1

My Man

 

It’s 2:06 A.M. My stomach has been uneasy for the past two hours and a rash of goose bumps have taken residence on my caramel skin. I’ve been up since midnight wondering where my man is and when he’s coming home. There’s no acceptable excuse that he could possibly proffer for being out this late on a work night and not calling. I’ve already taken the initiative of contacting his mother in the event that there was a family emergency and she confirmed that everything is copasetic. Calling his friends is pointless, since I know they’ll cover for him. As much as I hate to admit it, I know he’s with another woman.
Rich and I have been together for nine years and have been engaged for three of those years. I’m the one wearing the two-carat, princess-cut diamond and platinum engagement ring on my finger. Rich and I go back many, many years and he was my man first and will always be my man. My friends always say, “Valentine, cut Rich off. He ain’t nuthin’ but a dog.” But they’ll never understand our relationship and our commitment to one another. Those other girls that he used to kick it with on the side weren’t nothing serious. I understand that men cheat and those women out there who think their men don’t cheat, are only fooling themselves. If the notion that your man ain’t sticking his dick in some other chick helps you sleep better at night, then good for you. I like to keep it real!
Richard Washington and I met when I was seventeen years old and he was eighteen. I was messing with this drug dealer named Colombo, who had Lafayette Gardens and Marcy Projects on lock. I was Colombo’s number one chick and life was real good with us, but whenever things went wrong with his game I got the short end of the stick or the thick end of the belt, literally. Colombo was known for his quick temper and being violent. Nevertheless, my options were limited.
My father pulled a Houdini and disappeared when I was ten years old. Three years later, my mother was robbed and stabbed to death on her way home from work, leaving me with her younger sister, my aunt Zenobia.
Aunt Zenobia spent much of her time trying to tackle baby daddy number three. It didn’t seem to matter that baby daddies number one and two pissed on her and left. Aunt Zenobia hunted men for sport and was determined to find her big payday. She barely raised her own two children, CJ and Shaquetta, and definitely didn’t want to be bothered with another mouth to feed. I figured adding me to the picture made it difficult for her to pin down another man. Especially since the majority of the men who visited Aunt Zenobia flirted with me behind her back. Yeah, I had barely entered my teens, but my body was very shapely, which made me look mature for my age. Aunt Zenobia was wise on these men, and though she never raised the issue with me, I knew it annoyed her. Either way, I didn’t stick around very long, and by fifteen I was living the life with Colombo.
Rich was one of Colombo’s many runners. Colombo operated out of an apartment in LG projects, but we didn’t live there. Colombo was a follower of Biggie Smalls’s “Ten Crack Commandments” rule number five: never sell no crack where you rest at. I don’t care if they want a ounce, tell ’em bounce.
I had seen Rich at the headquarters, and we would make small talk, but Colombo didn’t like me associating with the hired help. Although I handled the bookkeeping, I knew more than anything I was his dime piece. However, if he ever caught someone admiring me for too long that could’ve caused trouble. Therefore, I kept communication to a minimum. Rich was different though, whenever he came around, he carried himself with respect. His territory and money were always on point and when his business was complete he left. Rich wasn’t like the other runners who sucked up to Colombo, hung around idly, and made excuses for coming up shortchanged. He’s the kind of brother that you can carry to the club one night and a black-tie affair the next. At six feet, two inches, with burnt caramel skin, sensuous lips, silky eyebrows, and lustrous hair to match, Rich put male models to shame. So even though I didn’t say much, my eyes must have said a million words. Whenever Rich came by my heart would flutter and it didn’t help that he was always so nice. All of Colombo’s workers were polite to me because I was his girl. Most of them even had the nerve to proposition me on the low, but I knew better than to ever mess with any of his men. If Colombo ever found out they were disrespecting him he would have popped their dumb asses, but I kept my mouth shut. I could handle myself.
Colombo and I had a bittersweet relationship. The sweet side was he wined and dined me and bought me anything my heart desired. He spared no expense, because he loved to show me off. After all, I was young, sexy, and hot and Colombo knew that if we split the next big-time hustler would be on standby. He paraded me around like a queen. However, he also had a dark side. He was very controlling and abusive to me and his employees. You never knew what or who was going to set him off. He could be in a room with fifty people and even if he never spoke a word to you, he could recollect the outfit you wore, your hair and eye color, amongst other details that the average person may overlook. His memory was remarkable—he could recall numbers, dates, places, and incidents that at the time may have seemed insignificant, but down the line may have had a major impact on his decision to do business with someone. Colombo didn’t take unnecessary chances with his operation and trusted his team to have similar values and common sense. Unfortunately, that wasn’t always the case.
Chief was one of Colombo’s front men. Chief met with this cat that was a regular, but on this particular day the guy was accompanied by two friends who were trying to leave the parking lot without paying for the merchandise. Chief panicked and ran into the building, returned with his Glock, and fired shots at the truck that they were riding in, killing two of the men instantly. The third guy managed to escape. Needless to say this messed up Colombo’s entire game because not only was it on his turf, but it was right in front of the building that he operated out of. Things were chaotic and I tried to calm Colombo down. He was moving around in circles like a windup toy without direction. I knew this was bad, and to make matters worse there was still one guy on the loose and Chief was so messed up over the ordeal he couldn’t even give a simple description. Colombo got so pissed with Chief that he beat him to the point where I had to intervene. One of Chief’s eyes was already swollen shut and if Colombo did the same thing to the other eye Chief definitely wouldn’t be able to identify the survivor. Colombo thought I was taking up for Chief and started beating me like a rag doll. By the time he was done, I knew he had broken my arm, a few ribs, and it felt like I was breathing under water. I didn’t even want to see a mirror. It was a madhouse and Colombo took Chief, his crew, and the rest of his mess and left me in it.
Rich heard about the mishap with Chief and the shooting in the parking lot. When he arrived at the apartment the only thing...