Chapter Two

Sammy

Motherhood was becoming a challenge to me, from my son catching an ear infection, then having a high fever and rushing him to the emergency room, along with him teething and then trying to put him to bed every night was a challenge. And when he cried, he cried very loud, with the lungs on my little man feeling like a blow horn was in my room. He was becoming a handful at six months, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love my son Danny to death. He was my world and my heart, and the most precious thing I ever had on this earth, more precious than diamonds and gold. I adored the way my son’s small eyes lit up when he smiled and laughed while he looked up at me. The way Danny laughed when I would tickle him made me light up, too. The way he fell asleep when I held him in my arms always made me feel so motherly. He was my baby boy, and he was going to grow up to become my big strong man, my protector, and I knew he would become the one man in my life who wouldn’t break his mother’s heart.

I sat by the window in the kitchen of my project apartment gazing out at the ghetto once again. I was back in Edenwald, the place I grew up in, and I didn’t like it. I missed the place I had in Co-op City when I was selling drugs for Rico. It was bigger, more comfortable, and a lot more lavish, but staying there came with a cost. I was fortunate that the feds didn’t come for me too like they did for Rico’s entire crew. I managed to stay under the radar and stay free. It was a blessing.

But then I still felt cursed. I was alone and basically living on ends. My life had changed dramatically. Never in a million years would I think I would become a single mother struggling to survive and barely paying rent. The icing on the cake was being blackmailed by Rico. He had this murder lingering over my head, threatening my freedom if I didn’t comply with any of his demands. I was sick of him, but I had to put up with him; he was my son’s father, and regardless of him serving a twenty-five-year sentence upstate, he still managed to have control over my life.

I would frequently visit Rico, like I had a choice, taking Danny on the six-hour trip by bus to see his father in Attica prison, and you would think Rico would be appreciative of it, seeing his son, but he wasn’t. He barely held his son in his arms or played with him as we sat in the crowded visiting room being heavily watched by a half dozen correction officers. He said he cherished the boy, loved him, but I couldn’t tell.

I had to admit, Rico did look good clad in his prison-issued gray jumpsuit and bald head glistening like a diamond. He seemed to be taking really good care of himself and was bulking up by weightlifting. But looks could be deceiving. Prison didn’t age or change him at all. He still had that powerful image. But he was still on that bullshit, wanting to be controlling and a perpetual asshole in my life.

He glared at me and had the audacity to ask, “Who you fuckin’ out there?”

I scowled. “What?”

“Sammy, you fuckin’ heard me. I don’t repeat myself,” he uttered.

I was only coming to visit him with his son because he had this murder over my head, and if it weren’t for that, I would have been ghost a long time ago. Fuck Rico! I hated him so much that I wanted to kill him at that moment. He had the nerve to grill me about my life, who I was fuckin’, and how I did me. No matter what, he was always going to be a jerk.

But he scared me, now more that he was locked up than when he was on the streets. He was a sneaky nigga. It was also brought to my attention that he still had a handful of killers on the streets. I know he did. He made it known that I was being watched like a hawk. Why though? The man had twenty-five years to serve, so was I not allowed to move on with my life? He had the best of both worlds, some of the sweetest pussy from Mouse and me, two of the project’s baddest bitches, and we both gave him some beautiful babies.

“You gonna always be mine, Sammy, you know that right?” he said. “You ain’t going anywhere. Fuck that.”

He looked at me with his cold eyes, apathy in his heart, and didn’t even blink. The statement of always being his had me about to throw up. I was never his in the first place. It was a fling, a damn mistake.

I had no reply to his chilling comment. I just sat there like a damn fool. Danny was in my arms chilling; he was quiet and being a good baby by not fussing or crying. It was Rico who seemed to be throwing the temper tantrum. I felt trapped by Rico’s words. He reached across the table to take my hand into his. I hesitated. I didn’t want him touching me. I wanted to leave, but I had an hour visit with him and there was no way he was going to let me cut it short. I was there with his son, but he cared not to hold him for too long. His only concern was my business.

“What do you want from me, Rico?” I asked with such disdain in my tone and pulled away from his reach.

“I want you to marry me,” he had the nerve to say.

“What?” I knew I didn’t hear him correctly.

“I want you to become my wife.”

It was like he had spit in my face. The muthafucka had to be delusional. Prison had made him go insane. There was no way in hell I was going to marry Rico. I didn’t care if he threatened me by exposing me or murdering me. It was my word against his, and he was a felon.

“I’m not marrying you, Rico,” I flat-out told him.

“And why not?” he responded through clenched teeth. “You think you have a choice in this?”

“What is wrong with you?”

“I always been in love wit’ you, Sammy,” he stated.

Love? Rico didn’t even know what the word meant.

He always had been a self-centered and narcissistic bastard. He left behind so much pain from my life to the streets, that people was dying out there, fighting and killing over something he left behind. The Bronx was ugly. He was uglier. He was a twisted gangster with a hard on for drama.

“You got my son.”

“Like you give two shits about him, Rico. You can’t even hold and play with him while he’s here to see you. And you think you can be a father to him in here?” I exclaimed.

“I still got my resources out there, Sammy, and I can take care of you. Remember who the fuck I am. You can’t hide.”

I didn’t have any doubt he still had pull and clout on the streets, Rico would always be Rico, but while there was hell going on out there, muthafuckas dying, starving and homeless, Rico had three meals and a cot to sleep on. But his son and I, we were barely making it out there. He put this baby in me, didn’t acknowledge my son like it was his when I brought him to the prison, and he left me out there to become a single mother with a baby daddy incarcerated; my worst nightmare.

I glared at Rico as he sat across from me. He might as well been the anti-Christ in my eyes. I had a right to be pissed the fuck off. I felt he took everything from me: my career; my best friends, Mouse and Search; my dreams; and, most of all, my damn dignity. I felt my dreams of breaking into the music business were becoming distant. I wasn’t writing, singing, or rhyming like I used to, and I had no one to support me. I supported myself and my son by dancing in this strip club called Crazy Legs. It was a job, however; not the one I ever saw myself doing, but it paid the bills.

My first night I was so nervous that I threw up for a half hour in the bathroom. I had no idea what I was doing or what I was getting myself into. I knew girls who danced, and they always told me it was good money in it. It wasn’t me though. Honestly, I felt I was always better than that, too good to take my clothes off for money. I left that scandalous occupation for the whores and birds who were stupid enough to get into it. I had bigger dreams.

But shit always comes back to haunt you.

My first night taking my clothes off in front of dozens of horny and howling strangers was nerve-racking and it was a total contradiction for me. Kawanda got me into it. She lived in the apartment down the hall from me. I would see her leave almost every night to go to work and hours later she would come back with at least three to five hundred dollars a night. She always paid her bills on time and had so much extra to spend on herself, especially since she didn’t have any kids.

When your child is hungry, the lights are about to be cut off, and you need heat in your apartment, pride becomes a memory and you find yourself doing what you gotta do to take care of home and your child. I swallowed my pride and went to talk to Kawanda about dancing. She was more than happy to give me the details on it and to help me out.

“They would love you down there, Sammy,” she had said. “You got a great body and you are a beautiful woman. You would kill it in the club.”

I really needed the money. So the next night, I had a neighbor watch my son and I went with Kawanda to Crazy Legs. The club was in the south Bronx, and it was underground, really seedy with the atmosphere that anything goes. I mean, bitches got butt-ass naked and walked around like they were Eve in the Garden of Eden. The customers in the place were perverts, hoods, pimps, thugs, drug dealers, sex addicts, and more; they all went crazy over some pussy.

The minute I walked into the place, all eyes were on me. I guessed they smelled the new girl on me and couldn’t wait to see what I was working with. It was a cold night, and I was bundled up in a snorkel jacket, hat, gloves, and some boots. I hid my figure, but it felt like every nigga in the place had X-ray vision and peeled away my clothes, and was picturing me naked.

I hurried behind Kawanda into the changing room. It was a joke, more like a ghetto walk-in closet cluttered with ratchetness. There weren’t any lockers to place your stuff in, just a whirlwind of bags: trash bags of clothing and duffle bags, lying about the floor from the door to the back, and inadequate clothing everywhere. Every girl shared one long mirror and the paint on the walls was peeling, and had me worried about asbestos. The changing room looked disgusting. There was ass and coochie everywhere, bitches half dressed and talking shit, either to each other or about the men outside calling a few cheap or ugly, and it smelled. I mean it reeked of unwashed pussy, period blood, and just odor. Bitches were spraying their private parts with some scented coochie spray and wiping their asses with baby wipes.

It was crazy to see.

When I walked in, the seasoned dancers in the room smirked at me and knew I was fresh blood. I couldn’t believe that I was about to do this. I wanted to back out of it, but when I saw one girl counting up money, mostly dollar bills, tens and fives, it became enticing.

Kawanda encouraged me to do my thing. She started undressing, getting ready to go on stage and make her money. I stood near her feeling lost. Kawanda was willing to share some of her clothing with me, because I had nothing to dance in. I was used to performing in front a crowd fully clothed while singing and rhyming; but this here, taking my clothes off in front of complete strangers and dancing seductively, was crazy.

Kawanda got dressed in a platinum bob wig, a red G-string, a faux fur light-up hood, and red six-inch stilettos. She oiled her body down with baby oil and sprinkled some glitter on her breasts and her transformation was absolutely amazing. She went from average to exotic in no more than twenty minutes. And I thought that I was a bad bitch. I sighed, knowing I had to do the same thing. I got dressed in one of her white short-sleeved tie tops, and a short plaid schoolgirl skirt. Underneath the skirt, I wore all-over sequined booty shorts, and sported a pair of black stilettos.

I took a deep breath and followed Kawanda to where it was show time. The DJ was blaring rap music, and thick weed smoke, along with cigarette smoke, lingered all through the club. The men were lively and loud, and the stage was in use by a dark-skinned, thick, big-booty stripper with pasties on her breasts, black knee-high boots, and nothing else. Her pussy was shaved and exposed, and she sported more tattoos than Dennis Rodman. She twirled around the pole looking like a professional and enticed the hordes of men surrounding the stage by booty clapping and pole dancing.

I noticed the eyes gazing at me. Men looked eager to see me naked. I was the new dancer, and being a new and beautiful dancer, especially with my curvy and jaw-dropping figure, was like being a virgin in the place. Everybody wanted you to become their first.

“I need a drink,” I had said to Kawanda.

She had smiled and said, “We always do.”

At the bar, I had ordered a Cîroc Peach and Sprite, and downed it like it would be my last. The scenery was overwhelming; something was going on everywhere in the club: lap dances, grinding and fondling, arguments, money raining down on the stage, flirting, drinking, and later on I found out that in the back of the club, bitches disappeared into one of the three rooms with men, and they sucked and fucked these niggas for a fee.

Yeah, everything went down in Crazy Legs for the right price. But I knew my pussy wasn’t for sale. I just wanted to dance and make my money. Kawanda went on first to show me how it was done. She danced to the beat of Lucy Pearl’s “Dance Tonight.” I gazed at Kawanda and she was on point on stage, working that pole like it was a hard dick in her hand and she didn’t hesitate to get buck-naked in front of these thirsty niggas. Gradually, the stage was being inundated with money. It was mostly the drug dealers and shot callers spending money on my friend. Kawanda had these niggas in awe for a half hour and when she was done, the bitch stepped off the stage with money in both fists. She had to have made at least $150 in that half hour alone.

When I stepped on the stage to dance, my heart was beating faster than rock drums in a heavy metal concert. But I was going through with it. I needed the money and had to feed my son. Right away, I had everyone’s attention in the place; the new girl was about to perform. The DJ put on Rick Ross’s “Diced Pineapples” and I slowly twirled myself around the pole, trying to imitate the professionals who did it before me. I got five dollars thrown at me. I smiled at the nerdy-looking gentleman who tossed the bill.

I had no idea what I was doing. Stripping was harder than I thought it was, from moving your backside to the beat, climbing the pole, spreading your legs and removing your clothes to put on a show and entertain these horny hound dogs. But show some flesh, caress your breasts, play with your nipples, and shake your ass with the beat or not, these niggas didn’t care; they still paid to see.

And that night, I made $300. It wasn’t much, but it was something and I was able to keep my lights on and buy groceries for the apartment. Niggas wanted a VIP with me, but I had my limits; stripping was already farfetched in my book, but to become a whore, nah, never. And since that night, I never looked back. Stripping in Crazy Legs became the normal for me. It was my income, because God knows Rico wasn’t able to do shit to help me out.