Diane ran over, shooing the creatures away and knocking a few off the table. She then picked up Chaos in her arms and knew that her baby didn’t deserve death.
Her friend Julie lived in a one-bedroom apartment thirty blocks away so she ran with the baby clutched tightly in her arms. With the cold and weakness bearing down on her, she reached Julie’s door looking like she had been to hell and back. When Julie opened the door, she exclaimed, “Take my baby!”
Julie quickly took Chaos in her arms and watched Diane pass out in front of her. She immediately dialed 911.
Diane suffered from pneumonia, but she was very fortunate to be alive. Julie cared for Chaos and supported Diane as she dealt with the caseworker at the hospital. Julie had a two-year old child of her own and cared for Chaos as if she were her own child. After making sure Chaos was a healthy child, things seemed to get back to normal for Diane. Which meant she resumed whoring herself out to tricks. Julie tried to care for Chaos as best as she could with little money and little help from Diane.
For a moment, it seemed like Danielle Chaos Mitchell would have a normal life.
5
Chaos and Sweet lingered in the bedroom and talked while they played a game of blackjack. They were best friends and understood each other. They had a lot in common including living in New York and having similar, troubling backgrounds. They both were also very familiar with sex at an early age and had no one to call family, except for each other and Crown.
Sweet lost her virginity to her older cousin when she was only thirteen. They shared stories of loss and pain and sometimes it felt like they were sisters.
Chaos smiled, listening to Midnight and her trick’s loud sexual groans coming from the next room. She sat Indian-style across from Sweet in a pair of coochie-cutting shorts and a yellow baby tee. The day been slow for both ladies—little money was made that morning and in the afternoon. Crown was minding his own business down in the basement, but still periodically checking up on Midnight and her trick, so Chaos and Sweet only had a few sporadic moments of peace.
“I win again!” Chaos turned over a queen, bringing her score up to twenty.
“You cheatin’ bitch,” Sweet said jokingly.
“Just deal again. Shit, we need to be playin’ for money, since it’s so slow around here today,” Chaos said.
“I know, right? But you know how Crown is. He come up in here and see us gambling and all hell might break loose,” Sweet admonished.
“Shit, we make enough money for him already. I don’t know why he be trippin’ sometimes. Shit, yesterday, I fucked like six tricks for that nigga and he still beefin’ wit’ me about it being slow and needing to get my clientele up. Yo, fo’ real, Sweet, I would like to see that nigga on his back turning a trick for once,” Chaos joked. “Turn that nigga into my bitch.”
Sweet laughed. “I know, right?”
The girls continued their game and made small talk for a few moments. Chaos shuffled the cards again. She looked up at Sweet with a serious look and asked, “Sweet, you ever thought about leaving here?”
“What you mean?”
“I mean, just one night, get your shit and get the fuck away from here.”
“And go where, Chaos? Besides here, I ain’t got no other home,” Sweet replied.
“But we continue to fuck trick after trick and get this nigga rich. What do we get out of it? A nice place to stay, protection, and comfort is what Crown tells us. I could do that myself.”
“Chaos, beside that bullshit job I had at the mall, I’ve been doin’ this all my life. I might as well get paid to fuck a nigga. I was tired of giving my pussy away for free,” Sweet proclaimed.
“But are you happy here?”
“Are you?” Sweet countered.
“I don’t know. I just want somethin’ better for me, Sweet. I left New York to get into somethin’ of my own and to be with my cousin. But the minute I met Crown he had this way over me. He had me hyped about gettin’ money and being a woman and living like a queen. But lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m a prisoner up in this bitch.”
“I understand how you feel that way, Chaos. But I know that before Crown, I didn’t have shit for myself. I shared a one-bedroom apartment with five other people and two of them couldn’t keep themselves from climbing on top of me night after night. And since it was their place, they felt my pussy was theirs for the taking, too. I got raped by my seventeen-year-old cousin when I was only thirteen, and they looked at me like I was the one that did the family wrong when I accused him of it. So if I gotta fuck and suck a few niggas to live comfortable in this crib, have Crown provide security, and ain’t gotta worry about cash in my hand, then this ain’t so bad after all. I can deal wit’ his abuse. Shit, Chaos, I’ve dealt wit’ worse.”
“It’s a hard-knock life for us, right?” Chaos said, trying to ease the situation.
Sweet laughed. “Jay-Z ain’t got shit on us.”
They continued with their game and then suddenly Sweet asked, “You got somethin’ goin’ on with YB?”
Chaos smiled. “Why you ask?”
“Crown almost went upside my head the other night, just for talkin’ to YB while I was workin’ a trick. Y’all got somethin’ goin’ on that I don’t know about?”