Game Over (16 page)

18-
New Money

In June of 2007, I started hanging out
a lot when I could manage to get away from Fab. One night I was out at Club Lotus with my Murder Inc. family: Irv Gotti, Chris Gotti, Charlie Baltimore and Ebony. We were popping bottles as usual and having a good time when I made eye contact with some dude who was clearly undressing me with his eyes. It was that obvious. I mean, he was scouring my body from head to toe with more than just admiration. It was pure “I want you”. I’d seen that look more times than I could count. Anyway, I’d seen my stalker earlier in the day down at Rucker Park where we had made eye contact there too but I had no idea who he was. All I knew was he had pretty good handles and he came down to the park to ball often. Also, each time he came, people made a huge fuss over him.

That
night at the club, after staring me down for a while, he finally decided to make his way over. We were in VIP and surrounded by security so it should’ve been difficult for him to get anywhere near us. Instead, security parted for him like the Red Sea. Irv and Chris greeted him with daps and hugs. I knew then his status must’ve been important. They offered him drinks and he took a seat like he was one of the family. As he conversed with Irv and Chris, his eyes always seemed to make their way to me. Finally, he made his move.

He introduced himself as
Rafer Alston.

We began to talk. He had a
New York accent and since I’d seen him ball at the Rucker, I figured he lived in New York. Come to find out he was born and raised in Queens but he now lived in Houston. Also, it turns out he was a street ball legend. The streets called him Skip to My Lou. I discovered that after noticing everyone calling him Skip.

He’s probably going to be pissed when he reads this but I’m going to be real about it. My honesty is going to be brutal but it is what it is. Here we go. I had no physical attraction to Rafer that night. I knew he had money
, otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten close to Irv and Chris. But the nigga wasn’t cute or handsome at all. Real talk. Also, his swag wasn’t too much to brag about. I won’t call it corny. It just wasn’t what I was used to being in the Hip Hop scene.

Despite being
unattracted to him, I spoke to him throughout the night mainly to be nice. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. We eventually exchanged numbers. I almost gave him a fake one but for some reason chose not to. Thankfully I didn’t because no sooner than we parted ways, Ebony pushed up on me and put me on to who he was.

“Girl, he plays ball,” Ebony said.

“I know,” I told her. “I saw him at the Rucker.”

“No, Winter. I mean
real
ball. That nigga is in the NBA.”

No wonder I didn’t give him a fake number, I immediately realized. My
spidey senses had been tingling and I didn’t even know it. That part of me that loved money had been the part that gave him my real number. All of a sudden, me not being attracted to him didn’t bother me too much.

Rafer called me the very next day. Although his conversation bored me the previous night, I was all up on it that day. We spent a few hours getting to know each other. Then he asked me to go out with him. At first, I wasn’t sure but Chrissy,
Ebony and Chynae were over at the time. Each of them was all up in my ear like the good angel and the bad angel that used to sit on a person’s shoulder in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Chrissy apparently was the good angel.

“Just give it a chance, “she said genuinely. “You need to try things out with Skip. He’s a good dude. He’s different from those other niggas you’ve been fuckin’ with. You need to go out with him. Trust me
: he’s a real good dude.”

Although she was adamant, I still had reservations until she said, “Winter
, stop letting these niggas play you. It’s time you start making these niggas take care of you. Here’s your chance to make that happen.”

Those words stuck with me. I began to think about how I’d fucked with all these different dudes and none of them had given me their all. Here was my chance to really go hard. Here was my chance to make a million dollar athlete fall in love with me and treat me like the queen I deserved. Chrissy had gone deep with her advice
, and since she had experience, I decided to listen.

After deciding to go out with Skip, Chrissy snatch
ed me into the bedroom like a rag doll. She began going through my closet looking for the perfect outfit. She put me in a black mini skirt, a cute top and a pair of Gucci sandals I’d gotten while in Miami. I felt like I was being dressed for the prom but Chrissy wanted me to look good and not dress like I was working.

Skip picked me up in his frie
nd JR’s Chrysler 300 and took me to Merchants, a steakhouse in the city. While there he finally revealed to me that he was famous and that he was an NBA player. Of course, I acted both shocked and surprised. He then told me he was currently playing for the Houston Rockets but was staying downtown for the off season.

“It’s June now,” I said. “How long is the off season?”

With a smile, he said, “As long as I got a reason to be here.” It was obvious he wanted to get with me.

As we spoke throughout the night, I realized he had a little game. It wasn’t as advanced as most people I
knew but it was a little something. One thing bothered me though. I kept wondering why he was staying in a hotel. He was from New York so why didn’t he have a house in the city or family he could stay with? That was strange. I’d been with enough cats to know the hotel was their jump off spot. That was where they took their One Nighters. At first I wondered if that’s what Skip had planned for me. The hotel had my antennas up but I didn’t question him about it. I left it alone, knowing I’d find out why soon enough.

Skip turned out to be pretty funny and down to
earth. I enjoyed his company. He was intelligent, had a strong sense of humor, and was cool to be around. I know those who are reading this won’t believe me. Shit, I wouldn’t believe me either but at the moment I’d forgotten about his money. I really did. I began to look at him as a human being.

After that night, the two of us clicked. We were good but I didn’t get a chance to truly enjoy it because Fab called
with his bullshit. It was like he could smell in the air that I was having a good time and he wanted to destroy it. He now had demands on top of demands because it was only a week left before his new album would be released. He wanted me to stay at his house with him and Emily and be at his beck and call. I chose not to. I enjoyed spending time with Skip, and I enjoyed being able to come and go as I pleased without someone watching my every move.

I headed out on my second date with Skip. This time we
dined at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse along with his assistant Eddie. We hadn’t been out five minutes before my phone started ringing off the hook. Of course, it was Fab. At first I ignored it, hoping he would stop. He didn’t. He kept calling. Finally I answered.

“Where you at?” he asked. “You coming by the house?”

In reality, Fab wanted to monopolize my time. He wanted my life to revolve around him. At this time, I was still up on my job. I was still handling business for Fab just like I’d always done. Nothing had changed. I just wanted a night out for myself. Was that too much to ask?

I quickly discovered the phone call wasn’t about business at all. As we spoke, Fab was delving into my personal business
…like he was my man or something. He wanted to know what I was doing and who I was with. I tried to speak in codes, giving him one word answers. I even lied and told him I wasn’t with anyone. The entire time, Skip was eyeing me, wondering what was going on. I didn’t know him well enough to give him a breakdown of my and Fab’s relationship and that I was pretty much an indentured servant. When I hung up, I tried to give Skip bits and pieces at first, but ended up telling him more than he needed to know about my working situation with Fab.

“I’m going to change your life,” he told me. “And you need to quit your job.”

After that date, Chrissy and I had another one of our sisterly sessions. During this one, she told me that she and Jim used to discuss my relationship with Big Money. She said they both felt bad for me because they knew how badly he was treating me, and that I deserved more. She was sincerely hoping I would find
more
with Skip. She was truly a Skip advocate. She felt he was really a damn good guy.

“Don’t fuck it up,” she would say.

By the next day, Skip had spent at least 36 of the 72 hours we’d known each other at my spot. Together we had decided he didn’t need his hotel room in the city. Of course that was music to my ears because it gave me a chance to watch his ass just in case the hotel had been for One Nighters like I had suspected. It worked out pretty good. We had fun and he began telling me he never wanted to leave my side. We were playing house so much that eventually my fears eased, and I wanted to be with Skip more. But once again, Fab could smell it like a shark to blood. Fab began calling damn near every ten seconds. It was like he was turning into a stalker. He was pissing me off so bad I wanted to throw the phone across the damn room. But those annoying calls would change the course of my life.

One particular day, Fab was calling nonstop again. This time, knowing who was calling and fed up with it, Skip asked, “You get paid how much?”

I’d already told him a few days earlier so I knew he was getting ready to make an obvious point. I didn’t answer.

“Exactly,” he said, seeing I knew what his point was. “But yet he wants you living in his house and running around like a slave for him. You need to quit.”

That was his second time saying that. And those were pretty strong words from someone I barely knew but there was truth to them. Obviously, Fab wasn’t paying me what I was worth and he didn’t want me to have a personal life. I kept the suggestion in the back of my mind.

Anyway, a few days later Fab was supposed to appear on 106 & Park. I hadn’t stayed with him the night before so I called to remind him about
the event and that he was also scheduled to do Fuse TV. I told him to bring an extra outfit. He began ranting and raving about how I didn’t know my job and that I wasn’t handling business. None of that was true. I’d never fallen off my game. He was just angry because I wasn’t living in his house anymore where he could watch me like a hawk. That truth came out when he yelled, “You haven’t even stayed at the house for the past three or four nights! You don’t even know the schedule.”

I did know the schedule.
In fact, I knew it better than he did. Not only was I still always on my job, I stayed in constant contact with Carla and Jenya, other members of the Def Jam team. Refusing to argue with him, I just simply reminded him once again to bring an extra outfit and hung up.

Later that day, I got to 106 & Park first. Fab hadn’t arrived yet. Since he hadn’t, Jenya
, a Def Jam employee, and I decided to go to a Chinese restaurant on 57
th
street. We ate, chilled and passed the time. During the meal, I opened my fortune cookie. It read…

YOUR CAREER PATH WILL CHANGE.

At that moment, little did I know how true that fortune was.

We headed back to
the 106 & Park studio. When we arrived, I found out Fab showed up without the extra outfit that I had reminded him
twice
to bring. All he had was the clothes on his back. He decided to pick an argument with me. He’d discovered, just like I had told him, that he was also scheduled to do Fuse TV. He went off, saying everything was my fault and that if I’d stayed at his house, none of this would have happened. He then told me I would have to go back to his house in Jersey to get him an outfit. I asked why no one else could bring him an outfit but it fell on deaf ears.

I
took a deep breath. I began to question whether or not I was cut out to be an assistant. But despite it, I ended up in Fab’s white Escalade with Shaq and Kev, another one of Fab’s homies. We were headed to Jersey to get Fab’s other outfit. In the truck I vented, loudly, becoming irate.

“His woman is a fuckin’ stylist!” I yelled. “Why can’t she bring him something? This is bullshit! I told his ass to bring two damn outfits!”

I was going off. Little did I know, during my rant Fab had called Shaq. Fab was listening to me the entire time. I didn’t realize it until Shaq handed me the phone. We immediately began to argue again. This time, I remembered Skip’s words…“You don’t need that job. I’ll take care of you.”

Those words played over and over in my mind. They drowned out Fab. It was then that I made my decision. Hanging up on Fab, I asked Sha
q to drop me off on 34
th
Street. I hopped out, went about my way and never looked back.

That
same night, Cheo called me and asked if I would attend a special dinner that was being thrown for Fab to celebrate the release of his album.“Winter, you need to come,” he said. “Your work went a long way in making this happen.  It’s going to look funny if you don’t show up.”

I didn’t give a fuck how it would look. I declined and expected that everything would blow over in a few days. It didn’t. Cheo called me again the next day. “Hey, I spoke to Fab,” he said. “He told me to tell you all you have to do is apologize for talking shit about him and you can have your job back.”