B-More Careful

by Shannon Holmes

  Tina, in her own right, was a beautiful woman and one would wonder why a man wouldn’t stray. What was it that she did not do right to keep Willie happy at home? Beautiful inside and out, with a perfect size 7/8 frame, Tina had traces of French and Indian mixed with her African heritage. Exotic eyes, glowing Hawaiian-looking skin and fine jet-black hair were some of Tina’s best attributes of beauty. One look and you’d have to look twice. A fine home keeper, she doted over her husband and her children from the time she woke up until sleep fell upon her at night. She stayed on top of every duty that a good loving wife and mother was supposed to. Beautiful, strong and extremely talented in the art of painting, Tina tolerated her husband’s sleeping around for many years before she finally put her foot down.

  Maybe it was raising the children when they were young that kept her occupied in her home life, or perhaps it was the days of idling away time on canvas that kept the marriage together. Tina didn’t have that answer. But, now the kids were older, and her home life wasn’t happy.

  It was hard because Willie was a good father and a good provider. She loved him deeply. But, fed up and ready to do Tina, she issued an ultimatum to Willie; either them or me. ‘Them’ being the other females she called his whores and ‘me’ being the kids and her. It was a choice he had to make. He took the easy way out, convincing himself he wore the pants in the family and no woman would tell him what to do, wife or no wife. He packed his things and left. Moving in with one of his young tramps, according to Tina’s book.

  Although he hated to leave his wife and kids, he was so set in his ways, he thought why stop now? His movements hadn’t been restricted since he did his first and last bid in the penitentiary. From then on, he swore that would never happen again. No one would ever control him, and he meant it.

  Besides her mother, it was Mimi who missed her dad the most. She was daddy’s little girl. She had him wrapped around her finger since the day she was born. He spoiled Mimi rotten giving her everything she wanted.

  “Stop giving her that candy, Willie. She’s not gonna be good for nothing when she gets older,” Tina scolded.

  “Shut up woman, this my baby right here. You ain’t got nothing to do with this, Tina,” Willie said, picking his baby off the floor and giving her a big bear hug.

  That’s how it was, too. All her life, Mimi had daddy. If mommy wouldn’t, she knew daddy would. The world was a perfect place to be, until they separated and divorced.

  Coming home one day from summer camp, Mimi couldn’t help but smile at her father’s red Porsche parked outside their door. Daddy’s here, she thought as her smile widened. Mimi opened the door as her parents sat side-by-side on the couch, both stopping whatever conversation they were having as they looked straight ahead in her direction.

  “What? Are you guys getting back together?” Mimi asked, desperately wanting to believe God answered her prayers.

  “No, baby girl; we’ve decided that Catholic school would be best for you,” Willie said.

  Who the hell decided that? Mimi thought, as she smiled in return to daddy, clouding her forehead at her mother knowing it had to be her.

  “Daddy, I don’t want to go to Catholic School,” Mimi said, looking at her mother, knowing that he’d be the one to handle the situation.

  However, Mimi thought wrong. It was his idea to enroll her in a Catholic school and when Willie Johnson wanted something, he got it. The problem was that at fourteen years of age, Mimi would never be able to understand the word no. No one had ever taught her the meaning of the word. Mimi didn’t understand why her father wasn’t giving her her way. He tried explaining that it was a better-quality education compared to the public schools.

  “I only want the best for you. I would spend my last dollar making sure you got the best. Do you understand, Mimi?” he said, with his hands snuggly wrapped around his young daughter’s shoulders.

  “Nooo,” she cried out, as tears ran down her face. “I don’t want to go, Dad. Please, I don’t want to,” cried Mimi.

  It was a performance deserving of an Oscar nomination, but it was a waste of time. What Willie wanted was for his daughter to be in a structured and disciplined environment, unlike the city public schools, where the kids ran wild. Them girls were pregnant and not dressing right as far as he was concerned. Shoot, the young girls were off the hook in his book. He didn’t care what it took or what it cost; he would spare every dime he had to make sure Mimi turned out a good and respectable girl. No matter what the cost, he wanted something better for Mimi. So, St. Agnes Patrick Catholic School for Girls is where Mimi would be and that was the end of it.

  Now his sons, they were a different story. He wanted them to be rough and rugged. He didn’t want no sissies for sons. He wanted them to come up the same way he did, the hard way. Secretly, he was grooming his sons from the start for the game. He wanted them to follow in his footsteps. So, he encouraged them, letting them watch while he counted his money and cut dope. He took them along while he made moves, exposing them to the street life.

  All this was unknown to Tina. She was too busy worrying about another woman near her children.

  “Where’d ya daddy take you today?” was the first question she asked when they came home. All she was ever concerned with was which slut’s house did their father take them to. She never in a million years would have thought they were watching their father conduct illegal drug activity. So, letting boys be boys, she turned them loose, knowing they couldn’t come home pregnant. It was Mimi who she reserved her rules and restrictions for. A clear double standard. Mimi couldn’t understand why she couldn’t do as her twin brothers did.

  As she grew up Mimi understood the importance of role-playing and she did it well. Mimi’s personality at home and school was like night and day. She was Miss Innocent around her mother and father, seemingly the perfect daughter, but Mimi was sneaky. Her act was for appearances only. At school, she was off the hook. Curious by nature, though not yet sexually active, young Mimi was ready to explore her body and the bodies of the opposite sex. Her womanly features were already bulging from beneath her school uniform.

  By the time high school rolled around, Mimi successfully managed to get thrown out of the all-girls Catholic School. Of course, she did it on purpose. A he-said-she-said incident sparked a fight between Mimi and a white girl, which lead to a mini race riot at the school. This forced her mother’s hand into letting her attend a public school, Edmonson High.

  Extremely pretty, Mimi had no problems finding attention. It followed her like a bad shadow. In school, she had already gotten a bad reputation. The boys considered her a dick teaser and so they teased her. Dick teaser was just one of the nicer labels they slapped on her. One boy even spread a rumor and told everyone that once while fondling her, he smelt his fingers and they smelled like fish. “Fish Market Mimi’ is what they called her behind her back.

  Mimi was frisky and experimental with boys. Even though she never let them go all the way, she did play the finger game, rubbing genitals and grinding real hard under bleachers, in school closets and once even in the boy’s locker room in a bathroom stall.

  Had her twin brothers known what was going on at school with their hot-in-the-pants little sister, they would have embarrassed her and fought all the guys trying to take advantage of her. They were fiercely protective of their little sister. The family name had to be upheld at all costs. Never would they let anybody disrespect those two things.

  Aspiring kingpins, with their father’s blessing, the twins dropped out of Edmonson and jumped headfirst into the game. They got put on their feet by their dad. He gave them two ounces of raw dope on consignment. He also made it perfectly clear this was a one-shot deal. Win, lose or draw they weren’t getting no more. The dope was the bomb, but raw was questionable. Put it like this, it was as raw as the ghetto got it.

  Tim Tim and Tommy hustled hard and quickly blew up. They were making a name for themselves as two money-making, no-nonsense brothers. But, the twins we
nt against the grain while doing their thing. Violating one of the game’s golden rules. Don’t shit where you eat. They hustled on their own block, defying conventional wisdom and this mistake would cost them dearly.

  None the wiser to her sons’ activities, Tina was too preoccupied with Mimi and work. The latter was a replacement for her love life. She chose to stay single. She wanted to set an example for her daughter. Tina had only been with one man in her entire life. She didn’t want to bring any strange men around Mimi. Working hard was one way she kept her sanity and fulfilled her vow to stay independent of all men. For too many years, she depended on Willie for her well-being, but never again, never again. Mimi bore the brunt of her mother’s newfound feminist attitude. Tina pushed Mimi to excel in school, so she’d always be independent of the opposite sex. Trying to make her something she would never be and wanting the best for Mimi. But, she went about it the wrong way. The more she pushed, the more Mimi pulled; simply rebelling against her.

  The streets were watching, because they always do. The twins were stepping on toes. Their dope was too good for their own good, knocking cats out the box. Late at night, when their shop closed, seemed to be the only time other hustlers could get a little money. On the block, animosity toward the twins was growing daily.

  The first of the month fell on a Friday. Business was booming, and as usual, the block was packed. To an innocent bystander, the long lines must have looked like a free cheese line. The twins were operating at full capacity, handling an excessive amount of money and dope. Running in and out, back and forth, to their stash house, the twins, their lieutenants and the workers attracted a lot of unwanted attention.

  Parked a half block away from the block sat a stolen hunter green Cherokee. Its passengers, two stick-up kids, were waiting patiently to mark the spot. All morning long they traced the twins’ steps. From the stash house to the alley where the sales were made, they watched. Having seen enough drug transactions for the day and satisfied that the money was right, the hunter green Cherokee drove away from the block. It was time to put the other part of their plan in effect.

  Stashed in secret compartments in the trunks of their cars, the twins had a little over $100,000 in cash. They always split up the money and took separate routes to Tim Tim’s condo in Owings Mills. The reason for this was just in case the police stopped them, the whole stash would never be taken. As clever as they thought they were, this precaution didn’t necessarily prevent them from being followed. They always drove straight home, never taking any detours to shake anybody that might be tailing them.

  Up until this point in the game, the twins had it pretty easy. Besides a few minor squabbles, the twins rolled with easy punches. They had yet to pay their dues, having never seen the flip side of the game. Robbery, kidnapping, extortion and murder were all a part of the drug game. The part plenty of hustlers never prepared for. Just as hard as the twins worked to make money, somebody was working extra hard to take it.

  The jingling of keys outside the apartment door alerted the two armed intruders of the twins’ arrival. Quietly positioned in the blind spot of the living room apartment, one had a 9mm Glock and the other had a Tech 9 assault weapon. Both were cocked and ready. Crouched on the side of the wall, guns drawn, they anxiously waited for the twins’ to enter the house to spring their trap.

  Lost in their thoughts, perhaps the twins hadn’t noticed the green hunter Jeep parked in one of their parking spots. The same hunter green Jeep they should have noted was up the block every day for the past two weeks.

  Whatever the case may have been, they unlocked the door and entered the condo. Tommy was the first to enter with his duffel bag. He was followed closely by Tim Tim who was carrying his. Tim Tim paused to lock the door while his brother walked past the kitchen into the living room. Out of nowhere and like a strike of lightning, Tommy was taken by surprise. Two figures appeared, and fear struck him like a scary movie as a stick-up kid pointed a gun at his head. The other stood gallantly pointing a gun to his brothers back. Turning around after locking the door, a startled Tim Tim uttered a curse, “Oh shit!”

  They had the drop on them and there was nothing the twins could do about it.

  “Alright, motherfuckers, y’all know what time it is! Don’t make this no motherfuckin’ homicide!” Moe, the wildest of the two, said. “Drop them bags right there and do it real slow. One wrong move and I’ll make both of y’all a statistic.”

  The twins did what they were told, both placing their bags where they were standing.

  “Now, put your hands high where I can see them. Both of y’all come over here and sit on the couch,” Moe said, waving his Tech 9 at both of them as they moved.

  Moe was an old pro at stick-up, and at times, he had an itchy trigger finger. Overly cautious, he’d seen a lot of stick-up kids get killed for being sloppy. He didn’t plan on adding his name to that list.

  “Hold up!” Moe said to his hat wearing partner. “Pat them niggas down and make sure they ain’t holdin’ no heat or stashing no dough.”

  Though he wore a baseball cap pulled tightly over his head, the twins still recognized him immediately. It was Dave. The same Dave who used to work for them, until they caught him stealing. After finding out, Tim Tim pistol-whipped him and made Dave walk home naked on the Baltimore/Washington Expressway.

  This other cat, Moe, was a mystery man to them. He was very hostile and the one calling the shots. Something else seriously troubled the twins. Why hadn’t they bothered to wear masks?

  With his eyes, Moe shot daggers at the twins trying to intimidate them. He watched closely as they were searched. Clutching his gun like a vise grip and paranoid, he wasn’t taking any chances. He knew that the twins were two dangerous dudes. Rumor had it they had a few bodies themselves.

  Before Dave busied himself with the task of patting down the twins, he handed Moe his gun. Careful not to walk in Moe’s line of fire, he began to pat down Tommy. They had rehearsed their parts well. However, Dave was weak, and it was beginning to show. He wouldn’t return the mean looks that the twins shot at him. He pretended not to see them. Even as powerless as they were, he still feared them. As he began to pat down Tim Tim, his hand ran across the butt of a small caliber gun. He pulled it out of Tim Tim’s groin. It was a small black .22. Without taking his eyes off the twins, he reached back and handed the .22 to Moe.

  “Y’all motherfuckers got anything else on ya I should know about? ‘Cause the next surprise like that, I’ll start blasting both y’all asses,” an angry Moe coldly stated.

  “Naw, dog, that’s it, yo,” Tommy said quickly, trying to keep the hot-headed Moe calm. He had a bad vibe about this dude.

  Dave emptied out their pockets, taking the couple G’s in petty cash they had between them. He then took their platinum link chains with matching zodiac pendants, two cell phones and their Frank Mueller watches. Stripped of all their valuables, Moe began questioning them.

  “Yo, how much loot in them bags?” he asked, directing his question to no one in particular. Without waiting for an answer he answered himself asking, “What sixty, seventy G’s?”

  Moe made a living taking money, but he never came upon anything as big as this sting. His eyes were used to seeing chump change. He was a petty robber, used to sticking up corner hustlers. Anybody with some common sense would have guessed higher. The fives, tens and twenties all bundled in the bag gave it an appearance that it was less than it was. Obviously, only to Moe.

  The twins merely nodded their heads at any amount of money he suggested, not wanting to help him out at all. Never receiving a clear-cut answer, Moe went along with them.

  “Damn, y’all niggas getting money, huh?” he asked, sounding like Juvey. Then he flipped the script. “Now, where’s the rest of it at?” To show them he meant business, he put the barrel of the gun to Tim Tim’s temple. “Motherfucker, I know y’all got a nice fat stash. I want that too!”

  What the fuck is he doing? I came here to get this paper and
that’s it. Now this greedy motherfucker on some other shit, Dave thought to himself, as he looked over at Moe wondering what was going on. Other than being a coward, Dave’s problem was he thought too small.

  “Yo, we ain’t holding like that. That shit is a rumor. You know how niggas talk,” Tim Tim said. He was lying, trying to throw them off, but Moe wasn’t going for it. He knew better. He had been watching them for weeks. Moe was on a mission and he’d come too far to leave with just this. He never had big money in his life. Now that he stumbled across some major players, he wanted it all. He was prepared to kill for it. Moe had killed many a man for much less.

  Before another lie could fly out of Tim Tim’s mouth, Moe quickly raised his gun, striking him hard with the butt. The blow was so severe, it knocked out a tooth. Blood poured from Tim Tim’s mouth to the carpet. Instinctively, Tommy took a step toward Moe, trying to protect his brother. Moe reacted by taking a half step backward and aiming the gun in his direction.

  “Yeah, nigga, I wish you would. Gimme a reason to send ya to ya maker. Motherfucker, take another step. I dare you!” Moe said.

  Realizing he was in a no-win situation, Tommy declined to take him up on his offer, even though Moe was bluffing. He couldn’t kill either one of them until they told him what he needed to know: where the stash was.

  “Now, I’m going to give y’all one more chance, yo. Try to play me like I’m dumb again and y’all both dead. I’ma count to three and by the time I get there, one of y’all better be telling me what I wanna know. Or I’ll kill one of you, while the other watches,” said Moe feeling undoubted about what he was prepared to do.

  “One!” he said, slowly starting the countdown.

  Tommy’s mind was racing, his heart pounding fast. This is it, he thought. His brother could be so stubborn at times but now wasn’t the time to be. However, if Tim Tim didn’t tell him where the stash was, then neither would be. Tommy was willing to ride or die for his brother. Born together, die together, if need be.