Tales from da Hood

by Nikki Turner

Genres: African American Urban; African American Women's Fiction

Synopsis

These stories are not fables or fairy tales. They are severe chronicles of gangstas, written by men and women who have starved and bled and survived by the code of the streets.

Essence magazine’s #1 bestselling author Nikki Turner has earned her rep as “the Princess of Hip-Hop” with gritty urban novels like A Hustler’s Wife and The Glamorous Life. Now she lends her considerable street cred to this anthology, the first of its kind–an explosive collection featuring edgy new writers Turner handpicked for their ability to evoke the street, and the people who live by its rules, in hot, hyperrealistic stories.

Turner scoured the ghetto, the prisons, and every crack and crevice around the country to bring you these impressive new fresh-from-the-street voices. Never one to disappoint her fans, Turner even throws in a raw gangsta tale of her own. From a buppie who risks her entire well-groomed world when she’s suddenly turned on by a thug (“Gotta Have a Ruffneck”), to a lesbian pimp who gets what she deserves from the women she’s turning out (“Big Daddy”), these stories will shock, entertain, and make you fly through the pages.

Release date: December 24, 2008

Publisher: One World

Print pages: 304

Sample

Big Daddy

Penned by Seven, but lived by many

One

It’s a slow night, not too many cars cruising up and down Second and Broad for a Friday. This is partly due to the fact that NASCAR is at Richmond International Speedway, and most of my clients are old white men who enjoy that type of shit. I’m slowly losing my patience with Vanessa; the bitch is walking at a slow, nonchalant pace instead of strutting her phat ass up and down the block like I’ve taught her to do. I’m standing with my back and one foot up against the wall by Eggleston’s Restaurant, thinking about how badly I’m gonna choke the shit out of her if she don’t make me at least $300 tonight. Tonight the stakes are raised because business has been slow due to the races: I’m charging $40 for blowjobs, $50 for ass licks, and $125 for the total package. Golden showers are going for $30 ’cause Nessa’s piss makes a nigga ass feel warm and fuzzy.

Twenty minutes ago I made up my mind that I wasn’t gonna give her tired walking ass anything. Can you believe it? The bitch had the audacity to turn down a trick because he was Mexican. Talking about she could smell bean burritos and shit on his breath. I punched the bitch hard enough to frazzle her, but not hard enough to bruise her—couldn’t chance having my moneymaker look tore up. I told her ass I didn’t give a fuck if she smelt dog shit on his breath, she better had fucked and sucked his dick until the mutherfucker couldn’t come any longer. This lazy-ass ho of mine ain’t getting shit, not one copper penny tonight. She’s lucky if I still take her ass to get her wig smoked, but it wouldn’t benefit me if I don’t. There’s money out here to be made, and I got to keep my bitch looking good at all times. Right now, I’ve got to go remind this trick bitch who’s in charge.

“Bitch, you better pull that goddamn skirt up over your ass and stop these mutherfucking cars out here. You think I’m fucking playing with you?” I get up close and personal in the bitch’s ear, like she is deaf or something, but she needs to hear loud and clear that I’m not on joke time.

“Daddy, I’m tired, my feet are hurting and so is my back. I told you not to buy these cheap-ass shoes from Payless,” Nessa cries, as she stands with one hand on her hip while the other hand holds her strappy patent leather $9.99 buy-one-get-one-free high-heeled hooker shoe.

“Bitch, don’t you ever back-talk me,” I say, raising my hand like I’m gonna backhand her ass.

“I’ll buy you whatever the fuck I want your ass to have. I run this show. You will wear, eat, say, and do whatever the hell I say. Is that understood, bitch?” I scream at her as I jack her ass up by the collar of her shirt.

It suddenly dawns on me: What the fuck is she doing wearing an oxford shirt in fucking July? I let go of her shirt and stand back to get a better view of her attire. Then I realize the bitch don’t look like a hooker. Her ass is out on the ho stroll looking like a goddamn Sunday school teacher. I grab the ho by her hair weave, yanking her to my chest.

She cries, pleading, “Daddy, let go of me, please, Daddy, don’t do this.” She covers her head with her hand ’cause she knows I am about to go upside it. Man, I am mad as hell. Here it is hotter than the Fourth of July and this bitch is on the ho stroll in a mutherfucking long sleeve, pink oxford shirt, revealing absolutely no cleavage. I smack the bitch so hard, she falls to the ground. I stomp her ass with my black Timbs. I never rock the butter ones when I’m working ’cause I don’t wanna scuff them shits up. Vanessa’s ass is balled up in a knot, crying about how much she loves me and asking why am I treating her this way.

Then the bitch jumps up and begins running toward Broad Street. I know that if she gets away, I won’t see her ass for a minute. Oh, she’ll stay gone for a day or two, but she always finds her way back home to Daddy. The bitch needs me like a crackhead needs crack, like Kool-Aid needs sugar, and chitterlings need potato salad. Nessa couldn’t survive the streets of Richmond without Big Daddy, ’cause for real, every ho needs a nigga like me. I made that bitch who she is today. If it wasn’t for me, she’d be homeless, hungry, and ugly as a mutherfucker. Truth be told Nessa ain’t all that pretty, but the bitch has the baddest body in Richmond, and she sucks a mean dick. She’s five feet seven inches with a caramel complexion and a 36-24-36 shape. Yeah, she’s a straight brick house. Her ass is so phat, I like to hit it from the back, doggy style, and man, oh man the bitch’s pussy is vicious. Granted, Nessa has a white liver and loves to fuck, but nobody can hit that g-spot like me.

Nessa is running in and out of traffic. Beep-beep-Beep, cars are blowing their horns for her to get out of the street. The bitch is running like Flo Jo in the Summer Olympics. Then I realize she’s heading toward the Slip at Shockoe. I don’t know why but I keep running behind her. Since we aren’t the type to hang in the Slip, I can’t understand why Nessa is willing to die to get there. Maybe she knows a nigga there she can turn a quick trick with; whatever the reason, I ain’t gonna stop chasing the bitch. Besides she’s wearing the skirt I bought from Rainbow and the track of weave I got her ass from Ruby Red. If I have to snatch my shit off her ass, I will. The bitch is straight up disrespecting me; the more she runs the hotter I get.

When we get to the front door of the club, the bouncer motions for us to go in. Nessa is about two people in front of me, but he knows we’re together. He’s a big fat mutherfucker from Nine Mile Road. He used to do security at the convenience store over there, so I just nod and he knows what time it is. You see, he’s tricked with Nessa before and he knows she’s my ho. I give his fat ass a half smile as I look at him. I remember Nessa telling me how that nigga wanted her to put her finger in his ass. She told me she was able to get two fingers in at one time. She said that big nigga moaned in sheer delight as she shoved them shits in his ass. He must’ve been used to taking it in the rear. He paid Nessa $35 for a finger fuck. Now he standing at the door, acting like he the mutherfucking man and shit. I got no respect for da nigga. Nigga lets us in for free, ’cause he ain’t want his secret to get out.

By the time I get in, Nessa is sitting at the bar. Her shoes are back on and her shirt tail is hanging out. I walk over to the bar and whisper in her ear, “It’s okay, baby. Go fix yourself up.” Nessa stands and walks toward the back to the restroom. I scope the room, seeing wall-to-wall drug dealers, a couple college cats, and a bunch of low-life bums who ain’t doing shit with their lives except throwing them away. You can tell who the niggas from the streets are because they never dance; they just flex their gear, represent their hood, and nod their heads to a few rap songs. The college niggas is up dancing around to house music, that shit that Baltimore gets down with, and the slum-ass niggas, man, they whack asses is always on the dance floor at the Slip, dancing harder than the broads. Me, I just sit back and chill. I order me and Nessa a couple Alizés, and wait to see what’s up.

When she returns from the back, she doesn’t even look like the same ho. Nessa has wrapped her shirt around her waist and tied that mutherfucker in a perfect bow. I don’t know what the fuck she did to the collar; she must’ve tucked that mutherfucker under or something cause that shit was gone. She’s combed her weave out and that shit is looking jive sexy. Her lips are shining. I guess she borrowed some lip gloss from one of the chicks in the bathroom, ’cause I don’t remember seeing any in her Dolce & Gabanna bag.

The Slip at Shockoe has an interesting set-up. There are tables and chairs for eating, a place in the back for taking pictures, and a small dance floor. There’s a long glass mirror on the wall so people can look at themselves as they dance. I am sipping on my Alizé when suddenly I hear a nigga yelling, “Damn, man, that bitch is bad.” As I turn to look, Nessa has taken over the dance floor. She is jamming with all eyes on her. I notice a lot of chicks standing and watching, trying to take in a few slut moves. Nessa works that ass like something you’ve never seen before. Her skirt is well above her hips and her ass and thong show every time she bends over. The DJ is spinning “Rump Shaker,” the jam by Wreckx-N-Effect, and Nessa is making that songwriter proud. My shit gets hard just watching her move; Nessa’s ass moves like waves in the ocean. I see a few niggas holding their dicks, as if they want to hit. Then I spot Turk.

Turk is a big-time drug dealer from Churchill. He gets paid out the yin-yang. Turk grew up in Mosby Court and had moved his family out to Chesterfield County, way out in the suburbs. He is pushing a 1993 Lexus Coupe and is dating the baddest hairdresser in town. Shit, with his drugs and her clientele, them niggas was getting paid. His girl, Lil Mo Sumptner, works at the salon on Second and Leigh, near the spot where the prostitutes work. Her clientele is so big she works seven days a week, six a.m. to ten p.m. I wonder when the fuck did Turk have time to hit that. Lil Mo is bad, too; she’s a short cutesy momma, about five feet one, 125 pounds, light-skinned with long silky hair, hazel eyes, and a nice round ass. She reminds me of the chick that played Ronnie in Menace II Society, except her hips and ass are a lil bit thicker. Niggas say she came to the city out of nowhere and hooked up with Turk in a matter of days. Don’t nobody know where she came from, but I sure as hell knows where I want her ass to be. I wouldn’t mind making her my ho, but Lil Mo got too much class for that. She would never trick, as fine as she is; she never would have a reason to.

“What up, dawg?” I say, walking over to Turk and smacking hands with him.

“Ain’t nothing, playa. I see you still holding it down with the ol’ girl and shit,” he says, as he stretches his arm out so his ice can shine.

I don’t know if he is asking a question or making a statement, so I just shoot back at him, “Yeah man, bitch ain’t going nowhere, she getting it too good with me.”

I poke my chest out proudly. I have to make it known that I am still holding it down on Second Street.

“So, dawg, my girl told me she be doing your hooker’s hair?” he asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Yeah, Turk, yo people’s jive all right. She be hooking Nessa up, helping to keep that money in my pocket, you feel me?”

By this time Nessa has walked over to us, with her hands in the air, snapping her fingers and moving her body just a little. I ask if she’s ready to leave. She says no, ’cause she still needs to make my money. Turk asks me to step away for a minute. He says he has a proposition for me.