Authors: Noire
Rita agreed, and unbeknownst to Dutchy, she had already made contact with someone she believed was lethal enough to hold those G-Spot niggahs off and protect Juicy from all the sharks who were looking to bite her.
Taking only her ID card and a roll of quarters for the vending machine, Rita listened to Dutchy’s last minute instructions.
“Remember, she ain’t in there under her real name,” he reminded her. “They’re calling her Yvette Williams, so that’s the name you gotta say when you go to sign in.”
Dutchy kissed Rita’s cheek, then got out and came around to her side to open her door. He held it open while she undid her seat belt and climbed out.
Smoothing down her wild curls, Rita glanced over her shoulder like she expected a stray bullet to come flying at her at any moment.
“Are you sure nobody followed us?”
Dutchy nodded. “Nah, we straight, baby,” he said, pulling her close to him. “But even if they did, this is a secure parking area. Not just anybody can roll up in here.”
The visitor center was packed with people who had come to visit their friends and family members. Buses pulled up regularly, and there was a long line of people waiting to get their IDs checked.
Rita knew it was a damn good thing that Dutchy had people on the inside. Otherwise, they would have had to jump on the back of the line and wait like everybody else.
“I hope we don’t get caught in the count,” Dutchy muttered as they waited to go through the first metal detector. There was no getting around that. Everybody had to be checked, and Rita stared as some chick started wildin’ out because the guards were making her go back over the bridge and leave her contraband cell phone in her car.
“I already waited forever to ride the damn bus over here!” the girl bitched. “On top of that, I got slobbered on by your drug fuckin-sniffing dog, and now I gotta ride all the way back over the bridge again? Y’all muthafuckas is a real trip!”
It was easy to see how stressful it was for those who had loved ones in jail. Little kids were running around going crazy, and the long wait combined with the strict rules and the shitty attitudes of the guards was enough to get people mad frustrated.
Rita tried to chill and wait patiently, especially when they searched her endless times. She had left her cell phone and all that other shit back in the car. The only thing she was carrying was her ID and her quarters. She hadn’t even worn any jewelry, so there was no threat of attracting any reprimands from the guards.
Since Juicy was just a detainee and not a sentenced inmate she was now allowed up to three visits a week. Rita planned on coming back as much as she could, and today she had brought a money order for a hundred dollars with her so Dutchy could take it to the cashier’s office and put it on Juicy’s commissary.
It was gonna be a big relief to explain everything to Juicy face to face, and Rita couldn’t wait for the chance to clear everything up. She had prayed day and night that her girl was handling the situation she had put her in, and according to Dutchy’s sister-in-law and his boys, Juicy was safe and sound.
Of course, Rita still worried about her, and she was still worried crazy over Nooni, too. Knowing who had snatched her sister was a long way from proving it or finding her, and Rita’s fear for Nooni was real and constant. Even though her sister had just turned eighteen, Rita had gone down to the police station and told the cops that Monique was holding a minor child hostage. Two days later she went back and they claimed they sent somebody to Monique’s apartment and there were no signs of Nooni living there.
The next logical place Rita thought her sister could be was the G-Spot. She remembered how G and his posse had held Juicy hostage, and just the thought of Nooni going through half of that was enough to make Rita shake in fear.
But not even Dutchy had enough pull to send the cops rushing into the Spot looking for no delinquent runaway. “Yo, them boyz is in the pocket,” he had said, shaking his head. “And I ain’t talking no low-level shit, neither. They got some real willies on the payroll at the G-Spot, baby. Ain’t no cop going up in that joint unless he’s tryna get his dick sucked.”
That left Nooni still missing. Still out on the streets somewhere, doing who knew what. As Rita sat and waited for her visit with Juicy, she looked around the room and imagined her sister alone and hurt, being abused and terrorized by the deadliest crew in Harlem.
Rita just couldn’t help it. A tear slipped from her eye and she sat there and cried.
$$$$$
It was Monday and it seemed like every other chick in the facility was hyped. It was a visitation day for everybody who had the right last name and a lot of girls were anxious to see their families.
No matter what a chick had come to jail for, no matter how busted she looked or felt inside, every hood rat wanted to show up for a visit looking like a fox. Maybe it was all just a front so the world wouldn’t find out how bad this shit-hole was kicking your ass, or maybe it was just the nature of a woman. Either way, there was a whole bunch of face primping and hair styling going on in almost every cell.
I had fallen asleep feeling sorry for myself, and it was close to lunchtime when I heard somebody call my name.
“Williams! Visitor!”
I didn’t even move. I knew they had made a mistake so I didn’t even get excited.
“Williams!” CO Gaines stood outside of my cell barking at me like she was my mother. “I know you heard me calling your ass!”
I kept my mouth closed and stood up.
“You got a visitor,” she repeated.
I tried to keep the shock off my face as I followed her to the visiting room. It was on jam when we got there and she led me to a small table that was off to one side of the room by itself.
I didn’t know who or what to expect.
My eyes scanned the crowd and I took in all the New York faces, sounds, and attitudes. Almost everybody looked like they could have come right off 136th Street, just like me.
I spotted Chiney sitting at a table across the way and she lifted her chin.
“Sup, homegirl,” she said. “I thought you couldn’t get no visitors?”
I shrugged and shook my head to tell her I didn’t know what was up.
Chiney nodded and turned away, but her visitor kept me on grill and immediately I knew exactly who he was.
Trey.
His name jumped right into my mind. It had been a long time since I’d seen him, but his eyes were still sexy and mad intense. I couldn’t help but stare back. He was fine as hell with his neatly groomed locks and long-ass legs. He was a lot more muscular than I remembered, but his piercing dark eyes, chiseled lips, and thuggish chin hadn’t changed a bit.
I looked away first. My eyes were steady roaming as I searched the room to see who had come to see me.
My visitor walked through the door with CO Allen. I took one look at her and rolled my fuckin’ eyes. She was so shook she almost tripped over her own damn feet as she walked toward me and I thought, good for your ass! If she was too soft and scary to be up in a jail how they hell did she think I felt?
I felt like a real fool, is how. I had let Rita catch me out there when I was weak and grieving, and after being locked down in this shitty box I couldn’t think of a damn thing Rita could say that would make me forgive her.
In fact, as long as I was locked up Rita could kiss my black ass. If she wasn’t rolling in with a cache of Uzis and a helicopter to bust me out, then I didn’t want to hear a damn thing she had to say.
“Juicy,” she said softly.
I blasted her.
“You got the nerve to bring your ass up in here when you’re the one who sold me out?”
Chiney turned around in her seat and looked at me like, what’s up? Where’s the static? Show me which bitch I need to bite!
“It wasn’t like that,” Rita protested. “I swear to God! I can explain everything!”
“That wasn’t nothing but greed that got a’ hold of you, Rita. That little bit of money was just change, baby! Chicken change! That’s the price you put on our friendship when there was a whole lot more where that came from! Officer!” I stood up and started showing out as loud as I could. “Officer, I refuse this visit!”
I saw the look of shock that jumped into Rita’s eyes and I turned my back on it.
“Take me back to my cell!” I barked.
“Juicy, no…” I heard her say as I turned away. “No, wait…don’t leave…”
I folded my arms across my chest and kept my eyes aimed on the back wall. “Get me the fuck outta here! I wanna go back to my cell!”
It had gotten quiet in the room and I knew all the inmates and their visitors were staring at me. Fuck it. Let ’em. CO Gaines jumped on me real quick. Snatching my arm, she jacked me up on my toes and whisked me back through the doors in two seconds flat.
“You real stupid,” she declared as she led me away to get strip searched before returning to my cell. “I told you to keep your mouth closed and stay easy. Besides, whatever static you got with that bitch you should have squashed it. Sitting out here for a couple of hours with your worst enemy beats sweating by yourself in your cell all damn day, dummy.”
$$$$$
There was always some kinda drama popping off on The Rock, and the commotion playing out in the visiting room wasn’t out of the ordinary considering you were up in a jail.
Trey had done hard time and he knew everything about the jailhouse scene was a trial of mental toughness and victory over misery.
His visit with his sister had started out all fucked up. A drug dog on the bus had sniffed him up and down as they came over the bridge, a guard had made him go to the back of the line because he was slow pulling out his ID, And for some reason he was patted down twice at every security check on his way into Rosie.
But Trey took it all in stride. He was a big dude, and no matter how tastefully he dressed or how calmly he carried himself, that element of danger that lived in him always seemed to shine right through.
He visited his sister like clockwork every Monday, and today he was planning to ask her to come live with him when her time was up on The Rock. His baby sister was real smart, but all that pill popping, smoking blunts, and the in-and-out-of-jail-on-minor-charges shit wasn’t a good look for her.
He wished he woulda caught somebody selling drugs on the street to his sister, but the slangers were like roaches out there. If you saw one you knew there were at least a hundred more that were hidden in the darkness.
They camouflaged their operations in check cashing places, deli stores, dry cleaners, and one pretty major playa was rumored to be dealing his candy out of a day care center.
Hell, the streets were full of people like his sister who couldn’t get their shit together, and as Trey sat in the visiting room watching the drama jump off he wasn’t surprised by who was making all the noise.
He studied the fine yummy from 136th Street as she barked on the guards and demanded to be returned to her cell. His eyes roamed over her body from head to toe. She still had it. All of it. Even her baggy prison gear couldn’t hide the fact that she had some phatty pockets in the back, a nice pair of titties, and a tight waistline too.
“That’s Juicy,” his baby sister said, following his gaze and nodding toward the chick who was now being escorted out the door. “You remember her, don’t you? She went to high school with me, then she hooked up with that grimy niggah G McKay—”