Sister Souljah - Life After Death

“That’s not the same thing,” I hollered. “That’s not what I got arrested for. I tasted the cocaine just to make sure that them two bitches, who y’all took out of that scene, wasn’t trying to trick me. I didn’t want to show up with coke and be a fool in front of my man Bullet. What if I didn’t taste it? What if the package turned out to be flour or baking soda or some shit like that?” I said, exasperated. “C’mon, I didn’t lie. I really did not get locked up for what happened in that bathroom that night. I got locked up for some drugs and guns that were in a rental car that wasn’t even mine. So that’s what I meant when I said I am not a criminal.” The screen shut off. The cylinder was back to black. I didn’t want to stand there for a whole hour. I was figuring out the routine. I had to confess to my own voice whatever the truth was. I spent my whole lifetime not snitching on nobody no matter what. Now, in the end, I was being forced to snitch on my damn self. I started laughing. But believe me, it was not with joy.

“Okay, I am not innocent. I was not innocent. I was never innocent. I was not a drug dealer. But I did hold my nigga’s guns and drugs and move them from here to there. If that makes me a criminal, then yes, the truth is, I am a criminal. I am not innocent. How you like that? I did not lie,” I said. However, my voice did not say anything back to me.

The screen switched on. It froze on some type of weird word list. “Say aloud which of these sins you have committed in your Earth lifetime and/or afterlife.” Those were the instructions listed above the word list. I just stared at the list. I thought it was some last trick that would be their final attempt to break me. They wanted to turn me into a liar. But, I came to the Truth Booth with my mind determined to win. So I started at the top, scanning the words and calling out aloud the wrongs that I had committed in my life and afterlife.

“Fornication,” I said aloud. I remember Pretty taught me the meaning of that word. “Yeah, I fucked a bunch of niggas who I wasn’t married to and who weren’t married to me. But I did not fuck married niggas. That has to count for something,” I said aloud to the voice that was my own. Then a thought occurred to me and I swiftly explained myself. “Yeah, I wanted to fuck Midnight even though I know and knew that he was married. But the truth is that I never fucked him and I never fucked no married man.”

“Continue,” my voice said to me. My eyes refocused on the list and scrolled down. I saw the word sodomy. I knew that was ass-fucking. But I didn’t think that I could be guilty of sodomy. I don’t have a dick. If I did, I wouldn’t put it in an ass. So since I did not put a dick in anyone’s ass, I skipped that one.

I felt like I was aging while reading the haram list. Haram being the word used in the City of Mercy for forbidden things. The nuns called them sins. It was all the same shit I guess. And between the harams and the sins, there were more than sixty words on the screen. I have felt teenage young my whole life. I even felt like a teenager before I actually became a teenager. I even felt like a teenager when I was no longer a teenager. I felt like a teenager even the day I got released after serving fifteen years. No one could convince me then that I was a day older than nineteen. But in this booth reading this list, I felt squeezed. Kind of how I felt when I was lying in my casket, with my eyes and lips stitched shut and my bones breaking and my body deteriorating.

Okay, I need to focus. So far I had called out that I committed three murders and fornication. I hesitated. My eyes hovered over the word theft . I am not a thief. Simone’s the thief! I thought to myself. “Wait a minute,” I asked out loud. “Should I confess to being a thief just because of the one incident with the old lady, the Gucci shoes, cash and credit cards? I already confessed to the murder!” I hollered in frustration. My own voice, which I heard clearly in surround sound; my own voice, which I did not control; my own voice, which had been making all of these accusations against me, did not reply. The screen with the word list switched off. The film of incidents of my real life began once again. But where was this place I was seeing on the wall screen? Obviously, it’s some church. So now I was like, What the fuck does that have to do with me? I never attended nobody’s church. That isn’t the sanctuary in the convent. That was the only church-like place I been to. Who are these people packed in the pews? Way more people than the convent had at the Last Stop Before the Drop. The images moved. I was in a bathroom again. But this time, I was inside the toilet stall with the door locked shut. I wasn’t shitting, though. I had the toilet seat down and I was using the top of it to sort money. The bills were disorganized. So I was separating the ones, fives, tens, and twenties like Poppa Santiaga taught me to do. He liked clean, neat bills. All bill faces facing the same direction. The wall screen froze on my pretty fingers with the bills in my hand. The image faded. The booth went dark. Instead of waiting, I just got it over with. I couldn’t win this game with a lie. So why delay? “Theft!” I screamed out that one word. I was keeping it short. I did not need to add on the circumstance or explain how I stole the money from the church event that was put together to raise funds for HIV-positive children and their families. I know I did. I know the reason why I did. But this bitch who was me, or this voice that was my own, or this film of my life that I didn’t agree to or benefit from didn’t know my reasoning. My reasoning couldn’t be captured on film. Not even a film that seemed to be coming from the soul dot. My reasoning for all the shit I did was in my head and no one else’s. So yeah, fuck it. I called out, “Theft!” Now I would be thrown in the low category with a real thief bitch like Simone.

The list returned to the screen. I just started reading off damn near every haramful sinful word. I needed to get this over with. I needed to tell the truth, progress to the masjid, and make my sincere prayer, which I could do because I was not telling any lies. And I did fear Allah. Or better yet, I should say I feared the range of power that Allah is and that Allah seems to have over my life, death, and afterlife.

“Fornication, sodomy, murder, theft, liar, cheater, arrogance, niggardly, ingrate, selfish, hostile, vanity, lust, wrath, envy, greed…” I shouted them all. I left some out that I was sure didn’t apply to me. “Done!” I shouted and dropped to the floor, worn out from this bullshit. “What’s next? What’s next?” I shouted from the floor in the semidark booth. Only the light from the word list glowed.

“Are you forgetting anything?” my own voice, which I do not control, asked me.

“Why don’t you tell me, bitch! You seem to know every goddamn thing about me!” I said salty.

“It’s you who must confess it and correct,” my own voice said to me. “Review the list one more time to be sure. When you are sure, press the red button on the left,” my voice instructed me. My immediate thought was, Maybe I should just confess to everything on the list. That way my voice couldn’t possibly catch me in a lie. But then I thought, If I confess to something that I am not guilty of, that would definitely be a lie! Gluttony was on the list. I didn’t confess to that. I never been a big food eater. True, I am not a glutton. That had to do with pigging out, I reminded myself. I have the definitions of these words that study bitch looked up and we discussed and fought over in my mind permanently. I already confessed to greed. That was greed over money, whips, houses, fashions, jewels, and beautiful shit like that. I stood up, reviewed the list again. I stopped at the word sloth . I was like, Nah . I never been a lazy bitch. Even organizing a crew or a gang is hard work. Yeah, when you’re on top of any gang, crew or business, you let the low ones do some of the dirty work for you. But that’s the commonsense way for them to earn their way up out of their low position. I looked it over. I was done. I pressed the red button. The light came on. The floor of the booth turned me a 180 back to the mirror. I saw my reflection and smiled. My beauty awed even me. My look, I’ve got my look, I assured myself, but only inside of my own mind. I was not talking aloud or screaming or explaining to my own voice, the one that was outside of my own body and outside of my own control.