grow in proportion to his excitement as if engorged by the same blood he was draining from her breast. When he finally grew tired of her screams he withdrew his cock, pulled out his knife, and cut open her belly. He reached up inside of her, pushing aside her intestines and stomach as he felt around in her womb. He then pulled out the fetus, covered in blood and amniotic fluid, sliced its head off and tossed it into the street. The woman’s screams redoubled.
“MY BABY! MY BABY!!!”
“Shut the fuck up!”
He stuck both of his hands up inside her and pulled out her uterus, intestines, and whatever organs he could get his hands on,
“Aaaaaarlllllggh! Noooooo!” she seized his wrists and tried to pull his hands out of her. Scratch grabbed hold of something inside of her and pulled hard, ripping it free. Her body shuddered from head to toe then lay still.
Scratch stuffed his limp penis back into his pants and climbed into his Beemer, leaving the woman’s vandalized corpse bleeding on the sidewalk. He cursed aloud as he slammed the car door and stomped down on the accelerator peeling off down the somber street. Once again he had killed the wrong whore. The baby was still alive somewhere. He could feel it.
— | — | —
Chapter 12
—Aristotle
««—»»
I laid awake peeling the lead paint off the hundred-year-old window sill and watching the moon travel across the sky. The chittinous scurrying of hundreds, perhaps thousands of roaches click-clacked across the linoleum floor accompanied by the sound of large sewer rats scampering through the ceiling, bumping and thumping like they were carrying something heavy, stressing the already large cracks in the ceiling. It seemed ridiculous to me that after all the bodies I had made in pursuit of wealth I was still living like this.
I often sat with the window open on these stifling humid July nights listening to the activity out on the streets. Moans, and laughs, shouts, and laughter, off-beat rapping, bullshitting, and teasing, fighting, gunshots, and the wailing peel of the ambulance as they arrived to take away the wounded. It was all a part of my little ghetto world and it was the closest thing I’d ever gotten to a lullaby.
I would lie there trying to put faces and actions to all the noises and voices, to share in what they were experiencing. I would sit there in the dark wondering who was throwin’ down, who was poppin’ off rounds. And who was getting’ capped. Women’s sweet sighs and men’s passionate grunts would drift on the thick steaming air and I would wonder who was getting fucked and why I was alone. If it was someone’s wife or girlfriend. If she was enjoying herself or gagging beneath the smell of stale sweat and beer as some Neanderthal beast grunted and strained inside of her. This night however I knew that the woman who screamed out over and over again was not enjoying herself. Just as I knew the man who cursed her and struck her repeatedly wasn’t in it for his own enjoyment but for catharsis. Trying to transfer his own hopelessness and fear onto someone else thinking he could free himself of the pain. Just as I knew that it wouldn’t work. It never does.
A scream of mortal anguish pierced the still night air. I imagined I could hear the death rattle that followed. Whoever had been raping that woman had just graduated into murder. There was silence for a moment and I began to drift off to sleep. Then I heard it, a low chuckle that turned into cackling laugh, a familiar laugh. I could have sworn it was Scratch. But why would he need to rape a bitch when he had pussy being offered to him everyday from women desperate for his product or blinded by his cash and jewelry. It was absurd so I dismissed the notion and by the time I woke up I had forgotten all about it.
Mom was cooking breakfast and the smell of bacon and sausage pulled me up from my bed. I was wide awake by the time the aroma of buttermilk pancakes and syrup joined the chorus of delicious fragrances. Mom was humming to a George Benson tune on the stereo while she prepared breakfast. Her voice was as warm and wholesome as the smell of the pancakes and sausage.
My Mom is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen outside of movies and television. When I was younger and the kids would tease me about my ragged clothes, nappy hair, and too wide nose, and I would wind up bloodying them and getting suspended from school, I was always proud when my mother came to pick me up. Seeing the expressions on the other kid’s faces when she walked into the office with her long gazelle legs and her smooth flawless mocha skin was almost worth the ass-kicking I would get when we got home. Everyone would “Ooooh!” and “Aaaah!” as she strolled the hallways because, if I was an ugly street urchin, my mother was an African Goddess with a beauty and majesty uncommon in the ghetto. None of those kids had ever seen a woman like my mom before. There was no more lovely sight anywhere in our neighborhood. Not the way the sun set behind the projects looking like the world was on fire. Not the way the stars filled the sky from one end to another when you stood on top of the roof at Duval Manor on a summer night. She was a Goddess to us and she was mine.
In the early seventies she had been a moderately successful model and even did a brief stint as a sort of Black Vanna White for a local game show before she quit to find more stable work after she left Darryl the first time. She didn’t think it was healthy for her to spend so much time away on photo shoots and thought a regular job would allow her to be the type of mother she thought I needed. It was funny to me because it seemed like we lived better when she was modeling than when she got her regular job and I definitely saw her more then despite trips to New York for modeling shows and the long hours spent filming the gameshow. Still, she remained a shocking beauty and I loved her more than anything on earth. She doesn’t really speak to me anymore though. Neither does Tank and Huey’s mom. They’re both disgusted with my choice of occupations and they don’t even know the half of it.
Mom thinks I sell drugs like every other common thug in the neighborhood. I’ve never sold so much as a single rock in my life, not even a joint. I kill people. Scratch had originally hired Tank and I as bodyguards but that was just the lure to get us in. We were slowly groomed to be hitters and enforcers, taking out competition, disciplining or retiring other dealers in the crew when they got out of line, eliminating witnesses before they could talk. It was all routine now.
Like Huey, Mom thinks I’m a menace to my own people. I am. I’m a menace to just about everyone, but my friends. Still, she hasn’t had to walk home in the snow without winter boots or a heavy winter coat or with holes in her underwear since I started taking care of business in the streets. Grandma hasn’t shed any tears over overdue bills and mortgage payments. Mom hasn’t had to think about selling her body to put food on the table or clothes on our backs like many other moms in the hood often have to consider. No dating men she doesn’t even like just to have someone to borrow money from should she need to. But more to the point, I didn’t have kids laughing at my old, cheap, out of date clothes and calling me dirty anymore. I didn’t intend on doing this forever. The plan was to save up enough money to pay for college and pay off the mortgage on the house and then I’d be done with this shit.
“’Sup, Mom?”
“Don’t talk to me like one of them ignorant street niggas, boy. I ain’t no damn ghetto trash.”
“I just said, hello,” I said shrugging my shoulders
“You said, ’Sup’, like some ignorant ass street nigga. You know how to talk English you save that ghetto slang for when you’re out with your drug dealin’ friends.”
“Well, good morning anyway.”
“I don’t suppose you plan on coming to church with me this morning?”
“Since when did you start going to church?”
“Since you started runnin’around in the streets and worrying me to death.”
“I love you too, Mom. I gotta bounce though. If you leave before I get out of the shower the car keys are in my jacket.”
“I’ll walk.”
“Aw, Mom come on! If you give me a sec I’ll drive you and grandma.”
“Your grandmother left an hour ago while you were sleeping off your hangover. Your food is on the table. I’ll be back by three o’clock.”
