Hell's Diva:. Anna J. Stewart

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СКАЧАТЬ prison allowed inmates five visitors at one time. The prison only informed visitors that an inmate had visitors if the limit was reached; otherwise, they would allow a visitor to visit an inmate who was already on a visit. When Ruby was let in she immediately noticed her boyfriend hugging and kissing on a girl she recognized from Langston Hughes. She walked over to the couple just as they finished kissing.

      “Who the fuck is this bitch, nigga?” Ruby yelled, standing between her boyfriend and the girl. Looking at the both of them, tears began to form in her eyes.

      “She’s a friend, Ruby. Chill out, girl,” her boyfriend explained, trying to grab Ruby’s hand. He could tell by the look in her eyes that she was about to go off. The other visitors and inmates all watched the drama unfold. Even the correction officer positioned at a desk at the front of the visiting room watched.

      “After all I been through for you, this is how you pay me back? This is what I get, you bastard?”

      “Yo, you buggin’, Ruby. She’s my friend!”

      “Friend? Fuck you mean friend, nigga? You just asked me to marry you, and I’m your friend? You better tell this bit—” the girl responded. She was shorter and smaller than Ruby, but she wasn’t the least bit afraid of Ruby’s stature.

      She didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence before Ruby was all over her. The correction officer had to intervene before total chaos broke out. He had to call for backup to get Ruby off of the girl because she was already bleeding from the nose and mouth. The visit was terminated, and Ruby left the prison distraught and heartbroken. She never visited him again. She didn’t respond to his letters or accept his calls. She told her sister about the incident and the next day his name was taken off the lease. Ruby threw all of his clothes, pictures, and anything else that was his or reminded her of him in the incinerator. Ruby developed a deep hatred for men after her ordeal, and she swore to her sister that she would never let another nigga have her heart again.

      As Ruby and Mecca drove the streets toward home, Ruby tried her best to get these thoughts out of her head. She couldn’t help but notice how much Mecca looked like her now-deceased sister, and vowed to herself that she would do everything in her power to help Mecca get through these trying times that were clearly too much for a child to handle. Ruby also knew she couldn’t dwell on the past, and had to keep the flow going in her own life.

      Ruby brought her niece to her Coney Island apartment a few blocks away from the amusement park the neighborhood was famous for. Her duplex apartment on Twenty-Fourth Street between Surf and Mermaid Avenues was decorated with mirrored walls and bright-colored furniture. It had a seventies look to it. Ruby was living in the apartment with a female companion, but she was currently serving a ten-year sentence for possession of a half kilo of heroin found in a backpack she attempted to bring on a Greyhound bus headed to Virginia. When they entered the apartment, Ruby turned on the television for Mecca to watch.

      “You hungry, baby?” she asked while walking into the kitchen. Ruby didn’t know why she asked that question, knowing her niece’s appetite probably was gone by what she had seen. She didn’t have an appetite herself. She just wanted to take Mecca’s mind off of what had happened as much as she could.

      “Yes, Auntie, do you have Cap’n Crunch?” Mecca replied to her surprise. Ruby knew at that moment that Mecca was tougher than the average girl her age. If she could get through the death of her parents with no problem, anything else that would come her way would be a breeze.

      Chapter Four

      He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.

      Revelations 13:10

      After two weeks of taking Mecca shopping for new clothes and furniture for the room once used by Ruby’s roommate, Mecca returned to school. Ruby allowed Mecca to continue to attend school in Brownsville with all of her friends. She, along with some of Mecca’s teachers, noticed a change in Mecca’s attitude immediately. Her temper, to be exact.

      Her first explosion was directed toward a girl her age named Tamika, the sister of her parents’ killer. Tamika didn’t know it was her brother who had killed Mecca’s parents. Tamika hardly saw her brother, and when he did come home it would be after a week of him missing and he would come home while Tamika was asleep. When she got home from school, he would be gone. It all popped off when Tamika asked Mecca for some candy during lunch period, something she was better off leaving alone.

      “Can I get one of your Now and Laters?”

      “No! Get your own,” Mecca replied to Tamika while rolling her eyes.

      “Forget you then,” Tamika came back, sucking her teeth and rolling her eyes at Mecca. When she turned to walk away she didn’t see Mecca charging at her like a speeding train. By the time she turned around, hearing the footsteps coming toward her, Mecca was swinging wildly, punching and scratching Tamika’s face. She pulled Tamika’s hair, forcing her to the floor and causing Tamika to squeal in pain.

      “Mecca, get off me! You’re hurting me!”

      Mecca had rage in her eyes and she didn’t hear Tamika’s cry. She didn’t hear the other students laughing and screaming for Mecca to “beat her up!” and “stop, Mecca, you’re hurting her!”

      Teachers hearing the commotion came to break it up. When Mecca was pulled off of Tamika, she had patches of her hair missing. Her face was scratched and bruised. Mecca was breathing hard and just stared at Tamika while the teachers walked her to the principal’s office, where Mecca was told she was on a three-day suspension. Mecca thought she would come home to an angry Ruby. Instead, Ruby waited for Mecca to return home to a diamond bracelet and brand new Sergio Valente jeans and Reebok sneakers. Ruby was usually high off of the weed she constantly smoked, and smiled at Mecca.

      “You beat that li’l bitch ass, Mecca?”

      “Yeah, Auntie, I beat her ass.” Mecca smiled back at her aunt.

      Ruby hugged her niece and said, “If anybody says something you don’t like or tries to hurt your feelings, you beat they ass. If they beat you, you grab a bottle, a knife, anything you can find and you make sure they feel pain, you hear me?” Ruby asked. With a serious look on her face, she held Mecca’s shoulders and continued, “If I ever hear you let somebody hit you and you ain’t do nothing, I’ll beat your ass myself.”

      Ruby smiled again and handed Mecca her gifts. When teachers complained to Ruby, she told them she would deal with Mecca. Eventually Mecca got expelled at numerous schools in Brooklyn. By the time she reached junior high, Mecca had been to six elementary schools, and ended up in a school for problem kids known as “six hundred schools.”

      Ruby sold dope out of the apartment and didn’t have to worry about standing on corners subjected to harassing beat cops and detectives and the stick up kids. Coney Island was full of stick up kids. Ruby had regular clientele. People she knew. She didn’t run a spot where just anyone could come cop; her customers were also friends she invited in to drink and gossip with, most of them women.

      Ruby had some of the same customers she had before leaving Brownsville, and it was from her Brownsville customers that she received info she needed about the goings-on in Brownsville. The who’s who and what’s what of the neighborhood. This is how Ruby received the information she needed to make her move against the man responsible for killing her sister and her brother-in-law, and making her niece an orphan.

      The kids in Mecca’s new Coney Island neighborhood learned the hard way that Mecca wasn’t СКАЧАТЬ