Thug-A-Licious Page 14

  Ya-Yo worked for UPS, but since today was the official opening day for Locks of Love, he had taken the morning off to be with her when she set up for the day. Carmiesha had rented chairs out to three excellent stylists who had gotten just as sick of the drama at Flip It and Clip It as she was. Everybody knew as soon as they got up out of a chair in that joint that bitches was gone be checking out their shit and talking about them before they hit the door. Wasn’t gonna be none of that kinda negative vibing up in Locks of Love. Carmiesha wasn’t gonna tolerate no haters in her place of business. Folks were gonna have to check all that drama at the door or be gone.

  Carmiesha knew she had to think up some creative ways to get customers flocking to her door, so she ran specials in all the neighborhood papers and had one of her girls stand outside the shop and pass out flyers and coupons for half-priced services all day long. And it was working too. A week after they opened they had so many customers that they were running back and forth between chairs.

  Even though Carmiesha appreciated the business, she promised herself and her customers that she was gonna hire some extra stylists as soon as possible. If it was one thing she knew sistahs hated, it was to go to the shop on time for an appointment just to find the stylist had booked five other heads for the same time slot. A nice little perm-wrap-and-bump that should’ve taken less than two hours ended up taking almost five. Shit like that was more than bad business. It was plain old trifling.

  The next Saturday was her day to get Jahlil, and she decided to surprise him. Carmiesha knew that legally Jahlil wasn’t her son, but she had given birth to him, and she loved him. She wanted him to see that things like owning a business were possible for people like them. And if he saw what she was doing, then it might motivate him to sit his bad ass down in class long enough to learn something so that one day he could be successful too.

  “Where we going today?” he whined when she picked him up. His tone of voice was weary and sarcastic. Like she’d already dragged him to all kinds of place he hadn’t wanted to go and he damn sure wasn’t looking forward to wherever she planned to drag him today.

  “It’s gonna be a surprise,” she said. “But it’ll be fun too. Just trust me.”

  Carmiesha had told all of her stylists that she was bringing her nephew to the shop. She wasn’t worried about Jahlil telling them anything else because they had agreed a long time ago that they would act like an aunt and a nephew.

  All the girls in the shop went crazy over Jahlil. They spoiled him rotten telling him how cute he was, how tall, how pretty his dark brown skin was.

  “I swear to God!” a stylist named Xina said. She had Jahlil in her chair, massaging his shoulders. “If this doggone boy was ten years older I would take him home and make him my slave!”

  Carmiesha could see that Jahlil was loving all the attention, but she made him get up out of Xina’s chair anyway. That girl wasn’t all together in the brain and the way she was touching the boy didn’t look too correct.

  Since the shop was brand-new all the local boosters had to stop in and see if they could get some new customers. Crackheads came in trying to sell shit they had just boosted, and an old lady came in selling tiny sweet potato pies in foil pans. A fly sister rolled in with a suitcase full of hip-hop novels called The Glamorous Life, and an African brother with long dreads wanted to sell them some incense and some fake Jacob watches.

  Carmiesha didn’t really wanna make no enemies, but she didn’t want all kinds of people selling no illegal shit in her spot either. She was gonna have to figure out a way to let everybody know they needed to keep it moving down the block with whatever they were carrying.

  Everything was going so good in her life that Carmiesha couldn’t stop giving thanks. But she had only been open for a couple of months when she found out there were some crazy rules for the businesses on her street.

  Every night after the shop had been swept and cleaned, Carmiesha would file her receipts and set out new products for the next day. She didn’t worry about nobody robbing her for the day’s money, because she always made sure Ya-Yo swung by in his UPS truck before he got off, and took her money bag and dropped it in the bank deposit slot.

  The first morning when she came in and found an envelope on the floor she couldn’t figure out how it got there. She didn’t remember seeing it the night before, but she just shrugged it off and put the envelope in the trash.

  That shit got real regular. Once a week, always on a Friday morning, Carmiesha unlocked her shop to find that somebody had slid an envelope under her door at some point in the night.

  She was getting a fish sandwich from the shop next door, when she decided to mention it to the owner.

  “Mr. Ward. You stay open way later than me. You ever see anybody out there sliding stuff underneath my door?”

  The old man froze with his fork in his hand. “Stuff like what?”

  Carmiesha shrugged. “Like a damn envelope. An empty one at that. It don’t make no sense to me, but every Friday morning there’s one in the middle of my floor.”

  Mr. Ward looked around, then whispered. “The envelope is for the money, baby. You gots to put your protection money in there on Fridays.”

  “Money? What money? Protection from who?”

  The old man sighed. He’d been frying fish on that street for over twenty years and Carmiesha wasn’t the first business owner he’d had to explain things to.

  “Look, Carmiesha. You ain’t just come to Harlem yesterday, honey. You gots to pay to keep your store open around here. Back when I first started we paid a fella by the name of Spoon. He was a terrible niggah, and when somebody shot his ass right out on the sidewalk there, every business owner on the block pulled they shades down and kept right on working. There’s been a lot more Spoons over the years. The worst one being Big Sonny. But nowadays Harlem businesses are split by territory. Either you paying G or you paying Hurricane. Don’t matter whose list you on, you paying somebody.”

  Carmiesha felt herself swelling up. “Oh, no the hell I ain’t! Why I gotta pay one of them niggahs? I pay my damn taxes! I pay my damn rent! I pay my damn employees! Why the hell should I pay off them niggahs too?”

  “Sshhh!” Mr. Ward tried to shush her. “Girl you better watch what you got coming outta ya damn mouth! Now, when that youngster Skeet used to do the collecting he would let me slide every now and then. You know, on a bad week like Easter or Thanksgiving when folks ain’t feeling much like eating fish. But now with that evil niggah Pimp outta jail and doing the pickups, you betta not be short one brown penny. Cause if you are, he’ll make you wish you had robbed your own mama just to get his cash.”

  Carmiesha was really steaming now. Pimp hadn’t been staying at Noojie’s much since he came home from jail, and the few times she’d seen him he’d just laughed and licked his lips trying to make her feel dirty, but he kept it moving. She wasn’t paying his ass nothing. Not even no attention. He could take that shit to the bank and see how it added up.

  “Well I’ll just call the damn cops then,” Carmiesha said, rolling her eyes. “They get their paychecks outta the taxes we pay, right? Then they should do their damn jobs.”

  Mr. Ward looked at her and shook his head. He slapped two pieces of fish on her bread and squirted some hot sauce over them. Then he put a small container of tartar sauce in the side of her cardboard plate and wrapped the whole thing up.

  “Girl,” he said, handing her the food. “You just a baby. You call them damn crooked cops on them boys, and you’ll be in worse trouble than you can handle. Take some advice from a wise old man, would ya? Put a hundred dollars aside every night. You got a full house over there every day. Your customers call in orders over here all the time, and I know you can afford it. So be a smart businesswoman and learn the rules. Stick your five hundred dollars in that envelope on Friday nights. It’ll be easier on you, and easier on tired old businessmen like me too.”

  When Carmiesha got home that night she went straight to Noojie’s apa
rtment. She wasn’t surprised to see Noojie sitting in there trying to stop three babies from hollering and no mamas around.

  “Hey Noojie. How you doing with them babies?”

  Noojie looked straight at Carmiesha’s purse. “You got any money, Muddah? These babies is hungry. Lemme borrow twenty dollars. I’ll give it back to you when Pimp comes home.”

  Without hesitating, Carmiesha took twenty dollars from her bra. “Where’s Kathy and them? They didn’t bring nothing for you to feed the kids?”

  “Hell no,” Noojie said. “I told them crazy girls I don’t get no food stamps no more. The only thing I got coming in here is the little bit Smoove sends me and what I get from Pimp. And I thank God for that boy every day. He stays here and takes care of me when my own son don’t even call to see about me. Pimp is all I got to depend on now.”

  “Pimp ain’t shit,” Carmiesha snapped, picking up one of the crying babies. “I can’t stand his black ass.”

  Noojie looked at her like she was crazy. “Girl, that sugar Pimp wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s a good boy, Muddah. A real good boy. He’s been home for six weeks, and I think he really learned his lesson this time. He got a boys’ softball team he’s coaching for free, and he’s working on doing a neighborhood cleanup. Pimp ain’t never did nothing to give you a reason to say something like that.”

  Carmiesha was about to tell Noojie she had a good damn reason and his name was Jahlil, but the door opened and Pimp walked in.

  Noojie was all over him. “Pimp! Damn, I am so glad to see you. Them girls left all these babies here and they hungry. Muddah just let me borrow twenty dollars, but I need you to go out and get these babies something to eat.”

  Pimp stared at Carmiesha as she sat there rocking one of his cousin’s babies. She could feel how much he hated her but was turned on and wanted to fuck her at the same time.

  “Oh yeah?” he said, reaching in his pocket. He pulled out a bill and tossed it toward Carmiesha. It fell short and hit the floor by her feet. “Well from now on don’t ask Muddah for a goddamn thing. She ain’t doing too good of a job paying her own bills as it is.”

  Pimp mighta had Noojie fooled, but Carmiesha knew what that niggah was all about. He was tearing shit up in Harlem. Shaking down poor people just because his criminal ass was too gangsta to get a damn job.

  It was a Friday afternoon and she was on her way to the mall to pick up some shop supplies. Usually she got Jahlil on a Saturday, but Ya-Yo was working tonight and she’d left Neicy in charge of the shop. She was feeling good and could spare a couple of hours to take Jahlil to buy a pair of sneakers, and maybe a few pairs of jeans.

  But when she got to the Washingtons’ house all of the good feelings changed. Mr. Bert was sitting in a big chair in the living room. He looked real sick. His head was slumped to the side and a blanket was covering his legs. Jahlil was sitting across from him on the sofa, and for a brief minute Carmiesha wanted to scream. Just for a moment she had seen something ugly and familiar in Jahlil’s face. Something so hard and evil that she wanted to smash it. Ms. Jessie was standing over Jahlil yelling. She was quoting him Bible verses and telling him his soul needed saving.

  “Hi, Ms. Jessie. Is everything okay?” Carmiesha asked, being careful not to jump in between them. She turned to the boy. “Jahlil, why don’t you go wash your face and change your shirt while I talk to your mother. Maybe she’ll let you come to the mall with me.”

  When Jahlil left the room the older woman snapped her Bible shut and shook her head. “It just doesn’t make no sense to us, Carmiesha. We’ve given Jahlil the best life we could give him. He’s had everything we thought he needed and still…” She nodded toward her husband. “Bert is sick. He probably needs to be up in the hospital. All I asked Jahlil to do was give him his medicine. Just one pill. I come back here and Bert said Jahlil made him take three! He said that boy yanked his mouth open and made him swallow them damn pills! What’s wrong with that child, honey? Do you think he got some unnatural ways? Maybe he gets it from his father’s side of the family. You do know who his daddy is, don’t you?”

  Carmiesha felt so bad standing there in front of this good woman. If they wanted her to take Jahlil back so they could have some peace, she would. She didn’t know how she would explain it all to Mere’maw, but she would do it.

  “Ms. Jessie…I’m so sorry. I hate y’all going through all of this with Jahlil. I know he’s your son, but if you want me to take him back, I’ll understand. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  Ms. Jessie reached out to Carmiesha and hugged her tight.

  “Baby, when we accepted that boy from you in the hospital, we accepted all of him. The good and the bad. Nobody knows what kinda child they gonna have, and you don’t get to just take children back for a refund when you ain’t happy about how they act.”

  Carmiesha felt so relieved by her words. “But what are y’all gonna do with him?”

  Mrs. Washington sighed. “We think Jahlil needs a younger man in his life. Every time I turn around he’s in here bugging us about who his real father is. He yearns so bad for somebody he ain’t never even known that it’s crazy. So I signed him up at the community center a few weeks ago. They got him on a waiting list for a mentor, but he can play at the center as much as he wants while he’s waiting. He seems to really like it there, and aside from this thing with Bert and the pills, things have been going really good. I’m hoping when he gets assigned his mentor that it’ll help even more.”

  Carmiesha had gotten Jahlil outta there in a hurry. She felt so guilty knowing the Washington’s were going into their older years burdened with the problems of the child she had birthed.

  “Why you give Mr. Bert all them pills?” she asked Jahlil as they rode the train downtown. She felt like smacking him in the back of his head but she didn’t. Instead she just looked at him, not liking what she saw. At ten years old, he was growing up and already he was taller than she was. He was gonna be fine as shit one day, but right now Carmiesha couldn’t care less about cute. She was more worried about what she saw in the depth of the boy’s eyes.

  “Boy, you hear me talking to you? You better open your damn mouth and answer me. Why you give Mr. Bert all them pills?”

  Jahlil hunched his shoulders. “I’on’t know.”

  “What you mean, you don’t know? Didn’t you hear your mother when she told you to give him just one pill?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you went ahead and gave him three anyway?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What the hell was you trying to do, Leel? Kill the poor man?”

  Jahlil didn’t say anything.

  Carmiesha sighed and frowned. She didn’t know how to deal with this kinda shit. She had only been thirteen when Jahlil was born, and that wasn’t old enough for life to show her how to be nobody’s mother.

  “I’ma get you a pair of sneakers today, cool?”

  Jahlil nodded, then looked at her and said, “Thanks, Carmiesha.”

  Carmiesha sighed again and put her arm around him. She hugged him for a second then kissed the side of his face twice. “I’m sorry you having such a hard time at home, Jahlil, I really am. But I love you, and your mother and father love you too. You just don’t know. You have a life a lot of boys your age wish they did have. You’ve got heat and hot water and plenty of food. You’ve got your own room and a closet full of clothes and a lot of people who care about you. I can’t think of one thing that you need that you don’t have, Jahlil. Not one thing.”

  The look the boy gave Carmiesha damn near broke her heart and she wished she could take her words back. Because in her heart Carmiesha already knew, that no matter how much Jahlil had, it would never be enough because all the boy wanted was his father.

  They walked around the mall picking up the items Carmiesha had come for. When they were finished getting her stuff she let Jahlil drag her around the mall until he found some sneakers he liked, and then she ended up buying him two pairs instead of just o
ne. They were sitting in the food court eating two big Cinnabons when Carmiesha looked up and immediately got fighting hot.

  He was walking his long-legged ass toward them like they was old friends or something. Instinct made Carmiesha reach out and touch Jahlil, who was sitting right beside her. She couldn’t believe this niggah was actually gonna approach her, and she stopped chewing her Cinnabon and looked at him like he was a fool for real.

  “Whattup, my brother!”

  Pimp walked straight up to the table and held out his hand to Jahlil for some dap.

  The boy lit up. He stood up so fast he bumped his knee on the table, then tried to rub it on the sly and play it off.

  “What’s up!” he said all excited. “What you doing up here?”

  Carmiesha couldn’t believe the smile that covered Jahlil’s face. She stared from him to Pimp and wanted to die. It was easy to see where Jahlil’s long lanky frame had come from. They were built exactly alike. And their skin tone was exactly the same too. Everybody in Carmiesha’s family was either light-skinned or light caramel, but Jahlil had the same pretty ebony skin that Pimp had.

  “Sit your ass down, Jahlil,” Carmiesha damn near hollered. “What did your mother and father tell you about speaking to strangers?”

  The boy laughed and went around to the other side of the table and grinned at Pimp.

  “He ain’t no stranger. I see him around the community center all the time. You Carl, right?”

  Carmiesha almost choked.

  “That’s right, man,” Pimp said, fake punching Jahlil and tapping him all over his head. “I be checking you and your little homeboys out when y’all on them video games. Who this?”

  Jahlil laughed and pretended to throw a bunch of punches back at Pimp. Carmiesha wanted to scream when Pimp threw his arms around Jahlil and caught him in a hug, and Jahlil hugged him back.