Candy Licker (33 page)
Authors: Noire
I crawled blind. My instincts wanted me to get up and run the other way, where it was a little bit clearer, but I kept feeling for those stairs because I had to get down into that pit. And then his hands were on me and I was being dragged backward.
“Easy, baby,” he said, but I fought and wouldn't give in.
“Trust me, Candy,” he begged, coughing himself. “Trust me, baby. Please.” Then Knowledge held my hand and turned me around, leading me away from the stairs and back the way I had just come.
With my eyes squeezed tight, I held on to my boo and prayed. Not for me, but for my sister. As I crawled next to him my hand came down on something wet and mushy. When I realized what it was, I choked and almost threw up.
It was Hurricane. My whole hand had mashed through his bloody face. I started spazzing then. Freaking completely out.
Mama
, I wept, tears leaking from my closed eyes. I needed to breathe so bad my bladder let go.
Mama, I need you, Mama …
And then Knowledge was lifting me to my feet. He cradled me in his strong arms and carried me right back up that little flight of stairs that led to his office.
“My sister!” I wailed as I fought against him, my face burning and wet with snot and tears. “MY
SISTER!”
“Don't worry, baby.”
“But the goddamn doors are chained, Knowledge! We trapped up in here!”
He touched my hair. “No, baby. No, we're not.”
I shook my head and fought him even harder as he moved me toward the window.
“I ain't jumping, Knowledge! Please. I just can't!”
I felt his lips. They kissed my ear. “That's cool, Candy,” he whispered, sliding the glass up and letting the sweet air in. “ 'Cause you ain't got to.”
The Power of Knowledge
K
nowledge finished scrambling the four eggs in the kitchen of his loft and turned on the television to the Channel 7 news. It had been almost a day and a half since he and Candy had made their escape, and coverage of the massive stampede at Harlem's House of Homicide was dominating the city's airwaves.
Forty-three partygoers are dead, and countless others are wounded. Firefighters, reporters, police officers, and hundreds of spectators swarmed the scene Saturday night when the House of Homicide, the nightclub and recording studio that became a favorite gathering spot of urban entertainment greats like 50 Cent, Nas, Thug-a-licious, and Jay-Z, erupted in a stampede that also claimed the life of record mogul and owner, Junius “Hurricane” Jackson.
Details are still sketchy, but early reports suggest the patrons were the victims of a smoky death trap when a fight broke out between two women on the dance floor commonly known as
“the pit.” According to eyewitnesses, a bottle was thrown as a weapon, and then a knife was brandished and a victim was repeatedly stabbed. House of Homicide security personnel reportedly attempted to quell the violence by setting off several flares as well as a number of canisters containing a mixture of Mace and pepper spray. As the toxic fumes were released into the air, the resulting panic was magnified by the fact that three of the nightclub's four exits were found to be chained and padlocked and had to be sledgehammered open to extricate the dead and injured.
No new information is available on the status of the hospitalized at this time, and police have not yet been successful at identifying the bodies of at least two young women whose remains still lay unclaimed. Lawsuits are expected to be filed, criminal charges may be pressed, and funerals must be arranged. The Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are expected to make a round of the morning news programs, along with some of the nightclub's survivors. At this time the House of Homicide sits cordoned off with yellow police tape as a makeshift memorial, complete with photos of the dead, candles, carnations, and colorful stuffed animals, all in memory of the young lives that were lost inside.
Knowledge carried the plate into his bedroom where Candy lay still beneath his fur blanket. It had been almost forty hours since she had spoken to him. Forty hours since she had eaten a bite of food, used the bathroom, or taken a sip of water. No matter what he said or did, he couldn't get through to her. She just lay in bed beside him with her eyes half open. Whimpering every now and then as if terrible images were playing out in her mind.
Knowledge put the plate on his night table and sat on the edge of the bed. He pulled her head into his lap, then put a little egg on the fork and pressed it to her lips. Her eyes continued to stare, and she did not respond. Setting the fork back on the plate, Knowledge stroked her hair and cradled her head as he gazed out the window at the New York City skyline.
He had accomplished a big part of his plan, but he still had some business to take care of. Violators who needed to be handled. Them niggahs were living on borrowed time, but only for a little while. The main thing on his mind right now was his Candy, and whether she could make it through all this with her body and mind intact.
Fiji
, he said to himself as he pictured a place where he could take her to heal and get away from the madness of this city for a while.
Yeah
, he thought. Fiji, a bunch of tropical Melanesian islands where the natives were friendly and the sun always shined, and no one had ever heard of Hurricane Jackson or the House of Homicide. He reached over and retrieved his portable CD player from the other side of the bed. He plugged in both sets of headphones and put one over her ears and the other over his.
As he pressed
PLAY
, the smooth, silky voice of Aaron Neville filled both their ears. Knowledge sat there for the longest time. His hands in her hair. Just listening. He was praying too.
Come back to me, Candy. Come on back, baby girl.
An hour or more passed, and then he saw it. Her small reddish-brown hand moving against the whiteness of his blanket. Just one finger. Tapping to Aaron's one-of-a-kind melody.
She'll make it
, Knowledge thought, nodding his head to the same beat and watching that one finger move. Yeah, he nodded, smiling to himself.
She's gonna make it.
one year later
T
he production assistant touched my arm as I stood waiting offstage behind the curtains. “Three minutes,” she said, gazing at me like my eyes held the secret combination to some music mogul's treasure chest. She was so black and pretty and her package was so tight she put me right in the mind of Vonnie.
I nodded at her as I did a few practice moves to loosen myself up. This was gonna be my first time back onstage, and I wanted to make sure I brought it right. I was wearing a white back-out shirt and a red-hot pair of JuicyOriginal booty-banging shorts, and despite everything I'd been through, the mic and that stage were calling the hell out of me and my body was ready to answer.
The joint was packed with standing room only. I wasn't playing Madison Square Garden yet, but I planned on getting there one day soon. My hair was laid, my body was stacked with vicious curves, and my vocals were stronger than ever. My fans had turned out expecting a hot show tonight, and I was damn sure gonna give them one.
Almost a year had passed since Knowledge had taken Hurricane and his House of Homicide down. A lot of Harlem die-hards had collapsed when Hurricane's empire toppled, but that's how it goes in this game. Some of his boys plain rolled over, and others had gotten knocked by the feds and were doing serious time, but a whole new crew of hungry young heads had smelled an opportunity and crept up on the scene so fast it was unreal.
But the minute Knowledge took control of Harlem he let all that shit go. The drugs, the hoes, the gambling, the stickup kids, the money laundering. He let them niggahs from across town fight it out for control of the streets and kill each other off in the process. All he kept was the recording studio and the new label we co-owned, Power Productions. It was home to twenty new recording artists who were not only mad talented, but they also understood the runnings of the industry and how to win at this music game.
Sometimes as I listened to a hot mixtape or demo, or watched young artists perform on talent night I would catch myself wondering how far me, Dom, and Vonnie could have gone if we hadn't got hooked by a niggah like Hurricane. We probably coulda been the next TLC or Destiny's Child if we hadn't tried to choke ourselves on industry bling and then sold our souls to its number one devil. And don't think I'm just hatin’ on a dead playa neither, 'cause I'm not. I'm not even hatin’ on the game 'cause it's one that I love, and I know it can only trap you up if you drop your common sense and ignore the rules.
When I look back on my life, I see shit now that nobody could have even
tried
to show me back when I first got in this business. Eager young eyes can't see jack, which is why I had to
lose almost everything I loved before I could understand what had always been right there in front of me.
And my sister? What can I say? The truth about Caramel really hurt. Everything about her hurts. Even if she had made it out of the pit alive that night, between the way we'd been raised and the kind of street life we had lived, that bullet she took and that dope Hurricane had her shooting up in her veins … my baby sister was just too fucked up for me to save by myself. I had tried my best to love my sister, but no matter how much I wanted to, I just couldn't change her fate.
So Mama, Caramel, Dom, Vonzelle, crazy Peaches, sweet Jadeah … all gone. For six whole months I stayed balled up in a knot. Trapped in a bubble of pain that wouldn't let me go. It was music and my man that eventually saved me 'cause they both was in my blood. I still have some pretty heavy moments even today. I mean, that shit still hurts me so bad that sometimes my bones ache with grief, but I can't let myself concentrate on what I lost. I gotta think about what I've found. I gotta do like Hurricane had said at one time. Keep my vision aimed steady on forward, 'cause if I don't, then it'll mean that all their lives got snatched for nothing, and I just couldn't live with that.
My three minutes were up. The music starting booming and the curtains slid back.
Cameras were flashing and the fans were screaming my name before I could get out on the stage good. I came out working it for them too. Rolling my hips and rocking them red shorts like I had sewn them myself. That shy little girl who used to sing into toilet tissue rolls was smiling and dancing and showing the world what a strong black woman was made of.
Hell yeah!
my moves and attitude screamed real loud.
Sistahs like me might
get knocked down, but check out how we get our asses the fuck back up!
“New York!” I hollered into the mic moving my hips like I could feel the beat way down deep in the bottom of my coochie. “How my people doin’ out there tonight?”
The stampede at the House of Homicide had made national news. Fans, ballers, artists, everybody in the music industry knew the hell I'd been through. All the torture and the ass-kickings, all that crazy abuse, that nasty-ass triple-X video, the whole nine. They knew it all and they still respected me, and now they were making noise, giving me mad love and even madder energy.
“I said, how
y
all
doin
tonight?!”
Oh, and that video? Damn. New York can be a dangerous place. Every niggah who was either on that tape fucking me or had helped Butter and them drug me up and hold me down? Gone. Dead. Handled. Vince, Omar, Snake … It was weird how every last one of them got caught out there and ended up dead. The newspapers was saying the killings looked like Mob hits, but when I asked Knowledge what he thought about it a hard look came across his face. “Fuck em. This is Harlem, Candy. Violators either pay their dues or get planted.”
The crowd was up, up, up. On their feet and making outrageous sounds as the love flowed through the air and rushed all up on the stage to cover me. I looked front and center and saw my boo. He was sitting up there looking fine as hell and wearing a proud smile on his face.
Knowledge was my niggah. My rock. My one and only candy licker.
I knew my baby was a real man because he had used his love to set me free.
“Leave the past in the past,” he had told me this morning as he slid his big dick up in me while we were in the shower. “I got your back, Candy,” he whispered, kissing my neck and pounding my pussy real slow and deep from behind, just the way I liked it. “But more important, you got the talent and the skills. Remember,” he said, pulling his snake out of me and turning me around to face him before dropping to his knees, “no shame, no shorts.” He lifted my leg over his shoulder and got ready to do that thang that drove me wild. “It ain't over until you say it is.”
Our shit was straight jelling on all fronts these days. Our personal thang was da bomb, and Knowledge wanted me to be his wife. Did you hear me? His wife. Not his damn wifey There is a difference, you know.
Our business was growing large, contracts were legit, artists were schooled about the industry and making their rightful money. I thought about that production assistant who had led me out to the stage. I'd seen her before on talent night. I recognized that I'll-do-anything-to-be-a-big-star grin she had flashed me. I saw the way she had drooled just looking at that mic. Like it was a big fat silver dick she was dying to suck. Vonzelle the Second! I was gonna have to get with her after the show. Sit her down with some of them other young female artists I was mentoring and put her up on what was real.
The crowd was steady clapping and whistling. They was letting me know I was doing the right thing by saying fuck no to hiding my scars. Fuck all that guilt and shame. It was all out in the open and the crowd was welcoming me home. Telling me
they respected me to the max for making a grand comeback from my many mistakes.
“I'm back!” I yelled out to my man Knowledge. “Baby I'm back!” And then to the rest of the world, “DID YA'LL HEAR THAT SHIT? I'M BACK!!”
No shame, no shorts.
The lights flashed and I turned around and dropped it like it was hot. Popping my spine and giving them a good look at my phat ass and that dead niggahs name that I still carried on my back. Then I turned back around and angled my face right at the main camera.
No shame, no shorts.
I pushed my red hair back behind my ear, making sure the cameras had a real clear shot as the stage lights shined their heat down on my zigzag scar. And then I smiled and broke out in my song and worked that whole stage just like Mama had taught me. Worked that shit until the house fell down.