Chapter Twenty-Six
As soon as the shooting stopped Moonie grabbed me and led me back down to the Dungeon. I’d screamed until my throat was raw, hysterical at the sight of my brother’s faceless body and his brain matter clinging to my skin. Jimmy’s body had landed on top of me, slamming me down to the ground and protecting me from the rounds that sank into his dead flesh as Pluto opened fire. It was a miracle, but I didn’t have a hole in me, except for the one bleeding from my heart.
Pluto had actually screamed when G went down, and if it wasn’t for Moonie he would have shot me on the spot. Click! Click! Click! Pluto kept on pulling his trigger even after all the bullets were gone, and if he’da had any rounds left my ass would be dead. Moonie and Cooter rolled Jimmy off of me, and I caught a quick glimpse of G laying against a table with half of his chest blown away.
“This is some fucked-up shit, Juicy.” Moonie took me in the tiny bathroom and tried to use his shirt to wipe the blood out my eyes. “Shit’s about to get hot cause too many niggas got emotional and fucked up!”
Moonie pulled my bloody T-shirt over my head and helped me take off my filthy panties. My period had come down earlier that morning, and I’d made a pad out of the last of the toilet tissue I’d found in the nasty little bathroom.
There wasn’t even a rag to wash up with, so Moonie turned on the rusted tap and wet my bloody T-shirt down, then used it to wash my face and chest, and get what gore he could out of my hair. I stood there naked and crying in grief, that last look in Jimmy’s eyes haunting me down to my bones.
I didn’t even know Pluto and Ace had come downstairs until they were standing in front of me. Pluto was still crying, and the way Ace was looking at me made me glad that Moonie was standing between us.
“You gonna do her, Moonie?” Pluto asked, slinging snot. “Or you want me to? Either way, this ho gotta go.”
Moonie looked at him and shrugged. “Don’t matter who do her. But Pacho is still in Brooklyn and we ain’t getting three bodies in the trunk of no Benz.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the mattress on the floor, and flung me down on that nasty, cum-stained sheet. I was shaking as Moonie slipped the chain around my wrist and then looped it around the pole again and locked it. “We’ll come back for her ass later. This time we’ll make sure the bitch treats you right. And then we’ll do her.”
I tried to turn over in my sleep, but I was still chained to the pipe on the filthy mattress. I didn’t know how long much time had passed, but ants had been chowing down on me, and I’d scratched my leg down to the white meat while I was asleep. I’d been dreaming about Grandmother, and grief was all over me. I’d seen her as clear as day, wearing the same dress we’d buried her in, her smiling face still caked up with mortician makeup. “Look out for yourself, Juicy,” she had whispered to me. “Jimmy-Jo is right here with me and Cara, and that hardheaded boy is doing just fine.”
The realization that they were all gone hit me hard. I was left in this world all by myself, alone without nobody to love me or look out for me. I willed myself not to cry again, and instead I started praying, wishing Moonie hadn’t stepped in front of Pluto when he pulled out that gun and hoping that the next time Pluto pointed it at me he’d have enough heart to take me out fast.
At the top of the stairs, the door opened again, but I didn’t even bother to open my eyes. Why should I? I’d lost my soul in the G-Spot, and there was nothing left to live for anymore. I heard Pluto coming down, this time real slow, like he thought I was scared and he wanted to punk me some more. I could feel him standing there looking down at me, but if he thought I was gonna open my eyes and beg to suck his dick in exchange for my life, his ass was dead wrong. I wasn’t Cara. I didn’t even want to live.
I waited his ass out as the minutes went by. I pushed those dead images of G and Jimmy to the far corners of my mind, and instead thought about my brother being whole and happy, and my man, Gino, loving me with everything in his heart. Pluto could go ahead and shoot now, I thought to myself, and I was just about to open my mouth and tell him so when he spoke first.
“Juicy, we fin’ta find somewhere to stash them bodies, so I’ma give you the chance that somebody shoulda gave my little sister.”
My eyes flew open and I found Cooter looking down at me.
“What?” I said softly, confused as hell.
“Dig this,” Cooter said, and he sure as fuck wasn’t stuttering. “You lucky, Juicy, cause ain’t no such thing as an ex-bitch with G. You don’t just walk away after fuckin with a niggah like him. You end up in a graveyard. G fucked my whole family up when he killed Charlene. Broke my mama’s heart and she ain’t been right since. So I’ma do for you what I wish somebody woulda been man enough to do for Charlene. I’ma accidentally forget to lock that door when we leave up outta here, but if you still around when me and the crew get back… I sure hate it for ya.”
“W-w-where’s Moonie?”
“Moonie? He’s outtie. My man kept his family in a one-bedroom on Tiebout while G tricked his money away over on Central Park West. Don’t worry about Moonie. He done stashed away enough yardage to live larger than ten Gs, and ain’t a dime of it traceable back to this Spot.” Cooter tossed me a fat envelope. “He left this for you, though. It should help you start over again.”
I bit down on my lip as Cooter turned a key in the chain’s lock, and the next thing I knew my arm was free and I was staring at his back as he walked up the stairs.
It coulda been a trap, but I trusted Moonie and somehow I believed Cooter, and two seconds after that door slammed I was on my feet. Weak and sore, I searched around trying to find something to put on, but the only thing in the room besides my bloody shirt and drawers was the sheet on the bed and one dirty tube sock.
I wrapped that sheet around me the best I could, then grabbed the envelope and crept up the stairs and listened at the door. Even the air at the top of the stairs was foul, and I forced myself to chill and wait, instead of busting through the door and running.
I figured if I counted to one thousand real slow, chances were they’d be long gone. When I got up to 999 I turned the knob on the Dungeon’s door and crouched down low. Moving through the doorway and into the darkness, I hugged the wall and led myself through the warehouse by touch. Moments later I pushed out the front door of the G-Spot, wrapped in a dirty white sheet and squeezing a sock between my legs. Running barefoot through the ice and snow, I staggered to the curb, flagged down a bootleg taxi, and collapsed inside.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I fell into Rita’s arms as soon as she opened the door. I was numb and could barely answer her as she yelled in Spanish and her sisters ran and got me a blanket and a housecoat.
“Oh my God, Juicy,” Rita switched to English as she pulled me into the bathroom. Even though I’d made it out of the Spot alive, most of me was already dead. I was like a baby as Rita put me in the shower and washed the blood off of me with soap and warm water. All I could think about was Grandmother and Jimmy. Gino and Dicey. I cried my heart out and Rita just let me. She didn’t even ask me what had happened. She just did her best to help me the only way she knew how. She had to climb in the shower with me in order to shampoo my hair, and for the life of me I couldn’t lift a finger to help her. I was just that through.
“Jimmy’s dead,” I told her after she had dried me off and given me a tampon, a housecoat, and some warm socks to put on. “G and Gino, too.”