Backstage: Street Chronicles (3 page)

Bone constantly tried to spit knowledge to me. “Yummie, you really ought to sit down.”

“Sit down and do what?”

He continued talking but I never heard the words coming out of his mouth besides “sit down” and “I got you,” which I thought were interesting. I looked at him and wondered if he heard the words coming out of his mouth and did he actually believe them? Surely not. If he had me why did I pick up a pack in the first place?

“Anything you need just call me, and like I said I got you. I’m not gonna let you be out here messed up with nothing.”

“What am I supposed to do, Bone? Come over here and ask for this, then come back and ask for that? Do I look like a puppy? Do I?”

“What you mean by that?”

I grabbed my keys and put my purse over my shoulder. “Right now we not seeing eye-to-eye ‘cause you got me fucked up if you think you getting ready to kibble-and-bit me like some puppy.
Humph!”

“You so hardheaded, can’t nobody tell you shit,” he said, raising his voice.

I pulled out of his driveway with a disgusted look. Who taught this nigga how to hustle? He wanted me to throw in the towel. Maybe go to Michael’s and buy some yarn, crochet me a damn sweater to wear back and forth to court ‘cause it’s gonna be cold? Is that what he want me to do? How about I park my Bentley and get a Dodge Neon and let’s just get low with it? I rode in disbelief. Fuck what he talking about. I gotta get me some dope.

My fans were holding me down. I performed in my city and the flyer promoting the performance said the money was to go toward my lawyer. The city showed me love. Now that’s a support system. I put on for my city!

My promoter got in some ears and had
Hippity Hop
magazine there for a one-on-one interview with me. They were going to share with the world how a case don’t stop nothing, and if one comes along the way, go out with a bang. Leave a trademark out here. I inhaled more dope than I usually smoke. (I stay calling weed dope to get a response out of people.) I consumed more alcoholic beverages than normal. I felt the love and it just had me on one. This was all for me, therefore let me show my appreciation.

Ziggy, at the end of the bar, kept hollering my name. I didn’t realize it was him because who wasn’t, though? It wasn’t until I heard him holla “Ah, bitch,” that I knew it was someone who was close to me. I laughed. That nigga stay trying to keep me humble if I wanted to get on a high horse. I nodded my head to let him know he had my undivided attention ‘cause I wasn’t going to try to out talk the music. A no-win situation. I needed my voice and was not going to make myself hoarse messing with Ziggy.

He pulled his pockets inside-out to let me know he broke. Ziggy’s tight ass comes out with forty dollars a day and that’s got to get it. If not, he got homies like me who will make it work. He got it, that’s what makes it wild. I hate to call his pockets, but I’m willing to bet he at least got two hundred grand put up. He had a few bitches by his side and I knew their thirsty asses wanted a drink. I wasn’t going to be an upset by asking him how much. I reached in my black leather Burberry and tossed him a thousand dollars still in the rubber band. Straight dope money. Straight slow motion. It went in the air; everybody looked at it in awe as if Venus and Serena were center court at Wimbledon. He caught it and I looked around for any other homies who needed a stack. I just wanted to toss another stack for the hell of it ‘cause I could.

A table full of girls were popping bottles like they had that work. Let me find out. I chuckled when I saw my sister was among them. Cubby wasn’t really my sister but we grew up together, so you know how that goes. We shared everything but the same umbilical
cord. Although we busy doing what we do, it never mattered how much time passed since we last talked, when we did see each other it was just like we saw each other yesterday.

She don’t sell a lick of dope. Credit cards were her hustle. She popping and they scanning that card like it’s a platinum with no limit. I knew she was working them, though, and switching cards like the hoes switching their ass in here.

I peeped her going big by sending some dude a bottle. His table looked like he didn’t need another one. When he smiled and tapped his homie to tell him, I knew she had a victim. If only he knew that one bottle was bait. My sister going to work you. Ole boy wasn’t from around here, country-ass Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and it was obvious. Everybody who’s somebody knows you, and I’m that somebody, and never seen him a day in my life. A big boogly bear fucker. Only thing worth discussing on him was his ice. His ice outweighed the bad.

Cubby threw her hands in the air so that I would come to her table. She stood up and hugged me. She introduced me to the nobodies. I wouldn’t remember a damn name. Who are you? She motioned for the waiter to come our way while her other arm never left my neck. She started pointing the hand around my neck down on me like the man right chea.

She grabbed her bottle of Moët rosé and hit it and then put it to my mouth. I tilted my head back. We never stopped swaying to the music. The waitress approached us and instead of her stopping what we had going on she just held up her bottle. She knew what it was.

The victim had hoodrats who flooded his table shaking their asses, ready to give up the bootie hole, meaning anything goes. However, how could he pay them attention when we shaking it? They say the economy down. You couldn’t tell looking at the atmosphere in here. Fuck what Bush was talking about!

Cubby and the victim, Wes, exchanged numbers and I knew it was just the beginning of something beautiful, especially if he
had that work. Everybody claiming it’s a drought. Now that the song was gone off I looked around at the familiar faces. Yeah they down!

All of these non-voting drug dealers that couldn’t find no dope all of a sudden were into politics real heavy. “It’s an election year. There’s a war in Mexico,” was the excuse for the drought. They had all the inside information like they had a chair in the Senate. The price had skyrocketed to twenty-four thousand a key. That’s high to someone who buys weight. Listen to me when I tell you ain’t nobody got no dope here for no damn ten a key! I’m used to paying nineteen or twenty thousand a key. The more bricks you purchase the more love is shown. It’s somewhat like a wholesale market. With the ticket being as high as it was, the others that were not into politics sat back on the porch and complained like a hot sunny day: “I ain’t never seen it like this.” Meanwhile they steady spending and not making nothing. Do the math.

I called myself a different breed, a real hustler. Due to my circumstances (on bond), I had ballz bigger than some of these nig-gas round here. I will raise the price just a little so they will feel where I’m coming from. I will cut the dope to make up the difference and retrieve the same profit cause it’s worthless if the profit and risk don’t add up. They will feel like they are getting a deal from me and we all on some come-up shit. That’s all people wanted: self-satisfaction.

I had a bad habit of counting my chickens before they hatched. I had plans for those twenty that I got busted with. Even with my dope being in some evidence room with exhibit tape on it waiting just like me to show up in a courtroom, I still couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t get it back, but you best believe I was gonna make it up.

Unlike a baby daddy, Cubby didn’t let me down. She had showed Wes everything a pussy could do and if he wanted to pop a pill—Viagra and ecstasy, which was his gig—she would bring females to the bed with them. She was on some “It ain’t no fun if the
homies can’t have none.” She let them take that dick however they wanted it, but that money was only coming to her. She knew he was spoiling her but she kept up the demeanor of that’s what a man was supposed to do. She reported to me everything, even shit that I didn’t want to hear. I pretended to be interested but all I cared about was did he have some work and what was the ticket. During pillow talk, Cubby gives it up for the home team. Go Yummie! After a couple of weeks, he slipped and let the number twenty-two go over the airwaves. That pussy had to be good to make you get that comfortable. WOW!

Wes wasn’t fooling me, though. He needed me just like I needed him. But I’m sure my need was more urgent. Why else would he be in Tennessee?

He invited us to go to Miami for his homie’s birthday. Cubby was to round up as many pretty girls as she could. He paid for everybody’s tickets. I jumped on the bandwagon ‘cause not only did he have me on first class, recognizing the bitch that I am, but I was teaming up with Da Bar Spitter to do a track. Da Bar Spitter hangs tight with Wes. I’ve wanted to do a collaboration with him for a long time now. Anything he spit is hot, and me and him together was going to be bananas. I couldn’t wait. I only charge twenty stacks to jump on a track. So do know this trip was going to be beneficial in more ways than one.

The weekend was filled with so much to do. The first night the party was aboard the Majestic yacht. It was filled with nothing but bosses so I fit right in. It was the boss of the boss’s birthday. Happy birthday to you, too! These men were from all fifty states and everybody was representing their city to the fullest. They all brought women and if their mammy’s pussy still got wet she could come, too! Fuck a birthday, this was a dope man’s convention. I was in the right spot. Now tell me these muthafuckas didn’t have no dope.

Their clique was so deep they really needed a name for themselves. They was shaking it. This clique definitely couldn’t be
overlooked. I was going to call them Fam from here on, ‘cause after tonight they were my new family.

The yacht docked and we went to club BED in South Beach. Beds were throughout the club as part of the décor. There was no line for VIP, and as far as they were concerned we all were very important. They even shut down the club to the public. It was just the Fam. Everybody was good and drunk. One of Cubby’s girls kept shifting from one leg to the other. Her pussy could smell money. Sit. Sit. Good girl. She was on some groupie shit, I felt. She was all right. I wouldn’t have her as a showpiece but I damn sure would let her nibble on this pussy to show me what a fan she was to me. I wouldn’t kiss her, though. She talked too much for me and acted like she know everything. A bitch with a bunch of degrees and don’t know what to do with them. Just shut up!

“I want to make me some money,” Danessa said.

Cubby motioned for Wes to come our way, and then she leaned and whispered in his ear. He looked at Cubby’s girl and nodded slowly in approval. He walked over to the birthday boy and gave him a heads-up on what’s going on. He looked our way and hesitated but the alcohol made him say: “What the hell. You only live once, gotdamn it.” Wes came back and handed ole girl a bankroll. “Hold this, Cubby.” A prime example of she know too much. She never bothered counting it.

Ms. Big Mouth Degree stood up and straightened her skirt like she had some class to her ass. She walked like your average broad across the room. She whispered in the birthday boy’s ear and took him to the middle of the dance floor like they were some teenage sweethearts. Ain’t that sweet! They going to dance. Maybe the DJ will play a slow song. Awwwww!

She started backing that ass on him. I said your average broad. She twirled around him like he was the stripper pole. He had two bottles in his hands with his eyes shut, bobbing one when he wasn’t drinking out of the other, not paying her no attention. She unbuttoned her shirt showing off her bra. Oh hell! Now she a
stripper. She got low with it and her skirt was hiked up. There went the class and all you saw was ass. She unbuckled his pants. Let me find out this made man is a stripper! He pulled out his dick and oh my goodness! This nigga wasn’t even circumcised. His dick had to be shy and hiding from us. Come out, come out wherever you are! That boy needed to be ashamed of himself. All that money he got and he still got all that skin from birth. I blame his mama, though. That would have been a good birthday gift. That’s money when you like, fuck it. She licked that dick. What? The loungers even stood up, including me. This undercover ho saw all these beds in the club and wanted everyone to see what went on in the bedroom. You got to be kidding me.

She stuck that dick in her mouth like an Almond Joy candy bar; now you see it now you don’t. Everybody went wild. Bottles and glasses were in the air. Everybody wanted that nut. Even the DJ came out the woodwork for that nut playing “That Nasty Bitch” by Bust Down. He hit her character on point. He know her. It don’t take a degree to know that. She sucked it like she wanted that nut more. You definitely know that! He took one bottle and jacked it on her head and face just like nut. I didn’t know her name, but I wanted to know, “Who is that ho?”

“Danessa,” Cubby answered.

In the studio, I ripped it with a point to prove. We had a hit on our hands. Every subject you could possibly think of rolled off our tongues outside the booth. Then Wes asked the question that was music to my ears: “How much you getting that work for?”

With a straight poker face I said, “Twenty-two. Why? What’s up?” It’s my birthday!

I was told I didn’t need any money down. My down payment was my word. Not only was Wes connected but he ran deep. Who would think of crossing him? Him is them. Them is him.

My adrenaline pumped like I was going to jump out of my skin. You would think I just hit some dope, and I mean dope literally this time. I imagined what the streets were gonna say about me, saying aloud, “Man, we can’t keep work the way that bitch running through it … Is that the bitch that be rapping like she moving that weight? … That’s real.”

“Man, I ain’t never met a bitch like that … They don’t make ‘em like that. She one of us. What part don’t you understand? … I wish I had a bitch like that. You can’t tell me nothing.”