CHAPTER 2
No matter how much dirt I did, Officer Davis always seemed to think I was this sweet, innocent little girl but never quite good enough to be a daddy’s girl. I had so many secrets! Like the time I got pregnant when I was sixteen, and he never knew it! I can’t blame him. Shit… he didn’t even know when I got my first period. As far as me being pregnant… I didn’t even know. I just remember being really sick every morning for like a month. Then one day I fainted and fell down the stairs at Grandma’s. The next day I started having bad cramps and passin’ these huge blood clots. Unaware at the time, I was having a miscarriage.
You see, while I was livin’ with my grandmother I met this really cute guy named Monty that lived up the street. Monty was tall, light skinned, slim with a chiseled physique. He had light brown eyes and a big ass tattoo on his chest that said “MAKE MONEY.” That was the name of the crew he ran wit’. He was fine as hell! I mean when this boy walked by, the girls all paused. Monty was seventeen, had his own car (a BMW745) and mad paper to go along with it! And he could dress his ass off. He must have had every Nike jogging suit known to man. Plus, he had every pair of Jordans to match. Monty and his brother Melvin sold dope. All the lil’ ho’s around the hood wanted him but he wanted me; at least for the moment anyway.
Monty’s brother was one of the biggest dope boys on the southside. The fucked up thing was that Monty’s mother was a crack head and everybody knew it! That’s why they kept her in the house most of the time. They wanted to keep her out of trouble and stop her from embarrassing them. After all, how much respect would they get from the hood if their mother was runnin’ up and down the street givin’ niggas head for a nickel bump… So when she needed a fix, they fixed her. Man, she was strung out so bad too; if it wasn’t for Monty and Melvin she woulda’ been out here geekin’ just like all the rest of the fiends. At first I thought it was real fucked up that they would feed their own mother that poison, but Monty explained it to me one day he said: “I know she’s sick and I just didn’t want anybody taking advantage of her.”
Monty was very guarded about his home life. He only invited me into his house one time and that was because I had to pee really, really bad! It was a real shit hole! I mean this place shoulda’ been condemned a long time ago! The paint on the outside of the house was pealing and the wooden steps leading to the front door were rotten and had some planks missing. When you walked in it was dark. Monty’s mother kept the windows covered by heavy drapes.
She had been inside so long that she couldn’t stand the sunlight. The air had the terrible stench of crack smoke, garbage residue, and funky body odor. Monty’s mother hadn’t bathed in weeks and the spoiled garbage in the kitchen probably hadn’t been taken out since the last time Monty’s mama washed her ass! This place was so infested with roaches that you could actually smell ‘em. It was a very peculiar odor, one that you would only know if you had lived in a place like it before. It was cold, dark and dirty.
I tried my best not to touch anything as I walked down the dark hallway that led from the entrance past the living room. When I finally made it to the bathroom, I just about threw up in my mouth! A mass of roaches scattered everywhere when I flicked on the light! It smelled like piss and mildew from the sour washrags that had been left lying in the window seal. Those rags had to have been lying by the tub for days. There was even a dead mouse lying right beside the sink. Needless to say, I soon forgot about how badly I had to pee.
I couldn’t believe how they were living! I was so heated, and disappointed in Monty. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t mad at him for being poor; that’s something you can’t always help. I wasn’t even mad at him for having mice and roaches. My grandma had ‘em, but I knew the difference between that and this filthy shit! Monty and his brother shoulda’ been ashamed of themselves! Both of them walked around with brand new clothes and shoes on every day, but had the nastiest house I had ever seen before in my life! I was so disgusted and I knew I wasn’t about to sit my ass down in that nasty bathroom. So I took a piece of toilet paper and politely pulled the handle on the toilet to make it flush just in case anybody was listening. Then I quickly got the fuck outta’ there and tried to make my way through the foul dankness of the living room. Monty’s mama and some dirty ass nigga were sitting on the couch looking like the living-dead, staring blankly at the snowy television screen.
When I made it back to the car I didn’t say one word to Monty. I was sick to my stomach. He knew I was pissed and he was embarrassed. That’s when he started telling me that he was saving up money to send his mama to a private treatment clinic in Indiana. It was supposed to be the best in the country. He continued saying it was gonna cost about $50,000 and that’s the real reason he was out here hustlin’ so hard. I could see that it broke his heart, so I never mentioned it again. Monty loved his mama. No matter what she was, or where he was; if she paged him, he would drop whatever he was doin’ and go runnin’. She was an addict and there was no tellin’ what might be goin’ on. Little did he know that my mama had been an addict too. We had more in common than he realized.
Being with Monty was like being with a superstar. Everywhere we went it was like everybody was watchin’ us. All the dope boys used to meet on Saturday nights at Giordano’s Pizza Place on the southside near the plaza. I was a little shy at first… When we would be around all those rough ass niggas, Monty would say “Hold yo’ head up. You my bitch!” I did just that. I know it probably won’t make much sense, but it made me feel sorta’ special that somebody was finally payin’ me some real attention. You might even say that I was kinda’ honored to be called his bitch! Truthfully, someone wanting me and making me their own made me feel good. That’s how low my self-esteem was. This relationship would set the tone for just about every other relationship I’d ever have.
Monty used to take me everywhere and buy me all kinds of stuff. The gamin’ was easy. I mean, most of the time I didn’t even have to ask I just received. Whatever he thought I wanted I got! You name it: Coach, Polo, Hilfiger, Nautica, and Nike. Whatever I wanted, I had it... He didn’t even know that it wasn’t about that for me. I was nothin’ like those other bitches he fucked wit’. I guess he thought he had to buy me but I had another purpose. What he never knew was that I was so desperate to be loved that I probably woulda’ paid him to spend time wit’ me. I didn’t want anything from him nor did I need it. All I wanted was his attention and the attention I got from being with him. I mean, my family wasn’t rich but I pretty much had anything I wanted and did whatever I wanted to do.
Well, after a while I got used to the material things that came along wit’ bein’ Monty’s girl. Now I was in love, but not with Monty... I was just in love wit’ the thrill of being wit’ a hustla’. I loved bein’ wit’ the nigga that everybody wanted and hated all at the same time. In fact, being with him put me around some of the most serious hustlas’ on the southside. He even gave me my first lesson in the dope game. I mean, sometimes I was right there watchin him cook it, cut it, and serve it up. Nobody ever suspected that I was the stepdaughter of a decorated police officer. Had they figured that out I probably wouldn’t be here today.
My family never thought to ask who I was hangin’ wit’ when I was at my grandma’s. I’m sure they figured I had a little boyfriend at school or something. Nobody woulda’ thought that he was this hustle hard nigga from the southside wit’ a mouth fulla’ gold teeth, and who carried a nine millimeter in his waistband. After all, what would somebody like me be doin’ wit’ a nigga like Monty; a dangerous criminal from the hood, and the danger excited me! I was out of control and lovin’ it! I knew everything would be fine as long as I kept the hood girl separate from the good girl, which didn’t seem to be a problem.
Monty thought the reason my daddy was never around was ‘cuz he was a truck driver and on the road all the time. I think that shit gave me some kinda’ rush. I felt like a double agent! I mean, I was a “hot girl” when I was out in the streets with Monty and this “good
girl” at home with my step daddy (when he was there). My sisters didn’t even know what I was up to. Nobody did! I kept my grades up in school and pretty much did what was expected of me at home. The whole thing was tripped out! Crazy thing about all of this is I wasn’t even from the streets. I discovered the streets as a means of temporary escape from the shit I was goin’ through with my family. Everybody was so wrapped up in being worried about Ladybird and my baby sister Letah that they never even noticed how I was changin’.
When I got with Monty I started dressin’, actin’, and talkin’ different. Being around Monty and his brother opened a whole ‘nother world for me. A world I never knew existed! Shit, I couldn’t help but change. I saw alotta’ ill shit first hand, like how muthafuckas’ would do anything fa’ money and how dope controlled people. Niggas was robbin’, stealin’ and killin’. The bitches be trickin’ and sellin’ them food stamps while their kids sat at home hungry. Whole neighborhoods full of muthafuckas walkin’ around like zombies; chasin’ crack cocaine and heroin. Sometimes it turned my stomach and at other times it turned me on. Monty and his brother used to say, “The hand that cooks the rock, is the hand that rules the world.” They were right. But Monty and his brother were not only involved in the dope game, they were major stick up kids too. They would rob anybody for anything. It didn’t matter if you were an old lady pushin’ a grocery cart or a young nigga pushin’ a Benz. If you had it and they wanted it, they were gettin’ it. They could be ruthless as hell! I once watched Monty shoot a nigga in the knee for bein’ short $20 on some shit he fronted him. Whatever Monty wanted he got.
As always, Monty got what he wanted and eventually he got tired of me. He went and got himself a new bitch. Let’s keep it real. That was for the best, because about a month later him and his brother Melvin got shot to death by some niggas from Detroit that they were tryin’ to rob. The bitch he dumped me for was killed by a stray bullet in the crossfire. I guess Monty did me a favor. That coulda’ been my brains on the concrete. He never even knew that we almost had a baby together.
I was doin’ anything not to have to be at home. Since I wasn’t kickin’ it wit’ Monty no more I started spendin’ a lot of my extra time at the library studyin’ and readin’. I guess that’s one thing that probably saved me too. The strange thing was, no matter how bad things got at home I always managed to keep my grades up. I remember Davis tellin’ us if we got a good education we could be anything we wanted to be and go anywhere we wanted to go. All I wanted was to get away from the memory of Ladybird.
So somewhere between the streets and my books, I found my peace. After Ladybird died Davis did his best to make sure that me, Letah and Lynn all went on to finish high school and college. That was what he wanted. He wanted us to go as far as our minds could take us. So I eventually made it through high school. I was so happy and excited about the future; thinking that somehow, maybe my mama could see me and was finally proud of her little girl. No matter how far you go in life there are some things that never stop following you.