Money-Makin' Mamas (7 page)

“Don't know no love, don't show no love,” was what I taught my three girls Chyna, Karrine, and Simone. The only love we had was for each other. Our bond as mother and daughters was unbreakable.

I'd been schooling my girls on this thing called life since the day I screamed out like a madwoman and forced them out of my coochie. I didn't want my baby girls to hook up with any nigga who was like their deadbeat-ass daddy. I wanted them to hook up with a motherfucker who would respect them. One who they could love because he had their backs and they could count on him to provide for them every step of the way. One who could have them riding around in a Mercedes, Range Rover, or Bentley, as they all did right now. One who could take them on trips from the Bahamas to Africa, if they chose to go there. I mean, this dude had to come correct. But the only nigga who could be down with my daughters in a way that I expected him to be, he went by the name of money.

Yes, that's right. I taught my daughters to fall in love with money. Money was the only thing that could give them what no other motherfucker could. It provided for them like no other and swept them off their goddamn feet. They were high off money, instead of being fucked up in the head because some damn fool done broke their hearts, done them wrong, or cheated on them. It was my job as Mama to make sure my girls didn't go down the same path as I had travel. Getting their asses beat just because and getting kicked out of the crib because a man told you you had to go, that wasn't where it was at. I had my stories to tell and you'd better believe that I told my daughters exactly what kind of father they'd had. They were now well aware, but Karrine and Simone had a little soft spot for him in their hearts. Not Chyna, though. She hated that motherfucker. She had every right to.

When Chyna turned twenty-six, she did her Mama a big favor. I'll never forget it, and I owed her big time for handling something that I could or should have taken care of years ago.

That day, Chyna had gone to the beauty shop early in the morning to get her hair braided. Like me, she wore long braids that flowed down her back and almost touched her apple bottom big booty that was the most money producing ass in the house. While my braids sat wrapped tightly on my head, Chyna's were parted through the middle. She had a round face that displayed her rich chocolate skin. Her body was sculptured like a goddess, and all of my girls' curvy hips were enough to turn any man's or woman's head. There was no secret that Chyna and I were the closest out of me and my girls, because Chyna did shit for me that the other two might not do. She had my back. Anything that I asked her for she would do it.

She left the beauty shop around six o'clock that evening and called me on her way to Ray's place. He had no idea she was coming and he had told the girls that if they ever stopped by they needed to call before they came. The only reason he required that was because he didn't want any of them to confront his bitches. The last time Simone was at his house, she beat the mess out of his side ho, Tracy, who didn't know when to keep her mouth shut. He didn't want the girls to catch him in the act of running his drug store. My girls were no fools, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what Ray was doing. I'll just say that a motherfucker who dropped out of high school in the eighth grade didn't have many options. Ray was a fifty-five-year-old man, but he liked bitches who were much younger than he was.

At forty-six my pussy was all dried up, according to him, so he didn't want no part of me anymore. He considered me washed up way before then, but that was his opinion, not mine. I was happy about that because he could lay those ass kickings on somebody else. All the cheating was left for another bitch to deal with, and he had done me a favor when he kicked me out on my ass and told me to never come back.

The only thing that I didn't like was when he disrespected my daughters. When Simone fought his trick, Tracy, Ray took her side and put his hands on my baby. That didn't work for me either, and I really had to put a plan in action to get rid of his ass, especially after he molested Chyna.

After that day, I knew what I had to do. It was inevitable and timing was everything. I plotted revenge with Chyna and only her. Simone and Karrine were wussies when it came to Ray. They let him get away with too much shit, as I had done. I didn't like that one bit, because what you allow yo' daddy to do, you will allow any man to do. So without nobody knowing it, Chyna handled things like only she knew how.

She called me on the phone while I was cooking fish for dinner in the oversized kitchen in our townhouse. It was spacious, with four bedrooms and three levels. I slept in the upstairs bedroom, Chyna slept on the lower level, and Simone and Karrine shared the second floor. We all had privacy. That was a good thing because I didn't want my girls to think I was crowding their space. As I turned the crispy fish cooking in hot grease, Chyna whispered to me.

“Mama, are you still there?”

“Yes, I am, Chyna. I was just trying to finish dinner.”

“Well, I just parked in front of his house. I want you to hear this shit go down, so don't hang up.”

I didn't hang up, but I put the phone on speakerphone so I could get done cooking before Simone and Karrine came home. I wanted Chyna to have something to fill her belly with too. Lord knows she deserved it. We had planned this for months. Chyna wanted to do this, and out of all of my kids, she was the brave one. I couldn't think of a better person to kill that fool, and as we discussed it, Chyna seemed hyped. If or when the cops asked questions, I would be her alibi, and she would be mine. And if that wasn't good enough, we already had a friend of mine, Phatty, who agreed to say she was right here with us having dinner. I suspected that the police wouldn't dig too deep. As much trouble as Ray had been in, I figured that they wanted his ass off the streets just as much as we did.

“I'm makin' my way to his door now,” Chyna said. “You wanna hear me knock?” she joked.

“Girl, would you stop playing? This is some serious shit and yo' ass needs to be careful. Ray got all kinds of guns and shit up in there. I don't want you to get hurt.”

“He trusts me, Mama, so I'll be fine. And if all else fails, all I have to do is fuck him and he'll get with the program.”

Chyna touched a nerve. I halted what I was doing and stood still. That was another thing about Ray. He had hurt Chyna when she was seven years old, but Chyna never told me that he had come into her bedroom to have sex with her until years later. I stood stone-faced, thinking about the day she told me what Ray had done to her.

Chyna had just gotten home from high school. I was chilling back on the couch, watching TV while talking to one of my girlfriends about a fucked
-
up date she'd been on. But when I saw the horrified look in Chyna's eyes, I told Nicole I'd have to call her back and hung up the phone.

I smashed my cigarette in an ashtray then got off the couch to go see what was up. I suspected that she was having issues with some of those bad
-
ass, knucklehead boys from school, but I wasn't sure. I didn't understand why they always picked on my damn kids, and I got tired of going to their school threatening those muthafuckas. Obviously, my threats weren't working.

“I tripped and fell
—
”

“I
. . .
It's not those boys who keep messing with me,” Chyna said with her head hanging low again. She kept fidgeting and didn't dare to look me in the eyes.

I held Chyna in my arms, allowing her to cry hard on my shoulder. I cried too, but not in front of her. It was later that night when I sat on the edge of my bed with a Glock 9 shaking in my hand. Ray was supposed to come over, and I waited for him to come through the door so I could blow his fucking brains out. I didn't need the police, and I didn't want to tell anyone what had happened. Putting him behind bars wasn't good enough for me. He needed to be six feet under; there was no other option. With that in mind, I waited. Waited for hours, but Ray was a no
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show. I called his phone; he didn't answer. Called around looking for him; nobody knew where he was. And by four o'clock in the morning, I finally realized that maybe it was a good thing that he didn't come. My daughters would've witnessed a murder that they definitely didn't need to see. They would see me in handcuffs, and knowing that they'd be thrown in the foster care system woke me up. This was something I had to plan for. I had to be real careful, and then execute a plan that would wash that nigga off this earth. I finally smiled that night while thinking about how I wanted it done.

I had never forgiven myself for what had happened to Chyna, but today that nigga was going to pay for all the hurt he'd inflicted on me and my girls. Maybe some people thought I was a coward for not smoking his ass myself, but that was in no way the case.

If Ray was killed, 99 percent of the people would think I'd done it. No one would ever suspect Chyna, but if they did suspect either of us, we both were covered. I, myself, was at home, cooking some seasoned catfish and coleslaw for me and my girls. If I needed an alibi, I had some.

I heard Chyna knock on Ray's door.

“Who is it?” Ray shouted.