Sister Souljah: Life After Death

Elisha’s pimp game is mean, I thought to myself. Eight hundred thousand dollars for me alone, that’s right. Of course I would put my girls on the payroll. That’s not coming from my stacks, but it is being paid out to them based on my say-so. Three thousand per episode was more than enough for them to pay their rent at the goddamn projects or for each of them to move on up into something new. My on-camera supporting cast, sounds good. I could not wait to give them a heads-up and dangle the deal. I did more time than each of them. I would roll out last, but on top and even save the day for each of them, who after their releases still had not managed to cake up. And let’s be serious here. I’m not big on living under the same roof with none of their kids anyway. Now that I am in position to put them on, all of my bitches will bow down.

“I want VIP passes for everybody who I select to see me styling on my release day. I want a red carpet that runs from the prison release door to the black Bentley that I heard Midnight pushes, and of course, Midnight in person waiting on me to walk the red carpet straight to him.”

“You know he’s a married man, right?” Elisha asked smoothly.

“I know, but I knew him first. I saw him first. And this is my show we doing starring me, right?” I reminded him.

“A reality show…” Elisha said.

“You make him show up. I’ll make it a reality,” I told him with full confidence.

“Anything else?” Elisha asked patiently in his cool tone, not huffing or puffing or making it obvious that my demands might be over the top. So I told him, “Have the Bentley fully stocked, from the old shit to the new shit; Moët Rosé Impérial, Hennessy XO, Cîroc Blue Dot, and Ace of Spades, the thirty-liter Midas bottle. Oh, and me and my man must sip our champagne from authentic crystal flutes. So order me a set.”

I gave him full details of the fashions I wanted to wear beneath the mink, even though they wouldn’t show up on camera for my “kiss my ass” walk to freedom. Then I added, “And there’s one serious really big thing I need to happen, although I won’t say it over the phone. Elisha, plan to come up and visit me this week. I’ll tell you face-to-face.”

“No problem, I can do that. It’s all good. We’re in business now,” he said as though my list of demands were all things within his budget, influence, connects, and grasp, and I liked that.

“But the thing is… Elisha, if you can’t do the one big thing that I tell you in person, the whole entire deal is canceled,” I said in a firm but nonthreatening tone even though it was a threat. It was more than a threat. It was a promise, a guarantee.

“We will work it out. See you soon,” he said, unfazed, and hung up. Some next chick was waiting to use the prison phone. Although I had already hung up, I was still blocking it, wondering if I had undersold myself in the deal. Should I have demanded even more? Nah, I knew I would get even more than I demanded anyway. From my young teen years, I saw how entertainers, hustlers, and ballers got all kinds of perks, party passes, food and drinks, kicks and cars, trips and wardrobes and a bunch of other free shit that regular niggas had to grind for a whole year to get one of, or maybe to never get nothing at all. When I was done thinking and blocking I looked at the chicks on the phone line. They dropped their eyes like they suppose to. Not one of ’em dared to even look like they had a complaint. They know who run dis.

Lights-out on that same night of the deal convo, even though I was on track to get what I wanted out of Elisha, I was tight that now Porsche, my younger middle sister, would be able to say that she convinced me to do the show that I had said I would never do. Porsche would have me living in their place, eating off of her plate, and engulfed in her actively annoying overkill concern. I don’t hate Porsche. We full blood. However, certain little shit that she does and how she is, I definitely don’t like. For example, starting with the way she always says these two words, my husband, instead of just calling that sexy brown-skinned nigga by his well-known name, Elisha Immanuel, young, rich, black, and famous independent movie director. Also, Porsche is the quiet type. I didn’t mind that. But I hated the way she always let her feelings show. On her one visit upstate New York to where I was serving time, she walked in with her eyes filled with watery tears, her voice and her fingers trembling. The only reason I overlooked it at the time was because other than that, she was picture-perfect. She had the meanest-ass manicure, that matched her haute-couture fashion and thigh-high Fendi boots that hood bitches would murder her for. Slide them right off her legs and feet and onto their own.

Once we were seated at the table in a prison room filled with inmates seated at separate tables, she sat trembling and silent like she was in some weird dreamy phase. When she finally did talk, her voice was all filled with emotion. Then suddenly her watery eyes spilled tears onto her immaculate diamond wedding rings. I was through. I took her off my visitation list, even though she was the only one on there. I blocked her. It was a smart move on my part. I know Porsche. She is annoyingly overconcerned about me. After I cut her off, she’ll send her sexy husband to check up on me instead. He’s a Brooklyn-born Brooklyn nigga, not the hardest moneymaking murderer, but he’s definitely not soft. Me and Elisha could sit and talk at ease. I been locked up for so long with a bunch of bitches that I easily prefer men, and probably preferred men even before prison. I wasn’t trying to lure my sister’s man. No not at all. I don’t get down like that. But I respect Elisha. He’s my nigga ’cause over time he put money on my commissary, but never mentioned it. Most importantly however, Elisha visits Santiaga, my father, who is in prison serving life. That means way more than the world to me.

2.

Can a dead bitch think? My thoughts shifted as soon as my mind mentioned Santiaga to me. Santiaga is my first love. The number one father on the planet. The number one hustler in the streets. The number one ruler of my heart. Santiaga is the only man in the world who when I was eighteen years young and even fifteen years later while all alone in my cell, in the dark, deep into the night, beneath my one blanket, could cause me to shed silent tears.

Suddenly I was yanked out of my thoughts and on the move. I mean, I could not actually feel my feet taking steps, or my heels clicking on the ground beneath me, or mashing the snow, or sliding on ice. But somehow I knew for sure I was moving. I couldn’t see or hear. Everything was pitch-black. But suddenly I was speeding like someone had hit the fast-forward button. Oh shit, it felt like I had puffed some of that Purple Haze and hit the Henny as well.

After a time, I felt myself jerk to a stop, like a car that was just about to run a red light but the driver jammed on the brakes. Still, my high remained. Next, ah shit, I felt a floating feeling. The blinding darkness eased up to a black gray, then an electric blue. Through a type of fog, I could see Santiaga standing right in front of me. Stuck staring, I didn’t say a word ’cause I was struck at how chiseled and handsome and young he looked, even though he was seventeen years deep into serving a life bid. Obviously, he had worked out hard daily for six thousand, two hundred and five days. Yeah, I’m swift with numbers. In fact, my father, Santiaga, was the one who taught me to add, subtract, and multiply like a motherfucker. When I was six, I would be the first one in our Brooklyn projects apartment who would catch Poppa just as he walked through the front door. It was like I could feel him even before I heard his key turning in the locks. Then I would smell the scent of his cologne coming through the tiny space in the door. He would bring home gifts, lay them out on the table, and tell me the cost of each one, one time. Then he would say, “What’s the total?” He’d snap his fingers three times and if I called out the right answer, I got first dibs on whichever gift I wanted to have. And since Santiaga knew me so well, everything he bought, I wanted to keep. Soon he would lay out the gifts, knowing I had mastered that adding-up shit, and then take one item away, and then be like, “Now, what’s the new total?” After I caught on to that subtraction kind’ve lovely, he taught me how to multiply. It was like we would be chilling at the table, or I’d be in the bathroom brushing my teeth and he’d pop up at the washroom door.