This ain’t the time for a pimp to be laid up. It’s too much going on in my life. This hospital situation is proof of that. Ain’t a thug in my click gonna believe a pimp fell out, and ended up flat on my back in this dump. Nope, no click member or any of my hoes gonna believe this here. Daisy really wouldn’t of believed it.

Daisy. . . Damn. I am going to miss that girl. I am gonna miss her deep. Out of the three of my hoes she was the finest and the smartest. That’s why she was my bottom.

When I first saw her it was hard for me to believe she was a ho’ because she looked so damn good. She was a dark slim goody with jet black hair that hung midway down her back. If she wasn’t with a pimp, I would have thought she was an actress or singer or something. But she was a hundred percent ho’, do whatever to whoever for them dollars, and ain’t too many tricks on the strip can resist her swagger. As soon as she hit the bricks and got to switching that tight little butt of hers, she got picked right up. The ho’ could strut, and would work any strip I took her to. She was eager to get out there and make her pimp happy. Loved that about the ho’.

There was no denying her ability to get out there and scoop the cream that makes the dream. But what was different about Daisy, was how she saw things. The girl was weird, but weird in a positive way. The ho’ looked for the good in everything. Like when it was raining, I would be pissed cause wasn’t no tricks on the strip and my money was low. That chick would say some shit like, ‘well the rain is good for the farmers, and if they get a good crop we pay less for food, so it will all work out.’ Now there was no way in hell me paying pennies less at the grocery store was going to make up for a rainy day on the strip. But that’s how Daisy thought, always looking for the positive. Wasn’t a better bottom in The Chi.

Damn a pimp is hungry. I could go for a Gyro sandwich and some fried mushrooms, but that little old white lady nurse wouldn’t let me eat it anyway. A big pimp like me eats on the hour. I’m five eight, two hundred and sixty eight pounds. I eat. And I come from people that eat.

My granddaddy was six foot three and three hundred thirty five pounds when he died at eighty nine. My daddy is six four and close to three fifty. We big people and we eat. Eating a Gyro, a burger or something would probably knock some of the cold out of my spine. A pimp’s teeth are chattering.

I might as well be out on frozen Lake Michigan, stripped naked and butt sliding across the ice, as cold as I am in this little mouse-hole room. And the blanket the old lady nurse gave me is thinner than the sheet. The blanket ain’t doing a thing to warm me up. Every time I shiver it hurts from my toes to my nose. If I wasn’t in so much pain a pimp would get the fuck up out of here.

That little old white lady nurse must be pocketing my pain medicine and giving me dummy pills or something because I’m hurting all over. She’s going to have to give me two or three more blankets, and some more pain medicine. I’m keeping my finger on this button until she comes back.

This situation here ain’t nothing nice. When I pull this thin blanket up my toes get cold, and if I leave it down my shoulders stay cold. I need another blanket. A pimp with four women is up here freezing like a homeless bum. I got two hoes on the street, and two working square jobs, and I cain’t get one of them to do a thing for me now.

I was pimping the two on the street hard, and macking the breath out of the two that work. Most thugs don’t know the difference between a pimp and a mack, never mind trying to be both. My daddy is an old school gangster. He started his own gang thirty years ago, and still runs it. Hollis Jones been both pimp and mack, and I got most of my swagger from him.

When I was a little kid about eight years old he saw me beating up the boy who lived over us. I whipped the boy off his mountain bike and rode the bike up and down the block like it was mine. My daddy told me I was more boy than girl, and he started teaching me how to box.

He brought me up in the gangster life style he lives. Hollis Jones has never been broke, and I ain’t never seen him not on top.

“Fuck asking, take it, and if a clown got something to say, bust his motherfucking face,” is what my daddy told me.

Living like that got me kicked out of school in the sixth grade. I decided early on that school and the whole square world wasn’t for me. My daddy didn’t make me go to school, and the state or nobody makes my daddy do a thing. He said as long as I could read, write, and count money, fuck em’.

Here comes the little old white lady nurse with pills and a little plastic shot-glass of water. My eyes go to the clock on the powder blue wall. It reads eleven fifteen. Suddenly I realize that I don’t know if I been here days or hours.

“This is the last of what your doctor ordered dear. After this we can’t give you anything else.”

“Damn, what you gave me ain’t working.” I say sitting up.

“I know it feels that way dear, but it is in your system. Nothing is going to alleviate the pain completely. Your nervous system is coming back to life. You are going to experience some discomfort.”

Wiping sleep from my eyes I ask her, “How long have I been here?”

“This is day three dear.”

A pimp couldn’t have heard her right.

“Did you say there days?”

“Well in forty-five minutes it will be four days dear.”

Three days. I couldn’t afford to be laid up for three days. Major things are happening in my life, things that need my immediate attention, things that couldn’t wait for three days. A pimp is dealing with situations that if I’m not careful could put me in jail, and leave me broke as a buster.

“Who been here to visit me?”

“The only visitors I know of dear are the federal agents outside your door.”

She is smiling that adult smile. The one a grown person gives a cute little girl that has shitted her diaper and has her arms raised to be picked up. A person picks her up because she’s pretty, even if she does smell like shit.

She steps behind me and begins propping up the pillows. She is surrounded by a flowery smell that makes me think about a funeral. That’s creepy, a nurse that smells like a funeral.

“Has anybody called me?”

“The agents won’t allow phone calls through to you dear.”

“How many of them are outside the door?”

“Two. It’s always been two or more since you arrived.”

I turn my head from her because her breath is stank. It reeks of peppermint, sardines and garlic. When my ability to move came back, my sense of smell came back too and it came back stronger than ever. A pimp can smell a fast flea fart. She walks from me to the raised television, cuts it on and leaves me alone in this closet of a hospital room.

With D.E.A. agents outsides my door, and movement to my legs and arms just returning, leaving really ain’t an option. The reality of this situation is . . . ain’t a thing a pimp can do about life outside this room. The truth be told . . . everything has gotten out of my control anyway. Way too much is going on. I can’t grab a hold of anything. Everything is falling apart. Even if a pimp could walk out of the door, I don’t have the next move. And my daddy always tells me that, “when you don’t have a next move, it’s time to sit still and regroup.” Since a pimp is stretched out and damn near locked down, this is the time to backtrack my steps. The next move could be in the backtracking.