Sister Souljah - Life After Death

“We still have to do the sentences. We can complete that part. Then everyone will have contributed to the group assignment,” Pretty said, emphasizing the word group just to get on study bitch’s nerves.

“Cool. So we will go around the room. I’ll write the sentences. What’s the first word?” Bridgette asked.

“Worship,” study bitch said. “To show extreme devotion to. To hold up higher than anything else. To love and trust without question or criticism.” She defined worship.

“My entire nation worshipped my father,” the slapper said, taking her turn first.

“Your sentence doesn’t show that you know the meaning of the word worship,” study bitch said, challenging the slapper.

“It does! People in my country lived and died for my father. People in my country murdered for my father. My father only needed to say that he didn’t like someone, or no longer needed someone, and by the next morning that person or those people would be found dead. Not just dead nicely. Dead in pieces. An arm here, the feet in a river. The head in a freezer,” the slapper, said sending a chill through the warm pink Princess Residence. I’m like now I know why the bitch is so bold.

“Your father is just another dictator!” Bridgette screamed out too loud. We were all seated in the same space.

“This is why I hate group assignments. Focus! Form one sentence which proves that you know and understand the meaning of the word,” you know who said. Everybody sat thinking.

“People did not worship your father. They feared him. He must have been ruthless and reckless. The people feared for their own lives. That’s the reason they would carry out your father’s orders and wishes. Not because they worshipped him,” I said to the slapper, not really giving a fuck about the sentence assignment.

“Silence! You don’t know what the fuck you are talking about. Your father would have worshipped my father on his knees, making him only one of my father’s millions of servants,” the slapper bitch said. And before Bridgette could complete her outburst, “Why are we discussing our goddamn fathers? My father was a thug! He ruled over the trucking industry. So what! That’s him not me!…” I was dragging the slapper by her wrists. Her two helpers were each holding one of her feet. We were all pulling in opposite directions. Instead of saving the slapper from me, her dumb helpers were helping to painfully stretch the slapper out. Bridgette ran over and sat on the slapper’s back causing both sides to let go, and the slapper’s body to hit the floor.

“My father, Ricky Santiaga, was top hustler. He ran a hundred-million-dollar empire. I worship him and so did everybody else. Study bitch said that to worship means to love and trust without question. To hold up higher than all else. To have an extreme devotion to. That’s my father. Your father, from what you said, no one loved or trusted him, not even you. That’s why you could talk about him the way you do. You’re not devoted to your father. I am devoted to mine!” I was screaming. Not my usual style. I was teaching the slapper bitch a lesson. Oddly, I taught a lesson to myself. But like Brooklyn Momma said, “Your private business and your business-business, ain’t nobody’s business.” So I didn’t say nothing to no one about the lesson I just taught myself. “Without a doubt or a question, I worship my father,” I said to study bitch. “Write that down.”

The whole day in the Princess Residence went the same way. Every single word in the twenty-one-word word list set it off. When we first started the assignment the alliances were clearly drawn. Me, Bridgette, and Pretty versus everyone else. But as the talk and anger, debate and fighting escalated, it highlighted how different we all were, even though Bridgette claimed we were all the same. Overall, the self-reflection word game did what I imagine they wanted it to do. It caused us to think about ourselves more intensely than we had ever had. It caused me to go a few layers deeper than my look, which is still extremely fucking important. It caused me to look much more closely at what Young Drummer, Bomber Girl, and these people here are trying to do. They want me to love my family and friends and things that I do really love. But, they want me to worship only Allah. I understand. The problem is this. I now realized that worship contains love, trust, and devotion without question. The truth is, because I am concentrating extremely hard not to lie… The truth is I do not love or trust Allah. I do not even know Allah. How could I love and trust one who I don’t know? Therefore, I cannot worship only Allah. Worship contains love.

30.

Lights-out. The seven of us were more comfortable with one another in the dark. In the light we had each shown our real faces and fists and ways and means. Tomorrow we would face ourselves one on one.

“Bridgette, how did you end up here at the City of Mercy?” Pretty asked.

“My aborted son had told me a long time ago that it’s the only way out. After bouncing around the entire Last Stop Before the Drop, I realized he was right. Hell, I went to the Last Stop synagogue first. They wouldn’t even let me in! Talking about I’m not one of them. I was like, ‘Well, open the goddamn door. Maybe I can become one of ya.’ Nope, never happened.” She laughed. “Then I went to the convent. They let everybody in. I used that place like a hotel and a headquarters. But the convent still wasn’t a way out. Then my son, he’s one of the UBS you saw on the stage. He was the first speaker, bright blue eyes like his father. Anyway, on his third mercy, he was like, ‘Time’s up, take it or leave it.’ I said yes, and then the magic words, Lah-il-la-ha-illah-huwa , and he brought me here to the City of Mercy. Interesting place. Good looking. But way too many goddamn rules. I mean it’s a high standard, and a lot of requirements.”

“You sure never answer a question without doing a whole soliloquy,” study bitch said to Bridgette. “And those weren’t magic words you said to get here. They were sacred words from the Quran that we all need to study.”

“Soliloquy!” Bridgette spit back.

“It just means like a long solo speech. Just you doing all of the talking,” Pretty explained.

“Study bitch is another college bitch,” I said, ’cause I could recognize the type and her style.

“Ivy League, Dartmouth,” study bitch said proudly. Whatever that meant.

“Oh you went to Dartmouth! I went to University of Pennsylvania!” Pretty said, excited. “Well, my daughter brought me here. She’s one of the UBS. I can’t help but love her. She’s very precious to me,” Pretty added.

“Stop lying,” slapper bitch said to Pretty. “If she was precious you would never have killed her. All UBS are aborted souls. Your daughter included.”

“Just stop!” Bridgette’s voice boomed. “I told you we are all victims. We are all the same. That includes you,” Bridgette said to slapper bitch. Slapper bitch laughed hard. I mean she cracked up.

“Hell no, we are not! I’m not the same as any bitch, living or dead. And, I had to kill my son. How else could I have explained that I am his mother, and his real grandfather is his father also? I did him a favor,” slapper bitch said, then stopped laughing. Then the shit slapper had just said made everybody think twice and feel sorry for her. Everyone stopped speaking for some time.

“What’s your M.O.D.?” Pretty asked aloud into the darkness, softly and suddenly, but without saying who she was speaking to.

“M.O.D.?” Bridgette asked.

“Method of death,” Pretty explained, like it was a casual question.

“I killed myself,” Pretty then added softly, confessing into the dark air.