Free Hustlin' Divas by De'nesha Diamond Page B

was still in the game but was starting to show less heart about staying in it. Niggas were starting to get too wild, weren’t respecting long-held codes of honor on the street, and snitching became a new pastime down at the precinct. Still, Nana played the game smart and kept those Irish muthafuckas off her doorstep by contributing to the right people’s retirement funds.
    In ’73, I slipped up one more ’gin by catching feelings with Leroy’s pretty ass. And it had a lot to do with his ass rocking double digits in the dick department and introducing me to white people’s favorite drug of choice: cocaine.
    For a while, I just let him have that. After years of fighting that heroin habit Manny had left me with, the last thing I wanted was to get hooked on some new shit. But I had to admit, Leroy’s ass was a lot of fun whenever he was on that shit. He played more, laughed harder, and just downright tore my pussy up in the bedroom like his tight ass had batteries in it. Back in those days, drugs had a certain hierarchy. Any ole nigga could get their hands on some weed and heroin, but cocaine meant your ass had some dough.
    It first started at a red light in the basement party over at my best friend Josie’s crib. Everybody and anybody was bumping and grooving in that muthafucka that night. The women were rocking big-ass afros and equally big hoop earrings and ridiculous high-platform shoes while every man in there wore their baddest pimp gear, Leroy included.
    â€œI don’t understand why it got to go up in my nose?” I had naïvely said after watching people do lines or just scoop the shit up with their own private stock with tiny gold spoons that they wore around their necks.
    â€œWhy ask why?” Leroy snickered as he chopped up his shit with a razor and made two distinct lines. “All that matters is that the shit works.” He then rolled a twenty-dollar bill and snorted a good six-inch line into each nostril. When his head sprung up, his golden eyes looked as if they were suddenly made of glass. The smile that came over his face was both sexy and contagious.
    â€œHey, girl.” Josie slapped me on the back and cheesed in my face. “Glad to see you made it out.” Josie was decked the fuck out in a bright red Jersey dress with a halter top that gave every nigga in there a good view of her full D cups. “At least there are two hot-looking bitches up in this piece.” She laughed.
    â€œYou ain’t lyin’,” Leroy said, his lustful gaze raking Josie up and down.
    I popped him on the back of his head. “No, you ain’t, nigga.”
    â€œWhat?” He cheesed. “I was just fuckin’ with you. I wanted to see what your ass was going to do.” He squeezed my leg playfully and gave me the I-want-to-fuck look.
    â€œUh-huh.” I couldn’t hate on my girl because she looked just like Diahann Carroll from that TV show Julia. She had her pick of niggas despite her ass being married to one who had a real j-o-b down at the post office.
    â€œHey, Leroy. How about giving me a whiff of that shit? I can hook you up later,” Josie said.
    Leroy laughed in her face. “Bitch, please. This ain’t Give Me, Tennessee.”
    â€œHumph!” She rolled her eyes and twitched her legs. “Peaches, can you talk to your man? This is supposed to be a party and shit, and his ass is being stingy.”
    â€œGo on, girl. I ain’t in that shit. That’s between y’all.”
    â€œAll right, then. You want me to break him off some pussy payments?” She raised her pencil-thin brows as if to say that she was serious.
    â€œGet cut if you want to, bitch,” I sassed.
    â€œAll right. All right.” Josie reached in underneath her left breast and pulled out the small roll of bills she had taped under there. “Take the last of my allowance money, muthafucka.”
    Leroy smiled and handed over a few