Shattered dreams
SABRINA learnt how to get blood stains out from clothes. The very first day she had to face Bullet Head’s clothes she felt nauseous. But he stood over her and demanded that they be spotless. He was getting more cruel.
He began to get rather cocky, as he boasted to the men on the street how much he dominated her. His attitude got worse as he would take home drinking buddies Sabrina had to entertain. She was not allowed to sleep whenever he was around, and his friends thought it was ok for them to touch her whenever she passed by them.
One night while Bullet Head and his friends drank and lymed in the yard, Sabrina interrupted a meeting they had to plan for the following day. She had gone outside to shower and was returning inside when one of them grabbed her towel. She spun around and slapped him in rage. Bullet Head was furious. And with his friends encouraging him, he slapped Sabrina hard. She fell to the ground.
The towel loosened as she tried to scramble to her feet. Bullet Head pinned her against the house and raped her right in front of his friends. They cheered him on. He then allowed each one – all five of his friends – to have their way with her. By the time they were through she was left laying there in the yard.
She lost another baby that night, and it was during that ordeal that Sabrina vowed it would be her last. She was ready to fight back. She tried to block it out of her head, but for a long time, she could not forget the line she heard one of them use, “Money over b.t.hes!”
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By the time Sabrina turned 19, she had formulated a plan to get out. Little did she know that Bullet Head was also making plans for her. They had moved out of the ghetto and he had managed to build a two-storey house in Jacks Hill. The atmosphere was different and Sabrina welcomed the change.
She made use of the money Bullet Head was putting in her hands as his gang had built a reputation overnight. It was growing larger too. Sabrina was shocked to know that the boys she grew up with had taken it upon themselves to become gang members and even after police shot and killed one of their members, it did not faze them much. If anything, it made them even more callous.
Every night the house transformed into a warehouse as Bullet Head and his posse brought home stolen items. The house was being furnished with the most lavish furniture and they were all gigantic. The bedroom had a large plasma flat screen TV built into the wall and mirrors were at all corners of the room, including the ceiling.
The bed was a king-sized bed that took command of the bedroom and it was there that Bullet Head entertained his lady guests. The first night this occurred, Sabrina was forced to watch, while he got busy with five ladies. After her refusal to join, she was ushered to an adjoining room where the screams and laughter from the women pierced through the walls.
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Many a night, Sabrina found herself using her pillow to cover her head to stifle the groans.
But while Bullet Head was focused on himself, Sabrina was quietly saving money to pursue her dreams. She still wanted to become a nurse and she vowed that Bullet Head would never stop her.
These dreams came to a halt when one of Bullet Head’s most successful drug mules was caught and sent to prison in London. Bullet Head was furious. His shipment did not reach
its destination and he was informed that Gail would serve five years. He needed a backup. The problem was that the law had caught up with all his girls and those who were not in prison, had to lay low for a while. He needed to recruit new people and quickly, as the person on the receiving end was getting impatient.
One day, while Sabrina was preparing dinner, Bullet Head stormed in. “Mi have someting mi want yu do fi mi. Mi line up some girls fi carry some drugs go a foreign but mi want one more person. Yu going have fi do it”.
She felt the back of Bullet Head’s hand when she told him no. “Yuh nah tell mi what yuh waan do, mi a tell yu, yu ago do it. Yuh alright. Wid fi yuh innocent face, dem wi overlook yuh,” he told her.
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Sabrina was scared. She thought of the best way to get out of the situation, but after faking illness didn’t work, she gave up.
Later that night, Sabrina met the girls, Pinky, Shanna, and Ginger. They looked rough and well experienced.
They briefed Sabrina on their experiences and what not to do while on the flight. Pinky, the boldest of the two, told her story of running into the law and how she narrowly escaped being searched at the airport in London while carrying compressed ganja she inserted in her genitals. She managed to convince them she was going through her menstrual cycle and it dissuaded them from checking her.
Later that night, Sabrina watched as the girls prepared for their early flight the next day. Both cocaine and ganja were to be taken. And so, Sabrina learnt how to use foil paper and a considerable amount of cellophane to secure the product. Sabrina watched as the girls soaked the pellets in boiled okras. This, they said was to help it to slide freely when swallowing. She watched in amazement as they swallowed the thick pellets as if they were nothing.
Later Bullet Head and the girls tried to coax Sabrina into swallowing a couple pellets, but she could not manage to swallow even one. Finally Bullet Head got furious and decided to give her the compressed ganja alone to carry. But this was no better, she had to practise walking normally, as they were convinced she was sure to ‘blow their cover’ if she continued to walk as if she indeed had something statched away. Needless to say, she was rather uncomfortable.
By 4 am, the girls were out the door and on their way to the airport. Sabrina was sweating profusely even with the early morning chill that ran across her face and through her hair. This is it, she told herself, ‘do or die’.