Damaged (19 page)

When he made a left on the same street the Brinkleys lived on, my breath got caught in my throat. Nut parked the car in front
of the house. But how did he know? The light blue house sat looking cold and empty. All the leaves had fallen from the tree
in the front yard, and the cobblestones that lined Mrs. Brinkley’s plants was all out of place and scattered around the yard.
The soil looked like a dog or a raccoon had been digging in it.

“We followed his ass for a couple days to see where he worked at,” Nut said. I could hear him lighting a blunt. He inhaled
it and blew the smoke out. “His ass was big as shit and greedy, too. We watched him stop at Dunkin’ Donuts after work every
day. His fat ass had a cup of coffee and three jelly donuts every single day we followed him.”

I could hear him inhaling another whiff before blowing it out. The car got real smoky, so I cracked the window to let some
air out and massaged my stinging jaw with my other hand.

“Rob was the one who said we should beat his ass, but nah,” he said, laughing, “Chu wanted that nigga dead, for real. But…
he ain’t have the heart to kill him, though.”

I looked at Nut and noticed that the hairy thing that kept swinging back and forth was now facing me. It was a dried-up, tiny
animal head. I covered my mouth to keep from screaming out loud.

“Oh, that shit dead already. A spider monkey. You ever watch National Geographic?” he said, plucking the dangling head. I
watched it swing back and forth and then spin back around to face the front window. “You ain’t gotta worry about this.”

This nigga was crazy. Where in the hell did he find that shit? My hand was still covering my mouth, horrified, staring at
the lifeless thing spinning.

“Only thing you gotta worry about,” he said blowing out another puff of smoke, “is fucking up my money. You feel me?”

I nodded and wiped the tears that began flooding my face no matter how hard I tried to stop them.

A
couple days later, me and Shakira was laying in Trina Boo’s bed watching videos when Trina Boo plopped down beside me. Sometimes,
I couldn’t understand her. Trina Boo was eighteen, a year older than Peaches, but she was a little ditzy. She mentioned stripping,
cuz she said she could make more money, especially since she was still gonna work on the side. But she wanted that house like
Nut promised us.

“That’s my shit,” Trina Boo said, jumping up and dancing to the remix of Snoop’s “Drop It like It’s Hot.” “I’m telling y’all
I’m going to New York. I’ma be in one of these videos.”

“Nut will fuck you up,” Shakira said, smiling.

Trina Boo sucked her teeth. “Fuck him. Look at this ass! Them rappers are gonna love this shit,” she said, wiggling and popping.

I raised my eyes, since even I had to admit Trina Boo had a big old booty that looked like she bought it. She was cute, like
a dark-skin baby doll. Nut treated her like she was an Anna Nicole Smith or something, like he ain’t expect her to know anything.
She was clueless sometimes.

“You should try it, though,” I said. “I’m not gonna hate on you, girl.” Maybe that was the best chance she had to get the
hell away from Nut. Sometimes I wished I had another plan. Hair school went out the window a long time ago. When Peaches stopped
going, I lost interest.

“Thank you, Camille. At least you got faith in my skills,” she said, smiling and wiggling her butt cheeks again. “See, all
I ever asked for was some support from you hoes.”

Shakira stuck her tongue out and walked over to grab a bottle of nail polish off of Trina Boo’s dresser. “Hey, did y’all hear
Nut told Peaches to get an abortion?”

“No, sir?” Trina Boo said, sitting down.

“For real?” I asked and sat up.

Shakira nodded and then twisted the cap off.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why you think? He don’t know if it’s his!”

“Damn,” Trina Boo said, shaking her head. “But I can’t blame him.”

“She said she never use condoms with him, but she do with her tricks,” Shakira said.

“Who told you?” I asked.

“Wynika told Marcha the other day.”

“But ain’t she too far along?” I asked.

Shakira rose her eyebrows and kept on polishing her fingernails. “I remember one time, this girl got pregnant by her pimp
and he made her get an abortion that late and her ass ain’t never make it out of surgery.”

“She died?” I asked.

“Mm-hmm,” Shakira said.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want to have his goddamn baby anyway. His crazy ass walking around with the Mark of the Beast,” Trina
Boo said.

“Bitch, you are, too, now,” Shakira said, tapping her tattoo.

Trina Boo rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m getting that shit removed as soon as I get my big-ass modeling contract. Tyra Mail!”

“Girl, you silly,” Shakira said, laughing.

“I feel sorry for Peaches, y’all,” I said.

“I don’t know why. She think you wanna take her crazy-ass man,” Shakira said.

“What?” I asked, stunned. “Please!”

“Don’t act like we ain’t hear him call you the pick of the litter, bitch.”

“Please, that don’t mean nothing. He pick whoever he want up in here, whenever he want. Plus, we all fuckin’ for dollars.
What real man gonna let his girl do this shit?” I asked. “I ain’t thinking about him.”

“True,” Trina Boo said.

“So what you saying about Peaches?” Shakira said.

“What? You asking trick questions?” I asked.

“Hmmm,” Shakira said, before blowing her wet nails.

“What? I’m lost,” Trina Boo said.

“Like always,” Shakira said.

“What?” Trina Boo asked again, confused, but then she was distracted by another BET video. This time Lil Jon and the East
Side Boyz. “Aw shit, this my other shit. Turn it up, Shakira!”

I laid back on the bed and thought about how messed up Peaches must’ve been to have tried to be in a relationship with Nut
in the first place, even after she met him as a trick. On top of that, why would she want to have his child? But then I thought
about all the girls who worked for Nut and how we all needed something from him and how we found strength from each other,
despite the madness. It was weird, but we really was a family. Just a messed-up, crazy one.

NOVEMBER 2005

L
oud screaming and thunderous pounding on the door woke me up out of a deep sleep. I jumped up and grabbed my robe and then
ran to see what was going on. I saw flashing police lights on my living room wall.

“Shakira, what’s wrong?” I asked, pulling the door open and tying my robe at the same time. My body was still so tired, but
I knew it was some kind of real emergency.

“Girl, they just locked Wynika up and took her kids!”

“Huh?” I asked, wiping sleep from my eyes.

“Come on! Trina Boo about to take us up Fifth District to see what the fuck is going on!”

I ain’t even try to ask questions. I threw on a pair of jeans, a hoodie, and some tennis shoes.

“We goin’ be in the car!” Shakira yelled from the hall stairs.

“Did y’all call Nut and Peaches?” I said, putting on my jacket and grabbing my keys.

“Yeah, but ain’t nobody answering the phone!”

As soon as I got in the hall, I saw the blue and red lights flashing in front of the building. Wynika was in the backseat
of one of the police cars. Shakira and Trina Boo was waiting in front of the building, and Trina Boo was on her cell phone.

“Them niggas ain’t trying to tell me shit!” Shakira said. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on!”

“Nut said he was going to meet us at the station,” Trina Boo said.

I looked back and forth between the two of them. I was anxious, but I ain’t know what to do. I could see Wynika leaning her
forehead on the back of the seat in front of her. I knew she was crying.

“I’m so pissed off! They act like they can’t tell us shit!” Shakira shouted. “How the hell they goin’ just barge up in here
and take her kids like that!”

She seemed like she wanted the Feds to hear her. “You try to call her sister?” I asked. “Maybe she know something.”

“Nataki ain’t goin’ know shit!” Shakira said. “That bitch act like she better than us, like she ain’t got her own fuckin’
issues!”

The police car Wynika was in drove off. Two other officers paraded back and forth, taking notes. We jumped in Trina Boo’s
Civic and headed in the direction of the police car.

A few hours later, after Wynika had been processed, we found out more than I think anybody wanted to know. She was being charged
with child neglect. Ra-Ra and Meko had a doctor’s appointment earlier that morning, cuz they had been crying about having
sore throats for days. When the test came back later that afternoon, Child Protective Services was called in to discuss the
results since both kids had tested positive for gonorrhea.

Couldn’t be nobody but Andre’s trifling ass. Nut shook his head and walked straight out the door after Wynika’s lawyer told
us the news.

“Money fuckin’ lost,” Nut mumbled.

It was a long, quiet ride back to Nineteenth Street. With all the drama, Nut said we ain’t have to go out tonight. Wasn’t
nobody in no mood to work no way. I ended up falling asleep in Trina Boo’s apartment, cuz we stayed up all night talking about
everything—if any of us had ever seen any signs from Andre, if any of us thought Wynika was being blind the whole time, and
what we thought was going to happen to the kids. We even talked about who Nut might get to take Wynika’s place. All that talking
made us sleepy.

The next morning, around eleven o’clock, the three of us jumped in Trina Boo’s car and headed to the Denny’s on Benning Road
and East Capitol Street to grab breakfast. I hated going there, cuz it always seemed to be crowded no matter what time of
the day or week. But my vote for The Diner in Adams Morgan was cast out.

“We all look like shit,” Trina Boo said, scooping eggs into her mouth. She was the only person I ever knew who ate sunny-side-up
eggs, and that shit in the middle looked disgusting.

“No, bitch,
you
look like shit,” Shakira teased.

“Y’all think they goin’ let her go, or what?” I asked, cutting my waffle and taking a bite.

“Hey, KiKi,” a guy said, sitting down at the table across from us.

“Hey, how you doing?” she said, smiling.

“Ain’t nothing. We need to get up again, one of these days,” the guy said.

Shakira smiled and nodded, but she turned back to us. “His dick is about the size of this sausage,” she said, sticking her
fork in the link and raising it up. The guy was sitting with two other dudes. They kept looking over at us every now and then
smiling.

“I doubt they let her go just like that,” Trina Boo said. “I mean, can you imagine? Them poor kids!”

“How she not goin’ know what was goin’ on?” I asked, shaking my head. “I don’t care what y’all say, she had to know something.
I hate when women try to act like they don’t know what’s goin’ on in their own house. Andre used to play tag and Red Light,
Green Light out front like he was one of them!”

“Mm-hmm,” Trina Boo said. “All along, he touching them little boys.”

“Hey, KiKi, this my man Rick,” the guy with the sausage-sized dick said, now standing in front of our table.

“How y’all doing, ladies?” Rick said, smiling from ear to ear.

“We good. But we eating,” Shakira said, rolling her eyes. “Can we talk to y’all later?”

“What?!” Rick said, angry. “Oh, you tryna carry me, slim?”

I sucked my teeth and shook my head. Trina Boo rolled her eyes. Why it gotta be all about him?

“Fuck y’all, dirty-ass, dick-sucking bitches!” Rick said real loud, so everybody in the whole restaurant could hear. I saw
a few people look at us and then turn back around. Some laughed.

“Nigga, fuck you! Don’t be mad, just take ya skinny black ass back to ya fuckin’ seat and eat!” I yelled. I had no idea why
I was so angry all of sudden. But I was.
Fuck him.

“Camille?” I heard somebody say. I turned around and sure enough it was somebody I knew. Jayson. I smiled, and then he stood
up and rushed over to the table.

“Fuckin’ faggies and hoes,” Rick said as he and the other guy walked away.

“Negro, please!” Jayson said. “What you wanna do? I bet I can whip ya ass like the grown-ass man that I am. You care to try
me?”

Jayson was definitely out of the closet now, but he still looked like he played football. Rick and his boy backed down. Of
course, they knew what was best for them. “I ain’t think so, now what!”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“So, Miss Lady, get up and give me a hug!” he sang. I did and then I introduced him to Shakira and Trina Boo.

“What you been up to?” Jayson asked. “It’s been a long time, ain’t it?”

I nodded. He introduced us to the guy he was eating with and then we exchanged numbers. I told him I’d call him later to catch
up. A part of me wanted to, but then the other part was like,
Keep the past in the past.

I was quiet the rest of breakfast listening to Trina Boo and Shakira talking. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jayson and the
rest of my brothers. I wanted to know if he had heard anything from Danica. I wondered if Mrs. Brinkley still lived in that
house on Rhode Island Avenue, since it seemed empty that day. I wondered if he could tell that I had been living a different
life.

I couldn’t shake the thoughts even later, when Nut came by to see me that night. He was the only man allowed to visit any
of us at his apartment building, especially now that he owned it outright. Yes, he showed us the paperwork with his real name,
Sean Crawford, printed and autographed on it at one of his Sunday meetings, just to prove our contribution was making a difference.
But I knew for a fact Shakira had some guy coming to see her every now and then on the low, ever since I moved in with her.
She said it was somebody who used to go to school with us at Tech, but I ain’t know who it was.

I climbed on Nut’s back to give him a massage. He swore that I was the best person who could do it. Sometimes he complained
about Peaches to me or talked about how stressed he was, but I never said anything. I just listened and rubbed the knots out
his back. Today was no different.