Hustlin' Divas (7 page)

I reached up and dragged my nails down Leroy's mug shot. I could feel his skin and blood scraping off.

He howled out in pain but retaliated with a one-two punch.

I tried to scream, but my mouth was quickly filling up with blood. Time and space became a blur. I even forgot that I was supposed to be trying to fight back. My mind was just spiraling into a black abyss.

“You just wanted all this good dick to yourself, didn't you, baby?” Leroy changed up, squeezing my titties like he hadn't just beaten the shit out of me. “You ain't got to worry about a damn thing. There's plenty of this good dick to go around.” He snatched my legs open and rubbed the head of his bloody dick over my clit.

Pop! Pop!

“What the fuck?” Leroy roared.

Pop! Pop!

I felt Leroy jerk.

Pop! Pop!

My eyes flew open when it felt like my left leg had been slammed by two hot pokers.

Leroy slumped over on the bed. His big golden eyes were still glossy but lifeless. I struggled to pull myself up. At the doorway, Alice stood with tears streaming down her face, blood pooling on the floor between her legs, and Nana Maybelle's gun smoking in her hand.

 

I blink out of the old memory, sigh, and glance down at my prosthetic leg on the floor—complete with the electric tag that the po-po strapped on yesterday. If I had a nickel for every dumb muthafucka I've come across, I would be one rich bitch, that's for damn sure. I strap on my leg and climb out of bed.

Arzell stretches out a muscled arm, pats the empty space beside him, and then lifts his head from the pillows. “Where you goin', Ma?”

A big smile blooms across my face. “I'm fixing to knock the funk off this body, and then I'm going to hook my boo up with some good ole homemade flapjacks. Would you like that?”

“Fuck yeah.” Arzell rolls over onto his back with a big Joker smile. “That's what I like about you older women. You know how to take care of your man.” He stretches his hand down and wraps it around his early morning hard-on. After a couple of pumps, a few drops of precum ooze from the tip.

“Looks like Momma needs to fix you up first,” I say, edging back over to the bed.

“You know it.” He spreads his legs wide.

I just love these young boys. Their dicks are always just a little harder than they heads. “In that case, come to Momma.”

A
week after KyJuan had been shot down in the heart of Gangster Disciple territory, an unofficial war was declared against the Vice Lords. Hell, it isn't safe for any nigga to be out on the streets: young, old, male, or fucking female. It really doesn't matter because the wildin' out members who aren't waiting for no verification on who sent them niggas blazing down Shotgun Row are just straight blasting everything in sight. Python has the power to reel these niggas in, but he doesn't seem to be all that interested in doing so. He is content to hold the whole city hostage until somebody starts talking—mainly Fat Ace.

For the time being, Fat Ace is MIA. No matter how many ears and foot soldiers Python has patrolling the streets, no one has seen this muthafucka nowhere. How the fuck they can't find a three-hundred-plus-pound muthafucka is beyond everyone's comprehension.

True to his word, the minute the
Commercial Appeal
printed the names of the shooters in the paper, Python sent a team of GD assassins to roll up on those niggas' families and wipe out what was left of their family trees. The rash of gang violence dominated the nightly news, and Memphis PD washed the streets with blue lights each and every night.

I keep my head down and my mind on my fucking job. For the time being, that's still muling shit into Memphis's fine prison system. At this point, the job is a breeze. The top dogs know just who can be bought with pussy and who needs to be cut in on the profits. The money flowing out of the joint is the best money to be made, since our people on the inside make three times what the shit is worth on the street.

My cut is decent, but even decent money isn't cutting it no more when I keep dating niggas who are in my pockets more than I am. Every time I turn around, it's “Can I borrow twenty dollars for this?” or “Can you run to the store and get me that?” That's the problem with just dealing with lowly foot soldiers; ten times out of ten they spend their money faster than they make it.

I know that I need to get my act together so I can get my kids back. Family Children Services took all three of them because my mother kept reporting that I wasn't taking good care of them, which is bullshit. I fed my damn kids. They just looked poor because that's how they damn looked. Probably took after they damn daddies, even though I'm not sure who they all are.

The Queen Gs are like a substitute family within the family, and just like most families, it tends to be dysfunctional as a muthafucka. Sometimes there's just as much fighting going on inside the set as there is fighting such bitches as the Flowers or the Crippettes. Brothers of the struggle tend to cast their nets in their own pool or bring in new bitches who don't know shit about gang life. Either way, there's a lot of man stealing or sharing, and I'm just as guilty as anyone.

If I'm going to change my situation, I need a higher-ranking nigga within the Gangster Disciples. Someone who slings big money. Since my dreams and hopes were derailed when KyJuan died, I need to cast my net again.

“I'm thinking about gettin' a job down at the Pink Monkey,” I blurt out to Baby Thug as we cop a few cases of beer at the J & W Liquor Store.

Baby, pretty much my only true friend in the set, busts out laughing at my ass before turning away and strutting up to the counter.

“What's so goddamn funny?”

“You,” she says, setting her shit down. “You may have the body, but you sure as hell don't have the rhythm.”

I move up behind her and set two more cases down. “What the fuck you know? I can dance.”

Baby jams her hand into her pocket and pulls out a fat roll of money. “Girl, I ain't talking about just rocking your hips in time to the music. Your ass got to be able to work it down at the Pink Monkey. Those girls don't be playing when they hustlin' for that paper—bending and twisting their bodies like pretzels.” She shakes her head. “You are going to have to really up your game.”

The old black man behind the counter squints his brown and jaundiced eyes at us.

“So?” I say. “I can do that shit, too.”

“Bitch, please. Half the time you be tripping over air.” Baby glances up at the old dude behind the register. “What the fuck? Your arthritis acting up, nigga? How much?”

The man lifts a trembling, withered finger and shakes it at Baby. “Ain't you the girl who came in here and robbed me last week?”

Here we go
. I roll my eyes.

“Ain't nobody robbed you, old man,” Baby snaps, her face twisting like she's offended. “Now how much the fuck do I owe you?”

“Yeah. You were the one,” he says, bobbing his head.

Quick as lightning, Baby's gat is in her hand, and a red light glows in the center of the man's forehead. “For the last time, old man, I
said
nobody fuckin' robbed your ass.”

Grandpa's hands shoot up in the air as his nervous gaze shifts toward me. “Don't look at me. I didn't rob you either.”

“All right. All right. My mistake.” He licks his lips.

There is a small tinkling sound and then a foul odor drifts toward us.

Baby sniffs. “Muthafucka, did you just piss on yourself?”

“And shit,” I add.

The old man swallowed so hard we can see his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

Baby lowers the gun. “Damn. You're a nasty muthafucka.” She tosses a few bills on the counter and then grabs the cases of beer by their cardboard punch-out handles and marches out the door. Once outside, Baby glances over at me. “Damn, Yo. Why in the fuck didn't you remind me we robbed this muthafucka last week?”

“Shit, girl. I can't keep up with that fuckin' shit.”

We quickly hop into Baby's tricked-out royal blue '68 Impala and burn rubber back toward Shotgun Row. Nobody dares tell Baby that she looks like a thirteen-year-old teenager behind the wheel, including my ass. I know my girl is sensitive about her size and wouldn't hesitate putting a cap in someone's ass if they mentioned it.

“Are you still going to braid my hair?” Baby asks when we pull up to the curb of my momma's house.

“Shit, I guess so. I can go fill out an application down at the Pink Monkey afterward.”

Baby shuts off her engine and climbs out from behind the wheel. In the distance, a series of gunshots catches our attention, but no one on the street trips. It's probably just business as usual. “You're really gone take your no-rhythm ass down there?”

“Fuck you, Baby.”

“You going to keep saying that shit to me and I'm going to take you up on it.”

I may be a little slow from time to time, but I'm more than aware that Baby is interested in more than just friendship with me. It's just too bad I don't feel the same way about her, because Baby is really cool peoples. I know for a fact that she treats the girls she dates like fucking queens, spending time and her hard-earned paper on them. But it never really lasts long, because Baby says women are just as scandalous as the niggas I deal with—maybe more so. I think it's debatable.

“Hey, y'all. Whatcha up to?”

Baby and I turn around to see Pit Bull, a large Queen G who is as husky as the two pit bulls she's always walking up and down Shotgun Row.

“Nothing. Just hanging for a little while,” I answer.

Baby elbows me and hisses, “Why the fuck you always talking to that bitch?”

“What? I'm just being nice,” I whisper back.

Pit Bull jams a hand on her hip and rolls her eyes. Her dogs, Barksdale and Hoover, growl at us. “You two muthafuckas know I can hear y'all, right?”

“And?” Baby snaps.

“Whatever. You two homo bitches deserve each other.” Pit Bull tugs on her dogs' leashes and continues her flat-footed stroll down toward her own crib.

“You just mad that nobody wants your funky ass,” Baby yells.

Pit Bull flips us the bird.

Baby turns toward me. “Why the fuck you always talking to that heifer? You know I can't stand that bitch. She don't do nothing but talk shit behind everybody's back.”

I know that, but I still struggle with that childhood need to win people over no matter how many times my ass gets burned. “C'mon, girl. Get in here so I can do your head.” I turn and swish my ass up my momma's porch steps.

The moment we enter the front door, our eyes land on Betty sitting in her La-Z-Boy and eyeballing
Wheel of Fortune.
As usual, the house smells like a combo of Vicks VapoRub and Bengay.

“Hey, Ms. Turner,” Baby greets with a lazy wave.

Betty exhales a long breath and just ignores her.

We keep it moving and unload the beer in the refrigerator before we take out two cold ones that were already chilling in there.

“We going to be in my room, Ma,” I say, not expecting or receiving an answer.

“I hate to talk about your momma and everything, but that shit ain't normal.” Baby pops open her beer.

“Normal?” I laugh, grabbing my Blue Magic hair grease and fat-toothed comb. “What the fuck is normal on Shotgun Row? This dirty, cracked-out muthafucka ain't exactly what they put on postcards, now, is it?”

“Yeah. You right. You right,” Baby concedes. “But that woman ain't said shit to me in the seven years I've known her. Nothing. Nada. I think if I waltzed in here on fire, she couldn't be bothered to piss on me to put the shit out.”

“Don't worry. You ain't the only one.”

Baby shakes her head, chugs down half her can of beer in one gulp, and then burps so loud that the neighbors probably heard her.

“Gross.”

“You know that shit turns you on.” Baby winks.

“Stop playing and get your ass over here.” I say, sitting down on the edge of the bed and spreading my legs.

Baby rushes over and drops down on the floor in front of me. “Can you hook it up in that crisscrossed style Allen Iverson had in that picture I showed you last week? Remember that?”

“Yeah, girl. Hold your head still.” I start in on one end of Baby's cornrows. I actually like braiding people's hair. It is a surprising talent that came naturally to me. All I have to do is see a style one time and I can duplicate it, no problem. A lot of the girls in the set who don't really care for me often cheese in my face, get me to do all kinds of complicated styles, and then pay me little or nothing for it. Everybody except Baby. She always breaks me off what some of those girls who work in the salons be charging—and most times a little more.

“Now this is what the fuck you need to be doing to pull you some extra money,” Baby says. “You know you got mad skills.”

“Sheeiit!”

“What?” Baby asks, trying to glance over her shoulder.

I jerk her head back around. “Keep your damn head still.”

Baby snickers. “Whatever. You know I'm right. You don't need to be sliding your ass up and down no damn pole like the rest of those trifling hoes, tryna catch a dollar. You need to see if Ms. Anna will rent you a chair at her salon.”

“Please. I hear those bitches at the Pink Monkey be dragging in six to eight hundred a night.”

Baby's head jerks back again. “In Memphis? At the Pink Monkey? And you believe that shit?”

I frown.

“See, that's the problem with you, Yo-Yo. You're too trusting. You believe every muthafuckin' thing these trifling bitches be spitting. Six to eight hundred a night. Shit, this ain't Vegas. Those same hoes be running up and down the Row tryna sell they food stamps for damn near thirty cents on the dollar.”

I suppose Baby has a point.

“Niggas around here always tryna act like people in those stupid-ass hip-hop videos when in reality they got they rims on some rent-to-own bullshit, and they gold chains are steady turning they necks green while slinging on the street corners.”

“Don't hold back—tell me how you really feel.” I turn Baby's head again.

“I'm just keepin' this shit real. You know how I do,” Baby says, rocking her neck. “I hate this shit. I hate I ever joined up in this muthfuckin' gangbang bullshit.”

“Girl, don't let none of these niggas hear you mouthing off like that.”

Baby clucks her tongue. “Fuck them niggas. They can suck my dick.”

I mush her in the back of her head. “If you hate the shit so much, why did you get in? Or better yet, why don't you get out?” I ask, since I can't imagine anyone forcing Baby to do a damn thing she doesn't want to, her size be damned.

“Shit. Everybody is cliqued the fuck up in this city. Disciples, muthafuckin' Vice Lords, Crips, Bloods, and let's not forget those grimy LMGs still floating around this sonabitch. A nigga always need somebody to have they back while they tryna make this paper. NahwhatImean?” Baby shakes her head. “Shit here in Memphis ain't organized like it is up north or out west. Niggas be banging just 'cause they ain't got shit else to do.”

I shake my head. “You looking at all this shit wrong. The Gangster Disciples is family. It ain't perfect, but it's better than the shit I grew up with in this muthafuckin' house. I just need to lock down a chief, an enforcer, a governor—some damn nigga with some damn money, power, and respect so I can move the hell up out of here and I can get my damn kids back. And I'm going to make that shit happen. One way or another. Watch.”