Netta didn’t care if the information she gave up painted her in a negative light, or if she portrayed herself as a gold digger or not. She was going to keep it real with Tone, even if it killed her.
As he listened intently, Tone had this underlying feeling that there was more to the story. What she was telling him really wasn’t adding up. There was a disconnection there. He kept waiting for her to get to the good part. It was hard for him to take this loving image that Netta painted of Black from the animal who had beat her so brutally. Tone knew that something caused him to flip. Normal dudes just don’t flip out for no apparent reason. He knew Netta had to have done something to him. She just hadn’t gotten around to telling him about that yet. Something had to have been done to arouse anger like that in a man, to drive him to such great lengths to make him want to kill you.
She continued, telling him about their engagement. How Black really loved her and how she never loved him. How she was playing him. Black had been another notch on her belt, the final step in her quest for the good life.
Her careful words and vivid depictions evoked memories of exactly what it was like to be a hustler’s wife. She also told him how Black’s murder charge derailed their life together, eventually sending him to prison, and set the stage for her to steal his money.
“... I know what I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have took that man’s money. So when he got out of jail, he came looking for me. When he found me, he told me to get into his car with him. How could I refuse? Maybe if I had, who’s to say that he wouldn’t have killed me right there on the spot,” Netta sobbed.
Netta was on a guilt trip. She had to accept the blame. She knew what she had done. She had brought Black’s wrath on herself. Next time, she promised she would be strong enough to give as good as she got. All she could do now was take it as a lesson learned.
Netta wasn’t the type to sit next to someone she barely knew and pour her heart out. Her doing so was indicative of how much she was feeling Tone. She wasn’t begging for sympathy or asking to be saved. She didn’t want to drag him into this mess. Especially when there was still a remote possibility of Black launching another attack against her.
Every so often Netta looked in Tone’s direction for any sort of indication he wasn’t following the story, or he wasn’t feeling what she was saying. There was none. Tone sat in the chair absorbing every word she said, expressionless. He could hear the pain in her voice as she drowned in her own sorrows. Regrettably, she had been too stupid to think about the consequences.
Suddenly it all made sense. So that’s why Black went on a rampage against her. Over the years, he had built up a great deal of animosity toward her. Black must have become obsessed with her. He sat in prison, plotting, planning and scheming on ways to get revenge. Finally, when his day came, when he was a free man, he retaliated.
Although Tone understood why he did what he did, he still couldn’t justify Black’s actions. That kind of struck him as odd. He couldn’t justify him violating a female the way he had. But dudes moved differently, this he knew. A broken heart or a sign of disloyalty could turn the nicest guy cold hearted.
Tone refused to acknowledge that he had heard of Black a time or two. His name still rang bells in the streets of East Baltimore. Depending on who he talked to about the guy, he was a tyrant, a good dude, or a plain bad guy. On the streets, versions of him differed just like opinions on him varied.
It was obvious that Black was a man who commanded respect and instilled fear. It was probably never about the money with him, it was the principle. Netta had bitten the hand that fed her and she paid dearly for it.
“Tone, I ain’t gone sit here and try to portray myself as a saint, yo. Nah, I’m far from that. I was just tryin’ to get mine, just like you down here tryin’ to get yours. We just go about it differently.”
Netta and the street hustlers of the world needed no introduction, that’s why her and Tone clicked from the moment he met her on that West Baltimore block. The two were kindred spirits, more or less. Their faces may not have been familiar to one another, but they were cut from the same cloth, and that cloth was called the struggle.
At this point the story became easier to digest. The more she told him the more he needed to know.
Netta was just getting started. She told him everything, from her upbringing in Murphy Homes, to her dope fiend mother dying of AIDS, to her joining the infamous Pussy Pound. She spared no details. At the moment her life was an open book, and she let Tone thumb through the pages.
In those vulnerable moments there was an instant and deep connection between the two. Without thinking, Tone reached over and grabbed her hand, something he probably would never have done if she were some other chick. He felt a spark in that physical contact, like the first time he lusted after her on Monroe and Fayette Street. Those same feelings were suddenly rekindled.
Tone began to sympathize with Netta. He didn’t look at the larceny in her heart or the malice in her past actions. He
