Another wind war, I could feel it coming before it hit. I’m super sensitive to the ground, could always hear the vibration of feet or anything that impacted the earth that I crawl on. I could hear the howling and his house shaking and things being tossed and slung and flung around. I could hear chains rattling and fireworks going off. I could hear the clash, not of fists but of forces of the wind.
After a nasty breakup of any couple, the war begins. I knew bitches who keyed their ex’s ride, or punctured his tires, or banged in his rims with a hammer. I knew bitches who beat the new bitch’s ass, who her man had replaced her with. Or even stalked her, then choked her, stabbed her, shot her, or mercked her. I knew even live-er bitches who, instead of killing his new bitch, killed him. I knew bitches who ran up his credit cards, crashed his car, cut up his clothes, pawned his jewels, and even burned down his house. But when a man or woman who used to be lovers, living together, working together, eating together, showering and fucking together, and one betrays the other, betrayal makes the matter more meaner than murder. ’Cause you can just kill someone if you want to, no matter who you are. No matter who they are or where they hide. They bound to resurface eventually. Let down their guard eventually, and that’s precisely when they can get got. But ex-lovers, who more than just creeping and fucking other niggas or bitches, where one betrayed the other, told a life-changing secret tat he or she had confided with, sold him or her out to his or her sworn enemy, called the cops on him or her for any damn reason, flipped on ’em in a court of law or was way-worser, like working as an undercover police, a bitch-ass informant, spying and telling on his or her lover, murder ain’t enough get-back. A betrayed nigga or bitch wants to be the one who delivers the hurt over an extended period of time. Not a quick stabbing or gunning down. A betrayed lover wants to witness his or her traitor in severe loss of either: wealth, status, or something or someone he cherished. A betrayed lover wants to see the traitor in actual excruciating pain. He or she wants to taunt and torture first and then deliver the last blow that leads to the traitor’s complete and final downfall.
I know. Bullet was the main one who betrayed me. He’s at the top of my payback list. He was my nigga for many months before I got arrested. Yeah, he was a hustler. I fucking loved that. His fuck game was strong. I loved that too. Once he and I first hooked up, I never fucked around with no other nigga but him. I’m a loyal bitch. Loyalty runs through the Santiaga blood. But he never fully acknowledged my loyalty to him. He never gave his loyalty to me. It wasn’t about me thinking, expecting, or believing that he was out fucking some random bitches while we was together. He didn’t cause me to feel or think that he was. It was that he… I don’t know. He loved me with his mind and body but never gave me his heart. He treated me like a suspect, who was bound to turn on him or turn him in. I wasn’t. I’m the one bitch that wouldn’t… ever, Santiagas are born snitch-free.
Bullet put our Manhattan condo in my name, and every purchase he made for both of us in my name. Back then, at the time, I thought that meant he loved me. Of course I did, he provided. In turn, I covered for him here and there. Held his coke, concealed his weapons, and carried his cash here and there quietly whenever he told me to. I was trying to earn my way up and also in, to his heart. I thought we should be on some Bonnie-and-Clyde shit. But fuck Bonnie and Clyde. We should be on some Winter-and-Bullet shit, stacking our chips and styling and fucking and eating and chilling and staying together.
Turned out, he put everything in my name not for love or for providing for a top bitch and daughter of legendary hustler and entrepreneur Ricky Santiaga. Instead Bullet was on some Brooklyn scheming. He made it so that if everything or anything went wrong, he could drop all the legalities and blame onto me without losing any street credibility because it wasn’t like he snitched on me. He simply left a paper trail and documentation all in my name that told the fictitious story of me being the hustler and him being blameless, unarrestable, and scot-free. On the day of my arrest that led to my conviction as a drug dealer sentenced to serve fifteen years on a mandatory minimum, which at the time I had never even heard of, my nigga Bullet had a car rented with a credit card in my name. In the rental car was me and the product, I was ’bout to ride round trip to Virginia on a run with him, a big and necessary business move.
Simone, who for some reason can’t get the fuck out of my mind or life or death story, saw me sitting there on our Brooklyn block in the rental waiting on Bullet. I didn’t see her, though. Simone had bullshit beef with me that she swore was real. So, soon as she saw me that day, it was on. Bitch threw a brick through the rental window. Bitch dragged me out the car swinging. We thumped. My nigga Bullet saw the rah-rah from the distance. He started rushing over. He fired one shot in the air to cause the commotion to break. Seeing him boosted my confidence, but the gunshot distracted me from keeping my eyes on her. Simone took advantage and sliced my face. Bullet held my bleeding face in his hands. He sat me back in the rental car. He tossed the gun beneath the seat. He walked around to the driver’s side. I was relieved that he had rescued me. But the furious fight and the gunshot drew out the cops.
The cops swooped in and Bullet, instead of jumping into the rental car and speeding away, walked off calmly as if he never was with me. Never even knew me and never intended to get in the car with me at all. I was arrested in the rental car that was in my name, with the weight stuffed inside teddy bears, and the weapon tossed beneath the seat. They cuffed, fingerprinted, mug-shotted, jailed, grilled, and investigated me. They asked me for names or just one big name. I gave them nothing. I rejected their bullshit tricks and game. The name is Santiaga, royalty not rats. I wasn’t mad at Bullet for being a hustler, obviously. I wasn’t mad at him for renting me the condo or even for taking me on his big business run to Virginia. I was down for him. I wanted to go. I didn’t like being left out of the business or the action. It’s that that nigga Bullet didn’t come for me. He didn’t add a dime to my legal defense. He didn’t send one of his men to make sure I had all that I needed. He didn’t put one cent on my commissary. He didn’t write me one letter, slip me one kite from his peoples on lock. He didn’t check for me and to me that meant he never loved me. That’s why he’s on my payback list. He betrayed me. I never betrayed him, not even once.
So I understand this little sixteen-years-young-looking one, oddly named UBS, who is tight and at war with her ex. He seemed more my age than hers. But I knew that once a bitch blossoms, gets curves and titties and hungry between the thighs, whether or not she’s twelve, thirteen, or sixteen, whether or not the law says she’s a minor, she is bound to hunt and chase down a man she chooses for herself. A young sexy bitch, I know, can make it impossible for even an older guy to resist her powers no matter who he is. He could be handsome or ugly, paid or broke, married or single, hustler or preacher, politician or teacher, doctor or lawyer or even a goddamn judge. I accept that. As long as it’s not the other way around, some old guy hunting, cornering, and chasing her young ass. Fucking and raping are never ever the same thing. He says she betrayed him. He said she’s the police. She seemed too young to be anybody’s police. And in the, I guess seconds I had seen her, she didn’t seem like a cop. But I ain’t from down here. I don’t know how shit goes ’round here. Everything is unexpected. It’s like I’m stuck in the world of the unseen and unknown and can’t control or predict the action.
But now I am not alone down here. Of course I choose him. He chose me in the first place. He was the greatest sex I ever had. The wildest feeling I ever felt. He was the only man who ever caused me to let go of Midnight, who never fucked me at all. I like a man who gives a bitch what she wants. A man who doesn’t make a bitch feel lonely. Wife number five! Oh hell no. That would never, ever be me.
My new nigga is my forever nigga, from now until the real lights-out. Even though he only fucked me once on the same night we met, I was able to exist inside of that fucking memory. And unlike Bullet, who left me because I was cut and bleeding and would obviously wear a scar, and who set me up to take the fall, or either didn’t set me up but reacted only to secure himself, my forever nigga is different. When I became the red python, my forever nigga kept me, adored me, even allowed me to crawl all over his beautiful body no matter what time or where he was at the moment. Even if he was busy I could wrap myself around his neck. He is a thousand times smarter than Bullet. He knew I was poisonous and quite deadly, but apparently he was 100 percent certain that I would never ever bite him. This nigga kept it real. He still brought home and fucked other bitches. I’m sensible enough to know that if he couldn’t fuck me in my condition, he had to fuck someone. He didn’t try to sneak or hide any of them. He even let me watch. After the sex, he showed me his loyalty. Threw them random bitches right out. I remained because we lived together. He fed me. He shared his monkey bars, which I used to stay fit. He even talked to me even though I could not speak back like a human being. I could only gesture. He told me that I was the sexiest serpent ever, and that I would make a mean-ass belt, handbag, or pair of heels or boots, but that he would never ever allow anyone to swipe me from him or hurt me in any way.
But on the day of the most recent wind war, he wasn’t home. I was hanging there on the bars waiting for his return when the firehouse was attacked. As our firehouse rocked I promised myself that if the bitch UBS came in here, which she had not been able to do any other time while he was alert and home on watch, I would bite her with full venom.
Unexpectedly, without her entering our house, I was sucked and pulled into a vicious vacuum-type current and fast-forwarding through blackness once again. As soon as the fast-forwarding stopped, and while my mind was still whirling, I was immediately mugged by the odor. Oh no, I thought. I’m back in the sewer location. I’m in the sitting position on the curb next to the gutter. Now I had arms and legs and fingers and feet. I touched my face. I could feel it. I even had my silky hair back. I was a human, Oh shit! I would have celebrated, but instead I was coughing from the stench. I reacted, wanted to jump up and walk away from it. However, I could not move my legs. I hated that. Thought it was foul play. Rather see my enemy face-to-face and have the opportunity to fight and change the action. I don’t like the feeling that someone is trying to control my story, my life, and even my life-after-death story.
I was uncertain how many days I sat there alone in the overwhelming blackness. However, I could count the number of unexpected events and the ways in which it affected my body. My body, I repeated to myself. Was it even mine? How could it be when I could turn into something other than me? Some inhuman thing that I never chose to be. But it had to be my body, because even after I got shot dead, my mind never shut off. My thoughts continued. They were my same thoughts. I was thinking the exact same way I have thought about things for as long as I could remember, and I have a great memory. No matter what other thing I became, no matter alive or dead, I was certainly throughout it all, me. And, I still was.
I’m the crippled version. My arms and hands work but my legs don’t. I wasn’t gonna start crawling on my belly like I had to when I had no other choice. I wasn’t gonna make my way across the street from the curb I was sitting on, using my knuckles to carry the weight of my legs like some monkey. I wasn’t about to be on some Special Olympics–type vibe and walk on my hands. Besides, where would I be going? It was black where I was, and black across the street from me. Reminding myself to exist in the moment and not get caught up in bullshit depression. No matter who you are, depression is a fucking waste of time that people with no action and no brain to tell them how to get the action started or flip an inactive situation into something brand-new are enslaved to. Having that thought reminded me not to get hung up on the what-ifs, or what would or could or should have been. I’m a motherfucking survivor no matter what!
So I endured the things I had become immune to: the blackness, the breaking of bones, the waves of heat that scorched my ass and the soles of my feet, the chorus of millions screaming different words and sounds but all at once, the sounds of ninety-nine niggas cracking their knuckles, the scraping and grinding and even the hissing. The hissing had become my only form of music down here. For serpents, hissing is like rhyming.
I wasn’t prepared for the add-ons, though: a swarm of tiny flying-insect-type things. I called them that because they reminded me of the aggravating existence of mosquitoes. But I couldn’t actually see them. I don’t know if they were mosquitoes or not. But they came through suddenly in a violent swarm attacking my face and eating me. When I would touch myself, there would be rashes on me, which was something I never had. I never even had the chicken pox or the measles when I was a kid. I tried not to scratch because the scratching only satisfied me for what felt like a few seconds. Then the rash would feel moist and spread further. I don’t know if it was blood or what oozing from the rash. This was disturbing. On the low, I was waiting on him to find me. I was 100 percent sure he was out there searching for me. I wanted him to show up, but not while the rash was on me.
Then there would be coughing spells. Felt like it lasted for days. All I could do was cough and could never catch my breath. Next were the sneezing spells that always came after the coughing but never both at the same time. When I would sneeze, which was continuously, if felt like my organs were going to fly out of each of the openings in my body. That’s how powerful the sneezes were. There were no tissues. There was no one to help or who would even complain that I was sneezing germs onto them. Instead my fingers felt the mucus accumulating on and around me. It was a good thing that I was back to being a dead human. It meant that I was never hungry. If I had been hungry in that situation, the mucus would have been all that I had to eat.
I was sitting in my slime when the green-colored atmosphere began to devour the blackness. My eyes were attempting to adjust to the new existence of color that contained light. The greenness somehow eliminated the foul odor, silenced the screaming, and the grinding, cracking, breaking, and hissing. Although I was happy about the presence of color, I was worried that he was about to show up to come get me only to see my rashes and scratches and my lap filled with mucus that had oozed down over my feet.
Instinctively, I touched my face, wanting to clear and clean it up a bit if that was even possible. When I touched my face, it was not slimy anymore. It was not bumpy. It was not wet. I moved my hands over my whole face. I could not even feel my scar. My hair felt soft, no more grease or residue or dead insects from the swarm. I pulled it to my nose. It smelled like it had been washed with expensive shampoo. My mood was shifting up. I was excited. I leaped up. My legs were working. The feeling of being able to really feel returned. As it did, the lavender sky appeared overhead. It opened and spilled out stars that were absolutely everywhere, like diamond raindrops.
“Ah-hum-doo-lah-lah,” she said. Or at least that is what it sounded like to me. It was her, the Diamond Rain girl who I had seen once before. The one who he said is the police. “Soo-pan-ah-lah,” she said, and I was already getting tight at all of her foreign talk. “I apologize for being too late,” she said, switching to English as though she heard what I had just thought. Immediately I switched to my game face. I thought she had caught me slipping and read my facial expression. I had been so long fucked up, sick and paralyzed by the sewer in the blackness, that I had no reason for game face. Now I was back in pocket and even feeling like I got superpowers. I must. I’m standing up, feeling myself. My skin is flawless like how it was for the first eighteen young years of my life. She began speaking to me in a tone as though I knew her.
“I’m not from this realm. I even have to get permission to come down here and an army of my UBS to back me up,” she said. But I had thought UBS was her name. Maybe not. Above her, the sparkling stars continued to decorate and light up the lavender sky. I could see and understand clearly why he liked her. That aggravated me. She obviously had something that the rest of us bitches don’t have. Not even the exotic foreign ones. Never met a bitch that came from the stars—stars more mesmerizing than flawless jewels. And somehow she controlled the color of the atmosphere. Probably she could keep a nigga fully entertained with just her little light show.
“And if the trip down here is not exhausting enough, the battle is,” Diamond Rain said. I looked her over. She didn’t look like a bitch who had been fighting her way here the way she said she had to do. She didn’t have no scratches or knife swipes or burns or bullet holes and even her clothes were neat and fresh. The belt around her waist had slots stuffed with what seemed like big bullets. They were not exactly the same as the bullets I seen plenty of times in Brooklyn. But they definitely appeared to be ammunition. Around her neck was a diamond chain.
She’s stunting on me, I thought. But the illest thing about the chain was her piece. I had seen the jewels of the hottest hustlers—my father at the top, of course, and his crew, celebs, and dealers at VIP parties, as well as low-level cats from our hood that were on the come-up. I had never ever seen any hustler or celeb with the piece she had hanging on her necklace. It was a grenade. This must be part of her psych game, I deduced. She came with her pretty face and sleek body, nicely dressed, but wearing warrior armor in a way that it was on display to make the next bitch she was ’bout to battle back off or bow down.
“If it was so much trouble, why did you come here then?” I said without any excitement at all. She looked sad for a second, then brought back her smile. Maybe her smile is her version of her game face.
“Is that all you have to say to me? And do you really want to say it that way? Why not start with the good words and good feelings?” she asked, then threw her arms in the air. She held them there and made her pretty un-manicured fingers dance, and then spun around rhythmically like a belly dancer. I’m thinking, What the fuck? A knockout combo: bullets, bombs, and hula-hoop hips.
“You must like my hilab,” she said, striking a pose..
“Hilab,” I repeated.
“Yes, hilab means the scent that announces me. It remains only while I am here and trails me when I leave this realm. How come you don’t even mention it, when before I arrived down here, you were choking on odor?” She placed her hands on her hips gently, not like a commander or authority. Of course I smelled her beautiful scent. But one bad bitch don’t really need to be complimenting another badass bitch for her look and her style. Real bitches already know and don’t need compliments from anyone except their nigga. So I ignored her.
“Or maybe you like the lavender sky? These are all gifts that the ONE has allowed and given me Alhamdulillah.” She said the foreign words again. “And I am so grateful to share these gifts with you,” she added.
“Bitch, we ain’t friends,” I said. I wanted to cut out the bullshit niceties and get to it. “Did you come here expecting me to help you catch him? Or are you down here just to fuck with me?” I asked her.
“Him!” she said and collapsed into a squatting position so that now she was looking up to me. I was like, That’s right bitch, look up to me.
“He is evil. He is the enemy!” She stressed each word, raised her voice, but still had the happy face and delight. I didn’t like the mixture.
“I see you’re still salty over him,” I said. “But a real bitch lets go after she gave it her best fight. So let go. Besides, you disqualified yourself. You betrayed him,” I blurted out so she would understand that he confided in me about everything and that I was aware of their past relationship and that I was even aware that she was the police.
“Soo-pan-ah-lah, this is why we are shown that whoever the ONE leaves in error can never be corrected by anyone else except the ONE. Because of love, we UBS still try. And because the ONE is the Most Merciful, we are granted three trips of mercy to strive to correct the misunderstandings and wrongdoings of the ones we love,” she said, mumbling some foolishness. Then she stood up. “Please forget him. He is a liar. Every word he says is false. If you believe in him, and follow him, he will lead you to an even more evil destination than down here. You will be completely ruined in his company.”
“So you’re not a cop. You’re a C.O. who showed up to correct me.” I laughed like, Yeah right, beat it bitch! Then I told her, “After a breakup all bitches talk just like how you are talking now.”
“Blot him out! It is not about him! It’s about you and me. I don’t know exactly what lies he has told you. But I have never ever had any romance or relationship with him.”
“Bitch, stop lying. You keep coming here. You came to his house a bunch of times tryna shake him. You bombed his house and did all types of crazy shit. I know. I was with him the whole time. Bet you didn’t know that. So you’re busted!” I told her.
“True, some of our army of UBS were there attacking his house of evil,” she admitted. “I was not with them. Although I sent some of them. While others of them fought him for their own reasons.” It felt like she really wanted me to take her side. To believe her words.
“You don’t recognize me?” she asked after some seconds. “I know everything about you, Miss Winter Santiaga. It really hurts that you don’t recognize even one speck of me,” she said softly. “But I forgive you. You don’t even know who you are, or where you are, or why you are here, or the meaning of what you have done in the past and what you continue to do in the present. So why did I ever believe that you would be able to recognize even a speck of me?” she said as though she pitied me.
“I hate bitches who try and talk slick and who beat around the bush. Get to the point. Talk straight,” I threatened her.
“Straight, that’s a good word,” she said, delighted all of a sudden. “Can you handle straight?” I was starting to heat up. Seemed like this young bitch thought she was a cut above me. Seemed like she thought she also knew a bunch of shit that I didn’t know or that she thought I couldn’t possibly figure out. So I took a good close look at her. She looked like a reflection of my younger self. I thought about the first time I saw her. Maybe she is Lexy or Mercedes, one or the other.
“I can handle whatever. But I control the action,” I finally answered her in my big-sister tone, because I am the first daughter of the Santiaga household. I’m not going to have my youngest sister talking down to me as though she is my teacher, even if we are both dead.
“You said you know everything about me, right?” I asked her. She smiled. “Everything,” she said like there was nothing to it.
“What am I wearing?” was my first question. I didn’t know the answer myself. I was checking to see if she could actually see me and what she saw. My look matters the most, I know. If I am looking shabby to her I know it changes my leverage in this conversation.
“Ah-hum-doo-lah-lah, you are the most beautiful-looking human to me, of course,” she said strangely. “I used the mercy I was given to remove your scar because you seemed uncomfortable wearing it,” she added, and I didn’t like her flipping shit like I owed her something. She probably removed my scar because she knew her ex-lover lusts women with scars.
“Don’t try and be slick. You still have not said what I am wearing,” I reminded her. Suddenly she started spinning round and round like she was trying to make herself dizzy. Then she started saying words like she was singing a song.
“Gucci Gucci Gucci, Louis Louis Louis, Fendi Fendi Fendi, Chanel Chanel Chanel, Hermès Hermès Hermès, Birkin Birkin Birkin, Louboutin Louboutin Louboutin, Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Choo Choo Choo, and good Lord Tom Ford! Okay! You are wearing it all.” She dropped to the ground in a squat, then collapsed into a lying-down position. Then she closed her eyes. I guess all that was her attempt to stop the dizzy feeling she caused herself. I liked seeing her throw a tantrum and lose her cool. And I liked it even more that she knew the names of some of the top designers. And she was pretty and nicely dressed, her hair covered with the trademark intricate delicate designs of a colorful Hermès scarf. Her sporting Hermès forced me to forgive her fashion-wise for covering her hair! And she was rocking her mean-ass saddle bag by wearing the strap like a sash across her front and the pouch on her ass. I liked the reversal. Quality fabric, expensively stitched leggings compliment only a sleek body type, like hers. Big sloppy bitches or even little sloppy bitches in dollar store cheap leggings is a crime. Diamond Rain’s fashionable leggings were also like riding pants that rich bitches wear on horseback. Oddly, she wore black leather ballet shoes with the ribbons criss-crossing up past her ankles. It wasn’t my style. I guess her coming from the sky caused her to dress to travel light. She looked dope. I was willing now to give her that. Her fashion outburst had chipped off some of the ice between us.
“Lexy or Mercedes?” I asked, looking down at her.
“The cars or your sisters?” she replied, opening her eyes. So she knew those were my sisters’ names without me having to tell her. She passed that little test.
“Which one are you?” I asked, still keeping it brief.
“Neither Mercedes nor Lexus are dead. Miss Winter, you are dead,” she said, sitting up and turning the mood very, very serious. “I am not Mercedes or Lexus. If I were either one of them, you would not ever have been able to see me or them, because you are no longer in the realm of living humans.” I didn’t need no clarification.
“So fucking what? You’re a dead bitch just like me!” I shot back. She leaped up. “Otherwise you wouldn’t even be here.”
“I am not a ‘dead bitch,’ as you say. And I wish you would change your manner of saying things. It would be to your benefit.”
“So why exactly are you here? You said that I’m dead, yet you say that you can see me. At the same time, you said that I cannot see the living and you say that you are not dead, but clearly I can see you. What are you then?” I asked forcefully.
“Very good,” she said, and I didn’t like her slick compliments or how she spoke them softly with a smile.
“First things first, Lah-il-la-ha-illah-huwa,” she said.
“Speak English or fuck it all,” I threatened her.
“You must never follow up sacred words with niggardly words,” she said. But I was tired of her foreign shit.
“English is only one of thousands of languages in the universe. UBS are suited to speak all of the languages in existence as part of our mercy, Alhamdulillah. Our mission is to be relatable. We introduce dead humans whose souls are lost and roaming in error to the path of cleansing. We show them how making prayers to the ONE is a means of protection for themselves. And also, it is absolutely the only path out of this area.” She pointed out beyond the green towards the looming darkness that I had been stuck and sitting in. Then she continued.
“Our prayers and praises to the ONE are always only in the language that the ONE revealed the Truth in. So when we are speaking to dead humans in their language, we will often add in some words of prayer and praise to the ONE. This is the proper way of speaking for all of us servants. And, Miss Winter, you and I and every soul are each and all servants of the Maker of all souls.”
“Servants!” I cracked up. Thought the bitch was pretty but crazy, pretty crazy!
“Miss Winter, for you to get permission to leave this realm, you will need to stop mocking Faith and stop blocking the Truth, which your soul already knows to be true. Down here, the biggest wrongful error any soul can commit is to pretend that it does not understand when it does understand and has understood all along. This is a bigger wrong than murder or suicide in this realm. Do you understand what I have said so far?” she asked me as she stared into my eyes. I just stared back at her. Didn’t say shit.
“So I am here to help you place everything in the right order. We have already established that there is only ONE God who is the Maker of all souls. If a soul does not feel and acknowledge this truth, every other thing and choice it makes will be completely out of order, all confusion and chaos.”
“Is this some fancy Jesus talk? Are you down with those crazy Seventh-day Adventists who go around knocking on people doors who they don’t know like they ain’t got no damn sense? Back in Brooklyn, one of ’em got shot dead for knocking on the wrong door talking shit.” I laughed.
“Shot dead… same as you, Miss Winter,” she said, and I felt an anger and a chill.
“Jesus, peace be upon him, was a servant of the ONE. Jesus was not a partner, an equal, a son or a relative to the ONE. The ONE has no partners, no children, no equals. No one and none of us compare to the ONE who created time, created the sun, moon, and all stars, the universe and all souls, spirits and living things. Jesus was given many, many MERCIES from the ONE, Ah-hum-doo-lah-lah. MERCY is something only the ONE can grant permission for and give. MERCY is the reason you can walk today and see, hear, touch, feel, and talk. In this realm, when you see the atmosphere turn green, it is an indication that the ONE has provided a MERCY happening at that moment. And because the devil is a liar, him and his army of demons shows up and spreads mischief and confusion among the population of lost souls such as yourself, Miss Winter. The demons prey on the weak-minded and convince them that it was they who healed you, gave you feeling, healing and mobility, sight and sound. Demons show up when they perceive the green color in the atmosphere. The same way that sharks show up when and where they perceive blood.
“The demons cannot and did not and could never give you anything good or useful at all. They cannot heal you or answer your prayers or save your soul. They cannot protect or preserve or prolong your life or alter or interfere with your death and the return of your soul to the ONE. They are only evil demons lurking, luring, and striking at the right time to utilize the MERCY that the ONE has allowed to further mislead the many lost souls. Once you or any lost souls falls for it, Shayton, who is the devil, and an evil whisperer, who makes millions of evil suggestions through his army of demons, whom he calls his sons and daughters, will mislead you to great harm. The key is, Miss Winter, without your permission, cooperation, and acceptance, the demons cannot cause anything whatsoever to happen to you. You must resist and rebuke them. Humble yourself to the ONE who created your soul and all souls and gave you life.”
Young and sharp, she spit game like a real motherfucking pimp, a lady pimp. She was doing double talk, meaning she was talking about my forever nigga without admitting that that was what she was doing. She was throwing shade on him in such a way that she was twisting his character. She was so devious she wanted me to flip on him and to believe that I made the choice to do so and she had nothing to do with it. He had done so much for me. She wanted to flip it and make it seem like he had done nothing good at all. She was redesigning and packaging my forever nigga as a powerless predator. She was like those crafty detectives that tried to get me to give up info leading to Bullet. They came at me from so many different angles all at once. I didn’t let them in. I didn’t let them win. I wouldn’t let her win either. Did she think that I preferred a life of being a boring-ass praying servant to any fucking body? Oh hell no!
“Miss Winter, I have only seven Earth minutes remaining in my MERCY to you. I want to leave you with the information that you will need in order to cleanse your heart, mind, and soul and make choices that will not destroy you any further,” she said, interrupting my train of thought. She shifted her saddle-bag strap. Now the pouch was hanging in front of her. Her hand rested over it.
“You are extremely far away from Jannah, which is Heaven in your English language. You are so very far away in terms of actual physical distance and in terms of spiritual distance, which prevents your soul’s return to the ONE who created you. If the ONE chose to do so, you could be in Jannah in an instant. But you have not earned a place on any level in all of the peaceful beautiful heavens, which is so vast that no mind can even imagine it. There is no pain, debt, deafness, blindness, paralysis, burning, screaming, breaking, cracking, hissing, plagues or viruses, crimes or torture or illness in Jannah. There are only good souls and good interaction, and beautiful rivers and elaborate comfort and most of all there is great PEACE.” She lifted her arms in a victory gesture. Guess she thought she had won me over with her talk.
“On the left hand, this realm where we are right now, in the absence of the ONE’s mercy, Ah-hum-doo-lah-lah, has not even a molecule or grain of Heaven. The same way you are Brooklyn born, the County of Kings, in the State of New York, in the country of the United States of America and all of those names accurately describe your prior location on Earth, this place where we are standing right now is first known as the Last Stop Before the Drop, the County of the Ungrateful, the State of Ignorance, and the Land of Arrogance. Population is around five hundred million, give or take a thousand or so souls depending upon their choices, prayers, and actions,” she said.
“Five hundred million!” I laughed. “You almost had me,” I lied. “But I’m the bitch who sat here on this curb for what felt like six thousand years. I was dead alone. There was no one here but me. Five hundred million, yeah right!”
“Winter, you are able to lie. I am not. So everything I say will be the truth. It is a condition of my permission to access my second mercy to you.”
“Everybody lies,” I said. She paused and didn’t reply.
“Yes, you are right. Everyone who resides in the Last Stop Before the Drop is a liar. Including you. However, I mentioned that I am not from here—”
“Then what the fuck are you doing around here? Why are you sweating a nigga who is not from your hood?”
“Who!” She balled her hands into fists and set them at each side of her waist. “I see that you don’t even know his name. How could you? You don’t even know anything about him really. Down here the real name is the name of the soul. The nickname is the name of the action. So even though you don’t care and never asked because you can only care and think and feel and concern yourself about yourself and him, the name the ONE gave my soul is Siddiqah. It means ‘believes in the words of Allah and Allah’s books.’ My nickname is Bomber Girl, ’cause I bomb the devils every time that I am not bowed in prayer or out on a mercy. I am a servant dispatched to destroy devils. Now your guy, the name of his evil soul is Lucifer 66. He is the sixty-sixth ‘son’ of his ‘father,’ Shayton, the head devil who is condemned to the Eternal Fire and likes nothing more than to invite lost souls to join him in his eternal misery. Lucifer 66’s nickname is ‘Dat Nigga,’ because a nigga is a spirit, soul, or person who refuses with all of his or her will and might to learn, grow, and change. Also, he is called Dat Nigga because he is a top recruiter for Shayton, an expert at luring souls. I really can’t believe that after your gruesome death and your periods of loss of eyesight, hearing, touch, feeling, mobility, and health that you are still talking and thinking about him,” she said to me all indignant. “Yes! Of course you are! He is the same one who you ran away with and left me for on my first mercy.” Then she laughed. “Me and twenty of my UBS chased after you. We were fighting fiercely and outnumbered by his sixty-five jinns. They still couldn’t defeat us, but definitely did slow us down considerably until we were too late to retrieve you. You had already willed to remain with him. We can defeat evil jinns, but we cannot defeat the will of a dead human’s soul.”
“All bitches talk greasy about their ex-boyfriends and baby daddies. Sometime a bitch be telling the truth, and sometime a bitch be lying for a thousand different reasons,” I said, folding my arms in front of her. She needed to know that I could and should teach her, instead of her trying to lead me around.
“Let me put you up on game,” Bomber Girl said, spinning on her ballet shoes. She was somehow sounding like me. She stopped spinning, landing close up in my face wearing an aggressive expression that was more familiar to me, but that she never had with me before. I liked this expression because I could see her anger in it. I was like, Yeah bitch, now you showing your real face!
“Blah blah blah blah blah!” I spit and then talked over her talk. “Wow, how could a teenager talk so damn much! I see why Dat Nigga cut your ass off. No man wants to hear all of that bullshit. It’s a real downer! How could he even keep a hard-on with you talking all of that shit. Fucking you must have been a nightmare, a total wet blanket. Fuck you if you think that I’m a stupid, dumbass, clueless, whatever! I know what a soul is. Soul is the feeling in the music, or the look in the fashion, or the style in the jewels, or the rhythm in the streets. My soul was created by my momma, who pushed me out of her big coochie after my father went in her, repeatedly.” Then I laughed a little.
“Funny you should mention Momma,” she sang softly in a melody like they were lyrics to a song, withdrawing any trace of her anger. That got me thoroughly heated.
“Don’t say shit about my mother. This may be another fucking realm but where I come from, you don’t say shit about anybody’s mother unless you want to get knocked out, stabbed, or shot dead,” I warned her.
“So you do have some emotion, concern for, and memory of your mother. I did not think so. After your body was shot dead, the Most Merciful ONE allowed you three visitations of your choice. You did not even think about or ask about or choose to visit your own momma. Honestly, you would not have been able to have visited her, though, because she is no longer of the Earth’s living and the three visitations are granted to say goodbye to the Earthly living ones whom you cared about the most and whom you would miss the most as your soul exited the Earth realm immediately after your death.”
“Are you a fucking mind reader?” I spit. “How would you know if I thought about my mother or who I visited after my death?”
“I cannot share with you just yet how I know.”
“Well shut the fuck up then!”
“Here,” she said, suddenly handing me her saddle bag. I didn’t like that she was giving me some type of hand-me-down even though it looked brand-new. But it was Gucci dope style. So I took it. It was heavy. I learned from living in the streets that if anybody hands you a bag, you better look in it right then and there. Know what you’re holding! So I looked. In it was a book so heavy that no one in their right mind would ever open or read it. Even I know an author should have some fucking consideration and keep it brief. That’s why I love magazines. They’re less wordy, more art and photography. They are constantly updated, so they keep up with the flow of fashion, the movement of models, celebs, and caked-up people, and display the finest furniture, newest technology, awesome travel destinations, elite products, and the flawlessness of jewels. I handed the saddle bag back to her.
“The BOOK is an English translation of the ‘Book of Guidance,’ the most important words revealed and written to the living. On its pages are the answers to every question you have and any one of us has ever had. Keep it in case you have a change of heart. The answers and the straight way will be right at your fingertips. There is a tiny dictionary in the bottom of the bag in case you don’t understand a word, just look it up.” She handed it back to me. I didn’t take hold of it.
“Bitch, you said I was dead. Why do I need a Book of Guidance with all of the answers to questions for the living?” I knew I trumped her, showed her how smart she isn’t.
“Because the soul is eternal. You need to know what the difference is between good and evil, right and wrong. Once you read these pages, you will be able to distinguish and understand and most importantly self-reflect. Don’t you care to know how come you are here at the Last Stop Before the Drop? Once you read, you will see the error in your choices and feel responsible for your missteps. Then you will will yourself to pray. Sincere prayers are the only path out of complete darkness.”
“Beep-beep.” A red G wagon rolled up, fully AMG kitted and rims glistening. It parked a short distance away. It had me mesmerized. Of course I had seen a Benz G Wagon before, but never a red one. It was so mean it seemed to glow. The tinted windows dropped down. “What are you waiting for? Get in!” Lucifer 66, Dat Nigga, said. He was calling for me. My forever nigga showed up just like I knew he would.
“Momma Lana Santiaga is not down here with you. She is in Heaven,” Bomber Girl said quickly. She thought she knew my weakness and tried to stab me in it. She stepped in close to me, trying to block him from my line of vision. She placed the strap of the bag over my shoulder. Maybe she thought that heavy-ass book would make it impossible for me to speed off. “Excuse me, Miss Winter,” she said, downshifting her tone now that I obviously had a better option. “Before you decide which path to take, I want you to know who I am and why it might matter to you.” In my mind I was like, You are a non-fucking-factor.
Real bitches like bad boys. I’m the realest bitch, so I strutted right over to my forever nigga and hopped in. Through the blackened window, I could still see the spark of the Diamond Rain girl. Then poof! She suddenly exploded and disappeared. She left a trace of her hilab. The lavender sky and green atmosphere all faded to black. As me and him sped into the complete darkness, I opened the saddle bag, admiring the grade and texture of the leather, as well as the detail of the stitching. I decided to keep it. I lowered my window and tossed that heavy-ass book right out.
There was a foul breeze rushing into the rugged whip. Still, I kept my window down. I needed the air. I was concentrating on reducing my temperature. I had to prevent myself from suddenly turning into a blob of heat, especially before I got the dick-down that I was anticipating like a motherfucker. The only interruption to my thorough excitement about being back to human, and my pure enticement with him, was my fury with that little bomber bitch, who stood there with her bullet-lined waistline and a hand grenade around her neck. Yet, she tried to come off like she was some kind of fucking innocent angel. She needed to be armed and she knew it. Without her ammunition and weapon, I would have never hesitated to whoop her ass for mentioning Momma and reminding me of shit I worked hard to forget.
“I’m gonna need a drink,” I told my forever nigga. “Something strong,” I added.
“I got whatever you need. Whatever I ain’t got, I’ll get it,” he said solemnly, and I loved it.
“What did UBS say that got you upset?” he asked me calmly, to which I replied, “Don’t ever ask me about any other bitch. And when I’m with you, don’t say no other bitch’s name.”