Flyy Girl (32 page)

“Oh yeah, Ed, 'cause dude thought I was a sucka'.” Cash was still preoccupied with counting money.

“It be some babes up there, Cash?” Ed asked. He was watching
Black Caesar,
starring Fred Williamson, on the VCR.

Cash said, “Up in Germantown? Yeah, they got some good-lookin' chicks, cuz'. I met this young chumpee named Tracy up there t'day. She live on my aunt's block, on Diamond Lane. Mount Airy got some bad bitches too though. Straight up. Them rich hoes be lookin' gooder than a muthafucka.”

“They got any connections, runnin' things up there?”

“Yeah, my man Victor Hinson and his brother got things rollin'. We went to school together in elementary. Victor's people's from North Philly.”

Cash stood up to look out of the window. “Yo Ed, here come that girl, man. Get the shit.”

Ed went outside and met her at the corner.

The ragged woman spied him nervously. “Give me a twenty, man.”

He made the transaction and went back to the apartment.

Cash said, “That bitch come like every two days, cuz'.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Ed gave Cash the ruffled twenty-dollar bill.

“Man, she gotta get that monkey off her back,” he responded, chuckling to himself. “Ay, man, I'm gon' call that young-girl up. Fuck it, you know.”

Cash walked to the phone with the number in his hand and dialed it.

“Hello . . . Yeah, is Tracy there? Yo, what's up? It's Cash . . . Yeah, well you know what? That's for young-boah's, 'cause when I get a babe's number, I'm gon' use it when I want to . . . Yeah, well I was thinking 'bout coming up on Thursday, if you really wanted to ride around and all.”

Ed interjected, while peeping out of the window, “Yo Cash, that bugged-out bitch is back again.”

Cash spied out the window, four stories down. “Ay Tracy, I'm gon' call you back in a few.” He hung up the phone and went back to the window. “Aw, man, I'm 'bout to punch this girl in her mouth.”

They watched the young woman marching up the stairs toward their apartment complex. She was flyy, sporting gold and gear.

Cash sprinted outside, catching her before she made it inside of the building.

“I want my shit!” she screamed at him.

“Look, girl, I told you I ain't got it.”

“Well, you know somethin' about it.”

“Why you think I know, out of all people?”

“ 'Cause you down wit' Victor and them.”

“What he got to do with it? You fuckin' him or some shit?”

“Look, all I know is that I was at that damn party up Haines Street, and my three hundred dollars are missin'. Now one of y'all know about the shit.”

Her good looks were beginning to decline from being out in the streets too long. She was twenty-four years old, still dating young hustlers.

Cash said, “Well, you should'na had all that money on you anyway. You knew everybody was damn-near drunk in 'nere.”

“I was holding it for my boyfriend.”

“Who's your boyfriend?”

“Shawn Matthews.”

Cash roared, “That dick-head is your boyfriend?” Another customer came up as he laughed. “YO, ED, come out and get this, man!”

Ed was watching from the window and came down to make a transaction with an older man. The gray-haired man wobbled in his stance. He then walked away shoving the twenty-dollar pack of cocaine inside of his pocket as if it would fly away from him.

The young woman who had been arguing with Cash stopped herself to think about things for a second. “It's a shame, what y'all do to these people,” she commented.

“We ain't doin' nothin' but business. They takin' the drugs themselves. Nobody's forcin' 'em,” Cash argued.

“Well look, I just wanna get my money back,” she told him, getting back to the matter at hand.

Cash quizzed her, “Ain't that money your boyfriend had from drug-selling? Shawn sell drugs, too. He a
nut,
but he still sellin'.”

“Look, I'on even know. Okay?”

Cash smiled and said, “Yeah, you know, you just don't wanna say it. So you can't say shit to me about gettin' paid, 'cause I'm gon' try to live it up as best I can.”

Cash never did call Tracy back. He had “business” to take care of.

Tracy went school shopping with her family.

“So how much money you gon' milk for today?” her father asked.

“Well, you haven't been around for a while. You owe me
a lot,
now.”

“I owe,”
Dave responded to her sternly. Tracy was referring to him as if he was one of her little boyfriends. “Your mother told me about that boyfriend you had, so I think I'm 'bout to start showing up around the house more often. You're getting way out of hand, to be living on the edge like that. You're not even fifteen yet.”

Tracy grimaced. “I'm about to be fifteen though.”

“Yup,” Jason added, holding his mother's hand.

Patti still had few words for her estranged husband. He knew where she stood in the matter. She wanted his ass to stay home or stay away, but he could
not
do both.

Dave retorted, “Girl, jokes and games are over. Now you better start thinkin' before you get out here in them damn streets.”

Tracy listened, but she didn't plan to adhere to anything. Where had
he
been? Who was
he
to give advice?

“In fact, I don't know why you need so many new clothes anyway. It seems to me that all this extra stuff is the main reason that you're out here running the streets,” her father commented.

Tracy rolled her eyes. “Well, forget it then. I don't need any clothes.”

Dave grabbed her arm. “So you think that since I'm not in the house with you and your mother that you can say anything you want to me now? Is that it?”

Tracy snapped, “Wait a minute, nobody
asked
you to leave.
You
wanted to leave us, so don't start acting like you wasn't welcomed home. Maybe if you
was
home more, I would have something else to do,” she said, as she walked away from him.

Jason anxiously threw his hand to his mouth, expecting Tracy to get in trouble.

Dave looked to Patti, but she was not ready to sympathize with him. “If you really want to help her, then you know where your daughter lives,” she told him.

Patti sat and listened all that night as Dave lectured Tracy about the “hot-ass girls” he knew when he was a teenager. Patti had been a “hot-ass” herself, she
and
her sisters. Nevertheless, despite Dave's efforts, all Tracy could think about was how her father had the audacity to tell her how to live when he had basically walked out on his family.

Dave was gone again, talked out, after only an hour of shopping and three hours of lecturing.

Patti sat on the living-room couch with her son after his father had walked out on them again. “You see that? Now I'm stuck to raise
you
and Tracy
all
by myself. And that sister of yours is just too fast for her own good.”

“So where are we goin'?” Tracy asked Cash, hopping inside of his black and gold Bronco.

Cash was going on nineteen years old, older than any boy Tracy had dealt with. He pulled off without responding to her. The air-conditioner pumped into Tracy's face, and the bass from his stereo system made it feel like she was at a live concert. They whipped down the street doing forty miles per hour to an unknown destination as Tracy enjoyed the scenery. Cash then stopped at a gas station to fill up while Tracy leaned back in the passenger seat, thinking that she was dreaming. Yet it was real. She was not yet fifteen, cruising in a brand-new jeep with a young drug dealer.

Cash said, “Look, I gotta go pick up this package, and then I got some other stops to make.”

Tracy nodded. She had been on several car rides before, but a jeep ride with him was the best.

They drove through neighborhoods in Philadelphia that Tracy had never been to before. Outside of Logan, where she had had dance classes, Tracy never had any reason to visit other areas. Germantown was her home.

They stopped in the middle of a block, in the heart of North Philly. Cash jumped out and was surrounded by five or six tough-looking friends.

“CASH MO-N-A-A-Y! What's up, man?”

They looked into the jeep at Tracy, reminding her of the type of rough-looking guys that her cousins dated in Logan. Cash then walked around the jeep to let her out.

“Come on,” he demanded, opening the door.

Tracy climbed out, feeling terrified. Her father tried to tell her about living in the fast lanes. She looked around, realizing that Cash had every motive in the world to sell drugs. The streets were ripped up and aged, along with the cars and the houses. Down at the opposite corner, two girls were fist fighting and trying to nearly kill each other, but the neighbors seemed unconcerned. They were used to the chaos.

Cash was showing Tracy off, or “sportin' her.” “Come here, I want you to meet my boy, Wayne,” he said.

Wayne looked Tracy over: pretty face, honey-brown complexioned, hazel-eyed, tall, full of body, asymmetric hair and glittering with gold.

Wayne responded, “Damn, girl, you got any older sisters?” He was older than Cash. Tracy suspected that Cash was working for him. Wayne looked about twenty-four and was loosely dressed with Adidas gear. He had a neatly trimmed goatee and was walnut-brown like Mercedes.

Wayne looked important. Tracy could not help staring at his thick, gold nugget bracelet. Then again, her earrings were just as big, shining ostentatiously. And she could sense that the North Philly girls were jealously staring at her. She was taking one of their players.

“No, I don't have any sisters,” she answered Wayne. “All I got is a little brother.”

Cash butted in. “Yeah, her brother gon' be aw'ight, Wayne. Little dude ran up and spoke, shook my hand and everything. Oh, these my partners, L.C. and Trap,” he told Tracy, introducing two others. They weren't as glamorous or as handsome as Wayne.

“Hi y'all doin'?” Tracy said politely.

“Not as fine as you, unfortunately,” L.C. said, laughing boisterously. “You know, cuz'? Unfortunately,” he repeated, still chuckling to himself. L.C. was short with a missing tooth, wearing an old Todd 1 sweat suit, which was out of fashion at the time.

Trap said, “Dig, 'cause I'm 'bout to run on up to Germantown and get quite
fortunate
myself,
I must say.”

Tracy was pleased and tickled by their lighthearted
Saturday Night
Live
attitudes. But she was smart enough to know that they were only friendly because Cash was their boy and she was his young-girl.

She followed Cash into his house to meet his young-looking mother and friendly sisters. His family was large. Tracy envied that. With three older brothers and four sisters, Cash would always have someone to talk to.

“So did you like my family and all?” he asked with a smile, as they traveled to the next stop in his jeep.

“Yeah. I wish I had a big family like that.”

Cash chuckled and said, “I wish I had a crib like yours. Girl, I would have loved to grow up up your way.”

“Why you say that?”

Cash grimaced as if it should have been obvious. “ 'Cause, it would have been a lot more peaceful, compared to the shit that I had to go through down North. And the thing that takes me out is how y'all got those fake-ass punks in y'all area, like that boah' Peppy, thinkin' he tough and shit. That's why I had to smack him around for a second.”

Cash rolled down the windows to catch the night air. The sun was starting to set and the wind blew in, shaking Tracy's earrings.

“That feels gooood,” she squealed.

Cash giggled at nothing.

“What's so funny?” she quizzed him.

“I was just thinking about how scared you looked when I told you
to get out the jeep,” he alluded. “GET OUT OF THE STREET, YOU LITTLE KNUCLEHEAD!” Cash screamed out of the window to a kid.

Tracy chuckled, watching the brown boy scatter to the sidewalk.

They arrived at their second destination, all the way down Southwest Philly. There weren't as many people around as on Cash's block in North. He told Tracy to stay inside the jeep, while he jumped out and ran into a house.

“Yo, you got that set-up for me?” he asked an older black man.

“Yeah. HEY SAM, give him that package, man!”

Sam said, “What took you so long, young-boah'? We thought you was gon' be here at six-thirty.” He brought the package out with him from the kitchen. It was a clear sandwich bag with small packages of crack cocaine, all individually wrapped.

Cash said, “Yeah, well, I got this little young-girl out in the ride, and she just met my mom and sisters, back the way.”

“You got a little young-girl in the car, hunh?” Sam responded, looking out of the window at Tracy, who was sitting inside of the jeep impatiently. She didn't like the idea of waiting outside of a drug house. “Damn, she a
fine
thing!” Sam said. He was at least thirty-two, and too old to be concerned about the latest fashions. He had on a plain pair of blue jeans and a red Nike T-shirt.

“How old you think she is?” Cash quizzed him with a smile.

“What, she's like seventeen, eighteen, right? 'Cause I'm assuming she got to be younger than you. You ain't got no game for no old-head pussy yet,” Sam told him. He laughed and slung an arm around Cash's shoulder.

“Yeah, aw'ight, cuz',” Cash responded, smirking. “But umm, naw. That girl only fifteen years old, Sam. Matter of fact, she fourteen, 'cause her birthday's in two weeks.”

“W-o-o-o-o, slow down! You better watch them babies,” Sam told him seriously. “I don't wanna see my man goin' ta' jail and shit, over some ass that still smell like piss.”