Chapter Five
Melody
In the two days that Bags and I had been hustling and working the tills, she had $2,300. I knew the exact amount because she counted it every chance she got like a bill was going to slip out of her pocket and take off running. Despite my advice, she was still carrying all her money on her at once. And after seeing her aunt’s crib, I couldn’t blame her. I was sitting in the front room on a stained, soiled sofa and waiting on Bags so we could do our one-two. She’d been picking me up since we started hanging, so I figured it was my turn.
“What, you too damn good to sit down and eat my breakfast like the rest of us?” I could hear her aunt cutting into her ass. So far, everything Bags had told me was one hundred. There the ole lady sat, perched centerfold, watching everything, me included, her broad face twisted up in disgust.
“Nah, that ain’t it. I got somebody waiting on me,” Bags said calmly. She wasn’t trying to stir her up bitchin’, but the ole auntie was set on doing so anyway. She reminded me of my grandma back in Chicago. The day wouldn’t be off to a good start unless she pitched a bitch.
“I see you got on new clothes every day the week,” Auntie said, looking Bags from head to toe.
“Yeah, I got ’em off the clearance rack.”
“I’ll bet to hell ya did. But I’ma tell you one thing. Ya ass get caught stealing, ya better have bail money, ’cause I won’t be down there to get you.”
“Oh, trust me. I know,” Bags said, being smart. She tossed back the rest of her orange juice, then rinsed the glass.
Bags nodded at the door. “I’ma catch you later.”
Her aunt was staring a hole through Bags’s back as she slid into her new jacket.
“You ready?” she asked, stepping into the living room.
“Yeah, let’s make it,” I said, following Bags to the front door while shaking my clothes on the low. I wasn’t trying to take nothing extra back home with me. We had our own roaches. Plus, her aunt’s crib was a different kind of dirty, that “no thanks, I’ll stand” kind of dirty.
Bags let the door slam as we stepped on the porch. She looked at me like, “I told you.” As we stepped off the porch, her uncle Tony was on his way in.
“Damn, Unc. You look tired as hell.”
“It’s called work,” Tony said, brushing past us.
“Nah, it’s called stupid,” Bags mumbled. I could tell Tony had just ruined Bags’s mood by the way her face was all balled up.
“You straight, B?”
“Yeah, I am. I just can’t wait until I get enough bread to where I ain’t never gotta come back to this house. Enough to move my little brother and me far away.”
“We gonna get that money up. Summertime, remember?” I stuck out my fist for a pound, to which Bags pulled back a smile and hit rocks with me.
“So, what’s up? Where we going today?” I asked, ready to turn into Melody.
“I say we finish burnin’ up the city. Gotta get it while the gettin’ is good.”
“You know what you know, ’cause soon, that’s how it’s gon’ be . . . burnt up. Each store is a one-time deal. Then it’s over.”
We caught the bus going west. We had been mainly working the East Side, and I didn’t want to risk somebody seeing us running the same trick twice. So, I thought we’d hit up the West Side. Bags kept to the back of the bus while I set my sights on my money the red-faced nigga with dreads was holding for me in his left pants pocket. He looked from the window as I took my place beside him. He did what a million other people did right before they got picked. He looked down at all the empty seats as if to say, “Damn, girl, why you all on me?”
You know I wasn’t stuntin’ that nigga and his feelings. The quicker he played victim, the quicker I could give him all the space his heart desired. Soon as he returned to looking out the window, I assumed the two-finger dip position and waited for the first rock of the bus. Got him. I locked on the wallet and waited for the next rock. I pulled the wallet out, but it was hooked to a chain.
“Hold up, little bitch. I know you ain’t got yo’ hand in my pocket!” The dude stood up towering over me, ready to swing.
“Nah, it was falling, so I was just helping you out,” I claimed. I was thinking about snapping crazy on his ass, but there was only one problem. He looked like he would beat all the shit out of me. I tried to stand up so I could move, but the dreaded beast yanked me by the arm.
“Girl, I ain’t done with you.” Not caring if I were a female or not, he took a wild swing. Thank God, I ducked and sidestepped right into a seat. But I was trapped. He held his hand cock back like he was trying to decide where it would hurt the most. He was in midswing. Yet, he never made it because Bags blew his shit clean out in the name of Jesus. The guy folded up and was out cold. Bags put feet all upside his head, while I got what he’d unknowingly been holding for me.
The bus driver pulled the bus over and picked up the phone. I had to pull Bags off the dude ’cause she was about to stomp him blind.
“B, I think he’s calling the police. Let’s go,” I begged, pulling her by the arm.
“Yeah, keep the change, bitch,” I hollered at ole boy on our way to the back of the bus.
“Yo, open the fuckin’ door,” Bags yelled at the driver. She was jerking and kicking at it. However, the driver had it locked.
“We gotta wait on the police to get here,” the driver yelled.
Bags wasn’t trying to hear that. She pulled her trusted, never-leave-home-without-it pistol from her waist. People on the bus were getting low in their seats as Bags made her way up toward the driver.
“Oh, Jesus,” one churchgoing woman closed her eyes and prayed.
“Look, if you don’t open this door, and I mean right now, I’ma dust yo’ ass.” Bags stood back and cocked the hammer.
I guess the driver wasn’t ready to die. Quickly, he grabbed the lever and opened both doors. I got off the back, while Bags got off the front. She nodded for the strip mall across the street. “We need to split up. Meet back here when it calms down.”
We dodged the oncoming traffic in a hurry to get away from the scene. I went one way, and Bags went the other. I guess the driver was scared enough because he said fuck waiting on the police. He pulled away from the curb as soon as the traffic cleared up.
After dipping in and out of vacant lots until the coast was clear, we met back up at the strip mall. Bags was waiting for me in the parking lot right outside the Laundromat.
“Fuck you laughing at?” I asked, out of breath.
“Yo’ scary ass. That nigga was ’bout to beat the sleeves off you.” Bags continued riding me.
“That asshole wasn’t gon’ do nothing except what he did.”
“And what’s that?”
“Get knocked the fuck out.”
“I already know. I’m just fuckin’ with you. I wasn’t gon’ let him get off on you.”
“Anyway . . .” I wanted to switch the subject. “We haven’t hit this spot yet. It’s as good a place as any.”
“Cool with me. Where you wanna start?”
I looked around, then at the Dollar Store beside the Laundromat. “We can start here.”
“All right. I’m ’bout to kick it off then,” said Bags. She started for the Dollar Store while I fell back. I ain’t like the way that shit on the bus had played out. Bitch-ass nigga had a purse hook. Where the fuck a grown-ass man do that at? Anyway, he fucked up my record, but whatever. I scanned the parking lot in search of somebody I could redeem myself on. I zoomed in on a woman coming out of Rite Aid. The way she was holding her purse, I knew she had something of value in it.
“I see you back on your shit,” Bags said smiling, as she emerged from the Dollar Store.
I had just finished clipping ole girl. “I had to get my mojo back; plus, she was holding.”
“What she have?”
“I don’t know. Here, count it up and meet me at the Chinese restaurant.”
“All right. I went through the line with the yellow bone cashier,” said Bags.
I walked to the back of the store and picked up a bottle of dish soap and a roll of toilet paper, then stopped at the cashier’s drawer Bags told me she went through.
“Woo woo woo. Baby girl, you slippin’ on my change,” I said calmly at first. But ole girl looked at me like I had lost my mind.
“Let me see,” she said, snatching back the change. “No, that’s right,” she said, trying to hand me back the money.
“Look, skunk meat, if you don’t get the rest of mines, we gon’ have some problems.”
“Unt-unn . . . Girl, did you hear what she called you?” the other cashier said, all in my mix.
“Yeah, I heard her, and she ’bouts to get fucked around if she keep slippin’.”
“Bitch, I will slap two perms in that nappy shit of yours. Get my mothafuckin’ money out of that drawer.”
“I got yo’ bitch,” she snapped while coming from behind the counter, hands open, like... “What’s up?”
“What seems to be the problem?” The manager came flying up, trying to get between us.
I ran down my spiel about her not giving me my correct change. “My number is on the back of the bill. My momma makes me write it on all my bills.”
The manager popped the drawer; then, of course, cashed me out.
“But I know what she gave me.” I could hear ole girl saying as I pushed the door open.
“Yeah, me too.”
Bags was at the counter, getting our order when I walked inside the Chinese restaurant.
“You get that?” Bags asked over her shoulder.
“What kind of question is that?” I slid into one of the booths and took my jacket off.
Bags spread the sweet & sour chicken, pepper steak, shrimp fried rice, and egg rolls across the table. As we sat there, an old man came inside the restaurant. After giving us the side-eye, he cut into us, claiming he had a business proposition if we were interested. We looked at each other, hoping he was not just some random old perv trying to buy some cheap pussy. If so, we were not selling. He went into his pocket and took out his wallet. He pulled out a business card. “I met a thousand of yous. Call me when you ready to make some real money. Not like the piddly sums you make running games at the Dollar Store.”
We both looked at him, shocked that he knew what we did.
“Yeah, I was in there and saw the scam you ran.” He handed each of us a business card, then walked out.
* * *
All day yesterday, while we was out killin’ the till, the only thing I could think about was the old man and what he said. His words lived in my head . . . “I met a thousand of yous.” He had me feeling like the typical hood rat, like “What you doing ain’t nothin’, slick.” I kept looking at his card: Mr. Brooks, it read. I knew money when I saw it. And I was certain that old guy was holding it. I could feel it in my soul.
I wanted to get up with his old ass and see what he was talking about as far us working for him. Who knows, it could be our shot at some real money. But my homegirl was on some scary shit. Melody thought that he might be trying to lure us somewhere and kill us. I’m not saying that’s not what he was on, because I didn’t know his ass either. But I ain’t never been one to get caught slippin’. I prided myself on that. Besides, that’s what and where my pistol came into play. It ain’t let me down yet. I said fuck what Melody’s shook ass was talking about. I wasn’t about to miss my lick. I’m an opportunist, and chances make champions, feel me? Them little burn-out licks that she had us on were straight. The shit was game to me. Yet, they were also one-shot deals. I needed something more stable to come all the way up. So I called the number on the card, throwing caution to the wind.
“Okay, so you comin’ with me or what?” I asked. I had just hung up the phone from talking to Mr. Brooks.
“I’m tellin’ you, B, I don’t trust that man. He’s creepy as hell.”
“Look, girl, I don’t trust him neither. But I’m sayin’, trust me.” I upped the gun from my waist and continued. “I’m not gon’ let nothin’ happen to us. No matter what, we coming up out on top. Period.”
“Okay, but—”
“But what? Dang, Melody, we done robbed damn near every store in Detroit in less than a week. What we gon’ do next? Go back to digging in random niggas’ pockets and might get killed behind the bullshit?”
“I’m not complaining. Shit, the games been good to me. But you might be right.”
“Might be right? Girl, I know I’m right. We not growing if we keep running in circles. It’s time to do something else ’cause we damn near grown. What we gon’ do, pick and rob for the rest of our lives?”
“Shit, back in Chicago—”
I finally snapped. “You don’t get it, do you? Nigga, you ain’t in Chicago no more, so stop talkin’ ’bout that ‘back in Chicago’ shit. This is Detroit, the city of playas, hustlas, pimps, and gators.”
“Yeah, I know.” She dropped her head.
“Then act like you know. The only way we gonna come up is if we level up. We gotta stop playin’ out here.” I was so mad that I had to stop and fire up a Newport. I really fucked with Melody the long way, which is why I wanted us to make the possible come-up move together. But she wasn’t on it like I was. My ribs were touching, and I was down for whatever to get at a dollar. I was tired of just surviving. I felt like it was time to get over. “I know what it is. Yo’ ass is spoiled. You don’t have to be out here doing what you doing for real, and that’s why you playin’. But me, though, I’m dead-ass serious.”
* * *
The front door opened. Pops stepped inside, smiling, with LC dead on his heels. They stopped in the living room, where they always did their exchange. LC had a black diamond mink draped over his shoulders. He wore big, black, block gator boots. He stayed casket clean, and that’s precisely where his ass was going to be soon. I hated that old bitch nigga. In fact, so much so that I forgot what Melody and I were just talking about. I stubbed my square into the ashtray, then grabbed my jacket.
“Come on, we out,” I announced, standing up from the sofa.
“Hey, Miss Lady, I ain’t seen you in a while. You been all right?” asked LC, looking me up and down.
“You hear LC talkin’ to you, Sonya?” Pops butted in, trying to earn brownie points for a possible discount.
“Yeah, I heard him.” I still didn’t answer, though. I grabbed the door handle and let Melody step out first. I wasn’t never with the fake and phony shit. If I didn’t fuck with you, we weren’t about to do the pretending thing. It is what it is with me.
“What’s up with that old-time player back in there? Why you so cold to him?” Melody cut off into me.
“You see that over there?” I nodded at LC’s candy-apple red Caddy parked at the curb.
“Yeah, that bad boy is fresh.” Melody admired the shiny rims.
“I know. And look where my peoples are living. All the dope my father snorts comes from his ass. He jumping out with minks on his back my peoples helped sponsor. So, yeah, fuck him and fuck speaking to him. Let’s just be out.”
We caught a cab to the address that Mr. Brooks gave me. Melody could fall back when we got there. She could just linger around outside, and I’d get the true official rundown.
When we arrived at our destination, I did just that. “Just stay here and wait to count our new hustle come-up money.” With my pistol tucked in the small of my back, I marched into the building. Sitting behind a huge oak desk in the far corner of the room was Mr. Brooks. With my chest stuck out, I made my way toward him.
“Have a seat.” He motioned to a chair.
“No, thanks. I prefer to stand.” That way, there would be fewer motions to go through if I didn’t like what he had to say.
Luckily for Melody and me, what Mr. Brooks had in mind was definitely something we could work with. And certainly something that would get and keep our pockets off of craps for some time to come.