Chapter 17 #2
“You always talkin’ ’bout dese bitches and shit, but I thought you was married at one point? If you fuckin’ hoes while yo’ wife is barely in the ground, I know you was a dawg when she was alive. You probably broke dat poor lady’s heart.”
“I heard she was fine too. And she drove dat clean-ass Cadillac. It was long as a muthafucka, but it was clean,” Tuden cosigned.
These niggas didn’t have no fucking couth.
I still had three hours before Tulsaire and I had to be at the airport, and since I knew my mama wanted more time with her grandchild like she hadn’t had that for the past two days, kicking it with these niggas was the move.
I was going to be on the fucking plane smelling like outside like a motherfucker, but I wasn’t taking my ass back to the mall for more clothes.
Shit-talker slammed his can on the concrete next to him.
“Yeah, I fuck dese bitches. I mean, why da fuck not? But ’bout my wife?
” He lifted the can and held out his index finger, pointing it at Tulen.
He seemed to be everyone’s target today.
But shit, that was every day. “’Bout my wife, niccah! I respected her always.”
“How long was y’all married?” I leaned in, resting my elbows on my knees, somewhat intrigued.
“Thurty-six years, lil’ nigga. We married when I was twenty, and she died four years ago.”
“Damn, dat’s three decades of the same pussy!” Tuden’s stupid ass whistled.
“Dat’s nearly four decades of the BEST pussy.
Dey don’t make pussy like Emora Dean’s no more.
See, y’all got dat stepped on pussy. The women dese days do too much of dat hookah and Julio shit.
All dat hot wings and hibachi bullshit!” He waved his hands dismissively.
“Dat shit got da pussy feelin’ different and damn sho’ smellin’ different! ” His top lip curled over his nose.
Tulen sucked his teeth. “Nah… Dat’s cuz you be fuckin’ dem old hoes down at da café!”
“Nigga, I done had some mid thurty-year-old pussy. Shit was just as worse.”
“But you nutted doe…” Tuden egged him on.
“Damn right I did, Den! It’s pussy, ain’t it? Give a nigga a hole ina wall, a nigga gon’ stick his dick in and nut as long as it got a skirt on!”
I balled over laughing as Tuden cheesed. “Unc, I’ma have to introduce you to some bad bitches. I guarantee ya… You ain’t fuckin’ da right ones. I’ll bring you sum’n so bad dat ole Amber Dean gon’ be rollin’ over in her grave. Stiff-ass wig gon’ wound up stranglin’ her from turnin’ so hard!”
“Y’all stupid as hell.” I cackled some more at these fools. Between my brothers here and my new peoples in Jagoda Bay, all I did was laugh at stupid niggas all day.
“It’s Emora, niccah! And I don’ seent da bitches y’all fuck with. Unc can’t afford dem types. I’ll take a food stamp recipient dat’s happy with a few hundred for a wig, a blunt, and a bottle.”
“I thought chu said the lowest you had fucked with is mid-thirties?” I asked.
“And you think dem broads don’t be havin’ stamps? I got some in their forties dat swipe dat EBT like it’s a black card. But on the real, keep yo’ type away from me. I ain’t buying no Coach bags.”
“While you tryna be funny, Coach done got high as fuck, Shit-talker,” I replied and sat back in the metal chair.
“And how da fuck you know, bruh?”
Everyone was eyeing me, waiting to answer Tuden’s question.
“Cuz I got a niece dat had me in the mall a few weeks ago, coppin’ her some shit.”
Tulen smirked while hitting Tuden on the chest. “Awh! I thought you was gon’ say you been shoppin’ for da wifey.”
“And if I was? Don’t be actin’ like you niggas ain’t the boss at trickin’. Tuden been trickin’ since he got his first job. Lil’ ass check and tryna cop a bitch some Jordans.”
Tulen coughed up smoke in laughter as I told the story of us going to the mall back then.
I’d borrowed the neighbor’s car to take Tuden to the mall and was mad as fuck when he got to the register, and he didn’t have enough.
He walked out of the mall the same way he went in, with sixty-two dollars.
I wasn’t putting in on shit back then over a bitch I wasn’t fucking.
“Guess what, Shit-talker?” Tuden asked after we laughed over the dumb shit he’d done as a youngin’.
“Who don’ died?” he yelled out.
“Mane, ain’t nobody died.” Tuden grinned, and I knew he was headed down the road of good bullshit.
“Aite, so tell me sum’n good.”
“Yo’ favorite hood nephew don’ got married.”
Shit-talker turned his body in an almost unnatural position since my chair was behind him. “You done joined the MNS?”
“The who?” we asked in unison.
“The Married Nigga Society!”
I sucked my teeth. “Bruh! You just be makin’ up shit. You don’t need shit else to drink.”
“On God!” Tulen shook his head.
“MNS was founded by Benson Brown back in 1872. Look it up, niccahs. But, damn, Nephrew. I’m proud of ya.”
Instead of replying to Shit-talker, I held up my middle finger to my childish-ass brothers.
“Fuck dem niccahs! Dey still got milk on dey tongues.” Shit-talker rested his elbow on his thigh and slightly hunched his back over. He was going to be aching like a motherfucker in the morning. “Lemme ask you dis. How she look?”
Tulen grunted. “Fine as hell!”
“As a muhfuckah! Ion know how dat nigga got out and lucked up like dat. She slick famous too. Bossed up and errthang.” Tuden was full-on grinning like I wouldn’t lay his ass out.
I was tired of explaining that Glow and I weren’t like that, so I let it rock. My brothers knew what was up but still liked to fuck with me from time to time. They acted like Tulscan and Tuscany weren’t already married.
“Look…”
Tuden had pulled up Glow’s Instagram page.
The last picture she’d posted was from the Sniff-and-Sip party, when she was in that little-ass bow top.
That fucking get-up she was wearing was the reason I cornered her ass and propositioned her to be my wife.
It was crazy because it wasn’t that long ago, but so much shit had transpired since then that it felt like it had been years since that party.
“Oh, damn…” Shit-talker leaned back before leaning forward and looking up to Tuden. “How da fuck you zoom in on dis box-ass phone?”
Tulen fell out laughing while I snatched the phone from Unc, locked the screen, and tossed it back in my brother’s lap.
“My bad, Nephrew…” He held his hands up, the paper-wrapped beer can still occupying his right hand. “She high yella dan a muddafucka, but she cold as ice in da middle of da Arctic Ocean. Dese niggas gon’ be suitin’ up to deep dive fo’ dat dere. You know how to swim, Nephrew?”
Tuden and Tulen were hollering in laughter, and the scene had a few old heads in the hood looking our way.
Shit-talker jutted his chin at my hand. “Where da fuck yo’ ring at? I know you ain’t out here puttin’ on for dese tied-ass hoes?”
“Yeah, where yo’ ring at, Tunan…” Tuden instigated with Tulen coughing on smoke again. His ass needed to put the blunt out. He couldn’t be getting high because he had been laughing since he sparked up the second Backwood.
“We ain’t have time for allat, Unc. Shit just happened, but she aint trippin’ ’bout it.”
“Lemme ask you dis, Nephrew. Is she wearing one?”
Running my hand over my head, I cut my eyes at my brothers, who were cracking the fuck up again.
Shit-talker took my lack of response as a signal to continue. “Den she trippin’ den. I been married thurty-six years. One thing fo’ sho’ and two thangs fo’ Goddamn certain, women don’t like to be made a fool of.”
“I ain’t makin’ no fool outta her, Unc, and nawl, I ain’t fuckin’ no hoes.”
“Shidd, you stupid den a muddafucka if you is. Fine as she is, I’d go Ray Charles when another woman enters da room. Dat bad pussy shit…”—He pointed to all three of us—“Dat don’t upply to her. I know she sittin’ on a diamond mine. I ain’t lyin’.”
My brothers could barely breathe from laughing at Shit-talker’s drunk ass.
“I’ma tell you a secret.” He paused, letting out a loud-ass belch.
“The key to a happy marriage is givin’ her shit without her havin’ to ask.
She ain’t trippin’ ’bout a ring? Pop up with one on.
Tradition say it’s up to a woman to buy the man’s ring, but I say, dat’s bullshit.
I mean… She can go buy it, but long as it’s with da man’s money.
You pass dat shit now, too late fa all dat.
Go get yo’self a nice ring and use dat same finger to play in dat cat.
Don’t say a bitch-ass thang… Just pull up”—He held his finger up that still housed his gold wedding band—“And thrust dat bitch in her. ’Pendin’ on how tight she ain’t, add da pinky.
She gone be comin’ until the cows come home. ”
“Mane, hellll nawl!” I couldn’t stand my brothers. The niggas had turned part hyena, and had Mama coming to the door telling us to shut the hell up.
When she walked away, Shit-talker shrugged.
“Real shit, Nephrew. Make yo’ woman happy.
Life so fuckin’ short. I did errthang right by my wife.
If she saw it in the paper? I bought it.
If the neighbor had it, I got it. Errthang ’round the house; I took care of it.
My wife ain’t never known a bill. You see dese hands?
” He held his left hand, which showed scars, callouses, knuckles that were double the average size, and medium-length nails that were naturally yellowed.
“Dese hands look like dis so hers could look the opposite. She was in the salons and shit weekly—I ain’t do dat biweekly shit.
’Pendin’ on if it was a holiday or not, she went twice a week. I took care of mine.”
The sun buried itself behind a row of clouds, casting shade down on us. Shit-talker needed it because he was sweating enough that a bucket could collect it. The constant wiping at his face with the white towel he had draped over his shoulder wasn’t doing shit.
“You have any regrets?” Tulen had finally calmed his giggling ass down and looked serious for once today.