga on the run. I had already lost every person I ever loved, my seeds and my fam’. Rich Kid’s weak ass had murdered my sister ‘cause he was too weak to bring it to me. Cheryl had got ghost with two of my lil’ princesses, and I had to jet and leave Lil’ T and Tamia behind, probably forever. Ma Dukes had sold me out, as far as I was concerned. I had love for my dawg Lonnie, but circumstances dictated that we remain ghost from each other. I had love for Murder Mike, but murked him ‘cause he hadn’t had real love for me. Inez I cared for, maybe loved, but she too was now lost to me. Our forced separation showed me just how much I really cared about her and how much I’d lost.
I wasn’t trying to feel what Juanita was making a nigga feel. Life would not let it last. At any minute I might have to get ghost. Due to my situation, I was forced to live reclusively. That meant I seldom went outdoors, which denied Juanita the simple pleasures of companionship, like having her man with her to pick out groceries, or new household appliances, inviting friends from school over to study or discuss theories on whatever topics they discussed in class. For my comfort, she no longer held ciphers, sessions with her Five Percenter people at the crib. She still attended those weekly ciphers, but at one of the others crib.
Curious about the ideology, I’d ask her questions. Juanita was emphatic about the Five Percenter’s teachings being the truth and not an idea or faith. She told me some shit, like, whenever I really wanted the truth, she would prove to me that the black man was indeed god. She said she’d let me build with Wise Professor, and he would help me see my true culture and that would give me power, which would bring me out of the triple stages of darkness.
She might as well have been speaking Chinese. I wasn’t understanding or trying to understand that shit. I respected her convictions but my mind wasn’t trying to share them. It wasn’t a a problem, though, because Juanita never let it affect our chemistry.
Sometimes I’d go out at night, wearing the eye-patch, with Juanita to a movie or some other venture where it would be too dark for anyone to get a good look at me. Never to a restaurant or nightclub, Juanita loved the former, but had no interest in the latter. If my forced reclusiveness bothered Juanita, she never allowed its effects to show.
Baby girl showed unconditional love for a nigga, never hittin’ emotional switches, flip flopping or any of that shit. We were like Will Smith and Jada.
CHAPTER 19
Juanita was behind the wheel of the Ford Explorer, with tinted bubble windows. I had given her the loot to put a down payment on it. I could’ve easily bought the SUV with cash, but I wasn’t trying to draw any attention to shawdy. The Explorer wasn’t tricked-out, no custom rims or DVD player. Just plain, like it was when it left the dealers lot, except for the tinted bubble windows. It gave me a better feeling of security because other motorist couldn’t see inside like they could the Cressida.
It took about four hours to reach Los Angeles. We got there around five a.m., which meant it was eight o’clock back in Atlanta. Juanita found a payphone that I could use while still in the truck, then she went inside the store to give me privacy.
When Inez came to the phone, I said, “Good Morning. This is the gentleman who services your car.” That was a pre-arranged code to let her know it was me calling.
“Hi!” Inez responded with what certainly was more excitement than one would be expected to have for their mechanic. Calming her voice, she said, “Thanks for calling, my car is running fine.”
That told me it was safe to talk, or at least, Inez felt it was so. Had she had reason to think the call was being traced, she would’ve said her car was giving her trouble.
Her first words after that were, “I love you, boo. I miss you so much.”
“Are you and Tamia, okay?”
“We’re fine. She’s getting bigger by the day. I tell her you love her every day.” Her voice was full of emotion.
“That’s good. Is the heat still on?”
“Like crazy. Watching my every move.”
“You sure this phone is straight?”
“Yeah, it’s straight.”
“Any message from my tightman?”
“Two weeks ago. They’re cool. Didn’t say where they’re at. Told me to tell you to be chill, much love.”
“That’s cool,” I said. “Next time he hollas, tell him I’m good, and I’ll check back in a few. Anyway, is it bad there, I mean, the news and shit?”
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“Yeah. Real bad. Still in the papers.” Her voice sounded sad for me. A little worried, too.
“I figured that,” I told her. “Well, what’s done is done. Fuck it. How you livin’?”
“Me and the kids are fine. You left us straight. Plus, I still got mine, and Keisha has been breaking me off. I wanna be with you, though.”
“Not right now.”
“I understand. Still I miss you.”
“Somebody been sleepin’ in my bed?”
“Me and Tamia and Bianca when she’s acting jealous,” Inez said.
“Right, right. What about the nigga you ain’t telling me about?” I was just fuckin’ with her.
“You the only nigga I want. You don’t know that by now?”
I didn’t answer right away. When I did, I said, “I don’t know, shawdy. Time changes shit.”
“Nigga, anyplace, anytime. You call it, I’ll be there. Fuck everything and everybody else.”
I said, “I know you would.” Changing subjects, I said, “Hey, you seen my lil’ man?”
“Nah, that mama of his ain’t hearing that. I give money to Poochie for him, though. Shan be on some sideways shit.”
“Hmmph! What about Rich Kid? He back in the city?”
“I haven’t heard it. But, then again, I don’t go anywhere. Oh, I moved.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. Ann is worried about you.”
“Just let her know I’m good, and tell her I said I love her, despite everything.”
“Okay.”
“I gotta go,” I said. “I’ll holla again, when I can.”
“We love you.”
“Remember that,” I told her. Then I said good-bye.
I wiped the phone before reaching out the window and replacing it on the hook. By the time Juanita returned to the whip, I was deep in thought, missing my seeds like crazy, wishing I could just hear their voices. Missing Inez, too, to be real about it. A nigga gotta have some love for a shawdy that’s that down.
Juanita was down, too. In her own way. She drove back to Las Vegas, never complaining of being tired or asking who I’d called. She must’ve understood the logic of wanting to make the call far away from where we lived. And she didn’t complain one time when I bumped rap CD’s the whole ride back.
Juanita didn’t have classes that day so she went straight to bed when we got back to the crib. I put some leftovers in the microwave, waited for them to heat, then I took my grub into the den and popped in the DVD Friday. After the movie ended, I put in re-runs of the Martin Lawrence show and fired up a fat stogie filled with some of that good Mexican weed that Juanita got for me.
My head was right, belly was full and now tired of watching Martin re-runs, I went and climbed in bed with Juanita. She immediately fitted herself to me, like two spoons in a drawer.
“You hungry?” she asked, half-awake. Always trying to feed me.
“Naw. I warmed up those lamb chops you grilled the other day.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” said Juanita. “I should’ve asked if you were hungry before I laid my tired butt down. I’ll cook you a special meal tonight, to make it up to you. Okay?”
I told her she could feed me a special meal right now.
“You’re so bad!” Juanita said. But she fed me the special meal I’d asked for anyway.
Months after reaching Las Vegas and settling down with Juanita in our tract house, complete with all types of televisions and computer games to combat the monotony of forced reclusiveness, I began to slowly adjust to my new life. Juanita helped me make the adjustment by being as sweet and accommodating as a nigga could ever expect a shawdy to be. Sometimes I’d be in one of my moods when I didn’t wanna talk, hug or kiss, nothing but blaze a joint and get lost in my thoughts. Replaying the past in my head.
I’d think about my sister more than anything. My choices had cost Toi her life! If I had known where Rich Kid was, I would’ve gone back to the ATL to serve him the same ill fate he’d served my peeps. I missed her like crazy! I kept a picture of her in my backpack. I planned to get her name tatted on my shoulder one day.
Also, I hated that Kyree got scratched out before he really had a chance to make up for lost time in the pen, but he had understood that each and every time a nigga picked up that steel and went to take what he wanted, there was a chance he wouldn’t walk out of there. That was as much a part of the jack game as taking a nigga’s cheddar. His death was ill, but I could swallow it.
Pete, on the other hand, I smiled whenever I remembered blasting that fool. How he thought he could turn his back on me, with a banger in my hand, was unexplainable.
I was blazing a joint, wondering if Keisha had shit in ATL on lock when my eyes damn near bucked out of my skull.
“Oh, shit!”
On the television screen were mug shots of me, Lonnie and Delina, starring on tonight’s episode of America’s Most Wanted. The show depicted all three of us as ruthless killers, me as a monster. I didn’t like it when the host of the show called us cowards.
How a nigga gon’ be a ruthless killer, a monster and a coward? They labeled a nigga a mass murderer and a psychopath, too. Said police suspected me of other murders besides the ones in Lithonia, Georgia.
Ain’t that some shit?
For the next two weeks, I didn’t leave the house at all. I watched the street from the front window, both burners in hand.
Juanita asked if I would feel more at ease if we went to stay at a hotel for a while. At that particular time, I wasn’t leaving the door unless it was in a body bag. Otherwise, I was staying out of sight.
What I really needed was some real artillery. Some assault rifles and body armor, so whenever po-po did come my way, they mamas could get out their black dresses.
The Las Vegas paper advertised gun shows and conventions all of the time. Maybe I would venture out of the crib and check one out.
My only concern, then, was that cops probably went to those gun shows, too, trying to see what was the latest shit on the market for bad guys. And I had too much respect for Juanita to send her on a mission like that.
Weeks passed with no bum-rush from the FBI, and I began to relax a little. To be on the safe side, we moved to another place about twenty minutes away. Breaking leases were costly, but money wasn’t a thang.
Again we found a crib on a nice, quiet street, though not on a cul-de-sac this time. This crib had four bedrooms, two and a half baths and a den to go along with the average-size living and dining rooms and a good size kitchen.
I had one of the bedrooms soundproofed and turned into a small recording studio, complete with an electronic beat machine, sampler and other equipment needed to record quality tracks.
I spent mad hours in my recording studio making wack shit, at first, but then I got kinda dope the more time I spent polishing my skills and getting better at mixing beats and sampling music.
It was really just something to combat the boredom while Juanita was at class or gone to build with her people.
Inside the studio room, I put on the headphones and turned on the dope tracks I had laid the other day. Satisfied with the track, I sat down and wrote the lyrics:
It’s the g-h-e-t-t-o that’s got a nigga ‘bout to scream/Fuck dat/I’m chasin’ my dreams, my nigga/ by any means/Or could it be meant for me to struggle/ass out in the streets looking for a hustle/while fake rappers go from petty crime to stolen cars/to slangin’ dub sacks/ to crack supastars/all in one bar/that shit ain’t trill on the boulevards/where every day ghetto drama got a nigga high on weed/cocking that Smith & Wesson/ready to go take what I need/don’t call it greed/’cause I’m trying to rule the hood/why da fuck should I struggle while others livin’ hella good?/street mafuckaz know I flow true/like toes on one foot/we all in the same shoe/caught up in the same ghetto game/murking mafuckaz ‘cause they violate our name/or ‘cause our stash don’t weigh the same/from year to year don’t shit change/so who’s to blame for the infinite pain?/You can’t blame
us/we didn’t bring ourselves here in chains.
Completing the first verse, I put the pen down and practiced rapping the lyrics over the beats, over and over until my delivery was tight, then I wrote the hook and the rest of the song.
By the time I finished, three hours later, the shit was phat! I titled it Ghetto Drama: Don’t blame us! Then I listened to the finished version over and over, pretending that it wasn’t my own joint, asking myself would I bump it in my whip if some other nigga had made it. Maybe it was hard for me to judge my own shit, but the shit still sounded phat to me.
Juanita was through studying her lessons when I came out of the studio room to get her so she could listen to my joint.
She wasn’t a fan of gangsta rap but she was from the hood and still knew what was dope and what was wack. Besides, it wasn’t like Juanita was a religious fanatic or up on a high horse, despising hip-hop.
She had to love hip hop ‘cause she loved me and I personified the game. Plus, rap and hip-hop was just an expression of our culture and she was down with that, fo’sho’.
She appreciated the stories told through gangsta lyrics, she just didn’t choose to purchase those artist’s joints. It wasn’t like shawdy plugged her ears when I bumped certain rapper’s shit.
Besides, I gave Juanita mad props for walking the talk. She claimed to love her black people and our culture, and she backed her claims up with action. She shopped at black-owned stores, tutored young black kids in a program at the university, watched black television shows, read mad biographies and autobiographies about blacks, the whole nine.