mother.
As if a slight gentle feather, light and ethereal, Mama Clara’s face flutters across Slick’s mind once again. Making the killer instantly melancholic.
“You miss mama .... ?,” he asks solemnly.
Benjamin turns with a grin. “Which one nigga?”
“You had two mama’s. One that aint want'cha’ and my mama.” The creole looks away, sadness in his handsome face as well.
“Every fuck’in day bro’ ...... every damn day,” he says gently.
Slick turns away, remembering the last time he saw birth mother.
Amitola Igasho was a woman to reckon with in her day. Dark haired and strong, the powerful woman was the product of a white gold mining father and a Tonkawa mother. An ancient Native American tribe out of Texas.
Always one to speak her mind, as well as use her fist, Amitola was a strong woman whose eyes blazed with the fire that was her home and long linage.
It was 1912, the broken woman was being carted off to a lunatic asylum. Too much drink and not enough hope.
Slick was at the stage when a boy turns into a young man. Watching as his mother was taken away, slobbering incoherently, eyes wild and crazy. His sister was sent to orphanage, the last the blue eyed hustler ever heard from both.
On a job in Alabama, the hired killer was in a local bar, around rowdy types like himself. He was watching as a blonde man played pool that looked very familiar. Slick stared at the man all night, off and on. The man looked just like Slick. Right down to the thick muscular build and light hair.
Finally, after enough drink, the man approached Slick, thinking he was queer.
A fight broke out and Slick remembers breaking the man’s wrist, beating the stranger badly.
Later, through contacts, Slick learned he had beaten a brother he had never known he had.
Turning to the sunny window, the hustler looks to the only brother he has ever known. A black man.
“Yo’ really kick ya’ brotha’s ass,” Benjamin asks, knowing the glazed look .
“If that fuck’a was my brotha’. That fuck’a got his ass handed to him on a platta’. Don’t play tha’ queer shit,” Slick sneers, looking back outside, wondering.
Benjamin looks away, nothing is said. Especially on that subject.
The creole shakes off such thinking, sipping his coffee. Quickly Benjamin reaches into his coat pocket to add something extra.
“Aright, tired of this bull shyt nigga’. Time to get ta’ step’in,” Slick suddenly says, looking back with a wink.
“But give me a few. Imma give the boss lady some'thin’ to think ‘bout.”
Benjamin laughs, watching his brother dissappear around the corner. The creole snickers as he sips his spiked caffeinated brew.
“Don’t hurt hur’. We need hur’ money,” the hustler whispers, smiling.
Upstairs, the blue eyed hustler slowly glides by Kelly’s sitting room, hearing the gentle conversation of care and friendship. Smiling, Slick is suddenly made glad that Sally is in their employment. Kelly has always been aloof, to herself. Not out of arrogance, but of a deep fear of being hurt.
Woman have never been kind to the beautiful young flapper. Or so Kelly has always felt.
With her guard always up, especially to her own kind, Slick has always felt that his wife lived a life half lived. That is until Sally was hired.
Bubbly and bright, courteous to a fault as well as deeply catholic, the young maid was treated with acidic disdain at first by Kelly. Snide comments, belittling off handed compulsions over Sally’s work ethic, were just small examples of Kelly’s tactics to disarm the young woman. The young maid almost quit.
That is until Kelly miscarried, a second try for Slick and herself.
Slick leans against a hall wall, suddenly hearing his little boy’s laugh, instant joy in his soul. The child is home for a few days, then back to his grandparents. The joy he hears in Kelly’s voice, this was not always the case.
When Kelly miscarried a few years back, there was nothing that Slick could do to make his wife happy, as much he tried. Alone, often crying, his young wife was in the worst of sorts. Slowly, through love and care, Sally natured the young mother back to her fearless self.
Kelly has always been grateful since then. Sally might as well be a blood sister.
Slick sighs, feeling emotional as his thick fingers gliding through his blonde hair. Peeking in, seeing a glimpse of Kelly, the scoundrel shakes the feeling off.
Sally has been a godsend in more ways than one.
“What yall do’in in hur’,” the thug smiles from around the corner.
Both woman look up from playing with a bubbling toddler, Sally and Kelly suddenly snickering as the hustler winks to the maid.
“Benjamin got someth'in’ ta’ tell ya’ down stairs.”
“Take tha’ baby fo’ a bit,” Slick grins, looking over to his wife.
Kelly scoffs, grabbing Sally’s hand as the housekeeper sits back down, starting to lotion her mistress’s hands. “ Don’t you go any where Sally.”
The lady-of-the-house watches as Sally lotions each finger, saving some for her own hands. “Here this roughen comes, wanting a lil lov’in.”
“On Sunday of all days,” the blonde snarks to her assistant.
Insistent as always, Slick raises his voice slightly. “Sally Mae, git yo’ sexy lil’ black ass down stairs. Unless yo’ want su’m’a this thick dick too,” Slick grins.
Faster than a bat out of hell, grabbing the baby, the young maid instantly leaves without a word, quickly. Making the holy sacrament across her chest as Kelly chuckles, the black woman rolls her eyes as she exits.
Hearing the door close, husband and wife left alone, one glares at the other. Turning to look at her own reflection, Kelly pays her husband no mind.
Slick makes himself comfortable, sitting on a powder pink settee, throwing a fluffy pillow to the side.
The hustler looks all around, scoffing at the feminine flare all around him. Out the whole house, this is the room he hates the most.
Every rich southern woman worth her salt has a ‘sitting room’, small or large, depending on wealth and prestige. Kelly’s vanity room is one of the largest. About the size of two rooms put together, pink and white is everywhere. Silks, satins and velvets of the same soft hue.
High above Slick’s disapproving eyes, hangs a pink crystal chandelier of the finest hand blown crystal, imported from Paris.
Below the hustler’s handmade shoes is wall to wall shag carpeting. Probably more expensive than anything else in the room. Except for the pink three carat diamonds on Kelly’s earlobes.
Staring at her husband through the vanities reflection, the lady-of-the-house looks to Slick crotch. Smiling, the beauty already sees a well developed outline.
“Get your horny ass up and lock the door,” she orders sweetly.
Slick smiles from ear to ear, reaching over to lock the door.
He knows there will not be a battle of wits for some sexual healing with morning breakfast. As he locks the door, the hustler hears.
“After