Girls from da Hood 14

by Treasure Hernandez, Ms. Michel Moore

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

Two Essence® bestselling Urban Books authors have teamed up to bring the Motor City drama in this latest installment of the popular Girls from da Hood Series.
All the Way In by Treasure Hernandez
Born into the struggle, Sonya Mills and Melody ""Ham"" Tatum are far from living the good life. They're missing meals, have no clean clothes to put on their backs, and are forced to sleep in abandoned houses. There are zero possibilities in sight for a legal come-up for either young woman.
The desperate teens have no choice but to beg, borrow, and steal if they hope to survive on the savage streets of Detroit. In a twist of fate, the pair link up, adapting a bloodthirsty, anything-goes, what's-yours-is-mine attitude that they inflict upon all they come in contact with. Sonya and Melody are made of no sugar, no spice, and definitely nothing nice!
Escaping a Thug's Love by Ms. Michel Moore
The Dexter Linwood Area is one of the most notorious neighborhoods in Detroit. Sable Turner and Mike Mike Sims were both born into that pure madness. When they fall in love, the young couple soon becomes DLA royalty, and they embrace all the chaos that comes along with it. Whenever he rocks, she rolls. If she hustles, he will grind.
Their gangsta lifestyle is picture perfect until Mike Mike starts popping pills and getting high on the regular. Soon bills are not getting paid, vehicles are being repossessed, and shutoff notices are the norm. The last straw is when Sable's jewelry mysteriously comes up missing. Now the hood princess wants out of their toxic relationship. Will Mike Mike let her go?

Release date: December 15, 2020

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

I hated the people God chose to make my family. I hated even claiming them as my family because not one of them was successful. Every last one of them was stranded on a welfare check doing dirt ball bad—and here I was born dead smack into absolutely nothing. I hated my aunt’s house and everything in it because, to me, it represented failure and everything I didn’t want to be. The empty wrappers, liquor bottles, and full ashtrays of smoked cigarettes reminded me every day of the life I didn’t want. The only reason I even bothered to come here—I call it “here” because I refuse to call it home—was on the strength of my little brother Devin. If it weren’t for him, I would have stopped putting up with my aunt’s hellhole long ago. Every night, I would lie with Devin on our pallet of sheets and old blankets, which we spread across the floor. I would lie there staring up at the ceiling, trying to figure out a way I could come up with enough money to move my little brother out of that dump and into a place that was at least clean. That was all I cared about . . . not clothes, shoes, or even sleep. I had to get us out of there by any means necessary.

I would kiss Devin on the forehead while he slept. I’d look at his little innocent face for a minute, trying to find the inspiration I needed before I hit them streets and, hopefully, turn up something.

Cuzzo and my aunt were the only two that beat me to the kitchen every morning. As soon as I hit the door, there she sat, legs crossed, in her favorite weathered blue nightgown, sipping coffee while pretending to be knee-deep in God’s Word. I swear if there were a back door or any other way out of that house other than going through the kitchen, I damn sure would have utilized it. The only way out was through the area where she diligently sat perched. It was almost like she was waiting to start messing with me.

I would take a deep breath and prepare for the bullshit. “Mornin’, Auntie,” I would say, heading for the kitchen sink to wash my hands. Even though her place was a mess, Lord knows you better wash your hands before touching anything in her kitchen. Then I would fix myself a simple bowl of grits, and nothing more because I hated eating her food. Auntie was one to make sure she let you know it too . . . that you were eating her food and living in her house. Her “four walls” are what she called it.

The reason I hated eating her food was that she always held some type of opposition. You were eating too much, or she was complaining that you thought you were too good for her cooking. I kept it simple so that I could keep it moving. She never would acknowledge my morning greetings. Instead, she would give me an evil understare as she sipped her coffee. I’d be sitting across from her, thinking, Here we go. And sure as shit, she would start.

“When are you going to get yourself together, Sonya? This is supposed to be your senior year, and I’m sure you won’t be walking across the stage in June.”

“Auntie, I wish you would stop with all the graduation talk. School ain’t never been for me.” I was trying to hurry up and finish my grits so I could get the hell out of there.

“Well, I’ma tell you one thing. When school lets out, if you don’t have a job, you won’t have a roof over your head neither. Are we clear on that part?”

Her fat ass irked me. I scooted my wooden chair back from the small table and stood up. I wasn’t trying to hear her gibberish, not this morning. Besides, even if I were to graduate, there wasn’t a single cent set aside for me to go off to college, so what was the difference? The way I looked at it was I couldn’t do any worse than the rest of them.

As I washed my bowl, Auntie spat, “I’m not taking care of no grown-ass woman.” That’s funny because she didn’t even hold a job. She was making it off them checks the government sent her wide ass twice a month for my brother and me, not to mention her own flock.

“There goes my baby,” Auntie proudly announced, as her eldest son entered the kitchen running late. Cuzzo was younger by a couple of months.

Hugging and kissing his mother before taking a seat across from her, he smiled. “Mornin’, Ma.”

Auntie scrambled to her feet in a rush to get to the stove. She packed his plate full of bacon, eggs, and french toast. She set the plate down in front of him, then rushed over to her bedroom, where she kept the good cereal under lock and key. “Here you go, baby,” she said, setting the Frosted Flakes in front of her favorite child.

“I’m out,” I said over my shoulder as I made my way through the kitchen, strapping my book bag to my back.

“Wait up, girl. I’ma walk with you,” Cuzzo insisted. He took a long gulp of milk while trying to stand.

But Auntie forced him back down into his chair. “Finish your food, baby,” she ordered while rolling her eyes at me.

“Yeah, Cuzzo, I’ll see you later. Finish eating.” I kept moving to the front door. Deep down, I knew Auntie didn’t care for me. I didn’t know if it was because I was gay or something else. Nevertheless, she felt like I was going nowhere fast, and she was determined not to let me take Cuzzo with me. Which was good, considering I always had things to take care of that were a one-man job.

I slammed the front door and took in a deep breath of fresh air, relieved to be leaving that house. Quickly, I tucked my hands deep inside the pockets of my black hooded coat and started down the block. We lived on West Grand, one block away from Davison. Every morning, I would leave the house with my book bag strapped to my back, but instead of going to school, I was on my way to pull yet another caper. It was easy enough, and it was just the way I liked my money—fast. Most people would try to tell me that what I was doing was wrong, but you know what? Fuck you and fuck them too ’cause I don’t believe in right and wrong. Nah, I believe in what’s necessary and what’s not. And me trying to change my little brother’s living situation was extremely necessary.

Nearing the BP gas station, I locked eyes on the well-dressed, half-breed dude standing at the rear area of a pearl-white Lincoln. He was watching the meter on the pump with his back to me . . . straight slipping. I had to get him. I picked up my step and pulled my hood over my head. I quickly checked the scene. Approximately three inches of fresh snow packed the street, so the traffic moving down Davison was at a minimum and at a snail’s pace. I crossed the parking lot while clutching the handle of my gun. The meter slowed, then stopped at twenty dollars.

The man shook the last of the gas from the pump and placed it back on its hook. When he turned around to screw the cap on his gas tank, his nose touched the cold steel of the barrel of my gun. I could see the fear in his eyes. It was like I was looking at his soul. He slowly raised his hands above his head, while back stepping into the pump. “Please, don’t shoot me,” he begged for mercy.

“Shut the fuck up and walk your ass around the back of the station,” I ordered through clenched teeth. I looked around my surroundings to make sure no one was watching us. “Move, nigga,” I snapped, waving the gun toward the alley.

“Okay, okay.” The man started sidestepping for the alley while keeping his hands high and eyes married to the gun.

Once we reached the alley, I ordered him against the wall while I slid out of my book bag. “Here, put everything in the bag,” I demanded, tossing the bag to his chest. The man hurriedly removed everything from his pockets, stuffing his belongings inside the bag.

“Everything—clothes, drawers, socks. The whole nine. I want it all and hurry the fuck up.”

“It’s too cold. Let me keep my clothes at least. You can have everything else.”

“Strip.” I held his ass at bay while he stripped down. Within seconds, he was standing there ass naked, ashy, and shivering. Pneumonia would definitely be in his future.

“Hold up, playboy. Put the ring in the bag too,” I ordered with an attitude.

“Come on, not my wedding band,” he pleaded. “My wife will kill me.”

“Bitch, you can die with it on for all I care. Either way, I guess you gonna be dead, so what’s it gonna be? By my hand or hers?” I snapped, then cocked the hammer back to let him know I wasn’t bullshitting.

He lowered his hands to his side and started fiddling with the back of the ring like he was trying to get it off, then out of nowhere, the naked fool broke down into a Barry Sanders stance and hit me with the two-move juke. I started to bang his old ass in his back as he booked down the alley with his feet touching his ass, but I let him go on about his way. That ring definitely wasn’t worth catching no body.

I grabbed my book bag from the snow and put it on my back. With a quickness, I cut down the alley in the opposite direction. Even with the three inches of snow, I knew it wouldn’t be long before the hook had the entire hood on fire. Once the call went through with my description, every cop in the vicinity would be looking for me. I done robbed so many people at BP, it was crazy ’cause I’d lost count. Every time I made they ass strip naked and put it all in the bag. So many people had the same complaint that the 10th Precinct had dubbed me, “The Book Bag Bandit.”

I ain’t give a fuck, though, ’cause they all described me as a six-foot, muscle-bound, triple-dark-skinned dude with a deep voice. Of course, I don’t look anything close to that description, but I guess fear makes a person see what they want to see. I’m a brown-skinned female with short dreads and a whisper-light voice. But I’ll take the name “Book Bag Bandit.” At the end of the day, it sounded kind of cool.

I knew my hood like the back of my hand, so shaking the hook was easy. I cut back across Davison, ran past my block, and turned down Pasadena. Then to make sure the cops wouldn’t be on my trail after a few houses, I darted between the vacant lots. Thankfully, I was in good shape and not out of breath. I couldn’t say that about the first time I robbed someone in the alley. When I ran off, I got winded so fast I thought I was definitely going to get caught. But now that I’ve done robbed so many, I got my stamina at one hundred.

My slim build was righteous for sprinting, even in the snow. Taking one final look to ensure I wasn’t being followed, I climbed the porch of the two-family flat. It didn’t matter what time, day or night. Each step served as the doorbell, that’s how loud they creaked. Like clockwork, by the time I reached the landing, the door would be wide open. No doubt, today would be no exception. Pops stood in the doorway, scratching at his ashy stomach with one hand and vigorously rubbing his beady head with the other. He looked over my shoulder and then up the street. “Why ain’t yo’ ass in school, girl?” he asked, slurring and spitting every word.

“The same reason you ain’t got your teeth in,” I said, brushing past him on my way through the door.

Pops locked the front door using two cross boards, then tailed me into the back room. I could hear his feet scraping behind me. His feet looked like gator boots, that’s how badly cracked they were at the heels.

“You don’t think I know what you’ve been doing out there, do you?” he asked, trying to be funny. I tried to shut the bedroom door, but Pops caught it with his big toe. “I know good and well what you up to, Sonya.” He slowly dragged his sentence out.

“So, and what? What’s your damn point of what you think you know? What you gonna do—turn me in or something?” I didn’t give a fuck about his old ass somewhat knowing the score. What was he going to do? Snitch? Naw, he knew that would be bad for his health, especially in the neighborhood where we lived.

“Come on now. Stop all of that bullshit. You know I would never turn my own daughter in, not for nothing in the world. So—”

Yeah, right. For a good shot of dope, you’d turn God in. “All right, so what you want?” I snapped, tired of his games.

Pops pushed up his Coke-bottle Mafia glasses on his nose and squinted with greed. “You know what I need. Give your old man some of that money I know you got . . . just something to get me out the gate. You know, a li’l kick start for the day.”

“What the fuck. Damn. All right, give me a minute.” I didn’t need him sweating my every move because his idea of a “li’l something” would turn into a lot more than what I was trying to give up. Pops released his doorstopper big toe and yelled as I closed the door. “And I don’t want no scraps! Look out for me!”

I took off my coat and tossed it over on the cluttered love seat. As always, I then propped the back of a chair under the doorknob. I cut on the ancient floor-model TV and flopped down beside my book bag, where I searched every inch of my latest victim’s belongings, and all I turned up was sixty-two dollars in cash and an old-ass check stub. I couldn’t believe that shit—all that for this. I should have blasted his bitch ass and at least got that ring off him. This lick was a waste of time. I’d been better off just going to school for the free breakfast they’d serve if you got there early enough.

Never again. Next go-around, I’ma pick me somebody that at least looks like they got bread. I fired up a Newport and kicked back, watching the morning news.

“Sonya, hey, Sonya,” Pops desperately called out, harassing me about what was mines, what I’d taken the risk of getting arrested or killed over. When I didn’t reply quickly enough, he jerked the knob violently, trying to get in. Finally, the door cracked some but stopped when the chair’s legs dug into the floor doing their job. That made him even more frustrated as he passed the baton to my mother.

“Open up this fucking door, girl. I ain’t playing with you this morning.”

I hated the sound of her voice. It was my crackhead-ass mother, Mom Dukes, riding shotgun with Pops for a come-up. She and I had a love-hate type relationship. I loved my mother on the strength that she had given me birth, and because she hadn’t always been like she was now. We had some good memories, but they were so long ago that I barely remembered them. For the past twelve years, it’s been nothing but her smoking crack and nursing a bottle of gin. Truth be told, that’s the reason my little brother Devin is slow, ’cause my mom refused to stop hitting the pipe while she was pregnant. And for that selfish reason, I hated her inner soul. Knowing my two, rotten, drug-addicted parents would take the door off the hinges to get to some cash to get high, I stuffed the money I had deep in my pocket. Then I scanned the room before opening the door.

“Sonya, I done told your wannabe-a-boy ass about locking doors in my damn house.” Mom Dukes insulted me while barging into the room. She stopped dead center and did an inventory with her eyes. “Yeah, your father told me what you were down here doing.”

“And?” I laughed at her, even trying to sound tough or as if she were a decent parent with real rules that mattered.

“And I done told you not to bring no trouble round my domain. You make this your last time, do you understand me? You gonna make my house hot.”

“Trouble? The whole damn house is trouble. And this mug been hot since the day you started squatting in this crib.” I didn’t back down or show her any real respect.

“Yeah, so what, smart-ass? It’s mines.”

“It’s yours until the real owner come around claiming this motherfucker. Then you and Pops and all of ya drug-addicted cohorts gonna be back out in the streets searching for another halfway decent bando.”

But let’s keep it real. I peeped game and always did where she was concerned. Mom Dukes was an extortionist on the low. To shut her up was simple. I peeled a ten off the top of the cash I had stuffed deep inside my pocket. I shoved the money in her palm, and her bitching and fake house rules abruptly ceased. That was more than enough to get her first rock of the day.

“Thank you, baby girl.” She smiled and turned on her heels, marching out of the room as if she had not just gone ham on me.

Next, Pops entered the room. He swiftly took Mom Dukes’s place, giving me the sad eye. Anxiously, he rocked back on his leather heels, wiggling his stiff toes like he was playing the piano or trying to tap the floor. “Sonya,” he swallowed hard, hoping I was still feeling generous.

“What?” I yelled at him while rubbing my fingers through my dreads. “I don’t know what you waiting on. I was gonna bless you until you told on me like some damn snitch. So, now, you gonna suffer. So, yeah, bye.”

“Baby girl, wait. I ain’t tell her nothin’. I swear on God and three angels I didn’t. She just worked you, that’s all,” Pops firmly claimed, following me over to the sofa. “Come on, Sonya. I need to get out the gate before ten o’clock, or you know I’ma be sick. I feel weak already, and my stomach about to bottom out.”

“What was you gonna do if I ain’t stop by? Then what?” I twisted up my face, waiting for a response.

“I don’t know, but you did stop by. So, help ya old man out, will ya?”

I can’t lie. I couldn’t stand to see my sperm donor like that, scratching his skin until he bled. He was a cold dope fiend and was bold. I knew, unlike my mother, who didn’t have to smoke a rock to be okay, Pops needed to push that needle in a vein, or he’d get sick damn near on the verge of death. The heroin had long claimed him and would continue to do so until God called his number. All the treatment and special programs he took part in over the years hadn’t helped any. I accepted the fact Pops was a dope fiend, and Mom Dukes was a bona fide crackhead. That’s just who they were. Sometimes, I had to remind myself, though. That way, I knew never to expect anything different from each but running game on whoever had the bag. It kept me focused because I know if I weren’t the one to go out and get it for them from time to time, it wouldn’t be got. In my feelings, I reached in my pocket and felt around.

“I know you peeling. So just how much you get?” he inquired as his tongue protruded through his mouth.

“Damn, nigga, here. Take it.” I gave him a twenty from my now almost empty pocket. “Make sure you get something to eat with the rest of it after ya get that pack.”

“Rest of what? Shiiid . . . All this going to my arm.” Pops tucked the twenty into the front pocket of his filthy track pants and started for the door.

“I hope y’all happy. I done gave y’all half of what I made. That shit foul, ’bout y’all don’t give a care. As long as y’all two high, it’s all good,” I hollered at my no-good parents.

I kicked back and caught the end of some Breaking News Story. Then I heard the voice of OC out in the living room, which was annoying because I had to go to the bathroom, and that meant I’d have to see his ass. Out of everybody around our way, I hated that guy the most. Over the past ten years or so years, he had been my father’s main heroin connect. I been wanted to kill OC because I felt like he was responsible for my Pops being strung out. Begrudgingly getting up from the couch, I left the room, heading down the hallway. Once in the front of the house, I shook my head, wanting to slap the fire outta OC’s nickel slick-talking mouth.

“Hey, now, baby girl, you showl looking nice and sweet today.” He licked his lips as if I were a plate of pork chops and gravy. “What you hiding under all them loose clothes you be wearing, huh? You want me to take you shopping one day?”

Any normal father would step to any grown-ass man trying to push up on his daughter. But. . .