Mad Maxxx

by T. Styles

  Although I wasn’t scared of him, I also knew The Catacombs had rules. And one of them was no fighting or stealing from another because you could be voted out. And since I had no place else to go my hands were tied.

  “What do you want anyway,” WB asked Wicked interrupting his gaze on me. “You came in here for a reason.”

  He rubbed his baldhead, gave me another look and said, “Like I said I want to talk to Gage alone.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you, Wicked,” she sighed. She stood up and walked away from him. “I told you that when you asked me earlier.”

  “Gage, you can’t keep ignoring me and shit,” he yelled. “How much longer do you think I’m gonna take it before I snap? We were together for years. The least you can do is hear me out. It’s been months and you still mad over some dead bitch I fucked once.”

  “That’s just it, you think that’s okay, and that’s why I’m done with you,” she responded. “Anyway I don’t love you no more. Move on Wicked. I have.”

  Wicked grabbed his dick. “Gage, you gonna make me blow.”

  “Just leave her alone,” Spirit yelled.

  Wicked laughed. “So you think just cause I’m not fucking her no more that she’ll want you? She’ll never want you, slim. She had a real man when I was with her and she will never forget it. Besides you too weak.”

  “She don’t want to talk, Wicked, so bounce,” I finally said while still sitting in my seat.

  He looked down at me and I stood up. We were staring directly into each other’s eyes.

  “Wicked, let’s go,” Daze, who was nicknamed for his constant high appearance said as he stood in the doorway. “She doesn’t want to talk.”

  Daze was the leader of The Catacombs, until everyone divided after Rose Midland was murdered. Some people blamed Wicked and some blamed me. Those who took Wicked’s side moved to the West Wing, and those who stood by me stayed in The East.

  When Wicked didn’t move Daze and Killer pulled him softly by the hand until he snatched away from them. Daze’s dark skin was gray, from all of the heroin he shot up. And Killer’s light skin was starting to look brown from all of the dope she did.

  “Give me a second,” Wicked said. He looked at me and said, “I’m sorry I came at you like that, Mad. I mean, you don’t understand, these were my friends before the stuff at the building tore us apart.”

  His apology was so fake it didn’t warrant a response.

  “Anyway, I miss ya’ll,” Wicked said to them. “I would give my life for each one of you. I was hoping that we could start all over, if ya’ll wanted to.”

  Wicked wanted power and he was willing to do anything he could to get it.

  “I’m gonna be honest, we not feeling that right now, Wicked,” WB said cracking his knuckles. “You gotta check us later on the reconciliation thing.”

  He frowned. “It’s been almost a year. How much longer you gonna hold that shit against me? I made a mistake by bringing the girl to the building. But how was I to know that she was going to be murdered and Mad was going to be framed for it?”

  As he hung in the doorway, Nic from across the way pushed metal slabs and a few bags of groceries in his shopping cart toward his cubby. Now everybody was focused on him instead of Wicked.

  “I’m letting everybody know right now that they better not come in my cubby for shit,” he yelled with a screw face. “I’m gonna stay to myself for now, just like the fuck ya’ll better stay to your own. Got that dog shitting in my cubby. Thinking shit is a joke. Stay the fuck away from me. All of you!”

  We all walked out of Spirit’s cubby and stared at Nic. “Fuck is wrong with you, Nic?” Spirit asked.

  “You know what the fuck is wrong. Every time I needed something all ya’ll did was look out for each other and ignore me. Nobody ever bothered to stop me and ask me if I wanted a drink, or something to eat. But now I got a job and I don’t need nobody.

  “You better be careful.” Wicked said. He looked like he wanted to murder him. “You pushing your luck.”

  “Fuck luck! Look where we live! In a tomb!”

  Nic was always bringing up shit niggas forgot about months ago. Like the time he asked Gage if he could fuck her in The Dump, and she slapped him in the eye. Whenever he would see her after that he would say, “That wasn’t right that you slapped me, Gage. Wasn’t right at all.” He promised to get back at her, which is why she never walked anywhere in The Catacombs without one of us.

  Then there was the time Nic was playing Chess with Old Man Young, and Fierce accidently knocked the board over when he was watching the game due to having a seizure. Although they picked up the pieces after the seizure, and agreed on where the pieces went before playing, Nic still blamed both of them when he lost. Since the game was being played for beer, he swore Old Man Young and Fierce were in cahoots and promised to get back at them.

  He did too because a few days later, somebody put piss in Old Man Young’s chili that he was making in his crock-pot and Fierce couldn’t find his inhaler, after suffering a serious asthma attack. Everybody knew Nic was involved but figured if they just ignored him, he’d go away. But he never did.

  Nic stayed up all night hammering into the walls and building his wooden and metal doors that he promised. If he had so much money I don’t understand why he wouldn’t just leave and get a real apartment up top. It wasn’t like we wanted him here anyway. Maybe he was institutionalized like Old Man Young said happened to prisoners after being in jail so long. Maybe leaving The Catacombs wasn’t in him.

  Later on that night I was sleeping in the makeshift bed in Gage’s cubby in the East Wing when I realized I was sweating. I stayed with her because when she broke up with Wicked a year back, she had the extra space for me. When I smelled the strong scent of cooked meat and smoke I hopped up.

  “Gage, get up,” I said pushing her arm roughly. She was in her bed, still asleep. I coughed a few times to clear my lungs. “Get the fuck up, something is wrong!”

  “What’s going on?” she asked me. She hacked a few times too.

  “I think something is on fire. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  When we rushed out of the cubby and looked down, we heard screaming and yelling throughout the tunnel. Down the way, through the smoke, I saw Spirit standing in the front of Nic’s cubby and I wondered what was up. It wasn’t until I rushed up to the scene that I learned what was happening.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Spirit, as I coughed some more.

  “Somebody set Nic on fire. I think he may be dead.”

  CHAPTER 3

  WICKED

  Wicked stomped into his cubby in the West Wing with Daze and Killer following him. After Wicked murdered Nic by dousing his cubby with lighter fluid and throwing a match, Daze caught up with him and forced him down to the West Wing.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Daze yelled approaching Wicked. “Do you realize you just killed a member of The Catacombs, which goes against the law down here? You could be forced out. Is that what you want?”

  “You don’t understand,” Wicked said pacing the small place in front of him. “He kept fucking with us, and kept taunting me”— he rubbed his baldhead roughly— “didn’t you hear him? I mean if he had a job and money why he wanna stay down here? Why not go up top and live with them?”

  Killer, in a soft voice, approached Wicked. “We all know that, that isn’t the reason you killed him,” she said. “You killed him because you’re angry with Mad. But I’m here to say that you’re playing yourself.”

  Wicked’s eyes lowered. “And if I did do it because that bitch fucked with my head so what?”

  “That’s not the way you handle things, Wicked,” she responded. “You know you can’t survive up top. You have too many things on your police record just like we do. You want federal time?”

  “But why does she have to be here?” Wicked yelled, throwing his hands up in the air. He acted like a spoiled brat instead of a twenty something year old
man. “And why is Gage, WB, Fierce and Spirit always taking her side?”— He placed his hand over his heart— “After all of the things I did for them? It was me who got the medicines when Fierce had his asthma attacks, seizures and strokes. Me, not that dyke”— he beat his chest— “I risked my life robbing them pharmacies. And this is how they pay me? With disloyalty? I run this fucking group and its high time I remind them!”

  Daze stepped back after Wicked’s proclamation. Because although it was widely whispered that Wicked was really in charge of their small network of friends, everyone knew that Daze was officially supposed to be in charge.

  “I run this group, Wicked,” Daze said firmly. “Not you!”

  “Well run it then,” he responded walking away. He slumped down on the only gray chair in his room, and placed his face in his hands. “I just…I just don’t know anymore what’s going on with us. I want Gage to understand I made a mistake. That’s all.”

  Daze tried to bite his tongue but the disrespect he felt at the moment for his friend was blinding him. So his girlfriend, always the faithful chick, stepped up.

  “If you want Mad gone you have to take another approach,” Killer said rubbing Wicked’s head softly. “You don’t make her out to be a martyr by fussing at her every chance you get. She has a hot temper. Help her hang herself.”

  “But what about Gage? I was with her for years, and now she won’t even talk to me. It’s like Mad got her hypnotized. It’s like she has all of them hypnotized, and I can’t get through to them.”

  “You need to let Gage go,” Killer responded.

  “I will never let her go,” he yelled. “Do you hear me?” His response was so intense that both of them backed up.

  “Then act like you’ve let her go at least,” Daze responded. “Show interest in someone else in The Catacombs. If Gage is really for you, she’ll come around.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Unless you think Mad is competition,” Killer said slyly.

  “That chick still ain’t no competition for me,” Wicked replied. “I don’t care what rubber dick she wearing between her legs.”

  “Well then prove it,” Daze added. “Back off and let Gage come to you.”

  CHAPTER 4

  MAD

  Me, Spirit, Gage and WB were sitting on a couch with no cushion in Old Man Young’s cubby. He slept on the couch at night, but preferred to sit on pillows on the floor like he was now. His crib wasn’t the most comfortable place to be, but that wasn’t why people came. He knew how to tell a fucking story.

  Since Nic died somebody stole a package of dope out of Spirit’s cubicle, and the gang was trying to cheer him up.

  WB sold his CD’s to make it nice so he bought us a pizza, and Old Man Young a cheese steak and a Pepsi. For a sandwich he would tell some of the best stories you ever heard in your life, better than anything you could ever see or hear on TV. None of us had been to sleep after Nic was set on fire, so we needed this. Although niggas were mums the word about the burning, most of us knew who lit the match—Wicked. But there was no use in pointing fingers either. Truth was The Catacombs was better with Nic gone anyway, but I couldn’t help but wonder if Wicked thought he was more powerful now since he wasn’t challenged and got away with it. Even down this nasty mothafucka there are politics.

  After we scraped Nic’s burnt body out of his cubby, we took him out North exit to The Pit. I can’t give you a count, but I know a lot of members from The Catacombs were buried there. It’s the only way to get rid of bodies, unless you want the cops coming down here asking questions. We handle our own dead. But lately even outside of Nic, strange bodies had been ending up in The Catacombs. Who were they? Where did they come from? Maybe Wicked was doing that shit too.

  Sitting Indian style on the floor after eating his sandwich Old Man Young said, “I use to deal with this woman in Spartanburg, South Carolina.”

  That’s how he started all of his stories. No introduction or anything. He just got straight down to it.

  “She was as small as a pole with no muscles anywhere on her body. She didn’t have a single tooth in her mouth either. She would eat big meals and throw up in the toilet or out of her bathroom window, thinking I didn’t know about it. Breath reeked higher than all of the West Wingers put together. Well one day…”

  I didn’t hear him anymore because Gage was running her hand up the middle of my back. Her warm fingers traveled along the grooves of my muscles, and I stood up because she was making me want to fuck.

  Gage was a good person, the kind of person you liked to be around because she’s always looking out for your well being. But, I don’t look at her like that. I never have, and never will. It seemed like sooner or later one of my friends were always trying to fuck me.

  Sugar, who was a good friend of mine back in the day, wanted something from me I couldn’t give her either. The foulest part is that she was the one who told me my mother died and I never got to tell her how pretty she looked. Or how happy I was for her and my homie Krazy K who she eventually got up with. I never saw her again. I’m not gonna make the same mistake by making Gage think that there can be anything else between us.

  “Why you standing up?” Fierce asked me after coughing a few times. He was always sick but I guess living down here ain’t good for nobody’s lungs.

  I reached into my pocket and handed Fierce his inhaler. He never carried it and I always worried about him so I held onto it for him when I wasn’t drunk or could remember.

  “Thanks, man,” he said taking a pull. “But where you going?”

  “I’m about to go out to The Pit”— I looked down at Gage who was smiling up at me— “I’ll be back.”

  “But you never leave on one of Old Man Young’s stories,” Spirit said. “You once said he was the highlight of The Catacombs. What you got an extra bottle on you or something?”

  “Come on, son,” I told him. “If I got something ya’ll got something too. You know that.”

  “True,” Gage said, standing up. “Well if you’re leaving we’re coming with you.”

  I tried to hide my irritation, but sometimes you just want to be alone. I got the impression that they thought by playing me close, I wouldn’t walk out of the tunnel. I can tell they really don’t know me that well. Because when I’m ready to bounce there won’t be shit anybody could do to stop me.

  “You youngins go on ahead,” Old Man Young said to them. “I want to talk to Mad alone for a minute.” They all walked out of the cub, and for some reason he laid into me like he was my father. “You got a lot of work to do, Mad.”

  I frowned. “Fuck you talking about?”

  I bent down and brushed the piece of dirt that popped up on my sneakers. Maybe out of nervousness. I hated when people said they wanted to talk to me. Although I live down here, there will be one thing that always stays fresh on me, and that’s my shoes.

  “You are misguided right now, Mad.” He stood up.

  “If you talking about the back rubbing thing you gotta rap to Gage, because that was all her and not me.”

  “I’m not talking about Gage. What I’m talking about is much deeper, young man. You don’t belong here, and you gotta leave and find out what’s holding you back from your destiny.”

  “How you come out the blue and talk to me ‘bout my life? You don’t know shit about me. I barely even talk to people in here ‘bout my life. And if I do get to talking you won’t be in the room.”

  “I’ve been around a long time. I’m just giving you my advice. If you don’t take it now you’re going to need it later. So you should respect me.”

  I laughed. “Why I gotta respect you? Just cause you old? All my life the only thing older people did was give me a hard time. Now you good with the stories and all. But you better stick to the stories about your own life and leave mine out of it.”

  I walked out.

  ****

  The fire in The Pit was extra hot tonight, and caused my face to moisten. Spirit was
talking to Fierce about fucking some chick out West and I knew he was lying so I thought the shit was funny. With all the liquor and the good convo flowing around The Pit, the only thing I was thinking about was Cassius and what Old Man Young said about not belonging here. I wanted to be with my son more than I wanted anything else in the world, but it’s out of my hands right now. I’m wanted for murder.

  As I watched Fierce who didn’t look well walk away Gage approached me. “Why do you keep fighting me?” she was drunk off of the cheap vodka that was floating around.

  “I’m not fighting you,” I said stepping away a little.

  “You hate me don’t you,” Gage said sadly. She only had one earring on, and she was going to be mad as hell in the morning if she couldn’t find the other hoop.

  I continued to look into the fire. “How can I be mad at you? You didn’t do shit to me.”

  “Your name is Mad,” she giggled, “so it should be easy for you to be angry. Come on. Stop fighting. All I’m trying to do is get to know you.”

  “All you trying to do is get your mind off of Wicked by using me. I’m not second prize. I fuck with you tough shawty but that ain’t me.”

  She exhaled so hard it looked as if she was about to blow the fire out. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

  Damn I wish she would sit her drunk ass down somewhere.

  “Look, I’m sorry about earlier,” she continued. “You know, when I put my hand on you at Old Man Young’s. But you looked like you had something on your mind, and I wanted to cheer you up a little. If you let me I can make your entire body tremble.”