any fish. You give the fish what they want. So you fish with worms. And so we need to give our customers what they want. They don’t want big-tittied white women. They want big-assed black women, so that’s what we’re going to give them. And that’s why we’ll stay here at Chi Chi’s until the supply of big-bootied black women is exhausted.”
Marty looked at Ray curiously and then sighed.
“I still don’t understand why a muthafucka’s eating strawberries and cream in the first place. I mean, who the fuck eats that shit?”
“Shut your dumb ass up,” Ray said, finishing his beer. “Just shut your dumb ass up.”
Ray turned back to the bar and waited for Sean to arrive.
Across town, it was a little after seven o’clock at 9537 Budlong Avenue, and things were in the “same shit, different day” mode for the Montez family.
“Keisha! Keisha! Bitch, I know you heard me!”
Keisha Montez kept putting on her makeup, ignoring the sound of the voice outside the door.
She can scream all she wants, Keisha thought as she took a pull from her joint, but she wasn’t getting riled. Not today and not tonight. There was money to be made tonight, and Keisha was going to make sure she got her share.
Keisha, eighteen years old and full of life, was the beautiful star of Budlong Avenue. Her Mexican and black heritage combined to create a beauty that had tantalized men of all ages. And some, if given the chance, gladly would have tried to get at her before she was legal. About five foot five, with wavy hair and beautiful café au lait skin, Keisha was stunning. But she also lived in South Central Los Angeles, a place that spit out pretty girls left and right and ground them up for all to see.
As she looked around the dingy bathroom, all Keisha could see was the broken yellow tile, the faded bathtub, and the ever-dripping sink.
What a fucking mess, she thought while putting on her lipstick. I’ve got to get out of here.
Suddenly the bathroom door burst open, banging against the bathtub. Keisha didn’t even flinch.
“Keisha! When I’m talking to you, you better fucking answer me!” Veronica Montez was the spitting image of her daughter, except her face was full of worry lines. That was for good reason. Veronica Montez stayed angry, 24/7. She’d been like that since Keisha’s father, Felice Montez, had gone out to buy some beer. That was eighteen years ago and he hadn’t come back with that beer. Actually, maybe angry wasn’t the correct term. More accurately, Veronica Montez was pissed every minute in her life.
“This is my goddamn house and if I say jump, you better say ‘how high?’. Do you hear what I’m saying, dammit?”
Her face was so tense that Keisha could see the veins in her forehead. Veronica walked even closer to Keisha, squeezing into the tiny bathroom.
“Getting out of high school was the worst shit that could have happened to you. Now you think you can do what the fuck you want,” Veronica continued. “Uh-uh. Not today. Not as long as I’m paying for shit.”
“What do you want?” Keisha asked, looking in the mirror and putting on her mascara. She tried not to let Veronica get to her.
“After you finish shakin’ your ass at that nasty-ass club,” Veronica began, fumbling through her purse looking for change, “bring me back a carton of Newports. Don’t bring your ass back here without ’em.”
She put about three dollars on the sink and left as quickly as she’d come in. Veronica knew, and Keisha knew too, that three dollars wasn’t going to buy any box of cigarettes. But Veronica expected Keisha to make up the difference from the money she made at the club. Instead of supporting her children, the children supported Veronica.
Bitch, Keisha thought as she threw the money into her purse. Fucking bitch.
Makeup done, Keisha walked to the kitchen. Andre, her brother, sat at the table eating Cocoa Pebbles like it was early eight in the morning instead of being close to eight at night. For Keisha, a twenty-six-year-old black man eating a children’s cereal while staying at his mother’s house was symbolic of how fucked-up this house was.
“Hey, Keisha,” he said, barely looking up from his cereal. “Let me ask you a question.”
“What?”
Keisha just wanted to get her orange juice and get out of the house. She didn’t feel like dealing with Andre’s bullshit.
“Let me borrow some money?” he asked.
“Nigga, please. I ain’t loaning you shit,” she said, taking a swig of orange juice.
“I’m serious. Loan me fifty dollars.”
“I don’t give a fuck if you’re serious or not. I didn’t ask you if you were telling jokie jokes, or being dead serious. You still owe me for that hundred you spent on that stank-ass girlfriend of yours. So I repeat, nigga, please.”
“Ah, see, why you gotta be like that?”
Andre leaned back in his chair and looked at Keisha as though he was searching for something. He was looking for an opening, some way to get what he wanted. Keisha knew that look and stood there, resolute. She wasn’t going to give in to his con.
“Nah, see, I need that money because I need to get something for Veronica.”
Keisha finished off her orange juice, looked at her watch, and threw the empty orange juice bottle in the trash.
“Then this is what I suggest. Get off your narrow ass and find a goddamn job. Stop fucking asking me for money when all you do is sit around this goddamn house watching TV all day. Again, for the third and last time, nigga, please!”
Keisha walked out of the kitchen to the front door, and Andre followed her.
“Bitch!”
Keisha never turned around. She turned the deadbolt lock and opened the front door.
“I gots your bitch right here,” she yelled, throwing up a middle finger at her brother. “Find some other fucking sucker.”
Finally she was out of the house, and the cool night air surrounded her. It was as though she’d finally been allowed to breathe. And yet, she could still hear Veronica shouting from the living room.
“Don’t forget my goddamn Newports!”
Back at the Chi Chi Room, the main lounge was starting to fill up. And sauntering in like a bad ’70s pimp was the guy who owned the place. When he saw Ray and Marty sucking down Heinekens, he walked up to them and got right down to business.
“Don’t waste my time, niggas, don’t waste my time,” he said. “My time is precious, valuable, and expensive.”
Sean Edwards always had the same greeting for anyone who had the audacity to want to talk to him. But he saved his best for Ray and Marty. He tolerated them because they made him money. And money made Sean talk to anyone, even if he felt that they could be wasting his time.
“I liked it better when your daddy owned the club,” Marty said. “He never rushed us.”
“Yeah, well, that nigga’s dead and he never made any money,” Sean responded, taking a glass of Hennessy from the bartender. “I’m about money, while that nigga just wanted to get some pussy from time to time. I can get all the pussy I need. But money, nigga, that’s what’s hard to get. So as I said, nigga, my time is precious, so don’t waste it. What do you two niggas want?”
Sean had owned the Chi Chi Room ever since his dad, Big Sean, died in 2000. Big Sean had opened the club back in the 1970s after his friend, the actor Rudy Ray Moore, was thrown out of a white nude club downtown. There hadn’t been a place in Los Angeles for black men to go see naked black women shake their asses, so he decided to open one.
“I like ass just like the