Teri Woods - Angel's Revenge

Leslie owned four hair salons. Roc had sponsored them and all catered to the Who’s Who of the upper hustling class. Leslie knew everybody’s business. She knew who was fucking who, who was creeping with who, and who wanted to get crept on. She knew which chicks liked men, who went both ways, and who vacillated. Baby mamas, wives, and mistresses confided all to Leslie, and Leslie told all to Angel during the quiet of their intimacy. Thanks to Leslie, everyone became pawns in Angel’s plans.

Angel was a hustler, a real hustler, and if she couldn’t fuck you and suck you to get what she wanted then she’d break the fuckin’ bank. She would always find a way to get at you.

“Damn, Angel! You know I don’t get down like you, but, damn! If I ever do, you gonna be the first bitch I call,” Jackie said. She was a fine red bone Angel wanted to fuck real bad. So bad, she bought her the Jacob heart.

“Thank you!” Jackie exclaimed, holding the heart in her hand.

“That’s for you, baby. It’s just between us, for our friendship. When you’re ready, you know what to do,” Angel said. “And if you need me, I’m here for you. Just call me.”

It wasn’t long before Angel’s investment paid off. Jackie called her one day, half hysterical.

“Calm down, baby. What is it?” Angel asked tenderly, reaching for her Sean John boxers as she put her finger up to her lip and gestured to Goldi to be quiet.

“It’s Devon,” Jackie hissed under her breath. “He got popped.”

“Whaaat?! When?”

“About a week ago. Now he wants me to help him set some nigga up so he ain’t gotta do no time. And he wants me to join the Help Yourself program. Angel, what am I going to do?”

Angel smiled and blew a kiss through the phone.

“You’re gonna pack and get ready for Hawaii,” Angel told her and hung up the phone.

Three days later, Devon was found in a Dumpster in the Projects in Patterson, courtesy of Nitti. Roll was impressed by the way Angel always stayed one step ahead of the game even if he couldn’t figure out how she did it. If only he knew the pussy she was getting, it might have given him an inkling. But he had no clue.

None of the hustlers understood Angel’s game. They were too wrapped up in their own lustful greed and trying to fuck her instead of trying to figure her out. They didn’t realize that Angel was sucking, both literally and figuratively, the loyalty from their women right in front of their lustful eyes.

“These niggas don’t give a fuck about you, boo,” Angel whispered in the ear of a chick named Trina. She was Rich’s baby mama and Rich was one of Roll’s chief bosses in East Orange.

She and Trina were lying next to each other in Trina’s bed.

“But Rich takes good care of me and his son,” Trina stated naively.

Angel brushed the hair from her face and massaged Trina’s sweaty stomach. “Don’t I take good care of you, too?”

“Yes.”

“And I would never do anything to hurt Rich, but… I need you to promise me something. You’ll never let Rich do anything to hurt me, okay?” Angel said in between laps with her skilled tongue. Angel really was a clit lickin’ captain and could get a bitch to do anything she wanted.

“He… he won’t,” Trina gasped, gripping the sheets.

“Stick with me, baby girl, and you’ll always be taken care of. Even when Rich is long gone.”

Angel sucked and fucked the cream of the crop. She had all the most powerful hustlers’ female companions on her side. She even got to the chicks the niggas had on the side. And once she felt her position with these different women was solid, she turned her attention to the street soldiers, the ones with the money.

“Them young niggas out here is fuckin’ up, papi. I’ma show ’em how to grind and make sure our paper stays straight,” Angel announced to Roll.

Roll was all for it. To have the legendary Angel out on the block for him, handling his business, made him look like a true kingpin, a real Dutch kind of guy. He didn’t realize that Angel was toying with his mind, his ego, and his dick.

Angel strapped up her Tims, put some sweats on over her long johns, grabbed her Canadian Goose Helliarctic, and went back to the corner to hustle bundles of heroin. She wanted to hand-pick her army from Roll’s payroll. So, carefully, she watched the young wolves in their prime and selected the best of them. Then she took them under her wing. Gradually, she won their trust. To them, she was a made bitch, a legend. Seeing her out on the block with them, sleeping in hallways, ducking 5-0 and busting her gun made them feel like big niggas.

“This is how you stay on top of your game. Stay hungry. All the Benzes and bottles of Cris don’t mean shit ’cause when a nigga gets too big to walk the same streets that made him, he’s out of touch with his own fate. And no matter what happens, if he can’t go back to where he started, how can he ever make shit happen again? Muthafuckas catch cases puttin’ weak niggas between them and the streets. You got to be the streets,” Angel said, schooling her wolves. They listened like she was teaching Hustle 101.

A young Puerto Rican cat from her old stomping grounds on Dayton Street was especially attentive. She nicknamed him Capo because she told him that was what he was gonna be.

“Never forget the grind, Capo. Never forget the streets. You hear me? And always throw back. Don’t wait until you’re Big Willie to throw back. Pay rent, give a dollar or two, buy some groceries. Create loyalty around you and you’ll die fat and rich in Miami somewhere.”

Capo soaked it up like he was a sponge.

Angel’s plan moved steadily ahead until she got a call from Roll.

“Hey, yo. You need to holla at your man ’cause he about to make me see him!”

Her man was Rahman, better known on the streets as One-eyed Roc, and the reason Roll was threatening to go to him was Miss Grownie Pants.

Miss Grownie Pants, Sonia, Jamillah, got off the bus near her apartment on Somerset Avenue. She had just come home from her job at the abused women’s shelter to find a 5-series BMW parked outside her building. As she got closer, her heart skipped a beat when she realized who was leaning on the car: her baby’s father, Jerome. He had been locked up for the last three years.

Before he went away, their time together produced two children. Once he got knocked, though, she basically turned her back on him. She stopped writing after a few months and lost her phone because he ran the bill up so high she couldn’t pay it. Once the calls and the writing stopped, so did the contact and the relationship.

Jerome, for the most part, had carried himself while in prison, and over the course of his incarceration, his anger for Sonia festered. He felt his entire hustle had meant nothing to her. Didn’t she know what jail was? Didn’t she understand his sacrifice? To Jerome, his choices were between death and jail, and he took the chances for his family, for her and for their two children. In his mind, she had become a fuckin’ slut who didn’t write or bring his kids to visit.

Jerome had anxiously awaited his release so he could see her face to face. He wanted to punch her in the eye. So his first stop after his release was to visit her. For Jerome, it was payback time. He planned to sex her then beat her, or beat her then sex her. He hadn’t made up his mind. But either way, he was going to stomp on her head when he had the chance.

Jamillah wanted to turn around and wait until he left, but she knew Jerome and she knew he’d come back again until he saw her. What should I do? she asked herself, her usual quick pace coming to a sudden halt at the sight of him. I wonder if he’s mad at me? I bet he wants to see the kids.