Chapter Twenty
I
t was Ladies’ Night at the G-Spot, but I had my period and the cramps were kicking me like a mother.
All day long I moped around the apartment, holding my stomach, dragging my feet, and plain old looking pitiful as hell. G caught the hint and allowed me to stay home from the Spot for the night. He even told Jimmy to make me a cup of tea before they left so I could feel better.
Pacho came to pick them up, and as soon as the door closed I tore off my nightgown and put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. I ran into the kitchen and popped two Midols, then watched out the window until I saw Rita’s SUV pull up out front.
Minutes later Rita’s fingers were on G’s keyboard, working their magic.
I’d had her come by every chance we could get. After that bogus drop G sent me on in Camden, I was more determined than ever to get my hands on some papers and get me and Jimmy out of Harlem. Rita kept a book of computer codes she’d already used on G’s system, and today she was pulling some fresh ammo out of her bag of tricks.
“I don’t know, Juicy,” she said, her eyes staring at the screen in concentration. She looked in her book and started typing again. “G got this system locked down tight.
Every damn trick I try has something protecting it. He’s gotta have something to hide. Burying a password in all this—”
Rita almost jumped out the chair.
“Bingo, motherfucker!” she yelled. “We’re in, Juicy. We’re in!”
I was jumping up and down and screaming, too. Glad Rita had worked her magic and hoping we’d finally find out where G had stashed his bank.
An hour later Rita had picked G’s computer clean, but not one damn bank account had come up. No account numbers, no stocks, no stash. Yeah, we’d busted into a hidden file and printed out the names of all of G’s connects and the dirty-ass cops in Harlem and low-level government people who were in his pocket or who he’d had dealings with over the years, but that was almost the same information we had copied out of his binder and there wasn’t even a mention of how G paid the rent on this phat apartment or how he financed his building leases or paid his taxes. I figured the Spot was just a front that he washed his money through. There was also a list of other businesses that he owned, some that I had known about and others that I didn’t, but that knowledge didn’t help me at all. I needed to find his money if I was gonna get Jimmy someplace safe, but my hope was dying as Rita read through the last of G’s files.
“Damn, Juicy,” Rita said shaking her head. “That motherfucker must have him another hiding place. The only thing left on here is a grave certificate registered to Orleatha Mae Stanfield.”
Grandmother. I looked over Rita’s shoulder, and sure enough there was a file from Woodlawn Cemetery with Grandmother’s name on it and the section where she was buried.
“Print that out for me,” I told Rita, but I didn’t really know why. The only time I planned to visit a cemetery was when it was time for my own burial, and even then I wouldn’t know anything about it.
As much as I hated to admit it, I was facing a brick wall. I didn’t know where else to turn, and I was still broke. Gino had told me he was cutting out after six months, and in the back of my mind I wondered if he was still going, if he could just leave me like that.
He didn’t owe me anything of course, and I couldn’t roll with him even if I wanted to. I had Jimmy to think about, and unlike my mother I wasn’t about to put a man above my own blood. I was back to feeling stuck and mad, and when Rita left I stashed the paper with Grandmother’s gravesite on it in between the pages of the Juicy Journal, then put my nightgown back on and climbed into the bed to cry myself to sleep.
T
he following Tuesday was slow at the Spot. There was a playa’s ball going on in Philly, and G and a lot of the old heads and other pimps had gone out there earlier in the day. I’d called my girl Brittany from school and we agreed to meet downtown on 42nd Street to go to the movies. I wanted to see
Barbershop 2,
and Brittany did, too.
Gino had slipped me some money and I wanted to treat Brittany since she was always so generous toward me and I was hardly ever able to give her anything in return except a couple of outfits and an occasional free night at the Spot.
We got to the theater early and I bought both of us some buttered popcorn and a box of Bon Bons. Brittany wanted some strawberry Twizzlers, but just the sight of them got me to thinking about Dicey and I convinced Brittany to get some Mike and Ikes instead, telling her the Twizzlers looked sticky and stale.
The theater was small and already crowded. The lights were still on and we sat toward the back where all the young rowdy people were.
As usual, I felt free whenever I got the chance to hang out with my friends. Me and Brittany sat there throwing popcorn up in the air and trying to catch it in our mouths, laughing and spilling shit everywhere and not giving a damn.
At first I wasn’t sure I was seeing right, but then Brittany nudged me and said, “Hey Juicy.
Ain’t that your friend? You know, the dude you grew up with who hangs out over in Taft?”
Sure enough, it was Flex with his little peanut head walking down the aisle and looking for a seat. But I was even more surprised to see who was with him. It was Cooter, walking right behind Flex and obviously there with him.
There must not have been any good seats down front, or maybe they couldn’t find two side by side, because the next thing I knew they had turned around and were heading back up the aisle, directly toward us.
“Shit!” I said, dropping the box of Bon Bons I had just opened. I scooched down in my seat and bent down like I was trying to pick up those little balls of chocolate-covered ice cream off that nasty theater floor.
“Where are they?” I whispered up at Brittany.
“Sitting up there. Four rows up.”
“Did they see me?”
She laughed. “Shit, how could they as fast as you fell out that chair!”
I eased myself back into my seat and took a deep breath. The lights were going down and the previews were beginning to roll, and I told myself to chill and get ready to enjoy the movie.
But something wasn’t right about Flex and Cooter seeing a movie together. I didn’t know they hung like that. I’d never even seen them two talking or even acting like the other one existed.
As the movie played and we laughed and hooted, cracking up and falling out at the jokes taking place on screen, I couldn’t help but keep one eye on Flex and Cooter.
I knew them niggahs was sho’ nuff shady when they didn’t laugh not one time. They weren’t even watching the damn movie. Instead, they were leaning toward each other having some kind of deep conversation and I woulda paid a dollar to be a fly on the wall dipping on that dialogue.
The movie was so funny that eventually I forgot all about Flex and Cooter. But about halfway through the flick they both got up and walked up the aisle heading for the doors. I knew they couldn’t see me in the darkness so I wasn’t worried about being spotted, but I had damn sure spotted both of their asses scheming and I thought about them for a real long time.
L
ater that night I was dressed and pressed and my hair had been blow-dried and pulled back into flat twists. Me and Gino hadn’t been together in almost two weeks, and I’d been aching for him like crazy. Masturbating next to G at night wasn’t cutting it for me anymore. Not when I knew what was available to me just on the other side of the wall.
And Gino had it hard, too.
It looked like G went out of his way to slam the headboard against the wall when he was getting him a little bit. Like he wanted Gino to know he was across the way ten inches deep in my stuff.
So both of us were horny as hell, but there never seemed to be a time where we could be together alone. Until late Tuesday night. Pacho had driven G to Philly earlier in the day, and Moonie was left to hold it down at the Spot. Flex was in the house again when he shoulda been out on the street, and I watched as he walked past the bar and headed toward the kitchen.
A minute later Cooter headed that way, too, and again I wondered why the two of them seemed all of a sudden so thick.
But Flex and Cooter weren’t my problem. Let Moonie check his barman and G handle his street thugs. While the big dog was away the cat was trying to get her some play. I was determined to get with Gino tonight, and I tipped my ass discreetly over to the phone on the bar and dialed his cell digits.
I climbed on a stool and crossed my legs as I watched Gino across the room fumbling at his waist to answer his phone.
“Yeah. Speak.”
“My pussy is popping. I want some.”
I watched as he turned his back on Jimmy and the rest of the brothers who were standing around.
“Hey. Whassup?”
“Meet me in room nine.”
“Aaight.” Click.
Yeah,
I thought as I hung up the phone and watched him take his time strolling toward the back of the Spot. Gino was acting all low-profile in front of them niggahs, but I knew he was itching for me as bad as I was for him.
I made sure no one was watching, then snuck into room nine behind him. Gino sighed and pulled me close. I had on a sleeveless black slinky dress cut down low in the back, with no bra, and Gino pushed those straps off my arms and swirled his hot tongue wetly around my nipples. I wanted him to suck on them forever, but the hardness in his pants and the way he squeezed on me told me he was ready for something more.
We didn’t even bother with the bed or a condom. Gino pulled my dress up around my waist and lifted me up, then leaning against the wall he pushed the crotch of my panties aside and entered me deeply. We got busy just like that. With my man lowering me up and down on his thick dick, my wetness soaking both of us.
Gino gave me a long, deep kiss when we were done.
“I love you, Juicy. You know that, right?”
I nodded. I knew. But what could I do? I was stuck with G for life.
Gino was in front of me leaving the room first. He had opened the door and stepped out with me right on his heels when I felt him reach back and try to push me back inside.
“Might as well come on out,” I heard my brother say. “Y’all motherfuckers ain’t foolin nobody.”
Jimmy was standing right outside the door, with one foot propped up, leaning against the wall. I walked out of the room and he gave me a disgusted look, then went to grilling Gino like he wanted to fight.
“What’s up, Jimmy?” I said, and then just like a guilty person I straightened my dress and pushed my hair back.
“Why’ont your man Gino here tell me what the fuck is up?”
I glanced at Gino, who had never taken his eyes off Jimmy.
They were staring each other down like dogs in the street and all of a sudden a tight feeling swelled in my chest.
“What the hell are you talking about, Jimmy?” I jumped defensive.
“Nah, Juicy.” Gino waved me aside. “Let your brother speak. Niggah got something on his chest he wanna get out. Let him.”
Jimmy laughed and shook his head. “Y’all motherfuckers are trifling and foul.
As much as G done gave both of y’all, this is how you fuck over him.”
“You accusing me of something, Jimmy?” Gino stepped toward my brother and I could see his body tense up. “You bringing a charge to the table on me?”
Jimmy stepped up to meet him. “Yeah, motherfucker. I’m accusing you of fucking my sister. Better yet, I’m accusing your monkey ass of fucking
over
my father.”
“G ain’t your goddamn father.”
“Then he ain’t yours either, you dirty motherfucker. Coming up in here violating his space like that.” Jimmy turned on me. “and you. Scandalous ass! How could you do him like this? G gives you more than you ever deserved. If it wasn’t for him you’d probably be strolling on 136th Street, or even worse, working this same back room with a whole crew of tricks.”
“Watch yourself, Jimmy. Don’t disrespect your sister like that—”
“Disrespect? What the fuck do you know about respect? If you was any other niggah I’d do G a favor and take you out. You better be glad it’s my sister you fuckin or I’d take both of y’all out—”
Gino swung a left and it was on and cracking. Jimmy didn’t have no wins, that was obvious from the jump, but I wasn’t gonna let Gino hurt my baby brother neither.
And I could tell he wasn’t really trying to. He was mostly holding on to Jimmy and slinging his ass from one side of the wall to the other. Jimmy was big, but Gino was bigger, and no matter how much I cursed and tried to pull one off the other or get in between them, I couldn’t break them up.
It was Flex and Cooter who came around the corner and managed to pull them apart.
“Yo, yo, yo!” Flex hollered. “Yo, Jimmy man. Chill, dawg. Chill!”
Cooter pulled Gino back, and Jimmy caught him with a right on the break.
The connection was so hard and solid everybody froze.
“Aaight, then.” Gino shook Cooter off like a booger and knocked Flex down as he grabbed for Jimmy. “You my niggah, J, but your young ass needs to be taught a lesson.”
I started hollering then. Gino punched Jimmy in the face three times, slamming him to the floor. He was standing over my brother ready to stomp him into the ground when he stopped and looked over at me.
“You better learn to show some respect, niggah,” he said to Jimmy, then started walking down the hall.
Cooter ran behind Gino yelling, “What the fuck was that about? Huh? What was that about?”
It didn’t sink in on me until later that Cooter had lost his stutter, and all I could do at the time was stand there as Flex helped my brother get up. Jimmy’s nose was bleeding and anger still burned in his eyes. I rushed over and wiped away a drop of blood that fell on his lip.
“Damn, dawg,” Flex said, leaning Jimmy against the wall. “What the fuck
was
that about?”
Jimmy pushed my hand away and stood shakily on his feet. He looked at me like I was somebody’s criminal, then he turned toward Flex and said, “ask Juicy.”
Chapter Twenty-One
J
immy didn’t speak to me for three whole days.
Even though I kept going to his room trying to talk to him, cooked his favorite foods, and tried real hard to reconnect with him, he just wasn’t having it.
“Don’t kiss his ass,” Gino told me as I stood in the kitchen cutting up some potatoes to make Jimmy some fries. “He ain’t no baby, Juicy. Jimmy is a man and you need to start treating him like one.”
“But I disappointed him, Gino. He loves G, and it fucked him up when he caught us like that.”
Gino shrugged. “Then he shouldn’t have come looking for nothing he couldn’t handle. Besides, everything is gonna come to a head one day anyway. If it wasn’t Jimmy who checked us it
would a been somebody else.”
I felt miserable inside. I didn’t want to lose Gino, but I loved my brother, too.
“So are you saying we should stop then?”
Gino gave me a look like
Girl, are you crazy?
And then he snuck and kissed me on the neck. “Hell no. I don’t ever wanna stop being with you, Juicy. Not for G or for Jimmy. You know I wasn’t gonna hurt your brother. But I couldn’t let him disrespect you like that neither.”
I turned the flame down under the pan and dropped in a handful of fries, jumping back when the grease sizzled and popped out at me. “I know. But still, try to understand where he’s coming from.”
Jimmy eventually came around and started talking to me again. I knew he wouldn’t stay mad at me forever, and I also knew that he would never betray me to G. But putting the burden of my secret on him wasn’t fair to him either, and I would have done anything to turn back the clock to erase that disappointed look from my brother’s eyes.
The summer was about to end and I was looking forward to going back to school. Yeah, my life still revolved around G and the Spot, but now I had Gino to fill all the holes and give me the love and the loving I had been missing.
It made me crazy trying to do everything on the sneak tip. I kept wishing that somehow G would just disappear and let me and Gino and Jimmy live happily ever after. But I wasn’t a stupid young girl no more. I knew those fairy-tale thoughts were whack.
And a part of me also knew that Gino had been right when he said things were gonna come to a head one day. But what I didn’t know was how big that head would get and how far the fallout would reach. I guess that’s why you should be careful what you pray for. Just in case you end up getting it.
B
y Thanksgiving Jimmy was in so deep with G I was scared I’d never get him out. I still hadn’t figured out how to get out of my situation, with or without G’s money, and I was scared that any day Gino was gonna announce that his six months were over and he was skying up.
He’d told me that G was only a few weeks away from closing a deal with some big-time connects in B-More, and that he’d already leased a building and started handpicking the crew he was gonna take down there with him to launch the opening of the G-Spot 2.
“Is he taking you?” I asked, hoping like hell the answer was no.
Gino shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s his plan, but it sure ain’t mine. When I leave Harlem I’m heading back west, not south, so to answer your question, no.”
Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better. So what he wasn’t going to Baltimore. He hadn’t said shit about taking me with him out west neither.
And even if he did, I could forget about making Jimmy go with me. He was on G’s dick so hard he should have been gay. There was no way he was leaving that man. Jimmy would leave me first, and as close as we were, that was some knowledge that hurt me to my heart.
It was three days before Christmas when Jimmy came home one night and told me he was making an overnight run to atlantic City. G was at the Spot counting drugs in the cut room, and me and Gino were decorating the Christmas tree that G had brought home earlier in the day.
We’d never been big on Christmas growing up. It was easy to overlook it when there was never any money to buy presents. G always bought me and Jimmy expensive gifts for the holiday, but this would also be the first time we put up a tree in celebration of it, and the only reason he went out and got one was because Gino said he wanted one.
Like I said, G wasn’t cheap. He believed in buying quality shit, and I was so happy when I saw the frosted glass ornaments and handmade balls and bells he had picked out for the tree.
At first I was mad that he hadn’t thought about letting me choose what to get, but as usual his taste was good and I knew I couldn’t have picked anything prettier or classier myself.
I was standing back giving Gino directions on where to place the angel when Jimmy walked in.
“Hey. That tree is hot.” He kissed me on the cheek and that’s when I saw the overnight bag he was holding in his hand.
“Where you going?”
“South,” he said.
“Baltimore?”
“Nah. Jersey. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow.”
This is what it had come to between Jimmy and me. I couldn’t even tell him what to do anymore, and I sure couldn’t forbid him to do anything G had assigned him to do. I knew we hadn’t lost our closeness, but Jimmy had moved beyond my reach and I didn’t like it. If he had been stepping up to manhood in a different way then that would have been cool. But all this drug-running, money-washing shit he was involved in scared me.
And I knew that I had to take some of the blame for what was going on. I had convinced myself that being Granite McKay’s woman was going to set me and my brother up lovely for life, when actually it had made us slaves to his operation. Jimmy wouldn’t even be in this situation if I hadn’t gotten with G and dragged him into G’s world. In trying to take care of my brother I had actually ruined him, and while I didn’t like to even think about it, in my heart I knew this was all my fault.
“Be careful, Jimmy,” was all I could say.
He nodded. “I’m cool, Juicy. I’ma stop and check out Flex for a minute, then I’m out.”
I almost dropped the glass ornament I was holding. “Flex? You hanging out with Flex now?”
“C’mon, Juicy. You know me and Flex go way back. What? You still wondering about that shit with Macaroni? Or since we live in the big house and Fletcher’s still out in the fields he can’t be my man no more?”
I shrugged. “That’s not what I’m saying. I just thought . . . nothing, Jimmy.”
He reached out and hugged me again. “Stop all that damn worrying all the time. Looking like Grandmother.
Ain’t nothing gonna happen to me. I’ma hit the Lower east Side and check out my dawg, then I’m headed south for the night.”
W
hen Jimmy didn’t show up by the next night I started to get scared. I called his cell phone but the answering service picked up, and he hadn’t called the house at all. I walked around the Spot with my chest hurting, I was so worried about him.
Everybody else was dancing and fucking and drinking and eating and doing their normal thing, when my world felt like it was spinning out of control and I couldn’t stop it.
I sat at the bar and for the first time I actually considered ordering a drink. My nerves were just that bad. Cooter came down wiping the counter and smiling at me, and for a minute I saw something flicker in his eyes, and then it was gone.
“Y-y-ou want something, J-j-j-uicy? Some s-s-soda? A bottle of w-w-water?”
He’d gotten his stutter back. I shook my head. “Nah. My stomach is too upset to put anything in it. Has Jimmy called?”
Cooter dropped his rag. “N-n-nah. I ain’t h-h-heard from him.”
He bent down and picked up his rag, and as soon as he walked away I snatched up the bar phone and called Gino.
“Gino,” I said quickly. “Jimmy ain’t back yet. I think something mighta happened to him.”
“Why you think that?”
“Because he told me he was staying in Jersey overnight, and then coming right back home.”
“I’m running the card room right now, but did you ask G what time Jimmy was due back?”
I sighed. “No. Not yet. I’ll go ask him now.”
“I don’t know where the fuck your brother is,” G said when I stopped him on his way toward his office. “He shoulda had his ass back here with my package by early this afternoon.”
G was talking bad, but he sure didn’t look concerned.
“Well, do you know if he at least made it down there safe? What if he got into an accident? Or maybe the cops got him?
Ain’t there somebody you can call in Jersey to see if they know where he is?”
G unlocked his office door and stepped inside. “If the cops had him he would have called. If he wrecked the car, the cops would have called. Jimmy’s smelling his fuckin nuts, that’s the problem. I thought I could trust him so I let him have a lot of area to move, and now the niggah’s trying to test me.”
I couldn’t believe this shit he was talking.
“G! You know damn well that boy ain’t testing you! Jimmy
loves
you! He put you over
me,
and if it ever came down to it he would
die
for you. How could you even fix your mouth to accuse him of being shady?”
He turned around and stared at me. “Money will do that shit to you. It makes a whole lot of niggahs act shady.” Then he left me standing there in the hall and closed the door in my face.
Now I was really scared, but I didn’t know what to do. Who could I call in Jersey? Nobody. I didn’t know the connect Jimmy was going to meet, and after what had happened to me in Camden, I didn’t wanna know none of those Jersey niggers neither.
I thought about Flex and wondered if Jimmy had told him anything. Other than going over to his territory in Taft projects, I had no way of getting in touch with Flex either.
I went to the coatroom and got my cute little swing coat and put it on. Since all I ever did was run out of the apartment and jump into Pacho’s warm ride, I never bothered with a hat or gloves unless it was way past cold and downright nasty outside. I knew I was gonna freeze like a mother, but I didn’t care. G was talking shit that didn’t make no sense, Gino was too busy to pay me any mind, and my brother was out there somewhere doing who knows what.
I cornered Moonie behind the bar and asked him for fifty dollars. He looked at me like I was crazy, but I think the tears coming out my eyes convinced him that I was desperate. I had never asked Moonie for anything before, and I gave less than a fuck about him running back and telling G, just as long as I had enough to get down to Taft Houses and talk to the man who had been the last person, as far as I knew, to see my baby brother.