AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know that’s right,” Shuwanda agrees, encouraging Big Booty to stand here and keep the shit going. “I feel the same way. Cheatin’-ass niggas ain’t shit. So do you, boo. I saw what you posted on Facebook. Girl, it was hilarious. You called her out.”
“Sure did. Then had Marquelle post her beatdown on YouTube, okay? Fuck wit’ me if you want.”
I shake my head. Marquelle is her fifteen-year-old son who drinks and smokes around her—and from what I hear, with her. She stands here giving us all blow by blow details of how her and this girl fought. Come to find out the girl she and her kids beat down is only twenty-two. This bitch should be ashamed of herself. I keep my thoughts to myself.
An hour and a half later, Janelle gets out of the styling chair, looking like a new woman. “Girl,” she says, checking out her new do in the hand mirror. She smiles at her reflection. “I love it.” She glances down at her past—long, thick hair, then back up at the new her in the mirror. “This is exactly what I needed.”
I smile, sweeping her hair into a dustpan. I need to start making wigs, I think, dumping it into the trash. I’d make a killing. The wheels in my head start to churn as an idea for developing my own line of wigs comes into view.
Janelle hands me a ten-dollar tip, then makes her way over to the register to pay Felecia. I call Big Booty over. She struts over, swinging her hips. I peep a few customers cutting their eyes at her never-ending ass. She sits in the chair.
“Miss Pasha, girl, I appreciate you squeezing me in. I’m going to see Ledisi in the city at B.B. King’s tomorrow night and I gotta be right.”
“Oh, I love her,” I say, snapping the cape around her neck. “I saw her last year in Atlanta, and she threw down. She gives a great show.”
“Girl, yes,” she agrees. She tells me this will be her second time seeing her. Tells me one of the young niggas she’s got pushing her back in got her tickets to see Maxwell and Jill Scott at Madison Square Garden in June.
“I’d love to see Jill in concert again. But I can do without Maxwell. He doesn’t do it for me.”
“Chile, please…Maxwell can get it.”
Who can’t, I think as I begin removing the loose stitching from her tracks. Her iPhone starts buzzing with text messages. She busies herself reading and responding back, which shuts her up for a while. And that’s fine by me. Twenty minutes into removing Big Booty’s weave, an unfamiliar man’s voice slices into my space.
“’Scuse me, ma.”
I look up from Big Booty’s head. Standing in front of me is a thug-type nigga with dreads and big, round brown eyes. He looks to be in his early twenties. His facial features kind of remind me of a browner version of Hill Harper. Yes, he’s a cutie. “Yes, can I help you?”
“Yeah, my man said if I came through you’d hit me off with one of ya deep throat specials.”
I think I hear him correct, but need to make sure. He repeats himself and I feel myself getting lightheaded as I notice all eyes are on me, glued to the scene that is about to unfold before them. Seems like everything in the shop freezes. All I hear are gasps and the air being sucked in all around me. I can tell they are all standing and watching with baited breath to see how I react. This sonofabitch has come up in my fucking shop and called me out in front of everyone. I am about to pass out. I am through! Now I will have to bring it to him, and bring it hard! Or every bitch up in here will think this nigga is speaking truths.
“Say whaaaaat?!” I snap, flipping into bitch mode, slamming my hand up on my hip. Although I’m curious to know who the fuck his man is, asking would make me look suspect, like there might be some truth to what he’s dishing. I’m shaking inside; the last thing I’m about to do is validate shit he’s saying. “Mother-fucker, do I know you?”
“Nah, but you know my man,” this cocky-ass nigga says, smirking.
“Nigga, you got the wrong motherfucking one,” I snap, “coming up in my motherfucking shop with that disrespectful ass shit. What you better do is bounce before you get bounced.”
I can’t believe this nigga has me coming out of script like this. When I opened my salon, I made it my business to always talk and act and dress professional. To always carry myself with grace and class. But, right now, baaaaby, I feel the hood in me coming out. I am so goddamn pissed and embarrassed that I could take these scissors in my hand and stab him in his motherfucking eyeball.
“Yo, ma, I’m only tellin’ you what my man said. He said you sucked him off while he drove his whip down twenty-two in Hillside. Said you sucked him so good he forgot where he was driving to. I’m sayin’, can I get my dick sucked or what?”
I catch Shuwanda clutching her imaginary pearls, with her lips curled up in a wicked smile as if she’s enjoying the show. And knowing this bitch…she is! That in itself sets me off even more.
“Nigga, get the fuck up outta my shop before I have the cops up on ya ass. I don’t know who the fuck sent you here, but you go back and tell that nigga I said to kiss my black ass. I don’t play that shit …”
“Oh, hell naw,” Felecia says, storming up over to where we’re at with a can of mace in one hand and the aluminum bat she keeps behind the counter. “You fuckin’ tryna get ya head taken off, muhfucka! I will knock ya shit straight out the park real quick, nigga.”
The nigga doesn’t blink. He glances at her over his shoulder and calmly says, “Yo, ma, no disrespect to you, but you need to stay in ya lane. I ain’t talkin’ to you, boo. I’m talkin’ to ya peeps.” Then he turns his attention back to me. “So what’s good? Can you hook a nigga up wit’ some of that deep throat or what?”
I swear this day has turned into a fucking nightmare! This nigga picked one of the busiest days of the week to call me out and drag me for filth! Do you hear me!
“Well, muthafucka, I’m talkin’ to you,” Felecia snaps, rolling her neck and swinging the bat. “So anything you sayin’ to her, you sayin’ to me. Now get. The. Fuck. Out!”
I glare at the nigga, hearing him in my head say something real slick and me and Felecia jumping on his ass. In my mind’s eye, I snatch the hot curling iron off its plate and slap him across his face with it and—as if on cue—Felecia bangs him in the back of the head with the bat. He yelps. And from that point on, it is on and popping. Felecia and I start beating this nigga down like we used to when a nigga would come out of his face all sideways when we were younger.
I see this nigga hitting the floor before he can swing off. And Felecia fucking him up with the bat so bad that all he can do is ball up and try to cover up his head and face with his hands and arms to keep her from smashing his brains out. And I am stomping and kicking him, yelling for someone to call the police. I see cell phones out and the shit being recorded and this whole fiasco on the internet.
Luckily, it doesn’t unfold the way I play it out in my head. Instead, this disrespectful bastard grins and starts backing out toward the door. “Aiight, ma. You got that. I’ma bounce. But I still wanna feel them pretty-ass lips on my dick.”
