Shorty Gotta Be Grown
T.C. Littles
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Title Page Copyright Page CHAPTER 1 - PORSHA CHAPTER 2 - PORSHA CHAPTER 3 - TRINITY CHAPTER 4 - CALVIN CHAPTER 5 - PORSHA CHAPTER 6 - CALVIN CHAPTER 7 - TRINITY CHAPTER 8 - PORSHA CHAPTER 9 - TRINITY CHAPTER 10 - PORSHA CHAPTER 11 - PORSHA CHAPTER 12 - TRINITY CHAPTER 13 - PORSHA CHAPTER 14 - ELVIN “STREET” THOMAS CHAPTER 15 - CALVIN CHAPTER 16 - STREET CHAPTER 17 - TRINITY CHAPTER 18 - PORSHA CHAPTER 19 - PORSHA CHAPTER 20 - CALVIN CHAPTER 21 - CALVIN CHAPTER 22 - DAYS LATER CHAPTER 23 - PORSHA CHAPTER 24 - ELIZABETH CHAPTER 25 - TRINITY CHAPTER 26 - PORSHA CHAPTER 27 - CALVIN CHAPTER 28 - FAME CHAPTER 29 - PORSHA CHAPTER 30 - TRINITY
Urban Books, LLC
300 Farmingdale Road, NY-Route 109
Farmingdale, NY 11735
Shorty Gotta Be Grown
Copyright © 2020 T.C. Littles
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.
ISBN: 978-1-6455-6061-6
eISBN 13: 978-1-64556-062-3
eISBN 10: 1-64556-062-7
This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.
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By the end of this story, you’re all going to have much respect and much love for Calvin Jackson, the same way I have much love, respect, and admiration for Rodney Jones—the man behind the character. Yendor, this one is for you!
CHAPTER 1
PORSHA
Eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes, which was my favorite cereal, I sat Indian-style in front of the television watching the Ricki Lake talk show. The episode was about couples who assumed their spouses were cheating and wanted them to take lie-detector tests. One dude admitted he was cheating and had a baby on the way with his girlfriend’s best friend. Another one of the guests caught her boyfriend cheating with a decoy the producers had baited him with at the hotel all the cast was staying at. And one of the husbands on the show found out the set of twin girls he had been raising for three years were not even his. The petty drama had me all in.
“Ma! Hurry up and get in here. Ol’ boy just found out he’s not the father of those twins and tried to flip the wife’s chair over with her in it,” I yelled for my mother. She had gone to the kitchen to refresh her drink, which was Tito’s and cranberry juice. We both loved talk shows and had been watching them back-to-back all morning.
“Oh, hell naw. I knew it, though. Ain’t neither one of them li’l bastards have his nose, eyes, or complexion like she stood up on stage trying to point out. I swear to God, I will never understand why females go on national talk shows and put their business out to the world. That heifer knew good and damn well that man was not the father, so she should have kept that shit swept under the rug.” Trinity would have made a great correspondent for the show.
“I wonder if they get paid to go on there.”
“I am sure they get a few dollars, but you could not pay me enough money to fuck up my life for somebody else’s ratings. Here, roll me up a few wraps while we are sitting here.” She pulled a sandwich bag of marijuana from her bra and handed it to me.
I was so used to seeing drugs that I could eye the weight of the baggie and tell it was an eighth of buds. I came from parents who were in the streets heavy, broke a lot of laws, and pushed a lot of dope into the city of Detroit. My father, Calvin Jackson, was one of the biggest drug dealers on the west side of the city and even maintained control over a zone in Highland Park. And Trinity was the queen, partner in crime, and mastermind behind a lot of my father’s hustle and grind in the game. Calvin was the head of our family, but my mom was the neck. She was also the eyes and ears around the house, which was why I could not wait until I was 18 and could move out.
My nose started tingling as soon as I broke the sandwich bag open. Each time I dropped a bud in the cigarillo wrap, I was itching to drop a bud off to the side to eventually gather up enough for me to roll up a joint. Me and my homegirl Imani had been sneaking and smoking for the last few weeks, but our other friend Nikola could not partake because she was in a certified nursing assistant program that made her take a drug test every month to maintain enrollment and the scholarship.
She used to be my skipping buddy before her mother pulled her out of school and made her start learning a trade that she could get a job with. Ms. Mack might’ve had a bunch of babies, but she promised Nikola she would kick a baby out of her stomach if she got pregnant before she had her life all the way together. I was glad I was too close to 18 for Trinity to shove that trade shit down my throat, although I had been thinking about going to cosmetology school once I snagged my high school diploma in a couple of months. Nikola’s program came with too many rules, and I already had a warden on my back within Trinity. I had been promising myself I was going to look into some beauty schools since I knew college was out of the question, but I had been too busy putting all my