Saturday morning I prepared to fulfill my baby-sitting obligations. I dressed the twins in their matching Hilfiger jumpers and crisp new kicks. I did their hair up nice in some grown-up styles. I had on my tight brown suede pants. My brown suede jacket, brown leather shoes, and my Versace sunglasses. I put on my new custom-made designer T-shirt. I snatched up their little hands and headed to the mall, where I was sure there would be something exciting for each of us to get into.
By the end of the day, the twins had managed to rearrange their hairdos and decorate their jumpers with spilled hot cocoa. I could not believe that I didn’t meet the man I pictured so carefully in my mind, my tension-reliever. Instead I was approached by one guy who walked up to me with his doofy ass asking me about my T-shirt. I rolled my eyes and made a face at him like he smelled like shit or something. He got the point and strolled away. Later on, going home on the bus I thought maybe the guys around here are not used to bold women like me. Maybe they were into manners, prissy bitches, and shit like that. Maybe my T-shirt, which read THESE ARE NOT MY FUCKING KIDS!, was too spicy for their precious eyes and ears. There was no doubt in my mind that I would have to find my way back to Brooklyn on a regular basis to keep my sanity.
3
“Daddy,” I said softly, trying to lean on my innocent baby doll look.
“I want to get my hair done at Earline’s next Friday.”
Sensing some type of plot, Santiaga asked, “Why would you go all the way to Brooklyn to get your hair done? Can’t you go somewhere around here?”
“Come on, Daddy,” I pleaded. “They don’t know how to hook my ’do up out here. Earline be having my shit—excuse me, my hair looking correct!”
“There’s plenty of black hairdressers out here. Go to Wyandanch. That’s a forty-five minute ride. It just doesn’t make sense for my baby to be riding a bunch of trains and buses just to get to Brooklyn.”
“Bus! Train! Trust me Daddy, I wasn’t talking ’bout riding either. I’m straight up hitting on you for a ride when you drive in on Friday,” I said, laughing and begging at the same time.
“Winter, you know I don’t mix business and pleasure. I do my runs solo. I don’t want you to deal with that or knowing more than what you need to know. It’s not smart. And I never been a stupid man. Just lay low for awhile. Your mother will have her car in a couple of weeks. Then you and her can go ripping around to take care of all that girly shit.
“Anyway,” he said, with his cool face and half a smile, “there ain’t a female in the state who looks better than Winter even without Earline’s help.” Even in my disappointed moment a compliment felt good, and worked, as it did every time. I accepted Santiaga’s rationale and went back to my room to reshuffle my deck and think of another angle to get me into Brooklyn.
Days later I called Sterling, my old sugar daddy, out of the blue. After racking my brain for a plan to get into Brooklyn I realized he was the only sucker I knew who would get such a kick out of seeing me that he would drive all the way out here to get me. The price of the whole arrangement was that I’d have to tolerate him, act like I gave a damn about him when I didn’t. I’d have to think of quick answers to all his wimpy bitching questions about where I had been, why I cut out on him like I did, why I never called and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then I’d have to find a clever way to ditch him ’cause I definitely wasn’t spending my Friday night with him. I’d have to be firm so he wouldn’t start that damn whining. I’d also have to be sweet so if I had to use him again as my taxi driver from time to time, he would cooperate. The worst thing that might happen is I might have to end up giving him some pussy just to keep him in line or a quick blow job while he was driving. I wasn’t sweating it, though. I had done it with him before and I could easily do it again, especially to get the hell out of Long Island.
Soon as Santiaga’s Lex ripped out of the driveway Friday afternoon, I saw Sterling pull up in his little LeCar with the broken fender. I swallowed hard and got ready to pretend it was a limo. When I told my moms I was going to Earline’s she wanted to come, too. I explained that she should not come because I was spending the night at Aunt Laurie’s and would not be able to get her a ride back after she finished at Earline’s. She screwed up her face as though she had a problem with me spending the night at her own sister’s house. I quickly added that I would be back first thing Saturday morning to watch the kids. She let go of her anger and I jetted.
Adrenaline was pumping inside Earline’s. I was like a junkie getting a fix as I got filled in on the what-haps around the way. The girls dropped the regular shit on me like who bumpin’ who, who’s pregnant, who’s paid, who’s not and why. Who’s locked down, how long, and who’s due to come home. Now Natalie was giving me the elbow, her discreet way of telling me to look toward the door without looking like I was looking toward the door. “There go Tasia,” she said out of the corner of her mouth.
“Yeah. And?” I asked, waiting for the 411 on her.
“She’s fucking with your man, Midnight.”
The information hit me right in my chest. She was talking about my future husband.
“She’s big on him, too! Especially since he got that new Acura with the rims.” My heart dropped for three full seconds. It took one second for me to check Tasia out. My eyes zoomed in on her ears, humph cheap 10-karat gold earrings. Then her clothes. She was chillin’ a little bit, strictly hip-hop style. She had big taste-me titties, a small flat belly, and a round ass. She was brown skin with chinky eyes. Regular bitch! I thought to myself. The rack that she pulled those clothes off of had one thousand pairs of the same shit, which means at any party four or five girls would have it on. There was nothing unique about her or even the way she hooked up her gear. It wouldn’t be hard for me to move her right on out. But damn, it was the Long Island distance that was killing me. A second later my mind focused on what I really wanted to hear. Midnight had a new Acura! The one I would be riding in, the one he needed to have to sport a bitch like me.
After my hair was butter, I left with Natalie to go check my Aunt Laurie. I needed to at least show my face in her apartment and hang out for an hour or so. I knew my moms would call to check on me. I’d be out partying but at least Aunt Laurie would be able to verify that she had seen me and that I would be back there to spend the night like I told my mother I would. We had plans to go to Big Moe’s, the local bar and dance set that be banging on Friday nights for the young crowd. There was never no problem about Big Moe or his bouncers getting in your business and checking IDs and shit like that.
I can’t begin to tell you how my heart was racing just from being in the Brooklyn air again. Cars were positioned bumper to bumper for all three blocks surrounding Moe’s club. Car and Jeep speakers were up, each one playing their own jam. Sound systems were fighting to outblast each other. A little bit of hip-hop collided with a little bit of reggae, rockers, and even slow jams. I was on foot, rolling fifteen deep straight Brooklyn style with fifteen razor-ready girls who all had each other’s back. When we got in the club I put my plan into action. I didn’t have long to work because Long Island was looming in the back of my mind like a threat. Midnight was standing on the right side of the club where the lights were low. He was kickin’ it with about five other niggas. I caught the side of his serious face, his muscular jaw working. I laughed to myself thinking, only this nigga would conduct business in a place where everybody else is trying to get their groove on. I gave my girl Natalie the pinch and our whole crew started walking toward Midnight and his boys. We rushed his crew, bumping into all of them, rubbing our titties against them, using the excuse that the club was crowded. Of course it only took a second before my girls had his boys distracted. I stepped up, licking my lips real slowly, and said rough and sexy-like, “What’s up Midnight, haven’t seen you in a while.”
I said this line with sensual power. I said it like he and I had been intimate in the past and I missed him and needed to get back with him as soon as possible. I was stan
ding so close to him that one more inch and I could have slid my tongue down his throat. He looked at me unaffected, completely unmoved and nonemotional. My emotions were wilding. My nipples were up and the muscles in my pussy were beating like a heart.
“What do you want?” he finally said. Now I was pissed. I knew my perfume had to be working. I dabbed it on extra so when I got up close my scent would suck him in. Hell, I had on 18-karat gold earrings and 1-karat diamond studs, much more than that two-dollar, 10-karat hoe I heard he had been kicking it with had. I didn’t want to go off. The bottom line was I wanted him, so I’d have to play it cool, make sure I pull him in just right.
I said sweetly, “What do I want?” I touched his hand with mine, looked him dead in the eye, “Oh, I want it all.”
He pulled his hand back like I had a disease and slowly and coldly spit back at me, “Well, that makes you like all these bitches in here, now, doesn’t it?”
Rage ripped through my chest as it became clear that I wasn’t even a consideration of his. Hell, he acted like I wasn’t even a woman. My mind automatically flipped to Santiaga, who I know would have ripped out Midnight’s tongue for even talking to me like that.
Then, like a gypsy, Midnight, reading my thoughts, said, “What, gonna tell Daddy? I’m my own man.” He turned and walked away.
I felt so played I didn’t even want to turn around toward my girls. I’d have to tell my whole crew that I got dissed like I was a piece of shit. I just tightened up, put on my Brooklyn ’tude, grabbed the next nigga standing close to me, and started to dance. I was gonna move with fury, let Midnight know what he was missing. I handed my Coach bag to my girl and started shaking my ass all the way to Alabama, using this dumb fuck dancing in front of me like a prop as I tried to catch Midnight’s attention again. My body was shaking and sweating as anger and desire fought it out. Yes desire, ’cause I was definitely turned on. The lighting situation made it hard for me to catch Midnight’s eyes. At the point that my body wanted to collapse from exhaustion I saw Midnight looking in my direction and heading my way. Smiling to myself, I thought, I know I’m a bad bitch.
I knew he would come back.
As he got closer I realized he was signaling to his man who was standing behind me. He snatched him up and they left the club.
Later that night our crew was walking back to the PJs. I was feeling down but looking unaffected. We were joking, bugging, talking about people, when a spanking new, jet black, gleaming Acura with rims pulled up alongside us. We all stopped to look at what I calculated was a fifty-thousand-dollar car with forty-five hundred dollars in rims. The automatic window on the passenger side dropped down. Midnight was behind the wheel doing what he does best, looking good. I wasn’t gonna play the sucker role and assume he stopped for me. I had done that already tonight. So I stood in the pack with my girls. He must of known he could of called any one of us over to him and not one of us would of stopped to consider the others. All of us were probably doing the same thing, imagining ourselves in the passenger seat of that car, which just increased in value as I checked the soft white leather interior and wood paneling.
“Winter!!” he called my name with a roughness that made me want to just hop on his dick and go buck. “Get in.”
I don’t remember walking to the car or nothing. I felt like I was just transformed or teleported right into the seat like I was on Star Trek or something. I turned to the side. The automatic window was up. Midnight was pulling his finger off the control button. I saw twenty-eight eyeballs glued to the side of my window, staring in my face. They was my girls but they were jealous. All I could think was, yeah that’s right. What did you expect? Or have you forgotten? I’m the queen of this ghetto! As the window closed I could hear Natalie’s voice saying, “Are you staying at my house or Aunt Laurie’s?” I didn’t respond, just thought to myself, hopefully neither. As we rode my confidence grew slowly. I decided he was just tryna flip the script on me, play hard to get. It didn’t matter though, he came back for me. I had made an impression on him. I had sweated him and now he was sweating me.
The air in the car was crisp and clean-smelling. The stereo was so fly it sounded like the band was playing the music live in the backseat. He wasn’t saying nothing but that was alright, I was used to his strange silence. It didn’t make me mad. It made me want him more. I knew our lovemaking would be good just based on his mysteriousness. I opened my Coach bag and pulled out my little mirror. He wasn’t paying me no mind. I tilted the mirror to the side angle so I could look at his face without him realizing that I was looking. He was black alright, beautiful. His long thin nose and big thick lips mounted his white teeth—white like those T-shirts he wore in the summertime.
Suddenly, it seemed, the music was abruptly interrupted by the loud and aggravating voice of Sister Souljah on the radio. I leaned up and reached for the button to change the station, when Midnight intercepted my hand, saying, “Don’t touch my shit.” I sucked my teeth, rolled my eyes, and sat stiff while Souljah went on to talk about some black struggle. Humph, I thought, if there is some kind of struggle going on, she must be the only one in it. Everybody I know is chilling, just tryna enjoy life. She, on the other hand, with these Friday and Saturday night comments, busting up the radio hip-hop flavor mix, is the only one who is always uptight. I had every reason to take it personal. She started talking about how young black drug dealers are the strong black men in the community, but need to change their line of business because it’s destroying the community. As far as I am concerned Souljah is just somebody who likes to hear herself talk. She obviously didn’t know the time because the drug dealers don’t destroy nothing. If there weren’t people on line to buy the product, then there would be no business. No drug dealer I know ever forced anybody, not one person, to take drugs. People do it voluntarily. They do it by choice. The niggas I know who sell drugs be tryna help the stupid crackheads. They be telling them to slow down and asking them are they sure they want to sell their last whatever just to get that hit. I even know a dealer who told this pregnant girl he wouldn’t sell her no more crack until after she had the baby. She just took her dumb ass to somebody else and got the crack anyway. Then, when she had the baby boy, she tried to sell him, too. Now whose fault is that? People do what they want to. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe Souljah just wants people to do what she wants them to do.
“Why you even listening to this bullshit?” I asked Midnight.
“What the hell do you know?” he snapped back in his low and cool voice. This is when I noticed we were on the Long Island Expressway.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Home, little girl,” he responded. “Your father paged me and asked me to bring you home.”
“I thought you was your own man.”
“For a hundred-fifty dollars, I’ll run an errand. It’s business. I pick you up, drop you off, collect my dough, and I’m out.”
The one-hundred-fifty-dollar transaction was as smooth and nonincidental as a messenger service dropping off a package. After handing Midnight the money and closing the door, my father walked silently through the living room and into his den. The room was dark. He sat down, leaned back in his chair. The moonlight through the blinds lit up half of his serious face.
“Winter,” he said softly.
“Yes Daddy” I said.
“What made you think you could spend the night in Brooklyn?”
“I asked Mommy. I wanted to see my friends. Natalie and me were supposed to …”
“I guess you’re not understanding.”
“Not understanding what?” I asked, checking my tone to ensure that I was not sounding disrespectful, something Santiaga doesn’t tolerate.
“Who you are. Who I am. Who we are.” He said each word with precision. He was starting to sound like some type of philosopher or something to me. This whole thing wasn’t making any type of sense. “You’re my daughter. You just can’t wander off and go anywhere, unprotected.”
 
; “Anywhere!” I said, upset. “I went home. I went to Brooklyn. I went to the only place I know. Where my peoples is at. Where everybody knows me. Those are my streets, Daddy!”
“Do you think those streets love you? Those streets don’t love you. They don’t even know you. You could walk those streets one thousand nights and one thousand days and they wouldn’t even know your name. The street don’t love nobody.” It was crazy. His words were making me feel uneasy and I couldn’t connect. I didn’t like the feeling. I was used to feeling relaxed and in control.
“So what are you saying, Daddy? Are you saying that I can’t go home anymore?”
“No!” he said quickly. “I’m not saying that.”
“ ’Cause Daddy, I’m not hiding from anybody or scared of anything. You taught me that.”
“It’s not about hiding. It’s about being smart. I taught you that too. What makes you special, Winter?” he asked like it was the fifty-thousand-dollar Jeopardy! question or some shit like that. I ran the question through my head and drew a blank. “What makes you special is me … Santiaga! Your father. Your protection! You had full run of our projects when I lived there ’cause I was holding things down, making everything alright. My eyes saw everything. So everything was cool. Now this is home. This is where I rest my head. If I’m here and you are over there, I can’t see you. If I can’t see you, I can’t protect you. When you’re unprotected you’re wide open. Anything could happen.”