LAUREN
“G
et up, bitch! Get the fuck up right now!” Matt barked, pulling me up off the bed by my hair.
“Agh! Please!” I pleaded. Stabbing pains shot through my scalp causing tears to leak from the sides of my eyes. I couldn't believe Matt had found me. But how? I had covered all of my tracks. There was no way for him to hunt me down through the cell phone. I had left the state.
“So you thought you could just take all of the money and get away with it? Huh? You really thought a street nigga like me would let you get away with crossing me like that?” Matt snarled with his gun pointed at my right eye. He tightened his grip on my hair. I put my hands on top of his to try to ease some of the pressure pulsating through my scalp and head.
“Just blow that bitch's brains out. Fuck all of this talking.” Yancy stood behind Matt talking shit. She would've loved nothing more than to see Matt finally choose her over me.
“Where's the fucking money, Lauren?” Matt asked, tightening his grip on my hair even more.
“Ahh. I . . . I . . . I don't have the money,” I said, wincing. “It's gone. All gone. I had to get rid of it.” I lied. I would never give up where I had stashed the money.
“Gone? Gone where?” Matt asked, pressing the cold steel of his gun harder into the skin of my forehead. My bottom lip trembled and my heart thumped wildly. I knew even if I told Matt and Yancy where the money was they'd still kill me just to get me back for leaving them behind. If I was going to die anyway, why give them the satisfaction of having the money after I was dead. If I couldn't have it nobody could have it.
“I put it all away. I can't touch it and neither can either of you. If I can't have it y'all can't either,” I replied, blurting out what I had been thinking.
“What, bitch?” Yancy spat. “Kill her fucking ass, Matt! Kill her I said!”
“Stop fucking playing and tell me where the money is,” Matt gritted. I watched him move his finger into the trigger guard on the gun. I could see in his face it was paining him to hurt me. Even though I had done some grimy shit to him, I could tell Matt was struggling against the little devil and the little angel on his shoulders. I closed my eyes. I didn't want to die. Not like this. Not at the hands of the man I once loved.
“Please, Matt, don't do this. Everything I did you deserved. You did so many things to me over the years. I was just trying to give you a taste of your own medicine,” I pleaded. “I really don't have the money. It's all gone.”
“Fuck that! Shoot that bitch!” Yancy screamed at Matt over his shoulder. “She conned us out of all of the money. She don't deserve to live,” Yancy pressed.
“Matt, please. I always loved you,” I begged some more.
“Tell me where the money is or die,” Matt said heartlessly. I could see little flickers of our old love in his eyes.
“I can't do that. It's gone . . .” I started to say.
BOOM! BOOM!
* * *
“Noooooooooo.” I bolted upright in the bed gasping for breath. My chest heaved up and down fiercely. I clutched my chest and felt that it was soaking wet. Fear gripped me in a suffocating hold around my throat. I was scared to look down at the hand that I had placed on my chest. Slowly I raised my trembling hand in front of my face and widened my eyes.
“Ahhh,” I let out a long exasperated breath. It was only sweat on my hand and not blood like I had dreamt. I looked down at my nightgown and there were no bullet holes in it. Another sigh of relief escaped my mouth. I whipped my head around and realized I was still in my hotel room alone. The same recurring nightmares of Matt and Yancy catching up to me had been paralyzing me for the two weeks since I'd left them high and dry with not even a dime of the money we had stolen.
“Damn, Lauren, you have to get it together. You can't keep running off of one hour of sleep every night. You have the entire city to explore,” I mumbled to myself.
I tossed the duvet aside and climbed out of the bed. I raced to the safe in the hotel closet and punched in the code I had made up. The safe clicked open. I peeked inside. I pulled out the stacks of money that I had there and held them up against my chest.
“No one can take you away from me,” I spoke to the money. “You're all I need in this life.” I laughed to myself at the fact that I was actually talking to the money like it was a person. It was something I had seen Matt do back in the day when he had it like that. Back then I thought it was the craziest shit I had ever witnessed. I couldn't help but think about one of those times now....
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January 2006
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The sound of the five money counters flipping through stacks of bills had given me chills. Not in a bad way, but in an inexplicably good way. I felt like I was in some fairy-tale dream being around that much money. Yeah, I knew every single bill was dirty money but just being around it gave off such a powerful feeling. I had been with Matt a lot of years and never realized shit was this serious. It was an eye-opening experience to say the least.
Matt was trying to rebuild my trust at the time after being caught cheating again only two months before. Things he never allowed me to do with him were no longer off limits. I was with him everywhere he went so that he could prove to me that he was being faithful.
It was the first time Matt had allowed me to stay while his crew counted their daily take-in. They had been dumping bags and bags of money on three long tables. Coming out of the bags some of the money was in rubber bands, some was loose, and some was folded into bundles. The sound and the smell of the money had actually made the hairs on my neck stand up. Matt smiled at me when he noticed the look on my face.
“Why you looking so amazed, baby girl? You ain't know how your man was getting it out here in these streets?” Matt asked me as he walked around like a proud peacock. I shook my head, but my eyes stayed stretched wide. I must've looked like a kid in a candy store with excitement shining in my eyes. Only a damn deaf, blind mute wouldn't have been in awe of all of that money. There was another table right in front of me where the already sorted money was placed. It had piles and piles of cash on it. Crumpled bills, crisp clean new bills, big bills, and small bills were all piled in stacks that were the same height. I didn't know how they got all of the stacks to look so perfect. Everything was moving like a well-organized business when it came down to counting the money. No one else in the room, aside from me, seemed fazed by the amounts or the process. They all had a job to do.
Matt's crew members Ak, Boone, and Dread were all walking over, picking up large stacks of the cash and putting the stacks in the money counters. They'd listen to the money being flicked and counted by the machine, then they'd pick it up, slide a rubber band around it, and call off the digital number on the counter. There was a female sitting on the side of the table taking down the numbers each time a stack came out of one of the counters. She would then yell it back out loud for confirmation. I had to give it to them, they were moving like real professionals. It looked like what I would picture a bank doing at the end of the night before they put all of the money into the vaults.
“Fifty thousand,” was the last number the girl had called out. My eyebrows went into arches on my face. One stack had equaled fifty thousand and there were plenty more to be counted up. Up until then, I had never been in the presence of that much cash in my life. I had been with Matt for years, but he had always meted out money to me in increments that satisfied him.
I watched Matt walk over to where Ak stood placing the already rubber-banded stacks into several large black duffel bags. Matt dug into one of the bags and picked up a couple of the stacks. He held them up to his nose and inhaled deeply.
“Ahhh. The best fucking scent in the world,” Matt said. Then he held the stacks up to his face and came eye level with them.
“They say y'all are the root of all evil but for me y'all are my savior. I'm always going to worship you. I'm always going to be good to you. You keep being good to me and I'll keep putting you first. Nobody can't take you away from me unless I let them. You're all I need in this life of sin, fuck everything else,” Matt spoke to the money. I squinted my eyes and watched him. He was seriously speaking to the money like it was an actual person or like it was an actual higher power like God. I thought it was crazy then, but I slowly but surely began to understand. When you're a slave to money nothing else really matters.
“You look crazy talking to that money,” I had said to Matt. He had a serious look on his face when he walked over to where I stood.
“It may look crazy but it's reality, baby girl. Everybody in this world worships money. We can say whatever we wanted to say with our mouths but in our hearts and with our spirits we worship this motherfucka money more than any God, Allah, Yahweh, or Buddha. I'm just real enough to show it. Trust me, when you make enough or get your hands on enough of this shit you'll become a believer. A motherfucka who says he wouldn't kill his own mother for money is a lying-ass bastard, baby girl,” Matt preached to me with feeling.
I should've believed every word he said that day because over the years I would find out that it was true. Money ran the world . . . at least the one I lived in.
* * *
I rushed around the hotel room and quickly got dressed. I needed to get out and stop giving in to that lingering fear about Matt and Yancy finding me. I'd planned to leave the country via New York so that I could do some shopping before catching an international flight. Plus, New York was a huge city. What were the chances that Matt and Yancy would even think to come look for me here?
“Can't stay cooped up in this room any longer. Maybe a little retail therapy will help me get rid of these jitters,” I said to myself aloud as I slipped my feet into a pair of pumps.
I finally stepped out of the Millennium Hotel in New York's Times Square and inhaled a lungful of the smoggy city air. I had my ivory and black Chanel CC monogram scarf tied around my head and my eyes were covered in a pair of black oyster shell, oversize, round sunglassesâall Jackie O. style. I had an off-white cap jacket thrown over my shoulders to dress up the dark blue fitted skinny jeans and pointed toe pumps I was wearing. It was a classic, high fashion, but still a not too dressy look. Perfect for New York City, the fashion mecca of the world.
I had always dreamed of moving to New York City when I was a little girl. For some reason as a kid I thought that the streets of New York were paved with gold and everyone who lived here was rich and famous. I used to watch shows that were based in New York and dream of one day standing on the streets of Manhattan and looking up at the crazy tall skyscrapers. Now, I couldn't help but look up at all of the tall buildings just like a little kid would.
Even when I got older and after I got with Matt, he and I would come to New York to shop for all of the newest clothes and shoes, since it took forever for new styles to get to Virginia Beach. I remember those trips would leave me feeling full of life, but I still didn't feel like I had gotten the full effect of being from the city. It was always a quick run up and back down south.
Not now. This time I was here on my own terms. I might even be here to stay. I jumped from a loud car horn blaring in front of me. I had to smile at that. In Virginia no one ever blew their horns unless it was to warn someone that they were about to be run over.
This little old country girl was big city living right now. The blaring of car horns, the brightly lit up billboards, the throngs of traffic and all of the people crowding and rushing up and down the sidewalks, all gave me life. The city that never sleeps was very fitting for me since I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep since arriving in New York. I inhaled one more time. It was off to be a New Yorker for the day for me. First things first, I had to get around.
“Taxi!” I yelled, and waved at one of those famous New York yellow cabs. The car pulled to a screech at the curb. I hopped into the back, smiling like I had just gotten on a roller coaster at an amusement park.
“Where to, lady?” the driver said rudely. All I could do was keep smiling. Even the rudeness of the native New Yorkers was fascinating to me.
“Fifth Avenue . . . where all of the high-end stores are located,” I instructed. The taxi rushed out into the traffic and of course a bunch of other cars and taxis blew their horns at him. I just shook my head.
I watched the cityscape whiz by out of the window. I was in amazement. There were thousands of people on the streets and everyone looked like they had a purpose. Everyone looked like they had money in New York City too. I was down with that. I was trying to fit in too.
I touched my pocketbook where I had three stacks of cash, just waiting to blow it all. I know that was probably the ghetto thing to do since I was kind of on the run, but I had decided that before I settled down someplace for good, I was going to enjoy myself. I had given a lot of time to being Matt's girl and it was my time to focus on myself.
I wanted to see and feel exactly how the other half lived and this time I was going to do it with my own money, not with Matt's drug money or with fake credit cards. Today, I was paying cash for everything that I wanted.
The taxi dropped me off in the heart of Fifth Avenue. Every single high-end store you could name was there. The first store I went into was the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store. I walked in and my eyes grew wide. I couldn't believe I was standing in the very first Saks Fifth Avenue store ever to be created. I don't know why Matt and I had never come to Saks in New York. It was something to see, too. I whirled around on the balls of my feet in amazement. The store still had its old vintage feel. The ceilings were grand with intricate swirly designs and the most beautiful crystal chandeliers hanging from them. They were still the old, wooden ones with the large steps. There were a few modern touches to the store, but for the most part the store had kept all of its original woodwork and style. It was nothing like all of the smaller, newer, not-so-grand Saks stores everywhere else. As soon as I walked in three women dressed up in black pencil skirts, white blouses, and black blazers rushed over to me. They looked like triplets, which I found amusing.