CHAPTER 1
It was six in the morning when I finally said to myself fuck it and got up off my bunk. Today was my eighteenth birthday, which meant my probation officer had no other choice but to order my release. I had been at the Juvenile Justice Center's residential program for more than two years. It could've been a lot less, but unfortunately I wasn't able to pass the GED test so I could get released early.
"Hey, girl!" Lindsay said to me as she came out of her room. She had a towel in one hand and her toothbrush in the other. She had been at the JJC just as long as me. She had a crush on one of the black boys locked up with us, so she intentionally failed the GED test just so she could stay.
"Hey there, beautiful," I told her with a huge smile on my face. Even though most of us were around the same age, all of the girls looked up to me because they all knew I was a mother and a prostitute at a very young age. One of the program's requirements was to tell our life stories to the group. I was mostly truthful about mine. Even after the group, all of the girls would come to my room and want me to tell them stories about growing up in the ghetto streets.
"Kassandra," Christina yelled. She was a female guard who always gave me a hard time. "Your probation officer sent a pass for you!"
I knew that was for the officer to hand me my walking papers, but for some reason I dreaded seeing her. All of my homegirls were clapping for me and all, but I was sad. I didn't know what was next for me back out in the world. My family was there ...
As I waited out in front of her office, I was almost in tears. Her name was Cathy Blight. She was young, blonde, maybe twenty-five years old, and she drove the coolest car in the world, a Nissan 3000 Z. I loved her and her car.
Cathy was like a mother to me. The whole time I was incarcerated at the facility, she took me to see my son, Carlton, at his foster parents' house. She taught me how to drive and dress like a lady. She would take me to nice restaurants and teach me how to eat properly. It was crazy, but what I feared most about leaving was never seeing her again.
"Hi, Kassie!" Cathy said to me as I entered her office. Her back was to me. She was bent over, looking through files, trying to find the papers for me to sign.
"Hey," I sadly said.
When she turned around and faced me, there were tears in her eyes. I jumped up and reached out to her, and she embraced me. We held each other for a few minutes, and then she said, "So, are you going to check in with me?"
"Yes!" I said without letting her go.
"You're going to get a job?"
"Yes."
She pushed me out to arm's length, still holding me so she could look in my eyes. "Kassie, I am going to miss you like crazy," she said, "but I want you to be strong out there. Now, your brother has a room set up for you at his house. I want you to take your time and not rush into anything."
"I'm scared!"
"You should be, but you're a strong girl. I think you'll be just fine."
After meeting with Cathy, I went back to give all of my things away to my friends. Lindsay and I exchanged information and promised to keep in contact with one another. The staff members and all of the girls threw me a surprise birthday party. They invited the boys from across the hall, too, which wasn't normal—the staff knew the boys tried to sneak feels and stuff on the girls—but with me going home on my birthday, they made an exception to the rules.
My brother made it on time to pick me up. He was the only one of my family members who had visited me while I was locked up. My little sister, Jackie, ended up with foster parents and moved to Florida. She wrote me a few times, but I never wrote back. I think being locked up made me bitter. Word was that she found a good mom and was living out in the country on a farm, but who knows.
"So are you ready to go?" Carlton asked me after eating a slice of my birthday cake. I was also eating cake and drinking punch. Funny how at eighteen years old, I was still enjoying cake and ice cream—maybe because growing up I only remember getting a Dilly bar and a Hostess cake for my party. My mother would use her children's birthday parties as a reason to invite over our useless aunties, just so they could get drunk and high.
"Yeah, bro, I am ready," I said, breaking from my trance.
"Bye, Kassie!" Lindsay said. She was so sweet. Here I was, dark-skinned, petite, and from the streets. She was blonde, with very nice body, and from the suburbs. Somehow we became best friends. "I will call you when I go on my next pass."
"That's fine! Call my brother's number. Be good and get your butt out of here ..."
"Okay!" Lindsay said under her breath with a pout. She always did that whenever I told her something everybody else was telling her as well. We were connected that way.
Once my brother and I finally left the building, everything changed. When I got out to the car, I saw there were already two of his homeboys sitting in the car with blunts rolled up and bottles of Bebicka vodka in the backseat waiting for me. First thing I did was kick the back of my brother's seat after I got in behind him.
"Boy, you going to get me back locked up on my first day home," I told my brother.
"Girl, chill out. You been gone for two years. I know you need a drink."
"You right, bro," I said before taking the bottle from Jeff, who was sitting next to me in the back. Then I looked over at him and realized he was a boy I had a crush on growing up but knew was too cute to take me seriously. But now I had a perm, my hair done up in a wrap. Cathy had taken me to get my nails done up in a French manicure style with her. She would always take me and Lindsay along; the two of them would get tanned up, and I always got nails and a new perm. It was crazy, because I got my first perm while locked up, so not only did I learn how to put it in perfectly by myself, I also did all of the other girls' hair for them, white and black.
I looked at myself in the mirror from the backseat, and for the first time in my life I saw myself and felt like I was beautiful. My hair was banging. I had on a skull cap with a brim on it, a North Face jacket to match, and some lip gloss that made my lips look luscious and good. I'd known I needed to check myself out from the way my brother's friends were barking at me when I walked up to the car.
"You want to go see Mama?" Bro asked me, also looking at himself in the mirror and making eye contact with me. We were so much alike, which was weird because we had different daddies, yet we were identical almost.
"Not now! She didn't come see me the whole time I was in there."
"I know, but she's still your mother," he told me protectively. "Besides, I need to go over there to bust a serve anyway."
"Bust a serve?" I asked, all too familiar with that term from the year or so I spent living from trap house to trap house with Ricky.
"You heard me!"
"I know you ain't selling that shit now, Bro?" I asked.
He never answered me. He knew I lost my baby's father to that shit. I thought to myself, silent and distant, about that night. I lost my freedom, and Ricky lost his life, and our son lost us both. A tear came into the corner of my eye, but I shook it off. Instead, I grabbed the blunt from Jeff and took a hit that caused me to choke up a storm.
As much as I wanted to relive that past nightmare in my mind, I could not. I was free, with a new look and a new way of looking at life. I loved Ricky and always would miss him, but I could be laying next to him in that funeral home. What he did was stupid.
CHAPTER 2
"Hey, baby! You look so nice!" my mother yelled at me as soon as I came in the door. She was looking like she'd aged twenty years since I last saw her.
"Hey, Mama," I said before giving her a hug. She kissed me on the cheek, which was a familiar feeling.
"You hungry? Girl, how you been? How's that baby?" she kept going at a hundred miles a second.
"Carlton," I corrected her.
"Oh, yeah, Carlton," she said apologetically. "After your brother?"
"Yeah. You talked to Jackie?"
"No! She is gone to college or something ..."
"You don't know?" I asked, offended.
Before she could answer me, Carlton came running up from the basement. He looked at me and asked, "You ready?"
"Yeah!"
We left and promised to come back over later. I could say that she was doing better than the last time I saw her. She had a boyfriend who was taking care of her, so she wasn't living on the streets.
After my brother took me to Linden Grill, we went over to the studio that was next to Frankie's BBQ. The moment we got out of the car, the smell of the ribs and special barbecue sauce hit my nose. I wanted to get some ribs as well, but I decided to save my money. Cathy had given me twenty dollars before I left, which wasn't going to last long if I went in Frankie's.
Once we got into the studio, there were people everywhere. Marcos, the driver, took it upon himself to introduce me to everybody like I was his date. He even told one of his friends I was going to be his li'l boo, which I thought was sexy because it had been a long time since any man called me boo, and it seemed like a lifetime since I had some dick. I let him know that, too, but through body language.
Marcos was cute. He had a swagger about him that turned me on. He was tall, skinny, and dressed like he had money. His car was nice too; it was a girly car, but it had tints and a nice stereo inside and would look good if I was driving it.
"How old are you?" I asked him after we were finally done greeting everybody. He was sitting next to me on the couch. Everybody else was busy writing raps to the beats that were playing so loud I had to yell for him to hear me.
"Twenty-two. Why?"
"I just wondered, that's all."
"Want to go out to the car so we can talk without yelling?" he asked me. I knew it was an invite, and he knew that's exactly what I was waiting for.
"That's cool ..." I said while giving my brother the eye. He looked at me and then shrugged his shoulders. Even though he was a year older than me, he looked at me like I was the oldest. Maybe it's because there was a time when I made money to feed us all. Seemed so long ago, but it was still reality.
When we got out to the car and I got in the front seat, it felt weird. Last time I was in a car with a man, it was Ricky. I was Ricky's personal assistant; he always made me drive him around and even drive myself around to go handle his business for him. I didn't even know how to drive at first, but after a few bumps and fender benders, I got good at it.
Marcos was texting the whole time. He didn't say one word to me. I was confused, because I wanted him to make the first move. He had no clue that all he had to do was touch me or even hint at it, and I would've fucked him right then and there.
"You feel like riding with me somewhere?" he asked, but he sounded frustrated, like he had an attitude.
"Where?"
"Man, my cousin needs me to drive somewhere for him."
"You going to bust a serve?" I asked, already sick and tired of dope deals within the first couple hours home. All the time I spent locked up for drug charges—for drugs that weren't even mine—made me hate that shit.
"I don't sell dope," he replied, taking off as if I'd agreed to go with him.
"What do you do?" I curiously asked. I was rolling up the blunt he handed me soon as we got in the car and having a rough time getting the blunt to stick.
"I'm a driver!" he told me, driving and texting at the same time.
"A getaway driver," I joked, firing up the blunt at the same time, holding it so it would stick together, passing it to him.
"My cousin pays me to drive him and his girls around."
At first when he told me this, I just let it go into one ear and out the other. Who cared what he did and who he worked for? My mind was on something else. All the weed and liquor were running through my body, so I wanted to relax and, honestly, get fucked really hard.
We pulled up to a townhouse of some sort out in Georgetown by Notre Dame. There were cars lined up on the side of the house in the grass. There was a Cadillac, a big black van, and a black SUV. The front door was open, and from the looks of it, there was a party going on.
Marcos was still texting somebody on the phone. I had no idea what he was doing, but as soon as we walked into the house, I was greeted at the door by Marcos's cousin. He was tall, had his shirt off, and was exposing his tattoos and beer belly. He was wearing some Jordan basketball shorts and sandals and had a blunt in his mouth. He grabbed my hand and kissed it.
"Heard a lot about you," he told me, causing me to immediately look over my shoulder at Marcos.
"What did you hear about me?" I asked, confused. There were maybe five or six women running around getting dressed. I didn't know why, but I felt like I was out of place. They were all beautiful in different ways: thick, white, skinny, black ...
"I heard you were fine, with a banging body," he told me, still holding my hand at a distance to have a look.
"You did?"
"Yes, and I heard you just got out of jail today and need to find a job."
"I never told him that," I snapped.
"Look," he told me, showing me his iPhone screen with a picture of me walking out of JJC saved on it. "Isn't that you?"
"Yeah, but how did you get that?"
"Long story! Look, do you want to go with us?"
"Where ya'll going?" I asked, scared but interested at the same time. There was something about this guy that was powerful. It was an energy I'd never been around before. He wasn't asking me, he was telling me.
"Chicago!"
"Chicago?"
"Yeah, but don't worry. We coming back in the morning. We only going to go until six a.m. and then coming back. Cool?"
I didn't answer. He wasn't asking me anyway. Marcos couldn't look me in the eye either. He'd set me up. It was all making sense. His cousin was a pimp.
Here I was, a retired prostitute, and on my first day out of jail I get introduced to a pimp. I never had a pimp before. I had watched movies, I had read books about them, but I never thought I would meet one. He never told me he was one either. Soon as I realized I was on my way to Chicago, I had a seat. My mother, Cathy, my brother, my son, all went through my mind for a brief second. I knew I still had a choice, but deep down inside, I also felt at home. It was crazy, too, because for the first time in my life I actually knew what I was about to get myself into. I was scared, and it felt good.
None of the girls said anything to me. It was just like being looked up, because before anyone says anything to you, they size you up. At first you pose a threat, but then you become an associate. A simple nod is all it takes. I sat there silent. I watched everything, but I paid extra attention to the pimp. He moved around the room so fluidly. It was like he was with every one of the girls. I watched him help one girl who was taking pictures of another girl with his phone. Then he sat next to me and helped another girl put an address into a GPS, and then he went into the bathroom where another girl was using a curling iron to fix her hair. He was everywhere—I got confused just watching him.
"Papa!" I heard someone yell from upstairs. She was loud, and as soon as she yelled for him, he went running up the stairs. I couldn't see or hear anything, but I wondered how many girls were up there and what they looked like. So far, it was pretty even. There were three black girls and two white girls, and from the sound of her voice, this other girl sounded white.
I sat for a few seconds alone on the couch while everybody ignored me. Marcos wasn't anywhere to be found either. It was like nobody cared who I was; they passed me the blunts that seemed to come from every direction. I almost fell asleep sitting there.
"Kassandra!" I heard the pimp yell from upstairs. It startled me. "Come up here!"
"Okay," I yelled back, adrenaline rushing through my body. I went up not quite knowing what to expect.
There were three doors at the top of the stairs, all closed. I heard yelling or arguing behind one, with loud music playing. It sounded like Mariah Carey, but a song I had never heard before, and it was jamming. Sitting there waiting for something to happen, I started dancing. Crazy part is that growing up living with my mother, dancing was the only way I could take myself from the reality of what was going on around me. This was like that same feeling all over again.
"Hi!" This girl scared me as she opened up the master bedroom door. "I'm going to be putting you under my wing tonight, so come on inside," she said.
"Putting me under your wing?"
Ignoring my question, she said, "You're a petite little thing, aren't you?"
Embarrassed, I said, "Yes."
"Well, let me see. I may have some heels for you and some leggings. Then you will need some makeup. I don't know if you can fit into any of my dresses." She kept talking to herself as if I wasn't there or as if she was fitting me up for a dress. "Take your clothes off!"
