Pretty Kings Read online

  “What are you talking about, Grainger? The man does everything for you that you ask. Not only that, he was the one who bought Ma her new wheelchair when she couldn’t walk anymore.”

  Four years ago Sarah Cotton could get around a little with a cane. But when she broke her ankle, she was confined to a wheelchair. It was Bradley Kennedy who came to Sarah’s rescue. He paid for a hospital grade king size bed, which could handle her weight, and a new wheelchair. So Denim thought Grainger was being greedy and ridiculous.

  “I don’t give a fuck about what he does for that fat bitch,” Grainger yelled in Denim’s face as if Sarah was not her mother. “I’m talking about me.” She stabs an index finger into her flat breasts. “I know he doesn’t love me anymore and if I can’t have him, nobody will.”

  “Grainger, if you kill him you’ll go to jail,” Denim sobbed uncontrollably. “Please don’t do this. I’m gonna die if you kill him.”

  Grainger stepped back and looked into her sister’s eyes. “Why are you so worried about what I do to Bradley?” She stepped closer to Denim. “Are you in love with him or something?”

  Denim was worried that the sound of her heartbeat would give her feelings away. No she hadn’t fucked Bradley. Neither knew the other had feelings, but there was love between them all the same. Their unconscious love was evident to everyone but Greedy Grainger.

  Grainger should’ve known right away that Bradley and Denim were falling in love. When Denim was diagnosed with Tuberculosis, Bradley packed a bag, paid for all of her treatment, and didn’t leave their house until she got better. It was obvious where his heart lied, and it wasn’t with Grainger.

  “I’ll kill him before I let you have him, Denim,” Grainger said pointing the gun at her. “And, then I’ll kill you too.” Grainger pushed her out of the way and ran to the living room. When she got there, Bradley was gone.

  Denim didn’t breathe until she knew he was safe…for now anyway.

  “You know what, I’m done with that nigga,” Grainger said, mad she couldn’t kill him. “He’s not worth going to jail. But he’s gonna wish for the day he could taste this pussy again.”

  Just the thought of Bradley fucking Grainger made Denim sick. She had to walk outside to catch her breath. The moment the door closed behind her, Denim covered her mouth and cried silently into the night. She couldn’t understand how she could be in love with a man whose only crime was being a good friend. When she stepped down the block, she was thrown off when she saw Bradley’s silver Maserati. Slowly Denim approached the beautiful silver car.

  “Get in,” Bradley told her sternly.

  Denim looked back at the house to be sure Grainger wasn’t coming. When the coast was clear, she eased into the car. “What are you still doing here?” Denim asked although she was excited to see his face. “If Grainger sees you out here, she’s going to kill you. She’s going to kill us both.”

  “Listen to me,” he said looking out ahead of him. “I don’t love your sister,” he looked into her eyes. “I never have, and I never will. I stayed around because I knew that was the only way I could see your face. I didn’t want to put you in a position where you had to choose between your sister and me. But, I can’t live without you anymore, Denim,” Bradley grabbed her hand softly. “But I can’t come back here and play this game with this bitch either. Now I’m asking you to do the unthinkable, and be with me. Choose me over your family. If you say yes, I will make you the happiest woman on earth, but if you say no, you’ll never see me again. What do you want to do?”

  Just the idea of never seeing him again forced an answer out of her. She didn’t think about what her family would think about her betrayal. She was in love. She needed him to breathe. “I want to go with you,” she said softly. “Anywhere.”

  He smiled, touched her face and put the car in drive.

  “Wait… what about my stuff?” She asked him.

  “I’ll buy you all new clothes to go with your new life. Let your people keep the rest of that shit.”

  ****

  After telling my mother I would pick up her medicine later, I walked downstairs. My sisters were sitting at the table eating breakfast, and I wondered why they looked so normal.

  “We knocked on your door earlier,” Bambi says to me. “But you didn’t answer.”

  “I was probably giving Jasmine a bath,” I respond. My husband is dead. My husband is dead.

  “We made you and Jasmine a plate,” Bambi walks toward me and takes Jasmine out of my arms. She is wearing a white t-shirt, and her army fatigue pants, which makes me nervous. Bambi places Jasmine in her high chair and sits back in her seat, at the head of the table.

  “What’s going on?” I ask my sisters. I sit next to Scarlett.

  “I know it’s too early to talk about this since our husbands died, but unfortunately we don’t have a lot of time,” Bambi says to me. “First I’m going to ask you not to tell anybody that our husbands are dead. I know it’s wrong, but it’s necessary.”

  I frown. “Why not?”

  “Because, we need to see to it that something happens before we let the family know.”

  “Bambi, just come out with it,” I tell her. “The way I feel right now, the last thing I wanna deal with is bullshit.”

  “Well, on Saturday there’s a meeting going down with the Russians. Kevin and them have already made arrangements for the white to be brought here once the call is placed. Even though they are dead, I think we should arrange to see to it that they get their package…some kind of way.”

  I give Jasmine a pancake and allow her to eat it like she wants. I’m not hungry. “Bambi, we not talking about no small shit. We talking about the Russians!” I say stabbing my finger on the table. “You know Mitch didn’t even want to supply Kevin and them with the weight because he didn’t trust the Russians. So why do you want to facilitate the meeting? It’s dangerous. The only thing on my mind is that my husband is dead. I don’t even know how I’m walking right now.”

  “I’ve been crying over Kevin all morning,” Bambi says. “We all have cried over our husbands. But, unfortunately we still have a family to take care of. You have Jasmine, I have my twins in high school and we got each other.” Bambi walks over to me and kneels down on the floor. “As far as the Russians being dangerous, nobody has met them, not even Kevin and them. So to call the Russians anything other than businessmen is unfair.”

  “They’re Russians for goodness sake,” I yell. “They have a reputation of being sneaky.”

  “We need that money, Denim,” Bambi replies. “That’s our blood money.”

  I heard enough. I grab my daughter out of the high chair while she still holds onto her pancake. “I’m not going to be a part of anything that will put us at risk,” I place Jasmine’s coat on and then mine. “Shame on you for putting us in such a fucked up position too, Bambi. We just lost our husbands, and I can’t help but feel that the only thing on your mind is money.”

  ****

  Before going to my mother’s house I got another tattoo on my back that read, RIP Bradley. It was my fiftieth tattoo but I doubt it will be my last. Every tattoo on my body means something to me, and getting inked is the only time I can relax. When I’m done I head to my mother’s house.

  Once I get to there, I open the door with my key. I walk into the kitchen and place her ice cream in the freezer. Then I walk to my mother’s room where I can hear the TV blasted. When I bend the corner, a man I don’t recognize is rubbing her chunky foot. Why the fuck did she have me bring her medicine and junk food when she has him here?

  My husband is dead. My husband is dead.

  “Hey, baby,” she says waving at me with her stocky hand. The blubber under her arm shakes. “Come over here and give me some love. I miss you.”

  Jasmine ignores her, sits on the floor and plays with my mother’s size thirteen shoes, which she couldn’t wear, because she can’t get out of the bed.

  “Ma, who is this?” I ask her looking at the man.
“You had me run all the way across town for nothing?”

  My mother’s smile melts into her wiggly face. “He’s my future husband. Isn’t he handsome?”

  “I sure am,” he says taking my mother’s ashy toe and stuffing it into his mouth. “I’m gonna make her happy too. Just you wait and see.”

  My mother is smiling but I’m frowning. That’s one thing I can say…for her to be morbidly obese, it doesn’t mean she can’t get a man. I never realized so many men were attracted to women my mother’s size until she got this way. My husband is dead. My husband is dead.

  For a second I blank out and stare at the picture in the red frame above her bed. The photo is of her, Grainger and me. My mother is a size 6 in the photo and we were so happy back then. She was a model and had a full life when we posed for the photo. I can’t believe everything has changed.

  Later that year, after the picture was taken, she met her boyfriend who she knew from high school. He was a lawyer for a big law firm and had always been obsessed with my mother. Since he would take her to company events, and people would comment on her beauty, he got her fat on purpose so that nobody else would want her. We went out to eat so much, that green mold grew in the refrigerator and stayed. Nobody was ever home. Before, long my mother was overweight and unhappy. When she was so large she could barely walk around, he left her for another woman.

  When I remember my husband was just killed, and wonder why I’m even here, I grab Jasmine off the floor and say, “I gotta go, ma. You can do whatever you want, just leave me out of it.”

  “Is something wrong?” She calls out to me. I don’t stop moving for the front door. “Denim, is something wrong?”

  When I bend the corner on the way to the front door, I run into my sister. Grainger’s face is ashy gray, and she’s using heroin although she thinks I don’t know. Although, she is forty she looks about fifty-five. She’s carrying four fake Louis Vuitton purses in her hand. “I was just about to call you first, before I hit the streets, Denim.” She holds up the fakeness and I want to puke. “I got these new purses. You want them before I sell them to anybody?”

  “I’m not buying that ugly shit, Grainger.” I move toward the door again.

  “You know what, you really think you are better than me don’t you?” Grainger’s voice is low and filled with hate.

  “I don’t think I’m better, I know I’m better. I’m not the one pushing shit in my veins, Grainger, you are.”

  She laughs and I see all of her teeth are yellow. “You know what, I have a feeling you gonna fall from grace real soon. And, when you do I’ll be here to give you a needle, to push dope into that tatted-up arm. Call it my welcoming party.”

  “I don’t care where I fall, I’ll never come back here,” I tell her. “You and ma deserve each other, because both of you are pathetic.”

  “And you not?” She grins. “The one who stole my boyfriend isn’t pathetic? And you know what, to this day you never even apologized to me.”

  “Wrong, Grainger,” I say unlocking the door. “The only thing that’s pathetic is the fact that your niece been here the entire time and you didn’t say anything to her.”

  Grainger looks down at Jasmine and laughs. “That baby is a product of what you get when you steal what belongs to another woman. Her name shouldn’t be Jasmine, it should be Karma instead.”

  I know I have my daughter’s hand. And, I know it’s wrong to fight in front of her. But, this was the first time I was glad that Jasmine had a foggy brain because I beat my sister into another mind state for disrespecting my child. I plan to take everything I’m going through out on her too. She just better hope I don’t kill her in the process.

  BAMBI

  My sisters did exactly what I thought they would do, get scared. I know it may seem insensitive of me to come at them about the Russian meeting, considering our husbands are gone, but I’ve seen so much shit in Saudi that I’m good under pressure. And, at the end of the day grieving for our husbands right now will not help us take care of our family. We need to take action and grieve later.

  “I still can’t believe Denim doesn’t understand why this is important,” I say to Scarlett and Race as I put the last dish in the dishwasher. “We must move now!”

  “Bambi, you have to give her time,” Scarlett replies. “The only thing on her mind is Bradley right now. To tell you the truth, I don’t know why any of us are walking around. Our world has been changed forever.” She’s rubbing her stomach and I still wonder what got her so sick earlier. She said a stomach virus and I hope it wasn’t too bad.

  “I know why we are able to walk around, it’s because we have each other,” Race says. “But I have a feeling tonight, that it’s gonna really dawn on us when we are alone in our beds. I’m gonna be honest, in my mind at some point they are coming back home.”

  “They are never coming back home,” I tell Race. “And if ya’ll want to blame me for worrying about our futures go right ahead. When you’re done answer me this, how will we take care of ourselves if we don’t set this meeting up with the Russians?” I throw my arms up and twirl around. “Let me answer it for you,” I put my hand on my hips, “we won’t be able to take care of ourselves. We lose it all. This house belongs to Bunny, we all know that.”

  “I understand what you’re saying,” Scarlett responds rubbing her stomach again. “But tomorrow may have been a little more tasteful to talk about the situation.”

  Race sits on the sofa and places her face in her hands. “I can’t breathe right now,” Race says. “I can’t feel right now.” She looks at me. “And, I certainly can’t deal with the Russians. You gotta be fair, Bambi. You gotta let us get ourselves together first.”

  “How the fuck am I not being fair?” I yell. I walk up to her. “Please tell me? Just because I won’t drop to my knees?” I fall to my knees. “Is this better now? Because, at the end of the day, this is not helping us get paper. We need to see to it that the meeting goes down on Saturday. That’s how we take care of ourselves. You can cry after that…hell…we all can cry after that.”

  “What happened to you in that war?” Race asks looking into my eyes. The expression she gives me is as if she doesn’t know me anymore. “You never told us. Why?”

  I try not to think about my days as a soldier. Partly because being over there is what sparked my alcoholism. It also made me realize that the worst thing you can be in the army is a woman.

  ****

  Saudi Arabia

  October 9, 1994

  Dark skies unleashed heavy rainfall onto 19-year-old Bambi Martin and her platoon mate. They were in a firing-hole aka funk hole, holding position and ready to attack. Although Operation Desert Storm was over, Saddam Hussein’s son Quasay, decided to conceal illegal Iraqi weapons from the United Nations inspectors. Because of it, President Clinton deployed US Troops to Kuwait. Under Operation Vigilant Warrior, Bambi and her platoon mate were deployed.

  "I can't take much more of this shit, Bambi," Tatiana Clark said standing next to her in the hole. Water flooded into the hole turning it into mud. "They say women are not supposed to be fighting in the war, but here we are in Kuwait anyway." She looked up at the dark purple sky. "It’s like we are invisible. I mean why are we here?"

  Bambi fucked with Tatiana…hard. But, she could never understand why she complained so much. They both were First Class Privates out of the Infantry School in Georgia. Although, Bambi qualified as an expert shooter, the highest qualification for handling assault weapons, including the powerful M16A2, Tatiana qualified as a Marksman and had been proven to be able to defend herself as well. Yet Tatiana was constantly worried about being able to protect herself.

  Bambi and Tatiana were two of the only three women in their platoon. Bambi didn't care for the third chick. Since Bambi had been in the army for a year, she considered Tatiana to be her best friend, and because of it she schooled her whenever necessary.

  Bambi wiped the rain from her eyes and looked through the scope of he
r weapon, turning everything in her view green. "You here because you got tired of your daddy beating on you after he killed your mother. You here because fewer men enlist in the army, because they not strong like us. We protecting our country," Bambi focused directly on her. "And, I'm here because I want my daddy to know I can do something valuable with my life, despite not going to college." Bambi looked through her scope again. "Now stop fucking around, bitch and stand strong on position. We at war."

  Bambi's father Brian Martin was a four star general in the army and stationed in the Pentagon. He wanted the college life for his daughter, not war. Brian knew first hand how soldiers raped women. But, Bambi was defiant and enlisted anyway, breaking his heart in the process.

  Tatiana positioned her weapon and said, "You know what, that’s why I love you. You're the only bitch who keeps it real with me."

  Bambi was focused on her surroundings, but was still aware of Tatiana’s pain. "We both from D.C, Tatiana. That's how it should be. I get your back and you get mine, always."

  When it stopped raining Desseray Fulton showed up with her weapon in tow. She was the third chick in the platoon that Bambi hated. She looked down at them in the hole and said, "Private Clark, Sergeant Hall wants to see you right away. He says it’s important."

  Tatiana immediately grew nervous. Sergeant Hall was a lustful man who could be violent if he didn't get what he wanted. Tatiana saw how he looked at her body when she was cleaning her weapon or talking to Bambi. And, she hated everything about him. Now she had to be with him alone, in a foreign country, and she was terrified.

  “Why she gotta go back there?" Bambi inquired. "If you ask me he should be good on pussy since I know you hooked him up earlier today."

  Although the darkness concealed most of Desseray's twisted expression, Bambi could still feel the heat she was giving. "Easy, Private Martin. Don't forget, I'm an E3 and that I outrank you."