Reese be Tripping

“I have been looking for you for a while. I found our brother last year but he moved out of town a while ago.” My sister was saying as we were walking towards her hangout. She called it the club house. “I just couldn’t live with my mama no more she is crazy as hell so I moved in with my friends and everything has been going great. We have a group called STL finest and I’m one of the rappers.”

My sister was a rapper, nice. Seemed like everyone around me rapped. I did sometimes, but I always pictured myself a more of a manager type. I didn’t want to be in the spotlight.

“Yeah right,” Charlie said smirking, “I’m the best in the Lou and you better know it.” He really was good to be honest. For someone so young he had a story tell, I guess everyone did.

Cherie looked at him and started cracking up, “I’ll see what you got, we hold open mic contest every Friday and freestyle battles every Saturday.”

We arrived at the clubhouse and all I could think was wow. It was a building I had passed many times going to get Chinese food and all this time I had never really tripped off of it. But my sister had been here and I hadn’t even known it.

Inside it was all black, white, and blue. It was like a loft turned into a club. The floor was black and white tile and the furniture was all blue. There was a stage with lots of lights. Lounging on the couches were a lot of people. Some looked familiar, people I had seen around the way. There was a bar stocked to the T and little glass bowls on tables full of marijuana. They were living it up. My sister had bread.

“Here” my sister said passing us a coolers. I wasn’t one for drinking but I was hot and it was cold. I popped the top and tasted the cold liquid. It was good.

We sat and we talked, and we caught up and I was glad she wasn’t the same as the girl I remembered who would pull mean pranks and bully me. When we left it was dark out, and I had had such a good time.

“Take my number” she said handing me a piece of paper. “And if you need anything let me know, no matter what.”

I smiled and nodded my head. Damn this was awesome. I walked home in a daze. I had a sister and she was awesome.

We got home to see a game of football going on in the street. I immediately wanted to play. I loved playing football, I played with guys a lot. Of course they went easy on me because I’m a girl but I gave them everything I had and I enjoyed fucking them up.

“I’m in.” I said “whose team am I on.”

“You can be with us sis,” Joey said.

“But she’s a girl,” some boy I didn’t know said frowning. “I ain’t playing with no girls.”

“It’s cool bro, calm down,” Dave said. He was a dude from the neighborhood he didn’t really hang out with us but when we played football, everybody played. “She cool.”

I looked at dude, he didn’t seem happy to be playing with me. For that I made him my target. “I want him,” I told Joey.

“You got it sis, take his ass down.” Joey said smiling and taking his position.

I got right next to him. And squatted down. Dale was quarterback and as he went out to throw the ball to Charlie I saw that ugly dude coming in quick. My advantage I was small and I was a girl. I ran towards him and held out my arm. He never saw it coming, my forearm connected with his neck. His head stayed but his body kept going, legs in the air running on gravity. He hit the ground face first. I looked up to see Charlie passing between two trashcans for a touchdown. I looked down at big and ugly.

“Never underestimate your opponent,” Then I walked away to celebrate with my team. Some people were laying it on old boy thick, I only caught some of it.

“Dude you got close lined by a girl” “Hell no you too big for that,” and my favorite “She’s so small.”

I was shaking my head and laughing when I heard it, “Fuck you bitch,”

Here we go again. “Fuck you dumbass,” not the best comeback but I wanted to keep playing and if he didn’t stop....

“Suck my-aww,”

He didn't see that coming either, dude wasn’t even from over here and he wanted to come in acting all tough and he wasn’t even aware of his surroundings. Christian had dude in a choke hold and was stepping on his toe.

“Watch how you talk to my girl, you stankin ass punk.” Christian said through gritted teeth, his hold tightening. Dave ran over but before he could get close Reese was there and so was Todo.

“Back off” Todo said, deadly calm.

“He didn't know man,” Dave cried, “come on let him up.”

“No,” Christian said. I swear sometimes I think my boyfriend was a little evil. I walked over to him,

“Christian?” I said softly, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Yeah babe?” he answered.

“Let him go.” I said pressing my lips together.

“But why?” he whined.

“Really Christian, whining does not work when you are choking someone out let him go.” I told him laughing.

He did, and he grabbed my hand and walked away, but not before he kicked dude in the stomach. I shook my head and said, “I’m hungry.”

“Me to “Said Christian, “Kicking ass will do that to you, you know”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pecked him on the lips, “Feeling yourself huh?”

“Damn right,” He said picking me up, “give me some sugar.”

“Really yawl need to cut that shit out,” Montel said.

“Yeah that is still our baby sister,” Smalls said.

“Put me down boo, before we have more ass to kick,” I whispered.

The guys walked pass and I made faces at them all. All except Reese, he wasn’t looking at me, but at Christian and the look in his eyes I did not like. It was hate, maybe a little envy and jealousy. Christian missed it because he was, like always, arguing with Charlie, but I saw it. When Reese looked at me his expression changed. His eyes softened, and he kept eye contact until he walked pass softly brushing my arm.

*****

The next day my cousin Taya came over we were going shopping for back to school. Dale was taking us to northwest plaza, the best mall ever.

“So I told him up them dollars and I’ll let him see something.” Taya was saying on the ride to the mall.

To describe Taya, I’ll just have to say that she was something else. Loud, outspoken, did not give a damn about old ladies and elders, and she cursed like a sailor and smoked weed like it was her medicine. She was my favorite cousin in the world though. We were always inseparable, people called us salt and pepper. Mostly because she was light skinned and I was dark.

“So what he say,” I said.

“He said he was broke but he had a blunt, I showed his ass half a tit, took that blunt and got high. He came back with more and let’s just say he the man of the hour now. Just call him my cuddy buddy.′ She was smiling as she said it.

“Girl you crazy as hell.” I laughed.

“Damn right, cuzz there is power in pussy. Once you know how to use it you can get anything you want. So since you looking at me like I done lost my mind, I’m guessing you still holding out on Christian.”

I didn’t say anything, and she knew what she was saying was true. Christian had been talking about sex a lot lately and we had been dating a year now. I just wasn’t sure I was ready.

Taya looked around me to Christian who sat in the front with Dale. “Yo my dude you still aren’t getting any.”

Christian laughed and said, “Mind yo business.”

“Keep on making him wait Anna and he going to find somebody upping that ass.” Taya said.

I looked away, looking out the window. I didn't want to think about it. If that’s how he was going to be then so be it. He was welcome to walk anytime he wanted to. He didn’t know how I felt about sex in real life. I thought it wasn’t a big deal. It was becoming obvious that I was the only one who thought like that. I didn’t want to have sex now, and no amount of peer pressure was going to get me there.

Christian and I had an argument not too long ago about it. I told him if he needed to get his dick wet he could find someone else to wet it. I told him to fuck who he wanted to, but to wrap it up. I also reminded him of who he belonged to, so he better keep his bitches on a leash. I didn’t want to see them or hear about it in the hood.

I couldn’t believe I had said that, but the pressure was irking my soul. I had given my boyfriend permission to fuck another chick. It was a last ditch effort to accommodate, but I hadn’t meant it. I was hoping he never went that way. There were two things in this world that couldn’t be taken back. A fist once it’s thrown and a word once it’s spoken.

I changed the subject back to shopping and Taya went with it. Talking animatedly about how much fun we were going to have at the mall.