Sweeter Than Honey (9 page)

T
here was only one person I trusted more than Lace and that was her man, my boy, former MVP Benito Bannister. The real reason I hooked Lace up with Benito was that I couldn’t risk having Lace get with some nosy-ass nigga who’d interfere with my sole proprietorship thinking he was smarter than the both of us because I’d have to kill his ass like this bitch right here in my office.

Summer, incognegro Sunny, had changed her name to get in the game and shit, but Sunny wasn’t the bona fide bitch I had to worry about. Lace was gonna lose her motherfuckin’ mind when she found out Sunny was dead.

Where in the fuck was Lace? I should fire her ass. If her ass was on time, Sunny would be making me money instead of…what the fuck ever. A G like me lives by the creed, no regrets. Hiring Lace to front my empire was the most intelligent decision I’d made. Quickly Lace became the mastermind behind my entire operation, installing surveillance cameras, monitors, and all that high-tech shit. She wiped out my computer records so the fuckin’ law couldn’t trace me. Incorporated Immaculate Perception, aka IP, so that tax nigga, Uncle Sam, wouldn’t sweat me. Set up my cell phone so my outgoing and incoming calls didn’t show up nowhere. Had a digitally activated fence built around my mansion near Ann Road and Rainbow Boulevard across from Walgreen so not even a golf ball from the Silver Stone or Painted Desert course could touch my property without my knowledge. And she had a wall installed around my IP joint down the way on Martin Luther King that was so high no one except Lace and my security guards got in or out unless I pressed a button. That bitch was so brilliant. The only things Lace couldn’t fuck with were my dick and my money.

I didn’t know how she kept so much shit in her head, but I was straight happy as a mug she was on my team. That bitch didn’t have a degree, but her ass was a motherfuckin’ genius! But I couldn’t let her know dat shit. Bitches say some ig’nant shit when they think they know more than men. But as long as bitches bled from their pussies they’d always be subservient to a real G like me.

I ain’t no gangsta with hard balls totin’ a grip everywhere I go. I’m a hunter and gatherer of bitches and hos. Straight up. That’s how I get down. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll bust a cap in a motherfucker’s ass in a heartbeat if my life or livelihood is in jeopardy. Like this dead bitch bleeding all over my crystal floor. Right now a nigga needed some help. Straight up. And I knew just the man for the job.

Benito and I went way back to elementary school and shit. Football never was my strong suit. I was too busy running the ladies. That’s what I called them in high school ’cause Moms and Dad, may they rest in peace, didn’t tolerate no cussing in our home.

My parents were old as dirt when they decided to have me. So old that when they attended PTA meetings all my classmates laughed because they thought my grandparents were raising me. There were a couple of generation gaps between us. A solid fifty years. Don’t sag. Comb your hair. Go iron those pants. Wash behind your ears. Brush your teeth before you go to bed. Moms would give me a stern look and I’d correct myself, then say to my father, “Yes, sir, or no, sir.”

On top of all that shit, I had to go to church four days a week. The reason I joined the football team was so I didn’t have to lip-synch at rehearsal. My dad was happy as hell ’cause my games got him out of Bible study on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They had some bitches in the choir who could’ve been on my team, but those holier-than-thou hos were too busy plotting long-term commitments like wanting to marry a G and shit.

I wish my mother woulda dodged that ig’nant-ass drunk driver the way I did those church girls. But Moms never saw him coming. Since the start of my freshman year, all she ever bragged about was my graduation ceremony. Six months prior to my walking across the stage at Valley High in my cap and gown, my mother was killed. That intoxicated motherfucka better be glad he wasn’t on the scene when I arrived or I woulda straight stumped his face in the ground. I know that wouldn’t have brought Moms back, but I sure as hell would’ve felt relief from my grief.

When Moms died Pops just lay on down beside her. Literally my old man had a heart attack at my mom’s funeral and fell on top of the platinum coffin. After my parents’ deaths, the only thing that kept me afloat was my bitches. Since I was an only child, I thought my peeps would’ve left me insurance money to take care of myself for a cool minute. All they had on those old-ass policies was enough to lay their bodies to rest properly. So a G like me, six months out from being legal, had to think quick. I refused to go live with any of my relatives in Arkansas, damn sure nuff wasn’t gonna be homeless, and I had to pay rent to stay in the house I thought my parents owned.

The first thing I did was I applied for credit cards in my parents’ names, glad as a mug they paid their bills on time. Then I threw out all that loud yellow, white, and blue plaid furniture that was wrapped in plastic that stuck to my ass whenever I wore shorts. With a twenty-five-thousand-dollar credit limit, I hooked up the place like a serious bachelor’s pad with flat screens, stereos, new carpet, freshly painted white walls, and pillow-top king-sized mattresses so I didn’t have to hear no sqeakin’ ’n shit, and a state-of-the-art kitchen for my bitches to cook for those greedy-ass ballers. I traded in Dad’s Honda for a used Benz-O. The next purchase was my wardrobe: tailor-and designer-made everything down to the gator shoes. All that fuss over my hygiene and appearance paid off. Big time.

Once I found out some nice threads, some smell good, a clean shave, and a precision haircut got me more pussy than risking breaking bones with some three-hundred-pound dude tackling me, then wiggling on top of me like a faggot, I straight gave up that rock.

Immediately I caught more fish than I could fuck, so I started hookin’ up my boys on the team. Out of respect and shit I moved into my parents’ bedroom and rented mine out to the fellas. Sure, they could get plenty of sleazy groupies to spit-shine their trophies, but ballers like Benito couldn’t come close to scoring with the top-notch honeys I had on my team.

I was amazed to find out that bitches were loyal to me simply because I told them all the lame-ass shit they wanted to hear, treated them extra nice, and fucked them like I cared about them. So for the right amount of paper, and I don’t mean loose leaf, I passed out pussies to all the ballers—basketball, football, hockey, golf, you name it, and the sweetest part about it was the honeys didn’t know I was gettin’ paid while they were gettin’ laid.

Man, back then high schoolers had more discretionary resources than working adults because their parents, unlike mine, did without to make sure their kids kept up with the Joneses. So I stayed in school until I got my diploma, and then I bought this place. One of my bitches had an engineering degree and grandiose ideas for an underground fish tank, windows that dimmed to black, and all kinds of stuff, so I let her do her thang. Then she went to IP and created theme rooms like the electric chair room, the house of hot wax, and my favorite, the S and M gym.

The more money I made, the more sophisticated I became with my shit, so a nigga like me didn’t need no college degree. I had beautiful broads: Asian, Caucasian, African, and African-American, Pacific Islanders, and Japanese. I mean the kind with triple-D breasts-stasis, tiny waists, and big ol’ asses that made a nigga get whiplash and wreck his car at the same time. Only the finest bitches surrounded me on a daily.

It didn’t take long to realize that when I started dressing my honeys in designer clothes, like Tupac said,
All Eyez on Me
, we commanded more attention than Jason Kidd’s wife when she ran her ass down the street butt naked. We turned heads everywhere we went. I mean million-dollar heads. Which was why I’d been livin’ large off my bitches for over ten years.

But the one thing I learned from my father, I never laid hands on any of my bitches. The one time my dad hit Moms, his ass was on lockdown for three days straight calling the house beggin’ Moms to get him out of jail. I refused to beg a bitch for anything, so I kept my hands to my motherfuckin’ self and paid Lace well enough to kick those bitches’ asses whenever I said so.

A real playa didn’t fight tricks. I didn’t have to…I was in their heads, big time. They knew who their daddy was…until this ho trick tried me. Stupid bitch!

Stomping around my study, I started to pick up that
First Lady
book that Lace put on my shelf and rip it to pieces I was so mad at whatever the fuck Sunny’s real name was. I paid Sunny more than anyone else because before Lace hired her, Sunny was my heart, my number-one lady. I wanted to take Sunny off the circuit her first day working for me for real and not just because a year later Lace asked me to. I loved Summer. Even a guy like me knows when a lady is the one.

There was something special about her ass. Out of all the bitches I’d had, when I met Summer, instantly I knew she was unique. I didn’t want to let her go, but Summer was sixteen and I was twenty-six at that time but had lied and told her I was twenty-one so I wouldn’t frighten her away. But that shit backfired on me. I had to stop dating her when Mr. Daniel Day, as he introduced himself when he walked up to my Benz-O, threatened to call the cops and have my black ass arrested.

Summer and I kicked it short but hard. So hard that thoughts of her crossed my mind every day. We did everything and nothing and we were happy. I hadn’t seen Summer in years until Lace hired her and introduced her as Sunny.

Pleased at the woman Summer had become, disappointed at the lifestyle she’d adopted, I had to see how Summer would handle herself in the business before making my final decision. That’s why I fucked her. Amazingly, she was the same free-spirited, sharp-minded person. Being with Summer I cursed less and cared more about life. About being alive. A good woman could definitely make a man feel better about himself. Or worse. If I’d married Summer back then, Moms woulda been proud ’cause I would’ve quit pimping.

Still couldn’t believe Summer had the motherfuckin’ audacity to pull a gun on a G like me! The P-I-M-P that fed her ass. Loved her ass. Made love to her a few hours ago. I’m the reason she was able to buy a condo and a nice Benz of her own. What more did she want?

Bitches were straight-up scandalous. “Well, take this.”

Cocking the gun sideways, although she was already dead,
pow
, I shot Summer straight in her heart…for breaking mine.

N
o matter how rich. No matter how poor. The only thing a black man owned free and clear in America was his black woman.

The black woman was the only entity the white man alienated to the point most black women couldn’t imagine being—today they referred to it as being sexed. Back then it was called raped—at the command of a white man knowing he’d gladly screw her behind closed doors but never take her home to meet his family. The white man single-handedly prepared the black woman to accept her lashings while being obedient.

That was one way, the only way, the white man made life in the United States, a country where things were everything except united, easier for the black man. A black man could mentally and physically beat his black woman into submission. And why shouldn’t he? It took a mere circus act by a jester for the black woman to obtain a restraining order against a black man who acted like a clown, but it required an act of Congress for a black man to unconditionally love a black woman. In less than three generations, the black woman went from being the white man’s property to the black man’s slave as she single-handedly cooked, cleaned, cared for the children, and paid the bills.

Now, me, I could have sex with a white woman in a heartbeat, even fall in love with her and let her buy me expensive things, but giving her anything more than sufficient cum to birth a blue-eyed, blond-haired black baby was a waste because the average white man who was by his own historical definition a black man would never let the black man own a white woman who was also a direct descendant of Africans who were the first humans on earth. But one wouldn’t know that unless they drew blood, in which case getting a restraining order would be outlawed ’cause the majority of white people who claimed they were pure blood would probably commit suicide if they were forced to admit that they too were black.

What difference should the color of one’s skin make when everyone’s ethnicity was either African-American, African-Asian, African-European, or such?

White men were still angry at O.J. Simpson, and black men…we were happy for once, whether O.J. was innocent or guilty, to see the white man’s system work in favor of a black man. The white man bought, never published, never sold—legally, that is—but stole copies of
If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened
by O.J. while O.J. skipped with his nonreturnable advance all the way to the bank. And I was happy the woman I almost went to jail for having sex with, when she cried rape afterward, was intimidated by Valentino to keep her mouth shut. Otherwise, my black butt would be behind bars instead of chilling in Lace’s house.

Like many black men I knew, I had way too many issues that I internally struggled with. I loved the fact that my woman was successful, made more money than me, owned her house, paid cash for two Jaguars, and looked and dressed like a supermodel. But at the same time Lace’s lifestyle messed with my ego, my manhood. I felt like less of a man inside because there was nothing I could give her that she couldn’t afford, but my pride thrust my chest forward and my lips spread wide when men gawked at Lace while she was on my arm. I loved Lace. But at times the green-eyed monster pacing before me and inside me made me hate her too. Or maybe I didn’t like myself.

Sports taught me that the most manipulative component of the body was the mind. Control the mind. Control the man. I sought Webster’s definition of a man, a bipedal primate mammal distinguished especially by notable development of the brain with a resultant capacity for articulate speech and abstract reasoning, and found the definition about as vague as the whole human race.

Development of the brain couldn’t make me intelligent when society had already made me ignorant. Ignorant to the fact that the black man was a king before he became a slave. Ignorant to the fact that black men were hunters, gatherers, and providers for all of their wives and children before being stolen, shackled, and desensitized to everything, especially the black woman. Ignorant to the fact that Christopher Columbus, a white man, couldn’t possibly have discovered America if the Indians occupied the land first. Ignorant to the fact that the black men in Rosewood lived better than plenty of white men before the 1920s. So well that the white man killed them off. Those who weren’t killed fled to Gainesville. But that wasn’t enough. In 1923 almost one hundred and fifty white men filled with racist supremacy returned to Rosewood and burned down whatever was left.

And society wants to question the black man’s hatred.

If you’d ask me, not much is different today except the white man’s fire burns in my brain like the crack pipes I see way too many of my brothas inhaling. Control the mind. Control the man.

Sure, I had the capacity for articulate speech, but some of the dumbest things came out of my mouth when I lost my self-control. Abstract reasoning is true because women can’t attach anything concrete to what I say, so Lace drew her own conclusions, in most cases prematurely. One thing Webster and I agreed on was I lost all notable functions the first time I laid eyes on Lace.

Lace personified raw beauty. She always wore the sexiest lace outfits. If only I’d invested my money like the black men from Rosewood while I was playing football instead of trying to impress my teammates with the entourage surrounding me after every game, I could pay the mortgage every month.

The black man, myself included, has lost sight of what’s important. We’d rather blow our money drinking and partying than pay child support. I didn’t have a phat bank account, but most fellas, black or white, couldn’t afford the incredible memories indelibly etched in my mind.

I may never have the money I used to when I played pro football, but my opinions are priceless. From Osama to Obama, I’ve got an answer for everybody about everything. At first Lace loved my thought-provoking comments. Now I think she tolerates my monologues, but pretty soon, just like my ex-wife, Tyra, she’ll despise whatever comes out of my mouth if I don’t smack Lace in her face for being such a smart-ass.

She doesn’t talk down to me often, but when she does, I feel like I’m the woman and she’s the man.

I’d had enough of being treated like a child well after I’d become a grown man. By my mother, I meant stepmother. I’m not sure what to call a white woman who adopts a black child, then marries a black man, has his baby, a son, and treats her adopted son like an orphan. To this day I don’t understand why I hate the brotha Grant Hill. Can’t bring myself to call him my brother, but honestly he’s never done me wrong. I self-imposed my inferiority complex because his parents treated him better than me. That’s why a black man has got to ditch the excuses and make his own way. For me, football saved my life. And when my so-called family relocated to Washington, D.C., while I was away at USC, the only person I could depend on for money was my best friend, Anthony Valentino James.