Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham

Author:James Hannaham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2022-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Six

They bolted down Marcus Garvey Boulevard fast as Marcus Garvey getting kicked out of America until they’d given Paulie the slip. Carlotta bet they’d run far enough away that Mr. Famous wouldn’t get his shit together fast enough to suss out where they’d gone. No way he’d track them if he had to ditch his precious Beamer in the mean streets of Bed-Stuy either. Carlotta’s legs wobbled and her lopsided footwear slapped against the pavement. She was breathing heavier than a porn star and her heart felt like a gigantic waterbed with a broken frame. A blister chafed her small toe. She let her grandma’s bag swing under her like an udder.

Doodle panted, bent over and worn out as they crossed Gates Avenue against the light. She put her hand on a lamppost and grabbed a garbage can to keep her balance. Carlotta was cracking up the whole time, but now the giggling turned to wheezing. She shut her engines off and leaned against a solid brick wall. A sign five feet above her head read FAMILY DOLLAR, decked out for the holiday in red-white-and-blue-striped plastic banners, but the entrance was around the corner. She wondered how the wall had stayed clean for so long—there wasn’t a lick of graffiti anywhere. She hadn’t seen a lot of graffiti, period Dag, it be like somebody took a giant eraser to the whole a Brooklyn. Carlotta gave Doodle a long, loving glance. She kept saying, “Oh my God, oh my God, I can’t believe we done that.”

Doodle pulled back her neck and said, “I didn’t do nothing! That was all you, sugar!” Like she talkin to the judge.

This the funnest way to reunite with somebody I ever had. Damn, it almost feel like we seventeen years old again an din’t none a what happened happen. We even both was able to keep runnin that fast for that long, old as our ass getting. Except—Carlotta had to own it as she listened to the two of them breathe together, and the traffic around them, a noise as uncaring as the Coney Island surf—everything had changed. She flashed on the punk style Doodle used to rock: vampy Day-Glo miniskirts, cat’s-eye liner, maroon nails with golden decals embedded in them, her left temple shaved. Her once funky-fresh thang had evolved, matured: the skirt just above the knee and still on point, hair pulled back, nails sparkling just a smidgen. Carlotta couldn’t swear she knew this Doodle. Did people call her something else now? Something less Junior Miss?

The joy of seeing her old friend went poof when she chewed over the fact that Doodle hadn’t kept in touch after the first few years. The relationship went on, she reckoned, but maybe only in her mind. Had something similar happened with Ibe too? That man didn’t favor the boy she’d dreamed of rejoining in any way. How was she going to convince him to be family with her again? Sometimes, during Carlotta’s lowest moments in the SHU, Doodle’s presence ramped up, and Carlotta would talk to her directly.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.