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“Like I said, you need to act ya age, instead of runnin’ ’round actin’ like you still in ya twenties. You need to really let it go. If you want me to respect you like a mother, then, like I said, try actin’ like one. Then again, you wouldn’t know how to do that since you’ve never tried it. But you right. I don’t respect ya ass. I never have ’cause you never gave me a reason to. Please don’t come at me ’bout no damn respect ’cause at the end of the muthafuckin’ day, if a bitch wants respect, then she gotta know how to give it, real talk.
“And, sweetie, please be clear. Just like you, I’m a grown-ass woman. And there’s no fuckin’ way I’ma let you, your sisters, or any other fuckin’ bitch jump me or put their hands on me and shit’s gonna be all sweet. I don’t give a fuck if ya gave birth to me or not. It is what it is. Now, like I said, I apologize for callin’ you a bitch. But I will never apologize for not likin’ you or for not respectin’ you. You brought that shit on ya’self. You’ve always been weak when it comes to a nigga. I’ll be damned if I ever take responsibility for you bein’ a fucked-up, neglectful mother. I’m done with you. Go get married, live a happy life, and leave me the fuck alone. You don’t exist to me.”
I snapped my phone shut on her ass before I said somethin’ else that couldn’t be taken back. When I finally walked back into the house and looked in my wall mirror, it was then that I noticed a bitch had been cryin’.
I don’t need this shit right now, I thought as I tossed the cordless on the sofa, then climbed my ass up and around the spiral staircase. I was fuckin’ drained and decided to take a long, hot shower, then take my ass a nap.
CHAPTER TEN
“Bitch, why you didn’t call me back?”
“What?” I asked, wakin’ up all groggy ’n shit. I’d slept so damn hard I wasn’t sure if it was day or night. I had to look around to see where I was. After I took my shower, I remembered goin’ back downstairs to get me another shot of Rémy and ended up takin’ the bottle and a glass into my media room, smokin’ another blunt, and listenin’ to that crazy chick Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black CD. The last song I remembered hearin’ was “Tears Dry on Their Own” before dozin’ off.
I yawned and stretched. “Girl, what time is it?”
“It’s almost five-thirty.”
“Damn,” I said, sittin’ up. “I musta been tired as hell.”
“I thought I told ya ass to make sure you called me back.”
“Unh-uh, don’t do it. My mother got on her bullshit again. So you really don’t want it, ho. Not today.”
“Oh, shit. That bad?”
“Worse,” I said. “She worked my fuckin’ nerves down into the ground so bad I had to take three blunts and a bottle to the head to calm my ass down.” I gave her the 4-1-1 on my visit with my moms and her nigga, then told her ’bout the phone conversation we had.
“Damn,” Chanel said. “That’s fucked up. And she really threatened to have your aunts jump you?”
“Yeah, ain’t that some shit? But I tell you what. Let ’em try it.”
“Kat, girl, you know I always got ya back. But fuckin’ with ya crazy-ass aunts is like walkin’ through Iraq bare-assed. They fuckin’ crazy. You might wanna take that ass whoopin’ and keep it movin’ ’cause I ain’t tryna rock with ’em.”
I had to laugh ’cause she was right. Them bitches were noodles. First, there was Rosa, the oldest. She was forty-three with six kids and two grandchildren. Although she stopped usin’ cocaine ten years ago, she still drank and carried a razor under her tongue and had no problem slicin’ a bitch. Young, old, nigga, bitch, or in between—if ya came at her sideways on some greasy slick shit, she was gonna bring it to ya ass swift and clean. She wasn’t one for a bunch of talkin’, she’d just start slicin’. You wouldn’t even know you’d been straight-edged until ya ass hit the concrete. She lived over in the Pink Houses, another one of Brooklyn’s housin’ projects.
Next was Elise. She was thirty-six and had spent almost eight years in prison for arson and aggravated assault and battery charges she got in ’95 when she set her sons’ father on fire while he was sleepin’. He had gotten some other bitch in her buildin’ pregnant and Elise wasn’t havin’ it. She dropped her sons off over my grandmother’s, then went back and torched his ass without blinkin’ an eye. She’s been home for close to four years and lives over in Red Hook with my two teenaged cousins.
Then there was my youngest aunt, Patrice, who was twenty-eight. She still lived with my grandmother over in Brownsville and only fucked niggas who were either drug dealers or gun runners. The bitch still boosted for a livin’, drove a Range Rover, and always stepped outta her buildin’ like she was that chick. But aside from the high-end wears and truck her nigga bought, the nutty bitch doesn’t own a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. Just dumb, dumb, dumb!
However, on some real shit, she was the prettiest outta the four of ’em. With her jet-black hair flowin’ down the center of her back and extra slick bangs, she had that Pocahontas look about her, with a body like a damn hourglass. Crazy thing, you would think that she and I would have been close since we were only three years apart and both fly bitches. Not! That bitch hated me, and make no mistake, there was no love lost between us where I was concerned either. But, keepin’ it real, she was the only one of my aunts I used to look up to when I was growin’ up. That’s until the slimy bitch fucked my man, but that’s another discussion for another time.
“Yeah, them bitches are crazy,” I said, laughin’. “But they can get it, too. I’m not lettin’ none of them hoes put their hands on me, and not rock with ’em. No, it’s gonna be poppin’. And I already know Pat don’t really want it.”
“I hear you,” she said. “But I’ma hafta sit this one out if shit pops off. I can’t get caught up in no family–feud type shit. I saw how they get down when they jumped on that bitch, Tiny, at ya cousin’s barbecue last year in Prospect Park. They wore that ho out. No, thank you, ma’am…I ain’t fuckin’ with ya aunts. The summer is comin’ and a pretty bitch ain’t tryna have her face dug out, and I definitely ain’t tryna look like burnt toast. Please. I got no time tryna mend some damn fire burns.”
I bust out laughin’, thinkin’ back on how the three of them had set it off on that bitch for talkin’ slick to Patrice over some dumb nigga they both were fuckin’, even though Patrice was really the one who provoked the shit.
It was an end-of-the-summer barbecue my cousin Manny and his boys threw, and it was one of the very few times I wasn’t beefin’ with Patrice. The park was packed with niggas. The drinks were flowin’, the music was rockin’, and the grill was blazin’. Everbody was lit and feelin’ real good. Then, as soon as Patrice saw Tiny—who was wearin’ a burgundy weave and was stuffed in a cute Dolce & Gabbana denim mini-skirt, a sexy white midriff shirt, and a bangin’ pair of Miu Miu strappy sandals—struttin’ her big ass and double-D titties through the crowd toward the food table, Patrice started up.
“Somebody better get that fat bitch up outta here,” Patrice had said to my aunt Elise, “before I end up goin’ in her mouth. I’m sick of lookin’ at her fat ass. Damn pork roll.” Patrice and my aunt Elise were sittin’ in their beach chairs passin’ a flask of rum back ’n forth. They were definitely feelin’ good.
Of course Tiny heard her since Patrice had said it loud enough that she could. But Tiny kept it cute and igged her, keepin’ it movin’.
Elise stared at her, then grunted. “Humph. Let the bitch do her. She don’t want it. Besides, I don’t know why you mad at her ass any damn way. It’s that nigga you should be pissed at. He’s the one fuckin’ the both of you. You don’t know what the hell that nigga is tellin’ her.”
“Still, that bitch knows he’s my man. And she still fucks with him.”
I blinked, blinked again, then stared at this bitch, before steppin’ the fuck away. I couldn’t believe what I’d heard this ho say. I was so ready to remind her grimy ass of what she did to me, but decided to let it go otherwise it woulda been her and me thumpin’ out that piece. Chanel had peeped it, too. Here she was, hatin’ on the next bitch for fuckin’ her man—who wasn’t all that—when she had done the same fuckin’ shit to me.
