Project Queen (Urban Fiction)

Chapter One

Shae Byrts stepped outside to retrieve the newspaper. She just knew she'd read another headline about something happening on the south side. If it wasn't police brutality, then someone had shot or stabbed somebody else.

Things had just died down from the recent riots fueled when a white cop shot a black teenager and got off free. They had set the city on fire. Those crazy Negroes had actually burned up a news helicopter. The state ended up sending in the S.W.A.T. to calm things down. The racial tension could still be felt. The black youth of Saint Petersburg were consumed with an inner rage.

The ghetto-acting family in the apartment to the right of Shae stood out in the yard arguing. There had to be at least nine people living in a cramped two-bedroom apartment. So many people came in and out at all hours of the night. Somebody was always getting into an altercation. Last week it had been because somebody smoked up someone else's weed. Today, it was over the aunt sleeping with one of her niece's baby's daddy. Tomorrow, it would probably be over who drank all the red Kool-Aid or ate all the collard greens.

The aunt vehemently denied that anything took place, but the other niece insisted that she'd seen it with her own eyes.

"Auntie, you is lyin'," the girl yelled. The gold teeth she tried to pass off as a grill gleamed. "I saw Danny Boy comin' outta yo room, zippin' up his pants." Her hair, braided in platinum colored plaits, hung down her back. They swung as she argued.

"You's a damn lie." The aunt rolled her neck and put her hands on her hips. "If you seent him, you musta been high or drunk." She looked her niece up and down while she moved her hand over her "waterfalls" hairdo. "And knowin' you, you was probably both."

"No I wasn't. I mighta been a lil tipsy but I still know what I saw." They pointed and got in each other's face.

"Auntie, you ain't nothin' but a hoe," the other girl said. "You don't be actin' like nobody's auntie. But dat's aiight. Danny Boy ain't no damn good anyway. You can have his ole limp dick ass. And I hope y'all used a condom 'cause I heard he gave his baby mama a STD."

"I ain't got to worry 'bout dat 'cause I told you I didn't mess with no damn Danny Boy. Now, y'all know me betta dan dat. I am not dat hard up for some dick. Come on now."

"You is dat hard up," Jookie Shorty shouted out. He was a known crack head who fixed old bicycles and sold them to feed his addiction. "You know ya ugly ass gotta sneak up on some dick and catch it. Ain't none comin' ya way voluntarily."

"What is you tryna say?" The aunt forgot about the disagreement with her niece and turned on Jookie Shorty.

"You heard me. Ya ass is ugly. Ain't nobody gonna sleep with ya ugly ass willingly. In dat aspect, I don't believe Danny Boy was ever in ya room."

"And how the hell do you know?" the niece that had started the argument asked. "Was you there?"

"Hell nah. I don't mess around with big ol' hambeasts like ya aunt. Hell nah, I wasn't there."

"Then shut ya damn mouth and stay outta our business."

"I get in whoever business I wanna get in. I'm Jookie Shorty."

"Like somebody supposed to be scared. You ain't nobody Jookie Shorty, with ya broke, crack smokin' ass."

"You ain't nobody either. None of y'all." Jookie Shorty yelled. "Y'all just a bunch of food stamp bitches."

"Don't end up getting ya ass stomped by these food stamp bitches," the aunt threatened. All the women glared at him, itching to fight.

"Fuck all y'all," he said. "I been done went upside one of y'alls head with this monkey wrench," he mumbled to himself. Ignoring them, he went back to the bicycle he'd been working on.