Bootleg

Okay this shit is gonna sound unrealistic, implausible, fallacious, yet I promise you its true. It's a story from almost 10 years ago, so don't judge me too harshly. This is the story of Bootleg, especially for The Goddess...

1998 - Savannah, Georgia

As a newly single man of 23, I made it my life's mission to have as much fun as humanly possible. I went to work at 9 in the morning and often times, I was still drunk from the night before. I would get a couple of hours of sleep, work a 10 hour day, then hit the spot again. Now, in Savannah, there weren't too many places to go, so we developed a routine. Wednesday and Friday Nights we would go to "The Zoo." Thursday and Saturday Nights, we were at "Frozen Paradise." In retrospect it didn't really make too much sense to be in the club that much since I can't and don't dance, but it was more for the hanging out with my people and occasionally meeting a new girl. That's how I met Bootleg.

One night me and my boys were at "The Zoo" drinking Alize as per usual and probably smoking some Chronic. We called it the Chronic, but it was really just some dirt weed. This was around the time that No Limit was kings of the fucking club. Every two weeks a new No Limit album would come out and have people up in the club losing their minds. I mean, cats would be throwing elbows, and making mean mugs with their boys, while hopping up and down to the bass heavy sounds of Master P, Silk the Shocker, Mystikal, Mia X, and so on and so on. Being a bit of a music snob, I didn't really like the music, but it mixed very well with the intoxicants I constantly had in my system and even I joined the pseudo mosh pits. This night, while me and the boys were "getting buck" as we used to call it, Bootleg came and joined in.

It was rare that a female would join the cypher, because dudes were known to get reckless with the flying appendages. So you would see a gang of niggas in the middle of the floor, while the ladies just stood by edges, sipping on something waiting for the New Orleans set to end. Bootleg didn't give a damn. She walked right up to the crowd and started pushing people, and throwing bows and shit. She was straight thug with hers. Later that night as we were leaving the club, we saw her walking down the street by herself. Well, more like staggering. I pulled up to her and asked if she needed a ride. I had my homeboys Kareem and Tori with me and I know it must have looked like we were scheming on her, but really, Savannah can be a dangerous place, especially for drunk Black female wearing some short ass shorts.

She recognized us from the club and asked us drop her off at some apartments on Abercorn. I don't know how she thought she was gonna walk all the way there in her state, but she got in and I dropped her off. Along the way, we got to know each other a little. Her real name was Francesca, but everybody called her Bootleg. She was a couple years older than me and had a couple of kids. She said she is always at "The Zoo" and told me next time I went to come find her. She told me to drop her off on the corner, and I did, and then headed back to my side of town.

The next couple of times we went to the club, Bootleg was always there. Always drunk and always wearing some shorts that showed off her ass. A couple of times I noticed she was looking at me like she wanted to do something, but Bootleg was so not my type. Her body was banging, but her face was just... she was what they call a Butterhead. She wasn't ugly, per se, but she looked rough, like she had experienced a long hard life beating her down. Plus she had gold fronts and that was just not appealing to me at all. Bootleg also seemed less than intelligent and whenever we talked I had to dumb myself down. No conversations about anything other than music and drinks. One Wednesday night, she wanted to leave the club early, but didn't have a ride, so being the gentleman I was, I told her I would take her. I left Kareem and Tori at the club, and went to take her home. The plan was to drop her off and be back in like 30 minutes. Only, what I didn't realize at the time, is that Bootleg was looking for a ride all right, just not in the car.

My Tercel was parked off of Henry St, in a dark alley behind a bank. We got in the car and I started it up, and got ready to pull off when she told me to hold up. She wanted to just chill for a minute before going home. So we sat in the car talking about God knows what for awhile. She grabbed my hand and placed it on her thigh. She then reached under her shirt and took off her bra through her shirt sleeve. I was a little tipsy, but not so tipsy that I didn't know what was going on. She wanted me to smash her in public. I won't bore you with the explicit details, I'm sure you can read between the lines, but we did just about everything you can do in small ass Tercel, without doing that. The SPD kept rolling by and finally they decided that it was time for us to go. I took her to her crib, but when I started to get out and go with her, she stopped me.

Bootleg: Nah, nigga. My baby daddy in there.

It was cool. I didn't go into the night with intentions of having sex with her anyway, but since the opportunity arose, I went with it. Besides, the club was damn near about to close, and I had left my people there. I'm sure they were looking for me. I jetted back just in time to catch them leaving the club. I told them what happened and they had mad jokes for me. It made for an interesting ride back to the Southside.

A couple days later, I was back in "The Zoo", this time with my home girl Senita and some coworkers. Senita was a platonic friend, but we had an extra flirty friendship. We would walk holding hands or with our arms around each other, but we never did it. So, we are walking up to the club all touchy feely like we always did, when Bootleg comes out and gets in Senita's face. I'm like WTF is this?

Bootleg: Is this skinny bitch your girl? Cuz she wasn't your girl the other night!

Me: Whoa, chill out with that. Da hell is wrong with you?

Bootleg: Nigga, I'm just saying, you gonna bring your skinny bitch up into my club. I'm finna beat her ass if she don't stop looking at me like that.

Senita: Uh-Uh, Rashan. Why is this ghetto girl all up in my grill? She don't know me like that. I'm from Brick City!

Senita was from Jersey, and she didn't take no shit from anybody, so it was about to be on. Back then I had even less tolerance for bullshit than I have now, so I didn't even wait for an explanation. I just kept it moving to the club with Senita and I may have repeated some misogynistic rap lyric to Bootleg, I can't remember. LOL. All night, I felt Bootleg's eyes on me. It got so uncomfortable, that we left "The Zoo" and walked over to Frozen Paradise where it was Reggae Night. That night I actually danced. I had no choice. Senita and the rest of my female co workers dragged me on the floor where I pretended like I had some riddim. We had a fucking ball that night dancing to some music that I couldn't understand. That is until I looked up at the bar and saw Bootleg, staring at us with a menacing glare...

Okay, didn't realize this was gonna be so long. Should I post part 2 today, or should I wait? I'll let you guys decide. I'm gonna finish writing it now including the origins of the name "Bootleg." Happy Friday!