Below is a short story from the underground Urban author, D. Consti. Luckily, I get buddy benefits and I’ll be featuring installments of the stories on a regular basis. The ‘Calm before the Storm’ series is about an exotic dancer and all of the crazy happenings of her underground lifestyle. With each story you learn more and more about what makes the character Jasmin tick.

     Pacing in my  living room I pull my hoodie over my head and blast some angry hip-hip vibes to go along with my raging psyche.

Simone just called me and let me know Precious was waiting after work last night with a team of Hispanics ready to jump me - For whatever reason I didn’t make it in last night, truth be told I was too lazy from the three blunts Paro and I smoked the night before while watching the fight.

“What the fuck?! I don’t even know this girl, how can she have beef?” I’d honestly only seen Precious around the club, I never gave her any kind of thought - If I had to think about her I’d say she’s crackahs -  It’s not her looks that make her ugly to me, but her personality. Every time I see this girl walking around it seems like she just tasted something funny, she’s short with long hair dark hair and a lil’ Kim pre-op body. Simone interrupts my thoughts which are scanning for some form of confrontation Precious and I might have had;

“Jasmin! So what are you going to do?!”

“Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do? This girl had ten odd people waiting to jump me last night! It’s war yo,  I’m putting on my hoodie and track pants as we speak.” At this point I really didn’t have a choice, if this girl tried to fuck me up, I better show her who the fuck I am before she tries again.

See I’m an exotic dancer by profession, once a young woman with so much promise who took the wrong paths too many times and landed myself at the ‘Rocket Launcher’ with a six night paid schedule spot - My stage shows that good. I can honestly compare working in a club to being in jail (although I’ve never actually been locked up). If you let someone punk you in that joint there’s no going back, you’ll get punked and stomped on every day after that. The story of how I got here is based on the minute details as well as obvious one’s, either way I’m about to walk into a battlefield filled with horny men, half naked women, booze and drugs.

I call my driver and ask him to pick me up at nine tonight, enough time to get ready, listen to some more hype music, have a drink and get into fight mode. I didn’t even bother to call all my girls to let them know what was about to go down. Precious might have needed an army to deal with me, but I see myself as a General - I can put her down solo.

When I hoped into Drew’s car he knew something was up because I’m usually bubbly and chatty on the way to work - I’m one of the only girls who laughs at his lame jokes and doesn’t make fun of his Hungarian accent. Tonight was different thought, I was in the zone thinking; “What’s my plan of attack? Should I confront her in front of all of the customers? She’s bigger than me, even if it’s just fat, am I gonna get the shit kicked out of me?” I quickly push the thoughts of defeat out of my mind by thinking of all the times I held it down, in high-school I was jumped by two girls at the same time and my 115 pound ass dealt with them both!

Ten minutes later we pull up at the ‘Rocket Launcher’, I give Drew the fifteen bucks for the ride, look out of the window for any shady characters and hop out of the car.  Drew speeds away before I even have the door fully closed, other girls to pick up and money on his mind. My safety’s in my hands and my hands alone.

As I enter the club I discretely look around to see  if I can spot Precious anywhere, I don’t.

“Jasmin! What you doing here?!” My angry Philipino manager Pho yells at me. I don’t know why this mans always angry, but every single word he says is filled with so much anger it would be hilarious if it wasn’t directed at me right now.

“Um, I work here.” I say in a what the fuck are you talking about kind of way.

“Either work or get out! Pay DJ thirty-five dollars, you not on schedule tonight.”

I hadn’t planned on working tonight, but I brought my work bag filled with dancing shoes and outfits just in case I smelt money. “I’m going to Pho, I’m going to - God!”

“Hey no attitude, you can go work somewhere else, you trouble!”

I seriously don’t know why he thinks I’m so filled with bad intentions, ya I’ve been in a few altercations since I started here, but I didn’t provoke anyone! Listen, ‘Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.’ I read this in  a fortune cookie once and it describes my view on dealing with problems perfectly. Pho’s still grilling me so I pay my DJ fee and head off to the change room, on my way I spot her. I don’t know if she saw me yet, but I instantly remember my mission.

The closer I get to the change room the louder the noise is, when I open the huge, dirty, brown chipped up door I can see my friends faces reflected in the dirty mirrors. To an outsider it’s a room you wouldn’t even want to look at for more than thirty seconds, but in reality the change room is probably more live than the club itself. I actually know girls who spend more time partying in there than they do hustling the floor, but trust, I’m not one of them. I say whaddup to a couple of my girls and proceed to get ready for the night, everything looks copasetic from the exterior, but internally my mind is raging.

I order my customary first drink, a Jungle Juice - five random shots mixed with fruit juice - and keep my eyes peeled for my opponent. I spot Precious getting up from a customer’s table and head to the washroom, I give it a couple of minutes and follow. As soon as I get there the bathroom door opens, followed by chronic smoke and finally Precious.

“Yo! You tried to set me up last night?” I said it so fast I don’t even know if it registered in her mind and if it did I’d already smashed the glass half filled with Jungle Juice into the side of her head. “You FUCKING BITCH!!” Precious screeches so loud my ear drums are ringing, grabs onto my hair and pulls us both to the  nasty bathroom floor sparkling with glass, we’re instantly in the fight of our lives. Out of nowhere I start seeing more arms and legs than I can count punching and kicking into the tangled mess we’ve created.

I’m going to die, her crews going to kill me in this bathroom, hey at least I went out like a G! Since the beginning I had no idea where this problem started, before tonight I’d never even exchanged words with her. The only thing I can possibly think of is that customers give me money just to talk and drink with them at their table, while they pay her cheap money to turn tricks…hey that’s not my fault, she should know her limit and play within it. Which leaves the question unanswered, why do these people want to kill me?!

I take a glance at one of the girls in Precious’ crew and see Jessica - wait, what the fuck? Jessica! Precious still has a good chunk of my hair in her hand, but I manage to look at some of the other faces involved and realize that this isn’t Precious’ crew jumping in, it’s five of my best friends in the club helping me! With that I feel like the sky has opened up and I’ve been spared, then I see blood spurting from the top of my wrist and instantly feel dizzy, my job here has been done. I finally pull myself from Precious’ fingers, leave my friends who are holding down the fight and go into a bathroom stall to try and stop the bleeding.

“Everybody break the fuck up!” Matt’s booming voice made the fight come to a quick stop, his literally throwing my girls off Precious and out of the door probably helped a little too. At this point my friend Jessica made her way to my stall and when the door slams open we both look so suspect I don’t know what I would have done if I’d seen myself. Luckily, we’re considered nice girls by the right people so Matt went easy on us and arranged for someone to take me to the hospital right away, I don’t know what would have happened if Pho hadn’t left early for the night, but I can’t think about that right now - I have to make my wrist stop bleeding. When I wake up I have eighteen stitches in my right wrist, I’m lucky I didn’t die.

“Jasmin, how are you feeling? Do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened to you last night?”

Why do Doctors always have to ask those same three questions, can’t they switch it up?

“I’m fine, I’m fine” My tired, alcohol stenched voice whimpers to the Dr.

“Good, I’m with the police department and I’m going to have to ask you a few questions…were you involved in an altercation with a young lady who goes by the alias Precious?”

What? Did this girl rat on me? After everything, this punk who tried to jump me with ten people rated on me? Now I’m going to jail, I need a cigarette, since I don’t have the time or means for all of that it’s time to put on a Oscar winner performance.

“No officer. I wasn’t involved at all, I was in the washroom at the time and the glass shattered right into my arm.” I know it’s unbelievable, but now that I said it I just have to go with it, it’s the only thing I could think of so quickly.

“Well, Precious suffered some serious injuries, she has a concussion, obviously battered and a part of her right ear was cut off. She told us it was you who initiated the assault, now why don’t you tell me about your level of involvement?” The officer was saying the words, but for some reason, there was something…just something about this guy.

“You can check my record, I’ve never been arrested or charged for anything in my whole life. I didn’t have anything to do with that, honestly,  maybe she doesn’t want to rat her enemies out and decided to place the blame on me or something! I don’t know, I just know I wasn’t a part of it - Look at me I don’t have any marks on me other than the cut on my arm, wouldn’t I be all busted up, that was a bloody fight” He couldn’t see the big knot in my head where Angel ripped a chunk of my hair from my scalp.

“Okay, okay, calm down. We’re just talking here. Do you work at that club?”

“Yes.” I reply, lowering my eyes.

“Why? Why do you put yourself in that kind of situation, you seem like a nice girl.”

“I’ve had a lot of problems in my life, I don’t look for trouble though, I just try to do me and do it the best, you know?” I already saw the look, it’s the same look a customer gives me right when he’s about to break me off some nice change, before the guy at the nightclub buys me a bottle of Grey Goose instead of a glass and the same look the store owner gives me when he tells me if I don’t have enough to pay my bill it’s okay, “Just take it, you can have it sweetie.”

“Alright, this is the way it’s going to be. I’m not going to tell you what I think happened, you just take my card. If you remember any details about the assailants give me a call, if you feel safer talking with me or get scared or anything here’s the numbers for the station and my personal card.” The look in his eye was priceless, I must still look decently hot to be wriggling out of this one so easily.

I touch his arm briefly, “Okay, thank you so much for caring, sometimes it honestly feels like bad things just happen to me.” I then think about how much it would have sucked to go to jail and start crying.

“It’s okay, I understand hun, I’m going to let you get some rest, that arm looks pretty bad.” Officer whatever his name is heads for the door and as if I timed it myself stops and turns around;

“Hey - what night do you work at the club?”

When I was finally well enough to leave the hospital I called up my boy Paro, we know each other through Jessica, he used to be her man, but now were all a tight nit little crew. Although it was highly speculated, Paro and I never messed around, I don’t break codes like that, he’s my best and only real guy friend. Paros a gunman-robberman-drugman by profession, but he never hurt a fly around me and he always has that Piff and the latest Dipset street tape. “Hey, what’s up” I said into my iphone “They’re letting me leave the hospital, can you meet me at my place and bring a bag of chronic?” I didn’t have to ask  twice, Paro’s the realest.

As the taxis pulling away from my driveway I notice something’s off…My front doors slightly open and the alarms not even going off - Paro. I’m not stupid, so I start circling the house looking for anything suspicious before I go in, but everything seems okay. I pain stakingly make my way to the front door and literally inch my way inside, I smell chronic-

“HAHAAAAAAAAAAAA, yo whatchu doin out there, playing army or something shorty?” Paro’s about 6′2, nice build, light brown eyes and he’s covered in tatt’s, even though I never got with him, he’s fine as fuck. His reputation doesn’t give credit to the sweetheart this guy really is and funny as hell too.

“You’re so stupid, I knew you were here as soon as I smelled the chronic! How’d you get in anyways?” I’m still confused as to how he disarmed the alarm system.

“Your house-keeper let me in man, she told me I can smoke this in the house too - you pick them well ma”

“Rose? What the fuck? Shes off today-” I can’t speak, I can’t think, I can’t breath.

BOM

What?! Paro’s on the floor and it hasn’t even registered in my mind what just happened, I’m standing here frozen like a damn fool who’s about to get shot. All I hear is a voice, that’s it just a voice;

“This is your first lesson, don’t fuck around.”

I didn’t see anyone, I swear I didn’t even hear footsteps, all I heard was that voice. I lay on the floor and put my arms around Paro, trying to avoid the back of his head, kiss his lips and lay my head on his chest…I didn’t wake up until hours later, Paro never did.

The next day Jessica and I were pouring out a little liquor on my hardwood floors and my mind wouldn’t come back to reality until 3 weeks later

D. Consti.

 

 

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 6:50 pm and is filed under Calm Before the Storm - Urban Short Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.