GHOUL’S PARK WAS DEFINITELY THE PLACE TO CHILL with the crew on the weekends. Unfortunately, rivalries were born there as well. The weekend before school started, I was hanging with the crew. By now, Dante, Tronne, Tater, Bodeem, and I were a bona fide band of brothers. The morning ritual began with a dollar’s worth of chicken wings at the corner store. Whoever had the cash picked up the tab. Nigel and Onk joined us in the park that Saturday. They were always close by, but were more focused on sports than trouble. If they had a problem with guys from the streets, we handled it for them. That Saturday an argument ensued about a topic of gargantuan importance:
“Bruh, I’m telling you, Kim got the fattest ass this side of Perrine. I wanna get me a little piece of that right there,” said Dante.
“Nah, bruh, Kiesha definitely got her beat,” Tronne chimed in.
We all nodded in agreement. Then Big Black and Shrimp came walking toward us. Black was a guy one may call the resident hood star. He was a year younger than me, but got respect from Hollywood and the other hustlers down south. Black was one of those cats whose heart was that of a man twice his size. He took a liking to me and it was much appreciated. Anybody Black cosigned was a force to be reckoned with. The ground shook when Black walked. Some people have a presence that commands respect. Black was that type of person. He wasn’t having it. His right-hand man, Shrimp, was just as respected.
“Everything good?” asked Black.
“Yeah, Dante over here saying Kim got a fatter ass than Kiesha,” said Tronne.
“Why y’all don’t ask Maurice? He hit both of ’em,” Black said, turning toward me.
I shook my head. It was no secret that I was popular with the girls. I was Hollywood’s younger brother. He had girls from Homestead to Fort Lauderdale and every town in between. They had sisters. They liked my eclectic persona.
I know it sounds suspect that I would describe myself in such a colorful fashion, but I always stood out. I added my own style to the fresh gear Wood laced me with. I wore a dashiki shirt with my black Dickies pants and topped it all off with a gleaming gold-nugget bracelet. Chicks dug my style. Women always go for the guys that are confident enough to stand on their own. Don’t follow the crowd if you want the ladies. You don’t have to take my word for it. Go do your research. Some of my girls I was really serious about even if I couldn’t admit it to the crew.
But in the hood a guy wasn’t given the option of sharing his girlfriend. It was a requirement. My friend had the right to my girl in much the same way he had a right to my chicken wings. That I actually had, and have always had, the utmost respect for women was a secret I kept from the crew. I couldn’t have them thinking I was soft. I treated the ladies with class. That was my secret. A ten-step handbook to pimping doesn’t exist. I was charming. I despised the way older men took advantage of younger women. They filled their impressionable minds with all sorts of dreams, then left them out in the cold nine months pregnant without a pot to piss in. It still ticks me off to this day when I see a teenage girl on the bus stop stuck with a baby carriage, bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders. If I could send a heat-seeking missile toward every deadbeat father on the planet, I would. Put everything I love on that. Women like sweetness, and I was all the above. Of course I kept it gangster with my crew. So they had liberties to all my girls. Well, all of my girls except Tiffany. I had a fondness for her. She was about five feet five inches with a caramel complexion and the brightest brown eyes this side of the Mississippi. Honestly, I was crazy about her. So I tried hard to keep her far away from Lou and Ty.
Lou and Ty took the concept of “it ain’t no fun if the homeys can’t have none” too far. Some older cats just didn’t take no for an answer. I should have known better when I decided to get some sugar over there. My stepmother didn’t take kindly to having all of my “little fast hussies” as she called them running through the house. I’d been wining and dining Tiffany for months, acting like her real-life Casanova, shelling out money like I was an ATM. It was Wood’s money. He thought I was spending it at the arcade. When she finally decided to give me the goodies, I couldn’t wait. I needed a place to do the do. Lou and Ty told me I could get busy by their pad for $50. It was pretty steep, but I was hard-pressed to see what Tiffany had up under that skirt.
When we showed up, those two were in the living room bagging crack rocks and counting money. Perfect. It seemed to be the only time Lou and Ty wouldn’t talk your head off. Tiffany was scared, shaking like drugstore jelly.
“You sure we’re okay in here?” she whispered, tugging on my shirt.
I couldn’t hear anything. I was too busy imagining the positions I saw in that Kama Sutra book I’d found in Wood’s bedroom. When those chicks left Wood’s bedroom, they looked like they had seen the pearly gates, so I studied that book through and through.
“I don’t like the way they’re looking at me,” she repeated.
“Girl, those fools ain’t paying attention to you,” I said.
They were.
I led her up the bedroom stairs. All those earrings, movies, and sneakers she enjoyed were about to pay off. I started kissing on her neck, then delved down toward Eden. I reached in my back pocket. It wasn’t there. I nearly tore through my pocket.
You have to be kidding me. My rubbers weren’t there.
I was determined though.
“No, I don’t wanna get pregnant,” Tiffany fumed.
“We can do the old-fashioned birth control,” I coaxed.
“Hell no, that’s what my cousin Kima used and she got three kids!”
I raced down the stairs like a runaway slave and asked Lou and Ty if they had any. Of course they didn’t. What girl in her right mind would let those greasy two huff and puff on top of her? I bolted up the block toward the corner store. The line was long as heck. I waited and waited. A million thoughts ran through my head. What if Tiffany had second thoughts? The old man in line in front of me was getting his Powerball tickets scratched off. That always puzzled me. In every corner store in the hood, someone is always playing the lotto. I bet rich folks don’t play the lotto that much. Imagine if those folks saved the money they spent playing lotto. Right now this dude’s lucky-number dreams were making my muff-diving a fading reality. A good fifteen minutes had passed when I finally banked the corner and reached the entrance to the house.
Tiffany was limping down the stairs shaking. I ran toward her.
She started wailing on me. “They wouldn’t stop! They wouldn’t stop!” she cried.
I tried to hug her but she punched me in the face. I ran inside. Ty was sitting on the couch with his shirt off. Lou was in the bathroom whistling. If I could have killed those two that day, I would have, but I knew better.
“What you all bent outta shape for? Fuck that ho, bruh,” said Lou.
“That cherry sure was sweet though!” added Ty.
Taking a teenage girl’s honor was a joke to them. They were shucking and jiving like they had just ate a slice a pizza. Shit like that happened all the time. Girls in the hood fall victim to a world that doesn’t value them. If black boys in the ghetto aren’t worth shit on society’s scale, where do you think that leaves the girls? If you think the hood is scary to a boy, imagine a young girl growing up fatherless. Imagine trekking those narrow alleys, dodging and sidestepping advances from determined pimps and dazed addicts. Picture the tugs on your skirt, pinches and touches in private places. Rape is rampant in the hood. The harsh truth is the victims aren’t really a priority so the police don’t investigate.
That day on the bus Tiffany didn’t speak. She sat numb. Her sobs faded into cold contempt as she stared off into space. I wanted to ask her if there was anything I could do, but I knew there wasn’t. I took her there. It was my fault. We were just two young kids caught in a teenage moment, but in our environment simple joys could become lifelong nightmares in the blink of an eye.
We never spoke again. I tried calling, but her sister would answer. Eventually I got the point. Try explaining to someone’s family that their daughter got raped because you left her alone with crazed drug dealers. You can’t. I chalked it up for what it was. I kept that day a secret from my crew. I didn’t want dudes humiliating Tiffany more than she had already been.