THE NO SNITCH RULE by Noboedy Growden.
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed… never listen to the next; when I gave you the word first.
"Did you hear about Mable?" asked a sister of the church. The next sister nodded, "I saw it on TV. My nephew was watching some cartoons, I said baby, let me see the weather. She was breaking news, Woman murders her son and kills another."
"What about Hannielle's husband?" she asked.
"I don't talk to her much. You know honey doesn't like to stay for service long."
"I wished she did." the sister lowered her gaze. "Did you hear about her husband?"
"I don't even get into that. Plus, Aleigha still trying that court case."
"Who was in the bathroom?" the sister whispered. "Her grandson. It's so strange, his grandmama just flopped right in front of him like that."
"How the fuck we in church and y'all doing shit like this?" The women looked to their left side. "Hola bitches."
"Jose…" one eyed him up and down. "Yes bitch?" he gave her the same look. "Ain't you suppose to be getting the cookies in the oven or some shit?"
"Say it in spanish."
"Eres negra como el infierno y necesitas desodorante."
"What did he say?" asked a sister.
"O'Liga where is yo baby?" Jose chastised. "Don't worry about my baby!" O'Liga pushed pass Jose. "Big eyed nigga. He looked at the other sister, "What are you doing?"
"Jose leave me alone."
"Yo child is somewhere doing God knows what."
"As long as he isn't around that big boy. Montgomery is…" he used her four fingers and thumb to suggest. "Talkative. He said that statue the pastor keeps in there talks to him."
"And Lee said Growden shot Shikki."
"You believe that?"
"I regret coming over here." he walked away.
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.
.
I shouldn't even bother with all the muffled screaming. I'm just putting on an act at this point. "Get him in truck." says Valentina holding my left side. "Dude are tall are you?"
In a muffled voice I reply, "Seven feet."
"Can a six feet man fit in the backseat?" asks Valentina. I said fucking seven feet.
"What if he don't fix?" says Linus. I hate white folk. This is ridiculous. "Attach him to the hood of the car." suggest Valentina. If I'm on the roof, I'm finna roll. I don't even care if I die. I could die, see my people in--where do we go? Where ever, and be content. In fact I hope I die.
"We don't have anything to tie him, we used all the rope." says Linus. Lord have mercy. This is happening. "What do we do with you?"
Has it been Alexis or Valentina this whole time? Cause this bitch stupid. "Hey!" she yells looking at me. "I can hear you!"
"Ok."
.
.
.
They put me in the backseat. I don't fix in a fucking Toyota. I could kick out the window but that wouldn't mean shit.
"Oh!" I hear Valentina who probably wants to start a conversation about the new Pink Drink with added Grapes in it. Half black my left nut. "We're taking you to the back alleys. To our castle!"
"Rent free. Why y'all niggas still live in apartments?" says Linus.
An apartment is a goddamn house. What is a mansion with 16 rooms or more? An apartment.
With memories coming back, Aleigha rented out a mansion before we stole one. I forgot how great he is… was. Mama would style my hair just my grandfather's when I asked. He's like 56 now.
"Ain't that something?" says Valentina. "That nigga is technically young, most vampires--" WHITE VAMPIRES "--are like a hundred years old. I had to ask. Like you mean he's 256, no, he's 56--this year. It's super cool but super bad."
SHUT THE FUCK UP!
"Though he could be lying about his age."
Linus makes the car turn. I can see without having to look through the glass, we're headed to the realm. We can't be going through the back alleys. The light is orange.
"Daddy did a ritual." We have a half black conditioner and soap telling me shit I don't wanna hear. "You never heard of this street. Ennerdale Knoll."
Growden made a street? "I like it." says Valentina. I'm at the right angle to kick her in the back of the head. BUT MY FEET TIED UP! "So I wanna tell you what's on Ennerdale Knoll. Chauncey has the safe house on Epping."
What the hell does Chauncey have to do with it?
"Delagati Lyons. The Lyons family is mostly albino. It's pretty easy convincing. We got y'all niggas fucked up. And then we got the antichrist, this shit is locked."
Are you fucking serious? This is modern slavery.
"Vampires are real. Thanks to you niggas and your black magic. Africa got it all." I hear him snort. "Why don't y'all use it?"
"I mean I like Paris. All the oversea countries have a little something to take. My daddy told me that Africa was poor and other countries had to help build it." says Valentina.
NO THEY DIDN'T!
"I'm half, Linus isn't. We had a step mom, two to be exact. So, I had a mom and she was black and yeah. She told me about what that meant and basically culture made me." her voice is so fucking annoying. "I died when I was a baby. But my twin, she had the power. But, I can blink. With my eyes open."
I'm tuning this out.
"Don't ignore me!" she shouts. "I lived! And at first they took Cedrica."
"But why name you Thankful?" asks Linus. "Daddy didn't know everyday back then." she said. Well that says she isn't the first Valentina. "So your granddad is 56 in 2010. That's wild. When he ATE ME, I was like 18. So…" Lord help, this bitch thinking. "It's 2010 now. Aleigha is 56 and I was…maybe 27? So 27 minus 56. That's…" I'm assuming she's counting in her head. Why is she so fucking stupid? Valentina growls breastly. She reaches oer the seat and her face is different. She has a goat's head with fish fins on the side of her head. Her tongue is that of a snake and hands of a hawk's talons. "I'm mangled!"
"Daddy tried to remake his darling daughter. It made sense to make you a negro."
"I hate that fucking bitch!" She yells. "She took drugs. Aleigha fucking ate my legs and put me in his basement!"
"I hate him too. Fuck Shikki."
Valentina's neck stretches to me, "we have your mother. Guess what?" She makes her head spin. "She's a whore."
.
.
.
I feel asleep for a while. They threw my ass on the road. I woke up seeing houses with lights in them. "Get up and walk. Your too big to carry." Well, good news, she's ugly but at least she's not a fucking missing link.
I should have saved that.
"I kind of like my old self and current." she says. Linus takes my ropes off my legs but not my hands. "Get up."
I can just barely do it. I look at the streets and see people walking but they look tired. "This is Ennerdale Knoll. We live here." Are they vamps? "Yes." Linus answers. Mind yo business! "Vamps live here. Zombies and other."
"Can you believe Alexis gets to be a fucking fairy!"
"Technically, fairy are an extinct race in the realm. The Miaibu are a type of fairy."
"The Miaibu are fucking nasty little skeleton fairies!" Exaggerates Valentina. "Calm down," suggest Linus. "Yes, Aleigha told them to tear your body about apart but you have new legs."
"So! I was a young, healthy, rich white bitch and now my ass is the size of a damn watermelon. I look sick because that nigger did drugs while she was pregnant with me."
Linus rolls his neck to the dark sky. "Spare me, Val."
"I'm sick all the damn time. I hate black people--"
"Same but--"
"But my ass! Did you not fucking hear me! Aleigha ate my fucking legs! While I could see! I saw my knees stripped of skin. My teeth were removed and daddy had the great fucking nerve to make me beauty and the fucking beast!"
This is hilarious.
We parked inside a cul-de-sac. I've never seen a part of the Ghytto look so wealthy. This is a high-class neighborhood. The house in middle is made of stone with flower pots on the porch. There's a long window on the first floor. Next to it is an area that leads outside, from what I can see there's a pool table up there. In front of the door is a small roof with a black balloon tent over it. The yard is trimmed with a large cross set up like a Christmas tree in front of a set of windows on the first floor.
"Start walking." directs the white boy. I hate it here.
My mouth is covered and the inside looks nothing like the outside. It's clear of stairs. There's no kitchen and a dozen vamps naked waiting for an order.
"Where's Jon-Jon?" questions Valentina. She's half black. "Did you call her, so she can have the cell and ritual ready?"
"No. Plus, the family still fighting on the bridge. Norman wants him, then Katy thinks she wants to come back."
"What do you mean thinks?" I got kidnapped by the mailman and the ice cream man. This is foolish. "all we got to do is purify him and free his soul of sin. Who wants him?"
Linus scratches his neck, "Well, there's old general that says he'll pay 800 for a fit one."
"Hey." Don't ask me shit. "How much you weigh?"
"180." I voice through the cloth over my mouth. I should have said fuck yo brother. Just like that.
"He's light weight. We can build him up." says Linus. What is all this for? I understand body bagging. But they puttin' rituals in it. What do they want to happen?
"My sister needs a new body." says Linus. "People want to live again. This is a resurrection service."
A service.
"We bring back about just anybody as long they work for us." Valentina looks like a beaver. Nah, she look like--I can't even compare her to a horse. She's half black? I'm confused.
"MY MOTHER IS FUCKING SHILOH!" she has all the great nerve to punch me in the face with a ring on her finger. If I ever get my lick back. "I'M BLACK!"
Then act like it.
"I'm doing this because I have free will!" and a handicap sticker. "It's not my fault I look as I do. My mother is a bitch! She sabotaged her family and left me to take care of that fucking nigger." I flutter my eyes, I'm very confused.
Let me break this down. Growden is white, Valentina is his daughter. Aleigha killed Valentina. My thoughts are broken with Valentina's voice. "I have vitiligo!" she stomps and shakes her head. I'm convinced she might be a drug addict. "You're not wrong! Twice a week." she holds up two fingers. "I got heroine, cocaine, and lean. We call it Jesus juice."
"All we do is make regular lean and add a red color to it. Just like church." he smiles. "It's like you got the holy spirit."
They sick.
"You get some cough syrup, oh, I found out you can melt some cough drops into a liquid, some jolly ranchers, and about half cup of sprite. Depending on how strong you want it. It's important because if you live. You get be a prophet."
Bullshit in the snow.
This isn't happening. "Some survive it. Some don't. Your mother did."
BITCH.
"So, way, way back. Daddy heard your mother had seizures, so he thought he could dismiss it. But really kids are stupid, let's manipulate."
I can't do anything.
"Where the fuck is Jon Jon?" Valentina searching among the enslaved. "Tim-bo, where's Jon?"
He has fangs. Tim-bo is seeing on the floor with a loincloth, baring his fangs. "Don't you make a fucking face at me nigga! I bite back!"
I wish I could bite her.
A woman appears from the back of the house. She is shirtless, her breast covered in mud and her lower body covered by a red shirt that goes between her legs. "Jon-Jon talks this nigga to the bath. Let him soak."
"Yes, ma'am." she clasps her hands in front of her. "Also, if I can speak, Michelle called about her baby."
"Tell her she's at church. I have to go by and collect, in the meantime, kill this one." She pushes me towards Jon-Jon. She grabs me gently, "This way."
She guides me into the depths of the house. "When you get your first bath. You lay down with your mouth open." Jon-Jon speaks to me looking forward. "I'm not white. I'm tamed."
I'm stricken.
We meet a large set of double doors. Why doesn't the house look like a house? It's more of a giant sauna. "Don't run. I'm psychic. You'll live."
She hates doing this. We walk into the room and there are four bathtubs full of blood. Excuse me, is that the lean? "You'll feel happy one minute and depressed. I'll take you out in a couple of days."
Don't tell me that! That's an overdose. It's constantly going in the body! My hands are still bound.
"First step, I have to take your clothes. Second, I say to you a prayer." We walk through another set of clear doors, there are several bathtubs. As we course the tubs, one is shaking in the tub, The red water slowly turns black. We go pass it, they stop shaking. "I have to hold your mouth open with a device. Like in the hospitals."
WHAT THE FUCK!
In the back of the area, there are ten empty tubs. Meaning they are absent of bodies. "Ok." Jon-Jon stands in front of me. "Let's get dressed." she unbuttons my shirt and unzips my pants. Next to the tub is a dresser, she goes in dresser and pulls out a band to tie my hair. She holds me still and pulls my hair back. "Step out of them." I slowly move my legs out my pants.
She goes to the dresser and pulls out a mouth piece and scissors. Jon-Jon cuts my shirt off, what am I suppose to do?
"Get in." she gestures to the tub. What am I suppose to do?
I can't struggle, I step in the warm drug and lowers me down. I sit straight up, she places her hand under my chin. "Open."
My mouth drops. I'm not in control. She put the gag in, I'm about to drown. "Now we say a prayer."
What the fuck. What can I do?
"Of the flesh and spine. From the blood and the mouth. To the soul and beyond. No demon, nor devil makes the earth quake but the body. From the sister to brother, we follow down the river." She lowers my head into the water. "Amen."
The lean just flows inside me. I shut my eyes, I'm coughing. I think I'm choking. I am! My feet are shaking, I can't keep still. I can't breath…
My hands are still tied. My body is full of the liquid. My stomach is about to burst. I can't shake, I can't rise.
I gave Mokiri a kiss. When Alexis got hit by that car. I wanna cry. We were at the house, we were running and they argued. I remember that. My body is convulsing. I feel heavy. My head leans in the tub, I feel the wet side of the porcelain. My throat burns, I can't breathe,
I can't breathe.
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
Mokiri…
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
I can't...