Welfare Wifeys (27 page)

“Are all of them yours?” Malika hadn’t meant to ask, but she couldn’t help herself.

The girl gave her an offended look. “Hell no! Ray-Ray is my other baby daddy’s son, the rest are mine. Humph, ain’t no way in the hell I’m gonna be running around with
five
kids,” the girl said as if the idea was that far-fetched.

“Sorry,” Malika said and went back to her paperwork.

The girl nudged her. “You got a pen? They always want you to fill some shit out but ain’t never got nothing to write with.”

“Here you go.” Malika handed the girl one of the pens from her purse. She looked for her iPod to avoid the conversation the girl was surely about to start up, but realized Solomon had taken it.

“You know every time I come in here this place is overcrowded,” the girl continued. “It seems like there’s always more people than there are workers. You would think that with all the money the city makes they could hire somebody to come in here and help out, you know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah,” Malika said and focused on her paperwork.

“They put us through all this bullshit for that little bit of change they expect us to live on and think that we just supposed to smile and take it. I say fuck all that shit, the only reason I even put up with these nasty attitude bitches is because I get almost seven hundred dollars in food stamps every month. If it wasn’t for that I would’ve told all these bitches to kiss my ass!”

“Can you keep your voice down please?” a plump Mexican woman wearing a name tag shouted from across the room.

“If you wasn’t over there trying to be nosey then your ass wouldn’t hear what me and my home girl were talking about!” the girl shot back. “These bitches be killing me the way they run around up in here like they the Queen Bee or some shit, you feel me, girl?” She held up her hand for a high-five but Malika just looked at her. “Oh, I know you ain’t in here trying to be cute after I just stuck up for you when that Spanish bitch tried to check you?”

“I wasn’t trying to
be
anything, I’m just sitting here filling out my paperwork like everybody else.”

“Ex-act-ly.” The girl snapped her fingers three times while she enunciated the word. “Your ass is in here trying to get on Welfare like everybody else so I don’t know why you’re trying to front like you’re better than us, flinging your dreads and shit like you’re cute, you fake ass Lauren Hill.”

“Little girl, I’ve had about enough of your mouth.” Malika stood up and the girl stood with her.

“What, you got some frog in you? I’ll get it popping up in this bitch!”

“Miss, are these your kids?” one of the security guards had Peanut and Ray-Ray by the arms.

“Yeah, those are my kids and you need to take your hands off of them before I sue you and this whole muthafucka!” she said indignantly and snatched her children out of the guard’s grip. “Y’all bring ya asses over here. That fat fuck didn’t touch you, did he?”

“No, Mama,” the boys said in unison.

“Good because I’d hate to have to go up-top in here. What were you doing to my kids?” she snapped at the guard.

Unlike Malika the guard didn’t have a whole lot of patience. He kept smiling for anyone who may have been watching, but his tone was sharp and direct when he spoke. “First of all I wasn’t doing anything to these bad-ass kids of yours; second of all they stuffed paper towels in the urinals and flooded the men’s room. Now if you don’t keep a leash on these monkeys and curb that nasty ass mouth of yours I’m gonna see to it that you get thrown out of here today and every time you come back I’ll fix it so you’re the last person seen for the day. Y’all have a good one,” the guard capped and walked away.

“Fake ass flashlight cop,” the girl mumbled as the guard walked away. “And I don’t know why I can’t never go nowhere without y’all acting a fucking fool and embarrassing me.” She gave both boys a good slap. “Now go sit your asses down before I let Social Services have you the next time they come to the house.”

Malika knew for a fact that she couldn’t endure the ignorant young girl or her kids for a moment longer, but thankfully she didn’t have to because they were calling her name.

• • •

By the time Malika finally left the Welfare building at 3:30 she was ready to pull her hair out at the roots. As if the ordeal with the girl hadn’t being trying enough, the hoops they made her jump through to recertify her for food stamps were too much. After filling out the stacks of papers, and running back and forth to the copy place on the corner to Xerox the documents they needed, Malika was informed that her case worker had already gone for the day and she would have to come back tomorrow. It took all of her resolve to keep from spitting on the girl behind the counter for not telling her that in the first place. Now she found herself standing in the middle of 125th Street aggravated, broke, and she still had to find a way to come up with dinner for her and Solomon.

As she passed a small pawnshop she looked down at the bracelet her mother had bought her for her sixteenth birthday and paused. She cherished the tennis bracelet but at that point eating took precedence over material things. With a lump in her throat she went inside and pawned the bracelet. They only gave her a quarter of what it was worth, but at least she and Solomon would be able to get by until she got things straight with her case worker. Malika was beyond disgusted with not only the way her day was going but with how her life was playing out. She had considered throwing herself into traffic, but decided against it because her life insurance had lapsed and she couldn’t bare the thought of leaving Solomon worse off than he already was.

Malika was too depressed to go back home and stare at the walls so she figured she would walk the streets for a while until she thought of something, this is when Teddy’s invitation came to her. Before they had parted company he had invited her to meet him that evening at the bowling alley on Fordham Road for some after-dinner drinks. She had intended to blow it off but after the day she had had a good strong drink was just what she needed. The clock on the side of the bank read 4:00
P.M
. so she figured if she hurried she would still be able to meet Teddy at the bowling alley by five. Adding pep to her step, she headed toward the D train.

The pool hall wasn’t much to look at but the atmosphere was cool and the drinks were potent. Teddy introduced Malika around to his three best friends June, Smitty, and Sean and their ladies. For the most part everybody was cool, except June’s wife Marsha who Malika kept catching dirty looks from while they were setting up their tables.

“Don’t pay her any mind,” Teddy whispered in Malika’s ear as he brought two pool sticks and two Coronas to the table he had booked for him and her. “Marsha is always like that around new females.”

“Oh, so you bring a lot of chicks around her?” Malika asked, leaning on her pool cue.

“Only the special ones.” Teddy winked and leaned over the table to break, but Malika laid her pool stick across his.

“Whatever happened to ladies first?”

“You’re right, where are my manners?” Teddy gave her a mock bow and stepped out of the way. He watched intently as Malika bent over the pool table, giving him the perfect view of her perky little ass. She must’ve felt his eyes on her because she wiggled it flirtatiously as her pool stick collided with the cue ball.

“Not bad,” he said as he watched several of the balls scurry into holes.

“You could learn a thing or two from me.” Malika sauntered over to the other side of the table and leaned over to take her next shot.

“I could probably teach you a thing or two.” Teddy pressed himself against her taking away Malika’s concentration.

“So now you gonna cheat to win, huh?” Malika pushed her ass into his waist as she tried again to align the stick with the cue ball. Feeling his hardness through his jeans made her smile wickedly.

“I’m down to do whatever it takes to win the prize, ma,” he said seriously. Teddy looked behind him to see June and Smitty watching him. June gave him a wink, which Marsha caught and punched him in the ribs. “You gonna cause a situation in here, baby,” Teddy whispered to her.

Malika looked over her shoulder and saw the girls glaring at her and whispering among themselves. “Some chicks don’t have anything better to do than hate,” she said and sank her next shot.

Teddy flashed June a stern look to check his wife, to which he just shrugged his shoulders. “If I were a chick I’d hate on you,” Teddy told her jokingly.

“For what? I wear jeans and sneakers most of the time and I don’t bother with makeup or a hairdresser so there’s nothing glamorous about me.” She sipped her Corona and looked for her next shot.

“That’s just it, you shine without trying to,” he said. “Malika, I know chicks that take hours getting themselves ready to go out, but you can roll out of bed and still look better than them.”

“Oh, now this is a first.” Malika took her next shot.

“What, someone paying you a compliment?”

“Nah, a dude still talking sweet after he got the pussy.” She laughed and leaned over the table to drop the two ball in the side pocket.

“You stay with the jokes.” He shoved her playfully and made her miss the shot.

“You gotta laugh at something or you’ll cry over everything,” she told him before sinking the next shot. For the next hour or so they sipped and flirted over two games of pool with her winning the first and Teddy barely winning the second.

“You’re a lot better at pool than you let on, shorty,” Teddy said, tapping his pool stick on the floor.

“You got lucky the last game,” Malika boasted.

“So then let’s shoot the tiebreaker, double or nothing.”

Malika sized him up. “I didn’t realize we were gambling.”

Teddy invaded her space and whispered directly onto her lips, “Everything in life is a gamble.”

The scent of liquor mingled with desire on Teddy’s breath made the hair on the back of Malika’s neck stand up. “I gotta use the bathroom,” she said, backing up. “Rack ’em, I’ll be back in a second.”

Malika made hurried steps toward the bathroom trying to put as much distance between her and Teddy’s charismatic ass as possible.

Between the liquor and the magnetic attraction between them her mind was starting to go places it had no business going and voyeurism had never been her thing.

When she got in the cramped ladies’ room Marsha and the other girls were having an intense discussion. When they noticed Malika everyone got quiet. Malika rolled her eyes and cut through the sea of scornful glares into the stall where she slammed the door and squatted over the bowl to relieve herself. Through the stall door she could hear the humming of their voices like worker bees so she focused talking about who she assumed to be her.

“That shit is just so trifling,” she could hear Marsha saying.

“Look, as long as it ain’t ya man, leave it alone,” one of the other girls told her.

“Fuck that, I’d tell. If that creep-ass nigga is doing it and they’re
all friends there ain’t no telling what they’re doing in their spare time,” a third girl chimed in. “I know if I ever catch Smitty trying to move like Teddy his ass belongs to me, ya hear?”

Having heard enough Malika wiped herself and came out of the stall with her head held high and a hard switch in her stride on the way to the bathroom sink. She took her time washing her hands and watching the girls through the mirror as they watched her. Malika dispensed a few of the rough brown paper towels and dried her hands calmly before addressing the girls. “Is there something I can help any of y’all with?”

“No, it seems like you’ve helped yourself to enough,” a dark-skinned girl, whose name escaped Malika, said.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Malika poked her chest out. She had never been a fighter and the thick dark-skinned girl looked like she would mop the floor with Malika, but her dad had always taught her to stick up for herself and she wouldn’t let the girl know she was scared.

“Nothing,” Liz said, trying to avoid what she saw coming. The little yellow girl was as much a brawler as her friends, but she would be damned if they would have her in the streets scrapping in her new shoes.

“Oh, because I was feeling like there was some type of problem.” Malika rolled her eyes, letting the drinks pump courage into her. This was all it took to set Marsha off.

“You know what? There is a problem and that problem is little hot in the pants bitches sticking their pussies where they don’t belong.”

Malika backed up and looked at her. “Excuse you? Look, you don’t know me or nothing about me so you’re way out of line for trying to judge me.”

It was Marsha’s turn to take a step back. “I’m out of line trying to judge you? You’re out of pocket for even being here right now! See chicks like you get the shit beat out of them because they ain’t got no boundaries and no class. I wish I would catch you trying to
rub up on June like you’re doing that foul ass nigga Teddy. I’d rock you the fuck to sleep, bitch.”

“Bitch? Ya mama’s a bitch!” Malika shot back and took a step toward Marsha but the other two girls jumped in the middle.

“Marsha, chill, it ain’t ya place to check the situation,” Liz cut in. “We too grown to be fighting in bathrooms over dick y’all.”

“Tell your miserable ass home girl that!” Malika said indignantly.

“Slow up, shorty, because I really don’t know you like that and you’re already starting off on the wrong foot,” Liz checked Malika. “Malika, you seem like you crazy cool but you’re confused about a lot of shit and you need to be easy. You in here trying to defend Teddy like he’s your boo is like trying to fit circles into squares.”

Malika sucked her teeth. “If you’ve got something to say then you need to spit it out.”

Liz raised her hands in surrender. “It ain’t my place or my business. All I’m gonna tell you is, you need to make sure you know who your enemies are before you fire those shots.”

“Whatever, I’m good on the riddles. Since it seems like me being here is causing problems then maybe I need to get up outta here,” Malika said.

“Yeah, you should probably do that, before reality sets in and you realize how much of a fool Teddy is making of you,” Marsha said venomously.