Hell's Diva:. Anna J. Stewart

Mecca Sykes lay on her stomach under her bed, frightened, crying silently, as she watched two masked men bind and gag her mother and father with duct tape around their mouths, ankles, and wrists, placing them on the living room couch. The one-bedroom project apartment smelled of dirty cat litter and cigarettes, although there wasn’t an actual cat present. Mecca’s wood framed bed sat in the corner of the living room opposite the couch with a dingy, sky blue, fitted sheet covering it.

      Mecca was still as roaches crawled over her hands and face. She could have sworn the roaches were drinking her tears and eating the crumbs on the corners of her mouth from the bowl of Cap’n Crunch cereal she’d just finished eating. She felt them crawl into the legs and arms of her yellow pajamas, but she still didn’t move. Mecca watched one of the masked men take a plastic sandwich bag filled with a grayish-colored powder out of the freezer and place it into a brown paper bag. The other masked man with the big, black revolver pointed at Mecca’s parents turned to look at his partner.

      “You got the shit, Darnell?” the guy holding the revolver asked. The masked man with the brown paper bag, along with Mecca’s father’s, eyes widened at the mention of his name.

      “What the fuck is wrong with you, dude?” Darnell yelled at his partner. “Nigga, have you lost your fuckin’ mind or something?”

      Mecca heard her father mumbling words under the duct tape, but his words weren’t audible enough for them to comprehend. The man with the brown paper bag placed it back in the refrigerator, removed his mask, and walked over to the bound couple.

      “Yeah, Blast, it’s me, mu’fucka. You won’t be bagging this shit up for Stone no more,” he shouted, spit and small pieces of food flying from his mouth and landing on Blast’s face. Darnell looked in Mecca’s father’s eyes, and with the gun in his hand he patted his chest. “It’s my turn now, nigga,” he continued while Mecca’s father was mumbling, shaking his head, staring at the masked men.

      “God, please, let us come out of this alive. If not, look over my daughter. Let her have a life where she doesn’t have to face situations like this. Please, God, I beg you. Take my daughter out of Brownsville.”

      Mecca’s mother had tears in her eyes. She silently prayed that they would come out of this alive. She prayed for her daughter’s life even if the men decided to kill her and her husband.

      Mecca, by staring at her mother’s face, tried to block out the fear and the roaches that crawled on her. Her mother was so pretty. She reminded Mecca of Thelma from the television show Good Times. Her mother looked just like Thelma and wore her black, shiny hair in a ponytail like the actress did. The only difference between Thelma and Mecca’s mother was the complexion. Mecca’s mother was a shade lighter than Thelma. She had a cream-colored skin tone with three black moles on her right cheekbone.

      Mecca inherited her mother’s complexion and features, and people often commented on her looks, playfully referring to her and her mom as twins. Mecca looked at her father and smiled. Mecca was proud to have a father who all the women in the neighborhood gawked over. He was known as Blast in Brownsville, but some called him Pretty Blast from Langston Hughes projects. With the same complexion as Mecca and her mother, Blast was a tall, muscular man with curly black hair. Everybody in Brownsville said he looked like a lighter complexioned Billy D. Williams.

      Blast supported his wife and daughter by bagging up dope and stashing the dope for the neighborhood kingpin known as Stone. Blast, whose real name was Bobby Sykes, got his nick-name from Stone when in 1979 Stone stood on the corner of Mother Gaston Boulevard dressed in his usual full-length mink with diamond studded rings and necklace. When a man walked up to Stone and pointed a gun at him and told Stone to give up his stuff, Blast was coming out of the gas station on Mother Gaston and Sutter Avenue, across the street from where Stone stood.

      Blast had a bottle of Crazy Horse in his hand that he couldn’t wait to get home. He looked at Stone from across the two, way street. Stone and his robber stood under a street light, which made the gun in the robber’s hand appear to glow. It was dark outside, so the stick up man didn’t notice Blast walking toward them with his black .38 Saturday Night Special. Blast nodded his head to Stone. Stone understood that Blast wanted him to run, which he did. Before the stick up man could get a shot off, Blast emptied his .38 into the man’s body, leaving him dead on the corner with blood leaking from his head into the sewer. Stone ran a block up to Rockaway Avenue, where he met up with Blast.

      “Damn, you blasted the shit outta that nigga. Good looking, baby!” Stone said, relieved that Blast was there to have his back. From that day, he was known as Blast. Stone put him under his wing and put him on the payroll. Knowing that about him didn’t deter the two men who were there from doing what they came to do. Tired of hearing Blast mumble, Darnell took the duct tape off his mouth.

      “Yo, Darnell. You ain’t got to do this, homeboy. I’ll tell Stone to put you on baby bro,” Blast said, hoping that his life would be spared.

      “Nigga, you think I was born yesterday? You think I don’t know that nigga is going to try to kill me? Who the fuck you think you talking to, Blast?” Darnell laughed, and then his face turned serious quickly.

      “Darnell, my word is bond! I’ll make sure…”

      “Your word is what? Oh, you think this is a game?”” Darnell said with rage on his face, pointing the gun at Blast’s forehead.

      Pap! Pap! Pap! Darnell put three bullets in Blast’s face, sending blood and flesh flying against the beige painted wall and on Blast’s wife’s face and blue cotton robe. No one heard Mecca flinch and whisper her father’s name. Her mother tried to break free of her restraints, but to no avail. She screamed under the duct tape, which muffled the sound.

      “Oh shit, Darnell! What the fuck?” Darnell’s partner barked.

      “Nigga, shut the fuck up. You the reason I had to do that, and this!”

      Darnell put a bullet in Mecca’s mother’s head. Her body slumped over onto Blast’s already slumped body. Darnell grabbed the bag of heroin off the refrigerator, and looked down at the slumped bodies on the floor.

      “C’mon, stupid,” Darnell said, putting his gun back in his waistband.

      Mecca watched both men rush out of the apartment. When the door was closed Mecca waited for a few seconds before she came out from under the bed, making sure that the men wouldn’t be back forgetting something, or remembering that Blast had a daughter who looked just like him. Meanwhile, the white-robed man looked at Mecca after showing her the vision of when she was eight years old watching the murder of her parents.

      “You didn’t see then why you should have chosen a different lifestyle?” the strange man asked in an almost caring voice. Mecca could detect an undertone of sarcasm and that only pissed her off more.

      “No, all I saw was my reason to make them pay! Why are you doing this? Who are you anyway?” Mecca responded angrily.

      “Who I am is not important, and I’m doing this because this is my job. The question is why did you do the things you did?”

      “It’s all I knew,” Mecca said, putting her head down, defeated. “If you’re not God or whoever and you mad or if God is mad because of my life, then why did He put me in that situation? Why did He let them kill my parents? What type of God lets an eight-year-old watch her moms and pops get murdered like that? Answer that.” Mecca said gravely.

      “You can’t blame God for the evil that men do. Those men and people like them decided on their own to do what they do. No one made you do what you did in life,” the man countered. Mecca folded her arms and rolled her eyes, looking away from the man.

      “Well, I was too young to comprehend or see the signs you’re talking about. Whatever your name is,” Mecca said sarcastically.

      “Call me Lou, and I haven’t finished showing you the signs you missed. I like showing you this. Your life is very interesting. You could have made a lot of money writing a book about it.” Lou smiled.