Array Ashley - Tale of the Murda Mamas

The eyes of the man that I had killed haunted me. I put the soiled clothing in a plastic bag and stepped under the hot stream of water. It was almost too hot to bear, but I needed it to cleanse myself. I was desperate for the shower to wash away the sins that I had committed that night. The blood ran down my body and turned pink as it swirled down the drain.

Why did this have to happen? I asked myself as my tears kicked in. I cried silently for all that I had lost. After everything that I had been through when I came out of lockup, my life finally felt normal. I had felt like I found a family in Murder and Anisa, but my disillusioned view of safety had come crashing down around me the moment I pulled my second trigger. Two lives had gone extinct behind my actions, and although I would never regret killing Perry, my second murder was weighing heavily on my heart. It was then that I realized I was not normal. I never had been, and after tonight, I never would be.

Scrubbing my skin until it was raw, I washed my body until the water ran cold. I was grateful for the film of steam that covered the bathroom mirror. I wasn’t ready to face myself. I didn’t want to look into my eyes, because I was sure that I would not recognize the girl who stared back at me.

Knock! Knock!

“Miamor, are you okay?” Anisa called through the door.

My hands shook as I picked up the plastic bag filled with my blood-soaked clothes, and I opened the door to let her in. “I’m fine,” I answered. “I need to take these clothes to the incinerator.”

She took my hand, reminding me of how she used to take care of me when we were little, then led me out of the apartment. We entered the room where the incinerator was and I tossed the bag inside. Anisa rubbed my hair and put her arms around me as we both watched it burn.

“Everything is going to be okay, Miamor. We have to move on, and you have to forget that tonight ever happened,” Anisa said.

I looked at her with a blank expression. “What about

Murder?”

Anisa didn’t look at me. Instead, she stared into the fire. “Murder knew the risks of the game he was playing. I knew one day something would go down and he wouldn’t come home. Today is that day.”

I wanted to tell her that today would not have been “the day” if it hadn’t been for her, but I had to take responsibility in the situation too, because I could have stopped it. “We have to help him get out of this, Nis,” I protested.

“There is no getting out of this, Miamor. He got caught. I’m not going to risk you going away again. I can let him go, but I will never forgive myself if I have to see them take you away again. Murder is gone… it is what it is,” she said coldly.

Murder ended up taking a plea. He got five to seven years on a weapons and tax evasion charge. They couldn’t connect the body to him, because I had disposed of the gun, so that case went unsolved.

I wanted to visit Murder, but Anisa thought it was best if we cut our ties and start fresh. Living life without Murder was easier said than done, however. Gone were the days of shopping sprees and lounging. Without him bringing in the paper, things got real tight for us. Anisa and I used up the money we’d gotten for her car in a matter of a couple months. Rent, groceries and bills ate that cash up quick. Murder’s absence was felt almost immediately, because we realized all that he did for us, and now that he was gone. The ringing of the house phone was our only reminder that he was ever really there.

We resulted to petty hustles; boosting clothes and petty credit card schemes just to get by, but still at the end of the month, dollars was short and we were on the verge of being thrown out on our asses.

“I’m not for being broke,” Anisa stated seriously. “You might have to sell your car, Miamor.”

I raised my eyebrows and looked at her like she was crazy. “Bitch, I’m not selling my whip. I’ll sell some ass before I get rid of my car,” I said adamantly.

Anisa burst into laughter as the ringing of the phone interrupted our conversation. “Well, we are going to have to think of something, because rent is due in a few days,” she reminded me, the stress written all over her face.

The phone stopped ringing, and we sat in silence as we each searched for resolutions to our problems, but it wasn’t long before it started again blaring in our ears.

“Fuck! I can’t even think from that mu’fucka ringing all the damn time!” Anisa shouted.

“Why don’t they just stop calling? I know they saw Murder’s arrest in the papers and shit,” I replied.

Anisa shook her head. “Nobody knew who Murder really was. To the rest of the world, he’s just another nigga lost to the system. I’m the only person who knew about what he did. To everybody else, he was just a voice on the phone.”

“How’d he collect his money?” I asked curiously.

“They’d wire the money to a Cayman account. Half up front, half after the job is done. Murder didn’t trust anybody though. He always cleared the account after every job and stashed his dough in the safe.”

Ring! Ring!

“Do you have access to the account?” I asked curiously. “I had access to all of Murder’s money, whether he knew it or not,” Anisa smirked.

I shook my head and smirked. “Yo slick ass!” I commented. Ring! Ring!

My mind was spinning. My pockets were on empty and I was in desperate need of a dollar. My sister and I were three days off of being put out in the street. “Why don’t we just answer it?” I asked.

“What?” Anisa said skeptically. She lowered her voice to a whisper as if we weren’t in the apartment alone. “Miamor, I told you what type of business Murder was into…” Anisa said, but she stopped mid-sentence when she saw the look on my face. “Miamor, what the fuck are you thinking?” she asked, reading my mind.

“I’m just saying; we need money, and there is cash money on the other end of that receiver. All we got to do is pick it up,” I said unsurely as I stood up and walked over to the phone.

Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!

Anisa and I stared intensely at one another. We both knew that once I answered that line, there would be no turning back. She looked back at the table full of bills and then up at me. She nodded her head, and I lifted the phone to my ear. It was the day we accepted our first job, and the day the Murder Mamas was born.

Benjamin Wilkes aka Benny Dough was our first hit. I could never forget his name, because he was getting paper, and being flashy was what he lived to do. All of Brooklyn knew who he was. A big time party promoter in the city, he wasn’t hard to find. We couldn’t have asked for an easier mark. Like clockwork, on Sunday nights he frequented Tenders, a local strip joint. It was ballers’ night, which attracted all the get-money niggas in the ‘hood.

Anisa and I came out shining that night, whipping my Benz up to the club’s valet as if we belonged amongst the ‘hood’s rich and infamous list. Rocking Gucci, diamonds, and Prada, to the naked eye we fit right in with Brooklyn’s elite, but we knew the deal. We were fronting and dead broke, but we were about to put in work. Legs greased, body right, and hair and makeup on point, we slid into the club. Weed smoke was in the air and liquor flowed freely as we found a booth in the corner of the room. The small burner I had purchased from Murder’s gun connect was underneath my dress, strapped to my inner thigh. We didn’t have time to purchase another one, so we rolled with a single pistol, figuring that it would be all the muscle we would need to take care of the job.