Hittin' the Bricks: An Urban Erotic Tale Read online

  Their cab pulled up to a traffic light where a big crowd had gathered in an alley outside of an elite club called Bricks. There was a big record shop in front of the club that stayed crowded all the time, but Eva had heard it was really just a front for all kinds of illegal activity. All the real action was going on beyond that, where the hottest artists, ballers, and professional athletes in the nation hung out in a converted loft in the back.

  Eva looked out the window with wide eyes. People were standing out there waiting to get in like it was a free liquor giveaway. It wasn’t like Bricks was some chic or ultra modern uptown club or nothing. It was in a grimy area of Harlem where niggahs and bitches was hood as hell, but all kinds of people stood in line for hours tryna be seen up in there. And not just anybody could walk up to the door and get in, either. A murderous-looking security crew kept things on lock outside, and if you didn’t have a VIP pass from an insider, or your name wasn’t on the guest list, it didn’t matter if your ass was Tupac or Biggie Smalls. You wasn’t getting past security and you wasn’t getting in.

  “Dayumm!” Alex squealed as they eyed the crowd. “It’s about to be banging up in that spot tonight! I wonder who’s performing? Forget about Shakez and India’s ass too! Tell Mister Cabbie to pull over. Let’s jump out this bitch right now! I can text India and tell her to meet us inside Bricks!”

  Eva shook her head. “Come on, Alex. We ain’t dissin’ India like that. And besides, you said you wanted to sing at Shakez tonight. This could be your big chance to get in that contest and blow it up. Nah,” she said as the cab pulled off, “we ain’t going to no club without India anyway. The way that girl shakes her ass?”

  The Harlem walk-up they lived in wasn’t much different than the tenement Eva had lived in with Rasheena and Jahden in Brooklyn, but at least it felt like a real home. Eva’s aunt Milena was her papi’s older sister, and even though Milena had taken a bad stumble with drugs herself, she was one of those addicts who had gotten back on her feet and tried to be somewhat of a mother to her child. Eva’s papi had been two years younger than Milena, and they used to be real close when he was alive. Eva’s grandparents were Dominican and had come to New York as teenagers to find work and a better life.

  Eva’s papi’s name was Marco, and him and her aunt Milena had the same silky black hair and coffee-colored skin of their parents. When Eva’s mother, Rasheena, was younger she had had the kind of body and good looks that could devastate a club full of gay men. Papi had been wide open on Rasheena from the day they met at a mutual friend’s card party in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn. Eva had inherited the best from both of her parents. Her skin was dark cocoa and real smooth, just like Rasheena’s. Once she stopped getting high and started eating regular meals it was clear that she had gotten Rasheena’s stacked body too, maybe even a better version, but Eva’s hair came mostly from her father. It was jet black and silky when she blow-dried it, but let that stuff get wet. She’d be walking around with a thick mass of puffy curls that hung halfway down her back. It was something that Eva both liked and didn’t like. Black folks acted like she thought she was cute because of it, and Dominicans all over Harlem called her nappy-headed and screamed on her to get a damn perm!

  “Your mami is a queen,” Eva’s papi used to say all the time. There were stars in his eyes each time he looked at Rasheena. “My beautiful black queen.”

  Papi had moved to Brooklyn to get next to Rasheena, and not too much later they had Eva. But destiny just wasn’t on their side. Life seemed to shit all over Eva’s family no matter which way they turned. Her grandparents were burned to death in a suspicious house fire. The police thought it mighta been a crackhead trying to stay warm in the basement of their building. After that, her aunt Milena got messed up behind some worthless baller who had hand problems and liked to beat on her. The guy had a big problem with Fiyah, so Papi used to go get his nephew from Harlem and bring him to their crib in Brooklyn all the time. Eva and Fiyah were only a year apart in age, so they hung out together and became close.

  But life took a fucked up turn for both kids when Eva’s father died. Papi used to work construction for this Italian family in Brooklyn. He didn’t get like, trained in school or nothing, but he was a fast learner so they put him on and paid him decent doe under the table. It was a hot day in August and Papi had been doing roof work out in the sun for ten hours straight. When it was time to get off work he went down to the portable showers his bosses kept on the site and started washing all that sweat and sticky tar off of him.

  Eva was only eleven when it happened, but even at that age she could tell that the people Papi worked for were shiesty. One of Papi’s co-workers had called Rasheena and told her that something real bad had happened. Papi had gone in one of the stalls to take a shower, and as soon as he turned the water on they heard a loud thud. Immediately his friend said they started smelling a real nasty burning odor.

  It was Papi’s hair.

  They had to break the door down to get to him. Papi was burned all over his body, but not from hot water like you might have expected. Eva’s papi had been electrocuted. Fried. Somebody on the site had messed up and didn’t ground the water heater the right way, and the water that sprayed down on her papi was charged with high-voltage electricity.

  The co-worker who called Rasheena from the hospital had been the first one to reach Papi. He had tried to drag Papi out of the stall and had gotten some real serious burns himself. Rasheena was crying on the phone as the man told her that Papi was still alive when he got to him. He hadn’t died right away. Eva’s papi had suffered some horrible-ass agony first, and even though his heart was still beating when the ambulance got there, the condition of his body was enough to know that he wasn’t gonna make it.

  Ghetto-lawyers were hanging all out the project windows telling Rasheena how she should sue those damn Italians for every dime they had. They had her counting all that phantom money in her head for days before she got the news that Papi’s death wasn’t gonna bring her and Eva nothing but grief.

  For one thing, them Italians were slick. They had real lawyers on their side. Not the kind that had picked up some law lingo while doing time in jail, but the kind who had actually gone to law school and studied that shit. Those big-time attorneys-at-law sent Rasheena a letter saying there were no personnel records on file of a Marco Perez working for their firm. They said as far as they knew, Papi had been sneaking onto their property trying to steal copper wires, and it was tragic and unfortunate that he stumbled into an area where he didn’t belong and got himself killed.

  “But what about Papi’s friend?” Eva had asked Rasheena. “He knows Papi worked there! He tried to save Papi and almost got killed too!”

  By the time those bosses got through with him, Papi’s friend was deaf and dumb. He couldn’t remember ever working with a smooth Dominican cat named Marco, and besides, he said he couldn’t have witnessed nothing because he wasn’t even there. He had been on a whole nother construction site way across town when he accidentally burned himself while trying to ground a water heater.

  That was it for Eva and Rasheena. They were left out there in the cold with no Papi and no money. It wasn’t long after that when Rasheena let that slimy-ass Jahden move in with them, and that was the moment when stark fear crept into Eva’s life and all her nightmares began.

  Eva ran into the building with Alex and held her breath as they dodged piss puddles and jetted up the steps. They sped past the second floor, pinching their noses as they got close to the stanky incinerator room. The chute had been sealed closed for years and the room was always full of bags of putrid, rotting garbage. Alex and Eva both lived on the second floor. Alex lived with her parents and her cross-dressing brother Georgie who shook his ass in the club, and Eva stayed with Aunt Milena and Fiyah. They ran up two more flights to the fourth floor where India rested. India had been living upstairs from them for the past three years. She was the type of sistah who looked just like her name. Tall, tan-brow
n with exotic features, and just beautiful from every angle. India had a vicious body on her too, and dudes chased after her like mad. She liked to dress nice and her long straight hair stayed buttered up. While Eva would be walking around with her natural bush in a halo of thick curls, India’s hair looked like she relaxed that shit every other day, and even through some of her roughest times Eva had never seen her girl with one hair on her head looking raggedy.

  But while Eva and Alex dreamed ghetto dreams of singing and modeling urban gear in sexy magazines, and dancing on stage with artists like Diddy and Jay-Z, India was finer than both of them. Plus, she had bigger dreams. India wanted to use her brain and go to college and become a surgeon one day. A pediatric surgeon who healed sick kids.

  But dreams were just dreams in their hood, and reality was a real bitch. India shared a one-bedroom apartment with her little sister, Rosa, and her disabled father, and she had already fallen a year behind in high school because she was always busy trying to taking care of all three of them.

  “Who is it?!?” India barked when Eva knocked on the door.

  “It’s me,” Eva said, wondering what was up with all that hostility in her girl’s tone.

  “Me who?”

  “Me, me! It’s Eva, stupid.”

  There was a pause, then India asked suspiciously, “Who’s out there with you? You by yourself?”

  Eva turned and gave Alex a what-the-fuck look.

  “It’s me and Alex, Indy. Why you trippin’? Open the damn door!”

  She opened the door, but only a crack. She left the chain on and peeked through the slit.

  “What’s up?” Eva asked, puzzled.

  “Anybody behind you?”

  Eva shrugged over her shoulder. “Just Alex.”

  Alex started wilding as she eyed India through the crack in the door.

  “See there, Eva! This chick ain’t even ready! I told you we shoulda dipped into Bricks and then texted her ass later!”

  Eva ignored Alex, but when India opened the door and yanked them inside, she knew something was wrong. India’s father was sitting right there in the living room with his head slumped over in his wheelchair. Eva could feel the tension in the air. What she had taken for a shitty attitude in India was really fear. Her girl was scared. Shook down to her low-rider shorts that were cut damn near down to her pussy.

  India closed the door behind them and locked both locks. Then she put the chain back on the door and stuck a kitchen chair up under the knob.

  For the first time ever, India looked a busted mess. Her hair was wild and her T-shirt was mad dirty and looked like she had dribbled red Kool-Aid all over it.

  Alex gasped. “India! Your shit is fucked up!”

  “What’s wrong?” Eva cried. Her girl was un-the-fuck-done!

  Tears rushed to India’s eyes. “It’s that niggah Saint. He’s gunning for me, y’all! He gave me a package to take to Jersey this morning and I fucked up. I got the drop address wrong and lost three of his bricks. He sent me a text when I came back without the money that said, ‘You stupid black bitch, kiss ya whole family good-bye ’cause you gone be bodied before the sun comes up.’”

  “He gave you a package? I thought you said Saint didn’t involve you in none of his drug business. What? You riding for him now?”

  India nodded, looking miserable. “I’ve been riding for about a month,” she admitted. “Kapp usually makes the Jersey runs ’cause he didn’t have no record. But he got knocked for handing off to a narc. Saint needed somebody to take his place, so he sent me. It was only supposed to be for a minute.”

  Eva couldn’t believe the bullshit she was hearing.

  “Indy! You over here with your father and sister depending on your ass and you let yourself get caught up in some dumb shit like this?”

  “I know,” she whispered, and she was really crying now. “I don’t know what the fuck he’s got planned for me, but I know it ain’t good. I heard him talking on the phone before I left early this morning. He’s got another drop to make later on tonight so I think I’m cool for right now. But his boys have been riding past the building all night. Tone and Vasquez was calling me out the window earlier, telling me to come downstairs. Them fools was waving gats in the air! I closed the curtains and made Rosa get in the closet. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Call the fuckin’ cops!” Alex demanded. “I’m tired of these drug-slanging bastards! Yo, if Saint is gonna be somewhere making a transaction tonight, why don’t you just drop a dime on that niggah and let the narcs take him down?”

  India shook her head. “I take him down, and what about his posse? When I lost that dope I lost their money too. You think they just gonna roll over and let me slide with that?”

  “You got Rosa in the closet?” Eva asked quietly. She thought about all the days she had spent locked in small spaces when she was younger. Rasheena would leave her alone in the closet so long that she’d be gasping from hunger. She learned to hide a roll of toilet paper underneath all the trash her mother kept in there. When she got real hungry she’d tear off one square at a time and chew it good enough to swallow it. She didn’t even care that it made her stomach hurt and poke out like a starving kid from Africa. At least she was full off something and wouldn’t starve.

  “Yeah. She’s still in there,” India cried. “I didn’t know what else to do!”

  Eva marched into the apartment’s only bedroom and yanked open the door. Poor little Rosa was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her round eyes were big and scared.

  “C’mon, baby,” Eva said, reaching out to her and smoothing her braided hair. Rosa was already six and too big to be carried around, but Eva picked her up and balanced her on her hip anyway. Rosa clung to her. She was trembling, and as Eva held the child close she felt moisture seeping into her clothes.

  Rosa was wet. The poor little girl had sat there in the closet and peed on herself. Tears came to Eva’s eyes. She knew how it felt to be locked up and confined in a closet when you had to go. She used to fight against her bladder for hours. And when she lost, as she usually did, she’d have to piss right there on the floor and then scoot into a corner and try not to sit in it as she inhaled the rank aroma for hours until Rasheena felt like letting her out.

  Eva turned to Alex, who loved kids just as much as she did. “Do me a quick favor,” she said, passing Rosa to her. “Take Rosa downstairs and see if my aunt Milena is still up.” Eva’s aunt took care of Rosa while India went to school every day, and Eva knew she wouldn’t mind getting up to take care of her now. “I think Rosa would probably dig a bubble bath too, Alex.” She turned to Rosa. “You wanna take a bubble bath in my tub, baby girl?”

  Rosa nodded with big eyes and a serious face. Eva was glad when Alex kissed the child’s cheeks, then cuddled her in her arms and carried her out the apartment as India double-locked the door behind them.

  Eva sat down on India’s bed and pulled India down beside her. There was a look of terror and deep shame on her friend’s face.

  “I fucked up, Eva. I fucked up.”

  Eva tried to comfort her. “You made a big mistake, Indy, but it don’t have to be a fatal one. You gotta get away from Saint, though. You gotta do whatever it takes to get away from that mothafucka.”

  “Eva, you don’t really know. It ain’t that easy to just bounce like that. Saint owns Harlem. Where I’m gonna go?”

  “India, listen to me,” Eva said forcefully. She put her arm around India’s shoulder and pulled her close. “It don’t matter where you go. Just go! Don’t you have some friends out in Queens? Jet up outta here and go chill with them for a minute. Saint got too much product flowing in Harlem to worry about following you. Go lay low with your friends for a few. He’ll forget about you the minute the next cute chick with long hair and a big ass walks by. For real.”

  India didn’t look convinced. She just looked miserable.

  “What about Rosa? And my father? I got responsibilities, Eva! I can’t just run away an
d leave them here to make it by themselves.”

  “Don’t worry about your family, India. Your life is on the line. Between me and Aunt Milena, Rosa will be well taken care of. She’s downstairs with us all the time as it is anyway. Everybody in my house loves Rosa like she’s our own family, so it won’t be no problem. And we got your papi covered too. I’ll bring him something to eat every day, and I’ll get Fiyah to help him take a bath and change his clothes. We can handle this shit, India. What we can’t handle is you sticking around here and then Saint taking you out. Nah, none of us can handle that.”

  “Saint put me in an impossible spot. He told me I had to make them fuckin’ runs and I was scared not to! What the fuck was I supposed to do, Eva? It ain’t nobody here for Rosa but me and my father, and he’s stuck in that damn wheelchair. If Saint takes me out, my father sits there and dies. If he fucks with my sister or my father, then I’ll die. You don’t know what this shit is like! I’m on my own, Eva. You got Fiyah and your aunt to help you. And your moms is right downtown in Brooklyn if you need her. Saint would straight body me if I crossed him,” she cried. “Who the fuck do I got?”

  Eva stared hard at India but she didn’t have any words for her. Eva had been in Harlem for four years but the memory of Brooklyn still haunted her every single day. Nobody knew what she had been through back in Brownsville except her one trusted friend, Reem Raw. Milena and Fiyah knew Rasheena and Jahden had beaten her, yeah. They knew about the drugs too, and it was Aunt Milena who took Eva to a drug treatment center so she could get clean. She was totally beat down back then, but a big part of her head was still real clear. Eva wanted off the drugs and she was willing to go cold turkey to do that shit, but the people at the clinic wouldn’t let her. They said she was too sick and too malnourished. Her iron was real low and her blood count wasn’t right. They said kicking cold turkey would probably kill her, so they put her on a quick detox course. Fourteen-year-old Eva was sedated and given the powerful drugs that would get her off of heroin, and by the time she woke up her body’s neuroreceptors had been so programmed to reject skag that even if she shot up for the next year she wouldn’t have felt the high.