Chapter 7 #2
“Bitch what you pointing down here for?! You ready to get your ass whipped again?” that bitch shouted.
All Raquel did was giggle at her.
“Girl, don’t worry about those hoes.” I assured her.
“No, that bitch got me fucked up.” Shell shouted as she inched towards the stairs. “I aint scared of nah one of you hoes. Y’all had to jump me to get some win. I want one of you bitches to run up one on one.”
“Yeah, and if you bring your ass down these stairs we gon jump your ass again.” some light skinned girl boasted.
“Naw, Franshell, y’all aint jumping nobody.” Raquel added.
“Raquel, this aint got nothing to do with you.” the girl Franshell snaked her neck.
“And it aint got nothing to do with you. So, if y’all jump in the fight we gon jump in too.” Raquel asserted, as she walked down the stairs. “Black, if you wanna get out there with her its gon be one on one. So, what’s up?”
“Tell that bitch to come on then.” the black girl replied, hopping up.
The shit was crazy. Coke Street broads always wanted to rumble.
I'd warned Shell that she was gonna have problems with her being from the south side and all.
If you wasn't from Fifth Ward you'd never get a fair shake in a fight.
Shit, we was all guilty of jumping outside bitches.
Shell wasted no time in making her way down the stairs. She charged at that girl and they stumbled to the ground. People were running from everywhere to see the fight. Shell was getting in that bitch’s shit.
“Get her, Shell! Knee that bitch!” I instructed. My girl must’ve heard me because that’s exactly what she did. That short bitch got her ass kicked.
Shell walked away from that fight victoriously after talking cash money shit. “These hoes scared. They scared!” we chanted a local Houston rapper's song.
We all piled up in her apartment, as I told them that I needed to hit up some malls.
Everybody was down. Tae was a bigger thief than me and I learned everything I knew from her.
Raquel was mainly the lookout but that bitch had a good eye when it came to trouble.
Plenty of times when were younger she got us out of sticky situations.
She didn’t really like getting her hands dirty and I understood her position.
Besides, her mama and Kevin would’ve killed her ass if they knew what she did.
Shay borrowed her boyfriend’s Oldsmobile and we were off to the malls.
We hit up the Galleria, Sharps Town, Greenspoint, Northwest, and Willow Brook Mall.
I didn’t like going from store to store in the same mall.
Muthafuckas did have walkie-talkies and I knew how they networked.
We hit them hard and quick. In Greenspoint Tae’s ass just got bold.
She went and bought a big ass gift bag and carried it around as if it was full.
She went into Dillard’s and just started dropping shit in the bag.
Once the bag was loaded she smoothly walked out the side entrance.
That shit worked so well that I did the same thing at the next mall.
We hit up Bath and Body Works, Foley’s, The Gap, Foot Action, Foot Locker, Old Navy, Dillard’s, Macy’s, and Express. We had so much shit that we had to drop off stuff just to fit the rest. I alone had four bags full of stolen goods. I had men’s stuff, kids', and women's.
By the time we got back to Coke Street it was after ten o’clock.
I knew that Jahrein was pissed and probably searching high and low for me.
Still, I had some business to handle. We told all the people outside that we had some merchandise for sale.
That night was my lucky night. It was Friday and people had just gotten paid.
I sold eighty dollar jeans for thirty to forty dollars.
I was selling name brand kids’ outfits for ten to twenty dollars.
I was able to sale every piece that I had stolen.
Thanks to Tae I even had perfume and cologne for sale.
It was a Ralph Lauren set that had a price of eighty dollars and I sold that for fifty. I made seven hundred dollars easily.
After I sold my last outfit I took a deep breath, before calling my house.
“Hello.” Jahrein answered, sounding pissed off.
“Jahrein, can you come get me?”
“Where the fuck you at?” he asked.
“I’m on Coke Street in Fifth Ward.”
“What the fuck are you doing out there?!” he shouted.
“Look, I’ll explain when I see you. Are you coming?”
“Yeah, where you gon be at?”
“In the front.”
“Bitch that nigga is gonna kick your ass.” Raquel teased, as she stood with me. We were posted up in the front of the complex. People were still hanging outside, so I wasn't scared. She was just keeping me company.
“Whatever.” I laughed nervously. Butterflies were brewing in the pit of my stomach. I didn't know how Jahrein would act. The one thing he hated was for me to go missing. I knew he was beyond pissed, sitting outside my school only for me to never come out.
Fifteen minutes later Jahrein and the kids pulled up in his ’97 Cadillac. He had just gotten rid of the Cutlass three months earlier. I could tell from where I was standing that he was ready for a fight.
“Bye, girl.” I told Quel, as I got in on the passenger’s side and threw the money in his lap, before he could even get started.
“What the fuck is this?” he frowned.
“This is why you won’t have to kick in no doors. Is this enough for you to re-up?”
He sat and counted the money. “This is seven hundred and forty dollars.”
“Yeah.”
“Where did you get this?”
“I made it.”
“How?” he asked, his frown deepening.
I sucked my teeth. “It didn’t involve me fucking somebody if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“It don’t matter, Raven. I know that you didn’t get this money legally. I told you to let me handle this.”
“We are in this together. We gotta eat by any means necessary. That is for our family.”
Jahrein drove off the block as he shook his head. “So, you aint gon tell me where you got it from?”
“Can you handle it without tripping?”
“I’ll try.” he answered.
“Okay, well, I went stealing.”
I could see Jah clenching his jaws. “Stealing, huh? This wasn’t your first time, was it?”
“No.”
“I knew it!” he barked as he banged the steering wheel. “That’s how your ass had the money to buy the furniture. I thought that Tasha was lying when she said that she bought her outfit from my baby mama.”
I didn’t know what else to say.
“Raven, keeping secrets from each other aint cool.”
“I know.” I nodded.
He continued to shake his head as he sucked his teeth.
“That’s fucked up, main. My gal had to come through because my ass couldn’t.
I guess you do have a whole lot of your daddy in you.
A natural born hustler.” he thought for a minute.
“Alright, I’ma flip this money, but your ass better stay out of them malls. ”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In two weeks Jah had quadrupled those seven hundred dollars.
I think that loss had made him hustle harder.
He paid all the bills and took every cent left and flipped it again and again.
I was beginning to understand the whole street thing.
He had to put in the hours if his pockets were going to look like anything.
I was like a sponge soaking in everything.
I learned what an ounce was and how to cook the cocaine.
Plenty of nights I stayed up late with Jahrein and helped him cook and break down his work.
He said that I knew how to make his money stretch.
I had gotten good at whipping the dope for him.
It was during those times that we talked about everything under the sun, including our plans to live better for our children.
He told me about his long term goals for the game.
I was kind of surprised that he actually had any plans.
He wanted to one day; invest his money into legitimate businesses, which I thought was cute.
I just held onto hope that he wasn't just spitting out pipe dreams. I loved that he wasn’t a stereotypical dummy.
We knew that nobody lasted in the game forever.
He didn’t have great grandeur about becoming some fictional Nino Brown.
Jahrein explained to me how it was best that we had minimal company to keep people out of our business. After taking everything into consideration I agreed; for a little while anyway.
I tried to stay out of those stores, but I just couldn’t leave it alone.
That shit was an addictive high. So, while Jahrein was busy hustling, I left the kids with his granny and I hit the stores with a vengeance.
I was hiding clothes all over the house.
I even started selling to the people around our apartments.
Every chick around the way was hitting me for some goods. I couldn’t hold onto shit for long. The money was coming in by the bundles, so I was just splurging on whatever I thought I wanted.
Since, the money was flowing I decided that I wanted a car of my own.
I had already gotten my driver’s license in Jah’s car.
In just two months I had about five G’s saved up.
I admitted to Jah that I had some money stashed and he helped me find a car that was suitable for me.
I found a fully equipped ‘95 red Honda Accord and fell in love with it.
The man wanted $6,700 for it so Jah had to chip in.
Once I got my car, man, he couldn’t tell me shit.
How many sixteen year olds in my hood had a car?
I felt like I was the baddest bitch around.
Then April got us these fake IDs that we hit the clubs with.
I was giving Jah’s ass the blues. I no longer sat at home wondering where he was. Shit, he often had to wait on me.