Grace After Midnight_ A Memoir - Felicia Pearson [7]
After they got high, they acted all funny, shaking and dancing and carrying on.
To get the fiends from coke to heroin, which earned the dealers more money, Rico and his boys would pass out what they called Ts. Ts were teasers, free samples to get you started.
“I see you understand the game,” Rico said to me.
I didn’t even bother to nod. I didn’t have to.
The game on the street was so different—more complicated, more dangerous and deadly—than the games we played in the schoolyard. The schoolyard games, volleyball and baskeball, were great for me because I excelled at them.
I wasn’t intimidated by the taller boys who were older and stronger. I was quicker and more aggressive. I couldn’t be backed down. That attitude earned me a good reputation in the schoolyard. And my high grades earned me respect in the classroom. School was cool. School was guarded by security niggas with real guns. School was no joke.
But school was boring. School didn’t excite my eyes or my mind. School was routine. You could predict what would happen from one day to the next.
On the streets, though, you couldn’t predict shit. Might be quiet now, but a minute later, BANG! Something big comes down that changes up the game. The battles over territory, the fight for the best locations to set up shops, the new playas coming in and the old playas going out—the action never stops.
You have to be quick. And smart. If you react wrong, that might be it. If you react right, you can keep playing.
I kept playing.
UNCLE
I was eight years old when I fell in love with Pam Grier.
Mama’s grandson was living in the basement where he played the tapes of her movies from the seventies. I was glued to the screen.
Pam Grier was Coffy, a chick with a giant Afro and a body from heaven. She works as a nurse during the day. At night she takes on the bad guys and blows them away, one by one. She’s got her own private arsenal and her own style of killing. The poster hanging on the basement walls says, “She’s the godmother of them all . . . the baddest one-chick hit squad that ever hit town.”
In another movie, Pam is Foxy Brown. This time her hair is curly and her dresses even skimpier. Foxy Brown is so down she don’t hesitate cutting off some guy’s dick. You don’t fuck with Foxy.
But Foxy is make-believe and the streets are real. I can’t deal with make-believe for too long. I’m back on streets, just looking around, holding a packet or two, seeing what the day brings.
One day I was sitting on the steps when a man came by. He was in his twenties, good-looking, two golds in his mouth, happy attitude. I knew he was dealing.
“Hey, Snoop,” he said, “what you doing?”
“Who’s Snoop?” I asked.
“You.”
“I ain’t Snoop, I’m Fefe.”
“No, you Snoop.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so.”
He sat down on the steps next to me.
“You too young to be doing what you doing,” he said.
“How you know what I’m doing?” I asked.
“I seen you, Snoop,” he said. “I seen you watching this mess out here. You watch like a hawk. You don’t miss nothing.”
I didn’t say nothing.
“You a girl who thinks you’re a boy,” he said. “But I think you’re Snoop.”
“Why Snoop?” I asked.
“Snoop out of Charlie Brown. Snoop’s that puppy who’s always saying cute things. He’s sweet but he’s sad.”
“All right.”
“Yeah, you Snoop all right. And I’m telling you you should be in school.”
“I am in school. Today’s a holiday.”
“You do good in school?”
“Real good.”
“What subject you like best?”
“Math.”
“Figures,” he said. “You gotta be good with numbers.”
“I am.”
“And you’re real sure of yourself, ain’t you?”
I just shrugged. Where this guy coming from? What did he want? Why was he so interested in me?
His two gold teeth sparkled off the sunshine. He had this big smile across