Crack cocaine was not on the popular scene in Tracy’s neighborhood until the end of that summer of nineteen-eighty-six. A few boys sold marijuana and beer, but cocaine was new, highly addictive and in more demand. It was also the most profitable. It became an achievement for a girl to have a drug-dealing boyfriend. The status, the glamour and the money were beyond compare for teenagers.
Drug dealers in Philly drove Cadillac Eldorados, Ford Bronco jeeps, Mercedes Benzes and BMW’s. They became the most talked about, instead of the athletes, the fighters and the pretty-boys. Drug dealing was the new in thing to do, with dealers making hundreds to thousands of dollars a day. No one knew who was the first to sell drugs in Tracy’s part of the city. The word was out that drugs were moving into Germantown from North and South Philly, where crack cocaine had been popular since as early as nineteen-eighty-one.
Tracy remained in shock after the police arrested Timmy. She decided to leave boys alone for a while. She sat outside on her patio, watching flashy teens drive by in fancy cars with thumping sound systems.
Tracy could not help but be curious about them. All of the neighborhood gossip became focused around who’s who in the drug world. Victor was one of the primary young sellers in the area, running things under his brother. Bruce’s friend Bucky began conducting “business,” as he liked to call it, for Victor’s brother in his area. College basketball was not profitable for Todd “Hoops” Hinson, but the cocaine business was booming.
Tracy was attracted to a few of the dealers, regardless of her efforts to leave guys alone. On occasion, her growing curiosity had led her to the playground to learn more about them.
As Tracy looked up and down her block, she noticed Bruce, walking up toward her house. He wore a light-blue Izod tennis shirt with matching shorts. Tracy knew that he and Bucky had broken off. Bruce was not fond of drugs.
He walked right up to her steps and sat next to Tracy without a word.
“What, you just gon’ sit here and not say anything?”
“So, what’s been up, Tracy?” Bruce asked, as he looked into her hazels glittering in the sunlight. Damn, she’s beautiful! he told himself. Obviously he was still not over her.
“Nothin’. What’s up with you?”
“I’m ’bout to go to the Bahamas.” Bruce hoped that she would ask more about it.
Tracy ignored it. “How come you don’t hang out with your friend anymore?” she asked, wickedly. She already knew why; she just wanted to hear Bruce’s full explanation.
“Because, Bucky got his own life now.”
“Are you mad at him or something?” she pressed, wanting a more precise answer.
“Did I say I was mad at him?”
“Well, I thought you and Bucky were best friends.”
“Oh, we still cool, we just don’t hang out no more.”
Tracy was guiding Bruce slowly but surely to where she wanted to go with their conversation: to talk about the drug trade.
“Why not?” she asked him.
“He got new buddies now.”
“So what does that mean?”
“Look, I don’t like his new friends, aw’ight,” Bruce finally snapped at her. Although he was glad she was being cordial to him again, he was growing weary of her questions.
“Well, don’t get mad at me for it.”
“Stop asking me about it then.”
Bruce was giving her the run-around instead of saying what she wanted him to say about drug dealing.
A blue Eldorado with white trimming whipped around the corner. Tracy noticed Victor driving, with Mark Bates in the passenger seat. Victor had recently turned eighteen, the same age as Bruce. Tracy would be turning a mere fifteen in September, but she looked eighteen.
Victor shouted, “Yo Bruce, come here, man!”
Tracy felt queasy about Victor and Bruce being out in front of her house together.
“You know where Bucky at, man?” Victor asked him.
“Naw, I don’t be with him no more.”
“Yeah, what’s up wit’ ’dat, man? You ain’t down with this money or something, cuz’,” Mark interjected.
Bruce never liked Mark. Mark Bates faked being cooler and tougher than what he really was, perpetrating like he was a real somebody. He was nothing to talk about to Bruce.
Bruce quizzed him, “How much money you gettin’ out of it?”
“Oh, I’m makin’ mine.”
“Yeah, sure you are.”
Victor knew that Bruce could easily beat Mark in a real confrontation. Bruce may have not been so good at enticing girls, but he was nobody’s punk.
Victor said, “Bruce, if you wanna get put down just get wit’ me, man. And tell Bucky I was lookin’ for ’em.” He then looked over at Tracy and smiled. “Oh yeah, tell my young-girl that I said, ‘hi.’ ”
Bruce nodded as Victor’s “El-dog” sped off, thumping Schoolly D’s “Gucci Time.”
Bruce walked back over to sit with Tracy.
“What did he say to you?” she asked him excitedly.
It was clear to Bruce that she still liked Victor, even though he seldom said anything to her.
“Nothin’,” he lied jealously.
Tracy begged, “Come on. Tell me.”
Bruce smiled. “What ’chew gon’ do for me?”
Tracy looked at him and frowned. “Oh, well, never mind then. And if you’re not gon’ tell me, you can get off of my steps, too.”
“Look at you actin’ like a kid.”
“Well, tell me then, and I’ll do somethin’ with you.” Tracy smiled seductively.
Bruce laughed. “You a trip, ’cause I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’.”
“Please, ‘Brucie,’ ” Tracy begged, pulling on his arm. It was just like old times again. Tracy had not changed a bit.
“You want me bad, hunh?” Bruce asked her sarcastically.
Tracy released him, disgusted. “Boy, I don’t want you. I’m goin’ in the house.”
Bruce knew he had gotten her goat. He strolled off with a big smile on his face.
“And don’t come back here no more,” Tracy yelled at his back.
Bruce continued to smile, and he took her ranting to mean the exact opposite.
“Tracy! Bruce is down here,” Patti yelled up the steps that next evening.
Tracy ran down, excited about seeing him. But she kept her liking for him incognito. It was more fun that way.
“Didn’t I tell you not to come here anymore?” she said to Bruce with a grin. She was wearing a red Le Coq Sportif sweat suit with an asymmetric hairdo, and the gigantic Tracy earrings that Timmy had bought her. She refused to listen to her mother about not wearing them anymore, especially since Timmy had purchased them with what she called “dirty money.” Tracy argued, “Unless you just got new dollar bills from the bank, all money is dirty, mom.”
Bruce sat on her couch and said, “I was around the courts, and I thought I might as well stop by.”
“Was it a game around there?” Tracy asked him. She joined him on the couch, keeping a space in between them.
“Yeah, but it’s over with now,” he answered her. “And you know dude named Peppy?”
Tracy frowned. “Yeah, I know that punk.”
Bruce smiled. “Dig, I don’t like dude either, but he got busted up at the courts though.”
“By who?” Tracy asked, hungry for gossip.
“Some drug-dealing dude named Cash. You know who I’m talkin’ about?”
“Unt unh. I heard about him though. What he look like?”
“He a cool-looking dude, tall, brown and slender. He look a little like Rudy on the Fat Albert Show,” Bruce told her with a laugh.
Tracy shook her head. “No he don’t,” she responded. She thought about getting a chance to meet the boy. She then turned her attention back to Bruce.
Tracy asked him with a smile, “So Bruce, when you gon’ buy me somethin’ again?” She gestured passion with her hazels.
Bruce slapped his hand on her knee and whispered, “As soon as we make love again.”
Tracy figured he was serious. “You ain’t making love to me,” she snapped, turning away from him. She wanted to see if Bruce would pursue her. He would be more exciting that way.
“Why not?” he asked, begging already.
“Because I said you can’t,” Tracy told him, annoyed by his weakness. Bruce was still slow.
“Well, the fuck if I’m gon’ buy anything then,” he snapped in a low tone. Patti was right in the kitchen. Bruce added, “You ain’t givin’ me no ass. So what I look like, Santa Claus or some shit to you?”
“Watch your mouth, boy,” Tracy said, tickled brown. She chuckled at his radical response. Then she lied. “I don’t want nothin’ from you, Bruce. I just wanted to see if you were still stingy.”
Bruce looked in between Tracy’s legs. “Look how stingy you are.”
Tracy grinned. “You nasty.”
“Aw, girl, don’t even try it. You know damn well you be givin’ them panties up.”
Tracy laughed aloud.
Bruce asked, “Can I get some water?”
“No, you can’t have nothin’ from me.” She was hoping that Bruce would keep talking nasty to her. Tracy liked it.
Patti came out of the kitchen.
“Is Jason still in front of the house?”
Tracy responded, annoyed, “Yeah, mom.”
Patti was in the way.
She walked to the front door to see for herself.
Bruce figured it was a perfect opportunity to get the upper hand on Tracy. “Oh, I can’t get anything to drink, Tracy?” He was sure that Patti would hear him.
“Tracy, get up and get him somethin’.”
Bruce giggled at his success.
Tracy said playfully, while bringing him a glass of lemonade, “I hate you.”
“Yeah, I know you love me.”
“I don’t hardly love you, boy.”
Bruce chuckled, gulping from the tall blue glass. “Well, I’m ’bout to roll,” he said, finishing the lemonade. His mother had told him he had to start packing for their trip to the Bahamas.
Tracy asked, “Why you leavin’?”
Bruce lied. “I gotta go see my girlfriend.”
“None of your business,” he answered sharply, walking toward the door.
Tracy followed him out of her house, disappointed that he didn’t stay longer. She was jealous, thinking that he was telling the truth.
“Don’t leave, Bruce,” she pleaded. She then whispered, “Fuck that girl.” She looked back toward her brother, who was playing on the lawn with a neighbor, to make sure that they didn’t hear her.
Bruce felt in charge. He wanted to keep Tracy begging. “Nope. I gotta go. Bye-bye. Seeya’ later. Buenos noches. Don’t forget to write.” He laughed as he walked off down her block.
Tracy retorted, “Well, don’t come back then.”
Of course, she meant the opposite. Bruce was fun.
She looked and noticed a brand-new jeep at the opposite corner. She waited for Bruce to disappear before going to inspect it further.
“Where you goin’, Tracy?” Jason asked, tagging along. His friend had been called inside.
“Nowhere, boy. Get back in front of the house,” she told him. Jason remained at her side as Tracy looked the Bronco jeep over. It was two-toned, black on the top and gold across the bottom.
Jason squealed, “Deeeeep. This truck is decent.” He was four years old.
“Shet up, boy,” Tracy told him, being evil.
“So you like my jeep, hunh, pretty?”
Tracy turned and spotted a tall, handsome, brown-skinned teenager wearing white leather shorts and a purple t-shirt. A wide gold chain was wrapped around his neck, and he wore no socks with his Timberland shoes.
Tracy said, “It is kind of nice.” Feeling nervous, she seized Jason’s hand.
Tall-and-handsome asked, “What’s your name?”
“Tracy.”
He leaned up against his jeep. “You live on this block, Tracy?”
“Yeah.”
“My name is Jason,” her brother said, reaching out to shake Tall-and-handsome’s hand.
“Oh, you a cool little dude, hunh?” he responded. He picked Jason up, shocking Tracy with his friendliness. She stood there, waiting to be sweet-talked, as he put Jason back down and looked her over.
“So Tracy, I got an aunt that lives here, and whenever I’m up here to see her, I can stop by and shoot the breeze with you.”
“Aw’ight. I live right there,” Tracy told him, pointing to her house. “What’s your name?” she finally asked him.
“Everybody calls me ‘Cash.’ My name was Ronald three years ago. But hell, you might as well call me Cash now, too.”
Tracy asked, “Was you just fightin’ some boy named Peppy at the playground?”
Cash nodded with a grin. “Yeah, I had to smack dude up a bit, you know. He was talkin’ shit to me like he was hard or something.”
Tracy liked his sense of authority and his nonchalant attitude. “I hate that boy,” she told him.
“Yeah, well anyway, won’t you give me your number so I can call you when I come back around to see my aunt?”
“Aw’ight,” Tracy responded, refreshed by a new boy with a Bronco jeep. She wrote her number on a business card that Cash had pulled from his dashboard. He seemed to have everything in control. Tracy loved his organization. He gave her a beeper number and a three-digit code before he left, pumping Roxanne Shante from his booming system.
“Yo Cash, we gon’ pick up that package later on?” asked a short, tanned-skinned friend.
“Naw, man. We ain’t got the money together from the last one yet. And I ain’t trying to owe no niggas nothin’.”
Cash sat on his apartment couch, back in North Philly, counting ones, fives, tens and twenties.
“So you busted dude up today, hunh?” Short-tan asked.
“Oh yeah, Ed, ’cause dude thought I was a sucka’.” Cash was still preoccupied with counting money.
“It be some babes up there, Cash?” Ed asked. He was watching Black Caesar, starring Fred Williamson, on the VCR.
Cash said, “Up in Germantown? Yeah, they got some good-lookin’ chicks, cuz’. I met this young chumpee named Tracy up there t’day. She live on my aunt’s block, on Diamond Lane. Mount Airy got some bad bitches too though. Straight up. Them rich hoes be lookin’ gooder than a muthafucka.”
“They got any connections, runnin’ things up there?”
“Yeah, my man Victor Hinson and his brother got things rollin’. We went to school together in elementary. Victor’s people’s from North Philly.”
Cash stood up to look out of the window. “Yo Ed, here come that girl, man. Get the shit.”
Ed went outside and met her at the corner.
The ragged woman spied him nervously. “Give me a twenty, man.”
He made the transaction and went back to the apartment.
Cash said, “That bitch come like every two days, cuz’.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Ed gave Cash the ruffled twenty-dollar bill.
“Man, she gotta get that monkey off her back,” he responded, chuckling to himself. “Ay, man, I’m gon’ call that young-girl up. Fuck it, you know.”
Cash walked to the phone with the number in his hand and dialed it.
“Hello . . . Yeah, is Tracy there? Yo, what’s up? It’s Cash . . . Yeah, well you know what? That’s for young-boah’s, ’cause when I get a babe’s number, I’m gon’ use it when I want to . . . Yeah, well I was thinking ’bout coming up on Thursday, if you really wanted to ride around and all.”
Ed interjected, while peeping out of the window, “Yo Cash, that bugged-out bitch is back again.”
Cash spied out the window, four stories down. “Ay Tracy, I’m gon’ call you back in a few.” He hung up the phone and went back to the window. “Aw, man, I’m ’bout to punch this girl in her mouth.”
They watched the young woman marching up the stairs toward their apartment complex. She was flyy, sporting gold and gear.
Cash sprinted outside, catching her before she made it inside of the building.
“I want my shit!” she screamed at him.
“Look, girl, I told you I ain’t got it.”
“Well, you know somethin’ about it.”
“Why you think I know, out of all people?”
“ ’Cause you down wit’ Victor and them.”
“What he got to do with it? You fuckin’ him or some shit?”
“Look, all I know is that I was at that damn party up Haines Street, and my three hundred dollars are missin’. Now one of y’all know about the shit.”
Her good looks were beginning to decline from being out in the streets too long. She was twenty-four years old, still dating young hustlers.
Cash said, “Well, you should’na had all that money on you anyway. You knew everybody was damn-near drunk in ’nere.”
“I was holding it for my boyfriend.”
“Who’s your boyfriend?”
“Shawn Matthews.”
Cash roared, “That dick-head is your boyfriend?” Another customer came up as he laughed. “YO, ED, come out and get this, man!”
Ed was watching from the window and came down to make a transaction with an older man. The gray-haired man wobbled in his stance. He then walked away shoving the twenty-dollar pack of cocaine inside of his pocket as if it would fly away from him.
The young woman who had been arguing with Cash stopped herself to think about things for a second. “It’s a shame, what y’all do to these people,” she commented.
“We ain’t doin’ nothin’ but business. They takin’ the drugs themselves. Nobody’s forcin’ ’em,” Cash argued.
“Well look, I just wanna get my money back,” she told him, getting back to the matter at hand.
Cash quizzed her, “Ain’t that money your boyfriend had from drug-selling? Shawn sell drugs, too. He a nut, but he still sellin’.”
“Look, I’on even know. Okay?”
Cash smiled and said, “Yeah, you know, you just don’t wanna say it. So you can’t say shit to me about gettin’ paid, ’cause I’m gon’ try to live it up as best I can.”
Cash never did call Tracy back. He had “business” to take care of.
Tracy went school shopping with her family.
“So how much money you gon’ milk for today?” her father asked.
“Well, you haven’t been around for a while. You owe me a lot, now.”
“I owe,” Dave responded to her sternly. Tracy was referring to him as if he was one of her little boyfriends. “Your mother told me about that boyfriend you had, so I think I’m ’bout to start showing up around the house more often. You’re getting way out of hand, to be living on the edge like that. You’re not even fifteen yet.”
Tracy grimaced. “I’m about to be fifteen though.”
“Yup,” Jason added, holding his mother’s hand.
Patti still had few words for her estranged husband. He knew where she stood in the matter. She wanted his ass to stay home or stay away, but he could not do both.
Dave retorted, “Girl, jokes and games are over. Now you better start thinkin’ before you get out here in them damn streets.”
Tracy listened, but she didn’t plan to adhere to anything. Where had he been? Who was he to give advice?
“In fact, I don’t know why you need so many new clothes anyway. It seems to me that all this extra stuff is the main reason that you’re out here running the streets,” her father commented.
Tracy rolled her eyes. “Well, forget it then. I don’t need any clothes.”
Dave grabbed her arm. “So you think that since I’m not in the house with you and your mother that you can say anything you want to me now? Is that it?”
Tracy snapped, “Wait a minute, nobody asked you to leave. You wanted to leave us, so don’t start acting like you wasn’t welcomed home. Maybe if you was home more, I would have something else to do,” she said, as she walked away from him.
Jason anxiously threw his hand to his mouth, expecting Tracy to get in trouble.
Dave looked to Patti, but she was not ready to sympathize with him. “If you really want to help her, then you know where your daughter lives,” she told him.
Patti sat and listened all that night as Dave lectured Tracy about the “hot-ass girls” he knew when he was a teenager. Patti had been a “hot-ass” herself, she and her sisters. Nevertheless, despite Dave’s efforts, all Tracy could think about was how her father had the audacity to tell her how to live when he had basically walked out on his family.
Dave was gone again, talked out, after only an hour of shopping and three hours of lecturing.
Patti sat on the living-room couch with her son after his father had walked out on them again. “You see that? Now I’m stuck to raise you and Tracy all by myself. And that sister of yours is just too fast for her own good.”
“So where are we goin’?” Tracy asked Cash, hopping inside of his black and gold Bronco.
Cash was going on nineteen years old, older than any boy Tracy had dealt with. He pulled off without responding to her. The air-conditioner pumped into Tracy’s face, and the bass from his stereo system made it feel like she was at a live concert. They whipped down the street doing forty miles per hour to an unknown destination as Tracy enjoyed the scenery. Cash then stopped at a gas station to fill up while Tracy leaned back in the passenger seat, thinking that she was dreaming. Yet it was real. She was not yet fifteen, cruising in a brand-new jeep with a young drug dealer.
Cash said, “Look, I gotta go pick up this package, and then I got some other stops to make.”
Tracy nodded. She had been on several car rides before, but a jeep ride with him was the best.
They drove through neighborhoods in Philadelphia that Tracy had never been to before. Outside of Logan, where she had had dance classes, Tracy never had any reason to visit other areas. Germantown was her home.
They stopped in the middle of a block, in the heart of North Philly. Cash jumped out and was surrounded by five or six tough-looking friends.
“CASH MO-N-A-A-Y! What’s up, man?”
They looked into the jeep at Tracy, reminding her of the type of rough-looking guys that her cousins dated in Logan. Cash then walked around the jeep to let her out.
“Come on,” he demanded, opening the door.
Tracy climbed out, feeling terrified. Her father tried to tell her about living in the fast lanes. She looked around, realizing that Cash had every motive in the world to sell drugs. The streets were ripped up and aged, along with the cars and the houses. Down at the opposite corner, two girls were fist fighting and trying to nearly kill each other, but the neighbors seemed unconcerned. They were used to the chaos.
Cash was showing Tracy off, or “sportin’ her.” “Come here, I want you to meet my boy, Wayne,” he said.
Wayne looked Tracy over: pretty face, honey-brown complexioned, hazel-eyed, tall, full of body, asymmetric hair and glittering with gold.
Wayne responded, “Damn, girl, you got any older sisters?” He was older than Cash. Tracy suspected that Cash was working for him. Wayne looked about twenty-four and was loosely dressed with Adidas gear. He had a neatly trimmed goatee and was walnut-brown like Mercedes.
Wayne looked important. Tracy could not help staring at his thick, gold nugget bracelet. Then again, her earrings were just as big, shining ostentatiously. And she could sense that the North Philly girls were jealously staring at her. She was taking one of their players.
“No, I don’t have any sisters,” she answered Wayne. “All I got is a little brother.”
Cash butted in. “Yeah, her brother gon’ be aw’ight, Wayne. Little dude ran up and spoke, shook my hand and everything. Oh, these my partners, L.C. and Trap,” he told Tracy, introducing two others. They weren’t as glamorous or as handsome as Wayne.
“Hi y’all doin’?” Tracy said politely.
“Not as fine as you, unfortunately,” L.C. said, laughing boisterously. “You know, cuz’? Unfortunately,” he repeated, still chuckling to himself. L.C. was short with a missing tooth, wearing an old Todd 1 sweat suit, which was out of fashion at the time.
Trap said, “Dig, ’cause I’m ’bout to run on up to Germantown and get quite fortunate myself, I must say.”
Tracy was pleased and tickled by their lighthearted Saturday Night Live attitudes. But she was smart enough to know that they were only friendly because Cash was their boy and she was his young-girl.
She followed Cash into his house to meet his young-looking mother and friendly sisters. His family was large. Tracy envied that. With three older brothers and four sisters, Cash would always have someone to talk to.
“So did you like my family and all?” he asked with a smile, as they traveled to the next stop in his jeep.
“Yeah. I wish I had a big family like that.”
Cash chuckled and said, “I wish I had a crib like yours. Girl, I would have loved to grow up up your way.”
“Why you say that?”
Cash grimaced as if it should have been obvious. “ ’Cause, it would have been a lot more peaceful, compared to the shit that I had to go through down North. And the thing that takes me out is how y’all got those fake-ass punks in y’all area, like that boah’ Peppy, thinkin’ he tough and shit. That’s why I had to smack him around for a second.”
Cash rolled down the windows to catch the night air. The sun was starting to set and the wind blew in, shaking Tracy’s earrings.
“That feels gooood,” she squealed.
Cash giggled at nothing.
“What’s so funny?” she quizzed him.
“I was just thinking about how scared you looked when I told you to get out the jeep,” he alluded. “GET OUT OF THE STREET, YOU LITTLE KNUCLEHEAD!” Cash screamed out of the window to a kid.
Tracy chuckled, watching the brown boy scatter to the sidewalk.
They arrived at their second destination, all the way down Southwest Philly. There weren’t as many people around as on Cash’s block in North. He told Tracy to stay inside the jeep, while he jumped out and ran into a house.
“Yo, you got that set-up for me?” he asked an older black man.
“Yeah. HEY SAM, give him that package, man!”
Sam said, “What took you so long, young-boah’? We thought you was gon’ be here at six-thirty.” He brought the package out with him from the kitchen. It was a clear sandwich bag with small packages of crack cocaine, all individually wrapped.
Cash said, “Yeah, well, I got this little young-girl out in the ride, and she just met my mom and sisters, back the way.”
“You got a little young-girl in the car, hunh?” Sam responded, looking out of the window at Tracy, who was sitting inside of the jeep impatiently. She didn’t like the idea of waiting outside of a drug house. “Damn, she a fine thing!” Sam said. He was at least thirty-two, and too old to be concerned about the latest fashions. He had on a plain pair of blue jeans and a red Nike T-shirt.
“How old you think she is?” Cash quizzed him with a smile.
“What, she’s like seventeen, eighteen, right? ’Cause I’m assuming she got to be younger than you. You ain’t got no game for no old-head pussy yet,” Sam told him. He laughed and slung an arm around Cash’s shoulder.
“Yeah, aw’ight, cuz’,” Cash responded, smirking. “But umm, naw. That girl only fifteen years old, Sam. Matter of fact, she fourteen, ’cause her birthday’s in two weeks.”
“W-o-o-o-o, slow down! You better watch them babies,” Sam told him seriously. “I don’t wanna see my man goin’ ta’ jail and shit, over some ass that still smell like piss.”
They roared laughing, like at a Richard Pryor concert.
Cash said, “Naw, Sam, it ain’t even like ’dat. She know what time it is. You gotta bring ’em in the right way, ’cause them young-boahs’ would just waste her potential. And I’m ’bout to blossom this young buck.”
Cash walked out with the package in a brown paper bag and hid it under his seat. It was the first time that Tracy had been around any crack cocaine. She tried to hold her tongue about it, but it was no use.
“What if we get stopped by the police?” she asked, laughing to camouflage her concern. She was serious, and Cash knew it. He rode down another street and turned the corner to park. He then turned the key off and took a deep breath.
Cash looked Tracy in her hazels and threw down his game. “Now I know that you’re spoiled and all, and that you grew up in a nice neighborhood, but this is the way I stay on top of life. I’m not tryin’ to get you involved in any dumb stuff, either. All I do, myself, is buy it and have it distributed. This the only time that I even touch the stuff.
“Now I’ma let you know right now, I like you, but this is how I do things. Now if you can’t deal with that, then fuck it. And after I drop you off tonight, just don’t call me no more.”
He turned the ignition back on and zoomed the jeep to the next stop, his distribution house. Tracy was not afraid of Cash like she was of Timmy; she just had some serious thinking to do about the drag trade. She was indirectly involved, but she knew that situations could turn hostile when the money didn’t add up right. Yet she liked the suspense of it, and she loved riding around in his jeep, but it was getting late.
Cash sprinted inside of the distribution house to organize his workers and kept some product for his buddy Ed. By then, it was ten thirty-five on a Tuesday night. Cash realized that Tracy had to be home soon, and by the time they had finally made it back to her Germantown block, she had fallen asleep and it was after twelve.
Cash howled, “Ay, girl! Get up!”
“What?” Tracy answered, pushing him off of her. Her hazels were sealed shut.
Cash hopped out of his jeep and walked around to the passenger side to carry her out.
“Dag, what time is it?” she asked, stretching in his arms.
“Just go in the house, girl.” He tossed Tracy down on the sidewalk. Her Reeboks hit the pavement with a plop, and she headed for her door.
Patti was asleep when Tracy crept into bed, but she knew that her daughter had been out later than usual. She figured she would catch her in the morning, or after she got in from work.
After cruising for six hours in Cash’s jeep, Tracy had a good sleep that night, straight through to eleven o’clock that next morning.
Jason announced, “Mommy said you gon’ get it when she gets home.” He was smiling, leaning overtop of her head when she awoke.
“Shet up and leave me alone.”
“Mommy told you to fix me some cereal when you get up.”
“Well, I ain’t up yet.”
Jason leaped on her demandingly. Tracy tossed him from her bed, and he landed on his head.
BLOOM!
“OOOOWWW! I’m gon’ tell mom on you, Tra-cy!”
“You shouldna’ been playin’ wit’ me!” she screamed at him. She climbed up out of bed to see if her brother was okay. Jason then punched her in the stomach and ran. Tracy smiled and shook her head, tickled by his revenge.
BRRRIIIINNGG! . . . BRRRIIIINNGG!
Jason called from the hallway, “The telephone, you dummy.”
“Hello,” Tracy answered, wiping sleep from her eyes.
“Yo, it’s Bruce. I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
Tracy didn’t want to be rude and just hang up on him, but she was in no mood to be hassled that morning. “Look, Bruce, I’m ’bout to fix my brother something to eat, so I’ll call you back,” she told him.
Bruce took a while to respond, as if he was thinking about something else to say. “Yeah, aw’ight then,” he finally responded to her.
“Come on, boy,” Tracy said to her brother, leading him down the steps and into the kitchen.
• • •
She expected her mother to be angry at her, but Tracy was not that concerned about it. I mean, what can she do to me? Put me on punishment, she pondered.
Tracy and Raheema gossiped all that afternoon about the boys and girls from around their neighborhood, while Jason had his playtime out in the sun. Raheema had been talking about boys more after dealing with Bruce, but she still did not date any of them, so Tracy told her all of her news, hoping that her neighbor would learn something for when she felt comfortable enough to try another boyfriend.
When a quarter after five ticked around, Patti pulled around the corner and parked out in front of the house.
“Here she comes, Tracy,” Raheema commented with a smile.
“I can see, girl,” Tracy snapped at her nervously. She then got up and walked into the house to make sure that she was not embarrassed outside. She strutted into the kitchen and poured herself some water to calm her nerves, wondering what her mother had in store for her. By the time she had finished, Patti was right behind her.
“Where the hell was your grown-ass last night, Tracy?” Patti was taking off her rings.
Tracy said, “Mom, honest t’ God, I fell asleep. I didn’t know what time it was.”
She watched her mother set her rings on the kitchen table, as if they were going to fist fight. Patti was still an inch or so taller than her daughter, and she was nearly twenty pounds heavier.
Patti grabbed Tracy by her hair, which was all piled up on top of her head. “Girl, I’m ’bout to whip your motherfuckin’ ASS!” she yelled violently. They slammed up against the long kitchen cabinet, next to the refrigerator as Patti attacked her daughter, smacking her face and flooring her with fists and elbows.
Tracy hollered with tears rushing down her face, too petrified to try and get away, “I’M SORRY, MOM-MEE! I WON’T DO IT AGAIN! PL-E-E-EASE! OH GOD! HELP ME!”
“GOD AIN’T GON’ HELP YOUR ASS, GIRL!” Patti roared. She stopped herself, seeing how helpless her daughter was and took a couple of deep breaths.
Tracy slid to the floor, crying hysterically.
“Take your hot-ass upstairs to your room! And you best not come the hell out until it’s wintertime!”
Tracy jumped up and sprinted past her mother and up to her room. She closed her door and jumped into her bed before Patti got a chance to mumble her last sentence.
Jason had walked inside wearing a smile, to see what was going on.
“This ain’t nothing to laugh about, Jason, because if you start acting up, you’re gonna get some of this too,” his mother warned him.
Her son’s smile quickly faded as Patti continued to rant while pacing her living room:
“If Tracy thinks that she’s gonna do whatever she wants, and come home anytime that she wants to, while out here running around with these damn boys, then I’m gonna tear fire to her ass more often.
“I don’t know who she thinks she is, but she ain’t old enough to make her own rules and schedules in this house, and when she thinks that she is, then she’s gonna be hittin’ that damn door, ’cause I’m not losing my my mind chasing after her. I already have to go though this shit with your father.”
Jason cringed from his mother’s unexpected rage and snuck back outside.
Patti walked back to the kitchen and took a seat to slip her rings back on her fingers. “I simply refuse to be stepped on,” she told herself.
Tracy didn’t see Cash for three weeks. She was in no rush to get back out into the fast lanes. She stayed around her house and played with her brother, figuring that she needed a resting period.
Patti eased up and let her off of punishment once the new school year started. It was the first Friday night that Tracy was allowed to go out. Raheema, Carmen and Jantel weren’t home when she called them. She then decided to sit out on her front steps in the cool, nighttime breeze, hoping that neighbors, or anyone, would decide to come out on her block. No one did.
Tracy could hear crickets chirping, it was so quiet. She looked at the stars to amuse herself, thinking about Cash’s black and gold Bronco. If she could wish for something, it would be for him to pick her up. Then she laughed at her ridiculousness, remembering how ready her mother was to beat her senseless.
A voice seemed to fall out of the night air, “Hey, pretty.”
Tracy snapped out of her daze. It was Bruce. “What’s up?” she perked, happy to have his company. Bruce could not stay away from her.
“Nothin’. I was up here, so I figured I’d come talk to you for a while,” he told her.
They fell silent for the first five minutes.
Tracy said, “I thought you came up here to talk to me.”
Bruce chuckled. “You know I’m going into the Air Force, right?” He turned to look up at Tracy’s asymmetric hairdo and those big Tracy gold earrings. She was fifteen years old, in high school. He was eighteen, heading into the United States Air Force, but Bruce couldn’t help being attracted to her.
Tracy grunted, “Unt unh.” She shook her head and looked even prettier to him. “Why you goin’ there?”
“ ’Cause, college is for those education-type people. I’d rather be doing somethin’ physical.”
Tracy glanced up the street at a car that was driving by. She thought that it was Victor, but it wasn’t.
Bruce said, “It’s peaceful out here tonight, ain’t it? I feel like we on a romantic date or something. Yup, Tracy, we can put a candle right in front of us. Then I would stare at your pretty eyes and all.”
Tracy started to giggle. “How come you don’t sell drugs instead of going to the Air Force?” she asked, just for the hell of it. Bruce had never commented about the drug trade since the last time she had asked.
“Oh, you into that too, hunh?” he commented glumly. “I see that as an easy way out for people that don’t wanna work hard.”
“Well, why should life have to be hard work?”
“ ’Cause that’s the way that it is, Tracy.”
“Who says so?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know, girl.”
Tracy laughed at Bruce’s temperament before she quizzed him. “How come you can’t tell me why?”
“ ’Cause I don’t know why. Shit! What a nigga know in this world? Tell me.”
Tracy answered with sparkling hazels, “Well, if you don’t know, then leave things alone and live.” She played with her right earring and looked into Bruce’s placid face. “See, the way I see it, Bruce, is that everybody knows these things about life and all, but no one lets them get in the way of living. And that’s how it should be, ’cause no one wants to be constantly reminded that the world is dull and boring. Now I know I’m still young and all, but that’s how I see things.”
Bruce nodded. They sat and talked for hours about the times they had had in the year gone by. Tracy got Bruce to lighten up enough to talk about his life. He was delightful to be with when his mind was not on his letdowns and his shortcomings. They had good rapport.
Her sophomore year, every boy in the hallway was impressed with Tracy’s flamboyance and her stunning outfits. She scared off the boys who lacked self-confidence, attracting only the players, and she liked it that way.
The first week of classes took forever. Tracy wore smashing outfits, Monday through Friday, catching all eyes, while the guys whispered, “Damn, she flyy.”
One boy got up enough heart to ask, “Excuse me. Can I walk you home?”
Tracy turned and spotted a well-dressed, cool-looking, tanned-skinned boy, surrounded by hungry-looking friends.
“I’m getting a ride home today,” she told him. She wore a black suede skirt with black fishnet stockings and a gold silk blouse; her usual gold was around her neck, wrists and fingers, and her earrings dangled from her ears. Tracy’s full package glared like a teen model strutting down a concrete runway.
The boy responded, “Oh, don’t tell me you got a car, too.”
“No, but my boyfriend is picking me up in his jeep.”
The cool boy cracked a charming smile.
“What’s so funny?” Tracy asked him.
“Your boyfriend got a jeep, hunh?” He shook his head and added, “So everybody wants a drug dealer nowadays.”
“How you know he a drug dealer?”
“ ’Cause he got a jeep. And ain’t no young niggas ridin’ around in no jeeps, unless they sellin’ drugs.”
“Who told you that?”
“Everybody knows that shit, girl. Where you been at?”
“Everybody don’t know it. It’s some blacks who don’t need to sell drugs to buy a jeep. My boyfriend’s father bought it for him,” Tracy lied. At least her heart was in the right place.
“Yeah, right. Don’t run that game on me, girl. Save that corny shit for the next slow nigga, ’cause I ain’t him.” The cool boy strolled to rejoin his admiring friends. He had set Tracy straight, and he knew it.
Tracy smirked and rushed to the spot where Cash said he would pick her up. He was running late. He then whipped around the corner blasting Rakim’s song, “Eric B For President.”
Tracy yelled through the heavy bass of the rap song, “What took you so long?”
Cash turned the volume down. “Oh, this nut dude tried to get over on Wayne, so we had to smack ’im up a bit.”
Tracy leaped in and slung her book-bag to the floor. “You gotta fight a lot?” she asked, curiously.
“Naw, just when somebody tries some dumb stuff. But don’t start gettin’ all worried about that, ’cause I know how you start thinkin’. So we just gon’ go to a movie and chill tonight.”
“We gotta go to an early show though, ’cause I got school tomorrow,” she told him. Tracy didn’t want her mother going crazy again.
“Yeah, aw’ight. I’ll pick you up before seven, and have you back before ten.”
“All right,” Tracy agreed.
Cash pulled up at the corner of her block just as Raheema was going inside of her house. She saw them kiss good-bye at the corner, and she decided to wait up for Tracy.
“I thought you said you weren’t gonna go with him anymore?” she asked her hard-headed neighbor.
“Mind your business, Raheema,” Tracy said in a sing-song fashion. She was too happy to argue.
“Well, you did say that.”
“So what? I changed my mind.”
“What if your mom finds out?” Raheema had heard about Tracy’s ass-kicking through her mother. Patti told Beth, and Beth passed it down to Raheema as a warning. Tracy assumed that she knew, because of the big smile she displayed.
Tracy snapped, “Then I’m gon’ kick your ass. You bitch!” she spat.
Aware that she had unintentionally hit a weak spot with Tracy, Raheema decided to slip inside. “I’m not a bitch. I’m just worried about you,” she retorted. She slipped into the house before Tracy could get ahold of her.
“Well, worry about yourself!” Tracy hollered at her neighbor’s door. She was pissed! Her feelings were hurt. “God, I hate that fuckin’ girl!” she shouted. She marched inside of her house and said, “That bitch gon’ mess around and dime on me. Watch! And if I get my ass kicked, then I’m gon’ kick her ass.”
Tracy had cooled out with boys and mischief for a little while, but as they say, A hard head makes a soft behind. Her mouth was getting worse as well.
“Girl always worried about somebody,” she continued to rant, worried about what would happen if Raheema started running her mouth. She paced back and forth in her living room. “That’s why her face is breakin’ out. She need a new boyfriend. All she do is sit around the house and gossip. Little fuckin’ nerd. She need to live her own damn life.”
Times were hard and dull for Raheema. The two rebels of life, Mercedes and Tracy, seemed to be getting a lot more out of it.
Raheema thought back to her childhood years, and she was suddenly able to understand Mercedes’ changes. Mercedes was a victim. It simply did not pay to do right in a world where so many enjoyed doing wrong.
Raheema did all of her homework on time, and continued to get straight A’s in Cardinal Dougherty high school. She was bored and miserable, learning to gossip for enjoyment. She had lost her only boyfriend because of her mistrust and inexperience with the opposite sex, and to top off her misfortunes, a case of teenaged acne had slowly begun to invade her face.
What did obedience to her parents do for her? Raheema felt as if she was being robbed of her teenage experience. She felt as if she would have nothing to tell her children, except gossip about what everyone else was doing. Her self-esteem was as low as a worm’s in the mud.
She went to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. The image reflected her inside and her outside. Her acne pads sat inside the cabinet, with a strong smell of alcohol. It was a teenage thing. Everyone would get it. But Raheema only saw the miserable people with it. Mercedes never had no stupid acne, she thought. And Tracy doesn’t either.
Books and homework no longer had their hold over her. In Raheema’s state of depression, the bed seemed a lot more rewarding, and she was beginning to take naps for hours at a time, tormented by her “Plain Jane” lifestyle. She went to her room and got into bed.
Beth walked in and clicked on her daughter’s light, concerned about her. It was eight-thirty. Raheema had not left her room. “Ra-Ra? Are you sick or somethin’, honey?”
Raheema ignored her, playing possum. She didn’t feel like talking about it, not to her mother. She put me in this situation in the first place, by marrying my mean-ass father, she thought. “No, mom. I just want to rest.”
Beth placed her hand on Raheema’s forehead to see if she was coming down with a fever. “Are you sure nothing’s wrong with you?”
“I just wanna sleep, mom.” Tears slid from Raheema’s face and into her pillow, revealing her despair.
“Did something happen in school today?” her mother pressed her.
Raheema remained speechless.
“Well, did you fail a test or something? Honey, please, I’m here to help you.”
Raheema felt that her situation was hopeless. She mumbled into her pillow, “You can’t help me, mom.”
“Well, what is the problem?”
Raheema sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I hate myself because I’m ugly. I haven’t been happy since my sister left. I want to be with her. She’s the only one that has a real life in this family,” she cried, wiping her watery eyes and sniffing more rapidly.
Beth hugged her, attempting to sooth her pain. “Honey, this is just a passing phase. It’ll go away,” she said, referring more to the teenaged acne than the reference to Mercedes. Lord knows I don’t want to go through that again, she thought. Keith still talked about “that damn Mercedes” this and “that damn Mercedes” that.
Raheema retorted, “I’m tired of hearing that. Tracy didn’t start breaking out.” She angrily pulled away. They had had teenaged acne discussions at least five times before.
Raheema put her hands over her face and mumbled, “I’ve done everything that dad tells me to do, and he doesn’t even notice me. All he talks about is Mercedes. He always liked her more than me anyway. She didn’t do anything he told her, and yet he still talks about when she was here. He never talks about me. And I hate him anyway. I hate him, mom.”
She looked her mother in the face with spiteful eyes, as if she hated her too. Then she asked her, “Why you marry that man, mommy?”
There was nothing Beth could say to soothe her. Why did I marry him? she asked herself. “Baby, things will get better,” she said.
Keith roared from down the stairs, “BETH! WHERE ’DAT DAMN GIRL AT? Tell her to get down here and wash these damn dishes!” He walked to the kitchen to get something to drink. He was just getting in from work. He took out a KOOL cigarette to calm his nerves from the hype of his laboring job.
Beth came down to meet him. “I’ll do it. Raheema’s not feeling too well.”
Beth had bags around her eyes, appearing thin and frail, as if the exuberance and the energy of life had been sucked out from her body. She wore droopy, dull clothing, navy blues, charcoal grays and dark greens. She had married Keith because she thought it was the right thing to do. She was pregnant with his daughter, Mercedes, right out of high school, and even then he had forced his will on her.
Keith asked, “Well, what’s wrong with her?” He gulped down a cold Miller and burped.
“She’s having emotional problems.”
“Emotional problems!” he exclaimed with a frown. “So she’s about to start up with that dumb shit, too, hunh? I’m gon’ straighten this one the hell out!” Keith put out his cigarette and headed for Raheema’s room.
Beth asked, “Now what are you gonna do, Keith?” She hurried behind him, forcing herself not to allow him up the steps.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he yelled at her. He shoved her and continued on his way up.
Beth pleaded, grabbing onto his waist, “Please, Keith, I beg you. It’s not what you think it is.”
Keith pushed her away to release her hold on him.
Beth refused. “You’re torturing her!” she screamed at him. “That’s her problem! Now if you have any love left in your heart, then let her rest in peace. PLEASE!”
Raheema jolted from her room and saw her parents struggling on the stairs. She ran back to her room and slammed the door, locking it shut. She then proceeded to trash her room, wishing she had the power to do the same to her father. All her life she dreamed of having that power. For five minutes Raheema screamed and hollered how much she hated him.
Keith finally got the message. He turned and walked into his room, locking his door. He paced inside of his room and lit up another cigarette, thinking about how his father had tortured him and his family when he was young. He didn’t want to blame himself, yet he realized that was adding, blindly, to a terrible chain of mental cruelty.
Raheema made her mind up, in her despair, that she too would have sex, just to see how it felt. But everyone hated her snotty attitude. And she had acne. Those were problems. Tracy had previously joked that sex would clear her face up, and Raheema was willing to find out if the myth was true.
Makeup covered her blemishes, with lipstick adding the finishing touches. Raheema pumped herself up to have a positive attitude. The first couple of days in school she pulled it off. She held meaningful conversations with a few more people than what she usually had spoken to, and specifically with more boys. But no one tried to approach her about a date until her second week on the prowl.
“Hi, Ra-Ra. You real look nice today,” a fellow student said inside of the hallway. He had bright eyes and rust-colored skin, and he was friendly.
Raheema smiled. “Oh, how you doin’, Darin?”
Darin had known her since freshman year and had a crush on her. He was attractive, but not glamorous. Raheema did not count him as a likely prospect.
“Can I walk you to class?” he asked her.
Raheema slammed her hard-to-close locker. “If you want to,” she answered carelessly.
“So what did you do all summer?”
“Nothing, really.”
“Well, how is your mother?”
What is he asking about my mother for? Raheema thought. She felt guilty about it, but she was annoyed with Darin’s small talk. He wouldn’t have gotten a second of Mercedes’ or Tracy’s time. He was slow-witted, and his conversation was weak.
Raheema tried her best to remain cordial when she asked him, “Why are you asking about my mother?”
Darin answered, shakily, “Oh, I just figured I’d ask. You know?”
Raheema smiled and nodded to ease his embarrassment, but she didn’t know. He’s never even met my mother, she told herself.
They arrived at her class, and she was relieved when Darin turned to walk away. He felt good about it. He had enjoyed himself. He was grinning as if he had received an award at a banquet.
“I saw you, D. What did you say to her?” his brown and slender friend asked, walking up on him from behind.
Darin said, “Man, I was scared to ask her to the movies. But I tell you what, if I could get with her, I’d give her everything I have to give.”
Raheema turned down several uninteresting offers that day while flirting in the halls. The girls talked about her, expecting her change to be for the worst. Her head was too high. She walked with a glow that she had never possessed. And they were jealous.
At the SEPTA bus stop, Raheema attracted more eyes than she did previously. The boys sensed that she was presently open for offers.
One boy asked, loud and clear, “What’s your name, slim?” He was light-skinned with a scarred face, as if he was a fist-fighter. And he was not from Catholic school. He wore flashy public school gear.
Raheema asked, “Why you call me ‘slim’?” She was attempting to establish her new sociability. The boy was not as well-groomed as Bruce or Darin, but Raheema thought he was more confident and cool. So what if he’s not a pretty-boy? she told herself.
Scar-face sat down beside her and responded, “Does the shit matter?”
His friends chuckled. He had always been rash with his words.
The boy reminded Raheema of Bruce’s friend Bucky. She had never gotten along well with him. Bucky had been able to read all of her inconsistencies.
Blood rushed to Raheema’s face with anxiety. She began to feel inferior and not secure enough to deal with the boy. Her new self-confidence was weakening.
Scar-face asked, “So what’s your name?”
He put his hand on Raheema’s knee. She could imagine her father doing something of that sort to her mother, some twenty years ago.
“Raheema.” She tried to hide her nervousness with a piece of gum.
“You got one for me too, right?”
Scar-face did not look all that bad with a smile on his face. Raheema gave him a stick.
“So where do you live?” he asked, popping the gum into his mouth.
“Diamond Lane.”
“Yeah? Do you know some girl named Tracy?”
“Yeah, why?” she asked, still craving gossip.
“Oh, ’cause she think she the shit. I be wantin’ to take her head off, the cat-eyed-lookin’ bitch.”
Raheema giggled, feeling more comfortable. “What’s your name?” she asked him.
“Chuck.” He looked at her silky long hair and touched it. “I like this. It’ll be good to run my fingers through.”
His friends looked at him and laughed again.
Raheema smiled it off, apprehensively. I don’t think I want to do anything with him, she told herself. Yet Chuck had established more authority with her than the other boys who had tried her.
He asked for her number, but Raheema bashfully asked for his instead, so Chuck wrote it down for her.
She arrived home with a certain smugness about her day. She had accomplished something outside of schoolwork for the first time in a long time. It was even enjoyable to go boy-shopping. She began to feel some of the excitement that she was sure her older sister and her neighbor had felt.
Tracy had turned down Cash’s offer to go to the movies. Raheema had “busted her groove,” or in other words, gotten in the way of her plans Cash then promised to take her to the Gucci shop in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He said he was going to buy her some Gucci gear, since he had missed her birthday. He gave her all kinds of excuses for a couple of weeks before he finally took her on the shopping spree.
They left for Atlantic City early on a Saturday morning. Tracy lied to her mother and said that she would be attending Jantel’s cross-country track meet. She knew she was pressing her luck, but she surely was not going to pass up a chance to go to Atlantic City.
When they arrived, Cash counted out three thousand dollars. Tracy pretended as if she was not looking, but Cash knew that she was. The only time she had seen that much money was in the movies.
“You gon’ spend all that on me?” she asked with a loose tongue.
“Naw, my sisters wanted some stuff, too.”
Tracy smiled and said, “I know. I was just jokin’.” She felt embarrassed about her hasty comment.
Cash grinned at her and responded, “No you didn’t. You really are greedy like that.”
“No I’m not,” she retorted.
They walked ahead toward the casinos. It was cloudy along the beach, and the first three casinos they had entered were wrong.
Tracy whined, “Dag, we gotta walk all way back there.”
“Won’t you stop complainin’ so much?”
“I don’t feel like walkin’ all way back there.” She dragged her feet like a child. She wore her white Sixers jacket, black Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and red Reeboks.
“Fuck it. We goin’ back home,” Cash teased.
“Sike, Cash, I’m only playin’. God.”
Cash shook his head. “You somethin’ else, girl. And you think I’m a sucka’, but that’s aw’ight.” He looked at her and grinned, thinking about leaving her in “A-C.” “You lucky I like you,” he told her.
“Why?” she asked, confused.
“Oh, don’t worry about it now.”
“Don’t worry about what?”
“Nothin’, girl.”
What is he talking about? Tracy thought to herself.
They reached the right casino and walked through crowds of gamblers before coming to the Gucci shop. Prices ranged from twenty-five dollars for key chains and umbrellas, on up to the thousands for everything else, including sweaters, jackets, shoes and outfits.
Tracy tried on the sneakers that she wanted. Cash bought them, a pocketbook and a key chain. He bought himself a four-hundred-and fifty-two-dollar sweat suit, along with the items his sisters wanted.
Cash hung around the casinos while he waited for Tracy to use the bathroom. It was a perfect opportunity for him to get away long enough to order a hotel room. Tracy came out of the restrooms to find that Cash was gone. He came walking back with a smile on his face, and Tracy was curious about it. She thought he had snuck off to talk to some other girls who were there.
She asked possessively, “Where did you go?”
Cash lied to her. “Oh, I tried to get in the casino, and dude let me play a few games. But umm, Tracy, what we gon’ do when we get back home?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s put all these bags inside the jeep and walk around.”
They walked around the casino grounds for another hour, laughing and talking about people. Every now and then, Cash would take a peek or two at Tracy’s firm behind. He got her to jump on an elevator to ride up to the eighth floor. They got off to snoop around. Cash then stopped, taking out a key in front of room 812.
Tracy grinned. “Oh, so you got a room, hunh?”
“Yeah, I can’t let us go home without celebratin’.” He walked in with a serious face. And it was obvious to Tracy that he wanted something. “Come here and sit on my lap,” he told her.
Tracy did, reluctantly. She didn’t like the way that Cash had gone about it. He should have just told me that he was going to get a room, she thought to herself. I don’t know why he had to sneak around to do it.
He looked at Tracy’s lips before he kissed her.
Tracy pulled away, disappointed. She wasn’t sure if she was up to doing anything with him. She just did not feel like it.
Cash asked her, “What ’chew stop for?”
Tracy sighed, without giving him an answer. She thought about lying to Cash and telling him that her time of the month was around. But she doubted if that would work. I might as well just get this over with, she told herself. She got up and went inside the bathroom to begin taking off her clothes. Cash was shocked! No young-girl had ever been so bold about it. Tracy figured it was the fastest way to get the sexual encounter over with, but Cash felt she was being exotic.
She walked over to the bed, butt-naked, with firm breasts, firm behind and a perfectly curved honey-brown body, and slipped underneath the covers.
Cash took out a three-pack of lubricated LifeStyles.
Tracy watched him. “I’m on the pill,” she announced.
“So, them pills don’t stop shit from burnin’.”
“What?” she snapped defensively. “Oh, I ain’t got nothin’.”
Cash looked at her as if she was crazy. “Shid’, I’on know you like that, girl. Even young-girls burnin’ nowadays. I can’t take no more chances with my shit, ’cause AIDS is killin’ muthafuckas. And the shit that trips me out is that girls don’t be knowin’ when they’re burnin’.”
“You got burned before?”
“What ’chew think?”
There was a moment of silence.
Tracy said, “Well, I don’t have anything, and if you feel like that, then we ain’t gotta do nothin’.”
Cash retorted, “Yup, and we ain’t gotta go back home, either.”
Tracy sighed. “Well, come on then,” she said, throwing her head back against the pillow.
Cash looked at the pack of LifeStyles in his hand. “Aw’ight, fuck it,” he said, throwing them on the dresser.
He climbed in bed and went for Tracy’s breasts to stimulate himself. Tracy caressed him and guided him inside of her. Cash was shocked by her actions again. He moved in a fury as Tracy ran her fingers over his back, causing his early explosion. He breathed heavily as he released himself, and it was over too fast for Tracy’s comfort.
This boy fucks like a rabbit, she thought as she laid there, disgusted.
Cash was embarrassed. Tracy told him to be calm and try it again, as if she was the more experienced one. They laid there a few minutes. Cash then tried to make it last longer by ignoring how good Tracy felt to him. But it didn’t work. He erupted a second time in just minutes.
“DAMN! You got some good shit!” he roared, amazed and embarrassed at the same time.
Tracy laughed and rolled out from under him. “I’m gonna take a shower,” she told him. She giggled to herself while in the shower at how ridiculously quick he was. She ran the soap in between her legs, exciting herself, and dreaming of Victor Hinson. Victor would have made it last. He knew how to control his body and hers. And Tracy loved the way he whispered in her ear, confirming her pleasure every step of the way. He had never been repetitious or whipped like Timmy had been. He always tried something new. Victor made Tracy feel everything that lovemaking was supposed to feel like. All that was left for him to do was to tell her that he loved her.
Tracy dried herself to give Cash one more try at pleasing her. She playfully dove back into bed and squeezed his behind, attempting to arouse him again.
Just feeling her cool naked body next to his gave Cash a hard-on. They went at it for a third time. Tracy breathed heavy into his ear, rubbing his hips into hers. And finally, it had lasted long enough for her satisfaction. They laid there, exhausted and wrapped into each other’s arms until they eventually fell asleep.
They awoke about seven o’clock that early evening. They redressed to have dinner and returned home before it got too late. They rode in the jeep quietly on the return trip. Cash still felt embarrassed, afraid to ask the “younger-girl” what she was thinking about. He assumed that she was thinking about them.
Tracy looked at him and smiled. “Ay Cash?”
“What?”
“How many girls have you had?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Cash wanted to make up an excuse, but it was nothing that he could say without inflating Tracy’s head about her sexuality. She had blown his mind, and most of the respect that she had had for him was lost.
Tracy hopped out of the jeep with her bags at the corner. “Well, I’ll see you whenever,” she said.
Cash responded blandly, “Yeah, aw’ight then.” He drove off quickly.
Tracy snuck her bags into the house, stretched out on her bed and was bored with him. She thought about their experience at Atlantic City and cracked herself up. “I gots to tell Carmen about this,” she mumbled to herself.
Raheema walked to her classes nervously on Monday morning. It was her big day with Chuck. He had convinced her to pay him a visit, and he was waiting for her after school.
Raheema walked quietly with him to the bus stop. While on the bus, Chuck threw his arm around her neck. She didn’t want to break her promise to him, but she was really unsure about things. You’re not even my boyfriend, she wanted to tell him. Nevertheless, she was headed with him to his house.
“So what do you wanna do?” Chuck asked with a grin as soon as they had arrived.
“I don’t know,” Raheema responded, looking away.
Chuck walked over and sat next to her on the couch.
Raheema jumped up and said, “Excuse me, but I have to go to the bathroom.” She was lying, nervous as a cow in a meat factory. She sat in an empty chair when she returned.
“Why you sit over there?” Chuck asked.
“Oh, I just sat down. Why? Does it make a difference?”
Chuck shook his head at her evasiveness. “Come here and sit on my lap.”
Raheema did.
Chuck then began to caress her breasts.
She hastily grabbed his hands. “Don’t.”
“What?” he responded to her, confused.
Raheema asked him innocently, “Why you gotta feel all on me?”
Chuck thought it was agreed upon that they would have sex. He pulled her down by her neck to kiss her, and Raheema could not stop him. They kissed longer than she expected as he caressed her breasts again. She moaned, feeling herself losing control. Chuck unfastened her bra through her shirt. Raheema then grabbed his head and bit into his high-cut hair.
Chuck pulled his head away from her teeth. “The fuck are you doin’?”
Raheema was embarrassed at her inexperience.
Chuck got up and yanked her hand. “Come on,” he told her, leading her up the stairs and into his room. Raheema’s heart was racing like the wind. She even wondered if Chuck could feel it through her hand. He took off his clothing, standing butt-naked and erect as soon as they entered his messy room. And he was quite muscular. He didn’t have any scars on his athletically framed body.
Raheema turned to avoid staring at him. Chuck came closer to take her clothing off. Raheema stood terrified as she felt his hot, hard organ, bumping up against her while he took off her clothes. Chuck then tried to move her to the bed, but Raheema would not allow him.
“What’s wrong?”
Feeling nauseous, she could no longer take it. She covered her naked, light-skinned body and told him, “I don’t wanna do this.”
“Well, what ’chew come over here for?”
Raheema sat on the bed, attempting to redress in a hurry.
Chuck howled, “Naw, fuck that shit! You ain’t playin’ wit’ my dick!” He grabbed her, pushing her down on the bed and plying at her legs.
Raheema yelled, “No! Get off of me!”
“Why you come over here and play with me, girl?” Chuck asked, holding her arms down.
Raheema whined, “I’m not. Just get off of me.” She made sure to keep her legs closed.
Chuck tried again to get them open.
Raheema screamed, “HELP! SOMEBODY!”
“Aw, you’s a stupid bitch,” he responded, nervously. He didn’t want a rape charge on his hands.
Raheema rushed to collect her clothing from the floor. She dressed in a hurry and made a break for the front door.
Chuck roared, “Go ahead and leave, you retarded bitch. I never liked your stupid ass anyway!”
Raheema dashed out of his house and sprinted home in tears, determined not to tell anyone. “It’s all my fault for going over there in the first place,” she mumbled. She made sure she straightened up her face before she made it back to her house. She couldn’t give her parents any clue about what had happened to her.
I won’t try this mess again, she told herself, glad to have escaped.
Raheema went up to her room and sobbed helplessly into her pillow. She could never be like Mercedes or Tracy. It was too late to be like them. She felt too tense about sex, or relationships in general. Or maybe Chuck was the wrong person. She could feel new bumps already beginning to form under the makeup. She popped them, no longer caring about the scars they would leave. She washed the makeup off to see how unattractive her beautiful skin had become. Mercedes had not seen a bump on her skin. Life wasn’t fair, but Raheema decided to hold on instead of joining the fast-paced streets. She had no other choice; she was not prepared to handle it.
“Ay Tracy, tell me when you through with your boyfriend, ’cause I wanna school you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m for real, though.”
“I know, but that don’t mean that I’m gonna talk to you.” Tracy walked to her class, wearing her Gucci sneakers and carrying her Gucci bag after dismissing another hopeful at school.
“Well, what do I have to do to attract you?” the boy asked, following her.
Tracy said, “Just be yourself. And if I’m not attracted to you now, I never will be.”
Everyone in “G-Town” high school talked about Tracy. But none of them, except for Timmy, had been able to receive her favor. She had dyed her hair honey-blonde on top with huge curls. It was long in the back and pointed on the sides. Tracy was the shit, and no one could tell her differently.
Cash continued to add something to her overabundant wardrobe each week, like the long leather coat she had received after Thanksgiving. He picked her up from school every day, watching her every move to see if she would try to play him, or in other words, treat him with disrespect. It was inevitable. Cash was giving her everything she wanted, and he was starting to bore her.
“So what happened in school today?” he asked, driving her home in cold December weather. Tracy wore her green leather bomber that Patti had helped her buy.
Tracy answered, “The usual.” She then looked away as if she had no conversation for him.
Cash frowned at her. “What ’chew think, you’re special now or somethin’?”
Tracy smiled, realizing that she was getting under his skin with her better-than-thou attitude. “No,” she answered him.
Cash wasn’t satisfied with just that. “I’on know about you, girl.” He kept his eyes on the road, listening to a Boogie Down Productions tape.
Tracy responded too boldly, “You got other girls anyway. You don’t need me.”
Cash pulled over and stopped the jeep. He sat and stared out of the window before speaking. “Now what are you tryin’ to say?” he asked her.
“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’.”
“Naw, you actin’ like you wanna call it quits.”
“Did I say that?”
“Look, I’m gon’ pick you up to talk about this later on, ’cause I got some runs to make.”
Tracy sat contentedly, deciding not to comment.
Cash let her off around the corner from her house. Tracy walked to her steps and spotted Raheema, staring out of her window. They still had not been speaking to each other. Tracy ignored her. She walked into her house to clean up the kitchen like Patti had asked her. The kitchen was extra messy after Patti had had a get-together party with friends. Pots, glasses and plates were everywhere. Tracy had not washed a dish load like that in years. She was not too pleased about it either.
“We need to get this damn dishwasher fixed!” she screamed. “Where’s a good father when you need him?”
After she finished with the dishes and had returned home with Jason, who had started kindergarten, they sat on the living-room couch watching The Transformers. Tracy could not help thinking about a few dishes she had accidentally shattered in her hasty rage.
Jason said, “Tracy, help me get some cereal.”
“No, Jason. Mom’s about to come home and fix you some leftovers from last night.”
“I don’t want that,” he told her on his way to the kitchen. “Come on, Tracy,” he insisted, pulling at her arm for her to go with him.
He gave up on her and went to the kitchen to try and get the cereal by himself. Patti entered the door hearing a big crash. She ran to the kitchen behind her daughter and found Jason curled up into a ball on the floor, crying while holding his head, with spilled cereal surrounding him.
Patti asked, “What the hell is going on, Tracy?” Jason had a lump on the left side of his forehead. “Now what happened, boy? What were you trying to do?”
“I asked her to help me, and she ain’t do it.”
Patti looked at her daughter with evil dark eyes.
Tracy looked away.
“I asked you to watch him, girl, and I’m a little tired of your irresponsibility around this damn house. Look at this big knot on his head.”
Tracy smiled helplessly at her brother’s knotted forehead.
“You think this is a damn joke, don’t you?” Patti asked. She smacked her daughter in the mouth as Tracy tried to back away.
“See, mom, all that wasn’t even called for,” she responded, grabbing her lip.
Patti challenged her, “When you wanna try me, you just let me know.”
Tracy thought about her mother’s challenge. She decided it was too risky.
Tracy sat in her room doing homework with a swollen lip.
Patti walked in with a bag of broken dishes that she had found hidden inside of the trash. “Tracy, umm, what the hell you trying to pull here?”
Tracy knew she was caught. There was no way out.
Patti said, “Girl, I’m about to rip your damn neck off.” She reached across to smack her daughter again. Tracy was quick enough to duck. That only made Patti angrier. She rushed her daughter to the bed.
“I’m tired of you, Tracy. You’re about ready to get on my last damn nerve. You think you’re cute with this hair and this expensive shit you got on?” she asked, while strangling her daughter by the collar.
“No,” Tracy whimpered. “Mom, you’re choking me.”
“Why should I let you up?”
“It was an accident.”
“It ain’t no accident that you think everything is a damn joke around here. And the next time something happens, I’m gon’ be all over you.”
Tracy was not as afraid of Patti as she was the first time.
Later that evening, through her front window Tracy noticed Cash pulling up in his jeep. She grabbed her coat to go with him.
Patti shouted, hearing the door slam, “TRA-CY!”
“Hurry up and get outta here!” Tracy told Cash.
Patti arrived at the door too late. She would be waiting for Tracy when she got back home, with a can of ass-whipping.
“Damn, what happened to your lip?” Cash asked, laughing.
Tracy looked in the vanity mirror. “My mom hit me.”
Cash giggled. “I remember when my mom used to beat up my sisters.” he told her.
“So where we goin’?” Tracy asked, ignoring him.
“Oh, we got one stop to make before we go to my crib.” Tracy wanted to ask why they would be going to his “crib,” because she was not planning on giving him any. But she decided to hold her tongue for a while. She was happy she had some money in her pocket though, just in case he didn’t want to take her back home.
Once they had arrived at their destination, Tracy hopped out of the Bronco. “I’m comin’ with you this time.”
“For what?” Cash snapped. He didn’t like the idea.
“Because, I’m not gon’ be sitting out here in the cold, looking stupid.”
“Well, I thought you didn’t like these drug houses.”
“I don’t,” she responded, following.
Cash knocked. Sam looked out of the window before letting them in. “Well looka’ here. She’s a beautiful thing, ain’t she?”
Tracy felt disgusted that he was even close to her. She quickly moved away from him. Sam may have been an old pervert.
“I ain’t gon’ hurt ’cha,” he responded to her. “What ’chew think I’m the ‘Big Bad Wolf’ or somethin’?”
Tracy sneered at him as she walked farther away, inside of the half-empty living room.
Cash asked, “So where’s my stuff at, man?” He pulled out a roll of bills.
Sam said, “Oh, Lou got it. But he got a trick upstairs with him right now. Just wait a few minutes. He should be almost finish with that hoe by now.” Sam smiled at Tracy and said, “Excuse me, young and beautiful, but if you’re gonna be around the game, then you might as well know how it is.”
Tracy sat on a couch. She thought about what low-life of a woman would fall to the point of giving up her body for cocaine. She played with her nails, taking peeks up at the steps. Cash and Sam continued to joke around, but Tracy was more interested in the “trick” they were referring to. She could hear the footsteps upstairs.
Cash roared, “AY LOU, HURRY UP, MAN! I ain’t got all day!”
“SHET UP, YOUNG-BOAH’!” Lou shouted back down.
Tracy loosened up, still watching the steps. She could see and hear the woman coming down. She stopped to have last words at the top of the staircase. Her voice was deep and raspy, like an older woman’s. Tracy could see her legs on the steps. They then met each other’s stare, as Cash and Sam noticed the unspoken communication between them.
Tracy could not believe her eyes. She blinked at the nightmare. The young woman that she had known had lost at least fifteen pounds. She was frail and crooked in her stance. Her long hair looked damaged and oily, and her smooth walnut-brown skin had lost its shine. She walked from the stairs, wearing a dingy white leather jacket and turned her head from Tracy.
Tracy was embarrassed beyond words. She looked at the floor, and then at the walls and back at the floor again, avoiding further eye contact, while holding back her tears of empathy. Finally she cried, covering up her face to hide her watery eyes. Her expectations had been shattered. Tracy wanted to run home and slam her head into her pillow and wake from the nightmare. But it was not a dream. It was real.
“It’s my God-damn life, Tracy. I don’t have to answer to nobody.” She wiped her stuffed-up nose and staggered to the door, staring back at Tracy. But Tracy refused to look at her.
“Oh, you won’t even look at me now, hunh? Well, life is hard, girl, and I fucked mine up, so get off my got’damn back.” She began to cry herself as she walked out, ashamed to have been discovered by her young friend.
A tear dropped from Tracy’s right eye and slid through her hands. She wished that she could keep her eyes closed forever. She realized her road had to change.