Side Chic 3 (The Ratchetness Continues) (5 page)

“Yeah, I’m good.” He went on inside and I followed. When we passed by the living room I noticed Ms. Jackie sitting on the sofa watching TV and eating. “Hey Ms. Jackie.” I stuck my head in and spoke.

She sat the plate of chicken that she’d been holding down on the coffee table. “Hey Tre, baby. Come here and give me a hug.” I walked over and hugged her. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling fine.” I replied offering her a warm smile.

She shook her head her chubby hand went up in the air. “That sho’ is good! Yes Lawd, I’m certainly glad to hear that! I prayed for you! I asked the Lawd to bring you through and he did! Yes he did! Can’t nobody tell me that he ain’t good! You hear me?”

“Thank you, Ms. Jackie
for praying for me. I certainly appreciate it.”

“No need to thank me baby, you
need to thank the man upstairs! He is the one who brought you through this!”

“Yes ma’
am, I have more times than you can imagine.” That wasn’t a lie. I’d been thanking God ever since I’d opened my eyes in the hospital and realized that I’d pulled through.

“Don’t stop thankin’ him!” She shook her head again, the huge pink rollers in her hair shaking as well.
Ms. Jackie was a plus-sized woman with skin the color of cocoa and she stood about 5’1. She was truly the mouth of the south. Nothing got past her. She knew a little bit about everybody’s business. It always amazed me how she claimed to be so into the church but was the most judgmental gossiper I knew. “I tell you, y’all young people out here living so careless, betraying each other and selling your souls to the devil! You’d better stop this nonsense because if you don’t you are going to end up locked away in a jail cell or six feet deep! Look at how that poor girl lost her life behind all this foolishness! I feel so bad for her mama! I remember when that girl was born! I know poor Marsha is about to lose her mind because Mika was her only girl!”

I’d known that people would be talking about what’d happened but I hadn’t been prepared for this. I did feel bad about Tamika’s death and I did feel partially to blame for it but it wasn’t like I’d pulled the trigger or initiated what went down between her and I. The day that everything went down she’d come at me
like always. I’d been trying to leave but I knew people wouldn’t look at shit that way. To this day no one knew that the real reason I’d slept with Tamika in the first place was because her triflin ass had blackmailed me!

Tyson must’ve picked up on the uncomfortable expression on my face. “Ma, chill out. Tre has been through enough. He didn’t come here for you to
throw the situation in his face!”

“You be quiet! I’m not throwing anything in his face.
I’m simply making him aware of the fact that if he keeps going the way that he is going he may not make it through the next time!” She looked at me like she was trying to see if I was paying attention. “I know Tamika wishes that she could have another chance, poor thang but you have one. So make good of it and do better!”

“I will.”

“I sure hope so. I heard that Mika’s brother Parnell is taking this extremely hard. You know that he’s locked up. He didn’t even get a chance to go to the funeral and say good-bye to his sister.” She shook her head sympathetically and then looked up at me. “I heard that he has said that this mess ain’t over with yet and that he plans on taking care of everybody who was responsible for his sister’s death when he gets out in a few months.” She warned. “I would hate to see something happen to you, Tre.”

Hearing that only infuriated me! “No disrespect but I’m not worried about Parnell doing shit to me! If he wants to see me, I ain’t hard to find! I’ll
tell you what though, this time I won’t be the only motherfucka lying up in the hospital fighting for my life! Somebody else will be joining my ass!”

“Man, don’t worry about that shit!
Come on, Tre.” Tyson told me looking at Ms. Jackie and rolling his eyes. He turned and walked out and I followed behind him, glad to get away from his mama’s mouth! She had me tight and the thought of cussing her old ass out had crossed my mind several times while I was standing there listening to her preach with all of that chicken grease and crumbs around her fat ass mouth! She lucky because that last bullshit that she’d said about Parnell had pissed me off to the point that I nearly told her what she could do too! The only thing that had stopped me was knowing that I would no doubt have to fight Tyson if I disrespected his moms and I was in no shape to be fighting anyone!

“You can roll’em all you want! This is my damn house and I can say whatever I want to whoever comes through that front door! I don’t care if they are your friends! If you don’t like it, you can get out!” She yelled.

We went into the kitchen
and took a seat at the table. “Man, I’m sorry about that shit! She had no right to come off on you like that!” He huffed. “That’s why I can’t wait til I get my own shit!”

“It’s cool, I ain’t sweatin’ it.” I downplayed shit but inside I was heated.
“I realize that people are going to be talkin’ about this shit but they don’t know the whole story.” I told him feeling like I could confide in him. I had a lot on my mind and I couldn’t talk to Lala about it. I knew that I could talk to my parents but to be honest I didn’t really want to because I wasn’t sure if they’d fully understand.

“What do you mean people don’t know the whole story?” He sat up in his chair some. “What is there to know except for you was fuckin’ Tamika, just like everybody else in Southampton County and Casper got drunk, overheard y’all making plans and couldn’t handle it.” I looked at him confused, wondering where he’d got
ten that bullshit from about Casper overhearing us making plans. “To keep it real with you, I can’t understand why Casper was mad because he already knew that bitch was scandalous and that all the niggas had run through her ass.”

“I can still see why he was mad.” I admitted. I hadn’t said it to anyone yet but I hated the fact that Casper was locked up. We’d been friends since we were kids. It fucked with me
hard knowing I was partially to blame for him being where he was. If there was anything that I could do to change his situation I would. Each time that the police questioned me about who had shot me, I told them the same thing…I didn’t know. I told them that it’d been dark in the hallway and I hadn’t seen who had pulled the trigger. I couldn’t do him like that. I understood Tamika’s family wanting him to pay for what he’d done to her because if she were my people I would want justice too. They could do what they felt like they needed to but as for me there was no way I was going to sit in anybody’s courtroom and testify against him. “The shit was fucked up that happened between Tamika and me but if he’d given me a chance to explain he may have understood why I’d did it. The bitch had recorded a conversation that she’d overheard between me, Casper and Skeet. I was telling them about the situation with Lala. She used the conversation that she’d recorded to blackmail me into fuckin’ with her! She threatened to tell Kisha if I didn’t. I never wanted to fuck with her ass. That’s my word!” Hearing myself tell Tyson about Tamika blackmailing me made me feel like a straight bitch! I felt even more responsible for the situation now. If I’d gone ahead and told Kisha about Lala instead of trying to hide the shit, none of this would’ve happened! I hit my hand against the table! “Man damn! I fucked up, Tyson!” I looked at my boy through teary eyes. I’d lost every damn thing! Though the tears in my eyes threatened to fall, I wouldn’t let them. My pride wouldn’t allow me to stand in front of my boy and cry like a pussy no matter how bad I wanted to!

“Don’t blame yourself for all of this shit. To me, Casper did this to his damn self! He knew that bitch wasn’t shit! He should’ve just thrown her ass out! He didn’t have to shoot you or her! It was that damn alcohol he had in his system!” He accused. “That shit caused him to make a dumb ass decision that he will be paying for the rest of his life when all he had to do was let her sorry ass go!
That liquid courage be having niggas doing the dumbest shit.”

             
I stood pacing back and forth. “This shit just ain’t right, yo.” I shook my head as I thought about the situation. Anyway that I looked at it, it was just downright fucked up!

             
“Man listen, you know that I couldn’t stand Tamika’s ass, right?”

             
I stopped pacing and leaned up against the counter. “Yeah…”

             
“Well the reason is because she was fuckin with my cousin Black from Emporia, had his head gone just like Casper’s. She found out that she was pregnant and told him that she wanted to have an abortion. He kept asking her why because he wanted her to keep it. At first she wouldn’t tell him but he kept on pressing her about it and she finally admitted to him that she’d been fucking his brother Jamal too. Now instead of him leaving her ass alone, he confronted Jamal and the two of them ended up fighting over her tramp ass. He still didn’t leave her ass alone. He even ended up paying for her to have the abortion. A few months after the shit with his brother, I go over to Casper’s crib and catch her laid up in there with Casper. So I call him up and tell him about it, this nigga on the phone accusing me of lying on her. He stopped speaking to me and everything over her ass. Then when she packed up her shit and left him and moved in with Casper, he wanted to call me crying the blues! Tamika wasn’t shit, straight up! I’d told Casper about the whole situation with her and Black but he wasn’t trying to hear what I was saying. She must’ve had voodoo between her legs because she had those motherfuckas under some type of spell!”

             
I wouldn’t dare admit it to anyone but she did have some fiyah ass pussy. As much as I hated her tramp ass I couldn’t deny that she had some of the illest pussy that I’d ever sampled. I think the only reason that I never fell victim to her good pussy was because of how deeply I hated her ass! Even good pussy couldn’t change that! She was one of the most low down, most triflin’ hoes that I’d ever run across in my entire life!

             
We continued to talk for a minute about the situation and by the time I left I felt a little bit better. On my way back home, I stopped by the Red Barn to get a pack of cigarettes. I hadn’t smoked in nearly two months and I’d told myself that I wasn’t going to smoke once I came home from the hospital but right now my ass was going through withdrawals like a motherfucka! I parked and said what’s up to a few fellas that were posted up in front of the store, before going inside.

             
I’d paid for my cigarettes and was on my way out of the store when I bumped into Mina. Mina was a cute little redbone that owned the hair salon down the street from the store. She was real tiny about Jada Pinkett’s size with long jet black hair and these big brown eyes. Looking at her you would think that she was a teenager. I’d always thought that she was cute and had even tried to get at her a couple of times but she let me know that she had a man and didn’t do the creepin’ thing. All I could do was respect that.

             
It had been a minute since I’d seen her. She looked like she’d loss a little weight since the last time that I’d seen her but she was still cute. “My bad, shorty.” I said as I reached out to try and help her catch her balance. “Are you alright? I didn’t see you.”

             
“Yeah, I’m straight.” She replied laughing. “How are you? I mean, are you better?”

             
I assumed that she was referring to me being shot. “I’m good just taking it easy.”

             
“That’s good.” She replied. “How are Kisha and the boys?”

             
“They are doing okay. The boys are getting big and terrible.”

             
“They aren’t terrible. You and Kisha have probably just spoiled the mess out of them.” She replied staring up at me. I noticed that her eyes were a little red and glassy. I knew what the cause of that was. Everybody knew that she smoked weed. She used to sell it up at the salon until the police ran up in there. Luckily that day she didn’t have anything on her but after that close call she stopped. I can’t say that I blamed her. Sometimes it pays to stop while you’re ahead.

             
“Yeah, I’ve spoiled them a little bit.” I admitted.

             
“Excuse me.” A young lady was trying to come out of the store and Mina and I were standing in her way. We moved over to the side.

             
“How is your little one?” I asked referring to the baby that she had with her boyfriend Mello.

             
“She’s fine. Now she’s terrible!” She accused. “She has an attitude just like her crazy ass daddy.”

             
I laughed. “You love his crazy ass though, right? Y’all have been together for a minute.”

             
“We were together for a minute.” She corrected me placing her hand on her small hip. “We split up a little over a month ago.”

             
I hadn’t expected that. “Really?”

             
“Yes, really.” She smiled up at me.

             
Unsure of what to say next, I replied. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

             
“Don’t be. Some things just aren’t meant to be. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Maybe God removed him from my life so that someone new could enter.”