Zaire Godfrey
“Where am I taking you?” Mylo, Rakim’s driver and henchman that he allowed us all to use when necessary, asked.
“Perry’s,” I replied, shutting the door and checking the time on my phone.
I felt antsy as fuck, mainly because I hadn’t popped shit in days since I’d passed out.
Rakim putting me on leave in a sense sort of woke me the fuck up, letting me know he was serious.
Typically, Rakim was forgiving, letting shit slide, so long as it didn’t have disastrous consequences, so for the nigga to tell me I couldn’t work, he must’ve been fed up.
However, getting off this shit cold turkey was harder than it fucking sounded.
I’d depended on pills—whatever the fuck I could find—heavily, and going on four days without the shit had me feeling off and like I was about to crash.
I refused to go to any kind of rehab because I wasn’t that far gone in my opinion.
Niggas that needed rehabs wouldn’t have made it four damn days without anything, so I was ahead of them.
“You need some company?” Mylo offered halfway through the drive. I’d been so wrapped up in my damn thoughts and clocking how long I’d been sober that I low-key forgot the nigga was driving me.
“Nah. I’m good. I don’t need you watching me for Rah.” I stared out the window, moving an errant loc that had begun to dangle in my face.
“Wasn’t gon’ watch you, Z. Was just gon’ chill,” he lied . . . I knew it.
Mylo was cool peoples, but we didn’t kick it like that unless Rakim was in the mix. This random offer obviously had an ulterior motive, and I was a grown ass man. The day I went to the club with a muthafuckin’ babysitter, pigs would fly.
“I’m straight.”
Mylo left the shit alone, thankfully, and twenty minutes later, he was pulling up in front of Perry’s out in Hawthorne.
It was a mid-level strip club, so not too many rappers or high-level drug dealers and scammers would be in attendance, like some of the more popular and upscale joints such as The Pink Cherry.
However, Perry’s had good food, pretty bitches, and a lot of times, the right niggas to source what I needed to mellow out. I wasn’t on that tonight though.
I climbed from the truck after letting Mylo know that I’d hit his line when I needed a ride back to the crib, and he nodded to say that was cool.
“Enjoy the night,” the bouncer announced to me as I slipped past him, approaching the young lady behind the window inside in order to pay my thirty-dollar entry fee.
“What you need to come look at girls for? We should be paying to look at yo’ fine ass.” She flirted, sliding my cash toward herself and grinning.
“That would be weird as fuck, lil mama,” I replied, not the least bit interested in conversation.
I needed something to take my mind off my thoughts and the fact that I was sober. And the only thing I loved more than money and pills was women. Wasn’t trying to fuck anything; just look for now.
“True. You have a girlfriend?” she queried, but I took the ticket she’d glided over the wooden booth and swaggered off, pushing my swinging locs back as I ambled around the corner of the club.
“Bulletproof” by YG blasted from the speakers as three different girls twirled around the poles on separate stages.
I took a seat at one of the booths in the back, pulling out a wad of cash once I saw one of the hostesses coming over to collect the fee for the area.
“How you doing?” She half smiled, eyeing me after counting out the cash to be sure it was enough.
“Straight.” I scoped the scene.
“Can I get you anything?” She poked her hip out, tossing the long ass braids in her head.
“Some Hennessy and some chicken wings—wet lemon pepper.”
“Alright.” She turned around, feet hitting the ground extra hard to make her ass jiggle in the tiny ass shorts she wore.
I admired for a while, knowing I would leave it there despite the fact that I was picking up on the signals she was putting down.
Girls in bikinis or, shit, nothing but panties littered the place, meandering through and waiting to be pulled. Hundreds of niggas occupied the tables in the club, being loud, boisterous, and acting like pussy and women as a species was a new invention.
My eyes landed on a pretty, light-skinned chick, with her long brown hair pulled up in the front while the back hung down her shapely frame.
She was fine as fuck but quiet, choosing not to flirt or entertain the niggas in the room in hopes of being chosen for a dance. She immediately had my attention.
I waited as she strutted by, pretty face balled up in irritation like she couldn’t be bothered.
“Excuse me,” I called out, allowing my fingers to graze hers as she bypassed my section.
Pausing, she looked to me with her brows raised, attitude on one hundred.
“Yes?”
“I know you don’t make no fucking money here.” I smiled, making her snatch her hand from my light grasp.
Folding her arms, she said, “Excuse me, nigga?”
“I said I know you don’t make no fucking money here. You walking around with the screw face and an attitude, lil mama. You supposed to look welcoming.”
Her frown immediately dissipated as she dropped her arms from being folded across her perky but nicely round titties. The sight made me lick my lips.
“I’m just . . . these niggas make it hard to be nice.”
“I feel you.” I surveyed momentarily, wondering why a woman this beautiful was even working at a strip club.
“Here are your wings and Hennessy.” The hostess damn near bumped the dancer to put my stuff down.
“’Preciate it,” I said, then turned my attention back on the pretty ass stripper. “Come sit with me.”
When the hostess noticed I wasn’t interested in anything further, she sucked her teeth and strutted off mumbling some bullshit. Old girl looked over her shoulder at her hating ass co-worker, making me steer her attention back to me, using her chin.
“Are you paying? I don’t mean to be rude, but this is a job. I have to make money,” she said.
“I got you. What’s ya name?” I helped her up into my area.
“I go by Classy—”
“Nah, what’s ya government?”
“Why do you need to know that? What’s yours?”
“Zaire.” I sipped my drink. “Now yours.” I turned a bit to get a better look at her fine ass. She was doing an amazing fucking job of keeping my attention from the craving I had for drugs.
“Téa.” She simpered when I smiled widely.
“I fuck with that.”
“You came here a week ago but just sat and ate. You didn’t even get a dance. What’s that about?”
“Damn, you be watching a nigga?” I laughed, biting into the wing that was salty as fuck but edible still.
“I mean, this is a strip club, and most niggas act like . . .” She gestured to the niggas seated at the main floor tables. “Like that.”
“I be coming here as a distraction, and sometimes the shit don’t work,” I admitted, not even knowing why.
“Distraction from what? You look like you don’t have any problems.”
“How so?” I frowned, offering her a wing to which she declined.
“Handsome, clearly paid.” She tapped the face of my AP. “Your only issue is probably which bitch in your phone you plan to fuck even though you have a girlfriend.”
“You way off.” I thought for a moment, chewing on the high sodium ass meat. “I like to get high, off pills, and if I’m idle for too long, I will indulge in the shit.”
I wasn’t gon’ delve into what got me to the point I was at, which was the trauma I developed as a fucking kid. Having an abusive ass father fucked a nigga up in ways people never thought about. Shit fucked us all up, but I was having a harder time swallowing the shit.
Growing up, I used to have panic attacks at the sound of my father’s voice or the mere thought of him physically disciplining a nigga.
Even watching him, how he would beat Rakim and lock him in the small closet beneath the stairs for days at a time, telling us to ignore my brother’s screams, apologies, and his banging on the door to be let out.
The way he would treat my mama like a real-life punching bag or how I couldn’t stop pissing in the bed until I was thirteen years old because I would have nightmares about my father, making a nigga urinate on myself.
Life was a real-life horror movie coming up, changing me and my brothers for the worst but we tried to push through. I seemed to be the only one failing at the shit, and the only time I could escape the shit I lived through was when I was high.
“What’s wrong with that? I like it too.”
Her words were like venom but music to my ears at the same time.
“Word?”
“Yep. I have some with me. I can share once I’m off if you want to, but if not, I understand.”
I looked around, for what, I wasn’t sure, but I was trying to buy time and think for a moment.
My brother had warned me, but maybe doing this shit cold turkey was why a nigga was struggling so.
It may have been best for me to slowly stop getting high.
I could start with twice a week and then consistently drop the amount until I was completely drug free.
“Uh, yeah.” I ran my finger across my bottom lip. “That’ll work. What time you off?”
“I got an hour left, thankfully.” She beamed.
Téa stayed with me for the remainder of her shift, and I paid her ass handsomely for it.
I texted the nigga Mylo and told him he could fuck off for the night and that I’d found a ride.
When the nigga tried calling, I sent his ass straight to voicemail, because if I answered, I was gon’ hurt his fucking feelings.
I only had one father, and though he was a trash one, he was the only nigga who would get respect as my dad. Mylo was far from that shit.
“Ready?” I asked Téa happily once she emerged from the back locker room with her backpack and fully clothed.
She was still so fucking pretty even covered up.
“I am.” She patted her bag to let me know she had the main event for the night. “You drive.” She handed me her keys as we approached her old ass Honda Civic. “You got a license, right?”
“Don’t play with me.” I cut my eyes her way, and she giggled flirtatiously, making me break, too, and smile.