The Coldest Winter Ever (28 page)

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Lauren asked.

“Because that’s not my responsibility. I was out early taking care of what I’m supposed to take care of.” Lauren sucked her teeth. Within minutes, she was tapping me.

“Hey, hey, get up. You can either come with me or stay here with Souljah, what’s up?”

“That’s not a choice,” I said. “I’m coming with you.”

Fifteen hundred dollars cash passed from Lauren’s hand to the hands of the pastor. That’s how much he was charging Souljah to rent the church. She was giving a benefit for an organization that worked with AIDS patients. When I asked Lauren why it cost so much she said, “You know the deal. It’s business. Everybody wants something, even the church.”

“What does Souljah get?” I slid in the question, since the opening was handed to me.

“Nothing,” her sister said dryly.

“She has to get something,” I pushed.

“You’re right. She gets an audience. She gets to tell two thousand people what’s on her mind, what her deepest thoughts are, and what they should be doing with their lives.”

“What else?”

“That’s it. That’s what gets her off.”

“But how does she pay her bills like that?” I pressed.

“Look,” she said, becoming annoyed, “I hope you’re not gonna be one of these people who takes up all my time to ask me about Souljah.
’Cause I hate that shit. How does she pay her bills? People just give her shit. She’s supposed to pay Doc rent. She doesn’t. She’s just different. Don’t try and figure her out. You’ll only give yourself a headache.” Within seconds Lauren was back to her joking self again.

Different had to be the word for it. Thursday night about thirty-something guys crammed into the large front of the apartment. There was some who seemed as young as sixteen. Some seemed as old as thirty. As promised, Lauren and I bounced as the last few filed through the door.

“Did you see that?” I asked Lauren. “Wall-to-wall niggas.” It was like an ice-cream store up there. Mad, crazy, all the flavors. Big, small, tall, short. Bodies galore. I was bugging at the shock of it all. Lauren was blasé. “Wait a minute,” I asked her, “are any of them in your red book?” She laughed.

“No, Souljah would kill me if I messed with her clients. Nah, her thing and my thing are separate.”

I wanted to know what Souljah was doing up there in the apartment with all those men. I wanted to understand it. I wanted to hear what she was saying. What was making them listen to her? Did she tell Midnight the same thing she was telling them? What was the hustle, the technique? What could she tell a man as fine as Midnight that would keep him under her spell? Did she meet him at one of these meetings? I wanted to ask Lauren. But she warned me already. I didn’t want to set her off. That might stop the flow of information completely. I’d wait awhile and figure how to get at it another way.

The men’s meeting ended around ten. We were back in the house an hour later. I had a feeling GS was coming so I got ready. First I showered. Seated on the bed with a towel wrapped around my body and a towel wrapped around my hair, I twisted a paper towel. Carefully I rolled and weaved it in and out of each toe to prepare for the pedicure I was about to give myself.

“Going somewhere?” Lauren asked.

“Nah. This is just my routine. I like to keep myself nice. I hate the way old chipped nail polish looks on fingernails and toes.” Lauren glanced at her own fingers. She quickly tried to cover her two fingers with the chipped nail polish. Who was she fooling? I had noticed her nails days ago. She sat on her bed and proceeded to watch me. As I blocked her out, my hands worked feverishly to perfect the French pedicure.

“Damn, your hands are steady,” Lauren said. “If that would have been me I woulda never got the line straight.” Then she did it. “Can you do my feet next?” Now, the long pause between her question and my response should have been enough of an answer. But this chick seriously expected me to touch, clean, and design her crusty toenails.

“Funny thing, I can do my own, but I can’t seem to do anybody else’s,” I told her.

“Well, then, do my hands. I’m sure you can figure out how to do that,” she said, being too pushy for my taste. So I did my toes, her hands, my hair. I shaved my underarms, trimmed my pussy hairs into a cute little design. Convincing Lauren that everything was regular, I tried on some of the outfits I purchased early this week. When all the stalling tactics were used up, I put on some short shorts and a baby tee with no bra. Flipping through Lauren’s tape and CD collection, I picked out a mixed tape.

With each cut playing came a memory. Music just had that kind of power. I thought about all the fun I used to have in Brooklyn. I shivered just thinking about how all my friends just turned on me, one by one. And when DJ S and S slowed the beat down, the slow jams put me in a state. I started thinking about various sexual positions and how they made my body feel. Then the pressure came between my legs. It’s crazy, I thought, how getting my hustle on had nearly wiped out my sex life. When Daddy was out … ah Daddy … Everything was smooth and safe. He took care of everything. All of my energy could just go to fun stuff. Now I was uptight, backed up, and definitely gonna get fucked, sucked, and licked real soon.

Lauren turned the music down. “Sasha, can you get the door.” I rolled my eyes like it was a problem. I didn’t bother to turn the light switch for the staircase on. In the dark, I stepped swiftly and softly down the five flights of stairs. Loosening my top button on my Daisy Dukes, I let the zipper come down.

The light wind that rushed through the door when I opened it made my nipples hard. They stuck out through my baby tee. My nipples might as well have been eyes ’cause when that door opened, that’s what GS looked at first.

“Um, yeah, Souljah here?”

“Do you see me standing here?” I asked him in a pushy, but sexy way.

“Well damn, how could I say no to that question?” he asked, with a sexy smile and white teeth.

“Well, why don’t you ask me my name?” I demanded.

He stood there, his eyes falling down to my Ralph Lauren panties, which were discreetly exposed under my shorts.

“Why don’t you just tell me?” he said, with that masculine force that gets me hot every time.

“It’s Sasha. When you come here next time, if there is a next time, you say “what’s up’ to Sasha—then you can handle the rest of your business.”

“Is that right?” he asked, looking like he didn’t mind joking around at all. As he stepped through the door, he asked, “What’s up with the lights?”

“I’ll show you up,” I said, gently taking his hand, using one finger to run across the inside of his palm ’cause I knew it would get him going. I walked in front of him, leading the way as if it was his first time in the house. When we got to the third floor, I pulled his hand and placed it on my waist. His fingers gripped the naked skin in between the top of my shorts and the bottom of my baby tee shirt.

On the last step I dropped him like a hot potato, turned around and said flatly, “I’ll get Souljah for you, wait right here.” She came out with a big smile on her face. Happy to see him, I guessed, she noticed nothing. I went right into my room, shut the door, and sat down.

Lauren looked at my titties and in a half of one second she said, “Yeah, I don’t even have to ask who was at the door.”

We were awakened early the next morning. As Souljah stood in between me and Lauren’s beds, I thought to myself,
Damn, is this bitch a crackhead vampire? She stays up all night. In the morning you’re looking at her like, did you ever go to sleep?

“I want you to come with me, get dressed.”

On the train the destination was revealed. We were on our way to Riker’s Island women’s prison.

“What for?” I asked.

“I have to speak to some young sisters behind bars.”

“What are you going to tell them?” I asked, really wanting to know.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I move on a vibe. Whatever I feel when I see what I see is what I will say.”

“Just like that?” I asked. She nodded yes. In what was probably a
bold move in their eyes, I asked, “And how much does this speech pay?” Somewhat surprised, she responded.

“Nothing. When I speak at prisons, high schools and community places it don’t cost anything.”

“Well, then how do you make money?” I pushed.

“Different ways. I do projects. Also, when I speak at colleges they pay me well.”

“How well?”

“Very well,” she said.

“And all you gotta do is say what you feel? That sounds easy. How can I get down?”

“It’s not that simple,” she said. “You have to be talking about something that is important to people in their lives. You have to study, read, watch, work, and interact with people. When you master a particular field, then your words, knowledge, and insight become valuable. You know what I mean?”

I indicated yes. Inside, I’m like,
Yeah, I know what you mean. You’re saying you can do it, but I can’t. That’s bullshit.
I know more about what goes on in the street than she does. I sure know more about a lot of shit than she does.

We didn’t take the normal visitors route into Riker’s. We went through the entrance the corrections officers use. We were searched. Beads of sweat began to gather as I placed my purse on the conveyer belt. One of the officers took my box cutter, saying politely that I couldn’t bring it inside. He was taking it to protect me from the prisoners. “They cannot be trusted,” he said. It was bugging me out to see how they treated Souljah and us, her guests, versus how they treated you when you came to visit the prisoners. The officer who was leading the way began to introduce Souljah to all of the other officers. They were smiling, shaking hands, giving her props, and all that fake shit.

The officer in charge said, “The women who you are going to speak to today are all HIV positive. They are in a separate wing of the prison.” For the first time since I met her, Souljah’s face appeared to be uncomfortable.

With her eyebrows screwed out of position, she questioned the officer, “Didn’t you say I would be talking to adolescent women today?”

“Yes,” he said, “I did, and I have to apologize to you. I didn’t get the proper paperwork to my superior officer in time. He wouldn’t give
me clearance for you to speak to the adolescent women today. I can arrange it for some later date. But believe me sister, these women need to hear from you.” Now, all of our eyeballs are bouncing around. I’m asking myself, Winter, what the fuck are you doing here involved in this mess?

Souljah asked the officer, “Can I use the ladies’ room first?” The officer said, “Sure, right this way.”

“Come on, y’all,” she said, making it clear that we were to follow closely behind. In the bathroom, it was just us three. “Oh no,” Souljah said, placing her two hands in her face. “I’m sorry y’all, I didn’t know we were going to the HIV wing.”

“Well, what’s the matter?” Lauren asked. “Can we catch it or something?”

“They say that you cannot catch it except through the blood or bodily fluids. But I never trust what “they say’ anyway. I’m just surprised; I’m nervous.” Souljah leaned against the sink, looking into the mirror.

“I thought you worked with the AIDS people,” I said. “I thought you was giving a benefit for people with AIDS.”

She smiled nervously and said, “Yes, I work with professional people who work with AIDS patients. And yes, I give money. But I never had to knowingly touch nobody with AIDS. I never had to be in a small room confined with them. I never had to see the effect of what the nasty disease does to a person’s body. It’s different, it’s a different thing.” Then she splashed water on her face, looked in the mirror and said, “I don’t know what to say to them. This one will be left to God. I pray that I receive a message to give.” She took a deep breath.

Now if you were one of those corrections officers you would never have guessed what went on in that bathroom. When we got back out into the hall, she stood confidently on her two feet as if she had never broken down in the toilet.

When we entered the doors to the wing, we were standing in the middle of a huge room. The beds were narrow, thin, and very close together. There had to be about a hundred beds. The first thought I had looking at these women was,
This is a waste of time.
These chicks are finished. Most of them were lying down on their beds doing nothing. Their bodies were thin and withered. Their faces were sunken in like many crackheads I had seen back in Brooklyn. Some of them had
fresh bruises and stitches. Some of them had black eyes and blotches. Most of them had big ugly plaited braids, like dykes. They were in bad need of hygiene and a fashion rescue mission.

When they saw Souljah most of them had no reaction at all. In fact, it was the military voice of the man-built female c.o. that got them dragging their half-eaten bodies out of bed and into the room. Souljah stood, wringing her hands nervously and looking bewildered. I chuckled to myself,
go ahead smarty-pants, get yourself out of this one. Now you’re on the front line.

The women were quiet. Many of them looked disinterested. After all, they had no choice but to be there. They really were a “captive audience.”

When Souljah didn’t say anything, the c.o. in front of the room cleared her throat loudly and said, “Go ahead, they’re all yours. Good luck.” Souljah looked over their faces. For two whole minutes she said nothing. Then it came out.

“I can tell that all of you used to be very pretty women. I can look at your faces and see that you once were somebody’s sweetheart, some-body’s love, somebody’s life. And I know when you were younger you thought being beautiful was the best thing in the world. But really we women don’t have to do anything to be beautiful. It’s a gift from God. The woman is.

“Somewhere along the line many of us as women are led to believe that being pretty is enough. And while we rely on that, we forget to strengthen our minds so that we can learn how to think, how to build. How to survive. We forget how to live our lives to protect our spirit, to be clean and decent. We forget that everything we do matters so much.

“Every right decision brings us blessings. Every wrong decision brings us pain. And then, when times get hard, our struggle and our pain shows on our faces and our bodies. When people see our pain and weakness in our face they say, “She used to be fine, she used to be this, she used to be that.’ When men feel our beauty has faded we become shocked at how well they ignore us and forget us. We’ll do anything to get their attention, money, love. Can I suck your dick? Can I do anything, can I, can I?