Shorty Gotta Be Grown

by T. C. Littles

  When I was a few months into being a terrorist, Calvin crossed my path. He thought he was using me to his advantage in the streets, yet I was using him to some degree. The dough I made grinding kept me from stealing, moved my notches of respect up, and even had me sitting on a bankroll of cash stashed. As thankful as I was to him for helping me off my knuckles, I couldn’t help but bang his daughter off with good dick. There was something about my ego that could never be controlled. That was probably why me and Porsha kept bumping heads.

  To some degree, I owed her dad for breeding me to become the man I claimed to be today. Yet and still, I was a muthafuckin’ monster at heart. I ain’t have no qualms about biting the hand that fed me. That was why I’d so easily concocted the plan to pass off Calvin’s product as my own on the east, open up a trap house independent from him, and then have his daughter steal my needed supply from underneath his nose. You can’t turn no field rat into a pet.

  “What up, nigga? What’chu doing back on the block? I thought you and shorty got a room,” Pete Rock questioned as soon as I pulled up on him and some random chick I’d seen him around the hood with.

  “I hit that off then dropped her off.” I spared him all the details, not in the mood for his opinions on my and Porsha’s relationship. Pete was my manz and all, but he didn’t need to know why Porsha was so appealing to me.

  He cut into me with them anyway. “That nigga Cal gonna have his right-hand goon cut ya dick off if he doesn’t put a bullet in ya hard-headed ass himself. You might as well tell a nigga which casket you wanna get buried in for fuckin’ with that old man’s daughter.” Pete Rock stated what I already knew but wasn’t trying to hear, especially since I’d just heard an earful of threats from his daughter. I was starting to have a love-hate relationship with the Jackson family.

  “What Cal doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” I shrugged Pete’s comments off. “I thought we agreed upon that.” I spoke in code, reminding him of our side business on the east.

  He chuckled. “Yeah, nigga! Whatever! I see you using that shit when it’s convenient, but it’s all good. I ain’t stickin’ with ya dick, so let me get up outta ya business.”

  “That’s more like it. I fuck my hoes, you fuck yo’ hoes, then we meet in the middle to handle business.” I reminded him about how we needed to operate while throwing a cheap line at ol’ girl.

  He chuckled again, then took another sip of his beer. “Brodie, my nigga, you can say what you wanna say to and about this broad. I ain’t her man or protector. I’m her employer. I paid her for some pussy.”

  I burst out laughing. Ol’ girl, however, turned her face up like she was ready to cry. She had better get some thick skin if she’s going to be out here thotting. I kept my advice to myself, however. She wasn’t no family of mine to care about.

  “Dog, you nutty as hell, but whatever. What’s popping ’round here?” I questioned to get an honest reaction out of Pete before I relayed Calvin’s message. I didn’t want him thinking too deeply into what he might’ve seen or the normal bumps of the night.

  “Shit, I can’t call it, but it’s been slow motion since I got back from the east. Muthafuckas probably still at the cab partying and bullshitting,” he said.

  “Probably so, but they should be ’bout to flood back to the hood in a minute. Cal called not that long ago and said somebody started shooting. They shut the cab down, of course.”

  “Bet nobody come on the block with that madness! I know that much! My heater stay with one in the chamber while it’s on my hip, you cocksuckers,” Pete Rock yelled out into the night to no one while pounding on his chest with one fist. Pete was in rare form with his behavior, the exact reason why I watched him with one eye almost all the time. If he wasn’t popping pills, he was simply acting crazy ’cause normal wasn’t in his blood.

  Me and Pete Rock had been friends for years. In elementary school, we ran the playground together and refused to do homework, do chores, or mind our manners when it came to respecting elders. When my fed-up moms set me out, he was the only cat who had my back with what little scraps he was tossed per month by his moms. We were rebels, the best type of hustlers. Our bloodlines were where we differed. My mom drank like a fish, and his mom hit the pipe like she was a welder.

  Word on the street was that he was conceived and born off the rock. Although I never cut into him sideways about it, because it wasn’t my business, a part of me believed the story because he always showed signs of being kind of slow. If it weren’t for me leading the way and bringing him aboard ship to hustle, he probably would’ve been addicted to the other side of the game like his mom. Regardless of all that, though, Pete had always been one hundred with me and loyal to what we called a friendship, so far, anyway. That was why I’d pulled him in on my plan.

  “Yo, Pete, chill the hell out. You can save all that energy for if and when the opportunity presents itself. ’Til then, finish up with ya girl, then meet me in the trap.” I gave him his orders, then whipped into the driveway and straight into the garage.

  Calvin had his house decked the hell out before he moved to what we all joked was the mansion of the hood. Hate it or not, no families were doing it like the Jacksons. They weren’t The Cosby Show parents, Trinity and Calvin, but they were two parents still together, raising their kids. If Calvin had taken me in as a son instead of putting me out on the streets, I wouldn’t be a beast, turning on him like every other young nigga in the hood was plotting on doing.

  Moving throughout the trap, I stashed all the product but a few baggies in a secret spot in the attic ceiling that only me, Pete, and Calvin knew of. The ones I left out were in plain sight and underneath the kitchen sink cabinet. That way, if someone did run in, they’d at least be pacified with a small lick versus nothing at all. In order to survive in the game, ya gotta be able to efficiently think on ya toes. I was always trying to outthink a muthafucka.

  Pete had come in and secured the side and back doors with two-by-four wooden slabs. A muthafucka wasn’t gonna run in on us without us knowing. If they did, they’d catch bullets galore because every dirty pistol up in here was loaded and ready for firing. On any given day, on guard or not, we kept guns stashed in various places so we’d never get crept on without having a weapon nearby. I’d come from nothing and wasn’t letting a cat as hungry as I was take me down.

  “What happened to ol’ girl?” I questioned Pete as soon as we’d gotten done taking care of business.

  “I sent her on her merry way. It ain’t take me but a minute.” He clowned himself but didn’t care. “That’s why I only paid her ass ten bucks.”

  I laughed. “You a fool, Pete.”

  “Hell yeah, but fuck it.” Plopping down on the couch, he tossed me one of the Xbox controllers. “Let me win a ten off you real quick so I can call her ass back. Square up on dis Madden.”

  CHAPTER 15

  CALVIN

  As soon as Fame hopped from the back seat to go in his house, I reversed from his backyard, going off on Trinity again. Did she have a legitimate reason for being upset with me? Yes. Had I been disloyal to her by breaking the vows of our marriage? Yes. Should me and shorty I’d stepped out with still be catching heat behind our li’l affair although I’d apologized time and time again? Yeah, I could be a man and admit that as well. A woman scorned ain’t never a woman you should try reasoning with, especially when you’re the one who caused her heart to ache in the first place. Yet and still, Trinity had chosen a bad time to retaliate.

  “Trin, I can’t believe you let that insignificant-ass bitch cloud your judgment.”

  “Calvin, sweetheart, you’re not in the position to tell me about my judgment calls,” she sarcastically replied. “My bad, because you said y’all was in the middle of a shootout or whatever, but you’re not getting any more sympathy than that. So please, please, please stop talking to me,” she huffed, threw her hand up, and then got back to rolling up a blunt. “We need to be focused on who was shooting and why. Real talk, yeah,
focus on that.”

  As she antagonized me with a condescending voice, I was itching to pull over and hash it out with my wife, as physical or critical as it might get. Her mouth, although I loved it wrapped around my meat, was too damn vicious at times. It was a great weapon when working against others, but it worked as the force that drove me crazy at the same time.

  “Yeah, lemme take yo’ advice before I catch a domestic violence case and beat on you like Spade did that girl Jakia.”

  “Uh-huh, whatever. I know you must be coming down off yo’ high and can’t function to be talking that asinine bullshit to me, Calvin Jackson. Spade wouldn’t have lived through the first night if I had been wearing that poor girl’s shoes. I love you, but that’s that Graveyard Love drama that T.C. Littles writes about. Believe it, and I’m sure you already know it. Let me hurry up and roll this weed up so you can hit it and get ya mind right.”

  Ring, ring.

  “Let that be that ho calling you, and I swear before my Lord, you’re gonna drive this vehicle straight to her house,” Trinity threatened, getting hyped in her seat.

  I was infuriated by my wife’s performance tonight. She could have been the government’s special weapon in a war, I was sure. She was going hard, but for nothing. “Chill yo’ terrorist ass the hell out. That bitch ain’t called me since you knocked her teeth down her throat, so you wasting all yo’ energy for nothing. I keep telling your silly ass that. It’s Fame.”

  “Oh,” she responded nonchalantly, then waved me off with her hand. “Then answer it and leave me alone.” Trinity seldom admitted when she was wrong.

  Knowing I wasn’t going to win the battle with my wife, I rubbed my face, trying to gain my composure, then answered Fame’s call. “What up?”

  “Yo, that nigga Mack ain’t make it. I just got the call a minute ago that the ambulance showed up, but he was pronounced dead before they pulled off. Solider had a son.” Fame sounded distraught. “Man, shit is hot out here, so I gotta turn the heat up on my end to make sure I stay living.” In the same breath, he was back on some street survival shit.

  “I heard that, and I’m with that, but I’ma have to get Trin to hook up a li’l care package for his girl and their li’l one regardless.” I heard Trinity smack her lips in the background, being real merciless. I shook my head at her like damn, then tuned back into Fame.

  “That’ll be what’s up. I’ma have my baby momma slide through here real quick and shoot me over there to tell his girl what went down. I know she probably heard the 411 by now, but she needs to know that her nigga was murdered on purpose. Whoever was in the back seat of that Trailblazer whipped out and blasted Mack directly. His murder was intentional.”

  “A’ight, holla at me when you leave from over there. As you know, Street is already on guard, so the trap is good. Plus, he got his ear open to anyone talking like they know something.” I reminded him of the conversation he’d listened in on from the back seat. After Trinity got off the phone calling Porsha, I’d gotten in touch with my crew.

  “Fa’sho. We gonna stay good. I’ll get at you. If not tonight, in the morning. Peace,” he said, and then we ended the call.

  It had been a minute since a life from the hood had been claimed. Something in the pit of my stomach told me his was about to be the first of many this summer. That unsettling feeling didn’t get to linger for long, though. As soon as I set my phone in the cup holder, Trinity snatched it back out, ready for round three of our argument.

  “There better not be one call, text message, correspondence, or picture of anything I didn’t approve of, Calvin.”

  “And if there is?” I taunted her.

  “Let’s just say Mack won’t be the only nigga getting carried by six other niggas in a few days.”

  PORSHA

  “Imani, hurry up and open the door! I’m here,” I shouted into the speaker of my phone, then hung it up.

  Since Street pulled off, leaving me in the dark and not even making sure I made it home safely by lurking a safe distance behind me, I’d been running like the force was with me all the way home. For one, I needed to beat my parents, and for two, I couldn’t get caught on these dark Detroit streets alone. As tough as I thought I was, or Trinity and Calvin actually were, none of their strength or hood cred would matter if I was snatched up by a menacing muthafucka unknowingly. I knew better than to be out here this late without a nigga by my side. But for some reason tonight, I’d been acting all out of character, even before losing my V-card.

  Not missing a step and managing not to trip over my feet, I made it up to my porch and through the front door, almost running Imani down, trying to get up the steps. My dad’s headlights had turned onto our street when I was just getting on the porch, but he was two blocks down. I knew it was him because of the blaring rap music. My mom and Calvin rode the same way.

  “Hurry up, Porsha.” Imani was panicking.

  “Uh, duh! What do you think I’m doing? Is Benzie in his room asleep? Is there anything I need to know about?” I questioned her real fast.

  “Naw, other than a few people knocked and whistled up here for somebody to serve them. They left after a few minutes.”

  “Cool.” I was glad nothing happened. Meaning there was nothing for me to tell Trinity and Calvin.

  Ring, ring, ring.

  My phone was vibrating across the floor. It was my mom. I knew she was gonna be yelling for me to open the door, but I couldn’t until I was out of these smelly-ass clothes. Not only did I smell like weed because we’d been smoking in his car, which already smelled like an ashtray, but I also smelled like like open ass and sex. Not having time to wash my coochie or body, I used a few of Benzie’s baby wipes, hoping the powder-fresh scent was enough to mask my unpleasant odor for now. Once my parents were tucked away in their room, hopefully having a drunken lovemaking session of their own, I could take a shower. The only good thing was that I could still smell Street’s cologne on me. The quick thought of him made me hope he wasn’t still acting like a crab.

  “Imani, put these in the bag of clothes I gave you and tie it back up tight,” I told her, then tossed my cum-soiled shorts and shirt her way. “I’ll get them back before you go home.”

  She looked like she didn’t want to take them, but grabbed them anyway. “You’re lucky—”

  “And you’re lucky I gave you my hand-me-downs. Please don’t try it,” I snapped at her, even though there wasn’t a real reason to. Not only was I in a rush, but I was also caught up in my feelings about how Street was suddenly acting. Imani had not done anything but do me a favor by staying here while I was out being hot. She was catching it simply because I’d caught it, fair or not.

  Tonight was all of a sudden on fast forward, but I needed time to slow down so I could get my mind right and process everything. Finally grabbing my phone, I answered before the call went to voicemail. I was sure Trinity would be coming through the phone if that happened.

  “I know you hear us outside honking, and I know I called ya ass twenty minutes ago saying be up and at the door,” she went off on me before I said hello. “Did you think I was playing?”

  “Naw, Ma. I know you weren’t playing, and I’m coming. I had to pee real bad and didn’t want to open the trap back up,” I lied, rushing toward the front and back down the steps.

  “Then you should’ve squatted on the porch. When I say do something, find a way to make sure it’s done. Now please, open up the damn door,” she barked, then hung up. Even when using the word “please,” Trinity wasn’t asking nicely.

  CHAPTER 16

  STREET

  The block was banging hella hard since the shootout shut the cabaret down. People weren’t ready to stop partying just because Mack’s body got riddled with bullets. Matter of fact, me and my team were slanging baggies left and right quicker than we did on a regular night. We mourned every nigga from the hood the exact same: we’d drink, build liquor-bottle memorials wherever the body dropped, and shoot for the stars while gett
ing high so we could kick it with our homies in the clouds one last time. What we didn’t do was sit still dwelling over what another man’s struggle was.

  Mack wasn’t necessarily hated or loved. He didn’t slang extra-strong weed or some type of magical fairy dust none of us couldn’t get our hands on. He was just a young nigga from the hood who was always in the middle of something. I didn’t run with the lame, so I didn’t care one way or another about his death. What I did care about, however, was knowing who took Mack’s life. I needed to know who was out here murdering muthafuckas to make sure I wasn’t next on the list.

  Shortly after me and Pete secured the trap and the product that was stashed inside, we’d joined the block party in our own ways. It was a little after two in the morning. I might’ve been among the hood, but my eyes stayed open to anything out of the ordinary. Wasn’t nothing going on but the same ol’ same, though. Cars had their radios synced and blasting the same tunes, the drunken dances were taking place, and I smelled nothing but drugs in the air. Even the hot young girls with no parental supervision who’d been too young to attend the cabaret were trotting around looking for trouble. It was too late for Porsha to be around here even if she could have been, but Imani . . . yeah, I was missing her cute and shy self. She always found a reason to be outside in my view when I was serving fiends late at night.

  Whereas I was on the porch smoking the blunt Porsha snuck from her mom’s stash, Pete Rock was out front being a hypocrite, being entertained by a group of young and tenders. For him to have so many jokes about me fuckin’ around with Porsha, he sho’ looked thirsty enough to drink from the fountain of youth too. All but one of the shorties dancing around Pete went to school a little more infrequently than li’l P did.