Chapter 4 #3
I couldn’t help but to laugh because I felt good tonight.
Spending the day with Navy was good for my soul.
Nothing was hard, forced, or planned out.
We just went with the flow today, and that was something I needed.
Now, she had me out in Brooklyn when I would have been getting ready for bed, or in my office.
“Nigel, yooo!” Navy hollered out, and a short light skin man came over toward us, pulling a cooler behind him.
“Navy Bleu- Bleu.” The man smiled, as he got closer and hugged her.
He was an older man wearing an old school faded Tommy Hilfiger shirt, jean shorts, and a pair of worn Jordans.
“Did you make my favorite flavor?” She was all smiles as she continued to hold onto him, and he laughed, exposing a nearly toothless smile.
He released her and dug into the cooler that was filled with ice and plastic quarter water containers that were different colors. “Mango and strawberry.” He pulled two of the reddish color containers and handed them to her. Navy tried to hand him money, and he gently swatted her hand.
“Your money is no good with me, Navy Bleu- Bleu.”
She sulked. “You never let me or Greene pay, Nigel.”
“And never will. I need to make my way to the next block.” He smiled, tipped his hat and then continued down the street.
“Ight, Nigel!” Ro hollered and saluted him, and Nigel returned the gesture, on his quest to the next block.
“What is this?”
“Nutcrackers… liquor.” She handed me one, because Jett wouldn’t be partaking in drinking tonight.
His job was to look over Navy, and knowing Don, he probably told him to watch me too. “I’m allergic to mangos,” I told her.
She snatched it back quickly. “Oh shit. I’m sorry, Zoya.”
I tried to keep a straight face until I couldn’t anymore. “I’m not really allergic… I hate mango and people always try and change my mind, so I lie and say I’m allergic.”
Navy stared at me for a second before she unscrewed the cap to her bottle and started to chug it down. “What in the hell is wrong with you?”
I laughed. “A little bit of everything, Darling.”
Capri came skipping over and I questioned how a woman who had just had twins a few months ago, and had a toddler, along with an almost pre-teen, had this much energy.
Capri had always been thinner with a shape, but since having her babies, she had this grown woman shape that only having children provided.
“What the hell took you so long to get here?”
I looked at Navy. “We took the train.”
Capri faked like she was pushed back a few paces and laughed. “Stop fucking with me, Zoya.”
“We took the train… if you let her tell it, it was against her will.” Navy handed Capri the drink I refused to drink. “I’ll get you a drink that is mango free.”
Capri busted out laughing. “You over here lying about your fake allergies?”
“One day, you all will take my allergies serious.” I snickered.
The cool breeze swarmed past us as we were chilling on the stoop. Everyone was at peace, and I could tell it had been a while since we all had felt this. I nursed the drink that Navy had made for me, before she disappeared the minute Don came onto the block.
“This drink starting to taste like I’m about to be a father of five,” Meer loudly announced, as he stepped down from the stoop.
Capri snatched the drink from him, spilling some in the process. “Oh, fuck no.”
He pulled her up and she wrapped her arms around his neck, as they danced to the music. Nigel had come back over here three times, and the last time Meer had bought all the rest of the drinks from his cooler.
Meer bought me a lime and apple flavor that Nigel had, and we were sharing one of Gam’s cookies. As much as I could feel the cool breeze, a bitch was hot as hell. I think my panties were sweating with how hot I had gotten since I finished that drink and my piece of the cookie.
“Ya’ll not hot?” I blurted.
Blair, who was sitting on Quasim’s lap, looked over at me. If her staring wasn’t enough, Quasim took a pull from his spliff and looked at me too, which had me even more paranoid.
“What? Is there something on me,” I started to move my arms, eventually standing up while Cappadonna and Alaia stood at the bottom of the stoop, staring. “Why the fuck you all staring at me?”
“Walk that shit off, Zoy,” Don hollered from the other side of the street.
“Are you alright, Zoya?” Blair questioned.
“After you and your man made me paranoid… now you wanna ask how I’m doing?” I stomped down the steps, mushing Kincaid in the process.
“What the fuck I do?”
“You just here and breathing… weren’t you supposed to be with sky daddy?”
Alaia busted out laughing while holding onto her husband. “All you niggas would have been crying if you lost me.”
Capri and Meer both looked like they were holding in their laugh, as I walked past them. “Yo, Zoya, you good?” Cappadonna called behind me.
“Going to the store… I need some air,” I fanned myself as I turned around and headed toward the corner store.
If you were someone that was easily overstimulated, then the corner store wasn’t the place for you. There were too many damn options of every damn thing when you walked in. You can get everything from water balloons to condoms to horny goat weed.
I didn’t even know why I came to the store, but I was determined to get something. They weren’t gonna look at me like some weird bitch that just walked in and then quickly left without buying anything.
“What water you used for these fucking ice cubes?” Gerald was standing at the counter with a bottle of water, and an ice cup in his hand.
“Spring water,” the store owner replied, but I could tell he was lying.
When you lied and found loopholes to defend more lies for a living, you learned to weed out the actual liars. I could spot someone lying from a mile away.
“You know I can tell the difference between spring water and fucking tap, right?”
“Bullshit. Nobody can tell the difference,” the man challenged, and Gerald smirked, not even noticing that I was standing behind him.
“Which water you used?”
“Same one you’re buying.”
“If I pour this into this cup and it tastes different, I’m gonna beat yo ass, ight?” The man became nervous and tried to back pedal.
“As his lawyer, when he beats your ass, you cannot press charges,” I stood beside him, and he looked down at me and smirked.
“You heard my baby.”
“Damn, Goon, take the ice for free.” He surrendered, knowing he was selling tap water ice for two dollars a cup.
I folded my arms and rolled my neck. “And the water.”
“You want me to give you product for free?”
“Did you just try and sell us drugs?” I asked, and Gerald looked at me like I was crazy.
“Boobie, he ain’t even say that shit?”
“Keep the water… Goon keep her out my store.”
I refused to move from the counter. “Water balloons too.”
“Zoya, what the fuck you need water balloons for?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know… I just want them.”
Gerald tossed money on the counter and pointed to the water balloons. “Gerald, take the water balloons and go.”
His head snapped in his direction. “You want me to fuck you up?”
“What?”
“Fuck you calling me by my government.”
“Only I call him that… anybody else hot?”
Both of them paused and looked at me. “Fuck you sweating so bad for, Zoya?”
“I had a cookie.”
“From fucking Gams?”
I smiled up at him, my vision slightly blurry. “You know it, Pumpkin.”
Gerald shook his head, no longer concerned about the ice or the water, and snatched a piece of cardboard from the Linden cookies that were on the shelf. He took my hand and pulled me out the store.
As we stood on the corner, he fanned me with the cardboard piece as he held me close to him. “Everybody knows not to fuck with Gams’ cookies… who gave them shits to you?”
I saw Meer’s long ass leg before I saw him, as he did an extra ass step over toward us. “I believe that would be me.”
“Meer, please,” Capri laughed, as she ran behind him.
“He had cookies too?”
Capri looked at Gerald and then back at me, then back at Gerald. “Is this a safe place.”
Poor Gerald was stressed because he realized that not only was Meer and I high, but Capri was drunk. “Baby Doll, why the fuck did you take off running like that?”
“Capp, the fuck up with them?”
“The skyyyyyyy,” Capri did jazz hands, and started to shake her hips.
Meer did the electric slide behind her and joined in her series of jazz hands. My hands felt like they were missing out, so I started doing the same thing.
Cappadonna and Gerald stood there, confused, but he never stopped fanning me. “Pissy bought some of Gam’s cookies, and this one been slugging those nutcrackers down. You a mama, Capri.”
“Big mama to him though,” she snickered, loving to get under her brother’s skin.
Capp laughed, because his favorite thing to do was remind his baby sister that she was somebody’s mama. Alaia walked up the block toward us and shook her head.
“Baby, Don said that he has a truck to come bring these two home and will have the bikes brought to the house.”
“No, we’re having fun… I’m not going home to bottles, diapers, and dirty clothes.” Capri protested.
“I’m with you… I have to do laundry, and I have so much paperwork and emails to go through,” I sulked, not wanting to be reminded of what I had to do once the fun was over.
Capp looked at his wife. “And you?”
“I’m with her… let’s not be parents tonight. Just be Big Capp and Joy.” She rested her hand on her husband’s chest and leaned on his arm.
Quasim came walking up the block with Blair on his back. She was smoking a spliff and was getting ashes on the top of his head. “We staying in the city tonight.”
I clapped my hands. “You not trying to be parents tonight either?”
Blair got down and took a long pull. “Not really. School is about to start, and I know life will get hectic with Elijah’s school schedule, therapy and sports… let’s chill for the weekend. The kids are safe, fed, and well taken care of.”