What's Really Hood! by Wahida Clark

the fuck you would!
    Wiz stopped short, took one look at her with that sad excuse for a weapon and busted out laughing. The bottle was jagged,
     but it only hung together by the glue of the label. One poke and it would only crumble to the ground. Crystal didn’t see the
     humor, and despite the bottle’s condition she still gripped it tightly until she felt a sharp pain in her palm. She looked
     down and sawthat her hand was dripping blood. Wiz saw a red drop hit the pavement, and without thinking snatched the bottle from her
     hand and inspected the cut. “You need to go to the hospital, yo.”
    Crystal snatched her wrist away, wincing in pain. “I-I’m fine.”
    Wiz ignored her. He ran to his car, grabbed a New Jersey Devils hockey jersey he had bought recently and wrapped her hand
     in it.
    “I told you, I’m fine,” she repeated, but in a softer tone, allowing him to bandage her wound.
    “Man, just get in the car,” Wiz told her, leading her firmly by the elbow to the Jetta. They both got in, then he whipped
     a U-turn in the middle of Lyons Avenue and headed to Beth Israel Hospital.
    Crystal and Wiz sat silently in the half-crowded waiting room. Wiz sat back with his head against the wall and his eyes closed.
     Crystal looked down at the blood-soaked jersey and thanked him in her mind. She looked at his white Calvins, which were spotted
     with blood and wondered why he had bothered to help her. He could’ve said, “Serves your dumb ass right,” and left her leaking
     in the street, but he hadn’t and that thought alone made her look him in the face for the first time. The first thing that
     struck her was his strong facial bone structure. Wiz had the type of jawline that sculptors tried to perfect. His lips looked
     juicy and suckable, and his eyelashes were feminine in length, but masculine in quality. Crystal could tell he was younger
     than her twenty-three years, because his skin was still baby-smooth,without a trace of hair, except for his fuzz of a mustache. She decided right then she had never seen him before, because
     she would’ve remembered his fine ass anywhere.
    “I’m a fly muthafucka, huh?” Wiz smirked, eyes still closed.
    Crystal played it off and looked away. “Huh? I was just looking over there, at that, umm, painting.”
    Wiz sat up and smiled, wetting her with the dimples. “Yo, every closed eye ain’t sleep,” he told her, then checked his watch.
     “Damn! We been here ten minutes already,” he remarked, then crossed the room to the nurses’ station to confront the old white
     nurse. “Yo, what a muhfucka gotta do, bleed to death before he get some fuckin’ assistance!”
    “Sir, please clam down,” she replied in a nasal tone. “Where are you bleeding, and what happened?” To her it was all routine.
    “Not me, dumb-ass, her! The whole fuckin’ shirt is soaked!” he exclaimed, and pointed to Crystal.
    The nurse, seeing the irate young black male, called emergency. A few minutes later Crystal was escorted to the back. Forty-five
     minutes later she woke Wiz up and told him, “I’m finished.”
    The doctor had given her eighteen stitches in her palm. Wiz stood up and said, “I’m hungry. Let’s go get something to eat.”
    Wiz and Crystal sat in IHOP, talking, laughing and eating pancakes and eggs. It had been so long since Crystal last remembered
     laughing, and Wiz had neverexperienced conversation with a woman interesting enough to hold his attention. “So you nice? I mean wit’ boostin’ and shit?
     You say that’s your main hustle, right?” Wiz asked, because he had a situation in mind.
    Crystal shrugged and took a bite of her pancake. “I ain’t never been caught.”
    Wiz looked at his watch, then said, “Well dig: I need you to boost something for me. Nothin’ major, just an outfit. What you
     gonna charge me?”
    “You mean now? This minute?”
    “Yeah. You ’bout yo’ business, right?”
    Crystal could see a catch somewhere, an angle Wiz was