Welfare Wifeys (23 page)

“Auntie, your ass is still crazy as hell.” Gucci laughed. “Oh, you remember my girl, Tionna, don’t you?”

Ms. Pat peered at Tionna over the top of her glasses. “The hustler’s wife. How could I forget?” Ms. Pat had never too much cared for Tionna because of the way she had carried herself when she was doing slightly better than everyone else. No matter how well off Ms. Pat and her husband were back in the days they never acted like they were above their neighbors because they knew that the same people you saw on the way up were the ones you saw on the way down. This was a lesson Tionna had to learn the hard way.

“How are you, Ms. Pat?” Tionna asked.

“I’m fine, child. I was just in here getting after these no good ass offspring of mine. Y’all come on in out of the hallway.” Ms. Pat stepped back to let them inside.

“Is that my baby cousin?” Mookie got up and smiled at Gucci.

“Hey Mookie,” Gucci said, giving him a halfhearted wave.

“That ain’t no way to greet your big cousin. Come here.” Mookie embraced her. There was something about the way he was running his hands up and down her back that made Gucci feel violated so she pushed away from him. “Girl, you look good, and I see you shining something fierce.” He examined her jewels.

“I’m doing a’ight,” Gucci told him, running her hands up and down her arms from the chills his stare was giving her.

“Um hmm.” Mookie sucked his teeth sneakily. “Looks like you doing better than a’ight. I see Big Dawg’s newest pup is taking care of cuz-o.”

“All them chump ass niggaz is shining like new money,” Fish said in his slow drawl. “Them boys getting all that scratch in Harlem but ain’t kicking nothing back to the house. I don’t know how I feel about that, how ’bout you, Mookie?”

Mookie took his time before answering. “I don’t know, Fish. Seems to me like common sense would tell them that a full wolf is a lot less of a headache than a hungry one, but you know what; I think Don B. is a reasonable man who if we sat down with we may be able to get him to see things our way.” He turned to Gucci. “What you think, cousin?”

Gucci took her shades off and stared at him with unwavering eyes. “I think that if you fuck around with my man or his peoples auntie will be saying her good-byes through a box because there ain’t gonna be enough of you left for an open casket funeral.”

Mookie’s cheek twitched once, before a lazy smile appeared on his face. “That’s how you know you’re my blood, because you’re loyal to your man. She get that from you, Ma,” he told Ms. Pat.

“Boy, please, the only thing Gucci got from me is this damn seat cushion.” Ms. Pat slapped her on the ass again. “All that predatory cunning come from her mama and them. Veronica and her sister Peaches used to have these boys out here fighting like cavemen. They’re the reason they closed down that crack spot we were around the corner from when we lived on 113th and Lenox.”

“What crack spot?” Gucci asked.

“You know the one in the candy store around the corner, Nuclear.” She tried to jog Gucci’s memory.

“Do you mean
Nucleus
?” Tionna corrected her. “Ms. Pat, that was a weed spot, they didn’t sell crack.”

“We don’t believe you, you need more people,”
Ms. Pat sang. “Little girl, I’m a weed smoker and that shit wasn’t kosher. One time I bought two nickel bags of that shit from them foreign bitches and had to go to the emergency room after I blazed the first one. There ain’t no way you supposed to be that high for five dollars.
Now what brings you ladies of the evening into the abode of this old woman?”

“Their habits,” Jada said as she appeared in the living room. She had traded in her birthday suit for a pair of jeans and a turtleneck. She had pushed her weave back into a ponytail that showcased her pretty face. “Gucci, your ass called me this afternoon and you’re just getting here?”

“Cuzo, you know I had to touch the town right quick before we came down.” Gucci embraced Jada.

“Tionna, what’s good?” Jada greeted Tionna.

“You.” Tionna looked her up and down. “You sure don’t look like a kid with three kids!”

“You know the Butlers are naturally blessed with figures,” Jada said.

“We sure nuff are,” Ms. Pat said while adjusting her large, saggy breasts inside her bra. “Now, if y’all have come down for more than my company then you might as well carry ya asses back to where you came from, cuz ain’t nothing popping.”

“Auntie Pat, what you mean ain’t nothing popping? This is ya niece!” Gucci declared.

“Shit, I got a bunch of nieces, but that don’t change the fact that I can’t go to church tonight with a transaction tainting my soul.” Ms. Pat adjusted her hat in the dingy mirror hanging next to the front door.

“Auntie, it’s Thursday,” Gucci pointed out.

“And? Ain’t no rule that says you can only worship the Lord on Sundays. Me and Ms. Martha attend night service up in the Bronx on Thursdays.”

“Smelling like nothing but the chronic,” Davita said as she passed.

Ms. Pat threw her hands in the air and uttered a prayer. “Father God, merciful God, please put a clamp on my granddaughter’s mouth and spare me a one to three in prison for assaulting this wench, amen!”

“Davita, you better watch your fucking mouth,” Jada warned. Davita just rolled her eyes and kept going into the bedroom, with her brother and sister hot on her heels.

“Don’t tell her nothing, Jada. She got one more smart thing to say and it’s gonna be
Wrestlemania
fifty in this piece,” Ms. Pat said. “Fooling with these damn kids done got my pressure up,” Ms. Pat said, fishing around in her wig and producing a wrinkled joint. “One of y’all kids give me a light.”

“Mama, didn’t you just say you was going to church and said you didn’t wanna be tainted?” Mookie asked.

Ms. Pat eventually found a lighter and lit her joint. She took a deep pull and expelled the smoke through her nose before answering Mookie. “I said tainted from a
transaction,
I ain’t said nothing about consumption. Now stop minding grown folks’ business and hand me the ashtray.”

Gucci took one whiff of the pungent smoke and knew that her aunt was blowing some serious green. “Auntie, why don’t you let ya niece hit that one time.” Gucci reached for the joint, but Ms. Pat snatched it away.

“Little girl, we cool, but we ain’t friends. Ain’t no way in the hell I’m gonna be in here smoking with you. But if you wanna buy some bud that’s a horse of a different color.”

“Mama, you said you wasn’t selling no bud before church,” Mookie reminded her.

Ms. Pat flicked her ass in a soda top and glared at her son. “Boy, why don’t you stop telling me what I said? You say a lot of things that you don’t stick to. I’m gonna get a job, Mama; I’m gonna take better care of my kids, Mama; I ain’t going back to the pen, Mama; nigga please. Instead of signifying you and Simple Jack,” she motioned toward Fish—“need to start getting yourselves ready to go; I gotta get off to church.”

“We was just gonna kick it around here for a lil while,” Mookie said.

“Mookie, you know ain’t no way I’m leaving two crackheads in my house while I ain’t here. Do like Big Tymers and
get ya roll on.
”

“A’ight, Mama. Let’s go, Fish,” Mookie said and reluctantly headed for the door.

“Bye, Auntie.” Fish kissed Ms. Pat on the cheek. For as brutish as he was he had always had a soft spot in his heart for the Butler clan.

“Take care, Fish, and make sure Mookie gets back to the halfway house before curfew because I sure as hell don’t want the police coming around here. I got too much going on for y’all criminal activities to be cramping my style,” Ms. Pat told them as they were leaving. “I love them boys but Lord knows they ain’t got a whole brain between them. Now what you heifers want?”

“I need some of whatever it is you’re smoking right there.” Gucci pointed at the joint.

Ms. Pat went to her china cabinet and knocked twice on the bottom shelf, revealing a hidden compartment. Using a key that hung around her neck she undid the lockbox inside the space and retrieved her stash. “I call this here Spider Man,” Ms. Pat said as she laid several bags on the coffee table. The buds were a bright shade of green with orange fuzz.

Gucci picked one of the bags up and could smell the weed without opening it. “Damn, this is that bomb,” Gucci said, smelling the bag. “How come you call it Spider Man?”

“Because that shit is so good you’ll be climbing the walls after you smoke it.”

“If that’s the case then give me a twenty.” Gucci placed a twenty on the coffee table.

“Me too.” Tionna added her twenty to the pot.

“Yes, yes, all money down is a bet.” Ms. Pat picked up the money. “Since I fucks wit y’all I’m gonna give you a play and let you get three for fifty.”

“That sounds good to me. Jada, you got the extra ten?” Gucci asked.

Jada patted her pockets and shrugged. “I’m tapped out.”

Ms. Pat shook her head. “Granddaughter, you’ve gotta be the brokest whore I know. If I ain’t taught y’all girls nothing else it is to not come home with a wet pussy and an empty pocket, but apparently you were sleeping in class.”

“Leave that girl alone, Auntie. Don’t worry about it, Jada, I got the extra ten.” Gucci handed Ms. Pat the bill.

After serving the two girls Ms. Pat grabbed her purse and headed for the door. “I’m off to church so I’ll see you hussies later.”

“Okay, love you, Auntie.” Gucci kissed her on the cheek.

“Grandma, what time are you coming back?” Jada asked.

Ms. Pat stopped short. “I didn’t realize that you had pushed me outta your womb.”

“I was asking because I wanna go out with Gucci tonight. You know I don’t get to hang with my cousin often enough.” Jada smiled innocently.

Ms. Pat’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Jada Butler, don’t try to game me like I’m one of these slow ass young boys you got jumping outta windows. If you wanna go out, I suggest you find a babysitter or a church that will keep them little demons until you get done shaking your ass.”

“But, Grandma, I ain’t got no money to pay a sitter tonight.”

“That sounds like a problem between you and your pockets. I’ll put it to you like this: I do what I do like I’m doing it for TV and that’s all you need to know. Deuces.” Ms. Pat threw up the peace sign and left.

Jada flopped on the couch. “She gets on my damn nerves.”

“It’s all good, Jada. We didn’t have any plans for tonight so it’s cool if we kick it here with you.” Gucci dug in her purse and pulled out a pint of cognac. “We’ll make our own party.”

“Hey.” Tionna snapped her fingers.

“Then let’s get the party started.” Jada turned on the radio.

Jada picked her ringing cell phone off the coffee table and looked
at the caller ID. She recognized the area code as PA, but didn’t recognize the number. She started to loop, but remembered that she had met a dude from Philly who seemed like he was handling and figured it might’ve been him.

“Yo,” Jada said into the phone.

“Bitch, I’m gonna cut your fucking face when I see you!” a female voice threatened on the other line.

Jada sighed, as it was the third call she had gotten that day. “I keep telling y’all lil hos about playing with me. I hope the dick is worth the headache that comes with it.”

“I got something for you to catch, J-ho. You gonna get a stitch for every dollar you owe, so I hope you got a good plastic surgeon on standby. You better watch your back every time you walk outta 865, you bum ass project bitch,” the caller taunted her.

“Well, if you know where I live then you know where to come pick up this ass whipping. And tell that faggot ass nigga Cutty that if he keeps having muthafuckas play on my phone I’m gonna slap a harassment charge on him right before I have one of my young boys run up in him on the way to Chow.” Jada banged it.

“Damn, those sound like fighting words,” Gucci said when Jada was off the phone.

“I’m gonna do more than fight if one of these lil bitches come around here playing.” Jada pulled a small handgun from between the cushions on the couch. “The Butlers sling coke and iron, so don’t get it fucked up.”

“Ya heard.” Gucci gave her a high-five.

“Jada, you keep guns laying out like that for your kids to accidentally get hold of?” Tionna asked in shock.

“My kids know that guns ain’t toys and they should only touch them in case of extreme emergencies, like if a nigga is whipping my ass and I can’t get to the hammer. Shit, Grandma made sure I knew how to pop that thang when I was thirteen.”

“And that’s real,” Gucci added, remembering how she cried the
first time Ms. Pat tried to teach her how to shoot. Ronnie flipped out when she found out what her daughter had been subjected to, but it went in one of Ms. Pat’s ears and out the other. “So what’s that all about anyhow?”

“Cutty and his bullshit,” Jada said and went on to give the girls the short version of their breakup.

“Holy shit, you stole twenty thousand dollars from Cutty? It’s no wonder he wants to kill your ass!” Gucci said.

“I didn’t steal shit, I appropriated it,” Jada said as if that made it less wrong.

Tionna gave Jada a serious look. “I’ve pulled a lot of stunts on my man, but I always knew not to play with paper. I knew his kids and his money were the only two things he would kill me for. That’s a dangerous game to play, Jada.”

“Ain’t no game about it, Tionna. I’m out here taking care of his kid and him. That’s my husband, so that money was entitled to me,” Jada said confidently.

Tionna shook her head. “Jada, unless y’all got married you ain’t his wife, you’re his wifey. A lot of chicks throw that word around but it won’t give you a leg to stand on in court. It’s because we stay wifeys instead of becoming the wife why we always getting shitted on and left with nothing when it’s all said and done.” Tionna recalled her own drama with Duhan and having to start from scratch with no help.

“You ain’t never lied.” Jada gave Tionna dap. “And we don’t make it no better. We’re having too much fun living off their mercies to make sure our asses are covered when they pull the rug out from under us. We endure the kids, prison visits, and other women only to end up stressed out and on welfare.”