Through The Eyes of A Hoodrat
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Through The Eyes of A Hoodrat
SHONTAIYE
Uptown Books
1147 S. Salisbury Boulevard
Suite 8-191
Salisbury, MD, 21801
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Through The Eyes of A Hoodrat. Copyright © 2015 Uptown Books. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9863212-2-1
ISBN-10: 0986321222
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I just want to express appreciation to the people that have actually read my book. I appreciate that you took the time to read a novel by an unknown author. Thank you to my mama who gave me suggestions and wonderful feedback, and last but not least, my family for being always present and supportive.
Prologue
The blow to my jaw sent my body reeling backward and leveled me with the floor. The instant overwhelming pain and looseness around my mouth confirmed that my jaw was indeed broken.
I wanted to beg for mercy but it hurt too much to speak. I said a quick prayer to God, asking for forgiveness since I knew the motherfucker standing in front of me had already confirmed they weren’t there for forgiveness. I knew I was going to die. I had wronged many people and more recently I had drastically affected lives. I hated to admit, but I deserved this shit.
I closed my eyes and prepared to die in shame. I had many opportunities to do right and my children suffered the most because of my actions. I had inappropriately stamped myself as a bad bitch when I was nothing more than a hoodrat; a hoodrat who was about to die for all the scandalous bullshit she had done. The saying was true; you do dirt, you lie in it.
ONE
I quickly pulled my truck over to the side of the road and aggressively threw it in park. Fed up and irritated at the constant crying of my four year old son RJ, I reached around the back of the seat, and slave smacked the shit out of him. That would shut his little whiney ass up. We had only been in the car five damn minutes and he was crying because he’d dropped his Spiderman toy in the floor.
I couldn’t wait until I got him over to my mama’s house so she could keep his crybaby ass for the night. I needed a break. Shit, I had the motherfuckers all week. I looked in my rearview mirror and looked at my three children. The twins Mookie and Dayday were leaned against each other fast sleep. Mookie’s nose was home to a ring of crust that seemed like it never left, and Dayday’s ponytails were sticking straight out like bow and arrows. Mookie had gotten a cold because she constantly ran outside without a jacket, and Dayday won’t ever sit still long enough for me to do her hair. At seven years old you’d think they’d listen.
I checked my phone to see if Tyree had texted me back. He was why I needed the night to myself and away from the kids. We were supposed to meet up and hang out at a private party at a local pool hall Rack Em Up, however, I had other plans.
Tyree wasn’t cute by a long shot, however, his ass had a couple coins. He was a little on the short side, about a few inches taller than me, and had a small peanut head that looked silly on his overweight body. Even though he was fat he was very generous and was helping me with my bills. I wouldn’t go as far to say he was whipped, but he definitely was under my bad bitch trance.
To say I was a fly bitch would be an understatement. I was a caramel brick house with a beautiful set of D-cup breasts. Even after birthing three brats, my girls still sat up. I wasn’t top model in the face, but I still considered myself fairly cute. Plus, I only fucked with nigga’s with doe and that allowed me to keep Remi stitched to my head, and designer names attached to my body. Even if no one else agreed, I had stamped my own damn self as a Certified Bad Bitch.
I pulled up to my mama’s house and parked my new model Ford Expedition. The truck was ridiculously oversized for me, but I needed enough space for my three kids, and I definitely wasn’t driving a van.
I got out of the truck and went to the back seat to let out my kids. Seeing them still sleep, I reached over and aggressively shook them awake. My girls were heavy sleepers and I didn’t feel like dragging them out of the car.
“Dayday and Mookie! Yall get the hell up. We at Mommom’s house.—Get up!” I yelled when I saw that they appeared to be frozen in place with slobber dripping from their mouths.
Startled they jumped up and climbed out of the truck, almost falling. I unstrapped RJ from his booster seat and helped him out of the car. Walking into my mother’s was like walking into a soul food restaurant. The pleasant smells of garlic and meatloaf overwhelmed my nostrils as I entered the home. My mama was always cooking something. She couldn’t have weighed more than 130 pounds but she was constantly eating.
“Hey mama,” I greeted her, while walking into the kitchen to give her a hug. As I approached her she walked off like she didn’t see me headed towards her. I shook the energy she just gave and took a deep breath.
“Hey Sierra,” she said dryly, before walking to the stove to tend to her pot of mashed potatoes she was making.
“Did you give the twins some medicine for the cold they got? I just saw them come in and Mookie had snot all up her nose and could barely breathe. Dayday still coughing too. I sent them in the bathroom already so they can get ready to get cleaned up.”
Here we go with this shit, I thought. My mama was always in my business regarding my kids. It seemed real funny that she gave two fucks about my kids when she didn’t give a damn about the two she pushed outta her own stank ass pussy. At five I was making my own breakfast, and by six, I was walking to school alone and getting myself up with an alarm clock. Her ass was always working while my now deceased brother Chris and I were running around like mini adults.
She was extra hard on us, even as small children. She used to say we would “hold our own weight” and “earn our keep.” I did everything to do just that, and as soon as I turned 18, I rolled out of the hellhole I was standing in today.
“I was gonna pick some up tonight from Walmart. Those colds just popped up the other day,” I lied.
I wasn’t about to waste my money on any medicine. My plans was to set up an appointment with the doctor so I could get a prescription for cough syrup. That way, their insurance would take care of the bill.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll go grab them some in a little bit when Todd gets off of work,” she said. My mama had a two seat Convertible that she couldn’t fit all the kids in. She always had a thing for luxury cars.
“He’ll be off in about an hour,” she continued. Todd was my mother’s second husband, after my father. My father had rolled out on us when I was a little girl. Rumor had it, my father had a thing for young girls including his own daughter. When my mama found out, instead of kicking his ass to the curb and getting him arrested, she begged him to get help. He said he didn’t need help and he didn’t need her. He left and never looked back.
Some say he ended up with some 18 year old, 15 years younger than my mam
a. She hated him and it seemed like she despised us too ever since.
My mama met her current husband Todd when we were teenagers. He owned a tow truck business and made good money. Once they got married, she miraculously overnight became better than everybody. I found that incredibly amusing since Todd’s old butt was really no better than my father. But, let my mama tell it, he was her knight in shining armor.
“Thanks Mama. Listen I’m out of here. I’ll be back in the morning. Thanks again for keeping the kids for me,” I said.
She didn’t bother to respond so I walked out of the kitchen and headed out of the small, but beautiful Mediterranean style house. Once I reached my car I exhaled a deep breath. Dealing with my mother was like getting bit in the ass by sharks. She was always so hostile, nitpicking and pointing out every little thing about the kids. Nevertheless, I knew for sure that she genuinely loved her grandkids. Hell, she loved them way more than she loved me.
My mama was constantly buying them shit and showering them with affection. I found it really weird, and I often wondered if my mother had been touched by an angel. She definitely wasn’t the same lady I was raised by. She probably called herself making up for treating us the way she did.
The majority of my life I grew up in the hood. My older brother Chris managed to keep me out of trouble but couldn’t seem to stay out of it himself. As we grew older the neighborhood we lived in Philadelphia became worse. Instead of moving us to a better area she partied and kept a foreign car parked in a yard that was littered with trash and broken pavement.
Working for the transportation company provided her with respectable pay that could have had us living modestly in the county somewhere. To her though, that choice was not an option. Our lives changed when I was 16 and my 18 year old brother Chris was gunned down at the neighborhood park. My young heart turned cold when I was given the news that my protector had been slain. All the love that once resided in my body was buried in the dirt next to my brother. I would later become as grimey as the streets that took him from me.
I shook the thoughts of my brother and mother, and crept out of the suburban neighborhood I spent my final teenage years in. I slipped back onto the busy expressway so I could get ready for my date with Tyree. My condo was only a few miles away, however the traffic would cause it to feel like a cross country road trip.
The vibration from my ringing phone briefly took my focus off the road and caused me to swerve my SUV a little since I had reached over to grab it. The blaring honking sound from the aging white man in the Toyota Camry in the next lane got my attention.
“Shut ya old ass up! Wasn’t nobody gonna hit that piece of shit,” I yelled, while flipping him the bird. I scooped my phone up and checked my messages as quickly as I could. I knew I shouldn’t text and drive but realistically, who doesn’t?
I smiled when I saw that it was Tyree. He confirmed that he was meeting me at eight which gave me enough time to get home and get ready. I smiled in satisfaction as I slowly crept my way along the jam-packed expressway. I had something special for Tyree along with something even more special for me. I planned to give it to him raw and dirty; the only way I knew how.
TWO
I finally got home 45 minutes after leaving my mother’s. I didn’t have a ton of time so I made my way to my walk-in closet to find something to wear. I searched for my body suit that was amongst a sea of other fashionable labels.
Once I found it I went to take a shower. Before I could step my pedicured toes into the tub, I heard my phone ring from the bedroom. I turned around and walked briskly to go answer it. I saw that it was the twin’s father. I waited for it to stop ringing and rolled my eyes.
He probably wanted to pick them up. Too bad, I thought. I asked his ass before he went to work was he going to get them. He said something about having to work late, so my mama got first dibs. He could see them another day.
The twin’s father and I never had a real relationship. I met him when my mama got me a job in the Customer Service Department of SEPTA when I was 19. She had been working for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority since I was a young girl so she had a little pull to get me a job. Needless to say, I fucked that up.
Once I laid eyes on the fine ass older Safety Supervisor I knew he would be one of many to finance my insatiable appetite for the finer things.
Avery was a brown skinned older gentleman who just happened to be married. I didn’t give a damn once someone spilled the beans that he made around $70,000 as a supervisor.
After a few flirtatious encounters, he asked to take my young ass on a date. One thing led to another and I was freaking him on a regular basis. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep me satisfied. Overpriced dinners at Ruth’s Chris, diamond bracelets on his credit cards, and cash to pay my bills became the norm. That is, until his wife found out. That evil bitch immediately put a halt to that shit.
Scared of losing his wife, he called himself calling it quits on us like a bitch. I wasn’t worried though. I had stopped taking my birth control pills long before that and soon found out I was pregnant with twins. That damn sure rattled her feathers when I called her ass and broke the news to her. To say they both were livid would be an understatement.
He begged me to get rid of them but I wasn’t stupid. While he was earning a pretty penny, so was his wife working for the state. The both of them had to be pulling in around $150,000 a year together.
Five years later, after a paternity test, and numerous court proceedings I was entitled to $1000 per month in child support. The courts didn’t care that I was receiving $700 per child from SSI because they were born premature. I was getting $2400 a month for the twins alone. Of course, I didn’t tell SSI that I was getting child support. I didn’t want them lowering my checks.
When reality struck for me and I realized that taking care of two children was still financially difficult I grew depressed. I eventually told my doctor, who went on to prescribe me with some depression meds. They caused me to sleep a lot so my doctor told me to apply for disability for myself.
I did just that, however, I didn’t qualify for disability payments because I hadn’t worked long enough. They did eventually give me Supplemental Security Income or SSI. Just that quick, I had went to busting my ass at SEPTA, to getting $3,100 per month for doing nothing. Life was looking up, and I found myself miraculously cured from depression. I didn’t tell my doctor that though. I let him keep on writing out those prescriptions, and I kept on getting them filled.
I looked back down at my phone and texted Avery, “The girls are with their grandmother.” Avery wasn’t a bad guy and really loved the twins. After months of bickering, he and his wife decided to work through their issues and embraced the twins with loving arms. I didn’t give a damn what they did as long as my child support came on time. I was actually pissed that they didn’t take his wife’s income into consideration when calculating my money.
I didn’t sweat it though. Once RJ came along, he had some minor speech problems that sent me racing to the doctor and ultimately with another check in my bank account, bringing my monthly income to nearly $4,000 per month for absolutely nothing. This goose could damn sure could lay some “golden eggs.”
THREE
I walked into the pool lounge looking like a million bucks. I saw Tyree in the corner with his friend Juk. I licked my lips seductively in Juk’s direction as I went to hug and greet Tyree.
Juk was another ugly, paid ass nigga that hung around Tyree. Instead of a small head like Tyree, Juk had a big ass head with some nappy dreads dangling from it. The big poppy eyes on his face didn’t do much to for his looks either. I guess birds of a feather did in fact flock together. I knew he wanted me but I wasn’t gonna play myself and try to fuck with both of the niggas. I figured there wasn’t any harm in flirting though.
“Hey baby!” I smiled. “Hey Juk,” I spoke, being polite.
“Wassup mama. You looking good,” Tyree exclaimed, pushing me away from h
im so he could check me out.
I said a fake thank you and pretended to be modest. I already knew I looked good. I had purchased the outfit weeks ago, just for the night. The sheer bandage style bodysuit I had on grabbed my curvy body in all the right places. It was eye catching and that is the exact reason I bought it.
Any event I attended, I always went dressed to impress. Tyree was ok for now, but my eyes were always open for the next nigga who had a little more. I shot another quick glance at Juk.
“What yall drinking on?” I asked. “This a party, yall supposed to be turnt up!” I laughed, trying to get them to to spend some money.
“You ain’t said nothing but a word baby!” Tyree shouted, before reaching in his pocket and pulling out a hundred dollar bill. He threw it on the table like he was balling. He appeared to have already been drinking since he was being extra loud for no reason at all.
I picked up the bill and and asked him what he wanted. After telling me to get whatever, I walked off. I hope he wasn’t expecting change.
I looked around the small pool hall and saw a lot of niggas I didn’t know. Tyree had said it was going to be a lot of people in the building since it was a welcome home party for his cousin Dread. Apparently he was well known in the hood and had been locked up for drugs. A lot of people had surely come out to support him. I never understood the welcome home parties from jail. Congratulations, ya dumb ass finally made it out, I laughed to myself. I guess that was an accomplishment for a lot of people.
I stood at the bar and waited for the bartender to walk back over to the side I was standing on. I felt alone and out of place. I usually brought my girlfriend Ladaya everywhere I went, but since she was pregnant, and I was there for business I had to come alone.