“What the fuck you doin?” Her mother cursed and jumped off the man in mid-stroke. “Niggah, you must be outta your fuckin mind!”
“Where’s my money, you trick-ass bitch?”
“Cliff!” Aunt Ree screamed toward the window. “Get your black ass in here! This motherfucker got a gun!”
“Yo, niggah!” The man in the bed sat up against the headboard and fumbled around for his pants. “What’s up wit this shit? I put out my money for this pussy and I wanna finish getting mine-”
Fire flashed from the slice of metal in the tall man’s hand and the room exploded in thunder. The man on the bed slumped over slowly, leaving a puddle of blood, hair, and shattered bone sliding down the headboard. The girl’s mother stared at the corpse she’d just finished riding. The odor of shit and brains filled the room as his lifeless penis curved and shrank.
“How long you bitches thought you could run this fuckin game? Who’s got the tool this time? Me or that simple nigger who was standing outside your window with his dick in his hand?” The man laughed. “I just put that nigger dead to sleep.” He looked at Aunt Ree, then aimed the gun again. “But since you want him so bad, no problem, bitch. I’ll send you out to meet him halfway.”
The gun boomed and the little girl’s right ear went deaf. Aunt Ree fell back, her head cracking into the girl’s shin. The child yelped in pain and fought back the covers to sit upright. The cold air chilled her and she shivered in her tattered Wonder Woman T-shirt.
Looking right through her, the little girl’s mother scampered on her knees and clamped her hands over the hole in her sister-in-law’s chest. “Ree! Lord no, Ree!” Dark blood bubbled up breaking through the slits in her fingers, then gradually lessened to a steady trickle as Ree shuddered and took her final breath.
The man moved again. “I said”-he aimed the gun between Cara’s eyes-”I want my fuckin money. That was Big Sonny’s dope you lifted, you skank ass ho, and I want it back.”
Cara babbled incoherently, her creamy skin turning gray with fear, her eyes darting around the room as she clutched the sheets in fear.
“I’ll get it! I swear to God, I’ll get it.” She nodded and licked her lips as she begged for her life. “I didn’t know how important you was! Didn’t know you was working for Sonny! Just gimme a few days, Mistah. Please! Just a few days.”
The man swung wildly and the pistol slammed into her mouth, whipping her head back and breaking her jaw. Cara screamed as blood flew from her nose and her lower jaw swung back and forth, completely sprung.
“Mistah, noooo.” She moaned and spit out blood. She jumped from the bed and yanked open a nightstand drawer. Bags of weed, vials, pipes, and a tube of Vagisil fell to the floor. She reached deeply inside and came out with a fistful of bills. “Dis all I got tonight.” She pointed to the man’s corpse. “This square ain’t had no more’n dis is his pockets. Just gimme a few days and I swear on my mother I’ll get you the rest. I swear!!”
“Bitch.” The man slapped the bills to the floor. “You ain’t got a few days. You ain’t got a few minutes unless you can come up with my dope or my fucking money.” He aimed again and the little girl cringed. “Big Sonny might kill me, but I can guarantee your ass is gonna get to hell first-”
“Wait!” Cara screamed in desperation. “I got jewelry! Expensive shit! And a fur. I can turn that shit over in a few hours. I can sell pussy. Suck dick. Cut crack. Please… just gimme a little time,” she cried, blood streaming from her nose and mouth.
The next time the man spoke his voice was so cold the little girl almost peed again. “You got ten seconds to come up with something that I can take to Sonny right now.”
Cara whimpered, her eyes scanning the room crazily, skimming over the bodies of Ree and the naked man before coming to rest on her seven-year-old child.
“Ten, nine, eight…”
Cara looked down at her daughter with a inconsolable expression on her face.
“… seven, six, five…”
Cara’s whole body shook as she glanced at the blood seeping all over her bed.
“… four, three…”
Cara’s fear smothered her. She reached out and snatched her daughter from the tangle of sheets and thrust her toward the gunman. “Here!” She stared into the man’s eyes and made one last attempt to save her own life. “Please…” she whispered. “Take Juicy.”
The gun belched, and Cara flew backward, landing atop the dead man, her arm circling his neck. The strange man stared down at the little girl, then muttered something under his breath and stroked the side of her face with the hot muzzle of the gun. “You look just like that ho-bitch,” he said thickly as he circled her jaw with the barrel and began unbuttoning his pants. The child held still as he ran his rough hand over her plump arms and already shapely legs before pulling the crotch of her wet panties aside.
He pressed his fingers to his nose and laughed. “You smell like that ho-bitch, too.” He pushed her back on the bed and put the tip of the gun to her mouth. The child closed her eyes as he yanked off her panties and straddled her small body. The gun was pressed against her lips as he fumbled with his penis, and suddenly that dreadful noise rang out again as the boom of a pistol exploded in the air.
The breath was knocked from her lungs as the man fell upon her, his forehead bursting apart like a Chinese apple. She sputtered through the spray of blood that covered her face and slid into her mouth, and then wriggling from beneath the dead weight and gasping for air, Juicy looked toward the door and into the eyes of her savior.
“I love you, Juicy-Mo,” her baby brother said, the pistol in his hand dangling at his side. “Jimmy-Jo loves his Juicy.”
I woke up fighting the sheets. It was still dark outside and G was asleep with his back to me. The powder blue nightgown I had on was soaked with sweat, and so was the mattress on my side of the bed. I struggled to catch my breath, gulping air through my mouth and hoping G didn’t hear me. I rolled over onto my stomach and pressed my face into the pillow. A scream was trying to come out of me and I squeezed my eyes shut and bit down on my lip. But the fear still gripped me, had a tight hold on me, and I crawled from the bed and tried to stand, my knees weak, my entire body shaking.
“Girl, what’s wrong with you?”
My legs nearly gave out at the sound of his voice. There were a million reflections of me in the mirrors as I did my best to calm my breathing. “Nothing, G.” I pulled the wet nightgown over my head and let it drop to the floor. I stood there naked. Shivering. “I had a nightmare, that’s all. Hag musta rode me.”
G snorted, then turned over and squinted at me. “I done told you about all that mojo and superstitious bullshit. Your grandmomma done fucked your head up with all that mess. Next thing I know you’ll be sprinkling salt across that goddamn threshold to keep the evil spirits counting until the sun comes up.” He snorted again, then dug himself deeper into the softness of the bed.
I kept quiet. G mighta been right if it had a’ been a hag riding my back. But the spirit world didn’t have nothing to do with what I had just experienced. This was pure-dee prophecy. Warning before destruction was something Grandmother swore by, and sure enough bells were ringing dead in my ear. Our nightmare wasn’t over. Somebody was gonna catch a bad one, and that somebody was either Jimmy or me.
Chapter Five