Vicious Tongues

by Adeola Adeniyi

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​    The late-August afternoon heat had Junior and his brother Jerrod soaking the T-shirts they bought in Harlem yesterday with sweat as they walked down 7th Avenue surrounded by other sweaty people. Jerrod covered his ears because of the loud ambulance driving up W 39th Street and Junior put on the bootleg black Versace sunglasses he bought in Chinatown this morning. The tiny fan Jerrod used on his and Junior's faces died and he threw it in a stuffed garbage bin stinking of rotting eggs. After Junior got his camera from his book bag, he photographed city buses, yellow cabs, tour buses, a movie theater marquee, and an electronic store with TVs and DVD players in the window. Jerrod took pictures of a gift shop with a disposable one until a woman wearing tight blue jeans walked past them and he stopped to stare at her ass.

    “Goddam, New York ladies are the finest ever!” he said.

    “No doubt, but stay focused!”

    “It’s the truth.”

    “Will you forget about them for one second,” Junior said, waving himself with the map from his back pocket. “I need this money so stay focused on why we’re here.”

    “You really think Nino will do real shit over the chump change you owe him?” Jerrod cocked his Mets cap sideways after seeing three men leaving a coffee shop together all wearing it that way. “That punk niggah’s heart pumps cherry Kool-Aid.”

    “I just need you focused.” Junior pulled out a wave brush from his bag.

    Jerrod stopped to photograph a massage parlor across the street and a man with a bedsheet on the ground for the bags and T-shirts he sold. Then he licked his lips at a woman entering a clothing store and flexed his biceps but she still ignored him as she talked on her cellular phone.

    “Again, stay focused,” Junior said, brushing the waves in his hair.

    “I’ll be nineteen in December,” Jerrod replied. “What the hell else am I supposed to be focused on?”

    “Winning that five grand tonight so we can dip back home.” Junior pointed his brush in Jerrod’s face. “I need that money!”

    “I hear you, bro.”

    They walked again and Jerrod photographed a man sleeping by a pay phone.

    “I think I’m competing in the vicious tongues round if I win tonight,” he said, photographing the sleeping man’s cardboard box that asked for money to buy beer and weed. “I want the ten thousand dollar grand prize money to buy Tommy, Jordans, Timbs, and Ralph Lauren. I know I can take any chump they throw at me.”

    “We’re getting the easy five stacks and that’s it. Forget about that bullshit.”

    “I get what I want.”
    
    After Junior slapped Jerrod upside the head and knocked off his cap by accident, Jerrod picked it up and covered his blond locs again before punching Junior in the arm.

    “I don’t wanna hear any other bullshit or about New York girls. I need you
focused.”

    “This is my money and I want everything!” Jerrod spat out his gum and put
another stick in his mouth. “Below the Belt invited me to compete and I’m the one helping you out so don’t ever forget that shit.”

    Junior pulled Jerrod to stand next to a closed music store. “I don’t know if you can handle that insanity.” He used his T-shirt to wipe his face. “Can you cut someone to the white part? We’ll lose the money you won on Monday and the five large you win tonight if you compete in the vicious tongues round.” He wiped his neck and spat. “The show also tells your opponent the most fucked up shit ever about you in that round and their detectives find out everything.”

    “Man, just believe in me ’cause I got this,” Jerrod said. “Forget playing it safe and those detectives can eat two dicks.”

    “Well, your sister slobs on knobs in cars for a dollar.” Junior shoved Jerrod. “And your dick is so small a girl will find Waldo before she finds that stub, bitch.”

    “Oh shit, look at those, bro.”

    Junior looked across the street confused since he only saw two office buildings where Jerrod pointed his finger.

    “Those what?” he asked.

    “Those dudes your girl Desiree is letting bust nuts on her face for food stamps,” Jerrod said as he pointed at a busy bar. “Look how she’s getting blind from nut eye.” He spat his gum toward a mailbox a few feet from them. “Now her face is a nut mask.”

    Junior slapped Jerrod five hard. “That’s what I’m talking about, little brother.” You cut a fool until you hit the white part.”

    They started walking again. Jerrod took pictures of a man digging through the garbage and a pizza joint; Junior bought hot dogs and Cokes for himself and Jerrod from a thankful vendor. Five minutes later at W 35th Street, they saw a three-story shop with Pearly Gates in red lights blinking at the windows with black curtains up at them. Junior and Jerrod photographed each other in front of the red door.

    Jerrod pointed toward the shop smiling. “Emani’s future place of employment, bro.” He stuffed new film into the camera. “It’s cool you support her artistic ambition.”

    Junior punching Jerrod in the back caused him to drop his camera.

    “You play too much, bitch,” Jerrod yelled as he kicked Junior’s thigh.

    Junior brushed his pants with a napkin from his back pocket. “Don’t ever talk about my baby girl like that!”

    “That’s why I’m competing in the final level.” Jerrod picked the camera up to take pictures of Junior giving him the finger. “I can cut to the white part and you win by default with extra paper if your opponent gets violent.”

    As Junior and Jerrod walked again, they saw a light-skinned woman near a
lamppost asking men if they wanted some company and Jerrod approached her. Junior followed. She smelled of cigarette smoke and strong perfume and Junior saw up close how her thick makeup still couldn’t hide the bumps on her forehead and chin; her cheap blond wig reached her shoulders and she wore red lipstick.

    “Are you working?” Jerrod asked with his hand over his mouth. “You work?”

​    The woman turned away. “Oh leave me be, little nigga.”

    “This is so cool!” Jerrod replied. “Just like in the movies.”

    “Will you leave her alone, fuck head,” Junior said, snatching Jerrod by the back of his T-shirt and pulling him away.​

    Jerrod broke away from Junior and ran back to ask if she’d take a picture with him.

    She stayed focused on her pink nails. “Why, boy?”

    Jerrod said, “We’re from Wallywater, Florida and I just want a picture with an authentic New York lady like yourself. It’s all cool.”

    She held out her hand. “Fine. Give me twenty.”

    “Why twenty? Twenty is crazy.”

    “Ain’t shit free in this world. Ten or walk.”

    Jerrod handed her two fives. “You have a cigarette, Miss?”

    “Those things will dead you, boy,” she replied, pocketing the money in her tiny purse fast.

    “I want you to smoke in the picture like a real New Yorker,” Jerrod told her. He faced Junior. “Take the pic, numb nuts.”


    “I swear you need to ride the special bus forever,” Junior said to Jerrod two hours later as he smacked the TV remote on the bed in their eighth-floor hotel room because he forgot how the shows he’d normally watch now aired in New York at different times. “That’s truth.”

    “For the fiftieth time, fool, it ain’t my fault that hooker pickpocketed me. It was only a few bucks anyway. I’m rich, bitch.”

    Junior shut off the TV and walked to the window to stare at the heavy traffic. “Don’t ask me for any spending money.”

    “Whatever. New York people are supposed to steal your shit anyway.”


    They arrived at the hotel pool and found three people swimming; the other guests sat on lounge chairs reading magazines and sipping drinks. Jerrod jumped in the five-foot section. Junior found a chair and fell asleep listening to the All Eyez on Me album on his CD player and didn’t wake up until Jerrod shook his shoulders.

    “Shorty can’t quit staring at me,” he said, drying himself off with his towel. “Not that I blame her. She’s been eyeballin' the hell outta me for five minutes now.”

    “Who?”
    
    “Baby girl in the yellow, fool.”

    Junior did see her sitting at a lounge table alone taking peeks at Jerrod from behind her VIBE magazine. She was pretty, maybe nineteen or twenty, and wore a tight one-piece yellow bathing suit with a swimming cap. She finally approached them.

    “You’re Jerrod Jones from Florida aren’t you?” she asked him.

    “The only one.”

    “You told the fat dude yesterday his mama was so black that someone shot the bitch at night and the bullets created a search party to find her,” she said, laughing. “That’s so cruel.”

    Jerrod wagged his finger at her. “You’re cruel yourself. I remember you won last week for telling homeboy he’s so black and fat that kids visit the space museum and think he’s part of the exhibit.”

    “That’s me,” the young woman answered while taking a bow. “I’m Kiona Atkins
and I’ll be battling you tomorrow since you have balls big enough to throw down in the vicious tongues round. I’m the final boss.”

    “Cool.”

    He shook her hand and Kiona faced Junior.

    “What’s your name?” she asked him.

    Jerrod focused the attention back to him. “That’s my brother Darren and he and his girl have a daughter. They’ll be married next year. Don’t you live in Bed-Stuy? Why you staying here?”​

    “The show puts up all its contestants here for free and I want my free stay.”

​    Junior stood and told Jerrod he needed to make a few calls; Kiona sat in his place. They started talking about the show and never noticed him leaving. Junior visited the hotel’s bar where five other guests watched the flatscreen TVs on the wall and drank something called a Cold Turkey (these New York people never even heard of his favorite Demon Juice drink and claimed this sugary trash was similar) while praying for Jerrod to win tomorrow. It bothered him knowing the fool is risking everything but didn’t seem completely focused on winning. True, Kiona Atkins was fine, but couldn’t the boy forget about girls until the show handed him the check? They’ve both watched Below the Belt for enough years to know pretty girls often won because the dudes they competed against never viciously attacked them; they either already made love to them before playing or wanted to and went easy so they could maybe. Junior hated Nino for making him even consider selling Annabel if Jerrod lost on the show. He had Dessire in the backseat of that junk so many nights in high school and conceived Emani in there. Dessire told him she was pregnant in there. He couldn’t have her in some lot waiting for a new driveway. Every day it pissed him off that Erika Santana kissed him for the first time after the Fourth of July work party. She just had to find him alone in the parking lot. That kiss led to them making love in the storage closet every shift as the nuts slept. He hated those boring graveyard shifts and Erika being his work wife helped pass the time. Then two patients escaped (one boy stole a car on his week-long adventure and hit someone by accident) on their watch, they lost their gigs, and now he owed a few dollars he borrowed to keep supporting his family.

    Junior took one last taste of the crap drink, went upstairs, and slept until Jerrod returned to their room hours later. His brother went to shower and dressed in a new T-shirt and the red and black Air Jordans they bought in Harlem.

    “Where you going, fool?” Junior asked.

    He sprayed cologne on his neck. “Out with that fine ass Kiona tonight. She’s gonna show me Biggie’s world. The real New York.”

    “Don’t fuck this up. You’re here to win.”

    “Dissing niggahs is in our blood, Darren. I got this. Remember how daddy’s
daddy told them Klan boys their wives were so ugly that those bitches all lost a beauty contest to a dog’s asshole before they lynched and burnt him. Now I’m doing the same.”

    “It’s a myth those were his last words.”

    “It’s still in our blood.”

    “I don’t know about you going to Bed-Stuy, fool. You don’t even know this girl.”

    “I know that booty is big and it’s calling me.”

    “Don’t follow some strange girl to Bed-Stuy?”

    “Niggah, we live in the Dead End and you ain’t my daddy.” Jerrod put a tiny
gold chain around his neck. “Hopefully tonight is for pleasure and I’ll be all business once the cameras roll. It’s all good.”


    Junior visited the lobby later, dumped four quarters into the payphone, and dialed home.

​    “Hi, Daddy,” a little girl screamed after she answered on the third ring and he spoke. “I miss you so much. When are you coming home?”

    “Real soon, Emani. I miss and loves you more than this whole world.”

    “Can you make mommy give me some ice cream?”

    “You know Fridays is your ice cream day, baby,” Junior looked at the Yankees playing the Red Sox on the TV in the waiting area. “Let me speak to mama.”

    Emani screamed for her and Junior made kissing noises until a woman came to
the phone.

    “You ok, baby?”

    “I’m fine, Desiree,” Junior replied. “It’s all good.”

    “You’re in New York City. They have dope fiends, crazy cops, and the hobos are everywhere. I heard the tap water fucks with those people’s heads.”

    “We live in the Dead End and you don’t think I can survive in New York for a few days?”

    “You still better be careful ’cause AIDS is everywhere there. Be careful of the water cause you read that article I gave you.”

    “AIDS is good.” Junior leaned against the wall. “I can bring home a little AIDS with herpes, some gono, Sisyphus, and a little mydia; that shit never hurt nobody.”

    “You’re such a fool, Junior,” she said, laughing. “Listen, I can talk to Nino’s wife if Jerrod doesn’t win the money and maybe she can get him to give you more time. Regina’s my other manager at the laundry mat and we’re super cool.”

    Junior kicked the wall. “Don’t get involved in my shit, Desiree.” He put in his last quarter when the operator demanded more. “Don’t worry about that punk.”

    “I’m just trying to help you. Nobody told you to borrow that asshole’s money and you wouldn’t have had to borrow anything if those little crazy kids hadn’t escaped on your watch. We’ll get by with my paychecks.”

​    “I’m not gonna tell you again not to worry about me.”

    “I’m sorry.”

    “And let Emani have some ice cream. Forget about the rules.”


    “You’re good right?”

    “I’m ok.”

    “You look scared,” she said, holding his hand. “You aren’t scared are you?”

    “I’m from Wallywater, girl. You people have Biggie and Tyson, but we’re the
third most dangerous city in Florida.”

    That night, Kiona led Jerrod into the bodega beside the subway on Franklin and Bedford where she ordered two hero sandwiches. He stood at the door bored watching two men outside smoke cigarettes as they talked; Kiona paid for the food with two Cokes and they left. This tasted like any other ham and cheese sandwich he’d eaten before as they walked up Fulton Street and the laundry mat, 99-cent store, comic book shop, and closed church all looked like the ones back home. He thought the same about the dilapidated buildings. A speeding cop car with its sirens on never stopped to bother the five men drinking by the bodega on Classon Avenue. No shootouts or fights in the park; just kids running everywhere and dudes playing basketball and handball. After Kiona took Jerrod up Irving to her building on Putman. They sat on the stoop and finished their food. The weed they smelled from the first-floor apartment was no different than the stuff back home. She put their trash in a bin and he realized this block with a few private houses looked clean. He did see little boys up the street playing craps and they did laugh and push each other around taking their chances rolling the dice. Maybe the game will turn serious and a real New York fight breaks out, he thought. They were kids, but it’d still be something.

    “You ready for tomorrow, J?”

    “Hell yeah, I’m ready to win that money.”

    “You sure sound sure of yourself,” she said smiling at him.

    Jerrod watched those boys share a cigarette and walk toward Fulton Street. “I’ve been dissing fools a long time.”

    “Well I’ve been dissing fools since the womb and you’re not beating me.”

    “I am. I’m from Wallywater.”

    Kiona moved closer to him. “And I’m from Bed-Stuy. You can’t win.”

    “I could diss you right now.”

    “Later,” she said, kissing Jerrod on the cheek. “Tonight’s about pleasure, fool.”​

    Did Kiona know how good Jerrod felt sitting on a couch with his arm around a real New York girl? Did she know how great her peach perfume smelled? No doubt ’cause he’s sure it’s why she wears it. Did she know she had a neat crib? Did she know how good kissing a real New York girl feels? Did she know how hard she had him? Yes, she was touching his junk. Did Kiona know he found Brooklyn weak? Maybe tonight was just a quiet one. Did she know she had a great body? That was a dumb question. Did she know how considerate he found her after she asked if he minded her smoking a spliff and then not blazing up when he said he did mind? Did she know how great they danced together before they sat to kiss? Did she know he envisioned visiting her after paying his brother’s stupid debts? He’d be back in December once the fall semester ended. Did she know he hated having to pay off his brother’s stupid debts because of his fuck up? Did Kiona know he was happy that Junior’s stupidity led him to meet her? Did she know how excited he felt as she took him to her bedroom? Did she take these pictures on the walls of her pretty homegirls? They looked very professional. Who is the older lady in so many of them? How is she so pretty? Is that her big sister? It’s her late mother she told him. Would she tell him the truth if he asked how she died and what age she birthed her? Her high school diploma is from a school called Boys and Girls. Did the gangs rule Brooklyn schools like he heard? Did she notice how nervous he felt? Hell no ’cause he stayed cool. Did she know his heart wouldn’t slow down? Did she know how excited he was at her pushing him onto her bed? Did she know her bed felt lumpy? Did she know he didn’t care? What boy cared about that silly shit? Did Kiona know the cinnamon-scented candle she lit and put on her nightstand bothered him but that he didn’t care? Did Kiona know how happy seeing a real flesh-and-blood woman take her clothes off made him feel? Did she know how much he loved removing his clothes for a real woman? Did Kiona know how much he loved seeing their clothes together in a pile beside her bed? Did she know the first word in his mind was finally when she got a condom from her drawer? Did she know he thanked Black Jesus, White Jesus, and Jehovah for making love to a real woman? Did Kiona enjoy it? Did she like his body? Did Kiona know she was his first real girl? Did she know he wanted to be with her forever? Did she know he wanted to be her man? Did she want to be his girl? Did she know he loved her as they talked about themselves for hours? Did Kiona know he envisioned her living with him and the family? Could they have a long-distance relationship? Would Kiona want to move to Wallywater and be a Florida girl? Could you make a New York girl a Florida girl? Could she survive in Wallywater? Would she love his family? Jerrod was sure she and Desiree would get along. Desiree had insane beliefs, but she was still cool. She’d love Emani. Did Kiona know he felt nervous when he woke up the next day at seven o’clock and realized she wasn’t in bed or the crib? Did Kiona know his happiness at her returning from the corner store with a real Brooklyn bacon egg and cheese sandwich for him? Did she believe him when he lied about liking it? Why did she enjoy hers? It was such a salty sandwich. Did she already have a boyfriend? Didn’t New York girls have an army of them? Why did he start asking himself this? Should he ask Kiona if she has a man? If she doesn’t have a man then why is she single? Is she single ’cause she’s insane? Are New York girls insane? Maybe, but not her. Did she know how much he loved her smiling at him as she opened her orange juice? Did Kiona know how much he hated saying goodbye to her later at her hotel door? Did she know how happy she made him after inviting him inside to make love again? Did she know how happy she made him by saying they’d only be enemies during their battle? Did Kiona know how much he hated having to destroy her? Would she forgive him?


    Junior and Jerrod arrived at the studio on 46th Street around five o’clock and Jerrod seemed spaced out during the entire subway. The boy said two words all day and refused to answer anything about what he and Kiona did last night. Junior prayed they didn’t bone but knew they probably did. In the lobby, Jerrod told Junior again he didn’t want him sitting in the audience (he claimed his presence overworked his nerves) so Junior hugged his little brother, wished him well, and said they’d pop open champagne back at the hotel. Every bar he visited planned to watch tonight’s Yankees game and he returned to the hotel room. Junior ordered steak and eggs from room service, prayed for Jerrod’s victory, and watched Below the Belt at seven.

    The new contestants burnt good. At eight, Jerrod looked very relaxed and Kiona also seemed fine as they sat facing each other at a round table with the judge sitting in the center. She announced the rules for the vicious tongues round: attacks on family members (including dead ones) are now permitted, deeply personal attacks are a must, nothing is off limits, no physical violence, and each contestant is only allowed to use two ugly blows from the info the show provided them. Jerrod and Kiona shook hands, the judge tapped her bell, and some in the audience waved their plastic belts because Kiona said she knew Jerrod fucked a two-dollar crack ho last night because he wiped pepper spray from his eyes this morning. Then they cheered at Jerrod saying Kiona's pepper spray would improve her breath since it smelled like rottweilers shitted in her mouth. Great burn, Junior thought. Her burn about his dreads looking like shit leaking from his biscuit head caused higher laughter and more belt waving. Jerrod complimented her red dress before asking how much she charged the trick by the hour for taking it off. That burn only received a few claps and little waves. They laughed hard at Kiona saying she had to use a search party to find his little raggedy limp dick and how she kicked him for nutting quicker than a locomotive. She admitted they really fucked last night and that he used a crack vial as a condom. Junior paced the room with chest pains and kicked his bed imagining images of his Uncle Steven holding hands with a man in a park, an amusement park, at the zoo, and them barbequing in their backyard with friends; People stood laughing the loudest at this and Kiona saying they beat each other’s meats harder than the cops beat Rodney King, but Junior watched Jerrod stay calm. He told the audience once they calmed how seeing Kiona’s smelly coochie can turn the straightest dude into a homo and why he busted so fast: because fifty dudes were waiting for their turn. Everyone waved their belts laughing genuine laughs and Junior knew his brother still had a chance to win. They continued standing to laugh more at Jerrod kneeling beside Kiona to plead with her to stop sucking dicks for food stamps and help her nine-hundred-pound sister lose weight since she’s so fat it’d take bullets weeks to enter her body if she got shot. Junior prayed during a commercial break for Jerrod’s victory and Kiona still told Jerrod his mother lived off welfare for so long they renamed the welfare office Joanne Michelle Johnson after her. Junior kicked the wall this time at seeing the papers with their mother’s actual information on them and more people (even the judge) laughed; Jerrod again stayed calm and everyone waved their belts cheering for his burn about Kiona’s pussy stinking so bad folks in China can smell it. Junior swore his brother might win with another burn about their mother taking welfare money but not dick money because her mother ended up so skinny from AIDS that she used to jump through Cheerios while dying in the hospital. Kiona kept herself calm, but Junior knew in his gut she couldn’t take Jerrod’s word cutting her anymore and that he’d win soon.


    Jerrod agreed with Junior thanking Jesus Friday morning when the Amtrak
worker announced they’d be arriving in Orlando soon. He couldn’t wait to stretch from sitting on this cramped seat. The train stopped in twenty minutes and he started sweating within a second of being in that hot sun. Junior got their suitcases and asked Jerrod if he planned to keep his running mouth glued shut forever. Jerrod ignored him. They saw Desiree and Emani in the parking lot leaning against Junior’s car and he approached them. After Emani hugged Junior, he picked her up.

    “Hi, Uncle Jerrod,” she said, shooting him with her tiny water pistol. “Mommy and Grandma said you’re rich now so can I have a new dollhouse please?”

    Jerrod kissed her forehead. “No doubt.”

    Junior and Desiree kissed and she stopped after he started kissing her neck to hug Jerrod.

    “Hey, big TV star,” she said. “I still can’t believe you told that girl folks could smell her pussy in China and that it’s been beaten harder than Rodney King. You fucked her up good for mentioning your crazy uncle.”

    “That’s a bad word, mommy,” Emani said.

    “Not for grown folks, baby.” Desiree hugged Jerrod again. “Did her mother
really die of AIDS?”

    Jerrod nodded. “Yeah.”

    “You’ve been waiting long, baby?” Junior asked her.

    “Not crazy long,” she said. “I do know y’all better tell me every detail about the trip on the drive home. I know New York is batshit insane.”

    “I gotta go piss first,” Jerrod said. “I’ll be back in a second.”

    He went in the waiting area with five people sitting on the wooden benches to use the payphone by the vending machines. He had to hear Kiona’s voice now and couldn’t wait until he got home. Jerrod put four quarters in the phone and dialed the number she wrote for him on a brown paper bag. He prayed to hear her voice and that she’d want to hear his. That she’d remember they only agreed to be enemies on the show. She refused to speak after they left the air, but maybe she cooled by now. He thought about the movie Juice and reminded himself how New York girls lived to be dramatic. It rang and she picked up on the third ring.

    “Hello.”

    “Hey, Kiona,” he said, forcing himself to sound smooth. “What’s up, girl? You free to talk now?”

    “Fuck you!”

    “Come on.”

    “You have some nerve calling me.”

    “You know I’d be calling you ’cause our thing is real, girl.”

    “We don’t have no real thing. We’re nothing, fool.”

    “Since when are girls from Brooklyn so goddam sensitive? Y’all ain’t supposed to be soft. We went to war on TV, but that shouldn’t ruin our thing. I already miss you and I know you miss me.”

    “Listen, fool, I don’t miss you whatever and we ain’t got shit so leave me the fuck be and don’t ever call me again.”

    Kiona hung up on him and Jerrod didn’t have any change left so he approached a worker, exchanged the five dollars in his wallet for quarters, and returned to the phone to call her again.
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Adeola Adeniyi was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and he received his MFA from The Writer's Foundry at Saint Joseph's University.

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