Harlem Girl Lost (17 page)

The older woman sneered. “You want to know why? Because you are a lying, filthy slut just like your mother, and you gonna be just like her—a dirty junkie whore!”

Silver sadly shook her head. “You know what? All these years, I used to think that my mother died on my birthday in that motel room, but I was wrong. She died long, long before
that.” Shaking her head in pity, Silver continued. “I feel sorry for you because you ain't nothing but a miserable old woman who doesn't have an ounce of happiness inside you.”

“Since you want to be grown up, you can get the hell out of my house.”

Silver smiled. “That ain't a problem. I was gonna leave out of this prison anyway.” She went to her room to pack her clothes, her grandmother close behind her.

“Oh, no, you don't, bitch. You ain't taking none of them clothes I bought you. Since your ass is so grown, you go sell your pussy like your mama and buy your own.”

Silver laughed. “You call those clothes? You can keep them. I can get better clothes at the Salvation Army.” She walked out the front door, her grandmother on her heels as she headed out the door.

“And don't come back!” Mrs. Jones yelled. “Don't come calling me when you get into trouble, ‘cause you gonna turn into a whore and drug addict just like your simple-ass fucking mother!”

That was it. Silver stopped in her tracks. The words had cut through her like a razor, and all the years of pent-up anger finally made Silver snap. She turned around quickly and stormed back toward her grandmother, who closed her eyes, preparing herself for the worst. Unexpectedly, Silver placed a soft, gentle kiss on her cheek. Her grandmother opened her eyes to Silver's smiling face.

“My mother use to say, ‘For your worst enemy, you don't ever have to do or wish them any harm that they aren't already putting on themselves.’ She told me that instead of hating your enemy, love them, and that would kill them quicker than a bullet
ever would. You have so much hate inside of you, you're not even able to love yourself. So here's what I'm going to do. Since you're incapable of loving yourself, I'm going to love you until you learn to love yourself. So until then, Grandma, good-bye. My mother and I still love you.” Silver smiled and walked away, leaving her grandmother standing speechless.

WELCOME BACK, BIRDIE

S
ilver had not been in this building in over five years. She wasn't even sure if Birdie still lived there—or was even alive, for that matter. She would have stayed at Missy's house for the night, but knew that she would not have anywhere to sleep because Missy's apartment was so crowded. Silver could only pray that Birdie still lived here. She heard the bedroom door inside the apartment squeak open.

“Nigger, why you waking me out my sleep? Where the hell is your key?”

Silver smiled when she heard the familiar voice as the door of apartment 3F swung open. Smiling from ear to ear, Silver looked up at her auntie, whom she hadn't seen in years. Birdie, much older now, bore multiple scars across his face and an ugly webbed eye from the beating years earlier. He did not recognize her at first.

“Can I help you, young lady?”

Silver couldn't contain her excitement. “It's me, Auntie Birdie … Silver.”

As if a bolt of lightning had hit him, Birdie's jaw dropped. “Silver? Oh, my lord … is that you?”

She nodded. “Yes, it's me.”

Birdie embraced her with a big hug and began crying as he looked toward the ceiling. “Lord, I knew you would bring her back to me. Come in, child.” He ushered her in from the hallway. “Oh, child, I miss you so much, I got so many questions to ask you … What brings you here this time of night?”

Silver looked down, embarrassed.

Birdie nodded knowingly. “Your grandmother, right?”

Silver nodded again.

“It's okay, baby, you don't have to explain,” Birdie said. “I already know. We'll talk about that later. For now, tell me everything that's been going on in your life … Ooh, I miss you so much!”

Birdie and Silver sat up and talked for hours before Tommy, Birdie's boyfriend, entered the apartment. Tommy was a tall, wiry man with beady yellow eyes and bad skin. “Oh, Tommy,” Birdie said, “I want you to meet my niece, Silver. She's gonna be staying with us a little while until she goes off to college.”

Silver tried to smile, but Tommy gave her the creeps, the way he stared her up and down with his cadaverous face. He nodded to her and then turned to Birdie.

“Fix me some breakfast. I'm hungry.”

With that, he walked into the bedroom and closed the door.

“Don't mind him,” Birdie said. “He's just crazy like that. It takes some time to get to know him, but he's harmless.”

Silver nodded in acknowledgment, but that didn't ease the bad vibes she felt from the man.

“By the way, where is your clothes?”

“What you see is what I own,” Silver said, patting the clothes she wore.

“Girl, don't you worry, ‘cause your Auntie Birdie is taking you shopping for a new wardrobe first thing tomorrow.”

“Auntie Birdie, you don't have to do that. You doing me a big favor by just letting me stay here with you.”

“Child, look at me. We are family. I'm not doing you any kind of favors by letting you stay here or by buying you some outfits. I changed your diapers with these hands right here. Me and your mother, God bless her soul, was everything to each other, and before she died, she made me promise her that I would protect you.” Birdie swallowed hard. “They took you away from me once, and I refuse to let that happen again. So what I do for you, Silver, never look at it as a favor. I'm doing because we are family, understand?”

Silver hugged Birdie. “I understand.”

After spending the
entire day shopping on 34th Street, Birdie and Silver had acquired tons of Macy's and pink Conway shopping bags. They had so much fun together that day that time seemed to fly by. Silver in particular experienced a newfound freedom that she had never known before. In her seventeen years, she had never shopped or been allowed to pick and choose what she wanted to wear. To top things off, Birdie took Silver to the Dominican hair salon to get her hair done, and to the Korean to get her fingernails silk-wrapped and a full pedicure. This was such a new and refreshing experience that, at times, Silver couldn't help but feel guilty.

Exiting the train station back in Harlem, Silver and Birdie wearily headed home, arms filled with bags.

“Oh, child,” Birdie suddenly said, “I got to go to the number hole and play my numbers. You go ahead to the building and wait for me.”

Silver nodded and continued toward the building. Stopping at the light, she suddenly saw a bearded man fall out of the rear of a moving black sedan. The car screeched to an abrupt halt, and she watched a dark-skinned man emerge from the rear in quick pursuit as the fallen man tried desperately to regain his balance. The dark-skinned man quickly grabbed him from behind, ending his brief chance at freedom. As the pursuer pulled the bearded man back toward the car, he fell limply to the ground and pleaded for his life.

“Aw, come on, man,” he pleaded. “I ain't talk to nobody. It wasn't me, I swear!”

The dark-skinned man remained silent but continued pulling the man by his collar.

“Aw, man,” the first cried, pounding his fist on the ground. “This is fucked up, this is fucked up … Why y'all doing this, man? I ain't talk to nobody. I ain't tell nobody shit. Please, man!” Unable to get the man to hear his pleas, the fallen man lay limply by the curb. “Man, we can work this shit out. Just let me talk to them niggers. You got the wrong man, I swear!”

The driver of the car yelled out. “Yo, Hollis, this shit is getting hot. Handle that shit!”

Hollis wasn't a tall man, but he was built like a Sherman tank. Though he seemed young, he had deeply defined eyes that reminded Silver of a shark. If it weren't for the hideous
long scar that he had on the side of his face and neck, he could have been considered handsome.

Hollis pulled out a high-caliber weapon. “One time, nigger. Die on your feet like a man, or die in the gutter like the filthy dog that you are—snitch!”

The terrified man continued to pound the pavement. “Man, I done told you, I ain't—”

Before he finished his sentence, Hollis fired a single bullet through the man's cranium. Brain and skull fragments splattered the pavement in a starburst pattern. Silver jumped as she watched the man's head burst like a dropped melon.

Hollis coolly watched the man's body shake violently. “Bow-wow, bitch,” he said, and then strolled casually back to the sedan, closed the rear door, and hopped into the passenger seat. As the men screeched off, they saw her. The car slammed to a halt and the driver's gaze locked on Silver, as if straining to get a good look at her. Silver stared back in horror as she watched a long, black gun extend out the window, pointed directly at her. Suddenly, the car took off, burning rubber down the street, and instants later, Birdie snatched Silver off her feet and out of harm's way. Inside their building, Birdie rushed up the stairs, shopping bags bumping everywhere. At the door, he nervously fumbled through his purse for his keys.

“It's getting worse and worse around here,” he cried. “One day I'm gonna get the hell out of this place.”

Silver stood in a daze. “They were going to kill me. I—I saw it.”

Birdie stopped fishing for his keys. “What did you say?”

Silver looked up at Birdie. “I saw the whole thing. He blew that man's head off right in front of me, Birdie.”

Birdie finally got the door open and pulled her inside the apartment. Dropping the bags, he grabbed Silver by both shoulders. “Listen, child, you ain't seen nothing, you ain't hear nothing. You understand me, Silver?” Birdie shook her.

“Yes, Auntie Birdie, I understand. I understand!”

Birdie obviously felt some remorse for handling her so roughly, and gave her a hug. “I just can't afford to see nothing happen to you, baby. It would surely drive me crazy if I let something happen to you, Silver. You understand, baby?”

Silver gave him a wan smile. “I understand, Auntie Birdie,” she said again. They hugged, and then Birdie pulled away.

“Now let's try on our clothes like we use to do.”

Silver agreed, but knew that it would be a long while before she got the incident out of her head, especially the driver's eyes as he drove past her. But Silver couldn't shake a strange feeling that something had been very familiar about them. Just then, Tommy rushed through the door.

“Did you hear about the shootin’? They done blew that nigger Five-dollar Freddie's head clean the fuck off. That nigger won't be talkin’ to no cops no mo’. He fucked over the wrong niggers this time! I heard that nigger Heartless pulled the trigger himself.”

Birdie gasped. “Oh, my God … Hollis was the one who killed that man?”

“Yep. Stickbroom Johnny said he saw it, and you know that nigger know everything.”

Birdie clutched his chest and fell to the couch. Tommy frowned.

“What the fuck is wrong?”

“Tommy, Silver saw the whole thing, too.”

Tommy threw his hat down in anger. “Goddamn it, Birdie, you know goddamn well if them niggers find out she is staying here, they gonna send a motherfuckin’ hit squad back here to kill all our asses up in this bitch.” He turned to glare at Silver. “I knew when I first saw her she was gonna be nothing but goddamn trouble!”

“Maybe they didn't see her,” Birdie said. “Maybe they didn't notice her.”

Tommy pointed to Silver. “How the fuck they goin’ miss her high yellow ass?” Shaking his head, he stormed out of the room.

Driving uptown
, the two men pulled up in front of their spot near 144th and Eighth. Hollis signaled a kid over, who swiftly scooped up the bag of hot guns and bounced.

“Yo, nigger,” Hollis yelled to the driver, emerging from the vehicle. “Yo, why the fuck you drive off before I could clap that bitch?”

Chancellor Haze had grown considerably from the slight, frail thirteen-year-old he had been five years prior. He now stood six foot two, with a slender, muscular build and a sharp, keen handsomeness that was hard to miss in a crowd.

Hollis chuckled. “Yo, nigger, you getting soft. That's a sign that a nigger getting too much money.”

Chance ignored him.

“See, me, I'm gonna remain a soldier, ‘cause I'm true to this and I don't give a fuck!”

Chance grew tired of listening to him. “Yo, shut the fuck
up! You run your fucking mouth too much, man. That shit is gonna be the death of your ass.”

Hollis paid him no mind. “Yeah, whatever, nigger … but yo, I'm gonna go to Willie's and get me some burgers or sumptin’. I be right back.”

Chance looked at Hollis as if he were sick “Yo, what the fuck is you on? This whip is hot as a motherfucker and you thinking about eating?” He shook his head and looked around for police. “Naw, fuck that. We gonna handle this shit now and then burn this shit!”

Hollis walked off. “No doubt, nigger. Let a nigger cop a couple of burgers first an’ then we out.”

Annoyed, Chance pointed at the ground to emphasize his point. “Nigger, you ain't hearing me. I did you a favor on this job here. My prints is in this bitch. We doing this shit right now!”

Hollis turned around. “Damn, dukes, calm ya motherfucking ass down. Damn!” He lifted his arms as he scanned the area. “Po-po ain't that muthafuckin’ good.”

Chance closed the car door. “See, that's what I'm talking about. That's exactly how stupid-ass niggers get knocked, over some dumb shit! You ain't gonna get me trapped the fuck off because you want a fuckin’ burger!”

“Nigger, fuck you stressing for? We ain't dirty—we ain't got no weapons on us!”

Chance waited for a couple to amble past, not wanting them to overhear their conversation, watching Hollis with a hawk-like stare the entire time. Hollis finally threw his hands up in frustration.

“What?”

Chance spoke in a low, angry tone. “Come the fuck here!”

Hollis reluctantly walked up to Chance, who whispered in his ear, emphasizing his point as he spoke. Hollis finally glanced up into Chance's eyes and reluctantly conceded.