Money-Makin' Mamas

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I haven't always been that bitch, but when a woman hooks up with a no-good-ass nigga, it be that way sometimes. That's exactly what I did, and my life hasn't been the same ever since. See, there was a time when I just sat back and kept my mouth shut. There was a time when I would let the nigga in my life call all the shots. There was a time when I would bow down, give that nigga head and fuck him from sun up to sun down. But then, one day it happened. Everything changed. His life and mine. After that, I became the woman I was destined to be . . . Taffy Douglas.

The year was somewhere around the late 1980s. I was only twenty-seven years old. I can't exactly recall the day and time, but I will never forget what that muthafucka Raysheed, a.k.a. Ray, had done. For years, he had gotten away with so much shit. My dumb, naïve ass had let him, and it was just a matter of time before I decided to stand up for myself. Truthfully, I didn't even know that I had it in me. I was a quiet, weak bitch who was too afraid to open my mouth and speak up when I felt something was wrong. Ray knew he'd had a fool. He was able to do anything his heart desired. I mean, the nigga was so good at what he did that it wasn't nothing for him to bring one of his hoes to the crib and fuck her right in front of me. And what did I do about it? Nothing. I lay right in the bed next to him while he fucked a Caucasian chick right beside me.

“What in the fuck are you lookin' at?” Ray yelled at me.

The woman's pale legs were thrown over his broad shoulders. He tore into her shit like he was tenderizing a piece of tough meat. I thought it was fish from the way her pussy smelled, but I sat there with my lips clamped tight. My eyes were wide, but I narrowed them after Ray yelled at me.

“Nothing, Ray. I . . . I just don't understand why you couldn't do this in another room.”

“Bitch, this is my muthafuckin' bed! I pay the bills here, not you. If you don't like what I'm doin', too goddamn bad. And once I'm done, you can take yo' ass in the livin' room with them nappy-head-ass kids of yours.”

Hell no, I didn't like it, and I didn't want to wait until he was done. I tossed the cover aside, but as I got ready to get out of the bed, Ray grabbed me by the back of my hair. He pulled my hair so tight and held me down on the bed. My eyes watered; my scalp felt as if it was bleeding.

“You move when I tell you to move!” he shouted. “Now, lie the fuck back down and learn somethin'.”

I was too afraid to open my mouth. I knew what Ray's punches felt like, and I damn sure didn't feel like catching a beat down tonight.

“Raymond, darling,” the prissy Southern woman said. She was a fat and nasty-looking bitch with dirty-blond hair flowing midway down her back “Must you be so mean to that girl? She only wants to watch. There ain't nothing wrong with her watching us, is there? Hell, she may even want to join us.”

She giggled. I shot a dirty look in her direction, just to make her aware that I wasn't down with her plan and that she had fucked up Ray's name. He released his grip on my hair and slowly removed the woman's legs from his shoulders. His eyes were wider than mine. The look on his face appeared worse than death.

“You funky cock bitch! What in the hell did you just call me? I told you my name is Raysheed, Ray muthafuckin' McWilliams. Where in the hell did you get Raymond from? Do you think you can just make up any goddamn name for me, like they did Kunta Kinte? Y'all muthafuckas wanted to call him Toby, and now you want me to be Raymond. I got yo' damn Raymond all right. Here he is.”

I witnessed fire in Ray's eyes as he raised his fist and slammed it right into the woman's beet-red face. Something cracked. Thick blood splattered—splattered on me. Ray kept beating the woman as if she had called him a black-ass nigger. As she screamed and hollered, I eased away from them and ran off into the living room with my girls. My whole body trembled; my legs were weak. I fell on the couch and held all three of my girls in my arms, mainly Simone who was just a baby. All of them were tearful as ever. The oldest one, Chyna, questioned what was going on.

“Who is in there, Mama? What's all that noise?” she softly whispered then shielded her ears from all the ruckus she heard.

I didn't want Ray to come out of the bedroom and say anything to us, so I told Chyna to lie back down and be quiet. She did as she was told. We all sat fearful on the couch, listening to the woman get her ass beat. She was hollering and screaming so loudly that Karrine had shielded her ears too. She started to cry. That was when I reached for her face and squeezed her chubby cheeks.

“Don't you start that crying, girl. Wipe those tears and get underneath the covers with Chyna. This will all be over with soon enough, okay?”

Karrine slowly nodded. She did as she was told. I held Simone closer to my chest, and with every loud thump coming from the bedroom, my body jumped. I wasn't sure if Ray was going to kill that woman. From the sound of it, it didn't appear that she was going to make it out alive.

“Heeeelp me,” she cried out. “Somebody . . . anybody, please heeeelp! This Negro lost his everlasting miiiiiind!”

There was a loud boom. I predicted that Ray had picked her up and slammed her, because after that, there was silence. Then there was whimpering. The bedroom door flew open, and Chyna and Karrine hurried to pull the covers over their heads. I hated for them to witness shit like this, and this was not the kind of place where I wanted any of us to live. The apartment was tiny as hell, and because of our trifling neighbors, we couldn't get rid of the roaches. Ray hadn't given me one single dime for furniture and all we had was hand-me-downs from the Goodwill. Most of the time, my babies slept on the same plaid couch that made our skin itch. And the dingy white walls made me feel like the place was caving in on me day by day.

I heard another loud noise then watched as Ray tossed the woman out of the bedroom like she was a dirty ragdoll. She skidded on the wooden floor, probably catching splinters in her legs and hands like I had done when he knocked me on my ass. Her whole face was bloody and bruised, and her hair was wet and matted to her head. With a busted lip, she looked up at me with fiery red eyes.

“Wo . . . would you please, please help me? For God's sake, I need your hellllp.”

She extended her trembling hand to me while holding her wounded side. I could tell she was in a lot of pain, but I looked away and didn't say shit. Ray dared me to.

“If you get off that couch, I'ma get yo' ass too. Stay there or else.”

He wrapped the woman's long hair in his hand and started dragging her across the floor. Her legs flopped around like a dying fish as she kicked and screamed, begged and pleaded for Ray to let her go.

“I'ma let you go right now. And don't you ever bring yo' ass back here again!”

Ray opened the door and pushed the woman out of it. Seconds later, I could hear her tumbling down the stairs. Been there, done that too. He slammed the door and rushed back into the living room with a heaving chest. His muscle-packed, dark-skinned body dripped with beads of sweat. His dick was hanging, and he didn't have on one stich of clothing.

“Hurry up and put that girl to sleep. Meet me in the apartment across the hall. I want some pussy. And you'd better make that shit good, because that bitch left me high and dry.”

High and dry, yet his dick was crusty from her wetness. I swear this was pure torture. After he done had his dick pushed up inside of that bitch, that nigga wanted to stuff it in me. That didn't work for me but, like always, I kept my mouth shut.

Ray went to the kitchen to get some water. When he came back, he stood by the couch, eyeballing me. I could tell he wanted to fight, but he couldn't think of a reason to get into my shit. As I paid him no attention, his eyes shifted to Chyna. He licked around his lips and touched his manhood. I spoke up, just to direct his attention elsewhere.

“The girls shouldn't really see you like that, Ray. Ain't you gon' go put some clothes on?” I said.

He ignored me. The way he looked at Chyna made my heart skip a beat. It made me real nervous. And while I didn't want to go into the apartment across the hall to fuck his ass, I figured that he would find other options if I didn't. He rolled his eyes and slammed the door on his way out.

At that moment, I laid Simone on the couch and turned to Chyna. Her beautiful, big, watered-down eyes stared at me. I could tell she was frightened.

“You don't have to be afraid of him,” I said to her. “But, please tell me, has he ever touched you? Has he ever put his hands on you and touched you in an inappropriate place?”

Chyna blinked and hesitated to answer. She then lowered her head and slowly moved her head from side to side. “No,” she said softly.

I lifted her chin and made her look me in the eyes. “Are you sure? You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Chyna?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded and blinked tears from her eyes.

I wasn't sure if she had told me the truth. Something didn't seem right with her. Something didn't add up, but after I begged her to tell me the truth, she insisted the truth was no. Still, I didn't believe her.

With that in mind, shit was about to change. This was my turning point. I had to come up with a plan. My motto: “don't know no love, don't show no love,” especially to a no-good motherfucking nigga who I suspected was a child molester. That's how I now viewed Ray. While I believed Chyna refused to tell me the truth, a mother knows. We fucking know when a nigga has definitely crossed the line with our daughters. I hoped like hell that I was wrong, though, and I kept telling myself that there was a possibility that I was wrong.

I gave Simone to Chyna and asked her to keep an eye on her sister for a while. While Ray was across the hall waiting for me, I went into the kitchen. My head still hurt from when he'd pulled my hair. My full lips were dry and my thick, natural hair was scattered all over my head. I snatched open the kitchen drawer and saw my reflection in a sharp, shiny knife that I intended to cut Ray with. I quickly removed it from the drawer and held it in my hand. With my dingy nightgown on, I marched across the hallway and into the other apartment where Ray was.

The other apartment was used for so-called business. It was where Ray handled most of his drug transactions and packaged his goods. On occasion, he brought his tricks there to fuck them, and he stashed a lot of money there, too. It was also where he spent some of his time with his eleven-year-old son, Honey. He was a good kid. He was nothing like Ray, but Ray always wanted him to live separate from the girls. He never wanted them to meet each other, and the girls knew nothing of their stepbrother, who had been working for Ray for as long as I could remember.

It was a good thing that Honey spent most of his time living with his grandmother, though. But, whenever he was around Ray, Ray taught him how to live dirty. How to cheat people, how to package dope, and even how to kill. I had no say-so whatsoever, and there was little that I could do to protect Honey from the madman he'd known as his father.

While standing at the bedroom door, I sucked in a deep breath. I flung the door open, only to see Ray sitting on the bed next to Honey. He understood what a lowdown, dirty nigga his father was. And, deep down, I didn't believe that Honey really cared much for Ray. But, like all of us, he put up with Ray because he paid the bills, and he kicked out Honey a little something on the side for his hard work.

Ray looked at the knife in my hand and laughed. A joint was squeezed between his fingers. He took a hit then passed it to Honey. “Go ahead and take a puff from that muthafucka while I take care of this dumb bitch.”

Honey sucked in heat from the joint and watched as Ray approached me. “Please don't hurt him,” Honey said, gazing at the knife. “Is that why you got that knife in yo' hand?”

My intentions were to cause some serious damage to Ray, but I couldn't do that shit in front of Honey. I refused to cut that fool up into a thousand pieces right in front of his son and have him live with that shit for the rest of his life. Honey meant too much to me. Even though he wasn't my child, I still had mad love for him.

“You heard him,” Ray said, standing in front of me. “What you plannin' to do with that knife? Use it?”

He now had on a pair of jeans and socks. His hands were bruised from beating the white woman so bad, and there were several long scratches on the side of his face. At least she'd gotten something out of the deal.

“I . . . I came over here to see if you wanted something to eat. I was about to cut up some chicken and fry it,” I lied.

Ray's eyes narrowed. Of course he didn't believe me. “I just beat one bitch's ass. Now you gon' make me go there again. I told you I wanted some pussy, didn't I? If I told you that, why in the fuck are you over here talkin' about chicken? Put the damn knife down and take off yo' clothes.”

As soon as Ray said that, Honey blinked and nervously sucked in more heat from the joint. I laid the knife on the dresser and, as I was told, I removed my nightgown. Ray pushed me on the king-sized bed. Honey jumped up, moving away from us. He looked at his father, who smiled at him while darting his finger at me.

“I'ma teach you how to be a man,” Ray said to Honey. “The first thing you need to know is all a bitch is good for is havin' babies and lyin' on her back. You don't need her for shit else, and don't believe the hype about cookin'. Many of these bitches should be banned from cookin', so learn to cook for yo'self. Love shouldn't be a part of your playbook, and the only muthafucka you need to love is yo'self. You hear me?”