Chapter One
EBONY QUEEN
It's strange how one bad decision can have a domino effect on so many lives. This thought resonated in my mind as I watched them lower my mother's body into the ground. It was not the send-off I would have chosen for her, but beggars couldn't afford to be choosy. Thanks to my Mother’s error in judgment, I was so broke I couldn’t afford to pay attention let alone bury her in the style she'd become accustomed to. Hell, I was lucky to get this much. New York City, just like other cities, was strapped for cash, and budget cuts were the only things people were talking about. Vital programs were being scratched, so instead of having a three man crew, whose job it was to bury the indigent, I had a man and a shovel who was anxious to get this part of his job finished. I should have felt grateful for the meager service since it was the best the City was willing to do, but I wasn't. I wanted to believe my mother was dancing on streets made of gold, but it was hard to do when her body was encased in a shitty box.
My mother, Candace, was a true Diva. If she weren't already dead, she would've had a stroke knowing her final resting place would be in a plain pine box. She believed diamonds were another article of clothing and she raised me the same way. It broke my heart just thinking about the simple brown dress she wore also provided by the City. I never felt so alone and miserable in my entire life. Guilt plagued me but there was nothing I could do about it.
My neighbors gawked, coming out of their fancy apartments, to witness my disgrace as the Feds came and confiscated everything we owned. I was twenty-one and had never worked a day in my life. But I never had to because my mother had a plan, a vision which ended the day she was killed. I thought I was prepared for every contingency in life, but I was sadly mistaken. All my training was contingent on having money, and I was broke as a joke without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.
My mom's only brother, Leon, sent me a bus ticket to Atlanta and a couple dollars for spending money. He would've come to the burial, however, he was busy burying his wife Kym who was killed the same day as my mother. I reminded myself that I should have been feeling grateful to him since he offered my grown ass a place to stay, but I wasn't. I was angry, bitter, and to be honest, I wanted revenge. I wanted everyone involved in my mother's death to suffer the same way I was suffering.
My mom used to call me her ebony princess. She said I took the best from her: my dark brown skin, straight brown hair and a big old butt. She told me I would grow up to be a queen. Of course I told her I was already a queen, and she quickly countered by saying there was only one queen bitch in our house, and I wasn't it. Now that she was gone, I inherited the title but there was no throne. I didn't feel like the queen as I looked around at the few people who gathered to pay their final respects.
"Are you okay?" someone asked me, gently touching my shoulder. I recoiled from the touch. None of the faces surrounding me looked familiar, and I hated them all, but it didn't matter. "I'm fine," I mumbled, but I really wanted to yell and scream, Get the fuck away and give me a moment! I was sick of people asking me the same question over and over again because they didn't want to know how I really felt. They expected me to put some smell good on it so I lied, told 'em I was fine. When I really wanted to say, Hell no, I ain't okay my mother is dead.
Another thing they said that was getting on my damn nerves was, “Is there anything I can do?” Hell Yeah, bring my mother back and while you're at it, tell the Fed's I want our shit back. Those slimy fuckers took everything. My mother's jewelry, furs, clothing, hell the bastards even took her shoes. They boarded up the front door of our penthouse apartment and sent my black ass packing with only the clothes on my back.
This should not have been happening to me. My mother's boyfriend Mel, the lyin' piece of shit, was no-where-the-fuck-to-be-found. He'd promised my mother he would protect us, but the bastard removed all evidence of his life from our house the moment the news of my mother's death hit the wire. I was gonna find the little dick mother fucker and make him pay for leaving us. The very least he could have done was make sure his woman had a proper burial.
Though I promised myself I wouldn't cry, it wasn’t working. How could I not cry? My life, as I knew it, was over, and I was ill prepared to do anything about it. My mother loved money, but she obviously wasn't good at keeping it because there was nothing left. I tried to stand tall, I wanted her to be proud of me, but I couldn't help it. On the outside I looked like a queen, however, on the inside I was a sick, twisted sister. Everyone I loved and trusted had let me down. This was not the life my mother planned for us.
Mel, my mother's sponsor, was a small-town drug dealer from lower Manhattan. He harbored aspirations of growing his operation into something much bigger, but he hadn’t found anything bigger than a corner to sling dope from. Mom pumped him up, gave him the courage to go out on his own and as a result, he provided for us. The Fed's questioned me for hours, and I didn't tell them anything. The truth of the matter was that even though I was my mother's best friend, her ebony princess, I didn't know anything. The only thing I did know was my aunt Kym was involved, but the Feds already knew that.
The man with the shovel shouted, "Let us pray." He brought my attention back to the present. However, I didn't know what to pray for. I felt I should be realistic, but my mind wasn’t cooperating. I didn't want to move to bum-fuck Atlanta, but the answers to all my questions had to be there. Besides, my uncle was the only person who stepped up to help me. All the other wannabe’s my mother associated with were nowhere around. I wanted my mother and my life back. I wanted the fairy tale ending my mother predicted I’d have.
The tears fell and it was like a dam breaking. Through my tears, I watched the city employee throw dirt on my mother's box. My heart pounded as I watched in horror. Visions of bugs and shit passed before my eyes, and I felt like fainting. Her grave would be marked by a simple rock. The only thing I had left of my mother was a satin pair of Jimmy Chu shoes I had smuggled out of our home.
“I’ll be back mom, I swear. I’m gonna get you an elegant marker befitting a Queen, I promise.”