Shameless Hoodwives: A Bentley Manor Tale Read online

  “Have you talked to God?”

  My laugh is immediate. “Give me a break. God doesn’t even know my name.”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course he does.”

  I slump back into the couch. “Then he has a funny way of showing it.”

  “He shows it every day,” Pastor Meyer says with a wide smile. “Just think about all the people who didn’t wake up this morning.”

  “Lucky bastards.”

  He releases another laugh. “I see if I don’t watch you, you’ll get me in a whole lot of trouble.”

  “Trouble is my middle name,” I say, enjoying this unexpected camaraderie.

  The silence returns while Pastor Meyer holds my gaze. There’s something about his polished black eyes that gives me the sensation that he’s dissecting me like a biology frog or something. Am I really worthy of the kingdom of heaven or is he just wasting his time?

  If he’s truly wondering, I can give him the answer. I’m lost and God isn’t looking for me.

  “You should give your life over to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

  “I should do a lot of things,” I say, shrugging, feeling a little disappointed in him. However, my statement is true. I should do a lot of things. I should be a better mom to my baby girl. I should try to get a job, even if it is dishing out fries. I should try to forget the horrible life I led in D.C with Kameron.

  All these things are better said than done, and no matter what Grandma Cleo or the good pastor says, dropping to my knees and praying to some invisible god isn’t going to make the pain go away. It’s not going to erase my taste for crack.

  Hell, I could use a hit now. Just a small one, something to just tie me over and let me sleep a little better tonight. Something that will quiet my periodic urges to inflict harm on myself, to my grandma, and even my little girl.

  I mean, let’s face it: my life would be a little easier if Tanana wasn’t around.

  Tears burn the back of my eyes at my fucked-up logic. What kind of mother am I to even think like this?

  Fuck. I need a hit.

  “You’re thinking about drugs right now, aren’t you?”

  Damn. I’m not even ashamed that he’s right. He needs to just stamp my head with an address and send me straight to hell. “What—are you a mind reader now? You want to try and guess my favorite number?”

  I glance at the clock above his head. How much longer do I have to sit here?

  “Do you want to pray?”

  “For what?”

  “For help. For redemption.”

  I rather pray for a hit.

  The good pastor cocks his head. “Our God is a forgiving God. There is no sin too great that he can not forgive.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “We all come up short for the glory of God.”

  Then why bother, I want to shout, but instead I rake my hands through my hair because I still have a half hour of this nonsense to sit through.

  “I’m not perfect,” he says.

  I look at him, remembering the long history I have at this church. Pastor Meyer and his wife have always made salvation sound and look so easy. Just fall on your knees and the kingdom of heaven will open up to you. Just trust in God and he will shower you with expensive Armani suits, rap-star-sized diamonds, and a bright, new, shiny Cadillac every year.

  “I see you don’t believe me.”

  No answer.

  Pastor Meyer pushes back his chair and stands up and paces the room. “I’ve met many women like you before in my lifetime. You think your problems are unique or your life choices impossible to overcome.”

  I shift, feeling uncomfortable again.

  “They’re not,” he says, walking from his desk. “I’ve helped many women just like you be born again. All you have to do is put your faith in me. Trust that I am a servant of our Lord God. To have favor with me is to have favor with him.”

  The fever and passion in his voice rises like he’s about to kick off one of his Sunday sermons, but there’s something different about this one. The message is wrong somehow.

  Pastor Meyer stops before me and cups my chin with his large but soft hands and lifts my face until our eyes meet.

  “I want to help you,” he says with adoring sincerity. “In return for helping you, I need for you to help me.”

  Just like that, there is a look in his eyes that I recognize.

  “Pastor—”

  “Shh. Call me Eddie.”

  My brows lift in surprise.

  He only smiles. “If I’m right about you, you’re someone who can keep secrets.” He waits for his words to sink in. “I know I can keep a secret and we both know God can.”

  I pull my chin out of his hand and slowly shake my head. “Pastor—”

  “Eddie.”

  “Eddie,” I say. “You got this whole thing twisted.”

  “Do I?” he asks, just as innocent as you please. “Then you don’t want this?” He reaches into his pants pocket and removes what can only be described as a gift from God: a nice, long vial of nose candy.

  “It’s the good shit,” he whispers.

  My eyes jump back up to his and I swear he looks like the living Messiah to me.

  “You want it?” he asks with a sly smile.

  I’m nodding without even thinking about it.

  “Good.” With his free hand, he reaches down and unzips his pants. “There’s just one thing you got to do for me first.” Before I can react, he crams his four-inch dick into my mouth.

  Princess

  I can’t believe she’s gone. Dead. She’s dead. Lucky…is…dead.

  Seventeen years young.

  I am sick of everybody and their supposedly helpful sayings:

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “What a tragedy.”

  “What a shame.”

  “God works in mysterious ways.”

  “It will hurt less with time.”

  All of it is a bunch of bullshit.

  I sit in my windowsill and look out my window across the parking lot at Lucky’s bedroom. It hurt like hell that she ain’t gone ever be in that window looking back at me. Her funeral is tomorrow. I already have nightmares about her being stabbed, and now I have to go and see her in a casket. Damn. It’s only been a week, but it feels like forever. I don’t fight the tears.

  I don’t have the energy to write in my journal. I go to school but my mind ain’t there. I just don’t give a fuck no more.

  My bedroom door squeaks open. “Princess, I’m going to work. You clean up this kitchen before I get home tonight.”

  I miss Lucky so much that I ache.

  “You hear me talking to you?”

  “With you yelling how the hell can I not hear you,” I snap as I pull my knees to my chest.

  Since Lucky died I don’t have patience for shit.

  SLAP!

  I gasp as her hand lands on my face and sends my head against the glass of the window. I hold my damn face as I turn and look at her with all the hate I have for her ass in my eyes. I start to tremble. Rage fills me. That volcano that I capped a long time ago finally pops.

  I jump up off the windowsill and run at her ass. I use both my hands to push her hard as hell. It feels so good when she stumbles back and falls the fuck on the floor. “Don’t put your motherfucking hands on me no damn more,” I yell down at her as I ball up my fists.

  “No, you didn’t put—”

  She gets up and I push her ass again. I want to scream at the top of my lungs. My chest feels like it can explode from all them emotions balled up inside of me. Anger. Hatred. Loneliness. Sadness. Fear. Pain. Rage. Murderous Rage. “I’m sick of your shit. I…AM…SICK…OF…YOUR…SHIT!”

  Queen’s eyes widen as she looks up at me.

  “My best friend is gone. She is dead. She all I had to talk to and tell her about you and your shit. Somebody to believe me. She kept me from going fuckin’ crazy around this motherfucker while you sat your fat, man-hungry ass back and let
them motherfucking sorry-ass men of yours touch me, beat me, fuck me and abuse me! You no-good bitch, you. Don’t you put your fuckin’ hands on me no fuckin’ more.”

  Queen pulls herself up to sit on her wide ass as she presses her back to the corner while I bend over and yell in her face the way she did me all these years. The tears and pain flow from me. Years and years of tears and pain.

  “You ain’t never been no kind of mother to me.” I poke my chest. “You ain’t shit but a broke pimptress who sold your little girl to your men so they can pay these bullshit-ass bills you got.”

  “That’s a lie,” Queen spits.

  “Don’t you ever call me a liar again!” I want to hit her but I don’t. I can’t. The bitch ain’t shit but she is my mother. “I was afraid in my own fuckin’ house. Every night I was afraid to go to bed. I was afraid to take a bath. I was afraid to move and draw they attention.”

  I could hardly see her clearly through the tears I been holding back for so long.

  “I did what I had to do to take care of us.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” My voice is soft and tired. She bad as my father, and now I won’t call her Momma no damn more. She ain’t shit but Queen to me. Enough is enough. I turn away from her to drop down on the edge of the bed. “Just get the hell out my face, Queen.”

  “You not gonna stay in my house and disrespect me after everything I gave up for you.”

  I turn my head to see her as she got up on her feet. I look her dead in her eyes. “No, Queen. I ain’t gone stay in your house after everything I lost because of you.”

  She storms toward me and brings her fist down across my nose. I wince in pain as blood spurts against her shirt. She raises her hand to swing again and I jump to my feet to swing on her ass first. I don’t think I just react. I give her a nice two-piece right across the chin and in her chest.

  “You ungrateful bitch,” she spits at me before she grabs my neck with both her hands and pushes me down on the bed. “You think you grown enough to fight me. Huh? Huh? Huh?”

  I can’t believe she is choking me.

  “Your grown ass got just what you was lookin’ for,” she breathes down into my face like one of them pit bulls or some shit.

  And then I just snap. “I hate you for everything you never did for me. I hate you. I hate your ass.”

  It’s all too much.

  This confrontation with her.

  Lucky’s death.

  All them years of staying quiet while I was abused by her men.

  All them years knowing my mother ain’t care.

  It’s just too fucking much. Too much.

  I reach up and hit her upside her head with my fists until she releases my throat. I kick her ass off me with both my feet and as soon as she hits the floor I jump dead on that ass.

  Everything after that is surreal. It’s like standing out of my body watching the shit go down. The blood. The broken furniture. The blue lights of the police. The red lights of the ambulance. Handcuffs. My momma—Queen—on a stretcher. Led out of Bentley Manor by the police. All the shocked eyes on me. Miz Osceola crying while they put me in the backseat of the cruiser.

  Jail.

  I look around at the small holding cell. It’s just like I thought it would be. One toilet. One sink. Two hard plastic benches that are supposed to be beds. It looked like shit and didn’t smell much better.

  A lady as skinny as me lay balled up on the floor shivering and sweating. She keeps rolling over to throw up on the floor before she rolls back over to keep sweating and shit.

  I try not to throw up myself from the smell of her shit. Growing up in the hood, you know a junkie going through a heroin withdrawal when you see one. Most were on crack, but heroin is on the rise, and she’s one of its victims. I leave her alone because there ain’t a damn thing my young ass can do for her.

  I got troubles of my own.

  Lucky dead. Queen in the hospital. I’m in jail.

  The po-po said I broke her nose and two of her ribs. They say I whupped her ass but I don’t remember shit after knocking Queen off of me while she was trying to choke me. I blacked out on her. By the time I came to my senses the police were pulling me off of her.

  I look down at the blood smeared on my T-shirt and jeans. Even the soles of my sneakers leave a bloodstained footprint. I reach up and feel my hair. My usual ponytail is gone, and my hair is stuck off in a thousand different directions. My face feels swollen and bruised. I’m sure my mug shot didn’t miss none of it.

  I’m in Fulton County jail charged with assault and battery. I ain’t know if I’m gone get time or what. Probably so. This holding cell ain’t shit compared to the real deal. Somebody telling you what to wear, when to eat, sleep, and shit. And even if I do get out, my ass is homeless. Even if I do get out, all the money I saved winning the talent show and working with Danger is hidden in my room back at Queen’s. Even if I do get out, I ain’t have Lucky to go back to.

  Lucky.

  Her funeral’s tomorrow. It’s Friday and I know enough to know my ass is stuck in here for the weekend. I’m gonna miss her funeral.

  I slide down to the floor and press my back to the wall as I lay my head against the entrance of the cell. I start breathing all hard and shit. What the fuck have I done? Whupping Queen’s ass wasn’t worth missing Lucky’s funeral.

  I drop my head on my knees and cry. I cry like a baby. I cry like the motherless child I am. I cry for Lucky. I cry for my granny. I cry for all the years I sat back quiet while my mother ignored me and her men abused me. I cry for fucking up my big chance to record an album with Danger one day.

  For all of it.

  “Shut up that damn crying,” the fiend says weakly from the corner.

  But I ignore her.

  I’m afraid. Nervous. Anxious. Tired. Beat down and wore down. I’m almost sweating and shaking like that fiend in the corner. What have I done? What the fuck I done did to my life? And God, what the fuck gone happen to me now?

  I ain’t never felt so cold and alone in all my life.

  WooWoo

  I’m sitting in my car down the street from the Knight’s Inn in midtown. I’m waiting on a call. “Hurry up,” I whisper as I smoke another damn Newport like it’s going to really calm my nerves. It’s a little after two and it takes forty-five minutes to get to my house from here. Friday traffic out of Atlanta is hell. I have to get my ass on the road by four to beat Reggie home from work.

  My Akon ringtone sounds off. I jump, nearly dropping my cig onto my new suede Ecko pants. “Yeah,” I answer.

  “Room 105.”

  “I’m on the way.” I pull out of the parking lot of an abandoned supermarket as I flip my cell phone closed.

  In no time I’m parking my Honda in the rear of the hotel back by the funky-ass trash bin. My pulse goes crazy as I pass Hassan’s car on my way to the room. Our late-night fuckfests aren’t enough for me, but there’s no way in hell I will be seen walking in or out of Hassan’s apartment during daylight.

  I look around me before I open the door and walk into the room. The thick and heavy smell of weed is already in the air. My mouth toots up like it knows I should be smoking, too. Shit, I smoke me some weed on the regular but right now my mind and my pussy is focused on fucking. Straight up.

  Hassan is sitting on the foot of the bed in a wifebeater and boxers, flipping through the TV channels.

  “You been waiting on this pussy?” I ask him as I pull off my maroon leather trench and let it drop to the floor. My matching sweater and pants drop next until I’m standing there in nothing but a maroon lace teddy with the crotch cut out. This teddy screams: “Ready for action” and “Easy access.”

  “Get on the bed the way you want me to give you this motherfucker,” Hassan orders me as he stands up by the bed.

  “You getting right to it, huh?” I ask with a lick of my lips as I climb onto the bed doggy-style. I make sure to wiggle every big inch of my ass the way he likes.

  Hassan comes up beh
ind me and puts his hands on my hips to jerk me back to the edge of the bed. “You my nasty bitch?” he asks as he slaps my ass cheeks.

  “Damn right I’m your nasty bitch.”

  “Ask me for it.”

  He wants me to beg for the long hard dick by our nickname for it. I go right on ahead and give him what he wants. “Give me…The Dick,” I say loud and clear as my whole body tingles in excitement.

  I moan as I feel the thick-ass tip snake across my ass before he slaps both my cheeks with it. WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!

  My pussy jumps to attention, sending my juices down my inner thighs. I’m ready—

  “Whoo,” I moan as he slips the first thick inch into me.

  I slap the bed.

  He gives me another inch that I feel spread my moist sugar walls.

  I bite the pillow.

  He uses his hands to spread my cheeks before he eases his thumb into my ass while he slides the rest of The Dick into me with a grunt. “This my pussy,” he says thickly as he bends over my back to bring his hot hands down to massage my hard nipples. He starts to really ram The Dick into me like I stole something.

  “Well, Goddamn,” I moan as Hassan snatches The Dick out of me and then bends over to suck my pussy whole.

  “Ah,” I cry out roughly as I claw the sheets.

  The feel of his tongue on my clit makes hot spasms shoot through my body as I fill his mouth with my cum. I back my ass against his face as he pushes that tongue deep inside me to swirl around like he don’t want to miss a damn thing. He shifts up to lick a trail to my ass to circle the hole before he blows cool air against it.

  “Ah!” I damn near bite the stuffing out the pillow I’m clutching like a lifesaver.

  Still shivering, he flips my ass over on the bed and drops to his knees to run his tongue across my quivering pussy lips. My hips buck up off the bed as he tugs on my swollen clit with his teeth just the way I like.

  “Make me cum again, Has,” I beg as my upper body flies up off the bed like a knee-jerk reaction. I bring my hands down to tug at his braids as I push his face deeper into my pussy. My clit double pumps like a fired gun as my cum squirts out of me.