Ghetto Babe

By Mattie Bradford

A product of rape, prostitution, and the heir apparent to an illegal empire, Katlin comes face to face with an enemy she cant handle.
Katlin rises from the ashes of a life steeped in the crude and vile obsessions of prostitution as the protg of a Madame who takes her under her wings, educates her and gives her keys to an empire. She only has to do one thing: keep a dying promise.
Will she hold on to an empire amidst traitors, dissension and betrayal to keep the promise of her mentor; Mama Neal, Madame extraordinaire? Will the legacy continue to flourish under the auspices of Katlin Patrice Johnston or will changes force her into some harsh realities she finds harder to deal with? How long can she fight this destructive enemy which has crept in unawares to call into question the very foundation of her word given to a dying surrogate mother? This is her battle

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Feb 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781426933790

Mattie Bradford

Mattie Bradford is a new author with some published works in poetry, her other passion. She is the second place prize award winner of the Francis G. Thomas Award for Poetry in 2008 for the poem Fiber Optic. She has three poems published in the Round Table Magazine, a Poetry review magazine published byHopkinsville Community College where Ms. Bradford graduated with honors. She received a degree in Liberal Arts and continues her education for a Bachelors Degree at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. She plans to pursue her education to the Doctorate level as a long awaited vision for her life. Ms. Bradford is the mother of five adult children, a grandmother and a great grandmother. Her hobbies include writing poetry, fiction writing and challenging games. She shares her life with her husband, William MCCauley, who supports her endeavors. She plans to publish several books she has written in the near future.

Book preview

Contents

With a forward by Myrtha McKinney

Preface

Acknowledgments:

Ghetto Babe

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

I dedicate this book:

To my significant other, William McCauley. To my dearest friend and sister, Myrtha McKinney. To my dear mother, Queen Porter and to my children, Dawn, Dianna, Nathaniel, Felicia, and Michael.…

Oh! Child of grief, why weepest thou?

          Why droops thy sad and mournful brow?

Why is thy look so like despair?

          What deep, sad sorrow lingers there?

With a forward by Myrtha McKinney

I have known Mattie Bradford all of my life. I know her better than most people and probably better than she knows herself. She is my identical twin sister.

Mattie is the mother of five children the grandmother of many more. She is a budding writer who is in the process of adding education to an innate talent for writing. With expected courage she has gone back to the halls of education to complete unfinished tasks.

Give a listen to the voice of life…of experiential joys and sorrows, the spirit of adventure and yes, terror and fear.

I have known her keenest mind, her bravest act, her quiet charm and her infectious laughter. I have known the depths of her pain and the heights of her joy. She is fiercely loyal to her family. She loves without measure and is a friend indeed, in need and is an encourager of the downtrodden and a fighter against injustice.

Mattie writes from the heart as well as the imagination, coupled with life experiences which border on the incredible and the unbelievable.

Listen to the writer on the road traveled alone.

Listen to the voice writing with pen, real life facts from an imagination bordering on brilliance.

Belatedly, but never too late the writer has emerged. This is her first published work. Read, but be gentle. She is new at this. Understand the writer’s need, no mission, is to tell you a story in her own words.

Hear her.

Do not judge her.

Accept her version of this story. In her writer’s imagination, Mattie could have depicted your story!

Preface

Ghetto Babe, a work of fiction is based upon a poem about a young woman struggling to find her place in the world after suffering a brutal rape, which leads her into a life of prostitution. The poem inspires the effort to write the novel, Ghetto Babe. The main character, Katlin, while in the midst confusion, we find her steeped in the tawdry lifestyle of a Bordello. The Madame, Mama Neal becomes a surrogate mother of sorts for Katlin and takes her on as her protégé. Katlin is launched as the heir apparent to Mama Neal’s vast operations of number running, gambling, loan sharking, bootleg alcohol, and prostitution. She is en meshed in an education which only adds to her confusion as it offers her freedom and accomplishments she once thought impossible. When the death of Mama Neal occurs, Katlin finds herself the Madame of a huge empire. She has promised to keep drugs out of the business, but finds it an impossible feat as Drug Lords try to muscle in on her territory. She is torn between her new found position as a Bordello Madame, a new wife, and a college graduate. What will she do? How can she keep the promise? How can she hold on to her new husband after he becomes involved with her rival, a ruthless drug dealer? Step into the pages of Ghetto Babe as Katlin searches for her identity among the many patterns she is exposed to along life’s unmistakable journey.

Acknowledgments:

A special thanks to Trafford Publishing Company for their patience and my lack of experience.

Thanks to my college professors from Hopkinsville Community College in Hopkinsville, Kentucky and from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. I hope you will not judge my errors too harshly. I am especially thankful to William for his support, his encouragement and love in endeavoring me to realize my dreams and for letting me know it’s never too late.

Ghetto Babe

She’s got curls and curves a plenty

But morals and values, she ain’t got any

Cause she’s a sho nuff ghetto babe.

She wanders from house to house, since age nine

Watchin whores and crack heads mainlining

Day in day out, beggin food

Engrossed in sex, the only thing that’s good

Cause she’s a sho nuff ghetto babe.

Struttin her stuff from man to man

Givin and getting whatever she can

Beatins, diseases, filth despair and pain

Is all she can hope to gain

Cause she’s a sho nuff ghetto babe.

Learnin to use her mindless wit

Usin the swayin and swingin of her hips

To savor the little she gets

From the heart of the ghetto

Alone, misused poor, her motto

Cause she’s a sho nuff ghetto babe.

On an on it goes

Hopin in a fatalistic way

To find her way out of the ghetto

And the stigma of being

A sho nuff ghetto babe.

Chapter 1

Ghetto Babe

Katlin runs down the alley, frightened out of her mind, her shoes, quiet on the tar slickened pathway. She cries and pleads for someone to help her. He isn’t far behind she realizes as she searches for a place to hide, while praying for the darkness to swallow her small dark frame. Who is this man, chasing her and what could he want her innocent mind screams as she looks frantically for a place to hide from the terror of the night? She manages to scoot between a garbage dumpster and the wooden stairs from the back of one of the projects in the neighborhood where she lives. She is so close to home and yet too far away to get the help she knows is there. She can hear the television sets playing and music wafting down to her hiding place, but she is too scared to move. She tries desperately to quiet her breathing and the sound of her heart beating loud and fast in her tiny chest. She pants and gulps for air as fear clutches her mind. She jumps as she hears the footsteps drawing nearer, stopping and starting again as if looking for something. She knew he’s searching for her as she squirms tighter in her hiding place, hoping against hope that he will not find her. There is something evil out there, looking for her, meaning her no good, of that she is certain. I want my daddy her mind screams as tears roll down her cheeks. She flinches as the steps draw closer. Beads of sweat roll down her face. The air is thick, musty and humid as her shirt and shorts cling to her body in the darkness of the cramped space. Oh God, please send somebody to help me she pleads, knowing deep within, there will be no one to help.

She lives in the poor side of town in the only projects, in the one horse town of Franklin, Louisiana, commonly called Gin City, the colored area. A name which passed down from the alkies and heroin addicts which used to occupy the area back in the day when everybody knew everybody. The children were looked after by every adult in Gin City back then, but in recent years, things have changed for the worst, or so her daddy says. She is only eight and doesn’t care much for those things, but drugs, worse than heroin and unseemly characters have moved into Gin City and taken over the projects and no one cares for the plight of a poor black community, not even the sheriff and his lazy deputy or the haughty citizens of Gin City.

Thump, clank, she hears as she jumps at the sound of the dumpster lid clanging back into place. The putrid odor wafts down into her hiding place, she gags and quickly covers her nose. Why doesn’t he just give up? She thinks as she nestles tighter in the hiding place.

Gotcha, she hears as a gnarled hand grabs at her hair. She fights forcefully against the hand without a face.

Agh, agh, she screams from pure terror as he jerks her from the safety of the cocoon of darkness.

Well, well, look at what we have here, he mutters as he pulls her close to his body, a regular little beauty, he snickers.

Please suh, she begs, please don’t hurt me. I have to get home. My daddy gonna be mad at me. Pl-Please le -let me go," she stutters as she looks into the face of her captor. A strange white man in Gin City after dark is odd. She knew that, even at her age. He’s a drunk, she can tell from the rancid smell of liquor on his breath, and shudders from head to toe. She feels something bad is about to happen even though she has no idea of what he’s going to do to her.

Yeah, sure, he leers as she looks at him from terror filled brown eyes. A chocolate prize for sure. I might let you go if you let me get a feel. She recoils at the smell of his breath.

Please suh, please, she whimpers, horrified, I’m only ei-eight years old. P-P-Please let me go, she utters as hot tears stream down her face.

I said I might, if’n you let me get a feel, as he rubs his grimy hands up her small thighs.

Please suh, don’t, she cries as fear creeps through her entire body. She knew he was about to do something she couldn’t handle.

He wasn’t listening and kept rubbing her thighs and grunting. His whiskey laden breath makes her sick to her stomach and his grunts come faster. His lust peaks and he tears at her panties in an effort to relieve his passion.

No, no, no, please suh, no, she shrieks in terror. She’s heard the grown folks talkin and whisperin about the rapins and child molestin going on in the neighborhood, but she has no idea what they were talkin about. She senses she is about to find out and shivers out of a sense of loss, fear and the knowledge of being terribly alone. Something evil is going to happen to her.

No! She screams as she tears at his face.

No, please, she sobs as he throws her to the ground.

Why hadn’t she listened to her mama when she told her to be in by dusk? They must be lookin for her by now. Why did she have to go to the store to spend the shiny new quarter her daddy had given her the day before? She had done well in school, and did the chores in the house without being told and the quarter is the reward.

He’s on top of her now, his weight crushing her small frame, prying her legs open with one hand and holding her face down with the other to keep her from screaming. She tries to fight him, but she’s no match for this grown man. He fumbles with his zipper as she looks terrified into his blue eyes, reddened and clouded from his habit and lust. He couldn’t have pity on her and thrust himself into her without mercy. She screams in agony as he muffles her cries. His only thought is to satisfy his hunger. She cries piteously knowing no one will come to her rescue. There were no white knights in shining armor in Gin City. His movements came faster and faster and harder. She cries louder and louder and louder, her mind not accepting what he’s doing to her. When he finishes, he stands and looks at her.

Don’t you go telling anybody about me or I’ll kill you next time, he threatens. Who’d believe a nigger over a white man, he spits at her bruised body.

She lay there, numb and dumb as he walks away, zipping his pants. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t scream. Her mind screams, Daddy, where are you? She slowly and painfully drifts into unconsciousness.

Katlin turns to the man at the bar.

Buy me a drink and I’ll make it worth your while, She coos and smiles her most seductive smile.

Hey chocolate mama ain’t you a pretty lil thang. Sure, honey come over here and sit down right next to Papa, he murmurs as he pats the seat next to him.

She sashays up to him swayin her hips in the seductive way Mama Neal has taught her.

Baby girl, she says, move them hips. Cause if theys got no money, theys gets no honey. Show them what you got with the walk and reel them suckers in with the talk. But one thang you have to do is make sure you get them duckies up front. Most of them will get what they want and leave you high and wet. Then I’ll have to get Big Willie to go after them to get the money. So be good at what you do and they’ll pay up every time.

Sure would like that drink, She coos, pursing her lips in the sexy way she learned that makes them come outta their pockets with the money.

How much? He whispers, feeling hot and bothered as he pays for the rum and coke she orders.

Fifteen dollars, She answers softly, turning her breasts to him so he can get a good look at the merchandise.

Damn, chocolate mama, you must be good at what you do, he says reaching into his pocket for the cash.

What you think, Big Daddy, she purrs, posing her pert breasts in his face again.

All right, he laughs, all right, finish your drink. I ain’t got all night.

Katlin crawls over the sleeping body of her little sister, Maryanne, who wakes up stretching and stifling a yawn.

Katlin, where you been? Mama’s been asking for you. Where you been?

None of your business. Go back to sleep. You know you got school in the morning, she says yawning, too tired to answer any questions from her kid sister. Maryanne stretches again and turns over, snoring before her head hit the pillow. She glances at the clock; it’s nearly three o’clock in the morning, and she has to be up by six to get to work at Jive Restaurant.

Jive’s, a soul food restaurant ran by Mama Neal, the richest black woman in Franklin, Louisiana. She has her hand in just about everything a black person can get into to make money illegally. Prostitutin, numbers runnin, loan sharkin and bootleggin. You name it and she has her hand in it, except for drugs. She always says "Drugs is an evil she can do without".

Katlin works at Jive during the day and sells her body at night. She needs the money. Hell everybody in Gin City needs money. Her mother is sickly, Maryanne is a freshman at Grover Cleveland High School, and her dad died two years earlier. The doctors say he died from pneumonia and of course there weren’t any insurance, so the state buried him in Potters Field. He worked the docks for years without coverage cause they didn’t insure the black workers, even though they worked like dogs for peanuts. She figures he died from a broken heart. He never got over her rape and mutilation; and believed he failed to protect his little girl. Doc Olsen told her daddy, she was pretty torn up