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“No drama is right up my girl Normani’s alley. You didn’t like her?” Twinkle asked, walking over to where I was standing.
“If you’re referring to your girl from last night, nah, I ain’t like her, with her slick ass mouth. Stay out of people’s damn business. Where your nigga at, so he can shut all this shit down,” I told her, and she laughed.
It was all fun and games with Twinkle, but I was right, she was always up in my damn business. She came off like an annoying little sister who was always saying, “Mama said, you gotta let me hang with y’all.” I loved the fuck out of her, although I felt like she was always trying to match me up with somebody, and in her words, find me a wife. I was good, though. I ain’t need nobody to find me shit. Besides, I was about to get so wrapped up in this real estate shit that it was going to be my ole lady.
“You know my baby don’t like seafood. He said he had to make a run, but he’ll be here soon. For real, though, Billion. Why don’t you like Normani? She’ll be good for you. I feel like she’ll slow your ass down. She’s such a good girl. A doctor, smart as hell with her degrees, got her own house, cars, and she’s a bestselling author of Christian children’s books. You don’t think she was pretty? My girl is fineeeeee,” she bragged on her friend, as she should.
I wasn’t even going to cap; shorty was all of that. I’d proudly roll around with her in my passenger seat and my windows rolled down, showing her off to everybody.
“She ain’t my type,” I simply told her.
“Why? Because she doesn’t have a fat ass?” she questioned, making me laugh.
“Ultimately, when it comes down to me cuffing a woman and getting on some serious shit with her, I could give a fuck about the physical. A wife ain’t somebody who has a fat ass. In all honesty, that shit is just a bonus. You a woman, so you should already know that. Look at me, Twink. I’m a fuckin’ thug. Tattoos and shit, gold teeth, curse like a fuckin’ sailor, pants sagging down my ass, all which are things that would turn your uppity ass friend off. She don’t want no nigga like this. She’s going to want a doctor in a lab coat, just like her ass.
“Look at your girl, yo. She’s green as fuck, and she’s a square. My hood mentality will turn her ass the fuck out! Five years from now, she ain’t going to blame me for putting babies in her too soon, making her gain weight or lose weight, blaming me because she smokes weed now, or because she be cursing now. She’s a good girl, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I’ll break her little ass, plus she ain’t going to be resenting me and blaming me for shit,” I said, with visions of fuckin’ her small ass.
“She needs to be turned out, but whatever. I’ll leave it alone. Normani told me that you choked Daniel when he walked his drunk ass in the section and called her a bitch. I know you, Billion. You ain’t going out of your way to choke a nigga for calling a woman a bitch that don’t have shit to do with you. You like her. That’s why you snapped on her when she got slick with you. I know you, nigga, but just mark my words… you’re going to be the one carrying her babies,” she said and cracked up laughing at her ow
n joke.
I flicked her off while I pulled out my phone to check my messages. I wasn’t paying Twinkle any attention. She was living in fuckin’ Lalaland if she thought that there was any future with me and her doctor ass friend.
“My mama ’bout ta come out now?” my adorable niece, Dream, asked. She sat next to me, dancing in her seat while waiting for my big sister, Loyal, to come from the line of other women prisoners.
I hated this shit, man. I’m not even referring to the drive to come down there and visit my sister because I could make that two and a half hour drive any time I wanted. That shit was nothing to me. Besides, the solitude left me with nothing but time and opportunities to think about life and how I needed to make certain tweaks to better my happiness. When I say that I hated this shit, I’m referring to the situation that my niece, Dream, was in. A five-year-old shouldn’t have to witness no shit like this, man. I felt like it wasn’t anything but history repeating itself.
Loyal and I used to go to the prison as little girls to visit our mother. Just like Loyal, our mama had been into shit like credit card fraud, but my mama was also into boosting whatever she could and selling it at a lower price. Sadly, she fucked around with that white stuff too.
It’s so crazy the innocence that a child has. I had caught my mama on plenty of occasions snorting coke, and for the longest, I thought the shit was candy. Back then, I used to love Fun Dip candy, and it was like a powder, so I just swore that’s what my mama was doing. It wasn’t until I entered adolescence, and I wasn’t as innocent anymore, that I pretty much found out that I had a junkie for a mother.
You know what… I’m not even going to sit here and act like my mama was some crackhead, walking down 27th Ave, begging random people to suck their dick for five dollars, so she could purchase some drugs. She wasn’t like that at all. From the outside looking in, a stranger wouldn’t even know that my mama was doing drugs because she didn’t expose that part of her lifestyle to everyone else. Loyal and I knew, and the niggas that she would bring over to the house knew about it too.
My mother was a beautiful woman. Our whole life, people would always tell her that she looked like the Miami rap star, Trina, which is true. She had that same Miami, southern accent like her, just like we did, she was fly like her, cussed like her, and ultimately, was beautiful just like her.
As little girls, my mama kept Loyal and I fly. Back in the day, Loyal and I rocked all the designers, like Baby Phat, Enyce, Lot 29, just everything that was in style at the time. For Christmas, we would get shit like Gucci purses, Prada sunglasses, or whatever glamorous things our mother could get for us. All the nice shit we had, yet we still resided smack dead in the middle of the damn hood. Couldn’t buy a house while you were getting dirty money because the underwriters would want to know where that money came from. It’s like when you live in Miami, you do everything to make some money.
My mama was a real-life hustler out here. I’ve witnessed her on plenty occasions come back to the house with a couple of her homegirls. They would sit right in the living room, pouring out all the clothes, shoes, and accessories that they had boosted. Five minutes later, people would be knocking on the door, ready to purchase whatever my mama and her friends were selling. Her boosting and the credit card fraud was basically how she kept the lights on and food on the table for us.
My mama was like a daddy who kept going in and out of jail. Grand theft, possession of drugs, and her last and final charge was the credit card fraud shit. She ended up getting five years. Each time she got locked up, we would move in with our grandmother. Living with our grandmother was way different because my grandma worked nine to five as a nurse at a retirement home. She wasn’t out there doing illegal stuff to take care of us. Ultimately, that meant shopping for us at places like Goodwill, Walmart, or her favorite, which was garage sales. Me, I didn’t care, but my sister, Loyal, man, she hated the change.
Loyal was high maintenance, just like our mother, with a strong desire for the finer things in life. The second she graduated from high school, she pretty much left home and moved in with her boyfriend, Chance. He was four years older than her, sold a little dope here and there, but he was into scamming. He pretty much taught my sister the game, but he obviously didn’t teach her the consequences, because if so, she would have been home.
Funny how she was the one who got hit with a ten-year charge, yet that fuck nigga was still out. I hated him because I knew it was because of him that my sister, who was damn near my best friend, was in this shit in the first place. I didn’t want to put the whole blame on him because I felt like either way it went, Loyal was going to get wrapped up in a lifestyle like this because she reminded me too much of our mother. I just felt like as a real man, it was just certain shit that you’re supposed to keep your significant other away from.
Yes, I know that Monterius pushes dope, but that’s pretty much all I knew. He didn’t bring that shit home with him, he didn’t try to make me into his down bitch by picking up a shipment for him, none of that. It’s called keeping me protected, and I felt like Chance didn’t do that with my sister. Even after all this, she was still so stupidly in love with his black ass. She made sure that Dream had a relationship with her father too. Like, right after we leave this visit, I was going to drop Dream off with her father, per Loyal’s request.
I loved my mama and Loyal to death, but I was so different from them. Yeah, I had a desire to have nice things, but unlike them, I wanted to work hard for that shit and do it the legal way. I had to break the chain because if I didn’t, I was going to be in a prison cell just like my sister. If I ever went to prison, it would be for killing Monterius, but I’ll eventually get to that part of my story.
Don’t get me wrong, I entertained the credit card fraud shit a few times, but for one, I was always too scared of getting caught, and two, Monterius would probably break my damn neck if he knew I was doing that. He had money, and he was always screaming that I didn’t need to work because he was going to take care of me.
Yeah, I was a hustler’s girl, but I was older now, twenty-four to be exact, so I looked at it differently. I looked at the fact that my ass could catch a fuckin’ charge by fuckin’ around with this nigga. Not to mention Monterius could possibly end up six feet under or buried under the jail because he was still trapping. Those were all things that I was just now evaluating in my life. I was a Christian, but I didn’t go to church as often as I should. That didn’t mean I didn’t believe in the power of prayer, though.
I prayed for my man daily. I could be zoning out in the middle of work, and I would just stop and start praying for him. Every time this nigga left in the middle of the night or he didn’t come home at night, I would be worried sick. When I complained and stressed my concern, he always told me that he was bringing this shit to an end, which is why he had been working so hard to tie up some loose ends. God, I hoped that he was telling the truth because I would simply just lose my mind if something happened to him.
Going to the prison and having to see my sister, I swear that shit broke me each time. I would have to go down there and put up one hell of a front and be strong in front of Loyal and Dream, but deep down inside, I wanted to break down. My sister had ten years to serve, and she was only one year in. This shit was fuckin’ dragging, so it was driving me fuckin’ crazy. I was trying to be a good ass example for Dream, which is why I had gone and got my LPN license. I mean, I always had a little fascination with becoming a nurse, but it wasn’t a life goal.
I ain’t want to be the girlfriend who stayed at home, sitting on her ass, while I waited for my nigga to bring home a bag. I needed to have my own shit, especially with the number of falling outs that I’ve had with Monterius. I could be suckin’ his dick one night and trying to cut it off the next. I felt like this nigga had fucked me up in the damn head to the point that I didn’t fully trust him like I used to. I swear that cheating shit will have even the prettiest, sanest bitch evaluating life.
