LITMIR.BIZ

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      Hampton University always held a special place in Birdie’s heart. It was on that small campus that she’d lived and learned racial harmony, which was the total opposite of her exclusively Caucasian community in Old Money.

      As she twisted and turned on the sofa trying to catch more of the uneven breeze from Needy’s old air conditioner, Birdie suddenly felt as if she could almost recall the aroma from the orange blossoms from the garden blending with the perspiration of her mother. It was as though time had transported her back to Old Money from Needy’s living room, and she didn’t want to return just yet.

      However, she had to. It was just the smell of Needy’s cheap orange fragrance and her perspiration as she entered the living room.

      “Are you ready?” Needy asked. She needed to make sure that Birdie was up for the job. When Birdie nodded yes, Needy became excited. “When we get finished with old Lyon Lipps, he’s gonna wish for death.”

      Again Birdie nodded in agreement and then said, “I’m ready but I do have one more question.”

      “What is it?”

      “What’s in this for you? Other than being the president of the club and seemingly destined to remain single, what do you get out of helping us to destroy a man you’ve never met?”

      Birdie’s anger at Lyon Lipps was beginning to fade as common sense revisited, accompanied by too many questions. But she didn’t want to use common sense, she wanted to stay angry. She needed Needy’s inspiration.

      “What do I get out of ripping a new hole for this man?” Needy repeated the question while balling her fists. “Well, my biggest reason is that men shouldn’t treat women the way he’s doing, and he should pay for all the times men have treated me badly.” She stopped abruptly as her hairy top lip began to quiver. “They don’t seem to want dark-skinned women like me,” she continued. “So what if I have a little more on my chest and butt than most women. I’m a good person. I have feelings…” She seemed about ready to cry and that lip was doing its own thing.

      “And what are the other reasons?” Birdie’s need to get answers from Needy was quickly replaced by her anxious need for Needy’s hairy top lip to stop shaking, so she didn’t know why she bothered to ask another question that would require a reply.

      “My other reasons are the same as my first reason,” Needy snapped as she dabbed at her moist eyes.

      Birdie decided not to ask more questions, particularly when Needy, on the way out of the house, became so agitated she slammed her fist against the old air conditioner. She hit it so hard the machine gave out one last sputter and died.

      It was the perfect opportunity for Birdie to offer to buy her a new one, but she didn’t. Instead, the two women walked to Birdie’s pink Lexus in silence.

      The death of an innocent air conditioner should’ve been a sign to Birdie to just leave well enough alone but she wasn’t carrying her Signs for Dummies handbook.

      Birdie should’ve had that book stapled to her hand, because she was about to learn that both Needy and Ima Hellraiser had their own handwritten chapters in it.

      4

      The feminine blight on Pelzer’s otherwise stellar reputation lived about ten miles from Needy. She occupied a bright red, single-family house with its black shades perpetually drawn tight. From a distance it appeared haunted, sitting in the middle of a wide patch of tall brownish grass, with a small rock garden of Devil Snuff shrubbery as the only outside decoration. Neighbors often avoided the home by walking across the wide street void of traffic lights but busy with traffic. They’d rather risk being run over than walk in front of the feared residence.

      Ima Hellraiser lived inside the house that sported the décor of a dungeon. No one visited unless they were coming for the torture.

      Behind her back Christians and atheists alike, particularly those who could barely stand her, called her a reprobate witch. To her face, they called her Ima.

      Inside her bedroom, which was decorated and patterned after old Hollywood horror flicks, Ima could barely contain her excitement after the phone call from Needy. So, with more force than she’d meant to use, she’d tossed her cordless telephone onto her round bed, barely missing her pet cat, Evilene.

      Contrary to what most people thought because of her surroundings, Evilene was a cat with a smidgen of feline sense, but not much direction. When Ima found her, as a kitten, scrambling through the garbage in the back yard, she was the color of midnight black. Now Evilene at the age of two was almost completely gray. Ima had scared the black right off the cat.

      Instinctively, Evilene squealed loudly, just as the large pillow Ima playfully threw sailed by close enough to part the fur on her back. She jumped off the bed, snatching her remaining lives, and fled.

      The call from Needy came just in time. Ima had barely been out of her latest stint in the local jail a good two hours, and was bored by the time she’d driven out of the precinct’s parking lot.

      Ima stood about five-foot-six in her stocking feet. Her flawless mocha-colored complexion accented curves that were so perfect and lethal they were secretly registered with the Pelzer, South Carolina police department. Most of her registration information was written in the little black books of Pelzer’s bravest in Pig Latin.

      Despite her obvious beauty, Ima had severe issues with self-esteem. She’d been a child with a body that blossomed early and belied her age. She’d never known her father and with no qualified man to guide her, she learned by trial and error, on her own.

      There was no rest from the sexual harassment. During school hours she used her limited wit to withstand the constant advances from her male teachers and even a principal. There was no rest at home, either. Ima had fought off every sexual advance from her mother’s live-in boyfriends, who plied her mother with alcohol to disguise their deeds. Not even in church was there safety. Ima stopped going to Sunday school and Youth Meetings because she was betrayed by those supposed men of God, who orated piously from the pulpits.

      By the time she was in her late teens, Ima both hated and loved men, but she never trusted them. When she fully discovered what they really wanted from her, despite her need for their full love and affection, she was on the defense, repaying them with treachery and false promises of her own. Ima purposed that never in her life would she give a man the chance to hurt her first.

      Standing in front of a long mirror she carefully scanned the outfit she held in her hand. This purple two-piece Donna Karan with the plunging neck and back should do the trick, Ima thought.

      She grinned at the flimsy purple outfit consisting of a top so tiny that it could barely cover the N in “nipple.” The skirt was form-fitting and was so short that it only came to her mid-thigh. If she dropped anything she’d have to depend on the kindness of others to pick it up, or risk landing in jail for indecent exposure.

      Ima spent a lot of time locked up because people weren’t always kind and that’s the way she loved to dress.

      After taking Needy’s call and listening to the singles group’s dilemma, it didn’t take but a second for Ima to decide that she’d take the job dismantling Lyon Lipps. She loved being able to take a credit card for payment. It made getting undercover jobs using her unique “revenge” skills a lot easier than she’d imagined. Ima could make Steadman forget about Oprah. It also increased her frequent jail time points. However, at the rate she was racking up the jail mileage, she hoped a long stretch in the penitentiary wasn’t in her future. Her nasty mouth and spiteful attitude had long ago voided her “stay out of jail” card with the local police department. Until recently, just flaunting her sexuality was enough to keep her out of a line-up.

      Ima hurried with the finishing touches to her man-killer look. She sprayed some cologne called “Pain” around her neck and shoulders and inside her belly button.

      Evilene’s short memory had caused her to creep back into the bedroom and jump onto the bed. Unfortunately, she

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