Through The Eyes of A Hoodrat (2 page)

The twin’s father and I never had a
real relationship. I met him when my mama got me a job in the
Customer Service Department of SEPTA when I was 19. She had been
working for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority
since I was a young girl so she had a little pull to get me a job.
Needless to say, I fucked that up.

Once I laid eyes on the fine ass older
Safety Supervisor I knew he would be one of many to finance my
insatiable appetite for the finer things.

Avery was a brown skinned older
gentleman who just happened to be married. I didn’t give a damn
once someone spilled the beans that he made around $70,000 as a
supervisor.

After a few flirtatious encounters, he
asked to take my young ass on a date. One thing led to another and
I was freaking him on a regular basis. There was nothing he
wouldn’t do to keep me satisfied. Overpriced dinners at Ruth’s
Chris, diamond bracelets on his credit cards, and cash to pay my
bills became the norm. That is, until his wife found out. That evil
bitch immediately put a halt to that shit.

Scared of losing his wife, he called
himself calling it quits on us like a bitch. I wasn’t worried
though. I had stopped taking my birth control pills long before
that and soon found out I was pregnant with twins. That damn sure
rattled her feathers when I called her ass and broke the news to
her. To say they both were livid would be an
understatement.

He begged me to get rid of them but I
wasn’t stupid. While he was earning a pretty penny, so was his wife
working for the state. The both of them had to be pulling in around
$150,000 a year together.

Five years later, after a paternity
test, and numerous court proceedings I was entitled to $1000 per
month in child support. The courts didn’t care that I was receiving
$700 per child from SSI because they were born premature. I was
getting $2400 a month for the twins alone. Of course, I didn’t tell
SSI that I was getting child support. I didn’t want them lowering
my checks.

When reality struck for me and I
realized that taking care of two children was still financially
difficult I grew depressed. I eventually told my doctor, who went
on to prescribe me with some depression meds. They caused me to
sleep a lot so my doctor told me to apply for disability for
myself.

I did just that, however, I didn’t
qualify for disability payments because I hadn’t worked long
enough. They did eventually give me Supplemental Security Income or
SSI. Just that quick, I had went to busting my ass at SEPTA, to
getting $3,100 per month for doing nothing. Life was looking up,
and I found myself miraculously cured from depression. I didn’t
tell my doctor that though. I let him keep on writing out those
prescriptions, and I kept on getting them filled.

I looked back down at my
phone and texted Avery, “
The girls are
with their grandmother
.” Avery wasn’t a bad
guy and really loved the twins. After months of bickering, he and
his wife decided to work through their issues and embraced the
twins with loving arms. I didn’t give a damn what they did as long
as my child support came on time. I was actually pissed that they
didn’t take his wife’s income into consideration when
calculating
my
money.

I didn’t sweat it though. Once RJ came
along, he had some minor speech problems that sent me racing to the
doctor and ultimately with another check in my bank account,
bringing my monthly income to nearly $4,000 per month for
absolutely nothing. This goose could damn sure could lay some
“golden eggs.”

THREE

I walked into the pool lounge looking
like a million bucks. I saw Tyree in the corner with his friend
Juk. I licked my lips seductively in Juk’s direction as I went to
hug and greet Tyree.

Juk was another ugly, paid ass nigga
that hung around Tyree. Instead of a small head like Tyree, Juk had
a big ass head with some nappy dreads dangling from it. The big
poppy eyes on his face didn’t do much to for his looks either. I
guess birds of a feather did in fact flock together. I knew he
wanted me but I wasn’t gonna play myself and try to fuck with both
of the niggas. I figured there wasn’t any harm in flirting
though.

“Hey baby!” I smiled. “Hey Juk,” I
spoke, being polite.

“Wassup mama. You looking good,” Tyree
exclaimed, pushing me away from him so he could check me
out.

I said a fake thank you and pretended
to be modest. I already knew I looked good. I had purchased the
outfit weeks ago, just for the night. The sheer bandage style
bodysuit I had on grabbed my curvy body in all the right places. It
was eye catching and that is the exact reason I bought
it.

Any event I attended, I always went
dressed to impress. Tyree was ok for now, but my eyes were always
open for the next nigga who had a little more. I shot another quick
glance at Juk.

“What yall drinking on?” I asked.
“This a party, yall supposed to be turnt up!” I laughed, trying to
get them to to spend some money.

“You ain’t said nothing but a word
baby!” Tyree shouted, before reaching in his pocket and pulling out
a hundred dollar bill. He threw it on the table like he was
balling. He appeared to have already been drinking since he was
being extra loud for no reason at all.

I picked up the bill and and asked him
what he wanted. After telling me to get whatever, I walked off. I
hope he wasn’t expecting change.

I looked around the small
pool hall and saw a lot of niggas I didn’t know. Tyree had said it
was going to be a lot of people in the building since it was a
welcome home party for his cousin Dread. Apparently he was well
known in the hood and had been locked up for drugs. A lot of people
had surely come out to support him. I never understood the welcome
home parties from jail.
Congratulations,
ya dumb ass finally made it out
, I laughed
to myself. I guess that was an accomplishment for a lot of
people.

I stood at the bar and waited for the
bartender to walk back over to the side I was standing on. I felt
alone and out of place. I usually brought my girlfriend Ladaya
everywhere I went, but since she was pregnant, and I was there for
business I had to come alone.

I bought a bottle of Moet and walked
back over to hang out with Tyree. After an hour of listening to him
and Juk talk extra loud and laugh about shit I knew nothing about,
I grew bored. The party itself was jumping and would have been a
ton of fun if I had my road dawg.

I got up to go to the ladies room. I
intended to leave right after. As I made my way through the crowded
lounge towards the bathroom, the sound of semi-automatic gunfire
penetrating the air stopped me in my tracks. I already knew what
time it was.

***

The corny ass security they had in
charge of the front door didn’t stop the two identically dressed
ski-masked men holding semi-automatic guns from crashing the party.
The blood running from one guards head confirmed that he had been
hit with something and ultimately overpowered at the
door.

Powdery debris from the ceiling fell
onto the crowded floor as people scrambled to seek cover or stood
frozen in place.

“You motherfuckers already know what
it is! This is a robbery! Empty ya pockets, and take off ya jewels.
I’m only going to say the shit one time. Bitches too! We want
everything! If you try to hide it, you’ll lose something more
precious!”

The masked gunman didn’t have to
elaborate any further since everyone already knew what he was
referring to. I quickly unfastened my Gucci watch and threw it to
the floor as instructed. I had gotten it on sale for $700 and hated
to even take it off, let alone give it away. One of the guys began
scooping up the jewelry that was hitting the floor, while the other
remained on point with his gun waving amongst the crowd of people
in the small lounge.

He quickly made his way around the
pool hall collecting jewelry and money in a laundry like bag. Those
who weren’t moving fast enough had their jewelry snatched off their
body and their pockets aggressively searched and invaded. Once they
got all that was there, they snatched up a few random bottles of
liquor and cautiously backed out of the lounge. It all happened so
quickly, with the gunmen being in and out in minutes.

Once the men were gone I breathed a
sigh of relief and began searching for Tyree. I located him in the
same spot I left him in; near the pool table. The scowl on his face
and sweat on his forehead indicated that he was none too pleased
with what had just occurred. Tyree and Juk both had been stripped
of their jewelry. From the diamond encrusted Jesus piece on Tyree’s
neck, to the oversized solid gold pinky ring on Juk’s finger, there
was nothing.

“I swear I’m gon kill whoever the fuck
came up in here. The streets talk and I’m gon find out exactly who
it was… and when I do, best believe they are going to lose their
life,” Juk threatened.

I thought of the possibility of
potential bloodshed and cringed. They should just charge it to the
game. Besides, the people that had just robbed Rack Em Up was long
gone. Additionally, they were just as cold blooded as Juk’s
threats. They knew how to hold their own and wouldn’t hesitate to
lay down anyone if necessary.

FOUR

“Here’s ya cut Sierra,” Tato said,
handing me a measly $10,000. He was getting on my nerves with the
short money.

Tato was as grimey as they came. He
was my mom’s sister son, and my first cousin. I couldn’t stand
dealing with him since I knew he was a rattlesnake. The short money
he was handing me from the Rack Em Up robbery surely confirmed what
I already knew. As much jewelry as they left with, along with
money, there had to have been at least $100,000 in
there.

“Tato this is short. I expected at
least $25,000 for the drop on them fools,” I said, looking at him
like he’s lost his mind.

“There’s nothing short about that.
There wasn’t as much money in there as you thought. Half of those
niggas was wearing fake shit, and don’t get me started with the
bitches,” he said.

“Ugh!” I exclaimed, expressing my
frustration. “You mean to tell me that more than fifty niggas in
one building only produced me 10G’s. You could’ve kicked in one
nigga door and we would’ve had more money than that. And why did
you bring that nigga Tim with you?” I asked. I would’ve had more
money in my pocket, if we didn’t have to give him a cut.

Tim was Tato’s friend that I just so
happened to fuck a few times. He too was a slime-ball and usually
accompanied Tato when he needed a little more manpower. That is,
when he wasn’t himself robbing people around the City of Brotherly
Love.

“What are you trying to do, get me
killed?” Tato asked. “How was I supposed to go up in there and rob
a whole lounge by myself? That’s not the typical home invasion
baby, that’s a fucking pool hall.”

He was right but I still knew he had
gotten more money than that. Tyree probably had $5,000 in his
pocket by himself. We had been doing this for quite some time now
and I was no dummy. This was supposed to be our biggest score but
it turned out to be a flop. Tato typically orchestrated the
robberies, even picking the victims.

Once I was able to form a relationship
of some sort with the men he had chosen, Tato would catch them off
guard and relieve them of their riches. I would never usually be at
the scene of the robbery since I could usually talk the niggas
right into revealing their location. They would never expect me.
Most of them were low-level or mid-level drug dealers, but we
really had no picks. We’ve robbed business owners as well. After
the robbery I would wait a week, pick an argument and end the
relationship, moving on to the next.

Tyree happened to be another victim
that Tato had handpicked as well. Now that the job was done I would
make an exception and continue to see Tyree on the side. He was
just too generous to cut off.

“Did you hear me?” Tato
asked.

“Na, what were you saying?” I asked. I
hadn’t heard a word he was saying. I was too busy in
thought.

“We gon slide down to Wilmington, DE
in like a week. It’s a nigga down there named Dock that I heard is
getting some major paper. I hear he has Delaware and Maryland on
lock. If we play our cards right, this could be big,” he said, with
his eyes widening.

“Ok, well I’ll get my shit together
and arrange for my mama to watch the kids.”

“Don’t worry about that, Ladaya is
gonna keep an eye out on them. I already talked to her about it,”
he said

“Okay cool. I’m out,” I said preparing
myself to leave. “I have some things to handle. Oh—and where the
fuck is my damn Gucci watch I gave you in the pool hall?” I asked.
I was dead serious and I wanted my shit.

“Man that joint gone. You have more
than enough money to buy another one,” he huffed. I knew he was
lying but it didn’t matter if I stated that fact since I knew he
wasn’t going to give it up.

“Whatever nigga. I better not see
Ladaya with my damn watch,” I said jokingly; however, I wasn’t
joking. I was petty. I would curse his ass out and take my watch
off of her little ass.