The Coldest Winter Ever

“All the ladies loved him but he wasn’t what I would call a ladies’ man. He never had no girlfriend, at least no female ever called the house trying to front on my moms. I can’t recall any incidents involving other women, accusations or any uncomfortableness. He was a family man.”

Winter is describing her father, Santiaga. Her perception of her father here is thwarted later when she realizes he cheated on her mom and had a baby with another woman. This moment demonstrates that Winter doesn’t know her father, whom she idolizes, as well as she thinks he does 

“Now a bad bitch is a woman who handles her business without making it seem like business. Only dumb girls let love get them delirious to the point where they let things that really count go undone.” 

Winter’s Momma considers herself a “bad bitch,” and Winter grows up trying to be one as well. For Winter, this means that she never shows her feelings to any man, but rather portrays herself as a completely sexual being, full of beauty and class. She never says that she loves any man, but she uses sex to get what she wants from men. 

“A definite advantage to having babies at a young age. You get to chill with your moms like she’s your younger sister or something. Fuck all those old stiff bastards complaining about teenage pregnancy, this and that. Me and my moms could party together. Nobody would ever know that she was my mom.” 

Since Winter’s mom had her at the age of 14, she and her mom are not only close in age, but they also act like best friends. While Winter sees this as an advantage, by the end of the novel it’s clear that she needed a mother in her life to guide her rather than a friend.

“I sucked my teeth and thought, Why don’t that bitch just move to Africa? She’s always talking some African mumbo jumbo. Somebody should stick a bone in her nose and a plate in her lip, maybe then she’d feel at home and shut the fuck up. I made myself laugh, thinking, Them damn Africans must have been some fucked up niggas. If they believed doing something positive caused positive things to happen why are their asses all fucked up bald-headed, naked, starving, stinking, and the whole nine.” 

Winter is responding to hearing Sister Souljah on the radio. Sister Souljah was talking about the African ancestors, and how they believed that if you do negative things, negativity would rule your life. Winter thinks that Souljah just talks to hear herself talk, and she doesn’t find any value in her thoughts regarding how to have peace in the African American community. 

“The money was like smelling salts; it revived everyone.” 

This moment comes after Winter’s mom is hospitalized, and Midnight gives them money to go shopping for new clothes. This, like many other moments throughout the novel, demonstrates how Winter puts money, shopping, and ultimately materialism above all else. Despite her mom being in the hospital, Winter feels revived by the sight of money and ability to go shopping.

“The Art of War, The Wretched of the Earth, The Judas Factor were a few of the books Midnight had in his case. They didn’t look interesting to me and I wasn’t gonna read some shit I didn’t like just to get his attention.” 

This moment comes after Midnight tells her to read to occupy her time. Midnight is an intellectual, and he tries to encourage Winter to feed her mind. However, Winter is only concerned with her physical appearance. Interesting to note here is that Winter won’t read a book to impress Midnight, but she continually uses sex and her physical beauty to impress the men around her and get what she wants.

“But that look of shock and horror that came over the kids’ faces when they saw her could not be erased by any joke. Momma was thinner than usual. The area around her mouth was twisted and disfigured. She still had a piece of bandage covering a small part of her face. There was only one thing I was sure of. I would be driving the big Benz.” 

Winter’s mom has just come home from the hospital. Even though she almost died, Winter is more concerned with finding a way to drive her mom’s car than for her mom’s wellbeing. This, like many other moments, demonstrates Winter’s lack of empathy towards those around her, as well as her focus on materialism. 

“The way I figured it everybody had to have a hustle to survive. The cops wasn’t no threat as long as their cut was in it. As Santiaga said, ‘You gotta know how to spread the cheese around the table.’”

This describes Winter’s justification of drug dealing as an acceptable occupation. Unlike Souljah, who views drug dealing as the demise of the African American community, Winter sees drug dealing as a way to survive and prosper. 

“This date was something I needed in order to connect with myself and my people. I really needed the attention. Mamma had been hogging all of it up lately.” 

Winter equates the male attention she will receive during her date with connecting to herself. That is, she views the attention she receives from men as a way to validate herself. Since she isn’t getting attention from her father, the number one male in her life, she seeks it even more from men in the form of sex. 

“Pushing a Benz was like being the president of the United States. It rode like a private jet. Even the potholes couldn’t affect the smoothness of the ride. Everybody I passed on the road looked to see who was inside, yet the tinted windows shielded us like we were top-notch celebrities.” 

Winter is describing what it was like to drive her mom’s new Mercedes Benz, but she’s also revealing her view of success. For her, being able to drive a luxury car like the Benz is equal to being the head of the country. That is, she finds the height of success as being equal to the height of luxury; the more expensive items a person owns or has access to, the more successful one is. Because she measures success in terms of materialism, she almost fully neglects exercises of the mind, such as reading or thinking about anything beyond herself. 

“Porsche has seven years in the projects under her belt, she’s tough. Mercedes and Lexy, now they been sheltered. They’re straight up suburban kids.” 

Santiaga says this regarding his concern for the younger girls now that he’s been incarcerated. He’s worried what will become of them since he isn’t there to take care of them financially anymore. However, this moment also makes a larger commentary regarding the cyclic nature of how people are raised, and whether they will repeat the mistakes of their parents. As witnessed by the end of the novel, Winter and Porsche, who were both old enough to remember and partake in their parent’s lifestyle, end up repeating their parent’s mistakes; they both end up involved with drug dealers and consumed by materialism. However, Mercedes and Lexy, who were both too young to remember that lifestyle, escape from the projects of Brooklyn and end up being raised by Midnight, who has quit selling drugs and has become religious. In this way, through each of the girls, the author comments on the importance of family and community, and how it is often a determiner of fate.

“If I fucked Sterling that night I didn’t know it. It didn’t matter. My mind was on vacation. Apparently Sterling was so stupid that just my sweet face was enough to make him do whatever I wanted. The next day I convinced him to let me drop him off at work and use his car. I promised to pick him up later that night. The idea of him seeing me two nights in a row was enough bait for him.” 

This moment comes after Santiaga has been arrested and all her possessions have been taken away. Winter admits to giving her body to Sterling in exchange for his car. The fact that she says she doesn’t remember if she had sex with him or not demonstrates how flippantly she views sex; for her, sex is just another way to get what she wants.

“Nobody forced them into business. They understood the risks. Besides, the drug dealers helped America to be rich. If it wasn’t for us, who would buy the fly cars, butter leathers, and the jewelry? We put so much money into circulation. More than them little nickel-and-dime-paying taxpayers. We employed half the men in the ghetto. Nobody else gave them jobs. So why be a player hater?”

Winter is again defending drug dealing as a legitimate business. While she makes the claim that it helps give people in the ghetto jobs, she also admits that that money is being used to buy frivolously expensive items like luxury cars and jewelry. That is, drug dealing money is used to give the appearance of status and wealth, rather than for the true betterment of oneself or one’s community. While Santiaga could have used his wealth to send his children to the best schools or to enrich his community, he wasted it by spoiling his children with material possessions; possessions that, in the end, were taken away as if they never existed at all. 

“‘What you know about that? I saw your naked ass on that videotape sipping champagne with Bullet. Who’da ever known that Santiaga’s daughter was sipping bubbly with a nigga who’s a worker for the other side! While your daddy was being raided by the feds you were having drinks butt naked with the enemy.’”

Winter dresses up in an attempt to impress Midnight in the only way she knows how to draw a man’s attention. He rejects her advances, to which she commands his respect, based on her entitlement as Santiaga’s daughter. In this excerpt, Midnight shatters the illusion Winter has maintained that she inherently deserves respect because of her status and appearance. Midnight criticizes her character, highlighting that she’s the type of person to engage in sexual acts with her father’s enemy—the type he would not consort with. While most men enable or use Winter, Midnight is forthright and honest with the spoiled, petulant teen. 

“Well, when I was in the mirror at first tryna style my own hair I realized I wasn’t really gonna get no money for no plastic surgery. I might as well be proud. You can’t get no respect in Brooklyn being all down on yourself.” 

This quote comes from Winter’s mom, after Winter asks her why she shaved all her hair off. The novel is constantly concerned with the idea of respect, and how each character defines respect in a different way. For Momma, respect equals being proud. When the Santiagas were wealthy, Momma was proud of everything they owned. But when all the possessions are stripped away, she realizes that in order to maintain respect, she must find pride from within. This is the reasoning she gives for chopping off her hair. She says that if she doesn’t have money to take care of it or wear the nicest wigs, she would rather own being bald than rely on charity to take care of her hair. 

“When I was a student I had two jobs. You have to work to make it in this country. That’s how I got where I am now. I had to work to own this property. No kind of work was too good for me either. A dollar is a dollar is a dollar.”

This comes from the woman who Winter tries to rent the apartment from. This woman is an immigrant to the United States, and she explains that the way to success is hard work. Of course, Winter has never worked a day in her life, and when she loses everything, rather than work, she tries to find illegal hustles. In this way, the woman quoted above represents a different moral system from the one that Winter upholds. The woman reveals what can happen with patience and hard work, while Winter often lives the desperation of trying to make fast money. 

“I told her it wasn’t cool to drink liquor when you were pregnant. ‘As fucked up as the world is today, the baby will need some Thug passion just to be able to roll with the punches.’” 

In this quote, Winter is telling her pregnant friend, Simone, that drinking isn’t good for the baby. However, Simone continues to drink and makes an excuse. Simone, just like Winter’s mom, are both teenage mothers. For these women, having a baby so young equates to a lack of education concerning the proper prenatal care for both the mother and baby. Although drinking while pregnant has many implications for both the mother and baby, Simone’s flippant attitude here reveals that isn’t thinking about the health of either person involved.

“She’s stupid, I thought to myself. She should’ve got some loot from the long-legged nigga she had in the kitchen last night. Pussy should never be free.” 

Winter is referring to her Aunt B, and how she should have asked her male companion for money instead of her. However, more than anything, it reveals Winter’s sexual philosophy, in that women should never have sex for free. For Winter, she uses sex for personal gain, whether it’s for money, a ride, or a place to stay.  

“She asked me dumb things like how did I feel when they took my sisters away. She might as well of asked me if a burning building hot! She asked me about my relationship with friends and men. I looked at her like, lady, do you really think me and your old ass is gonna sit here and have girl talk?” 

Winter says this in response to the social worker asking her personal questions. Throughout the novel, Winter puts up an emotionless exterior and is more concerned about money and sex rather than emotions. In this moment, when the social worker asks her to share her feelings, Winter gets defensive. Yet, the fact that she compares the feeling of her sisters being taken away to a burning building being hot indirectly implies that she obviously feels some sense of loss. However, like most other moments in the novel, Winter never directly admits that she feels any certain way. 

“Every year until I was twelve he gave me a new charm bracelet into a necklace. I didn’t wear it because by that time I had even better stuff, but I treasured it.” 

Before this moment, Winter and the other girls at The House of Success are sharing childhood stories. Unlike the other stories, which are mostly about survival and abuse, Winter’s childhood memories are generally happy. However, important to note is that her most cherished memories involve receiving material gifts, usually from her father. In this way, it could be argued that Winter’s love of luxury material objects started as a child, since her father used physical gifts to show his love.

“The psychiatrist recommended me to attend weekly psychiatrist sessions, labeled me some kind of sociopath or something like that because I told her all those kooky stories that she was ‘educated’ enough or should I say dumb enough to believe. She recommended that once I got my privileges, I should go visit my little sisters and that the whole family go to counseling. I had a better plan. I believe you see people when you have something to say and something to offer and I was still working on it. What was the sense in seeing my sisters when I couldn’t do shit for them.”

Winter explains her philosophy of love. Instead of showing her sisters she cares about them by visiting them, she would rather not visit them since she can’t do anything for them. In this way, Winter demonstrates that the best way to show her affection for others is through action.

“I’m the girl who gets other niggas to envy you. Me, it’s all about me, and the real niggas know that. Real niggas love drama. Otherwise life ain’t no thrill. If there ain’t no drama, what’s the point? A live nigga needs a bitch who’s so bad that other bitches know when they see her to just lay the fuck down. Now, the other chick might of got some dick from the nigga at some time or other, but in the presence of wifey she knew all she could do is shut the fuck up and be mad.” 

Winter is explaining why she would make the perfect girlfriend for GS. For her, being in a relationship isn’t about love, it’s about appearance. If she were GS’s girlfriend, she would make other men jealous of GS, which equates to respect. She’s saying that if GS would make her his girlfriend, she would be an asset to him. 

“We are all connected. We have to look out for one another in our schools and neighborhoods. We have to make anybody who makes money in our neighborhoods accountable to us who live here.” 

This quote comes from Sister Souljah, and it occurs during one of her womanhood meetings. Before this comment, Souljah asked the girls what they would fight for, and most of the girls said they would fight for their family. Here, Souljah is suggesting that family isn’t just flesh and blood, but it’s also community. Souljah’s idea is the opposite of Winter’s way of thinking. Souljah is about helping others, while Winter is about helping herself.