Welcome to Corescentstead

Chapter 3: Dope

I go back to the house which I'm happy to do. As I'm walking on the path. I see some of the girls come out of the shed.

It's Lalique in her long white ruffled gown. She chokes one of the knitters and Marlize pulls her hair to get off but the hair detaches showing the top of her skull. Lalique stabs a knitter in the face with a needle. She growls and her wings come out her back.

"Get off her!" Marlize tries to grab Lalique. "You get off me!" her eyes glow pink and with the force of her voice, Marlize skips back on the grass. The rest of the ladies come out of the shed.

"Lord, if the Mister come out and see y'all doing this shit again." says Little Okisada. She's a funny thing but what I mean by that is that she rather be Chinese than a nigga. Marlize and Alice already told her how racist she was being.

Lalique bites the other's neck, drawing blood and slurping it with pleasure. "La-La!" Marlize screams. "STOP!" and the word commands her. Her teeth stuck in the other's neck. Marlize beats Lalique in the back of the head. "You ain't finna learn until it hurt!"

"Girl what the fuck?" says Okisada, her real name is Jozette. "Y'all quit playin' and get in her and knit these damn shirts! We got work tomorrow." states Alice with opium in between her lips. "All I got is O to smoke and no damn weed. If he come out here, don't holler!" she retreats back inside the shack.

"Y'all good over there!" I question, but it's clearly obvious they aren't. Jozette looks at me from the door, "You senseless. THe last thing we need is another dead body. And I'm trying to reach a hundred." she says looking at Marlize beating Lalique. "Say, Jelena. How old are you?"

"29."

"You hitting 30?" she asks. As a vamp, I hope. "Did Rolfo come by?" I ask.

"He did but he was picking up the opium. Guess how much money I got." she says with wide eyes. "How much?"

"One thundered and three hundred fifty one dollars. Imma see y'all in California by the end of the year. We got a raise!"

I don't get what's so good about living in the realm. I'm actually satisfied. I see the troubles of others but I'm content. I could stay in the house but sometimes I choose to go to the backyard.

One of the maids stops me as I come from outside. "Jalena, your on kitchen duty with Yolanda and Viola. We collected 42 teeth today so I hope you know how to behave." she tells me. Solomea is mixed. She told us one day at dinner she didn't like white people. But her mother is Rosala who is Shutar's wife.

We call her a hypocrite.

"I know." I nod.

She takes a breath and looks at me intensely. She claps, "Well go on. We're having Roast chicken with collard greens and salted pinto beans."

"Salted pinto beans?" Sounds nasty. "That's what the head maid ordered for tonight."

"I thought you were the head maid?"

"No... hurry up and get to it."

"Ok."

I have to go in the kitchen. At other plants like the Smiley home, I heard they force vamps to eat off each other. We don't do that here.

I hope I never witness it.

How does one make salted pinto beans? One of the Filipinos comes through the kitchen. "Bernicia, do you know how to make salted pinto beans?" I ask her as she goes into the refrigerator. "Ain't you a nigga?" she pulls out a bottle of soda. She shouldn't be having that.

"All I did was ask a question." I lament. "I don't know how." she tips the bottle into her mouth. "Bié zhème cūlǔ." one of the Chinese maids comes in and smacks Bernicia across the face. "Qù tuō dì shénme de!"

Bernicia scowls at her. "Chink!"

"Amen, go do something like prayer or I'll set you up to have your fangs taken."

"Fuck. You." Bernicia waltzes out of the kitchen but not before flipping the Chinese girl off.

She put her hair behind her ear. "You soak the pinto beans in water first. After fifteen minutes, go ahead and sprinkle them with salt." she tells me. She's a little on the heavy side. "Thank you. I've never seen you on the plant."

"I get my ass beat a lot."

Oh. "Why?"

"I take food out the kitchen." she wipes her nose. "Look, don't tell anybody." she whispers. The Chinese girl goes into the refrigerator. She takes out a large bowl of fruit and plucks several from the bowl and stores them in her maid's uniform.

She goes into the freezer and pulls out a tray of kool-aid ice pops. "Those are Lalique's." I mutter. She looks at me and lifts her shoulders. She puts one in her breast and the other in her mouth.

I don't know her name as she walks out of the kitchen nonchalantly.