There was a new girl in town (Lower East Side) that I’d welcomed into my fold of homegirls. When I returned from a short trip to Europe, my recent boyfriend informed me that one of my friends showed up on his fire escape at 3 a.m, the very night I left for the airport. He didn’t know her name but the description was enough. Her name was Helena, we used to call her “hell raisin’Helena”.

After being hurt and then totally pissed, I went to the “watering Hole” that we young adults played pool at nightly. I told all of my friends of Helena’s indescretion and I informed her that I was as good-looking if not more so than she. She had a little boyfriend and I approached him. I asked him, that knowing now what kind of person Helena was, climbing a guy’s fire escape in the dead of night like some desperate “alley cat”, wouldn’t he rather be with someone more chaste like me? I told her in front of everyone that I can take any man she had because unlike her, my hair my nails, my eyes and everything about me was real. And I wasn’t so needy of attention. I never had a problem out of her after that, she left the neighborhood. What a verbal cat fight we had. The guys were lovin’ every moment.