2
“I haven’t been able to talk to them about it yet,”
I said to Soho.
I could hear him suck his teeth. “Man, you went out there for the Zoo! We’re trying to be put on. Them niggas are the only ones that don’t have a full team.”
Soho had watched video after video of the Zoo Boyz racing. I don’t even think they knew they were all over the net. He’d watched them nonstop. I guess they were like an inspiration to him. We thought about starting our own crew until he came across the Zoo Boyz. Me knowing Glock was like the perfect match. It was my way of getting back to the place I had left years ago. I studied the boys as much as I could. It was how I came across Zu. What other way to weasel our way in than using a female?
After spending the weekend with the Zoo Boyz, watching them go from destruction back to a tight-knit group, I knew they were for me and my boys. All of them had come from some type of background of struggle, and we were the same way. There was Soho. He was the risk-taker product of two junkie parents. Then there was Monfua the island boy who came here to help his mother but found himself taking a liking to riding. Mali, Peanut, and Streets were brothers. They lost their mother to cancer and were raised by an alcoholic father, and last you had Beans. Beans was special. He actually has both his parents and comes from a long line of money. He’d dropped out of college to pursue music and found a love for riding along the way. His parents hate it, but he loves it.
Then there was me the lost girl amongst six men. It didn’t bother me though because I had always grown up around men. Unfortunately, not by choice. I’d become the girl that stood out as my mother’s history weighed on me. My innocence no longer mattered to people I had been permanently branded with the word whore. From trying to fit in with other girls, to being a yes friend. I was still outcasted for a past that was not of my own.
No one knew what it was like living with an addict. A mother so strung out that she would put her own child in a situation just for five minutes to sit on the moon. Every time my mind took a trip back there it made me angry. It made me hate men and the idea of giving my full self to one. It made me wallow in my sorrows feeling like there was no way out.
I knew for me to free myself from that emotional trauma I needed to create a solid wall, one that allowed my feelings and body to be guarded, and for me, that wall was called control. I no longer cared what people thought of me or the snickers and snarls I received. I created my own lane. I promised I would never let anyone especially a man control me. To allow his demands to dictate how I moved. My body was mine. If I wanted to fuck I would and if I wanted to withhold I could. I would always be the one who controlled the situation because what I wanted and needed for myself mattered more.
With the help and savior of my God dad, I learned how to ride and became so obsessed that I found myself studying the game. There was nothing that these niggas did that I couldn’t do, even if that meant having my own crew.
When I left California, it was to start fresh. I wanted to leave the nest to create one of my own. I came across each one of the guys in a different way. It was me who brought them together and a reason I had admired the Zoo so much, especially Chevy.
I knew if I could get the Zoo Boyz to agree to take us on, we’d be taken seriously in Toussaint, and I would be taken seriously as the head female rider. Although I knew the guys respected me, a part of me felt like they underestimated me because I was a woman. This was my chance to prove to them that I could run shit, being able to make smart moves on behalf of them. I wanted those niggas to put some fucking respect on my name. I’m sure there was more about the Zoo Boyz I needed to learn, but from the small time I spent with them, I felt like they were a fitting group. The sound of Soho’s voice blared in my ear. “Sash, are you listening to any fucking thing I’m saying! Mayne, do what you went there for, or bring your ass back. I set up this race and we have two months or we’re about to look dumb.”
I rolled my eyes. “I got it! Damn!”
“Good and don’t be out there falling for them niggas this is business,”
he spat then hung up.
I tossed my phone on the side of me, letting out a loud sigh. Then the thought of Zu popped in my head. How could a man so fine with love all around him not know how to love himself? Then I laughed because I could say the same thing for myself. I saw the interest there, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to accept it. It wasn’t that Zu and Harvey had a thing, because I have never been pressed over another woman. I knew what I could bring to the table. It had always been the men who couldn’t deliver. If Zu wanted me, he would have to show me. I wasn’t Harvey, soft and fragile. I was built differently and that; I don’t think Zu was ready for.
However, reading the room that night, Zu was the easiest target to get me, and my boys put on to the Zoo.