Authors: Braya Spice
Dear Drama (3 page)
“Oh, hell no!” someone yelled.
I glanced up and saw my sister hop over the fence of my apartment and Creole run through the gate in a flash.
Praise God,
I thought.
I thought.
They both lunged at Greg, pounding him with their fists. I started attacking him also. I slapped him, kicked him, and spit in his face as Creole and Crystal continued pummeling him. Crystal had even snatched off one of her heels and was beating him over the head with it.
“How you like it?” she raged.
He swung blindly and yelled, “You fucking bitches!”
“Ho-ass nigga!” Crystal yelled, pounding him in his back.
We continued to hit him until he knocked Crystal down and escaped to a spot a few feet away from us.
All of us were breathing deeply.
“If I had my hammer, I'd blow all y'all bitches' heads off!” he threatened.
By now all my neighbors had come out of their apartments to watch. I stood there, embarrassed, with my head down. All the times in the past when Greg had assaulted me, my neighbors had come outside to watch but had never helped. Then they had looked down and told me how dumb I was for staying with this man. I had wanted to escape all of that drama. And I had, but now I was back there, looking like an idiot again in front of my new neighbors.
“You just made a terrorist threat,” Crystal pointed out, standing to her feet.
Creole laughed loudly. “Yeah, you bitch ass!”
This all made him angrier. He never took his eyes off of me, though. His face held an evil scowl. Silently, he was telling me that if it weren't for my sister and Creole, I'd be on a stretcher right about now. “Bitch,” he muttered. Then he turned to walk away.
“Stay the fuck away from my sister,” Crystal warned.
He flicked her off and kept walking.
“That muthafucka! We were wondering what was taking you so long to go into your place. Then we saw someone come out of the shadows like the night stalker, and you screamed. We figured it had to be Greg's crazy ass,” Creole said.
Crystal turned to me, lifted my chin with her hand, and examined my face. I heard her sigh as her eyes passed over my cheek that was swollen and my bottom lip, which was busted. There was blood gushing out.
I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe some of it away. My whole mouth burned. But I was used to the feeling. I was just glad he didn't knock any of my teeth out.
“I hate that bastard,” she whispered.
One of my neighbors must have called the police, because the next thing we knew, their sirens were blaring and they were pulling up on my street.
Chapter 2
March 2008
It was a Saturday. I was reliving all the good about my birthday from the year before and trying to block out the bad. Now I was twenty-two, and Sierra was three.
Although I had the time of my life on my birthday the year before, I chose not to do the nightclub thing this year so I could have enough money to take Sierra to Disneyland for her third birthday. She had a ball. Instead, I ordered a pizza and hung out with Kendra. See, I didn't have too many friends, just her, my friend Creole. I mean, I had a few associates, but these two were my dear friends.
I had known Creole since I was thirteen. She was short like my sister, five-one, and talked more shit than a little bit. She was high yellow, with short, curly reddish hair and a curvy frame to die for. Kendra was dark skinned, had a very pretty face, with jet-black hair that hung down her back. She was more plus sized. I met Kendra at school when I was nineteen, when I was going through all my bullshit with Greg. She was really there for me when I needed her. She never gave me the lines others did, like, “Girl, you should leave his ass. You stupid,” or my personal favorite, “If I was you, I would ...” It didn't take me long to figure out that those same women who said those things were sometimes in worse situations than mineâwhich was hard to imagineâand stayed. Yet they were quick to judge my situation. Bitches like them were so fucking judgmental. You said, “My baby is late. He's usually home by nine. It's nine fifteen.” They said, “Girl, you know he's fucking around!” But let them come home and find a woman in their bed. All the rules changed. “I found this girl in my bed, but my man said he don't know how she got there. Do you think he's cheating on me?”
Yes! Duh, bitch!
Your friends could be your worst critics. The shit they told you just didn't, for some reason, apply to them. And you had to be careful what advice you took from your friends. It could often be biased, based on their own misery. They were alone, so they wanted you to be alone. That was why I didn't deal with too many broads. But Creole and Kendra ... they were just different. They were my road dawgs. And neither were judgmental.
Yes! Duh, bitch!
Your friends could be your worst critics. The shit they told you just didn't, for some reason, apply to them. And you had to be careful what advice you took from your friends. It could often be biased, based on their own misery. They were alone, so they wanted you to be alone. That was why I didn't deal with too many broads. But Creole and Kendra ... they were just different. They were my road dawgs. And neither were judgmental.
Both had their own beliefs on things. Kendra: “Love is possible.” Creole: “Fuck love.” Kendra: “You'll find that dream man one day.” Creole: “Fuck that. Get in his pockets.” But you needed two completely different friends that provided a balance to your perspective.
Kendra was curled on the love seat in my apartment, while I stretched out on the floor. Both of us held our stomach after all the pizza we had just grubbed on with our greedy asses.
“Do you realize that you have been alone for over a year?” she asked me out of the blue.
“'Cause that crazy bastard Greg almost made me want to turn gay.”
My friend nodded and said, “How you feel now?”
“What you think? I'm ready to get loved on. It's a fucking Sahara down there. But I want something serious. No bullshit. You already know how I do things.”
“But I'll be honest. Shit is worse now for single women than ever, and especially if you a black woman, the pickings are so fucking slim. The bottom line is this. They don't want us. It used to be that you may have had a hard time getting a man to marry you. Now you have a hard time getting a man just to commit to you. 'Cause all the niggas got women at home already.”
That wasn't the first time I had heard that. I remembered watching a special on ABC and seeing so many educated black women in their thirties who were still not married. I didn't want that to be me. After I finished college and got the career that I wanted, I wanted to get married and have more pretty babies like Sierra.
“You heard from your crazy-ass baby's daddy?” Kendra asked.
“Let's not discuss him,” I pleaded.
Greg had been arrested the night of my twenty-first birthday. It was obvious from looking at my face that he had attacked me. Crystal also threw in that he had made a terrorist threat against all three of us. They gave him sixteen months in jail, but he had to serve only half of that. Once he got out, the courts made him take domestic violence, anger management, and parenting classes. Luckily, he wasn't allowed to see Sierra until he completed them. According to his mother, he was really doing well in them. I was just happy he wasn't around to harass me. And deep down, I hoped this would help him. I did, after all, want Greg to be a part of Sierra's life, just not the way he was. I mean, the way I felt about us getting back together wasn't going to change. I wanted no parts of him for me. But I wanted him to be a real father to Sierra. Even if he wasn't paying child support.
While he was in jail, he wrote letters to Sierra and me every week. In the letters, he claimed that he had changed and that he realized how wrong he was. He even begged me for another chance. I never replied. I just read the letters addressed to Sierra to her and threw the ones he wrote me in the trash. There was no way in hell I was going back to him. He had robbed me of two years of my life. Greg wasn't getting any more of my life to ruin.
I was trying to live my life like it was golden. My first step was to get me some and a man. It was not an easy task.
I didn't have a problem meeting guys. I was, after all, friends with a damn man magnet: Creole. But let's just say the men Creole dated weren't my type at all. I mean, our agendas, Creole and I, were way too different. That was because Creole was different. Creole would tell you in a minute: “I don't give a damn how the nigga look. He don't even have to have all his limbs, but the dollars better be long, or I'm not fucking with you. If the motherfucker missing both arms, he better damn well know how to maneuver the hell out an Escalade with his shoulders!”
While I was seeking someone to love me, I made the bad choice of having Creole hook me up with someone. His name was Ruju. He was African and looked like he was part alien, because he was that damn ugly. My first instinct told me to do an about-face back into my apartment when I greeted him at my door. He was brown skinned, with long dreads that smelled like moldy bread. He was missing four bottom teeth and was blind in his right eye, and the left was bloodshot red. He had stitches in his nose, and his nostrils were super huge. I tried look past all that and zoom in on his great personality, but he didn't have one. His accent was so thick, I could barely understand him. So I nodded and smiled the whole way to the restaurant. The dishes we ordered at the restaurant, I couldn't pronounce. They consisted of goat and something that looked thick as grits and was covered in a dark sauce. I passed on the fare and instead munched on the fried plantains. He was too busy sopping up the grits and the bloody-looking gravy to notice. And I would say the date was going pretty well until Ruju got a little frisky and copped a feel under the table with his greasy, slobbery hands, which he had just licked.
I narrowed my eyes and gave him a look that said, “Don't fuck with me.” The snarling of my lips meant this was his last and only warning. It seemed that he heeded it as I sipped my water.
However, when the waitress brought the check, he took the diversion as an opportunity to shove his hands underneath my skirt and tried to stick a finger in my panties.
Without much reservation, I took my fork and stabbed his leg with it. “What in the fuck is wrong with you?”
He leaped back and howled in pain.
I rose from the table with my purse and stalked angrily to the door as he chased after me.
“I'm sorry,
babbe!
I meant no harm. You're just so fine.” He rubbed the spot on his thigh where I had poked him. Unfortunately, I had drawn no blood.
babbe!
I meant no harm. You're just so fine.” He rubbed the spot on his thigh where I had poked him. Unfortunately, I had drawn no blood.
“Pay the bill so you can take me home, clown,” I barked and marched outside to his car.
“I'm so, so very sorry. I want to take you to the movies and shopping on Sunday. Can I, Adure?”
“It's Allure.”
“Sorry, Abure?”
I ignored him. That was probably the closest he would get to pronouncing my name right.
I didn't listen to any more of his jabber. I just concentrated on the tongue-lashing I was going to give Creole for fixing me up with this ugly bastard.
Once he pulled up to my street, I unsnapped my seat belt and grabbed my purse. I flashed him another evil look and reached for the door handle. I opened the door but froze when I felt something on one of my breasts. My eyes dropped instantly to a black, ashy-ass hand.
“Muthafucka, I said don't touch me!” I grabbed his container of now lukewarm food and beat him over the head with it. Goat meat, gravy, and grits went everywhere. I shook my head, exited his car, and slammed the door as hard as I could. “Get your ass out of here, you fucking foreigner!” And he did.
After him, I refused to let Creole set me up with anyone else. I found men on my own.
I went from him to a mailman who invited me over for dinner. Then his three-hundred-pound wife showed up and whipped my ass. Then I met a stalker named Mike who worked for 411, and after we had one,
one,
phone conversation, the next thing I knew this fool showed up at my door, with a sleeping bag and a stuffed pillowcase with clothes threatening to spill from it, and thought he was going to move in! When I cursed his ass out for showing up at my house, he sucked his teeth and mumbled, “I'll go to my other bitch.” He swung his sleeping bag and pillowcase over his shoulder and walked away. Now every time I call 411, I can never get the number I need, because I always get hung up on. I guess he blackballed my number. Let's just say that these experiences left me a little traumatized, well, that and dealing with my run-ins with Greg.
one,
phone conversation, the next thing I knew this fool showed up at my door, with a sleeping bag and a stuffed pillowcase with clothes threatening to spill from it, and thought he was going to move in! When I cursed his ass out for showing up at my house, he sucked his teeth and mumbled, “I'll go to my other bitch.” He swung his sleeping bag and pillowcase over his shoulder and walked away. Now every time I call 411, I can never get the number I need, because I always get hung up on. I guess he blackballed my number. Let's just say that these experiences left me a little traumatized, well, that and dealing with my run-ins with Greg.
I was still willing to give dating another try. After the disaster dates I met this dude. His nickname was McCoy. I met him when I was outside washing my car. He said he was mesmerized by my legs.
While I dried off my car, he just leaned against his and watched me the whole time, until finally I snapped, “You want something?”
He chuckled. He was still in his work uniform, which was a pair of scrubs. He was cute, tall, with a nice body. But that didn't mean shit. Greg was cute, but on the inside he was revolting. The mailman was cute and Mike was fine, but both were losers. I had learned not to rely just on a person's looks.
“Yeah, I want something.”
“Oh yeah, and what's that? 'Cause what you want just might be on Figueroa or Compton Boulevard. But best believe it won't be here.”
The mail lady, Etta, was shoveling mail in our slot and cracked up laughing at what I said. She was the only mail person I knew that came so late. It could be eight in the evening, and here comes her ass, delivering the mail or taking a break and sitting on my porch steps. Every time I saw her, she had a cigarette hanging from her mouth.
He cracked up laughing, too, like what I said got him so tickled. “Sexy, I don't mess with hoes. But I'll spoil the hell out of a lady.” He had dimples and a bashful smile. “You know damn well what to expect when you come out here looking like that.”
I blushed now. I was a sucka for a compliment. But I quickly placed my frown back on my face. “Are you gonna answer my question?”
He crossed his arms underneath his chest. “Yeah. I'm waitin' around to see who own those legs.”
I laughed. He was funny.
And a week later we were at the movies. It felt nice to be out on a date. I felt ... of the world. And he paid too. I was just hoping for the best. I had a box of nachos, a Cinnabon pretzel, and a cherry Slurpee, and he wasn't trying to feel me up, either, like the African guy.
“You okay?” he asked me as the previews came on.
I smiled, super happy we made it in time for the previews. I hated to miss the previews. “Yeah, I'm fine.”
“Good.” He slipped his hand in mine. That was cool. A couple seconds later I know I wasn't crazy when I felt someone else grab my other hand.
What the hell?
I snapped my head to the right, because McCoy was on my left, and met the red, hate-filled eyes of Greg.
Goddamn!
I pulled my hand away, and dread instantly filled me. “Greg, what are you doing here?” I screeched, exploding.
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