The Ex Factor: A Novel Read online

  “Yeah?” Monica said, obviously pissed off. “Yeah? Where the hell, besides jail, have you been all day?”

  “Monica, please.” Imani rolled her eyes. “I just need some time to clear my head.”

  “You have a six-year-old son over here. He has been worried about you all day. He keeps crying, and he's being fresh. I swear if he talks about farting and shitting one more time I'ma beat his ass!”

  “Look, don't beat my son, he's expressing himself ! And I'm sorry that he's been worried about me, but this shit with Walik has me fucked up right now and I just need to get it together.”

  “This shit with Walik? Fuck that broke-down can't-even-sell-weed ma'fuckah!”

  “There you go, he ain't never sold weed no way, straight diesel. If you gon' cuss him out, then get it straight.”

  “Who you getting smart with, me? How do you spell loser, Imani? I'll tell you,” Monica said, answering her own question, “It's spelled W-a-l-i-k! You just stuck on hustlin' yo' pussy the fuck backward! Where was he when you were in jail without a bail for six months, huh? Do you know how much of my money I spent getting you a lawyer? Where was he at then?”

  “For your information, he was on the come-up. Anyway, what difference does it make, I ain't fuckin' with his chicken-lickin' ass anyway.”

  “You know what, talk to your son, because I am so not feeling you right now.”

  Monica called for Jamal to come to the phone. Jamal stumbled into the room and frowned up his face. “ 'Sup, Aunty…” He looked around and spotted a can of air freshener on Monica's dresser. “You just sprayed that?”

  “Yeah, why? It smells like raspberries, doesn't it?”

  “Naw, it smell like you been bustin' farts.” Jamal pinched his nose together. “This place smell like a sewer.”

  “Imani,” Monica spoke into the phone, “I'ma beat his li'l nasty fart-talkin' ass!” She pointed to the phone. “It's your mother on the phone, Jamal, she can hear you.”

  “Okay, Aunty, I'm sorry.” He smiled at her and his dimples started to glow. “Maybe you didn't fart,” he went on. “Maybe you just need to doo-doo, or did you try to doo-doo and strain too hard? One time I thought I had to fart and when I checked my Superman drawls I had a big ole dukey stain in 'em. My Imani was like, Boy if you don't get yo' shitty ass outta here and change them funky drawls. So,” he said, taking his fingers from his nose and pointing between Monica's legs, “maybe you need to check your drawls, maybe they shitty.”

  “Jamal!” Monica squinted and held her hand up in the position of a backslap. “Don't get knocked out! Talk to your mama on the phone.” She shoved the phone at him.

  “This Mama-Starr or Imani?” he asked, excited.

  “How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling your mother by her first name? Starr is Nana or Grandma and Imani is Mama or Mommy to you! Now talk to Imani, I mean your mommy!” Monica rolled her eyes at Jamal and walked out of the room.

  He placed the phone to his ear and started smiling. “Imani, you home?”

  “Yes, baby,” she said, feeling the excitement in his voice. “I'm home.” She thought about getting on him about his nasty mouth, but hearing his voice melted her and all she could say was, “I love you, boo-boo.”

  “I love you too, Imani, I missed you. Imani, I was crying.”

  “You were?”

  “Yeah I was like this.” He frowned up his face. “Boo-hoo-hoo.”

  “Oh baby, I'm sorry.”

  “And do you know niggahs was laughin' at me?”

  “Who was laughing at you?” Instantly Imani caught an attitude. “What niggahs?”

  “Them pigs. You know how they do!”

  “Humph, don't I. Well, if anybody else laugh at you, you tell 'im that your Imani will beat their ass!”

  “That's wassup…Imani?”

  “Yeah, baby?”

  Jamal started to whisper. “Uncle Rief told Aunty Monica he was gon' punch her in the face.”

  “What?” Imani couldn't believe it.

  “Yeah,” Jamal continued to whisper, “you should've heard him, he told her I can't even believe I was feeling you, trick. Then it was a lot of noise. Like this, crumble, crumble, crumble, raaaaahhhhh. Then Aunty Monica said, ‘Boy, is you crazy, Jamal sleep in the other room.’ Then Uncle Rief said, ‘Hol’ up, shawtie, you might see me in the streets but you 'on't know me.’ Imani, he sound just like a rapper.”

  “Jamal, stop lyin'! I already told you about lyin' so much!”

  “Imani, I ain't lyin', you shoulda heard him, she told him ‘My Adidas'll walk all over your face, dawg. Punk, lazy-eye niggah! Then he said, ‘Punk? Lazy-eye? You tryna flex? You booty-scratchin' fart face! Yo' breath smell like pissy eggs! And if you mess with me, I'll knock yo' teeth out and put 'em back in crooked!' Yo, that's a wild boy, Imani!”

  Imani was trying her best not to laugh. She knew she couldn't condone Jamal telling lies, but what he'd just said sounded so ridiculous that she couldn't help it. She hit the mute button and fell out. Jamal continued to ramble on. Imani took a deep breath, unmuted the phone, and resumed her conversation. “Enough with the lies, Jamal! Stop it! You know what, you can't watch the Chappelle's Show no more!”

  “I ain't lyin', Imani! They were!”

  “I mean it, now I love you and good-bye,” she said sternly. Imani pressed the end button on the phone but held the receiver in her hand. “I don't know what I'ma do with that boy.” Placing the phone back on the base, she glanced at a picture of her and Walik sitting on top of her TV. “Y'all know when I got home earlier today, I reported that bitch, Shante, to welfare.”

  “Get the fuck outta here, who'd you call?” Sabrena asked.

  “Welfare Fraud has a twenty-four-hour hotline, and I blew that bitch's spot up. I said, ‘Hello this is an anonymous call, and I'd like to report Shante Smith of 1252 Church Avenue, apartment 13D. She's receiving state welfare and she's working full time at Citibank in Midtown.’ I could tell that fuckin' operator felt like she'd won the lottery. She said, ‘We will get on this right away. It's people like this that keep our taxes rising. Have a good evening, miss.’ ”

  “Good for the bitch,” Tasha said.

  “Humph, you better be careful,” Sabrena warned as she looked around the room. “She ain't the only one with a caseworker and j-o-b, all y'all niggahs in the same boat.”

  “Whatever, Sabrena.” Quiana dismissed her. “But yo' on some real shit,” Sabrena continued, “maybe you need to walk away. Walik keeps doing the same shit over and over again.”

  “Walk away?” Imani snapped, getting defensive. “That's my son's father.”

  “Bitch.” Quiana flicked her hand. “You was the one who said you needed to leave his ass alone and now you acting like Sabrena crazy. Leaving his ass is quite simple, all you have to say is Bye ma'-fucker.”

  “For real,” Tasha agreed. “Shit, all you doing is dismissing the dick, not the child support. Matter of fact, what you really need to do is call your Welfare caseworker and give her that niggah's real name and Social Security number. Hem his ass up in child-support court.”

  Imani sucked her teeth. “Please, so Welfare can take the money? Spare me. Plus, I ain't giving him away so that bitch can have him all the time, hell no!”

  “What the fuck is you giving away?” Quiana countered. “Imani, Walik is a bum.”

  “Quiana, I know you ain't talkin',” Imani snapped, “not when you snuck and married Quinton on Family and Friends Day in the middle of the prison yard. And when he came home he still beat yo' ass and he wasn't even holdin' no paper.” Imani pointed to Tasha. “Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't you and Shay, from Norstand, pregnant at the same time?”

  “Oh no you didn't!” Tasha looked at Imani like she was crazy.

  “Have you lost your mind, Imani?” Sabrena asked.

  “Sabrena, you got nerve.” Imani looked her up and down. “When Umar went to prison you ain't never hold him down, not even for one day.”

  �
��What the fuck I look like to you? A dumb bitch? That niggah was selling bootleg CDs. He couldn't at least catch a gun charge? Fuckin' CDs, come on now. I'm embarrassed. That's some real punk shit.” Sabrena rolled her eyes. “Bitch, you know that's a soft spot with me.”

  “Whatever, I should've known y'all wouldn't understand me and Walik.” Imani felt like she wanted to coldcock her friends in the face. “None of y'all have ever had a man like Walik. I've been with him since I was thirteen years old. I'm twenty-three now, that's ten years.”

  “Ten years?” Sabrena said. “Ain't you tired of that dick? The way he fuckin' you has got to be played.”

  “Don't you worry about it.”

  “But Imani,” Quiana jumped in, “let's not forget you went to jail for six months fuckin' with his tired ass!”

  “Yeah, remember?” Sabrena rolled her eyes. “And that wasn't even yo' shit. All you were doing was lying on the couch with morning sickness when the cops kicked the door in. And six months later you were the one in front of the judge copping a time-served and a year's probation plea.”

  “I got charged as a minor.”

  “You still went to jail,” Quiana said.

  Imani couldn't help but agree. “Yeah… and then he go and fuck that bum bitch.” Tears started to stream down her face. “I got something for his ass, though. I'ma call crackhead Larry and give all his shit away.”

  “I'm wit' that.” Sabrena rolled her eyes. “Since he wanna play you, let his ass come home naked.”

  “I was ride or die for his ass,” Imani cried. “I was pregnant and I still held his ass down. Hell, ain't that love?”

  “Hell yeah, that's love,” Quiana snapped. “Shante ain't never did no time for his ass.”

  “All that bitch did was have him take care of her daughter and get pregnant. All I wanna ask him is, When did she become your girl, and where the hell was I when the switch took place?” Imani wiped the tears from her face.

  “That's why we gon' fix his ass,” Sabrena insisted, “and, Imani, don't be cryin' over no niggah; cry over his ass when you riding his enemy's dick.”

  “True story,” Imani agreed. She got up, her friends following closely behind her into the bedroom. Imani opened the closet and Walik's shit almost fell on top of her. When he'd first asked her to hold his things for him, Imani had complained she didn't have the room. Her two-bedroom, Section 8, twelfth-floor Brooklyn flat was just enough for her and Jamal and nothing extra. But at the time she couldn't refuse Walik; after all, he was her man, and she was determined to hold him down no matter what. Well… today was a new day and Walik's shit had to go.

  “And after this,” Quiana said, “we going to the club and get our party on. Fuck these fake-ass get-money niggahs in the street.”

  “Yeah, I need to get outta here,” Imani agreed.

  Since they were now on a mission to give Walik's shit away and get to the club, the girls lined up. Imani had gone into the kitchen and grabbed the garbage bags. When she came back, the assembly line began: yank, yank, pass, and trash…Yank, yank, pass, and trash.

  “It's a shame we gotta punish niggahs like this,” Sabrena said. “Don't go back and start fuckin' with him again, Imani. And I mean it!”

  “ 'Cause if you do,” Tasha said, “all you gon' be doing is buying this shit all over again.”

  “Fuck his ass.” Imani rolled her eyes. “Let him go be with Shante, they got a family and all.”

  “And don't fall for no fake-ass apology,” Sabrena said. “ 'Cause even though a niggah says he's sorry, he still lyin' and you can tell by how he apologizes what the hell he really did.”

  “Word,” Tasha countered. “I know for me, if a niggah says he's sorry and stays at my spot all day and night, that means he fucked a bitch. And all he's feeling is guilty.”

  “Yup, and if he says sorry,” Quiana said, “then he gets mad and leaves, I know he's getting ready to fuck the bitch, and then he'll say I was always accusing him and always having an attitude, and that's why he fucked her.”

  “That's a niggah for you. But,” Sabrena said, taking Walik's nickel-plated .38 and Desert Eagle out the closet and resting them on the bed, “if he says, ‘Look, ma, I'm sorry, either you can believe me or not, but I love you and I ain't leaving you,’ and he don't have no attitude or base in his throat, then all the bitch did was suck his dick.”

  “But,” Tasha stressed, “if the niggah comes home and eats your pussy without saying a word, and he goes straight for the clit, best believe it's a bitch out in the street pregnant.”

  Imani's voice cracked. “That ain't always true, Tasha. Walik ain't never ate my pussy.”

  “Imani,” Sabrena turned to her, “you fucking up my high and shit. Go get dressed. I'll call my li'l crackhead cousin over here to get this. We might not ever find Larry in time, and believe me my cousin'll have this shit sold in five minutes. Keep him from stealing my shit for a li'l while.”

  “Ai'ight, I'ma go get dressed,” Imani sniffed.

  Imani grabbed her gear before she left, then went in the bathroom to take a shower.

  Once Imani stepped out of the shower, she slipped on a white terry-cloth strapless Juicy dress that came midway to her thick thighs. The tattoo in the middle of her right thigh, of two cherries with cream dripping on them, glistened from the shimmering lotion she rubbed over it. The top of Imani's dress was so tight that her C-cup breasts threatened to spill out. She stood in the mirror, glazed her lips with Oh Baby MAC Lipglass. She popped her lips together, slipped on her pearlized tinted Christian Dior shades, and stepped out the bathroom door. “Ready to roll?”

  “Look at you, ho,” Sabrena said, returning from setting Walik's bags of clothes outside the apartment door. “Turn around. That shit you got is fiyyah. I know you spent your whole check on that shit. Let me see them shoes.”

  Imani kicked one foot out, showing off her two-inch white patent-leather Marc Jacobs thongs.

  “That shit is nice.” Quiana grinned, grabbing her purse and popping an orange Tic Tac in her mouth. Quiana pushed her white round eye shades on top of her Pony hair micro braids. She ran her hand down the front of her blue-and-white diagonal-striped Baby Phat halter dress, to straighten the wrinkles out.

  Tasha pulled the side of her Giants' football-jersey dress down, so that it would fall off her shoulders. She looked down at her feet to make sure her heels weren't dirty; she'd bought brand-new blue Chinese slippers and spray-painted numbers on them to match her football-jersey dress, and with this ensemble she knew she was the shit.

  “Let's get it cracked,” Tasha said. Tasha was the designated driver of the clique, since none of the other girls, including Imani, had her license.

  “One minute, I almost forgot,” Imani said, walking back into her bedroom and grabbing Walik's guns. She placed them in Jamal's backpack and walked out the door. By the time they got into Tasha's 1993 red CR-V and finished complaining about being cramped, Tasha'd pulled in front of the police station, where Imani turned in Walik's guns. Under the new “Ask No Questions” program, Imani handed the policemen the guns, and they never said a word.

  “I am now officially through with that niggah!” Imani said. A few moments later her cell phone rang. When she peeped the caller ID she sucked her teeth. “I cannot stand answering a blocked number.”

  “Don't answer,” Tasha said as she started to drive. “Nah,” Imani flipped her phone open, “it could be something wrong with my son.” She placed the phone to her ear. “Who dis?”

  “Imani.”

  “Yeah, this Imani.”

  “I know who this is, where you at?”

  Imani was so hyped, pissed off, and hurt by hearing Walik's voice that she didn't even notice he hadn't called collect. “This niggah!” Imani said loudly.

  “Who?” Sabrena frowned. “Walik?”

  “Who the fuck else?” Imani said.

  “Imani,” Walik said calmly, “where are you?”

  “I'm on my way to Club NV. Where the fuck
are you? On the bottom bunk jawbreakin' a dick, mess hall, or the law library, workin' on that case tryin' to get out?”

  “Imani—”

  “Oh shit, I got it, you in the license-plate program.”

  The girls fell out laughing in the background.

  “Yeah,” Tasha said, peeking in the rearview mirror at Imani in the backseat, “tell that niggah to get a sock and gun his meat!”

  “Imani,” Walik laughed hesitantly, “y'all got jokes … real cute… and I tell you what.” He was still calm, never raising his voice. “I'll see you in a minute, ma. I'ma let you get that off for now, 'cause I know you're hurt. My peoples told me what happened between you and Shante. But check this, tell big girl and them two li'l anorexic ma'fuckers to mind their business. Matter a fact, take yo' ass home. I don't even want you hangin' with them.”

  “Kiss my ass, niggah! I wish I would go in the house. My name ain't Shante. You's a no-good, sorry-ass liar that can lick the crack of my shitty ass!”

  Imani's girls fell out laughing.

  “If you don't like what she's saying then buck, niggah!” Tasha said, still laughing.

  “Ahhh haa! Tell that niggah to find him a punk at roll call in the morning!” Sabrena screamed.

  “Yo,” Walik said calmly, “you see I'm being calm, right? You playin' me and I'm takin' it, but one thing you better do is tell that big-tittie, gold-tooth-wearin' ho that my size thirteen will make her lung collapse.”

  “Oh please,” Imani snapped, “don't play yourself 'cause your feet about a size three. So hurry to the weight room and lay on the bench press and suck a dick. And furthermore, why you on my phone? You don't give a damn about nobody but yourself, you sorry good-for-nothin' rotten-dick bitch! I hate the day that I fell for yo' ass, but not to worry, 'cause the niggah that's runnin' yo' block that you once had locked, his cum slides down my throat with ease. Plus, he lets Jamal call him daddy.”

  “What you say to me, Imani?” Walik said, his voice rising. “Check it, in a minute I'ma see about you.”

  “In a minute, niggah please, you got years. Jailhouse ma'fuckers always about to see somebody in a minute. The only thing you gon' see in a minute is the fuckin' yard or the movie room. Go get a new jumpsuit and give it a rest. I can't help it if that niggah's dick bigger than yours!” And with that, Imani hung up.