“Fuckin’ bitch!” Charlie screamed, grabbing her mother’s hair and trying to knot it around her fist and pull it out by its roots.
“Get the fuck off me, bitch!” Bacardi growled.
At that point, it would have been a draw between them if someone had been calling the fight. But then Bacardi got a second wind and started to handle her daughter like an OG. She went ham, her fists repeatedly smashing into Charlie’s face, bruising it and spilling some blood.
A mortified Claire saw the blood and tried to pull Bacardi off her sister, but she couldn’t control her mother’s rage. Charlie continued to holler, and when it looked like Bacardi was going to kill her, Claire decided to jump in instead of trying to break it up. Her fists went hammering away at the back of her mother’s head, and now it was two against one.
“Get off her!” Claire screamed out, her emotions on overload.
“Y’all bitches wanna fuckin’ jump me!” Bacardi shouted.
It didn’t take long before the sisters got the best of their mother. Years of disrespect had come full circle, and soon it was Bacardi hollering out for help.
Butch arrived home just in time to see Claire and Charlie beating on his wife. He was sober and immediately came to his wife’s rescue. Quickly, he assessed what was really in motion and angrily started to throw blows at Claire and Charlie. It was unreal. Had things gotten that dysfunctional with the family?
“Get off ya mother!” he bellowed.
His punches were solid. Nobody fucked with his wife, and nobody was going to disrespect their home. For a minute, it was a hurricane of hostility as both factions released hatred and aggression onto each other. Butch uppercut Charlie and she went crashing to the floor in a daze. It almost felt like he knocked out her tooth. Claire rushed to her sister’s aid and, miraculously, the fight ended. But not the hostility.
“Fuck you both! I hate y’all! Fuckin’ die, fuckin’ fo’ real!” Charlie screamed hysterically.
Bacardi matched her daughter’s outrage and screamed back, “You a trifling red bitch, Charlie, and you gonna burn in hell for what you did to ya sister. How could you set Chanel up and let God fuckin’ rape her!”
The accusation leveled the whole room. Bacardi expected the guilt that was now written all over Charlie’s face, but when she looked to Claire, she saw the same thing in her eyes.
“You knew too!”
Claire tried to avoid eye contact. As Butch tried to process what his wife had said, Bacardi started tossing her daughters’ belongings into the hallway. She was done with them.
“Y’all bitches get the fuck outta my house!” she shouted.
“What? Are you serious? I just paid you rent,” Claire challenged. “Give me my fuckin’ money back then.”
“Bitch, you ain’t gettin’ shit back!” Bacardi retorted.
While Claire was fussing with her mother, Charlie was in the hallway trying to gather her things so they wouldn’t get stolen, knowing there were thieves in her building. The commotion inside their apartment had the entire floor coming out of their apartments to see what was happening. Cell phone cameras were out and recording. It was always something going on with that family—never a dull moment in the Brown household.
Butch went along with the program and helped Bacardi with tossing his daughters’ shit out. When Charlie tried to go back inside the apartment, Butch stormed into the kitchen and grabbed a sharp knife and held it up threateningly to Charlie as Bacardi continued to throw out clothes, shoes, and personal items.
Claire was now in tears, but Charlie refused to cry. She held her own and scowled at her parents and threw threats their way. Fuck that! She wasn’t embarrassed and she wasn’t about to break down and look weak in front of the neighbors. She refused to give them that satisfaction.
Looking on at the ruckus at Bacardi’s apartment door with the other neighbors was Landy. She was mesmerized by the ordeal going down right next door to her apartment.
Seeing Landy gazing at her, Charlie immediately asked, “Bitch, you just gonna stand there and watch, or you gonna get me some fuckin’ trash bags?”
Landy went into her apartment and shortly returned to the hallway and tossed two black trash bags at Charlie. It was all the help Charlie was going to get from her. Shit, trash bags cost money, and Landy wasn’t about to create any issues with her own family, especially her mother. A few other neighbors tossed garbage bags at Charlie like she was some charity case and it gave them a reason to stay in the hallway and be nosy.
After Bacardi tossed out what she wanted to get rid of, meanwhile keeping the good stuff for herself, she slammed the door shut on both her daughters, turned around, and looked at Butch. She knew she had some explaining to do.
Chapter Three
Chanel rode quietly in the backseat of the Uber and gazed out the window. Everything was changing, and it wasn’t for the better. It felt like she was cursed from the day her mother gave birth to her. When something good came into her life, it didn’t last. Why? Why couldn’t she experience happiness without it being ripped from her? Chanel remembered more frowns than smiles, more hurt than joy, and more hate than love. But Mateo loved her, and she loved him, and she had to hold on to that.
She had gathered her things from the hotel and was on her way to Pyro’s condo in a posh area in the Bronx. When she arrived, Pyro was waiting for her downstairs. He smiled when he saw her in the Uber he had arranged for her. Chanel climbed out of the backseat with her bags and released a sigh. This was it. She hoped staying with Pyro wasn’t going to be yet another burden on him.
“So, this is it, huh?” Chanel asked, looking up at the building and then fixing her eyes on Pyro’s.
Pyro took her larger bags and replied, “This is it. You’ll be safe here. C’mon, let’s go up so I can show you around.”