Memphis Streets 3: Revenge

Chapter 17- Momma Peaches

I'm going to die in this hellhole. The shit is hard to accept, but I wish death would come the hell on.

I'm an old woman . . . and I used to think that I'd done seen about all there was to see out here in these streets. I was wrong. I ain't never been in no bullshit like this. Sure, I've been behind bars plenty of times for big shit as well as small shit. But this right here? It's blowing my mind.

I've been reduced to pissing and shitting in a bedpan, sipping on one glass of water a day and eating food that tastes like sawdust.

I don't know what day it is and I've lost track of how long I've been down here. When it's hot outside, it's an oven in this bitch and when it's cold, the room turns into an icebox. I've been sick for so long, I done forgot how to be any other way. Painful stomach cramps and violent vomiting, I can't take my body aching and my head throbbing like this too much longer. I can't. I don't know if anybody is out there looking for me or if my ass is S.O.L. All I know is that I wish my crazy-ass sister would either let me go or put a bullet in my dome.

I'm tired of being haunted by images of Cedric lying in a pool of his own blood. His handsome face so much like his father's, and my first love, Manny. He's dead because of me—because of my shit. Whatever this shit is. I've always known that Alice and I hadn't ended things on a good note. I had deliberately cut her out of my and Terrell's life. Yes, she was his biological mother, but after that bullshit with Mason, I had to cut her off. But what else could I have done? I had put up with so much shit. Enough was enough....

For weeks after Alice's second son, Mason, disappeared while she was high off crack, Alice's face was splashed all over the news. Majority of the city's opinion was that she'd sold her six month-old baby for a couple of rocks. After all, her precious rocks were on the table with her passed out on the sofa when I walked in and the baby was gone. I never liked jumping to conclusions, but one plus one will always equal two. Not to mention, I had to deal with my own soap-opera drama back at my own crib.

I came home straight from that bullshit to find my husband digging out my so-called best friend and neighbor, Josie. It wasn't like I had shit twisted and thought that my man was faithful. I learned the hard way that a dog is always going to roam—but to stick his dick in bitches that close to home. Nah, I wasn't having that shit. His ass had to go. Fuck all the money and bullshit that he was slinging in the streets. A bitch gotta stand for something or she'd always fall for anything. Josie was lucky that all she got was a bullet in the ass.

Fo' real. She gave everyone on Shotgun Row a real thrill when she ran naked out my front door, hollering, screaming, and bleeding. Isaac wrestled me to the floor because he knew that when I finished with Josie's ass, he was next. "Peaches, Peaches, calm the fuck down," he barked. "Fuck you, muthafucka! I hate your grimy ass!" Under normal circumstances, Isaac's big muscly ass could've had my ass in a choke hold in two seconds, but my rage had my one-legged ass on equal footing. This nigga was sweating and putting in work to pin my ass down. Finally seizing my shooting hand, he lifted it up and banged it against the door frame, crushing my fingers and damn near breaking my wrist.

"Aaargh, fuck nigga. That shit hurts."

"What the fuck, Peaches? You know that bitch don't mean shit to me." Disgusted with his lying ass, I hock up a loogie from the back of my throat and spit that shit dead in his face. "Punk-nigga!"

Muthafucka backhanded my ass so hard, I swore I saw my own momma giving birth to me. "You done lost your fuckin' mind," Issac roared. I was pretty sure that his ass was about to haul off and hit my ass again, but at that very moment, a shot rang out. We froze and glanced up.