Black & Ugly (7 page)

"You wish, bitch," she argues as she moves closer to us with Miss Parade silent and in Miss Sky's way.

Miss Daffany grabs everybody's bags and tucks them behind this trashcan in the corner. Although we are getting ready to get down, we all have our periph-eral vision glued to our gear in case somebody tries to take it. I know if that blueberry-colored top I just bought is stolen, there'll be a series of ass whippins in this mothafucka today.

"Look, I'ma tell you one more time to get the fuck down the mall. You don't want none of this for real," Miss Daffany yells.

By now, it's five girls with them and five girls with us because, when Miss Parade goes off, she makes two.

"Fuck you, bitch," the girl says.

Miss Parade steals the fuck out of her. She fights like a man and her punches are powerful. The girl tries to get up and starts swinging her arms wildly, but Miss Parade steals her ass again since her face is wide open.

"That's how you fight, bitch?" Miss Parade asks as she hits her again, this time with a two-piece, extra crispy. "You ain't nothin' but a joke." The funny part about it is that her friends don't help. Blood from her mouth is dripping all over her clothes and on the floor. She's tryin' to get a lick in, but she ain't no match for Miss Parade. One of her wild-T. Styles

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arm throws comes across Miss Parade's face, and she is pissed. Miss Daffany steps up to help, and the girl's friends are already running toward the door. We ain't have shit to do but watch.

"Don't jump in, Daf. I got this bitch," Miss Parade tells her.

We fall back and watch her as she damn near Laila Alis the girl. It's almost scary to watch -
almost
. None of us feel bad for not jumpin' in. Sky should yet don't.

But Miss Parade needs no help. Hell, she once beat two girls back to back in school.

~~~~

That day, she started out fighting one person when another girl decided she would stop it by holding Miss Parade. When she did that, it gave the other girl a chance to hit Miss Parade in her face.

Miss Parade waited until after school for the girl who stole her. She whipped that girl's ass like she stole her man and then knocked on the other girl's door to beat her mercilessly. When I asked her why the girl who held her back got beat worse, she said she hates when somebody holds her back but loves a good fight.

~~~~

People are crowding around now and we see the mall cops comin'. We snatch Miss Parade up off the girl, who is now on the ground, and get the fuck out of Dodge. It really is pitiful to see somebody getting stomped out like that but we warned her. Me, Miss Sky and Miss Daffany are laughing and talking about the fight all the way home.

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I look at Miss Parade in the passenger seat and she ain't laughin' at all. She has her hands on her face in preparation to pick her skin again. I think, in her mind, there is nothing funny about having another scar. Poor thang.

T. Styles

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Triple Crown Publications presents . . .

4

Daffany Stans

MY LIFE IS DIFFERENT THAN it was five months ago. I used to laugh at all the money I was getting from these dudes back then, turning tricks and believing they were dumb for payin' for sex while I wasn't for sup-plying their needs. I was simply making cash off their weaknesses. The thing is, most of them don't even have to pay for sex but they do anyway. They have wives and girlfriends who are more than willing to do everything I do if they just ask. Hell, most of their women are bigger freaks than me.

But they don't want them to fulfill their sexual fan-tasies, they want me to. My price was high because I realized that they don't pay for the sex as much as they pay for the ability to leave without emotion, without feelings attached. I stacked their cash and laughed with my friends about the things they wanted me to do while never naming names.

Yeah, five months ago was definitely different. I used to look forward to days and spending time with
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my friends, the only real family I have. Now, I have no real purpose and there's not much to laugh about. My stash is low and I don't care what I do or about making money anymore. All I ever succeeded at was making a real fuck-up of my life. Even if I want to get out now, I can't. So, I still turn tricks.

I moved out of the apartment I shared with my moms and got my own in the same development two years ago, but she stays at my place more than she does her own, bummin' all the time and borrowin' shit that she never gives back. She pawned five of my vacuum cleaners I continued to let her borrow, and that was one of the main reasons I moved. My mother smokes so much crack that I wonder how she even pays her bills, but then I remember we're in the same line of work. As a matter of fact, we have some of the same customers.

In the back of my mind, I wonder if she gave it to me.

Hell, she gave me the game by always telling me that if I wanted or needed anything, there's some sucka out here who would give it to me, and that I better get mine like she gets hers. She lived by the rule
fuck you, pay
me
, which she'll tell a nigga in a heartbeat. I don't know any other way of getting money. But I ain't tied to these no-good-ass niggas so I have the best of both worlds - money and dick with no one to report to.

Five months ago, my world shattered. I wonder if the doctor told my mother the same thing that he told me.

"Daffany Stans, you're HIV positive," Doctor Scott said. I screamed and cried for fifteen minutes in his
T. Styles

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office, trying to convince him to change the results.

"Take it back! Take it back," I pleaded with him. I was so delusional that I thought he could change my life by simply sayin' it wasn't true or that he made a mistake, as opposed to thinking about all the men I sucked or fucked without a condom 'cuz they was willing to pay a few more dollars.

I told him there was no way I was positive. I wasn't even sick. After he told me over and over that he couldn't lie to me and threatened to call security, I decided he must've gotten my results mixed up with someone else's. "Look at the name over again," I demanded. But then he handed me the paper with the name I've known all my life on it. Damn! It was definitely Daffany Stans.

I've always been quiet, but more so over the last few months. Sky says that when you're quiet, people think you're sneaky. Maybe it's true. But lately, I feel like there's even less shit to talk about. I can't laugh knowing that, in the end, nothing is funny. I will always have fuckin' HIV. The little things that are important to everybody else are not important to me anymore. I'm a walking zombie just waitin' for my number. And if it wasn't for my friends, I'd be gone already.

Parade thinks she has troubles because she isn't the most attractive person in the world. I would trade shoes with her in a heartbeat. She's not even unattractive. She makes herself ugly because she doesn't take care of her skin or have the slightest idea what to do with her hair. She has pretty eyes, a pretty smile and a
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beautiful complexion, but every time me and Miss Wayne tell her, she just rolls her eyes at us. So I don't tell her anymore. I got problems of my fuckin' own now and that's all I can think about.

~~~~

"Oooooh, Miss Daffany. Girl, that outfit is lookin'

fierce. I don't know if I can let you get in here with us, wearing that. Miss Sky, pull off, girl." Miss Wayne laughs from the inside of the car.

I get in and everybody is smellin' and looking good.

Sky took Parade to her salon she goes to in DC and even she looks nice. The short curls in her hair soften her features and bring out her beauty. She has makeup on and everything.

"Don't hold back, bitches," I say as I get in the car and smell the weed. "Pass that shit around." Weed and E-pills are the only things that make me feel normal. On E, I don't have a care in the world. I popped before I left the house and I'm starting to feel a little better. I don't tell them that I fuck with E