Miss Wayne and the Queens of DC (The Cartel Publications Presents) (14 page)

I had just left Miss Rick’s house and was happy I was home. He can be fun at times, but since he got a new boo, who apparently cared about him a lot, he changed. He couldn’t talk openly about
the life
anymore and seemed to be more concerned with being a housewife. To the outside looking in it was a match made in heaven, but her boyfriend didn’t know that she was HIV positive, and she had no intentions on telling him either. Still, when I left, I found myself wanting to share my life with someone again, but who?

I told the girls I would be home late but came back earlier than I thought. The moment I reached the door, I heard a lot of commotion inside my house. So I quickly took my key out and opened the door. When I did, I saw Miss Tyrone rush in the living room with Adrian following behind him. Adrian was holding his stomach and seemed to be doubled over in pain.

“Fuck is going on in here?” I ask looking back and forth between them.
“Uh…me…uh…me and Adrian got into it because he went to see Chris again. You know he’s not good for him so I told him how I felt. He had the nerve to come in here with a bloody nose,” Tyrone continues, looking back at Adrian. “I’m not hatin’, I’m just statin’.”
“So you hit him? In the stomach?”
“Naw! Chris did that in the car. That’s why I was yelling at him.”
My heart was beating fast and I was about to kill Tyrone. Somethin’ didn’t feel right, I just didn’t know what.
“Adrian…what happened to you?” I ask pushing past Tyrone, not without giving him an evil stare.
“Nothin’…really.”
“Adrian, tell me what the fuck is goin’ on ‘round here. I got the instincts of a woman and somethin’ don’t feel right. Don’t you lie to me.”
“Chris…Chris had just dropped me off and Tyrone saw me get out of his car. We had another fight about nothing really. I was sneaking in the house because I knew ya’ll would be upset if you found out I was seeing him again, and Tyrone saw me anyway. That’s all.”
“See!” Tyrone says raising his hands in the air. “I told you.”
“You sure?” I ask, looking deeply into his eyes. I wanted to feel the truth not necessarily hear it. “Because you don’t have to lie to me. I ain’t got no problem fixin’ what’s wrong right here and now. But I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s up.”
Silence.
“Adrian…are you sure?!” I yell.
“Yeah…I’m sure.”
He was lying and I decided that it was time that I hear what Chris had to say after all. But this time it would be face to face.

“Thanks for coming over,” Chris says as he sits on his burgundy sofa. We were at the home he owned in Bowie, Maryland. Everything seemed cozy and warm and it was definitely not how I expected a drag queen beater to live. “Can I get you some coffee or something?”

“Look, I didn’t come over here for all that, I want to know what the fuck is up with you and Adrian?!” I ask standing over him. “Did you come over my house today?”

“Yes I did.”
“And did you hit him?”
“That’s what you wanna believe isn’t it?”
“I’m sick of him looking beat down and your name

“I know…and that’s what I wanna talk to you about. The truth.” He says. As I stare into Chris’s eyes I can’t help but realize how fine he was. His light skin, green eyes and muscles make him extra sexy. “But in order to hear the truth, you have to have an open mind.”

“How ‘bout you
open
your mouth and start talkin’, suga!”
“Can you please sit down, Wayne.” I don’t move. “Please…you’re making me nervous.”
I finally sit down and say, “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Adrian has been lying to you about me and him. I would never hurt him and I need you to know that. I wanted to tell you the moment I found out you were in town, but Adrian threatened to leave me. So when he came over one night, I took your number out his cell.”
“Stop the bullshit.”
“Wayne, hear me out. I’ve never hit Adrian in the entire time we’ve known each other. As a matter of fact, I love him and wanted to be with him. And I’m not talkin’ about no side dick either. I’m talkin’ about for life.
“I’ve even asked him to move in with me after he gave up the apartment I had for him. But for some reason he’s protecting the person who’s really hurting him. And for the life of me, I just can’t understand why.”
“Nothin’ you’re sayin’ right now is makin’ sense. If you’re not hittin’ him than who in Samual Adams hell is?”
“Tyrone, and I’m tellin’ you now, you got to watch him. He’s dangerous and I often wondered if he wasn’t the drag queen slayer I’ve been reading about in the news lately. He’s mean…cold and selfish. And when I refused his advances awhile back, he became dead set on breaking me and Aid up.
“I took two days to tell Aid about him coming on to me, because I was trying to find the right words to say so I wouldn’t hurt his feelings, but it ended up being too late. Tyrone beat me to him and claimed that it was me who came on to him instead. I would never choose Ty over someone as beautiful as Aid. Look at him.”
“Honey, that was about the realest shit you said all night.”
“It’s true. I believe Tyrone is very calculating and would not stop short of murder. You know him better than me…what do you think?”
“Now you’re going too far.”
“For real, he was the reason for most of our problems. And a while back, I found out some shit that happened to Tyrone when he was younger. He came up fucked up and now he’s deadly.”
“What things happened to him?” Although Tyrone and me were cool at one point, I didn’t know much about him outside of the fact that he lived with his father and his mother killed herself when he was ten.
“I don’t know if you know, he lived with his father but his uncle Base, stayed with them most of the time. Base was a gay man who had parties in the apartment all the time. I was told that both his father and uncle use to rape him at those parties and pass him around like some toy.
“They fed him alcohol and all kind of shit to make him forget what they’d done. I don’t know if you know it, but he was addicted to alcohol since middle school.”
I do remember him drinking a lot.
I thought.
“I can’t deny that life was hell for him, but now he don’t care ‘bout nobody or nothing but himself.”
“How you know all this shit?”
“Adrian told me some stuff, but I also met his aunt who still lives around Quincy Manor a couple of weeks ago. She was mean at first, but was willing to tell me about all of the stuff she seen her nephew go through as a child. She said she couldn’t afford to take him in herself permanently when he was younger, but would go get him every other weekend. That was until he started stealing from her and taking her liquor. She put his ass out after that and never saw him again.”
I was listening but my mind was working overtime. Could Tyrone actually be that crazy?
“Look…I have to sort some things out.” I say standing up. “I gotta go.”
“I know…but please, watch after Adrian. For whatever reason he feels loyal to Tyrone. But if he keeps hurting him like he does when he gets angry, I’m afraid he’ll kill him. It’s like whenever Tyrone has some shit going on in his life, he takes it out on a weaker person and for him Adrian’s it. He may even be jealous that I love Adrian the way that I do considering he has nobody. I don’t know.”
“I…really must go,” I say not being able to take much more of the bomb he just dropped on me. But when I see the love in his eyes for Adrian I say, “Don’t worry about shit, if what you telling me is true, I’m never gonna let him hurt Adrian again. He’ll be safe. I promise.”
When I left I knew I had to confirm the facts with Adrian. But I can tell you this, if it’s true what Chris said, I don’t know what I might do to Tyrone either. I’m gonna need a wing and a prayer to get me out of this shit.

“Oh my Gawd! What happened to your lips?! And what the hell are those lopsided lumps in your chest?” I ask Garisha after she lifted her shirt when I got in her car. Apparently all the silicone in her body has shifted and she’s starting to look like a real life monster.

“Bitch, you were there!” He says pulling his shirt down. “Them queens stomped me out and fucked up my boob and face job. Now I got to pay Miss Tracey to put in my silicone injections again.” He continues driving down the road. “But before we do all that, I got to stop up the street and meet my new boo. He ‘spose to be given me some money.”

“Now?”
“Yeah…it’ll only take a second.”
When we pulled in front of an old apartment building

“I told him what car I’m driving. And he said he’s driving a black Capri.”
Garisha stands outside of the car to wait on her blind date and I think about my living situation. I need to get some cash to get a place to live quick. Too much is happening to me lately and I don’t’ even know why. I’m a good person, I mean, what the fuck!
“Here he comes.” She says excitedly.
The black Capri slows down by her car and soon as the dude rolls down the window and sees her face, he presses the gas and speeds off. The back of the car swerves a little. He got away so fast smoke was blown in her face. Garisha runs behind him and says, “Wait! Wait! I want to talk to you!”
“Garisha get your ugly ass into this car and come on! That boy is gone!”
She sadly walks back to the car and I do all I can to not laugh in her face. Miss Wayne once said the only person uglier than me is Garisha, and he was right. That’s why I hang with her all the time. She makes me look like Beyonce in comparison.
“Damn, he must didn’t know it was me.” She says getting into the car.
“Garisha you can’t be that stupid! That boy knew it was you and was not tryin’ to be bothered.”
“Man! I need to get my face fixed back!” She says driving down the road. “And I don’t have enough money.”
“Wait, someone implanted them lopsided lips you had in your face and chest on purpose?”
“Girl, yes! You didn’t think I was born looking that beautiful did you? Had my face been fixed he woulda stayed.” She say hitting the steering wheel. “Anyway I wanted you to go with me so you can drive me home when we leave. Seeing as though it’s your fault I’m all fucked up.”
Damn! I hate driving, not to mention the fact that I didn’t have a license and couldn’t read the signs on the road. Hopefully the place we were going wouldn’t be too far and I could find my way back.
“My fault…how you figure?”
“Had you not seduced me into your bullshit, I wouldn’tve had to get fixed back up. I mean really, Miss Tyrone, take some responsibility for your shit. You stood up there and lied like shit in front of Queen Paul! What kind of shenanigans is that? I’m ‘spose to be your friend.”
“Miss me with all that shit. It was every man for him self and you would’ve done the same shit to me. Hell, you have done the same shit me!”
“What you talkin’ ‘bout?”
“What about that time them stick boys came into the store we was in to rob it? You saw them comin’ and ain’t so much as tap me on my shoulders to let me know. Matta fact, you rolled out and I got robbed
and
had to find a way home. So please! Are we Thelma and Louise? No! It just is what it is.”
“Miss you wit’ nothing…and where’s my half of the money anyway?”
“What? Miss Wayne took that shit back the moment I got home…you know that.”
“Girl I’m so over you,” Garisha whines. “You as worthless as two left shoes.”
“And you as ugly as my mother’s wrinkled black pussy!”
Garisha parks his car in front of an office building in Lanham Maryland. Good, I know where we are and how to get back to her place from here.
“You tried it, but I still want my half of the money because even though we didn’t finish the job on Queen Paul, I still got my ass kicked like I put in work.”
We entered the building and then an elevator and he says, “Hit the button for the basement.”
I stare at the words confused on which one to touch and the doors remain open. I can’t read any of this shit.
“Bitch hit the floor!”
“You know what, do it yourself!” I tell him. “I’m sick of your attitude.”
“Sometimes you act like you can’t read or somethin’!” he tells me.
When Garisha hits the button to the basement floor I say, “Fuck all that! Like I was sayin’, we both were victims the other day and I don’t owe you shit.”
“Hag I’m not tryin’ to hear all that! How I’m supposed to land a husband with a face like this?”
“You gotta ask your mama all that?”
“Bitch, don’t talk about my mother! You know Miss Charlene been gone for ages.”
As we continue with bullshit talk, I observe where we were. The basement looks dirty and dark, like an ugly secret went on down here. When we walked into the doctor’s office, twenty transvestites were present waiting on their procedure. Garisha signed her name on the list and waited beside the rest of them.
“How long you been doin' this?” I ask looking around.
“For a couple of years, why?”
“Is it expensive?”
“It depends…he charges $800 dollars for a cup of silicone and I usually get about a half of cup to a cup in my cheeks and lips alone. I’m only gonna work on my face today though ‘cause thanks to you, I can’t afford to get my breasts fixed.”
“Bitch, thanks to Batman who got the fuck outta dodge when he saw your face! Anyway, them mangy couple dollars Wayne gave me wouldn’tve been nothin’ but piss in a cup.”
“Every little bit helps,” Garisha continues. “Anyway, why you wanna know about how long I’ve been comin’ here? You thinkin’ ‘bout gettin’ work done or soemthin’?”
“Fuck no! But look…this shit is illegal right? Ain’t no real doctor injectin’ this shit in ya’ll faces.”
“What you think? Look where we are.”
“Have you ever watched him do it?” I ask.
“Uh…yeah! I’m here all the time.”
“Where can you buy the silicone from?”
“Walmart or Home Depot. Why, what you thinking?”
“I’m thinkin’ for that kind of money, we can change our lives.”
“How?”
“Garisha don’t be stupid
and
ugly! I’m thinkin’ we should do this shit ourselves. It ain’t like the person doin’ you got a license or nothin’. We can stack up on the money we bring in if we start our own operation.”
“Bitch is you smokin’?”
“I’m serious!”
“Me too. And have you forgotten that we don’t have the money for start up or to buy supplies? Not to mention we need a place to do the shit at. I live on the floor of Mr. Howard’s convenience store at night and he barely wants me there.” He pauses. “And what about this, I may have seen them do me, but it don’t mean I know how to do nobody else.”
“If I come up with the place for us to do the work and get the cash, can you buy what we need?”
“Yeah…I guess so.”
“Well I’ll get the money.”
“Aw, shit! I guess we ‘bout to make a little change!” Garisha cheered.
“Don’t fuck me over with this. I’m not the one. When I get the money it’s for supplies only.”
“Girl ain’t nobody trying to fuck you over. If anything you don’t fuck me over. Come up with the cash and I’m in there. And now that I think about it, Miss P who be workin’ the stroll over off New York avenue will show us exactly how to do the shit. We just got to pay her a hundred dollars.”
“Set it up! And I’ll get the money.”
“If we do this right, we gonna be rich boots!”