Hustlin' Divas Page 3

  Sixteen was also when I fell in love for the first time; he was this fine redbone named of Manny. It was also the first time I had ever seen a black man with green eyes. Manny had charm and style and could play a mean saxophone. People came from miles to hear his ass play. Men wanted to shake his hand. Women came hoping to land themselves a husband.

  I wasn’t really any different, especially after I ignored Nana’s rule about keeping my legs closed at all times. But there was just something about that green-eyed devil that made me want to do things I didn’t even understand. The fact that he was twice my age only made the situation better in my eyes. I wasn’t fucking around with no boy. I had a grown man teaching me how to work the greatest prize God gave women—a pussy.

  It’s been more than fifty years, and I remember that first nut like it was an hour ago….

  Manny wasn’t no big nigga. He was an even six feet tall, lean and smelled like Lifebuoy soap. But what was so memorable about Manny was the way he played my body like it was his beloved saxophone. That nigga was never in a rush. Making love in his crammed apartment with just one slow, rotating fan was hot, sticky, and nasty—in a good way.

  I didn’t get shit past Nana Maybelle. She knew the morning after that some nigga had busted my cherry just by the way I was walking. Instead of scolding me, Nana Maybelle just shook her head and told me, “A hard head makes a soft ass.”

  For months I had stars in my eyes. It was just a matter of time before Manny slipped a ring on my finger. ’Course, Manny didn’t get the Western Union wire on that shit. Manny quickly educated me to the ways of a playa. He had more bitches than the Southland Park’s dog tracks. I denied the truth for a while until I caught him in a back alley with his head buried beneath some chick’s skirt.

  Enraged, I sliced up the girl and landed in the back of a paddy wagon. Back then, the police didn’t give a fuck about black-on-black crime. I stayed about a night behind bars, and the next day I was right back in Manny’s arms, listening to his sweet lies about how that bitch meant nothing to him. I was the one he loved. Yet, when I pressed for a ring, he silenced me by drumming his thick tongue against my fat clit until I was practically climbing the walls.

  “Damn, baby. You taste like peaches,” he moaned.

  This was about the time a lot of brothers were getting angry about this white boy who had stolen the Negro sound off Beale Street and was now making mad money. Once one white boy starts stealing, then they all of them start stealing. It went over hard for a lot of musicians like Manny, who wasn’t making anything more than chump change. Manny’s depression and frustration led him to heroin. It was the drug of choice back in those days.

  In the beginning, it really opened Manny’s mind and he was creating some wonderful music. Before long, people were tossing around the words music genius and Manny’s ego became a beast. He hooked up with a few promising bands, and he kept believing that his big break was just around the corner.

  Nana Maybelle saw how much cash was being moved around with this drug craze and got into the game big-time. With the money rolling in, she bought herself a big house and a fancy car and was straight confusing white folks to just who this Negro woman thought she was. But then, just like now, money talks and bullshit walks. She slung a couple of dollars around and cops left her the fuck alone.

  I benefited as well. My cheap clothes were replaced by silk dresses, fancy hats, and seamless stockings. When Manny and I stepped out, people said we gave Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte a run for their money.

  But all good things must come to an end.

  Manny never did get his big break. He never put a ring on my finger. And he never kicked his heroin habit.

  Despite those things, I held on—until one of Manny’s baby mommas called me and told me that Manny had died of an overdose while she was sucking his dick. I never knew if the latter part was true, but it didn’t help that the woman who called was the same bitch I’d sliced up years ago.

  Nana Maybelle did spare me the I-told-you-so speech, but I was crushed all the same. The only thing Manny left me was memories and a small heroin habit of my own.

  “Maybelline Carver!” a female guard shouts.

  I spring to my feet. “Here I go!”

  “Got your walking papers, girl.”

  “It’s about damn time.” I stroll over to the bars just as the guard shouts for them to be opened.

  Women line their cells to yell their well-wishes, and some of the haters shout that it was just a matter of time before my old ass would be back. Lord, I hope not. On the condition of my parole, I’m strapped with an electronic tag around my ankle along with a curfew. However, as the officer is fitting the device around my left ankle, it takes everything I have not to bust out laughing.

  I catch a few questionable looks, but I straighten my face and thank the officer when he’s done. When I stroll out of Memphis’s Federal Correctional Institution, I spot a black Escalade with a driver who resembled my best friend Josie’s grandbaby, Arzell. It has been a minute since I’ve seen him, but baby boy has developed into a fine specimen.

  “Boy, look at you,” I say, approaching. “C’mon over here and give Momma Peaches a kiss.”

  Arzell clearly doesn’t want to engage in any PDA, but everyone knows that I’m the momma Queen G in the nest, and he does what he’s told.

  I hug him tight and then playfully squeeze his ass.

  “There you go.” Arzell chuckles. “I’ve been warned about you.”

  “What?” I ask innocently.

  “Just get in the car.” He laughs, opening my door. When I turn, he pays me back by smacking me on the ass.

  “Whoo!” I glance over my shoulder and receive a wink from the young buck. “Yeah. I’m going to fuck you. Watch.” I climb into the large vehicle before one of the cops gets the idea to run his face through their database and come out here and arrest his ass for any host of reasons. “A’ight. I’m ready for my party!”

  Arzell frowns. “What party, Momma Peaches?”

  “Boy, don’t play with me,” I sass, mushing the side of his head. “Python better be throwing me a party or I’ll turn that big nigga over my lap.”

  “Now that’s some shit I’d like to see.”

  I grinned as I look over at him. Damn, he’s a fine young buck. “How old are you now?”

  The side of Arzell’s face cocks up. “Twenty-three.”

  “That’s old enough.” My gaze skitters down to his lap, but with his baggy jeans, there’s no way for me to know what he’s packing.

  “Old enough for what?”

  “You’ll find out,” I tease.

  Despite being a “senior citizen,” I never bought the notion that at a certain age a woman is supposed to put her pussy out to pasture. If anything, good and regular sex does wonders for migraines and keeps up one’s flexibility. It also helped that, over the years, I’ve made sure to keep my cute figure in check. In my case, black sure in the hell doesn’t crack, and my skin is just as smooth as it was in my early forties. My hair is just as healthy and bouncy as ever. I keep just a small silver patch in the front and dye the rest of it back to my natural color of off black. The bottom line, I never have and never will have a problem getting a man—of any age.

  As we roll through town, I’m once again struck by how my beloved Memphis is one part clean and picturesque and two parts dirty and run-down. The drug and gang wars have the city by the fucking throat, and there’s no sign of it ever letting go.

  I feel no guilt over my part in the drug game. All my life, I, like Nana Maybelle, have been making a way out of no way. I wear the title of Momma Queen G or Momma Peaches proudly. The men and women with the Black Gangster Disciple are my family. That’s the way it is and the way it’ll always be.

  The minute I spot my brick house, a big ole smile stretches across half my face. I smack my lips, ready for both a drink and a fat blunt to make me feel oh so lovely. Before the Escalade even comes to a full stop, I’m already openi
ng my car door and preparing to hop out.

  “Hold up, Momma Peaches. I got you.” Arzell cuts the engine and rushes to help me out.

  “Baby, don’t get it twisted and start treating me like I’m some lil old lady. I got this.”

  “A’ight.” Arzell tosses up his hands. “It’s all you, Momma.”

  “And don’t you forget it.” I lift my head and stroll up to my front door, knowing full well that Arzell’s big, young chocolate eyes are following each sway of my hips. As I suspect, the front door is unlocked and when I step into my house, the place is pitch black.

  “Humph,” I say, playing along. “I wonder why it’s so dark in here.” I flip the switch by the door. Niggas jump out of the woodwork like cockroaches.

  “Surprise!”

  I light up while tears burn the back of my eyes. “Now this is what I’m talking about. Somebody pass me a blunt and let’s get this muthafuckin’ party started!”

  4

  Yolanda

  The music from Momma Peaches’s welcome-home party is bumping so hard all the walls up and down Shotgun Row are jumping and trembling. But nobody says shit because everybody loves Peaches—me included. As far as I’m concerned, Peaches is like a second momma, only better. She has always tried to look out for me, despite the fact that I’m a little hardheaded. Still, I have nothing but love for the feisty old lady.

  Back in the day, she saved me from my drunk, no good daddy (though I found out years later that he really wasn’t my daddy) when he came at me with a broken beer bottle. Peaches had stepped in, bold as you please, asking him what the hell he thought he was going to do with that bottle. Daddy charged toward Peaches. However, Peaches had something for his ass. Instead of slicing her up, he got sliced. Hell, she was so fast, nobody even saw when she’d reached for her blade. It was just swish-swish-swish—like some old Zorro shit, and the nigga went down, grabbing his face and hollering like a bitch.

  My momma, Betty, was pissed about that shit, and to this day blames Peaches for chasing her man off.

  “Shit. Betty should be grateful—I did her ass a favor,” Peaches would always say whenever Betty’s venom dripped into her ears.

  I agree.

  I don’t even remember how old I was when the shit went down. My daddy had already banged me up pretty bad because he claimed I’d back talked him. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t—I don’t remember. However, I do remember laughing my ass off when Peaches lopped the nigga’s ear off.

  Peaches looked at me like I was crazy. But the shit was just funny. After that, people up and down Shotgun Row started saying that my elevator didn’t quite reach the top. Teachers told Betty on the regular that I was slow and needed to be on Ritalin. Keeping it real, the shit was just a legal high and turned me into a zombie.

  Teachers and the neighborhood kids still called me slow no matter how hard I tried to be like them. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to be popular. I used to let people borrow what few good clothes and toys my momma scraped up only for them not to return them or fuck them up before giving them back. In junior high, a few of the kids were curious about my Ritalin, so I let them try it. I got into some major shit for that. Soon after, a boy I liked, Jimmy Gaines, gave me a box of Lemonheads to let him put his dick in my mouth. I did it—and then the next day another boy asked, and then another.

  I finally became popular—at least with the boys. They even gave me the nickname Lemonhead.

  I didn’t care. Boys loved me, especially when my body started to resemble a Coke bottle, and I proved that I was a certified freak when it came to sexing the 6 poppin’ crew. School turned out not to be my thing; books always hurt my head. So I dropped out in the ninth grade and started hustling. When my momma couldn’t afford my medication, I turned to the street shit and found it all made me feel about the same.

  But now I’m tired of just being a mule, hauling shit everywhere and spreading my legs for every foot solider in Python’s crew and getting next to nothing for my troubles. I might not be book smart, but I know that shit ain’t fair. Other bitches started moving up the ranks faster than me, and they didn’t do half the shit I did.

  My gaze cut across Momma Peaches’s living room to where LeShelle is doing her old stripper pole routine all up and down Python’s leg. I can’t stand that bitch, always flossing shit Python laces her with, thinking that all the Queen Gs are here just to lick her ass. The bitch thinks she’s the shit just because she looks half Indian. So? Most of us niggas up in here are mixed with some other shit. Hell, I know my ass is rounder and can clap harder than hers. Ain’t that all a bitch needs to lock down a nigga—that and to know they way around the kitchen?

  Sure, Python is a little hard on the eyes, and he does freak me out with all those damn snakes, but being with his ugly ass means money, power, and respect. There isn’t a bitch up in here who isn’t feeling that.

  He also has a slew of rug rats running around Memphis, and all his baby mommas are laced up nice, rocking Chanel this and Gucci that even if they are still living in different projects. Everybody keeps waiting for her ass to drop another seed, but it’s been three years and LeShelle’s belly remains empty. Word on the street is that she might be wifey, but she will never be wife with a rotten-ass belly. That’s why I’m looking to get in where I fit in.

  “Damn, girl. You keep staring at LeShelle, she’s going to come over here and smack the taste out your mouth.”

  I glance over my shoulder to see KyJuan, one of Python’s old road dawgs, flashing his platinum grillz.

  “You got a big-ass sign that says ‘HATER’ flashing on your forehead. Better turn that shit off before you embarrass yourself,” he jokes above Jay-Z’s latest joint while puffing on a blunt so fat it looks like a Cuban cigar.

  I calmly reach over and remove the blunt from his mouth and toke on it for a few puffs. “I just don’t see what she got that I ain’t got. That’s all.”

  “She keeps the nigga happy. That’s all that matters, ain’t it?” KyJuan looks down my white, mesh, see-through top, drooling over my large ebony-tipped nipples. “Damn, you believe in advertising your shit, huh?”

  “When you got it, you flaunt it, right?”

  His gaze roams as he smacks his lips. “Sheeit, girl. How did you get all that ass into those booty shorts?”

  “One cheek at a time.” I puff out a ring of smoke and smile into his chocolate eyes. I can tell by how low his eyelids are that he’s already fucked up, but I also know that he’s higher up the food chain than the wildin’ out foot soldiers I usually deal with.

  “Is that blood in my carpet?” Momma Peaches harps, squinting down at the floor.

  KyJuan props one hand on the wall above my head and continues talking to my titties. “Looky here, are you rolling with anybody here?”

  I brush my braided blond extensions back from my face. “No. Why?”

  “’Cause I’m thinking about raping your fine ass,” he says, smiling. “Damn titties got my dick hard.” He takes a swig from his beer bottle. “For real, those muthafuckas are staring me straight in my eyes. Hypnotizing a muthafucka.”

  I smile. I’m used to getting this kind of reaction from niggas. “You ain’t got to do all that, Daddy,” I say in my best seductive schoolgirl voice, which I’ve perfected. “I’m feeling you, too.”

  “For real?” He smacks his lips some more and then glances around. Every inch of the place is crawling with muthafuckas. A few card tables have been propped up, and serious dominoes and poker games are under way. In between those, soldiers are grabbing Queen Gs left and right and are rocking the same two-step no matter what’s spitting out the speakers. “Let me holler at you out back.” Without waiting for a response, KyJuan takes my hand and leads me toward the back screen door.

  “Damn, Python,” Peaches complains. “I told you to convince Datwon to get out of the game—not shoot his ass.”

  Niggas laugh.

  “Peaches, how about a dance?” Rufus asks, squeezing in between her and A
rzell. Everybody knows he’s been sweating Peaches for decades.

  “If you don’t get your old ass up out of my face!”

  The crowd roars again.

  There are even more niggas crawling outside, most of them hanging by the grill and food table, loading up on grub like they ain’t ate in weeks. The rest are either dancing or leaning against the back fence and swigging down Buds.

  “Shit.” KyJuan cups his meat like his hard-on is getting to be too much to handle.

  I smile at his frustration. In my head, I’m calculating. If I can lock down a lieutenant like KyJuan, maybe my hustlin’ days are over. I can be one of the Queen Gs who spends her time shopping and rocking the latest fashions. This nigga isn’t Python, but surely he’s the next best thing.

  “Ain’t no thang, Daddy. I live just a couple of doors down.” I puff out another smoke ring and feel my eyelids go heavy. I look at the blunt and wonder about all the sudden tingling sensations spreading throughout my body. Hell, it was stronger than the shit my best friend, Baby Thug, be rolling. “What’s in this shit?”

  “Ayo, man. That’s a KyJuan specialty blend. My shit going to have you feeling loverly.” He rubs on my arm, but then does a sneak wraparound and squeezes my booty. “Damn, girl, you thick as hell.”

  I giggle and lick my lips. “C’mon, Daddy. Let me hook you up.” I take him by the hand and then proceed to start stumbling out the yard.

  KyJuan laughs. “Aw. You’re feeling the shit now, huh?”

  I laugh. Saying that I feel good is a serious understatement. At some point while I try moving through the crowd, I’m convinced that I’m not walking but floating through the scene with Lil Wayne’s old hot track “Lock and Load” blasting through the street. Suddenly, the air is charged with a different kind of energy—a dangerous energy. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I glance to my left and then to my right.