Tales from da Hood (32 page)

Still chauffeuring ever since the incident at the carnival, I drove off without knowing where our next destination was, or even caring. Dee sat in the passenger seat puffing away, staring into space.

“What you thinking about?” I finally asked him.

“You want to know what's on my mind?”

“I asked, didn't I?”

He sucked his teeth, poked out his lips, then scratched down his neck a couple of times. “I was thinkin’ bout how someone like yourself, Miss College Degree, got your little position of power at yo high sidditty job, I want to know how a nice girl like yo'self, who seems like she never been exposed to anything outside of dandelions, could be wit’ a nigga like me today from start to finish and never, not one time, demand any details or bitch up on me.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I don't know. I keep asking myself the same questions. As far as not asking you for any details, I figured, if you want to give me an explanation, then you would.” This is
what I told him, but on the real, I wanted to know what would make a person want to take another person's life. What would make a person want to flip and put everything at stake? Jeopardize everything, including their own life and freedom? I don't know if it was the journalist in me or the sane human being, but I wanted to know. But I wouldn't dare ask.

“If you don't know nothing, then when the police come to question you, you can't tell 'em nothing.” Dee said confidently.

“Accessory after the fact, huh?” He nodded. “What makes you think the bottom bitch is going to tell anything on her man in the first place?” I said, trying to sound like I was a real gangsta's bitch.

“You see this?” he asked, pointing to the mark on his neck.

“How did you do that? What happened?”

I examined it until the car behind me blew his horn to notify me that the red light where we were sitting had changed. I looked in the rearview mirror and waved to apologize as I put my foot on the gas. This jerk still would not let off of his horn. He was upset, and when I looked in the mirror, I saw he was cussing my ass out to the fullest, which only added fuel to Dee's low, always sizzling fire.

“Damn mutherfucker! She said she was sorry,” Dee screamed, looking back as if the man behind me could hear him. He looked over at me and said, “Let's fix that mutherfucker. Don't move. Just wait until the light turns yellow before you pull off. Let's really give him something to cry about.”

I sat there at the light and waited for it to turn yellow. Once it turned, I waited a couple of seconds then I took it, leaving him with the red light. However, don't you know that motherfucker ran the red light, almost getting nipped by an oncoming car? People are crazy. He jeopardized his driver's license, not to mention his life, driving like a bat out of hell only to catch up with me at the next red light to give me the finger and call me a bitch.

I don't know what he did that for. He must not have realized
who in the hell I was rolling with. Now, let me let you in on a little secret. Well, I don't know if it's really a secret. I think it's public information, something anybody with any kind of common sense would just know. Some things you just don't do, and calling a ruff-neck, thug, or major player's girl, especially his bottom bitch, a bitch, and not to mention in front of him, too, is something you just don't do. It was definitely common sense, even to me. Oh, trust and believe that fool of a driver had fucked up big-time.

“Bitch, pay the fuck attention,” the driver said after angrily rolling down his window.

And before I or the wise ass knew it, Dee had reached for the old Coca-Cola bottle that had been rolling around on the floor of the car from earlier that day, and hummed it at the wise ass. Before he could react, it hit his car and shattered everywhere. It was pure entertainment, watching that dude run the red light to try to get away from us. He went from the big bad wolf to Little Red Riding Hood.

“Punk mutherfucker!” Dee said. He continued poppin’ junk for a while about the wise ass until finally calming down.

I laughed at some of the slick shit that was sliding off of his tongue. I made a mental note as well. I never knew when and if I might find myself in a situation where I needed to prove my hood credibility with my tongue. Soon after my laugh faded, I got back to the subject at hand. I don't know if it was curiosity or the chance that the story would get me all worked up in my panties. Probably a little bit of both.

“So, baby, what happened to your neck?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, getting back to what he was about to tell me before the road rage incident. “The other night we were in this club called Club Zipendale's at the picture booth. We got it on lock, right? Me and my boys had it on lock for about an hour, just snap-pin’ and shit. Posing and shit. My man, Chicago, had just came home.”

“Came home from where?” I asked. I guess the squareness in me came out for a minute because I thought he was going to say the military or something.

“From the penitentiary. He was down ten years.”

“For what?” I asked.

“What you think?” He looked at me like,
Damn, Ma, it don't take a rocket scientist to figure the shit out
, and then he said,

“Drugs.”

“I didn't know. In all the cases I've read, most hood dudes go for one of four reasons: drugs, gun charges, murder, or parole violation. So as you can see, I had several choices.”

He smiled. “My baby sharp, ain't you? Got them statistics and shit down packed, huh?”

“I try to stay on my toes,” I said. “But anyway, what happened?”

He relit his blunt and continued on with the story. “So we's in the club doing it up real big. It's like bout fifty-leven niggas with us from around the way, trying to show Chicago a nice time.” He used his hand to motion to me to turn left.

“So, these dudes from across the water get tired of waiting to take pictures and go over and address the photographer. The photographer ain't no gangsta. He's what he is, the picture man, and don't want no problems.”

“And I understand that,” I said, listening closely, waiting for the foreseeable drama.

“Me, too,” Dee agreed. “I admit, we was hogging up shit, but still. So the picture man sent the dudes over themselves to holla at us. I guess the picture man figure he making money, he don't care who in front of the camera. So, they came and threw a wad of money in our face, telling us to let up off the picture booth.”

“Did you?” I didn't have to ask. I should have known better.

“Baby, I ain't no ho! A nigga can't just throw no money in my
face and 'spect me to move.” Dee took a pull on his blunt and exhaled. “I told that nigga to get the fuck out my face. He walked away but the next thing I know, this nigga, Shank, ol’ dude from the carnival today, snuck me from behind with a Moët bottle. That's how I got this cut. A bitch-ass nigga. We got ta rumbling in that mutherfucker and they had to shut it down.”

“Is that the brawl they were talking about on the news?”

“Yup,” he said, confirming it with a devilish grin on his face. This was all too damn much for a virgin to the streets like myself. This nigga could rumble. He slung drugs, and he had the gunplay action on lock. At that moment and for the first time tonight, it finally sunk in that I, square-ass Angel Delaney, was rolling with the big dawg, a real live muthafuckin’ ruffneck in every aspect of the word. And I was loving every minute of it. When the thought sunk in, my corny ass wanted to pull the car over on the side of the road and get out and do the cabbage patch. I know it might sound crazy, but that's the kind of effect this dude had over me. He was my aphrodisiac. He took my shyness and squareness away and breathed bravery and boldness into my body like a life-support system, making me wonder how did I ever live without him in my life.

Then it didn't help when Ashanti's song came on the radio,

“Baby Baby.” Now, I had never been a big Ashanti fan before, but after really listening to how deep she took it in that song, I'm about to be the president of her Richmond-based fan club. Then, as I had the bass pumping in the song, feeling like I had smoked some hydro, high off my ruffneck, suddenly my high was blown.

For the first time all night, my heart finally dropped as I checked my rearview mirror and saw the police behind me. I didn't want to say nothing yet because I didn't want Dee to think he was rolling with a punk. My heart was in my panties as I checked the speedometer.
The speed limit was fifty-five and I was doing fifty-eight; I always gave myself five miles over the speed limit. Before I could blink, you guessed it. The blue lights were on.

Dee turned around to look out of the back window, and my gangsta nigga straight panicked.

“Shit! Ain't this a bitch? Boss Hogg is on a nigga's ass,” he said, putting out his blunt, chewing it up, and then swallowing it like it was a piece of filet minion. “Guyddamn!” he shouted as something must have come to mind. The next thing I know he reached into his ashtray and pulled out a baggie. This nigga had to have bumped his head somewhere along the way when he turned and said to me,

“Yo, put this in your pussy for me right quick.” He handed me a bag of heroin, cocaine, or whatever it was that the guy earlier didn't buy from him.

Now, make no mistake about it. I was born at night but not on this night. I may have been mesmerized by the Billy the Kid lifestyle, but for the first time since being a part of his what seemed to be everyday drama, my common sense kicked in. Before I could even think twice, or knew what I was saying, I blurted out, “Hell no! You put that shit up your ass or something. Don't give it to me!”

“Look,” he pleaded in the little bit of time he had before I was fixing to pull over. “They ain't going to search you.” He looked behind us at the squad car. “It ain't no woman police with them, and once you stuff it in yo pussy they can't detect it up there. It's bad enough I got the gun on me. Shit, I don't need no more charges on me.”

I know you're going to think I am lying just to try to justify why I eventually pulled my panties to the side and shoved that shit up in my pussy, but this is the truth, so help me God. As soon as he said that, a city bus rode past wrapped with the project exile ad, promising a nigga a five-year mandatory in a federal prison if caught with a gun. Project Exile wasn't no joke when it came to drugs
either. Trust me. I know. I studied this shit day in and day out. I began to think about the Michael Simmons case and how he got ten years for one rock of crack cocaine. I didn't want Dee to get five years for the gun plus whatever else they would give him for the drugs. So, that's right. I let my pussy be the stash box.

I slipped the drugs into my wet canal and slowly pulled over. As the police sat in his car a moment before getting out, Dee was starting to talk crazy.

“I should just shoot this mutherfucker when he come up to the car, huh?”

He was dead serious. And all I could do was look at him like he had lost his mind.

“No, you shouldn't,” I said, trying to be the sensible one in this matter. “Where's your registration?” I asked, knowing that was the first thing the police was going to ask me.

Ignoring me, Dee said, “Look, as soon as Boss Hogg get to the window, pull the fuck off.”

“Are you crazy?” I asked as serious as a heart attack. “Now where's the registration?”

“In the glove box,” he replied. “The car ain't in my name, though. It's in my momma's name.”

It's just like a nigga, a grown ass man, to have his $80,000 vehicle in his momma's name.

My brain started churning. “Where does she live?” I asked.

“What's the address?” He told me the address and I repeated it over and over in my head. “Let me do the talking,” I added, taking authority for the first time that night. He tried to say something else but I just put my hand up and said, “I got this. Let me do this, a'ight?”

I was scared to roll down the window because I knew the weed smell was strong. I told him to reach in my Chanel bag and grab that small bottle of Gucci perfume out of it. “Hand me my wallet,
too.” He did exactly as I said. Once he had it in hand, he let out a couple of squirts. At the same time he was taking the Gucci perfume out of my purse, he was putting the gun in it. I couldn't believe my eyes, but I couldn't say shit because by now the police officer was on his way to the car.

The police approached the car, and I proceeded to roll down the window.

“Hello, officer,” I said in a coy manner. “What seems to be the problem?”

I handed him the registration card and began going through my wallet to get my license out. I made sure the officer saw the card that showed that I was a contributor to the Police Charity Association. You know when those telemarketers call you asking for money to go to their charity? They call you until you say yes or until you cuss them out. Well, my daddy was actually the one who contributed, but he gave me the card. Who knew the shit would ever come in handy? When the officer saw it, he lightened up a little. I located my license, then handed it to the officer.

“Ms. Delaney,” the officer said. “Are you
the
Ms. Angel Delaney?”

Under Dee's breath I faintly heard him mumble what sounded like “Don't tell me this bitch is the police or something.”

My heart began to beat faster than ever. Where in the hell did this officer know
me
from? Was there an APB out on me or something?

“The reporter Ms. Angel Delaney?” the officer asked.

I let out a sigh of relief. “Yes, that's me,” I said.

The officer eagerly began shaking my hand. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Delaney. Just think, I pull over a car to let them know the safety belt was hanging out of the door. It was swinging and I didn't want you messing up this nice automobile. And looky here. I
meet the one and only Ms. Angel Delaney. This is the highlight of my day.”

Humbly I said, “Thank you, officer.”

“No problem, Ms. Delaney,” he said, tilting his hat. Everything was going smooth. But then I noticed the officer noticing Dee. That's when I started to sweat. Ordinarily, I wouldn't want to be caught dead with a thugged out stereotypical criminal-looking dude like Dee. At this particular moment, when life depended on it, this time wasn't any different than any other time.