Grace After Midnight_ A Memoir - Felicia Pearson [26]
“My grandmother raised me too,” said Z. “My mother up and left after I was born. Just left. How ’bout your mom?”
“Crackhead. She dead.”
“Shit,” said Z. “That’s the stuff that done me in. You ever deal with the pipe?”
“No.”
“The pipe is deep. The pipe is so deep until you ain’t ever the same again. That’s where all these scars come from. You wanna know about the scars?”
“If you feel like talking, I’m listening.”
“I’d pick me the meanest motherfuckers to get high with. Don’t know why. But every last one would be lowdown and nasty. When we run out of shit, they’d make me chase after more. I’m the kind of bitch who’d say, ‘Fuck you. You chase after the shit.’ They’d cut me. I’d cut ’em back. They’d cut me again. And that’s how it go. Went that way for years. But the thing about the pipe is that the pipe takes you all the way down to places you didn’t know were there. You been to the crack house?”
“I’ve been by to take a look.”
“So you know what’s happening in there.”
“I have some idea,” I said.
“Well, if you hanging in the crack house, you okay. That’s the nice part of it. That means you getting loaded and you cool. It’s when you don’t even have enough money to buy nothing in the crack house—that’s when you fucked up. That’s when you out on the street doing stick-ups and shit. Doing anything to get you some money to buy some crack. You feel me?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I seen that my whole life.”
“Well, you ain’t seen nothing like what happened to me. I done so many stick-ups in my neighborhood there was no one left to stick up. So I started robbing my grandmother. Ain’t that something?”
“You ain’t the only one,” I said.
“But I’m the only one who took it as far I took it.”
For a couple of seconds, Z fell silent.
“How far is that?” I asked her.
Z took a deep breath and went on. “She and her three friends play poker every Friday. Penny poker. Her three friends, they grandmas too. Old bitches. They be sitting in there listening to those blues records and playing their little card game. One of those Fridays I came into the house looking for Grandma’s purse. I find it in the bedroom and start snatching out her money. One of the old bitches sees me and starts yelling. Grandma gets up and tries to stop me. I ain’t in my right mind. I’m in my crack mind. Grandma starts smacking at me. I smack her down. Knock her down. The other bitches start screaming.”
Z stopped again. Her eyes got funny. She took all these deep breaths.
I didn’t say a word. Nothing I could say.
“I cut her throat,” she finally said.
I just nodded.
“Killed my own fuckin’ grandma.”
“That’s really something.”
“That’s why they named this here joint after me. That’s why they call it Grandma’s House.”
GG
Called her GG because she wore everything Gucci. Gucci belt, Gucci shoes, Gucci sunglasses. For all we knew, she wiped her ass with Gucci toilet paper.
In real life GG had been a Gucci whore pimped by a cat she called Valentino. Valentino was notorious for training his girls to rob their johns. This here was the story GG told me:
“Valentino was known as the man who couldn’t come. That’s why he was so beloved by his women. They’d be popping off like firecrackers and Valentino, well, he’d be as fresh as when he started. A half hour, an hour, I’ve seen him go ninety minutes on three different bitches. Didn’t make no difference to Valentino. The porn people were all after him, but he said, ‘Fuck y’all. Y’all can’t match the money I’m making out here running my girls.’
“See, to be a Valentino girl was a way to get famous. He didn’t choose just anyone. You had to have class to start with. The right look, right goods, right everything. Once you got the nod, though, that was just the beginning. Then my boy would school you. School you hard but school you right. He’d tell you about johns. When they bumpin’ you, some of ’em wanna last. Some of ’em don’t. Here’s how to make ’em last. Here’s how to pop ’em right quick. Valentino would school you on psychology. The man’s a genius. See, psychology is what