Tales from da Hood (31 page)

He stared at me for a moment and then he chuckled. “You don't know what a bottom bitch is, do you?”

I put my head down. “Nope, not really,” I said, giggling a little
because I felt green, but then I lifted my head up and hoped to earn a few cool points with my next comment. “But I know you gon’ school me, right?”

“School you?” He laughed. “You learning. I feel that.” He rocked his head back and forth, admiring my eagerness to learn more. “You know I got you,” he proceeded. “A bottom bitch is a nigga's main chick. That number-one broad. She might not be the only one, but she damn sho number one. And she know that no other bitch can fuck with the bond they got, no momma, sister, baby momma, great-great-granny, no trick just nobody. No bitch ain't got shit on dat bottom bitch. It's da chick that no matter what, a nigga know without a shadow of a doubt that she got him. Rain, sleet, hail, bright and cloudy, win, lose, or draw, she got him. It don't matter what, he could be blind and stinky with a glass eye and he know she got him. As long as he know he got her, he know he gon’ be a'ight. That's what a bottom bitch is, a nigga's muh-fuckin’ lung, his life support, and if a bitch pulls the plug, he could damn near lose everything. You feel me? Now, do you think you can handle that?”

I took in everything he was saying. The woman in me translated that street shit to a language that I could understand. I didn't need a minute to think it through. I had already started the game now. It was time to keep playing. “I do,” I said like I had just been asked to take the hand of the man I longed to be with in marriage. For some unknown reason, I felt like it was a privilege to be his bottom bitch. Trust me, I am not insane; I was just mesmerized, caught up in the moment of wanting to live on the edge. I was well aware that we came from different sides of the tracks and we would never see each other again. So today, just for this one day only, if I never lived on the edge another day in my life, then this day, I would.

“You fo’ real?” he asked with slight disbelief.

I nodded Yes. He smiled as he began to kiss me.

“You sho, 'cause the shoes is big to fill?” he asked, tongue kissing me down. It wasn't one of those neat little kisses that Brandon placed upon me. It was a wet, juicy, sloppy, wild-out kiss. I felt like I was in heaven. The only thing that ran through my head was the old Keith Sweat song, “
Make It Last Forever.”
I was corny like that. For better or worse, I hadn't figured all that out yet, but shit was definitely about to change.

“I'm sure,” I answered. “I mean, I'm sho.”

He held my face with both his hands and looked me in my eyes. “Then understand this: We gon’ have to leave here right now 'cause I gotta handle some B-I.” Observing the puzzled look on my face, he said, “Business. I gotta handle some business.” He kept talking before I could even respond or get my two cents in. “I promise I'ma bring you back out here this weekend and win you some mo’ bears, but something's come up and we gotta go. Here's what I need you to do. I need you to go get the car,” he said, handing me the keys to his truck, an oriental-burgundy-with-metallic-flakes Porsche Cayenne truck with custom twenty-two-inch rims. “Pull around on the back side of the carnival in the A&P parking lot. Leave the lights off until you see me and wait for me to come through the cut.”

I stood there listening intently. Before I could ask any questions, he smiled, looked in my eyes and said, “Put that bottom bitch position on lock.”

I was sure by the expression on my face he knew that comment was like music to my ears. I knew what it meant. This was my tryout to be the head cheerleader on his squad. There wasn't any application process; there were no presentence reports, background or reference checks. None of that. Just like that I was in. And to secure my position, I had to do what I was told. I never thought twice about it even though what he was asking me to do went against what I believed in, what I had been taught, and my better judgment.

He kissed me on the cheek and turned to walk away.

“Excuse me, sir,” the guy running the basketball game called to him. “You gonna pick out your prize?” Dee and I looked at him, and he pointed to the extra-large teddy bears. “You made your shot.”

Dee and I were both so involved in our conversation and this B-I that suddenly came up, neither of us even noticed that when he threw the ball, he made the shot. Dee looked over at me and nodded for me to pick out my prize.

“I'll take that one,” I said, pointing to a huge white teddy bear holding a red silk heart.

“You heard the lady,” Dee said to the man.

The man handed me the bear. Dee winked at me, and then he was on his way. For a split second I felt like Lois Lane when Super-man went off to save the world. All I could do was wait for him to go do whatever he had to do in order to handle his business. He walked away quietly, never looking back at me. I watched every move he made. He walked as if he had something in his pants that might have been weighing him down. Maybe God had blessed him in a way that every man wants to be blessed. Him leaning to the side with that gangsta pimp just added to his attraction.

His whole package wasn't like anything I had ever experienced before. See, I was always used to a man in a suit, preferably an Armani, Zanetti, or a Valentino. Surely not a sweatsuit or a denim suit, and especially not one with his pants sagging off his ass. The way that his pants hung, showing the rim of his Ralph Lauren boxers, was so new and sexy to me. Usually I love a clean-cut man, low haircut or a bald head, definitely not braids. I mean Dee's braids were almost as long as my weave and his facial hair almost looked like Wolfman Jack's, but only he could do it and get away with it. Any other day in my typical bourgeois life, I would have said “Hell no” to this type of guy, but for some reason this day I was saying “Hell yes!”

As Dee crept through the carnival, he was all slick acting like he
was on some MacGyver shit. Then suddenly he slid his hand to his waist, and I watched him pull out a gun. The way he moved swiftly through the crowd, as if he had rehearsed the scene many times before, mesmerized me. Then he aimed.

Boom! Boom!
I jumped as I heard the shots fired.

Once the gunshots roared through the air, people started running and screaming. It was at that very moment I realized it wasn't the Apple Bottoms that had his attention. It was her dude he was after. Dee's gun jammed. Mr. Apple Bottom ducked and dodged and ran.

Although Dee was a big guy—six feet, 270 pounds—he was fast. He wasn't trailing far behind Mr. Apple Bottom. What kept Dee from catching him was that the guy started running in a zigzag through the crowd. He was a real bitch-ass dude, trying to latch on to old folks, women, and children to keep Dee from shooting. Coward! When I saw how he was using kids, women, and the elderly for his shield, I secretly wanted Dee to hunt him down like wild game and give him whatever he had coming.

Nigga, just take it like a man, I caught myself thinking. I wanted to see some action. Selfishly, I no longer wanted to live vicariously through court transcripts. The life I had speculated about was happening right here before my very eyes. Only I could tell that ol’ dude that was running wasn't a real gangsta. These modern-day Negroes kill me, talking about they gangstas. Did you ever see Jesse James running? Hell no! Now those were some real gangstas. Met in the damn saloon at high noon and shot that shit out right then and there. Ain't nobody have to chase nobody in the Wild Wild West.

When he was no longer in my sight, I started to worry about Dee. But it wasn't the loud, roaring gunshots or the people running for cover that forced me to step up and play my position. It was a security toy cop who stepped on my foot and damn near knocked me
down. That's when I put the pep in my step. I started running, too, just as fast as I could, like the track star that Daddy had trained me to be, but it wasn't for cover. The police may have been onto my dude but as long as he made it to the car, it was one thing for certain and two things for sure: I was about to be the getaway driver for my man just like any bottom bitch would.

I quickly jumped in the truck and waited in the designated area as instructed. Once I saw Dee coming, I cut on the lights, put the car in drive, and scooped him up. As soon as he heard the sirens and saw the blue lights coming toward us, he ducked down in the seat.

My Momma always said, How something starts out is usually how it ends. So all I can say is the best is yet to come. If this is the first date, damn, I wonder what will happen in the days to come. Brandon has never, ever been able to get my blood pumping, heart throbbing, and adrenaline going like this even during our wildest sexcapades. This right here confirms that I, Angel Delaney, from this day forward, gotta have a ruffneck.

The Stash Box

“
DAMN! AIN
'T
THIS
A BITCH
?
” Dee raised his voice as I looked up at him to see what was wrong. “I must have dropped my fucking cell phone somewhere at that goddamn carnival when I was chasing that sucka-ass nigga,” Dee said, checking his pockets. “Goddamn. Where your phone at? I've got to make some calls.”

As I handed him my phone, I asked him, “Where you want me to go, baby?”

“Hold up. I'm trying to see now. Don't go home or nothin'. Just drive across the water or something. I need to holla at a few people.

After I do that, I'ma concentrate only on you. But I gots to handle some real small B-I first.”

I sighed, not budging. “Is it going to be
B-I
like a few minutes ago?” I just had to ask. I mean, do you blame me? Who would have thought that my first date with a ruffneck would include gunfire? I shouldn't be surprised because I knew from the gate that I was dealing with a thug, but goddamn. Did I really have to be the getaway car driver for real?

He snickered and stroked my check. “No, baby. It ain't nothing like that. Matter fact, I'm sorry that shit had to go down like that, but opportunity was knocking, you know? A nigga had to say what up to it and answer.” He began dialing a number and put the phone up to his ear. Although he spoke in code, I knew from court transcripts that it meant some kind of drug deal was going down. And if I knew it and my cell phone had been wired, the police would have known it, too. He made a few more calls and set up some meetings, all of which were ten minutes apart. Between phone calls he managed to tell me, “All I need is an hour to do what I got to do. You ridin’ wit’ me, right? Because this date ain't over yet.”

At this point, my brain wanted to say no. But then I started thinking about the music video we had watched on the sun visor television on the way to the carnival. It was by some rapper named Young Buck called “Shorty, Wanna Ride?” I remember him saying to the girl in the video, “You said you wanna thug. Don't be scared now.”

“Yes.” I nodded. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I knew that it was too late to get scared now. So I rode, driving to every destination he instructed me to. After we made the last stop, I could sense his disappointment with the final guy we went to see.

“Shit,” Dee said, getting into the car and slamming the door.

“You okay, baby?” I asked with concern, putting my hand on his leg.

“Yeah.” He sighed, picking my hand up, kissing it, then letting it go. “It just that that punk-ass nigga was short on my money and he knew from the get-go that he didn't have all my money for all the shit he wanted. He gon’ tell me to bring one thing thinking that I would just be like a'ight, you can owe me, but it ain't go down like that. I ain't on no consignment type shit.”

“Oh, does he have bad credit or something with you?” I asked.

“It ain't the point of him getting credit. It's the principle. Clear that shit before I come through. Niggas kill me assuming.”

“I understand,” I said in a comforting manner. “They take the first three letters of the word assume and that's what they make of themselves,” I added, referring to that old wise cliché.

Dee put his hand on my leg and kissed me on the cheek. He just sat there looking at me, and then in a somewhat proud tone, he said, “Damn. My baby girl was holding me down today. You was rolling for your man today, huh?”

Hearing him refer to me as his girl and him as my man made me feel like I had been riding with him for ages. It also made me feel special, like I had won him over that quick. But in reality, I think he was pumping me up by praising me like I was a mediocre child who would do even better if motivated. I nodded, feeling good that he had recognized and had not taken me for granted. Perhaps his psychological strategy was worth something, after all.

“I know we don't even know each other like that, but it seems like we go way back. Like we soul mates or some shit, or whatever muh-fuckas call it.”

“Yeah,” I replied with a smile.

“You seem like a chick that I could really wifey and make you mines.”

“I thought I was,” I said on the defense. “You told me to put that bottom bitch position on lock, and I did what I had to do. Now you acting like you got Alzheimer's disease or something.”

Dee began laughing, but I was dead serious. This nigga had me in the middle of some ol’ ghetto shit like it was something regular for me. I felt like Olivia Newton-John in the movie
Grease.
One minute I'm Sandra Dee, and the next minute I'm some hot girl at a carnival.

He pulled out a blunt, lit it up, and began to smoke. As he took a deep pull on the blunt, he just looked over at me and blew rings of smoke. He said nothing, just looked. He could have stared a hole in me. It was making me uncomfortable. What was running through his head? What was he thinking? Did he like what he saw? And most of all, was he feeling me at least half as much as I was feeling him?

I guess to kill the awkwardness that I knew he could sense, he extended his hand out to offer me a hit of the blunt. I declined by shaking my head. I don't do drugs and even if I did, I wouldn't do them with a crazy mutherfucker like him. Shoot, somebody had to be sane in this relationship.