by T. N. Baker
“All right, kid. Good for you. Just stay out of trouble,” the officer said, heading toward the building as he spotted the K-9 unit pulling up.
Oh, shit, Ness thought as he opened his car door in a hurry, jumped in, and pulled off immediately before the dogs caught a whiff of what was really in the bag. Sweating bullets, he knew how close he had come to getting knocked. He started to laugh, thinking about how well he played that pig.
“Ahhh, fuck!” Ness yelled, remembering what he had left behind. “Damn, why I ain’t take the fucking money?” Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, he dialed C’s cell.
C-God saw Ness’s number come up on the phone and picked up, beefing, “You’s a stupid muthafucka. Why the fuck is you calling me from your cell, nigga?”
“Yo, C, I know, but—”
“No, nigga, obviously you don’t know! Go find a fucking payphone and–nah, you know what? Fuck all that. Just bring my shit to me,” he said with such authority in his disrespectful tone before hanging up.
“Fuck you, nigga! You ain’t got your shit,” Ness yelled as he threw his phone in the passenger’s seat.
“I ain’t giving that nigga shit.” He had a plan, and C-God was going to have no choice but to step down for Ness’s takeover or else he would die.
Ness’s plan was simple: set up shop with the bricks and flip the profit. It would take some careful planning, but Ness had the overall scheme ready. He didn’t really know much about pushing weight, but Smitty did. Now all he needed was a few soldiers behind him, just in case C-God tried to get at him. Ness remembered the wild stories from back in the days about the fear C-God pumped into nigga’s hearts, but for the past few years, he’d been rolling with him, and all he had witnessed was his sharp-ass tongue. It was Mike who always pulled the trigger for him, and he had been dismissed.
So, what next? Ness thought. After watching C-God get weak over a broad, Ness no longer respected his gangsta. Of course, he wasn’t gon’ straight sleep on the nigga neither, because it was always better to be safe than sorry. Establishing a squad that was ready for war was first on his list of things to do, you know, just to be on the safe side of the fence.
Ness stopped at a payphone and called C back.
“Yo, who this?” C answered his cell on the third ring.
“Yo, man, it’s Ness. Listen, I ain’t got your shit, dawg. I went to the crib and the feds was all over the place. They had dogs and all types of shit, so a nigga just kept going.”
“Yo, what the fuck? Did they get in my crib?” C-God asked.
“They was running up in the building, I ain’t even get out the car. All I seen was police rolling deep and I got the fuck up out the area.”
“So, yo, wait a little while, go scoop up Reg, then go back over there and check that shit out. It might not even be my spot they hit,” C-God ordered.
“Nah, dawg. I ain’t going back over there,” Ness said.
“What the fuck you mean, you ain’t going back over there?”
“Yo, son, check this out. If they ran up in your shit, then nine times out of ten they still there, or they watching it, and I ain’t getting caught up in that, dawg,” Ness said standing his ground and refusing to let C-God punk him.
“Yo, you bitch-ass nigga, what the fu—” Before C-God could finish his verbal lashing, the payphone operator asked for five more cents for the next two minutes, and Ness hung up.
He got back in his hooptie and fumbled through the armrest for some sounds. Music was always his motivation. He was excited about his chance to finally make some real dough. Finding a tape, he popped it in and turned up the volume.
“First you get the money, then you get the muthafuckin’ power. After you get the fuckin’ power, muthafuckas will respect you.”
Ness had one more important phone call to make.
“Yo, we on, nigga. We working with ten of them things, nigga, and shit look sweet too!” Ness didn’t need to go into details. His partner knew exactly how it was going down.
“That’s what’s up! So, yo, let’s get up in a little while and get this shit popping, a’ight?” asked Smitty.
“Sounds like a plan,” Ness responded as they abided by one of the most important rules in the drug game: Watch what you say over the phone, and keep it short.
CHAPTER 7
It was shortly after seven a.m. when Mrs. Wright got over the initial shock of someone trying to murder her daughter. She didn’t feel up to it, but she knew it was necessary to call the family and Epiphany’s closest friends. Of course, as far as friends went, Keisha was number one, and then came Shana, who she was unable to reach.
When Mrs. Wright broke the news to Keisha, she was devastated. After some encouraging words about Epiphany’s condition and the doctor’s reassurance that she would pull through this, Keisha managed to calm down long enough to get the details on what they believed had happened. Mrs. Wright questioned her about the guy who was murdered while visiting Epiphany, but she couldn’t remember his name, and Keisha couldn’t offer much help.
“Keisha, you are the closest friend Epiphany has. You two are like sisters. I am her mother, so she tells me nothing, and if I do hear anything, I hear it from the streets. I know she talks to you, so I need to ask you something, and I want you to be straight with me, okay?” she asked Keisha in all seriousness.
“Okay, I’ll do my best,” Keisha replied in a soft voice.
“Was she still messing around with that Hinderson boy?”
“Mrs. Wright, in all honesty, I don’t know. I wanna say no ’cause the last time we talked about him, she told me it was over. She found out about some girl he had gotten pregnant, and supposedly she ended it with him.”
“Keisha, I just have one more question. Do you think he had something to do with this?” she asked as tears formed and her voice started to crack.
“Mrs. Wright, you know C-God stepped to Tucker over some nonsense a while ago. He’s made threats, and as a matter of fact, he’s the reason why Tucker doesn’t feel it’s safe to stay at home with me and the baby. So, to answer your question, yes, I do think he had something to do with this. I don’t like him, nor do I trust him, and I strongly believe he’s absolutely capable of doing something like this.” Keisha was starting to get angry.
“Even though she was pregnant?” Mrs. Wright questioned in disbelief. How could he be so coldhearted? she wondered.
“Wait a minute. Epiphany is pregnant?” Keisha couldn’t believe her ears.
“She was,” Mrs. Wright said sadly.
“That bastard! How could he? Mrs. Wright, I gotta go. I have to call Tucker, but I’ll be at the hospital as soon as I reach him, okay?” Keisha’s eyes flooded with tears all over again.
Keisha arrived at the hospital alone, carrying “Get Well Soon” balloons and some flowers. She had only half an hour left before morning visiting hours were over. Seeing Epiphany was something she had to do, but her mind couldn’t stop wondering about Tucker. He’d been ignoring her calls all morning.
He really might not forgive me, she thought. Regardless of the circumstances, she felt she was still the mother of his child, and there was no excuse for his behavior.
She ran into Epiphany’s dad, who was standing at the elevator when she got off. Jay Wright looked like an exhausted madman. He showed her to the room and thanked her for coming before he headed out.
As Keisha entered the room, she felt sick. She hated the smell of hospitals. To her, they represented sickness and death.
Epiphany’s mom greeted her with a tight hug.
“Where is Tucker?”
Keisha’s heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. She didn’t have an answer, so she thought up a quick lie.
“Loretta and my sisters weren’t able to make it back in time to watch the baby, so he stayed home with him,” she said, looking down at the floor.
“Oh, okay. How is that handsome little boy of yours?” Epiphany’s mom smiled, but her eyes were still puffy and her voice
was rather hoarse from her lack of sleep and the crying she’d been doing all night.
Mrs. Wright was trying to make light of the situation, but Keisha knew she was having a hard time dealing with everything. Epiphany was her pride and joy even though she didn’t always approve of the life she was living.
“He’s doing great,” Keisha answered back.
“Good! Well, I’ll give you a little time alone with Epee. I’ll be back shortly. Okay, sweetie?”
“Okay.” Keisha walked closer to Epiphany’s bedside. Seeing Epiphany lying there like that brought Keisha to tears. Epiphany’s face was bruised up pretty badly. Keisha pulled up a chair and moved in as close as she could to the side of the bed. Taking Epiphany’s hand into hers, she began to talk to her.
“Hey, E, it’s me, Keisha. I know you’re in bad shape right now, but you’re gonna pull through this. I know you will, because you know the world can’t make it without Epiphany J. Wright.” She let out a little laugh. “We just can’t do it without you, girl, so you better hurry up and get better before I go crazy. You’re my best friend and I love you, plus I need you to help me fix this mess with Tucker.
“I’m in the dog house, and he’ll probably never take me back, let alone trust me. I should have never let Lea talk me into having strippers at my bachelorette party. I know it’s nobody’s fault that I fucked Damager, but if his ass wasn’t there in the first place, doing all them freaky things to me while I was drunk, none of this would have happened. And that damn tape . . .” She drifted off into a distasteful thought.
“Anyway, I won’t get into that right now.” Keisha quickly snapped out of her daydream and changed the subject.
“Girl, your godson is getting so big. He’s trying to walk now, and he’s got eight teeth. Ain’t that something? He’s a real cutie, though. I know all mothers think their kids are cute, but my son is just gorgeous, and I’ m not just saying that ’cause he’s mines, neither. Seriously, girl.” She laughed.
“You know what I was thinking about on the ride over here? I was thinking about the times when we used to just wild out. What were we, like, fourteen then? Yeah, ’cause that was before I started going out with Tucker.
“Girl, we used to have so much fun together back then. Remember the time we got kicked out of that club? That was so funny. We beat a nigga down for touching you on your ass, remember? And he had the audacity to stand there and pop shit about doing it, too. You was so mad, you just turned around and snuffed his ass. Then, of course, me and Shana looked at each other and followed your lead. We jumped on him and commenced to whipping his ass.
“Boy, nobody could tell us nothing that night. We thought we was the shit for fucking him up the way we did. That was so funny.” Keisha laughed again as she continued her one-sided conversation down memory lane.
“Oh . . . oh, remember the time we cut school and took the J train all the way to West Bubble Fuck, Brooklyn? Playing hooky with those derelicts we met in the pizza shop on the Ave. They were some frontin’-ass niggas, but cute as hell, though.
“The one you was kicking with was the cutest. Damn, he was fine. Did you fuck him? ’Cause y’all was locked in the room for a long time. I know you probably did, ‘cause he was gorgeous. He had those pretty green eyes and that good hair, all curly and whatnot.
“You used to be soft on them pretty boys back then. And Kobe. Yuck! I’ll never forget his name. That was the one I hooked up with. He wasn’t bad looking, neither, but ol’ boy’s breath was kicking. I kept trying to offer him some gum and he would not take it. Oh my God, his mouth smelled like it took a shit. I was so glad he didn’t try to kiss me or anything.
“Those niggas really tried to get grimey on us once Shana got into it with the guy she was hooked up with. Remember that? He wanted some ass, and she fronted. Was he thirsty, or what?
“Wanting to fight her over some pussy, remember? He pulled out that knife and kicked us all out. I couldn’t believe he kicked us out, knowing they said they was gonna send us back home in a cab if we came over. They tried to play us for real. But it was all good, though, ’cause your sneaky ass was always ahead of the game. You copped that pretty boy’s chain and his little corny-ass nugget bracelet without him even knowing it. We hopped our ass back on the J train to Jamaica with a quickness, went to the Coliseum, traded that nigga’s jewels in, and got us each a pair of bamboo earrings. That was crazy. You was scandalous, girl. We always had each other’s back.
“I tried calling Shana, but her phone has been disconnected. Her cell ain’t working either. It’s like she ain’t part of the crew no more. We’re all moving in different directions, but when I leave here, I think I’m just gonna stop by her house to see what’s up with her.” Keisha could have gone on and on, reminiscing about the good ol’ times, but the announcements came on, saying that visiting hours were now over.
“I gotta go now, but I’ll be back tomorrow,” Keisha said as she kissed Epiphany on the forehead and headed toward the door.
“Keisha, wait,” Mrs. Wright called out as she spotted her walking down the hallway. Keisha stopped and turned around.
“I just wanted to thank you once again for coming and remind you to tell Tucker to please keep his ears open in the streets. Oh, and remember I was telling you about the guy they found dead at Epee’s apartment? You knew him. I found out that he was one of her old boyfriends. His name was . . . something like Mahkai.”
“Oh, no. Mrs. Wright, please tell me you don’t mean Malikai.”
“Yeah, that’s him. Wasn’t he a friend of Tucker’s?”
“Oh God, I gotta go.” Keisha bareley made it out of the hospital before she dialed Tucker’s cell. Again, she got no answer, so she waited for the beep. “Why aren’t you picking up your cell phone?” she screamed into the receiver. “Mali is dead, and Epiphany is lying up in the fucking hospital. Damn, T, I know you hate me right now, but they’re our friends. Please call me back.” Keisha hung up.
Seconds later, her cell rang. Keisha answered before the first ring even finished, and she cried out Tucker’s name.
The voice on the other end wasn’t him. It was Julius a.k.a. the Damager. Her crying kind of threw him off. He paused for a moment before he spoke.
“Ahhh, is this Keisha?” he asked hesitantly.
“Who is this?” she cried.
“It’s Julius. Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right, and please don’t call me anymore!” Keisha screamed, taking her anger out on him and abruptly ending his call. She dialed Tucker again, expecting the voice mail, but was thrown off when he answered.
“What, Keish?” Tucker was short with her.
“H–hello,” she stuttered into the mouth phone.
“Yeah, what?” he replied.
“Did you get my message?” Keisha asked nervously.
“Which one?”
“The one I just left about Malikai and Epiphany.”
“Nah, but Momma D already told me about Mali. She’s fucked up over this shit. I just came from identifying his body, and I’m just as fucked up. Everything is fucked up. I gotta bury my best friend. I gotta take care of his funeral arrangements. Damn! I can’t believe this shit.” For a moment there was complete silence. “What’s up with Epiphany, though?”
Keisha could hear the sadness in Tucker’s voice, although he was trying hard to act like everything was under control. She knew he was going through hell right now. She added her deepest regards first before telling him about the condition Epiphany was in.
“Hmmm, so she gon’ be a’ight, right?”
“Well, the doctors are hopeful. You know she was pregnant?”
“By who? That nigga C?” he said, answering his own question.
“I don’t know.”
“She probably had Mali set up. She told that nigga C-God that Mali was going to be there.” Tucker jumped to conclusions about what he thought had happened that night.
“Oh, come on, Tucker. That’s ridiculous, and if
that was the case, why is she lying up in the ICU?”
“Maybe the nigga was just using her, got what he wanted, then tried to kill two birds with one stone. Or maybe she was shot as part of the plan to look innocent. Who knows?”
“What! Epiphany would never do something like that,” said Keisha, speaking in her friend’s defense. “Besides, she really cared about Malikai.”
“Cared! What’s that supposed to mean? You supposedly loved me, but that ain’t stop you from getting it on with the next nigga, did it? I ain’t putting nothing past a bitch no more.”
Keisha realized that Tucker was no longer talking about Epiphany and Mali. He was talking about her. “Bitch! You know what? l’ma let that go because you just lost your best friend. Yes, I played myself, but you better not ever fix your face to call me out my name again. I am your son’s mother, just in case you forgot, and regardless of what you might think of me right now, that part won’t ever change. So, while you try your best to make me feel worse than I already do, you need to ask yourself why I did what I did, Mr. Get-money-and-never-have-time-for-anything-else,” Keisha said sarcastically.
“Yeah, getting money for what, though, Keisha? Could it be that six hundred thousand–dollar house we living in and the expensive-ass cars we got? Is that the money you talking about? It gotta be.”
“No, I’m talking about the money that keeps you out of town all time, my needs neglected, and your black ass in troub—”
“Yeah, the money that I was out there busting my ass for just to keep shit comfortable for us, while you go out and get fucked, right?”
Keisha didn’t say a word. How could she? He was right.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn’t think you wanted to go there. Where’s my son at anyway?”
“He’s home.”
“Well, listen, after the funeral, I want you, your moms, the baby, and your sisters to go on vacation or something. At least until shit blows over. Go back to Atlanta with them if you want. Your family came all the way up here for a wedding, and since you fucked that up, maybe you should just take them somewhere. Miami, Mexico, or even Disneyland. Wherever. I don’t care, just go somewhere until things calm down a bit. And, Keisha, I ain’t asking you; I’m telling you. I already lost my boy, and I ain’t trying to take no more losses, so make it happen, a’ight? I gotta go.” Tucker abruptly ended the call.
