Girls from da Hood 9

Book 9: Girls from da Hood

by Amaleka McCall, Meisha Camm, Tysha, Tysha

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

Cheyenne and Kelsi grew up together in the hood. They're best friends who've always had each other's backs - until Cheyenne' s father is released from prison and Kelsi can't resist his advances. Their scandalous affair might do more than just tear apart a friendship; it could destroy Cheyenne's whole world. Angela Farmer's early childhood was filled with neglect and abuse at the hands of her drug-addicted mother. Not even the love and support of her foster parents could totally erase her painful memories. In an effort to rid herself of her demons, Angela makes it her mission to protect others, but her methods strike fear in the hearts of the people around her. Eva is a good, churchgoing girl who seems to have the perfect life, until she's wrongly accused of embezzling from her clients. Caught up in a struggle to prove her innocence, she is forced to face the grittier side of life. She enters into a sexually charged world fueled by power, murder, and greed, where she must adapt if she's going to survive. Eva wants to remain true to herself and everything she's been taught in the church, but like Jay Z says, " When church is over, life begins."

Release date: December 1, 2013

Publisher: Recorded Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

August 2010

Whir, whir, whir . . . The incessant drone of two tall metal fans situated at the back corners of the stuffy, hot courtroom felt like small flies buzzing in my ears. The annoying kind of flies that buzz around shit and then come land on your skin. The ones you keep swatting away but can never seem to get rid of. The hottest day of the year and I was on the literal hot seat. My legs swung in and out. It felt good to move them apart and then back together without the restraint of the leg irons I had worn to court from Rikers Island. I ignored the hum of the crowd in the courtroom. It wasn’t lost on me that everyone there was talking about me. Some probably came because they wanted a piece of me, too—hood vigilantes who wanted justice for the wrong. Yeah, right. They wanted to be nosey.

My lawyer kept telling me, “Not since the Long Island Lolita has New York seen a case like this. The difference is Mary Jo Buttafuoco lived.” I was probably the most hated twenty-three-year-old in all of New York City. That was all good with me. Shit, I had hated myself since I was about eight or nine. My mother hated me. My father must’ve hated me because he never tried to find me. Girls in school hated me. Teachers hated me. Adults I met hated me. Right now, my best friend in the whole world definitely hated me, so what the fuck did I care if all these strangers hated me? I knew the one person who had ever really loved me was in the back of that courtroom talking about me, too. I kept seeing Cheyenne’s face behind my eyelids like I was watching still photos on a projector screen. I could picture her in all of the stages of our lives: little kids playing double Dutch; preteens taking up for each other on the battlefield we called a neighborhood; teenagers sneaking out to parties; and, now, as women both in pain and distress. Cheyenne wasn’t ever going to forgive me for what I’d done. Never. I didn’t deserve to be forgiven either.

The court officer’s booming baritone interrupted my thoughts. “All rise! The Honorable Rowena Graves presiding.”

The rustle of suits and dresses as the crowd inside the packed courtroom rose to their feet was so pronounced it was like someone was scratching sandpaper next to my ears. It sent an uneasy feeling through my empty stomach. Trying to eat breakfast had been a wrap. Who could eat when the fate of their life was in the hands of some white bitch judge with the last name Graves? Grave as in a place where people are buried. Grave as in something that signaled danger or harm. Those were the definitions of grave I had read in the jail library. Yeah, shit was grave for me all right. Grave as in this fucked-up situation I had put myself in all because I was looking for love.

My legs felt like two strands of cooked pasta as I stood up. The muscles burned in every part of my body like I’d worked out for ten hours without stopping, the result of the all-night pacing I’d done back on my cellblock. My lawyer stood next to me, clutching my right elbow as if he could sense that I was about to take a spill onto the courtroom floor. My lips curled from the wave of nausea that crept up from the pit of my stomach to my esophagus.

Judge Graves took her seat. There was nothing attractive about the judge. And I wasn’t just thinking that because she was about to decide the fate of my life. She was small and hunched over like she was about to look for something on the floor. I could tell that the lump that had settled between her shoulders as easily as a camel’s grew was just what was meant to happen to her as she got older. Judge Graves reminded me of a witch I had seen in this book, Hansel and Gretel, when I was back with my Nana. When I was still allowed to attend school. If I remembered right, the witch in the book ate kids or something like that. Judge Graves did too. To me the judge looked like she smoked ten packs of cigarettes a day. I knew a smoker when I saw one. That drawn-up, ashen, purplish-toned skin. Those square, grey, stained teeth. Those burnt-tipped fingers and greenish, grey fingernails. I had lived with smokers all my life. Judge Graves probably hid her pack-a-day habit from her family and friends. Of course they’d be too bourgeoisie to recognize the signs of a chain smoker. I pictured Graves spraying something minty into her mouth and using that stink of White Diamonds perfume that old ladies wore just because Elizabeth Taylor made it. That was a quick, fleeting thought—me wondering if Judge Graves had family who cared about her.

She waved her wrinkled hand and motioned for everyone to be seated. “Except for the defendant and her counsel,” Graves growled, that distinct smoker’s rattle bubbling in her throat.

My lawyer gave my elbow a quick squeeze. I ignored him.

“Counsel, I am going to address your client directly. No sense in prolonging this with silly motions to dismiss and the like. Your client has been convicted by a jury of her peers and I am prepared to sentence her today. Is that understood?” Judge Graves announced.

My attorney said, “Yes, Judge,” and let go of my arm like it was a venomous snake.

I stared straight at the judge. My thoughts were racing like the cars at the Daytona 500.

Jury of my peers? I hardly thought five old white ladies, two white men, two Hispanic ladies, one Chinese guy, one black dude who slept the entire trial, and one old black lady who kept crying whenever somebody mentioned the victim counted as a fucking jury of my peers. There wasn’t one black girl on there who had been through the shit I had been through. Not one chick who could at least say, “Damn I see how that could have happened.” Jury of my peers my ass. My legs were moving but I wasn’t making them move. I also couldn’t make them stop moving.

“Miss Jones, the crime you have committed is abominable to say the least. In my opinion, you don’t ever need to walk the streets again. You crossed not only legal boundaries, but you trampled all moral and civil boundaries I could think of. Trust is something that you earn and in light of the situation no one on God’s green earth should ever trust you again. Under New York State sentencing guidelines this court is prepared to sentence you to life in prison without the possibility of parole. However, it is under your due process of the law that we give you an opportunity to tell me, and this court, why I should not render the most punitive sentence available to me under the guidelines. You can tell me why in your own words I might have leniency on you and maybe sentence you to twenty-five years to life with the possibility of parole. What that means is maybe one day some parole board will have mercy on your soul and let you back onto the streets.

“Before I render a final sentence you will also have the opportunity to present members of society who can speak on your behalf, to tell me why they think I should have leniency on you during this sentencing. Miss Jones, I must tell you that just as it is your right to bring forth others who can speak for you, it is also the victim’s family’s opportunity to tell me why I should put you away for the rest of your natural-born life. Under this process it is their right as well. Do you have any questions?” Graves grumbled, looking over the edge of her thick oyster-shell frames. All of her words resounded loudly off the hollow oak-covered courtroom walls.

The gravity of what she was saying felt like a 1,000-pound anchor around my neck. I realized that the small dashes of light fluttering at the backs of my eyes were just me starting to get dizzy. A few sighs could be heard from the back of the room. I swore I could feel the heat from all of the eyes boring holes into the back of me. I could only imagine what Cheyenne must’ve been thinking and doing right then when she heard “the victim’s family.” Probably crying and biting her lip. I knew her so well. I had seen her when I was first led into the courtroom. Still pretty. Still way more conservative than I had ever been. She never took her eyes off of me. Aside from the first quick glance, I couldn’t look at her directly, so I lowered mine.

“Miss Jones, after I hear you out I have the discretion to formulate a sentence as I see fit according to the sentencing guidelines. Whatever sentence is imposed, you will be remanded to the State of New York for the duration of your sentence. We are prepared to hear your statement. So I ask, do you have anything you would like to say to the court or the family members of the victim who are present in the courtroom today?” Judge Graves continued.

I licked my dry, cracked lips. I was prepared to recite the long apology I had rehearsed over and over again with my lawyer. I had let some of the girls on my tier hear it. They had said they would’ve given me a break if they was the judge. Picture that, any of them ever being a judge. We lived in fantasy a lot in jail.

I opened my mouth several times to speak. Finally, when the words were about to come, I heard that familiar raspy voice exploding in my ears.

“Hmmm, I told you, bitch. I told you! You wouldn’t amount to shit! You was never shit, you came from shit, and ain’t never gonna be shit either!”

It was Carlene. The sorry sack of shit that gave birth to me. A birth canal was what Carlene was to me. She surely had never been a mother. I felt like somebody had hit me in the chest with one of those big, metal sledgehammers they use at carnivals to hit the small ball into the bell at the top of a tall pole; the stronger the person the more effective the hit. I couldn’t breathe. A flame ignited on my skin and my cheeks burned. A ball of fire that had been growing inside of me since I was a little girl finally exploded. I didn’t turn around. I was afraid of what I might do if I turned around. My entire body shook. I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering. I willed myself to stay still although in my mind’s eye I could see myself jumping over the wooden divider and wilding out. Anything I did now would just make sentencing worse on me.

The court officers rushed over to Carlene to make sure she was put out. The judge banged her gavel and screamed, “Order!”

I bit into the side of my cheek until I drew the sweet and metallic taste of my own blood. My chest heaved in and out. I swayed on my feet. The nerve of this bitch! My fists involuntarily curled so tight my bones felt like they’d bust through my knuckles. Tears burned at the backs of my eyes but I refused to let them fall. Carlene had gotten enough tears out of me. Enough! I screamed over and over in my head. The chaotic scene made the spot directly above my right ear throb with pain.

“Order!” Judge Graves yelled again as the crowd in the courtroom murmured about the outburst. “Order!” the judge yelled again, quieting the room once more. “Miss Jones?” Judge Graves continued, giving me the nod to speak my last words.

I was ready. I was motivated by the ball of fire sizzling in my chest. “Yes, Your Honor, I have something to say,” I said, crumpling the paper in front of me. I could feel my 18-B, fresh-out-of-law-school attorney shifting next to me.

“What are you doing?” he whispered harshly in my ear. He knew then that I was not going to read the remorse speech he had prepared for me. He lifted his hand up to interrupt me. “Ah, Judge, my client—” my attorney started.

“Sit the fuck down! I have something to say,” I boomed. I was not letting anyone else in the world speak for me. I had done that all of my life.

The judge seemed a little thrown off her game by the power of my voice. “Mr. Broughton, please. Sit down. Go ahead, Miss Jones,” Graves ordered, her voice showing a hint of respect for me.

“Ahem, I am Kelsi Jones and I regret what I did so much, but I want everyone to know that I am a victim myself. Please allow me to tell my story,” I said, choking back tears, although I knew none would come. I was all cried out. It was so quiet in the courtroom now you could probably hear a mouse pissing on a cotton ball. I had everyone’s full attention now.

“What is a fucking childhood? Where I’m from childhoods don’t exist unless you mean a child trying to survive in the hood.”—Kelsi Jones to her lawyer in response to his question during their first meeting.

The first time I fell in love, I was eight years old and it was with my best friend’s father. It was love, real love, the only thing I could equate with man-and-woman love. It was different from the love I had felt for my Nana; that’s how come I knew I was in man-and-woman love with my best friend’s father. I knew it because when he was around me, my palms would sweat, my heart would race, and I could always feel my cheeks flaming over. By the time I was nine, I could even feel something tingling between my legs around him. Not the kind of tingling that hurt, like when someone who wasn’t supposed to touch you there touched you there. Of course he didn’t know I was in love with him. I mean, I never told him or nothing like that. To him, I was just a kid—a kid who had become his daughter’s best friend. A kid who he knew came from a fucked-up home and needed love and protection like a charity case.

Kevin “Big K” Turner had saved my life and was the first man to ever give a fuck about me. So, I secretly loved him in return. I loved his coffee-bean brown skin, dark, low-cut hair, his deep-set shiny eyes, and the way he dressed and walked. He was the man in Carlene’s neighborhood, where she brought me to live in July of 1995 when I was eight. He was Cheyenne’s father and she was my only friend. Big K was the only person I associated with love, aside from my Nana.

I never knew my father and I never really had a mother. If that’s even possible. A kid with no father or mother. That was me. As the story goes, the day I was born my mother, Carlene Jones, who was fifteen years old at the time, was in the mirror, shaking her pregnant ass to Eric B. & Rakim’s “Paid In Full,” doing the whop when the labor pains hit her like a thunderbolt. I was making my entrance into the world, whether she liked it or not. After spending seventeen hours giving birth to me, Carlene never held me. She never looked at me. She refused to acknowledge that I was her child. Nana said Carlene didn’t name me either. Carlene referred to me as “it.”

“You take it and feed it. You hold it.”

Nana says the white nurses at the hospital helped her come up with the name Kelsi. Nana didn’t want me to be one of the Shenquauqas of the world. “Kelsi is a universal name,” Nana always preached. “You can go anywhere with that name and people won’t judge you before they meet you.” Nana always had high hopes for me from day one.

Nana said I was the prettiest baby she had ever seen. “Girl, you ain’t have one piece of birth trauma, uh-uh . . . No egg-shaped head, no swollen eyes, no pale skin . . . nothing. You came out just as pretty as you wanted to be. Smooth skin, eyes perfect, and a head full of pretty hair,” Nana had told me when I was five. Nana said she stayed at the hospital, held me, fed me, and changed my diapers, which continued after we went home.

By the time I was two years old, I thought Nana was my mother, and Carlene . . . well I didn’t think about her at all. I hardly ever saw her. She was like a distant cousin or a relative who popped in after a long car ride to New York from down South. Most of the time, when she came to the house, she slept the entire time and ate ravenously when she woke up. Carlene ran the streets, partying, and having a ball. Nana says Carlene was always a hottie. She got her cherry popped at ten, and it was downhill from there. From what I remember, at that time, Carlene was a shade lighter than the blacktop of the street, she had thick dark brown hair that was cut in a Salt-n-Pepa hi-low with the back shaved, and she always wore the biggest gold doorknocker earrings. She also wore rings on all of her brightly painted fingers like that man Mr. T from The A-Team. Carlene had a regular face, nothing exceptionally beautiful about it. Nana says Carlene’s voluptuous body was what got her all of the attention. Those double-D-cup breasts, that reindeer ass, and her ability to use them to get what she wanted.

I was the complete opposite of Carlene. My skin was what Nana’s old lady friends called “creamy caramel, almost yella.” My hair was spongy, thick, but soft and would curl nicely with just a little bit of water and grease. It wasn’t real long, but it was “a good grade,” according to Nana. My eyes, Nana said, “is the only thing you got from that damn Carlene.” My eyes were beady and kind of close together: the one thing that linked me to Carlene and also the one thing about my face I always hated.

The trouble started on my eighth birthday. I was flitting around the apartment Nana and I shared, waiting for my party guests to arrive. I had poked at my Cinderella cake four times already. “Kelsi, by the time the people get here that cake is gonna be poked full of holes.” Nana laughed. I still don’t know how Nana always knew everything. Maybe parents do have eyes in the back of their heads.

Everyone began arriving at the party around three o’clock; why I remember that time I don’t know. I got so many compliments on the pink lace dress Nana had gotten me. I whirled around and around, like I was Cinderella.

“Let’s sing ‘Happy Birthday’!” Nana announced about two hours into the party. Everyone crowded around as I kneeled on one of the kitchen chairs, with the cake in front of me.

“Light the candles!” someone yelled.

“Hold on, let me get a match,” Nana said, shuffling toward her bedroom. She always hid matches from me. “Just for your safety,” she’d explain. As Nana looked for the matches, there was a loud knock on the door.

“I’ll get it!” Nana’s friend Ms. Bessie screamed. When she pulled back the door Carlene waltzed into our apartment like it was her birthright to be there.

She came in like a gust of cold air. The kind that took your breath away in the winter and made tears drain from the corners of your eyes. Carlene’s clear plastic platform heels clicked against the ceramic floor tiles like firecrackers popping. I can remember it like it was yesterday. Her skin gleamed with Vaseline, shining like thick, freshly poured molasses, and her newly pressed hair was pulled into a greasy ponytail with baby hair lying flat with small dips in it around the sides of her head.

I was in awe of her. Carlene was always like a purple, sparkly unicorn to me or like a rainbow with gold at the end of it. Magical, yet unreal. I eyed her that day in amazement. I wished I had a sparkly, tight red dress like hers. I remember running my hands down my flat chest, wishing I had a set of knockers sitting up under my chin like Carlene did. To me, she looked like a movie star. The skimpy dress showed off much more than it covered, barely coming fully under her ample behind. I smiled at her. I wanted her to smile back at me.

She never did.

Carlene’s eyes were dull. All of that sparkle was in her clothes, but none showed in her eyes. I had not seen her in a year and was kind of glad she had come to my birthday party. Nana, on the other hand, wasn’t as happy to see Carlene. At some point, Nana had emerged from the back of the apartment with the matches. Nana’s face had folded in on itself and her eyes hooded over. Nana’s dislike of Carlene could not be contained. Her feelings of disdain were like those trick cans filled with rubber snakes: no matter how many times you closed the lid, it popped right open, letting the snakes jump out at you.

“Why you coming up in here looking like a whore?” Nana whispered harshly in Carlene’s ear, trying to keep the partygoers from overhearing. “You ain’t got no better clothes than streetwalker clothes?”

Carlene sucked her teeth and smirked evilly. “No matter what you say you can’t blow my high t’day. It’s my child’s birthday and I came to celebrate,” Carlene trumpeted; then she took a long drag on her Newport. Carlene walked over to the table, flicked her lighter, and lit all eight of my candles.

Nana dropped her matches on the counter and folded her arms. The singing ensued, but Nana never opened her mouth. I was the only one who could see worry and fear creasing Nana’s perfect face.

“Now make a wish, big girl,” Carlene sang, cutting her eyes at Nana. Nana stood off in the background, scowling; her jawed rocked feverishly.

I stood in front of my cake and with my eyes shut real tight I made the same wish I had made year after year since I could understand what wishes were. I would come to understand the meaning of one of Nana’s favorite sayings: “Be careful what you wish for. God don’t answer wishes, and fairies who answer wishes are the devil in disguise.”

That night, when everyone left, I wondered why Carlene was still there, and so did Nana. Nana and Carlene weren’t like the mothers and daughters you saw on TV. There would be no long talks, laughter, and trips to the mall together. I could tell Nana was agitated; she’d smoked a half a pack of Pall Malls in a matter of a few hours. I just sat in silence, playing with my new birthday gifts and stealing glances at my biological mother, who I didn’t even really know. Carlene tried to make small talk with Nana, but it didn’t work. Nana treated Carlene worse than she treated Ms. Ollie Mae, a nosey, gossipy lady at our church. Now that was bad, because Nana couldn’t stand Ms. Ollie Mae.

Finally, Carlene had given up trying to make small talk with her mother. It got quiet for a little while—too quiet, if you asked me. Then, Carlene let out a long sigh, like air escaping a hole in a tire. She stood up and smoothed her dress down over her big butt. She interrupted the eerie silence by dropping a bomb on us. Carlene could’ve blown up Pearl Harbor with her announcement. Smacking her shiny, lip-glossy lips, Carlene used her inch-long red-painted thumbnail to flick something from under her equally long pointer nail and calmly said, “I wanted y’all to know that I’m gettin’ married and I’m coming to get Kelsi when I do. We gon’ start living like a family. She gon’ have what I didn’t have . . . a mother and a father.” Carlene put the emphasis on “mother” and “father.”

As young as I was, I remember feeling like bombs had exploded around me. My ears rang and my stomach knotted up immediately. I clenched my butt cheeks together to keep from shitting on myself. The floor even started shaking underneath me.

Nana jumped up, ready for battle. Nana’s face was crumpled like one of those devil masks you see in the costume store at Halloween time. She moved in on Carlene like a lion about to take down a fine, sleek gazelle. Nana jutted a finger toward Carlene’s face. “You ain’t takin’ this child nowhere! This here is my baby! You don’t even have a damn place to live. Look at you! All shiny and bright to cover up the dirt and filth that lives in your soul. You ain’t interested in being no mother to nobody. Pushing one out don’t automatically make you the momma. You ain’t interested in being a mother or decent woman, period!” Nana accused cruelly, her pecan face turning dark as it filled with blood.

I kind of felt bad for Carlene. She looked like Nana had slapped her in the face and kicked her in the gut with those words. I could see Carlene’s neck moving as she swallowed a few times. She inhaled until her chest swelled. Then, Carlene bounced back quick, like she was used to Nana saying stuff like that to her. She raised one side of her mouth into an evil smirk. Her eyes went into slits and she started circling Nana, as if to say she wasn’t backing down.

Carlene’s heels clacked against the floor each time she said a word. “Let me tell you something.” Clack. “Your insults don’t work on me no more.” Click. “I ain’t a young, dumb kid who cares about what you think of me no more.” Clack. “Let’s not talk about who ain’t fit to be a mother . . . Mother!” Click. Carlene stopped moving.

I guessed she was going in for the kill and wanted to stand her ground.

“You always trying to put me down in front of my child! I got a place to live, I’m getting married, and I’m taking my child with me! Ain’t no courts ever gave you that baby. She’s mine and you ain’t using her to get no second chances in life. You had your chance to be a mother and you failed! You a failure just like the failure you raised!” Carlene spat, rushing over and getting close up in Nana’s face.

Both of them seemed to be on the brink of hysterics. They stood toe-to-toe, eye to eye. I was hoping no one threw a punch. The tension swirling around the apartment was so thick I could’ve sworn I saw it circling red over the entire place. I continued to twirl the Cinderella figurine from my cake, my little fingers shaking as I tried to act like nothing was happening. But my thundering heart and flaring nostrils probably gave me away. My birthday dress suddenly felt scratchy and too tight against my skin. That was the first time I remember feeling afraid. Not scary-movie afraid, but deathly afraid, like something real bad was going to happen. The kind of fear that knots up your insides so bad you feel like pissing, shitting, and vomiting all at once. There was no more discussion about it that night. Nana and I thought nothing of it after Carlene left. Thought nothing of it, until the day Carlene came back to get me.

“No! I don’t wanna go! Please!” I screamed through tears, holding on to my Nana’s waist as tight as my little arms could grasp. I locked my fingers behind Nana’s back to make my grip even better. The spot where I buried my face was wet with my tears and snot.

“You are my child and you are going where I go!” Carlene screamed, grabbing me roughly around my ribcage, tugging me toward her. I felt like my shoulders would pop out of the sockets from me holding on so tight.

“Please, Carlene! I’ll do anything; just let her stay. Ain’t no reason for you to take her now. She being raised right here with me. Don’t be hateful; please leave this baby be, Carlene, just leave her be,” Nana sobbed, holding on to me equally as tight. She wasn’t going to let Carlene take me. I was sure of that, but I still held on as tight as I could.

“Don’t make me call the police on you, lady! I did it once and I’ll do it again!” Carlene warned, her voice a high-pitched screech that made the insides of my ears itch. “You making this harder than it gotta be. A child needs to be with the mother who gave birth to ’em. Not a pretender looking for second chances because they couldn’t do it right with their own child they gave birth to. I’m telling you, I’m gonna call the damn cops!”

“You gon’ have to call them cops tonight or kill me one, ’cause you ain’t takin’ this child from here unless it’s over my dead body!” Nana announced firmly.

She wasn’t letting go and neither was I. I just knew that would do it. Carlene didn’t look like the type who was into having contact with the cops. She wasn’t going to call no cops. Carlene tugged on my waist again and I felt like I was losing my grip. The bones in my fingers started cracking as I tried in vain to keep. . .