I was in a couple of fights, I’ve been jumped while I was on the inside, and I dodged death at least twice. I didn’t have to share that though. I wouldn’t dare tell my family that shit.
“Come on, ya’ll. Let’s get in the car. I know Bean ready to get the hell from over here,” Ari said, reading my mind.
I knew that Amir could get in the car on his own, but I still lifted him up, put him inside his booster seat, and I assisted him with putting on his seat belt. Once he was good, I kissed his cheek and closed the door behind me.
I went over to the passenger door, that I pulled open, and I sat down on the red seats. Her car was squeaky clean, and you could still smell that new car smell in here. I turned to the back to look at Amir, who was now playing on his iPad, and on the seat next to him, you could see Ari’s Chanel purse. My cousin worked as a bottle girl at a popular strip club here in Miami. She was popular because of that. That job had afforded her the nice townhouse that she had, this nice car, and everything else. I was happy for her.
“I know this probably not the first stop you want to make, but auntie Keyshawn told me to bring you to her shop as soon as I get you, so that’s where we about to go. Look at your head, Bean. You look like a little dyke,” she said, reaching her hand over, so that she could rub it through the braids that I had in.
My cellmate put straight back braids in my hair about a month ago, and this is how I had been rocking it. If you let me, I would rock my hair like this for the rest of the year and wouldn’t see a problem with it. I was such a beautiful girl, but there wasn’t shit girly about me. I moved like a nigga, and it would piss my mama off because my mama was girly as hell, while I was the complete opposite.
I had a lot of sandy brown hair. That came from my father. I don’t know much about hair, but over the years, I’ve always heard my mom tell me that I had 3A type hair. My curls were loose and defined. It had a lot of body, and bounce to it. It was hard for me to keep up with it because I didn’t know shit about doing hair.
While I was locked up, my roommate would keep it braided, so that’s what I had going on right now. About fifteen straight back braids were in my hair, and the braids went down to the middle of my back.
I truly looked like the little dyke that Ari said. I was already built like a 12-year-old little boy, so me having the nerve to put these braids in my hair wasn’t helping me look like a girl in any circumstance. I was wearing the gray sweatshirt and sweatpants that the jail provided for me. I was in the smallest size that they had, and it still was too big for me. Up under these clothes were titties that were barely an A cup, a flat stomach, small hips, and small ass.
“I may just tell her to cut all this shit off. I don’t be knowing what the fuck to do with my hair,” I said to Ari, as she pulled out of the parking spot.
“Because you don’t try to learn. You want to run around, and act like a nigga. You are such a beautiful girl, Riot. The niggas that you could snag if you would just tap into your feminine side,” she went on to say, and I sucked my teeth, not wanting to hear that shit at all.
I was one bitch that it just wouldn’t be in your best interest to talk to me about a nigga. I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t gay. I swear I wasn’t into girls at all. I did look at some men, and find them attractive, but that was as far as it went with me. I’ve never in my life had a boyfriend. Never even kissed a boy, so from there, you should know that I wasn’t fuckin. Never even came close to losing my virginity.
Like my cousin said, I was a beautiful girl, and of course, niggas have tried to talk to me over the years, but I would never budge. I have so many women in my family. My mama, all my aunties, my cousins, and my best friend, so I’ve seen the shit that they’ve dealt with by being involved with men, and I just didn’t want any parts of that. Hell would probably freeze over if I ever got into a relationship with a man because that’s just how detached I was from that ever happening to me.
Instead of responding back to my cousin, I chose to disengage, and I stared out the window, paying attention to my surroundings, hoping that this was my last time having to come to this place.
“You hungry? I can stop and get you something to eat. You look like you need to eat something. Were you not eating in there?” Ari wanted to know.
“Nah. I’m not hungry,” I responded.
“Okay, so what about the other part. Were you not eating? We were all putting money on your books. What were you doing with the money?” she wanted to know.
All the questions were getting ready to annoy me, but this was my cousin, that I actually loved and respected, so I wanted to watch the way that I came at her.
“Putting money on my books didn’t just go towards food, Ari. I would use the money to get my hygiene products, extra clothes and shit, and believe it or not, I was in there doing a lot of reading, so most of my money went towards books. I diduse some of the money for snacks too. You acting like we had the kind of food in there that people have at one of those fancy all-inclusive resorts. The shit that they were giving us was the equivalent to slop, so I wasn’t eating like that,” I voiced, only giving her the partial truth, not telling her the real reason why I wouldn’t eat the food that the jail served us.
“Okay. Well, you know your grandma going to fatten you up. Wait until she sees you,” she said, referring to our grandma Sharon. She was the soul food queen. Nobody in the world could cook like my grandmother.
“I’m not about to be eating none of that shit, honestly. I told you while I was locked up that I was doing a lot of reading. I read a lot of books about health, and how to stay alive longer. I learned a lot about the shit that they be putting in our foods. All that processed shit. The preservatives. All that fried shit ain’t doing nothing but clogging up our arteries. Ima go vegan,” I told her, and right after I said it, she turned her head to look at me like I was crazy, and then she started laughing.
“Bean, please! Like girl please, for real. Who the fuck loves soul food more than your skinny ass? What about your religious beliefs? Are you changing that too? You know people do a little time in jail, and then they come back, and suddenly their Muslim. You doing that?” she wanted to know.
“Nah. I ain’t on that,” I was real with her.
“All the good cooking that your grandma be doing, so I would love to see you go vegan. Other than that, what’s the plan? You might as well talk to me about it now because you know that as soon as you get in your mama shop, that that’s going to be the first thing that she brings up,” she said, and I sighed, already know that she was telling the truth.
“Shit, my plan is the same shit that it was before I got locked up. You know what I’m on. You know what I’m trying to do,” I voiced, looking in the back at my little cousin, just to see ifhe was paying us any attention, but he wasn’t. He was too busy locked in on his iPad, playing Roblox.
Ari didn’t like my response, so she shook her head at me.
“I’m not going to even comment on that because we going to be arguing. I’ll let Keyshawn get in your ass about that when you tell her what your plans are. Sometimes, I just don’t understand you, Bean. The kind of shit that you want to be out here doing, you have so many examples right in front of your face on why you shouldn’t be doing that shit. I know you don’t want to hear this, but look what happened to your daddy, and your brother. The life you trying to live, that’s the life that they were living, so why would you want to follow the same fuckin thing and possibly end up just like them?” her voice went up a little bit as she was talking to me.
“I just don’t understand why you sat here, and asked me what my plan was, when you knew what my answer was going to be, and then you turn around and get upset with me when I don’t say what you want to hear. You know the kind of bitch that I am, Ariana. You know what the fuck I want to do to make money. Do anything about me give that I want to work a 9 to 5? No shade to you, but also, does anything about me give that I want to be a bottle girl? Fuck no. I want to move fuckin bricks!” I shouted, needing her to get this shit through her fuckin head.
I loved my family, but I felt like they were always trying to change me. They wanted to push me in one direction, when it was obvious that I wanted to go in another. I was a product of my daddy. This hustle was in my DNA. Right when shit was looking good for me, and I started doing my thing, getting in good with a nigga named Gold, being a part of his organization, that’s when shit went left for me, and I got into a fight with that bitch at the club, and I had to sit down, and serve my time.
Now, I was out, and I was hungry for this money, and I wanted to finish off exactly where I left off, hoping that Gold still had a spot for me at his table.
