4
SANTANA
S
traight to the top my behind
, Santana thought, sucking her teeth. Pharaoh could go kick rabbit turds as far as she was concerned. She was PO'd to the highest level of pisstivity. She crossed her arms and twisted in the passenger seat. How could he promise her a surprise and tell her
stick wit ya man
, then leave her in the car waiting for him for almost two hoursâin the summertime heat, on a dangerous street known for drug trafficking and gang violence? If she didn't love him so muchâif he didn't have a reputation for being more dangerous than the street he'd left her waiting for him onâshe'd slap his platinum grill out of his mouth.
“He must not know I'm from the skreets.” She pulled her phone from her purse, logged into Facebook, and thought about changing her relationship status to single, but it wasn't that serious and would make the nasty female dogs who wanted her manânamely Naeâcome after him hard, and she didn't feel like battling the buzzards coming in for a kill. No one was going to dead her relationship with Pharaoh.
No one.
“Gross,” she said, wincing at the updates populating the screen. Namely, HotNsexy Jackson. HotNsexy Jackson was her too-young-to-be-called-Mom mother, who'd demanded they be Facebook friends, and she'd just made Santana's stomach turn by changing her relationship status and further informing the world that not only was she was in love, but also moving the man in.
“Not another one,” Santana said, switching to her profile screen and wondering how long her mother would keep this new man Santana had never met but would be sharing a roof with.
“He godda have tall bank.” Her mother had a bad habit of not keeping men, so Santana wasn't fazed. Her thoughts moved right back to Pharaoh. She moved the cursor to the text box next to her own status and clued the universe in on how she felt.
She turned her phone around, pulled her hair back from her ears to show off the custom earrings that he'd bought her, snapped a picture of herself next to the headrest that had
Pharaoh
embroidered on it, then loaded it as her new profile picture. In seconds, her cell chimed twice. Texts from her mother and Meka.
GET, GET, GET IT! CRAIG SAYS HELLO DAUGHTER.
Â
YO STATUZ IZ SWEET! HAV FUN. CALL ME L8TRZ
Santana rolled her eyes and the windows down. She wasn't having fun; she was bored and much too fly to be waiting on a dude. Didn't he know that by now? Sticking her head out, she surveyed the block, saw that it was relatively empty, wrapped her hand around the handle, and opened the passenger door.
“Oh so y'all in love! Ain't that sweet!” A girl's voice called out from the driver's side before Santana could put her foot on the ground.
Santana whipped her face around and saw a car full of hoodrats and chickenhead girls packed like sardines in a raggedy excuse for a car. One of them stood out from the rest, the one with the biggest mouth and attitude. Nae.
“Oh,
our
boyfriend got you mad?” Nae mocked in a toddler voice. “What happened, you still acting like you too good to go all the way, and now he's actin' up?”
Fire shot though Santana's veins. “You know what, Nae? You can go 'head wit all that. You know you don't want none of this. Don't try to act all bad cuz you got company.
My
boyfriend is just that,
mine
.”
The girls in the car laughed, egging Nae on. “Bet next time you won't be Facebooking all yo bizness. Bet you didn't realize your picture showed what skreet you on!”
“Get her, Nae.... We ain't bring you here just to talk.”
Nae chimed right in. “Well
your
boyfriend was
mines
last night. And I was so, so good to him. Do he tell you dat too? Dat you good to him? Do this sound familiar: âOh, oh, I can't believe I slept on you. I shoulda got wit you a long time ago, shawty,' ” Nae said, deepening her voice to sound like Pharaoh.
That was it. Santana had had enough of backstabbing Nae. She took off her earrings, adjusted her rings to face forward so they could dig into Nae's skin when she punched her in the face, and hopped out of the car. Nae's butt kicking was long overdue, and Santana was the one to hand it to her.
They'd been friends once, or at least that's what Santana had believed until she got with Pharaoh. After that, Nae had started tripping, acting envious, and “accidentally” telling Pharaoh about boys Santana talked to when he wasn't around, but never telling him that Santana always kicked down their advances. Then Nae's envy turned to jealousy, and she no longer just desired to have things
like
Santana's, she wanted
what
Santana hadâincluding Pharaoh. But she'd have to take him if she wanted him, and it wouldn't be easy. Santana could brawl with the best of them, and Nae wasn't even close to best or any word starting with a
B
but one, and it ended in itchâexactly what the wounds Santana planned to inflict on Nae would feel like once they started to heal.
Santana began to walk around the back of Pharaoh's car, and suddenly the street began to fill with hoodlums. She didn't know if Nae had called people ahead of time to tell them what was getting ready to go down or what, but she didn't care. She wasn't the one whose skin and behind were going to need a spatula to be scraped up off the street.
“Come on, Nae. You brought it, now bring it. Get out the car!” she dared her, banging on the trunk of the chickenhead-mobile Nae was in. “Come on! I'm inviting you to get that azz whooped.”
“Man, I got twenty bones on Santana!” Some dude with jeans sagging off his butt and dirty, dusty boxers showing said, walking up to some guys while counting money.
“I'll match that,” another agreed. “Shawty go to skool with my brutha, and she be mopping hallways with headsâboy's heads at dat!”
A boy with long, red dreadlocks countered. “Bwoy, please. Me tinks me put me money on de undah-dog. Dat der gal been hot for Pharaoh fa-evah. She not g'won to sekkle for less.”
“Aw, Dread, speak American! Dis Hotlanta, not the islands. We don't know what you just said, but I'll take your money though!”
Santana stood in the middle of the street, waiting. She looked to her left, then her right, remembering Nae's scary behind wasn't alone. She was a true, bona fide scrapper, but she wasn't a fool. There, sitting next to the curb, was what she needed. A bottle.
“Come on, Nae!” she urged, walking over and picking up the twenty-ounce glass weapon. She hit it against the concrete, breaking off enough to be able to hold it confidently. Its jagged edges were the perfect solution to a multi-girl fight.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, hands wrapped and held on to the back of her arms, pulling her back. Santana jerked her body and swung the broken bottle at her opponent. Pharaoh ducked and jumped back. “Santana stop! What you doing out here fighting in the skreet?” He reached for the bottle. “Gimme dat! You ain't goin' be out here fightin dat scallywag. For what, shawty?”
Santana snatched the bottle back. She didn't care how mad Pharaoh was or how violent his reputation, she wasn't giving up her weapon when she had so many enemies around.
“ 'Ey! Yo!” he boomed, walking up to the car Nae and her friends were in. “What's yo problem, Nae? What I tell you about trying my girl? Didn't I tell you if I ever catch you 'round her that I'd slap yo daddy so hard that
yo
head would split?”
From where she stood, Santana couldn't hear Nae, but she did see her cower.
“Get out the car!” Pharaoh yelled at Nae like she was his child. “Now! Or it ain't gone be me you havta to worry about, I'ma let Santana get you.” He turned his head to a group of guys standing on a porch.
“ 'Ey, Gully! Come get my girl for me.”
A lanky guy dressed in collegiate clothes bumbled down the porch steps and walked through the grassless yard.
“Okay, Pharaoh. Don't worry, I'll take care of her,” the guy said, sounding like a textbook.
Santana looked at him, wondering where he'd come from. He was dressed too preppy and spoke too proper to be one of Pharaoh's boys.
“Don't touch me!” she hissed.
“So . . . Santana, how are you doing today? Rhetorical question. I apologize. Would you like to come in, maybe have a glass of water?”
Rhetorical
? What the heck did rhetorical mean? she wondered, cringing at the too-proper way he spoke. To her he sounded like a computer, like the navigation system in her mother's car. No one spoke that way. She raised her eyebrows and flared her nostrils.
“Don't touch me or I'll slice this bottle across your face,” she promised.
Gully put up his hands. “Okay. I promise not to touch you, but I'd like to help you calm down. I have some new equipment in the house that I'm constructing, and the processors are amazing. You should see the speed and memoryâI'm talking way more megabytes and gigabytes known to man. I'm Gulliver, by the way, but Pharaoh calls me Gully.”
“So?” Was he serious? she wondered, easing up on Pharaoh and Nae. She couldn't hear their conversation because of the human robot in front of her and the distance.
“What I tell you last week, Nae?” Pharaoh asked, pushing Nae toward the hooptie she'd come in, and forcing her to get inside.
Last week?
Santana pushed Gully out of her way and zoomed behind Pharaoh. “
Last week?
Did you just say you were talking to that trash
last
week? What theâwhy were you talking to her at
all
?”
Pharaoh shook his head. “Come on, Santana! Enough. Now you know I don't deal with her stankin' breath.”
“Oh, he talks to me
all
the time. Last week and last night,” Nae said, getting bold again from the safety of the car.
“Nae, why you lying?” Pharaoh banged on the roof of the car and reached to open the door. Before he could get a grip on it, the engine roared and the wheels spun, and the car sped off down the street.
Nae stuck her head out the window. “Want me to describe him naked to you, Santana?” She laughed like a banshee as the car disappeared in a literal cloud of stinky exhaust smoke.
Pharaoh turned and looked at Santana with disgust in his eyes. She knew better than to be fighting on the street, but she didn't care. Nae had left her no choice, and she wouldn't apologize for it. Plus, as far as she was concerned, Pharaohânot sheâhad some explaining to do.
“Why were you talking to her?” Her eyes welled, and she gripped the neck of the broken bottle by her side.
Pharaoh looked from Santana's furious eyes to the bottle. “'Ey! Don't be ackin' like you wanna swing dat. I ain't Naeâyou puts no fear in my heart, shawty. I run dis here block.” He moved his eyes from her face and looked behind her. “ 'Ey, Gully! Take my girl home for me, bruh. I got bidness and don't want her in these skreets.” He turned back to Santana. “I got something to do. But since you really wanna know, I saw that scallywag last week at the store, and she tried to get wit' ya boy, so I checked her. I'm yo man, shawty. Just yours.” He bent down and planted a kiss on her lips, something he'd never done before in public. “I like dat you was gonna fight for yours, though. But you ain't godda fight for me, shawty. Fighting is my job. Your job is to tell me who you need knocked out.” He winked.
Santana's anger caved, and she almost smiled.
“I'm ready, Pharaoh,” Gully said, walking up to them.
Pharaoh peeled off a hundred-dollar bill from a thick stack of money. “Y'all take my car, and get something to eat. I'll get wit you later, shawty. I still got yo surprise.”
Gully drove Pharaoh's car like an old man. His hands were placed on the wheel at the ten-o'clock and twoo'clock positions just as the driver's courses taught, and he'd done the speed limitâthe exact speed limit, all the way to a restaurant Santana had never been to or heard of.
35mph, not a digit more or less
.
Sickening
.
Her stomach growled, and she sucked her teeth, looking away toward a group of people who sounded like they were talking in tongues. She didn't hear a word of English in the group.
“Our host should be here any minute,” he said, apologetically. “Would you like me to see when they'll seat us?”
No, what I'd like you to do is learn how to speak and stop sounding like a robot, or stop talking to me,
she thought, but instead shook her head no.
“Your name is very pretty, Santana. Reminds me of Carlos Santana. It's very telling, but I don't like to be one to assume. Does it bespeak your roots or nationality?”