Dirty Rotten Liar Read Free

attracted to all the grimy shit that went on when the sun went down.
    On the real, I loved my mama, but I loved me some of Daddy’s on-the-side hoes too. Them was some bad-ass chicks, and most of them were slick and beautiful and had side-hustles of their own. And I looked so much like my daddy that they took right to me and spoiled the hell outta me. I used to play hooky from school and hang out with them up on the avenue, and they would sneak me cigarettes and weed and as much liquor as my lil young throat could swallow.
    And by that time I had some brand-new titties poppin’ out on my chest, and my hips and booty had poofed out and spread deliciously wide too. My daddy would give me money to buy food and shit, but instead of taking it home to Mama I would trick it up on Kush and Coronas, and it wasn’t long before I started dressing like his most butter hoes and flaunting my firm young body on the streets just like they did too.
    But my father peeped my game when he overheard some little corner slanga talking about how he was gonna get at my cherry, and Daddy put the brakes on all that ill shit. He busted up in Mama’s crib screamin’ on her for not watching me and dogging her out for letting my hot ass run wild and loose on the streets.
    I felt so bad when I saw how hard my mama cried!
    Sniffling and hollering, she broke down and confessed that she had liver disease from all that drinking she used to do when she was younger. She told Daddy she was sick and she couldn’t be running up and down the streets behind my fast ass no more! Mama got on her knees and pressed her face to Big Moe’s shiny shoes, hugging his ankles as she begged my daddy to come back home so they could get back together and raise me together as a real family. But as bad as I felt for Mama, I wanted to slap the hell outta her for getting down on the floor and begging a man like that! As young as I was, I knew it didn’t matter to a playa if a chick had his kid or not! When a nigga didn’t want you no more, he didn’t want your black ass no more! I was only thirteen years old, but I knew damn well that Moe LaRue was never coming back home, and I would never forget the look on my daddy’s face when he told Mama that.
    â€œ We ain’t no goddamn family, Jude!” he spit at her. “ Mink is my baby, and me and her is gonna alway s be blood. But me and you?” He kicked her off his foot like a dirty Kotex had dropped outta the sky and landed on his shoe. “Bitch you ain’t shit to me. You never was and you never will be.”
    It seemed like something just broke in Mama’s spirit after that. All them years of hoping and praying and running the streets behind that man just fell down on her head and she couldn’t take it no damn more.
    â€œI’ma kill your ass, you yellow muthafucka!” Mama rolled over on the floor and screamed as Daddy kissed me then headed toward the front door.
    â€œJust fuckin’ watch!” she hollered. “You think Valentina fucked you up? Well you just watch, you piss-colored muthafucka, you! I’ma kill your ass!”
    Mama didn’t sleep a wink that night. I heard her walking a hole in the floor in our small apartment just’a crying and muttering nonsense under her breath.
    She was standing right by my bed the next morning when I woke up.
    â€œGet up, Mink. I need you to come with me to my appointment,” she told me as I slid out the bed and got ready for school. Mama was already dressed, and her hair was done real nice. She had on makeup and all that. Perfume too.
    Mama said there wasn’t enough time for me to fix breakfast, so she handed me a Pop-Tart and a cup of sink water with two ice cubes floating in it. We went downstairs and climbed in our car, but instead of driving me to her doctor’s appointment like she said she was, that fool went and drove both of us off a loading dock and straight into the Hudson