The Coldest Winter Ever

  I wasn’t there in the waiting room ten seconds before some armed corrections officer picked me out of the huge waiting-room crowd of women. He was over six feet tall with a chest of steel. The funniest thing about him was he still rocked a box-style haircut and that style had been played out for more than a little while. He walked stiff, like he had a pole up his ass, like a lot of cops walk. He had a confident smile on, like he was ziggy or something. Both of his hands rested by his gun, which was on his waist with all that other shit cops wear around their waists.

  He said, “Now, let me guess which one of these losers you’re here to see.” I rolled my eyes, and shifted my body position away from him. “I can’t understand it,” he said, speaking in a low voice so others couldn’t peep his conversation. “I see it everyday. Y’all get all dressed up to see these animals who can’t do nothing for you. You ride one train, two trains, a bus to see these fools. You can’t touch them. They can’t touch you. A brother with a good job and benefits can’t get a play? So how ’bout it, cinnamon?” he asked, with his arms extended. “Pass me your number. I’ll call you as soon as I get off. I’ll take you to lunch, dinner, breakfast …” he suggested. “Wherever you want to go.” I wanted to scream on this asshole, but he had a gun.

  So instead, I said, “No, that’s alright, ain’t nothing happening.”

  “You got kids?” he asked.

  “No, I ain’t got no goddamn kids,” I responded immediately. “I’m here to see my father, not my man.”

  “Oh, so where your man at? If I was your man, I’d be sitting right there next to you.” I didn’t say nothing. Alright then he pushed.

  “I’ll give you my number. Maybe you’ll think about what I said and give me a call sometime.” He handed me a business card.

  “I doubt it,” I said, crashing his ego down to the floor. “Who are you here to see?” he asked with authority, as if this was now some type of police matter. His eyes searched the package on my lap. “Ricky Santiaga,” he said, reading the words printed on the box I brought for Daddy. “Well now, you’re about four days too late.” I shifted my weight back in his direction and peered into his eyes with hatred.

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “That dude Santiaga killed two prisoners in here four nights ago. He’s out of here. We bused him out and up north.” I didn’t like the idea of this c.o. playing head games with me. If I would’ve given him my phone number, would he still be making all this shit up? “Oh, you don’t believe me,” he chuckled. “Go wait in line. Go get searched. Go through the metal detectors. They gonna tell you the same thing when you get up there. They might say Santiaga “allegedly’ killed two prisoners. Either way they say it, he’s not here.”

  “How do I find out where he is?” I asked, now desperate.

  “In a few days he’ll probably write you. He can read and write, can’t he?” he asked and actually waited for a response. “Well you can’t take nothing for granted around here.” I got up quick.

  “He’ll write. It’s not like he has anything better to do,” the guard shouted. With my back now to the c.o., I moved swiftly toward the exit door. The last words I heard him say were: “Call me. I can make you feel better.”

  Yeah, I thought to myself. What a difference between the way men treated me before Santiaga got knocked, and the way they speak to me now. Like Santiaga would say, They feeling themselves, thought it was time to spread their wings. I know what happened behind those bars at Riker’s, some kind of disrespect. Somebody tried to test my father. So, he was forced to set an example. He let everybody know. Don’t fuck with Santiaga. The penalty is death, baby, ghetto style. I took a deep breath. There was no sense feeling bad. My father is all man. This is what I loved best about him.

  Next stop the liquor store and a pint of Hennessy to mellow me out. I slid into the movie theater in Queens and bought a ticket. What show? Any show. I just wanted to be where nobody would bother me, see me, or ask for none of my drink. It was just me, my brown paper bag, and two watermelon sticks to take away the liquor smell on my breath.

  Lights on, then off again. I stayed to see what I didn’t see, twice. One skinny white boy with an elevator suit came over and shined the flashlight in my face. But after the light landed on my face, hair, skirt, and brand new Joan & David heels, he took the light off me ’cause I surely wasn’t a homeless bum. Besides, I had a stub.

  From dark to dark, the inside of the theater into the night I was calm. I bought a nickel bag from a dred I ran into in the street. I’d rather give him my business than my body, which is what he wanted when he first approached me. Niggas always think when they see a girl walking alone in the street they can slide up in her. But I decide when I’m getting fucked or not, even when I’m drunk.

  My body jerked back, forward, and sideways as the silver train jetted through the underground. The lights blinked on and off, bugging me out as my mind tried to move faster than the train wheels. The crazies on the train were more animated than ever. One old chick with four pounds of bottom lip and no top lip at all sat across from me muttering, “That’s a lie, that’s a lie, y’all know that’s a motherfucking lie.” I busted out laughing ’cause everything in my eyes at the moment was magnified. People had the nerve to look at me like I was nuts or something.

  The weed had me hungry so I slid Daddy’s package, which seemed to be getting heavier and heavier, into a locker at Penn Station, Manhattan, on 34th Street. For fifty cents I locked everything up and dropped the key into my pocketbook. Now I was free to get dinner. I treated myself to Steak ’n Brew restaurant. I sat in the dim light by myself eating my food.

  “Do you mind if I give you the check now, miss?” the hurried waitress asked. “It’s ten-fifteen and my shift ended at ten, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I paid the bill. A couple more bites of my steak, well done, and I realized what the waitress had said. It’s ten-fifteen, it’s ten-fifteen, it’s ten-fifteen. Curfew is at eleven. I ran to the bathroom, peed, and straightened myself out. Then I caught the local downtown to 14th Street. I still had to walk to the East Side.

  I puffed my last L as the light wind moved in and out of my legs walking toward the House of Success. Ten minutes to curfew. I didn’t want to hear shit about them revoking my upcoming weekend privileges. My two-inch heels clicked on the sidewalk, making music. My theme music. I didn’t know if anyone else could hear it, but it sounded real loud to me.

  When I turned the corner onto the block I felt nervous out of nowhere as if something wasn’t cool. The lower-Manhattan block turned into a haunted museum. The skinny little trees appeared to be armed enemies. I was seeing all types of shit like snipers on the roof and vipers crawling on the ground. I hated this little block that was tucked away like a fake suburb. I mean, on a normal block in New York there are lights and people, plenty of people. Bodegas and niggas sitting on milk crates playing cards or shooting c-low or sipping brew. But this little street was full of shit, pretending to be something other than it was.

  Halfway down the block in the front entrance of my building, the outline of a body stepped forward like in an old Hitchcock flick. Energy shot through my body. My mind shook my high to the left, then shook it to the right. My eyes focused in on the shadow cast by the dull light. An alarm within me sounded. Oh shit, it’s Simone! Damn, had she peeped me? Did she think she could hide her pregnant ass by standing behind the tall thin wall at the top of the stoop? What did she plan to do in her condition? Fuck her! I said to myself. She can’t do nothing. In a flash, maybe half a second, she jumped off the stoop like an overweight acrobat. And, out of the right and left side of the stoop shot four wild mommas in black Reebok sneakers, black jeans, and bright yellow hoodies, charging toward me like killer bees. Brooklyn, the only females bold enough to wear some bright shit in the middle of the night when they was supposed to be on the down low. I folded my pocketbook like it was a brown paper bag. Outnumbered one to five, and unsure whether
one of them was a big woman or a man, I turned on my heels and ran like my Joan & David’s were Air Jordans.

  “Go back, Simone, go back, Simone,” one of them kept shouting, but Simone kept coming like a clunky pickup truck talking ’bout, “I’m gon’ git a piece of this trick bitch’s ass.”

  “Get back, Simone!” But like a mad bull she kept coming. The short one was gaining on me, but my slim yet muscular thighs were dodging them other fools. I was working that miniskirt. As I damn near flew around the corner, I looked back right in time to see Simone bust her ass falling flat on her face.

  I dashed down the subway steps. Two of the killer bees kept coming. I assumed the other two went to help Simone. When I tried to jump over the last five steps, my feet landed instead on the bottom step. I had lost my balance. I had lost one shoe. With only one shoe on I heard them on my heels. I saw the train doors about to close and shot unevenly through the doors. As soon as I turned around to see if I shook ’em, the doors shut tight. Whatever they were screaming on the other side of the closed glass and metal front door didn’t matter ’cause it was drowned out by the departing screech of the train. But their middle fingers, I could read that.

  Relieved, I fell into the small space between a fat lady and a young guy with headphones on. With one shoe on and my blouse buttons popped open, my titties heaved in and out, in and out, from heavy breathing. I gasped for air. When I looked up I saw half of all the other passengers’ eyes on me. I sucked my teeth, loud, began buttoning my blouse, and spit, “What the fuck everybody looking at?”

  At the first stop I got off and switched to the uptown train line. I was sure them Brooklyn femmes weren’t going that way. I plunged my hand into my Coach bag to take inventory. My box cutter was still there. I ran my fingers over the handle, thinking, that’s right. Simone was smart enough to get her little crew ’cause she knew one on one she had no wins. Even if there had been only two of them I would of fought. But five? Who knows if they had burners on them?

  I felt for the yellow envelope that I keep taped to the bottom of my Coach bag. I hated ruining the leather inside the bag with the tape, but ever since Aunt B stuck me for my loot, I never left my money and jewels anywhere, no time. And my bag never leaves my side, never.

  OK, think, think, think. What’s the plan? Simone and them ain’t gonna wait for me at the House of Success forever. So I could ride for awhile and wait them out. No, I’ll get off at the next stop and get to a pay phone. I’ll call the house and find out what’s up. Rashida or one of them would fill me in.

  Now should I leave one shoe on? Or should I walk barefoot on the filthy subway platform? How long would it be before I could run into a vendor who could sell me a pair of socks? What would be a bigger spectacle, a female with one shoe on or a well-dressed female with no shoes? This is New York so I said fuck it.

  “You blew curfew, Santiaga.” The House of Success bitch security guard’s voice was blaring through the phone.

  “I know, I know.”

  “I’m gonna have to write you up,” she said, taking her job seriously.

  “I got a carton of Newports that say you don’t have to say nothing.”

  “Make it two. Now what do you want?”

  “Let me speak to Rashida.”

  “Rashida’s asleep.”

  “Well wake her up,” I told her.

  “She’s in the shower.”

  “I thought you said she was asleep.”

  “Whatever. Do you want to speak to Lashay?”

  “What’s going on, girl?” I asked Lashay, hoping that if she knew something she would volunteer to tell me.

  “Nothing,” she said in a calm voice.

  “Has anybody called for me?”

  “You should’ve asked security, you know they take all the messages. Anyway, I saw your girl Simone a few hours ago.”

  “What did she say?”

  “You know, the regular. She said give her a call she needs to talk to you about something.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nah, nothing.”

  “Listen Lashay, my moms is sick again. It looks like I’m gonna sleep over in the hospital with her tonight. Could you do me a favor?”

  “Yeah anything, just hit me off like old times.” Lashay laughed, but I knew she was serious. I didn’t mind putting a few bucks in her palms for a favor.

  “In my room taped to the inside railing of my bed there is a key. Use it to unlock my trunk.” I further explained that she should pack some selected dresses, pants, blouses, and two pairs of my shoes, one flats, one heels.

  “All that! Damn, where are you going?”

  “I’m going to the hospital to stay with my moms. She needs me. Besides, you know me with the clothes. Even if I’m just going for one night I need to have choices,” I told her. Lashay laughed. “Meet me tomorrow at twelve noon at Penn Station, downstairs under the schedule board’s digital display.”

  “Tomorrow, twelve noon, Penn Station, under the schedule display,” she repeated.

  “And make sure you lock my trunk up and bring me the key.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  Lashay had a damn good question, where am I going? But in the interest of not being predictable, I wasn’t going back to the House of Success tonight. From the subway platform, I walked upstairs at the 96th Street station. I had decided to keep the one shoe I had on my left foot. After a minute of looking around I realized the only types of stores that were open were restaurants, delis, and vegetable stands. Eight minutes later, my dirty, black foot got a splinter or a piece of glass or something in it. It was the first time my own body ever grossed me out. Finally I came upon a twenty-four hour pharmacy. They didn’t have no shoes for sale, but I was able to buy some hairy, pink bedroom slippers, cotton balls, alcohol, and sewing needles.

  I found a chair outside of a café to sit on. As soon as I opened the cotton balls and took the top off the alcohol, a waiter came out.

  “May I take your order?” he asked.

  “Nothing for me,” I responded.

  “Well, there is a drink-and-entrée minimum to occupy these outdoor tables and chairs.”

  “I’m not hungry. This’ll only take a minute.”

  The waiter looked suspiciously on my side of the table, saw my foot and said, “Oh no, miss, you won’t be allowed to do that here.”

  “OK, then I’ll have a cheeseburger deluxe and a Coke.” “I’ll have to ask you to leave now, or I’ll go and get the manager.”

  So I walked around aimlessly until I discovered the wide open deserted steps of the Museum of Natural History. With only the midnight moonlight and a dull glare from a streetlamp, I sat wiping my foot with the alcohol and cotton balls. I successfully removed the splinter with the sewing needle. The pink slippers were definitely not the bomb. But there are two of them and they matched. Besides, it would only be a ten-hour fashion statement. The stores would open and then I could get some proper shoes.

  Whether or not to check into a hotel was running through my mind. After shopping for Daddy, I only had sixteen hundred and fifty dollars. Not having a clear plan was stressing me so I decided to save my dough until I was sure what my next move would be.

  I walked for blocks and blocks, just tryna keep it moving. In a city like New York, sitting still could make you anybody’s target. The McDonald’s I lucked up on closed out at 3 A.M. So I took the fifteen dollars’ worth of magazines I just purchased from a newsstand and moved next door to the doughnut shop. I ordered two glazed doughnuts and coffee just to keep the cashier from saying I couldn’t sit at the counter. I opened my hip-hop fanzine and began to read the articles about my favorite hip-hop stars. Look at these rap chicks in the magazine, I thought to myself. If I could rhyme, I could get paid out the ass. Some of these rap girls had loot and still couldn’t figure out where to get their weaves put in right. I cracked up.

  Just then some dude wearing the finest blue metallic suit the thrift shop had to offer sat in the chair
next to me.

  “Hey sweetheart,” he said, flashing a smile with so much plaque on his teeth it looked like a yeast infection. “What can I do for you?” he asked. I pushed my face into my magazine, ignoring him. “Are you a ballerina sweetheart?”

  “What!!” I said so loud, I put him on blast.

  “Calm down, sweetie … I just wanna talk to you for a minute. I’m saying ’cause you look like a ballerina to me with those long sexy legs. Now me, I’m a manager. I’m always looking for new talent.” He laid a dirty business card on the counter which read Girlz Galore Management.

  “No, I’m not no damned ballerina,” I said, picking up my stuff. “Do I look like a fucking ballerina. Do you know any ghetto girl ballerinas?”

  Checking my hostility he said, “Now come on now. Don’t get uptight. I’m just tryna do some business with ya. Ballerina’s just a fancy way of saying “dancer.’ ”

  “Well I can dance,” I said, moving down two chairs, separating him from me, “but I ain’t no dancer.”

  “Now don’t go turning up your nose little girl. A good dancer can bring in about three to five hundred a night.”

  “Doing what?” I asked with interest. “Why, dancing …” he said, with another nasty smile. I looked at his whole entire face, that fucked-up suit and the black dirt caked up under his long nails.

  I jumped up, threw one hand on my hip and said, “Yeah right, dancing, sucking a little dick, taking it up the ass a few times, and a bunch of shit like that, huh?” The man who spoke with a lowered voice left as quickly as he came.

  By 5 A.M. a fat lady wearing a cheap greasy apron nudged me.

  “There’s no sleeping in here.” She pointed to the sign on the wall that said No Loitering, No Barefoot.

  “It don’t say no sleeping,” I said.

  “Well you ain’t buying nothing, so you are loitering.” I pointed to the glazed doughnuts and the cold cup of coffee left on the counter two seats over. She twisted up her mouth and said, “That was here when I started my shift.” I stood up to get my pocketbook that I was sitting on. I pulled out fifty cents and said, “I’ll take a glazed doughnut.” She spun on her dirty plastic work shoes with attitude, handed me the doughnut in tissue paper. I looked up at the clock, thinking, I only have one hour until sunlight. If I have to buy one doughnut every ten minutes, I would.