Hell's Diva:. Anna J. Stewart

never tried to take anything from Mecca again. In fact, she stole cartridges from other kids that Mecca didn’t have, and gave them to her. Afterward, Mecca started to like Dawn, and when Mecca realized Dawn’s mother was a fiend she felt sorry for Dawn and their bond got tighter. Ruby enrolled Dawn in the same school as Mecca and the two became inseparable. When you fought one, you fought the other. Eventually no one messed with the two girls. Kids in their Brownsville school started calling them The Devil’s Daughters.

      The man in the white robe laughed loudly while Mecca just stared. “The Devil’s Daughters!” the white-robed man called Lou yelled, chuckling.

      “I didn’t tell anybody to call us that. So what’s so funny?” Mecca asked with anger in her voice.

      Lou stopped laughing and said, “I know you didn’t tell no one to call y’all that. It’s what they saw in you and her. People see you better than you see yourself, Mecca. That’s why now I’m giving you the opportunity to see yourself from day one and the people around you, I’m giving you the opportunity to see how your life affected others and how people saw you.”

      “I don’t care how people saw me,” Mecca said sternly.

      “After this, you’re going to wish you had cared, Ms. Mecca.”

      Chapter Five

      For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.

      Proverbs 6:26

      The Summer of 1987

      The summer of 1987 was one of the best summers Ruby ever had. Crack was on the scene and Ruby became acquainted with the rock form of cocaine, and established a relationship with it that fattened her pockets. The Langston Hughes projects were full of crack fiends looking for the dealer who had the best stuff. A lot of good people fell victim to the lure of the three-minute high that crack gave.

      A lot of people Ruby knew from her younger days were now strung out, people who were once a part of the in crowd. The people who everyone in the hood wanted to be like, dress like, and talk like got bit by the crack epidemic, even Stone.

      When Stone, the once kingpin of the projects became a full-fledged crack-head, he eventually lost the respect of his soldiers and confidants. He started smoking his own product until he went broke. Darnell, the man who killed Ruby’s sister and brother-in-law, made his move. He had the product and the product was good. With that came the soldiers. Stone’s ex-soldiers. In no time Darnell was the biggest cat in the projects. Ruby set up shop in Coney Island, and she had her friend Monique sell her stuff in Langston Hughes. Ruby wasn’t making as much as Darnell was, but it was enough. Most of her money was being made on her Coney Island block.

      “Girl, guess who home?” Monique asked as if she was about to deliver bad news.

      “Who?” Ruby asked while she chopped up a rock the size of a tennis ball on a white china dish with a razor blade. She placed the pebbles inside small vials with yellow tops.

      “Your ex-nigga a Five Percenter now. They call him Wise, like the dumb nigga wise or something,” Monique giggled.

      Monique was the only person Ruby talked to about the ordeal with Wise. Monique and Ruby had been friends since they were kids growing up in Brownsville. Ruby talked to Monique about men because Monique was an expert when it came to dealing with the opposite sex. She had men wrapped around her finger. Her voluptuous body and striking good looks were the keys to making men bow at her feet. She had a caramel complexion and hazel eyes with firm C-cup breasts. Monique had an exotic look having been born to a Panamanian mother and Cuban father. Oddly, Monique didn’t know a lick of Spanish.

      The thought of seeing her ex made Ruby nervous. She wondered how she would react or feel when she saw him. She wondered how he looked. Was he buff from lifting weights in jail? Did he still look the same with his fine self? His curly hair that looked wet, his chinky eyes, and those dimples…damn.

      “Girl, what you thinking about?” Monique asked, snapping Ruby out of her daydream.

      “I was thinking how much product I left in Coney Island,” Ruby lied. Monique knew she was lying, also. She knew her girl and knew when she was hurt, happy, and lying.

      “Please, Ruby, you thinking about that clown Wise or whatever he call himself.” Monique laughed at Ruby’s expense, causing Ruby to laugh too.

      “You know me too good. I got to change my ways.”

      “What’s there to think about? That nigga old news,” Monique said, hoping Ruby wasn’t thinking about reconciling her and Wise’s relationship. She knew how hurt Ruby was when she had gone on that visit and saw him hugging and kissing another woman. She didn’t want her best friend to go through that again. People just didn’t know how much Ruby changed after that episode.

      “You right, girl. Fuck that clown,” Ruby said, continuing to chop on the crack rock she had on the plate. “It’s about money and you know what m-o-n-e-y means to us!”

      In unison, Ruby and Monique yelled, “Money Over Niggas Every Year!” They both howled in laughter.

      Mecca was now thirteen years old and still a virgin. Her body developed quickly. The boys in her junior high school noticed the feisty thirteen-year-old, and her friend, Dawn, who had also developed quickly.

      Dawn had already lost her virginity in the school bathroom to a Puerto Rican boy in her social studies class. They started off passing notes to each other, then Dawn answered the last letter with a check in the “yes” box when he asked if she wanted to go out with him. He motioned for her to meet him when the bell rang to change classes. They snuck to the basement and had sex in the bathroom.

      “Did you like it?” Mecca asked curiously.

      “At first I didn’t, because it hurt. Then it started feeling good,” Dawn replied shyly.

      “You so nasty.” Mecca smiled and playfully hit Dawn on the shoulder.

      Dawn sucked her teeth. “Please, you better get you some before your stuff dry up and die.”

      Both girls laughed. Mecca and Dawn had to gain their respect back when they entered junior high. Their reputations stayed intact the entire time. Both Mecca and Dawn were problem students, so they both had to attend the “six hundred school” for bad kids. Ruby thought Mecca would be cool going to school in Brownsville because that’s where her friends were, and when she had tried to school Mecca in her Coney Island neighborhood she kept getting into fights. The sad thing was, the fights continued in Brownsville. It was a new school and there were new foes at the time, and some of the kids from their elementary schools were there and spread the word that Dawn and Mecca were not to be fucked with. But with some people, examples had to me made.

      The opportunity presented itself when the girlfriend of a guy who had a crush on Mecca found out that he liked her. Instead of confronting her boyfriend, she chose to approach Mecca, who didn’t even know the boy. The girl made a bad choice. A choice that she had to carry for the rest of her life.

      Dawn and Mecca both dressed in tight-fitting Lee Jeans. Mecca with burgundy pinstriped ones with burgundy on white shell–top Adidas, and a white sweat shirt with “Mecca” written in script on the upper left corner, and giant door knocker earrings. Dawn wore black ones with black on white shell–top Adidas, and a white sweatshirt with matching earrings. They both walked down the crowded hallway heading toward the exit, when a light-skinned girl with a short Jherri curl that left stains on her no name–brand, button-down blue shirt approached Mecca with an angry look on her face.

      “You better stay away from my man!”

      Mecca and Dawn looked at each other, then back at the girl, confused. “Who you talking to?” Mecca asked.

      “I’m talking to you! Stay away from Tah or I’m gonna…” the girl replied, stepping closer to Mecca’s face.

      Mecca didn’t give her the opportunity