Zero Degrees Part 1 (3 page)

“Yes ma. I understand,” I said.

Of course you know that I met your father when he was stationed in Cuba when I was seventeen.”

I nodded and waited to hear what she was so anxious to tell me.

“He was eighteen and had just enlisted in the Army. It was his first deployment and his first time anywhere outside of the States. My parents were strict, but for some reason they had no problem with my interest in your father. I guess they felt that if I married him I’d have a better life in the US.”

She continued her story and I listened attentively as I pictured the scenes in my mind like a movie. When I returned to my cottage my head was swimming. What my mother had told me was shocking, but it all made sense. The pieces of the puzzle had finally come together because I’d never understood why anyone would want to hurt my father.

My mom’s three brothers were deep in the coke trade and were involved with a very dangerous drug cartel. Their reach extended pass Cuba into the US. They’d been dealing with the main ports of Florida and New Orleans. Their names were Alejandro, Havier and Pedro. They were three of Cuba’s most notorious drug lords.

My mom had gotten pregnant and my father had returned to the US after his term in Cuba was complete. They weren’t married and my mother had a hard time getting a passport to go be with him. Cuba, of course, is not the most liberal country on the map, so getting my mother to America was a task. She ended up giving birth to me in Cuba where I learned to speak Spanish and a lot about my Cuban roots. My mother had taught me to speak English as well. When I was four we were finally able to leave Cuba to be with my dad.

He’d saved up and bought a modest home in a neighborhood in Fayetteville called Tiffany Pines. After four years in the armed services my pops used his GI bill to go to college. He decided to not reenlist and went to Fayetteville State University to get a degree in Computer Science. After he got his degree he got a job at IBM located in Raleigh, NC. He made the forty five minute commute to work and earned $80,000.00 a year. Life was good.

Eventually my uncles decided that they wanted more control over the US drug trade. They somehow had convinced my father to help them expand their illegal activities. Since he’d minored in mathematics in college he was excellent with numbers and knew how to keep the money coming. He developed a hunger for making money and enjoyed watching his stash grow. My father and uncles were moving kilos of coke all over the east and west coasts. He’d gone from a modest salary to making more than five million dollars a year. That was only his cut, so you could imagine what my uncles were making.

Some of my uncles’ business associates in Cuba were getting antsy. They loved the money my dad was bringing in, but shit was starting to get hot. Because they were moving the coke over international waters they felt like their cut should’ve been more than my father’s. My father and my uncles were getting too big for them. Later my uncles were found brutally murdered on a dirt road in Cuba. My parents somehow got my grandparents out of Cuba and moved them to the US.

My father was so deep in the drug game that after the murder of my uncles he didn’t stop. He only took it upon himself to find another connect. He couldn’t go back to working a regular nine to five after making so much money, so instead of going legit he continued to make millions illegally.

We ended up moving to St. Louis, Missouri, where my father was originally from. He hooked up with his best friend Darrick and his brother Black. They quickly moved to the top of the drug game. He purchased a million dollar home, cars and other luxuries that were a result of living the lifestyle. Life was lovely, or so it seemed.

I could still remember it just like it was yesterday. I was nine years old and I’d just received an award for making straight A’s and having the highest average in my fourth grade class. My daddy was going to definitely take me to Baskin Robbins for two scoops of Cherry Vanilla Ice cream. When I made good grades he’d either give me money, or take me to the mall to get some expensive. designer clothes. Something was in the air that day. Although I should’ve been happy, I couldn’t help but feel like something just wasn’t right. When I walked inside the house I could hear the muffled sounds of sobs. My mom was crying. I walked into the living room and there she was sitting in the dark with the phone in her hand.

I ran over to her. “Mommy, what’s wrong?” I asked.

She didn’t even look up at me. She just stared down at the phone. Her sobs became louder and then she finally spoke. “Your father…he’s gone.”

“Gone? Where did he go? Did he leave us mommy? Did he leave like Kelly’s daddy?” I asked. Kelly was my best friend at the time. Her father had left them a few months before.

She put the phone down and finally looked at me. “No, he’s dead baby. He’s gone.” She rocked back and forth with tears streaming down her pretty face, but for some reason she couldn’t look me in my eye.

I remember going numb. I looked at the bracelet on my arm and stared at his picture like it would bring him back. My whole body had shut down. Part of me died that day too. I was never the same. They said my father had been shot three times in the chest and four times in the head execution style. His body was found by two fisher men at a nearby lake. There were no witnesses or any evidence that could bring forth any suspects. Out of fear we went back to North Carolina. My father had left a lot of money behind, but my mother had blown that in no time. At least that was what she had told me. I had always had the feeling that she wasn’t telling me something. There were times when she would come up with large sums of cash and then there was that time when I saw all that money in the suitcase.

My grandparents had ended up moving with their other daughter Rosita in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and we moved in with my Aunt Paulette. I had the feeling that momma was hiding something.

My mother ended up working at a night club as a waitress. At the time I didn’t know that she was on a mission. Eventually she met Goody at the club. He was a hustler with potential and we moved into his house in University Estates. That had all been part of her plan; a plan that had backfired.

I never knew that my father had been a hustler, or that my mom could be so conniving. She’d kept me in the dark about her past. I’d heard some people refer to my father as a drug dealer, but I always thought it was a lie. She’d always told me that my father worked with computers. Finally his murder made sense. My uncles’ murderer or murderers had to have killed my father too. They felt that my father was still a threat to them somehow and they had to eliminate him as well.

My bunkmate Ameria walked into the room and interrupted my thoughts. “You comin’ to chow?” She asked.

“Yeah. I’ll be there in a little while.”
“You okay?” She asked.

I nodded and she reluctantly left the room.

Suddenly I felt the tears coming. It actually felt good to cry, but after one good cry I vowed that I would never cry again. All I wanted to do was destroy every muthafucka who’d ever caused me pain. The first ones on the list were those Cuban fucks who killed my uncles and my father. I didn’t know how, but I was going to touch them when I got out.

Chapter 3

My first day in juvie was like my first day of high school. I had a hard look on my face wishing a bitch would. All I could think about was how I was going to beat a bitch’s ass if she came at me on some gay bullshit, point blank, no questions asked and no unnecessary fussing. The guard led me to one of the many one story brick buildings that they referred to as cottages. There was a fence that surrounded the property. I smiled at the thought of escaping to Buff’s crib in Campbell Terrace projects in the Ville.

Campbell Terrace had a bad rep, but I felt safe there because Buff, whose government was Jamal, ran shit with his older brother Jimel. Jimel, better known as Zeus in the streets, was twenty and Buff was seventeen. Zeus was fine as hell with his black, sexy ass. He was 6’4 and weighed a solid 225 lbs. He had sexy, dark brown, tight eyes like he was part Asian, with thick juicy lips. Buff was nice looking too, but he hadn’t made it to Zeus’s status yet. I knew that those niggas could take on those faggot ass guards if they came to break me out.

“Okay Zeaira, meet your bunkmates Ameria, Christeena, Lorielle, Felicia and Monica.”

They nodded and mumbled unenthusiastic hellos. I didn’t say anything in return. Ameria was the only one who smiled at me. I could tell that Christeena was a lesbian. She didn’t look like she belonged in juvie. She appeared older and was bigger, like she was in her early twenties. She was tall, about 5’10 with a thick frame. She wasn’t fat, but she wore big clothes and sported corn rows. She was the color of milk chocolate with a pretty face. Lorielle, Felicia and Monica were suspect, but I couldn’t tell by looking at them. Ameria seemed to be straight, but you never could tell.

The guard showed me to my bed and let me know where to put my belongings.

“Okay ladies, make Zeaira feel at home. Just like you all, she’ll be here for a while,” she said with a smirk on her face.

‘Slick mouth bitch,’ I thought.

“You have a few hours before lunch, so get acquainted with your new roomie. No trouble Christeena,” she said cutting her eyes at her as she left.

The room was silent for about ten minutes as the five strangers studied me. I knew that something was about to jump off. I could feel it. One of those broads were going to try me.

“So, what you do shawty?” A husky voice asked behind me. I had a feeling it was Christeena. I turned to see that she was staring at me with lust in her eyes. I’d seen that look in men’s eyes before when they looked at me; especially Goody. I recognized it well.

“You tell me what you did first,” I said giving her attitude.

“Hustlin’, you know bakin’ and sellin’ them cookies. I did a few armed robberies and shit too. Your turn,” she said undressing me with her eyes.

I shook my head at her in disgust. When Christeena winked at me I focused on the other four girls. “What the rest of ya’ll do?” I asked.

Ameria spoke up first. “My boyfriend Reggie robbed this old white dude and then shot him in the neck twice. He died right in front of me. I didn’t know he was going to kill him. I’ll be here for three more years. He got life without parole. He’s locked up in Raleigh at Central Prison. We’re still together, but…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes filled with tears.

“I stabbed my boyfriend in the stomach, but he lived. I slashed the bitch he was cheating on me with in the face. I got two years,” Felicia said like she didn’t care one way or another.

“I stole a couple cars and moved some powder over state lines for my ex-boyfriend. I got a year and half left,” Monica said.

Lorielle looked up and spoke in a timid voice. “Me and my girls stole some really expensive jewelry from a jewelry store. We had done it at other jewelry stores too. We had got ‘bout $100,000 worth of shit. Oh, I got two DUI’s and I got caught selling X and weed at school. I got two more years.”

I was surprised as hell, because Lorielle looked and sounded so innocent.

“So?”Christeena asked me as she licked her lips. The sly smile that covered her face made me want to url.

“I shot and killed my mom’s boyfriend,” I said bluntly.

They looked shocked.

At lunch time we filed down to the chow hall in silence. As we stood in line waiting to be served I felt a hand brush against my ass. I turned around and Christeena flicked her tongue out at me.

“Yeah, I wanna eat that puss…” Before she could get the words out I elbowed the hoe in her face with all my might. I felt the gristle and bone snap as I swung again with an over hand right and caught her on the chin. She staggered backwards with blood running from her nose as she squinted at me like her vision was blurred. The bitch was dazed. I lunged forward and kicked that bitch in her pussy. By then all the girls were hooting, hollering and instigating the fight as they formed a circle around us. To my surprise, Christeena shook that shit off like a real dude. Someone in the crowd yelled,

“Fuck that bitch up Christeena!”

Other girls began to join in on Teena’s cheering squad, telling her to whoop my ass. I was the new girl and they all acted like I was the enemy. I put up my fists just like Buff had taught me. I was prepared to fight the big lesbian bitch like a man. That was until she reached inside her pants and pulled out a knife. The handle was missing and it had tape around it. The sharpened edges glistened. I took a timid step backwards and someone tried to trip me. I nearly stumbled and fell, but I caught myself. That’s when Christeena charged me. I remember hearing her yelling like she intended to inflict so much bodily harm. By then blood was gushing out of her nose like a faucet. She looked demented, like a crazed mantic. She swung the knife and barely missed my face. I quickly ducked underneath her, scooped her high off her feet and slammed her hard on her back. I heard her gasp as she embraced the pain and got the wind knocked out of her. The knife slid across the linoleum floor.

I sat on her chest, grabbed the back of her braided hair and tried to pound her face in. We scuffled like crabs in a bucket. She bit my arm, kicked and thrashed. I was beating her ass and raking my fingernails across her face. One of her home girls pulled my hair, yanked hard and hit me in the face. I was stunned. She was trying to roll me over so that Christeena would be on top. By then I was tired and I didn’t have enough energy to fight two bitches. That was when I heard someone yell out,

“Uh, uh, hell naw’ll Keisha! You ain’t goin’ jump in. It’s just between them two or else it’s goin’ be me and you bitch!”

I looked up to see Ameria shove the girl off me. Ameria had walked into the chaos just in time. They were getting ready to rat pack my ass.

Someone yelled, “The guards comin’!”

One of Christeena’s girls picked the knife up off the floor and took off with it as the girls dispersed. For some reason I couldn’t let go of Christeena’s hair as I panted hard as hell. Shit, I was tired. We had scrapped hard and long.